Homebrewing Classes with FEWER than 20 Level

[AzulTennin]

Good Day!

I am interested in hearing other people's opinions on classes created from the ground up with the intention of only having 10 levels. Obviously, this would necessitate Multiclassing if you do end up with more than 10 levels. Is this something that the great minds have looked into and found to be a bit lackluster? And the 10 levels is not important, it could be 4, 5, 8, or any other number of levels.

Additionally, if they are ok, then what about certain pre-requisites? Say requiring a class feature from another class making the "Partial Class" into almost a Prestige Class (to share a term from previous editions).

Any insight would be much appreciated to take into my own Homebrewing! Happy Homebrewing!

[Breccia]

Is your intention to make every class with a lower cap? Or just a few new ones?

[AzulTennin]

The idea was new classes that do not extend to level 20 alongside the classes who already do. For example: a ten level class devoted to mounted combat called the Lancer. If a campaign takes the character past 10th level then they will have to multiclass as they have reached the Max Level in the class.

[GalacticAxekick]

The easy part is writing classes that only go up to 10 levels. And there's no problem with including prerequisites to make these into Prestige Classes.

The hard part is coming up with new classes.

Your Lancer, for example, sounds like a Fighter. Why would you like it to be separate class, instead of a Fighter subclass?

[AzulTennin]

That was just an off hand example. I agree that fighter could handle being a mounted knight pretty comfortably, especially with Cavalier

The benefits (to my mind at least) is being able to create classes that explore a more specific concept without needing to worry about filling 20 levels or having to worry about how it meshes as a subclass. One use of this could be classes that more directly represent training that could be acquired by joining a faction. Or perhaps is a non-Warlock patron based tutoring. For instance the benefits of joining the Thieves' Guild is access not just to fences but also to those other thieves who can teach you things that are too great to just be hand waived as things you can do now but not great enough to be its own class.

A rogue might be a decent approximation of a Thieves' Guild Member but Lyric the Sly seems capable of passing through walls. And Lyric the Sly has taken a liking to the rogue in the party. Lyric would be willing to teach the rogue in exchange for their assistance in some jobs. Lyric the Sly doesn't simply pass through walls. Lyric teaches the rogue how to sense presences through solid objects, how to magically project their voice(and sound effects) through walls to manipulate enemies, travel through walls as if it were as immaterial as a shadow, and even how to turn invisible for enough time to deliver poisons to someone already eating.

These abilities range in usefulness and power but wouldn't fill a new class for sure. And although it might be doable as a subclass that would only work if the rogue was very low level or interested in exchanging something they have already chosen for Lyric's tutelage as it would most assuredly be a Rogue Subclass. But Lyric's Tutelage could maybe be represented by a "classlet" of just 3 levels that are Sensing through walls and projecting sounds, Travelling through walls, and finally Silent Invisibility for a short period. Heck, it could even allow the Rogue Sneak Attack to scale with it as if it were rogue levels so they don't even need to miss out on those increases.

Hopefully, that example clears up what I am thinking. Like I said, it could just be silly and not worth the pursuit. But I think it has some good design space hidden there. And I appreciate the responses and interaction.

[noob]

As long as you do not make them too frontloaded it is fine.

[GalacticAxekick]

The benefits (to my mind at least) is being able to create classes that explore a more specific concept without needing to worry about filling 20 levels or having to worry about how it meshes as a subclass. One use of this could be classes that more directly represent training that could be acquired by joining a faction. Or perhaps is a non-Warlock patron based tutoring. For instance the benefits of joining the Thieves' Guild is access not just to fences but also to those other thieves who can teach you things that are too great to just be hand waived as things you can do now but not great enough to be its own class.

I see! That's a great reason to introduce miniature classes!

A rogue might be a decent approximation of a Thieves' Guild Member but Lyric the Sly seems capable of passing through walls. And Lyric the Sly has taken a liking to the rogue in the party. Lyric would be willing to teach the rogue in exchange for their assistance in some jobs. Lyric the Sly doesn't simply pass through walls. Lyric teaches the rogue how to sense presences through solid objects, how to magically project their voice(and sound effects) through walls to manipulate enemies, travel through walls as if it were as immaterial as a shadow, and even how to turn invisible for enough time to deliver poisons to someone already eating.

These abilities range in usefulness and power but wouldn't fill a new class for sure. And although it might be doable as a subclass that would only work if the rogue was very low level or interested in exchanging something they have already chosen for Lyric's tutelage as it would most assuredly be a Rogue Subclass.

