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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: Slipshot762 on February 16, 2021, 07:53:34 AM

Title: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 16, 2021, 07:53:34 AM
I've had roughly the same group of players for any tabletop game for like 20 or more years. Two constant, the others cycle in and out as life permits. Started with the little red box with elmore art that covered levels 1-3. Played through 1e and 2e, the bulk being 2e (everyone loved the skills & powers, combat & tactics, and spells & magic splats back then), before we finally got our hands on 3e, which was well liked equally by both the munchkin and the perpetual elven wizardess role player over other editions.

We did plenty of marvel super heroes FASERIP version with the ultimate powers book and randomly generated characters, tried some ars magicka, some top secret, and they really liked weg D6 star wars. Everyone loved the RIFTS setting but the rules were just too much. Played plenty of magic the gathering up until the release that contained slivers (ice age was my favorite set). We still do axis & allies when we can on a custom blowed up and laminated version of the revised historical edition when schedules align, though most just play it online now with programs like tripleA. (had it blown up and laminated to be mountain dew proof as one guys fat fingers on the default board would regularly scatter stacks of infantry across europe and piss me off.)

After we started getting people in 3e who had not played in prior editions where there were not rules for everything (and DM adjudication was thus built in to the understanding for veteran players but alien to these newcomers) was when the gaming frequency waned as no one wanted to deal with the cheese and the whining that the game was broken because you must let them break it or you are a bad DM and we should play vidya instead. This hiatus was interrupted by the release of 4e, which we did not buy but thoroughly researched and retched and bitched about w/o ever having played.

It was at this point I discovered that weg D6 system had been released as space/adventure/fantasy, and I bought these and never looked back. But my two forever players, while they liked it for fantasy well enough, seemed to have trouble w/o class and level to restrict them, feeling aimless and timid. I developed some advantages/disadvantages (a native D6 system mechanic) that emulated abilities and restrictions of D&D classes, and they rejoiced that yes D6 could "do" D&D.  Then they pushed me further to come up with a formula or process by which D&D characters/monsters/magic items could be ported over, and I did, so completely in fact that one could essentially play D&D as written but upon the D6 rather than D20 chasis.

It came to pass in all this with the playtesting and one shots that their comfort level and understanding of default D6 fantasy grew enough that now D&D emulation is too confining. They have presently tasked me with retaining a very loose notion of class and level, portability of D&D items, spells, etc, but to walk it back to the more fluid and versatile concepts of native D6 (which is skill based). They want now something less confining than the strict D&D classes where you get x abilitiy at x level if you are y class, and for the concept of class to be walked back to "thematic guidance" rather than the traditional hardline concepts where a ranger is always a ranger and clerics almost always turn undead, etc..

They cite 2e skills and powers, where you purchased abilities and custom built your character in ways that could sometimes transcend traditional class tropes. Functionally this is already buit into D6 via the advantage/disadvantage/special ability section of the rules, and just needs some D&D'esque customization.
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Which brings us to this point where we ponder the very concept of class itself, and where I pick your brains for thoughts on the matter.

For example, I always disliked that cleric was its own class, that there existed a line between divine and arcane magic. Or that ranger was a distinct class, I never felt it different enough from fighter or rogue to justify being it's own class. I always felt that barbarian suffered this same flaw and should rightly have been termed berserker. Wizard, sorcerer, druid, witch/warlock, shaman, priest, cleric...these I felt were essentially the same class separated only by the particulars of how they fuel their magics, all but the first two being servants of supernatural or divine entities who are rewarded with magic for their service. The restrictions on armor for casters never really made mechanical sense until 3e where you could wear the armor but it reduced your casting effectiveness.

My present rough draft utilizes only 3 rough "classes" that I've termed archetypes or focuses, a martial/magical/mundane focus, each of which gives access to a short list of skill increases (and skill increase caps) and advantages/disadvantages particular to each which are free at level up or which cost if you go outside your focus. This leaves you with something like martial archetype and occupation knight, or magical archetype warlock occupation.

So, what is your take on classes, hard or soft?
Do you like classes at all?
Only soft class concepts or harcoded D&D style?
Are there classes you feel should not exist? or which should but do not?

I've heard many who favor OSR complain for example that thief/rogue should not be a class because it steps on the toes of fighters or mages who wish to disable a lock or trap.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 16, 2021, 08:34:47 AM
Check out the 3.5e Unearthed Arcana section on Generic Classes (its also in the online d20 SRD under classes in the variant rules section).

Three classes; warrior, expert and spellcaster with pretty much all the core 3.5e class features available via special feats and multiclassing.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Steven Mitchell on February 16, 2021, 09:08:12 AM
The purposes of classes are, roughly:


Skills, mutli-classing, etc. tend to reduce the effects of classes.  There are, of course, other ways to get some of the class effects, such as pre-packaged "templates" that more loosely mimic classes on top of a skills-based or similarly more complicated system.

So how far you want to push classes or back away from them, and where you want to do it, affects the answers to your questions.  Me, I'm kind of mixed minds.  I generally prefer my skills-based games to be separate from my class-based games, because both styles have distinct good points that I don't necessarily want to water down by always mixing them.  That's the main approach.  However, I also want a little customization in my classes and a little niche protection built into my skills-based games.  (At least for a particular campaign, with setting rules if nothing else.)

I'm also generally much more interested in the niche protection aspect than the archetypes.  I want my archetypes to seem more organic, with the overall effect of the rules encouraging certain concepts rather than enforcing them.  So soft boundaries on most options, with some overlap in the class mechanics.

For magic, one thing I did in my current game was largely divorce magic mechanics from class mechanics.  I've got 4 different caster classes, largely distinguished by how focused they are on magic versus other things, with some minor differences in their special uses of magic.  Then I've got 3 different types of magic, which a player can mix and match with the casters to get the effect they want.  So "holy wizard" is different than"primeval wizard" is different than "sorcery wizard", but all powerful casters, heavily focused on magic.  Then you could have shaman versions of holy, primeval, or sorcery, with a different slant, not quite as powerful in magic but more capable otherwise.  With other decisions, that let me simplify the game elsewhere by having no multi-classing and no mixing of magic types--at all.  It's a technique that is not better or worse than the D&D approach--just better for my particular game and relative emphasis on what a class means.

Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Cave Bear on February 16, 2021, 09:15:34 AM
I think there was a round table discussion on youtube between Seth Skorkowsky, the Dungeon Professor, and Questing Beast where somebody said something I found interesting. In Call of Cthulhu, a player could have a brainy librarian for a character, but they'll still try to shoot guns or punch people when they can, but a wizard in D&D won't hit a kobold with his staff when its standing right in front of him, because the player is attached to this idea of "I'm a spell caster. I don't attack with weapons. I cast spells." They were remarking that character classes tend to lend themselves to a "look at your character sheet" style of play. I've noticed this myself, and I've been getting more interested in classless systems, like Runequest. Have you seen the video I'm talking about?
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on February 16, 2021, 09:33:52 AM
The purposes of classes are, roughly:

  • Make it easy and fast to put a character together
  • Niche protection
  • Enforce archetypes (some overlap with niche protection, but not exactly the same)

Skills, mutli-classing, etc. tend to reduce the effects of classes.  There are, of course, other ways to get some of the class effects, such as pre-packaged "templates" that more loosely mimic classes on top of a skills-based or similarly more complicated system.

While I agree with you on your three points, your first one doesn't really go far enough. It isn't just that classes make it easier to build a character, it's that classes (especially combined with levels) can gate off most of a system's complexity.

A player who is playing a warrior type character doesn't really need to learn anything about the spellcasting system of a game to be able to play the game or build an effective character. A caster only needs to understand the few spells that they have available etc.

In contrast to this, in a wide-open point-buy system, you really need to get the gist of ALL of the rules before you can be sure that you're not gimping your character by how you are building/playing them.

This is why I greatly prefer class/level systems in games with much crunch. In a lighter system, a classless system can work fine as it's not that difficult to understand all of the mechanics.

And a 5th lesser point (though arguably a sub-point of niche protection). Balancing a system with classes is FAR easier than one with point-buy. And frankly, when you have wide-open point-buy, if the players are reasonably competent & competitive, there aren't actually THAT many viable builds.

It's like in a TCG. Theoretically you can put together any mix of cards, but with any knowledge of the game, obviously certain combos aren't viable. And then at the high-levels of competitive play there are usually only a dozen or so viable core decks (some mild variation in there), and there are usually only that many if there's some sort of color/class system, where each starting place has 1-3 top tier builds.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 16, 2021, 09:36:53 AM
Have you seen the video I'm talking about?
I have not, will go looking for it though.

My group seems to want to strike a balance between completely free form skill based and hard coded class. By default in D6 fantasy the use of magic or casting spells for example is not limited to class, its a skill anyone can acquire, but you only have so much to spend on advancement so focusing on magic alone by default limits what you can spend on combat or stealth skills.

I think they appreciate the more free form notion of skill based but still require some type of focus, guide, or archetype to steer them along a trajectory and feel uncomfortable w/o such; they become paralyzed by options w/o some minor sort of guiderail.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Steven Mitchell on February 16, 2021, 10:33:18 AM

While I agree with you on your three points, your first one doesn't really go far enough. It isn't just that classes make it easier to build a character, it's that classes (especially combined with levels) can gate off most of a system's complexity.

A player who is playing a warrior type character doesn't really need to learn anything about the spellcasting system of a game to be able to play the game or build an effective character. A caster only needs to understand the few spells that they have available etc.

In contrast to this, in a wide-open point-buy system, you really need to get the gist of ALL of the rules before you can be sure that you're not gimping your character by how you are building/playing them.

Yes.  Part of the gating and other simplicity aspects of that, however, are due not to classes themselves but to the specificity and relatively coarse granularity of classes. 

We tend to use "class" as short-hand for specific, coarse widgets and "skills" to indicate a finer grain and often a more general approach.  However, nothing says that it necessarily has to be that way.   Sure, at some point when a class becomes fine enough, it is effectively a skill, and vice versa. 

As an example of what I mean, consider something like weapon proficiency slots. You could have a very coarse D&D fighter with all the slots.  You could have a similar D&D fighter with slot picks.  You can have alternate "warrior" class options, such as barbarian and ranger with different defaults and/or slot picks.  On the other end, you can have a skill system where everyone buys whatever proficiency they want.  On the class side, the classes are coarse and the slots are fine.  On the skill side, everything is fine.

You can also have weapon packages distinct from classes, with the classes picking a group of weapons at a time. "Heavy Melee" lets you wear heavier armor, carry big axes and swords and polearms and shield."  And so on.  Then a fighter maybe gets two of those packages for free.  That's just a little less coarse than the straight classes as far as overall options, but it is more coarse than straight weapon proficiency slot picks by weapon type or even specific weapon (as in BEMCI/RC optional rules).  Likewise, if you make your weapon "skills" coarse enough, you get a similar effect. 

Coarse-grained mechanics lead to niche protection and gating.  Whether or not they have other class effects and contribute to overall simplicity depends a lot on the game designer's decisions on where to set the boundaries of those coarse mechanics. 
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 16, 2021, 11:12:51 AM
Another element that classes have over classless systems is, properly employed, they can really cut down on option paralysis.

This is one area where 2e really shined as they collapsed the starting options to four; warrior, rogue, cleric and wizard. Then beneath that layer you had a finer grade of options; ex. fighter, paladin or ranger. “Choose one of four, then one of three” is much easier for most people than, say “Choose one of twelve.”

This is also one of the areas I’ll give 5e credit on too with their use of subclasses instead of 3e’s tendency to add completely separate base classes for even slight variations.*

By contrast, EVERY time we’ve ever played Mutants & Masterminds I’ve had to build the characters for everyone off their general descriptions of what powers they want because the whole thing is a free form point buy system and they don’t even know where to start.

It’s also something I’ve come to appreciate about WoD chargen. While advancement is entirely skill-based (i.e. you spend xp to improve specific traits), their chargen process has you assign groups of points to pre-assigned areas, greatly reducing option paralysis (i.e. prioritize physical, mental and social, then split X dots between the three attributes in that category. Repeat for abilities, etc.).

So, a big question to ask is, what is the preferred complexity level for your audience? For general audiences, the level is generally a LOT lower than for a specialized table with 5e and WoD seemingly being about at the sweet spot for casual player chargen.

* 4E added classes too, but it’s grid of power source and role served to reduce the paralysis because, in my experience, players tended to pick a role (one of four) then look through classes in that role or pick a power source (one of four main, plus a couple edge cases) then look through the classes in that power source.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Omega on February 16, 2021, 11:14:07 AM
On the flip side you have people here and elsewhere endlessly bitching about how 5e allows more and more classes to cross pollinate into others.

Want a Sorcerer or wizard who uses divine magic? Got that
Want a Fighter or Rogue who can cast spells? Got that
Want a Cleric who can cast arcane magic? Got that

and so on. The core and especially the expansions have broadened the options for several classes. More if you want to tinker with the UA playtest stuff.

BX had a Dragon article and 2e had in the DMG book a freeform class creation system.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 16, 2021, 12:49:34 PM
Another class option I always thought might be interesting as an overlay to a skill-based system would be in the form of discounts to certain skills.

So, while any class could improve fighting skill, Fighters could do it for less. Any class could similarly learn magic, but the cost for wizards would be less.

If you had a normal cost of say Rank x 4 to improve, you could then have say a Rank x 3 and a Rank x 2 option so you could have a mix of specialists (mostly x2 in a tight area) and generalists (mostly x3 in a broad category).

So, for example; the Fighter would get x2 to weapon and armor use, but x4 to everything else. The Rogue would get x3 to everything except magic (which is x4). The Wizard gets x2 to magic-related skills, x4 to everything else. The Cleric gets x3 to weapons/armor and magic, but x4 to everything else.

This definitely creates paths of easiest advancement, but doesn’t 100% close off any path to anyone. “Multi-classing” would just be picking skills that don’t get the discounts for your chosen class.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Armchair Gamer on February 16, 2021, 12:56:28 PM
Another class option I always thought might be interesting as an overlay to a skill-based system would be in the form of discounts to certain skills.

So, while any class could improve fighting skill, Fighters could do it for less. Any class could similarly learn magic, but the cost for wizards would be less.

If you had a normal cost of say Rank x 4 to improve, you could then have say a Rank x 3 and a Rank x 2 option so you could have a mix of specialists (mostly x2 in a tight area) and generalists (mostly x3 in a broad category).

So, for example; the Fighter would get x2 to weapon and armor use, but x4 to everything else. The Rogue would get x3 to everything except magic (which is x4). The Wizard gets x2 to magic-related skills, x4 to everything else. The Cleric gets x3 to weapons/armor and magic, but x4 to everything else.

This definitely creates paths of easiest advancement, but doesn’t 100% close off any path to anyone. “Multi-classing” would just be picking skills that don’t get the discounts for your chosen class.

  This is the way Rolemaster handles things.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Cave Bear on February 16, 2021, 01:09:46 PM

My group seems to want to strike a balance between completely free form skill based and hard coded class. By default in D6 fantasy the use of magic or casting spells for example is not limited to class, its a skill anyone can acquire, but you only have so much to spend on advancement so focusing on magic alone by default limits what you can spend on combat or stealth skills.

Have you played any Japanese roleplaying games? Like Sword World, or Night Wizard? A lot of those let players select three character classes at level 1 from a really long list of really specific classes, like 'grappler' or 'faerie tamer'. It feels kind of half-way between skill-based and class-based to me.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 16, 2021, 01:37:06 PM

Have you played any Japanese roleplaying games?

No, I have not tried japanese rpgs, the kids gave me allergic reaction to all things oriental with their anime obsession, so likely never will.

Anyone familiar with shadow of the demonlord? going to check out how classes are done in that in the near future.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Cave Bear on February 16, 2021, 01:41:43 PM
No, I have not tried japanese rpgs, the kids gave me allergic reaction to all things oriental with their anime obsession, so likely never will.

Anyone familiar with shadow of the demonlord? going to check out how classes are done in that in the near future.

I've played that. It's one of my favorites, actually. You start at level 0 with no class, then you get promoted up to one of the four basic ones. At higher levels you freely pick from what are basically prestige classes with no prerequisites except for level.
There isn't a skill system, exactly. You do get free-form professions that give you boons on rolls when they are relevant, but you don't have things like 'Use Rope' or 'Sense Motive' or whatever.

Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: jhkim on February 16, 2021, 01:47:50 PM
I think it's worth noting different sorts of character groupings:

1) Strict D&D classes, which have starting packages and fixed advancement.

2) D&D with unlimited multiclassing in advancement. This particularly shows in 3rd edition, where multiclassing became much easier mechanically, which adds a lot of flexibility and also complicates how advancement works. This lets characters impinge more on each others' niches.

3) Templates or archetypes, like used in Shadowrun or D6. These are close to pregenerated characters, often with a few spots in which they can be adjusted. This can be even faster to start with than classes. However, they don't define how experience is spent - so they don't provide continued niche protection from the start of play, but conversely, they allow characters to easily grow in different directions.

4) Unique abilities - like Roles in Cyberpunk. These provide some permanent niche protection, but don't speed up character generation, or specify skills and other abilities.

5) Playbooks in Apocalypse World and derived games. These provide quick chargen by limited choices, and niche protection. They can provide a number of choices in advancement, which could mean only limited niche protection (especially with "take a move from another playbook" as one of the options).

6) Rolemaster style classes that modify skill buying. This provides limited and permanent niche protection, but no speed up in character generation. Actually, it can make it more complicated than pure skill-based chargen.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on February 16, 2021, 02:02:37 PM
Another class option I always thought might be interesting as an overlay to a skill-based system would be in the form of discounts to certain skills.

So, while any class could improve fighting skill, Fighters could do it for less. Any class could similarly learn magic, but the cost for wizards would be less.

If you had a normal cost of say Rank x 4 to improve, you could then have say a Rank x 3 and a Rank x 2 option so you could have a mix of specialists (mostly x2 in a tight area) and generalists (mostly x3 in a broad category).

So, for example; the Fighter would get x2 to weapon and armor use, but x4 to everything else. The Rogue would get x3 to everything except magic (which is x4). The Wizard gets x2 to magic-related skills, x4 to everything else. The Cleric gets x3 to weapons/armor and magic, but x4 to everything else.

This definitely creates paths of easiest advancement, but doesn’t 100% close off any path to anyone. “Multi-classing” would just be picking skills that don’t get the discounts for your chosen class.

That's basically how Anima works. (Which is a system I don't really want to play - but it has a lot of interesting ideas. I like the vibe, just not the execution so much.)

The space western game I'm working on (Space Dogs) does it to some degree as well. (Someone actually aimed me at Anima as being similar after they saw a very early draft.) Classes each have a signature ability, but probably a bigger differentiator is that your class determines your two primary attributes - which are then cheaper to increase, and at character creation you also decide which of the remaining 4 attributes are either secondary or tertiary (costing x2 or x3 attribute points respectively).

Skills work the same way, with your background skills costing more with each point on an quadratic increase (same as attributes) and all other skills costing x2.

