Would you allow carte blanche power selection?

[MaelStorm]

No, I would not. But if you just want to playtest 4E powers, go ahead and have fun.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'll bet there'll be spells that qualify as "light weapons", and thus could be used with Sneak Attack.

'Light blades', not light weapons. 4E Sneak Attack, as revealed so far, requires a light blade, a sling, or a crossbow.

-Hyp.

 

[NaturalZero]

I was thinking it would be easiest to have Defender, Controller, Striker and Leader classes that each contain all of the power selections of classes that fit those roles. It would be tricky at first since it appears we may only get one controller off the bat but it would make it easier to create unified and balanced sets of class features at first level for each class.

 

[Hambot]

If you can pick and choose any power from any class, you have a greater range of choices which therefore allows more powerful combinations. To balance this, you should be allowed less feats, powers, race abilities or whatever as a downside to balance out the unlimited scope you have to match a character concept.

 

[Final Attack]

I wouldn't allow it at my table. Best thing about 4th edition is the emphasis on the 4 different styles of play. Allowing powers to be swapped in and out lessen the need for teamwork, which I'm looking forward to seeing.

 

[Rykaar]

Given everyone will have only what I suspect will be a small number of powers at your disposal at one time, the idea of a classless system is a very appealing one. As long as each power still uses its same ability score as the check (and otherwise retains its initial description), wide ranging classless power selection seems to have its own built-in limitations. I'd rather have a little bit of specialization at something and hit for +3-5 to my attack roll than have a little bit of everything checking sometimes as low as +0. Your lesser abilities will simply fail more often, wasting actions. That's also why I wouldn't worry much about roles being blended--if the resulting character isn't as good at a role as a purist, he becomes more of a backup for that role, and not the go-to person.

That said, there are plenty of cross-class abilities using the same check, and those will work much more harmoniously. I'm not sure how many fighter/wizards we'll see in this sort of environment, but I bet we'd see warlord/wizards, which I've heard each prominently feature INT in their power lists. Ditto for ranger/rogues (sniper, anyone?).

Regarding the sneak attack sub-discussion above, I'm already planning on granting that one some latitude for weapon selection.

 

[Nifft]

'Light blades', not light weapons.

Right. That.

Something along the lines of flame blade (yet somehow lighter).

Cheers, -- N

 

[Li Shenron]

Ever since I heard Master Mearls on the podcast say that it would be entirely possible to modify 4e to be classless, I've been keen to see how the system works. Now that I've seen a number of classes and looked over the PHB lite, I thought I'd try a little experiment.

I allowed a friend to make up a character using the base abilities of a class, ie. the fighter gets the defence bonus, hit points, challenge abilities, etc. however I allowed him to choose his two at-will abilities and each of his encounter and daily powers from any of the classes choices.

It actually worked out well. A rogue with Magic Missile (sneak attack anyone?)

So, would you allow this kind of play? I know there's the half-elf ability but that can easily be compensated.

I'd allow it.

It's practically what you can do with multiclassing: pick powers from other classes. When this is totally free, you are almost "classless", except for the HP and the progressions (which are all static bonuses anyway) to BAB and Defenses, and for the basic class abilities - which I don't know how they work but they seem to be always active: maybe these can never be chosen from another class? It would seem a way good enough to keep calling yourself "Fighter" or "Wizard".

 

[Goobermunch]

Right. That.

Something along the lines of flame blade (yet somehow lighter).

Cheers, -- N

Certainly not dark blade.

Somehow, I doubt you'd want to pick any old powers. From the powers we've seen so far, they all seem to be based on one of your attributes.

Hmmm. Maybe a better way to look at it (rather than martial, divine, arcane) would be to consider what classes have similar attributes in their MAD* scheme. Say Paladins, Warlocks, and Rogues all have Charisma based powers. You could alleviate some of your MAD issues if you took Cha based powers from each.

Just a random thought.

--G

* MAD stands for Multiple Attribute Dependency (the condition of needing his scores in Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, and Wisdom for Monks f'rex).

 

[Kzach]

Actually, didn't Mearls say that classless 4e would be possible? I wonder if this isn't what he's referring to.

:\

I was generally of the impression that replying to a thread required, in the very least, one read the first post.

I guess I was mistaken.

And yes, I'm not listening to my own advice and posting again. Let's get past that, shall we?

Good.

Now, as Rykaar and others somewhat alluded to, there is almost an inherent balance to the system even if you allow almost carte blance power selection. This balance comes about due to powers being designed for various roles and moreover, specific classes within those roles.

If you want to be a fighter, choosing all wizard powers doesn't quite work out. Sure, you get the initial benefit of bigger hit points, but what are you going to do with those Challenges and other abilities if you can't stand in melee and whack things?

You're either going to have to sacrifice points in one or more abilities to make powers from a different role and class work or have piss-weak powers.

Of course there will probably be some issues that will crop up, no doubt, but on the whole it seems like it'd work straight out of the box and will have an inherent balance to it without too much rules fiddling.

I think for the most part what this will allow will be interesting and diverse characters that 'dip' into various other classes abilities to fulfil some sort of roleplaying or imaginative or narrative gesture. A power or two here and there from other classes could easily help represent a much wider variety of fictional fantasy characters than a rigid class system can do by itself.