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Dacia Brabant
2016-03-09, 11:55 PM
Greetings! This thread is a continuation of Project Force, which started here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479393-4th-CE-We-Can-Rebuild-It-We-Have-the-Technology), in an effort to rebuild 4th Edition D&D.

The specific focus of this thread is on class concepts: What do we want our classes to be, and what specifically do we want them to be able to do right out of the gate.

All are welcome to contribute, but we ask that the discussion be limited to that specific topic. Questions or comments on the project as a whole should be directed to the main thread.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-09, 11:56 PM
(Reserved for final class list.)

ThePurple
2016-03-10, 12:46 AM
(Reserved for final class list.)

One of the first things I'd like for us to answer concerning classes is whether we plan on having each class/subclass operate on a single role (even if that means creating separate subclasses for the same class with different role, like a defender fighter and a slayer fighter) or if we plan on having each class cover 2 or more roles simultaneously (with limiting factors that prevent at-will switching between roles during combat). Once we've got that question answered, I can start busting out with a whole slew of concepts.

Shimeran
2016-03-10, 07:11 AM
I'm in favor of dual roles myself. Building that framework in should make it easier to expand role options in the future as well as supporting tightly focused roles.

As to role shifting. I'm actually fine with them changing roles each round, though I they shouldn't fill multiple roles in the same round. That being said, using an every other round set up does play well with the leader's signature role power as those are set to 2 per encounter (with an average assumed encounter length of 4 rounds). You'd just need to build in leeway for role effects ending early, such as an afflicted foe dropping.

I'd also propose each class mention their inspirations as that's not only a good reference for the designer, it helps players see why they might want to play a member of this class.

Specific ideas coming later. Off the top of my head, shifter, planned caster, trickster / sneak, voice of divinity, and weapon master as all niches to consider.

Bruno Carvalho
2016-03-10, 08:27 AM
I would go with Uriel Awakened's Idea (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20518665&postcount=210) and map 12 classes on the Core book.

Martial (all martial classes got a Striker subtheme - they're the best damage dealers):
Fighter Defender : A big and mean armored warrior with strong damaging attacks. 4e Inspirations: Battlerager and Two-Handed Fighter
Rogue Striker : Your nimble and very squishy melee/ranged hybrid. 4e Inspirations: Rogue and Ranger
Warlord Leader : The best enabler and damage buffs. 4e Inspirations: Warlord and enabler Shaman.

Divine (all divine classes got a Leader subtheme - they're the best healers/support):
Paladin Defender : Armored warrior focused on reducing damage and heals while tanking. 4e Inspirations: Paladin, and Shield Aegis Swordmage
Cleric Leader: Best healer all around, with a very low damage capacity. 4e Inspirations: 4e Cleric and healer Shaman
Invoker Controller: Focused on draining abilities. Can debuff enemies AND buff allies at the same time. Inspirations: Cleric and Invoker

Arcane (all arcane classes got a Controller subtheme - they're the best debuffers/AoE):
Sorcerer Striker: Best AoE striker. Focused on dealing plenty of damage from afar. 4e Inspirations: Sorcerer and Warlock
Bard Leader: not a great healer, but can buff while debuffing enemies. 4e Inspirations: Bard and human Druid
Wizard Controller: Best cc all around. Got a lot of hard debuffs and power versatility. 4e inspirations: Wizard and Psion

Primal (all Primal classes got a Defender subtheme - they're the best damage soakers):
Warden Defender: biggest tank in the game. Lots of HP and defenses. 4e inspirations: Warden and Battlemind
Barbarian Striker: least squishy striker. Good melee damage and defense. 4e inspirations: Barbarian
Ranger Controller: the weapon-wielding controller. good for controlling at long and close ranges. 4e inspirations: Seeker and beastmaster Ranger

Ursus Spelaeus
2016-03-10, 09:09 AM
I'm in favor of bottom up design.

A few selections:

Single-target lockdown defender
Multi-target defender

Twin-strike striker
Charging striker
Ongoing damage striker

Permafrost/Radiant-Mafia focused striker/leader (I feel like this is a distinctive enough tactic in 4E to warrant a character class built around it)

Melee basic attack enabling leader
Flanking leader (grants buffs to flanking buddies)
Aura leader (grants buffs to allies within an aura)

Summoning controller
Zone controller
Ranged single-target lockdown controller

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-10, 11:51 AM
One of the first things I'd like for us to answer concerning classes is whether we plan on having each class/subclass operate on a single role (even if that means creating separate subclasses for the same class with different role, like a defender fighter and a slayer fighter) or if we plan on having each class cover 2 or more roles simultaneously (with limiting factors that prevent at-will switching between roles during combat). Once we've got that question answered, I can start busting out with a whole slew of concepts.

Dual roles appear to have the most support, so let's go with that and leave the subclasses/alternate class builds for later.



As to role shifting. I'm actually fine with them changing roles each round, though I they shouldn't fill multiple roles in the same round. That being said, using an every other round set up does play well with the leader's signature role power as those are set to 2 per encounter (with an average assumed encounter length of 4 rounds). You'd just need to build in leeway for role effects ending early, such as an afflicted foe dropping.

I'd also propose each class mention their inspirations as that's not only a good reference for the designer, it helps players see why they might want to play a member of this class.

I agree with both of these, and I think Leader-granted benefits should either last only until they are used once, or for the entire encounter (or until the enemy afflicted with it dies or saves against it, if it's a debuff).


I would go with Uriel Awakened's Idea and map 12 classes on the Core book.

I agree that this is a good place to start, and I also agree with the general idea of having a class's second role determined by its power source.

For my part, I would go with the following:

Martial
Warrior: Soldier|Skirmisher. Defends by hitting too hard to be ignored. (Knight+Slayer)
Rogue: Artillery|Skirmisher. Deals the most damage where it's the most needed. (Rogue+Executioner)
Warlord: Leader|Skirmisher. Hits hard and helps you hit harder and more often. (Warlord with heavy inspiration from the White Raven material in Tome of Battle)

Divine
Paladin: Soldier|Leader. Defends by mitigating/negating damage to allies. (Cavalier+Shielding Swordmage)
Templar: The Uber-Leader. Buffs and heals you on your way to glory. (Battle Cleric)
Priest: Artillery|Leader. Boosts your morale while blasting and demoralizing the enemy. (Cloistered Cleric or Archivist)

Arcane
Warlock: Skirmisher|Controller. Best at locking down and taking down the single biggest threat on the field. (Warlock+Assault Swordmage)
Wizard: Artillery|Controller. Blasts lots of targets and makes it harder for them to strike back. (Mage+Sorcerer)
Bard: Leader|Controller. Jack of all Trades. Excellent buffer and debuffer. (Bard with a heavy dose of Enchantment.)

Primal
Berserker: Soldier|Brute. Defends by being extremely difficult to take down. (Berserker+Warden)
Druid: Controller|Brute. Able to turn the very battlefield against her enemies while she draws strength from it. (Druid)
Ranger: Artillery|Brute. Hits hard against multiple targets while being very difficult to take down. (Ranger+Barbarian)

ETA: Under this setup, or one like it, each class would be distinctive in that none would have the same dual role combinations as any of the others, with the power sources being distinctively thematic. I'm a little unsure about Templar doubling up on Leader since that would make it the lone class to have a single role, but since there's more than one way to lead perhaps it would be distinctive in that it could switch between buffing, enabling, healing and debuffing.

And for the sake of clarity, by Soldier I mean high defenses and traditional marking/punishing, by Skirmisher I mean single-target striking with lots of mobility, by Artillery I mean single- and multi-target striking, and by Brute I mean high damage capacity and output.

ThePurple
2016-03-10, 01:40 PM
I agree with both of these, and I think Leader-granted benefits should either last only until they are used once, or for the entire encounter (or until the enemy afflicted with it dies or saves against it, if it's a debuff).

In constructing my homebrew, I came up with a few rules concerning role swapping, mainly to prevent the exploitation of certain roles and obsolescence of others.

First off, every class has some limiting factor on their role swapping so that what role your character is in actually represents a non-trivial tactical choice. Role should be important and not something that gets changed arbitrarily or because there is a moment's advantage in it.

Secondly, leaders must be designed such that they cannot switch roles without loss of their healing abilities. The reason for this is pretty self evident: so much of the leader role is concentrated in their ability to provide surge-efficient action-light healing to themselves and their allies. If it is easy/cheap to swap from being to leader and then to another role, most leaders would end up just being leaders for 2-3 rounds per combat rather than actually spending time being leaders.

Third, artillery roles should be the only exception to the first and second rules. The artillery role is the only role that is built around a very specific tactical scenario, namely, multiple enemies within close proximity to one another. An artillery character should be able to swap to whatever their other role is whenever there are not a large number of enemies around (this creates an exception for the second rule mainly because a leader is more useful against a single enemy than an artillery).


I also agree with the general idea of having a class's second role determined by its power source.

I dislike this mainly because it forces us to create specific class constructs. It makes it easier but binds our hands by forcing us to include that second role regardless, which is a bad thing, especially if you want to create a more balanced party comprised of all the same power source.

If we're going to have power source be more important in the construction of classes, limit it to a mechanical theme (e.g. each class in a power source uses similar gimmicks) and using utility power lists determined by power source rather than class (e.g. all primal classes use the primal utility powers). A mechanical theme still gives us plenty of leeway since not all classes have to apply that gimmick in the same way and a common pool of utility powers for a class still provides a certain tactical commonality, especially if we design those utility powers to be more role-cohesive.


I would go with Uriel Awakened's Idea (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20518665&postcount=210) and map 12 classes on the Core book.

Eh, I don't necessarily agree with all that, mainly because I think that we need to be open to including whatever the most common/desirable archetypes might be. If we're going to do that, however, I don't think we should handcuff ourselves by forcing a specific number of classes from a specific number of power sources. I would rather we handled one or two power sources well and left the other power sources to later development or publication.

Here's all of the concepts I've built up over my time working on double role classes (names are, of course, completely changeable, mainly because I'm never quite fully comfortable with them):

Martial, whose gimmick is different effects and benefits depending upon which weapon they are wielding; utility powers focus on mobility and using mundane skills (athletics, intimidate, etc) in combat

Armsman (controller/striker): the quintessential field control martial character that focuses on the use of polearms, flails, and hammers/maces in order to move opponents over the battlefield
Fighter (striker/artillery): whether using two weapons or a two handed weapon, a straight up damage dealer that uses close bursts for AoE and strong single strikes for single target
Hunter (artillery/controller): the archer, that either lets loose with a hail of arrows upon numerous foes or specific called and trick shots in order to debilitate
Rogue (striker/controller): all about the sneak attack, with weapon selection allowing them to reduce sneak attack damage to apply debilitating effects
Warrior (defender/leader): the noble warrior who inspires and protects; a fusion of the warlord and knight archetypes since they generally have an insane amount in common


Arcane, whose (current) gimmick is the use of "arcanas" in order to fuel their class abilities; utility powers focus on personal defense and mobility (shield, dimension door, feather fall, etc.)

Wizard (artillery/controller/leader/striker): as described in other posts, a class that has mastered a number of different schools of magic but can only access one at a time and must use their arcanas in order to change schools of magic; different schools of magic give the wizard a different role in combat, affording them incredible versatility
Sorcerer (striker/artillery): a caster that creates their own spells each day by manipulating the raw stuff of magic, selecting damage type and attack type, with the use of their arcanas allowing them to quickly change the nature of those spells in combat, affording them incredible damage type versatility
Spellthief (controller/striker): a caster with a roguish bent that spends arcanas in order to more readily recharge their own powers and impede the recovery of their foes
Battlemage (defender/artillery): a master of battlefield teleportation that marks foes and can spend arcanas in order to teleport immediately to an ally's side to aid them (e.g. their retributive effect is just auto-damage like the paladin's, but they must spend an arcana in order to also teleport adjacent to the ally or enemy)
Bard (controller/leader): a master of story and song that can inspire allies or bring despair to its enemies; arcanas are spent to either force enemies to reroll saving throws or allow allies to heal, depending upon which song is currently being sung
Warlock (???): I know I want to include it, but I'm not sure how exactly I would implement it, given the other arcane classes I've already constructed


Divine, whose gimmick is that their damage types and secondary effects are governed by their choice of deity; utility powers are primarily healing and assistive (Lay on Hands, Bless, Divine Favor, etc.)

Cleric (leader/controller): a warpriest who penalizes foes for passing saving throws until they use their magic for healing purposes, whose choice of deity governs the secondary effects of their healing word
Paladin (defender/striker): a front line crusader who brings the wrath of its deity directly to its opponents; choice of deity determines the damage type of striker bonus damage as well as defender retributive damage
Invoker (artillery/controller): a master of truespeak, the language of creation, who can choose different lexicons in order to target different defenses
Oracle or Dervish (striker/???): a seer without sight, who uses their god given ability to see into the future in order to ensure that their blows strike true
Runepriest (defender/leader): a master of the art of runecasting, that can combine individual runes into powerful rune words, the speaking of which can protect and heal their allies and simply holding the word in one's head empowers them


Primal, whose gimmick is either the choosing of totem beasts or going through natural cycles; utility powers primarily focus on zones and other persistent control effects (Rampant Growth, Spike Stones, etc.)

Berserker (defender/striker): a follower of totem spirits, it starts off calm and protective of its allies and can end up angry and incredibly destructive to its opponents
Shaman (leader/striker): a follower of totem spirits, it starts off wielding great spiritual force in its weapons until it places a totem in order to protect and heal its allies
Shapeshifter (controller/defender/striker): a master of totem spirits, it changes shape into one of its totem beasts in order to meet the changing needs of the battlefield
Druid (controller/artillery): a follower of natural cycles, whose damage type and role is determined by the current cycle they are channeling
Beastmaster (leader/controller/defender/striker): a follower of totem spirits, it can summon/maintain one of a number of mystical animal companions that provide a number of different capabilities


Psionic, whose gimmick is basically a specific psychological illness that they have specifically cultivated, generally schizophrenia/disassociative identity disorder (not the real disorders, but a kind of hollywood version), which, once unleashed, is difficult to reign in; utility powers focus on acting out of turn often at the cost of actions during their next turn (like the ever popular Lightning Rush, except as a utility power that lets you use an MBA, also Peristent Harrier, Speed of Thought, etc.)

Battlemind (defender/striker): a warrior who can scan, predict, and punish the actions of enemies until they choose to release their split mind in order to double up their attacks upon their opponents
Psion (controller/artillery): a master of esoteric mind control techniques that subtly manipulates the minds and bodies of its foes until it relinquishes control and exchanges the subtlety of telepathy for raw telekinetic power
Soulknife (striker/artillery): a warrior that learned to create a limited number of idealized blades of mental energy and use them to cut opponents to ribbons, both physically and mentally; can tap into its split mind to expand its focus and create hordes of idealized blades to strike at numerous foes simultaneously


Ki, whose gimmick is stances/techniques/katas; not sure what their utility powers would be, they might just use martial utility powers, but that feels like a cheap cop out

Monk (striker/controller): a master of unarmed combat that can deal devastating strikes, stunning blows, or throw their opponents around the battlefield depending upon their chosen stance and form
Ninja (controller/artillery): a master of esoteric mystical techniques called "jutsus" that can summon elemental powers or manipulate their numerous ninja tools (yes, I realize this is basically Naruto: the Class, that's intentional because it's actually a legitimate archetype as much as the monk that can fight unarmed better than armed)
Samurai (defender/controller): an imposing protector and lord, uses specific katas and stances in order to protect allies, instill fear in opponents, and humble those who dare to challenge it
I also want to include some kind of wushu master "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" that incorporates unarmed strikes into weapon attacks, but I'm not sure what to name it; I definitely know that I want it to be a striker of some kind with lots of mobility; it might just be a class feature variant of the monk that allows for weapon use


Shadow, whose gimmick is manipulating lighting effects and summoning shadow servants and using the utility power lists of other power sources

Necromancer (leader/striker/controller): a summoner of undead and user of nebulous death and shadow energies; steals life from allies during rests in order to give it back to them in combat
Shadow Knight (defender/striker/leader): a martial or divine master of shadow magics that curses enemies in order to protect allies and is able to end this curse in order to summons shadowy minions that enhance the strikes of allies or owner
Shadowdancer (striker/controller): a martial master of shadow magics that can teleport through area of dim light and darkness in order to harry opponents and strike them unseen


This is a full list of all of the dual/multi-role classes that I've made over the last couple of years working on my own homebrew version. There are a couple others that I've considered but haven't mentioned because I'm either not sure that it would work or because I'm not even remotely sure what they should do (or if they should just be a class feature option for an existing class).

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-10, 02:49 PM
You make a good point about power sources and roles, I can see how that would lead to pigeon-holing. I do wonder, though, if classes within the same power source are going to be choosing from a common list of utility powers, wouldn't they still end up following the same trend to some extent, or are those powers going to be diverse enough to where that wouldn't necessarily happen?

I do like your rules for role-swapping, I think they make a lot of sense.

ThePurple
2016-03-10, 03:00 PM
I do wonder, though, if classes within the same power source are going to be choosing from a common list of utility powers, wouldn't they still end up following the same trend to an extent, or are those powers going to be diverse enough to where that wouldn't necessarily happen?

