What if races leveled up?

[Celebrim]

On a side note, I really like the idea of the feat chains as replacements to prestige classes as well.

This has been my approach since I first saw Prestige Classes. Personally, I feel that PrCs were the worst feature of 3e, and my first house rule was 'none of these'. Pretty much every PrC that people actually take is one of two things - a base class variant that gains more 'bonus feats' than the original base class (usually in the form of a fixed progression of class powers) or else a kludge to allow a base class to multiclass more effectively with a spellcasting class (something the otherwise awesome multiclass rules don't really encourage). (There is a third important class of PrC and that's a PrC that is required because of the poor design of a base class. An example would be something like the Blackgaurd, necessitated by the fact that you have a Paladin base class and not a design for a more generic 'Champion' class that works regardless of the alignment or concept being championed.)

The multiclassing problem has a completely different fix which I don't need to go into here but basically works the same (you can make it a feat tree).

The former suggests one or both of two things. Either you don't think that classes get enough feats to customize them, in which case you need to give lower tier base classes more bonus feats especially at higher levels and/or go to a 1:2 progression, and/or you need to think about bumping up the power level of feats especially those that are down more lengthy feat chains and have other heavy requirements to make feats competitive with spells and spell slots as resources. This last change in particular is welcome because it addresses something that PrC's got kludged into addressing as 3.X matured, and that was the disparity of tier in core between full spellcasters and martial classes due to the very generous design of spells (1e spells with few restrictions) and the very tentative design and linear design of feats where even the third or fourth feat in a chain doesn't really bring the awesome but just another singular minor benefit. There are many more balance issues between high level spellcasters and martial classes than that, but that's a peice of it.

As airwalkr noticed, most PrC's fixed progression of class powers can just be turned into a feat tree by reworking them a little. Often the class power or most iconic group of powers can just be directly turned into a feat with the same prerequisites as the PrC. Other PrC class powers aren't worth a feat in themselves, but can be bundled into a single feat often with a structure similar to a 'tactical' feat - three little bonuses.

Anyway, my point in all of this is that feats are not little bonuses you tack on to your build. Feats are also customizable class powers that extend the flexibility of the class system to let you make the class of your choosing without needing to have hundreds of classes in the system. The feat as a concept is vastly more powerful and flexible than a PrC. With a well designed set of base classes and feats, there really should be little need for a PrC and most of the desire for PrC's was rooted in an unhealthy desire to break the balance or else fix the balance by making everything broken. With PrC dipping the only way to really break balance in a game dependent on core is go full spellcaster. But with a healthy reappraisal of spells focusing on the spells that tend to be I win buttons for a scenario, even that can be largely brought under control IMO.

 

[Umbran]

This really isn't what I am talking about. Almost everything you mention requires some investment of character building resources to make the character more "elfy" or "dwarfy" or whatever. I am talking about abilities that come with the race as you level up and require no special investment of character building resources to obtain.

Ah. So, along with your class abilities that go up, you have race abilities that go up. General power inflation is an issue, there, along with the difficulty with keeping this track balanced with the rest. But the concept isn't fundamentally horrible.

There's probably an unintended consequence or two there to watch out for. If these abilities are too weak, nobody will care. If they are too powerful, then you run the risk of these abilities defining too much of the character, making all members of that race seem too similar.

 

[Celebrim]

Level 1: standard racial traits
Level 2: +1 to Spot, Search and Listen
Level 3: +1 to save vs. enchantment
Level 4: Weapon Focus with elven weapon of choice
Level 5: +1 to wizard caster level related effects
Level 6: +1 to Dexterity
Level 7: +1 to Spot, Search and Listen
Level 8: +1 to save vs. enchantment
Level 9: Weapon Focus with elven weapon of choice
Level 10: +1 to wizard caster level related effects
Level 11: +1 to Dexterity
Level 12: +1 to Spot, Search and Listen
Level 13: +1 to save vs. enchantment
Level 14: Weapon Focus with elven weapon of choice
Level 15: +1 to wizard caster level related effects
Level 16: +1 to Dexterity
Level 17: +1 to Spot, Search and Listen
Level 18: +1 to save vs. enchantment
Level 19: Weapon Focus with elven weapon of choice
Level 20: +1 to wizard caster level related effects

I really think that you've got a combination of 'things so weak no one will care' and 'things that encourage everyone of a given race to be of the same class'. Either the above doesn't synergize with your race/class combination, in which case its all 'meh', or else it does - in which case, "Yeah, I'd like to have caster level 19 as a 15th level wizard or caster level 25 as 20th level wizard."

