Kind of an offshoot of the Morrowind thread (custom classes)

[Evenglare]

Has anyone ever attempted to break down the classes in D&D and then used them to build a custom class from those individual parts? If you are familiar with the advanced race guide from pathfinder I was thinking something like the race creation guide. That is, assigning a number of points to each class abilities, BAB, Saves, proficiency (etc etc) and then choose what you want to get at every level.

I am aware that mutants and masterminds does something similar , but that system isn't quite the same as what I'm thinking since they do HP differently. Of course it wouldnt necessarily be free form . You would have to spend a certain number of points in every category (this would disable gross power stacking and similar things). Note that I'm not saying this is a good or bad idea...I'm just curious.

 

[Jhaelen]

Has anyone ever attempted to break down the classes in D&D and then used them to build a custom class from those individual parts? If you are familiar with the advanced race guide from pathfinder I was thinking something like the race creation guide. That is, assigning a number of points to each class abilities, BAB, Saves, proficiency (etc etc) and then choose what you want to get at every level.

Been there, done that, found it doesn't work.

I've yet to see a point-based system that works, as in 'cannot be exploited'. Go ahead, create a point-buy system and I'll show you how to (ab)use it to create a broken character!

Having said that, if it's intended strictly as a tool for a DM it might actually work for certain groups.

 

[Desdichado]

In third edition, there used to be a document that ranked abilities with a point cost, specifically designed to facilitate customizing of classes.

The Trailblazer document did that as well; meant to be a kind of add-on or patch to turn 3.5 into... 3.6 or something. But the mathematical analysis of class features was one of its more interesting (albeit with debatable values) components.

And of course, the 3e DMG did that without points when it showed us the witch custom class, which was basically built by kitbashing a few existing classes together.

I'm not aware of anything like that for any other edition of D&D. Personally I'd prefer to just handwave and use judgement rather than use points... since the points are ultimately based on someone's handwavy, subjective judgement of value as well.