Making all 5 Levels Feel special. WIP, PEACH.

[johnbragg]

So my homebrew evolved from E6, shaved down to 5 levels. Fewer levels should mean I can do a better job of designing. So every level should be a big change to the way your character interacts with the world.

At first level, you're not special. (Apprentice level) You have better stats, you have some class abilities, but you're really only a suit of armor or a few spells ahead of the commoners, and they have a longer average life expectancy than you.

Second level, you're now in the top half of competence. (Journeyman) As a player, second level is not a "dead level" no matter what class features you do or don't have. You get 50% more hit points, you get more of whatever it is your class gets.

Third level, you're now in the top 10%, a respected veteran. (Master, full guild member, veteran). Full casters get second level spells, tricksters pick a skill to be Experts in (+d6 to skill checks). I'm not sure I have something here for warriors--they get a second healing surge (one at +0 BAB, one at +2 BAB). I think I'm good with having half-casters learn to cast spells while attacking at 3rd level.

Fourth level is the weakest. You're now top 0.1%, but getting 5% better at something isn't a big jump in power. Learning a couple of new spells feels underwhelming compared to the jumps in power at 2nd level (first new level) and 3rd level (new spell level). Half-casters get their second level spells here.

Fifth level is legendary level. Third level spells, two attacks a round for warriors, +3d6 sneak attack for tricksters.

Demographics: If you use the 3rd edition XP tables, assume that for every 1000 XP, you lose half of the people in the campaign world to sloth and safety, that gives you 50% level 1, 37.5% level 2, 11% level 3, 1.5% level 4, 0.1% level 5.

[johnbragg]

Full Casters

Level	BAB	Mana Die	Healing Surges	Features
1	+0	d4	1	Least Spells (cantrips), Minor Spells(1st level)
2	+1	d6	1	More hp, more mana, more spells known
3	+1	d8	1	Major Spells (2nd level)
4	+2	d10	2	...second healing surge? Kinda meh.
5	+2	d12	2	Supreme Spells (3rd level). Epic level bump.

[johnbragg]

Warriors

Level	BAB	Mana Die	Healing Surges	Features
1	+1	d4	1	2 Fighting Styles
2	+2	d6	1	More hp, second healing surge.
3	+3	d8	2	Veteran's Savvy. If you miss, attack again
4	+4	d10	3	Third Fighting Style
5	+5	d12	3	Second attack on attack action. Epic level bump.

NOTE: I've included the Mana Die here for completeness, but I'm not sure it's a resource the Warrior is using--most of the things I'd use the mana die as a resource for would make the Warrior a Half-Caster or a Trickster.

IDEAS:
Steal Action surge from 5E? This is an attractive idea, but the trick is balancing the resource management without 5E Short Rests. Once per day is pretty limiting, once per encounter (I do have a mechanic where a lot of things reset when you can just take a breather) means you use it to nova the first round of every fight

Warlord's aura. There's definitely something to the idea that just knowing you have Conan in your group should give you crunch benefits. Morale? Will saves? I don't see much in the 3.5 Marshal auras that's worth stealing--the whole idea is to have fewer "ribbons" and more game-changers. I'll have to look through the 4E Warlord.

Update: I'll keep it on the back burner, but I don't see a good way to model it mechanically. I like the idea of the great hero, in a fantasy universe, making his companions tougher just by osmosis--morale or whatever.

Veteran's Savvy On a missed attack roll, you put the enemy off balance, giving you another attack as part of the same action. This is another attack, not a reroll (so any bonuses or penalties to "next attack" do not apply). Refreshes as a full-round action, if you so choose.

Fighting Styles Warriors get two Fighting Styles at first level, and a third at Fourth level.
Some of them synergize better than others with a 3rd style, but I'll keep kicking it around
(I also have to go back and look at the math--is it the spread between Warriors and 3/4 BAB classes too big, too small?)

