What are your multiclassing house rules?

[Celebrim]

This is a bad approach, because RL experience has taught us that what drives organizations are interests (political / religious / economic / . . . ) Tying organizations to game mechanics is just asking for troubles (they just didn't know what kind of troubles in advance).

Worse, the sort of specificity that was applied to PrC's tended to meant that for some PrCs everyone with a particular PrC was assumed to have basically the same outlook, beliefs, personality, and shtick. It was as if no two members of a PrC were really different characters save for perhaps seniority. A strongly written class ought to suggest a broad range of archetypes. I've often said that your class is poorly written if you can't conceive of a 4 or 6 person party consisting entirely of that class, with no PC in the group stepping on the toes of another one and each distinctive and memorable. I'd argue that most PrC's fail in this test. And I'd argue that almost certainly the Monk and the Barbarian, and probably the Paladin fails this test even among base classes.

I think that another problem with this approach is that if you require a special class in order to make a character with a particular archetype then your game rules can never be complete. You'd need not 100's of PrC's but 1000's or even 10s of thousands. The sort of things that are possible become limited to the author's imaginations, and not the players' imaginations.

Actually, one of the more annoying excess weights for me was making Trapfinding a class feature.

Trapfinding is a class feature for my rules, but that class feature reads: "You gain Trapfinding as a bonus feat." Now that I think about it, I probably should rewrite it to say something like, "If you already have trap finding, you may take one of the following feats instead. That said, Trapfinding itself shouldn't be a requirement for a complete party, and I'm leaning toward a complete rewrite of the Trapfinding and Track feats that eliminate the absolute prohibition that they imply from the rules by first upping the DC of all finding all traps/tracking and then simply the feats down to a simple +5 skill bonus or 5e style 'advantage'.

I've been arguing for the longest time that Ranger and Barbarian should be Fighter variants or Fighter build-options.

I've retained the split, but not in the way 3e does. Neither Ranger nor Barbarian are available classes under my rules. Each has been replaced by something else. But, for the sake of clarity, I'll refer to those classes as Ranger and Barbarian for now. The split as I see it is this:

Fighter: This class is about mastery of combat through the exercise of skill at arms. Everything that pertains to the mastery of weapons and the practice of warcraft is the province of this class.
Barbarian: This class is about overcoming obstacles by the joint application of ones prowess and the sheer force of ones will. Everything that pertains to the harnessing of ones emotion to control ones body and force ones will on one's enemy by brute force is the province of this class.
Ranger: This class is about mastery of combat through expert knowledge and study of ones enemy. Everything that pertains to the art of particular a particular class of being is the province of this class.

I've got one more full BAB class, the Explorer, which is less about mastery of combat than it is about mastery of movement and knowledge of travel. It's the 'skill monkey' full BAB class, and its combat schtick is mobility, self-defense, improvisation, and awareness, and it's style is two-handed fighting.

All the full BAB classes multi-class well with themselves and with the full skill monkey classes. It's fairly obvious what you get when you combine the various concepts, say a half fighter half explorer creates pretty obvious well-rounded adventurer swashbuckler types, and a half ranger half rogue concept creates an assassin type character.

If you think of it, in concept and spirit, Ranger and Barbarian are not so far apart.

Only because as presented, both carry the unnecessary baggage of being specific to a wilderness environment. But looking back at more core divide, why should a 'Ranger' always be about the wilderness? I make the core concept of the class as: "This class is about mastery of combat through expert knowledge and study of ones enemy. Everything that pertains to the art of particular a particular class of being is the province of this class." So why should not a thief taker or magistrate, that specializes in taking down criminals within his own society not be the province of the 'Ranger'? Why should not an assassin that specializes in dealing death to other members of his society not be a 'Ranger'? Yet unless the society is in the wilderness, what since does it make to make the class carry wilderness baggage? Or why should we have a special 'Undead Slayer' class, when the slaying of undead is simply a special case of being a 'ranger'? If the base class is well built, we shouldn't need 'Construct Slayers' or 'Demon Slayers' or any sort special of 'slayer' of anything class because you ought to be able to build a viable one out of your base class. And why should it be that by necessity if you become a powerful slayer you learn druidic magic? If you wanted to have a side shtick of being a slayer that knew some magic, couldn't you just multi-class?

So to facilitate this, I rebuilt the Ranger into a new class called the 'Hunter' which kept the core concept but lost all the unnecessary baggage and out of the box let you do obvious things that were otherwise hard and required special exceptions in 3e rules.

Likewise, I rebuilt the Barbarian. The problem I had with barbarian is that the class seemed suitable to a tavern brawler, a pit fighter, the elite bodyguard of a king, an elite shock trooper, a gladiator, a insane psychopath, a berserker, a cultist, a sworn protector of a temple, pretty much any secret or exclusive warrior society, or even 'The Incredible Hulk'. Yet if you applied the class to create such a character, it was carrying around this baggage of being from a primitive tribal society living in the wilderness, and particularly of being a Norse warrior that just didn't necessarily make sense. If in fact you examine the inspiration for the 3e Barbarian shtick, it's based on being a member of one particular elite secret warrior society from one era of history - Norse Berserkers. So I just generalized the class to embrace the whole wide range of possibilities, and called the new class the Fanatic. It now has almost nothing in common with the Hunter beyond both are martial type character concepts. You can still customize the classes to make Barbarians and Rangers, but you are no longer limited to those things. And in doing so, a whole bunch of PrCs suddenly become superfluous.

A hard working DM could split feats into groups, where some are common knowledge and the rest are to be divided among elite-esoteric-secret organizations you mentioned. The same approach could be applied to certain spells, skill-tricks, gear, substances etc.

