Seminar Transcript - Class Design: From Assassins to Wizards

Morrus · Jan 28, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
Wait...shouldn't every class from ever PHI-style book include racial classes like Dwarf and Elf from BEMCI?

If anyone had ever said "PH1 style book", yeah. They didn't though. They said PH.

Primal · Jan 29, 2012

SteveC said:
I hope (and believe!) you're right. We will have to see, I suppose. I like Monte very much, as he did some work for some of my favorite non D&D games (HERO and Rolemaster) but it seems he's pretty much skipped 4E. I think it's interesting that when I hear game designers talking about D&D most of the big names don't seem to know too much about 4E, which is a shame.

In the mean time, however, I'm going to be starting the Anti Vancian League (AVL) to show my hopes that we don't step back to the previous era. Okay, that's mostly a joke, but as things continue I may actually do something like that.

I have no problem with daily resources, but if you have a class that is pretty much exclusively dailies, you have a real problem in making a hard limit on what an adventuring day can include. It's also a terrible balancing method, since a given encounter can be much easier if daily resources are available, and much harder if they're not.

And clerics? Has there ever been any sort of fantasy novel that depicts religious magic with spell slots? Ugh. Too horrible to think about. So let's see what comes out next, maybe an actual example of game play...

Although I'm a 3E/PF guy, I'm actually tempted to join your AVL; I may not like everything about 4E and AEDU style classes, yet I still think 4E powers and explicit power/monster format with keywords is superior to how Vancian spellcasting works. Or, even better, maybe each group (martial, arcane, divine, primal) had "power points" (adrenaline/zeal/spell/whatever pts.) that they would spend the same way 4E monks augment their powers? And maybe you could only spend a limited amount each round to prevent going "nova"? Regardless of this, I think using 3E as the framework for the 5E core mechanics would be a mistake, even if at-will powers were obtainable as 3E-style "reserve feats" (and wouldn't this be a kind of feat tax anyway?). As I said before, I'm kind of tired of arguing about the use of Cleave to "auto-defeat" Mirror Image, or Guardsman Bob auto-succeeding on his Perception check vs. your Stealth because he's looking at your direction and the rules might (or might not) imply that this makes you always visible.

And, how about multiclassing? Why not use 4E themes or PF archetypes, because IMO both work better than multiclassing in 3E. In 3E you quite often end up with either a weird and highly-optimized "Frankenstein monster", or a guy that's great to roleplay but doesn't have anything useful to do in combat (my STR 14 halfling paladin/cleric/divine templar being a great example of the latter; he had +15 in every save by 7th level, but his DPR was on average something like 7-10 pts. or so -- in a combat-focused campaign!).

I'm also worried about Monte mentioning how good/clever play should be rewarded. I, for one, am tired of guessing at which spells my wizard or cleric should memorize; will there be magical traps or hazards or doors on which I need to use Dispel Magic or Knock? How about a medusa or basilisk? Stone to Flesh or Disintegrate, or something else? Sometimes there is a way around such a problem/hazard, but often there isn't; and it's frustrating to stop to rest for a day because I memorized "wrong" spells. I hope this won't be the case in 5E, and I remain optimistic, but I'd rather they used 4E or PF as the basis, and not 3E.

Grazzt · Jan 29, 2012

SteveC said:
And clerics? Has there ever been any sort of fantasy novel that depicts religious magic with spell slots? Ugh. Too horrible to think about. So let's see what comes out next, maybe an actual example of game play...

Most clerics/priests in S&S stories, except D&D, can't cast spells or use magic at all.

mach1.9pants · Jan 29, 2012

It boils down to a simple fact: three out of four previous editions had vancian and the cleric was one of the core vancian casters. There is going to be vancian casting and wizard and cleric are going to use vancian. It is irrelevant to an edition for all editions whether vancian cleric emulate any tropes or literature. DnD is it's own trope and is what needs to be emulated, not other media (although other things will have an influence)

Zustiur · Jan 29, 2012

mach1.9pants said:
It boils down to a simple fact: three out of four previous editions had vancian and the cleric was one of the core vancian casters. There is going to be vancian casting and wizard and cleric are going to use vancian. It is irrelevant to an edition for all editions whether vancian cleric emulate any tropes or literature. DnD is it's own trope and is what needs to be emulated, not other media (although other things will have an influence)

Exactly. This statement is very true in my opinion:

Monte said:
It's my firm belief that Vancian magic, for the core classes, is D&D.

That's not to say that 5E can't include powerpoints and other spell mechanics as well. Possibly tied to different classes. When 3E was coming out, that was my understanding of the situation - Wizards were vancian, and sorcerers used spell points. It turned out I was wrong about the direction 3E was taking, but there's nothing stopping them from using that idea now. But as Monte said; if we're talking about D&D and core classes, Vancian magic is the way to go.