I think a better progression would be.

Level 1: Standard racial traits
Level 2: Pick a bonus racial feat
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5: Pick a bonus racial feat
Level 6:
Level 7:
Level 8:
Level 9:
Level 10: Pick a bonus racial feat
Level 11:
Level 12:
Level 13:
Level 14:
Level 15: Pick a bonus racial feat
Level 16:
Level 17:
Level 18:
Level 19:
Level 20: Pick a bonus racial feat

You'll need at least 10 racial feats specific to each race. You also could additionally do some generic racial feats, some of which depend on this new mechanic implicitly, like:

Racial Paragon [Racial]
You embody perfection in your race.
Prequisite: Character level 10
Benefit: Pick an attribute for which you have a racial bonus in your natural form. Your racial bonus for that attribute increases by 1.
Special: If your race has no racial bonuses to attribute (frex, human), you may choose any attribute.

Champion of your People [Racial]
Prerequisite: At least one level in a class which is your favored class and which has a bonus feat list.
Benefit: Select a class which is a favored class for your race or character and which has a bonus feat list. So long as you remain the same race as you were at the time of selection, you gain that feat as a virtual feat.

Racial Heritage [Racial]
Benefit: Pick up to two skills for which you have a racial bonus in your natural form. Your racial skill bonus in each skill increases by 1.
Special: If you currently have no racial bonus to skills in your natural form (frex, human), you may choose any two skills. You gain a +1 racial bonus in those two skills. You may take Racial Heritage multiple times. Its benefits stack. Each time you select racial heritage, you may choose the same or different skills provided that they meet the qualifications of the feat. Note that if you previously used Racial heritage to gain a racial bonus where you had none before, you no longer have free selection among all skills.

And so forth. In general, where you can summarize an idea to make it applicable across all categories, I think you should (that's the programmer in me talking). Stating out a 20 level racial progression for every race you want to have in the campaign could be tedious. It will be bad enough thinking up 5-10 racial feats to put along side generic racial feats like the above.

 

[airwalkrr]

That is an interesting idea Celebrim. Depending on the edition though, I would stagger benefits so that they don't overlap with things like ability score bonuses and level-dependent feats. Some levels inevitably end up being far more important than other levels in that case. So if that were used for 3.5, I might put the bonus racial feats at levels where the character does not get either a level-dependent feat or a bonus to an ability score (level 2, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 19). I never liked that 3.5 didn't stagger feats and bonuses to ability scores so that some levels you ended up getting both and other levels you ended up getting neither. PF did a better job of this. Using PF, you could stagger the racial feats at level 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18. Then you would never have a "dead level" for purely level-dependent benefits.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

In my reckoning, race is genetically modified* so any racial advantage that they gain isn't choosable from a list but rather a particular single benefit that is gained at whatever level. This would also help to maintain the distinction between race and class.

Regarding the motives of folk using prestige classes @Celebrim, from what I've read on various forums, I think you must be correct. However, my major consideration (which often ends in frustration) is finding a prestige class that can cover the character concept (mechanically) that I want.

Edit: genetically dictated. I think I've been watcdhing too much Food Inc.....

 

[doghead]

My initial thought was something like airwalkrr's progression but using the Unearth Arcana Bloodline template.

How you incorporate it depends on the type of game you are playing.

You could use the Bloodline Level costs as described if you want to keep it 'balance neutral'.

