Fantasy Concepts: An OGL Fantasy Saga Project

[Mokona]

Saga Links

I highly recommend everyone read the following so that we can have an informed and meaningful discussion:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview1 - Classes and character creation
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview2 - Skill system
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview3 - Using the Force
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview4 - Combat
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview5 - Advanced combat
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview6 - Droids
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview7 - Sample combat scene
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview8 - Vehicle combat


http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sagaenhancement1 - Tech specialist
Basically covers how to add another "character class" to the Saga system by just adding a talent tree to the existing Scoundrel class.

 

[Mokona]

More Saga Links

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20061214jc100 - Saga Edition overview
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20070322jc101 - Hit points
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20070502jc102 - Heroic classes (and more about skills)
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20070531jc103 - AC and attacks
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20070614jc104 - Streamlining
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20070705jc105 - Q&A

 

[Baron Opal]

To answer Kunimatyu...

Classes: The five or so mentioned previously; Cleric, Fighter, Noble, Thief, Wizard. These should be general enough so that it is feasable to have multiple themes for each class. (Noble for rich merchant's son, influential miner's daughter, &c.)

Talent trees: 3-4 unique trees for each of the five or so classes. I particularly like the division in SWSE between the scout and scoundrel. As I was reading it I could see how I could adapt it to a futuristic Iron Heroes game.

Skills: Twenty consolidated skills would be great. I would like to combine Climb and Jump, and perhaps Swim, into an Athletics skill. Still, we do need to resist combining all skills tied to a particular attribute into the same skill. I like the simplicity of the system as well. Half my group are hard-core gamers, the other half casual. Simplifing the skills, particularly removing the synergies, benefits me greatly due to the decreased teaching load.


Initiative and Endurance as skills: I think it's great that Endurance is a skill, but I'm not sure about Initiative. I do see the theme in that higher level people have an advantage over lower levels.

Defensive Attributes: I really like the unified, static defenses. The biggest bag-a-boo for me is wizards, or other people who are classically ill-defended, and how to reconcile their AC vs saves.

Adverse status condition: The combination of a "major wound" number and the track I think is a great resource. Sometimes the death spiral is just the most appropriate description for a situation. The only thing that I think would be inappropriate would be level / energy drain.

Magic: Vancian magic as the mainstay. I would like a feat / skill system as an alternate path to power, but I'll derive that from the psionic's handbook from Green Ronin if I need to.

 

[EditorBFG]

To answer Kunimatyu...

Classes: The five or so mentioned previously; Cleric, Fighter, Noble, Thief, Wizard. These should be general enough so that it is feasable to have multiple themes for each class. (Noble for rich merchant's son, influential miner's daughter, &c.)

It seems to me that for fantasy, all you need is Cleric, Fighter, Expert, Wizard. Noble and Thief can be both be Experts.

 

[Kunimatyu]

It seems to me that for fantasy, all you need is Cleric, Fighter, Expert, Wizard. Noble and Thief can be both be Experts.

If you really want to be out there, you can have Warrior, Expert, and Adept, especially if the adept has an arcane/divine talent split. People have been complaining about wizards having too few hitpoints in 3.5 for a long time now -- put them together with clerics/druids and balance things out.

 

[drothgery]

If you really want to be out there, you can have Warrior, Expert, and Adept, especially if the adept has an arcane/divine talent split.

... but we already have True20 and the UA generic classes for that.

 

[Baron Opal]

It seems to me that for fantasy, all you need is Cleric, Fighter, Expert, Wizard. Noble and Thief can be both be Experts.

I've played a lot of RuneQuest and various flavors of Tekumel. I can get by with just two classes, fighter and wizard.

But, I like there to be a variety of classes so that multiclassing is an option. When I was looking through the SWSE book, the first character I scketched out was a duros Noble/Jedi. I'd like a similar utility and flexibility in this system.

Thinking about it, if I was going to convert the SWSE classes directly it would be:

Jedi - Cleric
Soldier - Fighter
Scout - Ranger
Scoundrel - Rogue
Noble - Noble (new)

 

[kaomera]

It seems to me that for fantasy, all you need is Cleric, Fighter, Expert, Wizard. Noble and Thief can be both be Experts.

If you do that, though, I'd think you'd need an awful lot of talent trees falling under Expert...

 

[Kunimatyu]

... but we already have True20 and the UA generic classes for that.

Right. Gives you an OGL basis and all that.

 

[Mokona]

Class Theories

There is a balance between "very flexible and generic" and "flavorful and easy to grok". Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5 now has a large number of base classes (in which you can begin your 1st level adventuring career). Cramming all those classes or at least those concepts into Neo-Fighter, Neo-Expert, and Neo-Adept is possible but each class would have a dizzying array of options.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr250 - Grok? Yes, vocabulary time. The word “grok” comes from science fiction author Robert Heinlein’s famous novel Stranger in a Strange Land. In the book the term is defined as such: “Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed – to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science – and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”

Somewhat fewer options for each class is better because it's more grokkable.

Noble and Scoundrel could be the same class if it were called Expert but it's not obvious that a Noble and a Thief would be built from the same class. Once a concept (like the Expert class) becomes too diluted it loses cohesion. The Class for Skills is mechanical and not flavorful while at the same time focusing more on the skill point system we're leaving behind.

What do I suggest?

In an ideal world there would be system very similar to Saga where any class can have magic. Level 1 Paladins would be Fighter 1 + divine talents. Because it's iconic (and because it will always be, or has become over time, easier to grok) we should keep the Cleric and Mage classes. I'd even add a Psionicist class (for the fanatics out there ).

So in an ideal world I'd see the classes as Uber-Fighter, Uber-Rogue, Uber-Scout, Uber-Noble, Uber-Mage, Uber-Cleric, and Uber-Psionicist.

Arcane magic, divine spells, and psionics would be available to all classes (just like a Force Adept can come from the Warrior, Scout, Scoundrel, or Noble class). Weaker powers at each level would be available to other classes while the specialist class would get the high level powers (using standard D&D spell rules).

However my wife, who is very wise, suggests that it may be easier to keep the 11 core classes from the Player's Handbook than argue about and hash out the perfect Saga-like fantasy classes. There would still be a lot of room for 3-4 talent trees each even with Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard as the class list.