Certainly. For myself, feats prerequisites like, "Must be a member of Cult of the Walking Ancestors." or "Must be accepted as a member of The Free Brotherhood of the Storm Coast" doesn't really thrill me, because its hard for me to think of a feat which is both broadly useful and yet be some knowledge or art that would be exclusive to one small area of the world. But I can certainly see the attraction of that if you wanted to do it. And obviously, any feat derived from a PrC - say "Arcane Archer" - could have as its perquisite the membership in the implied secret society of arcane archers - "Must be accepted into an order of Elfish Wardens" would be the equivalent in my world. More likely I'd create secret societies that gave special exemption form the normal prerequisites of a feat. For example, "Elfish Warden" faction membership might give as a benefit, "No longer need to be an elf to gain the Arcane Archer, Brachiation, Improved Arcane Archer, Natural Warden, and Forest Magic feats. Make take the Natural Scholar feat without meeting the normal requirements. May take Adopted (by elves) as a general feat as if you had the required background."

It's not just 3rd party supplements.

No.

1. feats are not (and could not be) made equal
2. feat-chains are not (and could not be) made equal
3. feat-combos are not (and could not be) made equal

I've begun thinking of feats as being like at-will or day long duration spells. For a character of a given level, what sort of at will ability or enhancement would you be willing to give them? So a feat at the end of chain which implies a certain high level before its available ought to be comparable in the sort of exponential increase in power it provides (as a part of the chain) to an appropriately high level buffing spell. Now, I don't necessarily insist that feats be spell like in their execution, in fact the opposite, because I hate disassociated mechanics, but I do insist that if a feat have a bunch of prerequisites that it have a big impact. I haven't fully reformed my feats to where I want them to be, but I'm getting there.

However, to do this has meant that outside a few core feats, I've not retained a lot of the published feats. I'd guess 80% of my feats are custom content.

 

[nonsi256]

I've often said that your class is poorly written if you can't conceive of a 4 or 6 person party consisting entirely of that class, with no PC in the group stepping on the toes of another one and each distinctive and memorable.

I think this requirement is a bit harsh.
Not all classes are equal in resources or flexibility. Some classes are extremely customizable while others are niche classes.
This is unavoidable when attempting to create a complete system.

As long as the base classes + multiclassing + Feats + Skills (and skill-tricks) allow you to create whatever character you visualize, the system serves its purposes adequately (admittedly, my updated codex doesn't yet offer a player the means of becoming full-fledged LotR's Sauron, but other than that, I don't know of a pre-technological-era character concept that's beyond the system).

Trapfinding is a class feature for my rules, but that class feature reads: "You gain Trapfinding as a bonus feat." Now that I think about it, I probably should rewrite it to say something like, "If you already have trap finding, you may take one of the following feats instead. That said, Trapfinding itself shouldn't be a requirement for a complete party, and I'm leaning toward a complete rewrite of the Trapfinding and Track feats that eliminate the absolute prohibition that they imply from the rules by first upping the DC of all finding all traps/tracking and then simply the feats down to a simple +5 skill bonus or 5e style 'advantage'.

see my Rogue class, maybe it'll help you figure out how you wanna handle Trapfinding alternative.

So why should not a thief taker or magistrate, that specializes in taking down criminals within his own society not be the province of the 'Ranger'? Why should not an assassin that specializes in dealing death to other members of his society not be a 'Ranger'? Yet unless the society is in the wilderness, what since does it make to make the class carry wilderness baggage? Or why should we have a special 'Undead Slayer' class, when the slaying of undead is simply a special case of being a 'ranger'? If the base class is well built, we shouldn't need 'Construct Slayers' or 'Demon Slayers' or any sort special of 'slayer' of anything class because you ought to be able to build a viable one out of your base class.

I'm not familiar with your classes or rules, but as far as agenda goes, I'm with you on this one 100%.
I approach the "Slayer" archetype with 2 feats (specific details don't matter for now):
- Favored Enemy: Gain combat bonuses vs. a wide group of opponents.
- Signature Enemy: Gain combat bonuses yet again vs. a narrow group of opponents from your favored enemy.

Building a class around fighting a certain group of opponents seems excessive to me.
The Fanatic, otoh, seems more general and appropriate under your approach, but I still think you could fold them into a single class without losing anything if you put your back to it (with my Warrior, I use Warcraft. You find an archetype missing – just add the warcrafts that define it).

its hard for me to think of a feat which is both broadly useful and yet be some knowledge or art that would be exclusive to one small area of the world.

Sure thing.
If you allow overlaps, then nothing needs to be exclusive (it's just way too much work for my personal taste).

And obviously, any feat derived from a PrC - say "Arcane Archer" - could have as its perquisite the membership in the implied secret society of arcane archers - "Must be accepted into an order of Elfish Wardens" would be the equivalent in my world. More likely I'd create secret societies that gave special exemption form the normal prerequisites of a feat. For example, "Elfish Warden" faction membership might give as a benefit, "No longer need to be an elf to gain the Arcane Archer, Brachiation, Improved Arcane Archer, Natural Warden, and Forest Magic feats.

Absolutely.
The reason I won't go for this approach is because justifying something like this requires several other similar solutions, which require inspiration that I just don't have.

I've begun thinking of feats as being like at-will or day long duration spells. For a character of a given level, what sort of at will ability or enhancement would you be willing to give them? So a feat at the end of chain which implies a certain high level before its available ought to be comparable in the sort of exponential increase in power it provides (as a part of the chain) to an appropriately high level buffing spell. Now, I don't necessarily insist that feats be spell like in their execution, in fact the opposite, because I hate disassociated mechanics, but I do insist that if a feat have a bunch of prerequisites that it have a big impact. I haven't fully reformed my feats to where I want them to be, but I'm getting there.

However, to do this has meant that outside a few core feats, I've not retained a lot of the published feats. I'd guess 80% of my feats are custom content.

I'd be most interested to see your work someday.
Not sure what I will do with the info, but I am intrigued.

 

[Celebrim]

I think this requirement is a bit harsh.