So, while Space Dogs has classes, I consider it to be something of a hybrid. It has most of the advantages of a classical class system with some of the advantages of point-buy mixed in.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 16, 2021, 05:11:45 PM
I must say I sort of like classes mostly in fighting-tactics heavy games akin to D&D - and later D&D tbh. Sort of like various variant of those almost wuxia-superhero-people, tactical option, but also then like 90% of class abilties should be combat based - now of course casters gonna make it bit problematic due to utility spells, and problem of realism of like why all spells are battle-only, but even then I think it can be somehow fixed. Nevertheless overall I prefer 3rd stance that class and skills are separate things - and shifts like from thief to rogue - because thief is more skill based profession - rogue is dirty fighter/assassin type. Conan was no rogue, but he definitely knows lot of thievery, so I find kinda cool that you can shift those elements around.

Just like Chris with many numbers and his system with Class + Background combo (dunno about skills), or someone's homebrew where you have separatedly counted: Combat, Social and Exploration/Background roles, so you can combine them in multiple ways. Now of course because 3,5 was still stuck to constantly evolving and self-referential D&D meta-lore their system is sort of flawed - like all assumptions about ranger closeness to nature - while really ranger should be scrambled to skill based roles, and some dunno Archer/Hunter/Sharpshooter class raised in his placed - without assumed nature like background.

For other things I prefer more skill/expertise/talent based systems like CoC, like Warhammer, and others, and I'm ultimately not that much into niche protection. In fact I prefer game where team of 4 fighters, 4 thieves or 4 clerics are all playable decent choices (maybe not for every campaign but generally), and well skill based games are generally much into it.

Other games with niche protection from different angles are most of Powered/Forged games with assumptions each player in team have to use different playbook. In some - like Monster of the Week, strongly inspired by TV shows I think it can be fine, working for TV-series vibe is cool, but on the other Hand - game like Blades in the Dark, could probably easy scramble its mechanics to playbook-less open choice format.

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Wizard, sorcerer, druid, witch/warlock, shaman, priest, cleric...these I felt were essentially the same class separated only by the particulars of how they fuel their magics,

I agree with ranger as separated class, but with magicals I'd say it these way - thing is to make those various magickes different in terms of powers - I think they will always be harder to divide between Combat/Background archetype - but maybe it's possible. For instance making arcane magic more from down to up int terms of complexity, while priestly from up to down - allowing wizards to just learn any art, and limit priestly miracles with strict spheres of their deity therefore limiting matter of priest as healer. Give warlocks like 5e powerful boons of patron's power. And so on.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 16, 2021, 07:14:40 PM
So far I'm liking the notion of a wide or vague start that narrows to the specific with leveling, think 2e's 4 core classes that sub-divide into specifics under those categories. According to what I can find, the cleric being a class by itself is sort of a quirk arising from the particulars of Dave Arneson's game, and really did not exist as a stand alone concept before that. I am reminded of how Thulsa Doom is referred to as "a sorcerer who can summon demons" in the Arnold Conan movie of the 80's.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 16, 2021, 07:43:57 PM
I'm devout Catholic - but really this old design of Cleric alive through all editions, with full spellcasting but being still armoured warrior but without bladed weapon, due to this fake notion of weapon spilling blood, that was never really a thing, aside of few stories. Give me just good Priest and Champion classes and I'll be fine.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Armchair Gamer on February 16, 2021, 08:15:09 PM
  The cleric makes a good Knight Templar or paladin class if you remove the weapon restrictions (there are probably ways to balance this), but its expansion to 'priest' and integration with Symbiotic Monopolytheism really causes a lot of headaches.

   The Catholic presence on TheRPGSite has grown notable. :)
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 16, 2021, 08:23:42 PM
I'm devout Catholic - but really this old design of Cleric alive through all editions, with full spellcasting but being still armoured warrior but without bladed weapon, due to this fake notion of weapon spilling blood, that was never really a thing, aside of few stories. Give me just good Priest and Champion classes and I'll be fine.
Stories matter. One Bishop Turpin is worth far more than 1000 doctoral theses.

Though the cleric isn't just weirdly specific adaptation of a specific tale, it's also weirdly specific to the medieval Catholic faith, via its legendarium. The fighter can cover anything from samurai to Arthurian knights. The thief can cover anything from Ali Baba to The Grey Mouser. The magic-user is oddly specific, but also very generic. But not the cleric. It's not a good stand-in for a generic priest.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 16, 2021, 08:50:11 PM
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  The cleric makes a good Knight Templar or paladin class if you remove the weapon restrictions (there are probably ways to balance this), but its expansion to 'priest' and integration with Symbiotic Monopolytheism really causes a lot of headaches.

I mean TBH it's integration with proper Catholicism would also cause a lot of headaches - just imagine guy in chainmail with flaming morgenstern in every parish XD.

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Stories matter. One Bishop Turpin is worth far more than 1000 doctoral theses.

Clearly you have not been beaten enough into head with Complete Hardcover Edition of Summa Theologica, young man. But well there's still hope.

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Though the cleric isn't just weirdly specific adaptation of a specific tale, it's also weirdly specific to the medieval Catholic faith, via its legendarium. The fighter can cover anything from samurai to Arthurian knights. The thief can cover anything from Ali Baba to The Grey Mouser. The magic-user is oddly specific, but also very generic. But not the cleric. It's not a good stand-in for a generic priest.

Yes. And it was immidiately made to be all the priest of all the wacky gods. And it was kept that way - well at least till 3e, where certain elements become more generic - but still - it's Templar Warpriest as basic divine spellcaster.

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   The Catholic presence on TheRPGSite has grown notable. :)

As we know where 3 Catholics are there are 4 opinions about politics, 5 opinions about proper roleplaying systems and 7 opinions about details of molinist-thomist controversy.
Now this board is truly doomed.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Armchair Gamer on February 16, 2021, 09:25:46 PM
I mean TBH it's integration with proper Catholicism would also cause a lot of headaches - just imagine guy in chainmail with flaming morgenstern in every parish XD.

  The theological and canon law problems of turning a parish priest into an adventurer are horrific, even without the spell casting.

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Stories matter. One Bishop Turpin is worth far more than 1000 doctoral theses.

  Turpin used a sword. :) The mace appears to be urban legend based on the Bayeux tapestry and a very strained reading of the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council.

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Clearly you have not been beaten enough into head with Complete Hardcover Edition of Summa Theologica, young man. But well there's still hope.

  Need to borrow my set?  ;)

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Though the cleric isn't just weirdly specific adaptation of a specific tale, it's also weirdly specific to the medieval Catholic faith, via its legendarium. The fighter can cover anything from samurai to Arthurian knights. The thief can cover anything from Ali Baba to The Grey Mouser. The magic-user is oddly specific, but also very generic. But not the cleric. It's not a good stand-in for a generic priest.

  It’s two or three different myths— Knight Templar meets Van Helsing meets prophet/saint/wonderworker. Kind of like the magic-user, except even more disparate.

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As we know where 3 Catholics are there are 4 opinions about politics, 5 opinions about proper roleplaying systems and 7 opinions about details of molinist-thomist controversy.
Now this board is truly doomed.

Well said.   ;D
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 17, 2021, 08:45:42 AM
As we know where 3 Catholics are there are 4 opinions about politics, 5 opinions about proper roleplaying systems and 7 opinions about details of molinist-thomist controversy.
Now this board is truly doomed.
As one of the Catholics here, I definitely add to two of the three (politics outside of RPG matters being off limits to the main boards).

In the case of the D&D Cleric, I haven’t really been comfortable with it since D&D went from the standard of having undefined celestial powers by default(such as described in the Red Box) to pushing its weird brand of henotheism with specific gods, and I generally consider the Forgotten Realms to be a theological horror show (which is why I am largely unsurprised it’s been made the default setting by the Godless Left).

Frankly, I think the biggest mistake made with the D&D cleric was the addition of the Paladin class which pretty much entirely consumed the original concept of the cleric as martial holy crusader and caused cleric to need to be redefined (which is where the idea that they’re just “priests” started to develop because they were no longer the holy warriors). The second biggest was making vancian spells out their miracle working.

The way I largely get around these matters in my own setting is that, first, there is a notable difference between ordinary NPCs with the Religious background (i.e. you normal priests who number about 1-in-100 in the general population, most of whom don’t even have magic) and the Theurge or Mystic classes who are rare exceptions with combat capable magic (c. 1-in-10,000).

Second, the setting supports expeditions to pre-Cataclysm ruins as boons to civilization (vs. selfish profiteering) and, unlike the WotC-era D&D, has options which actively encourage bringing companions and hirelings as part of the expeditions even at low levels. A priest being sent along on a months long expedition of twenty men seeking to recover lost knowledge for the benefit of civilization to see to their spiritual needs isn’t nearly so strange when you consider that priests also participated in various real world expeditions of discovery (and even military conquest... hence Chaplains*).

Third, I spent time with the primary astral religion to develop various martial orders within the larger faith; ex. The Scribes of Verax (who despite the name are more like Indiana Jones plumbing the depths of ruins to recover lost knowledge), the Templars of Bellos, the Knights of Viatus (forge and protect travel routes in the name of the god of travel, hospitality and commerce) or The Order of Venetrix (hunters of the undead).

Related to that was the decision with the elves to go the priest-king route and unify the aristocracy with the religious hierarchy. Thus, the priests are, by default, also warriors who lead their houses into battle.

Finally, The Old Faith very much runs on the Old Testament Prophet and Judge model where they wander where God leads them and beating occupying Philistines to death with your supernaturally gifted strength and the jawbone of an ass or raining down fire on Jezabel’s priests is a thing.

The PC class associated with that religion (the Mystic) has as its basis that you didn’t choose the power, The Source chose you to wield it. Other people could engage in the exact same practices and never receive the gift, others are born with it having never done anything to earn it beforehand. The only commonality is that they always find themselves in situations where the divine gifts will be needed for the good of others.**

But in terms of fixing D&D, I’d start by merging the Paladin back into the Cleric and then add an NPC class akin to the 3e Commoner, Expert and Warrior just to make it clear that Clerics are NOT the average priest or anything close to it.

* The position of Chaplain itself grew out of a military tradition of having a priest carry a holy relic (originally the cloak of St. Martin of Tours... chaplain meaning “cloak bearer”) into battle so as to carry the favor of God. The priest didn’t fight, but rather like Moses holding his staff aloft, was believed to have provided the men with supernatural assistance in battle. For a while my concept of a priest class in my system actually made their primary class feature “mantles” - auras of divine power that buffed allies or hindered enemies which the priest directed during combat (giving them something tactical to do without needing to engage in violence themselves).

** basically, Mystics are ALWAYS PCs or named NPCs; 1-in-a-million men/women capable of performing miracles. And because there’s no way to either aid or restrict access to the power like the formalized astral pacts (the magic of Theurges) or arcane study (the magic of the Wizards) it’s also the most feared among societal elites.

Restrict access to weapons and armor and any Fighters will be hindered compared to your professional soldiers. Keep the population uneducated and no Wizards or Gadgeteers will arise among them. Restrict the knowledge of the proper ritual forms and you’ll never fear a Theurge rising to make trouble. But a Mystic can come from anywhere; anyone of any station might arise at any time with the power to challenge any you’ve gathered for yourself.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 17, 2021, 10:30:36 AM
Yes as mentioned above the line gets blurred further by comparing paladin to cleric, gives me a brain itch in a big way, wrt paladins I always felt them having the same canned powers made little sense, 2e had speciality priests (of which druid was one) that customized abilities by order or diety, I would have thought paladin abilities would follow the same paradigm rather than all paladins getting a holy war horse, disease immunity, and lay-on-hands.

Anytime I run a game set on earth I treat "god" as the creator, A/O, the most high, and all other "gods" as lesser divine/celestial/infernal beings that operate under that umbrella, making in a sense something like an archangel the equivalent of a FR greater power. I've never understood the impulse many have to include pagan gods like Thor while bending over backwards to avoid or rename christianity's concept of a creator god above all. Like, there are gods, and then there is GOD. No sympathy for the offended.

Along this line I'm told now that paladins are starting to be changed such that they no longer have alignment restrictions as they once did and one can be a paladin of an idea rather than of a diety; if I'm not mistaken the cleric in 3e had an official option to be godless as well; to me, if these classes are going to be included in any prevalent way, they become watered down anime crap w/o a god or gods to serve.

In FR before 4e, there was this concept of the faithless and the false and their ultimate fate in the city of the dead, which kind of gave us an in-universe reason for clerics, but which I am now told is deemed hair pullingly offensive for the new age kiddies. I would not allow paladin or cleric if I am restricted from having gods and mortal judgement over souls/alignments in the setting because someone gets offended. Talk about wanting to have your cake and eating it too.

But forget entitled new age weeb gamers for a moment; I still think a caster is a caster and witch/cleric/etc are just mechanical hairsplitting, like making easy bake oven and toaster oven separate classes.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 17, 2021, 10:32:27 AM
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The theological and canon law problems of turning a parish priest into an adventurer are horrific, even without the spell casting.

I mean I'm not sure what's current state, but clearly our Eastern Schismbros still keep custom of strict no-killing rules for priest or candidates for priest (I've seen even car accidents discussed by them in this regard) but I'm quite sure few centuries ago it was simmilar in Latin world - considering case of this seminarian that needed special dispensation to be ordained because he was - apparently bit by ignorance - witness in a prosecution case that ended with execution. Oh, boi now smite this goblin with a mace, aye! No blood spilled.

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  Turpin used a sword. :) The mace appears to be urban legend based on the Bayeux tapestry and a very strained reading of the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council.

I must say I vaguely remember him using his bishop's staff in my school library version of La Chanson de Roland.

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  Need to borrow my set?  ;)

It would be most useful, thank you. I was worried beating this heathen with my PDFs would not be enough to break his stubborness.

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  It’s two or three different myths— Knight Templar meets Van Helsing meets prophet/saint/wonderworker. Kind of like the magic-user, except even more disparate.

Aye. And Knight Templar is shared with Paladin for even more confusion really.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 17, 2021, 11:30:57 AM
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and I generally consider the Forgotten Realms to be a theological horror show (which is why I am largely unsurprised it’s been made the default setting by the Godless Left).

Now TBH I think reason why FR turned out to be defaul setting is quite simple - good old cRPG games - Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights. (And this brand of weird henotheism is common across many many D&D settings. I think it's simply because it's allow for easy dividing various clerics/sects/cults and so on in nice little niches, and especially dark gods each with special twist make as fine villain patron - so you want them many). And really if they did not tamed and NP-13-yined FR in publishing it would probably be much much... worse... or at least weirder and wacky. (Magical pregnancies of Alustriel Silverhand, oh, boi).

And then of course - I'm not by default against weird brand of monolatrism (henotheism let's remember is something else - it's something more akine to some Hindu belief all specific deities are aspects of one Divine - so metaphysical monotheism with polytheistic cult - D&D is absolutely opposite of henotheism - it's metaphysical polytheism with cults shaped like mono-priest) but well it needs to be well shaped within construction of the world - both below or above (or just ignore sociological and metaphysical logic like me running FR XD).

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Frankly, I think the biggest mistake made with the D&D cleric was the addition of the Paladin class which pretty much entirely consumed the original concept of the cleric as martial holy crusader and caused cleric to need to be redefined (which is where the idea that they’re just “priests” started to develop because they were no longer the holy warriors). The second biggest was making vancian spells out their miracle working.

I think Paladin + Priest is better combo than just Cleric overall. With Vancianism I think overall well I'm not big fan of Vancian magic aside of Dying Earth Setting (my fellow FR DM rewrote spellslots into mana points and we're using those) - but yes linking spellcasting of various class using supernatural abilities into different methods would be nice.

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But in terms of fixing D&D, I’d start by merging the Paladin back into the Cleric and then add an NPC class akin to the 3e Commoner, Expert and Warrior just to make it clear that Clerics are NOT the average priest or anything close to it.

Well there is Adept among basic 5 NPC classes. For a start rename him Cleric, rename Cleric Priest and we have some basics ;)

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Yes as mentioned above the line gets blurred further by comparing paladin to cleric, gives me a brain itch in a big way, wrt paladins I always felt them having the same canned powers made little sense, 2e had speciality priests (of which druid was one) that customized abilities by order or diety, I would have thought paladin abilities would follow the same paradigm rather than all paladins getting a holy war horse, disease immunity, and lay-on-hands.

Well later editions added various variants - kits, Paladins of Freedom, Slaughter and Tyranny in 3e, Champion class in PF2e, Paladin unbound by alignments in 4E, Oathbound paladins in 5e (which I generally very like - oath-power is good classical fantasy trope). But each time there was many defenders - this time I guess more conservative ones - whining about game taking away their special snowflake LG paladin, and making him less special by making another holy/unholy champions.

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Along this line I'm told now that paladins are starting to be changed such that they no longer have alignment restrictions as they once did and one can be a paladin of an idea rather than of a diety; if I'm not mistaken the cleric in 3e had an official option to be godless as well; to me, if these classes are going to be included in any prevalent way, they become watered down anime crap w/o a god or gods to serve.

Paladins are still based on vows in 5e, so sure Paladin of Vengeance can probably be evil, then Paladin of Devotion protecting specific church should rather behave in proper way.
Godless clerics are around since 3e at least, and aside of Eberron they never was really common or popular (though I remember one rabid atheist on Big Purple whining about no-godless-clerics in PF because she cannot abide playing by someone shackled this way) - I mean even in D&D streaming full of blue-haired pinko non-binary commies I think I see mostly godly clerics, TBH it's more fun and flavorous really, aside of political matters.


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In FR before 4e, there was this concept of the faithless and the false and their ultimate fate in the city of the dead, which kind of gave us an in-universe reason for clerics, but which I am now told is deemed hair pullingly offensive for the new age kiddies. I would not allow paladin or cleric if I am restricted from having gods and mortal judgement over souls/alignments in the setting because someone gets offended. Talk about wanting to have your cake and eating it too.

Well, newbie god of death also tried to abandon Wall of Faithless, so it's going back a long time.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 17, 2021, 12:31:44 PM
Now TBH I think reason why FR turned out to be defaul setting is quite simple - good old cRPG games - Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights.
No argument that the popularity of the novels and video games was the main factor, but if their most popular games/novels had instead been something that was basically Orthodox Christianity in terms of cosmology, I feel confident in saying that those in charge of developing 5e wouldn’t have used it for their default setting as such a world would run too counter to Leftist orthodoxy.

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Well there is Adept among basic 5 NPC classes. For a start rename him Cleric, rename Cleric Priest and we have some basics ;)
The problem with the Adept is it was also a spellcaster... and not only that but a spellcaster good enough to be in tier 4 of the 3.5e class tier list, beating out Fighters, Monks and Paladins and being considered on par with Barbarians, Rangers and Rogues for capability and usefulness to an adventuring party.

For an NPC priest class I’d want them down in tier 5 with the Expert, not as someone you’d pick ahead of a fighter to add to your party.

Bringing this back to a general discussion of classes though; I think this also highlights the need to at least pay some lip service to class balance.

Strong in different areas not easily compared is one thing... ex. AD&D fighters having MUCH better saving throws in addition to followers, better armor, weapons and even their own categories of magic items that other PCs couldn’t aquire has all sorts advantages not easily measured against a wizard’s spellcasting (particularly the much more difficult casting limits like automatically losing a spell being cast from a single point of damage landing between declaring the action at the round’s start and the segment it goes off).

