Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2093673" data-attributes="member: 2205">Actually, no, I don't make that assertion.  I say that it is indeed a core design criteria of d20, hence the reason it's class-based.  I don't know why that means anything at all about other design criteria around which the game is also based.Not so much anymore.  When 3e was initially published, and for a while prior to that before third party (and even WotC for that matter) felt comfortable stretching the capabilities of d20 a bit, that was true, but it's not anymore.I'm not sure what you mean by "the right choice."  The right choice is what the player wants.  The more options he has, the more likely he is to find one that clicks with him.  I do agree that more flexible and open structure classes are certainly desirable, and that does (to a certain extent) reduce the need for more base classes.  But I never presented the two options as mutually exclusive.Only because you are trying to force them to be so.  They are actually two completely different issues, and I'm not ducking it at all, I'm just ignoring the issue that is irrelevent to my point.Actually, he can hew down the opposition like wheat at low level.  Assuming the opposition is similarly endowed with ability.  I've seen 1st and 2nd level fighters and barbarians and other fighterish classes mow down kobolds or goblins easily, and I'm sure you have to.  That's because, from the get-go, those classes are oriented towards combat, especially melee combat.  He's not getting abilities like minor spells, or bonus to his hide check, or diplomacy, or anything like that that isn't part of his character concept, he's right away focused on a concept.  Sure, he'll continue to grow that concept as he progresses in level, but you're assertion that he's not already doing that concept from the very beginning is in error, I believe.Well, I agree, actually.  In fact, it's a problem with the rogue that the class really ought to have been called assassin or something like that from the beginning.  That's the concept that it's actually best at, in most respects, at the expense of flexibility in other areas.Perhaps.  At least, though, I have the recent strategy of WotC themselves of publishing a half dozen or so new base classes in many of their recent supplements to back me up.  I'm not completely taking that liberty without some backup.Oh, I would too.  Hence my recommendation upthread of Midnight with the Wildlander who is exactly that same concept.  Or Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed with the totem warrior, although that's also a narrow concept that's been given flexibility to have a variety of very different builds, which is different.  I don't see how having Ken Hood's Bushhunter, or Wheel of Time's Woodsman, or Path of the Sword's Hunter or Outdoorsman, or any of the others I have, added to that is suddenly a problem though.  Because it's harder to keep track of more books that way, you say?  That's not really much of an issue.  Heck, my current Eberron character is using the Ranger and the Barbarian class sections printed off the SRD (because I never bought the 3.5 pHB) and the shifter stats photocopied from my copy of the ECS.  In that case, I'd need two books; it turns out that I don't really need to keep track of any; just half a dozen sheets of paper.Quite right.  It's a problem with D&D across the board.  All the classes are too focused on being D&D-isms, at the expense of the way other folk may want to play, i.e., not dungeoncrawling in a strange pseudo-medieval world with classes and magic that make little sense with pseudo-medievalism.  That's part of the reason I want more core classes; I don't really like the D&D default assumption of what kind of game I'm going to be playing, or what kind of setting I'm going to be running.I agree and have also stated as much.  In fact, the inclusion (or not) of this feature may very well decide for me if I buy the 4e books whenever they come out.Your practical solution, if you don't mind my saying so, seems kinda arbitrary.  First of all, what support do you need?  What support do you get?  Looking at my 3e and 3.5 class splat books, it seems you get feats that are "geared" towards a certain archetype, i.e., character class, and would therefore work just fine for any alt. versions of the same archetype, so that's a non-issue.  You get prestige classes that narrow in on a tighter archetype, but anyone in a similar archetype is likely to qualify for the same class just as easily, so it's also a non-issue.  Besides the whole point of the thread was to state a preference for base in lieu of prestige classes anyway.  You get new uses for skills, which apply to anyone regardless of class.  You get equipment that anyone can use.  You get spells, and this is the only one that actually has some merit, although just about any d20 spellcasting class can utilize any d20 spell if the DM says so, so it's not much of one.  Not only that, your own examples are arbitrary breakings of your own guidelines, since they have the same "problems".In other words, you keep stating that it's a problem that there are too many base classes, but you've never stated why, other than essentially, just because.  You've mentioned keeping track of a lot of books, but that's a pretty weak excuse, and you've mentioned lack of support for alternate classes, but not only is support not needed, but pretty much all the support I've seen would work just as well for more narrow visions of the archetype as for the generic one, so that's not even a real issue as near as I can tell.  Other than that; if there's more than you just don't want more core classes for reasons of taste, I haven't heard much.  If it's true that you don't want more base classes just because you don't like 'em, that's absolutely fine, but say so and don't try to pretend there's some universal problem or solution out there that isn't so.  Or if I'm missing some really compelling reason to limit base classes that I haven't yet heard, please tell me so.  I'd love to hear it.</blockquote>

Verification