While I think that certain power source utility lists should have a preference towards certain roles/functions, I think that it's important to include more abilities than just that one role or to include utility functions that are versatile enough to serve multiple roles.

For example, I could see a "Spiritual Weapon" utility power for the divine power source that allows them to augment one weapon they touch such that it deals a certain amount of additional divine damage the first time it hits a target each round. It would serve both striker and leader function since it can either augment your own damage or an ally's.

Keep in mind that utility powers should *not* govern the playstyle of a class more than its class features and power. Utility powers should be supplementary and allow a character to round themselves out or be able to tackle additional specialized situations. We should also do our damnedest to actually balance all of the utility powers against each other so that there aren't a small number of straight up "best" powers for characters of a given power source to take.

Something else that I'm not sure if anyone remembers, is that I have also said that the list of "utility powers" should include more than just powers. There should also be some straight up passive features, like the Wilderness Knacks that rangers and druids got access to in Essentials.

UrielAwakened
2016-03-10, 03:29 PM
I'm still not entirely onboard with all classes of the same power source sharing the same utilities.

I think you kill a lot of interesting design space that way. I also don't think we should be thinking in terms of role/power source first, and what a class does second.

Classes should have an identity that we then refine by determing its role and power source.

We don't need to cover every power source and role combination necessarily. At least not right away. Our first classes should be those that are most iconic or exciting, not role-fillers.

A cleric isn't a divine leader. It's a person whose faith guides their every decision. It's a caretaker. It's a good deed in a weary world. If that ends up being what a divine leader is all about, awesome. But we shouldn't begin there because we have a box that needs a checkmark in it.

I also don't think using monster terminology for PCs is a great idea. Monster roles are much more narrow than the four PC roles. By using them for PCs we again limit design space. For instance:

PC Terms:

Leader - Any class that heals or buffs allies.
Controller - Any class that penalizes enemies.
Defender - Any class that protects allies.
Striker- Any class that focuses on damaging enemies.

If you apply this to a quadrant theory, where classes can either be Offensive or Defensive, and then either Damage or Support being their primary influence on either allies/enemies, you find that all design space is nicely accounted for:

Leader - Defensive, Support
Defender - Defensive, Damage
Controller - Offensive, Support
Striker - Offensive, Damage

This is not something I would shed lightly. The system just works. Compare it to monster roles and you quickly find it's not nearly as elegant:

Skirmisher - Moves around a lot, usually deals more damage for doing so but not always, sort of also serves as the "baseline" for what a monsters stats should be.
Brute - Has high HP, does high damage, but gets hit easier.
Soldier - Has high defenses and sometimes carries a way to deter attacks on other monsters.
Lurker - Hides, deals high damage but interacts less frequently. Fragile when caught out.
Controller - Basically the same as PC controller, but is also more accurate when attack non-AC defenses.
Artillery - Deals high damage, but at range. Fragile when confronted in melee.
Leader - Not even a full role. Leaders are sub-roles, that describe monsters who can also interact with allies in some way. Monsters don't usually heal so this is more just buffs.

I just don't see that working well for PCs. Sorry. PC Defenders are kind of a mix between Brutes and Soldiers, PC Strikers are usually part Skirmisher and Artillery, but sometimes they're Lurker/Artillery or Lurker/Skirmisher or even Skirmisher/Soldier like the Avenger, PC Controllers are...basically Controllers and Artillery, and PC Leaders are more unique than Monster Leaders, and often sub Controller.

Finally, I don't see a point to "role swapping" at all. Your role comes from your build. You take high-damage powers because you're a striker. As a leader, you take features that enable your party. Sometimes you dabble because your party has a weakness that needs shored up, like a Paladin might take features that boost Lay on Hands because they lack sufficient healing. But there shouldn't be a need in-combat to drastically switch roles, ever.

ThePurple
2016-03-10, 04:05 PM
A cleric isn't a divine leader. It's a person whose faith guides their every decision.

Isn't that *every* character with a divine power source though?


But we shouldn't begin there because we have a box that needs a checkmark in it.

I agree with this. We should come up with a concept first and then determine what it's role should be.


I also don't think using monster terminology for PCs is a great idea. Monster roles are much more narrow than the four PC roles. By using them for PCs we again limit design space.

The only use of monster terminology that I think we should use is to separate the artillery role from the controller role. The controller role, as written in 4e, tries to do too much and ends up not being particularly well focused on accomplishing a single thing. Artillery is AoE damage, controller is about preventing enemies from doing stuff.

On a side note, I also think we need to separate role from range. Not all artillery or controller players should be ranged. Monster controllers are designed to function at melee *or* range depending upon what makes the most sense for the monster. Artillery monsters have a tendency to be ranged, but, at the same time, artillery just means "awesome at AoE", which can be done in melee just as well as it can at range via close burst/blast mechanisms. Of course, defenders are probably the only role that *should* be tied to a specific range, mainly because, if you're ranged, you either can't defend (because you can't get to your opponents) or you're OP as hell because the enemies you mark simply can't get to you.

Keeping this in mind, melee characters should be designed with superior survivability and mobility to make up for the survivability and mobility advantages inherent in being able to attack from a distance.

Also, though it's not particularly apropos, I think that the lurker role for monsters should be treated as a subrole, similar to leader, that basically represents the tactical aspects of that creature. A lurker is basically designed to fight roughly every other turn, dropping out of combat and not attacking for one turn after attacking. As long as you apply the proper math to the role (reduced hp and higher damage), it makes a lot of sense to have a lurker skirmisher or lurker artillery as opposed to a generic lurker trying to fulfill both from a mathematical perspective.


Finally, I don't see a point to "role swapping" at all.

The point of role swapping is to allow for greater tactical options mid-combat while also allowing for given archetypes being able to tackle more functionality. Take wizard, for example: if you're using evocations, you're a much different type of wizard than an illusionist. If you make it so that evokers and illusionists share the same base class, you can't really give them much in the way of mechanical flavor because you'd be giving controller mechanics to an artillery or artillery mechanics to a controller. If you make it so that evoker and illusionist are separate classes entirely, that character is no longer capable of the breadth of utility that is something of a trademark for wizards. Role-swapping allows you to fold the entire archetype together while preserving the uniqueness of those parts.


But there shouldn't be a need in-combat to drastically switch roles, ever.

I'm going to disagree with that immensely. If you have multiple defenders in a group, once you're down to a single foe or are facing a solo opponent, it's often best to end up with a single defender rather than two. If you don't allow role-switching, the second defender just becomes a mediocre striker. For artillery characters, the same is true: once you're down to a small number of enemies, you're reduced to being a mediocre striker. For controllers, sometimes the battlefield is locked down or enemies are so resistant to your effects that you'd be better off as something else.

This isn't to say that you won't have some characters who are built to exist entirely in a single role. In one of my current games, the defender is a berserker barbarian who stays in defender mode at all times even though she *could* swap to striker. The option is most definitely there, but it's not one that the character takes because she's built around being a defender.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-10, 08:09 PM
Lots of good points. I agree though that we should start with the archetypes we want in the core game, see where we have overlap and then work out what classes and roles they'll be and how they'll execute their roles.

For my part, I would like to see the following (and some of these may fit within a single class, or may fit more than one):

Heavy arms warrior
Light arms warrior
Archer warrior
Unarmed warrior
Soldier of the faith
Minister of the faith
Scholar of the faith
Arcane warrior
Academy mage
Pact mage
Blood mage
Summoner
Geomancer
Wilderness scout
Berserker
Mentalist
Psychic warrior
Jack of all trades

ThePurple
2016-03-10, 08:30 PM
For my part, I would like to see the following (and some of these may fit within a single class, or may fit more than one)

Some of those I think might be more appropriate for paragon paths than base classes, like blood mage and geomancer (depending upon how you interpret those, of course; also, I think the base campaign used could also flavor whether it's a PP or a class).


Jack of all trades

This is probably the *most* problematic idea in the list, mainly because D&D, and especially 4e, is so heavily driven by combat specialists (i.e. each classes have explicit roles they fulfill). JoATs work from a skill perspective because generalism basically translates into "I can always contribute more than the untrained people but less than the trained people", but, in combat, mechanically, the game is built around the roles that classes have, and it's difficult to actually give them a role when they're built entirely around being a generalist.

A few of the concepts that I posted earlier work out as combat JoATs, namely the shapeshifter, beastmaster, and wizard, because they're built around having a lot of options, but, even then, they're built around fulfilling one specific role at a given time rather than dipping into a lot of roles all at once.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-10, 09:25 PM
Well, to clarify I meant for those to be read in the broadest possible terms, but perhaps I should define them more specifically. A blood mage, to me, is someone for whom magic is in the blood. Whether we follow convention and end up calling that a Sorcerer, or whether it gets rolled into another class entirely (Warlocks have precedence for this as well) I'm not sure. A geomancer is, again to me, someone who draws upon the magic inherent in nature: that could be a Shaman, or one of the various types of Druids, but it could also be a Warden or even a Ranger.

I do agree with you about the difficulty of pulling off a Jack of all Trades in a system like 4e, but I'd still like to have one. I'm completely over 3.5e, but Factotums are still sweet. Maybe that's something to look at for the hybrid rules.

UrielAwakened
2016-03-10, 09:47 PM
I'm just gonna take a stab at categorizing the things you said then add my own. I'd like to see a Druid that focuses on shapeshifting more than "wild magic," and let wild magic be the purview of the Druid. Any shapeshifting class, really.



Fighter:
Heavy arms warrior - Fighter/Warrior
Unarmed warrior - Monk or Brawler. Brawler could be a subtype of Warrior so I'll put it there in the interest of keeping the list small.

Ranger:
Light arms warrior - Two-Weapon Ranger
Archer warrior - Archery Ranger
Wilderness scout - Beast Ranger or Hunter type path?

Paladin:
Soldier of the faith - Paladin obvi

Cleric:
Minister of the faith - Cleric obvi
Scholar of the faith - Maybe Invoker but a different brand of Cleric could also fit.

Swordmage:
Arcane warrior

Wizard:
Academy mage - Wizard bread-and-butter
Summoner - A subpath for Wizard, Conjurer
Geomancer - Either spun as a Druid variant or a Transmuter

Warlock:
Pact mage -

Sorcerer:
Blood mage

Barbarian:
Berserker

Psion:
Mentalist

Soulknife:
Psychic warrior

Bard:
Jack of all trades

Shimeran
2016-03-11, 06:09 AM
I definitely agree with going concept first. I'm not really a fan of trying to "fill the grid" as a class justification, whether the grid is a role/role or source/role. That being said, I know that grid can be useful for figuring out what areas could use more attentions and maybe get some inspiration.

In any case, I think I'll try my hand at a basic write up this weekend so we can get some talking points. Right now I've two themes in mind:
The Collector / Equipped Hero: inspired by heros who through fortune and effort gain useful and potent items. Examples are fairly common in folk tales and the Dying Earth series.
The SpellBearer: a character who uses rituals to bind specific arcane power to them, often bearing the marks of such powers in the process.


Any preferences on which you'd like to see first?

Bruno Carvalho
2016-03-11, 06:33 AM
We must pay attention to one thing: There are LOTS of great ideas out there, but we will not be able to tackle everything for Core. I suggest we go with the smallest amount possible of classes (for me, everything over 12 is too much) and make sure they're interesting AND balanced. After we release the Core book, we can devote ourselves to creating more class options. If we just spread our efforts no all possible concepts, we risk having lots of half-baked ideas and delaying the Core book for a LONG time.

UrielAwakened
2016-03-11, 10:13 AM
We must pay attention to one thing: There are LOTS of great ideas out there, but we will not be able to tackle everything for Core. I suggest we go with the smallest amount possible of classes (for me, everything over 12 is too much) and make sure they're interesting AND balanced. After we release the Core book, we can devote ourselves to creating more class options. If we just spread our efforts no all possible concepts, we risk having lots of half-baked ideas and delaying the Core book for a LONG time.

I agree, and this is why I recommended we focused on 12 classes that are basically the "core" of 4e, due to the legacy they inherited from previous editions of D&D or because they were the most popular of the newer classes.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-11, 10:42 AM
Any preferences on which you'd like to see first?

Being a fan of arcanists of all stripes, I'm interested to see your SpellBearer concept fleshed out some more.

And yes, regardless of how we end up determining which classes we end up with, I agree there should be a cap on their number at the start. There's always room for expansions, but those by definition come later. Ten or 12 seems about right to start out with.

ThePurple
2016-03-11, 11:30 AM
I'm just gonna take a stab at categorizing the things you said then add my own.

I've always felt that the DPS focused light-armored warrior and heavy-armored warrior can pretty easily be folded together, since they're actually very similar archetypes, the major differences in them being easily accounted for in mechanical terms (e.g. hide armor + DEX v. scale and no DEX; dual wielding can be numerically similar to two-handed weapons).

Of course, I'm pretty sure that Dacia's intent with the phrase "light armored warrior" was more in lines with a rogue than a ranger (and I think the ranger was more his "wilderness scout").

Also, in regards to the "unarmed warrior", I actually think an effective solution to that would be to actually make the various "improved unarmed strike"-style feats not suck horribly. One version of it that I think would be interesting would be to have the "improved unarmed strike" feat allow the user to treat their unarmed strike to use the proficiency bonus, damage die, and keywords of one weapon in which they are proficient (basically having it use everything from that weapon except for weapon group). This would allow for "dual wielding" unarmed fighters that send out a flurry of fists as well as "two handed" unarmed fighters that deliver devastating individual blows, both without requiring significant feat taxes.

The monk archetype is, I think, significantly different enough from an unarmed brawler, however, that I think it merits its own class.


We must pay attention to one thing: There are LOTS of great ideas out there, but we will not be able to tackle everything for Core.

Something else we have to consider/realize is that, while we think of classes as fundamental archetypes, they are entirely mechanical constructs. If you can refluff an existing class while keeping the same mechanics and it works for that archetype, you don't need to make a new class for it. I say this in reference to Shimeran's SpellBearer, which is basically a refluffed warlock. It's one of the problems that I have with a lot of homebrew classes that people come up with: a player can be so focused on having something unique and different when, really, it works just as well to refluff an existing class. Classes are mechanical constructs that we provide narrative guidelines for. The only stuff that players and GM really *need* to follow are the mechanical constructs. The narrative guidelines can, honestly, be ignored, if the GM/player wants to.

Also, I'll admit that I often end up in this pitfall myself, but I always get out by reminding myself about this.

We also need to keep in mind the style of game that this is going to be. An archetype whose primary quality is that they have gear doesn't really work in a game in which the acquisition of gear is a mechanical assumption. That archetype is less of a relevant mechanical construct than it is a relevant narrative construct that the GM can provide to any class, realistically, by simply providing the proper set up.

From this, I think it's important for us to ask the question of whether we're going to be keeping themes in our rebuild. Personally, I love themes and think they're an excellent way to provide a bit of unique mechanical flavor to a class without having to create entirely separate classes and class features for *every* imaginable iteration of them.

One possibility for a theme would be the soulknife theme, which provides the character with the ability to create weapons that they are proficient with out of psionic energies. Is soulknife really different enough to justify creating an entirely new class or is its defining feature (creating weapons out of psionic energy) enough to simply be rolled up into a theme? Using soulknife as a theme instead of a class also allows players to have many more different varieties of soulknife than would be sensible to design as part of a class. You could have a soulknife ranger that dual wields soulknives, soulknife fighters that defend their allies, soulknife rogues that strike from the shadows, etc.

Themes are incredibly powerful and let us get a lot more archetypal mileage out of the mechanically driven classes that we're designing.

UrielAwakened
2016-03-11, 12:02 PM
See, this is where I think you can get a lot of interesting design space out of the way different roles and power sources can intersect.

A soul knife and a psion can be wildly different if the psion is focused on controlling the minds and bodies of individuals (either a leader or a controller), while a soul knife is more a projection of one's own mental ability, focused into physical effects to protect (either a striker or defender). Maybe the psion largely focuses on using the enemy's strengths against them (a lot of movement powers and forcing them to attack each other) while a soul knife uses healing surges in some way, either to grant allies temporary hit points in response to attacks or else channels surges into devastating attacks for large nova rounds.

While a telepath and a telekinetic aren't necessarily different enough, and can instead both be a subdivision of the psion (different builds).

The number one question we ask ourselves when choosing what is a class, what is a build, or what is a theme/pp/ed is "How many powers can I make within this concept?"

Can I get 30 levels out of it? Class. Can I get 30 levels out of it but maybe not 4 powers per level? Build. Can it really only do one or two things? Theme/PP/ED.

ThePurple
2016-03-11, 12:23 PM
The number one question we ask ourselves when choosing what is a class, what is a build, or what is a theme/pp/ed is "How many powers can I make within this concept?"

I'm not entirely sure I agree with this guideline, mainly because anyone properly motivated can come up with a full slew of powers for pretty much any concept.

I think it's better to go with something like a "principal of least effort" (e.g. what is the least amount of change I can apply to the system that accomplishes what I want).

If you come up with an concept, can it be done with just refluffing an existing class? Then that's all you do.
If it can't, can it be done by adding a small number of mechanics that don't change the fundamental nature of the class? Then it's a feat or a theme.
If it can't, can it be done by adding a new build option to an existing class? Then it's a new build.
If, and only if, it *still* can't, only then does it qualify for becoming a new class.

