like if I were to make a fantasy RPG that had all the classes rendered down to as few as possible I'd have
Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric, Druid
rangers are rogue druids
paladins are warrior clerics
warlocks are mage clerics
barbarians are warrior druids
bards are rogue mages
monks are warrior rogues
sorcerers are warrior mages
One of my favorite things to do with this sort of thing is the idea of reiterating a class.
So like, say you start as one of the five base classes. You're a Warrior, and you do warrior things. You level up or whatever, and you can choose to continue with warrior or pick a new class. You pick up priest, and now you're a Warrior Priest or whatever. Then, you get a third level up, and you can either continue along the priest path, to become a Dervish, or switch back to the warrior path to become a Paladin.
like if I were to make a fantasy RPG that had all the classes rendered down to as few as possible I'd have
Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric, Druid
rangers are rogue druids
paladins are warrior clerics
warlocks are mage clerics
barbarians are warrior druids
bards are rogue mages
monks are warrior rogues
sorcerers are warrior mages
One of my favorite things to do with this sort of thing is the idea of reiterating a class.
So like, say you start as one of the five base classes. You're a Warrior, and you do warrior things. You level up or whatever, and you can choose to continue with warrior or pick a new class. You pick up priest, and now you're a Warrior Priest or whatever. Then, you get a third level up, and you can either continue along the priest path, to become a Dervish, or switch back to the warrior path to become a Paladin.
yeah I dig this
I kinda really like the idea of like, when you multi-class into something new your progression from there on doesn't just have to be "I am an X/Y" but rather that you've become one of at least a couple of different options based on which one you focus on, and you unlock special things for doing so
These things are all aesthetics rather than anything else
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Honestly anything that D&D has as a half caster or limited caster of some sort I think I would prefer as a supernatural sort instead.
Bards, Warlocks, Paladins? All of those could be magical in a way that doesn't involve casting spells.
Also I am loath to mention it because I hate them, but there is technically already a class that does this, and it's the Monk. So I guess what I'm saying is I want druids (and bards and warlocks and paladins, I guess) to be more like monks.
as a wizard when I cast firebolt it's the same as a cleric casting holy bolt or a rogue throwing a dagger or a warrior shooting a bow
but that's like
what the fun part of this is lol
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DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
I think my ideal Druid would be like Aang from Avatar:tLA
they don't use spells, per se, they just have such a deep bond with The Land that they can channel elements.
it would require intense meditation and maybe a little bit of training with a more elder Druid before they're able to do much more than like, wave a little bit of fire around, or launch rocks.
but there's so much versatility. "oh you've got Stoneskin? check out my flowing stone armor I pulled out of the ground." Stopping a wave of arrows by convincing the wooden shafts that they want nothing more than to be returned to the earth.
as a player, it would be less "I do this ability" and more having these tools and figuring out clever ways to use them.
Honestly anything that D&D has as a half caster or limited caster of some sort I think I would prefer as a supernatural sort instead.
Bards, Warlocks, Paladins? All of those could be magical in a way that doesn't involve casting spells.
Also I am loath to mention it because I hate them, but there is technically already a class that does this, and it's the Monk. So I guess what I'm saying is I want druids (and bards and warlocks and paladins, I guess) to be more like monks.
if I were to want to do this I'd have all "spells" be cast by reciting from some sort of scroll or book. A wizard has their scrolls and spellbook, a Cleric recites a prayer or reads from their holy tome.
Bards and warlocks and paladins just pull energy directly from whatever it is that fuels them and shape it into what they need it to be, on the fly. their magical powers are less easily defined or controlled, but are more adaptable and improvised as a result
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
like if I were to make a fantasy RPG that had all the classes rendered down to as few as possible I'd have
Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric, Druid
rangers are rogue druids
paladins are warrior clerics
warlocks are mage clerics
barbarians are warrior druids
bards are rogue mages
monks are warrior rogues
sorcerers are warrior mages
One of my favorite things to do with this sort of thing is the idea of reiterating a class.
So like, say you start as one of the five base classes. You're a Warrior, and you do warrior things. You level up or whatever, and you can choose to continue with warrior or pick a new class. You pick up priest, and now you're a Warrior Priest or whatever. Then, you get a third level up, and you can either continue along the priest path, to become a Dervish, or switch back to the warrior path to become a Paladin.
yeah I dig this
I kinda really like the idea of like, when you multi-class into something new your progression from there on doesn't just have to be "I am an X/Y" but rather that you've become one of at least a couple of different options based on which one you focus on, and you unlock special things for doing so
I wrote up a long thing doing this at one point, but I started with a different set of classes I believe. I was doing more of a low magic thing, so while you could eventually become a wizard or whatever, you still had to start as an alchemist.
Oh, also, I guess there is a sort of thing I know that does a bit of this idea, and that's Head Hand Heart Hobgoblin, by our very own @DE?AD. That's more freeform skill based, but it does some neat things - you have a Head, a Hand, and a Heart score, and you can assign each one to a different power source (Martial, Guile, Divine, Arcane, Wild). Different combinations produce different sorts of D&D classes, essentially - putting everything into one will give you one of the base five classes we've been discussing, but mixing and matching can make combinations. And based on the scores that you have in each, you will still be potentially different in focus from someone else who picked all the same sources.
If I'm doing stripped to the bones for classes I'm going combat guy, skills guy, magic guy. With multiclassing between them encouraged by or at the very least not penalized by the system.
