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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    Talk of "banning core" got me thinking.

    One of my lines of thought led me to wonder, "what if we got rid of 'fail at character creation'? 'What if we got rid of class build complexity'?".

    I'm pretty sure that "Arcane Archer" exists as a base class somewhere. What if all classes and base classes were banned, and only homebrew "build" classes were available? So you could choose from Arcane Archer, Sorcadin, RSoP, Diplomacer, and a number of other flavorful new 20-level base classes. This way, every class choice can come designed with balance in mind, and no-one has to worry about losing at character creation.

    What would be the downside to this strategy?

    Has work already been done making such classes?

    And, if this hasn't been done already, how many and what classes would people recommend creating?
    Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2020-11-13 at 03:39 PM. Reason: Just a tag since it got moved.

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    Troll in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    Well, the downside would be mainly that you don't have much choice about your character after picking a "class", since builds include feats too, and even if they didn't they would often effectively require specific ones to function.

    This seems similar to the GM making all the characters, but in advance.
    Last edited by icefractal; 2020-11-12 at 07:23 PM.

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    Nerdomancer in the Playground Moderator
     
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

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    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    Character building options is the main reason a lot of people seem to stick with 3.5.
    This just sounds antithetical and boring.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    Well, the downside would be mainly that you don't have much choice about your character after picking a "class", since builds include feats too, and even if they didn't they would often effectively require specific ones to function.

    This seems similar to the GM making all the characters, but in advance.
    Quote Originally Posted by weckar View Post
    Character building options is the main reason a lot of people seem to stick with 3.5.
    This just sounds antithetical and boring.
    The classes would actually have… some feats as class features; other times, they'll have "pick a feat" as a class feature.

    But you've both hit on my secret reason(s) for this, so let's get that out of the way:

    1) much like 4e made "Forgotten Realms for people who hate the forgotten realms", this is "3e for people who hate 3e"

    ---and/or---

    2) this is to move the build focus onto… something else.

    So, let's give an example of what #2 *isn't*. Suppose I liked the idea of role-playing mechanics. Suppose I liked a specific system of role-playing mechanics, and wanted to bring those to the forefront. So now I've made character creation trivially easy (almost "pick a class, done" easy), now any effort people want to spend fiddling with details only have one outlet.

    (Replace "role-playing mechanics" with "Avatar bending" or "better skill system" or "manipulating guild status / honor/renown/wisdom minigame / whatever").

    So, assuming an audience for which the complexity of the charger creation minigame is a drawback and/or who cry for "balance", what drawbacks do you now see?

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    Librarian in the Playground Moderator
     
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    At what point do you have just a points-based character creation system? Or a freeform, chunky, system?
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    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Maat Mons's Avatar

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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    Could have sworn I'd posted this a while ago, but I guess not.

    I imagine the idea behind having a class-based system in the first place was to try to make character creation easy. So you'd pick a class, the class would give you everything you need to succeed. And any choices that remained after that, would be such that no matter how badly you picked, you'd still be an effective character.

    I think the only classes that actually realized that vision were Beguiler and Dread Necromancer. Even if you make terrible choices for Advanced Learning, feats, and skill points, those two classes will still leave you with a variety of useful options constantly at your fingertips.

    And no, I'm not counting Cleric and Druid as "impossible to mess up." I mean, technically, yes take a character from one of those two classes with bunged up feat/skill/gear selection, and hand it to an experienced player, and they can do plenty as soon as they've had a chance to prepare new spells. But those classes are not simple and easy the way Beguiler and Dread necromancer are.

    I would argue that every caster should be spontaneous, because being able to reinvent yourself every day is too powerful in the hands of experienced players, and too confusing for new players. I would also argue that ever caster should get a pre-made list of spells known with a good array of spells on it. Being able to pick some custom spells on top of that is fine, and I think Beguiler and Dread Necromancer were actually a little stingy in that regard.

    In a similar vein, I think some skills should just be automatically given to the characters that need them. Concentration for spellcasters is an obvious example. As is Perform for Bards and Spellcraft for Wizards. But even when skills aren't strictly necessary to use the features your class provides, I think an argument could often be made for certain skill just kind of being expected. By all means, have skill points above and beyond the automatic ones for true customization. But maybe don't let people make the mistake of not taking something they really should have.

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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    I don't know about replacements, but I can see the virtue of having a few "build-as-class" templates floating around for players who get intimidated by the character creation minigame but still want to join a 3.5 game. You can include some pre-selected feats/skills/spells/etc, and some choices from a much more limited list. That way you can say "here's the 20 level Sorcadin class" and the player can be effective without having to think too much about what comes next.
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    There are many good games that are low on customization, but build customization continues to be what sets 3e apart so it's probably antithetical to its niche.

    Although if I were running a game at this point I would probably go very freeform, just working with players to create a character statblock with the powers they want.


    But should you homebrew new base classes? For sure. I don't think any of the PHB classes except possibly rogue hold up 20 years later.
    Last edited by Elves; 2020-11-13 at 08:11 PM.
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    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    The idea here seems to be more a matter of taking the builds and baking them in to a new set of base classes. Like go over the numbers on the A-Game Paladin and tweaking the mountain of AFCs and conversion feats to make a Paladin variant that's just the A-Game Paladin pre-packaged into a base class of its own. The main issue with "Builds As Classes" is that you end up with some variety of considerable bloat if you do it directly. Take a look at the various projects with mandetory specialist Wizards for how that pans out.

