Generic classes

[paladinn]

IMO, the only "feat bloat" problem is that "whirlwind attack" isn't a feat, it's a feat chain of prerequisites. As is great cleave, the archery or two-weapon chains, etc.

If you made every feat truly matter, every feat be serious competition with Leadership? Then, yeah, do away with the "base" feats, and just give them their bonus feats

Yeah, I'm not a fan of feat trees/chains. Something else I like about the expert "feats": they fold in improved "feat" with the mundane "feat." I hear the Pathfinder version of feats minimizes this? Or is there a 3rd party rendition that does?

[Darg]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of feat trees/chains. Something else I like about the expert "feats": they fold in improved "feat" with the mundane "feat." I hear the Pathfinder version of feats minimizes this? Or is there a 3rd party rendition that does?

From what I have seen, the feat chains are everywhere in pathfinder. Lots of customization, but from what I can remember you sometimes need more than one feat to do what you could do with one in 3.5. Then again, you get a feat every 2 levels instead of 3.

[Gnaeus]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of feat trees/chains. Something else I like about the expert "feats": they fold in improved "feat" with the mundane "feat." I hear the Pathfinder version of feats minimizes this? Or is there a 3rd party rendition that does?

Yes and it’s pretty popular apparently. The elephant in the room, feat taxes in pathfinder. Sorry can’t link on buggy phone, but easily found by search. I judge its popularity by the number of unrelated online games that apparently use it. (Not very scientific but seems indicative)

[zlefin]

5e is Way harder to hack. And the whole point of this exercise is to come up with ways to use the 3e generic classes to approximate the "regular" classes Or to come up with new options. 5e doesn't have "generic classes"; and the way the sub/class system is modeled makes it difficult to do that. The closest I've seen in 5e has been the "sidekick" classes; and even those don't lend themselves to genericity. With generic classes, you can use any of the 3 as a chassis and bolt almost anything onto them.

I'm wanting to use 5e casting because a) it prevents casters from becoming minor deities at high levels and b) it allows a lot more flexibility while tossing "fire-and-forget", the bane of my RPG existence. A caster doesn't need to prepare 5 versions of Cure Wounds; just cast using a higher level slot.

The fewer-feat thing just makes sense to me. Does a warrior need a feat Every Level? Casters get spell/slots every level; do they really need 12 feats? If they ever need a few more, they can MC a level of warrior or even expert.

Is it really so hard to design generic classes for 5e? I'm not deeply familiar with it, but it doesn't seem like it'd be all that hard to design generic 5e classes.

[paladinn]

Is it really so hard to design generic classes for 5e? I'm not deeply familiar with it, but it doesn't seem like it'd be all that hard to design generic 5e classes.

The closest things to "generic" classes in 5e are the "sidekick" classes from UA and Tasha's. And honestly they are not that generic; they're more the core classes (fighter, rogue, sorcerer/wizard/cleric/druid) with pre-selected options instead of subclasses and class features. They aren't "bad" (I'd gladly play a Warrior instead of a Champion fighter), but they're not generic. There are no features converted to feats; feats in general are a lot less plentiful (and more costly); and spellcasters Have to choose a spell list.

5e as a system is much harder to hack with a lot more "unintended consequences", mostly due to "bounded accuracy." I suggested a simple weapon focus feat on the 5e forum once and was read the riot act. "No!!!! A +1 to hit is going to destroy the game!!!"

[zlefin]

Noone has homebrewed one? With how long 5E has been out, I'd have suspected that someone would've homebrewed some good generic classes by now. Or at least some passable ones that only break the balance sometimes.

[Darg]

I don't play 5e so this is coming from an outsider listening in, but I'm pretty sure that 5e has tightened the balancing to such a degree that extra freedom in choice in a fashion similar to generic classes would be infeasible. As I personally don't know a whole lot from my few hours playing BG3, to me it seems like you would basically just be choosing a class instead of picking out features because of how intrinsic those features are to the playability of a character.

[paladinn]

I don't play 5e so this is coming from an outsider listening in, but I'm pretty sure that 5e has tightened the balancing to such a degree that extra freedom in choice in a fashion similar to generic classes would be infeasible. As I personally don't know a whole lot from my few hours playing BG3, to me it seems like you would basically just be choosing a class instead of picking out features because of how intrinsic those features are to the playability of a character.

This. 4e is Very tightly wrapped. It would be really difficult, IMHO, to detangle most of the "cool" class features and make them feats. Although, given how feats are in 5e, a converted feat/ure might fit the model. Something Else to ponder..lol

[Quertus]

I don't play 5e so this is coming from an outsider listening in, but I'm pretty sure that 5e has tightened the balancing to such a degree that extra freedom in choice in a fashion similar to generic classes would be infeasible. As I personally don't know a whole lot from my few hours playing BG3, to me it seems like you would basically just be choosing a class instead of picking out features because of how intrinsic those features are to the playability of a character.

My sleepy eyes read this as, "5e has tightened the balancing to such a degree that extra freedom in choice of fashion…", and I thought, man, that's some tight balance, if changing clothes throws things off!

[Darg]

My sleepy eyes read this as, "5e has tightened the balancing to such a degree that extra freedom in choice of fashion…", and I thought, man, that's some tight balance, if changing clothes throws things off!

For all I know it just might. How balanced is the choice in heavy armor vs medium armor vs light armor vs unarmored?