Eh even merely conceptually they are priests. They worship an external concept they consider divine.
I definitely do not think this is true of all druids at all
They are connected to a divine force though
How else do you define them.
not all druids worship something?
not all druids have to be getting their power from a directly divine force?
the exact nature of where druids get their power from is something I've always felt is very nebulous in D&D and frankly I prefer it that way
I think calling them priests puts them in a pigeonhole that doesn't feel indicative of the breadth of ways I've seen people roleplay druids before, and it feels extremely dull to me
Could you tell me a bit more about your conception of D&D priests and D&D druids, and the differences between them?
I've generally always thought of druids as priests-but-their-feet-are-always-muddy. A setting like Dark Sun adds enough additional flavor to both of those classes that they start to drift from each other, but in Regular-Ass D&D (Forgotten Realms, I guess) I imagine a druid as a priest with a narrow focus and sometimes a few extra abilities related to that focus. Now that I try to articulate it, I think the main unifying factor for me is The Flock. Priests, generally, are servants and representatives of gods; not all priests will necessarily proselytize or minister to congregations, but if they are not serving the people then they are at least serving their great power. Druids have a built-in congregation that they are serving and taking care of: nature, whether a specific grove or all nature in general or whatever. I think the other classes generally have self-centered motivations, except maybe the ranger and the paladin (although you can argue that the paladin is a priest who never misses leg day and the ranger is a priest who never misses leg day and also their feet are always muddy).
What makes the druid fundamentally distinct from a priest? Related: What makes a druid fundamentally distinct from a priest of a nature god?)
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Could you tell me a bit more about your conception of D&D priests and D&D druids, and the differences between them?
I've generally always thought of druids as priests-but-their-feet-are-always-muddy. A setting like Dark Sun adds enough additional flavor to both of those classes that they start to drift from each other, but in Regular-Ass D&D (Forgotten Realms, I guess) I imagine a druid as a priest with a narrow focus and sometimes a few extra abilities related to that focus. Now that I try to articulate it, I think the main unifying factor for me is The Flock. Priests, generally, are servants and representatives of gods; not all priests will necessarily proselytize or minister to congregations, but if they are not serving the people then they are at least serving their great power. Druids have a built-in congregation that they are serving and taking care of: nature, whether a specific grove or all nature in general or whatever. I think the other classes generally have self-centered motivations, except maybe the ranger and the paladin (although you can argue that the paladin is a priest who never misses leg day and the ranger is a priest who never misses leg day and also their feet are always muddy).
What makes the druid fundamentally distinct from a priest? Related: What makes a druid fundamentally distinct from a priest of a nature god?)
My personal focus on druids has always been animals. Animal companions (in 3.X, obviously that's more of a ranger thing now), talking to animals, wild shape, that sort of thing. Those are eternally the things that draw me to the druid. If I'm playing a druid, that's the reason - I want to play a weird mystic who can turn into animals and command and/or humbly beseech the beasts of the forest to do their bidding.
D&D also states that druids are good at spellcasting, although I will note that there is stuff like Dungeon World that excises that. But I've never played a druid because I wanted to be a spellcaster (I've never played any class because I want to be a spellcaster, but that's beside the point). If I wanted to play a spellcaster with a focus on nature, I would probably be playing a cleric of a nature god, because that would feel more appropriate to me.
I would be fine with stronger differentiation between magical classes.
Clerics I think have a strong identity already. They heal and buff. Healing includes purifying poisons and breaking curses, they get all the good stuff. I think you can break buffs into offensive and defensive, Clerics should get all defensive, as prayers against this and that. Offensive a bit more limited, you're inspiring and providing holy/unholy strength. They can divine the future, thanks to their god. They can commune with and possibly summon/command divine or fiendish beings. They can both create and destroy undead. The way D&D casters work currently, everyone has at least some offensive damage spells. So clerics get light/fire/holy ones. Possibly more effective against undead, but not only effective against undead. I think they get counterspells and anti-magic too, they're protectors and deniers of the evil. After wizards, they are the most studied magic casters, in terms of book learning.
Druids get all the good nature stuff. Any spells to do with plants or animals: summoning them, commanding them, turning people into them, giving people attributes of them. I think they get healing that feels different from Clerics, more 'natural', possibly slower. Particularly effective against poison and disease. Storm magic for attack spells: lightning, cold, fire type damages. I think one thing 5E has gotten mostly right is that no classes feel useless in certain environments or against certain enemies, so you have to make sure the druid works in cities and dungeons and outside their home territory. I think druids don't get a lot of illusory/mind affecting stuff. All I can think of is magic that guides intruders towards or away from certain parts of their domain, not stuff that's useful in a typical adventure.
Wizards are the studied magic user. Lots of utility spells. Lots of protective wards and alarms and traps for areas, not so much for people. All teleportation magic they currently, have, they're the best at magical travel. Their summons are either constructs or elementals. Good with illusion magic and mind-affecting magic. Good with counterspells and anti-magic. I might carve out the necromancer and make it a divine class, I think wizards don't mess too much with souls. Attack spells run the gamut: pure arcane energy, channeling fire and ice and lightning, telekinetic throws, etc. I think if you don't have a separate psionic class, most of it falls to the wizard. Lots of spells with a prior Wizard's name in it.