Inferior at everything important is quite another; a couple extra hp/HD (with everyone getting the same Con bonuses and stat-boosting items allowing them to eclipse the value of the HD), a bit higher base attack bonus (which barely mattered for the first attack and the inability to move while attacking more than once and stacking penalty to iterative attacks making them almost useless... plus spells that could boost BAB to fighter levels) coupled with pitiful skill points/class skill list, only one good save and class features that were just more of what everyone can get with later picks just adding more of what you could have gotten on another path by level 6 while spellcasters get ever more potent spells... and its why many people called 3.5e “Casters & Caddies.”
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 17, 2021, 12:42:10 PM
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No argument that the popularity of the novels and video games was the main factor, but if their most popular games/novels had instead been something that was basically Orthodox Christianity in terms of cosmology, I feel confident in saying that those in charge of developing 5e wouldn’t have used it for their default setting as such a world would run too counter to Leftist orthodoxy.

Or they would just make it more liberal in terms of morality and social order.
But then if D&D was based on Eastern Orthodoxy, oh, boi - world of RPG could look totally different these days. And Satanic Panic would be thrice as bad, with all Baptists loosing their shit alltogether ;)

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The problem with the Adept is it was also a spellcaster... and not only that but a spellcaster good enough to be in tier 4 of the 3.5e class tier list, beating out Fighters, Monks and Paladins and being considered on par with Barbarians, Rangers and Rogues for capability and usefulness to an adventuring party.

Ah, yes, I forgot about that. Simmilarily Eberron Magewraiths.


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Inferior at everything important is quite another; a couple extra hp/HD (with everyone getting the same Con bonuses and stat-boosting items allowing them to eclipse the value of the HD), a bit higher base attack bonus (which barely mattered for the first attack and the inability to move while attacking more than once and stacking penalty to iterative attacks making them almost useless... plus spells that could boost BAB to fighter levels) coupled with pitiful skill points/class skill list, only one good save and class features that were just more of what everyone can get with later picks just adding more of what you could have gotten on another path by level 6 while spellcasters get ever more potent spells... and its why many people called 3.5e “Casters & Caddies.”

I definitely agree.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 17, 2021, 12:59:44 PM
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Stories matter. One Bishop Turpin is worth far more than 1000 doctoral theses.

  Turpin used a sword. :) The mace appears to be urban legend based on the Bayeux tapestry and a very strained reading of the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council.
Stories matter, whether they're true or not :)

Could just be a misinterpretation of "Almace" (the name of his sword). But I blame the Bayeux tapestry. It's a fantastic resource, but from symbolic instruments to stylized armor, it's been the source of a lot of misinterpretations. The whole thing is silly, anyway, because even if we pretend flanges don't exist, maces are still going to spill a lot of blood.

Though I wouldn't call it an urban legend, because it's surprisingly widespread myth that appears in authoritative sources. For instance, here's a quote about another archbishop:
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Absalon remains one of the most striking and picturesque figures of the Middle Ages, and was equally great as churchman, statesman and warrior. That he enjoyed warfare there can be no doubt; and his splendid physique and early training had well fitted him for martial exercises. He was the best rider in the army and the best swimmer in the fleet. Yet he was not like the ordinary fighting bishops of the Middle Ages, whose sole concession to their sacred calling was to avoid the “shedding of blood” by using a mace in battle instead of a sword. Absalon never neglected his ecclesiastical duties, and even his wars were of the nature of crusades. Moreover, all his martial energy notwithstanding, his personality must have been singularly winning; for it is said of him that he left behind not a single enemy, all his opponents having long since been converted by him into friends.
That's from Absalon's entry in the 1911 edition of the Encylopaedia Brittanica. (Emphasis added.)
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Steven Mitchell on February 17, 2021, 01:01:52 PM
Bringing this back to a general discussion of classes though; I think this also highlights the need to at least pay some lip service to class balance.

Strong in different areas not easily compared is one thing... ex. AD&D fighters having MUCH better saving throws in addition to followers, better armor, weapons and even their own categories of magic items that other PCs couldn’t aquire has all sorts advantages not easily measured against a wizard’s spellcasting (particularly the much more difficult casting limits like automatically losing a spell being cast from a single point of damage landing between declaring the action at the round’s start and the segment it goes off).

Inferior at everything important is quite another; a couple extra hp/HD (with everyone getting the same Con bonuses and stat-boosting items allowing them to eclipse the value of the HD), a bit higher base attack bonus (which barely mattered for the first attack and the inability to move while attacking more than once and stacking penalty to iterative attacks making them almost useless... plus spells that could boost BAB to fighter levels) coupled with pitiful skill points/class skill list, only one good save and class features that were just more of what everyone can get with later picks just adding more of what you could have gotten on another path by level 6 while spellcasters get ever more potent spells... and its why many people called 3.5e “Casters & Caddies.”

It helps a great deal if the designers don't start with preconceived ideas about the classes.  That's back to the downside of gating abilities in a class for niche protection.  If a class has an ability, you'd better make darn sure that only that class should have it OR have a means for several related classes to all have that same ability.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the Fighter concept in 3E.  Starting with a clean design, it could be made to work.  It could not, however, work once the decision was made to have skills as separate things (with fighter not getting many) and feats as separate things (with fighter getting bonuses but then largely nullifying that advantage with feat trees) and several other martially-oriented characters with similar hit points, attacks, etc. and magic being so wide-open with almost everyone else having it and removing or sharing all of those saving throw and equipment advantages from 1E/2E.  Having done all of that, the proper answer was to recognize that now the "fighter" isn't a class that fits in the design.

Or put another way, if you change the underlying assumptions that made fighter, wizard, and cleric good choices.  Or change the assumptions that made fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief good choices.  Or for that matter, elf, dwarf, and halfling:  Then eventually you need a different set of classes to fit the new design. 
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 17, 2021, 01:08:32 PM
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Though the cleric isn't just weirdly specific adaptation of a specific tale, it's also weirdly specific to the medieval Catholic faith, via its legendarium. The fighter can cover anything from samurai to Arthurian knights. The thief can cover anything from Ali Baba to The Grey Mouser. The magic-user is oddly specific, but also very generic. But not the cleric. It's not a good stand-in for a generic priest.

  It’s two or three different myths— Knight Templar meets Van Helsing meets prophet/saint/wonderworker. Kind of like the magic-user, except even more disparate.

Specifically, the Hammer Horror vampire hunter. And Moses. Half the spell list seems to come from Exodus.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Armchair Gamer on February 17, 2021, 01:13:00 PM
Specifically, the Hammer Horror vampire hunter. And Moses. Half the spell list seems to come from Exodus.

  Signs and wonders are far less common in the OT than a lot of people think--they show up primarily around Moses, Elijah and Elisha. Given that, it's no wonder that Gygax pulled a lot of magical effects from there. As well as some more dubious sources--speak with dead might be the Witch of Endor or Hammer seances, I couldn't say, and I don't know if animate dead is just 'give EHPs a means to make skeletons and zombies' or a very bizarre reading of Ezekiel.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Steven Mitchell on February 17, 2021, 01:22:04 PM
Specifically, the Hammer Horror vampire hunter. And Moses. Half the spell list seems to come from Exodus.

  Signs and wonders are far less common in the OT than a lot of people think--they show up primarily around Moses, Elijah and Elisha. Given that, it's no wonder that Gygax pulled a lot of magical effects from there. As well as some more dubious sources--speak with dead might be the Witch of Endor or Hammer seances, I couldn't say, and I don't know if animate dead is just 'give EHPs a means to make skeletons and zombies' or a very bizarre reading of Ezekiel.

Heh, I think that is a more a case of combining into one class all of the Biblical sources previous mentioned with the standard "evil high priest" from various pulps and other sources. 
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 17, 2021, 01:36:01 PM
Yes as mentioned above the line gets blurred further by comparing paladin to cleric, gives me a brain itch in a big way, wrt paladins I always felt them having the same canned powers made little sense, 2e had speciality priests (of which druid was one) that customized abilities by order or diety, I would have thought paladin abilities would follow the same paradigm rather than all paladins getting a holy war horse, disease immunity, and lay-on-hands.
They're distinct archetypes, though. The paladin is clearly intended to represent someone like Galahad, who is perfect and saintly and virginal and all that, but not a priest. Whereas the cleric is supposed to represent the holy warriors like Turpin, who are ordained priests. While part of the problem is the D&D classes mix the two up, the bigger issue is what they drop: It's really hard to draw a clear distinction without talking about sacraments, ordination, and purity for instance.

Because most of the spell list is Old Testament miracles, I think the cleric is better envisioned as a prophet. Priests would still exist, and have magical powers, because things like consecrating ground, blessings, and sacraments should have real power in a world with fireballs. But they wouldn't have regular access to miracles, which would be reserved to those chosen by [God/gods/whatever]. Holy warriors who aren't priests would exist, but they'd vary quite a bit from culture to culture. So much so that there might be no way to make an archetypical class to cover them all. Holy and warrior aren't inexorably linked, either; there could be holy people of all classes. I also really like the idea of specialty priests, though I wasn't terribly impressed with 2e's implementation. But a baseline generic priest from which specific priest classes are built should probably be closer to the Shinto than a Catholic priest.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: RandyB on February 17, 2021, 01:41:29 PM
Specifically, the Hammer Horror vampire hunter. And Moses. Half the spell list seems to come from Exodus.

  Signs and wonders are far less common in the OT than a lot of people think--they show up primarily around Moses, Elijah and Elisha. Given that, it's no wonder that Gygax pulled a lot of magical effects from there. As well as some more dubious sources--speak with dead might be the Witch of Endor or Hammer seances, I couldn't say, and I don't know if animate dead is just 'give EHPs a means to make skeletons and zombies' or a very bizarre reading of Ezekiel.

Heh, I think that is a more a case of combining into one class all of the Biblical sources previous mentioned with the standard "evil high priest" from various pulps and other sources. 

Yes. D&D was, and is, a smorgasbord of many sources. Recursively.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 17, 2021, 01:45:21 PM
Specifically, the Hammer Horror vampire hunter. And Moses. Half the spell list seems to come from Exodus.

  Signs and wonders are far less common in the OT than a lot of people think--they show up primarily around Moses, Elijah and Elisha. Given that, it's no wonder that Gygax pulled a lot of magical effects from there. As well as some more dubious sources--speak with dead might be the Witch of Endor or Hammer seances, I couldn't say, and I don't know if animate dead is just 'give EHPs a means to make skeletons and zombies' or a very bizarre reading of Ezekiel.
This is D&D. Singular mythological monsters are turned into entire families, and effects mentioned once become routine and everyday things that can be performed many times a day.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Armchair Gamer on February 17, 2021, 01:45:28 PM
Yes. D&D was, and is, a smorgasbord of many sources. Recursively.

   The first is more true of old school D&D; the second is more 3E/5E, when the game starts becoming about 'being D&D' more than 'here's a bunch of cool fantasy/sci-fi/horror/pulp/history stuff!' Interesting outliers are 2E, which did some experiments in de-amalgamizing the various sources to produce stuff closer to specific originals, and 4E, which was more 'let's try to put a new spin on D&D fantasy.'
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 17, 2021, 01:55:07 PM
Anytime I run a game set on earth I treat "god" as the creator, A/O, the most high...
Never made the connection before, but the Forgotten Realms overgod's name, Ao, probably comes from Alpha and the Omega, doesn't it?
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slambo on February 17, 2021, 01:58:17 PM
Probably not, i dont think its been mentioned un a whioe but IIRC Ao is actually theservant of an even higher god...who is probably a representation if the DM shbge wouldnt really be the Alpha and the Omega.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 17, 2021, 03:03:41 PM
I mean name Ao is probably dervied from it, but what is stated about Ao, even aside of higher authority he answers to - he seems more Auditor/Overseer of Reality than God in strict sense.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 17, 2021, 03:26:02 PM
Yeah, I totally echo the issue that classes have become these weird hodgepodges of many wildly contrasting genres. In particular, I think "linear warriors, quadratic wizards, geometric priests (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Linear_Warriors,_Quadratic_Wizards)" is a complex problem without easy answers.

At its most basic, spellcasters simply have more versatility than martials owing to the classes being a mashup of many different genres. The fighter can hit stuff and the thief can sneak and steal and shit, but the cleric can perform miracles and the wizard can control the battlefield.

The way to fix this is to, putting it reductively, beef martials and nerf casters. For example:
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: RandyB on February 17, 2021, 03:35:42 PM
Yes. D&D was, and is, a smorgasbord of many sources. Recursively.

   The first is more true of old school D&D; the second is more 3E/5E, when the game starts becoming about 'being D&D' more than 'here's a bunch of cool fantasy/sci-fi/horror/pulp/history stuff!' Interesting outliers are 2E, which did some experiments in de-amalgamizing the various sources to produce stuff closer to specific originals, and 4E, which was more 'let's try to put a new spin on D&D fantasy.'

Agree about later editions becoming more self referential.

In the earlier editions, the whole game was a smorgasbord. Recursively, the cleric was a smorgasbord, as were other individual parts of the game. It was a smorgasbord of smorgasbords.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 17, 2021, 05:17:35 PM
I wouldn't mind splitting the classes into more specialized kits that reflect their original inspirations. For example, splitting the cleric between monster-hunting inquisitor and miracle-working prophet/living saint.

A skill-based system might work better for this. Has anybody tried Mythras Classic Fantasy?
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 17, 2021, 06:23:10 PM
Yeah, I totally echo the issue that classes have become these weird hodgepodges of many wildly contrasting genres. In particular, I think "linear warriors, quadratic wizards, geometric priests (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Linear_Warriors,_Quadratic_Wizards)" is a complex problem without easy answers.

At its most basic, spellcasters simply have more versatility than martials owing to the classes being a mashup of many different genres. The fighter can hit stuff and the thief can sneak and steal and shit, but the cleric can perform miracles and the wizard can control the battlefield.

The way to fix this is to, putting it reductively, beef martials and nerf casters. For example:
  • Give martials access to strongholds and followers.
  • Give martials access to... sigh... qi cultivation (https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/).
  • Force casters to specialize in particular fields of magic (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/).
I think it's important to remember that fighters and magic-users were fairly well balanced in OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D1e. Most of the problems in later editions (*cough* 3rd *cough*) were because they stripped away all the features that kept casters in check. There were radical changes to saves, spells per day, the size of the spell list, the number of spells known, the negative consequences of spells, how difficult spells were to cast, magic items allowed, and more. Magic-users always got more powerful at higher levels, but the idea that casters overwhelm everything isn't an innate feature. It's because they systematically removed all the limitations that kept them in check.

And I think that has less to do with genre mashing, and more to do with a lack of real world reference points. Fighters and thieves are limited because people have an innate grasp of human limitations, and for whatever reason the baseline of what should be possible is often based on real world figures, instead of the more wild and fantastical feats of the heroes of legend. Magic, on the other hand, is basically wish-fulfillment and wild imagination, and has no real world parallel. You simply can't compare what a wizard can do in D&D with real world wizards, because nobody can cast a fireball in real life. So any limits are arbitrary. And magic is often very powerful in stories, because stories don't need the kind of balance we need in a game. It's there to serve a plot purpose, and is controlled by the structure of the story and various meta tools, like having characters act dumb, make mistakes, or have moral codes that restrict certain uses. And even the in-story limitations tend to soft and vague; things like keeping the balance or negative consequences to your soul are a lot hard to quantify and systematize than a wall of fire as high as a castle wall. As a result, there's a strong tendency to focus on all the wondrous end effects, and ignore the implicit limitations.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 17, 2021, 06:43:34 PM
Also considering the implications of the spells themselves with regard to class balance; I'm told spell functions in 4e were changed a little in this regard to make them more like a given attack move or maneuver a fighter might use in terms of power, whereas the spells themselves in 3e were the broad spectrum of effect as had been seen in earlier editions, such as cloudkill as an example; that is to say that supposedly 4e magic was less cloudkill and more eldritch blast. I was just looking at 3.0 vs 3.5 spell descriptions and noticed that Fly for example was initially an hour per level duration and 3.5 changed it to a minute per level.

If one set out with an eye toward martial/caster balance one might focus firstly on the scope of the spell effects themselves, or upon the no-cost-but-spell-slots factor of casting itself. In my own case with D6 fantasy, the innate system mechanics will easily enforce some small balance, for example the turn structure staggers actions so that no one will get their second action before everyone gets their first, trimming some cheese off the bat, and limiting in favor of martials the number of foes one can be engaged in oppose roll with for defense before having to rely on the static defense number rather than skill dice could also enforce a measure of balance. Forgetting spell slots entirely and attaching a fatepoint cost would also be a powerful limitation though I'm inclined to do that across the board for the use of anything that might once have been considered a feat, such as whirlwind attack or extend spell.

eta
maybe it was 10 minutes a level on fly before the revision, regardless, point stands that they saw fit to nerf it by 3.5.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 17, 2021, 09:09:04 PM
Right. Most so-called solutions address the casters' combat potential while ignoring their sheer utility. Barring going back to the pre-3e model of design, the only solution I can see is to buff martials' utility and nerf casters' utility. For example, by using both the approaches in Tome of Battle and Spheres of Power.

The main problem is the resistance to such approaches. I don't understand why there is so much resistance.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 17, 2021, 09:34:38 PM
2e made a mistake folding all spells into a generalist mage list. Even the specialists were only barred from a small percentage of the huge list.

In the 3.5 SRD, there are 40-50 spells per level, for spell levels 1 to 3. In B/X, there are 12. For clerics, it drops to 8. That's more than enough. Mages who specialize should have fewer. Perhaps far fewer.

As a bonus, limited custom spell lists make casters fell genuinely different again.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slambo on February 17, 2021, 10:03:30 PM
Right. Most so-called solutions address the casters' combat potential while ignoring their sheer utility. Barring going back to the pre-3e model of design, the only solution I can see is to buff martials' utility and nerf casters' utility. For example, by using both the approaches in Tome of Battle and Spheres of Power.

The main problem is the resistance to such approaches. I don't understand why there is so much resistance.

I see this attitude a lot. I recall reading a review of the black hack where people complained about how fighters did more damage than mages.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Omega on February 17, 2021, 10:07:44 PM
I'm devout Catholic - but really this old design of Cleric alive through all editions, with full spellcasting but being still armoured warrior but without bladed weapon, due to this fake notion of weapon spilling blood, that was never really a thing, aside of few stories. Give me just good Priest and Champion classes and I'll be fine.

Um, clerics being restricted only to blunt weapons has not been a thing since AD&D, and pretty sure there is either expansions or Dragon articles that open up more weapons. Oriental Adventures is the prime one that comes to mind as the two cleric variant there can use various edged weapons.

2e allowed clerics with bladed weapons depending on deity type. Some examples were
Agro: Bill, Sickle
Hunt: Bows, Spears, Javelins, Darts
Nature: Scimitar, Sickle
War: Battle Axe, Spear, Sword
Legends & Lore had even more and some of the gods like Raven for example allowed their clerics access to ANY weapon.

Also from 2e Skills & Powers opened up the option to allow for example clerics to be able to select wizard spells from one school. And could potentially open up more than one.

3e opened up any simple weapon to clerics and specific deities might have a favoured weapon on top of that. 4e also opened up simple melee with no restriction on blunt.

5e of course opens up all sorts of different allowances depending on the class path.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 18, 2021, 11:20:11 AM
The way to fix this is to, putting it reductively, beef martials and nerf casters. For example:
  • Give martials access to strongholds and followers.
  • Give martials access to... sigh... qi cultivation (https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/).
  • Force casters to specialize in particular fields of magic (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/).
I think it's important to remember that fighters and magic-users were fairly well balanced in OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D1e. Most of the problems in later editions (*cough* 3rd *cough*) were because they stripped away all the features that kept casters in check.
Part of that stripping away though, particularly with adding at-will spells to the mix, wasn’t so much about boosting casters (though that was the effect when things got tweaked without real consideration) as it was adjusting to the market in terms of genre imitation.

