[D&D 4e Collaberate On!] Classless 4e

SAW776

So, while I've been trying to figure out a Classess 4e system, I figured why not collaberate on it with you guys?

I figure this way, we can probably catch any balance issues early and maybe solve them a bit quicker. And more people involved can only be a good thing when it comes to generating ideas on the right way to go.

Currently the idea I have is a point-buy system, utilizing the magical number 22.

HEALTH

Low - 10/4/6 (1pt)
Medium - 12/5/6 (2pts)
High - 15/6/8 (3pts)

+2 Starting HP (1pt)
+1 Healing Surge (1pt)
+1 HP per level (2pts)

PROFICIENCIES

1pt per Proficiency for Armor, Weapon, and Implement categories. For Armor proficiencies you have to buy them in order.

All characters are proficient with Cloth, Simple Melee, and Simple Ranged.

NAD BONUSES

All characters begin with a +2 that they can distribute to NADs anyway they please. For an additional 1pt you may add another +1. You may only do this once and no single NAD bonus can exceed +2.

SKILLS

All characters begin with 3 trained skills. You may purchase additional trained skills at a cost of 1pt each.

EXAMPLES
Swordmage

Health: High (15/6/8) (3pts)
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, Leather (1pt)
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military light blade, military heavy blade, simple ranged. (2pts)
Implement: Any light blade or heavy blade (2pts)
Bonus to Defense: +2 Will. (0pts)
Skills: 4 (1pt)
Class Features: Swordbond (1pt), Swordmage Aegis (6pts), Swordmage Warding (6pts)
Total: 22pts

Paladin

Health: High (15/6/8) + 2HS (5pts)
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale, plate; heavy shields, light shields. (7pts)
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged. (1pt)
Implement: Holy Symbol (1pt)
Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Reflex, +1 Will. (1pt)
Skills: 4 (1pt)
Class Features: Divine Challenge (3pts), Lay on Hands (1pts), Channel Divinity: Divine Mettle (1pt), Channel divinity: Divine Strength (1pt)
Total: 22pts

Fighter

Health: High (15/6/8) + 1HS (4pts)
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale; heavy shields, light shields. (6pts)
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged, military ranged. (2pts)
Bonus to Defense: +2 Fortitude. (0pts)
Skills: 3 (0pts)
Class Features: Combat Challenge (5pts), Combat Superiority (2pts), Fighter Talents (3pts)
Total: 22pts

Warden

Health: High (15/6/8) +2HP, +1HS (5pts)
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide; heavy shields, light shields. (4pts)
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged. (1pt)
Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Will. (0pts)
Skills: 4 (1pt)
Class Features: Font of Life (2), Guardian Might (2), Nature's Wrath (7)
Total: 22pts

Wizard

Health: Low (10/4/6) (1pt)
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth (0pts)
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, Simple ranged (0pts)
Implement Proficiencies: Wand, Rod, Staff, Tome, Orb (5pts)
Bonus to Defense: +2 Will. (0pts)
Skills: 4 (1pt)
Class Feature: Arcane Implement Mastery (3), Cantrips (3), Ritual Casting (2), Spellbook (8)
Total: 22pts

So, basically, I was wondering if anyone was interested in working on this with me to cut down on some of the design and balance time?

Hermenegilde

Swordmage Warding and Swordmage aegis twice as good as divine challenge ?

SAW776

Hermenegilde wrote: »

Swordmage Warding and Swordmage aegis twice as good as divine challenge ?

In my opinion? By far. Divine Challenge lets you mark a single creature, and it only does damage to said creature once before turning into a normal mark. On top of that, if you don't attack or end adjacent to the creature, the mark poofs.

Aegis, on the other hand is a mark with quite a bit behind it.

As for Warding--Swordmage is tough. All the other defenders fit nicely together point-wise before their Features, whereas a Swordmage only uses 9 points prior to features, and Swordbond is hard for me to justify even costing anything, really. :P But +3 AC is pretty nice if you can also be wearing armor (due to this point-buy system) or have awesome dex.

But that's why I'm looking for collaboration, to try and balance all of it.

Hermenegilde

But how would you select powers ? Can I have, say a Paladin with ranger powers ?

SAW776

Yeah. The idea is that there is no restriction on powers. So you can mix and match your features, and mix and match your powers.

So you could have Lay on Hands, Prime Shot, and something from a third class for your features, and then have powers from whatever on top of that.

Hermenegilde

Then you shouldn't assume 22pt. for all the base classes because all classes are not equal. The powers balance them.

SAW776

Hermenegilde wrote: »

Then you shouldn't assume 22pt. for all the base classes because all classes are not equal. The powers balance them.

That's debatable. Most powers are pretty similar just with different fluff.

And you have to assume a standard point limit when you're dealing with a point-buy system.

Hermenegilde

How about wizards ?
3pts of implements
1 pt of HP
1 pts of skill

That leaves you 20 for Arcane Implement mastery, Ritual Caster and Cantrips

SAW776

See, here's the thing. I realize the numbers possibly have to be tweaked. I said as much.

As for wizards, 4 for implements, now that tome has been added. And you're forgetting Spellbook, which in a Classless system will be crazy good, since it would no longer be limited to just Wizard powers.

Also how do you get that that leaves 20? 22 - even just the 5 you had listed is 17.

So its actually 16 split between Implement Mastery, Ritual Caster, Cantrips, and Spellbook.

Spellbook could be 8 or so. That leaves 8. 2 for Ritual Caster, 3 for Cantrips and 3 for Mastery.

