Legends and Lore: Head of the Class

[AnthonyRoberson]

I find it somewhat ironic that what Mr. Mearls is describing is exactly the way 2E Skills & Powers worked. You could take the default powers of the class or customize it to your heart's content.

 

[FireLance]

I find it somewhat ironic that what Mr. Mearls is describing is exactly the way 2E Skills & Powers worked. You could take the default powers of the class or customize it to your heart's content.

Kind of, but not exactly. I would expect less flexibility and more siloing than the Skills & Powers points system, and thus, tighter balance. You might be able to choose between a +1 to attacks, a +1 to all defenses, or a scaling damage bonus, for example, but you wouldn't be able to lose armor proficiencies to get all three.

 

[SpydersWebbing]

I find it somewhat ironic that what Mr. Mearls is describing is exactly the way 2E Skills & Powers worked. You could take the default powers of the class or customize it to your heart's content.

Interesting. I'm now interested in looking at 2nd Edition (I was introduced to DnD during the 3rd edition shift to 3.5). But if Mearls goes in that direction for the next edition I'd be very happy to go with him there when that happens.

 

[Scribble]

I find it somewhat ironic that what Mr. Mearls is describing is exactly the way 2E Skills & Powers worked. You could take the default powers of the class or customize it to your heart's content.

Yeah- it's similar in a lot of ways I think he's expanding on that even further though and trying to make a larger spectrum.

IE some characters you literally make no rules choices, some you make a few, some you make a good deal of choices, and then finally some where you can customize just about every aspect.

I like the idea a lot.

 

[TerraDave]

Last year at Gencon, three books were promised, then dropped:

Champions of the Heroic Teir
Class Compendium
Hero Builder's Handbook

The middle one we have seen on DDI, the first may have been recycled into the Neverwinter guide and some other stuff.

But now we may be seeing what they did with the Handbook. This was very much a "build your own class" kind of thing.

Or I should say, getting hints about it. What this all leads to is pretty open.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Great idea in principle, but how do you execute it in practice?

I'll admit that I'm biased in that I really, really like making choices and despise those Essentials builds that restrict choice, but this sounds like a big, fat waste of pages. Choice-less Fighter gets x pages, followed by 3x pages for "Advanced Fighter." I am disinclined to pay for a book where either 25% of the pages are effectively bloat from my perspective. And isn't that even worse for the guy who just wants the slim builds? That's a lot of book he has no reason to read. But I worry that there's no way they can publish a separate "Player Essentials" and "Advanced Player's Handbook" in a profitable manner.

The way to do this, IMO, is to wait a generation for everyone who is married to the idea of books to die off, because this works perfectly with a computer based character builder without having to burn pages setting the defaults. Of course, they would have to learn how to actually e-publish in the meantime, which is apparently anathema to any company larger than 25 employees or so.

 

[delericho]

And yet you don't mind the existing PHB, where 7/8ths of the class pages are irrelevant bloat (to you)?

 

[bganon]

Interesting article, but like Zephrin, I don't think it addresses the really difficult question: how do you actually design a class so that the "default" is as good as any custom version? Further, how do you ensure that it stays that way, even as you inevitably add more and more customization options? And is this really a desirable goal in the end?

Mearls makes it sound like its just math, but given the array of options a fully customized character can have, it's a lot of math. And as much as I love 4E, it's pretty clear that the initial offering, for example, contained more math than the designers were able to playtest before release.

 

[Scribble]

I'll admit that I'm biased in that I really, really like making choices and despise those Essentials builds that restrict choice, but this sounds like a big, fat waste of pages. Choice-less Fighter gets x pages, followed by 3x pages for "Advanced Fighter." I am disinclined to pay for a book where either 25% of the pages are effectively bloat from my perspective.

Personally I think it would be better if they released different "versions" in different books. Like they did with the Essentials stuff...

Have another few books that detail the "super entry" builds. Like D&D basic. The math would work out so they could all be used together at the table.

I've been saying for a while I'd like to see a quick and dirty "gamma world style" D&D product. Maybe my dreams have been met...

(Plus releasing it as different books would cause all sorts of OMG 4.5678!!!!!1!!! threads which we need more of.)

Interesting article, but like Zephrin, I don't think it addresses the really difficult question: how do you actually design a class so that the "default" is as good as any custom version? Further, how do you ensure that it stays that way, even as you inevitably add more and more customization options? And is this really a desirable goal in the end?

Mearls makes it sound like its just math, but given the array of options a fully customized character can have, it's a lot of math.

Meh- "just as good" is a somewhat relative term. It would be basically like taking a fighter, making him with preexisting rules then just making THAT the basic fighter.

Sure- he might not be as good as char op build number 123... but still.

Instead of picking different feats for instance you get one hard built into the class. Like they did with some of the powers in the essentials builds.

 

[Riastlin]

Interesting article, but like Zephrin, I don't think it addresses the really difficult question: how do you actually design a class so that the "default" is as good as any custom version? Further, how do you ensure that it stays that way, even as you inevitably add more and more customization options? And is this really a desirable goal in the end?

Mearls makes it sound like its just math, but given the array of options a fully customized character can have, it's a lot of math. And as much as I love 4E, it's pretty clear that the initial offering, for example, contained more math than the designers were able to playtest before release.

Well, to a certain extent, the more content that is produced, the more prone the game will be to imbalance. Eventually you reach a point where it just isn't really possible to thoroughly playtest everything (keeping in mind that every item needs to be tested with evey possible combination of items, powers, classes, feats, party makeup, etc.).

That being said, my experience thus far with essentials classes mixed with "classic" classes (admittedly its somewhat brief but I have participated in two different campaigns where this was done) has shown that the essentials classes were more than able to keep up. Of course, the true optimizers will always find the combinations that can break the game, but I also think that the majority of people who actually play the game, do not set out to break the game with these types of combos. In fact, I've actually had players decide NOT to go with certain options (back in 3.5) because they were afraid it would break the game down.