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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5705867" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, I don't pretend to know for sure what the 'ideal' number is, but I'd note that it ranges somewhere between 2 (weapon users and magic users) and some other low number. OD&D started out with 3 (fighting man, magic user, and cleric), then added the 4th of the big 4 almost immediately. Nobody has actually created a 100% compelling argument for a class that has to exist since then. All the barbarians and rangers and whatnot are really variations of fighting man. All the various casters are variations of magic user. Even cleric and thief can arguably be subsumed under fighting man and magic user.  I think you really need a STRONG argument for the existence of an entire class and power list. Honestly, Essentials seems to have that dialed in pretty well, and I think if they had been doing a clean reimplementation they'd have stuck to the big 4.There can easily be the 30+ BUILDS we have now though. I just cannot find a strong argument for anything beyond the big 4 to be classes. Those are the archetypes of heroes, the man of learning, the man of physical prowess, the man of devotion, and the man of the shadows. Everything else is a variation on those.[MENTION=15922]Karen[/MENTION]sDad Yeah, it is certainly one possibility. My only issue with it is I think you will find that having 2 very different basis for defense will be REALLY hard to keep reasonably balanced. Which one is superior will be very situational and you may find that a lot of design space is sacrificed in various parts of the game because anything that is suitable to use against a guy with substantial damage resistance is way too strong or weak against a guy with a higher base AC. The same goes for PC resources, an item that is innocent in the hands of a lightly armored character could be overwhelming in the hands of one in plate. Add another couple points of DR on top of your armor and all of a sudden you're starting to look might hard to hurt at all, or add a small AC bonus to your light armored guys and all of a sudden they're so far ahead of the guy in plate that you can't find a formula for monsters that will challenge both in a reasonable way.I could be wrong of course. It would be a worthwhile experiment to put some kind of system together and see if it can be made to work without excluding too many other options from being able to show up in game.I didn't say much about powers before. I agree that (the issue of power lists aside) there are really too many choices floating around. I think powers should be scaling and maybe it would be a good idea to make most of them available right off at level 1, and just scale them. Maybe class powers should all basically work that way. Lets imagine there were 3 classes (fighting man, magic user, and cleric, yeah I really AM old-school believe it or not!), each with a power list. ALL of these powers could be basically 'encounter' type powers. They all scale with your level and provide the basic core of competency. At-will powers could be attached to builds, providing basic differentiation and assisting in defining your particular role. Daily powers could be acquired via masteries and other 'character building' choices. This doesn't have to be overly strict either, basically each element adds some choices to what you can pick from. Maybe some classes/builds/masteries lean more or less in the direction of one use type or another, and I don't know that it is necessary for each choice point to have only one type (utilities already come in all use types, and that works for them).In a system like this lets say you wanted to be a 'rogue'. Well, you're basically a fighting man, your combat tools are weapons. So you have your basic encounter powers (hit things with your weapon with different variations), and then you have your build, which gives you your sneaky sneak mechanic and some sneaky at-wills, and maybe you pick 'fencing master' to be a real wiz with a rapier. You could then perhaps also have a theme, 'outlaw' that rounds that out. You're pretty nicely defined at that point, and maybe you have to make 4 power choices and perhaps some kind of choice related to race. Seems like you're in good shape, there are a lot of options. Another guy could decide to be a less sneaky 'nobleman', pick fighting man, knight, fencing master, and noble. He's a nice defensive dex based fighter that's good with the rapier too, but also with a bunch of advantages for having a decent CHA and maybe a little side of leader in there. He fits his archetype pretty well too.Now, say someone wants to be a witch! Well, your obviously using magic, so we'll make you a magic user. Maybe your build is something like 'pacted' to represent your witchy pact with the devil. Then you could have a mastery in say alchemy (witch has gotta have her kettle you know), and perhaps she also takes the outlaw theme, them witches are always living out in the sticks avoiding the man after all. Again, it seems like this character would be pretty set.Obviously you've got a whole bunch of details to iron out, and nothing is ever quite as easy as it sounds, but I think with that sort of setup you've got a rather classic feeling D&D with a lot of 'old school' spin to it, plenty of more modern build-character-through-choices, less different types of elements and powers than there are now, etc.I might also do a few other things. Kick the 1-30 level structure for instance. I think 30 levels is more than is needed. It begs for too many extras to need to be tacked on. AD&D really had a practical limit of around level 18, after which no character gained much of anything significant. So make 3 tiers of 6 levels each. That way there are NOT going to be dead levels at all, contrariwise there will be a couple of new things per level. This also ties back to the current "Epic tier problems" thread. A full 1-18 campaign is more doable in a year time frame. Epic doesn't have to last over long (which it really does now), etc. It also compresses the overall spread of bonus growth, so that you don't need as many ways to push numbers up. Individual monsters remain usable for a wider span of the game, etc. 30 levels was an interesting choice, but I'm going to go with Gygax on that one, 18 was enough.You might even manage to make a game that didn't totally piss off either the 4e people or the old school people, lol. Doubtful, but at least you might come closer, and I think I'd play it.</blockquote>

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