On the Philosophy of Class Design

[Darrin]

Hypothetically, if MAD classes are the balanced baseline: does that mean Fighters are now overpowered!?

This may have been what the original 3.0 designers were thinking, at least as far as the Strength stat was concerned. They thought Strength was so important (since it's added to both attack and damage rolls), that if you increase Strength with a +2 racial bonus, it has to be balanced with two -2 racial penalties. Somewhat belatedly, the 3.5 designers realized that the spellcasting stats (Int, Wis, Cha) had much more of an effect on game balance than Strength, and attempted to "fix" this by applying or recommending Level Adjustments to races and templates that buffed those stats. Unfortunately, they've been *extremely* haphazard about this, and most races since then still reflect the "Strength is more powerful" philosophy.

Another odd observation... when SW D20 first came out, they adopted the same philosophy that Strength bonuses needed to be balanced with penalties in two other stats... somewhat puzzling in a game where ranged attacks (with better damage and easier access to multiple attacks than in D&D) and thus Dex would be more important. I'm not familiar with the later versions of the SW D20/Saga rules, so I don't know if they still use this philosophy for racial bonuses.

Then again, for 4E, it sounds like they're folding a lot more status effects into the hit point mechanics, and refocusing spellcasting on hit point damage rather than save-or-X effects, so Strength may indeed become more important than the spellcasting stats (or more likely, Constitution). But there's an argument that an ideal system would balance the base stats so none of them were overwhelmingly more important than the others.

As far as whether SAD/MAD means a class is more powerful or weaker? From a cost/benefit analysis, buffing one stat is usually more effective in the long run than trying to buff two or three stats at once. On the other hand, three +2 items (12,000 GP) costs a lot cheaper than one +6 item (36,000 GP).

I see SAD/MAD as more of an indicator of what the designer is trying to accomplish, and usually it's a tip-off that the core concept for the class is too limited (Fighter) or trying to do way too much (Monk/Paladin).

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I think I prefer VAD a lot more then SAD and MAD. Otherwise, most classes have their cookie cutter standard and any deviation from that standard is just asking for death. You can argue that a wizard has good variety due to being able to dump stats liberally everywhere else after intelligence is maxed, but do those other stats really matter? Are they what makes a wizard a wizard and helps him succeed? No, they're not even second fiddle. On super rare ocassions they'll be meaningful, but ultimately their power comes from intelligence and intelligence alone.

On the other side of the fence, we have the monk. A monk needs passable strength (to hit things), dexterity (to dodge and act quicker), constitution (because they're front liners), and wisdom (to power special abilities and dodge), and they really need at least a non-negative for intelligence (since their high skillpoints are one of the few perks to using a monk over a fighter). Because of this, we always see monks as jack of all stats except charisma, with no wiggle room that wasn't afforded by lucky dice rolls at character creation.

A wizard ought to have their other stats really matter, and a monk ought to be playable without drying up their entire point buy on being mediocre.

[Draz74]

[*]VAD (Variable Attribute Dependency), for when the character can be viable with any of several attributes high, but different attributes mean that the character focuses on different aspects of the class. This would be the "good" kind of MAD. I can't think of a standard class which actually has it, though.

I'm sure no class has it perfectly, or couldn't be improved in its VAD-ness ... but some of them are better than others, and pretty decent. Rogue, for example. People think Dexterity needs to be the Rogue's most important ability, but really there are some rogues that don't need Dex all that high. Any ability can be valuable to a Rogue. (Wisdom is the hardest to see ... but it does improve Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, and the enhanced-by-Slippery-Mind-but-otherwise-weak Will save of the rogue. A canny rogue who specializes in these four things could be pretty interesting.)

[Darrin]

According to the VAD definition that OWA is running under, Fighters are VAD, not SAD. They require STR for power, DEX to dodge, CON for HP, and either INT for skills or WIS for perception, but none of these are any more important than the others. Fighters are very solidly a VAD class--not SAD (like the Wizard), or MAD (like the Monk).

Uh-huh.

High Str means they can ignore Dex by wearing heavier armor. As for Dodge... yeah, how about that poor Ref save? And Int for skills... fighters don't have any worthwhile class skills to spend them on. Wisdom, great for perception skills like Spot and Listen, which Fighters... uh... actually, they have no Wis-based class skills at all, perception or otherwise (not even Profession).

Fighters essentially have two stats they need to worry about: Str and Con. Not sure if that makes them VAD.

