DrSpunj's Class Balance Spreadsheet

[Lonely Tylenol]

Glad to have you aboard, Doctor.

Please come back with any feedback you (and your players) have that might help us improve things!

Sure thing, but it's not likely to be too soon. We're up to our neck in campaigns right now.

And also realize that the Drspunj's Core is simply my own worksheet I used to come up with the values I think work well while trying to stick as close to Core as I wanted to be. It's NOT meant to be the only way to build a Core-like Druid using the system, but it is certainly an example of one way. If you or your player would rather rearrange things here and there, taking some abilities early and pushing others off until later, well, that's the whole point!

Oh, absolutely. It's just that I noticed that inconsistency right away, which made me think that either there was an error, or I hadn't seen some note that would have explained it. I figured that if I'm going to tinker with these classes, I should make sure I know that I understand how the system works.

Anyway, I'll let you know if I manage to get some playtesting in. Thanks for all the hard work!

(edit)

I haven't been through this whole thread yet, so pardon me if this has already been asked: what about class skills? I don't notice any mention of a limited skill list, but only the number of skill points a character gets. Am I to assume that all builds are akashic-like in their ability to put ranks into skills? Or is there some mechanic for the purchasing of a certain number of "class skills" outside of which ranks cost double.

 

[DrSpunj]

Sure thing, but it's not likely to be too soon. We're up to our neck in campaigns right now.

Anyway, I'll let you know if I manage to get some playtesting in. Thanks for all the hard work!

Understood. So many games, so little time.

And I'm honestly just glad some other people have found some use for what I did primarily for my own campaign and problems with the underlying Core system. That's cool!

I haven't been through this whole thread yet, so pardon me if this has already been asked: what about class skills? I don't notice any mention of a limited skill list, but only the number of skill points a character gets. Am I to assume that all builds are akashic-like in their ability to put ranks into skills? Or is there some mechanic for the purchasing of a certain number of "class skills" outside of which ranks cost double.

Right. Quite simply, since there literally are no classes with this system, there are no class skills. That's been a pretty standard House Rule for me in a slightly different way ever since Core 3.0 came out; namely that cross-class skills don't cost double, though they still have lower maximum compared to class skills. If you haven't noticed, I don't like to force or pigeon-hole players/PCs.

That hasn't caused any problems in my games and it seemed very logical that if I was breaking the classes down so you could build the concept you were after more freely, there's nothing so special about Skills that I needed to limit your potential choices beyond "you only have so many skill points so spend them wisely, and if you want more, buy more!"

We're also using Monte's Sneak, I've rolled Open Locks into Disable Device (but kept the Dex check with it instead of Int) and there might be a couple other changes there. But again, those are all House Rules and don't directly impact the Classless System here, so I haven't really made an issue of them.

When I've seen Skill cost threads here before someone always pipes up with "then everyone would take Tumble!". Honestly, that hasn't been a problem for me. While many will take a rank or two (or 5 ), it's mostly so that if they get jumped while sleeping without their Medium or Heavy armor they have a bit better protection and/or option for the battle while fighting "nekkid". It's certainly not been a focus of the PCs any more than I've seen in any straight Core game.

Also realize that I have another House Rule that impacts here: Medium Armor is x3 Run but doesn't reduce your Base Speed (only Heavy Armor does that). I did that because the Armor bonus from Medium Armor isn't that much better than Light Armor. Looking at the PHB you get +4 from a Chain Shirt and only +5 from a Breastplate. Would anyone take +1 AC for a drop of 5' or 10' of Base Speed? Apparently enough of the Core testers did, but I've not seen it more than once or twice in any of the Core games I've been a part of. With this change I now have quite a few warrior-types picking up Medium Armors for the better AC, but this precludes them from using Tumble which can only be done in Light or No armor.

It all works quite well. Obviously, YMMV.

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[ouini]

...(btw, ouini, how the hell did you makes Monks & Martial Arts work, anyway?)...

My list of feats available to 1st level PCs is out at http://www.leepfrog.com/~kwelsch/vale/1st_feats.doc . I just used the idea that when you pay for a feat, you're paying for exactly one feat. So I split your Martial Artist feat into:

• Improved Unarmed Strike
• Flurry of Blows (which you choose to use unarmed or with one class of light weapon) and
• Zen Defense

I split your Martial Arts+ feat into:

• Martial Arts+ (which increases your unarmed damage by one class)
• Fleet of Foot and Advanced Fleet of Foot+
• Flurry of Blows+

...what about class skills?...is there some mechanic for the purchasing of a certain number of "class skills"...

Right. Quite simply, since there literally are no classes with this system, there are no class skills.