    Consequently, my main thoughts would center on baking in groups of builds that share heavy structural similarities, such as merging the Fighter and Ranger into a Weaponmaster that chooses weapon groups and auto-acquires the desired abilities, overlapping the Ranger, Paladin, and CoDzilla into a canned Divine Champion, blending the Bard, Paladin, and Cleric support-monkey factors to make a support class, and generally have these new classes be role based explicitly, with in-class choices that define the version of the role in question.

  11. - Top - End - #11
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    PairO'Dice Lost's Avatar

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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    What would be the downside to this strategy?

    [...]

    And, if this hasn't been done already, how many and what classes would people recommend creating?
    This is basically what prestige classes were originally intended to be: custom-built classes for a particular campaign used to provide mechanics for a given setting element, playstyle, or the like.

    Quote Originally Posted by 3.0 DMG, Prestige Classes, p.27
    Allowing PCs access to prestige classes is purely optional and always under the purview of the DM. Even though a few examples can be found below, prestige classes are idiosyncratic to each campaign, and DMs may choose not to allow them or to use them only for NPCs.
    The reason that this was quickly tossed out the window and PrCs became standard prepackaged kits was because...okay, partly because WotC knew it would sell books, but also because the DM having to custom make one class for every PC in every campaign (at least; that assumes no PC dies, no one wants to switch characters, the game doesn't go long enough for the PCs to need two PrCs, etc.) is a lot of effort.

    I can attest to this, as my last campaign was Norse-themed and I threw out a bunch of base classes and heavily customized the rest to fit the setting, so when the players wanted to go into PrCs I decided to custom-make one for each PC instead of tweaking tons of existing PrCs. The players loved it and it definitely added a lot to the setting...but believe me, writing up the Bifrost Adept instead of tweaking and reflavoring the Fatespinner, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, and Wild Mage PrCs and writing up the Heir of Volundr instead of rebalancing the Incandescent Champion, Incarnum Blade, and Ironsoul Forgemaster PrCs was a pain and a half.

    All of that goes double for base classes. If you write up a PrC that has underwhelming class features, well, so long as it advances whatever base class abilities a PC entered with they'll at least have that to fall back on; if you write up a lackluster base class, that's all they have. If you write up a PrC with notable balance issues, it usually won't stray too far from the base class's balance level (unless you accidentally the Planar Shepherd or something, but that's an outlier); if you write up a broken base class, you really don't have a good benchmark to judge it.

    Now, granted, that's mitigated somewhat because you're talking about taking tried-and-tested builds and turning them into classes so the amount of work is reduced and the balance level is generally known, but that doesn't entirely solve the issue. What kind of sorcadin is your Sorcadin class based on, for instance? The "standard" sorcadin by way of Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8? A mounted gish by way of Paladin 5/Battle Sorcerer 5/[mount-focused PrC] 10 with a mobility- and attack-buff-focused spell selection? A tank by way of Paladin 2/Sorcerer 3/Incantatrix 10/Abjurant Champion 5 with Persistent Spell and a defensive-buff- and weapon-conjuring-focused spell selection? A spell channeler by way of Paladin 2/Sorcerer 7/Spellsword 1/Raumathari Battlemage 10 with a touch-spell-focused spell selection? A triple-threat by way of Paladin 4/Sorcerer 4/Warblade 2/Jade Phoenix Mage 10 with mostly blasting spells and boost/counter maneuvers? A more accessible vanilla gish by way of Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Eldritch Knight 10/Spellsword 4 with a spell selection that's pretty well-rounded?

    Whichever approach you pick is going to shape the playstyle and power and balance levels of the resulting class pretty heavily, and there are so many options to pick from and so many ways to tweak things here and houserule there and ignore some prereqs and condense levels over there that you might as well be making things from scratch. And that's just one class in a vacuum, when you probably want to be building your Sorcadin, your Arcane Archer, and your Holy Knight at the same time so your three different flavors of gish don't step on each others' toes too much, and at that point things can get pretty intractable.

    So to directly answer your questions, the downside is that a ton of time, effort, and subjective judging has to go into making a good set of classes, and if this is to be a general set of classes instead of a bunch of pre-builts for a specific campaign of new players, then the number of classes you'd need to duplicate all the classic/standard builds would most likely be infeasibly high.
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  12. - Top - End - #12
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    I was thinking of doing just that for the game I'm planning. But first let me agree with what the others that said already. The main reason for playing 3.5 in this day and age is to play with the near infinite combination of races, classes, ACFs and prestige classes, that being said let me explain why I was doing just that.
    My girlfriend wanted to play a RPG, she already played an one-shot with me as DM- liked it- and wanted to play again. The reason we are playing 3.5 and not any other RPG with better and simpler mechanics for a first timer is simple: I DM 3.5, always have, it is in my blood, I know all the bad rules, all the abuses, all the idiosyncrasies of the system.
    She have a character concept and I want her to be able to make that character concept mechanically strong, with her knowledge of only the PHB I doubt she wil be capable of doing that on her own. I have two solutions: I build her character for her, which I think contradicts a big part of what playing a RPG is, or I make a homebrew class that fits her character concept and is mechanically strong. So making base classes as builds have few use cases but does have at least one.
    Last edited by Knaryo; 2020-11-23 at 07:41 AM.

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    Colossus in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Throwing away the PHB - builds as classes

    I don't know... my favourite thing about 3.5, and really the only reason I still keep it around, is building really weird stuff. My favourite threads are the "can we combine these twelve classes to do this weird thing" threads. If I build a character these days, it's probably some kind of triple theurge, just to see if I can make it work.

    Like, I do most of my actual playing with FATE, or some specialized setting-connected system (Degenesis, Symbaroum, Unknown Armies, Tales from the Loop, stuff like that). If I want to teach newbies, I use FATE. If I want to play 3.5, it's with those other weird people I know who also know and enjoy 3.5.
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