Level Up (A5E) New Classes, Subclasses, Cultures, etc.

[Indagare Nogitsune]

While Heritage, Background, and Destiny have sections for creating your own, Culture does not. Given that not ever culture will fit well on a given world, it'd be useful to have guidelines for it like the others do.

As for New Classes and Subclasses, it'd be nice to know how features are determined for them. Simply saying "balance" is not very useful without examples. As mentioned in another thread, the O5e Eldritch could be brought in by giving it some tweaks for A5e, though exactly what's needed is a bit less clear. It's also unclear how to make new ones or even new classes (and what would count as a class). For instance, if the Eldritch Knight is an example of a Fighter gaining some Wizard, then a Magus from Pathfinder would be an example of a Wizard gaining some Fighter (though it's also its own class).

Similarly, I'd love to give the Psionic Classes some love (or translate the Occult ones from Pathfinder). Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[Xaielao]

I think like most new TTRPGs, it's just a matter of getting experience with the system and how it works before we can confidently homebrew. Though a page (or even partial-page blurb) in T&T would be super helpful.

And yea, I'd love to bring some classes from Pathfinder over. It would be easier than o5e because PF2e's feats should fairly easily translated to class feature choices.

 

[tetrasodium]

While Heritage, Background, and Destiny have sections for creating your own, Culture does not. Given that not ever culture will fit well on a given world, it'd be useful to have guidelines for it like the others do.

Building new cultures gets into world building levels of design and have a wider range of things they grant ranging from half to maybe full feat territory. There is a great video that touches on a lot of problems players can cause that has a section about novelist players showing up with an "agenda" that seems pretty relevant

Spoiler: here set to start of that section

The whole video touches on a lot of great stuff but that part is especially relevant

Giving a sidebar for players to create custom cultures would effectively launch players into creating a conflict like he talks about avoiding. o5e has a lot of things like bifts & more that encourage the creation of those kind of conflicts while a5e does a lot of small things that make it harder to do accidentally Custom cultures would undo a big chunk of that right out of the gate during character creation.


Like someone else said though it's more than a little early for folks without their name listed in the book to grok the system enough to really be doing much in the way of homebrew beyond maybe things like filing the serial numbers off type stuff. I've run a session zero plus two sessions for a 5 person group & the whole group is definately still enthusiastically getting a grip on things as we work through MoH bit by bit

 

[Stone Dog]

It might be easy to use existing cultures as starting points and just edit them slightly.

I'd let somebody from a Scottish Highland clan take Mountain Dwarf and just call it Highlander, for example.


Highlander Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the greatsword, shortsword, and spear.

Highlander Armor Training. You have proficiency with light and medium armor and shields.

Woolhead. You have resistance to cold damage.

Mountain Born. You’re acclimated to high and low altitudes, including elevations above 20,000 feet or depths below 20,000 feet. You’re also naturally adapted to cold climates.

Stonecunning. Whenever you make a History check related to the origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and gain an expertise die to the check. (I'd leave this mainly alone and say that it is something picked up from neighboring Dwarf holds, but that is just me.)

Languages. You can speak, read, write, and sign Common, Dwarvish, and one other language.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

I think like most new TTRPGs, it's just a matter of getting experience with the system and how it works before we can confidently homebrew. Though a page (or even partial-page blurb) in T&T would be super helpful.

And yea, I'd love to bring some classes from Pathfinder over. It would be easier than o5e because PF2e's feats should fairly easily translated to class feature choices.

Yeah, I just like it when the folks making a system go into how they decided what so when it comes to homebrewing there's less fuzziness. Pathfinder did some of that with their point-buy system but never actually did that for their classes, despite the book they published.

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Building new cultures gets into world building levels of design and have a wider range of things they grant ranging from half to maybe full feat territory. There is a great video that touches on a lot of problems players can cause that has a section about novelist players showing up with an "agenda" that seems pretty relevant
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Giving a sidebar for players to create custom cultures would effectively launch players into creating a conflict like he talks about avoiding. o5e has a lot of things like bifts & more that encourage the creation of those kind of conflicts while a5e does a lot of small things that make it harder to do accidentally Custom cultures would undo a big chunk of that right out of the gate during character creation.