That's not to say that we need to be absolutely minimalist in number and maximally inclusive when designing/choosing classes. When designing classes, we need to consider them primarily from a mechanical vantage point because that's what they are. Whatever fluff we apply to it is largely arbitrary.

UrielAwakened
2016-03-11, 12:43 PM
I'm not entirely sure I agree with this guideline, mainly because anyone properly motivated can come up with a full slew of powers for pretty much any concept.

I think it's better to go with something like a "principal of least effort" (e.g. what is the least amount of change I can apply to the system that accomplishes what I want).

If you come up with an concept, can it be done with just refluffing an existing class? Then that's all you do.
If it can't, can it be done by adding a small number of mechanics that don't change the fundamental nature of the class? Then it's a feat or a theme.
If it can't, can it be done by adding a new build option to an existing class? Then it's a new build.
If, and only if, it *still* can't, only then does it qualify for becoming a new class.

That's not to say that we need to be absolutely minimalist in number and maximally inclusive when designing/choosing classes. When designing classes, we need to consider them primarily from a mechanical vantage point because that's what they are. Whatever fluff we apply to it is largely arbitrary.

I largely agree. The way I'm thinking of it is what extremes do I want to avoid. Picture these two scenarios:

A game in which every type of weapon you could use gets its own class. You'd have a two-weapon class, a mace class, a scythe class, an axe class, a dagger class, etc... Sounds awful, right?

On the other hand, picture a game where anyone who could use a weapon is all subsumed under one class. Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian, even Monk, all the same class. Also terrible, right?

We need to find a good middle-ground between both extremes.

ThePurple
2016-03-11, 12:58 PM
We need to find a good middle-ground between both extremes.

Which is why I think the "principal of least change" is appropriate. It acknowledges that differences are good/necessary and that change should be made to allow for various concepts, but forces us to try and figure out what the least (mechanical) change required to meet the need would actually be.

Keep in mind that "a martial striker that doesn't fight like rogue" can actually be a legitimate need that needs to be met. Classes, builds, and themes should differ from each other mechanically; as I've said before, whatever fluff we apply to them is arbitrary.

Shimeran
2016-03-11, 05:32 PM
A couple quick points of clarification:


If you can refluff an existing class while keeping the same mechanics and it works for that archetype, you don't need to make a new class for it. I say this in reference to Shimeran's SpellBearer, which is basically a refluffed warlock.

Actually, my intent for the spell bearer to bring in more of the feel of prepared casters without the daily resource dependency. Specifically, I was thinking of bringing in the aspect where what powers you use in one encounter affects your options in the next encounter. So if anything, it's more a replacement for wizard mechanics. Admittedly, I could have been clearer on that in the earlier post. I was just focusing more on flavor there.


We also need to keep in mind the style of game that this is going to be. An archetype whose primary quality is that they have gear doesn't really work in a game in which the acquisition of gear is a mechanical assumption. That archetype is less of a relevant mechanical construct than it is a relevant narrative construct that the GM can provide to any class, realistically, by simply providing the proper set up.

It actually can work pretty nicely using a powers as equipment approach. I refer you to the Artificer as a way it was already done in 4e.

DreamingGod05
2016-03-11, 07:03 PM
All I know is I'd love to see the Ninja, as described by ThePurple, come to fruition.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-12, 07:46 PM
In the spirit of forging ahead, I sat down and thought about what it is that I like so much about the idea of pact magic, and this is what I came up with as one possible starting point to consider for one particular class.

Warlock


Warlocks, as their name's origin implies, derive their powers from a covenant with an otherworldly being. It is commonly believed that most Warlocks make deals with devils, who are constantly looking for fools to ensnare for their own nefarious purposes, but in fact there are myriad supernatural forces at work in the world who are able and willing to make such bargains with mortals, some of them relatively benign and others who would make even devils cringe. In some cases, the covenant was originally of the Warlock's own making, but often it was made by someone of their bloodline and has persisted through the generations, willingly or otherwise.

Regardless of its origins, it is the essence of the covenant itself that empowers Warlocks to work their magics, and those who meet with the most success at this are almost invariably the ones who succeed at bending their covenants to their will. Those who allow their will to bend to their covenants typically end up broken.




Power source: Arcane
Roles: Controller|Striker
Key Abilities: CHA, INT
Armor: Cloth, Leather
Weapons: Simple weapons
Implements: Rods, wands, daggers
Best Defense: Will
Class Features: Covenant, Thaumaturgy, Deceit, Force of Will
Trained Skills: Bluff, plus choice of one physical, one knowledge and one social


Covenant:
All Warlocks begin play with at least one covenant and may obtain more as they advance, though they may only have one covenant active at any given time; any others they have remain passive. A Warlock's active covenant determines secondary effects on powers, while any covenants they have may allow Warlocks to qualify for specific feats, themes, paths and destinies.

Warlocks may choose to suppress their active covenants: while this obviates the benefits they would receive from their active covenant, by doing so they accumulate great reserves of arcane power within themselves that they may in turn unleash upon their enemies in the forms most suitable to their active, suppressed covenant.



Astral Covenant:

Made through contact with entities beyond the stars, Astral Covenants grant Warlocks an aura of otherworldliness that often inspires both fear and awe. Warlocks with an active Astral Covenant radiate bright, baleful light and a few have been known to take on forms too wonderful and terrible to contemplate.


Favored damage types: Radiant, Psychic, Force
Covenant benefits: Concealment, damaging aura, astral transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Blinded, dazed, confused, stunned, forced movement


Elemental Covenant:

Through pacts forged with beings tied to a fundamental building block of the world, Warlocks who have made Elemental Covenants possess strong affinities for the elements. Warlocks with an active Elemental Covenant may appear to radiate heat, cold or static electricity, and a few have been known to fully become one element or another.


Favored damage types: Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder
Covenant benefits: Damage resistance, damaging aura, elemental transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Ongoing damage, forced movement, deafened, prone, restrained


Infernal Covenant:

Deals made with devils are the province of Infernal Covenants, and those Warlocks who have made them have a reputation for being fierce, hardy and dangerously cunning. Warlocks with an active Infernal Covenant have a supernatural toughness about them, and a few have even taken on the dreadful aspects of their fiendish patrons.


Favored damage types: Acid, Fire, Poison
Covenant benefits: Temporary hit points, damage resistance, infernal transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Charmed, forced movement, ongoing damage, prone, dominated


Umbral Covenant:

Made with dark powers from beyond the grave, Umbral Covenants grant unnatural vitality to their recipients by sapping the strength of their enemies. Warlocks with an active Umbral Covenant may appear to be under a cloud of perpetual shade, and a few have been known to become as ghosts and walk through solid objects.


Favored damage types: Cold, Necrotic, Psychic
Covenant benefits: Concealment, temporary hit points, umbral transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Dazed, forced movement, slowed, weakened, stunned



Thaumaturgy:
The form of magic Warlocks of all covenants practice, thaumaturgy is in essence the working of one's will upon the world. Rather than engaging in deep study and contemplation as their means of obtaining and exerting magical forces, Warlocks achieve their results through sheer force of will. As such, no two Warlocks work magic in exactly the same way, even those who have the same active covenant--some shout words of command, others make strange gestures, and some merely have to look at their target to cause it to burst into flame--though for practical purposes, a flame by any other name is still the same. Likewise, many Warlocks prefer to stay out of the fray and rain destruction from afar, while some like to wade right in to battle and use their powers up close and personal.

As thaumaturgists, Warlocks have the ability to choose the damage type of any power they use, as determined by their choice of active covenant. Likewise, they have a limited degree of control over how they deliver their powers' effects. Warlocks may use single-target powers as having a range of either 10 or Melee. They may also use burst powers as either close bursts or range 10 area bursts of the same radius.

Deceit:
As their powers are "misunderstood" more than any other arcane members of society, Warlocks who wish to remain in society must become skilled at deceiving anyone who might subject them to persecution. All Warlocks begin play with Bluff trained. Also, once per session a Warlock may substitute a Bluff check for any single knowledge or social skill check.

Force of Will:
Due to their almost-total reliance upon their strength of will, Warlocks have learned to exceed their bodies' natural capacities to some extent. Warlocks apply their Charisma toward determining their Fortitude defense.

ThePurple
2016-03-12, 08:10 PM
In the spirit of forging ahead, I sat down and thought about what it is that I like so much about the idea of pact magic, and this is what I came up with as one possible starting point to consider for one particular class.

Something I've actually been thinking about, given how the primary element of warlocks it that they access their magic through pacts, is turning warlock into a theme (or set of themes, so infernal warlock, shadow warlock, etc.) that can be applied to any arcane class. What you published here would basically be a warlock sorcerer, but you could also have a warlock wizard who basically sold his soul for incredible arcane knowledge (because studying is just too damned hard).

I like the fluff you put up though.


Trained Skills: Bluff, plus choice of one physical, one knowledge and one social

I don't think that Bluff should necessarily be automatic for all warlocks. I could imagine some warlocks that revel in their power and just work with Intimidate as well as others that have learned to parlay their blasphemous skills into acceptable with Diplomacy. I'd probably give them choice of 2 social skills instead of Bluff and one social.

I would also include at least one "free" skill in there, because I think 5 is a good number of trained skills for a PC to have and it allows for a bit bit more deviation from the standard mold. Of course, we could always include "training in one skill or a choice of skills" as part of our guidelines for themes (which I'm starting to really like the idea of).


Astral Covenant:

Favored damage types: Radiant, Psychic, Force
Covenant benefits: Concealment, damaging aura, astral transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Blinded, dazed, confused, stunned, forced movement


That is a *really* powerful covenant since all 3 of those damage types are very rarely resisted (especially all at once) and those common riders, with the exception of forced movement, are all basically restricted to encounters/recharges and/or dailies.


Force of Will:
Due to their almost-total reliance upon their strength of will, Warlocks have learned to exceed their bodies' natural capacities to some extent. Warlocks apply their Charisma toward determining their Fortitude defense.

I'm not entirely sure this is really needed, since it allows warlocks to load all 4 of their defenses onto just 2 stats, which are the only 2 stats that they care about (AC/Ref on INT, Fort/Will on CHA). Features like this are only really needed (and should only be provided when they are needed) whenever a class is designed to double up on a specific NAD ability score pairing (like CHAladins) or when the class wears light armor but doesn't have either of its relevant ability mods applying to AC (like warden and possibly berserker/barbarian).

Shimeran
2016-03-12, 11:25 PM
It looks like a promising start. I'll give it a deeper look later. The first things that springs to mind is it could use some kind of offering mechanic or similar way to gaining a perk for certain actions. I'm reminded of the 4e warlock's pact boons which could be seen as a reward for an offering of another's life.

In any case, I was planning on putting up a write up myself, but you seem to have beat me to the punch. Here's my idea for a relic hunter / scavenger style mage. I'd be interested in seeing ThePurple's more academic mage as it sounds like they could work well as an initiate of a mystery school or similar organization.

Spell Seeker
We live in a greatly diminished age. What we call civilization has barely a fraction of the knowledge and power held by those who came before us. Fortunately, their secrets and tools were not all destroyed. Many were merely forgotten and abandoned. In fact, some are so forgotten that they pass as mere trinkets and scrap to the untrained eye, their true value unknown.

With the right knowledge, one could piece out the arcane procedure by which they worked their wonders. With the right words and acts, powers thought lost to the ages can be awakened once again by any with the knowledge and will to do so.



Power source: Arcane
Roles: as per Spellbinder's Mantle
Key Abilities: INT, CON
Armor: Cloth, Leather
Weapons: Simple weapons
Implements: Tomes, wands, staves
Best Defense: Will
Class Features: Arcane Armament, Bind Spell, Spellbinder's Mantle, Ritualist
Trained Skills: Arcana, a secondary knowledge or detection skill, a merchantile skill, and an acquisition or exploration skill.



Arcane Armament
You start play with an unusual implement or weapon and can use the at will power it grants. Such devices require a combination of special maintenance, attunement procedures, and obscure activation actions that general make them worthless in the hand of any who have not mastered them. If for any reason you lose this device, your talents allow you to find another in short order, either in your surrounding or pieced together from less complete versions of such items in your belongings.

Should you wish, you can sacrifice a magic item to move compatible enchantments to your armament. Alternately, you can sacrifice your armament to convert a compatible magic item into an arcane armament.

Bind Spell
You can perform rituals of spell branding and start with 3 such rituals mastered and performed. These rituals let you tie specific arcane forces to yourself in the form of a spell brand. Each brand leaves a notable mark on you, though the mark could be something as subtle as an an unnerving presence or behavioral quirk. Despite these complications, each such brand has it's benefits.

You can activate a brand as a minor action to trigger the arcane stance associated with it. While in that stance, you can use the at will, charged, and desperation powers associated with it. When the stance ends, the brand is exhausted, becoming unavailable until recharged. When you overcome a challenge, if you have fewer than 2 spell brands charged, you can recharge a spell brand that was not exhausted in that combat. You can also recharge a brand by renewing it's ritual after fully resting.

Should you find other spell branding rituals later, you can replace one of you existing brands. You can not hold more than 3 brands and any attempts to do so will cause the oldest brand to fade.

Spellbinder's Mantle
You begin play knowing 2 Spellbinder's Mantle powers and can use 1 each time you enter an arcane stance. The mantle modifies the effects of the stance, letting you slide into the role associated with that mantle.

Ritualist
You are trained in the use of arcane rituals.




So short version is one at will comes from your plot protected implement. Your second at will, as well as your encounter and possible daily, are tied with which spell you decide to invoke. Invoked spells won't be available next fight, so try to pick one and choose wisely.

To support role versatility, the character can choose one of their available roles when they invoke a spell, which generally means the role will be fixed at the start of the fight, so again choose wisely.

Edit: I'm wide open on the name here. I've considered the previous Spell Bearer as well as Spellbinder and Spell Finder.

ThePurple
2016-03-13, 12:04 AM
Here's my idea for a relic hunter / scavenger style mage.

Honestly, this concept is way too specific to actually justify getting its own class, especially since there isn't really a reason to give it entirely unique mechanics other than your desire to give the class unique mechanics. Once again, I think it's a better idea to do something like this as a theme, especially since it could be rendered power source neutral (allowing for psionic, primal, divine, etc. in addition to arcane) and, even by your own description, is only really appropriate for certain campaign settings.


Trained Skills: Arcana, a secondary knowledge or detection skill, a merchantile skill, and an acquisition or exploration skill.

Those are really weird categories that don't really fit with the general separation of skills that 4e uses (and presumably we will use). The categories that I think we're planning on using are the ones that Dacia Brabant used (social, physical, and mental) mainly because that's the general split used for skill challenges.


I'd be interested in seeing ThePurple's more academic mage as it sounds like they could work well as an initiate of a mystery school or similar organization.

Ask and ye shall receive (pardon the formatting, I've got all of these in notepad and am too lazy to go through and format all of it properly for the forum):

Generic Stuff:
Wizard Arcane Artillery/Controller/Leader/Striker
Hp: Con + 6 + 4 per level
HS: 7
+2 Will
Armor: cloth
Weapon: simple melee, staff, wand, orb
Skills: Arcana + 1 physical, 1-2 mental, 1 social

Class Features:
Ritual Caster: Gain the Ritual Caster (Arcana) feat for free.

Metamagic Rituals: Choose one of the following
-Eschew Materials: When performing a ritual, reduce the cost of the ritual by 10%
-Empower Ritual: When performing a ritual, you may increase the cost by 25%. If you do so, you may reroll the next failed skill check you make as part of the skill challenge

Mage Armor: while in cloth or no armor and not using a shield, you gain a +2 bonus to AC

Wizard's Weapons: You may use Int instead of Str for basic attacks. In addition, you may use wands as if they were a mace for the purpose of basic attacks. Properties other than enhancement bonus do not apply to the basic attack.

Schools of Magic: At level 1, choose two of the following Schools of Magic to have access to. At levels 7 and 17, you gain access to an additional School of Magic. The School of Magic you current have active determines what at-will and encounter powers you can use and provides an additional benefit.
When you roll initiative, you can have one of your chosen schools of magic active. You may change to a different school of magic as a standard action.
- Abjuration (leader): As a minor action, you can spend an act of Arcane Magic to allow you or an ally within 5 squares to spend a healing surge and gain additional temp hp equal to your Wis modifier. These temp hp increase to Wis + 2 at level 6, Wis + 3 at level 16, and Wis + 4 at level 26. While a target has these temp hp, they gain a +2 power bonus to all defenses. At level 11, this range increases to 10 squares. At level 21, this increases to 15 squares.
- Enchantment (leader/controller): When you cause a creature to make an attack and it misses, you can spend an act of Arcane Mastery to allow that creature to reroll the attack roll.
- Evocation (artillery): For each target you hit with an Evocation attack, you gain a +1 bonus to the damage roll. Whenever you hit with an Evocation attack and dislike the damage roll, you may spend an act of Arcane Mastery to reroll that damage roll.
- Illusion (controller): When a creature succeeds on a saving throw against one of your Illusion powers, you may spend an act of Arcane Mastery force the target to reroll that saving throw.
- Transmutation (striker): As a minor action, you may spend an act of Arcane Mastery to transmute an implement you are currently holding into the shape of a weapon of your choice that you are proficient in. It can still be used as an implement in this form and uses the implement's enhancement bonus. In addition, when you hit a target with a melee attack using a weapon, you deal additional damage equal to your Con modifier. This damage increases to Con + 1 at level 6, +2 at level 11, +3 at level 16, +4 at level 21, and +5 at level 26.

