D&D General How should the power budget be distributed between class, dubclass, race, background (and other points)

[Minigiant]

I agree with this, but I would also say there's nothing that precludes D&D from allowing species powers, or background powers, or any other power grant from non-class sources to scale directly with character level.

Power scaling predominantly from class is an inherited legacy from the class design of TSR D&D.

Heck Power from species does scale knowledge some instances. It just stops before tier 3.

There isnt any mechanical or lore reason why your racial resistances don't eventually upgrade to immunity nor your racial spells dont keep growing.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Ideally, the DM should be free to customize this based on their preferences. But then we're just heading into point buy now.

 

[ECMO3]

I don't think there should be a strict budget. I think the choices should follow the fiction with some choices being clearly superior to others and combinations of "superior" choices would logically make the most powerful PC possible.

Most of the time the primary power driver is class and that would remain, but that is not always true, at low level your race or sometimes feat can bring more than your class.

I find people very rarely choose the "best" combination, particularly with respect to race. When you consider the legacy 5E races certain ones are objectively top tier - Satyrs, Eladrin, Shaddar Kai, Yuan-Ti and Githyanki. Yet these are rarely played, even by so-called "optimizers".

 

[Xeviat]

I'm going to approach this from a different angle. I think every class level should be with the same. Ideally, that would be a feat per level, because there are plenty of levels where classes only give a feat. Thus, subclasses should be worth 3-5 feats, classes worth 17-20 feats, and such. Species and backgrounds are worth a number of feats themselves. This could almost work, but classes give more features at first level and even different features for 1st level at 1st and 1st level when multiclassing, so there's areas for things to be smoothed out.

 

[Horwath]

I'm going to approach this from a different angle. I think every class level should be with the same. Ideally, that would be a feat per level, because there are plenty of levels where classes only give a feat. Thus, subclasses should be worth 3-5 feats, classes worth 17-20 feats, and such. Species and backgrounds are worth a number of feats themselves. This could almost work, but classes give more features at first level and even different features for 1st level at 1st and 1st level when multiclassing, so there's areas for things to be smoothed out.

this should be accounted with spellcasting ability.

maybe best would be

Full caster: 1 feat per level(in addition to spellcasting)
halfcaster: 1,5 feat per level
noncaster: 2 feats per level

 

[Horwath]

Heck Power from species does scale knowledge some instances. It just stops before tier 3.

There isnt any mechanical or lore reason why your racial resistances don't eventually upgrade to immunity nor your racial spells dont keep growing.

sounds like racial feats to take at 4th/8th/12th level

 

[EzekielRaiden]

50% class. 25% subclass. 25% race+background+theme+etc.

For the "race+background+theme+etc.", I actually developed an idea meant to smooth out the progression of 4e characters. Starting-character stuff got off to a very rocky start in 4e, arriving piecemeal and disjointed, things doing the same thing, things going off in wildly other directions, etc.

So I proposed the Heroic Origin.

Your Heroic Origin (to parallel your Paragon Path and Epic Destiny) tells the story of how and/or why you started adventuring. It contains everything about you except your physiology (race). Like 5e Backgrounds, developing your own, either with structured guidance or (later on) from a space of predefined, build-it-yourself components, is an intended choice, but not intended to be the primary method.

Heroic Origin provides some of your skill training, some of your ability score bonuses, and at least two meaningful features, one combat-usable, one non-combat. Your race provides the other meaningful feature, the other part of your ability score bonuses, and (potentially) limited skill benefits or the like. So, if we use this model, 50% class, 25% subclass, 15% Heroic Origin, 10% race/species/physiology.

That makes class clearly the most important element, as it should be (it is the one thing every person is completely free to choose), subclass is strong but clearly subordinate to class, and then careful selection of Heroic Origin and Species could be almost as significant as careful selection of Subclass.

I'd be willing to compromise for those who want class to be more weighty, and do something like 60% class, 20% subclass, 10% Heroic Origin, 10% species. That to me feels a little over-weighted toward class, but not to an obscene degree.

Other features, such as Feats, Spells, etc., should be budgeted separately, since everyone should get similar (if not identical) amounts of feats, and spells are a class feature shared by several classes, so their importance is already factored into the class portion (or should be).

 

[CreamCloud0]

one of the things i've often thought about is that species should 'grow' and provide more abilities at extra levels, when 85% of everything comes in at 1st level there's a tendency for some abilities to be disproportionately powerful and thus eating up a ton of budget simply because of how early you get them, either that or they end up stuck under some inane conditions that don't feel natural to make them 'fit'

the biggest example of this in my mind is species flight, at early levels it is disproportionately powerful and able to solve low level challenges or you get something like the dragonborn's stupid energy wings they sprout instead of having real ones.

if species had more budget and more room to grow over a longer period this wouldn't be a problem, for the first few levels you'd be able to have an improved jump+glide but at 5th or so, when caster get the fly spell anyway, you could get a proper flyspeed.

 

[Corinnguard]

f species had more budget and more room to grow over a longer period this wouldn't be a problem, for the first few levels you'd be able to have an improved jump+glide but at 5th or so, when caster get the fly spell anyway, you could get a proper flyspeed.

3e tried to do something like this for the first incarnation of the Dragonborn in Races of the Dragon and for the Raptoran in Races of the Wild. And the only reason WoTC did it back then was to work around the rules they created in Savage Species involving ECLs and LAs. By the time a Dragonborn or a Raptoran character acquired the upgrade to their winged flight feature, the other characters in the party would already have something to balance it out.

 

[Horwath]

if species had more budget and more room to grow over a longer period this wouldn't be a problem, for the first few levels you'd be able to have an improved jump+glide but at 5th or so, when caster get the fly spell anyway, you could get a proper flyspeed.

more feat slots and then you can spend those feats on improving your racial features.