jeremy-dnd-next
First Post
This post was originally posted at D&D Next, an open-source gaming project.
This is in the very nascent stages, but it's worth putting out for comment: using class features to help each class slide into a different party role.
Thus far, with its addition of the "skill exploit" notion, D&D Next has a highly-customizable advancement framework. Want your fighter to be able to cast spells? Give him training in Arcana with the Spellcasting exploit. He won't be as good at, say, intimidating people as other fighters, but zapping them with a fireball is pretty scary.
This means that he's moving away from traditional fighter-y stuff and into wizardly realms. We think that's great -- one of the things that was awesome for players of 3e was its customizability -- but this necessarily means that it's harder in Next to keep classes associated with a certain party role. This fighter has become more of a controller or striker, depending on his spell selection.
Party role was something that 4e did both very well and very poorly. It was integral in helping balance the classes across each level: here's the damage output you should expect from a striker, which is higher than what you'd expect from a defender (but the defender has more hit points). Class balance makes the game more playable and enjoyable: you aren't hosed if you don't play the cleric.
But by the same token, all that class balance couldn't help but make each class feel kind of mechanical. What does a 4e character do? Push, pull, and slide enemies; attack bursts or blasts of them; do extra damage under certain circumstances, etc. Yes, a talented DM could handle a character who wanted to slide down a bannister, but saying, "OK, you move 8 squares" does take a little of the drama out of it. Combat became an exercise in moving pieces around the board and less of a dramatic storytelling exercise. And let's not get into how much the focus on combat encounters took away from the pure storytelling piece of it: if you spend an hour per encounter, you have a lot less roleplaying time out of combat.
Class balance is a good thing, but taken too far it can lead to a game that's less fun, not more. In 3e, it was pretty easy to make an archer-type fighter. In 4e, it makes a lot less sense: the figher is a defender, so he's supposed to step in and duke it out with enemies face-to-face. Sword-and-shield or just-a-big-sword were the main choices.
D&D Next is striving to return choice to the players who want it, while at the same time hopefully keeping playability high. We're hoping to blunt some of the excesses of 3e's spellcasting system, while still making each class more modular than 4e.
With that long intro, an idea that's been introduced by @ControlBlue is to give each class the ability to slide into a certain party role. A fighter could be played as a defender, sure, but also as a striker, leader, or controller (just using the 4e terms for convenience). This is a pretty cool idea. Your default fighter type may still be the defender, but maybe your just-a-big-sword guy should really have more of a striker aspect? The archer type could be more of a battlefield controller, herding enemies this way or that, or raining masses of arrows down on a small burst to take out many minions at once. And what's the 4e warlord, but a fighter with a leader aspect?
Keeping the focus that Next currently has on flexibility, we don't want to shoehorn anyone into one role or another. They should be able to organically choose whatever skill exploits, spells, whatever, make them happiest. But if they have a certain archetype in mind, we also want the system to support that choice. Class features seem to be a good way to do that. A controller fighter is going to look very different from a controller wizard.
One approach would be to give each class a choice of one of four class features, each supporting a certain party role. This way, you could wind up having your controller fighter (archer), striker wizard (evoker), leader rogue (um... guildmaster?), and defender druid (sort of a 4e warden?). Or that same party could have a defender fighter, controller wizard, striker rogue, and leader druid.
A possible wrinkle here is the question of what makes each class unique? How is a two-weapon fighter different from a two-weapon ranger (assuming that both classes have a place in Next, which we'd ideally like to support)? One approach to this is to have each class have an Iconic Feature, a sort of sine qua non, that each member of the class automatically gets. It might be as simple as a +1 bonus to hit with weapon attacks for a fighter (or maybe a +1 to AC? what's the iconic fighter?), whereas for a wizard it might be the spellbook. 4e hit on this a bit with their hybrid classes (though IMO they missed big time with the wizard). Under this approach, each class would have an Iconic Feature and would also choose from several possible class features, each of which tends to support a different role in the party.