Outside of self-referential material the way fantasy treats magic has changed a LOT in the nearly 50 years since D&D came about, in the 30 since 2e came out and even in the 20 since 3e came out.

And I’ll name the elephant in the room; the single most defining system of magic in pop culture for anyone under the age of 40 is Harry Potter and it’s pretty much the opposite of Vancian resource management.

The next most is going to be any of the pop culture series focused on hidden magic people; Buffy, Charmed, the Magicians, Merlin, etc. They’re not Vancian resource management either. For that matter almost no fantasy story outside of The Dying Earth and self-referential D&D tie-ins (and not even all of them) uses D&D’s magic system.

This made D&D a horrible fit for anyone getting into gaming because of their exposure to general fantasy pop culture. You come in with ideas in your head of what you want your character to be like and, frankly, TSR D&D fought you every step of the way.m

And it didn’t just fight the spellcasters; it’s nearly impossible to create a fighter in the image of those seen on film and television, because armor played such a massive role in your ability to survive and hit points took so long to recover that their representing skill and fatigue in avoiding damage fell flat.

Outside of D&D, fantasy heroes do NOT constantly run around in plate or use shields (nor would their real world equivalents; gambesons, lighter mail shirts and brigandine would be what travelers expecting danger would wear). Maybe they get a plate armor upgrade for a big fight, but mostly fantasy heroes are depicted in what would be light or even no armor in D&D terms.

Meanwhile, you expect your starting wizard to fragile compared to a fighter; wizard as glass cannon is a known trope; what they don’t expect is that you get one pretty weak spell and then spend the rest of the adventure hiding or maybe throwing darts. Oh, if anyone hits you while you’re casting (and somehow doesn’t kill you) that one spell automatically fails.

This was another reason why, once I got driven out of D&D by my shit DM, that Palladium’s system just felt right to me. The men-at-arms’ automatic parry and higher base hit points made lighter armor not suicide (it also made spellcasters not quite so fragile).

But this failure at genre emulation is where a lot of 3e’s changes began. Armor got a max Dex bonus so agile heroes would be better off in lighter armor, spellcasters got more spells and getting them off without failure made rarer.

Then Harry Potter exploded and that’s why late 3.5e started getting at-will spell options (reserve feats) and every edition since has baked at-will spells into the classes.

My own approach was beef up fighters (not to wuxia levels, but peak human is possible to build for), and really scale down combat magic. Your default attack spells hit about as hard as a sword or bow used by a strong warrior; making combat magic more akin to an equalizer for the physically weak vs. the limited use fight enders common to D&D.

This also explains why combat magic isn’t universal because it only matches what physical prowess can achieve (particularly when the warrior wields a magic weapon) rather than eclipsing it.

There’s still big magic too, but it’s got casting times of minutes to even hours and so isn’t something you’ll be pulling out in a fight (it might be something you get into a fight to prevent someone completing though).
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 18, 2021, 11:37:38 AM
The way to fix this is to, putting it reductively, beef martials and nerf casters. For example:
  • Give martials access to strongholds and followers.
  • Give martials access to... sigh... qi cultivation (https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/).
  • Force casters to specialize in particular fields of magic (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/).
I think it's important to remember that fighters and magic-users were fairly well balanced in OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D1e. Most of the problems in later editions (*cough* 3rd *cough*) were because they stripped away all the features that kept casters in check.
Part of that stripping away though, particularly with adding at-will spells to the mix, wasn’t so much about boosting casters (though that was the effect when things got tweaked without real consideration) as it was adjusting to the market in terms of genre imitation.
No, that was just an excuse. If it was really about genre imitation, then they would have adopted the negative aspects of magic in the genre as well. For instance, magic a la Buffy would be mostly ritual, less effective than punching people most of the time, and addictive.

And D&D never resembled the fantasy mainstream, even the sources it used as direct inspiration. It's its own genre, and always has been.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 18, 2021, 12:29:05 PM
And D&D never resembled the fantasy mainstream, even the sources it used as direct inspiration. It's its own genre, and always has been.
Being it’s own genre is a problem though if you’re trying to recruit from people in the general fantasy genre and hoping for much retention.

Once I escaped into systems that actually could emulate general fantasy instead of being a D&D tautology it took 4E to actually bring me back to playing D&D as my primary game system (and according to a lot of people it wasn’t D&D either).

Likewise, you deny the influence of pop culture magic by citing how if it were interested in emulating the fantasy genre it would be emulating how magic worked in early seasons of Buffy (did you even watch the later seasons once Willow had fully developed her magic and she could skin people alive with a gesture), while completely ignoring my primary example and THE pop culture zeitgeist that was Harry Potter (with at-will attack spells released with one or two words)... or Charmed or Merlin, etc. where it’s NOT slow ritual based magic (except for really big spells).

I get that OSR is the thing on this site, but don’t mistake the bubble for the reality. Last time I looked you could take all the campaigns using every TSR and OSR systems combined on sites like Roll20 and they don’t add up to the number of 4E ones, much less 3.5e, PF or 5e campaigns.

D&D that is shaped like itself is a niche and even in the early days of WotC D&D they knew that and were trying to adapt to the changing genre (its no accident 3e’s art style pulled heavily from the Lord of the Rings films that were exploding interest in the fantasy genre among the general public at the time).

Gripe about how WotC-era D&D doesn’t feel like D&D all you want, but the adoption of much more general fantasy tropes and concepts (ex. at-will cantrips) instead of being a tautology is what has kept D&D from falling into obscurity. The effort to get there was sloppy, but was definitely a major factor in the changes throughout the WotC-era (3e was basically in a war with itself over keeping the D&D tautology and infusing broader fantasy elements into it... 4E over-corrected in the direction of broader fantasy tropes and modern game design... 5e seems to have found the right balance).
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 18, 2021, 12:43:02 PM
2e made a mistake folding all spells into a generalist mage list. Even the specialists were only barred from a small percentage of the huge list.

In the 3.5 SRD, there are 40-50 spells per level, for spell levels 1 to 3. In B/X, there are 12. For clerics, it drops to 8. That's more than enough. Mages who specialize should have fewer. Perhaps far fewer.

As a bonus, limited custom spell lists make casters fell genuinely different again.

A related issue I noticed is that in the transition, spell levels are no longer a reliable indicator of a spell's power. Originally clerics only went up to rank 7 spells, but in 3e their spell list was stretched to cover up to rank 9 and thus there is a distinct difference in parameters like damage compared to wizard spells of the same level. This is particularly noticeable for spells unique to the ranger or paladin, as they are limited to reach up to rank 4 and so their spells are significantly more powerful than those of other classes. At least if I remember correctly.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: jhkim on February 18, 2021, 01:49:21 PM
Part of that stripping away though, particularly with adding at-will spells to the mix, wasn’t so much about boosting casters (though that was the effect when things got tweaked without real consideration) as it was adjusting to the market in terms of genre imitation.

No, that was just an excuse. If it was really about genre imitation, then they would have adopted the negative aspects of magic in the genre as well. For instance, magic a la Buffy would be mostly ritual, less effective than punching people most of the time, and addictive.

And D&D never resembled the fantasy mainstream, even the sources it used as direct inspiration. It's its own genre, and always has been.

Even though D&D is it's own genre - that doesn't mean that it doesn't reflect the mainstream tastes of the time. The public's tastes in fantasy had changed between the mid 1970s and the late 1990s.

The influences on 1970s D&D was mostly wargames and novels. In 1st edition AD&D, stat generation was quick and there were few options in classes - but character creation was still laborious mostly because of equipment buying and tracking. That sort of menu buying options was more part of the aesthetic of games at the time, and reflected fantasy that was bigger on atmosphere and look than on iconic heroes and magic.

In the 1990s, fantasy was becoming more mainstream - as evidenced by the success of the Lord of the Rings films. Influences included YA fiction like Harry Potter, but also the boom of video games and card games like Magic: The Gathering. This can be seen in the boom of other RPGs of the 1990s like the World of Darkness games and Shadowrun. There was less interest in equipment buying and world-building, and more on magical abilities. Game play was also faster paced. I don't think your point about Buffy shows much, since Buffy wasn't a direct influence. At best, Buffy and D&D3 reflected similar influences.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 18, 2021, 02:10:39 PM
Likewise, you deny the influence of pop culture magic by citing how if it were interested in emulating the fantasy genre it would be emulating how magic worked in early seasons of Buffy (did you even watch the later seasons once Willow had fully developed her magic and she could skin people alive with a gesture), while completely ignoring my primary example and THE pop culture zeitgeist that was Harry Potter (with at-will attack spells released with one or two words)... or Charmed or Merlin, etc. where it’s NOT slow ritual based magic (except for really big spells).
First of all, I didn't deny the influence of pop culture magic. That's not even related to what I said.

Second, you're clearly not that familiar with Buffy, or Willow's transformation, because I explicitly mentioned addiction as the last of the limitations, and that's entirely from her character arc. If you look at what I said, it accurately reflects the different limitations as magic evolved in the series.

And I didn't have anything to say about Harry Potter, because I've never read any of the books. If you want to talk about the limitations, then it's up to you.

I get that OSR is the thing on this site, but don’t mistake the bubble for the reality. Last time I looked you could take all the campaigns using every TSR and OSR systems combined on sites like Roll20 and they don’t add up to the number of 4E ones, much less 3.5e, PF or 5e campaigns.
Oh, you're one of those. Everything is partisan politics to you.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 18, 2021, 02:22:46 PM
2e made a mistake folding all spells into a generalist mage list. Even the specialists were only barred from a small percentage of the huge list.

In the 3.5 SRD, there are 40-50 spells per level, for spell levels 1 to 3. In B/X, there are 12. For clerics, it drops to 8. That's more than enough. Mages who specialize should have fewer. Perhaps far fewer.

As a bonus, limited custom spell lists make casters fell genuinely different again.

A related issue I noticed is that in the transition, spell levels are no longer a reliable indicator of a spell's power. Originally clerics only went up to rank 7 spells, but in 3e their spell list was stretched to cover up to rank 9 and thus there is a distinct difference in parameters like damage compared to wizard spells of the same level. This is particularly noticeable for spells unique to the ranger or paladin, as they are limited to reach up to rank 4 and so their spells are significantly more powerful than those of other classes. At least if I remember correctly.
It was the second stretch, because the original spells (in the brown/white box) went up to magic-user 6, and cleric 5. There was a pretty clear progression in power, with levels 5/6 clearly intended as capstone spells (raise dead, control the entire battlefield with weather effects, etc.).

Then Supplement I: Greyhawk expanded the list to magic-user 9 and cleric 7. The progression was no longer as clear -- there's more of a difference between 3rd and 5th level spells than between 6th and 8th, for instance. And a lot of the new spells felt gimmicky, or were slightly amped up versions of earlier spells, or were more defined in terms of game mechanics than adding anything new. Though that's only really true for the new interim levels -- the new capstone spells at 7th/9th level are probably the biggest jump in spell power since the 2nd/3rd level break (wish, gate, time stop, shapechange, etc.).

So that's why stretching the priestly spell list out to 9 levels makes it feel so attenuated. Instead of being spread over 9 levels, too many important spell effects are clustered in the first half. Raise dead should be at least 7th level, for instance.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 18, 2021, 02:55:01 PM
Quote
The main problem is the resistance to such approaches. I don't understand why there is so much resistance.

Lot's of people wants to play uber-powerful casters with very safe and predictable magic.
See that's why I like magic of Warhammer or WoD, I like magic to be risky endavour not basic element of every battle strategy. But then that's also not exactly D&D attitude or ever been.


Quote
In the 3.5 SRD, there are 40-50 spells per level, for spell levels 1 to 3. In B/X, there are 12. For clerics, it drops to 8. That's more than enough. Mages who specialize should have fewer. Perhaps far fewer.

As a bonus, limited custom spell lists make casters fell genuinely different again.


I sort of like idea of wide array of spells - matter is to limit access - with wizard it's easy - you need to learn them, GM can limit presence of scrolls and books in your world.
For clerics and druid though - well I'd probably go with some ritualistic access in your temple for cleric, some sort of ordination, for druid - necessity to get a teacher - I think druid/shaman style would work well with master/apprentice position - wizard too, but let's say he get sort of intelectual bookish archetype.

Quote
And I’ll name the elephant in the room; the single most defining system of magic in pop culture for anyone under the age of 40 is Harry Potter and it’s pretty much the opposite of Vancian resource management.

As much as I have a lot of sentiment for Harry Potter, I very much reject idea of calling what's presented in this book as "system of magic".

Quote
The next most is going to be any of the pop culture series focused on hidden magic people; Buffy, Charmed, the Magicians, Merlin, etc. They’re not Vancian resource management either. For that matter almost no fantasy story outside of The Dying Earth and self-referential D&D tie-ins (and not even all of them) uses D&D’s magic system.

Let's say it clear Vancian magic is weird and offputting for most people who have not read Vance.

Quote
And it didn’t just fight the spellcasters; it’s nearly impossible to create a fighter in the image of those seen on film and television, because armor played such a massive role in your ability to survive and hit points took so long to recover that their representing skill and fatigue in avoiding damage fell flat.

Well cannot agree more. Also let's add hit points which are at once abstract resource but somehow also restored by spell meant to "cure wounds" and we have certain problem between in-verse and out-verse.

Quote
No, that was just an excuse. If it was really about genre imitation, then they would have adopted the negative aspects of magic in the genre as well. For instance, magic a la Buffy would be mostly ritual, less effective than punching people most of the time, and addictive.

And D&D never resembled the fantasy mainstream, even the sources it used as direct inspiration. It's its own genre, and always has been.

It is its own genre and it's not. That's the point. It's hodgepodgey mix of ideas both from overall fantasy and more and more own lore, eating own tail.
But indeed I doubt Buffy was really source of wizard in 3.5 but multiple wizards of multiple fantasy series with much more agile and versatile magic indeed - they were.
Mistake - probably born from overt glass-cannoney nature of previous itterations was making magic too easy and too powerful.

It should be either middle-level X-men powers which would do what Chris proposes, or something quite powerful but risky and unsure.

Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 18, 2021, 03:10:18 PM
It strikes me there is a difference between Merlin in for example the Guantlet remake throwing firebolts, lightning strokes, teleporting a short distance and such, versus Merlin performing a multi hour ritual out of combat that creates a small squadron of animated armor guardians that can later be summoned in battle, D&D just straight mixes these altogether and separates them by spell level. To me one is "using magic" while the other is "casting a spell". Looking at real world historical lore concerning the practice of magic it is almost always things you could never do in combat; you draw a funky circle invoke assorted spirits burn some newt testicle in a brazier and then after that you can call upon the power to affect the weather for a number of days. What D&D calls spell prep/memorization history calls the casting, and what D&D calls the casting history cites as the use of the already cast spell.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 18, 2021, 03:22:27 PM
Part of that stripping away though, particularly with adding at-will spells to the mix, wasn’t so much about boosting casters (though that was the effect when things got tweaked without real consideration) as it was adjusting to the market in terms of genre imitation.

No, that was just an excuse. If it was really about genre imitation, then they would have adopted the negative aspects of magic in the genre as well. For instance, magic a la Buffy would be mostly ritual, less effective than punching people most of the time, and addictive.

And D&D never resembled the fantasy mainstream, even the sources it used as direct inspiration. It's its own genre, and always has been.

Even though D&D is it's own genre - that doesn't mean that it doesn't reflect the mainstream tastes of the time. The public's tastes in fantasy had changed between the mid 1970s and the late 1990s.

The influences on 1970s D&D was mostly wargames and novels. In 1st edition AD&D, stat generation was quick and there were few options in classes - but character creation was still laborious mostly because of equipment buying and tracking. That sort of menu buying options was more part of the aesthetic of games at the time, and reflected fantasy that was bigger on atmosphere and look than on iconic heroes and magic.

In the 1990s, fantasy was becoming more mainstream - as evidenced by the success of the Lord of the Rings films. Influences included YA fiction like Harry Potter, but also the boom of video games and card games like Magic: The Gathering. This can be seen in the boom of other RPGs of the 1990s like the World of Darkness games and Shadowrun. There was less interest in equipment buying and world-building, and more on magical abilities. Game play was also faster paced. I don't think your point about Buffy shows much, since Buffy wasn't a direct influence. At best, Buffy and D&D3 reflected similar influences.
Happened sooner than that. Perhaps the biggest and most sudden cultural shift in the history of D&D happened when it outgrew it's wargaming origins, and became a pop culture phenomenon in the 1980s. Most of the influences on OD&D came from military and medieval history (the wargaming component), and weird sword & sorcery fiction. It was niche, and adult. But the 60s and 70s were the decades when Lord of the Rings turned from just another fantasy book, into a book that most of the younger generations read. And Tolkien didn't just pull fantasy into the mainstream, he also changed it's very nature from gritty antiheroes and base motives, to high fantasy and grand quests. The generation of kids who led to a D&D knockoff appearing in the highest grossing movie to date (E.T. passed Star Wars in 1983) had radically different backgrounds than the grognards who preceded them, and thus had completely different expectations.

There were certainly shifts in taste later, but I don't think they were as dramatic.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Omega on February 18, 2021, 03:56:58 PM
Even though D&D is it's own genre - that doesn't mean that it doesn't reflect the mainstream tastes of the time. The public's tastes in fantasy had changed between the mid 1970s and the late 1990s.

It is more things players wanted and were submitting gradually filtering into the core game or one of the settings.

Much harder and dangerous magic? Masque of the Red Death has that.
Human-centric or Human only settings? TSR put out several, mostly in their historical setting lines. But also in AD&D Conan.
Non-Human-centric settings? BX/BEXMI did that with the various Creature Crucible setting books and some of the Gazeteers focus on the demi-human populations.
Easier magic? Dragon had that and 2e had one or two forays into it in one form or another.

Also even things like how dragons look has changed. 2es dragons look like they are inspired by Dragonslayer for example.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 18, 2021, 04:04:40 PM
Quote
It strikes me there is a difference between Merlin in for example the Guantlet remake throwing firebolts, lightning strokes, teleporting a short distance and such, versus Merlin performing a multi hour ritual out of combat that creates a small squadron of animated armor guardians that can later be summoned in battle, D&D just straight mixes these altogether and separates them by spell level. To me one is "using magic" while the other is "casting a spell". Looking at real world historical lore concerning the practice of magic it is almost always things you could never do in combat; you draw a funky circle invoke assorted spirits burn some newt testicle in a brazier and then after that you can call upon the power to affect the weather for a number of days. What D&D calls spell prep/memorization history calls the casting, and what D&D calls the casting history cites as the use of the already cast spell.

Well it's based on one very quirky magic method from post-apo sci-fantasy Gygax had big boner for. So there's that. Thanks God Sanderson was not a thing then or we would all eat copper coins to cast spells.

Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 18, 2021, 04:10:03 PM
2e made a mistake folding all spells into a generalist mage list. Even the specialists were only barred from a small percentage of the huge list.

In the 3.5 SRD, there are 40-50 spells per level, for spell levels 1 to 3. In B/X, there are 12. For clerics, it drops to 8. That's more than enough. Mages who specialize should have fewer. Perhaps far fewer.

As a bonus, limited custom spell lists make casters fell genuinely different again.

