Implementation of differing class progressions in 3.5

[Indon]

Talk in the "What would a balanced system look like?" thread sparked this idea, based on something Lord Zentei said.

The differing XP tables given by AD&D not being compatible with the present system, I'm going to try something else. Something hopefully as non-clunky as possible.

All right. Say that for every character level you gain, you gain 6 Class Points. With these points, you purchase class levels, each of which has their own value associated with them. You can save up Class Points until you can spend them.

LA could also be integrated into this system (by costing 'effective class points', which would increase your ECL), allowing for fractional Level Adjustment. It would also allow for RHD to be more accurately accounted for, as RHD are often weaker than character levels.

Thoughts?

[Chronos]

It looks pretty clunky to me. Effectively what you've got then is that classes (at least, the "balanced" classes) go up to level 120, but 5 out of 6 levels are dead levels.

I think that the real solution to class balance is to just give the sub-par classes more and better abilities, and take some away from those that are too good (what they attempted to do in 3rd edition).

[Indon]

Not quite. The "Balanced" classes would have a 1:1 Character:Class level ratio, so they would logically cost 6 points (or however many you gave per character level).

[cupkeyk]

Actually we thought of the same thing. SAD Full casters use the wizard xp table for dnd, DAD/MAD Fullcasters use Cleric, SAD non casters use Fighter, DAD/MAD non casters use Thief.

[Indon]

Actually we thought of the same thing. SAD Full casters use the wizard xp table for dnd, DAD/MAD Fullcasters use Cleric, SAD non casters use Fighter, DAD/MAD non casters use Thief.

I wanted to introduce a system that would still facilitate easy addition of LA, RHD, and multiclassing, thus the points instead of just differing XP tables. (though there are differences in how my system would work as opposed to the XP tables option)

[Jorkens]

Presumably you could have a quick bosh at it by stretching out or compressing the rate at which classes gain abilities as they progress through levels, rather than keeping the rate at which they gain abilities the same and stretching out or compressing the rate at which they gain levels.

You then end up with the question of what to do with a fighter (say) when they run out of abilities before the wizard's halfway up his progression as a caster. But that's another issue.

[Indon]

HD/Saves/BAB are class features as well, and in some cases some of the better class features a class gets.

Plus, hopefully, assigning a single number to a class would be easier than rearranging the classes abilities; for instance, if you want to slow down a Wizard's spell progression by 50%, you can revamp their spells known/learned and the levels they get them... or assign them a 9 for Class Points required per level. Admittedly, the quick way can easily introduce dead character levels (One every 3, in the case of 9 points), but it's quick, easy to maintain consistency for, and relatively neat.

Hmm. The system would require one special-case rule, though: 1'st ECL characters of a class with a Class Point requirement of over 6 start out with the appropriate number of negative CP's.

Hmm. Lot of dead levels for a score of 9:

ECL   Class Level  Points
1      1               -3
2      1               3
3      2               0
4      2               6
5      3               3
6      4               0

You know, a score as high as 9 should only be given sparingly, methinks.

[Chronos]

Not quite. The "Balanced" classes would have a 1:1 Character:Class level ratio, so they would logically cost 6 points (or however many you gave per character level).

Right, that's what I was working off of. So a balanced class would max out when they got 120 "points", and 5 out of every 6 points would give no benefit at all.

[Skjaldbakka]

At that point, why don't you just play BESM? You would be putting as much work into changing the system as you would if you wrote up a big list of powers for a BESM game, with prereqs you had to meet before buying them.

[Indon]

I don't own any books for BESM.

[TimeWizard]

I f***ing love BESM. You have freedom in ways not even D&D has. I'm hoping that 4th ed is moving us towards character points and all that stuff. Seriously, if they did half the work on continuing BESM that they do for D&D it would be a glorious, glorious system indeed. The only caveat is that if you don't want to play modern you lose about 50% of the material... but seriously, D&D is about freedom in the micro sense, BESM is about freedom in the macro sense.

[Chronos]

One other point I should have mentioned before: One of the peculiar effects of 2nd Edition's varying class progressions was that, for some values of experience points, a rogue thief was in all ways a better fighter than a fighter was (since the rogue had gotten to 2nd level, while the fighter was still 1st). It seems to me that you'll have something of the same effect here, except possibly even more so: Any class which costs more than standard won't get to 2nd level at least until the rest of the party gets to 3rd. Yes, some classes are broken at higher levels, but they can't get broken unless they actually survive the low levels first, which is not likely to happen if they're lagging right from the start.