Gaining New Powers

[ren1999]

This idea is rough but has some potential.

The character at 1st level can learn 5 powers(spells/exploits/skills/feats all combined) + a number of powers equal to the intelligence modifier(including 1/2 level)

A rouge with an Intelligence Modifier of (-1) will be able to choose 4 rogue skills.

A wizard with a modifier of (+4) chooses 7 1st level spells and spends the rest on ride +2

If the character hasn't chosen any encounter or daily powers,
at-will powers can be cloned and turned into the character's encounter and daily powers by adding +[w] damage, burst range, etc.. They do not count as a learned power at 1st level.

 

[the Jester]

No thanks- we need to stay away from "everyone has the same power structure" in 5e, IMHO.

"Powers" need to be in an optional module, and they need better terminology that actually gets used instead of ignored (when was the last time you saw the term "exploit" in any game material that wasn't a description of a power? And barbarian "invocations"?? WTF?).

 

[ren1999]

I think that everyone should have the same power structure in order to create a better balance and encourage players to choose a variety of classes.

Having skills, spells, rituals, exploits and feats all scattered about is very confusing to all players.

When a wizard level-ups he gets to learn new spells
When a fighter level-ups he gets new exploits.
Rogues get new thievery skills.
Clerics get new prayers.

It should be that simple in my opinion. Why should a wizard get a whole mess of skills when a rouge can't learn spells? Wizards shouldn't have time to learn many new skills as they should be studying their spells. Only by combining and pooling skills with powers can things be fair between characters.

I'm not for the balance between PCs and NPCs. PCs need to be more powerful for the game to work.

 

[B.T.]

One of the positive aspects of D&D is that it is not free-form. Instead, it offers structured character creation and advancement. This gives an entry point for new players into the game. Imagine for a moment the difference between the fighter class and a free-form fighter "point buy."

The new player says, "I want to be good at fighting," so D&D offers him the fighter class. It has a packaged list of benefits, including saving throws, skills, and HD. The new player needs only to fill out the information on his character sheet and is ready to get into the game.

However, let us compare this to the proposed free-form fighter.

The character at 1st level can learn 5 powers(spells/exploits/skills/feats all combined) + a number of powers equal to the intelligence modifier(including 1/2 level)

A rouge with an Intelligence Modifier of (-1) will be able to choose 4 rogue skills.

A wizard with a modifier of (+4) chooses 7 1st level spells and spends the rest on ride +2

If the character hasn't chosen any encounter or daily powers,
at-will powers can be cloned and turned into the character's encounter and daily powers by adding +[w] damage, burst range, etc.. They do not count as a learned power at 1st level.

The new player is thus given a host of intimidating options before him: How many points should he put into Ride? Is he gimping his character by learning Power Attack? Is it better for him to buy Toughness or should he increase damage on that encounter power by 1[W]?

No, that's a bad system. As an optional add-on, it could be workable (even though it would be impossible to balance). Let's keep the game simple and then make it more complicated.

 

[MoonSong]

I think that everyone should have the same power structure in order to create a better balance and encourage players to choose a variety of classes.

Having skills, spells, rituals, exploits and feats all scattered about is very confusing to all players.

When a wizard level-ups he gets to learn new spells
When a fighter level-ups he gets new exploits.
Rogues get new thievery skills.
Clerics get new prayers.

It should be that simple in my opinion. Why should a wizard get a whole mess of skills when a rouge can't learn spells? Wizards shouldn't have time to learn many new skills as they should be studying their spells. Only by combining and pooling skills with powers can things be fair between characters.

I'm not for the balance between PCs and NPCs. PCs need to be more powerful for the game to work.

I don't think so. First, that borders too much into point buy for my tastes, and balance for balance sake is not my cup of tea really(I rather have more organic characters than them feeling like a mathematical equation). Each class should be as complex as needed.
To put an example 3e Bards were pretty complex themselves, with multiple "power sources" within a single class (their spells, their skills, their bardic knowledge, a decent weapon repertory with medium BAB and their bardic music), and they were far easier to play -and far less broken except for Diplomacy-than a wizard who only had his magicks and nothing else. By your equations they should outshine the wizard, rogue, warrior and cleric, yet they never did -and many would complain they were actually underpowered-.

In 4e they were in the exact same estructure as everybody else and were balanced with everybody else, yet they lost most of their appeal (except for the unrestricted multiclassing and exclusive rituals). The spells and songs from 3e had to be mishmashed into weirdness in order to make them fit into the AEDU structure (why would a spell be named song, refrain etc? why not just call them songs? and allow spells to be spells, but the rigid structure just didn't allow for a class to have more than a power source no matter how justified that coulld be) while one of their most interesting NON COMBAT features got reduced to a math feat(and I'm neverr playing a 4e Bard ever unless I try to abuse the system). You can't reduce fun factor into a mathematical formula, every class should be as complex as it has to be (with room to tone up or down as desired) no more no less, no more class homogenization please.

 

[hanez]

classes having the same power structure is a complete and utter dealbreaker for a lot of the people WOTC is trying to win back.