Design of classes: Warrior, Arcane, Divine, Adventurer

[MerricB]

To some extent, D&D assumes four basic roles (as shown in the Complete series) for PCs. A "balanced" party has at least one of each role.

The Warrior - mainly distinguished by a full Base Attack. Classes that try to fill the warrior role without full Base Attack generally seem lacking; see Monk and Soulknife. Good examples are the Fighter and the Barbarian.

The Arcane - mainly distinguished by a wide range of utility and offensive spells. Arcane casters tend to need to be able to teleport, fly, cast area effect damaging spells (such as fireball) and suchlike. The Wizard and Sorcerer do well as the arcane, but the Druid comes close, strangely enough (especially with the SC).

The Adventurer - is a weird classification, but generally a class with Search as a class skill and Trapfinding fills the role. So, Rogue, Factotum, and Scout all work. The basic point of the Adventurer is to be able to deal with non-combat threats, especially traps and hidden features.

The Divine - mainly distinguished by the ability to cast healing spells. In particular, a good divine must be able to heal damage, ability damage, ability drain, level loss, and death, especially as the levels increase. Unfortunately, amongst the PHB classes, only the cleric can fulfill this role. The inability for the druid to cast restoration and thus remove ability drain and level loss is a massive drawback.

After that, there are the so-called "Fifth Wheel" classes, of which the Bard leads the pack.

I've sort of foisted these choices on the group who will soon be playing the Shackled City AP - there are only four PCs, and the AP tend to need all the bases covered. (It looks like, at this point, we'll have a Dwarf Fighter, Human Factotum, Human Cleric of Zagyg, and some arcanist).

Personally, I think the inability of the druid to cast Restoration is a mistake. If I was doing some redesign of D&D, I'd probably make a special feature of the cleric that they could cast cure spells as a swift action - the problem with a cleric isn't really their abilities, it's that they lose half their actions (or more) to keeping the party alive.

Wizards have been good at designing adventurers of late, and the Arcane blaster is well covered, and in some ways a lack of Utility spells from a Warlock or similar in the arcane position can be covered by magic items. (esp. using MIC).

So, what do you think?

Cheers!

 

[Sammael]

Going archetype by archetype, I'd do the following:

Give the warrior more stuff to do, both in combat and outside of it.
Make sure the mage has an alternative for when he runs out of spells.
Remove the design philosophy that forces the priest to buff and heal all the time. Either make those actions quicker to perform as Merric suggested), or spread them across other archetypes as well. For instance, I think the Heal skill should be a lot more useful than it currently is, and a fighter with ranks in Heal should be able to relieve the cleric of some of his healing duty - at least outside of combat. The Marshal class from MiniHB was a step in the right direction, but too lacking in implementation. So was the Hexblade.

The only archetype that's perfectly fine is the adventurer. There are so many options for them that I don't think they really need anything more.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Interesting idea, giving clerics swift healing. OTOH, druids and clerics are powerful enough as it is. I've never felt healing in combat to be a good idea as healing spells prior to Heal are pretty weak. The cleric is usually a lot better off dealing damage than healing.

 

[Klaus]

To some extent, D&D assumes four basic roles (as shown in the Complete series) for PCs. A "balanced" party has at least one of each role.

The Warrior - mainly distinguished by a full Base Attack. Classes that try to fill the warrior role without full Base Attack generally seem lacking; see Monk and Soulknife. Good examples are the Fighter and the Barbarian.

The Arcane - mainly distinguished by a wide range of utility and offensive spells. Arcane casters tend to need to be able to teleport, fly, cast area effect damaging spells (such as fireball) and suchlike. The Wizard and Sorcerer do well as the arcane, but the Druid comes close, strangely enough (especially with the SC).

The Adventurer - is a weird classification, but generally a class with Search as a class skill and Trapfinding fills the role. So, Rogue, Factotum, and Scout all work. The basic point of the Adventurer is to be able to deal with non-combat threats, especially traps and hidden features.

