D&D 5E Explain your Modular Class Ideas

[n00bdragon]

I have a great idea:

First off, let's standardize various effects that characters can do. Face in, maneuvers, spells. It's all the same thing. Your character has the ability to do X where X is a thing defined in a box. So just come up with a standard format for these things.

Second, lots of things that characters do skirt the line between magical and non-magical. What is a barbarian's rage or a monk's ki abilities? Just like divine and arcane magic have used the same box format for forty years without invading each other's design space too much lets add in the other stuff as well. Everything fits in the box and is distinguished primarily by the sorts of effects it can produce but also by some superficial keywords. It's arcane because it says "Arcane" at the top, etc.

Third, there's a problem with just allowing a player to pick these as they like. Some are obviously more powerful than others and should be reserved until higher levels. In the interest of modularity let's make sure that characters gain these things at the same rate at that those of the same level are roughly equal.

This does a couple things for modularity:
- It makes multiclassing a snap.
- It allows new content to easily fit into an existing framework.
- It makes it easy for other things to reference. You can reference a character's "level one power"

...

Oops, I said a naughty word there didn't I?

 

[Kobold Stew]

<snip>... if 5e delivers on its promises.

There's nothing about increased complexity that necessarily yields a more powerful character. Regardless of their complexities, they can have similar power levels.

This seems to be the only substantial point on which we disagree. The trend we are seeing across playtest packets so far is to loosen things up. Will it help them deliver on (most of) their promises if they tighten things up, reversing this trend? I think, yes.

You say that the optional modules can be used selectively at the same table and characters will have the same power levels. That too is possible, but it is not something we have seen in the playtest packets so far. I look forward to when that happens.

 

[Kinak]

Well, it's not like going the opposite way pleases anyone either. ;-)

Oh, absolutely not. No solution will please everyone.

I just think that trying to please everyone might please the least of all.

So if you wanted to play an archer... you were supposed to use the mechanics of the Ranger, because that was the class with the mechanics for ranged exploits. And if the fluff of the Ranger wasn't your style... the game said to change the fluff (and the occasional skill or whatever) to get you what you wanted.

But we then heard a veritable shatstorm of complaints from players saying that they didn't want to play Rangers, they wanted to play Fighters. And the game wasn't allowing them to. And no, refluffing and changing the Ranger to be a Fighter didn't help. They wanted a Fighter with archery, and that was the end of it.

I wasn't around for that, but totally can see it happening

So, for four iterations, we had both fluff and mechanics set in concrete. And when they told people that fluff was variable and it went over like a lead balloon.

It doesn't necessarily follow, though, that the mechanics should be variable. It's entirely possible that people want the classes to come as a connected package of fluff and mechanics.

Anecdotally, that's what I want and I know several other gamers that have the same tastes. Obviously, I don't expect everyone to agree, but we're out there.

So here was an example of a game making those concrete decisions about what a class was and how it defined your character... and the game getting crapped on because of it. Because the problem is... as I pointed out in the post you quoted... those "concrete decisions" only are any good if you happen to agree with the decision that was made. If they make a decision that you happen to disagree with... then the rule or mechanic is a P.O.S. regardless of how well it was crafted or how "concrete" or "character defining" it was. If you don't like it, then it does you no good.

This is something I actually disagree with you on.

I think that clerics using Vancian casting is one of the dumbest things in D&D. I don't like Vancian casting, I find the flavor that you have to prep your divine interventions jarring, and it just gets clunkier with domain spells and spontaneous heals in 3rd.

But there's a cleric in my current game. He's enjoying himself and rebuffed my none-too-subtle suggestions that I'd allow a spontaneous casting variant. I wouldn't play a Vancian cleric myself, but I don't want to take that away from everyone else.

And, if I did run a game where the flavor went too counter to the world, I could just say "there are no clerics" rather than "clerics here do not use Vancian casting." One tells you something interesting about the world, implying setting, raising questions, and creating hooks you can build on. The other feels more like a nit-picky house rule than a flavorful part of the setting, at least to me.

