DodgerH2O
2011-09-02, 01:47 AM
Alright, so brief background: I've been working on a custom Low-magic campaign setting for several years now. I'm currently on my... 3rd iteration (give or take) of the system, it started out in 2nd edition, and had a good run after my original conversion to 3.x but it wasn't quite what I wanted, so I overhauled it.
I attempted to create a comprehensive build-your-own class system and while interesting, it's far more work than I really care to do at this point in my life. So I set it on the back burner and decided to go with the generic classes from the DMG with some modifications. For this post I'm putting fluff aside, going for rules primarily.
Magic rule changes are: No spontaneous arcane casters. Divine casters are intended to be limited to domain and "domain-like" spells (meaning for instance a priest with the Plant domain would have access to not only Entangle, but Goodberry, Pass Without Trace (in vegetation), Detect Plants (but not animals), etc. with the ability to spontaneously cast any spell within their chosen domain(s) rather than praying for spells at the beginning of the day. Magical item creation will be more or less the province of NPCs or the reason for a quest, "For a wand of fireball, you must find a dragon's whisker and douse it in the fires of a volcano while chanting words found in an ancient tomb" etc. Arcane casters must be specialists and can only research spells of their own school. As a low magic setting, new spells will be rather hard to find, and an arcane spellcaster cannot rely on anything close to a full spellbook.
To simplify things, I intend to use a skill system of "choose x skills: you have these skills at lvl+3 ranks" instead of skill points, with the option to choose 2 cross-class skills at full (cross-class) ranks instead of a single class skill.
Also I intend for multiclassing to be limited to a single prestige class, which will probably add a certain skill or number of skills to the character's repertoire upon attainment of the prestige class. I may spin it into "career pathways" for the generic classes, where at say, level 5 a Warrior can become a Weaponmaster, Berserker, Paladin, etc. with different progressions for each.
Maximum level is intended to be 10. (Although if the PCs reach that point, I do have a storyline in mind to allow them to "unlock" higher levels, for the purposes of design we'll say max 10.)
I have tentatively created the following "Generic" base classes, with the templates for them in parentheses: Armsman (Warrior), Professional (Expert), Chosen (Cleric/Favored Soul), Arcanist (Spellcaster)
Now, given the somewhat heavy modification of core rules, what sort of things should I do to try to balance the classes out? What sort of HD, BAB, Skills and Saves would you give each class based on the general outlines I've given? I know fighter-types are heavily reliant on magical gear in core rules, I do intend for far less magical enemies, but what should I do given the fact that, say a level 5 party will probably have mostly +1 items and few if any potions or other magical equipment? Are there any glaring oversights I've made? Would you even want to play in such a campaign?
Mostly, I've worked on this in a vacuum. In my own mind it all sounds great, I'm looking for feedback from a variety of points of view. Thanks in advance for your help.
I attempted to create a comprehensive build-your-own class system and while interesting, it's far more work than I really care to do at this point in my life. So I set it on the back burner and decided to go with the generic classes from the DMG with some modifications. For this post I'm putting fluff aside, going for rules primarily.
Magic rule changes are: No spontaneous arcane casters. Divine casters are intended to be limited to domain and "domain-like" spells (meaning for instance a priest with the Plant domain would have access to not only Entangle, but Goodberry, Pass Without Trace (in vegetation), Detect Plants (but not animals), etc. with the ability to spontaneously cast any spell within their chosen domain(s) rather than praying for spells at the beginning of the day. Magical item creation will be more or less the province of NPCs or the reason for a quest, "For a wand of fireball, you must find a dragon's whisker and douse it in the fires of a volcano while chanting words found in an ancient tomb" etc. Arcane casters must be specialists and can only research spells of their own school. As a low magic setting, new spells will be rather hard to find, and an arcane spellcaster cannot rely on anything close to a full spellbook.
To simplify things, I intend to use a skill system of "choose x skills: you have these skills at lvl+3 ranks" instead of skill points, with the option to choose 2 cross-class skills at full (cross-class) ranks instead of a single class skill.
Also I intend for multiclassing to be limited to a single prestige class, which will probably add a certain skill or number of skills to the character's repertoire upon attainment of the prestige class. I may spin it into "career pathways" for the generic classes, where at say, level 5 a Warrior can become a Weaponmaster, Berserker, Paladin, etc. with different progressions for each.
Maximum level is intended to be 10. (Although if the PCs reach that point, I do have a storyline in mind to allow them to "unlock" higher levels, for the purposes of design we'll say max 10.)
I have tentatively created the following "Generic" base classes, with the templates for them in parentheses: Armsman (Warrior), Professional (Expert), Chosen (Cleric/Favored Soul), Arcanist (Spellcaster)
Now, given the somewhat heavy modification of core rules, what sort of things should I do to try to balance the classes out? What sort of HD, BAB, Skills and Saves would you give each class based on the general outlines I've given? I know fighter-types are heavily reliant on magical gear in core rules, I do intend for far less magical enemies, but what should I do given the fact that, say a level 5 party will probably have mostly +1 items and few if any potions or other magical equipment? Are there any glaring oversights I've made? Would you even want to play in such a campaign?
Mostly, I've worked on this in a vacuum. In my own mind it all sounds great, I'm looking for feedback from a variety of points of view. Thanks in advance for your help.