Arcane Mastery:
- You have can use two acts of Arcane Mastery per encounter. At level 16, you can use three acts of Arcane Mastery per encounter. As a minor action, you may spend an act of Arcane Mastery in order to change which School of Magic you have active.

Powers:
At-wills (implement):
- ranged 10; effect: the target takes Int mod force dam. special: you add your enhancement bonus to this damage

The following powers can only be used as Abjuration
- ranged 5; one creature, Int v. Ref; on hit: 1d8 + Int mod force damage; Effect: choose one of the following
- One ally within 5 squares gains a +1 power bonus to defenses until EoNT
- One ally within 5 squares gains temp hp equal to your Wis modifier. These temp hp increase to Wis + 2 at level 6, Wis + 3 at level 16, and Wis + 4 at level 26.
- One ally within 5 squares gains resistance to all damage equal to your Wis modifier until EoNT

The following powers can only be used as Enchantment
- ranged 10; one creature, Int v. Will; on hit: you can choose to slide the target a number of squares equal to its speed or have the target make a basic attack against a target of your choice. Special: If you target an ally with this attack, that ally can choose to be hit by the attack automatically.
- ranged 10; one creature, Int v. Will; on hit: 1d8 + Int mod psychic damage; effect: choose one of the following
- The target takes a -2 penalty to defenses until EoNT
- The target gains vulnerability equal to your Cha mod until EoNT

The following powers can only be used as Evocation
- area burst 1 within 10; all creatures in burst, Int v. Ref; on hit: 1d6 + Int mod fire, cold, or thunder damage
- ranged 10; one, two, or three creatures in range; Int v. Ref; on hit: 1d8 + Int mod lightning damage

The following powers can only be used as Illusion
- ranged 10; one creature, Int v. Will; on hit: 1d8 + Int mod psychic damage and choose one of the following
- You can slide the target up to 2 squares
- The target is slowed (s/e)
- The target is knocked prone

The following powers can only be made as Transmutation
- ranged 5; one creature; Int v. Fort; on hit: 1d8 + Int mod force damage; Effect: You may shift up to half your move speed as a free action.


Encounters(standard action):

The following powers can only be used as Abjuration
- ranged 5; one creature, Int v. Ref; on hit: 1d8 + Int mod force damage, 2d8 at 7, 3d8 at 17, 4d8 at 27; Effect: choose one of the following
- All allies within 5 squares gains a +1 power bonus to defenses until EoNT
- All allies within 5 squares gains temp hp equal to your Wis modifier. These temp hp increase to Wis + 2 at level 6, Wis + 3 at level 16, and Wis + 4 at level 26.
- All allies within 5 squares gains resistance to all damage equal to your Wis modifier until EoNT

The following powers can only be used as Enchantment
- close burst 5, enemies in the burst, Int v. Will; on hit: Int mod force damage, Int + 1 at 3, Int + 2 at 7, Int + 3 at 13, Int + 4 at 17, Int + 5 at 23, Int + 6 at 27; Effect: choose one of the following.
- All allies within the burst gain a +1 power bonus to attack rolls until EoNT
- All allies within the burst gain a power bonus to damage rolls equal to your Cha mod

The following powers can only be used as Evocation
-area burst 1 within 10; Int v. Ref; on hit: 2d6 + Int mod fire, cold, or thunder damage, 2d8 at 3, 3d6 at 7, 3d8 at 13; 4d6 at 17, 4d8 at 23, 5d6 at 27; miss: half damage
-ranged 10; three targets; Int v. Ref; on hit: 2d6 + Int mod lightning damage, 2d8 at 3, 3d6 at 7, 3d8 at 13; 4d6 at 17, 4d8 at 23, 5d6 at 27; miss: half damage

The following powers can only be used as Illusion
-ranged 10; Int v. Will; on hit: 2d6 + Int mod psychic damage and the target is immobilized (save ends), 2d8 at 3, 2d10 at 7, 2d12 at 13, 3d8 at 17, 3d10 at 23, 4d8 at 27; miss: half damage; effect: creates a zone in a burst 1 around the target that lasts until the target saves; enemies that start their turn in or enter the zone are knocked prone.
-reliable, ranged 10: Int v. Will; on hit: 2d8 + Int mod psychic damage and the target is scared (s/e). While scared, if the target does not end its turn further away from you or your allies than it was at the start of its turn, the target is dazed until the end of its next turn.

The following powers can only be used as Transmutation
-melee weapon, reliable; Int v. Fort; on hit: 1[W] + 1d6 + Int mod thunder dam and the target is dazed until EoNT, 2[W] at level 7, + 2d6 at level 17, 3[W] at level 27
-close burst 1; Int v. Fort; on hit: 1[W] + Int mod cold and thunder dam and you push the target 4; miss: half damage and push the target 4; effect: the target is slowed (s/e)

Dailies (standard): After an extended rest, you must choose one for each daily power use you have. Whenever you gain an additional use of a daily power, you must recharge one of your chosen powers that has been used

The following power counts as Illusion (standard, Int v. Will)
- area burst 3 within 10 (enemies in the burst); on hit: Int mod psychic damage and slide the target Cha mod square, the target must end the slide within the area of the burst; effect: creates a zone in the area
sustain minor: repeat the attack against all enemies within the zone
move action: move the zone up to 2 sq

The following powers count as Evocation (standard, Int v. Ref)
- area burst 2 within 10 (creatures in the burst), on hit: 2d8 + Int mod fire or cold damage, 3d8 at 9, 4d8 at 19, 5d8 at 29; miss: half damage; effect: creates a zone that lasts until the end of the encounter, creatures that start their turn in or enter the zone take Cha mod of the chosen damage type
- line 10, on hit: 3d6 + Int lightning and thunder damage, 4d6 at 5, 5d6 at 9, 6d6 at 15, 7d6 at 19, 8d6 at 25, 9d6 at 29; miss: half damage

The following power counts as Transmutation (minor action)
- effect: you gain a +1 power bonus to attack rolls and gain temp hp equal to your Con mod whenever you hit with an attack power, in addition, you may choose an additional School of Magic to last until the end of the encounter


The damage and whatnot is based off of the math that I had set up when designing my own homebrew and would probably be wrong for whatever math we elect to use.

The various ritual focued features are written based upon my own homebrew implementation of Ritual Casting, in which a player with the relevant feat describes the desired effect and spends ritual components equal to 1/10th of a magic item of a level equal to the skill challenge in order to gain an automatic success. If we use the system wherein skill checks follow all of the same mechanics as attack rolls, I would probably also allow the skill check to be maximized on a normal use of the ritual and allow Empower Ritual to treat it as a critical success (e.g. bonus "success" die are rolled).

Also, I've got similar write ups (including powers, features, etc.) for all of the classes that I mentioned in my initial post in case people are curious to see them. Some are a bit more primitive than others, but I've got them.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-13, 03:52 AM
Something I've actually been thinking about, given how the primary element of warlocks it that they access their magic through pacts, is turning warlock into a theme (or set of themes, so infernal warlock, shadow warlock, etc.) that can be applied to any arcane class. What you published here would basically be a warlock sorcerer, but you could also have a warlock wizard who basically sold his soul for incredible arcane knowledge (because studying is just too damned hard).

I like the fluff you put up though.


Thanks. Yeah, Warlock Sorcerer is what I was aiming for. I do like your idea of a Warlock Wizard who sells his soul for forbidden knowledge, that may fit the archetype even better. I'm going to go back and rewrite it with that in mind, and if there ends up being a place for both, so much the better.

Themes certainly could represent this, too, so I guess it'll depend on how deeply we want the archetype to be ingrained in the core game.



I don't think that Bluff should necessarily be automatic for all warlocks. I could imagine some warlocks that revel in their power and just work with Intimidate as well as others that have learned to parlay their blasphemous skills into acceptable with Diplomacy. I'd probably give them choice of 2 social skills instead of Bluff and one social.

I would also include at least one "free" skill in there, because I think 5 is a good number of trained skills for a PC to have and it allows for a bit bit more deviation from the standard mold. Of course, we could always include "training in one skill or a choice of skills" as part of our guidelines for themes (which I'm starting to really like the idea of).


These are good points, and I agree fully with having more trained skills. I wasn't sure what our baseline was going to be for that, though, and it does seem like that can be accomplished through the choice of theme. Let's definitely keep that in mind going forward.

The reason I went specifically with Bluff--and with the once-per-session substitute of Bluff for another skill--is largely etymological: Warlock literally means "covenant belier." I can definitely see them being diplomatic or intimidating as well, but they're scoundrels at their core, so I was looking for a good way to represent that mechanically.



That is a *really* powerful covenant since all 3 of those damage types are very rarely resisted (especially all at once) and those common riders, with the exception of forced movement, are all basically restricted to encounters/recharges and/or dailies.


Yeah, you're right, that one did seem excessive as I was writing it so I'll dial it back. About the common riders, my thought is those will be for encounter/recharges and/or whatever we end up doing with dailies. At-wills I intend to write specifically for the covenants, and they won't have anything that they shouldn't.



I'm not entirely sure this is really needed, since it allows warlocks to load all 4 of their defenses onto just 2 stats, which are the only 2 stats that they care about (AC/Ref on INT, Fort/Will on CHA). Features like this are only really needed (and should only be provided when they are needed) whenever a class is designed to double up on a specific NAD ability score pairing (like CHAladins) or when the class wears light armor but doesn't have either of its relevant ability mods applying to AC (like warden and possibly berserker/barbarian).

That's true. I wasn't sure if we were going with the four defenses or if AC was going away and armor was going to become ablative, but even then it would result in high defenses across the board and that's excessive when the class also gets defensive features (which they have to lower when they become strikers, but still). I'll change it to have their CHA contribue to their starting Stamina instead.



It looks like a promising start. I'll give it a deeper look later. The first things that springs to mind is it could use some kind of offering mechanic or similar way to gaining a perk for certain actions. I'm reminded of the 4e warlock's pact boons which could be seen as a reward for an offering of another's life.


That's a really important point and I forgot to include it in my writeup about the covenants. My original intent was to have the defensive features trigger on hit and/or on kill, but then I ended up having it inversely tied to their striker feature so it fell through the cracks. It should be enough to have them lose their controller riders when they're in striker mode, so that their defensive features could be treated as a perk.

I'll take a look at what both of you posted after I wake up. Stupid daylight savings time.

Shimeran
2016-03-13, 07:56 AM
Honestly, this concept is way too specific to actually justify getting its own class, especially since there isn't really a reason to give it entirely unique mechanics other than your desire to give the class unique mechanics.).

I do think I may have gotten the description muddled by it's inspirations as well as other ideas floating around. As is the description does read more like a treasure seeker. That's what I get for cobbling things together late at night.

I'll take another look and redo that in a bit. The mechanics actually suggest more of a ritualist. I may also change the brands to a kind of bound spirit ally.


especially since it could be rendered power source neutral (allowing for psionic, primal, divine, etc. in addition to arcane)

Honestly, I think a lot of magic using classes are prone to this, at least as far as their mechanics go. For example, it's really easy to see how you could have divine or primal covenants. For that matter, the school approach you mentioned could work with pretty much every source listed.


even by your own description, is only really appropriate for certain campaign settings.).

The assumption is that there was an age of wonders at some point, which is ridiculously common in fiction. Heck, any medieval setting is generally post imperial and will include this trope. I'd argue it's relevant in more setting than not. At the very least, I'd say it certainly not rarer than the "magic has been organized into formal and academic schools" assumption.


Those are really weird categories that don't really fit with the general separation of skills that 4e uses (and presumably we will use). The categories that I think we're planning on using are the ones that Dacia Brabant used (social, physical, and mental) mainly because that's the general split used for skill challenges.).

Ah, I thought the listed skill categories in the Warlock example were general descriptor over strict categories. I'll take a look at skill challenge categories later as I don't recall seeing any labelled as strictly physical or mental. Honestly, I think the ritual categories (ex. exploration, restoration..) are a bit closer to the type of challenges a party might face. Granted, that will need some tweaking as I don't recall if there are persuasion rituals and recovery rarely has a challenge associated with it.


Ask and ye shall receive (pardon the formatting, I've got all of these in notepad and am too lazy to go through and format all of it properly for the forum):).

I'll try digging deeper into this today. It does seem like an improv based caster centered around fields of study. Incidentally, how do you justify having only one school active at a time in fiction? It seems like that would be more of a trance thing or aligning oneself to specific forces.


The various ritual focued features are written based upon my own homebrew implementation of Ritual Casting, in which a player with the relevant feat describes the desired effect and spends ritual components equal to 1/10th of a magic item of a level equal to the skill challenge in order to gain an automatic success.

So being a ritual caster lets you buy successes. I can definitely see that as fully understanding ritual magic should let you improvise new rituals. "Throwing money at the problem" is also a suitable match.

That being said, it does leave out preformulated rituals with specific effects. I suppose it still allow for things like raising land and travelling great distances can be done as long as they're part of a skill challenge.

It's also vulnerable to the same problem 4e rituals ran into where casting rituals meant not being able to buy gear. Granted, part of the mess there was that previous out of combat spells were written as rituals, making their restricted use more noticeable.

ThePurple
2016-03-13, 12:53 PM
I'll try digging deeper into this today. It does seem like an improv based caster centered around fields of study. Incidentally, how do you justify having only one school active at a time in fiction? It seems like that would be more of a trance thing or aligning oneself to specific forces.

Which is why it takes a standard action (or a minor action and an act of Arcane Mastery) in order to switch which school of magic you currently have active. Each round of combat is supposed to represent roughly 6 seconds, so you'd basically have a wizard chanting/focusing/etc. to herself for about 6 seconds (admittedly, while still being able to run around) in order to change which school of magic she has access to.


So being a ritual caster lets you buy successes. I can definitely see that as fully understanding ritual magic should let you improvise new rituals. "Throwing money at the problem" is also a suitable match.

That being said, it does leave out preformulated rituals with specific effects. I suppose it still allow for things like raising land and travelling great distances can be done as long as they're part of a skill challenge.

The main reason I did it was in order to dramatically simplify the application of rituals by doing away with the necessary bookkeeping and spending of money on just learning rituals and to more adequately incorporate them into skill challenges. For various things like teleporting long distances, raising land, or other dramatic acts of ritual magic, I would probably either give guidelines for GMs (in the GM's guide), either providing a general list of magical effects and what tier/level they would probably be limited to or simply allowing those actions to be "free" based upon narrative need (since I doubt you'd really find a player arbitrarily teleporting somewhere or raising mountains unless there was a narrative need for it). For teleportation, we could just make teleportation circles standard magic items that allow anyone with the appropriate Ritual Casting feat (e.g. a primal teleportion circle requires Ritual Casting (Nature)) to teleport as part of a short rest.


It's also vulnerable to the same problem 4e rituals ran into where casting rituals meant not being able to buy gear. Granted, part of the mess there was that previous out of combat spells were written as rituals, making their restricted use more noticeable.

Well, I don't see it as being any different from buying healing potions or other consumables. Those are basically spending money in order to gain a single instance of benefit. Part of the problem I have with 4e has always been the general lack of interest players have in acquiring consumable items. Even healing potions are basically ignored by players, which just seems wrong (and, on that note, I actually houserule potions of healing such that they don't require the expenditure of a healing surge when used by a bloodied character or someone who is out of healing surges; for verisimilitude, I don't see how drinking a healing potion could *not* heal you just because you're exhausted and, for mechanics, it provides players a reason to get/use healing potions since they basically become your "I'm out of HSs" cushion).

Shimeran
2016-03-13, 07:47 PM
Alright, so switching over to the ritualist theme, making it a more ceremonial mage might look something like this.

Spellbinder
There are currents that flow beneath the world we see, like an underground river, near but unnoticed. Like such streams, they have their own strange kind of life with a will of their own. With the right carefully prepared circumstances, what lives in those currents can be slip into this world. With the right preparations, such being can even be caught and the held to unleash their strange powers at a time and place of their captor's choosing.

And here's a reworking of the core class features.

Bind Arcanim
You are adept at summoning spirit creatures formed of arcane energies, often called arcane servitors or arcanim. Choose 3 level 1 arcanim. You have bind the chosen arcanim to your will. This bond lets them use their abilities in your presence, but only as you direct. While bound to a rested arcanim, you can use it's at will power as your own.

Channel Bond
You can strengthen your bond to a particular arcanim, letting you draw on a larger portion of their power. As a minor action, you can activate the arcane stance associated with one your bound arcanim. In addition to assisting you in filling the role that arcanim favors, the stance also lets you build up to using the arcanim's charged powers.

However, doing so has a cost. At the end of the stance, the arcanim is exhausted and can not be used again until it recovers. Arcanim normally recover during a long rest. However, should you have fewer than 2 rested arcanim after a battle, an arcanim not exhausted in said battle will replenish itself from the residual energies of the battlefield, returning to it's rested state.