Warlocks have to live between the Cleric and the Wizard currently. I think there's a space there, but you could say Clerics don't get the evil cleric magic and give that to warlocks. Curses and hexes and stuff, creating zombies, negative energy damage. Some healing magic, with a cost. Some buffing magic, but it's grotesque or with drawbacks. You could also take away spells as a concept and go to 'gifts' or something. 3.5 did this. I could see another rework, away from spell slots.
Sorcerer needs differentiation from Wizard. Pathfinder 2E actually lets you select any of the 4 spell lists by changing your bloodline, which I like. Angelic/Fiendish gets you divine spells, fairy gets you primal, dragon gets you arcane, hag gets you occult. In a non different system, I think Sorcerer would be a good class for making up spells as you go, like in Mage. Or 'weaving' like an Aes Sedai/Bending like an Avatar bender. But I don't think D&D or its peers are really meant for that kind of freedom.
Bard I think doesn't need spells. They have supernatural talent and personality. They can play songs that inspire their comrades, to fight harder, to fight beyond the point they'd normally die (healing), to confuse or distract enemies, etc. They have knowledge beyond all classes, so they know prophecy and lore and secrets. They're charming and alluring and maybe even a celebrity, so they can charm and confused and befuddle. I think you can make these have the same effect as spells without actually making any of them spells.
Paladin and Ranger same. Paladins exude auras of protection, can smite their foes, and have a limited ability to heal and cure. None of those need spells per se. Rangers are trackers, hunters, and scouts of legendary, even supernatural ability. They can't cast spells but they can make traps, herbal remedies, and specialized arrows. Their ability to track prey is beyond explanation.
So... I’m actually making a tiny roleplaying game that’s a classless dungeon crawler. If you want to be a magic user you’ll choose an ‘Arcane Key’—a word that represents what you can cast spells about, with an associated spirit with a mind of its own. The broader the word the more malevolent the spirit, so it’s up to you if you want to wrangle ‘bubble’ or ‘inferno’.
If you plan to be a D&D styled wizard you’d be chained to several spirits and probably out of your mind.
Just wanted to say that. Look at me! I’m making a thing!
Sorcerer could be a multiclass-only class. Since it's all inherited/genetic/bloodline, a sorcerer has trained their whole life to be a fighter or a rogue or whatever. Then something happens, and bam, they have magic ability they didn't before. They can keep developing their martial skills, or delve into their newly-discovered magic.
I would be fine with stronger differentiation between magical classes.
Clerics I think have a strong identity already. They heal and buff. Healing includes purifying poisons and breaking curses, they get all the good stuff. I think you can break buffs into offensive and defensive, Clerics should get all defensive, as prayers against this and that. Offensive a bit more limited, you're inspiring and providing holy/unholy strength. They can divine the future, thanks to their god. They can commune with and possibly summon/command divine or fiendish beings. They can both create and destroy undead. The way D&D casters work currently, everyone has at least some offensive damage spells. So clerics get light/fire/holy ones. Possibly more effective against undead, but not only effective against undead. I think they get counterspells and anti-magic too, they're protectors and deniers of the evil. After wizards, they are the most studied magic casters, in terms of book learning.
Druids get all the good nature stuff. Any spells to do with plants or animals: summoning them, commanding them, turning people into them, giving people attributes of them. I think they get healing that feels different from Clerics, more 'natural', possibly slower. Particularly effective against poison and disease. Storm magic for attack spells: lightning, cold, fire type damages. I think one thing 5E has gotten mostly right is that no classes feel useless in certain environments or against certain enemies, so you have to make sure the druid works in cities and dungeons and outside their home territory. I think druids don't get a lot of illusory/mind affecting stuff. All I can think of is magic that guides intruders towards or away from certain parts of their domain, not stuff that's useful in a typical adventure.
Wizards are the studied magic user. Lots of utility spells. Lots of protective wards and alarms and traps for areas, not so much for people. All teleportation magic they currently, have, they're the best at magical travel. Their summons are either constructs or elementals. Good with illusion magic and mind-affecting magic. Good with counterspells and anti-magic. I might carve out the necromancer and make it a divine class, I think wizards don't mess too much with souls. Attack spells run the gamut: pure arcane energy, channeling fire and ice and lightning, telekinetic throws, etc. I think if you don't have a separate psionic class, most of it falls to the wizard. Lots of spells with a prior Wizard's name in it.
Warlocks have to live between the Cleric and the Wizard currently. I think there's a space there, but you could say Clerics don't get the evil cleric magic and give that to warlocks. Curses and hexes and stuff, creating zombies, negative energy damage. Some healing magic, with a cost. Some buffing magic, but it's grotesque or with drawbacks. You could also take away spells as a concept and go to 'gifts' or something. 3.5 did this. I could see another rework, away from spell slots.
Sorcerer needs differentiation from Wizard. Pathfinder 2E actually lets you select any of the 4 spell lists by changing your bloodline, which I like. Angelic/Fiendish gets you divine spells, fairy gets you primal, dragon gets you arcane, hag gets you occult. In a non different system, I think Sorcerer would be a good class for making up spells as you go, like in Mage. Or 'weaving' like an Aes Sedai/Bending like an Avatar bender. But I don't think D&D or its peers are really meant for that kind of freedom.
Bard I think doesn't need spells. They have supernatural talent and personality. They can play songs that inspire their comrades, to fight harder, to fight beyond the point they'd normally die (healing), to confuse or distract enemies, etc. They have knowledge beyond all classes, so they know prophecy and lore and secrets. They're charming and alluring and maybe even a celebrity, so they can charm and confused and befuddle. I think you can make these have the same effect as spells without actually making any of them spells.