Like someone else said though it's more than a little early for folks without their name listed in the book to grok the system enough to really be doing much in the way of homebrew beyond maybe things like filing the serial numbers off type stuff. I've run a session zero plus two sessions for a 5 person group & the whole group is definately still enthusiastically getting a grip on things as we work through MoH bit by bit

Naïve as I am, I was thinking the sidebar would be more useful for a Narrator who's faced with those sorts of choices rather than for a Player looking to power game. I know it's very early for this, but I think it also can go into the editing process of helping clear up details that could end up causing trouble later.

It might be easy to use existing cultures as starting points and just edit them slightly.

I'd let somebody from a Scottish Highland clan take Mountain Dwarf and just call it Highlander, for example.


Highlander Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the greatsword, shortsword, and spear.

Highlander Armor Training. You have proficiency with light and medium armor and shields.

Woolhead. You have resistance to cold damage.

Mountain Born. You’re acclimated to high and low altitudes, including elevations above 20,000 feet or depths below 20,000 feet. You’re also naturally adapted to cold climates.

Stonecunning. Whenever you make a History check related to the origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and gain an expertise die to the check. (I'd leave this mainly alone and say that it is something picked up from neighboring Dwarf holds, but that is just me.)

Languages. You can speak, read, write, and sign Common, Dwarvish, and one other language.

True. Like I said, I'm not really wanting much--I know they probably already have a lot without dealing with this--but I am curious since it can add a lot.

 

[Kinematics]

In my work to convert various characters to LU, I reached a yuki-onna (Japanese snow spirit) character, and realized a lot of those types of characters are likely to fall under Planetouched, using a few custom adjustments.

In this case, resistance to cold (immunity at Paragon level), advantages in snowy/icy terrain (doesn't count as difficult terrain, can ignore obscurement caused by snow), and a set of cold- and/or charm-based spells, similar to the tiefling's fire-based spell set.

On the culture side of things, I've been waffling on options. A farmhand would get Villager, for example, but what about someone who grew up in a port town? I'd expect stuff like swim speed, proficiency in water vehicles, extra languages from the many people that pass through, etc.

Cosmopolitan has also been bugging me in how broadly it can be applied, but the more I read it, the more I realize it actually can fit both the high society citizen and the street rat scale of things. Fashion Sense works at both ends of the spectrum, and extra skills, languages, and connections make sense for either character. Discreetly Armed and Urban Denizen also fit both characters.

Really the only problem is that, since I'm converting a lot of characters that grew up in the city, it just feels a bit too commonplace to only have the one culture every single time. I was hoping for more from like the Imperial or Tyrannized options — and they're both cool — but I'm just not finding a good "alternate" fit. Something like, perhaps, a steampunk city (which may be provided in the Zeitgeist setting), or something to distinguish between Piltover and Zaun (cf: Arcane), etc. If you've read Ascendance of a Bookworm, consider the difference between those in the worker district and those in the merchant or noble districts.

It feels like I could still fit into the Cosmopolitan culture if you squint at it sideways, but it also feels like there should be differences. But how much of that is culture, and how much is background? It gets a bit tricky to distinguish.

 

[Stone Dog]

Zeitgeist does look like it is going to lend some mechanical weight to national character, unless I'm mistaking things. So people who are cosmopolitan are basically the same everywhere, but there might still be a difference between cosmopolitan characters who are not-prussian vs characters who are not-spaniards.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

While Heritage, Background, and Destiny have sections for creating your own...

They do? I did not know this.

 

[Stone Dog]

Page 75 for Backgrounds, page 96 for destinies, and there is the mixed heritage part on 23, but that is all I can find.

 

[Bladesinger]

One of the new classes I'd love to see A5E do is the Swordmage type. We seem destined to not get this out of O5E ( I'm under-whelmed by their fixes for this, except the Tasha's Bladesinger, that was awesome. ). But an 'Arcane' Paladin type is something I've seen a lot of people ask for, and I'm one of them.