Perilous Bond
In addition to the arcanim granted by Bind Arcanim, you have captured a single more powerful spirit of higher level. Given it's stronger will, you can not draw on it's power lightly. You only gain access to it's powers while channeling it and must take a long resting after channeling it before you can do so again.

Warding Bonds
The presence of your arcanim works to subtly ward off blows. While unarmored or in cloth armor, you gain a bonus to AC equal to the number of rested arcanim you hold, to a maximum of +2.



Which is why it takes a standard action (or a minor action and an act of Arcane Mastery) in order to switch which school of magic you currently have active. Each round of combat is supposed to represent roughly 6 seconds, so you'd basically have a wizard chanting/focusing/etc. to herself for about 6 seconds (admittedly, while still being able to run around) in order to change which school of magic she has access to.

Fair enough. In that case it does seem like each school is based on either a particular mental state or some otherworldly source the caster must attune to. Again, I get the feeling that the broad schools inherited from earlier editions are a somewhat awkward fit and you'd be better served with more focused and evocative ones. It's not bad for things like illusion, enchantment, or evocation, but traditionally more open ended ones like transmutation leave me wondering exactly how the power are manifesting, which isn't a great sign.

On a side note, have you considered putting all information for each school in one place? It it's a bit odd going into separate encounter and daily sections only to read each power can only used in the school's state. (Oddly enough, I found myself wanting to type Rune State, some maybe there's some familiarity on that front.) There's precedence for some daily powers giving secondary powers, so maybe you could use something like that as a template.

ThePurple
2016-03-13, 08:28 PM
Alright, so switching over to the ritualist theme, making it a more ceremonial mage might look something like this.

Personally, I think that looks like a bit much for a theme. I don't think we need themes to add new mechanics to a class because the theme is supposed to represent a lesser aspect of your character, not a significant one, especially one that's going to take up a whole lot of room by including a bunch of different arcanim/etc. Themes should be, mechanically, pretty simple.

The final version of 4e themes were basically 3 traits (gained over the course of the heroic tier), one encounter power, and 3 utility powers that could be chosen in place of a normal utility power. I think that's a good amount of stuff to provide, as long as we give some good guidelines to those traits and encounter power (so you don't have stuff like Sohei Flurry in all of its charop glory). Elemental Initiate is one of my favorite themes and probably works well as a prototype of what our new themes should be.


Warding Bonds
The presence of your arcanim works to subtly ward off blows. While unarmored or in cloth armor, you gain a bonus to AC equal to the number of rested arcanim you hold, to a maximum of +2.

This is basically a permanent +2 bonus to AC, which is crazy powerful. We should definitely steer clear of bonuses like this for a theme because elements like this are much more appropriate for a class, especially if your intent was to have this *stack* with the class bonus.


more open ended ones like transmutation leave me wondering exactly how the power are manifesting, which isn't a great sign.

I'll agree that transmutation is a really vague category of powers, mainly because it's supposed to include any ability that transforms an object or person into another object. The manifestation that I chose to go with was something more along the lines of Tenser's Transformation (one of my all-time favorite spells) such that the caster is transforming herself and her equipment as opposed to transforming their opponents. The main reason for this is because transforming your allies or opponents into other forms is either worthless or incredibly powerful and very difficult to balance (just look at the human transmuter in the MV; there's only one element of that monster that's really transmutation and it's basically a stun).


On a side note, have you considered putting all information for each school in one place?

It's not particularly well formatted mainly because I don't really care much for formatting so, admittedly, it could probably be formatted in a much more elegant/effective way (this is what editors are for!). I like the mechanical design stuff, not the aesthetic/ergonomic/legibility stuff.

Also, I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but I'm actually missing daily powers for abjuration and enchantment because I couldn't really think up appropriate/balanced ones (I considered giving enchantment a dominating effect, but that seemed too strong given it's a leader/controller mix; abjuration, I'm just not sure about).

Shimeran
2016-03-13, 11:24 PM
On a quick side note, here a couple rough mechanics for an "implement expert" style mage should anyone have a preference for that. I don't know how appealing keeping the linkage between mages and spell books, so I wanted to float out that we could keep that thematic element and improve it if the interest is there.

Wand Slinger
You can use the encounter power of a wand at will and can select such a wand in place of an at will power. If you do so, that wand will always be replaced in short order if lost or destroyed. However, should you sell the wand you must spend a like amount to purchase it's replacement.

Script Caster
You can hold a single attack spell cast as a ritual indefinitely.
(This assumes destruction spells become a new category. If not, I could mock up something similar to the wand slinger feature above for tomes.)



Personally, I think that looks like a bit much for a theme.

The spellbinder is actually meant to be a class. In that case I simply meant theme in the general sense, as in thematic, not the mechanical construct. I'll make a point of being more careful with my language in the future. It admittedly makes it a little harder to talk about the descriptive, flavor, and narrative aspects or each class.


I don't think we need themes to add new mechanics to a class because the theme is supposed to represent a lesser aspect of your character, not a significant one, especially one that's going to take up a whole lot of room by including a bunch of different arcanim/etc.

Funnily enough, that's actually why I've resisted making some of these class ideas themes. I've got mechanical niches in mind that would tend to overload themes if fully fleshed out.


This is basically a permanent +2 bonus to AC, which is crazy powerful. We should definitely steer clear of bonuses like this for a theme because elements like this are much more appropriate for a class, especially if your intent was to have this *stack* with the class bonus.

That's another part of the class/theme confusion. It's meant to be a class bonus, though I should type it for incompatability with unarmored agility if we have that. It is indeed meant to stay at full strength most of the time, acting as a kind of additional hidden incentive to not burn out all arcanim in one fight.


I'll agree that transmutation is a really vague category of powers, mainly because it's supposed to include any ability that transforms an object or person into another object.

Oh I definitely see that. It's just leaving me wondering why try to keep the parity up with the old 8 schools, especially as some aren't represented. Granted, I might be biased on that front as I'd kind of like to see it extended to cover other school ideas.


It's not particularly well formatted mainly because I don't really care much for formatting so, admittedly, it could probably be formatted in a much more elegant/effective way (this is what editors are for!). I like the mechanical design stuff, not the aesthetic/ergonomic/legibility stuff.

Understandable. I try to keep an eye on readability, but I do run afoul of typos often enough.

Here's what I had in mind for a sample arcanim. Seeing as it uses multiple linked powers, maybe that can help with your stuff too. I'll stick close to the original 4e format for this example to minimize confusion.


Arcane Quiver Arcanim - Arcanim 1
While this arcanim is bound and rested, you gain the following powers:

Magic Missle - Spellbinder Attack 1
At Will - Arcane, Force, Implement
Standard Action - Range 10
Target: One Creature
Attack: Int vs Fort.
Hit: 1d4 + Int mod force damage.
Miss: Int mod force damage.

Magic Missle Torrent - Spellbinder Attack 1
Encounter - Arcane, Stance
Minor Action - Personal
Effect: You enter the Magic Missle Torrent stance. While in this stance, you gain the following benefits. When the stance ends, the arcanim that granted it is exhausted.

You gain the striker / artillery role.
Your magic missle attacks gain a range of 20 and can be used as basic attacks.
You can fire 2 magic missles as a standard action instead of one. If both are fired at the same target, simply roll once and double the int modifier damage.
At the start of your turn, this stance gains a charge, to a maximum of 4 charges. When you make a magic missle attack, you can spend 2 charges to add extra missle to the attack, though damage stacking is restricted as noted above. If 3 or more missles hit a single target, the target is pushed 1 square for every missle after the first.


(Note: I gave it an attack roll to make it a little more interactive. It still has the guaranteed feel of the original due to the miss effect. I'm open for suggestion on the triple hit hit effect as that's currently the encounter power stand in.)



Also, I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but I'm actually missing daily powers for abjuration and enchantment because I couldn't really think up appropriate/balanced ones (I considered giving enchantment a dominating effect, but that seemed too strong given it's a leader/controller mix; abjuration, I'm just not sure about).

To me that seems like more of a reason to separate them, as it forces them to have more of a unique identity.

For enchantment, you can mimic dominate by some combination of dazed and forcing them to make a basic attack against a target of you choice. Possibly either pick on or the other or make the user spend an action to force the attack.

For abjuration, the first thing that springs to mind is to let them dabble in defender, but I don't know as that fits the feel you were going for. Maybe create a repelling zone, as per the old circle of protections spells? I can take a look later and see if anything else springs to mind.

ThePurple
2016-03-14, 12:34 AM
On a quick side note, here a couple rough mechanics for an "implement expert" style mage should anyone have a preference for that. I don't know how appealing keeping the linkage between mages and spell books, so I wanted to float out that we could keep that thematic element and improve it if the interest is there.

The only link I think we should keep between mages and spellbooks is keeping tomes as implements (and making them a baseline implement rather than a secondary one that doesn't really get much love)


Wand Slinger
You can use the encounter power of a wand at will and can select such a wand in place of an at will power. If you do so, that wand will always be replaced in short order if lost or destroyed. However, should you sell the wand you must spend a like amount to purchase it's replacement.

I see what you're trying to do here (basically allowing someone to use the at-will power stored in their wand as an actual at-will power; I don't really agree with this from a mechanical perspective mainly because it can allow for a lot of really weird shenanigans with classes using powers they weren't intended to use), but I really disagree with the text saying that you basically always have the wand until you sell/disenchant it. The first problem I have is that it just doesn't make much narrative sense to just arbitrarily find a new version of the wand you were just using any time you no longer have access to that wand (even characters that follow an archetype like this generally have to find and get used to an entirely different kind of wand), outside of your own control, and the second is that it basically forces what amounts to "the GM should not be a ****" in an explicit mechanical sense. It's just really out of place.


The spellbinder is actually meant to be a class.

I still really don't agree with it because you're talking about a *very* specific type of character and constructing a set of mechanics to justify that character rather than creating a set of mechanics that can apply to a large number of different characters through numerous interpretations, which is what a class *should* be else we'll fall into the terrible design morass of having a massive list of hyperspecific classes that are all competing with each other.

Just because you can come up with a unique set of mechanics for a concept does not mean that the concept you're thinking of should actually be a class simply because you came up with mechanics for it. Your spellbinder concept could just as easily use the mechanics of the wizard that I just posted, just refluffing the schools of arcane magic into different arcanim that a character has access to.

Classes are not supposed to represent the specific; they're supposed to represent the general (in the sense that they provide a specific set of mechanics that can be applied to a large number of concepts). Highly specific concepts are what themes, paragon paths, and epic destinies are for.

Two-weapon rangers and two-weapon fighters do not need separate classes. They can both be folded into a single class that allows for effective two-weapon fighting, as long as that class is designed properly (namely, allowing for both heavy armor and light armor variants) because they both use the same fundamental mechanic (hitting stuff with two-weapons).

Sorcerers and wizards, even though they're both slinging magic, would need different classes because wizards do so in an ordered, analytical manner (as represented by their mechanics) while sorcerers would necessitate something more freeform.

Once again, I'll bring up the Principle of Least Change: what is the least amount of change we can apply to the system in order to achieve the desired result? Do we really need to create a separate class for a very specific concept or can the same results be realistically achieved by just refluffing an existing class or adding a theme?

Creating an entirely new class for a concept should be something of a last resort, not a first one.


Funnily enough, that's actually why I've resisted making some of these class ideas themes. I've got mechanical niches in mind that would tend to overload themes if fully fleshed out.

It's not a question of whether you can come up with mechanics for a given concept. It's whether there are existing mechanics that work well enough for that concept already. And, admittedly, we're in what amounts to the early stage of development wherein there really *aren't* any specific classes out yet, we have to ask the question of whether we are going to develop a concept that will do so in a more general manner (e.g. we're gonna design a wizard and it'll almost assuredly be close enough to your Spellbearer that it can be used for the concept).


Oh I definitely see that. It's just leaving me wondering why try to keep the parity up with the old 8 schools, especially as some aren't represented. Granted, I might be biased on that front as I'd kind of like to see it extended to cover other school ideas.

I tried to adhere to the old 8 schools (dropping divination because it was too vague for combat magic, though I could see it as a defender; dropped conjuration and necromancy because those require a completely separate class because they represent and entirely different mechanical set up for a wizard) mainly out of nostalgia. It's something that's been in D&D for quite a while now, and it's not like I'm keeping it arbitrarily out of developmental intertia: it actually works quite well as both a unifying theme and a mechanic for the class.

I've got no problem adding other schools (or separating the schools into other categories or what have you), though I would caution against adding/dividing into too many new schools because it creates option bloat. Not every single spell/ability/etc needs to have a separate entry. Names are just fluff that can be ignored or repurposed with ease and damage types can be played around with without significantly affecting balance (unless we make the egregious error of purposefully design the system so that certain damage types are explicitly better; ex: frostcheese lunacy). It's why, for evocation, I created a single power for the numerous different element-ball spells that previous iterations of wizards have used. It's also why I limited each school to only having 2 at-will powers and 2 encounter powers (I could see having a large selection of daily powers though, simply because a lot of those are powerful enough that they should be very specific; hell, I made transmutation's daily power one of the most abstract and contradictory spells ever put on the wizard spell list rather than the more obvious polymorph).


For enchantment, you can mimic dominate by some combination of dazed and forcing them to make a basic attack against a target of you choice. Possibly either pick on or the other or make the user spend an action to force the attack.

The important part, in my mind, is trying to keep the domination effect balanced. The guideline I used for designing these powers is that a daily power should basically be twice as powerful as an at-will. Domination on its own basically breaks that because it's basically a stun combined with the ability to deal appreciable damage. Also, I like the idea of using an enchantment on your friend in order to make them fight better for you (kind of like how a warlord can inspire his foes with her words and presence, an enchanter could apply the same magics that allow her to turn enemies into allies in order to make her allies so devoted to her that they exert themselves even more; if charm person can make someone your friend, why shouldn't it make your friends even more friendly/willing/devoted?).

Something I've been mulling over is having the enchanter daily be a minor action that provides something like a +CHA power bonus to the damage rolls of any attack granted by the enchanter's powers that can be ended as a minor action in order to force a target to make an attack against a target of your choice.


For abjuration, the first thing that springs to mind is to let them dabble in defender, but I don't know as that fits the feel you were going for. Maybe create a repelling zone, as per the old circle of protections spells? I can take a look later and see if anything else springs to mind.

Abjuration should really be leader and not defender because abjuration is about preventing damage whereas defenders are about the threat of retributive damage. The most defender-y thing I could imagine for abjuration would be a reflective shield that damages attackers (there's precedent with that via Fire Shield, but that's an evocation rather than an abjuration).

CoPs would work, but, as a straight up defensive buff, they fit the bill of a utility power more readily than a daily attack power. If it were designed as a straight up area denial spell, that's got a lot more control than a leader should have access to (and, honestly, is kind of what the illusion daily already is).

Something that has just occurred to me would be some kind of shield that absorbs incoming damage and can release it all at once. Mechanically, I would probably make it grant a large, lump sum of temp hp which, once depleted, explode in a burst centered on the initial target (I would probably also allow the wizard to end the effect prematurely in order to get the same attack in if desired). It hits that nice sweet spot between protective (which it needs to be in order to be abjuration) and aggressive (which it needs to be in order to be a daily attack power).

Shimeran
2016-03-14, 06:46 AM
The only link I think we should keep between mages and spellbooks is keeping tomes as implements (and making them a baseline implement rather than a secondary one that doesn't really get much love)

Fair enough. They can already serve as ritual books and keeping the magic tomes ability to act as a power swap source may help them keep some of that old feel.


I don't really agree with this from a mechanical perspective mainly because it can allow for a lot of really weird shenanigans with classes using powers they weren't intended to use)

Easily fixed by adding a class restriction on what powers can be made at will.


but I really disagree with the text saying that you basically always have the wand until you sell/disenchant it. The first problem I have is that it just doesn't make much narrative sense to just arbitrarily find a new version of the wand you were just using any time you no longer have access to that wand (even characters that follow an archetype like this generally have to find and get used to an entirely different kind of wand), outside of your own control, and the second is that it basically forces what amounts to "the GM should not be a ****" in an explicit mechanical sense. It's just really out of place.

I can see the text not being necessarily as everything already seem to have plot protection. After all, there's no sunder rules and the few things that can destroy gear give you back residuum to spend on a replacement. I'm basically shooting for the same level of permanence as a wizard's spellbook, so maybe I'll double check if that has any protective text.


I still really don't agree with it because you're talking about a *very* specific type of character and constructing a set of mechanics to justify that character rather than creating a set of mechanics that can apply to a large number of different characters through numerous interpretations, which is what a class *should* be else we'll fall into the terrible design morass of having a massive list of hyperspecific classes that are all competing with each other.

How is this any more specific than "I align myself to a handful of specific schools"? It's a binder of spirits. Calling on spirits and expecting results because you know the rules are among the oldest magical principles in human history. Suleiman springs to mind as a an example. It's at least as general as the "making a contract with spirits" archetype which forms the basis for the warlock.


Your spellbinder concept could just as easily use the mechanics of the wizard that I just posted, just refluffing the schools of arcane magic into different arcanim that a character has access to.

And the warlock fluff could have just as easily used the sorcerer mechanics, the invoker fluff could have used the cleric mechanics, and so on.