Alternatively, if you are playing a game in which social and cultural obligations and responsibilities play a significant role, then the racial progression could be layered over the normal class progression, the cost being in the form of social obligations. In a way, its kind of like the notion of aristocracy with its attendant belief in superior breeding. This approach would probably only be appropriate in more specific types of game.

Some really interesting food for thought in this thread.
[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]'s comment about punishing non-architype characters is a valid one. For my Elf sorcerer, the Elf Paragon's wizard caster levels are of little value. Of course, if you are looking to create a setting in which some races are constrained by rigid ideas as to what is appropriate, then maybe it works. Kicking against the traces carries a cost. Alternatively, you may just allow some negotiated changes - taking sorcerer caster levels rather than wizard.

I like the racial feat trees, as both a way of adding a racial dimension to the character but also means of describing the key ideas of a race.

The analysis of PrC's was also quite enlightening. I never really like them, but struggled to explain why. A mechanism for creating campaign and setting specific organisations or giving magic to non-magic users indeed.

The idea of using feats chains to cover class specialisations, PrC classes, racial abilities and even multi-classing is a appealing one. Classless character generation anyone?

thotd

 

[Celebrim]

The idea of using feats chains to cover class specialisations, PrC classes, racial abilities and even multi-classing is a appealing one. Classless character generation anyone?

thotd

I've seen it attempted in D20 with as few as 3 classes. I'm not a really big fan. I have serious reservations with the base class design in 3e D&D even in core, but not with the notion of classes itself. The fewer classes you use the more problems you pick up with achieving balance, the more difficult you make chargen, and the more convuluted your description of a class is. I'm happy with say 8-15 classes as about ideal. By contrast, 3.X ended up with hundreds. And while some of that was just rules bloat for the sake of publishing splatbooks, some of those were legitimate attempts to fix the broken core base classes without having to retcon them.

My big problems in core 3.0e where:

a) Sorcerer improperly tied to 'dragon blooded' in flavor, rather than genericly tied to some sort of magical empowerment. Additionally, no flavor distinguishing (or limiting) sorcerers on the basis of the origin of their magical gifts. Or to put it another way, a sorcerer that gained their power because they were a minor-demigod by a Death deity, a sorcerer that was the scion of dragons, a sorcerer exposed to intense magical radition as an infant, and another that was bitten by magical spider should feel more different to play in ways that reinforced the powerful mechanic of customizable spell list selection.
b) Paladin improperly tied to 'good', rather than to the more generic notion of championing a cause or belief, forcing each sort of champion to be different subclass. No provision to differentiate champions on the basis of their beliefs. The crappy 'Blackguard' was an immediate attempt to fix this obvious problem. Everyone was stuck with the same LG list of powers.
c) Barbarian improperly tied to 'chaotic', implying all tribal or primitive societies were chaotic rather than lawful. Barbarian given a rage mechanic improperly limited to chaotic primitive, rather than more generically to fanaticism, frenzy, or empowerment by emotional state in general. (Think about a Dervish or Templar fanatic of a lawful religion, or of a fanatical body gaurd of a ruler). Fanaticism improperly tied to a wilderness background. There just wasn't enough flexibility here, resulting in too many PrCs existing solely to port minor variants of 'rage' over to different cultural backgrounds.
d) The concept of 'hunting' tied improperly not only to a wilderness background (think bounty hunter as a counter example), but tied to animistic mysticism. The whole 'ranger' concept was just too flavorful to be a base class, and too tied to setting assumptions to be generic. What if you wanted to be a 'hunter' that didn't rely on magic (for example, in a non-magical setting). Why was it so hard to build something like an 'Undead Hunter' or 'Construct Smasher' effectively from low levels?
e) No provision for a generic skillful martial class suitable for a generic adventurer, generic leader, or generic hero. The only way to get there was multiclassing between for example fighter and rogue.
f) The druid concept was tightly tied in flavor to western european animism. There was no provision for animists from similar magical traditions the world over like witches, shamans, tribal magicans, vodoo doctors or animist tradtion priests except for the NPC adept class, which was merely a 'legacy' class like warrior to support backwards compatibility and existing expectations. There needed to be some base class that would provide for all those flavors without needing a separate class for each sort. Worse yet, Druid was an uber-class, not merely jack of all trades, but master of all trades, and likely to steal spotlight regardless of the scene - something that became really problimatic with the buffs in 3.5.
g) The monk. In just about every respect.
h) The classes became increasingly imbalanced at high levels as spellcasters increased exponentially in power (more spells, scalable spells, more powerful spells all at the same time) while martial classes continued to increase linearly (feats or class abilities gained at regular increments with small even boosts to power). Significant buffing of Fighter and Rogue was needed beginning around 10th level. Conversely, significant spell features needed to be reduced in power for spellcasters.

