Premise:
I know many people would want 6e to be just 5.75, but lets assume the next Edition of D&D would "go wild" again taking big risks, experimenting, trying to come up with a broad range of unique classes. (I can understand if you dont want such a D&D but this is not the thread ro discuss that).
What I mean with "go wild" is late 3.5 experimental (and a bit like late 4E experimental) creating more unique classes. For this to work, the game (in my oppinion) needs to be heroic not deadly. (Since if you are dead after 1 hit, well then there is not much distinction to have).
Question:
What unique (and hopefully clever and well made) class mechanics would you love to see explored?
It could be from older editions of D&D or from other games (D&D clone like Pathfinder, but also others!)
its perfectly fine if the mechanic originally did not work out, but maybe write what you would change to make it .
So this is about class mechanics, not system mechanics and not flavour.
Examples:
So here some examples which come to mind for me:Spellblade:
What I mean is combinig a spell and a weapon attack. By delivering the weapon attack you also deliver the spell. Like in PF1 and not just doing a spell and a weapon attack. This would be most interesting if spells and weapon attacks are as different as possible: Spells normally cant crit, use saving throws never attack rolls, if the attack misses the spell is still stored in the weapon and released on the next hit (unless concentration is broken), weapons having different properties (like higher crit chance, or higher crit damage or having minimum dice outcome in rolls (like rerolling low dice or having minimum x on a roll)). This is a great way to have a weaker spellcasting than other classes and still be relevant. Example here: Red Mage (but without the limit on touch spells since there should be no touch spells to have bigger difference as mentioned above)
"Blue Magic":
The blue mage from final fantasy is known for leaening attacks from enemies. And I really like this idea. So the spells you learn are supernatural abilities from enemies you saw them use. So you learn typicsl monster abilities and can replicate them with your magic. Again this works best if supernatural abilities are more differenr from normal magic to make this class stand out. Its a nice way to make the enemies/world feel more interactive and also makes you remember fights better, since you may use abilities you learned from them far into the future. Maybe even you learn spells from bosses which you cant use for several levels to make this effect stronger. This would also "force" enemies to have cool attacks since its needed for the class to work. Example here: Blue Mage
"Truenamer"
Not necassaeily with this name but the same base mechanic: You have a small number of spells, which are weaker than normal spells, but they (pretty much) always succeed. However over a day these spells become weaker the more they are (successfull) used. To give flexibility, each spell has 2 ways to be used. You can decrease the chance of the spells succeeding to empower them (like minir action speed, or higher numbers etc). What I would change over the 3.5 implementation is that you have a fixed (inbuilt in class) chance for succeeding per level (not optimization based) and that you have some flexibility (can change 1 spell per day and or level up). Also number of total spells known needs to be kept low to make the mechanic not irrelevant at high levels. (And some metamagic should be automatic known not optional). https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/50000/index.html
Your turn!
What unique class mechanic (for existing or new class) would you like to see explored? (In a high fantasy, high heroic, D&D (like late 3.5 or late 4E).
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