I also have no set class skills, but I do it this way:

• At first level, all skills are at cost ("class skill")
• After first level, ranks 1 thru 4 in any skill cost double ("cross-class"), and ranks 5+ are at cost ("class skill").

We're also using Monte's Sneak ... Medium Armor is x3 ... It all works quite well. Obviously, YMMV.

Yeah, your game is working well. I do those, too -- I think they're appropriate.

 

[DrSpunj]

My list of feats available to 1st level PCs is out at http://www.leepfrog.com/~kwelsch/vale/1st_feats.doc . I just used the idea that when you pay for a feat, you're paying for exactly one feat. So I split your Martial Artist feat into:

• Improved Unarmed Strike
• Flurry of Blows (which you choose to use unarmed or with one class of light weapon) and
• Zen Defense

I split your Martial Arts+ feat into:

• Martial Arts+ (which increases your unarmed damage by one class)
• Fleet of Foot and Advanced Fleet of Foot+
• Flurry of Blows+

Right, that I understand (and thanks for the download, your layout is quite a bit better than mine! ). I guess what I was really asking is this:

The last time you and sat down and tried to do that the Core Monk ended up woefully short of CPs to get everything coming to him. Coupled with the fact that neither of us thought the Monk was overpowered (quite the opposite, actually) and we both ended up with no good way to represent the Monk's abilities using CPs while keeping the other (more straightforward classes) in line.

I haven't sat down with your system to try it out, but if you have the first few levels of a Monk laid out using your system I'd love to see how it all comes together.

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[ouini]

Well, there still isn't a one-to-one progression with Monks.

I realized/rationalized our a-la carte pricing system staying consistent with all classes but Monks this way:

The one thing the Monk class does differently from other core/simple classes -- besides buying up all saving throws every level -- is lock the player into lots of specialist feats and feat paths at each and every level. That is, in the core Monk, the reason it's expensive to buy in our system is that you get tons of unwanted, inflexible 'crap' feats.

You get some of this in the Barbarian and Rogue, but the only classes which come close to the Monk's level of "spend your points here, in this way, for this benefit" are the spellcasting classes, which effectively spend most points on spellcasting ability. But spells are amazingly versatile (especially in AU, the system we use), whereas Monk feats and feat paths are extremely narrow in either usefulness, flexibility, or both (Like the three Ki feats (magic, law, adamantine), unencumbered/move feats (fast, faster, faster yet...), or the purity/diamond feat chain).

So the strongest point of our system (versatility) fits a class like fighter (which chooses one of lots of feats every level) really well -- almost too well, as fighters still come out points behind. But it's completely wrong to emulate a class which chooses very specific feats, whether you want them or not, at very specific levels, whether you want them *then* or not.

The upshot is: You get lots of extras you probably don't want by being a core Monk. In our system you'd have to spend points -- more points than you're able to spend -- to get those things. But fortunately, only one person in a billion would want those exact feats at those exact levels. They'd much more likely want to choose whatever feats they *want* to have, even if it means getting fewer overall feats.

So far, my only proof is that the person in the party who took Monk-like fighting feats was completely uninterested in all the other baggage. I'll let you know how it's going after I've had 999,999,999 more players make characters.

 

[Sravoff]

I started working on a feat based class system when somone told me of yours. I finally found it in your sig! Thanks! But..uh...what do you use to open xls files? I haven't yet been able to read it!

Thanks!

-Sravoff

 

[DrSpunj]

I started working on a feat based class system when somone told me of yours. I finally found it in your sig! Thanks! But..uh...what do you use to open xls files? I haven't yet been able to read it!

Thank goodness for subscribed threads!

We're still using this IMC but since discussion died off I have to admit I haven't been updating the files regularly or checking the thread.

.xls files are Microsoft Excel files. I know Excel '97 can open them since I've done it at work. Hopefully that won't be difficult for you to track down.

I have to admit the system has evolved a bit more. The basics are the same, but with the arrival of Iron Heroes we're in the midst of adapting some that into the system as well. Ideally I'll be able to figure out some way to work with the Feat Mastery system Mearls came up with, but at this point we're just moving ahead after ditching Core's Wealth Guidelines and most of the simple statistic booster items like Armor +3, Sword +2, Gloves/Belt/Whatever of Ability +4, etc.

That's allowed us to (following IH's example) increase the free Defense to +1 every odd level, increase all three saves by +1 for free every odd level, use the better free feat ratio of 1st then all Even levels, and we're adopting Skill Groups as well. I put those in the system at 2 CPs at any level (none free at 1st). We're just looking at retooling the party's PCs just as they've reached 4.0 level.