Paladin and Ranger same. Paladins exude auras of protection, can smite their foes, and have a limited ability to heal and cure. None of those need spells per se. Rangers are trackers, hunters, and scouts of legendary, even supernatural ability. They can't cast spells but they can make traps, herbal remedies, and specialized arrows. Their ability to track prey is beyond explanation.
For wizards i would change what you have about mind magic. Let them be good at external stuff, like illusions and things. I would give the internal stuff to someone else. Maybe depending on blood line the sorcerer could get those spells, like charm, dominate and create thrall.
I don't mean to disrupt the conversation (I find it very interesting!), but DriveThruRPG is having a Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Consume Consume Consume sale, and I was curious if any of you folks have recommendations on any interesting books that are on sale. So far I grabbed the new Vampire handbook (to see what's up) and the Mage the Awakening 2nd Ed handbook (because apparently it's the Best Magic System Ever?)
On a similar note, Bundle of Holding has a bundle right now with Blades in the Dark, Imp of the Perverse, SIGMATA, and Bubblegumshoe, all of which I've been wanting to check out for a long time, so that's nice.
I’ve never seen it actually written up like this, but here is my pass at druids:
Wizards tap into power.
Sorcerers have some power innately.
Warlocks borrow power for a price.
Druids are the heirs to that power. Nature expects them to get good enough that they are a part of that power. Perhaps the final levels of Druid should turn you into something for good, retiring the character.
What I want out of the druid (and honestly, many other classes) is a person who is magical but not a spellcaster
Yeah, they can talk to the trees and turn into a bear, there's no question that they have some level of supernatural ability
But their magic is not rote magic, it's something else
13th Age druids can be non-casters while still having quite a few magical abilities. Shapeshifting, animal companion, and special attacks. Granted the other half of the stuff they can optionally do is all types of casting, but you don't have to.
I dunno about Warlocks getting no spells, but I'm down with them having, like, 2. And then able to get more but they have to explicitly learn how to do it (so feats or invocations or w/e). Basically I wish warlocks existed as a class in more things and were done like D&D 3.x/5th ed 'locks.
e: although that pushes up against "What is a spell?" Because in 3.5, iirc, Eldritch Blast was just a magical or spell like ability, whereas in 4e everything was a spell. So if you don't count that as an actual spell then yeah I'm basically fine with warlocks being spell-less
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Warlocks are a weird case for me because I like D&D's silly superhero warlocks running around blasting people with energy
But in many ways I'd just rather warlock be a background for wizards/sorcerers, and that's the sort of thing that I set up for my Dungeon World hack (the wizard class has three backgrounds to choose from - self-taught, academy educated, and deal with the devil)
Mythologically speaking Druids were combination priests, political advisors, legal adjudicators, lore keepers and seers. Their relationship with nature based less on command and more on knowledge. Knowing the names of the spirits and fey who wander the wilds and how to convince them to leave you alone. Which plants will cure and which will poison.
I would give them channel divinity and have druids use that for their spell casting/shape shifting. The divinity channeled not being any deity but the secrets of nature they are privy to. There would be more charges of it than priests get since you use them as spell slots as a caster Druid or dump a bunch into shape shifting and augments to your animal form as that sort of Druid. Maybe on rests you reveal legends and secrets to the rest of the party to grant them certain boons through the day.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I mean, historically speaking bards were court historians and paladins were one of twelve knights of Charlemagne's retinue
I don't think that's necessarily the soundest ground to be building a structure upon, unless you're going to go all in on it
I think there’s a lot of mileage from basing your classes on fables rather than the composite that is D&D.
The Jack of All Trades
The Rugged Woodsman
The Fairest of Them All
The Wildest Beast
The Wise Old Mentor
The Romantic Knight Errant
That Mischievous Little Bastard I Swear to God (Puss in Boots etc.)
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I think there’s a lot of mileage from basing your classes on fables rather than the composite that is D&D.
The Jack of All Trades
The Rugged Woodsman
The Fairest of Them All
The Wildest Beast
The Wise Old Mentor
The Romantic Knight Errant
That Mischievous Little Bastard I Swear to God (Puss in Boots etc.)
Oh yeah if you want to go that route I'm fully onboard.
My point was just that a lot of D&D and the terminology used by it isn't actually based on anything other than itself. It's a closed system at a certain point.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
edited December 2019
Thinking about fairy tale archetypes and such in the context of this conversation, and I'd actually really like to see (or write, let's see how busy I am at work in the next couple of weeks) a folklore inspired system that really heavily blurs the line with magic.
That is to say, take those archetypes and provide an amount of ambiguity with them, such that a player could be playing a character as either a magical iteration of that archetype or a mundane one. So yeah, your wise old mentor might actually a witch who knows real magic, or they might just be old and wise. Your wildest beast can either be played as an honest to god shapeshifter that turns into a bear, or maybe they're just a reclusive berserker of some sort. Ideally these can all co-exist as well, because it's all flavor, not actual statistical difference between the two, and parts of it in the game world may even vary based on the perception of individuals there.
I guess this is a bit inspired by Monsterhearts too, which plays with the line between monster and metaphor a bunch.