• Archer. Shoot one arrow per attack per point of BAB
• Barbarian Rage. Standard action to rage, take ½ damage from weapon attacks
• Defender. You intercept attacks on adjacent allies, take the attack yourself. 1 per round per BAB.
• Dual wielding (includes using one weapon for Combat Maneuvers)
• Martial Artist. 3E Monk unarmed strike progression, flurry of blows.
• Master Wrestler. Your grapple does Strength damage (as unarmed strike).
• Shield Mastery Add +½ BAB to AC, reflex saves.
• Swashbuckler. +DEX to damage with light weapons, bows, extra Move in light or no armor
• Two-hander Subtract 1 from AC to add 2 to damage, per point of BAB.
• Weapon Specialist +½ BAB to hit, 1+½ BAB to damage with chosen weapon.

[johnbragg]

Half Casters

Level	BAB	Mana Die	Healing Surges	Features
1	+0	d4	1	Least Spells (cantrips), Minor Spells(1st level), Fighting Style
2	+1	d6	1	More hp, more mana, more spells known
3	+2	d8	1	?? Arcane Channeling? Cast-and-attack on the same round ??
4	+3	d10	2	? 2nd level spells?
5	+2	d12	2	Epic level bump--and ?????????

I realized that I don't have the Half-Caster progression worked out at all.
What's the Capstone ability? The apex of gishiness is.....?
Arcane Channeling, casting a spell while you make a weapon attack. That seems pretty core competency for the Gish, so 3rd level?
Casting 2nd level spells I pencilled in at 4th level, one level behind the full-casters.

So what happens to the Half-Caster at Aragorn / Conan / flying-and-fireballs level?

[johnbragg]

Reserved for Trickster

[Amechra]

From what I remember, the Marshal's reason to exist was so that you could add your Charisma to initiative/Charisma checks.

As for the Warrior's "action surge"... what if it cost healing surges? Or, rather, you get an extra action when you use a healing surge.

[johnbragg]

From what I remember, the Marshal's reason to exist was so that you could add your Charisma to initiative/Charisma checks.

As for the Warrior's "action surge"... what if it cost healing surges? Or, rather, you get an extra action when you use a healing surge.

Thanks for replying.

My "healing surges" are half your max health. I know 4E used them as a resource that you could "spend" on a lot of things. I haven't used them as that sort of currency yet, but I'm only 90% opposed to it. But I'm not sure a single extra attack is worth giving up your healing.

My first instinct is to say, spending a healing surge would get you something like "Warlord's Command--you spend your turn motivating and directing your allies, each of whom gets one standard action on your turn." Which is a lot, but you're asking the warrior (the guy in charge of dealing damage, and generally a player who enjoys having his dude whack things with a bigass sword) to give up his regular attack with lots of bonuses, to spend the round giving a WWE-style promo and giving his buddies extra actions.

I was thinking of keying the Action Surge / extra attack on a hit, but maybe it's a better idea on a miss.
Maybe:

Veteran's Savvy. On a missed attack roll, you can use Veteran's Savvy to make another attack of the same type on the same action. This is a new attack, not a reroll (so any bonuses or penalties to "next attack" apply to the missed attack, not the new attack). Refreshing Veteran's Savvy is a full round action.

I think I like that as a 3rd level ability. It's a nice intermediate step between "attack once" and "attack twice."

[johnbragg]

Quick note before I go. The whole idea of the Warrior is that he or she is as mundane as you can be at high (for the setting) level in a magical universe. Conan, Hercules, Paul Bunyan, Captain America etc.

I think there's a crunch effect to having the party know that there is a gen-u-ine, bona-fide Big Damn Hero in their midst. Morale is the obvious choice, but PCs don't roll morale. Saves vs fear would be the logical next step, but that's pretty situational. All Will saves? Maybe. A static bonus? Die roll? (One thing 5th edition taught me is that "+dice" feels more meaningful than "+number")

Bonus to attacks feels right, but the 4th level warrior ability should not be a reskinned version of the 1st level Bless spell.

Maybe temporary hit points would model the feeling of security and confidence, knowing that there is a Hero in your midst?

[Composer99]

What if you adapted something like the PF or 5e archetypes/subclasses for 2nd and 4th level?