I don't think so. Here are a selection my classes and examples of concepts:

Explorer: Pirate, Native Guide, Rich Dilettante, Beast Master, Adventuring Sage, Planes Walker
Fanatic: Gladiator, Beserker, Psychopath, Templar, Elite Soldier, Cultist
Hunter: Big Game Hunter, Sheriff, Bounty Hunter, Assassin, Undead Slayer, Saboteur
Fighter: Archer, Pole-arm Master, Stalwart, Knight, Marshall, Duelist
Wizard: Elementalist, Summoner, Necromancer, Illusionist, Shapeshifter
Shaman: Witch, Druid, Shaman, Vodoo Doctor, Reincarnated Soul, Dream Master
Sorcerer: Mutant, Cambion, Psion, Pyromancer, Heroic Monster, Incarnate Angel, Half-Dragon
Cleric: Obviously, as varied as the deities you have.
Rogue: Face man, Cat Burglar, Investigator/Mastermind, Thug, Box Man/Gadgeteer, Artful Dodger

Not all classes are equal in resources or flexibility. Some classes are extremely customizable while others are niche classes.
This is unavoidable when attempting to create a complete system.

I don't understand why this should be so.

don't know of a pre-technological-era character concept that's beyond the system

I didn't read you broadly enough to know whether I believe this claim. By 'handle' I mean not only allow but provide a flavorful set of mechanics for which is generally balanced with all other alternatives. I know I still have at least a few concepts I can't handle: luck based characters who succeed despite lacking the obvious skill/power of their comrades (the 'Sakka'), Sherlock Holmes style non-magical/limited magic investigators, and racial paragons. There are a smaller number of narrower concepts I have provision for but haven't yet written out rules for - certain evil champions, a few classes of sorcerers, probably some clerical concepts. I'm working on it.

However, just to throw out a few examples, can you handle...

Someone who has lived multiple past lives and whose powers consist of remembering things he used to know?
A character that has an uncanny relationship with oozes and utilizes them as pets as his primary shtick?
A generally non-magical character that shape-changes into a 12' tall blue giant when he becomes angry?
Elastagirl's fantasy equivalent?
Spiderman's fantasy equivalent?
A character that is slowly, involuntarily, transforming into a monstrous cockroach?
A lord of house-elves/brownies that is a protector of and incarnate spirit of homes and nursemaids and which can teleempathicly communicate with human babies?
Starting play as the offspring of royalty?
Tarzan?
A primarily martial character that can travel the planes, teleport, walk through walls, etc. as an act of skill rather than by casting spells and generally performing magic.
A chaotic neutral 'paladin' of a god of mischief with distinctively chaotic and mischievous abilities?
A 'paladin' of a neutral nature god with plant and animal themed abilities?

 

[nonsi256]

I don't think so. Here are a selection my classes and examples of concepts:

Explorer: Pirate, Native Guide, Rich Dilettante, Beast Master, Adventuring Sage, Planes Walker
Fanatic: Gladiator, Beserker, Psychopath, Templar, Elite Soldier, Cultist
Hunter: Big Game Hunter, Sheriff, Bounty Hunter, Assassin, Undead Slayer, Saboteur
Fighter: Archer, Pole-arm Master, Stalwart, Knight, Marshall, Duelist
Wizard: Elementalist, Summoner, Necromancer, Illusionist, Shapeshifter
Shaman: Witch, Druid, Shaman, Vodoo Doctor, Reincarnated Soul, Dream Master
Sorcerer: Mutant, Cambion, Psion, Pyromancer, Heroic Monster, Incarnate Angel, Half-Dragon
Cleric: Obviously, as varied as the deities you have.
Rogue: Face man, Cat Burglar, Investigator/Mastermind, Thug, Box Man/Gadgeteer, Artful Dodger

Still feels to me like you could easily mesh Fanatic & Hunter.
Same goes for Explorer & Rogue.
But idk. I'll have to see your system to make an educated evaluation.

I didn't read you broadly enough to know whether I believe this claim. By 'handle' I mean not only allow but provide a flavorful set of mechanics for which is generally balanced with all other alternatives. I know I still have at least a few concepts I can't handle: luck based characters who succeed despite lacking the obvious skill/power of their comrades (the 'Sakka'), Sherlock Holmes style non-magical/limited magic investigators, and racial paragons. There are a smaller number of narrower concepts I have provision for but haven't yet written out rules for - certain evil champions, a few classes of sorcerers, probably some clerical concepts. I'm working on it.

However, just to throw out a few examples, can you handle...

Someone who has lived multiple past lives and whose powers consist of remembering things he used to know?
A character that has an uncanny relationship with oozes and utilizes them as pets as his primary shtick?
A generally non-magical character that shape-changes into a 12' tall blue giant when he becomes angry?
Elastagirl's fantasy equivalent?
Spiderman's fantasy equivalent?
A character that is slowly, involuntarily, transforming into a monstrous cockroach?
A lord of house-elves/brownies that is a protector of and incarnate spirit of homes and nursemaids and which can teleempathicly communicate with human babies?
Starting play as the offspring of royalty?
Tarzan?
A primarily martial character that can travel the planes, teleport, walk through walls, etc. as an act of skill rather than by casting spells and generally performing magic.
A chaotic neutral 'paladin' of a god of mischief with distinctively chaotic and mischievous abilities?
A 'paladin' of a neutral nature god with plant and animal themed abilities?

