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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nonsi256" data-source="post: 5019993" data-attributes="member: 86164">I went over your classes and the class discussions and this is just my overall impression.      >> My primary aim for revising the classes was to make them a) >> interesting; b) viable at all levels; and c) fun to play.    - “interesting” amounts to the question “is it interesting enough“  - “viable” is relevant to the entire set of rules and DM-players expectation level.  - “fun to play”... from where I’m standing, no real evidence of success. I’ll explain.       >> In case anyone cares, I use a formula for figuring out skill points.  I don’t see this approach as relevant. SkPts/level should be derived from 2 factors:  1. Overall balance against the other classes.  2. How many would be required (on the average) to assume the different roles the class is tailor made for, or in general, to be interesting enough.      As for the chosen strategy with the classes...........................     Barbarian    >> Barbarians were difficult to do at first - they were little more      >> than a raging fighter with more hit points. I must confess, I >> seriously considered ditching the class entirely and making the >> rage abilities into a feat chain.  You should’ve done that.  Being more or less a 1-trick pony in battle and very little outside of it indicates this quite clearly. Furthermore, I never liked the fact that one learns to get “really really angry” and gain ever increasing stat boosts from it. Getting mad helps when there’s nothing else useful that you know. IRL, the one that keeps cool is the one having the edge.    Bard    >> Bards badly needed an overhaul (and probably still need some >> work)  I couldn’t agree more.     >> they had a little of everything but weren't good at anything   >> (besides RP), their songs were weak (except for fascinate, which >> was horribly broken)  Not exactly. Fascinate is not a combat option and buffing is not meaningless.     >> , and said songs were granted at the exact same level, ensuring     >> that pretty every much every bard was like every other bard >> (not to mention that you could tell a bard's level just by hearing >> what song he was singing).  1. Spells, skills & feats are more than enough to establish variations.  2. And how could one determine that the Bard he’s fighting would always choose to start the encounter with the highest bardic music he possesses? The most you can deduce is a minimum figure (not really helpful).    >> bardic knowledge got beefed up, and I gave them some language >> skills  beefed up too much in my view. Way too much. This practically makes failure an impossible outcome when maximizing Knowledge ranks.  As for the language skills... what’s wrong with expending some skill points for any language you think you might need in the future? Isn’t that exactly what you’re trying to avoid – making all of them the same?    >> then I added enough songs so that each had four, for a total of sixteen songs.  . . .  >> The formula I used for determining the bardic song DCs is 11 + >> class level +(class level/3).  Ok, imagine spellcasting with 25% failure chances (on the average).      Cleric    >> domains - they get one at 1st level and another at 10th.  This makes them even more uniform at levels 1 – 10 and changes nothing when they join the CODZILLA club.  Furthermore, I see no justification in invest an effort in reinventing the domain mechanics (the overall effect always ended up negligible no matter how it chose to go at it).     >> I also figured out a way to make greater and lesser access work.   >> Limiting spellsor doing spheres, like in 2E, doesn't work - I've >> tried it.  In my book, AD&D’s sole justification for existence was that it gave birth to the concept of feats. It was a lame attempt of making things seem more realistic than in OD&D. given AD&D’s level of complexity and how little it felt more realistic on so few aspects – I see it as almost a perfect failure.     >> turn undead is limited to the Good and Sun domains  And what about the other domain – do they also have other powers with similar mechanics (level-dependant that is)?     >> finally… the Extra Domain feat lets you:  So now a single feat covers multiple domain-related abilities? Seems too much for a feat to me.      Druid    >> I had nothing until I saw an idea someone else shared with me - >> masteries.  I find the general idea quite nice, but given the majority of benefits amount to some sort of numbers augmentation, I find the execution somewhat lacking.     >> so it was fairly easy to come up with four paths - nature,    >> elements, weather, andanimals - and split up their abilities a bit.  I just don’t get why weather is separated from elements.     >> Now that all druids don't have the ability to assume all kinds of   >> forms, their power dropped significantly.  Not really. Wildshape with spells + companion + nature’s ally – that’s what’s too much. Given you limited variety, your players just need to invest just a bit more minmax effort.    As for Hibernate... I find it meaningless (and if it could have some usefulness, it’d probably have little to no relevance at level 20).    Fighter    >> Fighters were fairly easy to work with, and fairly hard  Of all the Fighter shortcomings, your version managed to fix only the perception issue.  It’s still boring.  It still loses the action economy.  It still has no edge at enduring hardships  It still has no combat options that are totally beyond the reach of other classes.    Monk     >> To be fair, it was built off the foundations of the 1E monk, but    >> still… immunityto poison and disease? Spell resistance? Ability to >> speak to any living creature? Come on… where are they getting >> this stuff?  We see eye to eye on his one.     >> So, I decided to remake the monk. First, I needed an archetype.    >> Martial artistworked well enough, and could be divorced from the   >> Oriental flavor/baggage that has always seemed to weigh it    >> down (why do martial artists HAVE to be Oriental?  A generalized warrior could be a great martial artist. The oriental theme is the only thing that justifies it being a separate class.     >> Then, I started to rebuild it. I used some ideas my DM had been    >> using for a newcampaign - monk have different fighting styles    >> named for the four elements andthe directions, loosely based off    >> the Avatar cartoon (even though it's a kid'sshow, I highly    >> recommend watching it). Each element has a different style, and >> the directions are focuses within the disciplines - attack, defense, >> etc.  The Avatar cartoon is quite nice. I just started watching it myself. But...:  1. I personally don’t like anime in RPG, but that’s just me I guess.  2. What is the 4-elem approach if not oriental?     >> The extra attack from the flurry was dropped - 5 attacks/round >> at 2d10 each was a bit much, IMO  And still, on the overall, the Monk is probably the weakest base class ever (when you get familiar enough with the game rules & options).     >> After I'd filled in everything else, I had a few dead levels left, so    >> I tossed in somebonus feats - but spread out this time, instead >> of all bunched up at the bottom.  Each class feature should have significance and not be just filler. If you’re short on ideas, steal from others – there’s no shame in it when it comes to homebrewing.  Paladin    In general, a significant improvement to the core, but that’s easy – I think it’s actually a challenge to change the Paladin without improving it.    Ranger    I also agree that a dedicated woodman-warrior class doesn’t go well thematically with TWF and that they need to have an extra edge in their home turf. However, I see no justification for this mongrel class (a Fighter, but less. Has spells, but less. Has companion, but less. Has good skills, but less.......) to exist. As far as I’m concerned, this one is the Barb’s equal partner in not having enough justification t exist.    Sorcerer    I never liked the Sorc/Wis split (for so many reasons), but keeping the core classes, of all your modified classes, you did more than a decent job with this one... except for the intrinsic metamagic stuff. If the class is supposed to improve metamagic usage, then it should at least have bonus metamagic feats as a class feature (mastering something you never took in the first place (a viable option) just seems too odd).    Wizard    Still the strongest base class.  Also, I never liked all that specializing stuff. I always preferred to think of a caster as specialized or generalized as the collection of spells available to him.         And on the overall:  - You sure have managed to enable a bit more build-time versatility, but to my better judgment, most of the post-build results are actually less game-time versatile in he aftermath.  - What’s with the non-standard saves?  - What’s with the negligible changes to spells-per-day? What does this change come to serve?  - I don’t want to get into specifics, but there are some inaccuracies/inconsistencies in the discussions document.</blockquote>

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