At the end of the day, I'd rather have a Vancian cleric and spontaneous oracle/favored soul (both with flavor tied to their mechanics). But I'd still rather just have the Vancian cleric like OD&D than have a cleric without a mechanical identity.

Why should that lessen the Wizard's character definition that those who want to use Vancian casting can do so, while those who want to use spell points can do so, while those who want 'encounter-based' spell refresh can do so? The only way it doesn't is if you actually think to yourself that because other tables can play their Wizards in a way you don't think they should play... that somehow lessens the Wizard in your own eyes. That if a spell-point Wizard might actually exist somewhere, then obviously the Wizard isn't well-defined in your eyes and thus the game somehow suffers. THAT kind of self-centered thinking is something that I think all of us need to grow up about.

I think there are a couple of other reasons to oppose that level of customization.

Off the top of my head, I'm already not keen on the number of decision points in character creation. Adding more straws to the camel's back is just asking for trouble.

It also creates some natural balance concerns. Does a spontaneous wizard balance with a spellpoint wizard and a Vancian wizard and an encounter wizard? If they print one overpowered first level spell, for example, does the spellpoint wizard suddenly rule the world? It's not my main concern, but it is valid.

My biggest concern is that it restricts design space. Can you have cure light wounds in a game with encounter or expertise dice clerics? How many ways can a class interact with every spell system to show their flavor? What do you do with any ability that turns out to be broken under one particular magic system but okay under the others?

As I said above, I don't even like Vancian casting, but those are all good reasons why divorcing the wizard from a mechanical base will weaken the class.

If you wanted to switch all wizards to spell points or spontaneous casting or encounter-refresh, I think you'd actually have a very valid point here.

However, I'm not asking to like all of the classes. In fact, I'm perfectly comfortable hating most of the classes as long as somebody likes them. I'm just asking that the classes define a character's mechanical identity and how that identity relates to their flavor, just like they always have.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

There is too much focus on play-style when discussing variant spellcasting. The reason that the developers are correct to pursue modular mechanics is that fantasy settings are most often differentiated by how magic works.

By providing modular mechanics, you can first start by determining how magic works in the setting from a story aspect. This will help you choose the proper mechanics. Then the modules aid you in adapting all of the spellcasting classes to the magic system you're using.

Doing it this way allows the classes to be defined by their place in the setting, not by the mechanics that they use.

 

[ren1999]

How many systems are there?
How does the 5 minute work day affect them?
Why use a system? Keep characters from using deadly area spells every turn?

Recharge
Every Power At-Will
At-Will,E,D,U
XD Expertise Dice
Point Spend
Daily Slot

Rolling Systems
Advantage/Disadvantage
Flat Bonus addition

What other power use systems are there?

 

[I'm A Banana]

A few off the top of me brain:

1) Defiling/Preserving (a la Dark Sun): Depending on the terrain around you, you have a pool of points you can draw on to power magic. The more points you draw on, the more things die and wither. You can also draw on your OWN life-force (hit points!) to power magic instead.

This works best for magic, but I could see a martial variant, too, as a sort of vampire force: your superhuman stunts are powered not by your internal endurance, but by stealing from others. You could also drain your own reserves, but really, why do that?

2) Artificing (a la Eberron): When you rest, you make or recharge magical items. You don't have a personal pool of magic, but your items can unleash spells for you, and you can give your items to anyone you want. The amount of spells you have "active" is limited mostly by how many different bits of kit you want to wield.

Adaptable to martial characters, as these characters build and forge their own weapons and armor, imbuing their soul into it.

...just some first ideas. I think there's likely to be many more magical systems than martial systems, but I bet there's more than a few martial systems, and really either one can be adaptable to the other, with the right fiction.

 

[ren1999]

So a points system taken from your own hit points or those of your victims.

And then a magic artifact system in which each has a dice pool that recharges after an extended rest.
Or you can have a dice pool recharge based on terrain.