D&D General Your Core Classes if The Core 4 Aren't Allowed
- Thread starter doctorbadwolf
- Start date
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
This is straightforward, I just would go tightly tailored to a setting.
An Mysterious-East flavored list, likely with lots of different flavors of humans -- none generic.
Or something completely new, with crystal people and other non-usual races, and elemental and psychic powers, just go gonzo.
Hmm, actually just a lot of different cultures have different hero tropes out there. Like one thing common in art and anime is the lightly/not armored, agile fighter with big weapons. Not served well by any of the "core 4". Or martials who use magic to infuse themselves, can easily be done in non-core-4 ways. Different traditions of casting and such as well.
An Mysterious-East flavored list, likely with lots of different flavors of humans -- none generic.
Or something completely new, with crystal people and other non-usual races, and elemental and psychic powers, just go gonzo.
Hmm, actually just a lot of different cultures have different hero tropes out there. Like one thing common in art and anime is the lightly/not armored, agile fighter with big weapons. Not served well by any of the "core 4". Or martials who use magic to infuse themselves, can easily be done in non-core-4 ways. Different traditions of casting and such as well.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Hell yeah. I think warlock nd sorcerer make great foils.
An actual priest class, paladin, an alchemist, etc.
Nah, we have ten thousand things with them at center.You list four species I would never replace (orcs can go as playables). It's all the other ones that need to go.
That surprises me. Fantasy without humans isnt exactly unheard of.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
what if it could be more than 12?
See that already hints at a vibe for thw world. I like that.
Hell yeah.
Scribe
Legend
Yeah, just for me personally, not a fan.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Well, my full list of 24 (not 25 as I had previously said) class-concepts starts from the existing 13 of 5e, and adds, in no particular order:
Avenger
Shaman
Warlord
Invoker
Psion
Alchemist
"Machinist" (still shopping around for a better name; think "combat engineer" + tinkerer + guns)
Swordmage
Summoner
Assassin
Warden
I think these, plus the 13 existing 5.0/5.5 classes (as Psion has not been added yet), cover ground so comprehensive, the only additions you might need would be setting- or campaign-specific, which would thus not be appropriate for generic usage.
Exactly! I wanted a feel that communicated the wild power and fey touches in various ways, with some subtle hints of other elements. E.g. the warforged (probably by a different name) don't know who first created them, and don't know how to build new forging engines, so they're constantly in peril of losing their population sources. That implies ancient magic by forgotten ancestors, which is a juicy story to dig into, but one that plenty of individual warforged might not care at all to solve. "Not my problem" sort of thing.
I'd probably also take some inspiration from FFT. The way religious litany plays a role in magic is very interesting, and executed in a way that implies deep doctrine without actually letting us see that doctrine.
Laurefindel
Legend
Working off of PHB only…
Core classes: Druid, Bard, Barbarian, Warlock (possibly Int-based if modifications are allowed)
Base Species: tiefling, gnome, goliath, orc
Setting is a primeval world with Nordic/slavic/celtic/germanic inspiration, civilisation vs evil spirits of nature kind of feel.
Core classes: Druid, Bard, Barbarian, Warlock (possibly Int-based if modifications are allowed)
Base Species: tiefling, gnome, goliath, orc
Setting is a primeval world with Nordic/slavic/celtic/germanic inspiration, civilisation vs evil spirits of nature kind of feel.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
OKay now classes...
Alchemist - arcane scientist, part ritualist, part maker, can lean into healing or grenadiering or dragooning, or "kill you with toy soldiers"ing, basically an artificer that can take the place of the wizard as the "magical scholar", but doesn't cast spells except with crafted items. A hermetic alchemist in the vein of Al Jabir and Newton and Paracelsus.
Warlock - one of two foils for the Alchemist. The dark academic, hermetic in the vein of Crowley and other cult-esque esotericists that terrified medieval Europeans. Big magic, can learn damn near any magic in the game given time and good skill checks and spenditure of resources. Like, conceptually in comparison to existing dnd classes take the warlock and bard and wizard, with limited spell slots, but nearly unlimited spell access. Potential alt name, Esotericist or Occultist or even Witch.
Sorcerer - The other foil to the alchemist and warlock. THe sorcerer is a font of power, up to and including being able to lend power to others. They draw magic into themselves passively and then let it out at will, often explosively. TO them, magic is threads of energy, not spells, and they have arcane weapons, not cantrips or spells, that they then manipulate using sorcery points. Basically they master elements and schools of magic, like a warrior masters weapons types and fighting styles, and then use sorcery points to turn a hurled flame into a fireball or a wall of flame or a temporary conujuration of a attacking falcon of pure fire. Potential alt name would be Channeller.
