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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9172350" data-attributes="member: 29398">Actually, ability or feat &quot;chains&quot; where one is a pre-req. for the next can be a decent way of making two characters of the same root class feel and play quite differently...provided the class has enough built-in variety to make it work.My Bards and Monks both work this way.&nbsp; I rebuilt them from the ground up for our 1e variant: they all start out with some basic abilities then at each level (including 0th, i.e. during char-gen) they pick a few abilities from a list, where said list gets longer as levels advance and more abilities potentially come online.&nbsp; There's a bunch of these chains, any one character can usually follow about half of them.&nbsp; The abilities come online faster than a character can choose them, until about 15th level where they slow right down and a character can start going back to pick up things not taken earlier.Some of the abilities are standalone, but most either have a pre-req., or are a pre-req. for something else, or both.&nbsp; For example, one Bardic progression goes Charm Person(0) =&gt; Enthrall(3) =&gt; Charm Monster(6) =&gt; [etc.] =&gt; Dominate Person(14): you can't get Dominate Person unless you're at least 14th level AND already have all the pre-req's.I thought about redesigning all the classes this way, but the only ones that have enough abilities to make it work are these two.&nbsp; Ranger's kinda close, but that's pretty much it.Results so far, after a few lengthy run-outs: the Monk works fairly well, the Bard needs a bit of dialling back.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 9172350, member: 29398"] Actually, ability or feat "chains" where one is a pre-req. for the next can be a decent way of making two characters of the same root class feel and play quite differently...provided the class has enough built-in variety to make it work. My Bards and Monks both work this way. I rebuilt them from the ground up for our 1e variant: they all start out with some basic abilities then at each level (including 0th, i.e. during char-gen) they pick a few abilities from a list, where said list gets longer as levels advance and more abilities potentially come online. There's a bunch of these chains, any one character can usually follow about half of them. The abilities come online faster than a character can choose them, until about 15th level where they slow right down and a character can start going back to pick up things not taken earlier. Some of the abilities are standalone, but most either have a pre-req., or are a pre-req. for something else, or both. For example, one Bardic progression goes Charm Person(0) => Enthrall(3) => Charm Monster(6) => [etc.] => Dominate Person(14): you can't get Dominate Person unless you're at least 14th level AND already have all the pre-req's. I thought about redesigning all the classes this way, but the only ones that have enough abilities to make it work are these two. Ranger's kinda close, but that's pretty much it. Results so far, after a few lengthy run-outs: the Monk works fairly well, the Bard needs a bit of dialling back. [/QUOTE]

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