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How Important is it that Warlords be Healers?
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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6104325" data-attributes="member: 37579"><p>Very true, but wouldn’t advocate making a separate class based around the “aggressive proselytizer”</p><p>(as much as I love playing fire and brimstone preachers). Likewise the “drooling dagger mage” doesn’t need to be a class either. You could make it a class, but it’s not particularly broad.</p><p> </p><p>Here’s the thing, you could easily make an awesome Proselytizer class that focused on damning individuals, inducing guilt-based penalties, and had an innate charm ability based on preaching as it sways people to their side. And it’s very different from the traditional portrayal of the martial warrior-cleric of earlier editions with scale armour and heavy mace. You could have a lot of fun with that.</p><p>But that’s not a class or even a build of the cleric so much as a character concept.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Umm... I know because they told us on the WotC website.</p><p>I believe it was in one of the Design & Development articles for PHB3, likely the seeker. They took many of the ideas behind the theoretical martial controller and applied it to the seeker.</p><p>Reading between the lines, the seeker potentially evolved from the martial controller experiments. They couldn’t make it work as well as they wanted without magic so we got a more magical variant of the ranger.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I did play 4e.</p><p>I ran 4e for over a year (until my game collapsed for entirely non-4e reasons) and played in two campaigns, one that lasted over a year and one that died a short death. I’ve even popped into Encounters a few times And I’ve done quite a bit of 4e writing and design for both my website and other sites.</p><p> </p><p>But we’re not only talking about 4e, we’re talking about what comes next in 5e. And I don’t think we need to break-up classes into three or four subclasses based on combat role any more. Folding the concepts back into existing classes makes those more flexible, customizable, and grand. The cleric becomes more than just the healbot because, with the right build, she can also invoke the word of her god or serve as the assassin of her god.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I’m curious how you’d make an intelligent investigator. I mean - of course- the Dracula van Helsing not the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing (who’d be a pretty straight ranger).</p><p> </p><p>I think 5e would do well to embrace that kind of design and perfect it. Perhaps that means making more things sub-classes, shifting some options around between being a class and being something else, but I don't think it means you should have far fewer classes. I also think that the whole concept of stacking together different classes ala AD&D MCing never worked well. I'd rather come at it from 4e's direction and just make classes with enough options to encompass what people want and enough customization to tweak it to your needs.</p><p>Subclasses akin to the Pathfiner archetypes would be good, because they’re very space efficient. Sub-classes like the Essentials “subclasses” not so much, as those were pretty much different classes with very few shared mechanics. Space is finite in the books and full classes take-up a LOT of space. Every class you add devours enough space for two or three rules modules or a six or eight specialities.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a number of side reason for fewer classes.</p><p>First, is the aforementioned space. Second is that subclasses and new classes support new characters. This hurt 4e as almost every book supported new characters and had lesser support for existing characters. Focusing on feats and powers that build on existing classes benefit existing characters, which make the books and content more appealing to people already playing.</p><p>Third is the narrative element, which is actually two reasons in one. Classes do have a role in the world. Every new class - just like every monster or race - has a role in the world. (Or should.) Adding a new option makes work for the DM who suddenly has to fit avengers or seekers or runepriests into the paradigm of their world, but without making them seem tacked-on or superfluous. But there’s also the narrative as seen by the players. When a DM introduces a monster, it’s easy to picture it being a wizard or fighter or barbarian. Those are bigger than D&D and carry weight, which makes it easier to picture a “gnoll barbarian” than a “gnoll avenger”, especially if you haven’t read all the books.</p><p>It’s also slightly easier for new players. Everyone knows what a “wizard” and a “fighter” are, and with Warcraft and Diablo everyone knows what a druid, rogue, and paladin are. But a seeker or battlemind requires some explanation. They’re harder to gronk when you’re just trying to understand the game.</p><p> </p><p>Now, none of these reasons are particularly solid in and of themselves. But together it’s a lot. This isn’t to say there should be no new classes ever, but I don’t think we need two or three every book. You can get away with a couple unique-to-D&D classes (especially if they’re world-specific) but of the 23 pre-Essentials classes 12 were unique to D&D. That’s half the classed in the game. And 3e was sooooo much worse.</p><p> </p><p></p><p>I’ll concede to your expertise as my Vance is rusty.