This may all boil down to the original game design, as it was developed out of chainmail. There were initially only three roles: Fighter, Wizard, and Rogue, which can be reduced down to their wargaming roots: grunts, artillery, and scouting/engineering... perhaps loosely mapped to Strength, Intelligence, and Dexterity. The cleric was added early on strictly as a "support" role (and trying to explain what Wisdom really represents has been an interesting diversion since then). Ideally, a more elegant rules system would have had only three or four base stats, but the six we have now are so ingrained that a lot of work on 3.x has been devoted to trying to shore up the usefulness of the weaker stats... we'll have to see if 4e runs into any of the familiar potholes.

I may have been trying to make a point about all this, but I think I've lost track of whatever it was.

[Citizen Joe]

Dead levels suck.
Make sure the player gets something new every level. The reason for this is simple and straightforward: No one wants to take a level where there is no benefit, and moreover dead levels are boring and just plain not fun. Even if it's something minor, you should at least put *something* to fill the void. Ideally, you should be giving a fairly even progression of cool class features.

I want to add the hidden benefit of something at every level. It is a means to express in character what level of power you have achieved. Some people play with levels as real things that are accomplished like getting a black belt or something. Others say you don't really have levels and it is strictly an ooc device. In the latter case, a fighter could say I mastered the eagle form (which might only be available at level 5 fighter) which would allow people to judge you in character easily.

[Fax Celestis]

The Ranger is also pretty VAD. He can be a dextrous hit-and-run skirmisher, a wise spellcaster with a penchant for archery, or a heavy frontliner, depending on how you wish to build your character.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Hypothetically, if MAD classes are the balanced baseline: does that mean Fighters are now overpowered!?

Uh, no, not really. There's a lot more to balance than just ability scores. All things factor into it, and it's really a more complex topic than I've gone into here, and requires a discerning eye to really hone in on. In the original thread on wizards, we (myself, Tempest Stormwind, and a few other experienced board-goers) were trying to figure out how to define what exactly having a discerning eye meant and how one might achieve it. I still feel that would be a valuable addition to the guide, if a tricky one.

Link to the original thread: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread...=879725&page=4

[Person_Man]

I think that a lot of MAD/SAD problems can essentially be solved during character creation by talking to your DM. Instead of rolling dice, just figure out what you want your character to be. Compare its power level to the power levels of other players. Then peg your stats at whatever numbers make the most sense given your build and the relative power level of your party. If your party is weak and you want to play a Wizard, then your stats should be low. If your party is strong and you want to play a Monk, then your stats can be all high.

[Holocron Coder]

I think I may just be throwing this out there, but it makes sense in my mind

SAD scores: 18-14-10-10-10-10
MAD scores: 16-16-16-16-10-10
VAD scores: 16-14-14-12-10-10

The goal for a homebrewed class should be to hope for the VAD scores. Examples of SAD and MAD classes can be easily obtained by finding which score set is the minimum for a class to function well.

Wizard: SAD, Int-18, Con/Dex-14
Fighter: SAD, Str-18, Con/Dex-14
Monk: MAD, Dex-16, Con-16, Wis-16, Str/Int-16
Paladin: MAD, Str-16, Con-16, Wis-16, Cha-16
Rogue: VAD, Dex/Str-16, Int/Cha/Wis/Str/Dex-14, anything-12

Make sense to anyone but me?

EDIT: As a note, took the scores to relative extremes and did not base this off of point-buy or other format. If it was needed maxed, its 18, high, 16, good, 14, decent, 12, minimal, 10

[Townopolis]

MAD classes don't have to be weaker than other classes, they just normally are.

For example, we'll take the fighter and the paladin.

Both are heavy frontliners with heavy armor and shields avaliable. They both have d10 HD and full BAB. They both duke it out in melee. As a result, both will need a high Strength to maximize their melee potential. A Dexterity of 12 is good, as it is part of a complete AC (because full plate allows a +1 Dex bonus) and a decent Constitution gives extra HP and HP=survival in the front lines.

For both classes, so far, all 3 physical stats are of equal importance. The difference is that a fighter can easily make all his abilities based off of Strength. Let's see, power attack line, the expertise line boosts maneuvers enhanced most by Strength, and all the fighter base feats are for attack and damage, strength again.

The paladin needs Charisma and Wisdom for his class abilities. As a result, he needs, on average, about 14 Charisma and 14 Wisdom. This is 8 extra points that could have been spent on Strength of Constitution.