A related issue I noticed is that in the transition, spell levels are no longer a reliable indicator of a spell's power. Originally clerics only went up to rank 7 spells, but in 3e their spell list was stretched to cover up to rank 9 and thus there is a distinct difference in parameters like damage compared to wizard spells of the same level. This is particularly noticeable for spells unique to the ranger or paladin, as they are limited to reach up to rank 4 and so their spells are significantly more powerful than those of other classes. At least if I remember correctly.
It was the second stretch, because the original spells (in the brown/white box) went up to magic-user 6, and cleric 5. There was a pretty clear progression in power, with levels 5/6 clearly intended as capstone spells (raise dead, control the entire battlefield with weather effects, etc.).

Then Supplement I: Greyhawk expanded the list to magic-user 9 and cleric 7. The progression was no longer as clear -- there's more of a difference between 3rd and 5th level spells than between 6th and 8th, for instance. And a lot of the new spells felt gimmicky, or were slightly amped up versions of earlier spells, or were more defined in terms of game mechanics than adding anything new. Though that's only really true for the new interim levels -- the new capstone spells at 7th/9th level are probably the biggest jump in spell power since the 2nd/3rd level break (wish, gate, time stop, shapechange, etc.).

So that's why stretching the priestly spell list out to 9 levels makes it feel so attenuated. Instead of being spread over 9 levels, too many important spell effects are clustered in the first half. Raise dead should be at least 7th level, for instance.

This is why I prefer Ars Magica-style syntactic magic systems. Even if you don't let players invent their own spells on the fly, it is at least useful to have clear guidelines for creating spells and balancing spell levels. You could even have a hybrid syntactic/vancian casting mechanic by requiring casters to prepare spells in advance.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 18, 2021, 04:43:31 PM
Oh, you're one of those. Everything is partisan politics to you.
If by "those" you mean a MAGA-loving Roman Catholic, then yes, I'm one of "those."

I know its hard for some to imagine, but RPG system preference is largely unconnected from politics.

4E delivered on my itch for interesting and mechanically supported martial classes who didn't need to rely on magic items to function (as soon as 4E introduced inherent bonuses we never used anything else) and spellcasters that worked more like they do in pop culture in a way even better than Palladium Fantasy could... thus my love for 4E.

Nor is it partisan or political to examine broad-based cultural influences on game system development. People of every political spectrum read Harry Potter and watched the Lord of Rings films growing up. People of every political spectrum watched Buffy (and funny how the whole addiction angle only turned up in season six then all-but disappeared in season seven and no other spellcaster in either it or Angel demonstrated addiction issues) and went to see Dr. Strange (another example of modern perceptions on magic).

Frankly, every 4E fan I've ever met personally has been exclusively on the right side of political issues and the only TSR fans I know personally are neck-bearded old Lefties (I don't know any OSR fans personally... its just not a thing in my part of the country; if you want old school you just play AD&D or BECMI).

As to Harry Potter, I think the author ran out of steam in Book Five and caved to the loudest fan theories for the conclusion, so I don't necessarily blame you for not having read it (I doubt it will age as well as Tolkien has), but to thereby pretend it had no cultural impact and therefore should not influence the most popular fantasy RPG on the market feels a little on the myopic side.

In terms of pros and cons, the primary pro which has definitely entered every version of D&D since late 3.5e brought us reserve feats is basic at-will combat spells that are fired off with one or two word phrases and a simple gesture with their focus/implement. Most spell combats play out more like gun fights than anything, just with effects like paralysis or unconsciousness or burns more common than outright death (until the main villains finally show up starting around Goblet of Fire and the use of killing curses by them get more prevalent). In terms of use limit, you get tired eventually, but no more so than swinging a sword or firing a bow repeatedly would.

The primary con of the system in Harry Potter is that its essentially skill based. You have to know the words and gestures and be able to perform them precisely in order to bring about an effect. Do it incorrectly and at best nothing happens, at worst you or the target suffer various magical mishaps (one example was an less skilled wizard tried to mend a broken bone and instead removed all the bones from the subject's arm).

A related con is that you need a particular implement (a specially constructed wand in the case of Harry Potter) to reliably perform magic. Wandless magic is possible, but extremely difficult (akin to a -20 to your Use Magic check). Thus, disarming a wizard of their wand can also put them out of a fight.

A less obvious con of the system is that its somewhat genetic-based. You're either a born wizard/witch or you're not. If you're not you could perform a spell perfectly and nothing will happen. If you are then untrained young wizards sometimes cause spontaneous magic by accident.

As WWoW points out, its not an entirely coherent system of magic in the sense that there's zero attempt at any sort of balance or explanation of its origins or why doing X produces Y results, but fans of the series could still take a look at the AD&D wizard and say "there is no way I can create my House Ravenclaw style PC" while they could take a look at the 4E or 5e wizard and absolutely see how the basics of emulating the HP-style casting in the system would work.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 18, 2021, 05:49:11 PM
Quote
As to Harry Potter, I think the author ran out of steam in Book Five and caved to the loudest fan theories for the conclusion, so I don't necessarily blame you for not having read it (I doubt it will age as well as Tolkien has), but to thereby pretend it had no cultural impact and therefore should not influence the most popular fantasy RPG on the market feels a little on the myopic side.

TBH while I had simmilar feelings while reading all of it, after re-reading I must say 5-7 is best for me. Christian themes most clearly visible, not overblown but interesting symmetry based on medieval alchemic theories (I once read rant of some more eastern-inclined occultist who predicted some of stuff in Tome 7 based on quite common traditional patterns, but failed in those aspects where he was trying to use clearly Far East concepts like chakras ;) ), and darkness more interesting then very fine but one-time scares previous tomes excelled in. Though definitely they lack good redaction - I think publishers on this stage were just on "print whatever she shall bring you".

Quote
As WWoW points out, its not an entirely coherent system of magic in the sense that there's zero attempt at any sort of balance or explanation of its origins or why doing X produces Y results, but fans of the series could still take a look at the AD&D wizard and say "there is no way I can create my House Ravenclaw style PC" while they could take a look at the 4E or 5e wizard and absolutely see how the basics of emulating the HP-style casting in the system would work.

Yeah. I must say despite being HP nerd for many years, and D&D player I have never thought about it.
Then generally I'm not that a fan of neither of magic systems - because there is no one - just balanced mechanics in D&D, and whatever Rowling needs for plot in HP. I grow more into not necessarily hard and strict systems, but systems that has some meaning within world and not just serving plots or games.

Dresden Files, World of Darkness, Sanderson Cosmere subsystems, even Warhammer (after few tweaks) or Tolkien (not as soft as people are seeing him).
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 18, 2021, 06:31:10 PM
Dresden Files, World of Darkness, Sanderson Cosmere subsystems, even Warhammer (after few tweaks) or Tolkien (not as soft as people are seeing him).
Metaphysics aside (and on this board saying "consensual reality" summons BoxCrayonTales more consistently than repeating the name of an Elder God three times does in Lovecraft), my preferred mechanical magic system is the one in Mage20, particularly in conjunction with the overflow book (the core book material blew out the page count so much they managed THREE books of 100+ pages from the cut material) "How Do You DO That?" which was entirely rules based (none of the usual in-character explanations WoD is famous for) of which spheres at which levels you'd need to pull off just about any effect they could think of using Process-based Determinism (i.e. spheres needed depends on the process used, not the end result achieved).

In general, the idea that you build each spell on the fly from general spheres of knowledge with your connection to magic and willpower determining how quickly and how large the effects could be is about the most cinematic magic system I've found... particularly once you layer paradigm (this is the source of my magic), practices (this is how I express my magic) and props (these are the tools I use in that expression) atop it.

Strip out the WoD fluff, declare a single paradigm (and practices and props if needed) and you can emulate just about any fantasy magic system. I once even had a PC with the paradigm of D&D/Vancian magic is real and used Entropy to set triggers on his precast spells each morning so that while his spells were cast as extended rituals they were left hanging until the contingent trigger was met (a specific word and gesture combo) with the main limit on spells per day being the difficulty increase for each additional hanging/ongoing spell).

My own system is obviously my preference for a high fantasy setting.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 18, 2021, 06:46:59 PM
Dresden Files, World of Darkness, Sanderson Cosmere subsystems, even Warhammer (after few tweaks) or Tolkien (not as soft as people are seeing him).
Metaphysics aside (and on this board saying "consensual reality" summons BoxCrayonTales more consistently than repeating the name of an Elder God three times does in Lovecraft), my preferred mechanical magic system is the one in Mage20, particularly in conjunction with the overflow book (the core book material blew out the page count so much they managed THREE books of 100+ pages from the cut material) "How Do You DO That?" which was entirely rules based (none of the usual in-character explanations WoD is famous for) of which spheres at which levels you'd need to pull off just about any effect they could think of using Process-based Determinism (i.e. spheres needed depends on the process used, not the end result achieved).

In general, the idea that you build each spell on the fly from general spheres of knowledge with your connection to magic and willpower determining how quickly and how large the effects could be is about the most cinematic magic system I've found... particularly once you layer paradigm (this is the source of my magic), practices (this is how I express my magic) and props (these are the tools I use in that expression) atop it.

Strip out the WoD fluff, declare a single paradigm (and practices and props if needed) and you can emulate just about any fantasy magic system. I once even had a PC with the paradigm of D&D/Vancian magic is real and used Entropy to set triggers on his precast spells each morning so that while his spells were cast as extended rituals they were left hanging until the contingent trigger was met (a specific word and gesture combo) with the main limit on spells per day being the difficulty increase for each additional hanging/ongoing spell).

My own system is obviously my preference for a high fantasy setting.
It’s called a syntactic magic system and it’s used in several rules sets including Ars Magica (which was the precursor to World of Darkness) and GURPS.
http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2016/02/mechanics-syntactic-magic.html
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 18, 2021, 06:53:42 PM
So far my thinking is going in this direction:

(https://i.ibb.co/cTHQ0sJ/thing.png) (https://ibb.co/5cyLmJT)
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 18, 2021, 06:54:40 PM
So far my thinking is going in this direction:

(https://i.ibb.co/cTHQ0sJ/thing.png) (https://ibb.co/5cyLmJT)
Neat.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 18, 2021, 07:40:48 PM
Quote
Metaphysics aside (and on this board saying "consensual reality" summons BoxCrayonTales more consistently than repeating the name of an Elder God three times does in Lovecraft), my preferred mechanical magic system is the one in Mage20, particularly in conjunction with the overflow book (the core book material blew out the page count so much they managed THREE books of 100+ pages from the cut material) "How Do You DO That?" which was entirely rules based (none of the usual in-character explanations WoD is famous for) of which spheres at which levels you'd need to pull off just about any effect they could think of using Process-based Determinism (i.e. spheres needed depends on the process used, not the end result achieved).

Yes. I'm now planning to combine certain The Dresden Files peculiarities with WOD - for my probably doomed project of urban fantasy in low fantasy setting (because last books in Dresden Files, while I love the series, made me utterly tired of urban fantasy (and comic books also) shtick of keeping status quo of our real world despite all mad shenanigans of fae, vampires and secret occult societies.

So far I resolved that Paradox-like effect will be explained I think much simpler than in both Mages - by simple strain wizard is putting on structure reality while doing magic - and structure of reality, kept by Divine Alliance does not like to be tickled.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 18, 2021, 07:52:12 PM
It’s called a syntactic magic system and it’s used in several rules sets including Ars Magica (which was the precursor to World of Darkness) and GURPS.
http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2016/02/mechanics-syntactic-magic.html
Look, I know you hate WoD, so this drivel and mischaracterization is to be expected, but...

A) GURPS is literally the only system that calls it that (the ONLY other search results were in relation to HTML coding syntax that just happened to refer to the tricks they employed as magic) and the book you cite didn’t come out until nearly two decades after Mage.

B) Ars Magica doesn’t use the Mage system (inside the system its just “Hermetic Magic” and the players generally call it “Noun/Verb” magic since its based on combining an action word with a subject to produce the effect.

C) GURPS also considers Noun/Verb to be the actual “Syntactic Magic” with the Mage style of spheres just being the easiest to set up under that by building the verbs into the nouns you wish to be your areas of control (which they call Realm Form).

D) Neither includes Paradox as a limiting factor for performing certain magics, but have other limits set.

So, nice try, but No, Mage’s system is NOT “Syntactic Magic” (and indeed, doesn’t even require words so, as a name for it, it’s a piss poor fit for the system regardless).

ETA: did I or did I not tell you about the summoning power the phrase "consensual reality" has? Thanks for proving me right BCT.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 18, 2021, 08:39:38 PM
Oh, you're one of those. Everything is partisan politics to you.
If by "those" you mean a MAGA-loving Roman Catholic, then yes, I'm one of "those."avenclaw style PC" while they could take a look at the 4E or 5e wizard and absolutely see how the basics of emulating the HP-style casting in the system would work.
No, I meant your RPG preferences. Partisan politics is just as toxic in games as it is in elections. You're raging like a typical [pick a side] in the culture wars... over a game.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 18, 2021, 09:02:11 PM
It’s called a syntactic magic system and it’s used in several rules sets including Ars Magica (which was the precursor to World of Darkness) and GURPS.
http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2016/02/mechanics-syntactic-magic.html
Look, I know you hate WoD, so this drivel and mischaracterization is to be expected, but...

A) GURPS is literally the only system that calls it that (the ONLY other search results were in relation to HTML coding syntax that just happened to refer to the tricks they employed as magic) and the book you cite didn’t come out until nearly two decades after Mage.

B) Ars Magica doesn’t use the Mage system (inside the system its just “Hermetic Magic” and the players generally call it “Noun/Verb” magic since its based on combining an action word with a subject to produce the effect.

C) GURPS also considers Noun/Verb to be the actual “Syntactic Magic” with the Mage style of spheres just being the easiest to set up under that by building the verbs into the nouns you wish to be your areas of control (which they call Realm Form).

D) Neither includes Paradox as a limiting factor for performing certain magics, but have other limits set.

So, nice try, but No, Mage’s system is NOT “Syntactic Magic” (and indeed, doesn’t even require words so, as a name for it, it’s a piss poor fit for the system regardless).

ETA: did I or did I not tell you about the summoning power the phrase "consensual reality" has? Thanks for proving me right BCT.
I have no clue what you’re going on about. What I was trying to say is that you don’t have to keep calling a WoD magic system. You can call it the setting-neutral “syntactic magic”, “verb/noun,” “realm-based”, “praxis/nemesis,” etc.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Shasarak on February 18, 2021, 09:18:10 PM
I think it's important to remember that fighters and magic-users were fairly well balanced.

The only edition where fighters and magic-users were "fairly well balanced" was 4e which, coincidentally was also the most hated of editions.

I mean I am sure that some people thought that playing a 1st level magic user with his 1 hp wearing a non magical dress and armed with a stick was balanced because one day he may be able to cast Wish.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 18, 2021, 09:45:41 PM
No, I meant your RPG preferences. Partisan politics is just as toxic in games as it is in elections. You're raging like a typical [pick a side] in the culture wars... over a game.
I'm not the one decrying how other people play, nor was I in any way raging. I just disagree with your conclusions about influences on WotC-era D&D and whether said influences are good or bad.

You like OSR and that's fine. I don't like the OSR and prefer 4E, that should be fine too if you're not one of the OneTrueWayist OSR assholes I've had the misfortune of knowing.

I have no clue what you’re going on about. What I was trying to say is that you don’t have to keep calling a WoD magic system. You can call it the setting-neutral “syntactic magic”, “verb/noun,” “realm-based”, “praxis/nemesis,” etc.
Well, seeing as how I was specifically referencing the actual Mage the Ascension game system (because I actually like the game) and all it's attending mechanics, calling the mechanics by one of your dumbass terms wouldn't be as clear as just saying "the Mage magic system."

The only edition where fighters and magic-users were "fairly well balanced" was 4e which, coincidentally was also the most hated of editions.
Pretty much. I mean AD&D had better high end balance than 3e, but it also had a rather atrocious low end that overrewarded fighters.

Frankly, I consider any system based around balance across the entire level range (versus at each level) to be horrible design since it's way too easy for games to never cover all of the levels and leave one or more players sucking for the entire campaign.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 18, 2021, 09:46:07 PM
I think it's important to remember that fighters and magic-users were fairly well balanced.

The only edition where fighters and magic-users were "fairly well balanced" was 4e which, coincidentally was also the most hated of editions.

I mean I am sure that some people thought that playing a 1st level magic user with his 1 hp wearing a non magical dress and armed with a stick was balanced because one day he may be able to cast Wish.
Not with an Int of 9. No wish for you.

Darts and flasks of oil worked well. And hirelings. And sleep was staggeringly powerful. Low level MUs in older editions weren't helpless, they just didn't go pew pew pew pew all day. By name level, balance shifted toward being full time casters with a lot of power, but since saves improved in absolute terms, the effects got through less frequently. Fighters stopped being affected by HD-based spells (like sleep), and saved more frequently.

Can't comment on 4e, because I've never played it. I like some of the design decisions they were talking about before it was released, but I was turned off by how some of the people behind it responded to criticism over things like the (broken) math behind skill challenges, so I wasn't going to out of my way, and nobody in any the groups I was part of ran a game.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 18, 2021, 09:52:08 PM
No, I meant your RPG preferences. Partisan politics is just as toxic in games as it is in elections. You're raging like a typical [pick a side] in the culture wars... over a game.
I'm not the one decrying how other people play, nor was I in any way raging. I just disagree with your conclusions about influences on WotC-era D&D and whether said influences are good or bad.

You like OSR and that's fine. I don't like the OSR and prefer 4E, that should be fine too if you're not one of the OneTrueWayist OSR assholes I've had the misfortune of knowing.
You were dismissive, hostile, and applied simplistic, irrational stereotypes to people who like games you don't.

Your current post is a perfect example. I never mentioned the OSR. I didn't even mention an OSR game. And I never claimed I preferred one type of game over another. Yet based on nothing, you jumped to all those conclusions. And then suggested I might be an asshole if I don't meet your arbitrary and undefined standards.

Yep. You're a raging political partisan... over games.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 18, 2021, 10:54:40 PM
I have no clue what you’re going on about. What I was trying to say is that you don’t have to keep calling a WoD magic system. You can call it the setting-neutral “syntactic magic”, “verb/noun,” “realm-based”, “praxis/nemesis,” etc.
Well, seeing as how I was specifically referencing the actual Mage the Ascension game system (because I actually like the game) and all it's attending mechanics, calling the mechanics by one of your dumbass terms wouldn't be as clear as just saying "the Mage magic system."
Yeah, and I wasn't talking about the MtA magic system when I first mentioned Ars Magica earlier in the thread.

For those who don't know the mechanic, a syntactic magic system is one where the rules provide guidelines for producing freeform effects within certain parameters defined by a syntax (hence, "syntactic magic"). There are several different ways to do a syntactic magic system. These include verb/noun-based, realm-based, and (more recently) realm/anti-ream-based. GURPS provides setting-agnostic explanations of these mechanics in its Magic and Thaumatology supplements.

Ars Magica uses the "verb/noun"-based mechanic; GURPS also refers to this as a "word"-based mechanic. In this mechanic you combine two magical "words" to perform magic: a "verb" defining what you want to do (create, destroy, perceive, transmute, etc) and a "noun" defining what you want to affect (air, earth, water, fire, animals, minds, etc). Verbs and nouns are treated as distinct skills with numerical ratings. AM has 5 verbs and 10 nouns. GURPS offers 10 verbs and 14 nouns.

