D&D 5E Doing 5ed without classes.

[nomotog]

Definitely something that's been on my mind.

I can tell that proficiency bonus takes care of much of the heavy lifting accuracy-wise. We'll want something to scale damage, too - I think the spell scaling rules from the DMG might come in handy here, but the actual classes have a pretty high variation (sneak attack, extra attacks, spells, some combination of the above). Monster HP might be a starting point for that, too (with the 3 hits/monster estimation). What I'd like is something more robust for determining damage/level (has anyone over on CharOp done an average damage/level chart? That could be useful info).

Once you have that, it's just a matter of figuring out what level of horizontal advancement you want. 1 feat/level can work okay, but the playing field is a little all over the place (some class features are DEFINITELY worth more than 1 feat, but you can't swap 'em for ability score advancements; others are weaker than 1 feat), so you might want to create a category for those "bigger than a feat" things.

Mostly its the damage-per-round/level holding me up from getting a good handle on it, but that seems like a solvable problem. While it dramatically changes the feel of play, I don't think it's nearly as impossible as some posit.

I really do love proficiency bonuses because they are so easy to hack. They take a lot of the work out of most of my ideas.

With HP, I thought about just using con + some number. Want to be more HPy then just bump your con. (I thought bout doing something like con x 2, but you know negative mods.) With damage, ya I guess we can just come up with an average damage and plug a slightly smaller number in as a level bonus. (One thought I have is that some games use equipment and weapons for damage advancement. It might be too excremental and something I would complain about if it was standard.)

Ya the one feat a level idea is way too weak, could just double it, but two feats a level would end up being a lot of feats. Buffing up feats could be done, but that's a lot of writing. Maybe add in talents at different levels. Like we can pull apart the classes and then add back their abilities in talents you get at every other level.

(You also could just forget about advancement, Limit your hack to the first few levels and don't worry about scaling to higher levels. Just sprawl out from low level.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Classless is, I think, distinct from level-less, and you'll want a handle on which one you're doing (or if you're doing both).

Classless would mean you still advance, you just do so outside of a class structure, so your "features" are more a la carte (I'd create new features rather than re-purposing existing class features). 5e multiclassing almost does this already.

Levelless would mean that you don't really advance, you stay within the same zone of accuracy, a little like 4e's level structure, and gain versatility and variety without much oomph. That's also possible, but it's a different challenge (in some ways, easier!).

4e in general is a better fit for both of those schemes, but I imagine it's possible in 5e, too, it's just about locking down the maths a little tighter.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Very tricky. One "feat" per level wouldn't be enough, as classes often get two, more if you're going to count things like caster levels and hit dice as "feats." And some of those abilities are "ribbons" while others scale with level (eg, a wizard's Arcane Recovery gives them an extra Magic Missile at level 1, an extra Wish at level 18).

Arcane Recovery can't give you slots over 5th level. Make that "an extra Polymorph and a Wall of Force at level 18."

 

[nomotog]

Classless is, I think, distinct from level-less, and you'll want a handle on which one you're doing (or if you're doing both).

Classless would mean you still advance, you just do so outside of a class structure, so your "features" are more a la carte (I'd create new features rather than re-purposing existing class features). 5e multiclassing almost does this already.

Levelless would mean that you don't really advance, you stay within the same zone of accuracy, a little like 4e's level structure, and gain versatility and variety without much oomph. That's also possible, but it's a different challenge (in some ways, easier!).

4e in general is a better fit for both of those schemes, but I imagine it's possible in 5e, too, it's just about locking down the maths a little tighter.

I am thinking classless. I don't know how you got the idea I was thinking about dropping levels?


A thought. When it comes to scaling powers, I don't like retaking the same thing over and over. Like if you take sneak attack at level 1, It doesn't feel good to then have to buy the upgrades for it over and over (unless they actually change how it works.) I think with the talent idea, it might be something like you get a talent at levels 1 3 5 and 10 with them scaling from there so you only take each ability once. (Front loaded because no reason you should have to wait for your character type.)

 

[Wik]

How I'd do it:

You get a couple of base classes. Let's say we go with two base classes - warrior and specialist. Warriors get good hit dice, specialists get more skills. You pick two saves, one is a good save (CON, DEX, or WIS) and the other is not so good.

Each level, you get a "perk". A perk is one of the class abilities that exist in the game - spellcasting (based on class), etc. Perks higher up on the class tree have prerequisites (so, for example, to get the rogue's expertise, it could require training in stealth and sneak attack).