Classes (probably in class-based RPGs in general, but certainly in D&D) are attempts to take bundles of mechanics and assign them some kind of flavorful name and description, but they are all over the place. Some classes are job descriptions (priest, bard, "fighter" is a very generic word but the typical fighter is probably like a soldier- or mercenary-type), some are literally your genetics (sorcerers), some refer to the general environment you live in (barbarian), some refer to the life choices you make (thief).
"Thief" and "barbarian" have always really frustrated me. "Barbarian" doesn't mean "fella what fights hard", it means "they speak a language we don't understand and they probably can't read, we're the best ROME ROME ROME". Even taking away the fraught socio-political implication, if we take it at face value that "barbarian" means "people who live a more rural lifestyle and place less emphasis on books" or whatever, some of those folks will be healers and some will be farmers and some will be nerd-ass 98-pound-weaklings. "Barbarian" is more like a thematic flavor you can just as easily apply to mages and priests (to get some even more fraught stereotypes, granted). If they wanted a fighter-but-bigger-hit-die-and-has-an-extra-ability-to-overextend, I'd have preferred "berserker" or something.
"Thief" is just what you do when the system has abused you over and over and at a certain point you have to eat. "Rogue" is maybe slightly better, but only in the sense that it means "general no-goodnik", so you can apply it to anyone or anything! Baker put a bit less sugar in the cherry pies and kept the saved bit for himself? Why, that rogue!
Is Conan the Barbarian a barbarian, a thief, or a fighter?
(He's all of them because he comes from the rough uncivilized lands, he fights good, and he steals whatever he needs to.)
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I mean, every character class has a wealth of connotations and denotations available to it, when you really start boiling the bones. There's no fixing that, because that's just the way that language works at a certain point.
I'll actually speak in D&D's defense on this one, for once, in that I think that it has a history of defining what each character class is within the bounds of the game. A Barbarian is "A fierce warrior of primitive background who can enter a battle rage." I don't love that description, but they're putting their cards on the table right from the jump. From these descriptions, Bards are explicitly magicians, Druids are explicitly priests, and so on.
Not that this changes any of the arguments we'll be having here, of course.
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tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
Thinking about fairy tale archetypes and such in the context of this conversation, and I'd actually really like to see (or write, let's see how busy I am at work in the next couple of weeks) a folklore inspired system that really heavily blurs the line with magic.
That is to say, take those archetypes and provide an amount of ambiguity with them, such that a player could be playing a character as either a magical iteration of that archetype or a mundane one. So yeah, your wise old mentor might actually a witch who knows real magic, or they might just be old and wise. Your wildest beast can either be played as an honest to god shapeshifter that turns into a bear, or maybe they're just a reclusive berserker of some sort. Ideally these can all co-exist as well, because it's all flavor, not actual statistical difference between the two, and parts of it in the game world may even vary based on the perception of individuals there.
I guess this is a bit inspired by Monsterhearts too, which plays with the line between monster and metaphor a bunch.
This vaguely reminds me of City of Mist, or some other similar style game where you might take on the mantle of a legend (named or archetypal) in order to tap into its power. As you get better and better at using that mantle, though, you risk losing yourself in it and simply becoming another iteration of the legend.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Thinking about fairy tale archetypes and such in the context of this conversation, and I'd actually really like to see (or write, let's see how busy I am at work in the next couple of weeks) a folklore inspired system that really heavily blurs the line with magic.
That is to say, take those archetypes and provide an amount of ambiguity with them, such that a player could be playing a character as either a magical iteration of that archetype or a mundane one. So yeah, your wise old mentor might actually a witch who knows real magic, or they might just be old and wise. Your wildest beast can either be played as an honest to god shapeshifter that turns into a bear, or maybe they're just a reclusive berserker of some sort. Ideally these can all co-exist as well, because it's all flavor, not actual statistical difference between the two, and parts of it in the game world may even vary based on the perception of individuals there.
I guess this is a bit inspired by Monsterhearts too, which plays with the line between monster and metaphor a bunch.
This vaguely reminds me of City of Mist, or some other similar style game where you might take on the mantle of a legend (named or archetypal) in order to tap into its power. As you get better and better at using that mantle, though, you risk losing yourself in it and simply becoming another iteration of the legend.
Yeah, I can definitely see that. And I would almost certainly be at least providing the option to set it not in fairy tale times, although I would primarily be focusing on that nebulous era. With, of course, the option to set it in both at the same time as well, because I'm very into that whole overlapping thing.
Thinking about fairy tale archetypes and such in the context of this conversation, and I'd actually really like to see (or write, let's see how busy I am at work in the next couple of weeks) a folklore inspired system that really heavily blurs the line with magic.
That is to say, take those archetypes and provide an amount of ambiguity with them, such that a player could be playing a character as either a magical iteration of that archetype or a mundane one. So yeah, your wise old mentor might actually a witch who knows real magic, or they might just be old and wise. Your wildest beast can either be played as an honest to god shapeshifter that turns into a bear, or maybe they're just a reclusive berserker of some sort. Ideally these can all co-exist as well, because it's all flavor, not actual statistical difference between the two, and parts of it in the game world may even vary based on the perception of individuals there.
I guess this is a bit inspired by Monsterhearts too, which plays with the line between monster and metaphor a bunch.
This vaguely reminds me of City of Mist, or some other similar style game where you might take on the mantle of a legend (named or archetypal) in order to tap into its power. As you get better and better at using that mantle, though, you risk losing yourself in it and simply becoming another iteration of the legend.
It also cuts both ways. If you focus too much on the mundane you'll lose your connection to the legend and go dormant. The game requires you to balance between the two aspects to continue playing that character. As soon as either side becomes ascendant you cease to be a PC.
