Your ideal class orgainization

Blue said:

Can you expand on the Final Fantasy Tactics job system? I'm not familiar and I'm having problems picturing classic clerics and paladins being the same class. Or getting enough differentiation between wizards and sorcerers if they are the same class.

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It's not all to different from what both of us suggested.

You started with 2 options. Squire and Chemist.
Then you unlocked new jobs leveled up in those classes. Which could lead to more jobs.

Here's one version unlocks.

Archer - Squire (Lv. 2)
Arithmetician - Black Mage (Lv. 5), Mystic (Lv. 4), Time Mage (Lv. 4), White Mage (Lv. 5)
Bard* - Orator (Lv. 5), Summoner (Lv. 5)
Black Mage - Chemist (Lv. 2)
Dancer** - Dragoon (Lv. 5), Geomancer (Lv. 5)
Dragoon - Thief (Lv. 4)
Geomancer - Monk (Lv. 4)
Knight - Squire (Lv. 2)
Mime - Chemist (Lv. 8), Dragoon (Lv. 5), Geomancer (Lv. 5), Orator (Lv. 5), Squire (Lv. 8), Summoner (Lv. 5)
Monk - Knight (Lv. 3)
Mystic - White Mage (Lv. 3)
Ninja - Archer (Lv. 4), Geomancer (Lv. 2), Thief (Lv. 5)
Orator - Mystic (Lv. 3)
Samurai - Dragoon (Lv. 2), Knight (Lv. 4), Monk (Lv. 5)
Summoner - Time Mage (Lv. 3)
Thief - Archer (Lv. 3)
Time Mage - Black Mage (Lv. 3)
White Mage - Chemist (Lv. 2)

* - Only males can be Bards.
** - Only females can be Dancers.

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Your stats where boosted based on how you level in the class. Squire added HP, Chemist added MP, Ninja was speed and evasion, Archers where speed and physical attack, ect...

You could also mix and match powers from different jobs once you spent enough time in them. So once you cast haste 10 times as a time mage (or whatever), could take use it when you switched jobs. Though you had a limited number slots.

mellored said:

It's not all to different from what both of us suggested.

You started with 2 options. Squire and Chemist.
Then you unlocked new jobs leveled up in those classes. Which could lead to more jobs.

Here's one version unlocks.

Your stats where boosted based on how you level in the class. Squire added HP, Chemist added MP, Ninja was speed and evasion, Archers where speed and physical attack, ect...

You could also mix and match powers from different jobs once you spent enough time in them. So once you cast haste 10 times as a time mage (or whatever), could take use it when you switched jobs. Though you had a limited number slots.

Click to expand...

Yep, pretty much this. Basically, ascending tiers of Prestige Classes, that require levels in one or more of the lower tier classes.

I like your idea of the base classes being oriented around mechanical concepts, matching them to power concepts. Would actually mix pretty well with this system, actually, since you could differentiate mechanical systems at the higher levels.

Man, designing fantasy heartbreakers is fun.

mellored said:

I don't see that as being an either-or situation.

Matching a power source to a chassis seems like it would be both easy to do and thematic.


Martial -> Hero -> at-will. You don't run out of skill.

Divine -> Talent -> Short rest points, thematic. You are granted amount of power from a greater being. You need to spend a few minutes to reconnect to and refresh. The greater the magic being, the more followers he support. Thus gods can support many clerics, a greater demon can support a few warlock, and an individual dragon can only support a single sorcerer.

Arcane -> Caster -> Daily. You have access to a wide variety of powerful effects, but you need time to prepare them. You can carry a few, ready to relase at a moments notice.

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I set the sacred hamburger to "medium-high", specifically wanting to be able to create recognizable versions of classic D&D classes. That means that, for instance, I need to be able to do vancian, daily refreshing wizards and clerics.

I'm not saying your way is bad -- it's a really nice feel -- but it's even a further step away from D&D in that you can't recreate one of the "big four" and other classics like the Druid. That's sacred hamburger tartar.

Responding to my own post, because I realized I missed a better implementation

Blue said:

Another full of repeatable special abilities with some sort of currency or resource to use them that doe not feel like classic casters. This can fit for clerical domains, monk special abilities, paladin auras, and all sorts of odd bits like that. Devotion? That may be too divinely flavored of a name, but I'll use it for now.

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Nix the whole Devotion class. Devotions - special abilities like rage, paladin aura, domains, and the like, will be handled via feats. Perhaps with a keyword that allows you to take only one, or one chain, or something to prevent all of these nifty force-multipliers from being taken in bulk. So this means I'd need to add in several feats in the earlier levels - probably by character level again.

To put it together.... something like...

Baseline for everyone:
10 HP +4 per level.
+1 proficiency ever 4 levels.
1d4 * proficiency damage.

Start with 3 choices, each giving super simple, well-rounded options. You can keep leveling up in these if you want.
Martial: You gain +X to combat and +Y to skills.
Divine: You gain X divine powers and Y divine points which you recover during a short rest.
Arcane: You gain X arcane powers and Y arcane slots which you recover during a long rest.