To be frank, I didn't start with fluff and build mechanics to justify it. I started with mechanics to support and intended playstyle and picked the fluff that best suited those mechanics. Flavoring it as spirit binding was simply chosen as the most appropriate match. Other fluff ideas includes a crafter of charms.

I agree there's some similarity and maybe it's worth seeing if they can be brought together. This classes mechanical shtick is having a different spell define how it plays in each encounter.


Sorcerers and wizards, even though they're both slinging magic, would need different classes because wizards do so in an ordered, analytical manner (as represented by their mechanics) while sorcerers would necessitate something more freeform.

Honestly, I think right now we're at a similar point, at least mechanically. Your aspect based mage with more flexible effects sounds pretty close to a sorcerer. My approach that focuses more on picking the right spell for each occasion is closer to the wizard of previous editions. Fluff wise, we could differentiate them a bit more, but I have yet to see your fluff to compare.


It's not a question of whether you can come up with mechanics for a given concept. It's whether there are existing mechanics that work well enough for that concept already. And, admittedly, we're in what amounts to the early stage of development wherein there really *aren't* any specific classes out yet, we have to ask the question of whether we are going to develop a concept that will do so in a more general manner (e.g. we're gonna design a wizard and it'll almost assuredly be close enough to your Spellbearer that it can be used for the concept).

To be frank, the playstyle that inspired the class is based on the wizard. I simply prefer more specific names, especially when there's more than 1 take inspired by the same concept. Besides, that way if the takes end up different enough we can regroup them as needed.


I tried to adhere to the old 8 schools (dropping divination because it was too vague for combat magic, though I could see it as a defender;

I believe the prescient bard does a decent job with divinations.


dropped conjuration and necromancy because those require a completely separate class because they represent and entirely different mechanical set up for a wizard) mainly out of nostalgia.

There are already conjuration and summoning mechanics to support those schools. I do think it's funny that spell that make a temporary ally apparently need a new class. So if I turn the arcanim into conjurations they can get their own class without complaint? As is, they're already thematically like familiars. All I'd need to do is give them a tangible presence.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-17, 10:30 PM
Sorry for the radio silence the last few days, work's picking up again, but I have done some retooling on my Warlock idea, and added an alternate class for it: the Mystic. Here are both of them: comments, critiques, questions and suggestions welcome, as always.

Warlock (Thaumaturge)


Warlocks, as their name's origin implies, derive their powers from a covenant with an otherworldly being. It is commonly believed that most Warlocks make deals with devils, who are constantly looking for fools to ensnare for their own nefarious purposes, but in fact there are myriad supernatural forces at work in the world who are able and willing to make such bargains with mortals, some of them relatively benign and others who would make even devils cringe. In some cases, the covenant was originally of the Warlock's own making, but often it was made by someone of their bloodline and has persisted through the generations, willingly or otherwise.

Regardless of its origins, it is the essence of the covenant itself that empowers Warlocks to work their magics, and those who meet with the most success at this are almost invariably the ones who succeed at bending their covenants to their will. Those who allow their will to bend to their covenants typically end up broken.



Power source: Arcane
Roles: Controller|Striker
Key Abilities: CHA, INT
Armor: Cloth, Leather
Weapons: Simple weapons
Implements: Rods, wands, light blades
Best Defense: Will
Class Features: Covenant, Offering, Thaumaturgy, Deceit, Force of Will
Trained Skills: Bluff, plus choice of one physical, one mental, one social and one at-large
Health and Vitality: Low
Stamina: Low (but see Force of Will)

Covenant:

All Warlocks begin play with at least one covenant and may obtain more as they advance, though they may only have one covenant active at any given time; any others they have remain passive. A Warlock's active covenant determines secondary effects on encounter/daily powers, while any covenants they have may allow Warlocks to qualify for specific feats, themes, paths and destinies.

Warlocks may choose to suppress their active covenants. While this prevents them from receiving the secondary benefits on powers they would receive from their active covenant, by doing so they accumulate great reserves of arcane power within themselves that they may in turn unleash upon their enemies in the forms most suitable to their active, suppressed covenant.

Warlocks choose whether their covenant is suppressed upon rolling Initiative, but must keep that decision in place either until they receive an offering – at which point they may choose to either gain the benefit of their active covenant’s offering, or forgo it and reverse their current suppression status – or unless another affect specifies otherwise.

Offering:

Warlocks aren’t the only ones who benefit from their covenants. The powers they make them with must benefit as well, each in their own unfathomable way, although the means by which they attain their side of the bargain is universal: death, either the death of the Warlock in their service, or the deaths their Warlocks are instrumental in causing. These are the offerings they swear to make, and in doing so receive a small measure of the benefit derived from those deaths, depending upon their active covenant and their tier level.

To make a successful offering, and thus receive the benefit of it, Warlocks must either reduce an enemy target to 0 Health or be adjacent to an enemy target when an ally of the Warlock’s reduces it to 0 Health.

Enemies reduced to 0 Health as a result of a condition imposed by either the Warlock or one of the Warlock’s allies are considered valid offerings, as are those who are reduced to 0 Health as a result of sustaining damage through either forced movement into a damaging area of effect or lethal hazard if that forced movement and/or damaging area was caused by either the Warlock or one of the Warlock’s allies. Enemies reduced to 0 Health through friendly fire are not considered valid offerings unless the Warlock or one of the Warlock’s allies caused the occurrence of friendly fire such as through a charm, confuse or dominate effect.



Astral Covenant:

Made through contact with entities beyond the stars, Astral Covenants grant Warlocks an aura of otherworldliness that often inspires both fear and awe. Warlocks with an active Astral Covenant radiate bright, baleful light and a few have been known to take on forms too wonderful and terrible to contemplate.

Favored damage types: Fire, Radiant, Psychic
Covenant offerings: Concealment; damaging aura; astral transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Blinded, dazed, confused, stunned, immobilized, ongoing damage, forced movement

Elemental Covenant:

Through pacts forged with beings tied to a fundamental building block of the world, Warlocks who have made Elemental Covenants possess strong affinities for the elements. Warlocks with an active Elemental Covenant may appear to radiate heat, cold or static electricity, and a few have been known to fully become one element or another.

Favored damage types: Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder
Covenant offerings: Damage resistance; damaging aura; elemental transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Ongoing damage, forced movement, prone, deafened, immobilized, grabbed, restrained

Infernal Covenant:

Deals made with devils are the province of Infernal Covenants, and those Warlocks who have made them have a reputation for being fierce, hardy and dangerously cunning. Warlocks with an active Infernal Covenant have a supernatural toughness about them, and a few have even taken on the dreadful aspects of their fiendish patrons.

Favored damage types: Acid, Fire, Poison, Psychic
Covenant offerings: Damage resistance; temporary hit points; infernal transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Charmed, forced movement, ongoing damage, slowed, prone, grabbed, dominated

Umbral Covenant:

Made with dark powers from beyond the grave, Umbral Covenants grant unnatural vitality to their recipients by sapping the strength of their enemies. Warlocks with an active Umbral Covenant may appear to be under a cloud of perpetual shade, and a few have been known to become as ghosts and walk through solid objects.

Favored damage types: Cold, Necrotic, Psychic
Covenant offerings: Concealment; temporary hit points; umbral transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Dazed, forced movement, ongoing damage, slowed, immobilized, weakened, stunned


Thaumaturgy:

The form of magic Warlocks of all covenants practice, thaumaturgy is in essence the working of one's will upon the world. Rather than engaging in deep study and contemplation as their means of obtaining and exerting magical forces, Warlocks achieve their results through sheer force of will. As such, no two Warlocks work magic in exactly the same way, even those who have the same active covenant--some shout words of command, others make strange gestures, and some merely have to look at their target to cause it to burst into flame--though for practical purposes, a flame by any other name is still the same. Likewise, many Warlocks prefer to stay out of the fray and rain destruction from afar, while some like to wade right in to battle and use their powers up close and personal.

As thaumaturgists, Warlocks have the ability to choose the damage type of any power they use, as determined by their choice of active covenant. Likewise, they have a limited degree of control over how they deliver their powers' effects. Warlocks may use single-target powers as having a range of either 10 or Melee. They may also use burst powers as either close bursts or range 10 area bursts of the same radius.

Deceit:

As their powers are "misunderstood" more than any other arcane members of society, Warlocks who wish to remain in society must become skilled at deceiving anyone who might subject them to persecution. All Warlocks begin play with Bluff trained. Also, once per session a Warlock may substitute a Bluff check for any single social skill check.

Force of Will:

Due to their almost-total reliance upon their strength of will, Warlocks have learned to exceed their bodies' natural capacities to some extent. Warlocks apply their Charisma toward determining their starting Stamina.


Warlock (Mystic)


Warlocks, as their name's origin implies, derive their powers from a covenant with an otherworldly being. It is commonly believed that most Warlocks make deals with devils, who are constantly looking for fools to ensnare for their own nefarious purposes, but in fact there are myriad supernatural forces at work in the world who are able and willing to make such bargains with mortals, some of them relatively benign and others who would make even devils cringe. In some cases, the covenant was originally of the Warlock's own making, but often it was made by someone of their bloodline and has persisted through the generations, willingly or otherwise.

However, unlike thaumaturgists – those Warlocks who are empowered to work magic through the essence of their covenant – Mystics rely upon the occult knowledge they obtain through their covenants in the form of grimoires: tomes of magical lore that are fully comprehensible only to fellow initiates into the mysteries of their respective covenant. Those Mystics who are served by their knowledge of these mysteries tend to meet with the most success; those who fully submit to their mysteries--or rather to the forces who initiated them into these mysteries--are likely to falter.



Power source: Arcane
Roles: Controller|Artillery
Key Abilities: CHA, INT
Armor: Cloth, Leather
Weapons: Simple weapons
Implements: Tomes and choice of one other
Best Defense: Will
Class Features: Grimoire, Offering, Mysticism, Polymath, Ritual Caster
Trained Skills: Arcana, plus choice of two mental, one social and one at-large
Health and Vitality: Low
Stamina: Low

Grimoire:

All Mystics begin play with at least one grimoire and may obtain more as they advance, though they may only use one grimoire at any given time; any others they have must remain stored. A Mystic's grimoire determines secondary effects on encounter/daily powers, while any grimoires they have may allow Mystics to qualify for specific feats, themes, paths and destinies.

Mystics do not need to have their grimoires on their persons in order to use their powers or gain the benefits of their class features that are tied to their grimoires. However, if their grimoires confer any specific benefit to them in their use as tome implements, they would need to have their grimoires equipped in order to gain those benefits. Also, some GMs may rule that Mystics must have their grimoires on their person when acquiring new powers from their class upon leveling up.

Offering:

Like Thaumaturgists, Mystics swear a covenant with an otherworldly being to obtain power, and like them they aren’t the only ones who benefit from their covenants. The powers they deal with must benefit as well, each in their own unfathomable way, although the means by which they attain their side of the bargain is universal: death, either the death of the Mystic in their service, or the deaths their Mystics are instrumental in causing. These are the offerings they swear to make, and in doing so receive a small measure of the benefit derived from those deaths, depending upon their active covenant and their tier level.

To make a successful offering, and thus receive the benefit of it, Mystics must either reduce an enemy target to 0 Health or be adjacent to an enemy target when an ally of the Mystic’s reduces it to 0 Health.

Enemies reduced to 0 Health as a result of a condition imposed by either the Mystic or one of the Mystic’s allies are considered valid offerings, as are those who are reduced to 0 Health as a result of sustaining damage through either forced movement into a damaging area of effect or lethal hazard if that forced movement and/or damaging area was caused by either the Warlock or one of the Mystic’s allies. Enemies reduced to 0 Health through friendly fire are not considered valid offerings unless the Mystic or one of the Mystic’s allies caused the occurrence of friendly fire such as through a charm, confuse or dominate effect.



The Book of the Dead:

To the uninitiated, this appears to be a book of names of the dead from some ancient civilization, complete with an array of funerary rites and practices for handling and honoring (or dishonoring, as the case may be) the deceased. Underlying all that, though, is a system of ritualized necromancy known only to those Mystics who've dared to immerse themselves into it.

Keywords: Cold, Necrotic, Psychic
Covenant offerings: Concealment; temporary hit points; umbral transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Dazed, forced movement, ongoing damage, slowed, immobilized, weakened, stunned

Malleus Maleficarum:

On its face, the Malleus Maleficarum is a tome reviewing in great detail the persecution of witches and witchcraft. This, to the initiated, is a clever fiction intended to conceal its true purpose: to proliferate the very same powers it purports to oppose, by teaching its Mystics to manipulate the weak-willed and destroy the weak-bodied.

Keywords: Acid, Fire, Poison, Psychic
Covenant offerings: Damage resistance; temporary hit points; infernal transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Charmed, forced movement, ongoing damage, slowed, prone, grabbed, dominated

Pentagrammaton:

Superficially, this is a dry, lengthy theosophic treatise on the Five Elements that theoretically underly and compose the entire material world. Buried beneath all that dicta, however, is a methodology for manipulating and controlling those elements through magical means.

Keywords: Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder
Covenant offerings: Damage resistance; damaging aura; elemental transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Ongoing damage, forced movement, prone, deafened, immobilized, grabbed, restrained

Xaos Fragments:

This seems to be little more than the collected ramblings of one or more lunatic minds. Reading beyond the cryptic, at times nonsensical ravings, Mystics initiated into the mysteries of this grimoire--and whose minds aren't totally shattered in the process--learn to harness the powers wielded by beings from beyond the stars.

Keywords: Fire, Radiant, Psychic
Covenant offerings: Concealment; damaging aura; astral transformation
Common conditions/riders on powers: Blinded, dazed, confused, stunned, immobilized, ongoing damage, forced movement



Mysticism:

The form of spellcasting Mystics utilize, mysticism is magic derived from their knowledge of the occult--knowledge they acquired through a covenant with an otherworldly power or force--in the form of their grimoires. While differences may exist between any two copies or translations of the same particular grimoire--or between any two groups of initiates of the same mystery--any differences may seem trivial to the uninitiated.

Unlike thaumaturgy, mysticism hews closely toward the particular types of magic taught within the grimoires, resulting in a heightened specialization at the cost of some improvisation. When using powers that innately have at least one keyword associated with their grimoires, Mystics may turn any close burst or blast into a range 10 area blast covering the same area: thus a close burst 1 may become an area burst 1, or a close blast 5 could become an area burst 2.

Also, when using powers with any riders or conditions associated with their grimoires, Mystics may choose to forgo those benefits to gain either a tiered bonus to damage or a damage bonus based on the number of affected targets, whichever is greater. If they do so, unless otherwise specified they must continue to forgo it until they receive an offering, at which point they may again use the benefits on powers associated with their grimoires.

Polymath:

Mystics of all stripes, no matter what mysteries they swear to, do so for the same basic purpose: to obtain knowledge they might not have been able to acquire otherwise. As such, all Mystics begin play with Arcana trained. Also, once per session Mystics may substitute Arcana for a single mental skill check.

Ritual Caster:

As part of unlocking the mysteries of their grimoires, Mystics have Ritual Caster as a bonus feat, and receive one free ritual of their level or lower at the start of play. They must still pay the costs, if any, associated with this ritual in order to use it, as normal.

Shimeran
2016-03-18, 12:09 AM
Sorry for the radio silence the last few days, work's picking up again, but I have done some retooling on my Warlock idea, and added an alternate class for it: the Mystic.

Good to hear you're still with us. I've been doing some behind the scenes tinkering, but if you're still in action I'll go ahead and float that out on the main thread.

I will say I like the mystic. The name might need some work. Since mysticism has historically been meditative communion with the divine, I thought it might be a divine variant.

Speaking of which, maybe we should steal a page from pathfinder archetypes and have a name for a package of alternate class features. I would save a fair amount of copying an pasting to be able to say "as the base class unless noted otherwise". Maybe just call them class variants or sub-classes. Come to think of it, naming each with a descriptor might work well. For example, the mystic could be the "scholarly" variant of the warlock, making a warlock that uses that variant a "scholarly warlock" or "warlock(scholarly)", if you prefer that short hand. To extend the example, if we later added say a "devout" variant with divine ties and both variants were compatible, you could have a "devout scholarly warlock".

By the by, most of these first pass comments are on the base class features, though I'm liking the feel of the variant.


All Warlocks begin play with at least one covenant and may obtain more as they advance, though they may only have one covenant active at any given time; any others they have remain passive.

My overall impression of the active/passive mechanic is it functions much like a stance. (Remains active for an extended period once active. Ends the previous one when a new one becomes active.) It might be work using generalized mechanics for this type of exclusive power.


Enemies reduced to 0 Health as a result of a condition imposed by either the Warlock or one of the Warlock’s allies are considered valid offerings, as are those who are reduced to 0 Health as a result of sustaining damage through either forced movement into a damaging area of effect or lethal hazard if that forced movement and/or damaging area was caused by either the Warlock or one of the Warlock’s allies. Enemies reduced to 0 Health through friendly fire are not considered valid offerings unless the Warlock or one of the Warlock’s allies caused the occurrence of friendly fire such as through a charm, confuse or dominate effect.

Can this be shortened to "Enemies defeated as an direct result of effects inflicted by you or your allies.."? "Defeated" acts as a short hand for "reduced to 0 Health", while the direct result bit should cover damage, forced movement, and inflicted conditions.