The world is ending because of some science experiment breaking phyics,and a bunch of folks are going to throw one huge party in the middle of the desert as the sun sets for the final time, and you and a few buddies from a small town decide to take a road trip there. You have to make it 1000 miles in a few days battling your way through all sorts of crazy phenomena like anti gravity storms and a super intelligent canine rebellion.
"Barbarian" doesn't mean "fella what fights hard", it means "they speak a language we don't understand and they probably can't read, we're the best ROME ROME ROME".
I had to correct this gross distortion of history.
It means "they speak a language we don't understand and they probably can't read, we're the best ATHENS ATHENS ATHENSROME ROME ROME"
(Just funnin', but seriously Rome doesn't catch nearly enough heat for how much of their culture was imadethis.jpg re: Greece.)
The world is ending because of some science experiment breaking phyics,and a bunch of folks are going to throw one huge party in the middle of the desert as the sun sets for the final time, and you and a few buddies from a small town decide to take a road trip there. You have to make it 1000 miles in a few days battling your way through all sorts of crazy phenomena like anti gravity storms and a super intelligent canine rebellion.
I call it 1000 miles to midnight.
Gamma World but with standard human PCs ... except that's not that modern. Hmmm
DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
edited December 2019
My sister is playing in a Pathfinder game and had some questions and I offered my help, my esoteric knowledge, so that we can break that system over our knees like Batman.
edit: I started work on a Gamma World campaign that takes place in the area in which my friends and I live, but I've never been satisfied with it enough to play.
The Circle K and the adjacent grocery store and library became The Circle Kingdom, our old high school is full of Troma mutants that live a secluded scholarly life.
The climax of the campaign would be an apocalyptic brawl in the shadow of the Limerick Generating Station, our local nuclear power plant.
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One of my favorite things to do with this sort of thing is the idea of reiterating a class.
So like, say you start as one of the five base classes. You're a Warrior, and you do warrior things. You level up or whatever, and you can choose to continue with warrior or pick a new class. You pick up priest, and now you're a Warrior Priest or whatever. Then, you get a third level up, and you can either continue along the priest path, to become a Dervish, or switch back to the warrior path to become a Paladin.
yeah I dig this
I kinda really like the idea of like, when you multi-class into something new your progression from there on doesn't just have to be "I am an X/Y" but rather that you've become one of at least a couple of different options based on which one you focus on, and you unlock special things for doing so
These things are all aesthetics rather than anything else
Bards, Warlocks, Paladins? All of those could be magical in a way that doesn't involve casting spells.
Also I am loath to mention it because I hate them, but there is technically already a class that does this, and it's the Monk. So I guess what I'm saying is I want druids (and bards and warlocks and paladins, I guess) to be more like monks.
as a wizard when I cast firebolt it's the same as a cleric casting holy bolt or a rogue throwing a dagger or a warrior shooting a bow
but that's like
what the fun part of this is lol
they don't use spells, per se, they just have such a deep bond with The Land that they can channel elements.
it would require intense meditation and maybe a little bit of training with a more elder Druid before they're able to do much more than like, wave a little bit of fire around, or launch rocks.
but there's so much versatility. "oh you've got Stoneskin? check out my flowing stone armor I pulled out of the ground." Stopping a wave of arrows by convincing the wooden shafts that they want nothing more than to be returned to the earth.
as a player, it would be less "I do this ability" and more having these tools and figuring out clever ways to use them.
if I were to want to do this I'd have all "spells" be cast by reciting from some sort of scroll or book. A wizard has their scrolls and spellbook, a Cleric recites a prayer or reads from their holy tome.
Bards and warlocks and paladins just pull energy directly from whatever it is that fuels them and shape it into what they need it to be, on the fly. their magical powers are less easily defined or controlled, but are more adaptable and improvised as a result
I wrote up a long thing doing this at one point, but I started with a different set of classes I believe. I was doing more of a low magic thing, so while you could eventually become a wizard or whatever, you still had to start as an alchemist.
Oh, also, I guess there is a sort of thing I know that does a bit of this idea, and that's Head Hand Heart Hobgoblin, by our very own @DE?AD. That's more freeform skill based, but it does some neat things - you have a Head, a Hand, and a Heart score, and you can assign each one to a different power source (Martial, Guile, Divine, Arcane, Wild). Different combinations produce different sorts of D&D classes, essentially - putting everything into one will give you one of the base five classes we've been discussing, but mixing and matching can make combinations. And based on the scores that you have in each, you will still be potentially different in focus from someone else who picked all the same sources.
I've generally always thought of druids as priests-but-their-feet-are-always-muddy. A setting like Dark Sun adds enough additional flavor to both of those classes that they start to drift from each other, but in Regular-Ass D&D (Forgotten Realms, I guess) I imagine a druid as a priest with a narrow focus and sometimes a few extra abilities related to that focus. Now that I try to articulate it, I think the main unifying factor for me is The Flock. Priests, generally, are servants and representatives of gods; not all priests will necessarily proselytize or minister to congregations, but if they are not serving the people then they are at least serving their great power. Druids have a built-in congregation that they are serving and taking care of: nature, whether a specific grove or all nature in general or whatever. I think the other classes generally have self-centered motivations, except maybe the ranger and the paladin (although you can argue that the paladin is a priest who never misses leg day and the ranger is a priest who never misses leg day and also their feet are always muddy).
