Evenglare
Adventurer
I suppose this thread could go here or homebrew but since this isn't actually a homebrewed ...thing.... I figured that I would post it in the regular forum. Anyway, let's get on with it.
So, I have been working on a sci-fi RPG for quite a while, a few years now when I can. It started off as a 13th age game built from the ground up using their Archmage Engine. I still might go that route because I can publish it via the OGL and all of that. That being said, I have begun to try and port the various classes and races over and something occurred to me about how to actually present these classes in particular.
5e has a pretty robust class system where I can just make a subclass and call it a day..... but of course that assumes that my new class (as a 5e subclass) gets to take everything the base class offers outside of the subclass. So this won't work for me. Some things in the 5e base classes don't fit my vision of my new classes, it just doesn't mesh well with the sci-fi aspects that I want. This is absolutely fine with me because the fantastic new DM guide has a section that tells me how I can reskin a class, or swap out some abilities or change the spell list etc etc. This is GREAT! So now we get to the point of the topic. If I am going to switch out, remove or replace key features how should that be presented in the book? Should I make an entirely new class and present it as such? Or should I just make the subclass and explain what is different about the base class at the beginning of the subclass?
To my knowledge nothing has come out from wizards that presents something like this. The DM guide gives you ideas for what to do , but not actually how to present that new(or modified) class. Any thoughts? Ideally I would just like to present the new classes as subclasses and explain how it affects the base class, but there are some instances where I change a class feature before they even choose a subclass. The person might not know that fundamental properties of his class has changed in the first few levels. Which is a problem and a hassle to go back through the character sheet and erase/replace some abilities the character has used in the first couple of levels.
So, I have been working on a sci-fi RPG for quite a while, a few years now when I can. It started off as a 13th age game built from the ground up using their Archmage Engine. I still might go that route because I can publish it via the OGL and all of that. That being said, I have begun to try and port the various classes and races over and something occurred to me about how to actually present these classes in particular.
5e has a pretty robust class system where I can just make a subclass and call it a day..... but of course that assumes that my new class (as a 5e subclass) gets to take everything the base class offers outside of the subclass. So this won't work for me. Some things in the 5e base classes don't fit my vision of my new classes, it just doesn't mesh well with the sci-fi aspects that I want. This is absolutely fine with me because the fantastic new DM guide has a section that tells me how I can reskin a class, or swap out some abilities or change the spell list etc etc. This is GREAT! So now we get to the point of the topic. If I am going to switch out, remove or replace key features how should that be presented in the book? Should I make an entirely new class and present it as such? Or should I just make the subclass and explain what is different about the base class at the beginning of the subclass?
To my knowledge nothing has come out from wizards that presents something like this. The DM guide gives you ideas for what to do , but not actually how to present that new(or modified) class. Any thoughts? Ideally I would just like to present the new classes as subclasses and explain how it affects the base class, but there are some instances where I change a class feature before they even choose a subclass. The person might not know that fundamental properties of his class has changed in the first few levels. Which is a problem and a hassle to go back through the character sheet and erase/replace some abilities the character has used in the first couple of levels.