Giltonio_Santos
Hero
If I correctly understand what the Next team is trying to do with those various divisions, I believe AD&D 2E did that, and it works just fine there. I'm all for taking that piece of 2E design and applying a modern, more robust version to D&D Next: Class Group - Class - Kit would be great, in my opinion.
Class Group: Either you are warrior, a priest, a wizard or a rogue. The class group should carry basic mechanics like ability to hit stuff, hit dice and weapon proficiency. It gives a general theme that players can relate to. If you're a fighter, fighting is your thing, but this is also true if you're a ranger or paladin. This takes some of the burden out of core classes and creates a mechanical layer where you can design mechanics aimed at a rogue type, for instance, without the player needing to figure out what is a rogue type.
Class: Your field of specialty. How your wizard casts spells makes him a mage, a warlock or a sorcerer. Without having to do the basic work now done by class groups, classes are free to take on some of the duties that are currently subclass stuff. A class doesn't change the core mechanics of a class group, adding to those mechanics instead. Each class should have at least one unique mechanic (like the fighter's weapon spec, the ranger's favored enemy, the thief's backstab and the warlock's eldritch blast) and some additional ones that need not to be unique (can be shared by other classes, made available through feats, etc).
Kit: Kits are strict archetypes, they kill subclasses and backgrounds and take their stuff. In this structure, knight can be a warrior kit instead of a paladin kit, making it also available to fighters and rangers, for instance. A kit can change something about your class, but it shouldn't mess with its unique mechanic, to keep class identity in place. Kits offer a new set of advantages, and class-specific kits can even trade some mechanical advantage for other of equivalent power.
What do you think about that?
Cheers,
Class Group: Either you are warrior, a priest, a wizard or a rogue. The class group should carry basic mechanics like ability to hit stuff, hit dice and weapon proficiency. It gives a general theme that players can relate to. If you're a fighter, fighting is your thing, but this is also true if you're a ranger or paladin. This takes some of the burden out of core classes and creates a mechanical layer where you can design mechanics aimed at a rogue type, for instance, without the player needing to figure out what is a rogue type.
Class: Your field of specialty. How your wizard casts spells makes him a mage, a warlock or a sorcerer. Without having to do the basic work now done by class groups, classes are free to take on some of the duties that are currently subclass stuff. A class doesn't change the core mechanics of a class group, adding to those mechanics instead. Each class should have at least one unique mechanic (like the fighter's weapon spec, the ranger's favored enemy, the thief's backstab and the warlock's eldritch blast) and some additional ones that need not to be unique (can be shared by other classes, made available through feats, etc).
Kit: Kits are strict archetypes, they kill subclasses and backgrounds and take their stuff. In this structure, knight can be a warrior kit instead of a paladin kit, making it also available to fighters and rangers, for instance. A kit can change something about your class, but it shouldn't mess with its unique mechanic, to keep class identity in place. Kits offer a new set of advantages, and class-specific kits can even trade some mechanical advantage for other of equivalent power.
What do you think about that?
Cheers,