What makes the druid fundamentally distinct from a priest? Related: What makes a druid fundamentally distinct from a priest of a nature god?)
My personal focus on druids has always been animals. Animal companions (in 3.X, obviously that's more of a ranger thing now), talking to animals, wild shape, that sort of thing. Those are eternally the things that draw me to the druid. If I'm playing a druid, that's the reason - I want to play a weird mystic who can turn into animals and command and/or humbly beseech the beasts of the forest to do their bidding.
D&D also states that druids are good at spellcasting, although I will note that there is stuff like Dungeon World that excises that. But I've never played a druid because I wanted to be a spellcaster (I've never played any class because I want to be a spellcaster, but that's beside the point). If I wanted to play a spellcaster with a focus on nature, I would probably be playing a cleric of a nature god, because that would feel more appropriate to me.
Clerics I think have a strong identity already. They heal and buff. Healing includes purifying poisons and breaking curses, they get all the good stuff. I think you can break buffs into offensive and defensive, Clerics should get all defensive, as prayers against this and that. Offensive a bit more limited, you're inspiring and providing holy/unholy strength. They can divine the future, thanks to their god. They can commune with and possibly summon/command divine or fiendish beings. They can both create and destroy undead. The way D&D casters work currently, everyone has at least some offensive damage spells. So clerics get light/fire/holy ones. Possibly more effective against undead, but not only effective against undead. I think they get counterspells and anti-magic too, they're protectors and deniers of the evil. After wizards, they are the most studied magic casters, in terms of book learning.
Druids get all the good nature stuff. Any spells to do with plants or animals: summoning them, commanding them, turning people into them, giving people attributes of them. I think they get healing that feels different from Clerics, more 'natural', possibly slower. Particularly effective against poison and disease. Storm magic for attack spells: lightning, cold, fire type damages. I think one thing 5E has gotten mostly right is that no classes feel useless in certain environments or against certain enemies, so you have to make sure the druid works in cities and dungeons and outside their home territory. I think druids don't get a lot of illusory/mind affecting stuff. All I can think of is magic that guides intruders towards or away from certain parts of their domain, not stuff that's useful in a typical adventure.
Wizards are the studied magic user. Lots of utility spells. Lots of protective wards and alarms and traps for areas, not so much for people. All teleportation magic they currently, have, they're the best at magical travel. Their summons are either constructs or elementals. Good with illusion magic and mind-affecting magic. Good with counterspells and anti-magic. I might carve out the necromancer and make it a divine class, I think wizards don't mess too much with souls. Attack spells run the gamut: pure arcane energy, channeling fire and ice and lightning, telekinetic throws, etc. I think if you don't have a separate psionic class, most of it falls to the wizard. Lots of spells with a prior Wizard's name in it.
Warlocks have to live between the Cleric and the Wizard currently. I think there's a space there, but you could say Clerics don't get the evil cleric magic and give that to warlocks. Curses and hexes and stuff, creating zombies, negative energy damage. Some healing magic, with a cost. Some buffing magic, but it's grotesque or with drawbacks. You could also take away spells as a concept and go to 'gifts' or something. 3.5 did this. I could see another rework, away from spell slots.
Sorcerer needs differentiation from Wizard. Pathfinder 2E actually lets you select any of the 4 spell lists by changing your bloodline, which I like. Angelic/Fiendish gets you divine spells, fairy gets you primal, dragon gets you arcane, hag gets you occult. In a non different system, I think Sorcerer would be a good class for making up spells as you go, like in Mage. Or 'weaving' like an Aes Sedai/Bending like an Avatar bender. But I don't think D&D or its peers are really meant for that kind of freedom.
Bard I think doesn't need spells. They have supernatural talent and personality. They can play songs that inspire their comrades, to fight harder, to fight beyond the point they'd normally die (healing), to confuse or distract enemies, etc. They have knowledge beyond all classes, so they know prophecy and lore and secrets. They're charming and alluring and maybe even a celebrity, so they can charm and confused and befuddle. I think you can make these have the same effect as spells without actually making any of them spells.
Paladin and Ranger same. Paladins exude auras of protection, can smite their foes, and have a limited ability to heal and cure. None of those need spells per se. Rangers are trackers, hunters, and scouts of legendary, even supernatural ability. They can't cast spells but they can make traps, herbal remedies, and specialized arrows. Their ability to track prey is beyond explanation.
If you plan to be a D&D styled wizard you’d be chained to several spirits and probably out of your mind.
Just wanted to say that. Look at me! I’m making a thing!
For wizards i would change what you have about mind magic. Let them be good at external stuff, like illusions and things. I would give the internal stuff to someone else. Maybe depending on blood line the sorcerer could get those spells, like charm, dominate and create thrall.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
On a similar note, Bundle of Holding has a bundle right now with Blades in the Dark, Imp of the Perverse, SIGMATA, and Bubblegumshoe, all of which I've been wanting to check out for a long time, so that's nice.
Wizards tap into power.
Sorcerers have some power innately.
Warlocks borrow power for a price.
Druids are the heirs to that power. Nature expects them to get good enough that they are a part of that power. Perhaps the final levels of Druid should turn you into something for good, retiring the character.