Mage: The Ascension, Dark Ages: Mage, and Mage: The Awakening all use a "realm"-based mechanic. In a realm-based mechanic, the nouns are folded into "realms" where different ranks in a statistic associated with the realm provide access to different verbs. Unlike nouns, realms may encompasses categories of action rather than just things (e.g. humanity, evil, luck). The verbs aren't named or particularly well-defined in MtAs, but in MtAw they are fairly well-defined named as 19 "practices." (https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Magic_(MTAw)#Practices) MtAs and MtAw used a single set of realms for all magician characters (9 in the former, plus a 10th in the latter), while DAM gives each magical tradition a unique set of 4 realms each (but no named or well-defined verbs). GURPS doesn't provide a fixed set of realms, though it does provide 6 levels of verbs.

Opening the Dark SRD (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRF8OzdA1D1rC_PaJwr3OzfqqSMgqAVRhBHm9A5LsmaMqaMB4JlwLb8-Jd9PkAlMyDRI2ZLBd7lzFOI/pub) uses a further variation of the realm-based mechanic that, in the absence of a better name, I call a realm/anti-realm mechanic. It doesn't limit verbs to requiring specific levels, instead applying scaling penalties based on the power of the intended effect. Each realm is assigned an anti-realm. The caster has an advantage on magic rolls using that realm to affect mundane manifestations of the anti-realm, but a disadvantage on magic rolls to affect supernatural manifestations of the anti-realm. OtD assigns each magical tradition its own set of realms and realm/anti-realm pairings are assigned on a per-tradition basis.

GURPS states that having different sets of realms for different magical traditions can make interactions between them more difficult to adjudicate compared to having everyone use the same set of realms. Despite that, I prefer having multiple magical traditions with their own sets of realms. (In order to adjudicate realms of differing levels of influence, I'd apply a cost/slot multiplier if it ever becomes relevant.)
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Shasarak on February 18, 2021, 11:06:08 PM
The only edition where fighters and magic-users were "fairly well balanced" was 4e which, coincidentally was also the most hated of editions.
Pretty much. I mean AD&D had better high end balance than 3e, but it also had a rather atrocious low end that overrewarded fighters.

Frankly, I consider any system based around balance across the entire level range (versus at each level) to be horrible design since it's way too easy for games to never cover all of the levels and leave one or more players sucking for the entire campaign.

Probably better balanced at high levels due to a mix of things like capping hp and making saving throws better with level instead of worse.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Shasarak on February 18, 2021, 11:21:17 PM
I think it's important to remember that fighters and magic-users were fairly well balanced.

The only edition where fighters and magic-users were "fairly well balanced" was 4e which, coincidentally was also the most hated of editions.

I mean I am sure that some people thought that playing a 1st level magic user with his 1 hp wearing a non magical dress and armed with a stick was balanced because one day he may be able to cast Wish.
Not with an Int of 9. No wish for you.

Well that sounds balanced - all the suck of low levels combined with all the suck of not being able to cast high level spells.

Quote
Darts and flasks of oil worked well. And hirelings. And sleep was staggeringly powerful. Low level MUs in older editions weren't helpless, they just didn't go pew pew pew pew all day. By name level, balance shifted toward being full time casters with a lot of power, but since saves improved in absolute terms, the effects got through less frequently. Fighters stopped being affected by HD-based spells (like sleep), and saved more frequently.

Darts are not doing much with a Magic Users THAC0, hirelings can be used by any class so that one is at least balanced and you were lucky if your DM let you choose Sleep as your spell rather then rolling for it randomly. 

This not very convincing as your main argument towards some kind of "balance"

Quote
Can't comment on 4e, because I've never played it. I like some of the design decisions they were talking about before it was released, but I was turned off by how some of the people behind it responded to criticism over things like the (broken) math behind skill challenges, so I wasn't going to out of my way, and nobody in any the groups I was part of ran a game.

Ah Skill Challenges - the gift that keeps on giving.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Shasarak on February 18, 2021, 11:22:22 PM
You were dismissive, hostile, and applied simplistic, irrational stereotypes to people who like games you don't.

Welcome to the Internet - I see you must be new here?
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 19, 2021, 12:35:07 AM
You were dismissive, hostile, and applied simplistic, irrational stereotypes to people who like games you don't.
To quote you, “Oh, you’re one of those...”

By which I mean...
A) people who think that someone not agreeing with everything they say means the person disagreeing with them dismissive and hostile.

B) people who resort to insults when their arguments fall apart.

C) people who project all their flaws onto others (seriously, re-read this thread, you don’t come off well).

Since by your comments here you’ve indicated you have nothing left but insults to add, I don’t feel any need to reply to you further at this time. If getting the last word in makes you feel better though, go ahead.

On topic; I don’t care what anyone’s preferences are about class design are so long as they don’t insist everyone must abide by their preferences or you’re playing wrong.

My personal preferences in class design are that I don’t consider TSR-era D&D the pinnacle of design and beyond reproach. I also lean towards martial/caster parity more in line with how 4E handled things because I think that better aligns with the fantasy genre as a whole (and specifically with the gonzo fantasy of Thundarr the Barbarian which is one of the main thematic inspirations for my game’s setting).*

I also lean towards creating nested decisions in character building to reduce option paralysis and prefer advancement in the form of growing breadth of ability to ever increasing ability, though the charts I saw of Warrior/Wizard/Wanderer up thread where increased level leads to increased specialization are equally valid as an approach to game design; though I think too much specialization can be a problem if the design doesn’t allow a smaller party to cover the bases expected of an adventuring party.

That is not an insurmountable problem, just a potential one you need to consider any time a system links advancement to ever narrower focus; particularly focuses that require specific support from other players to be viable or result in too many bases for a small party to be able to cover.

* Mage gets a pass from me because the idea there is that everyone is playing a mage so parity is achieved by simply not making the weaker “class” an option. That’s another way to solve the martial/caster power disparity for a system (as would the opposite for, say, a Conan campaign where the only spellcasters are the evil priests and sorcerers while the PC heroes must be martial types).

Yeah, and I wasn't talking about the MtA magic system when I first mentioned Ars Magica earlier in the thread.
And I wasn’t quoting you or your comments in the quote that drew your ire (beyond my joke about how you immediately appear when the words “consensual reality” are uttered... made even funnier by your almost immediate reply).

No, I was discussing MY preferences in a free form magic system, which would not be GURPS (I’ve tried it; not my cup of tea) or Ars Magica (read it, but not played it, because I’m even less comfortable with RPing practices outright condemned by Catholicism than I am with playing a cleric devoted to one of D&D’s fictional deities).

But those are just my preferences and you’re welcome to yours.


Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 19, 2021, 12:52:38 AM
Well I'm using D6 Fantasy as a base, which has by default a free-form magic system not terribly dissimilar from ars magicka, but of course I want to customize it further. The default magical (extranormal) skills, before change, are favor strife divination for priests, and conjuration apportation alteration and divination for wizards. I'm thinking I'll retain the first for devotees of the most high, while everyone else will choose (thinking 3e here ) domains/descriptors (elemental, evil, nature) or traditional D&D schools (necromancy, alteration, invocation etc).

For balancing limitations we'll probably do as follows; #known spells has no limit, prepared limit will be 1 per die of relevant skill (necromancy, fire, illusion etc) and use of the prepared spell will cost a fate point (or cause a wound if no fate is available) and require skill rolls to build the spell total (TN, DC, etc) across multiple actions or rounds. I'd also add armors normal bonus as a penalty to that required total and maybe increase the fate cost by 1 per category (light medium heavy) of total armor worn. Given that I also mandate a daily 3 fate that returns at a rate of 1 between encounters or fully with rest (only the minimum 3 regenerate) , on top of what one can hoard elstwise, and paired with a similar fate cost for things like a D6 mechanical equivalent to cleave or whirlwind attack, this should force some relative parity. This becomes a little more difficult if magic can run the full range of utility that it can in D&D, in some scenarios stepping on the toes or roles of other classes (invisibility, silence, mage hand...and the thief is jealous).

ETA
probably better limit the number of spells in effect at one time to 1 per die of extranormal attribute (which governs magic skills)
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slambo on February 19, 2021, 01:07:28 AM
The way to fix this is to, putting it reductively, beef martials and nerf casters. For example:
  • Give martials access to strongholds and followers.
  • Give martials access to... sigh... qi cultivation (https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/).
  • Force casters to specialize in particular fields of magic (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/).
I think it's important to remember that fighters and magic-users were fairly well balanced in OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D1e. Most of the problems in later editions (*cough* 3rd *cough*) were because they stripped away all the features that kept casters in check.
Part of that stripping away though, particularly with adding at-will spells to the mix, wasn’t so much about boosting casters (though that was the effect when things got tweaked without real consideration) as it was adjusting to the market in terms of genre imitation.

Outside of self-referential material the way fantasy treats magic has changed a LOT in the nearly 50 years since D&D came about, in the 30 since 2e came out and even in the 20 since 3e came out.

And I’ll name the elephant in the room; the single most defining system of magic in pop culture for anyone under the age of 40 is Harry Potter and it’s pretty much the opposite of Vancian resource management.

The next most is going to be any of the pop culture series focused on hidden magic people; Buffy, Charmed, the Magicians, Merlin, etc. They’re not Vancian resource management either. For that matter almost no fantasy story outside of The Dying Earth and self-referential D&D tie-ins (and not even all of them) uses D&D’s magic system.

This made D&D a horrible fit for anyone getting into gaming because of their exposure to general fantasy pop culture. You come in with ideas in your head of what you want your character to be like and, frankly, TSR D&D fought you every step of the way.m

And it didn’t just fight the spellcasters; it’s nearly impossible to create a fighter in the image of those seen on film and television, because armor played such a massive role in your ability to survive and hit points took so long to recover that their representing skill and fatigue in avoiding damage fell flat.

Outside of D&D, fantasy heroes do NOT constantly run around in plate or use shields (nor would their real world equivalents; gambesons, lighter mail shirts and brigandine would be what travelers expecting danger would wear). Maybe they get a plate armor upgrade for a big fight, but mostly fantasy heroes are depicted in what would be light or even no armor in D&D terms.

Meanwhile, you expect your starting wizard to fragile compared to a fighter; wizard as glass cannon is a known trope; what they don’t expect is that you get one pretty weak spell and then spend the rest of the adventure hiding or maybe throwing darts. Oh, if anyone hits you while you’re casting (and somehow doesn’t kill you) that one spell automatically fails.

This was another reason why, once I got driven out of D&D by my shit DM, that Palladium’s system just felt right to me. The men-at-arms’ automatic parry and higher base hit points made lighter armor not suicide (it also made spellcasters not quite so fragile).

But this failure at genre emulation is where a lot of 3e’s changes began. Armor got a max Dex bonus so agile heroes would be better off in lighter armor, spellcasters got more spells and getting them off without failure made rarer.

Then Harry Potter exploded and that’s why late 3.5e started getting at-will spell options (reserve feats) and every edition since has baked at-will spells into the classes.

My own approach was beef up fighters (not to wuxia levels, but peak human is possible to build for), and really scale down combat magic. Your default attack spells hit about as hard as a sword or bow used by a strong warrior; making combat magic more akin to an equalizer for the physically weak vs. the limited use fight enders common to D&D.

This also explains why combat magic isn’t universal because it only matches what physical prowess can achieve (particularly when the warrior wields a magic weapon) rather than eclipsing it.

There’s still big magic too, but it’s got casting times of minutes to even hours and so isn’t something you’ll be pulling out in a fight (it might be something you get into a fight to prevent someone completing though).

Whilen it may be hard to create a film or television fighter i feel your discounting just how many people are exposed to fantasy through video games where armor (no matter how impractocal) is extremely common.

This is also why many people enjoy spell points, mana bars and all that you know.

My problem with the fighter in 5e for example is that most of them dont really feel like they'rr that good at fighting. They are certainly more athletic, but they dont have any fancy tricks besides the battlemaster. 4e adressed this but i dont like the way they did it much. I really, really like DCC's mighty deed of arms and made a version of it for my own system as well. DCC also informed my prefrences in magic, though i already played Warhammer by the time i interacted with it. You can cast spells as much as you want but theres an inherent danger to it that i love.

I also did what you did in my home system, beefing up fighters. They always hit first in melee(its simultaneous initiative), strong critical hits, and one other thing was that i let them attack again if they kill something which lets them wade through weak enemies easier, and they have good saves. Ive been playtesting a bit over a year and at first people though it was really OP, but ober time they've warmed up to the idea that the fighter is as effective as the mage. The main difference is that the fighter has a different set of descisions to make (mages are more about picking the right tool from their spells known, fighters are more about being in the right place to be most effective and choosing targets.) Though in my expirence of TRPGs as a whole...i think it may be location and enemies that have the biggest impact on how fun fights are if the rest of the game is competently made.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 19, 2021, 04:25:13 AM
Quote
Darts and flasks of oil worked well. And hirelings. And sleep was staggeringly powerful. Low level MUs in older editions weren't helpless, they just didn't go pew pew pew pew all day. By name level, balance shifted toward being full time casters with a lot of power, but since saves improved in absolute terms, the effects got through less frequently. Fighters stopped being affected by HD-based spells (like sleep), and saved more frequently.

Darts are not doing much with a Magic Users THAC0, hirelings can be used by any class so that one is at least balanced and you were lucky if your DM let you choose Sleep as your spell rather then rolling for it randomly. 

This not very convincing as your main argument towards some kind of "balance"
B/X 1st level magic-user: THAC0 19
B/X 3rd level fighter: THAC0 19
AD&D1 1st level magic-user: THAC0 20
AD&D1 2nd level fighter: THAC0 20

There's no THAC0 difference between starting characters. The B/X fighter probably has a +1, maybe a +2, from Strength, but no other bonuses. A typical AD&D1 fighter will have none (the odds of rolling a 17 or higher are pretty low, barring cheating or exceptional rolling methods). The main difference at low levels is AC and hp. They combine to give fighters much more staying power than MUs, but that's only important for close combat. Weapon selection is the other main factor, and that primarily impacts damage in close combat, and range in ranged combat (in 1e; in Basic the overall differences in THAC0 or hp are smaller, and MUs do less damage with thrown pointy things, but flaming oil is still very effective). Overall, starting MUs are perfectly competent 2nd or 3rd row missile throwers. They start to lose out in comparison to fighters as levels increase, but they also expand in magical prowess.

It's true that not every magic-user gets sleep, but there's a 2 in 10 chance of randomly rolling the spell in 1e, and all MUs are guaranteed read magic, plus at least one offensive, defensive, and miscellaneous spell, so the odds are they'll have something effective. For instance, hold portal can easily save a party, ventriloquism is very effective at avoiding entire encounters, and charm person effectively turns monsters into lackeys. B/X will vary by campaign, because the 1st level spell choice is left to either the DM or the player (at the DM's discretion).
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 19, 2021, 04:39:13 AM
You were dismissive, hostile, and applied simplistic, irrational stereotypes to people who like games you don't.
To quote you, “Oh, you’re one of those...”

That was after you said you "escaped" as if game systems other people liked were prisons, used the very loaded word "deny" (denier), said "did you even watch" when you were the one who missed the point being made, said I was "completely ignoring" your primary example when you gave a list of media and I responded to one I was familiar with, assigned me membership in a group, implied members of that group "mistake the bubble for the reality", claimed I "[g]ripe[d] about WotC-era D&D", and abused the poor innocent word word "tautology" (3 times).

You were literally applying false stereotypes, using those (false) stereotypes to justify your attacks and ignoring what I said, while using very loaded terms that portrayed everything as a binary choice between your (right) way and the (wrong and monolithic) way that other people play games. That's why I said you're "one of those", because you clearly see things games though the lens of partisan politics (which I spelled out in the next post, after you jumped to a very weird conclusion).

And now you're claiming (twice) that all I've done is insult you, when all I've done is call out your insulting behavior.

My personal preferences in class design are that I don’t consider TSR-era D&D the pinnacle of design and beyond reproach.
Neither do I.

I doubt you'll listen, but don't you see how statements like this make it very hard to carry on a conversation? You're not addressing any point I made. Instead, you're taking a few specific statements I made, and then using passive wording to assign me a general (and false) set of beliefs, which you've couched in very negative way. If I did that to you, what options would you have when you respond? There's no option to advance the conversation, because nothing you said was addressed. So your either options are either to ignore it, which people could take as tacitly admitting you believe in things you didn't. Or you could point out that you don't hold those beliefs. I did the second, and now you're accusing me of insulting you.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 19, 2021, 10:03:02 AM
To quote you, “Oh, you’re one of those...”

That was after you said you "escaped" as if game systems other people liked were prisons,
Oh geez. Bad communication kills I guess.

Since apparently you missed it on some of the many other threads we’ve shared comments on (and so I felt no need to repeat the story again... though apparently I must now) I’ve related the story behind why I despise old school D&D and the primary factor in that was an abusive DM who almost drove me from the hobby entirely.

What I escaped, and was referencing, was a bad DM who used AD&D like a club and so poisoned my view of old-school style play that 30+ years later I’d rather eat garbage than play it. But I’ve also made plain too that this is a personal hang up of mine and do not begrudge others their preferences.

If I had not discovered Palladium’s Robotech and had friends willing to play that with me, I wouldn’t even be here today. So, yes, I consider Palladium to have saved me from a bad situation involving AD&D giving up on something I’ve loved for the majority of my life.

I’m sorry you misread those remarks as anything other personal bitterness at specific past experiences and took them instead to be a blanket dismissal of all who like the older editons of D&D. It seems to have been the root for your choice to read everything that followed in the most uncharitable ways possible.

Quote
and abused the poor innocent word word "tautology" (3 times).
Abused? Words don’t have feelings. I felt that word for a thing named for itself feels apt for what D&D has become... a text almost completely self-referential with almost nothing outside it allowed to be added to it.

And my view on that is connected too with my other source of bitterness at D&D in a general sense; the utter disdain shown by nearly everyone towards MY favorite system (other than my own which is a love letter to it); 4E. I have repeatedly expressed that I don’t begrudge others their preferences, but I am almost never afforded the same
courtesy... not only is the system bad, they say, you’re a bad person (and probably an SJW) for even liking it.

And it almost invariably comes from OSR fans; people who like the exact same things the asshole who nearly drove me from the hobby feel the need to call out what I like as bad. So forgive me for coming off as defensive when OSR/TSR fans keep attacking what I love about the hobby. It’s a learned reflex I assure you.

Quote
while using very loaded terms that portrayed everything as a binary choice between your (right) way and the (wrong and monolithic) way that other people play games.
No. That’s how you chose to read it; in the least charitable light because something triggered you and you were looking to be offended.

Go re-read my post history. It stands visible to one and all as evidence of my positions. You’ll see I’ve never endorsed OneTrueWayist BS.

Seriously, if I were a partisan for one single way of playing, why would I devote so much effort in my own system to including optional rules and settings to make it easy for people to play in ways that don’t fit my preferences? I even have dials and rules to let my system play as close to OSR-style play as it can without breaking even though I hate OSR-style play. Clearly the mark of a One True Wayist there.