Druid - Scholar-priest with animistic magic, a built-in spirit companion that they can let possess them to turn into an animal or spirit for a time. Primal spellcaster, ritualist, controller minoring in leader, in 4e terms.
Ranger - jack of all trades with a secondary focus on making the whole team more effective, using a mix of Focus abilities, Knacks, and Banes. Knacks and Banes are almost like artificer infusions specialised to what a ranger does.
Banes are like specialised poisons that are situational in the way that 2014 hunter ranger features are situational, where it's useful against any creature that is large or larger, or that has an inherent magical ability like a breath weapon, or special vision, or that uses the magic action, or has special movement, etc. You know enough that one of them will be useful in most fights, and you can swap one during a short rest and all of them during a long rest.
Knacks are utility features that often affect the whole group, sometimes using the language of spells but with no verbal components and often no somatic, sometimes being purely mundane or somewhere in between, but always using Focus to pay for power. Subclasses can add spell lists as well, so that if you pick up spellcasting knacks and subclasses with bonus spells you can end up with even more spellcasting than a 2024 ranger, or you can have very little if any spellcasting.
Bard - General scholar, storyteller, lorekeeper, Songs like a 3.5 bard fully replace spells and this is an EXPERT first and foremost. They get flash of genius, group buff and debuff emanations, can deal psychic damage to every enemy that can hear them as a bonus action, and spend their class resource to give any enemy that takes damage disadvantage on checks to maintain concentration, maybe at high level can turn a caster's spell against them as they cast it as a reaction, idk. Their voice isn't magic because it's just so pretty, necessarily, but because they know the words. If true naming exists, they are the masters of it.
Assassin - Take the sneaky stab death guy elements of the ranger and rogue and shadow monk, and add ritual and shadow magic. Gets to teleport and use a shade form, create darkness, places a death mark onto a target, with 2 to 3 other features that differently make you more lethal when you prepare for the killshot, so that if you place your shroud, are hidden or make your target unable to defend itself, use your specialised tool feature (poison or hidden weapon or ritual curse), you have bonus dice and expanded crit range and if you get them close to 0 they drop to 0. Eventually, they get a single target killshot ability that uses the mechanics of the cleric's destroy undead, and another feature that is a group incapacitator for the "make a room full of bodyguards unable to react while you walk up and gank the king and then leap out the window and teleport into the darkness." high level gameplay loop.
Thematically, you are the left hand of justice, not a killer for hire. People that kill for money are just mercenaries. Assassins have a purpose.
Monk - Instead of focusing on unarmed strikes you have a Martial Arts Strike that does damage equal to your MA die plus dex, and you can do as a bonus action. this allows you focus on a weapon if you want, isntead of being all about unarmed strikes, and suddenly the class does sword saints and european fencing masters just as well as it does shoalin monks. ALt name...Destreza, after the Spanish name for their more scientific and esoteric dueling tradition.
Or swordmage, because yes it has magical discipline features that can be spells, and learns Techniques both as they level and in adventuring. Mechanically, not even that different from the Monk, except that it chooses one of three attack Techniques with Flurry being one of them, alongside an elemental smite and a 4e style defender mark.
Jack - The parts of rogue that aren't trying to be an assassin, with cunning strike as the core combat feature, and a heavy focus on mobility by way of having a climb speed equal to their speed and ignoring difficult terrain. Basically, the Theif-Acrobat with at-will tactical attack options.
Paladin - Arguably the primary warrior. All armor and weapons, weapon mastery and fighting styles iwth advanced options, no spell slots but ramp up lay on hands and divine smite and keep ritual casting and select spells you can do once without any resource or components depending on your oath, and another low level choice that is like....Sacred Order with a mechanical vibe similar to the 2014 Pacts for the warlock.
some folks won't like this, but this is where I would put the warlord, along with the Bard. Neither are spellcasters as such, but they aren't magical.
Berseker - The Conan warrior, a foil to the Paladin and Swordmage, less weapon mastery, no direct magic as such, but more mundane skill and physical power. Give them a third skill proficiency at level 1, an expertise at level...2, with more after level 6,
WIld idea. Take the mechanic of Absorb Elements spell, change the damage types to weapon damage types. Now make it passive and always on.
You have resistance to mundane damage, and when you reduce damage you take with this feature, your next successful weapon attack deals 1d8 extra damage.