The Divine - mainly distinguished by the ability to cast healing spells. In particular, a good divine must be able to heal damage, ability damage, ability drain, level loss, and death, especially as the levels increase. Unfortunately, amongst the PHB classes, only the cleric can fulfill this role. The inability for the druid to cast restoration and thus remove ability drain and level loss is a massive drawback.

After that, there are the so-called "Fifth Wheel" classes, of which the Bard leads the pack.

I've sort of foisted these choices on the group who will soon be playing the Shackled City AP - there are only four PCs, and the AP tend to need all the bases covered. (It looks like, at this point, we'll have a Dwarf Fighter, Human Factotum, Human Cleric of Zagyg, and some arcanist).

Personally, I think the inability of the druid to cast Restoration is a mistake. If I was doing some redesign of D&D, I'd probably make a special feature of the cleric that they could cast cure spells as a swift action - the problem with a cleric isn't really their abilities, it's that they lose half their actions (or more) to keeping the party alive.

Wizards have been good at designing adventurers of late, and the Arcane blaster is well covered, and in some ways a lack of Utility spells from a Warlock or similar in the arcane position can be covered by magic items. (esp. using MIC).

So, what do you think?

Cheers!

I go quite a but further in the party roles. The iconic party fulfills 9 roles:

Primary Combat: High BAB, High AC, High hp, High damage output
Secondary Combat: Helps Primary Combat
Opportunistic Combat: Archery or mobility oriented, but low staying power
Magic Artillery: Big BOOM spells
Support Magic: Buffs, counterspells, divination, transport
Reconaissance: Sneaks around and/or asks questions, wilderness survival, avoids party being surprised
Healing: Cure wounds, removes poison, dispels adverse effects
Trap-dealing: Finds and disarms traps, mundane and magical
Undead-dealing: Turns undead and/or protects party from undead abilities

Fighter: Primary Combat
Cleric: Healing, Support Magic, Undead-dealing, Secondary Combat
Wizard: Magic Artillery, Support Magic
Rogue: Reconaissance, Opportunistic Combat, Trap-dealing

From the PHB:
Barbarian: Primary/Secondary Combat, Reconaissance
Bard: Support Magic, Opportunistic Combat, Reconaissance
Druid: Support Magic, Healing, Reconaissance, Secondary Combat
Monk: Reconaissance, Opportunistic Combat
Paladin: Primary Combat, Undead-dealing, Healing
Ranger: Secondary Combat, Reconaissance, Healing
Sorcerer: Magic Artillery

 

[Remathilis]

I've usually defined the fifth-wheel classes as "boosters". They include the bard, artificer, marshal, divine mind, and dragon shaman. They're job is to improve other people's jobs and do a bit of something else. Like a Divine though, they can be a bit boring to play mechanically.

There have been some anomalies of late as a new thing: classes not so rigidly defined. For example: is a beguiler an adventurer or arcane. They have 9th level spells (and spells per day like a sorc) but also have trapfinding and 6 skill points/level? Is a duskblade a warrior or arcane?

 

[Set]

One older solution to the healing dilemna was to have a player character have a single humanoid Hit Die of actual hit points, and the remaining class level dice count as special 'vitality points.' Hit points required slow healing over days, or magical healing, but the vitality points came back at an accelerated rate, and alchemical salves and the healing skill could quickly restore them.

A 10th level Fighters 100 hit points might consist of 10 'real' hit points, but the other 90 would be able to be much more quickly restored with non-magical healing, with rest and the heal skill, bardic encouragement, etc. as they represent fatigue, bruising, exertion, etc. and not actual damaged tissue.

Other creatures, such as an Elephant, would have half 'real' hit points and half vitality points, so that they also recover quickly, if they are only wounded to 50%, but after that, the injuries become significant and might require days to heal. One alternate to this system just used the 50% number for everyone, so the 10th level Fighter with 100 hit points would have 50 'real' hit points, and 50 vitality points that come back more quickly, allowing a Fighter who makes it through a battle only taking 30 'points' of damage to rest for a few hours using the Heal skill and be ready to fight again, having suffered only 'flesh wounds.'