In essence, the paladin loses about 1 attack/damage (or 1.5 damage with a 2 hander) and 1 HP/level.

Now, in order to bring the classes "back in line" with each other, the paladin's Charisma and Wisdom dependant abilities must both equal the fighter's abilities in power, and also compensate for the loss of attack/damage and HP. Furthermore, as the characters progress in levels, the fighter can boost Strength alone and boost his basic statistics and his abilities. A paladin who boosts Charisma or Wisdom (most likely Charisma) would need to gain an equal bonus, so his abilities must get more per attribute point, since Charisma doesn't also boost the character's attack/damage.

[Edit] The reason the paladin isn't just boosting Strength is that Strength doesn't boost any of his class abilities, only basic statistics, making it a poor choice for him compared to a fighter, who gets both basic stats and ability boost from it.

The paladin's Charisma-based abilities do a good job of compensating for the loss of basic statistics, Divine Grace helping offset a loss in AC/HP with a boost to saves, LoH helping there as well, and Smite supplamenting the loss to attack/damage. However, after doing all this, they don't have enough power left to equal the power of the fighter's Strength based abilities, and the paladin's spells don't usually fill the gap.

[OneWinged4ngel]

MAD classes don't have to be weaker than other classes, they just normally are.

For example, we'll take the fighter and the paladin.

Both are heavy frontliners with heavy armor and shields avaliable. They both have d10 HD and full BAB. They both duke it out in melee. As a result, both will need a high Strength to maximize their melee potential. A Dexterity of 12 is good, as it is part of a complete AC (because full plate allows a +1 Dex bonus) and a decent Constitution gives extra HP and HP=survival in the front lines.

For both classes, so far, all 3 physical stats are of equal importance. The difference is that a fighter can easily make all his abilities based off of Strength. Let's see, power attack line, the expertise line boosts maneuvers enhanced most by Strength, and all the fighter base feats are for attack and damage, strength again.

The paladin needs Charisma and Wisdom for his class abilities. As a result, he needs, on average, about 14 Charisma and 14 Wisdom. This is 8 extra points that could have been spent on Strength of Constitution.

In essence, the paladin loses about 1 attack/damage (or 1.5 damage with a 2 hander) and 1 HP/level.

Now, in order to bring the classes "back in line" with each other, the paladin's Charisma and Wisdom dependant abilities must both equal the fighter's abilities in power, and also compensate for the loss of attack/damage and HP. Furthermore, as the characters progress in levels, the fighter can boost Strength alone and boost his basic statistics and his abilities. A paladin who boosts Charisma or Wisdom (most likely Charisma) would need to gain an equal bonus, so his abilities must get more per attribute point, since Charisma doesn't also boost the character's attack/damage.

[Edit] The reason the paladin isn't just boosting Strength is that Strength doesn't boost any of his class abilities, only basic statistics, making it a poor choice for him compared to a fighter, who gets both basic stats and ability boost from it.

The paladin's Charisma-based abilities do a good job of compensating for the loss of basic statistics, Divine Grace helping offset a loss in AC/HP with a boost to saves, LoH helping there as well, and Smite supplamenting the loss to attack/damage. However, after doing all this, they don't have enough power left to equal the power of the fighter's Strength based abilities, and the paladin's spells don't usually fill the gap.

Both of those are classes with plenty of design issues, not to be used as exemplars for class design. :(

Anyways, I don't actually see much of a problem with the paladin's MAD (and indeed, chose to keep it largely intact when I created the Rebalanced Paladin). His primary issues actually lie elsewhere, such as his cutoff progression, and his nova-based capabilities (it's often been said that the paladin is the most powerful core "melee" class, so long as it's one encounter per day). You can afford to sacrifice some Wis, Cha, Str, Con, or Dex in comparison to each other to gain different benefits. Well... okay, you never really care much about Dex as a core paladin, but it can be decent for my version. Actually, one of the things I regret about the Rebalanced Pally is that I think I made it so that people would almost invariably put their highest score in Cha now, which wasn't necessarily true (though common) before.

Thing is, I can be perfectly happy with a 25-32 point buy pally (nothing NEAR the 44 PB that was defined by an above poster for MAD, and not even the 30PB they defined for both SAD and VAD!)

[Holocron Coder]

(nothing NEAR the 44 PB that was defined by an above poster for MAD, and not even the 30PB they defined for both SAD and VAD! Then again, that could be a question of that poster's credibility...)