[johnbragg]

What if you adapted something like the PF or 5e archetypes/subclasses for 2nd and 4th level?

All four of the classes (Full Caster, Half-Caster, Warrior, Trickster) are sort of "chassis"s, so the idea is that you can use them to build class concepts. But I don't want to have to give players a list of 80 options--that's not really simpler and faster.

2nd level, I still feel that getting 50% more HP changes the game. That plus whatever else leveling gives you is a big thing.

The thing with leveling is, each level should "top" the level before it. If you go from knowing 4 spells at 1st level to knowing 6 spells at 2nd level, that's a serious boost. 6 spells to 8 spells is not the same feeling, but you get a new spell level.

My first reaction to PAthfinder was to look up the Joseph Manolo quote from Against the Wicked City, something like "Like most Pathfinder classes, the table was filled to the brim with abilities that give you a small bonus to do a thing when you do another thing, that gives you a larger bonus when you pick from this list of things."

But in fairness, there are 80-something base classes on the PFSRD, with 2-3-4 subclasses each, so there's probably something buried in there that I can steal and/or repurpose

[johnbragg]

Updates.

Made some progress on Warrior. I had already mostly-built Fighting Styles, so maybe adding a 3rd fighting style at 4th level gives you synergies you didn't have because they'd have been OP at lower levels.

Started on the Half-Caster, realized that as written it doesn't really have a capstone.

[Yakk]

For a level 4 feature.

Action Surge:
When you use your healing surge, you get an extra attack.

This isn't something you'd want to do on your first turn of a fight, because that wastes the HP. You'd use it after being hurt, and you'd get a comeback round.

[johnbragg]

For a level 4 feature.

Action Surge:
When you use your healing surge, you get an extra attack.

This isn't something you'd want to do on your first turn of a fight, because that wastes the HP. You'd use it after being hurt, and you'd get a comeback round.

That feels a little bit 4E-ish. My "healing surges" are usually going to be used outside of combat. The fluff is that you take a deep breath, slow down your adrenaline a little bit, settle yourself, center your ki if that's how you roll. Like a savvy fighter in a boxing match using the full 10-count to catch his breath.

So you can do it pretty much automatically while walking, or you can do it as a full-round, anime-power-up / Stallone-Schwarzennegger five-second-grimace in combat. But in-combat healing is probably still poor strategy in D&D combat

I'm only 90% against using your healing surges as game-currency to buy some other benefit, but I don't think my fiction fits stacking an attack on your healing surge.

My fiction could lead to some sort of Heroes' Roar, where the Big Damn Hero fighter uses his healing surge, and everybody else gets, er, something.

"Something" could be temp hp, attack bonus, extra attack in the Fighter's reskinning of the Snakes' Swiftness spell (it's basically a one-round Haste).

[aimlessPolymath]

Some assorted ideas:

Casters: At 4, perhaps the ability to regain some mana once per day? Alternatively, the ability to dispel magic with a little work (letting you remove curses, deal with magic traps, etc.) would make sense.

As an alternative to an inspiring aura for the Warrior, an intimidating aura might make sense, and be easier to implement- rather than stabbing everyone in a horde individually, the warrior forces their morale to break after the first few kills. Courage functions best mechanically in a system with a morale break or other death spiral system.

At 5th level, half casters might gain one of three benefits, depending on the 'style' of gish:
-When you cast a spell on yourself, you get stronger for a turn: the gish as buffs-to-hit-harder.
-You gain a substantial attack/damage buff when attacking someone under the effect of a spell: the gish as debuff-spells-setting-up-for-attacks.
-Enemies that you hit with your attacks take more damage from the next spell you cast on them: the gish as i-like-fireballs-and-swords-too. Alternatively, store a spell in your weapon so that it affects the next person you hit.

One alternative ability might be that when the half-caster casts a spell on themselves, the spell is permanent until dispelled.

[Durazno]

One thing that could make trading a healing surge for an action surge worth it is if warrior-types were able to judge the hp of their opponents. That way, the player could make the decision to spend a healing surge that way if the extra attack is likely to fell the enemy and save the party from some attacks it would otherwise make.