Ok. you got me on the oozes part. I'll have to think about it someday. (how 'bout using an aberration race, with an ooze for Wild Cohort?)
Non-magical character that shape-changes to a specific form sounds more like a race/template than a class to me.
Elastagirl & Spiderman are marvel. That's not where I'm aiming at (but if a Warlock can have Spider Climb, Web is not that far off).
My Druid has Vermin WS, so yes... though not gradually (I never promissed perfection).
The elf dude has a level in Warlock and I have an invocation for telepathy.
Tarzan is an exceedingly athletic warrior with unarmed fighting skills and a bonus language "Chimp" (the movie character, not the one from the animated series that can speak to all the animals in the universe).
The "mundane" planse traveler does magical things "mundanely"... skills don't do that, but how 'bout an explorer with magical items for Plane Shift & Elemental Adaptation? (items that don't easily come off, the former of which is a legacy item).
CN Pal. is a Warrior/Pries with Travel & Trickery domain. Maybe some ranks in Craft (trapsmith).
Nature Pal. is a Warrior/Druid.

 

[Celebrim]

Still feels to me like you could easily mesh Fanatic & Hunter.

I don't see that at all. Now, of course you could multi-class into fanatic/hunter, which is a character that passionately cares about killing things.

Same goes for Explorer & Rogue.

This I do see, as they are both skill monkey classes of various sorts on something of a continuum. However, Explorer has a d10 HD and full BAB progression compared to a rogues d6 HD and 3/4 BAB progression. There is also some considerable variation beyond that in class abilities, with the Explorer not really having the 'sneaky' trope and the Rogue not really having quite the ability to get into Boating, Navigation, Knowledge (Geography & People), Survival and general exploration based skill set. Of course, you could multiclass into both to get a 'scout' type build and even multi-classed Explorer/Hunter/Rogue isn't out of the question, for a sort of rugged wilderness type with a lot of breadth and versatility but not a lot of depth. Certainly there are spaces between the classes for archetypes, but I don't feel they overlap. Kludging the Explorer and Rogue together is possible, but I think they stand better by themselves. Too much combining and you end up with a sort of point buy system.

Ok. you got me on the oozes part. I'll have to think about it someday.

I have generic mechanics for doing it with pretty much anything. The real trick with oozes would be figuring out some way to be immune to contact with your pets. But you could do this with constructs, vermin, or really anything that isn't intelligent.

Non-magical character that shape-changes to a specific form sounds more like a race/template than a class to me.

It wasn't though. He actual race was Hobgoblin, but the player that designed the character could have pulled the trick with any race and I don't allow templates in my game. He just took Feyborn and played with his spell-like abilities, then multi-classed into some martial classes - I think he ended up Feyborn/Fighter/Explorer.

Elastagirl & Spiderman are marvel. That's not where I'm aiming at (but if a Warlock can have Spider Climb, Web is not that far off).

D&D is basically supers with swords. Elastagirl and Spiderman could easily be trope magic wielders of some sort. So your comment about Warlock is spot on. If you have a new player that wants to make a trope magic wielder - say he's a dork or she's 13 or he's 41 but still a goof - where the trope is something like, "Mostly I want to fight, but I want to have spider senses, super strength, can climb walls, and cover things with webs.", can you get there? Could you get there for any of the X-Men? Pretty much any super of less than godlike power is IMO a valid concept. After 20th if you want to go there, even the godlike ones aren't out of bounds.

I no longer have Druids as a class, but I think you are on the right track when you note that you could do this by flavoring a spellcaster with vermin magic. However, I'd note that I'm actually asking for the reverse - you'd need magic to stop looking like 'The Fly' or some insect/human hybrid. I'm guessing from your comments that you get there with templates, though personally I'm big on the idea of templates or anything that isn't +0 LA.

The elf dude has a level in Warlock and I have an invocation for telepathy.

Err... now. That's not even close.

Tarzan is an exceedingly athletic warrior with unarmed fighting skills and a bonus language "Chimp" (the movie character, not the one from the animated series that can speak to all the animals in the universe).

But being able to speak to animals doesn't equate to getting animals to do what he wants any more than being able to speak to people equates to getting them to do what you want.

I'll just give a small sample of how naturally you can support Tarzan.

"FERAL [TRAIT]
You grew up alone far from civilized lands and call animals brothers.
Prerequisite: Not fey, appropriate background
Benefit: You were raised by animals. If you take the Feral trait, you are automatically assumed to have both the Primitive trait and the Illiterate disadvantage as well.
Empathy (Animal) is always a class skill for you. You begin play knowing the secret language of one group of animals (4 ranks) and may purchase others as bonus languages, but you lose all normal racial bonus languages from your list of bonus languages.
You find the civilized world to be frequently baffling; no matter how long you remain in it. You have a -4 penalty on all craft, bluff, diplomacy, disable device, open lock, perform, and sense motive checks. On the other hand, you have a +2 bonus on all Knowledge (nature) and Survival skill checks, and climb, jump, survival and swim are always class skills for you. You also have a +4 bonus on skill and ability checks to notice or recognize smells.
Special: You may not take both this trait and the Adopted trait. If you take the Feral Trait, you are automatically assumed to begin with the Primitive trait as well."

The "mundane" planse traveler does magical things "mundanely"... skills don't do that

Why?

CN Pal. is a Warrior/Pries with Travel & Trickery domain. Maybe some ranks in Craft (trapsmith).

Not very paladin like. You'd be mostly a spell-caster with little in the way of being a uniquely chosen representative of your god. You'd turn or rebuke undead which has what to do with the concept? You'd have MAD up the wazoo, with a need to go simultaneously into strength/dexterity/constitution (for your warrior-ish stuff), intelligence (to make up for your lack of skill points), and wisdom/charisma (for your cleric-ish stuff). It does seem looking around though that you've got a 'Divine Trickster' sub-class, so that would probably work. Overall though, it looks like your setting doesn't really support the 'Paladin' concept, but on the other hand considers something like a 'spell-thief', 'mindknife', or some sort of 'were-dragon' concept core to your setting. Mechanically I don't have nearly the same level of support for those concepts, though you could conceivably play someone that grows bat-wings, scales and breathes fire those attributes alone wouldn't be able to carry the concept.

