D&D 5E/Legend hybrid rpg

[pibby]

Sometimes we got that guy at the table and he wants to make a character at your D&D 5e table that is ambitious and doesn't fit with any single class. This guy wants to make a character with barbarian rage and cleric spellcasting. Problem is he doesn't like the way multiclassing works because he wants his character to be as strong as a normal barbarian at his level and as potent with spellcasting as a normal cleric. He doesn't care about the other class features but you don't have time to make a homebrew let alone playtest it outside of your campaign.

We want to solve that.

Sure, plenty of people on these forums can homebrew and playtest that concept, but what happens when the above scenario happens repeatedly with different concepts? Multiclassing viability isn't the true concern here, rather it is the ease of making any character concept without looking through multiple sources and using up precious time doing so.

Some of us here think that using some of 5e's concepts with Legend's concepts may the way to go to make a more "character concept friendly" D&D that doesn't punish the player for forging his own path. This is what we currently seek to do here.

This obviously will not be the only homebrew thread for this discussion but when different issues come up and we need separate threads for discussing those, go ahead and make that thread. Let me know in this thread when you do so and I will add it to the post below for ease of access.

[pibby]

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[Amechra]

I'm not sure if this is a good idea (wooh debbie downer first post!)

The issue is that Legend's Track System is a bit hard to balance, and is a bit annoying to write stuff for (believe me; it's pretty darn frustrating because you can't interlock Tracks at all. Want to write up a new option for the Rage stuff? Well, you'd better write up a feat, because you can't stick it in a different track!)

If they are obsessed with Rage Cleric, you can write up a Cleric Domain in less than 30 minutes. It might be a bit hard to think of spells for, but not that hard.

The other issue is that someone going "I want the two main features of these two classes, but without compromising at all" is not a recipe for good times, especially since the two features in question work against each-other.

Seriously. Just write a Rage Domain (or a Traitor Sorcerous Origin, or Pact-Bound Fighter Archetype, or...); it'll save you time and effort.

[pibby]

The issue is that Legend's Track System is a bit hard to balance, and is a bit annoying to write stuff for (believe me; it's pretty darn frustrating because you can't interlock Tracks at all. Want to write up a new option for the Rage stuff? Well, you'd better write up a feat, because you can't stick it in a different track!)

I think it's actually quite easy to balance individual tracks with each other, considering certain things don't stack because of interfering bonuses or action economy. For example, it's not overpowered to have both the Assassin Track and either of the Path of War Tracks because their typed bonuses were designed to not stack.

I know 5e doesn't use typed bonuses but it might be appropriate for some features like rage and sneak attack.

If they are obsessed with Rage Cleric, you can write up a Cleric Domain in less than 30 minutes. It might be a bit hard to think of spells for, but not that hard.

The other issue is that someone going "I want the two main features of these two classes, but without compromising at all" is not a recipe for good times, especially since the two features in question work against each-other.

Seriously. Just write a Rage Domain (or a Traitor Sorcerous Origin, or Pact-Bound Fighter Archetype, or...); it'll save you time and effort.

That's not even busted in Legend. All you do is take the Barbarian class or the Shaman class and exchange class features to get Path of War and the Shaman's Spellcasting Track together in one class.

What you said is true, and some people have used subclasses from other classes to make their concept work. There's nothing wrong with that. I just want to make all the class features into different tracks so that it becomes a snap to just make a concept with already existing ideas. Otherwise, each individual hybrid class will need a different homebrew, which can take time to make or research. Time which some people may not have. If the class features were already separated in a way that lets them work with other classes it would reduce time consumption. Subclasses can only do so much and they themselves can be different tracks on their own.

I don’t expect the 5e/Legend hybrid version of each class to be just like their original counterparts, but ideally they will have the same feel and flavor of how they’ve always been traditionally represented as.

[Just to Browse]

There is also precedent for interdependent legend tracks, like the tactician track that modifies your spell areas.

[Amechra]

The issue is combinatorics. While Assassin and either of the Paths of War aren't broken together, can you say the same about the Assassin track and all 40+ other tracks? How about the Fire Elemental, Wildborn, Incantation, etc? Or even the Lurking Terror, which the devs wrote around the time of the actual release, which ended up being so broken that they told people to stop using it and removed the link to it from their site (but not the file, strangely enough.)

That was something written by people intimately familiar with the system they are working in, and was still hit or miss.

Speaking as someone who has homebrewed for both Legend and 5e, 5e is much easier to homebrew for. You need to write ~5 powers compared to a track's 7, and for most of the classes, the features are already written for you (Paladin? Your first feature is two new uses for Channel Divinity, and your second feature is an aura that starts at 10ft and increases to 30ft. Cleric? You literally have two 8th level features to pick from.)

Because people are going to want stuff beyond whatever tracks you dream up. This is just a fact of life; ultimately, it's just easier to build something that slots into one thing rather than something that slots in next to about thirty other things.

[parnas]

Ha, and I have thought that google will give me nothing for "using legend tracks with 5e end"

While I agree that homebrewing full legend-style track is much harder then just adjusting something according to your player wishes, the track system is still one of the best rpg system ideas, and, certainly, would be a part of my imaginary ideal system :)

The reason is that, even if you still to the basic 4 classes, each one having three tracks, suddenly you have not 4 of them, but 120, if you only allow to replace one track or 1320, if you allow to freely combine all three. So many options, yet still with the flavour of the class based system.