SAW776

The really tough one to balance is going to be bard, since they just have a shit-ton of everything. I'm dreading really looking at them in this context.

Hermenegilde

Ouch. My arithmetic skills went out for a while.

Hermenegilde

Honestly, I'd exchange all those wizard things for plate, combat challenge and High HP. Combat challenge with area attacks...

SAW776

You can already get area attacks in with Combat Challenge using Alchemist's Fire, and since Warden's can already mark whole groups of creatures at once, I don't really see it as being too unbalanced.

Though, if it did end up being a bit too much, it'd be easy enough to say that Combat Challenge only works with melee attacks.

SAW776

Hm. The Invoker is proving problematic. I really don't think Divine Covenant is superduperbadassawesome, but its requiring a point value of like 8 to work out math-wise.

Though, I suppose since it would now trigger when you used any encounter/daily, that it might be worth the 8 points. Hmm.

Actually, maybe I'll adjust Ritual Casting up to 3, and drop the Wizard's Implement Mastery to 2, and then make Divine Covenant 7.

Edit: Blah, and Druids show that the health values don't work either. To get a druids HP it costs 5 points. But you can spend the same amount of points to get a Wardens HP, which obviously doesn't work.

Powerpuppies

It seems to me that this business of working backwards and trying to assign points to abilities based on what they need to be worth to be balanced, rather than based on how good they are, is going to be a major flaw in the system. I'm not sure how to get rid of it, but it suggests to me a fixed point-buy system may not be the way to go. Perhaps choosing one item from each category, with specific conditions and restrictions resulting from your choice. I will think on this.

SAW776

I was thinking about that option as well, but then the hard part becomes how you categorize things. Like, when you break down all the defenders.. the only "category" they really share is a Marking ability. Beyond that, some have healing, some have passive boosts, some have active abilities. Its all very chaotic.

However, I fixed the Health equations.

HEALTH
Low Health (4pt) - 10/4/6
Medium Health (6pts) - 12/5/6
High Health (12pts) - 15/6/8

+2 Starting Health (1pt) [May only be bought once]
+1HS (1pt) [May only be bought twice]
+1HP/L (1pt)

But now the problem is re-balancing the number of points and the values of the abilities based around that. And hoping its possible. >.<

Powerpuppies

Working with the templates in the OP, I tried to make a super OP heavy blade user. I don't think I can find anything really broken, though I still have 3 points to spend:

Health: High (3pts)
AP: plate, heavy shield (7pts)
Weapons: military melee(1pt)
Bonus to Defense: +2 Fort (0 pts)
Skills:3 (0 pts)
Class Features: Swordmage Aegis (6 pts), Combat Superiority (2 pts), ???(3 pts)

On the other hand, an armored wizard would be awesome and you don't lose much wizard stuff to do it:

Health: High (3pts)
AP: plate, heavy shield (7pts)
Weapons: - (0 pts)
Implement: Orb (1 pt)
Bonus to Defense: +1 Fort, +1 Will (0 pts)
Skills:3 (0 pts)
Class Features: Arcane Implement Mastery(3 pts), Spellbook

Finally, a swordmage is made way more powerful by access to wizard spells, isn't he? And if I were building a swordmage, I would trade light blade stuff and swordbond for hide profiency and ritual casting to make a strong defender who is also a controller in his own right.

SAW776

Swordmages are already Controller's on the side. I'm not sure how much getting access to Wizard powers really effects a Swordmage more than anything else. That, and a wizard in full plate would definitely be tanky.. but they'd also be really slow, so if they did get caught, they'd probably go down pretty quick what with the lack of melee abilities.

Powerpuppies

Then I'm not convinced there are any serious problems with what you've set up here, though I doubt I would ever ever choose anyone with low health... pretty sure I could find something useless in the class to trade for high health.

I think ability scores still act to massively rein in what you can accomplish, and force you to specialize to an extent.

SAW776

Yeah. That is one issue. However, with the higher cost of health in the new paradigm, its not as easy to just trade 1 skill for a whole other level. Since the health costs are now 4/6/12. But then again, the difference between medium health and high health, even at like level 30, is only like 30something hp, which isn't particularly huge when monsters are dealing like 60 damage a hit anyway. :P

But, as I'm sketching out more and more classes, the point values for features is harder and harder to make work. Like, Wardens, for example, have awesome Features. But they also have a high point-value in comparison to other classes everywhere else as well.

psolms

i think a different way to look at things would be to start with the basic classes for roles, and use that as sort of a 'standard' of point value. let me explain better.

the fighter is the 'standard' defender class. wardens, swordmages, paladins and invokers should all be derived from his template.

ditto wizard for controller.
ditto cleric for leader.
ditto ranger for striker.

derive the value for class features from there.

SAW776

psolms wrote: »

i think a different way to look at things would be to start with the basic classes for roles, and use that as sort of a 'standard' of point value. let me explain better.

the fighter is the 'standard' defender class. wardens, swordmages, paladins and invokers should all be derived from his template.

ditto wizard for controller.
ditto cleric for leader.
ditto ranger for striker.

derive the value for class features from there.

I thought about that too. The problem still comes from the fact that some defenders, feature wise, are not created equal.

Swordmage has high hp/almost no armor&weapons and 2 really nice Features plus 1 pointless one.
Warden, comparatively, has higher hp, better armor, and 2 of the Warden Features are really nice while the third is still quite good.

And while I definitely believe that both classes are balanced as a whole (Warden needs the higher HP because they mark entire groups, and such), I'm not sure how to balance the Features independently.

PHB1 was easy. PHB2 breaks the mold and makes it all wonky.