(homebrew) Freeform classing ?

So I have been kicking this idea around in my head for the past couple of days. Has anyone ever tried disassembling classes and using this as a free form classing technique? Let me elaborate. The idea I have had is that a person would pick their power source, and then their party role. I guess you could treat the roles as classes, but anyway.... After you do this you would basically be able to pick from any classes of that role. I figure base stuff like HP, FORT ,Ref and Will , proficiencies... I was originally thinking that skills could be tied to rolls, however it may be easier to let the player pick like... 3 skills or something.

One thing I havnt yet addressed is how to handle the special class features. I figure just list them all and let the player choose 2? Also if a feat had a prereq such as "cleric" it would revert to it's role type.

What do you think ?

Bump. Anyone ? At all ? At least an acknowledgement that its a terrible idea or something lol.

It seems really complicated. I mean, for any given level, a player would have 10+ powers to choose from. If you're playing the character you described, you'd have about 40 or 50+ powers to choose from.

Also, depending on how mechanically savvy your players are, it would be really easy to make an overpowered character, or make a character who does nothing well.

Well, having 50+ powers is what I was kind of going for , to make a character tailored to you. I figured an overpowered character wouldnt really come into play seeing as powers are level dependant and are balanced (as much as they can be) . I havnt actually tested it so I dont really have and basis to go off of. But again, it's just an idea I had rattling around in my head.

well I want to make it as a part of my genereic d&d homebrew.
some basic ideas http://www.enworld.org/forum/5860260-post27.html

There are rules for classless D&D in... Unearthed Arcana? Yeah, I wanna go with that, for 3.x. Check it out.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

Didn't DMG2 have alternate rules for playing generic classes by role? I don't think it's in the compendium, you'd need the actual book. It's been a long time, I don't really remember the details but it might be an interesting starting point.

Blue said:

Didn't DMG2 have alternate rules for playing generic classes by role? I don't think it's in the compendium, you'd need the actual book. It's been a long time, I don't really remember the details but it might be an interesting starting point.

Click to expand...

Actually...I was just about to make a thread about those rules.

In DMG2 pg 30, there are rules for rolling up "Companion Characters". The purpose of Companion Characters (CC's) are to add a DM-designed NPC to the group of PC's. HP, Healing Surges, AC, and the other defenses are rolled up by a formula based off the role and level.

I'm currently toying with the idea of using the CC rules for my group (instead of full on character creation.) CC's don't get feats or enhancement bonuses from magic items (which is okay in my setting, I always use the Inherent Bonus rule from DMG2.) CC's only know rituals if the DM feels it's relevant.

Also, CC's don't get any class features (but you can pick powers from the player classes). They instead get a generic ability.

CC's are (I suppose theoretically) weaker than PC's. Their role is to assist the players without stealing the spotlight. Now, since I intend on using CC rules for PC creation, I decided I would allow the party to pick a class and apply the class features. I haven't had a chance to fully implement my ideas though so I have no clue how balanced it would be (Shamans come to mind).

The benefit of using CC rules for PC creation is the ease and speed of PC creation. Instead of an hour per character, it took me 15 minutes.