Yet another variation was to halve the damage as it's dealt. Instead of the first 50 hit points being 'temporary' vitality damage, a 10 hit point hit would inflict 5 'vitality' points and 5 actual hit points, which would basically halve the need for magical healing, but not allow that Fighter to wade through the first 50 points of damage before being actually 'hurt.'


In other news, our adventuring parties have just about never had a skill-monkey or rogue. None of us like them. Fighters, Clerics and Mages. That's it.

 

[MerricB]

Interesting idea, giving clerics swift healing. OTOH, druids and clerics are powerful enough as it is. I've never felt healing in combat to be a good idea as healing spells prior to Heal are pretty weak. The cleric is usually a lot better off dealing damage than healing.

The thing is, being able to cast restoration *isn't* powerful. It's something you do to allow the adventure to continue. (I had one game where there wasn't a cleric in the group; the nearest high-level cleric was about 2 months travel away, and a PC got drained to 5 Con. Hmm). I like ability drain and damage, and it often causes interesting resource decisions to be made, but someone in the party needs to be able to fix it.

Healing spells with Augment Healing (CD) can be powerful. I spent a lot of time with my Cleric of Pelor in a Greyhawk Ruins (3e conversion) campaign just keeping the barbarian going.

High level combat in D&D can be a bit too brutal - the fighter can take 100-200 points in a round, which has to be healed or he dies. The cleric ends up not engaging in combat, but just keeping people going, which isn't my idea of fun. (With swift healing, I'd redesign the cleric somewhat to tone down power in other areas).

Cheers!

 

[Klaus]

The thing is, being able to cast restoration *isn't* powerful. It's something you do to allow the adventure to continue. (I had one game where there wasn't a cleric in the group; the nearest high-level cleric was about 2 months travel away, and a PC got drained to 5 Con. Hmm). I like ability drain and damage, and it often causes interesting resource decisions to be made, but someone in the party needs to be able to fix it.

Healing spells with Augment Healing (CD) can be powerful. I spent a lot of time with my Cleric of Pelor in a Greyhawk Ruins (3e conversion) campaign just keeping the barbarian going.

High level combat in D&D can be a bit too brutal - the fighter can take 100-200 points in a round, which has to be healed or he dies. The cleric ends up not engaging in combat, but just keeping people going, which isn't my idea of fun. (With swift healing, I'd redesign the cleric somewhat to tone down power in other areas).

Cheers!

When there's no cleric in the party, the DM might want to make feats like Unquenchable Flame of Life, Enduring Life (both Libris Mortis), Mind of Body and Rapid Metabolism (both XPH) easier to get.

The Libris Mortis feats allow a character to ignore negative levels for a few rounds, and then attempt a Fort save to remove a negative level once per round (since one hour has 600 rounds, you're pretty much guaranteed to succeed in removing all negative levels before 24 hours go by.

The XPH feats (which are General feats, not Psionic) allow a character to recover from ability damage and to heal hit points naturally much faster.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Make sure the mage has an alternative for when he runs out of spells.

Scribe Scroll and Craft Wand.

 

[Remathilis]

My group came out really good for my Eberron game.

Human Fighter (Melee/Tank)
Human Cleric (Healing)
Halfling Artificer (Booster/Traps)
Human Wizard (Blaster)
Half-elf Rogue (Traps/sneak)
Warforged Fighter/Cleric (Melee/Tank/Healing)

I have two warriors as needed, a priest and a backup priest, two warforged healers, a blaster (esp thanks to reverse feats), a sneak, and two trapfinders. So far, they're doing good, but they are only 3rd level...

Still everyone manages to fill a role or two. In a few levels, they will be totally self-sufficient as a group.