Then at some level you gain the ability to goad or frighten when you hit and deal that extra damage, and the target can be the creature you hit or any creature who sees you hit that target. If you kill the target of the damage, the creature you goad or frighting has disadvantage on the save.
Other things I would do.
Ritual spells expanded greatly, basically raid the 4e rituals for ideas, make some exisitng 5e spells have the ritual tag, etc, and add some mechanics to get more from casting as a ritual by performing a related skill check, with spells that are purely rituals requiring such a check. Stuff like Speak WIth Dead being more reliable if casts with a spell slot or other magical resource, but if you are an expert in Religion you can get more questions or force the dead to specifically try to help you rather than giving indifferent answers, but at the small risk that you will get less than if you had cast it as a normal spell.
Every class would have some "ribbons" that are about worldbuilding, with clearly laid out alternatives for different takes on the class, and notes on just ignoring them if you don't want your class to represent anything in the world beyond what you are capable of doing.
Stuff like, the Alchemist, Warlock, Druid, Bard, might all have a high level ability called Amongst The Wise, that specifically calls out a certain place in the world where people recognzie that Mhor ap Llyn, Arcanist of The Ninth Gate (ie, powerful warlock), is Wise in the sense of Merlin or Gandalf or minor gods of wisdom and knowledge.
The Warlock, Assassin, and Paladins of certain Sacred Orders, might have Into The River, which lets them see into the world of spirits and treat with spirits of Death as if speaking to a fellow mortal, and recognize places of power tied to such things.
Another might be Trust By The People, given to Paladins, Swordmages, and Bards, etc, etc.
These features can also be gained as quest rewards, or as part of special feats.
All PCs have 2 to 4 Contacts, which are chosen from a list of basically Archetypal titles, like, "The Mysterious Family Friend" and "The Small Town Official" and "The Weird". These are characters that can either be detailed during character creation or when the player calls upon them, and they are called upon to help with interaction or exploration challenges or to open doors or otherwise solve a problem that CANNOT EVER BE THE CENTRAL CONFLICT OR PROBLEM OF THE ADVENTURE.
They can get you passage to the insular Genasi city that normally only interacts with the world via merchants that go out from the city to other ports, they cannot convince the Genasi king to call of his invasion of the coastal small folk region with no standing army or navy. That is your job.
Each Contact has a Strain score that you roll against when you call upon them, if you call upon them without maintaining the relationship (a downtime activity) you have to roll against the score, with a chance of harming the relationship semi-permanently, endangering the contact, or having some other complication like gaining a rival or the contact needing a big favor from you.
This is partly a "let the players tell you what they don't have any interest in going through the process of" mechanic, and partly a pacing mechanic, but primarily it ensures that every PC has ties and bonds in the world and a reason to remember them and care about them.
Favors - An easy and fun way to represent having done good deeds for the Troll King is that the Troll King has given you his Favor, or owes you a Favor. Either way, you can call in the Favor to treat the Troll King like a Contact, once, but with some more options like having the character tied to the Favor craft or aquire for you a certain magic item, lend you a dozen archers to cover your escape from a raid you are planning, grant you someone who works for them as a hireling for one adventure, etc.
If you pair it with Reputation mechanics, a certain level of Reputation with the Forest Kingdom might grant you The Troll King's Favor once per level. This could get you
Alchemist - arcane scientist, part ritualist, part maker, can lean into healing or grenadiering or dragooning, or "kill you with toy soldiers"ing, basically an artificer that can take the place of the wizard as the "magical scholar", but doesn't cast spells except with crafted items. A hermetic alchemist in the vein of Al Jabir and Newton and Paracelsus.
Warlock - one of two foils for the Alchemist. The dark academic, hermetic in the vein of Crowley and other cult-esque esotericists that terrified medieval Europeans. Big magic, can learn damn near any magic in the game given time and good skill checks and spenditure of resources. Like, conceptually in comparison to existing dnd classes take the warlock and bard and wizard, with limited spell slots, but nearly unlimited spell access. Potential alt name, Esotericist or Occultist or even Witch.
Sorcerer - The other foil to the alchemist and warlock. THe sorcerer is a font of power, up to and including being able to lend power to others. They draw magic into themselves passively and then let it out at will, often explosively. TO them, magic is threads of energy, not spells, and they have arcane weapons, not cantrips or spells, that they then manipulate using sorcery points. Basically they master elements and schools of magic, like a warrior masters weapons types and fighting styles, and then use sorcery points to turn a hurled flame into a fireball or a wall of flame or a temporary conujuration of a attacking falcon of pure fire. Potential alt name would be Channeller.
