{kjd-sys} Races, classes, and advancement

Hi All,

This isn't in my wiki yet, I'll try to get it in tonight (but no
promises; we're putting the house on the market and there're lots of
things for me to do that're higher priority right now).

This relies in part on my class framework (not in the wiki, but
available at http://www.kjdavies.org/rpg/rules/classes/framework.html)

Skill axis is going to be undergoing some big changes, and I still need
to finish sorting out how casting will work (in detail; I've got a few
ideas in mind for the general shape of it).

What I've got below is kind of loose; I'm still sorting out details. I
thought I'd throw it out here so people can see what I'm up to.

Keith

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I've never been completely happy with how races and classes interact in
D&D, not even in 3e. Race makes a big difference early on, but not so
much as you level -- the difference between an elven fighter and a
dwarven fighter is almost entirely down to roleplay. While roleplay is
a good thing, and in fact why most of us are playing this game, I'd like
to see a quantitative difference. 3e tried to do something about this
using preferred classes, but I think it's evident that the preferred
class mechanism fails, even without the annoyance of XP penalties.

In creating the Dawnforge setting from FFG, I think the designers felt
much the same way, and they came up with a way of doing things that I
think goes a long way toward fixing things. In the process they also
made it easier to have races of varying natural ability without the pain
of level adjustments. I'm going to lean heavily on their model and try
to expand it to fit what I want.

Goals

I want race and class to have approximately equal weight in character
design, over time.

I want to encourage racial archetypes. If most members of a race
have levels in a particular class, I don't want it to be because the
rulebook says so, but because they are good at it.

I want to allow characters counter to racial archetypes; if you want
to play a half-orc sorcerer, you should be able to. It is not
necessary that such a character be as good at it as one who plays to
type, but he should be a *viable* character.

Analysis

The benefits from race and from class should be about the same. This
suggests that whatever is gained from class should be matched (or at
least matchable) by what is gained from race, and vice versa.

'Full power' should be reachable within the number of feats available
using just racial feats or just class feats. Additional feats spent
'in the same area' should provide the character with richer access to
power, not necessarily more power directly. For instance, a wizard
of any race should be able to reach 'full power' using just class
feats; a wizard whose race reinforces magic use should have broader
access, not deeper.

Conclusion/Approach

. Each class in the class framework has one good, one medium, and one
poor axis; likewise for saves. He gains starting feats for 'class
abilities' from these, and feats associated with the good axis and
good save are part of his 'class list', the feats he can choose from
with the 'class feats' available at levels 3n+1. The rank of each
axis and save also affects derived values (BAB, base saves, etc.).

. [change] Good saves are calculated as level/2, medum saves are
calculated as level/2.5, poor saves are calculated as level/3. The
+2/+1/+0 base saves will come from race instead of class.

. [change] Do the same for race -- one each good, medium, and poor
axis, and the same for saves. Each character gains a number of
starting feats from this racial profile as he does from his starting
class. Feats associated with his good axis and good save are part
of his 'racial list', the feats he can choose from with the 'racial
feats' available at levels 3n+2. The ranks of the axes do not
affect derived values, the ranks of the saves does affect the base
saves (good/medium/poor give +2/+1/+0 to the associated base save).

. Each character gets a general feat at levels 3n. This feat may be
chosen from all feats the character meets the prerequisites for.

. The Skill axis presented in my (old) site is broken -- there's no
real appeal to it (ooh, *more skill points*, meh). I think I'll go
with a modified SWSE skill system. All skills have a 'base skill
bonus', similar to base attack bonus, and calculated the same way.
Poor skill gives +level/2, medium skill is +level*3/4, good skill is
+level (but all are 'untrained use only', which may be limited.
Feats can make you 'trained' (+5 bonus, no longer limited to
untrained effects, and a 'mundane' effect similar to current
skill-based feats such as Quick Draw, Track, and so on), then
'focused' (+5 bonus that stacks, and an 'unnatural' effect). More
on this in another post.

(Some) Racial profiles

Martial Caster Skill Fort Reflex Will
Elf medium good poor poor good medium
2 feats 2 feats 1 feat 0/+0 2/+2 1/+1

Dwarf good poor medium good poor medium
3 feats 0 feats 2 feats 2/+2 0/+0 1/+1

Gnome poor good medium poor medium good
1 feat 2 feats 2 feats 0/+0 1/+1 2/+1

Halfling medium poor good medium good poor
2 feats 0 feats 3 feats 1/+1 2/+2 0/+0

Human medium medium medium medium medium medium *
2 feats 1 feat 2 feats 1/+1 1/+1 1/+1


* I considered giving humans free choice, then decided that it would
work better to treat them as 'balanced' -- but let them treat racial
feats a 'general feats', taking anything they're qualified for.
Thus, their race effectively reinforces *everything*, but other
races still have an edge when it comes to the reinforced areas. A
dwarf should be able to outtank a human (if barely), an elf should
be able to outwizard (slightly) a human, and so on.

This *should* give me a net result that elves are good at wizardry and
'reflex stuff' (they'd make good rogues, especially with the racial
Dex bonus), dwarves tend to be good warrior-types, especially tanked,
but can also do fairly well as tanky-wizards (or clerics), gnomes
should make really good wizards. Halflings make very good rogues.
Humans are decent at *everything*, but can be outdone in each area by
a good race/class combination -- humans are second place everywhere,
sort of thing.

In all cases characters have the same number of feats (20 to start --
5 for racial axes, 3 for racial saves, 5 for class axes, 3 for class
saves, plus 1 'class feat'**, 1 'racial feat'**, and 2 general feats).
Yes, this is a lot of feats, but when you consider the number of
racial and class abilities generally gained at first level this likely
isn't insane. The feats usually available at character creation are
pretty limited; it's hard to get the really big combinations until
later, so I'd expect to see broad feat use rather than deep (lots of
weapon proficiencies, but not weapon specialization).

If you feel it necessary to reduce this, remove one feat from each
axis in both categories, reducing the base to 14 starting feats...
which I think it somewhat light.

** a 'class feat' is taken from the character's class good axis or
good save, a 'racial feat' is taken from the character's racial
good axis or good save.


Keith
--
Keith Davies below you, right now: radioactive magma
keith.davies.DeleteThis@kjdavies.org above you, right now: hard vacuum
keith.davies.DeleteThis@gmail.com probably somewhere near you: a product with
http://www.kjdavies.org/ label warning you it is unsafe if misused

This all makes sense, Keith, except for one minor problem.

It's complicated.



I mean, I've looked at these things and thought, "why not just put all class
FEATures into feats?" Then I counted up the number of feats a "generic"
class would need in order to replicate what's already there. And it's
immense.

And then, if we went ahead and did this, we'd end up with a list of feats on
our character sheets that would pretty much *BE* our character sheets.
There'd be little room for anything else.

And then trying to struggle with all the modifiers to come up with final
bonuses to hit, damage, saves, attributes, etc - if you can't get it into a
computer, don't bother. You'll get it wrong. (And, in all likelihood, so
will the computer.)

Ugh.

Instead, 3e went another route. Simple. At each level, there are fewer
choices, but that just means that your choice of class is the choice - what
you get from that class is already done. And when there are bonus feats
from a class, it's always from a restricted list, just to keep things from
getting overboard.

Even 14 feats, while it may be not quite the same ability as some classes
already have, are just too much to keep track of, IMO.