This specific example sounds, to me, like an Arcane Trickster.

You can pass through walls using Dimension Door, Blink or (provided a crack to see through or a lenient DM) Misty Step. Sensing presences through solid objects sounds like Detect Thoughts. Projecting sounds sounds like Minor Illusion. Turning invisible sounds like Invisibility.

So yes, this would be a Rogue subclass.

But Lyric's Tutelage could maybe be represented by a "classlet" of just 3 levels that are Sensing through walls and projecting sounds, Travelling through walls, and finally Silent Invisibility for a short period. Heck, it could even allow the Rogue Sneak Attack to scale with it as if it were rogue levels so they don't even need to miss out on those increases.

True! This would let Assassins and Thieves pick up these skills without giving up their own skills, at the cost of delaying their (non-Sneak Attack) progress a bit.

Hopefully, that example clears up what I am thinking. Like I said, it could just be silly and not worth the pursuit. But I think it has some good design space hidden there. And I appreciate the responses and interaction.

This clears things up immensely!

[PhoenixPhyre]

For the "NPC wants to teach you what he knows", wouldn't it be easier to just have a (set of) boon-type rewards (essentially feats that don't take the feat slot and come as quest rewards)?

Trading out class levels (a la prestige classes) has a bunch of overhead (proficiencies, multiclassing oddities to consider, hit dice, progression of existing features, etc), where "hey, you're a rogue, I'm going to teach you <feature>" doesn't.

[sandmote]

This reminds me heavily of the Prestige Class UA with the Rune Scribe that was released in 2015. There's a link to it here. Same "level in a different system from any base class," concept. The training requirements work mostly like regular multiclassing, but it adds a skill proficiency, minimum level, and special training from an NPC (much like your Lyric the Sly example).

That said, it might also be possible to simply include teaching some of these features in place of magic items rewards. It would certainly work better for making it feel like the reward you got as a player was dependent on your choices, even if turning in Lyric the Sly would have led the NPC detective to reveal themselves to be a fey creature and provide the same reward (if DMing I would personally prefer to make those opposing Lyric teach you to defend against his techniques as a reward, but I wanted an example of a false choice for the example). Contrast a magic item, which I think more players would assume could have been inserted where the party went instead of sitting in a particular location waiting for the party to arrive to where it is.

I think which system is better depends on how structured you want the prestige classes to be vs. how much your party will notice and be upset by a lack of rewards you're withholding to both give them bonus features and keep a general balance inside the party. If they're going to want the same amount of individual items for everyone, Prestige classes would likely be better. Otherwise prestige class would likely be less flexible than free training and existing prestige classes you've written might not become available as options at the table very often (especially if the players don't know an NPC will offer one ahead of time).

[Breccia]

As long as you do not make them too frontloaded it is fine.

Indeed, this is why I asked. Watch this trap, and I don't see any reason it wouldn't work.

[AzulTennin]

I definitely agree that keeping them from turning into "1 Level Dips" for power reasons is certainly worth avoiding. Which goes against the general feeling of wanting to get the player doing "the cool thing", to get them into the meat and potatoes of the class. Is it more reasonable to string the class's abilities across the class or more reasonable to tie down the number of uses/amount of strength to further leveling? Sort of like Sneak attack vs Reliable Talent for reference.

[Bjarkmundur]

I myself have a rule of not homebrewing levels I'm not comfortable with. Whenever I make a subclass for example, I only design it up to 8th level. I know this is not great for publishing your work, but it's great to "just design enough for playtesting". You learn so much in the beta that you'll likely end up changing the last 12 levels anyways.

I don't allow multiclassing in my games, and would much rather have a bunch of these "half" classes available to my players than allowing two base classes to mix. I'm using the "companion" classes right now as available multiclasses. It basically boils down to "you can delay your class's progression to gain access to Weapons+armor, skills+utility or Spellcaster". I think it's a great way to dip without getting a whole lot of seperate class-specific mechanics and Subclasses.

So yeah is love to experiment more with "half" classes that are designed specifically to come second to your main class, but I don't see the appeal (other that for playtesting purposes) to do it the other way around. I even had ideas for a "low magic" system that stopped your progression at a certain point, and only progressed Subclasses, ASIs and feats, but you were allowed to go into the more generalized "second classe". I think I designed it so that spells above 5th level didn't exist, but you could continue learning spells from another class via the Spellcasting companion multiclass.