As their powers are "misunderstood" more than any other arcane members of society, Warlocks who wish to remain in society must become skilled at deceiving anyone who might subject them to persecution. All Warlocks begin play with Bluff trained. Also, once per session a Warlock may substitute a Bluff check for any single social skill check.

I like this. It's a nice nod to out of combat ability while also helping alleviate skill specialist issues.


Due to their almost-total reliance upon their strength of will, Warlocks have learned to exceed their bodies' natural capacities to some extent. Warlocks apply their Charisma toward determining their starting Stamina.

Solid and nicely in line with some of the other suggestions I've seen.

ThePurple
2016-03-18, 04:20 PM
There are already conjuration and summoning mechanics to support those schools. I do think it's funny that spell that make a temporary ally apparently need a new class.

Conjuration and summoning have, in my mind, never been, from a combat perspective, "temporary". Temporary suggests that it's only there some of the time and/or present for a short period of time. A class built around summoning things should, by necessity, have their creations remain for an extended period of time (or, at the very least, have one of them remain for an extended period of time).

The summoner (which includes both conjurers and necromancers) that I designed was built around summoning a single creature of their choice as a standard action (that includes the first attack by the summoned creature; the summoning power consumed a healing surge on use in order to give it the needed cost from having a creature that soaks hits without having HSs of its own and the summoning of multiple creatures was balanced out by the HS cost as well as the limitations of the action economy, since only one summoned creature could be commanded to attack with a standard action), with all of their other conjurations either existing as save ends effects or only lasting a single turn.

Your idea would basically involve creating a separate list of at-wills for each different type of creature summoned, which is honestly a pretty interesting idea, from a design perspective, especially if we design the different summons to fulfill different roles (I especially like the idea of a defender conjurer that uses his summoned pet to tank).


So if I turn the arcanim into conjurations they can get their own class without complaint? As is, they're already thematically like familiars. All I'd need to do is give them a tangible presence.

If you design it as a generic conjurer rather than as the specific type of conjurer that you've been presenting, yes.


Sorry for the radio silence the last few days, work's picking up again

I've been staying out of things for a few days because I felt as if I was dominating the conversation and should back out for a bit in order to allow other voices to be heard.


I have done some retooling on my Warlock idea, and added an alternate class for it: the Mystic. Here are both of them: comments, critiques, questions and suggestions welcome, as always.

I still think that the ideas for the classes you guys are posting are too thematically specialized in order to qualify as classes. They work exceptionally well as themes that provide a one or two defining abilities/features (like pact benefits for warlocks) and the accompanying refluff of abilities, but, (and I feel like I'm coming across as a broken record here) what you're attempting to accomplish with your classes can be accomplished more simply by implementing them as themes. Yes, I realize that themes aren't really as prestigious as classes are, but the degree of specificity of concept that you're aiming for with these classes is much more applicable to themes than classes.


Due to their almost-total reliance upon their strength of will, Warlocks have learned to exceed their bodies' natural capacities to some extent. Warlocks apply their Charisma toward determining their starting Stamina.

I strongly agree with this, mainly because, without it, you get massive disparities between the number of HSs that different classes get. I don't agree with this exact implementation, however, because it devalues CON a bit *too* much and provides too much benefit for aggressively stacking your primary attribute to the exclusion of others.

The houserule that I use and has been working out exceptionally well is to allow players to use their highest ability mod instead of CON but gain 1 fewer healing surge than normal. CON becomes less important than it is in 4e RAW (CON is basically the most important stat after your primary ability, which is why *no one* ever dumps it) while still providing a tangible benefit to someone who stacks it aggressively enough to compete with their primary ability mod.

I would suggest we do one of these:

Write the rules for determining HSs (or whatever we're naming them) such that the number you get is determined by highest ability modifier (which is pretty much always going to be primary ability modifier) without mentioning CON at all so that we don't have to include a slew of class features for this single purpose (this has problems as previously mentioned)
Provide a feat that allows you to use your highest ability mod instead of CON, so that there is still an impetus to stack CON in order to avoid the feat cost (though this borders on feat tax, which I disagree with on principle). Themes could also be created that, as one of their features, allow the use of a specific ability mod instead of CON in determining HSs, which is a good way of creating theme/class synergy.
Use my house rule (though it could just as easily be written as the first item on this list, with the exception that, if CON is your highest ability mod, you get 1 additional HS since it amounts to the same thing while acting more as a bonus than a penalty)

I'm pretty sure you guys can guess which option I would prefer we take, but I'd like to hear what other people have to say about it.

Bruno Carvalho
2016-03-18, 04:31 PM
We could also use the LegendRPG (http://www.ruleofcool.com/) rule to addres this CON problem.

Each class got a Key Offensive Stat (KOS) and a Key Defensive Stat (KDS). The KOS modifies the class' basic attack (ranged or melee, based on what the class does primarly) and its powers. The KDS modifies AC (instead of dex/int) and Hitpoints/Surges (instead of Con).

ThePurple
2016-03-18, 04:52 PM
Each class got a Key Offensive Stat (KOS) and a Key Defensive Stat (KDS). The KOS modifies the class' basic attack (ranged or melee, based on what the class does primarly) and its powers. The KDS modifies AC (instead of dex/int) and Hitpoints/Surges (instead of Con).

I like that a lot, though I don't think that all classes should have a KDS, since heavy armor really shouldn't benefit from a high DEX/INT (the solutions that have heavy armor do stuff like damage resistance or ablative effects don't really balance effectively).

Bruno Carvalho
2016-03-18, 04:55 PM
I like that a lot, though I don't think that all classes should have a KDS, since heavy armor really shouldn't benefit from a high DEX/INT (the solutions that have heavy armor do stuff like damage resistance or ablative effects don't really balance effectively).

Even if the class uses Heavy Armor, his KDS would still affect hit points and healing surge amount (much like Constitution does in 4e)

ThePurple
2016-03-18, 04:57 PM
Even if the class uses Heavy Armor, his KDS would still affect hit points and healing surge amount (much like Constitution does in 4e)

So basically there would be an explicit rule that, when in heavy armor, you do not apply your KDS to AC. Yeah, that works.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-18, 06:54 PM
Good to hear you're still with us. I've been doing some behind the scenes tinkering, but if you're still in action I'll go ahead and float that out on the main thread.

I will say I like the mystic. The name might need some work. Since mysticism has historically been meditative communion with the divine, I thought it might be a divine variant.

I hear you, I initially thought that myself, but after putting a lot of thought into the name for magic that represents secret/hidden knowledge obtained through rites of initiation (which is what I was aiming for here) I really felt that mysticism covers it the best. Etymologically it's spot on, connoting secret, concealed and initiated, and there's this conceptual definition I found for it:



[In] general, ‘mysticism’ would best be thought of as a constellation of distinctive practices, discourses, texts, institutions, traditions, and experiences aimed at human transformation, variously defined in different traditions.

The same souce states that those traditions need not be theistic.



Speaking of which, maybe we should steal a page from pathfinder archetypes and have a name for a package of alternate class features. I would save a fair amount of copying an pasting to be able to say "as the base class unless noted otherwise". Maybe just call them class variants or sub-classes. Come to think of it, naming each with a descriptor might work well. For example, the mystic could be the "scholarly" variant of the warlock, making a warlock that uses that variant a "scholarly warlock" or "warlock(scholarly)", if you prefer that short hand. To extend the example, if we later added say a "devout" variant with divine ties and both variants were compatible, you could have a "devout scholarly warlock".


That's reasonable, assuming we end up going that route and having ACFs/class archetypes, which I like but I'm not sure if everyone's on board with that. I was thinking about putting together a divine variant and calling it a Theurge, but I was going to hold off on that until seeing what the divine base classes look like.



By the by, most of these first pass comments are on the base class features, though I'm liking the feel of the variant.


Sure, I understand, and thanks.



My overall impression of the active/passive mechanic is it functions much like a stance. (Remains active for an extended period once active. Ends the previous one when a new one becomes active.) It might be work using generalized mechanics for this type of exclusive power.


Yes, that's what I was aiming for, something similar to a stance, but perhaps the way I've written it is sort of backing into it by way of making it a class feature when I could write them as at-will powers with a Trigger clause hard-written in so they can't switch whenever they want.



Can this be shortened to "Enemies defeated as an direct result of effects inflicted by you or your allies.."? "Defeated" acts as a short hand for "reduced to 0 Health", while the direct result bit should cover damage, forced movement, and inflicted conditions.


Sure, that works. I have a tendency toward overspecification that I need to rein in sometimes, which is a good place to transition to this...




I still think that the ideas for the classes you guys are posting are too thematically specialized in order to qualify as classes. They work exceptionally well as themes that provide a one or two defining abilities/features (like pact benefits for warlocks) and the accompanying refluff of abilities, but, (and I feel like I'm coming across as a broken record here) what you're attempting to accomplish with your classes can be accomplished more simply by implementing them as themes. Yes, I realize that themes aren't really as prestigious as classes are, but the degree of specificity of concept that you're aiming for with these classes is much more applicable to themes than classes.


I agree with you that themes work very well at representing a high level of specificity, and I agree that the two versions of Warlock I've posted are specific; I disagree that they're too specific to work as classes. As alternate classes/class archetypes underneath a single base class, sure, that's basically what I had in mind, but themes to me work best as campaign-specific professions, occupations, societal roles or what have you.

Let me use Samurai as an example. Samurai are a caste based on birth and one's continued social standing, one that happens to train in military arts. That makes sense as a theme, one that could be applied to a character of any class (though would likely fare best as one that uses weapons), but not a class.

I'd say there was a reason why WotC released themes mostly in setting books/articles, and that's because the roles they fill are much more linked to society, and while there's some overlap (Mercenary, Gladiator, Wizard's Apprentice) it's not universal. A Templar in Dark Sun means something very different from a Templar in Middle Ages Europe.

There's an argument to be made that a pact mage is similar enough to a wizard to warrant having them both be subclasses of a general Arcanist base class, but that would depend on how generalized we want classes to be.

ETA: Thinking about it some more, I can see how these two versions of Warlock could be turned into themes, as could pact magic generally speaking, if that's what we wanted. I would disagree, as I see it as a staple of the genre--not quite as much as Wizard, but enough to have warranted inclusion in PHB1 over Sorcerer--but YMMV.

For this...



I strongly agree with this, mainly because, without it, you get massive disparities between the number of HSs that different classes get. I don't agree with this exact implementation, however, because it devalues CON a bit *too* much and provides too much benefit for aggressively stacking your primary attribute to the exclusion of others.

The houserule that I use and has been working out exceptionally well is to allow players to use their highest ability mod instead of CON but gain 1 fewer healing surge than normal. CON becomes less important than it is in 4e RAW (CON is basically the most important stat after your primary ability, which is why *no one* ever dumps it) while still providing a tangible benefit to someone who stacks it aggressively enough to compete with their primary ability mod.

I would suggest we do one of these:

Write the rules for determining HSs (or whatever we're naming them) such that the number you get is determined by highest ability modifier (which is pretty much always going to be primary ability modifier) without mentioning CON at all so that we don't have to include a slew of class features for this single purpose (this has problems as previously mentioned)
Provide a feat that allows you to use your highest ability mod instead of CON, so that there is still an impetus to stack CON in order to avoid the feat cost (though this borders on feat tax, which I disagree with on principle). Themes could also be created that, as one of their features, allow the use of a specific ability mod instead of CON in determining HSs, which is a good way of creating theme/class synergy.
Use my house rule (though it could just as easily be written as the first item on this list, with the exception that, if CON is your highest ability mod, you get 1 additional HS since it amounts to the same thing while acting more as a bonus than a penalty)

I'm pretty sure you guys can guess which option I would prefer we take, but I'd like to hear what other people have to say about it.

And this...


We could also use the LegendRPG (http://www.ruleofcool.com/) rule to addres this CON problem.

Each class got a Key Offensive Stat (KOS) and a Key Defensive Stat (KDS). The KOS modifies the class' basic attack (ranged or melee, based on what the class does primarly) and its powers. The KDS modifies AC (instead of dex/int) and Hitpoints/Surges (instead of Con).

I would support either your house rule or the KOS/KDS method.



I've been staying out of things for a few days because I felt as if I was dominating the conversation and should back out for a bit in order to allow other voices to be heard.


I understand, but please don't hesitate to contribute anything you have in mind. :smallsmile:

For my part, I'm going to start working on an Arcane Warrior class.

ThePurple
2016-03-19, 02:20 PM
I agree with you that themes work very well at representing a high level of specificity, and I agree that the two versions of Warlock I've posted are specific; I disagree that they're too specific to work as classes. As alternate classes/class archetypes underneath a single base class, sure, that's basically what I had in mind, but themes to me work best as campaign-specific professions, occupations, societal roles or what have you.

I think part of my problem is that I *really* don't like alternate classes/class archetypes within a single base class. I feel like they complicate class design to such an extent that they lose a lot of their elegance and ability for those classes to be applied in a general, rather than specific, context.

For example, take the 4e fighter. It started off as a heavy armor defender that specialized in fighting with either one-handed or two-handed weapons, which is extremely general and, from my perspective, a good design (and, comically enough, also the most optimal option). With MarPow1, they added two lighter-armor variants, one of which was basically an attempt to have a barbarian defender (since they implemented barbarian as striker, which always bothered me) and the other was an attempt to include a completely different archetype of the fighter specializing in small weapons and light armor (which is basically melee ranger). With MarPow2, they added an incredibly klutzy attempt at a purely martial unarmed fighter, and, with Dark Sun, they added the arena fighter, which is just a further play on what they were doing with the tempest fighter (light armor and uses multiple different weapons).

Some of those constructs were only applied to fighter because of the fighter's role (battlerager as defender barbarian) whereas others were applied because of the fighter's power source and name (tempest fighter, which is basically a melee ranger tank; arena fighter, much the same; brawler as well). If we properly design our classes, a lot of those sub-classes and variants will be entirely unneeded. If we separate ranged rangers from melee rangers, the melee ranger and two-weapon fighter can basically be folded together without much problem (the ranger concept would just have the character select specific class features, like training in Nature, to replicate the ranger). If we design barbarians so that they're multi-role capable (which, I think, is our consensus), there's no need for the battlerager. The arena training feature has always, in my mind, worked better as a theme than as a class feature and probably would have been implemented as such if Dark Sun used the later implementation of themes (e.g. a heroic tier equivalent of the paragon path rather than a bonus power and a few generally suboptimal power replacement options). Brawler just represents the general lack of unarmed combat feats/features in 4e, which we should definitely address (brawler could actually be a theme on its own, since that's generally what people are trying to do with that concept: act like another class with their bare fists rather than a weapon).

In short, fighter went from this simple, elegant design that encompassed pretty much every "protector" fighter archetype (you could make a viable dual wielding fighter by taking one-handed weapon talent and stack DEX while wearing hide armor) and, with the continual inclusion of more and more variant class features, became this unwieldy mess.

If we design the classes properly, such that we don't pigeonhole any single class into a specific concept and allow for any sensible variation in equipment (like providing a class feature that provides X benefit while in light armor and X benefit while in heavy armor instead of just saying "you're wearing heavy armor; if you want light armor, you get no support"; this does not mean creating options for barbarians that fight with daggers or rogues with greatswords), everything that subclasses/class variants provide can be instead provided by properly designed themes. And, if we do all of the subclassing/variation with themes, we can create a massive plethora of them that add to the class rather than being restricted to figuring out which class features can be traded out.


Let me use Samurai as an example. Samurai are a caste based on birth and one's continued social standing, one that happens to train in military arts. That makes sense as a theme, one that could be applied to a character of any class (though would likely fare best as one that uses weapons), but not a class.

Samurai gets really weird because there is a very specific archetype of the samurai in Japanese culture (well, two different archetypes; there's the light armored samurai that is preternaturally fast and precise and the heavy armored samurai which is imposing as hell; historically, the samurai never really deviated appreciably from the historical role of European knights, but, even then, the historical role and the cultural archetype of knights are drastically different), such that I would argue it deserves a class of its own, much like ninja (which should invoke a significantly more mystical/supernatural element than rogues do).

A better example that comes to my mind is the Yakuza. Saying that someone is a member of the Yakuza doesn't immediately bring to mind a specific method of fighting, but it does bring forth specific elements that can be applied to pretty much any class.


I'd say there was a reason why WotC released themes mostly in setting books/articles, and that's because the roles they fill are much more linked to society, and while there's some overlap (Mercenary, Gladiator, Wizard's Apprentice) it's not universal. A Templar in Dark Sun means something very different from a Templar in Middle Ages Europe.

Themes fit in this weird gray area where they need to be general enough to be applied to a number of different campaign settings without being so general that they can be applied to anything. It doesn't help that terminology can vary in different campaign settings, so that the name applied to a theme makes sense for a given set of abilities in one campaign setting (like templar in Dark Sun) makes absolutely no sense for that same name in a different campaign setting (medieval Europe).

Honestly, I don't really see a problem with this, mainly because themes are a small enough subset of a character's total capabilities that any weirdness that can be generated is significantly mitigated, not to mention that it's not as if a GM can't preclude the use of given themes from a certain campaign or refluff them to make sense (the Dark Sun templar reworked to have the divine keyword instead of arcane, along with a commensurate refluff of pretty much all of the abilities, would work for most Euro-centric interpretations of templars as divine authority figures).


