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Archetypal vs. Menu-style characters
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Psion said:
Heh, you stole the words from my mouth man, the words from my mouth!
Though I might have said, no - you have a poorly designed spreadsheet... I prefer the 'how does it work in my game?' approach.
About the only class I think is overpowered is the cleric, and considering how hard it used to be in my game to convince somebody to play one I am kind of glad for it...
The Auld Grump
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resistor
First Post
Honestly, I prefer Archetypal for a reason that nobody seems to have mentioned: I like my characters to be different.
I hate systems that, for instance, make a psioni the same as a mage with some "Mental" trait. I want psionics to have a different flavor from magic, and I want the rules I play with to support that!
Additionally, I want my Barbarians to be mechanically different from my Fighters. Again, if they've got separate flavors I want the mechanics to support them differently.
The archetypal system reinforces setting flavor, particularly in new/inexperienced groups.
I hate systems that, for instance, make a psioni the same as a mage with some "Mental" trait. I want psionics to have a different flavor from magic, and I want the rules I play with to support that!
Additionally, I want my Barbarians to be mechanically different from my Fighters. Again, if they've got separate flavors I want the mechanics to support them differently.
The archetypal system reinforces setting flavor, particularly in new/inexperienced groups.
fanboy2000
Adventurer
resistor said:
I think the reason that hasn't been mentioned yet is that it goes against most people's intuition. It dosen't occur to most people that many barbarians and fighters will be the same, mechanically, in a menu-driven character creation system.
JoeGKushner
First Post
Mouseferatu said:
Sounds about right to me.
JoeGKushner
First Post
EricNoah said:
This is one of the things I really enjoyed about Arcana Unearthed/Evolved in that it has variants built into it via the Champion/Witches, and other classes. 3.5 took the game in the right step, but needs to go a little further. For example, AEG's Mercenaries book had the Mercenary Ranger which could pick almost all of it's abilities, including to spellcast or not to spellcast.
fanboy2000 said:
The won't be anymore the same than they are right now in the core system. The only reason that characters would be the same in a menu or point based system is if the player built them exactly the same. At least in a menu system (like in Unearthed Arcana, i personally am not interested in point systems i already have plenty of them) you have the ability to build the type of barbarian you want. Your Warrior character could choose the rage ability and some sneak attack and be the Quiet Fury, or any other combo you can think up of class abilities and feats and skill list choices, etc. Thats a superior option than trying to build a 1001 class archetypes to try and cover all the bases, which is not possible. But, hey, thats just one man's opinion!
fanboy2000
Adventurer
1. I'm not saying they will be exactly the same.PJ-Mason said:The won't be anymore the same than they are right now in the core system. The only reason that characters would be the same in a menu or point based system is if the player built them exactly the same. At least in a menu system (like in Unearthed Arcana, i personally am not interested in point systems i already have plenty of them) you have the ability to build the type of barbarian you want. Your Warrior character could choose the rage ability and some sneak attack and be the Quiet Fury, or any other combo you can think up of class abilities and feats and skill list choices, etc. Thats a superior option than trying to build a 1001 class archetypes to try and cover all the bases, which is not possible. But, hey, thats just one man's opinion!
2 Menu-based systems (particularly ones with no randomness) have a tendency to lead to min/maxing, and that leads to a lot of sameness. In a menu-based system, you only have one class to min/max. (So to speak, I realize the point is that there are no classes.) With an archetypical system, you have several classes to min/max.
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