How would you advance Class, Race, and Themes?

[Gort]

Incidentally, I think characters from 3rd and 4th ed actually get too many feats. I'd like to see characters have maybe five or so, with access to more powerful ones as you level up.

Having approaching twenty feats by end-game seems a bit over the top to me, not to mention the dozens of class features you'll have acquired by then.

 

[LordArchaon]

Of course, I stated the maximum number of feats, those you'd get with the "advanced modules". It will be the "most granular method of character creation/advancement". Or as Mearls put it "Take the 10 dollars and head for the market to buy each ingredient to make your own meals as you want". Want simplicity? "The 10 dollars meal special, ready to be eaten"? The basic version will have ALL those feats already pre-built into either class, race, or theme. Want simplicity but a bit of choice, "the 10 dollars budget but choice of 3 or 4 dishes" as the 5 feats @Gort says? Then stay with the built-in features and just substitute 5 of them you don't like.
This is the 5e's way, they said it 3 or 4 times in different words already, Mearls in particular. It's 10 dollars anyway, you can split them to cents or buy a single thing, but the value is the same.

 

[Tony Vargas]

An elegant solution would be to have characters advance by leveling up, and at each new level, choose that level's power(s) or feature(s) from those available according to his Class, Race, and Theme.

So, if, say 5th level gave you a feat and a skill bonus and a utility power, then your Elven Spiral Tower Wizard might choose an Elven racial feat, a wizard skill bonus to arcana, and a spiral tower 'enchant sword' power. Or, he might choose the wizard skill bonus, a wizard feat, and a wizard utility. Or whatever other combination suited the player.

 

[mach1.9pants]

AN interesting idea to see would be separate XP tables for each and their own advancement trees. Not going to happen but a Human 2 Thief 1 Ranger 4 or Elf 3 Scholar 3 Wizard 2 would be interesting

 

[Mokona]

Incidentally, I think characters from 3rd and 4th ed actually get too many feats. I'd like to see characters have maybe five

The majority of games don't go above 11th level. This means players spend the majority of their time with 1, 2, or even only 3 feats. That is far less than the five you desire.

Feats in 4th edition were really timid and often applied in very niche circumstances. Normal characters, levels through 11, actually needed a lot more feats than they got in order to have variety between character builds. Once the expertise feats came out there was basically a -1 feat tax. Only by purposefully hampering your character could you avoid the tax and then you begged the DM to adjust the monsters accordingly.

In 3rd edition feats were very different from 4e. Feats were very powerful and rule-changing in 3e. Characters did not have too many feats by at least one measure. One of the key restrictions to get into "broken" combinations of prestige classes was access to feats. The paucity of feats is one of the ways Wizards of the Coast reigned in excessive power-gaming.

 

[Glade Riven]

This seems like unnecessary complication, contrary to the point of D&D Next. Leveling both race, class, and theme? Silly.

I could see a reduction to feat trees, with either race, class, or theme as qualifiers. Each level gets a feat, maybe a class feat, as a "bonus" feat. Normal feats can be racial, class, or theme related. Or perhaps a standard build, with the option to take a class-related feat instead of what you normally get that level. Normal feats can be normal (as anything that you qualify for).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

My preference is that if race, class, and theme options are chosen by feat, then all three be on separate tracks, and that each track be something you can customize for different campaign styles. They can still all happen at unified character levels, though.

Let's say that the default is medium generous. Maybe you get a racial option at 1st, 5th, 10th, etc. You also get a theme option at 1st, 8th, 16th, etc. Then you get class options on the 3E schedule, 1st, 3rd, 6th, etc. But then individual groups are encouraged to switch that focus to fit themselves. If you want more theme and less class stuff, use different schedules and/or move some of the class feats to themes. Or if you want less structure, let people pick whatever they want at each spot.

A compromise between that and something a bit more clear is something like this after 1st level: 2nd pick class feat. 3rd pick any feat. 5th pick race feat. 7th pick theme feat. And so on. It is expected that groups focused on combat will nearly always pick class feats on the "any" choices, but that if a particular character does not, they aren't that far behind the power curve.

Of course, I'd also love to see theme develop independently of level, but I don't really see that as a good choice for a D&D game.

 

[SlyDoubt]

Maybe your theme only 'levels up' every 3-5 class levels. and your race levels up every 10?

 

[Incenjucar]

I'm cool with three tracks, but I think it would be best if you were able to choose how much to focus on any of them. If you want to be a fighter who happens to be a human noble, or a noble who happens to be a human fighter, and so forth, it would be nice if those options could all balance out. It also leaves more room for multiclassing - if you can call yourself a fighter with only 1/3 of your features, being a fighter/mage/thief is doable without major compromise.

 

[steeldragons]

Class abilties strike me as the only one of the three that should see some increase in power every level (be it a bump to stats, more spells, weapon and non-weapon skills, etc.). Doesn't have to be the same boon every time/level, but somethng that is gained at every single level...maybe with "big" boosts (jumping into the next tier of spells AND getting extra skill slots/points/or however they're going to work those AND a bump to your primary Ability score, for example) every 3 or even 5 levels.

Themes, I'm not really clear on how these will work or could grow with the character. Would depend on what the theme is, I suppose. But, for simplicity's sake, I could see a progression like every other or every third level receiving some additional "trick of your trade" as it were (which I imagine will be reflected in something akin to being able to choose a new Skill, increase/improve "ranks"/fluency in an existing one or take/pick something "special" within your theme, akin to "Feats", a "Theme Feat" or somesuch).

The Racial bonuses are what get a little more complex...to my mind. If they do a break down of racial abilities that increase with level, I would think it need to be reflective of the race.

That is, halflings, for example, being not much more long lived than humans, perhaps gain a new (or increase an existing) racial bonus/skill/ability every other level. While the longer lived races, say Dwarves every 3rd level...maybe even going so far as every 5th for Elves...presuming they are the lognest lived PC race. I really have no idea what the capacities or life expectancies of things like Dragonborn or tieflings is...so presumably, they'd fit in there some place.

But, there, again, we then run into the old conundrum of "playing any race is better than playing humans" unles they come up with a bunch of, hopefully very minor, additional human "ability" tricks to go along with everyone else.

[EDIT] Or they could go mui simple and just have it be a rotating addition for "Class, Them, Race". That is.

At first level you start with your Class and Theme and Race abilities. At 2nd level, +something in Class. At 3rd level: +something in Class & Theme. At 4t level: +something in Class & Theme & Race. At 5th level: start over again, +something in Class only. 6th: Class & Theme, Etc...

So you're always getting something and every 4th level your gettign a big bag of goodies.
[/EDIT]

Dunno. Just think'in (or "typin'", rather) out loud.
--SD