On a separate point, I love the idea of having many classes available in PH1, but having it only handle levels 1-10.
Given how long it can take to get there, and my personal preferences regarding D&D campaigns, it is entirely likely that I'll never play in an epic campaign. Whereas, it is equally likely that I'd like to play some odd-ball class like a warlock. I agree with those who complain about the 1-2 year wait for 'core' classes to be released in 4E.

I really like the points raised in this seminar. Coupled with some of the community suggestions in this thread, I see no problem with having lots of core classes in PH1, going from level 1-10. By moving magic items back to the DMG and cutting out 10-20 levels of spells, it should be very easy to fit that many classes in one book.

tecnowraith · Jan 29, 2012

ok After re-reading the transcripts, I am seriously thinking the Classes options were taken from DDO's Enhancements: Enhancements - DDO wiki, which in a sense their version class options along with feats and spells.

Evilusion · Jan 29, 2012

ppaladin123 said:
Hmm, I got the exact opposite impression: that they see the "core" d&d experience as best captured by a 1-3e framework but that they want to incorporate the things they learned worked during their experiment with 4e.

I've read the commentary as an admission that 4e was a radical departure from the previous d&d mechanics but that they view it as a fruitful depature...it gave them more insight into what is important and what is not and gave them the chance to experiment with balance and math and mechanics.

So I guess we'll see what happens.

Well like I said, I will hold off judgement until I see the rules.

SteveC · Jan 30, 2012

Grazzt said:
Most clerics/priests in S&S stories, except D&D, can't cast spells or use magic at all.

Oh sure, and if we wanted to be true to S&S the cleric should have virtually no special abilities at all, aside from a lot of bluff based abilities. Still, D&D doesn't attempt to emulate that (obviously) so what is the source material it's going for? Is there anything?

The Shadow · Jan 31, 2012

Draz said:
Illusionist: I don't see why Illusionist deserves page space in the book more than, say, Necromancer. But separate classes for each specialty arcane caster would be crazy. So ... I guess mostly the same as 3e, with these being Wizard variants? Possibly feat-based or PrC-based, rather than default features.

I agree with just about everything else you've written, but disagree here. While I am not by any stretch an AD&D grognard, the Illusionist is one thing from 1e that I do genuinely miss.

The class had tons of flavor that was lost by making it simply a specialist wizard... The illusionist was not merely barred from a school or two; he had illusions, enchantments, and shadow-magic, and that was pretty much it! (Well, and a few divinations.) He pretty much had to be a sneaky bastard just to get by, and I loved it. Also, do remember that the best Illusionist spells were off-limits to ordinary magic-users! The Illusionist was supreme in his area, limited as it was.

In my view, three-quarters of the flavor of the gnome race (which I dearly love) was lost in turning Illusionist into a wizard specialization.

Now, you mention Necromancers, and I do have to say, of all the different variant wizards, they do come in second in terms of flavor. However, I think they still do come in second, simply because necromancers do often dabble in other forms of magic.

The other wizard specialties simply do not have the legendary resonance of those two. Elementalists, maybe. But Evokers? Transmuters? Not really. I would argue they don't rate classes of their own. (Though a case could maybe be made for a Conjuror/Summoner class - though the implementation would have to be better than any I've yet seen. The Pathfinder Summoner leaves me cold.)

Do all these variants deserve space in the PH1? Probably not. But I'm pulling for the Illusionist to make it, just because it has so much history with D&D gnomes.

WotC_Trevor · Jan 31, 2012

gourdcaptain said:
...Uh, Linear Warrior Quadratic Wizards ISN'T ABOUT DAMAGE. Evocation doesn't even do that much overall damage in 3.Xe. The problem is more when the Wizard has stuff like Dominate Person available, which one hit of which on the Fighter and he has a new minion to add to his DPR. (And we know that kind of stuff is around with the mention of Charm Person earlier.)

Also, the mention of the Fighter being 100% DPR makes me kinda sad as someone who likes Fighters who emphasize combat manuvers. Also, does this make the Barbarian 120% damage or so?

I'm not sure we said or wanted to say anywhere that that fighter was just dpr all the time. Currently, the plan is for fighters to have options that help them change and manipulate the battlefield if they want to build that way.

As to the quadratic wizard, linear warrior thing - the guys knows it's not just about damage, that's just the easiest bit to talk about. The team is definitely looking at ways to make each class relevant throughout their progression, and not all the options or ideas they're working with were touched on in this seminar.