"Modding" classes vs multiclassing

[Geoff Watson]

What do you want from a Swashbuckler class?

Fighter BAB, Feats & Hit Points, PLUS more class skills and skill points?

As good an AC as the heavy armour guys, but with full movement and no skill penalties?

Sounds like you want something for nothing.

Geoff.

 

[Corinth]

A lot of the problems would disappear if the next version did nothing more than adopt the Talent Tree mechanic from d20 Modern. That solves the customization problem, the dead level problem and the class bloat problem all in one blow.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Geoff and Umbran: Criticizing swashbuckling fighter classes and the unfettered without actually having read the class description, let alone tried it out, is a bit silly. Take a look at it. It's got d8 HD, fewer (far fewer) bonus feats, and no heavy armor proficiency in return for more skill points and sneak attack (which is something that you pretty much have to take unfettered levels to get in AU, since there aren't core rogues). It's a fine class from a balance perspective.

Back to the core discussion. I tend to think that modified classes are fine, but it seems to me that all too often, it's not necessary to create an alternate core class or heavily modify one; PrCs and judicious feat selection will do. Monte's work, IMHO, because they're VERY heavy on a millieu-specific RP component, because they're replacing, rather than being presented alongside, standard D&D core classes, and because they're pretty well differentiated. Regarding standard D&D, I've only come across the need to modify classes to fit the following roles:

-Martial artist
-Swashbuckler

The martial artist is easily accomplished by allowing the monk to swap in OA feats for class abilities, while the swashbuckler is really well represented, IMHO, by the unfettered. I've actually pared down core classes, in one case, by using the magister (HD bumped down to d4 to compensate for better spell selection) in place of the sorcerer and wizard. IMHO, the lightly-armored priest should be the standard, not modified, core class, so that's how it is IMC; if you want a tank cleric, multiclass.

 

[Tsyr]

What do you want from a Swashbuckler class?

Fighter BAB, Feats & Hit Points, PLUS more class skills and skill points?

As good an AC as the heavy armour guys, but with full movement and no skill penalties?

Sounds like you want something for nothing.

ruleslawyer's post answers this better than I can.

 

[jmucchiello]

{GREAT BIG PLUG}
Check out Character Customization for a method to customize core classes. The first third of the PDF is dedicated to a method of customization that involves chunking the bits and pieces of the core classes into "tracks" and then you trade the tracks your class has that you don't want for the tracks that you do want.

The system presented warns that DM discretion is advised. (Any system can be broken if you throw enough munchkins at it.) Sample customized classes are printed with each class.

Don't just take my word for it. Read the reviews available from enworld to help make your decision. CC is 3.0 compatible only. I'm still tweaking it to 3.5 because all of those minor changes to the character classes modify the chunking of tracks in subtle ways.
{/GREAT BIG PLUG}

I feel so late to the party. I think the best part about approaching this from the modify existing classes side is that it maintains the class feel of the game. The modified class just becomes another available class in the world. As DM you don't feel bad when you use the character's own class variant against them. If you used some sort of point-buy system or other classless option, sending a clone of your PCs against them is trite.

I don't like how multiclassing works in 3e. It never gives me the right feel. A fighter/rogue is not a swashbuckler. A fighter/wizard s not a battle mage. They are only approximations of the idea.

 

[Gez]

I don't especially like mod classes, but on the other hand, I like customizing the classes for my world once and for all; and I also like having lots of classes, without caring too much for overlaps.

I use all classes from the Player's, beefed-up versions of the Aristocrat, Adept and Expert from the DM's, Psions, Psychic Warriors, all OA classes save Shugenja, all MiniHandbook classes save Favored Soul, and all AU classes. Plus a couple of homebrew.

What I also like is classes with subclasses. Like in AU, the Witch, Champion and Totem Warrior classes. And, to a lesser extent, the Samurai.


That's for reducing the need of multiclassing and prestige classing.

Another example of this is my magic system house-rule. It basically suppresses the need for a mystic theurge or an eldritch knight. I'm quite proud of it.


But for multiclassing, here's how I do it. You know, the values like BAB, saves, and MM? I don't use integers for them... A first-level wizard has a +0.5 BAB. In play, the +0.5 don't matter. It's just like +0. But if you then take a level of cleric, you get +0.75, and so you get to a total of +1.25. Which, during play, is the same as +1.

All BAB, saves, and MM (see my magic house rule thread) are formulaic. I've even modified the "median" save that is featured in some d20 game, but not in core D&D, to another progression (1 +2/5) for that.
For good and median saves, you get a +2 or a +1 at first level. This +2 or +1 is considered a "class bonus" and thus they don't stack with themselves when multiclassed, but they do stack with everything else.

 

[WizarDru]

Which Dragon issue was that?

Unfortunately, I don't have my issues here in front of me, but it was a few issues after 300...303 or 304, possibly. It was after the gladiator issue, as I recall, and was referenced on the cover.