I know why these mistakes happened. The 3e designers were anxious to win back hearts and minds and wanted to make a game that looked as much like 1e D&D as possible, and bringing back classes in an iconic fashion was an obvious attempt to do that. But, by 3.5 at least they should have been fixing these problems better, instead of just heaping a bunch of ill thought out errata on the system and making things worse.

For me, the cleric - with the exception of being broken by the general poor design of some spells - was the best designed class in 3e. It picked up two minor customizable features - domains - that could be fairly easily described but still altered how the class felt and to some extent played. It served for everything that was in its concept. I wanted to replicate that across classes that were too generic, boost feats, reduce the tier spread, and generally get rid of the need for PrCs.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

point e) I found particularly frustrating. My fighter/rogue just wouldn't be up to the job

 

[doghead]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] - Nice summary. I would agree with your reservations about a classless system. I have used a simple classes system for a game, but it was core class stuff only, and limited to Epic6 which kept it reasonably manageable.

Reading this thread, I have been increasingly wondering why no serious attempt has been given to update the core classes, clearing away the culturally specific elements. The monk weapon list is a classic example. A lot of this stuff I just toss in my games if it doesn't make sense in context of the setting.

Out of curiosity, what would you use as your base classes. Off the top of my head:

1. Fighter
2. Rogue
3. Divine Spell-caster - divided into spontaneous (animist, totem and spirit) and vancian (deities)?
4. Arcane Spell-caster - divided into spontaneous (sorcerer) and vancian (wizard)?
5. Investigator
6. Raging Warrior
7. Holy Warrior

That was harder than I expected. After the first four I found myself thinking, "Isn't this just a fighter or rogue with the Track feat? Or a fighter with a Rage feat chain and perhaps Fast Move and/or Uncanny Dodge. Or a fighter with some divine spell-caster levels?"

Which is in essence what True20 has done.

"Maybe if we just went Strong, Fast, Tough ..."

thotd

 

[Celebrim]

[MENTION=4937]Out of curiosity, what would you use as your base classes.

Ok, so I could definately condense down further than I do, but if I did I'd be losing mechanical variaty and a bit of flavor variaty that I find important to my game world.

