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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6413743" data-attributes="member: 4937">Depends on what you mean by forcing agenda.  You are right the being a priest forces your agenda, but not every priest has the same agenda.  Likewise, being a fanatic by definition means that you are passionate about something, but what agenda that forces depends on what you are fanatical about.  I think in that sense, every class forces your agenda.   But so long as that agenda can be infinitely varied, so what?   Classes are shorthand for common identities or groups of identities within the setting.   That's one of several things that make classes attractive compared to point buy.In other words, you see Explorer as a multi-classed fighter/rogue.  For you, the Explorer is just not archetypal in your setting.  For me it is.    The majority is not published.  I've let lose bits and pieces at EnWorld when I wanted some feedback, but I'm not feeling a pressing need to show it all off just yet.  For one thing, I've some fairly esoteric desires.   For example, I never adopted 3.5 at all, so you are quite right - my rules are largely forked from 3.0 and balanced against 3.0 expectations.   For this reason, your classes are probably across the board more powerful than mine.   What I mostly find interesting about your work is how at some level, through quite independent means, you've arrived at similar conclusions in a lot of areas.   Your cleric tone down doesn't look like mine, but it arrives at a similar point with similar effective restrictions.  Your martial class improvements don't look like mine, but share the idea that only skills + feats = spells.   Your multi-classing rule looks completely different than mine, but arrives at a similar balance.In the particulars though, I suspect neither of us is really going to like the others work.  I detest encounter powers for example, so would never adopt anything like your rogue's inspiration points.   And your rogue takes 'jack of all trades' to the point where I consider it encroachment on adjacent concepts - probably because you consider skills so minor of ability that almost any degree of skill in them is balanced.  You use skill tricks.  I consider skill tricks to be doing unnecessary double duty with feats, and are just disguising the fact that most 3e non-spellcasting classes are simply feat starved.  And so forth. No, it didn't.  One of the big points of my chargen rules is that I can say, "Here they are.  I'll approve anything you make with them.  Break them however you like, you can't break them so bad that I'll consider it poor sportsmanship and game destroying."  Of course, since they've only seen 500 or so hours of playtesting, I can't really be sure of that, but its looking pretty solid so far.   Initially, the player that figured out the Feyborn trick thought he'd found something strictly better than a low level fanatic - turning into a giant was better than raging.  But in practice, it ended up being very balanced.   It was also one of the most satisfying characters that had been created with my rules, because it was something completely unexpected that I'd never foreseen, but it proved that the class and the system as a whole had real breadth. Why not?  I'm pretty sure I can get there eventually with a bit more refinement.  What I won't be offering is some concepts you offer archetypally, well, archetypally.   If you'd want to play a 'Time Bender' under my rules, it would never be as much of a percentage of who you are as it would be if I devoted a whole class to it, nor would you be forced to stick to the concept to the degree devoting a whole class to it forces you to stick to the concept.   I don't think so.  I think I'm just deviating from the expectation that you need templates or special races to cover anything a bit inhuman.  Note that you even already have this concept.  Your Druid turns into a plant eventually.  So I'm not introducing anything nearly as novel as you think.  I'm just generalizing it a bit. Why?  There's no real reason why you can't have a first level character with the concept of 'I want to play a character like Wolverine'.  You just scale down his special abilities until they match the power level expected at that level of play. You're making the assumption that it actually offers class features.  What I introduced was a trait that radically transforms a character's career regardless of what class he takes from that point henceforth, even if he multi-classes.   It doesn't grant a class feature.  It changes the class features of every class that you take.  Regardless of your class, your skill list looks a bit different, your granted feats look a bit different, and the degree to which you can excel at things changes a bit.   That right.  And in my game, the ability to step through the veil into the spirit world or the dream world is just a mundane ability that any class can have regardless of whether it studies magic.   For that matter, the same is true of the ability to brew potions.  In the reverse direction, the same is true of the ability to move quickly.  I'm working on it.  The trick is to remember that characters above 6th level and certainly above 8th level are superheroes.   Most classes are feat starved as it is, making feats not so flexible of an option.   Feats also in general represent things that transcend classes and which modify classes.  Skills are on the other hand things that are shared between classes but which - in particular collections - help define what a class is actually about.    Your making the assumption that what being a paladin is about is being a warrior priest.  I understand were you are getting that, but I disagree.   What being a 'paladin' is about is being a specially chosen representative of a deity.  You aren't so much the deities servant on the earth, as you are his actual presence.  A priest works miracles.  A paladin is a miracle.  A paladin is the walking embodiment of the power and presence of the deity.  He is the deities chosen champion.   Since this concept is archetypal in my campaign world, merely saying, "Well, your a normal fighter that also happens to be a lesser priest", doesn't capture the concept.   In a certain sense, even the lowliest paladin if not outranks a high priest, then is at least outside the normal chain of command in a way that being a multi-classed cleric/fighter or cleric/fanatic wouldn't.  Remember, class indicates identity.   Almost every Templar within my game world is a Fanatic.  Templars can have many different classes - in some sects and cults they could often be wizards, for example - but one class they never really have is cleric.  That's because the Templars are laity.  And if you have a rank in cleric, you are no longer laity but clergy.   A Templar that multi-classes into cleric takes new orders, under goes new rites, and leaves the Templars.  He'd be ideally suited, in time perhaps, for being a chaplain to the Templars in one of the more martial sorts of sects that maintains large military orders. Only because there is only one sort of 'paladin' in 3e - a champion of righteousness, justice, and light.   But it really makes no sense that every deity would represent themselves as that or have dominion over that. I go about this in different ways.   But again, overlap of where with have found balance at.   My rogue for example has base 11 skill points per level.If you want to play a divine caster based on Charisma, you'd play a Shaman in my game.   Dropping wisdom from the clerics required list would make it to SAD IMO. I've folded the Monk into Fighter.  I don't like Monks though, so I've no real pressure to offer it as an option.I'm sure that I don't, but to the extent that you are baffled why I'd need to offer the ability to play 'spiderman' or one of the X-Men, I'm baffled by why I'd need to specifically support something so setting specific as that.   Are you seriously porting the Bene Gesserit into your homebrew?</blockquote>

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