So I think I'm pretty safe in saying neither of us support a fully generic setting. If anything, you seem intent on loading base classes with more required class abilities and specific flavor than even core.

 

[nonsi256]

I don't see that at all. Now, of course you could multi-class into fanatic/hunter, which is a character that passionately cares about killing things.

I'm guessing that's not your intent, but this feels a bit like classes forcing agenda.
I wish to avoid this as much as possible (even though it's not really possible with Priest and Druid, but the very nature of divine magic is being driven by agenda).

This I do see, as they are both skill monkey classes of various sorts on something of a continuum. However, Explorer has a d10 HD and full BAB progression compared to a rogues d6 HD and 3/4 BAB progression. There is also some considerable variation beyond that in class abilities, with the Explorer not really having the 'sneaky' trope and the Rogue not really having quite the ability to get into Boating, Navigation, Knowledge (Geography & People), Survival and general exploration based skill set. Of course, you could multiclass into both to get a 'scout' type build and even multi-classed Explorer/Hunter/Rogue isn't out of the question, for a sort of rugged wilderness type with a lot of breadth and versatility but not a lot of depth. Certainly there are spaces between the classes for archetypes, but I don't feel they overlap. Kludging the Explorer and Rogue together is possible, but I think they stand better by themselves. Too much combining and you end up with a sort of point buy system.

I'm not forced to make that split, because with Inspiration, skill dominance, special abilities and its other features, my Rogue has enough flexibility in resources to take both rolls and more, and if you wish to dodge the sneaky part, you just multiclass after 2 Rogue levels and continue as a lightly armored warrior (maybe adding one or two Monk levels) with a build that serves your vision.

I have generic mechanics for doing it with pretty much anything. The real trick with oozes would be figuring out some way to be immune to contact with your pets. But you could do this with constructs, vermin, or really anything that isn't intelligent.

As I said, I'd really like to see your work. Where can I find it ?

It wasn't though. He actual race was Hobgoblin, but the player that designed the character could have pulled the trick with any race and I don't allow templates in my game. He just took Feyborn and played with his spell-like abilities, then multi-classed into some martial classes - I think he ended up Feyborn/Fighter/Explorer.

Sure, that's possible, but it's not something that's in the "rulebook". It did require DM intervention.
I'm fine with special edge-cases, since you can't really design a system to generically deal with such specifics.

D&D is basically supers with swords. Elastagirl and Spiderman could easily be trope magic wielders of some sort. So your comment about Warlock is spot on. If you have a new player that wants to make a trope magic wielder - say he's a dork or she's 13 or he's 41 but still a goof - where the trope is something like, "Mostly I want to fight, but I want to have spider senses, super strength, can climb walls, and cover things with webs.", can you get there? Could you get there for any of the X-Men? Pretty much any super of less than godlike power is IMO a valid concept. After 20th if you want to go there, even the godlike ones aren't out of bounds.

I no longer have Druids as a class, but I think you are on the right track when you note that you could do this by flavoring a spellcaster with vermin magic. However, I'd note that I'm actually asking for the reverse - you'd need magic to stop looking like 'The Fly' or some insect/human hybrid. I'm guessing from your comments that you get there with templates, though personally I'm big on the idea of templates or anything that isn't +0 LA.

I think you're deviating here from what classes are.
The whole concept of X-Men and "need magic to stop looking like ____" revolves around being born that way and with a definite LA.
That's a single-instance race and it's ok. You just don't strive to become something you'd be forced to hide via magic.

Err... now. That's not even close.

. . .


But being able to speak to animals doesn't equate to getting animals to do what he wants any more than being able to speak to people equates to getting them to do what you want.

I'll just give a small sample of how naturally you can support Tarzan.

"FERAL [TRAIT]
You grew up alone far from civilized lands and call animals brothers.
Prerequisite: Not fey, appropriate background
Benefit: You were raised by animals. If you take the Feral trait, you are automatically assumed to have both the Primitive trait and the Illiterate disadvantage as well.
Empathy (Animal) is always a class skill for you. You begin play knowing the secret language of one group of animals (4 ranks) and may purchase others as bonus languages, but you lose all normal racial bonus languages from your list of bonus languages.
You find the civilized world to be frequently baffling; no matter how long you remain in it. You have a -4 penalty on all craft, bluff, diplomacy, disable device, open lock, perform, and sense motive checks. On the other hand, you have a +2 bonus on all Knowledge (nature) and Survival skill checks, and climb, jump, survival and swim are always class skills for you. You also have a +4 bonus on skill and ability checks to notice or recognize smells.
Special: You may not take both this trait and the Adopted trait. If you take the Feral Trait, you are automatically assumed to begin with the Primitive trait as well."

So, basically, you reverted back to 3.0e on the approach that wild empathy is a skill.
That's fine, but you don't need it to justify a certain template/trait granting a certain class feature.

Why?

That's just not the mechanics of skills in 3e.
In 3e, skills are purely mundane capabilities of attempting something that can either succeed or fail – mundanely (unless I've been missing something for the past decade).
There's a finite set of skills that do rigidly defined things and you can only stretch them so far (with Skill-Tricks and New Uses for Old Skills).
I think the more appropriate solution to what you're after lies in feats, which are a far more flexible mechanic (maybe even feats tacked on skills, that stretch could be reasonable).
To take skills to where you're implying on the basic game mechanics, you'd have to invent unnatural effects for all of them. I'm not up to such task.

Not very paladin like.

Not very 3e paladin like, but a high-melee light-divine Priest-Warrior hybrid.

You'd be mostly a spell-caster with little in the way of being a uniquely chosen representative of your god.

You gain some training and rank within your clergy, but you're more of a means of execution (sort of a templar).

You'd turn or rebuke undead which has what to do with the concept?

And isn't that what 4^th level paladins do in 3e?