Essentially, you could take some 'parry' feats. The feats allowed you to turn an attack (and later several attacks) into a contested check against your attack (i.e. my attack roll versus yours). It was lmiited in scope and a pretty elegant solution, as I recall...in particular that it gave fighters a parrying feat chain to follow. There were restrictions, of course, but I don't have it in front of me.

 

[Desdichado]

What do you want from a Swashbuckler class?

Fighter BAB, Feats & Hit Points, PLUS more class skills and skill points?

As good an AC as the heavy armour guys, but with full movement and no skill penalties?

Sounds like you want something for nothing.

It would sound like that if I said I wanted the things you seem to think I want. Since I didn't say that, I don't see what the point of your post is.

In addition, although the discussion has focused heavily on swashbuckling classes and the Unfettered in particular, I'm really talking more generically. The fact of the matter is, I don't particularly like very many of the core classes at all for flavor reasons. My point, which has been largely ignored due to squabbling about the details of a class many here obviously have not even read(yet have very strong opinions about, for some unfathomable reason) was that I prefer to work on a concept basis. Quite often, my concepts do not match up to the 11 or so concepts that WotC says I should use. I'm not a fan of using multiclassing to build a concept, as I think it leads to suboptimal as well as messy character builds, and it is a badly implemented workaround rather than a real solution. It doesn't get the concepts I want the same way using a core class does; it approximates the concept without giving you exactly what the concept calls for while simultaneously giving you many things that may be useful but don't fit the concept at all.

Apparently, a great deal more people than I expected are fine with the 11 or so concepts WotC gives them, and think the multiclassing method of building any other concept is suitable. Feel free to continue playing that way, by all means, but I have a few big problems with it:

• What if I don't want to be spoonfed the standard D&D class archetypes? Many of them are unique to D&D, and feel quite odd to me. I don't really like the paladin, the ranger, the cleric, the wizard, the sorceror, the druid, the bard or the monk as they are formulated for flavor reasons. That leaves me the barbarian, the fighter and the rogue unless I either play around with the classes quite a bit or use alternate classes from other print sources. To be fair, I prefer the latter to the former, but there are many times when my concept isn't too far from a given class and very minor changes will make me happy with the class in regards to the character I want to play.
• The mindset also seems to promote the rules over the roll-playing. The reason I want to mod classes isn't to make them more powerful; in general I think I'm conservative with custom classes and they are probably slightly underpowered. The reason to do it is to facilitate rollplaying. If I want to play a woodsy huntsman/guerilla warrior type of guy, and neither two weapon fighting nor spellcasting make any sense with the concept, I don't want to be told to just use the ranger, it's close enough. I want to nail the concept, not approximate it. Since it's relatively easy to do with slight modifications (or again, alternate classes) I don't see why a DM wouldn't work with me on this one. Certainly as a DM I would/do/have.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

For example, a bard 1/cleric1/druid1/monk1/rogue 1/sorcerer 1/wizard 1* still has a base attack of 0. Why? Gamistic flaw that none of these classes get an advancement at level 1. Despite having adventured for 7 levels, this character has not advanced once in BAB.

Similar quirks happen with saving throws too.

Rather easily fixed, though I'm veering into House Rule territory. Since you can have fractional skill points, assign fractional BAB to classes-- .5 for Wiz/Sor and .75 for everything else that lacks full BAB progression. Always round down to a whole number. Now, no matter how you multiclass, your BAB progresses more or less smoothly, if slower than a fighting class. (This fix is practically necessary for d20 Modern, with multiclassing so prevalent and so few classes having full BAB.)

The saving throw fix is a little more complicated. Essentially, you have to mark off whether a save is Good or Bad for each class, and then add up the Good class levels and Bad class levels for each save. It flattens the ridiculous bonuses you get from taking similar classes, while allowing your weak saves to advance. (This one is more D&D-oriented, since the d20 Modern saves are a little less grainy in the early levels.)

edit: Looks like Gez beat me to it, though I think my saving throw fix is a little more elegant, as it doesn't involve changing bonus types or any real formulas.

 

[Desdichado]

Rather easily fixed, though I'm veering into House Rule territory. Since you can have fractional skill points, assign fractional BAB to classes-- .5 for Wiz/Sor and .75 for everything else that lacks full BAB progression. Always round down to a whole number. Now, no matter how you multiclass, your BAB progresses more or less smoothly, if slower than a fighting class. (This fix is practically necessary for d20 Modern, with multiclassing so prevalent and so few classes having full BAB.)

The saving throw fix is a little more complicated. Essentially, you have to mark off whether a save is Good or Bad for each class, and then add up the Good class levels and Bad class levels for each save. It flattens the ridiculous bonuses you get from taking similar classes, while allowing your weak saves to advance. (This one is more D&D-oriented, since the d20 Modern saves are a little less grainy in the early levels.)

That's exactly my point, though, or at least part of it. Using multiclassing to build character concepts that aren't already represented by a monolithic core class is a poor solution. It's a workaround, a band-aid, a hastily assembled patch. I'm agin' it!