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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khaalis" data-source="post: 1369976" data-attributes="member: 2167">In my opinion, as long as it has swords, magic, fantastic races, fantastic monsters and a medieval/renaissance feel to the world – its still fantasy regardless of the specifics of the classes. Even the Unearthed Arcana brings in Generic Classes.  Though, if I really throw my personal opinion in, I think the Monk has no place in a standard Fantasy game that are Euro-renaissance oriented to begin with.  Its when you start throwing technology, etc. into the mix that you lose the D&D feel. You have taken a great step with the Monk, and it retains much of its eastern mystical feel.  I personally would only have retained Unarmed, Flurry, Ki, and Perfect Self as set abilities.  The rest I would make options for when (or if) they are chosen based on the path a particular monk chooses to follow. But again – it all depends on what your “vision” of a monk is.  I see Monks as eastern practitioners of martial arts with the fantasy flair of actually being able to do supernatural things.  Do all martial artists learn how to fall from great heights? No.  Should they be able to? Yes. Should they be forced to? Not in my opinion.We agree mutability is a boon, we just disagree on how far one can go and retain the flair and flavor of the class.  As I said with the monk I would have retained all of the class abilities as options for the character to learn, but added a few other styles/paths for them to choose instead. For example, if I wanted to create a monk that was more akin to an aikido artist then I would rather have an ability akin to the Dwarf’s “Stability” (gain a +4 bonus to resist bull rush and trip) than “Slow Fall”. By taking away Slow Fall as a preset ability does it make the class feel any less like a Monk? Personally I think it makes it feel more like a monk to allow them to be less identical to one another and have more choices on the path they take.Ok. I need a deeper clarification of what you mean by determination of background.  You mention this repeatedly yet I do not see how the character is limited in their ability, nor their incentive, to create a character background in any way. Also, how is it heavy on abilities?  Do you mean the class progression? Or do you mean in volume of power choices?  If you mean class progression, I feel I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it well balanced to all the other classes.   If you mean in volume of choices, you will never convince me that less choices are better than more choices.  You also mention that too many abilities is suffocating and that they develop the class. As above, I will never see the ability to have choices of the path one chooses to follow as bad.  There is nothing more I dislike than being pin-holed into one specific archetype.   I also don’t see how having choices has anything to do with defining the character, nor how in specific the sorcerer’s choices.  Class abilities are supposed to give definition to a class, they are what defines what a class is.  You are what you can do.  However there should be variety among those abilities and multiple paths that can be followed and explored.This is one point, for this particular build, you will never sway my mind on. If it makes it a power-gamer class then so be it. I personally agree with so many others, and do not see it as an imbalance. Other casters can overcome components as well and make up in balance with their versatility.  I also feel that typical material components are designed as nothing more than money sinks (which any good DM can find plenty of) and an ancient hold-over from 25 years ago as a way to explain the “ritualistic” aspect of the wizard which is based all too much on stereotypical Shakespearean literature.  “Boil, Boil, Toil and Trouble. Fires Burn and Cauldrons Bubble. Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog.” blah blah…Why should a sorcerer who’s magic comes from within need to eat a spider, or need a piece of bat fur or coal to make his magic work?  These are the trappings of scientific-methodology arcane ritual casting – which is the how the wizard is described.  Why should a sorcerer have to chant an archaic formulaic string of words to harness magical power and turn it into a spell when it is already within the sorcerer, when the spell is a Part of the sorcerer’s being?  The only component I might give you, is using SOME form of somatic component such as pointing at a victim or target (or the actual act of touching for touch spells). However, some other somatic components don’t make sense (Somatic component for Tree Form? WHY?). If there need to be more heredities that don’t already fit into a given category, then they can be made by those who need them.  Were the included Domains for the cleric all consuming? No.  Were the Fighter feats granted to the Fighter all consuming? No.   What about classes such as in Monte Cook’s Arcana Unearthed.  Are the available Totem Warrior totems all encompassing or could other animals provide totems?  What about Witches?  Couldn’t there be a blood witch, soul witch, song witch, etc?  Not all classes have every single possibility detailed in the core writing. Many are designed to allow variants at player/DM discretion, and that is exactly what this does. The heredity has a set pattern and includes the examples of common heredities. I even showed an example of one on the fly (Ghost) if someone REALLY wanted to say they could have a ghost as a forbearer.  As for abilities, many of the abilities already included could easily be given access to new alternate heredities (if related to that heredity) and new one could be made (as with the ghost example).  Something like Detect Thoughts is not appropriate for someone descended from say a Night Hag.This statement combined with above statements about variants, is the truth of gaming material. No-one can create something that everyone likes. There will always be someone who wants to change or tweak or re-write or expand on something to suit their personal needs and tastes.  For example, you might want to take this and make PrC’s from it, just as many people wanted the Paladin a PrC not a core class, versus myself who wanted a generic Holy Warrior that could represent the militant order of any religion that would host such an organization but gains its individual powers from that specific religion.However, this description shows no relation to suddenly developing roots to a heritage that weren’t there before. That I have a fundamental logic issue with.Oh…   and to what would be your great upset, I HAVE given the other classes this much “attention”. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />I have made mutable, Alt.X, or companion versions of all of the classes (such as a non-mystical eastern-style Unarmed specialist).  The Sorcerer is the last and hardest of the lot, though I found little that could really be done with the wizard though it did get some attention.See above my statements about the ability to free-form variant heredities.This is a personal viewpoint. I see where you are coming from and I do agree to a point.  However, when you look at it from game balance, healing is just as powerful and important as battle magic. There are more ways to kill things than with spells and basically just as quick and effective.  However, how many ways are their to heal?  What is that arcane caster going to do when his battle spell fails to kill the foe who then rips him apart? He goes crawling to the divine caster to beg for healing.  Can an arcane caster even bring the dead back to life? No. That’s a pretty powerful boon in a game centered around resurrection being viable (something I personally dislike).  As for expensive components and XP costs – wizards have them too just for different things.  What divine spell under 3rd level costs 100gp like a wizard’s spell?  Both types of magic are balanced by their need in the game.  Divine magic is weaker in combat, so divine casters fall back on more melee skills. Arcane casters aren’t given healing to prevent them from being better at keeping a party alive than killing foes or overcoming obstacles.Also , only Wizards benefit from the mass utility of arcane magic because they are the only ones who can change their spell access from day to day and carry an arsenal of spells for any occasion to augment what they are prepared to cast in a given day.  A sorcerer can never do these things. They are limited to the few spells they know and cannot even fall back on using any form of spell trigger/completion item (scroll, wand, etc.) for a spell they do not know. So there is no way to expand a sorcerer’s spell utility. And you are entitled to that opinion. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  It is not one I share.  I feel that a class’s flavor text and the mech should meld.  The mechanics of the class should not stand alone from the flavor of the class. I also do not feel that a class should be solely defined by its mech. Its flavor should lend as much fuel to the mech as the mech lends fuel to the flavor. Perfect Example = Monk, Druid, Ranger, etc.  The flavor of the druid is what defined its mech, and in turn its unique mech is what helps define the druid as something different than a cleric of nature.  Mecha and Flavor = Egg and the Chicken.  There should be no one comes first – they evolve together, though if you really want to be technical about it – flavor always comes first and defines the mechanics as no mechanic can come into existence without a vision as to WHY it exists first. The idea, the reason, the “flavor” comes before that idea or flavor are quantified into mechanics.JMHO</blockquote>

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