</p><p></p><p></p><p>They come from the Design & Development articles on the website or designer blogs.</p><p> </p><p></p><p>The mechanics suggest mind-over-matter while the fluff pains the idea of characters fueled by ego, but there’s a heck of a lot of powers that fit neither theme and there are a heck of a lot of interrupts.</p><p></p><p></p><p>If you <em>need </em>to play a class for its uniqueness to be apparent it’s likely too tied to its mechanics.</p><p>Both the mechanics and the story need to be strong. Mechanics are great for any other game but RPGS are story-based games. Story matters. Story is what makes the games unique and different.</p><p> </p><p>I can appreciate great mechanics, but if I just want solid mechanics I can play a euro-game. I buy RPGS for the story and inspiration for stories. I have spent so much money on RPGs I will never, ever use (sometimes because the mechanics are crap) because the story and world and flavour hooked me. I spent weeks reading the <em>Eclipse Phase</em> and am still fascinated by the world but when I get to the mechanics I feel like I've been hit in the head by a brick. I'd <em>like</em> to play but just cannot devote the time to reading through that much crunch.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That was just a quick example. There are also things like fear, horror, curses, and madness. I think they did some in <em>Dragon</em> well after I stopped playing 4e.</p><p> </p><p>But optional rules are pretty vital. Nobody plays the game the same way and not everyone feels comfortable making heavy house rules. But 4e has almost no optional rules and they tend to be very small.</p><p> </p><p>Okay, I lied up above. While I buy side RPGS books for story and inspiration and hooks, I buy books for games I do plan on running for mechanics. While I feel comfortable kitbashing the living f___ out of a game system to make it fit my style, I'd rather a professional do much of that work for me.</p><p>Optional rules and variable play often mean the difference between me playing the game or just using the books for inspiration (and if the books don't even offer inspiration, then I just won't buy).</p><p></p><p></p><p>The DMG2 rules were nice, if they weren't buried in some forgotten section in the back of the book. I always had to hunt for those rules and they're never where I think they'll be. Not that it did me any good, because my group relied on the character builder like a crutch and by the time the inherent bonuses were implemented I'd already given out more treasure than I had in my previous three campaigns combined.</p><p> </p><p>I'm glad you've managed to have fun playing 4e and not stumbled into the troubles that made my game a morass of pain or derailed so many other people's games. It took me far, far too long to "get" 4e and start writing adventures that complimented the edition.</p><p>While I'm sure that with enough time I could have eventually figured out how to use 4e to tell the stories I wanted to tell, there were no shortage of games that did it without heavy modification.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 6104325, member: 37579"] Very true, but wouldn’t advocate making a separate class based around the “aggressive proselytizer” (as much as I love playing fire and brimstone preachers). Likewise the “drooling dagger mage” doesn’t need to be a class either. You could make it a class, but it’s not particularly broad. Here’s the thing, you could easily make an awesome Proselytizer class that focused on damning individuals, inducing guilt-based penalties, and had an innate charm ability based on preaching as it sways people to their side. And it’s very different from the traditional portrayal of the martial warrior-cleric of earlier editions with scale armour and heavy mace. You could have a lot of fun with that. But that’s not a class or even a build of the cleric so much as a character concept. Umm... I know because they told us on the WotC website. I believe it was in one of the Design & Development articles for PHB3, likely the seeker. They took many of the ideas behind the theoretical martial controller and applied it to the seeker. Reading between the lines, the seeker potentially evolved from the martial controller experiments. They couldn’t make it work as well as they wanted without magic so we got a more magical variant of the ranger. I did play 4e. I ran 4e for over a year (until my game collapsed for entirely non-4e reasons) and played in two campaigns, one that lasted over a year and one that died a short death. I’ve even popped into Encounters a few times And I’ve done quite a bit of 4e writing and design for both my website and other sites. But we’re not only talking about 4e, we’re talking about what comes next in 5e. And I don’t think we need to break-up classes into three or four subclasses based on combat role any more. Folding the concepts back into existing classes makes those more flexible, customizable, and grand. The cleric becomes more than just the healbot because, with the right build, she can also invoke the word of her god or serve as the assassin of her god. I’m curious how you’d make an intelligent investigator. I mean - of course- the Dracula van Helsing not the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing (who’d be a pretty straight ranger). I think 5e would do well to embrace that kind of design and perfect it. Perhaps that means making more things sub-classes, shifting some options around between being a class and being something