I can only suppose this was a comment on my post. I added an edit to further explain my reasoning. Additionally, I asked for concurrency on my thoughts or a showing otherwise. Thus, my credibility does not even come into question.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Right... so, anyone have any comments other than arguments over which silly acronym to use? (I really do find the distinctions rather frivolous, as the actual thing MAD vs VAD is hinging on in these discussions doesn't seem to be the number of abilities you value, but whether your character is actually functional or not (monks suck, get over it), which is a wholly different problem.)

[Fax Celestis]

Perhaps a few examples of your different qualifiers for good class design would help, something akin to what appears in the Guide to Homebrewing thread.

[TimeWizard]

What about NAD No Attribute Dependency.
.. wait, what? Yeah, that's right: immunity from stats. As my good ol' buddy Mr. Tob' o Nineswords once told me, "son, let me tell you about Swordsages"
"swordsages? is that like another magic-meets-melee class? because those kinda suck."
"No, no John Q. McGamer, it isn't an M, M, M. And beguilers are good, but thats neither here, nor there. Swordsages my boy, have maneuvers. They're like spells, but for fightin' types."
"Oh, what is the Primary Atribute?"
"None, not only are they attribute-less, by and large they don't even have Save checks!"
...

So, basically, yes. Contrary to what many people think, swordsages aren't affected by MAD, because your attributes are largely irrelevent, save fluff. See the BAB? doesn't matter. By the time you have a second attack, you'll just be using maneuvers every round anyway; and by the time you run out of maneuvers, either A) the last monster is at 5% hp anyway, or B) You waste one whole turn and resume the can-opening of butt whop.

*Ok, I admit that was over the top, but satire still has a point*

[Arbitrarity]

Doesn't that make them VAD? They can raise any stats they please and benefit ('cept maybe CHA). Wis to AC and DC's, Dex to AC, inits (swordsages/ninja's have super inits :), and some DC's, maybe attack, maybe damage. Str to damage/hit, some DC's. Con to HP. Int for skillz, and Cha for....

[Indon]

What about NAD No Attribute Dependency.

Wild-Shaped specialized Druid seems to me to be a simpler example.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Perhaps a few examples of your different qualifiers for good class design would help, something akin to what appears in the Guide to Homebrewing thread.

What are you talking about? I believe I gave quite a few examples, primarily in the spoiler tabs...

Doesn't that make them VAD? They can raise any stats they please and benefit ('cept maybe CHA). Wis to AC and DC's, Dex to AC, inits (swordsages/ninja's have super inits :), and some DC's, maybe attack, maybe damage. Str to damage/hit, some DC's. Con to HP. Int for skillz, and Cha for....

Please, no more bantering over AD. VAD is actually pretty much the same thing as MAD: Your capabilities and class features depend on more than one (multiple) stats. Same goes for DAD and whatever other acronyms people are coming up with. We don't need that many acronyms! Monks are MAD (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom are all valuable to them), but they suck because their class features suck. Clerics are actually MAD too (Charisma, Wisdom, Strength, and Constitution are all valuable to them), but they don't suck powerwise because their class features don't suck. Likewise, my Rebalanced Paladin has the same MAD the normal core paladin does, and yet it doesn't suck either.

These differring terms are needless. The reason the monk sucks isn't because he's MAD and the cleric's (insert letter)AD, it's because his class features are lame and the cleric's aren't.

[Fax Celestis]

What are you talking about? I believe I gave quite a few examples...

I mean like physical class-design examples, but that could be more in the vein of a tutorial than a philosophy article.

[OneWinged4ngel]

I mean like physical class-design examples, but that could be more in the vein of a tutorial than a philosophy article.

Again, what the heck do you mean? "Physical" class design examples? I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

[Fax Celestis]

Again, what the heck do you mean? "Physical" class design examples? I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

I mean like a tutorial on class design. Forget it, though. It's not really what you're going for here.

[Jasdoif]

I mean like a tutorial on class design.

So, like...illustrate the entire process of designing an example class, using the guidelines and showing how they apply at each part in the process?

[OneWinged4ngel]

I mean like a tutorial on class design. Forget it, though. It's not really what you're going for here.

What I'm going for here is a guide to good class design.

[Fax Celestis]

So, like...illustrate the entire process of designing an example class, using the guidelines and showing how they apply at each part in the process?

That's what I meant, yes.

[OneWinged4ngel]

That's what I meant, yes.

Ah, well that's much more clear. Not sure if I'll get around to doing that, though. Pretty much all the elements of the process are already there.