If I am partisan for anything in gaming it being AGAINST OneTrueWayism. So you’ll forgive me again if when I read your own posts accusing me of being some OneTrueWayist fanatic (the opposite of my beliefs) that I would take those as spiteful mischaracterizations and attacks on my character and endeavor to explain my positions (which you read as further attacks rather than as defenses).
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 19, 2021, 10:13:11 AM
Pax! Pax! Wina dajcie i niech żywie miłość między chrześcijany!
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Omega on February 19, 2021, 10:16:25 AM
So far my thinking is going in this direction.

Have a glance at the sidekick system for 5e D&D. It breaks the classes down into 3 groups - Warrior, Expert and Spellcaster.
Warrior maps to the fighter, the Spellcaster is a mix of Cleric and mostly Wizard/Sorcerer, and the Expert is a mix of Rogue and Bard.

It is not great, but it gets the job done and there was originally even suggestions for using them as simple player classes for those who wanted something more straightforward.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Mishihari on February 19, 2021, 10:50:21 AM
As others have mentioned, I see the strengths of class based design as

1)   Learning a game and getting to play quickly
2)   Easy character creation
3)   Reduce decision overload
4)   Easy character advancement
5)   Niche protection
6)   Support familiar archetypes (“I want to play Han Solo...”)

and the weaknesses as

1)   Difficulty or inability to create certain imagined characters with existing classes/mechanisms
2)   Limiting imagination in character design/development
3)   The work of creating new classes when necessary
4)   Illogical and unintuitive mechanics ( “I can’t hold a sword because I’m a magic-user?!” )
5)   Limiting character development choices

My preference then is to start with skill based mechanics and try to recreate the strengths of class systems.

Providing optional, initial templates helps with most of these, and I consider these pretty much essential for a skill based system.

For the rest of it, my preference is to include mechanics that reward taking and improving skills that are related.

In a previous, abandoned game design project, I did this by adding bonuses and reduced learning costs for skills depending on the ones you already had.  There were “tight groups” for closely related skills and “loose groups” for those somewhat less so.  As an example, If you had +10 skill in a long sword, that gave you a bonus +2 skill in any other sword and a bonus +1 skill in any weapon.  Similar mechanics affected the XP costs of learning related skills.  Like much of the rest of that system it’s mathematically elegant and produced exactly the results I wanted, but was more work than I cared to do at the gaming table.

In my current project, there are 6 talents, akin to D&D’s ability scores, which are attack, defense, athletics, magic, guile, and perception.  A combination of 1 or two of these gives a rough match for most archetypes I can think of.  Each skill depends on exactly one of the talents, so it usually makes sense to develop skills that are related to the ones you already have, which provides niche protection.  For example, if you’re a sword striker then getting another +1 in sword skill provide a really important increase in your primary function.  Putting that skill point into a magical art instead will might mean going from useless to slightly less useless in that skill.  That’s something you might want to do occasionally for flexibility or a specific problem, but usually an inferior approach.  It provides much the same benefits mechanically as the other system and is much simpler to implement.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 19, 2021, 11:15:46 AM
Quote
My preference then is to start with skill based mechanics and try to recreate the strengths of class systems.

Providing optional, initial templates helps with most of these, and I consider these pretty much essential for a skill based system.

Sort of good middle-system in theory at least is Warhammer system of professions.
Especially in 4e where certain weird limitations were removed.

You have a job in reinessance society - job you use for living. You have list of skills, talents and attributes you can upgrade point after point (each 1% bought separatedly) linked to your occupation. You can go beyond your occupation and buy new skills for higher price, or same price but with money cost for training.
You can shift occupation, while keeping all you can from previous one.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 19, 2021, 02:43:45 PM
I’m sorry you misread those remarks as anything other personal bitterness at specific past experiences and took them instead to be a blanket dismissal of all who like the older editons of D&D. It seems to have been the root for your choice to read everything that followed in the most uncharitable ways possible.
And my view on that is connected too with my other source of bitterness at D&D in a general sense; the utter disdain shown by nearly everyone towards MY favorite system (other than my own which is a love letter to it); 4E. I have repeatedly expressed that I don’t begrudge others their preferences, but I am almost never afforded the same
courtesy... not only is the system bad, they say, you’re a bad person (and probably an SJW) for even liking it.
Thanks, I understand where you're coming from. But why not just drop all of that? Even if someone poisoned the waters of one well for you in the past, or certain people continue to sneak in and poison your well, why preemptively poison the well of new conversations with completely different posters?

Quote
and abused the poor innocent word word "tautology" (3 times).
Abused? Words don’t have feelings. I felt that word for a thing named for itself feels apt for what D&D has become... a text almost completely self-referential with almost nothing outside it allowed to be added to it.
That was a joke, I was just making fun of how many times you used it. It's one of those words that everyone knows, but it's unusual enough that it stands out when you use it repeatedly. Especially when you're the stretching the definition a bit.

Quote
while using very loaded terms that portrayed everything as a binary choice between your (right) way and the (wrong and monolithic) way that other people play games.
No. That’s how you chose to read it; in the least charitable light because something triggered you and you were looking to be offended.
You literally accused people of One True Wayism. That's not me being uncharitable. And if I were triggered and looking to be offended, wouldn't I be telling you what you think and making personal attacks instead of analyzing the specific words you used and how you used them, and explaining how that makes it hard to have a conversation?
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 19, 2021, 04:02:35 PM
Quote
My preference then is to start with skill based mechanics and try to recreate the strengths of class systems.

Providing optional, initial templates helps with most of these, and I consider these pretty much essential for a skill based system.

Sort of good middle-system in theory at least is Warhammer system of professions.
Especially in 4e where certain weird limitations were removed.

You have a job in reinessance society - job you use for living. You have list of skills, talents and attributes you can upgrade point after point (each 1% bought separatedly) linked to your occupation. You can go beyond your occupation and buy new skills for higher price, or same price but with money cost for training.
You can shift occupation, while keeping all you can from previous one.
How do Warhammer professions work? Do you just shift what skills you can learn, or is it more complex?

I think it's interesting that the most important skill system in old school D&D is rarely even recognized as a skill system: But that's what the magic system, and how you learn new spells, is. We've talked a bit about how the expansion of the spell list has caused a lot of problems, and I definitely think restricting the spell list is one of the most important ways to balance spellcasters. But how to go about it? If we take the schools of magic to represent academic specialities, then magic-users would be stuck with a specific and fairly narrow progression of spells, e.g. they'd know at 1st level what spells they have to chose from at 9th level. But that gets back to the build mentality where too much has to be pre-planned and there's little opportunity for emergent or adaptive changes, so there needs to be a way to switch or mix it up. Buy by the same token, there need to be real, hard limits or you're back to the infinite spell problem. And it's very difficult to allow variation while still enforcing a theme in a progressive level system -- if you switch to fire magic at 5th level, do you have to start at 1st level and build back up, or can you suddenly cast fireballs? D&D's always struggled with multiclassing, because the level system is built around progressive specialization. So if other systems do it well, it might be illuminating.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Steven Mitchell on February 19, 2021, 04:58:52 PM
I think it's interesting that the most important skill system in old school D&D is rarely even recognized as a skill system: But that's what the magic system, and how you learn new spells, is. We've talked a bit about how the expansion of the spell list has caused a lot of problems, and I definitely think restricting the spell list is one of the most important ways to balance spellcasters. But how to go about it? If we take the schools of magic to represent academic specialities, then magic-users would be stuck with a specific and fairly narrow progression of spells, e.g. they'd know at 1st level what spells they have to chose from at 9th level. But that gets back to the build mentality where too much has to be pre-planned and there's little opportunity for emergent or adaptive changes, so there needs to be a way to switch or mix it up. Buy by the same token, there need to be real, hard limits or you're back to the infinite spell problem. And it's very difficult to allow variation while still enforcing a theme in a progressive level system -- if you switch to fire magic at 5th level, do you have to start at 1st level and build back up, or can you suddenly cast fireballs? D&D's always struggled with multiclassing, because the level system is built around progressive specialization. So if other systems do it well, it might be illuminating.

Pat, I suspect that there isn't really an answer to those thoughts that isn't specific to the game and maybe setting.  For example, AD&D has a wide open wizard theme due to the expansive nature of the spell lists.  However, there are limits on which spells the wizard can cast--not least determined by what they find in play.  So it is up to the GM to limit that list to get the feel they want.  Maybe Joe Fire Wizard is a fire wizard not because that is his skill set but because those are the spells he has located, learned, and found to be useful.  Joe could have turned out different.

For me, I've always found the D&D wizard too broad and the "schools" too narrow.  All those spells that cross lists and different lists and so forth that is part of the game is both a way to support hybrid characters and a way to limit that.  In contrast to, say, something like Dragon Quest is systematically narrow and Runequest simple magic is systematically limited.  I've done Fantasy Hero where "anything goes" as long as it is within the casters concept (e.g. GM approval) and also done it where the caster signed up for a particular set of spells based on a magic skill (or maybe learned several magic skills, each with different set of spells).

When I set out to do my own take on something D&D-ish, for magic I did several things that mitigate the issues you are discussing, at least in the ways that affect my priorities. Heh!


That last bullet does put it back on the GM, but the "common" spells and the magic type difference already provide a distinct theme (more narrow than D&D casters, broader than schools).  And they are also sufficient for the character to work.  It would be perfectly OK for the GM to be stingy or generous with the rare spells, same as as GM could with magic items.  As long as that is what the GM wants.  I've also put in some mechanics for learning spells that heavily favors getting as much information as possible about the spell from multiple sources.  Much easier to do with common spells.  A rare 1st level spell could take several weeks to learn, and it expands rapidly from there. 

Just reading between the lines, you can see that what I'm doing in no way would satisfy all your criteria for all games.  It wouldn't even come close.  It does, more or less, mitigate those issues for my purposes, at least to the point where I don't mind GM fiat stepping in to handle the remaining parts.  Other GM's would likely say that I'm not solving the boundary cases they want solved and putting in details that solves something not important to them.

Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 19, 2021, 08:15:04 PM
As others have mentioned, I see the strengths of class based design as

1)   Learning a game and getting to play quickly
2)   Easy character creation
3)   Reduce decision overload
4)   Easy character advancement
5)   Niche protection
6)   Support familiar archetypes (“I want to play Han Solo...”)

and the weaknesses as

1)   Difficulty or inability to create certain imagined characters with existing classes/mechanisms
2)   Limiting imagination in character design/development
3)   The work of creating new classes when necessary
4)   Illogical and unintuitive mechanics ( “I can’t hold a sword because I’m a magic-user?!” )
5)   Limiting character development choices

My preference then is to start with skill based mechanics and try to recreate the strengths of class systems.

Providing optional, initial templates helps with most of these, and I consider these pretty much essential for a skill based system.

For the rest of it, my preference is to include mechanics that reward taking and improving skills that are related.

In a previous, abandoned game design project, I did this by adding bonuses and reduced learning costs for skills depending on the ones you already had.  There were “tight groups” for closely related skills and “loose groups” for those somewhat less so.  As an example, If you had +10 skill in a long sword, that gave you a bonus +2 skill in any other sword and a bonus +1 skill in any weapon.  Similar mechanics affected the XP costs of learning related skills.  Like much of the rest of that system it’s mathematically elegant and produced exactly the results I wanted, but was more work than I cared to do at the gaming table.

In my current project, there are 6 talents, akin to D&D’s ability scores, which are attack, defense, athletics, magic, guile, and perception.  A combination of 1 or two of these gives a rough match for most archetypes I can think of.  Each skill depends on exactly one of the talents, so it usually makes sense to develop skills that are related to the ones you already have, which provides niche protection.  For example, if you’re a sword striker then getting another +1 in sword skill provide a really important increase in your primary function.  Putting that skill point into a magical art instead will might mean going from useless to slightly less useless in that skill.  That’s something you might want to do occasionally for flexibility or a specific problem, but usually an inferior approach.  It provides much the same benefits mechanically as the other system and is much simpler to implement.

Have you looked at Classic Fantasy for Mythras? It uses skill-based BRP to replicate OSR-inspired gameplay.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 20, 2021, 07:38:38 AM
Quote
How do Warhammer professions work? Do you just shift what skills you can learn, or is it more complex?

In 2 edition they have very strict rules - you had to add certain bonus to skills (three levels: trained, +10, +20 IIRC), you had to advance attributes to certain level compared to your starting one (so if you went through 3 professions with +10% to Melee you only advanced within first profession), and what talents. You finished it - you needed to move to next one.

4th edition changed it for better overall - because it assumes that profession is really your way of life, your trade, your social position, social duties, way you earn money.
Each profession now have 4 levels of sub-professions (in some cases it's bit unnecessary I think), and you can easily stay within your profession or advance into higher rank within the same trade like turning from Rat Catcher into professional Exterminator, or from Conscript Soldier into Sergeant of troop.
Each profession has basic skills, attributes and talents you can advance (talents are level specific, skills and attributes - you get new ones to advance on new levels while keeping all from previous levels avaliable).

There are usually no very specific things only one profession can do - aside of magic (though with some talents and other things you can do it), and you can learn skills and talents from other professions with either double XP cost - or by sacrificing one of endevours (resttime mechanics between adventures) - to get teacher and pay him - then pay normal as someone for whom it's profession skill.

And while there are certain limits in taking new rank within profession or leaving to new one - you can stay in one profession literally for ever - advancing skills, talents and attributes without upper cap. There is no more - as soldier you can uph your Melee just +10% to get +20 you need to become Veteran or something, no - these time you can just keep doing whatever job you are doing. The point is profession is not mere class it should be something your PC is really doing for life.

Zweihander sort of houseruled 2e (well very houseruled) by infamous Daniel D. Fox adds extra special talent for each profession just for them - though often it's something like free re-roll of two skills.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 20, 2021, 03:32:07 PM
Pat, I suspect that there isn't really an answer to those thoughts that isn't specific to the game and maybe setting.
I'm less interested in finding my perfect solution and more interested in talking about alternatives.

  • Have a divide between three types of magic instead of the divine/arcane split.  Each one a little more narrow than D&D clerics and wizards, accordingly.
  • No crossover spells.  For example, there is a form of wizard healing, but it works completely different than the cleric options.
  • While the base mechanics for casting are the same for each type (I'm not that much a glutton for punishment), there are special cases for each type that changes the feel.
  • Made a distinction between common spells that almost any caster can learn eventually and more rare ones that are back to the AD&D find it limit.

That last bullet does put it back on the GM, but the "common" spells and the magic type difference already provide a distinct theme (more narrow than D&D casters, broader than schools).  And they are also sufficient for the character to work.  It would be perfectly OK for the GM to be stingy or generous with the rare spells, same as as GM could with magic items.  As long as that is what the GM wants.  I've also put in some mechanics for learning spells that heavily favors getting as much information as possible about the spell from multiple sources.  Much easier to do with common spells.  A rare 1st level spell could take several weeks to learn, and it expands rapidly from there. 
I think multiple types of magic with distinctly different effects, and distinctly different ways of casting, would be an interesting approach. Broken as it is, that's effectively what the psionic system is, a parallel magic system with different "spells" and a different method of casting. If we scale back the generalist mage, I think creating new methods of casting would be easier than you think, it's a matter of balancing the degree of difference. For instance, sorcerers and wizards in 3rd edition simply weren't different enough to really feel like a new magic system, and neither were memorize and forget clerics. But having spontaneous divine casters and prepared spells of arcane casters does feel different. And so do warlocks. It wouldn't be hard to come up with a list of different methods, then pair them to different sets of spell effects. The trick is making each coherent and interesting.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slambo on February 20, 2021, 06:08:23 PM
Pat, I suspect that there isn't really an answer to those thoughts that isn't specific to the game and maybe setting.
I'm less interested in finding my perfect solution and more interested in talking about alternatives.

  • Have a divide between three types of magic instead of the divine/arcane split.  Each one a little more narrow than D&D clerics and wizards, accordingly.
  • No crossover spells.  For example, there is a form of wizard healing, but it works completely different than the cleric options.
  • While the base mechanics for casting are the same for each type (I'm not that much a glutton for punishment), there are special cases for each type that changes the feel.
  • Made a distinction between common spells that almost any caster can learn eventually and more rare ones that are back to the AD&D find it limit.

That last bullet does put it back on the GM, but the "common" spells and the magic type difference already provide a distinct theme (more narrow than D&D casters, broader than schools).  And they are also sufficient for the character to work.  It would be perfectly OK for the GM to be stingy or generous with the rare spells, same as as GM could with magic items.  As long as that is what the GM wants.  I've also put in some mechanics for learning spells that heavily favors getting as much information as possible about the spell from multiple sources.  Much easier to do with common spells.  A rare 1st level spell could take several weeks to learn, and it expands rapidly from there. 
I think multiple types of magic with distinctly different effects, and distinctly different ways of casting, would be an interesting approach. Broken as it is, that's effectively what the psionic system is, a parallel magic system with different "spells" and a different method of casting. If we scale back the generalist mage, I think creating new methods of casting would be easier than you think, it's a matter of balancing the degree of difference. For instance, sorcerers and wizards in 3rd edition simply weren't different enough to really feel like a new magic system, and neither were memorize and forget clerics. But having spontaneous divine casters and prepared spells of arcane casters does feel different. And so do warlocks. It wouldn't be hard to come up with a list of different methods, then pair them to different sets of spell effects. The trick is making each coherent and interesting.

What do you think about roll to cast for divine casters and spell points for arcane casters. Personally i dont like the divine/arcane divide but its a really minor thing to me. In this case clerics are praying for their gods attention and they may get it...but theres a ton of other people drawing from the god at the same time so results may vary, while spell points fit the "magic as science" aesthetic some people other than me like.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 20, 2021, 06:22:37 PM
Pat, I suspect that there isn't really an answer to those thoughts that isn't specific to the game and maybe setting.
I'm less interested in finding my perfect solution and more interested in talking about alternatives.

  • Have a divide between three types of magic instead of the divine/arcane split.  Each one a little more narrow than D&D clerics and wizards, accordingly.
  • No crossover spells.  For example, there is a form of wizard healing, but it works completely different than the cleric options.
  • While the base mechanics for casting are the same for each type (I'm not that much a glutton for punishment), there are special cases for each type that changes the feel.
  • Made a distinction between common spells that almost any caster can learn eventually and more rare ones that are back to the AD&D find it limit.

That last bullet does put it back on the GM, but the "common" spells and the magic type difference already provide a distinct theme (more narrow than D&D casters, broader than schools).  And they are also sufficient for the character to work.  It would be perfectly OK for the GM to be stingy or generous with the rare spells, same as as GM could with magic items.  As long as that is what the GM wants.  I've also put in some mechanics for learning spells that heavily favors getting as much information as possible about the spell from multiple sources.  Much easier to do with common spells.  A rare 1st level spell could take several weeks to learn, and it expands rapidly from there. 
I think multiple types of magic with distinctly different effects, and distinctly different ways of casting, would be an interesting approach. Broken as it is, that's effectively what the psionic system is, a parallel magic system with different "spells" and a different method of casting. If we scale back the generalist mage, I think creating new methods of casting would be easier than you think, it's a matter of balancing the degree of difference. For instance, sorcerers and wizards in 3rd edition simply weren't different enough to really feel like a new magic system, and neither were memorize and forget clerics. But having spontaneous divine casters and prepared spells of arcane casters does feel different. And so do warlocks. It wouldn't be hard to come up with a list of different methods, then pair them to different sets of spell effects. The trick is making each coherent and interesting.