You'd have MAD up the wazoo, with a need to go simultaneously into strength/dexterity/constitution (for your warrior-ish stuff), intelligence (to make up for your lack of skill points), and wisdom/charisma (for your cleric-ish stuff).

1. All characters in my system start with 4x4 skill points (for which all skills as class skills) totally detached from class levels. This resolves skill starvation quite nicely and removes the absurd class-associated x4 1^st-level skill-multiplier.
2. My Priest's primary spellcasting stat is Cha, so the need for high-Wis is not there.
3. Choosing between Dex & Con is an every day's strategy to deal with MAD.
Now we're down to 3-stat-based. That's no longer MAD.

It does seem looking around though that you've got a 'Divine Trickster' sub-class, so that would probably work. Overall though, it looks like your setting doesn't really support the 'Paladin' concept, but on the other hand considers something like a 'spell-thief', 'mindknife', or some sort of 'were-dragon' concept core to your setting. Mechanically I don't have nearly the same level of support for those concepts, though you could conceivably play someone that grows bat-wings, scales and breathes fire those attributes alone wouldn't be able to carry the concept.

So I think I'm pretty safe in saying neither of us support a fully generic setting.

I do agree that neither of us support a fully generic setting, but there's only so far you can go with generic settings when it comes to specifically tight concepts (as you presented with the "polymorph into a blue giant").

If anything, you seem intent on loading base classes with more required class abilities and specific flavor than even core.

Check again on the first 6. Those alone cover more than any 12 official classes (core and non-core) you'd pick.
The hybrid classes could serve many purposes, according to spells-invocations-skills-feats you'd select.
In both cases, you can have spells and features to visually work differently and have different token effects, so flavor-wise you could take them anywhere.
Monk – there's a spoiler at the bottom how to fold the Monk into the Warrior for those that would choose that angle (it just wouldn't be a full-fledged Monk).
Soulknife – too many features to fold into peripheral stuff you'd tack on other classes.
DFD – using official materials, I'd go for that archetype via Dragonborn-Raptoran-DFA, embodying all 3 core draconic aspects (that's the only way I'd ever play a draconic character), but I wouldn't feel very draconic with inferior physical prowess and this combo still doesn't measure up to the other classes in the codex, so it was practically begging to be born.
DWW – if you know of a way to use official materials to model “Kwisatz Hadarach” and Leto II, do share (color me ecstatically intrigued).
Time Bender – the PF Time Thief is the first true time-manipulator class I've ever seen (and I've been searching for one since my BECMI group days back in the early 90s). It's just way too sub-par as given. It's still the overall weakest class I have for combat, but it has manipulations other classes can't even dream of, so it has its place. Again, if you have a closer-to-home solution for such an archetype, I'm all ears.


All in all, given the codex is an overhaul of 3.5e, out of the character concepts you detailed for your classes, the only ones that I don't see coming to life out of the box using my codex are Mutant (of which I explained my approach above) and Planes Walker, if you insist on doing it without spells and without invocations. I'm not sure what you mean by Reincarnated Soul... unless you're talking about something like this, which could be modelled by reflavoring the codex' Hexblade (a schizophrenic one, I guess)).

 

[WayneLigon]

What house rules do you have for multiclassing? What prompted you to use them? What effect have they had on your games?

Most campaigns I've run, I've only had one restriction: you cannot multiclass a divine caster class with an arcane caster class. The viewpoints are so far apart from each other, it's like trying to mix oil and water.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm guessing that's not your intent, but this feels a bit like classes forcing agenda. I wish to avoid this as much as possible (even though it's not really possible with Priest and Druid, but the very nature of divine magic is being driven by agenda).

Depends on what you mean by forcing agenda. You are right the being a priest forces your agenda, but not every priest has the same agenda. Likewise, being a fanatic by definition means that you are passionate about something, but what agenda that forces depends on what you are fanatical about. I think in that sense, every class forces your agenda. But so long as that agenda can be infinitely varied, so what? Classes are shorthand for common identities or groups of identities within the setting. That's one of several things that make classes attractive compared to point buy.

I'm not forced to make that split, because with Inspiration, skill dominance, special abilities and its other features, my Rogue has enough flexibility in resources to take both rolls and more, and if you wish to dodge the sneaky part, you just multiclass after 2 Rogue levels and continue as a lightly armored warrior (maybe adding one or two Monk levels) with a build that serves your vision.

In other words, you see Explorer as a multi-classed fighter/rogue. For you, the Explorer is just not archetypal in your setting. For me it is.

As I said, I'd really like to see your work. Where can I find it?

The majority is not published. I've let lose bits and pieces at EnWorld when I wanted some feedback, but I'm not feeling a pressing need to show it all off just yet. For one thing, I've some fairly esoteric desires. For example, I never adopted 3.5 at all, so you are quite right - my rules are largely forked from 3.0 and balanced against 3.0 expectations. For this reason, your classes are probably across the board more powerful than mine. What I mostly find interesting about your work is how at some level, through quite independent means, you've arrived at similar conclusions in a lot of areas. Your cleric tone down doesn't look like mine, but it arrives at a similar point with similar effective restrictions. Your martial class improvements don't look like mine, but share the idea that only skills + feats = spells. Your multi-classing rule looks completely different than mine, but arrives at a similar balance.

In the particulars though, I suspect neither of us is really going to like the others work. I detest encounter powers for example, so would never adopt anything like your rogue's inspiration points. And your rogue takes 'jack of all trades' to the point where I consider it encroachment on adjacent concepts - probably because you consider skills so minor of ability that almost any degree of skill in them is balanced. You use skill tricks. I consider skill tricks to be doing unnecessary double duty with feats, and are just disguising the fact that most 3e non-spellcasting classes are simply feat starved. And so forth.

Sure, that's possible, but it's not something that's in the "rulebook". It did require DM intervention.