Spellcasting requires you to spend a perk to unlock the next tier. So, you have spellcasting I through IX. Each has a minimum level. Ultimately, if you want to be full-classed spellcaster in two different classes, that's ALL you're gonna spend your perks on, as you'd have to unlock each level as you go.

Every other class ability (Sneak attack for example) is "fire and forget". Some, like action surge, might require an extra pick later on in the tree, but if you go this way, add a rider effect.

Be aware that this will make super specialist PCs. If you want to avoid that, have "perks" and "ribbons". "Ribbons" are non-combat abilities (Thieves' Cant, favoured terrain, etc). You get a perk every odd level (including 1st), and a ribbon every even level. Doing this, however, will make spellcasters weaker than in normal D&D, because they'll have to focus entirely on spellcasting.

 

[Crothian]

D&D is not, never has been, and never will be one of those.

In the bright days of 3ed D&D there was a product made called Buy the Numbers that brilliantly made a classless version of D&D. It was ground breaking and sadly never got the praise it deserved. If I wanted classless 5e I would start with this product and just adapt it. All the heavy lifting is already done.

 

[Evenglare]

A few thoughts in general in OP's defense.
First, the community should be supportive of people trying to explore and tinker with base mechanics of a game. If OP wants to make a classless game you should encourage him. Just because something is hard to do and possibly hasn't worked well in the past doesn't mean that OP should abandon his idea. If anything that should inspire him to climb the mountain where others have failed. Just because something is hard doesn't mean a person shouldn't try. That's a REALLY crappy mentality on the way to live life in general.

Two, people say "Why not go to X system instead of reinventing to wheel". Well if OP is anything like I am, it's because I don't WANT to use X system and I like the way D&D or whatever system I'm using does things. Mutants and masterminds is a great system, but OP doesn't want to play a mutant and masterminds game. He wants to play D&D as a classless system. Mutants and masterminds doesn't run like D&D. If OP likes things such as proficiency bonuses, bounded accuracy, D&D magic system, HP system, etc you think M&M has that?! I'd wager that morphing M&M's base system to play like D&D would be a MUCH harder time than making a classless D&D. Also it's not as easy to switch to another game. If we were talking video games sure, but we are talking about OP and his entire gaming group. People don't want to learn entirely new systems, its much easier to introduce system tweaks to a game that people already know.

In otherwords, just encourage OP and anyone who wants to do something. You don't have to play it, and if OP wants to make this stuff then you should give him ideas on how to do things right instead of saying "Just go play X system it's already done for you". That kind of thinking brings nothing to the table and adds nothing to the conversation of adding new game mechanics to D&D. I've seen so many people crap on other's ideas and it's... it's just sad. The community is so rabid about playing imagination games.

 

[Blue]

Very tricky. One "feat" per level wouldn't be enough, as classes often get two, more if you're going to count things like caster levels and hit dice as "feats." And some of those abilities are "ribbons" while others scale with level (eg, a wizard's Arcane Recovery gives them an extra Magic Missile at level 1, an extra Wish at level 18).

It could be done, but it would be a lot of work, and probably riddled with munchkin powergaming holes. You're basically stripping down the whole class system and rebuilding it.

I remember someone putting together a "build your own class" which gave you points to get features from existing classes and it was very easy to combine different ones that worked too well together. Or build a suboptimal PC that couldn't hold their own in any of the pillars.

Maybe if features had keywords, and taking more of the same keyword increased costs. So trying to design a one trick pony ate up too many points, and picking a bunch of unrelated things didn't cost a lot so they still had some points to have a niche of competence. But that's a lot of work and there will still be clever players finding corner cases.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Most of what differentiates your character from the next guy is class - with race and background runners up.

Without class, you could still use backgrounds & races, and you could take the things all classes have in common as a baseline by which characters advance. So, for instance, proficiency would still work: players could pick some proficiencies and get better at those weapons, tools, or skills as they advance. ASIs/feats could still be picked every 4th level.

But, as far as anything more interesting there's not a lot to go on. You could pick one class (like Sorcerer, for instance) or create a "class" (non-class), that gives a basic framework with lots of choices so each character could be customized, and just re-skin like crazy.

 

[DnDingus]

Plenty of RPG systems out there work wonderfully without classes.

D&D is not, never has been, and never will be one of those.

Original D&D having classless options
Am I a joke to you?
Latter editions have various monster character options without classes
We also have some questions about your comments...