Your choices unlock other classes, with more focused, slightly complex features.
Bard (divine): +buff.
Cleric (divine): +healing.
Druid (divine): +animals.
Fighter (Marital): +damage.
Defender (Martial): +defense.
Rogue (Martial): +sneak
Alchemist (Arcane): +potions.
Artificer (Arcane): +enchantments.
Wizard (Arcane): +spells.


More complex combos unlock more complex features.
Barbarian (Fighter, Druid): +rage
Paladin (Fighter, Cleric): +aura's
Assassin (Rogue, Alchemist): +poisons
Warlord (Bard, Fighter): +grant attacks

Didn't we just have this thread...?

Anyway, I'd approach this as "What makes the game most accessible to new players?"

When I was trying to create a stripped-down version of 5E for my children to play, I wound up with three classes: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard. Each had a set of pre-gen "archetypes" you could pick from at 1st level, as starting packages. As you leveled up, there were certain class features you got to pick from a list. There were two lists: the basic features that you could just pick, and "advanced" features that required you to find a teacher in the setting and undergo training (i.e., the DM can have the teacher set requirements for learning the feature). These were the classes and archetypes:

Fighter:
Knight (advanced version: Paladin; has healing and smites)
Warrior (advanced version: Barbarian; has rage)
Scout (advanced version: Ranger; has nature magic)

Rogue:
Thief (advanced version: Tinker; has gadgets)
Ninja (advanced version: Monk; has ki magic)
Minstrel (advanced version: Bard; has enchantment magic)

Wizard:
Healer (advanced version: Druid)
Evoker (advanced version: Conjurer)
Witch (advanced version: Illusionist)

The cleric is expressly removed because I don't want religious themes in my kids' RPGs and because fantasy fiction in general doesn't distinguish arcane vs. divine magic the way D&D does. So instead, wizards get healing magic. The other thing I like about wizards is that the spellbook is an artifact which you could actually print out and put in a mini-binder. Each wizard archetype had its own spellbook that had pre-selected spells up through maximum level. If you wanted different spells, you would have to go on adventures to find them.

I would just make a bunch of mechanical subsystems with very generic names. A class would primary be defined by it's concept and what subsystems it uses. The chosen subsystem would be augmented and slightly modified and slightly renamed to really make an exact implementation of the subsystem to perfectly fit the class concept.

Cleric = Charisma-based divine spellcaster
1. Forge domain
2. Grave domain
3. Knowledge domain
4. Life domain
5. Light domain
6. Nature domain
7. Tempest domain
8. Trickery domain
9. War domain

Druid = Wisdom-based primordial spellcaster
1. Circle of the Land
2. Circle of the Moon
3. Circle of the Sea
4. Circle of Spores
5. Circle of the Sun

Fighter = Strength-based Class.
1. Berserker sub-class
2. Eldritch Knight sub-class (arcane 1/2 Spellcaster)
3. Paladin sub-class (divine 1/2 Spellcaster)
4. Totem Warrior sub-class (primordial 1/2 Spellcaster)
5. Warlord sub-class

Rogue = Dexterity-based class
1. Arcane Trickster (arcane 1/2 spellcaster)
2. Assassin
3. Monk (divine 1/2 spellcaster)
4. Ranger (primordial 1/2 spellcaster)
5. Scout

Sorcerer = Charisma-based arcane spellcaster
1. Divine Soul (divine-origin, abjuration + divination)
2. Draconic Bloodline (arcane-origin, evocation + transmutation)
3. Fey Bloodline (primordial origin, enchantment + illusion)
4. Shadow (darkness-origin, conjuration + necromancy)

Wizard = Intelligence-based arcane spellcaster
1. Abjuration sub-class
2. Conjuration sub-class
3. Divination sub-class
4. Enchantment sub-class
5. Evocation sub-class
6. Illusion sub-class
7. Necromancy sub-class
8. Transmutation sub-class

mellored said:

Martial -> Hero -> at-will. You don't run out of skill.

Divine -> Talent -> Short rest points, thematic. You are granted amount of power from a greater being. You need to spend a few minutes to reconnect to and refresh. The greater the magic being, the more followers he support. Thus gods can support many clerics, a greater demon can support a few warlock, and an individual dragon can only support a single sorcerer.

Arcane -> Caster -> Daily. You have access to a wide variety of powerful effects, but you need time to prepare them. You can carry a few, ready to relase at a moments notice.

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This is close to how I had modified 4e before we ended that campaign, except that the martial classes still had encounter powers representing "extra effort" or tricks that would only work once against a group of opponents. But Wizards were the only class that had daily powers alongside their at-wills. Everyone else was modified to work on an at-will or per encounter basis.

FrogReaver said:

I would just make a bunch of mechanical subsystems with very generic names. A class would primary be defined by it's concept and what subsystems it uses. The chosen subsystem would be augmented and slightly modified and slightly renamed to really make an exact implementation of the subsystem to perfectly fit the class concept.

Click to expand...

This was basically the solution I posted upthread. But with the added twist of using multiclassing to handle the hybrid classes that are currently represented by half-casters and the like so we can keep the separate classes to a manageable number.