No, it didn't. One of the big points of my chargen rules is that I can say, "Here they are. I'll approve anything you make with them. Break them however you like, you can't break them so bad that I'll consider it poor sportsmanship and game destroying." Of course, since they've only seen 500 or so hours of playtesting, I can't really be sure of that, but its looking pretty solid so far. Initially, the player that figured out the Feyborn trick thought he'd found something strictly better than a low level fanatic - turning into a giant was better than raging. But in practice, it ended up being very balanced. It was also one of the most satisfying characters that had been created with my rules, because it was something completely unexpected that I'd never foreseen, but it proved that the class and the system as a whole had real breadth.

I'm fine with special edge-cases, since you can't really design a system to generically deal with such specifics.

Why not? I'm pretty sure I can get there eventually with a bit more refinement. What I won't be offering is some concepts you offer archetypally, well, archetypally. If you'd want to play a 'Time Bender' under my rules, it would never be as much of a percentage of who you are as it would be if I devoted a whole class to it, nor would you be forced to stick to the concept to the degree devoting a whole class to it forces you to stick to the concept.

I think you're deviating here from what classes are.

I don't think so. I think I'm just deviating from the expectation that you need templates or special races to cover anything a bit inhuman. Note that you even already have this concept. Your Druid turns into a plant eventually. So I'm not introducing anything nearly as novel as you think. I'm just generalizing it a bit.

The whole concept of X-Men and "need magic to stop looking like ____" revolves around being born that way and with a definite LA.

Why? There's no real reason why you can't have a first level character with the concept of 'I want to play a character like Wolverine'. You just scale down his special abilities until they match the power level expected at that level of play.

That's fine, but you don't need it to justify a certain template/trait granting a certain class feature.

You're making the assumption that it actually offers class features. What I introduced was a trait that radically transforms a character's career regardless of what class he takes from that point henceforth, even if he multi-classes. It doesn't grant a class feature. It changes the class features of every class that you take. Regardless of your class, your skill list looks a bit different, your granted feats look a bit different, and the degree to which you can excel at things changes a bit.

That's just not the mechanics of skills in 3e.
In 3e, skills are purely mundane capabilities of attempting something that can either succeed or fail – mundanely (unless I've been missing something for the past decade).

That right. And in my game, the ability to step through the veil into the spirit world or the dream world is just a mundane ability that any class can have regardless of whether it studies magic. For that matter, the same is true of the ability to brew potions. In the reverse direction, the same is true of the ability to move quickly.

There's a finite set of skills that do rigidly defined things and you can only stretch them so far (with Skill-Tricks and New Uses for Old Skills). I think the more appropriate solution to what you're after lies in feats, which are a far more flexible mechanic (maybe even feats tacked on skills, that stretch could be reasonable). To take skills to where you're implying on the basic game mechanics, you'd have to invent unnatural effects for all of them. I'm not up to such task.

I'm working on it. The trick is to remember that characters above 6th level and certainly above 8th level are superheroes. Most classes are feat starved as it is, making feats not so flexible of an option. Feats also in general represent things that transcend classes and which modify classes. Skills are on the other hand things that are shared between classes but which - in particular collections - help define what a class is actually about.

Not very 3e paladin like, but a high-melee light-divine Priest-Warrior hybrid.

Your making the assumption that what being a paladin is about is being a warrior priest. I understand were you are getting that, but I disagree. What being a 'paladin' is about is being a specially chosen representative of a deity. You aren't so much the deities servant on the earth, as you are his actual presence. A priest works miracles. A paladin is a miracle. A paladin is the walking embodiment of the power and presence of the deity. He is the deities chosen champion. Since this concept is archetypal in my campaign world, merely saying, "Well, your a normal fighter that also happens to be a lesser priest", doesn't capture the concept. In a certain sense, even the lowliest paladin if not outranks a high priest, then is at least outside the normal chain of command in a way that being a multi-classed cleric/fighter or cleric/fanatic wouldn't. Remember, class indicates identity.

You gain some training and rank within your clergy, but you're more of a means of execution (sort of a templar).

Almost every Templar within my game world is a Fanatic. Templars can have many different classes - in some sects and cults they could often be wizards, for example - but one class they never really have is cleric. That's because the Templars are laity. And if you have a rank in cleric, you are no longer laity but clergy. A Templar that multi-classes into cleric takes new orders, under goes new rites, and leaves the Templars. He'd be ideally suited, in time perhaps, for being a chaplain to the Templars in one of the more martial sorts of sects that maintains large military orders.

And isn't that what 4^th level paladins do in 3e?

Only because there is only one sort of 'paladin' in 3e - a champion of righteousness, justice, and light. But it really makes no sense that every deity would represent themselves as that or have dominion over that.

All characters in my system start with 4x4 skill points (for which all skills as class skills) totally detached from class levels. This resolves skill starvation quite nicely and removes the absurd class-associated x4 1^st-level skill-multiplier.

I go about this in different ways. But again, overlap of where with have found balance at. My rogue for example has base 11 skill points per level.

My Priest's primary spellcasting stat is Cha, so the need for high-Wis is not there.

If you want to play a divine caster based on Charisma, you'd play a Shaman in my game. Dropping wisdom from the clerics required list would make it to SAD IMO.

Monk – there's a spoiler at the bottom how to fold the Monk into the Warrior for those that would choose that angle (it just wouldn't be a full-fledged Monk).

I've folded the Monk into Fighter. I don't like Monks though, so I've no real pressure to offer it as an option.

DWW – if you know of a way to use official materials to model “Kwisatz Hadarach” and Leto II, do share (color me ecstatically intrigued).

I'm sure that I don't, but to the extent that you are baffled why I'd need to offer the ability to play 'spiderman' or one of the X-Men, I'm baffled by why I'd need to specifically support something so setting specific as that. Are you seriously porting the Bene Gesserit into your homebrew?

