Class Design: What form should it take

[Jeff Carlsen]

What should classes look like, mechanically? Considering it's going to be modular, there will ultimately be multiple final answers to this question, but it's a chance to look at the pros and cons of previous games and see what's possible.

Personally, I think Star Wars: Saga Edition had a fantastic core design. Five thematic classes, each with multiple talent trees. There was variety within each class, and multiclassing was easy because the classes still resembled Third Edition.

In order to fit Vancian casting into a talent tree, each level of spell would be a talent. Other trees might have metamagic effects or non-vancian magical abilities.

I could see rangers becoming a talent tree of the fighter, and paladins being a talent tree of the cleric.

 

[Light Knight]

I say get rid of classes.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I say get rid of classes.

That will never happen. I prefer classless systems myself, but D&D is a class based game. In fact, it's the class based game. Class and Level are nearly as fundamental to what D&D is as the concepts of roleplaying and fantasy.

 

[GM Dave]

Having each level of a talent tree be a level of spells would certainly work.

I think that to satisfy the Vancian and Non-Vancian crowds they will need to at each level of spells provide a Daily, Encounter, and possibly At-Will choice.

I think that WotC could have saved them some grief in the adoption of 4e if they had not had a single progression of powers in the original core book but had provided choices at each level of At-Will, Encounter, and Daily powers instead of the progression of Daily powers at Levels 1, 5, 9, etc.

This would let the players and GM decide whether they want to go with a design that unloads everything in one or two fights or has resources that can keep going from one fight to the next.

Possibly in Mearles $10 box selection choice example he is hinting at there will be a base set, a slight choice set, and a full choice set where they can have as many daily powers as they want to recreate the Vancian style for players that like that sort of thing.

 

[TrippyHippy]

It's a curious point to make, but I actually think they got the Classes wrong in the original game, particularly in reference to the Cleric Class.

Originally, there were two Classes (Fighting Men and Magic Users), before Clerics were added in order to provide a healing Class. Thieves were named after, and added the first rudimentary skill system to the game. The thing is, Clerics and Thieves aren't Classes in the same sense that Fighters and Magic Users are. They are too specific, and a more of an Archetype than an actual classification. Fighters and Magic Users, on the other hand, are catch-all types that incorporate a wide variety of archetypes (why can't Magic Users be healers?).

Now, Rogues were introduced to broaden out the scope of Thieves (quite effectively) to include all sorts of everymen heroes and nefarious types. They were clearly distinct as a 'Class' and were fun to play. Clerics, on the other hand have always been a bit of a hard sell, whilst at the same time being indespensible because of their healing role. Moreover, they are a forced Class - a holy warrior or spell casting priest could easily be classified amongst the Fighter Class or Magic User Class respectively. Not only this, but they are barely represented in fantasy literature at all.

I do recall 1st edition WFRP actually classified it's Careers originally into Warriors, Rogues, Rangers and Scholars. In some ways, I think this would be a better way of doing things. A Ranger, as a Core Class would incorporate all sorts of wilderness survivalists, as well as hunters, wardens, guides, explorers and healers (think Aragorn). Fighters, could then (with customisation) include slayers, knights, paladins, monks, samurai, warrior-priests, guards and so on. Mages (abbreviated from Magic Users) would include all Wizards, Sorcerers, Witches, Warlocks, Clerics (Priests), Druids, Shamans, Scholars and so on. Rogues would include Thieves, Assassins, Bards?, Treasure-seekers, Everymen, etc.

So we would have just four Classes (Fighter, Mage, Ranger, Rogue), but also a means of customisation, multiclassing, and any number of Prestige Classes to represent personal archetypes of a players choosing. The thing is, players would know that if you wanted to be good at combat skills you need levels in Fighter; if you wanted to use any magic you need some levels in Mage; exploration and survival skills - a Ranger, and the everyman choice still being a Rogue.