Druid - Scholar-priest with animistic magic, a built-in spirit companion that they can let possess them to turn into an animal or spirit for a time. Primal spellcaster, ritualist, controller minoring in leader, in 4e terms.
Ranger - jack of all trades with a secondary focus on making the whole team more effective, using a mix of Focus abilities, Knacks, and Banes. Knacks and Banes are almost like artificer infusions specialised to what a ranger does.
Banes are like specialised poisons that are situational in the way that 2014 hunter ranger features are situational, where it's useful against any creature that is large or larger, or that has an inherent magical ability like a breath weapon, or special vision, or that uses the magic action, or has special movement, etc. You know enough that one of them will be useful in most fights, and you can swap one during a short rest and all of them during a long rest.
Knacks are utility features that often affect the whole group, sometimes using the language of spells but with no verbal components and often no somatic, sometimes being purely mundane or somewhere in between, but always using Focus to pay for power. Subclasses can add spell lists as well, so that if you pick up spellcasting knacks and subclasses with bonus spells you can end up with even more spellcasting than a 2024 ranger, or you can have very little if any spellcasting.
Bard - General scholar, storyteller, lorekeeper, Songs like a 3.5 bard fully replace spells and this is an EXPERT first and foremost. They get flash of genius, group buff and debuff emanations, can deal psychic damage to every enemy that can hear them as a bonus action, and spend their class resource to give any enemy that takes damage disadvantage on checks to maintain concentration, maybe at high level can turn a caster's spell against them as they cast it as a reaction, idk. Their voice isn't magic because it's just so pretty, necessarily, but because they know the words. If true naming exists, they are the masters of it.
Assassin - Take the sneaky stab death guy elements of the ranger and rogue and shadow monk, and add ritual and shadow magic. Gets to teleport and use a shade form, create darkness, places a death mark onto a target, with 2 to 3 other features that differently make you more lethal when you prepare for the killshot, so that if you place your shroud, are hidden or make your target unable to defend itself, use your specialised tool feature (poison or hidden weapon or ritual curse), you have bonus dice and expanded crit range and if you get them close to 0 they drop to 0. Eventually, they get a single target killshot ability that uses the mechanics of the cleric's destroy undead, and another feature that is a group incapacitator for the "make a room full of bodyguards unable to react while you walk up and gank the king and then leap out the window and teleport into the darkness." high level gameplay loop.
Thematically, you are the left hand of justice, not a killer for hire. People that kill for money are just mercenaries. Assassins have a purpose.
Monk - Instead of focusing on unarmed strikes you have a Martial Arts Strike that does damage equal to your MA die plus dex, and you can do as a bonus action. this allows you focus on a weapon if you want, isntead of being all about unarmed strikes, and suddenly the class does sword saints and european fencing masters just as well as it does shoalin monks. ALt name...Destreza, after the Spanish name for their more scientific and esoteric dueling tradition.
Or swordmage, because yes it has magical discipline features that can be spells, and learns Techniques both as they level and in adventuring. Mechanically, not even that different from the Monk, except that it chooses one of three attack Techniques with Flurry being one of them, alongside an elemental smite and a 4e style defender mark.
Jack - The parts of rogue that aren't trying to be an assassin, with cunning strike as the core combat feature, and a heavy focus on mobility by way of having a climb speed equal to their speed and ignoring difficult terrain. Basically, the Theif-Acrobat with at-will tactical attack options.
Paladin - Arguably the primary warrior. All armor and weapons, weapon mastery and fighting styles iwth advanced options, no spell slots but ramp up lay on hands and divine smite and keep ritual casting and select spells you can do once without any resource or components depending on your oath, and another low level choice that is like....Sacred Order with a mechanical vibe similar to the 2014 Pacts for the warlock.
some folks won't like this, but this is where I would put the warlord, along with the Bard. Neither are spellcasters as such, but they aren't magical.
Berseker - The Conan warrior, a foil to the Paladin and Swordmage, less weapon mastery, no direct magic as such, but more mundane skill and physical power. Give them a third skill proficiency at level 1, an expertise at level...2, with more after level 6,
WIld idea. Take the mechanic of Absorb Elements spell, change the damage types to weapon damage types. Now make it passive and always on.
You have resistance to mundane damage, and when you reduce damage you take with this feature, your next successful weapon attack deals 1d8 extra damage.