1) Fighter - This is the core class of fantasy gaming, the one you have to get right. In my game, it includes soldiers, knights, samurii, martial monks, warlords, and really every who makes a profession of mastering combat and the art of war. One of my goals for the fighter has been to try to make it reasonable to make any of the six attributes your key stat and build a fighter around that.
2) Wizard - The wizard is in my opinion a strange beast and in many ways the modern fantasy wizard is a pure creation of D&D. It doesn't have a lot of mythic tradition, and at some level I'm tempted to do away with it but on the other hand the notion of the wizard as scholar is just so important to how we see the wizard now that I just feel I have to have it. No other class is as deep in terms of support you can provide for it. Few other classes really resonate as well with the modern mind.
3) Rogue - The third archetypal fantasy character, and the class I've played the most as a player, so I don't really feel I can do away with it. The 3e version was well done, and all that it really needs is a minor boost past 10th level, a bit more skill points, and a bit more ability to be proactive with its skills.
4) Shaman - This is based off the Green Ronin version of the class, and generally replaces Druid, Witch, Adept, Witch Doctor, and to a certain extent 'magic user' in my game. By dropping Druid, I could expand into its territory far harder than GR could, essentially gobbling up its spell list. I cut pretty hard against the grain in see the divine spell casters - particularly the shaman but also the cleric - as having a much stronger mythic tradition than what we call 'wizards'. In fact, what most ancient cultures called wizards, we'd call shamans or priests. The fact is, people aren't stupid. They knew that people couldn't do magic. But they believed that there were higher powers that certain people might make bargains with or gain the favor of or find ways to leverage and command. That is a 'wizard' by most historical usages. It's only really when we get to the 19th century that we begin to replace in our minds the notion of 'wizard' with the notion of scientist.
5) Champion - This is the first pure homebrew class on the list, which gets in my game by way of Holy Warrior and Unholy Warrior which were Green Ronin's somewhat hesitant but still quite inspired attempts to fix the Paladin class and make it generic. GR's take had a variaty of problems, partly because they wanted to make the class backward compatible with the 3.0 Paladin, and partly because of some poor editting - especially in the Unholy Warrior source book. But freed from those constraints I think I've made a pretty great class that more or less can fill the shoes of every 'annointed', 'appointed', 'ordained' or 'committed' archetype regardless of what they are representing. These are ideas made flesh. To a certain extent, this is arguably droppable, as you could probably get here by multiclassing two of the other classes, but notably it is not droppable unless all nine of the other 'core' classes are present, at which point you might as well include it. You can't drop it to cut down to 3 base classes without losing things.

Arguably, here we could stop. And as I indicated, I think you could drop the wizard if you really needed to pair down. We have the three core archetypes, and Champion is flexible enough that in many ways it can serve as every other class concept. However, I really want to go further, particularly into diversification of generic fighter into things that could be made into feat trees, but to me fill more solid and easily balanced as separate classes as well as exploration of flavor not easily capturable in the mechanics of Wizard or Shaman.

6) Explorer: This is my generic hero class. Also a homebrew, it's been around in some form since 1e with it's genesis being originally a broadening of the concept of the 'Mariner' class from Dragon Magazine. It got ported in to 3e by me initially as an NPC class that was used by pirates, bucanneers, teamsters, gypsyies, and generic adventurers. Gradually though, its power level rose as I gave it more stuff to the point that it became competitive as a PC class. It has become a great class for Duelists and other lightly armored swashbuckling types that depend on skill and motion as much as weapon process. They have a bonus feat list built around fencing, two weapon fighting, skillfulness and speed. In it's present form, it's been a very successful class at low level but worry about its high level viability. Still, it's definately higher tier than RAW 3.0 fighter. Explorer steals a lot of the Ranger stuff that wasn't about animism or huntingl, and competes with a rogue as skill monkey trading the sneak attack for full BAB progression, more hit points, and other features. Very popular as a dip class so far in my games, which was intended. It's a great way to bridge classes or get more well rounded.
7) Hunter: This takes the other half of the Ranger's martial stuff and goes deep with it, become a focused killer - especially with ranged weapons. This is the class of regular hunters, bounty hunters, executioners, asssasins, demon slayers, undead hunters, and yes - with a bit of multiclassing with something like Shaman - traditional rangers. One of the most important advantages that the class has is that they can make critical hits on any favored enemy - even those normally immune to criticals. As such there is huge and intended synergy with Rogue, to the extent that if you meet an assassin in my game its pretty much gauranteed that he is a multiclass Hunter-Rogue. Multi-classing with Explorer gets you a guide type character. In addition to ranged weapons, the Hunter schtick is massive criticals.
8) Fanatic: This is the class of the warrior who is powered not solely by skill at arms, but also by raw emotional energy. Built off the barbarian, but intended to also represent elite bodygaurds, dervishes, religious fanatics like the Jewish Nazarenes or Zealots, elite assault troops like the Aztec Jaguar warriors or modern US marines, psychotic maniacs, and yes raving spittle flinging Norse inspired beserkers. I borrowed a bit of Monte Cook's Oathbound flavor to help fill them out, dropped alignment requirements, and gave them a somewhat configurable package of skills representing their different traditions.
9) Sorcerer: I wasn't a big fan of this class when I first saw it, but it grew on me. The real insight for me was that even though it was just a variant Vancian spell-casting class, it had a flavor that wizard did not have. This was The Mutant. This was the meta-human. This was the person whose power came from within - both the superhero and the thing that ought not be. This is the class of Spider Man and of Wilber Whateley. This was the class of Professor X, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Elastagirl. You just had to customize your spells (and expectations) accordingly. Once I got that, it was an easy hop to giving the class a list of feat trees that give you the ability to mutate into something obviously inhuman. Tons of 3rd edition prestige classes and templates can be captured in this idea.
10) Cleric: This is the class of the true holy man. This is the class of the servant of the gods. The reason I have both Shaman and Cleric is the same that I have both Shaman and Wizard (and to a lesser extent Wizard and Sorcerer). There is a very different flavor here. In my game world, there is a sincere and bitter theological and philosophical rivilry between those that look at the world like Shamans - something to trick, intimidate, befriend, coerse, command, but in general get to do your bidding - and the Clerics who believe that they exist to serve the universe and not the other way around. Note that this is not entirely an alignment argument, though it sounds simplisticly on law versus chaos on the surface. This isn't really about society versus the individual, but rather what your role in it is and on a larger scale what is the purpose of humanity. Both sides in my opinon have very good reasons for believing as they do. This tension is almost the third moral axis in my campaign, as relevant as good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Is humanities place in the universe near the top, or near the bottom and if so, "Why?"