else, but I don't think it means you should have far fewer classes. I also think that the whole concept of stacking together different classes ala AD&D MCing never worked well. I'd rather come at it from 4e's direction and just make classes with enough options to encompass what people want and enough customization to tweak it to your needs. Subclasses akin to the Pathfiner archetypes would be good, because they’re very space efficient. Sub-classes like the Essentials “subclasses” not so much, as those were pretty much different classes with very few shared mechanics. Space is finite in the books and full classes take-up a LOT of space. Every class you add devours enough space for two or three rules modules or a six or eight specialities. There’s a number of side reason for fewer classes. First, is the aforementioned space. Second is that subclasses and new classes support new characters. This hurt 4e as almost every book supported new characters and had lesser support for existing characters. Focusing on feats and powers that build on existing classes benefit existing characters, which make the books and content more appealing to people already playing. Third is the narrative element, which is actually two reasons in one. Classes do have a role in the world. Every new class - just like every monster or race - has a role in the world. (Or should.) Adding a new option makes work for the DM who suddenly has to fit avengers or seekers or runepriests into the paradigm of their world, but without making them seem tacked-on or superfluous. But there’s also the narrative as seen by the players. When a DM introduces a monster, it’s easy to picture it being a wizard or fighter or barbarian. Those are bigger than D&D and carry weight, which makes it easier to picture a “gnoll barbarian” than a “gnoll avenger”, especially if you haven’t read all the books. It’s also slightly easier for new players. Everyone knows what a “wizard” and a “fighter” are, and with Warcraft and Diablo everyone knows what a druid, rogue, and paladin are. But a seeker or battlemind requires some explanation. They’re harder to gronk when you’re just trying to understand the game. Now, none of these reasons are particularly solid in and of themselves. But together it’s a lot. This isn’t to say there should be no new classes ever, but I don’t think we need two or three every book. You can get away with a couple unique-to-D&D classes (especially if they’re world-specific) but of the 23 pre-Essentials classes 12 were unique to D&D. That’s half the classed in the game. And 3e was sooooo much worse. I’ll concede to your expertise as my Vance is rusty. They come from the Design & Development articles on the website or designer blogs. The mechanics suggest mind-over-matter while the fluff pains the idea of characters fueled by ego, but there’s a heck of a lot of powers that fit neither theme and there are a heck of a lot of interrupts. If you [I]need [/I]to play a class for its uniqueness to be apparent it’s likely too tied to its mechanics. Both the mechanics and the story need to be strong. Mechanics are great for any other game but RPGS are story-based games. Story matters. Story is what makes the games unique and different. I can appreciate great mechanics, but if I just want solid mechanics I can play a euro-game. I buy RPGS for the story and inspiration for stories. I have spent so much money on RPGs I will never, ever use (sometimes because the mechanics are crap) because the story and world and flavour hooked me. I spent weeks reading the [I]Eclipse Phase[/I] and am still fascinated by the world but when I get to the mechanics I feel like I've been hit in the head by a brick. I'd [I]like[/I] to play but just cannot devote the time to reading through that much crunch. That was just a quick example. There are also things like fear, horror, curses, and madness. I think they did some in [I]Dragon[/I] well after I stopped playing 4e. But optional rules are pretty vital. Nobody plays the game the same way and not everyone feels comfortable making heavy house rules. But 4e has almost no optional rules and they tend to be very small. Okay, I lied up above. While I buy side RPGS books for story and inspiration and hooks, I buy books for games I do plan on running for mechanics. While I feel comfortable kitbashing the living f___ out of a game system to make it fit my style, I'd rather a professional do much of that work for me. Optional rules and variable play often mean the difference between me playing the game or just using the books for inspiration (and if the books don't even offer inspiration, then I just won't buy). The DMG2 rules were nice, if they weren't buried in some forgotten section in the back of the book. I always had to hunt for those rules and they're never where I think they'll be. Not that it did me any good, because my group relied on the character builder like a crutch and by the time the inherent bonuses were implemented I'd already given out more treasure than I had in my previous three campaigns combined. I'm glad you've managed to have fun playing 4e and not stumbled into the troubles that made my game a morass of pain or derailed so many other people's games. It took me far, far too long to "get" 4e and start writing adventures that complimented the edition. While I'm sure that with enough time I could have eventually figured out how to use 4e to tell the stories I wanted to tell, there were no shortage of games that did it without heavy modification. [/QUOTE]
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