Then at some level you gain the ability to goad or frighten when you hit and deal that extra damage, and the target can be the creature you hit or any creature who sees you hit that target. If you kill the target of the damage, the creature you goad or frighting has disadvantage on the save.
Other things I would do.
Ritual spells expanded greatly, basically raid the 4e rituals for ideas, make some exisitng 5e spells have the ritual tag, etc, and add some mechanics to get more from casting as a ritual by performing a related skill check, with spells that are purely rituals requiring such a check. Stuff like Speak WIth Dead being more reliable if casts with a spell slot or other magical resource, but if you are an expert in Religion you can get more questions or force the dead to specifically try to help you rather than giving indifferent answers, but at the small risk that you will get less than if you had cast it as a normal spell.
Every class would have some "ribbons" that are about worldbuilding, with clearly laid out alternatives for different takes on the class, and notes on just ignoring them if you don't want your class to represent anything in the world beyond what you are capable of doing.
Stuff like, the Alchemist, Warlock, Druid, Bard, might all have a high level ability called Amongst The Wise, that specifically calls out a certain place in the world where people recognzie that Mhor ap Llyn, Arcanist of The Ninth Gate (ie, powerful warlock), is Wise in the sense of Merlin or Gandalf or minor gods of wisdom and knowledge.
The Warlock, Assassin, and Paladins of certain Sacred Orders, might have Into The River, which lets them see into the world of spirits and treat with spirits of Death as if speaking to a fellow mortal, and recognize places of power tied to such things.
Another might be Trust By The People, given to Paladins, Swordmages, and Bards, etc, etc.
These features can also be gained as quest rewards, or as part of special feats.
All PCs have 2 to 4 Contacts, which are chosen from a list of basically Archetypal titles, like, "The Mysterious Family Friend" and "The Small Town Official" and "The Weird". These are characters that can either be detailed during character creation or when the player calls upon them, and they are called upon to help with interaction or exploration challenges or to open doors or otherwise solve a problem that CANNOT EVER BE THE CENTRAL CONFLICT OR PROBLEM OF THE ADVENTURE.
They can get you passage to the insular Genasi city that normally only interacts with the world via merchants that go out from the city to other ports, they cannot convince the Genasi king to call of his invasion of the coastal small folk region with no standing army or navy. That is your job.
Each Contact has a Strain score that you roll against when you call upon them, if you call upon them without maintaining the relationship (a downtime activity) you have to roll against the score, with a chance of harming the relationship semi-permanently, endangering the contact, or having some other complication like gaining a rival or the contact needing a big favor from you.
This is partly a "let the players tell you what they don't have any interest in going through the process of" mechanic, and partly a pacing mechanic, but primarily it ensures that every PC has ties and bonds in the world and a reason to remember them and care about them.
Favors - An easy and fun way to represent having done good deeds for the Troll King is that the Troll King has given you his Favor, or owes you a Favor. Either way, you can call in the Favor to treat the Troll King like a Contact, once, but with some more options like having the character tied to the Favor craft or aquire for you a certain magic item, lend you a dozen archers to cover your escape from a raid you are planning, grant you someone who works for them as a hireling for one adventure, etc.
If you pair it with Reputation mechanics, a certain level of Reputation with the Forest Kingdom might grant you The Troll King's Favor once per level. This could get you
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Not a bad way to think about it.
Youve even got a mundane, a shadow, a primal, and an arcane.
He barbarian could have rages that enhance their defender abilties and rages that lean into damage dealing, amd even some that create passive control effects using auras, all depensing on subclass. Maybe give them a chpice of 6 different Rage of XyZ options at level 2 that flavor the base rage, with an obvious Berserker option for just ramping up the basic damage redyction and output.
I like these ideas. Shifter is a great inbetween race. I am tempted to not have a 'mostly normal' race, but if i do they are a great pick.
My philosophy is that if you have small folk and big folk and bright folk and dark folk and magic folk and wild folk and stoic folk and furries...why do you need a 'human'? We can put a mask on and play literal animals, we can pretend to be of a race of 7+ foot tall people who invented the first mortal language and who can yeet boulders or a race of small clever quick folk with natural magic amd ability to talk to critters.
If someome wants to be 'plain jane the farm girl called to adventure, have them pick a class and then give them the race best suited to that class (of the more humanoid races).
I am so annpyed with my phone. I meant 'cannot be more than 12'. What would your 'corebook' list be if ypu had to cut the list into core and supplementary?
Nice.
FFT?
I like it. All options point back to the vibe of the setting.
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