Ok, there you could stop for a generic campaign world IMO. Anything you add after this will make your world much less generic. In my opinion, just about any concept you could make up, any base class or PrC you could examine from a published book, could be carefully constructed from the above and a feat tree or two. So what falls after here are actually very ungeneric:

11) Bard: For the longest time I considered dropping this class. The only reason I keep it is that the concept of singing your spells relates nicely with a major concept in my campaign world called the Iconoclasm (not to be confused with this worlds Iconoclasm), and the fall of the 'Art Mages' - a dead but far more potent magical tradition than currently exists in the world of the 'present'. Bards in my game represent a small surviving fragment of that knowledge. Interestingly, that means that they are inherently members of a secret society that most of the world would happily execute as practioners of divinely prohibited art.
12) Feyborn: A custom class that exists because there are no halflings or gnomes in my world. If you want to play a wee person, you have to go fey. This is a racial class for my three fey PC races, and its built around a jack of all trades that gets an expanding customizable list of spell-like abilities. So far no one has really explored it so I'm totally unsure on the balance, but I have seen it dipped in some highly amusing ways.
13) Akashic: A slightly buffed version of Monte Cook's Akashic just fit so perfectly into my existing game world that it was beautiful. Essentially another racial class, this time for a PC race called the Idreth, whose primary schtick is that they share a collective racial memory. They don't actually reincarnate (at least no more than any other race), but they do remember fragments of the lives of their ancestors. This class's flavor assumes that it is about practicing meditation so as to be able to recall more perfectly the knowledge of those former lives.

Coming down the pipe I'm working on what will probably be nearly the last class I introduce ever, the Paragon - a class based on having an epic destiny, luck, and divine favor.

Lastly, I still have a few NPC classes for when I don't want NPCs to shine so much. I don't have adepts or aristocrats and I almost never use warriors and may drop them, but Expert like Explorer before is growing in power and may eventually hit the point where it could be a PC class option. The other three NPC classes in current use are Brute, Scholar, and Commoner, but Scholar may be on the chopping block as its possible to get there now via Expert and certain trait selections. Currently, Explorer contains the keys to your 'Investigator' concept, but if I ever figure out how to move Expert up at least a tier, then it would take over that flavor. That would leave me with 13-15 PC base classes, and 2-4 NPC classes. It's possible that Expert will end up swallowing Brute at some point, which at that point would mean 15 base classes + commoner.