But enough about 4e
13th Age druids can be non-casters while still having quite a few magical abilities. Shapeshifting, animal companion, and special attacks. Granted the other half of the stuff they can optionally do is all types of casting, but you don't have to.
e: although that pushes up against "What is a spell?" Because in 3.5, iirc, Eldritch Blast was just a magical or spell like ability, whereas in 4e everything was a spell. So if you don't count that as an actual spell then yeah I'm basically fine with warlocks being spell-less
But in many ways I'd just rather warlock be a background for wizards/sorcerers, and that's the sort of thing that I set up for my Dungeon World hack (the wizard class has three backgrounds to choose from - self-taught, academy educated, and deal with the devil)
I would give them channel divinity and have druids use that for their spell casting/shape shifting. The divinity channeled not being any deity but the secrets of nature they are privy to. There would be more charges of it than priests get since you use them as spell slots as a caster Druid or dump a bunch into shape shifting and augments to your animal form as that sort of Druid. Maybe on rests you reveal legends and secrets to the rest of the party to grant them certain boons through the day.
I don't think that's necessarily the soundest ground to be building a structure upon, unless you're going to go all in on it
Folklore and legends? Hell yes that’s where all the cool stuff is that all of this is based on anyway.
The Jack of All Trades
The Rugged Woodsman
The Fairest of Them All
The Wildest Beast
The Wise Old Mentor
The Romantic Knight Errant
That Mischievous Little Bastard I Swear to God (Puss in Boots etc.)
Oh yeah if you want to go that route I'm fully onboard.
My point was just that a lot of D&D and the terminology used by it isn't actually based on anything other than itself. It's a closed system at a certain point.
That is to say, take those archetypes and provide an amount of ambiguity with them, such that a player could be playing a character as either a magical iteration of that archetype or a mundane one. So yeah, your wise old mentor might actually a witch who knows real magic, or they might just be old and wise. Your wildest beast can either be played as an honest to god shapeshifter that turns into a bear, or maybe they're just a reclusive berserker of some sort. Ideally these can all co-exist as well, because it's all flavor, not actual statistical difference between the two, and parts of it in the game world may even vary based on the perception of individuals there.
I guess this is a bit inspired by Monsterhearts too, which plays with the line between monster and metaphor a bunch.
"Thief" and "barbarian" have always really frustrated me. "Barbarian" doesn't mean "fella what fights hard", it means "they speak a language we don't understand and they probably can't read, we're the best ROME ROME ROME". Even taking away the fraught socio-political implication, if we take it at face value that "barbarian" means "people who live a more rural lifestyle and place less emphasis on books" or whatever, some of those folks will be healers and some will be farmers and some will be nerd-ass 98-pound-weaklings. "Barbarian" is more like a thematic flavor you can just as easily apply to mages and priests (to get some even more fraught stereotypes, granted). If they wanted a fighter-but-bigger-hit-die-and-has-an-extra-ability-to-overextend, I'd have preferred "berserker" or something.
"Thief" is just what you do when the system has abused you over and over and at a certain point you have to eat. "Rogue" is maybe slightly better, but only in the sense that it means "general no-goodnik", so you can apply it to anyone or anything! Baker put a bit less sugar in the cherry pies and kept the saved bit for himself? Why, that rogue!
Is Conan the Barbarian a barbarian, a thief, or a fighter?
(He's all of them because he comes from the rough uncivilized lands, he fights good, and he steals whatever he needs to.)
I'll actually speak in D&D's defense on this one, for once, in that I think that it has a history of defining what each character class is within the bounds of the game. A Barbarian is "A fierce warrior of primitive background who can enter a battle rage." I don't love that description, but they're putting their cards on the table right from the jump. From these descriptions, Bards are explicitly magicians, Druids are explicitly priests, and so on.
Not that this changes any of the arguments we'll be having here, of course.
This vaguely reminds me of City of Mist, or some other similar style game where you might take on the mantle of a legend (named or archetypal) in order to tap into its power. As you get better and better at using that mantle, though, you risk losing yourself in it and simply becoming another iteration of the legend.
Yeah, I can definitely see that. And I would almost certainly be at least providing the option to set it not in fairy tale times, although I would primarily be focusing on that nebulous era. With, of course, the option to set it in both at the same time as well, because I'm very into that whole overlapping thing.
It also cuts both ways. If you focus too much on the mundane you'll lose your connection to the legend and go dormant. The game requires you to balance between the two aspects to continue playing that character. As soon as either side becomes ascendant you cease to be a PC.
The world is ending because of some science experiment breaking phyics,and a bunch of folks are going to throw one huge party in the middle of the desert as the sun sets for the final time, and you and a few buddies from a small town decide to take a road trip there. You have to make it 1000 miles in a few days battling your way through all sorts of crazy phenomena like anti gravity storms and a super intelligent canine rebellion.
I call it 1000 miles to midnight.
It means "they speak a language we don't understand and they probably can't read, we're the best ATHENS ATHENS ATHENSROME ROME ROME"
(Just funnin', but seriously Rome doesn't catch nearly enough heat for how much of their culture was imadethis.jpg re: Greece.)
Five of the books I ordered arrived today, along with some pretty dice!
Gamma World but with standard human PCs ... except that's not that modern. Hmmm
edit: I started work on a Gamma World campaign that takes place in the area in which my friends and I live, but I've never been satisfied with it enough to play.
The Circle K and the adjacent grocery store and library became The Circle Kingdom, our old high school is full of Troma mutants that live a secluded scholarly life.
The climax of the campaign would be an apocalyptic brawl in the shadow of the Limerick Generating Station, our local nuclear power plant.