We've also had to mess with Defense a little bit. Similar to what IH does, Defense is akin to Active Defense, meaning you lose it when you're flat-footed. This allows us to neatly stack Defense with Armor & Shield bonuses (which, of course, you keep when flat-footed). To make a bigger distinction between Light Armor and Medium Armor, we've dropped Chain Shirts entirely (like IH does) so there isn't such a no-brainer choice. We're also using the speed rules from IH as well; Medium is 3/4 speed, Heavy is 1/2 speed, both are x3 Run.

This means that you can choose to wear Light Armor and/or use a Shield with a minimal CP proficiency cost (only 1 CP for each) and effectively "save" yourself some CPs by not having to spend them on Defense. Since Light Armor doesn't drop your speed and Masterwork versions have minimal, if any, ACPs this is a straightforward choice for many PCs. OTOH, getting better AC by going to Medium & Heavy armors brings with it some fairly substantial CP savings, but also speed reduction and worse ACPs. Since we're incorporating IH's Skill Challenges & Stunts a big ACP could be more troublesome than in a standard Core game.

I'm still looking at introducing Feat Masteries into the Classless System, but likely won't do it with this campaign unless it's nearly seamless to do so (and my players don't kill me for making any more changes! )

Hope that helps. If anyone's interested I can post the new Revised CP Worksheet and I'll also try and take time to upload the most recent versions of the Classless System.

Thanks!

DrSpunj

 

[Sravoff]

Thanks! Yeah, the updated would be nice. Thanks alot for putting so much time into this!

-Sravoff

 

[DrSpunj]

Thanks! Yeah, the updated would be nice. Thanks alot for putting so much time into this!

As you requested! I've grouped the most current files I have into it's own folder again. I've also attached the Revised CP Worksheet we're just now starting to use after incorporating the Iron Heroes changes I discussed above.

I did glance at the Classless System Excel file before zipping it and realized how much we've tweaked since January. Little things, but overall each was important. For instance, we ended up dropping the Thrown Martial Weapon Proficiency Group since there wasn't much in it except a few Exotics (and not worth the CPs except in the most extreme case!), so now if you take the Exotic Weapons WPG it adds these Exotic Thrown Weapons to the Simple WPG, effectively saving you 1 or 3 CPs on the now eliminated Martial WPG.

Regardless, I'm very happy with Iron Heroes and am looking forward to seeing how it affects our gameplay. The conversions look pretty straightforward with everyone saving a few CPs with the increased free Defense & Saves but putting them nearly right back into Skill Groups, so not much change otherwise. With the increased free feats their 3rd level feat moves back to 2nd and they all get to choose a free feat (or effectively have 4-5 CPs extra to spend) now at 4th level.

This doesn't overpower them considering the storyline hasn't given them a whole lot of treasure and they were just on the brink of needing to buy a bunch of +1 armor/shields/weapons/etc. This way they effectively get to decide how to power up each level without me fabricating appropriate treasure or dropping a magic shoppe in every little hamlet.

As for experience, originally I was taking the XP needed to reach the next level and dividing it by 10. Each time they earned 1/10 of what they needed they got 1 CP, and when they reached the level break they got a bonus CP to get to 11 CPs for the level. While that was fine, I realized it was a lot of math for not too much gain, so pretty quickly I just started handing out a few CPs depending on what they accomplished that session. Most sessions were 2 or 3 while a real big combat ended up being 4 CPs. It's worked really well. Everyone gets to dynamically "spend" their CPs after getting a good night's (uninterrupted) rest.

One other thing we agreed upon pretty quickly was that you only get the freebies at the level break, so if you're 1 CP shy of 4th level (effectively level 3.9) and aren't buying up your Hit Points over the base d4+2 then you don't get those HP until you hit level 4.0. OTOH, if you spend some CPs to get an "upgrade" (like d4+4 or +6 or +8) then you get the HP right away.

This worked fine for most everything except the free +1 BAB that everyone gets at even levels. Some PCs wanted their +1 BAB early so they met the prereqs to get a particular feat before the level break, so we agreed on the following: you can buy your +1 BAB early for the same 4 CPs it costs at odd levels, and when you hit the level break and get it for free those 4 CPs are essentially refunded to you so you can spend them on something else. This has worked well since someone that wanted to buy it early could but at the same time couldn't use those CPs for anything else until they hit the level break and everyone got their freebies.

Hope that all makes sense and is at least somewhat useful.

Thanks!

DrSpunj

 

[Sravoff]

Do you plan on getting a PDF version done at all? I need to get an excel reader still so....Thanks for the updated version!

-Sravoff