Thoughts on this approach? Ideas about Iconic Features? What does an iconic fighter look like, anyway?
This is in the very nascent stages, but it's worth putting out for comment: using class features to help each class slide into a different party role.
Thus far, with its addition of the "skill exploit" notion, D&D Next has a highly-customizable advancement framework. Want your fighter to be able to cast spells? Give him training in Arcana with the Spellcasting exploit. He won't be as good at, say, intimidating people as other fighters, but zapping them with a fireball is pretty scary.
This means that he's moving away from traditional fighter-y stuff and into wizardly realms. We think that's great -- one of the things that was awesome for players of 3e was its customizability -- but this necessarily means that it's harder in Next to keep classes associated with a certain party role. This fighter has become more of a controller or striker, depending on his spell selection.
Party role was something that 4e did both very well and very poorly. It was integral in helping balance the classes across each level: here's the damage output you should expect from a striker, which is higher than what you'd expect from a defender (but the defender has more hit points). Class balance makes the game more playable and enjoyable: you aren't hosed if you don't play the cleric.
But by the same token, all that class balance couldn't help but make each class feel kind of mechanical. What does a 4e character do? Push, pull, and slide enemies; attack bursts or blasts of them; do extra damage under certain circumstances, etc. Yes, a talented DM could handle a character who wanted to slide down a bannister, but saying, "OK, you move 8 squares" does take a little of the drama out of it. Combat became an exercise in moving pieces around the board and less of a dramatic storytelling exercise. And let's not get into how much the focus on combat encounters took away from the pure storytelling piece of it: if you spend an hour per encounter, you have a lot less roleplaying time out of combat.
Class balance is a good thing, but taken too far it can lead to a game that's less fun, not more. In 3e, it was pretty easy to make an archer-type fighter. In 4e, it makes a lot less sense: the figher is a defender, so he's supposed to step in and duke it out with enemies face-to-face. Sword-and-shield or just-a-big-sword were the main choices.
D&D Next is striving to return choice to the players who want it, while at the same time hopefully keeping playability high. We're hoping to blunt some of the excesses of 3e's spellcasting system, while still making each class more modular than 4e.
With that long intro, an idea that's been introduced by @ControlBlue is to give each class the ability to slide into a certain party role. A fighter could be played as a defender, sure, but also as a striker, leader, or controller (just using the 4e terms for convenience). This is a pretty cool idea. Your default fighter type may still be the defender, but maybe your just-a-big-sword guy should really have more of a striker aspect? The archer type could be more of a battlefield controller, herding enemies this way or that, or raining masses of arrows down on a small burst to take out many minions at once. And what's the 4e warlord, but a fighter with a leader aspect?
Keeping the focus that Next currently has on flexibility, we don't want to shoehorn anyone into one role or another. They should be able to organically choose whatever skill exploits, spells, whatever, make them happiest. But if they have a certain archetype in mind, we also want the system to support that choice. Class features seem to be a good way to do that. A controller fighter is going to look very different from a controller wizard.
One approach would be to give each class a choice of one of four class features, each supporting a certain party role. This way, you could wind up having your controller fighter (archer), striker wizard (evoker), leader rogue (um... guildmaster?), and defender druid (sort of a 4e warden?). Or that same party could have a defender fighter, controller wizard, striker rogue, and leader druid.
A possible wrinkle here is the question of what makes each class unique? How is a two-weapon fighter different from a two-weapon ranger (assuming that both classes have a place in Next, which we'd ideally like to support)? One approach to this is to have each class have an Iconic Feature, a sort of sine qua non, that each member of the class automatically gets. It might be as simple as a +1 bonus to hit with weapon attacks for a fighter (or maybe a +1 to AC? what's the iconic fighter?), whereas for a wizard it might be the spellbook. 4e hit on this a bit with their hybrid classes (though IMO they missed big time with the wizard). Under this approach, each class would have an Iconic Feature and would also choose from several possible class features, each of which tends to support a different role in the party.
Thoughts on this approach? Ideas about Iconic Features? What does an iconic fighter look like, anyway?