What do you think about roll to cast for divine casters and spell points for arcane casters. Personally i dont like the divine/arcane divide but its a really minor thing to me. In this case clerics are praying for their gods attention and they may get it...but theres a ton of other people drawing from the god at the same time so results may vary, while spell points fit the "magic as science" aesthetic some people other than me like.
I think spell points are hard to balance against slots, due to the nova problem.

And I think the divine vs. arcane split is the wrong way of looking at it. It's too self-reflective. I want mad cultists who are endowed with a portion of their god's power, avatars of abstract concepts, little gods who grow in power, psychics who move things with the force of their mind, shamans who walk with the spirits, scholars who treat magic like a science to be uncovered, and poets who have studied the natural world so deeply that can cause wonders with words. I want them to be wrapped into the world and have meaning, history, and a coherent set of traditions and powers. Terms like arcane and divine are fine to codify some consequences of a magical system, but I think it's a bad idea to use them, backwardly, as precepts used to define a new magical system.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 21, 2021, 01:21:30 AM
Been checking out how things are done in Pendragon; keep getting pulled off course by some of the tales, I've come to hate everyone but Mordred and Kay. What a bunch of naive petty fake ass bunch of phony pompous ass munchers these knights. And Lancelot, a munchkin chad who has a crisis of being at the first hint of mortal imperfection.

All that aside, seems to be a great setting echoing many of my own wants in a game if not rules, but it appears that for the most part there is only one playable class and that is kuh-nihget as they say in french, or knight as the bretons say. Needs more bully boys.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Aglondir on February 21, 2021, 05:26:42 PM
I love classes, but I love skill-based systems too. My problem with classes isn't how they interact (or limit) player choice. It's that classes are typically designed with both a System function (mechanics) and a World function (fluff.) It's one thing to play a psychic warrior with a laser sword, but quite another to play a Jedi.

Point buy systems attempt to quantity the fluff via ads and disads, where class-based systems just assume the fluff works out OK. And for D20, the fluff is so ingrained it probably does for most folks. Funny thing is that players seem to vary with their involvement with the fluff. Paladin players are heavily involved, often to an annoying level. Warlock players usually aren't. I have yet to see a Warlock's patron make any demands of the PC. Or a warlock player who even role-plays the Faustian bargain. Or other party members that are concerned with it. The only factor seems to be "I'm a short rest Cha based caster" which is pure system.

At the risk of going Forgish, this might be a gamist vs Sim debate.

Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Shasarak on February 21, 2021, 05:48:52 PM
Point buy systems attempt to quantity the fluff via ads and disads, where class-based systems just assume the fluff works out OK. And for D20, the fluff is so ingrained it probably does for most folks. Funny thing is that players seem to vary with their involvement with the fluff. Paladin players are heavily involved, often to an annoying level. Warlock players usually aren't. I have yet to see a Warlock's patron make any demands of the PC. Or a warlock player who even role-plays the Faustian bargain. Or other party members that are concerned with it. The only factor seems to be "I'm a short rest Cha based caster" which is pure system.

Thats real old school, using a Players class as a roleplaying tool.

I did not think that you were allowed to do that anymore.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BronzeDragon on February 22, 2021, 03:58:14 PM
I did not think that you were allowed to do that anymore.

Nothing is allowed anymore.

It's why we do it.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 23, 2021, 02:25:01 PM
I love classes, but I love skill-based systems too. My problem with classes isn't how they interact (or limit) player choice. It's that classes are typically designed with both a System function (mechanics) and a World function (fluff.) It's one thing to play a psychic warrior with a laser sword, but quite another to play a Jedi.

Point buy systems attempt to quantity the fluff via ads and disads, where class-based systems just assume the fluff works out OK. And for D20, the fluff is so ingrained it probably does for most folks. Funny thing is that players seem to vary with their involvement with the fluff. Paladin players are heavily involved, often to an annoying level. Warlock players usually aren't. I have yet to see a Warlock's patron make any demands of the PC. Or a warlock player who even role-plays the Faustian bargain. Or other party members that are concerned with it. The only factor seems to be "I'm a short rest Cha based caster" which is pure system.

At the risk of going Forgish, this might be a gamist vs Sim debate.

Yeah, I find the fluff in 5e to be fairly incoherent on occasion. e.g. Why is there a difference between a druid, a cleric of a nature god, and a warlock who made a pact with a nature god?
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 23, 2021, 07:49:19 PM
I love classes, but I love skill-based systems too. My problem with classes isn't how they interact (or limit) player choice. It's that classes are typically designed with both a System function (mechanics) and a World function (fluff.) It's one thing to play a psychic warrior with a laser sword, but quite another to play a Jedi.

Point buy systems attempt to quantity the fluff via ads and disads, where class-based systems just assume the fluff works out OK. And for D20, the fluff is so ingrained it probably does for most folks. Funny thing is that players seem to vary with their involvement with the fluff. Paladin players are heavily involved, often to an annoying level. Warlock players usually aren't. I have yet to see a Warlock's patron make any demands of the PC. Or a warlock player who even role-plays the Faustian bargain. Or other party members that are concerned with it. The only factor seems to be "I'm a short rest Cha based caster" which is pure system.

At the risk of going Forgish, this might be a gamist vs Sim debate.

Yeah, I find the fluff in 5e to be fairly incoherent on occasion. e.g. Why is there a difference between a druid, a cleric of a nature god, and a warlock who made a pact with a nature god?

Consider Thulsa Doom, referred to as a sorcerer but clearly a priest of Set (in the Arnold movies at least), the knee jerk response from my "inner DM who doesn't set foot outside D&D" would say "oh yeah multi-class, totally" but thats a narrow cookie cutter view; I'm using D6 system these days and really those are all the same "class" mechanically, differing only in fluff.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Chris24601 on February 24, 2021, 08:57:59 AM
Yeah, I find the fluff in 5e to be fairly incoherent on occasion. e.g. Why is there a difference between a druid, a cleric of a nature god, and a warlock who made a pact with a nature god?
Why is there a difference between a fighter, rogue and ranger all in light armor with a bow, and two short swords?

Why are a Dominican, Jesuit and a Diocesan priest not all considered the same thing by the Catholic Church?

Everything can be lumped into one category if you abstract enough. The druid, cleric, warlock, fighter, rogue and ranger are all adventurers. Why aren't they considered all the same class?

Some people enjoy nuance; that the system makes mechanical distinctions between zombies, ghouls, ghasts and wights requiring them to be called different names for clarity. Sometimes I feel like in your world you don't want a distinction between a goldfish and a beta because they're both fish right? We can totally put them in the same tank... except not. is there a difference between a Rottweiler and a German Shepherd in your world or are they both just dogs?

So, the advantage of the classes you opened with is nuance. The druid communes with nature spirits/gods as a whole, not necessarily a single deity (there might be several with overlapping fields), the cleric is an ordained priest of a specific nature deity, and the warlock didn't make a pact with a god at all, but a potent nature spirit like an exarch or similar nature-themed celestial.

At this finer grained level we can see differences and even potential conflicts. The cleric's faith may consider pacts made outside the ordained clergy to be heretical as just one example. The druid might consider both the cleric and warlock blind to the broader interrelationships of nature (like how the winds off the seas that, to the cleric are matters for the sky and sea gods, influence the rains and climate that sustains the forest).

So where you see a clump of things to be homogenized into a bland brown stew, I see a rich variety of colors that can be used to paint a detailed portrait full of nuance.



Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 24, 2021, 05:12:35 PM
I've always seen warlocks as more personally bound to specific smaller but obviously very powerful beings - some of which may overlap with minor demigods (depends of rules) - but generally not main pantheon forces, and this power holds good claim for warlocks soul, so retirement or changing job is not really an option.
Cleric meditates and commune with deity, but for beings that large that's more automated relation - unless someone will do something really epic or really heretical to earn special favour/wrath.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 24, 2021, 06:15:53 PM
I love classes, but I love skill-based systems too. My problem with classes isn't how they interact (or limit) player choice. It's that classes are typically designed with both a System function (mechanics) and a World function (fluff.) It's one thing to play a psychic warrior with a laser sword, but quite another to play a Jedi.

Point buy systems attempt to quantity the fluff via ads and disads, where class-based systems just assume the fluff works out OK. And for D20, the fluff is so ingrained it probably does for most folks. Funny thing is that players seem to vary with their involvement with the fluff. Paladin players are heavily involved, often to an annoying level. Warlock players usually aren't. I have yet to see a Warlock's patron make any demands of the PC. Or a warlock player who even role-plays the Faustian bargain. Or other party members that are concerned with it. The only factor seems to be "I'm a short rest Cha based caster" which is pure system.

At the risk of going Forgish, this might be a gamist vs Sim debate.

Yeah, I find the fluff in 5e to be fairly incoherent on occasion. e.g. Why is there a difference between a druid, a cleric of a nature god, and a warlock who made a pact with a nature god?

Consider Thulsa Doom, referred to as a sorcerer but clearly a priest of Set (in the Arnold movies at least), the knee jerk response from my "inner DM who doesn't set foot outside D&D" would say "oh yeah multi-class, totally" but thats a narrow cookie cutter view; I'm using D6 system these days and really those are all the same "class" mechanically, differing only in fluff.

I've always seen warlocks as more personally bound to specific smaller but obviously very powerful beings - some of which may overlap with minor demigods (depends of rules) - but generally not main pantheon forces, and this power holds good claim for warlocks soul, so retirement or changing job is not really an option.
Cleric meditates and commune with deity, but for beings that large that's more automated relation - unless someone will do something really epic or really heretical to earn special favour/wrath.

I suppose my root problem is that I don't see a reason for them to be distinct classes as opposed to kits/archetypes. I've always been more a fan of using a toolkit system like Spheres of Power's casting traditions (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/casting-traditions) as opposed to placing whole classes into arbitrary categories. I guess that makes me a weirdo.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 24, 2021, 06:35:35 PM
Well for me it's because they are metaphysically something different and magical-classes should represent such distinctions.

Warlocks are born from pact magic, not religious practices, those are not the same.
If anything warlock - priest is most basic traditional magic/religion distinction - it's wizard and their arcana that's weird Dying Earth dropout.

Kits for me - for warlock came from selection of specific patron and one of various pacts - either he gets some occult knowledge - which makes him closer to PF witch, either some accursed blade - 3,5 hexblade or some powerful familiar - PF summoner for me
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on February 24, 2021, 06:55:48 PM
Well for me it's because they are metaphysically something different and magical-classes should represent such distinctions.

Warlocks are born from pact magic, not religious practices, those are not the same.
If anything warlock - priest is most basic traditional magic/religion distinction - it's wizard and their arcana that's weird Dying Earth dropout.

Kits for me - for warlock came from selection of specific patron and one of various pacts - either he gets some occult knowledge - which makes him closer to PF witch, either some accursed blade - 3,5 hexblade or some powerful familiar - PF summoner for me
I never thought about it that way before, but that makes a lot of sense. In pretty much every real world belief in magic that I've heard of, magic comes from the divine (or the profane). Praying to a god for a miracle, utilizing esoteric knowledge handed down from the gods, etc. (I'm using "god" in a loose sense here, because non-Abrahamic religions have very broad ideas of what gods are.)
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 24, 2021, 07:07:46 PM
Quote
I never thought about it that way before, but that makes a lot of sense. In pretty much every real world belief in magic that I've heard of, magic comes from the divine (or the profane). Praying to a god for a miracle, utilizing esoteric knowledge handed down from the gods, etc. (I'm using "god" in a loose sense here, because non-Abrahamic religions have very broad ideas of what gods are.)

Some religions dabbled with magic - but usually there is certain difference - in religion you sort of parley with Superior Power, in magic - even if it's of Divine - but then entire Universe is from Divine - magician is often using certain exploits in structure of World, so in some aspects magic - at least forms of magic like hermeticism had aspects closer to science than religion.

And then in imagineland you can make many ways of exploiting powers of universe to get whatever is called as Magic.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Slipshot762 on February 24, 2021, 11:07:19 PM
One distinction for me wrt magic is "does the user of the magic have to please, serve, or appease another creature or entity, supernatural, infernal, or divine, in order to wield the power"; the answer appears in all cases except wizard/sorcerer to be "yes"; putting to my eye at least warlock/witch druid cleric etc all in one group, with sorcerer/wizard in another.

But even then, historically as magic was viewed, even these last two could be jammed in that first category if their "spells/powers" are dependant upon demons or spirits to function, if I remember correctly the biblical simon magus could fly about because he had invisible commanded demons carrying him, which one of the apostles (Peter I think?) rebuked and he fell and shattered his legs.

I looked long and hard at history for the dividing line between "he is a learned magician and his counsel is welcome" and "burn that heathen bastard at the stake"; clearly a pact with a demon/devil or a pagan "diety" (which the church would have at best viewed as a fallen angel/grigori or the offspring of such and thus a nephelim) falls squarely in the burn him category (unless arthur is king) while magicians such as dee & kelly were employed by the english royal family to decipher enochian, the language of angels/celestials and thus the language of creation.

This little point, historically, appears to be the bulk of that dividing line, are your powers making use of enochian, commanding the natural world as god intended with this programming language that enables cheat codes, or are you "cheating" by commanding the spirits of the dead or devils to manifest the effects on your behalf? This would make a witch hunters job a lot more investigation heavy and he would have to be able to recognize if a suspect is using enochian and divinely ordained practices vs short circuiting the process and having "unseen servants" do the heavy lifting for them.

One theory was that the use of symbols outside of the judaic such as what might have been employed by the biblical king solomon was a clear indicator of "burn the witch", as symbols are a form of communication and such would only be needed if ordering a 3rd party to operate on your behalf. (as opposed to speaking enochian/celestial/the language of creation to command reality itself to conform to your will as is your birthright as a being made in the image of the creator)
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Pat on February 25, 2021, 02:44:47 AM
One division of magic that I like is from the Realms of Magic supplement for the original Marvel Super Heroes game. It splits magic into three types: Personal, universal, and dimensional.

For personal energy, think mental or chi powers. Telepathy, physical enhancement, and so on. They are easy and quick to cast, and just require concentration (no gestures or vocalizations). The downside is they use the caster's own energy, so they're physically draining, and when they affect others they require consent. You can't dive into an unwilling mind.

Universal is the energy of the surrounding universe, which the caster channels into various effects. This is the most like standard magic, and can include things like blasts, shields, teleportation, and illusions. It's also easy and quick to cast, and isn't personally draining, but does require the rituals of casting like gestures and words. Some of the effects can be resisted (saves i.e. Psyche FEATs).

Dimensional energies are tapping into beings or objects of power from other dimensions. This is the equivalent of "divine" magic, except based on weird fantasy instead of religions -- you're accessing the power of weird cosmic entities, demons, semi-sentient books, and so on. Dimensional spells are difficult to cast (typically a yellow instead of a green FEAT), relatively slow (end of round instead of during your turn), and require gestures and words, but no saves (Psyche FEATs) are allowed against their effects. The spells tend to be broad, powerful and/or do things other types of magic can't -- it's the only way to do certain things like dimensional travel or blocking or duplicating powers, and it can be easier to learn (dimensional teleport costs 1 slot while the universal version costs 2; and there are group spells where you can learn 5 related spells at the cost of learning a single dimensional spell).

The most unique type of dimensional spells are the entreaty spells, where the caster beseeches an entity. This is completely open-ended because you can ask for any effect (within your power rank), but the difficulty varies based on how suited the effect is to the entity's nature (the short list of things they're known for is easy, everything else is harder), and whether they're friendly to the caster/their school or not. There is a quid pro quo of some sort, but it's implicit rather than explicit -- most of the entities grant spells pretty freely, under something like the assumption that it spreads their power and glory across the dimensions. It's possible to entreat neutral or hostile entities, but they may draw the entity's attention, with the chance increasing as the caster becomes more powerful (think a powers check from Ravenloft).

There are also various traditions, which are a mix of philosophies and magical styles, including druidic, voodoo, faerie, schools associated with specific realms or pantheons, atlantean, scientific (alchemy), and more general ones like nature, chaos, and order (Dr. Strange is order, elder gods are a type of chaos). These schools often come with specialities (druidic is powerful earth magic, voodoo is powerful with the dead, etc.), and vulnerabilities (e.g. druid and faerie are vulnerable to iron). These are overlays on top of the energy types, and different entities may be friendly with certain schools and opposed to others.

It's a solid basic framework for looking at the different types of magic, if a bit underexploited in the Marvel Universe, which tends to mix them all together into mush. It wouldn't be hard to adapt it to gods, religions, pacts, psionicists, paladins, various schools of wizardry, monks, and so on. Could have more explicit and varied schools, entities of different ranks, investiture, and so on.
Title: Re: Lets talk character classes
Post by: Steven Mitchell on February 25, 2021, 08:33:26 AM
When doing magic divisions, it also matters a great deal whether your intent is to be all encompassing (within the scope of your design, at least) or leaving some options for later development (including possibly so much later it will never happen by the designer).  Likewise, do you want to leave some areas of magic as mystery and non-systematic? Then, of course, there is the issue of how much mechanical complexity the players will absorb for magic, and how varied that is.  Those two constraints feed on each other, too.

For example, in my own current design, I ended up with 3 types of magic:  Holy, Primeval, and Sorcery.  I could have had 4 or 5, but 3 was good enough for now--and more important, I had 3 good ideas and several other flaky ones. :D  There are quite a few compromises in those divisions to support the primary goals of making the D&D-ish divine/arcane division more diluted, have each caster be a little more specific, but still allowing a wide variety of character archetypes, and never allowing a character to have more than one type (for simplicity).  And of course, in my case, since the magic types are freely mix and match with the classes, I've also got constraints related to the system as a whole, not just magic. I did not want Primeval to be merely "druids" pulled out separately.  But it did need some of that nature magic stuff.  I ended up putting most "spirit" themed magic in Primeval.  So necromancers are technically in that group, which will certainly strike some players as odd.  (It did me, when it happened, almost organically out of the various constraints coming together, but once I embraced it, it neatly solved a lot of edge issues.) I also split the class elemental casting across all three types, with each type having their own slant and relative strengths and weaknesses.  So there is no real chance to do the classic elementalist character concept of master of all 4 elements.  You might also note that there is no concept of bardic magic at all.  I've left room for the development of a 4th or 5th type, if I ever get an idea that I like well enough to develop.

Meanwhile, I kept the basic casting mechanic the same across all three types, but then layered the differences on top of that.  The layered differences are fairly minor but do reinforce the theme of the type.  For example, there is a "burn out" part of the basic mechanic that replaces the D&D-style slots.  Holy casters get to designate key spells that are much less susceptible to burn out--and in fact, they can still cast those long past the point where all their other magic is exhausted.  Their magic isn't as flashy (usually) or quick as the other types, but it is more reliable.  If I do decide to add another type, I can keep the basic casting mechanic or I can do a new one--whatever fits, because the types are self-contained.  I thought about being more varied than that, but my immediate play testing pool is 75% casual players and that's really the target of the game.  It was a bridge too far.

Little of the specifics of that are useful in a general purpose discussion of magic divisions, yet it seems to be working fine for the more limited goals of my game and the kinds of settings and play it is meant to encourage.  We can discuss what works and doesn't work in a specific design, used in a specific setting.  From that, some guidelines and preferences will probably emerge.  However, I think the idea of magic is too wedded to the setting to ever fully escape it.  Which is why, you can do any setting you want with Fantasy Hero, as long as you don't mind the game feeling like the Fantasy Hero lens filter on the setting.