Legends and Lore: Head of the Class

[SpydersWebbing]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Head of the Class)

I'm liking the direction of this article, honestly. I do wish that they had done Essentials first, but what they're saying makes sense. Makes me want to design that way for my homebrew.

 

[Incenjucar]

It's questionable whether 4E would have been as attractive had Essentials come out first. I certainly wouldn't be nearly as passionate about it. While I am very happy that some people enjoy reduced-decision classes, I do not, as they fail to open up new ideas for me. The article seems to be proposing that exceptional amounts of space should be taken to write additional versions of a class. While it's fine to do this as it is warranted, making this a default assumption threatens to limit creativity and take up lots of space without actually creating new ideas.

I'm all for a simple version of the rogue, wizard, fighter, cleric, and a few others that just work out right, but filling the grid is just going to make for a lot of redundant material. The books are shrinking fast enough as it is.

 

[KidSnide]

I'm all for a simple version of the rogue, wizard, fighter, cleric, and a few others that just work out right, but filling the grid is just going to make for a lot of redundant material. The books are shrinking fast enough as it is.

One way this could be presented is as separate but compatible basic and advanced games. A basic game could include heroic versions of no-option classes with powers that don't depend on the grid and a simplified combat system. Advanced version(s?) of the game could introduce power options, higher tiers, advanced types of play and the level of complexity we expect from 4e.

-KS

 

[The Little Raven]

What I'm getting is that both types of classes are made from the same guts, it's just that "Advanced" allows you to monkey around with the guts, while "Basic" gives you a mostly built package, with little-to-no mechanical choices to make.

 

[FireLance]

What I'm getting is that both types of classes are made from the same guts, it's just that "Advanced" allows you to monkey around with the guts, while "Basic" gives you a mostly built package, with little-to-no mechanical choices to make.

Yup. For example, maybe the "Basic" fighter gets a +1 bonus to attack rolls with weapon attacks.

The "Advanced" fighter could get a choice between:
Precision - gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with weapon attacks.
Defense - gain a +1 bonus to all defenses.
Power - gain a +2 bonus to weapon damage rolls. This increases to +4 at 11th level and +6 at 21st level.

 

[Saracenus]

This is one way to look at the concept of a Core Class interface vs. Advanced Class interface.

The Core Class is like the MAC OS. Its pretty, simple and pretty damn solid. It does the job that casual users want without being overwhelming.

The Advance Class option is like the Unix guts of the MAC OS. The command line if you will for the guy that wants to tinker.

Basically both options will work side by side but each serves a different audience with the same end result.

I like this idea a lot.

My two coppers,

 

[delericho]

The problem is, what he's describing is functionally identical to what 4e offered - you get the complex classes, yes, but they also provided the 'builds' that made the choices for you.

The problem is, as we quickly found out, the pre-set builds sucked.

In theory, it should be possible to fix the pre-set builds to get the best of both worlds. However, as a colleague of mine is fond of saying, "the difference between theory and practice in that, in theory there is no difference, but in practice there is."

It's a nice idea, but I remain unconvinced.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

The trouble I see is how to you keep the basic class model on par with the optimized ones while still making the optimization choices meaningful?

But I guess this would have already happened with essentials? I've only seen a little of essentials in action- does the problem I mention above turn up at high levels when using Essentials and non-essentials classes side-by-side?

--Z

 

[Balesir]

The trouble I see is how to you keep the basic class model on par with the optimized ones while still making the optimization choices meaningful?

That assumes that there should be "optimal" choices in character design; I think the ideal is that every choice - every power and every feat - should be "optimal" if used in an appropriate way and in the right circumstances. The "game" should be about choices (tactics) in the actual instance of play, in other words, instead of a " better monster building" exercise performed alone between sessions. I think this is a great ideal, personally, but I see a substantial gap between where the game is at now and it...

 

[Riastlin]

The problem is, what he's describing is functionally identical to what 4e offered - you get the complex classes, yes, but they also provided the 'builds' that made the choices for you.

The problem is, as we quickly found out, the pre-set builds sucked.

In theory, it should be possible to fix the pre-set builds to get the best of both worlds. However, as a colleague of mine is fond of saying, "the difference between theory and practice in that, in theory there is no difference, but in practice there is."

It's a nice idea, but I remain unconvinced.

Actually, I think this is more talking about "Core" being the essentials style (i.e. relatively few choices) while "advanced" would be the 4e Classic style (lots of choices). After all, while I agree with you that the presets left a lot to be desired, they were also only for level 1, not 1 - 30.