Lanefan
Victoria Rules
For some classes that are obvious offshoots of other classes, this is fine. But how do you handle oddities like the Monk or 1e-version Bard...or do you just ditch 'em and move on?I'd prefer just to keep the main 4 classes without customization. If there needs to be customization, then I'd prefer to have "tweaks" to the big 4.
For example, there would be the plain fighter as the basis for all combat classes. A paladin would be defined as a fighter that had a code of honor, couldn't use missile weapons (violates code of honor), gets a charisma bonus to saving throws, and gets lay on hands once per day. Essentially, instead of being a completely separate class, it would be a couple of benefits and a couple of drawbacks added to one of the big 4 classes.
While I'm willing to blame 3e (and 4e) for anything I can get away with, this time 3e is not the culprit. 3e certainly made item creation easier, but the price tags have been hanging off magic items since 1e or earlier, and the magic-item economy has always kinda been there.One of the side-effects of 3e spelling out exactly how to make magic items and giving each one a price tag was that it created a magic item economy.
In theory this works.In older editions, making cool magic items was usually difficult and buying them was nearly impossible, so those mountains of gold couldn't be easily converted into a cool magic item. I'd like to see a return to that approach. Cool magic items exist, but it's difficult to get your hands on them.
In practice, realism quickly scotches it.
Cool magic items exist, we're agreed on that. So I, Lanefan the Fighter, go out into the field, clobber some bad guys, and come back to town with a cool magic item: a nice shiny....wand. I'm a Fighter. Wands make very poor weapons. I'm incapable of making it do anything else for me, so now what? Well, I happen to know this Magic-User who could make far better use of this wand than I ever will; and who is willing to buy it off me for cash. How is anything going to stop me from selling it, even if such is illegal in the game setting?
And it naturally follows that if I can go out and sell a magic item to someone, I won't be the only one doing so; there's lots of other adventurers in the world...which means I might also be able to buy items I can use, or even trade items straight up for one another and skip the cash step. And bingo - there's yer magic item economy.
The caveat is, of course, that you won't always be able to buy exactly what you want or need, as it'll be random what's for sale at any given time and place.
Lan-"anyone got a +3 defender longsword they'd like to part with cheap?"-efan