 

[nonsi256]

In other words, you see Explorer as a multi-classed fighter/rogue. For you, the Explorer is just not archetypal in your setting. For me it is.

Since all adventuring PCs do exploration, I never thought of "Explorer" as an archetype.

my rules are largely forked from 3.0 and balanced against 3.0 expectations. For this reason, your classes are probably across the board more powerful than mine.

The vision that guided me in the creation of the codex was that if a character's overall package of power level and versatility could be scaled from 1 to 100 (out of the box Soulknife all the way through to an optimized Ur-Theurge), where 1 means you have no fun at all and 100 means you practically walk over everybody, then I wanted to narrow this range down to about 30 – 60, where 30 means you just quick-build a character and play it and getting to 60 would require you 2 months of scouring the minmax boards and the codex. And still, 30 and 60 could both be in the same group and have tons of fun.

Your martial class improvements don't look like mine, but share the idea that only skills + feats = spells.

I'm not sure what you mean here. We both know that spells outweigh skill + feats by magnitudes. I never even dreamed of attempting to eliminate the gap altogether.

I suspect neither of us is really going to like the others work.

It's not necessarily about liking.
I don't need your approval and you don't need mine.
It's about having more sources to draw ideas from.

I detest encounter powers for example, so would never adopt anything like your rogue's inspiration points.

I'm also not a big fan of per-encounter features, but this is the best balancing point I found for some of the features of Rogue, Bard & Hexblade – in terms of availability and restriction (I'd be happy to read your suggested alternatives over at the GiantITP thread).
Note: I'm assuming you weren't talking about once-per-encounter restriction or till-the-end-of-the-encounter clause.

And your rogue takes 'jack of all trades' to the point where I consider it encroachment on adjacent concepts

Given 6th level models the glass ceiling of mundane human capabilities, this restricts down-to-earth rogues to but a single expertise, so there's no real encroachment there.
Past that point, there's no reason why a mundane skillmonky couldn't be multifaceted.

probably because you consider skills so minor of ability that almost any degree of skill in them is balanced.

I don't regard skill as minor at all.
I just want a 10th level rogue to be just as fun and interesting as a 10th level druid (even if not as powerful or versatile).

You use skill tricks. I consider skill tricks to be doing unnecessary double duty with feats, and are just disguising the fact that most 3e non-spellcasting classes are simply feat starved. And so forth.

Skill-tricks are necessary for 3 reasons:
1. I've seen dozens of attempts to apply special powers to skills according to ranks. It never works because there's little to no symmetry between the different skills.
2. They're worth less than feats – about 1/2. You wouldn't want to waste precious feats on skill tricks and there's no way to group them in pairs.
3. Almost all (if not all) skill-tricks rely on multiple skills and are the best way to model RL capabilities (I could go into details, but this is a discussion all by itself).

No, it didn't. One of the big points of my chargen rules is that I can say, "Here they are. I'll approve anything you make with them. Break them however you like, you can't break them so bad that I'll consider it poor sportsmanship and game destroying." Of course, since they've only seen 500 or so hours of playtesting, I can't really be sure of that, but its looking pretty solid so far. Initially, the player that figured out the Feyborn trick thought he'd found something strictly better than a low level fanatic - turning into a giant was better than raging. But in practice, it ended up being very balanced. It was also one of the most satisfying characters that had been created with my rules, because it was something completely unexpected that I'd never foreseen, but it proved that the class and the system as a whole had real breadth.

. . .

You're making the assumption that it actually offers class features. What I introduced was a trait that radically transforms a character's career regardless of what class he takes from that point henceforth, even if he multi-classes. It doesn't grant a class feature. It changes the class features of every class that you take. Regardless of your class, your skill list looks a bit different, your granted feats look a bit different, and the degree to which you can excel at things changes a bit.

. . .

That right. And in my game, the ability to step through the veil into the spirit world or the dream world is just a mundane ability that any class can have regardless of whether it studies magic. For that matter, the same is true of the ability to brew potions. In the reverse direction, the same is true of the ability to move quickly.

Can you at least PM me your chargen rules ?

Your making the assumption that what being a paladin is about is being a warrior priest. I understand were you are getting that, but I disagree. What being a 'paladin' is about is being a specially chosen representative of a deity. You aren't so much the deities servant on the earth, as you are his actual presence. A priest works miracles. A paladin is a miracle. A paladin is the walking embodiment of the power and presence of the deity. He is the deities chosen champion.

Ok, I can definitely relate to this point of view, but this very point of view makes a 1st ECL Paladin impossible.
No deity would ever choose such fragile characters as their embodiment on earth.

Since this concept is archetypal in my campaign world, merely saying, "Well, your a normal fighter that also happens to be a lesser priest", doesn't capture the concept. In a certain sense, even the lowliest paladin if not outranks a high priest, then is at least outside the normal chain of command in a way that being a multi-classed cleric/fighter or cleric/fanatic wouldn't. Remember, class indicates identity.

So, the Paladin is one of your Fanatic's aspects?

If you want to play a divine caster based on Charisma, you'd play a Shaman in my game. Dropping wisdom from the clerics required list would make it to SAD IMO.

In my settings, with poor BAB, d6 HD, med. Armor and nerfed spell abuse potential, I doubt SADness would show its face be an issue

I've folded the Monk into Fighter. I don't like Monks though, so I've no real pressure to offer it as an option.

I just kept both options on the table, letting the group decide.

I'm sure that I don't, but to the extent that you are baffled why I'd need to offer the ability to play 'spiderman' or one of the X-Men, I'm baffled by why I'd need to specifically support something so setting specific as that. Are you seriously porting the Bene Gesserit into your homebrew?

Not the organization, but I could easily imagine a group of elite soldiers utilizing the powers of the Weirding Ways (Sudden Relocation in particular – just think of the moral impact this could generate).
It's not until level 7 that this class receives its major twist.