There's an argument to be made that a pact mage is similar enough to a wizard to warrant having them both be subclasses of a general Arcanist base class, but that would depend on how generalized we want classes to be.

This gets into slippery slope territory wherein, if you try to genericize and incorporate too much, you end up with a single class for each power source with a thousand different subclasses and variants.

Wizard is an *incredibly* robust archetype in fantasy. Warlocks/pact mages are significantly less so, especially since many characters that behave *exactly* like traditional wizards use pact magic as their origin. Pact magic doesn't really describe a specific set of abilities; it describes a method of acquiring those abilities, which can be applied to pretty much any set of magical powers.

Classes should describe what you do, not how you learned to do it.


ETA: Thinking about it some more, I can see how these two versions of Warlock could be turned into themes, as could pact magic generally speaking, if that's what we wanted. I would disagree, as I see it as a staple of the genre--not quite as much as Wizard, but enough to have warranted inclusion in PHB1 over Sorcerer--but YMMV.

I really dislike how they implemented warlock before sorcerer. I've always found "magic as a birthright/instinct" (re: sorcerer) used a lot more often than "magic as something you buy from a super powerful entity" (re: warlock), both of which are used less than "magic as an academic discipline" (re: wizard).

Of course, it should also be said that "magic as something you buy from a super powerful entity" has been applied to both "magic as a birthright/instinct" (make a deal with a creature and now you can blast your foes with raw magic) as well as "magic as an academic discipline" (make a deal with a creature and they teach you or instill within you the knowledge of ancient arcane secrets).

That's one of the major concerns I have with pact-magic-as-a-class: it doesn't describe how you use magic (and, if it does, it gets incredibly campaign specific) because it describes how you got your magic.


For my part, I'm going to start working on an Arcane Warrior class.

I've spent a lot of time wracking my brain trying to come up with a single class that can effectively cover the almost innumerable martial/arcane fusion concepts (which is basically what the Arcane Warrior is), and I haven't really come upon something that really feels appropriate. The only really defining traits that I've been able to put together are that they use weapons (instead of implements), wear armor (either light armor, in the vein of the bladesinger/swordmage, or heavy armor, in the vein of the more traditional magic knight), and use comparatively simple magic that is most applicable to personal use in combat (so, basically, evocation-style spells and self buffs).

An idea that kind of strikes me as an excellent base set of abilities from which to build a class (albeit, with a need to strip the existing fluff) is the Jedi and Sith from Star Wars. They mix a set of the appropriate kind of esoteric mystical abilities (force push/blast/lightning, force speed/leap/etc, mind trick as utility) with the use of different fighting styles (single saber, dual saber, double saber; admittedly, it's all basically the same weapon just in different configurations; it gets even more interesting if you go expanded universe and delve into the various lightsaber combat forms, which could provide an interesting mechanical springboard to represent application of martial skill) as well as the use of both light and heavy armor (Jedi are seen using heavy clone armor as well as their normal robes; Darth Vader was decked out in heavy armor whereas Darth Sidious was wearing robes).

If we think of Arcane Warrior as Jedi/Sith (and just don't call them that), I think it would provide an excellent springboard for design of the class.

Shimeran
2016-03-19, 09:46 PM
I'm probably going to take 5 on class design for a while as I'm focusing more on fundamentals at the moment. I'll still try to stay abreast of what folks are working on.

On a side note, I'm starting to suspect we might want to work out the mechanics associated with a concept, then see whether it fits best in a class, theme, or something else.

For example, how should pact magic work? I'd ask how wizardly arts work, but the number of answers from fiction alone is staggering. That's the main reason why I've been putting out things like "mage as collector of relics" and "mage as binder of sprits". Just plain "mage" says very little about how their magic work. You can possibly paint some broad strokes with it, but even that gets a bit iffy. Wearing robes is fairly safe, but even things like say arcane blasts aren't a constant as say mages that change into fighting form or stop their foes with a word are just as common in tales. You can try to fold it all in one class, but then we're back to one class that tries to do everything magical, which is a bit umbrella.


Thinking about it some more, I can see how these two versions of Warlock could be turned into themes, as could pact magic generally speaking, if that's what we wanted. I would disagree, as I see it as a staple of the genre--not quite as much as Wizard, but enough to have warranted inclusion in PHB1 over Sorcerer--but YMMV.


Pact magic doesn't really describe a specific set of abilities; it describes a method of acquiring those abilities, which can be applied to pretty much any set of magical powers.

I can see if going either way. If it's just "I got my magic from a bargain", then it could just as easily be a background for any magic using class. On the other hand, it shtick is "power that furthers a sinister cause, regardless of my intent" or "power that tempts the user" we've got a bit more room to work with. Basically, if the pact has ongoing effects instead of being one and done it's more to work with when being fleshed out into a full class.


For my part, I'm going to start working on an Arcane Warrior class.

Good luck. I know personally I'd find it harder to work out a hybrid class before I've worked out how the two sides it draws from work. I suppose it's easier if you design their magic system to be melee friendly. Of the top of my head, exploiting and placing enchantments seems like a decent base to start from. Alternately, you could go the hyper-skilled route with things like "so skilled by blades can cut through reality". A conjured weapon specialist like the soul knife would also work.


Classes should describe what you do, not how you learned to do it.

I think part of my frustration is every time I try to work out what a caster does to work their magic and how it operates, I get you calling it overly specific. The thing is the very act of defining how a given type of magic by necessity excludes some things.

Honestly, I suspect the same is true of the mechanics you posted. The magical mode shifting isn't really something I can think of in most fiction, at least not without obvious marks like say taking on the aspect of the being one is channeling. The thing is, if I wrote a description to match the mechanics posted I suspect you'd call it out as overly specific again. I could be wrong. If you've got a sample description that both implies these mechanics without narrowing the concept, I'd welcome it as that might help smooth things over.


If we think of Arcane Warrior as Jedi/Sith (and just don't call them that), I think it would provide an excellent springboard for design of the class.

That's understandable. I was struck by the Jedi similarity when reading the swordmage a while ago.

ThePurple
2016-03-19, 11:05 PM
Honestly, I suspect the same is true of the mechanics you posted. The magical mode shifting isn't really something I can think of in most fiction, at least not without obvious marks like say taking on the aspect of the being one is channeling.

The magical mode shifting is a mechanical requirement to ensure that the incredible variation in magic capabilities that I wanted to give to the wizard didn't end up making them incredibly overpowered by rendering everyone else irrelevant. It's a gameplay requirement, not a thematic underpinning of the class.


The thing is, if I wrote a description to match the mechanics posted I suspect you'd call it out as overly specific again. I could be wrong. If you've got a sample description that both implies these mechanics without narrowing the concept, I'd welcome it as that might help smooth things over.

The wizard that I created is intended to represent any magic user that uses magic as an academic, analytical discipline (e.g. applications of it are separated into discrete categories). It doesn't matter whether they got access to that magic through long study, supernatural pacts, or just have a knack for it. It's "magic as knowledge" rather than "magic as instinct".


That's understandable. I was struck by the Jedi similarity when reading the swordmage a while ago.

Part of my problem with swordmage has always been that they fulfill a *very* specific niche of the general arcane warrior archetype. They only wear light armor, they only wield swords (and only in two handed or one handed forms; there isn't a viable/effective way or sensible reason to build a dual wielding swordmage), and the Aegis marking/retributive methodology just really bothers me (also, swordmages can't deflect/reflect ranged attacks made against them, like Jedi/Sith can, and that's just too cool to not include). A lot of their powers are very evocative of the Jedi/Sith (the swordbond feature is basically turning a mundane weapon into your lightsaber and they have a lot of powers that are, fluff-wise, variations on Saber Throw or Force Leap), but they've always been a very specific subset of the Arcane Warrior archetype. You should be able to create a swordmage with the arcane warrior class, but the swordmage shouldn't be your only option when you're attempting to create an arcane warrior.

Tegu8788
2016-03-20, 05:26 AM
Spell Seeker

This, and all the others, are really cool concepts. Let's save them for Force Extras, or whatever we call it.


And let's just table all magic classes for now. I agree, strongly, that how you get your magic is far less important than what you do with it.

We can go up and down the scale on a lot of things. We could just build combat roles and make sources into themes. Are you a tough as nails guy in heavy armor that's does lots of damage? Sword and board with martial theme. Paladin is just sword and board with divine theme. Two weapons with a divine theme makes your a Dervishers, a nature theme makes you a Ranger. It can go on...


But let's do a full stop on casters right now. They don't actually exist, so it's hard to model to start with.

If we want to start with a class, let's start with a Heroic level Rogue. It's something that exists in the real world, it covers the three skill types we are interested in. Next we do sword and board fighter type. We can get those two set up, then we will have a solid enough framework to build more esoteric classes.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-20, 12:56 PM
Well, if we do all the mundane stuff first, and if we're still operating under the principle of equal power level that 4E established for classes--which I believe we are, as I've seen nothing to contradict this--I would just hope that it doesn't end up setting the ceiling too low for when we get to designing the magical stuff.

One of 4E's strengths is that everyone at the table gets to contribute meaningfully to the completing the game's objectives, but one of its enduring complaints is that everything, at least initially, was built along the same chassis, leading to the criticism of magic being dumbed down to the Fighter's level rather than elevating Fighters to the Mage's level. I'm not saying that's going to happen here, I think there've been some good ideas to address that such as recharge powers, but it's something to keep in mind going forward anyway, especially since the point a lot of folks have for playing these games is to be able to do things they can't do in reality.



And just a final thought on classes in general, I would posit that classes say something fundamental not only about what a character does, but also about the game itself and how it's constructed. Since this is D&D we're building off of, that's the example I'm going to use. Pardon if this ends up sounding like a history lesson, but I promise there's a point to it if it does.

OD&D, being the original, went for the general over the specific by necessity and gave us Fighting-man, Cleric and Magic-user. Those map conveniently to the three power sources released with PHB1--martial, divine and arcane--but that's a point I'll return to later. AD&D, as the "advanced" game, went a little bit more toward the specific but still kept things pretty iconic by adding Druid, Monk, Paladin, Thief and Assassin, plus the "hybrid" classes of Bard and Ranger, and the original specialist wizard, Illusionist.

2ed pulled back the reins on that a bit by calling Fighter, Rangers and Paladins all "Warriors," Bards and Thieves "Rogues," Clerics/Specialty Priests and Druids "Priests" and Mages and Illusionists "Wizards," with each division having various rules in common such as derived benefits from ability scores, attacks per round, attack bonuses, saving throws, hit points, spells and experience points/advancement tables. Classes had some distinctiveness, but specificity generally came later with "Kits" that map fairly closely to Themes.

3e/3.5e went back to AD&D's approach by making classes as specific and distinctive as they could, but turned it up to 11 by adding more and more and more of them with every new splatbook. That approach is fine for what it sets out to do, and it's popular with a lot of gamers, but it's way too much in the direction of making a class for every conceivable concept to be able to work for our purposes here.

Then 4E comes around and it's back to the general approach, only this time using power sources to represent class fundamentals: martial, divine and arcane, along with primal and psionic (I'm ignoring shadow, since it was so poorly implemented).

That's my reading of it anyway: that, by building off of 4E, the broad, general level of what classes are has already been constructed for us in the form of power sources, with the upshot that classes within those power sources can afford to be a bit more specific in what they represent, with Themes and Paragon Paths filling roughly the same function as Kits--a means of individualizing a character beyond their general idea and the specific roles and functions of their class.

ETA: I forgot to add my final point, which is that the classes that are chosen and what they each represent says something about the game itself. When AD&D gave us Assassins, Thieves, Paladins, Monks and Druids, it also gave us the Nine Alignments by adding in Good and Evil. I don't think that was a coincidence. When 2ed gave us specialty priests and specialized schools of magic, it implied that magic--both divine and arcane--was becoming more and more important, a fact confirmed by 3.5 with the addition first of Sorcerer, then Warlock, and then the plethora of arcane and divine base classes to follow. 4E, in rolling it back to Cleric, Wizard and Warlock, at least initially, said that magic wasn't as prevalent or as important as it had been--but still important enough to sell your soul to obtain it if you couldn't or wouldn't get it through the established power structures/gatekeepers (churches and academies) that preserve it.

So the choices we make in this regard do say something about the overall tone of the game, even if it's implicit. Just food for thought.

Shimeran
2016-03-20, 01:55 PM
If we want to start with a class, let's start with a Heroic level Rogue.

Alright, martial isn't my strong suit, but I'll see what I can chip in. It seems to me there are two main questions. First off, 4e being a tactical game, how does the class fight. Second, what do they do outside of combat.

To me the rogue suggests a cunning fighter and an opportunist, let likely to go toe to toe and more likely to use hit and run and misdirection.

Mechanically, I image they'd have the following:

The ability hang back and maneuver when the heat isn't on them, coming with a strong follow up.
The ability to be slippery bastards when the heat is on them.
The ability to press the advantage while they have it.


We can get into details next, but I wanted to see if this matches how you'd imagine a rogue fighting. Flexible, adaptive, and deadly if given an opening.

For out of combat. I imagine they'd be skill based. I'd likely take a page from earlier in the main thread and give them a supply of skill tricks. I expect their primary category would be physical, with social the most likely second. Scholar rogues are possible, but less common unless you're going for a mastermind.


I would just hope that it doesn't end up setting the ceiling too low for when we get to designing the magical stuff.

I'd say we should make this a tier dependent thing. At heroic, it's reasonable to expect actions to fall within the realm of what's believable from historical heroes. That may mean limiting magic a bit, but that should be fine for the tier.

On the flip side, no epic character should be mundane. As such, I'd be inclined to say dial martial character up to apparently magical feats in that tier, with outright wuxia and mythic acts being acceptable.

That leaves paragon at a bit of a mid point, so we'd need to work out exactly where that middle ground lies.

I'd also say we can let magic items "cheat" those bounds a bit. If both magical and mundane classes can break mundane limits with the right gear, we've got parity while still having room for wonders. They don't even need the same gear to do so. Maybe martial types are better at unlocking and using hidden weapon powers while arcane types are more adept at obscure rituals.


OD&D, being the original, went for the general over the specific by necessity and gave us Fighting-man, Cleric and Magic-user.

Actually, the cleric is an example of a specific class. It started specifically as a vampire hunter class inspired by Hammer films. It really wasn't meant to cover holy men of all stripes. The magic user was a bit muddier as it was spells from different sources tied to a setting specific magic system.

So yeah, D&D have never been generalized by default. It's always had classes tightly tied to a narrow concept.

ThePurple
2016-03-20, 02:38 PM
We can get into details next, but I wanted to see if this matches how you'd imagine a rogue fighting. Flexible, adaptive, and deadly if given an opening.

This is the rogue that I've got in my homebrew.

General Stuff
Rogue Martial Striker/Controller
Hp: Con + 7 + 5 per level
HS: 8
+2 Ref
Armor: cloth, leather
Weapon: simple melee, martial light blades, simple ranged
Skills: 2 physical, 1 social, 1 mental, 1 free

Class Features

Weapon Finesse: use Dex instead of Str for basic attacks with rogue weapons (light blade, mace, sling, crossbow)

Rogue Weapon Talent: +1 to hit with dagger; d6 damage die with sling

Sneak Attack: when you hit a target granting you CA, choose one of the following
- +1d6 dam v. CA; +2d6 at 6; +3d6 at 16; +4d6 at 26
- if you are using a mace or sling, target is dazed until EoNT
- if you are using a crossbow or sling, target is immobilized until EoNT
- if you are using a light blade, target is slowed (s/e)
- if you are using a light blade, target takes ongoing damage equal to DEX mod (save ends)

Sly Combatant: Choose one of the following
- gain CA against any target that has yet to act during the encounter; roll twice and use the higher of the two when rolling initiative
- gain +1 bonus to AC against targets you have CA against

Advanced Training: Choose one of the following
-When you make a skill check with a skill that you are trained, you may take a -2 penalty; if you do so, one ally within sight gains training in that skill until EoNT
-You gain training in one additional skill

Powers

At-wills: Dex v. AC, on hit: 1[W] + Dex dam; choose one of the following additional effects:
-effect: shift Cha mod sq, up to move spd
-on hit: gain CA against target until EoNT; you cannot have CA against the target
-on hit: +Str dam and you cannot use Sneak Attack until SoNT; Str + 2 at 6; Str + 3 at 11, Str + 4 at 16; Str + 5 at 21, Str + 6 at 26
-effect: the target takes a -2 penalty to its next saving throw before the end of your next turn

Encounters: Free Action. Can be activated once per round when you hit a target with an at-will attack. Choose.
-w/ Sneak Attack, +1d6 dam; +2d6 at 7; +2d8 at 17, +2d10 at 27
- +1[W] dam; 2[W] at 7; 3[W] at 17; 4[W] at 27
-target dazed (s/e)
-target immobilized (s/e)

Dailies: Standard action; Dex v. AC. Choose one of the following on use. Must be using light blade, mace, sling, or crossbow.
- 1[W] + Dex dam; 2[W] at 5; 3[W] at 15; 4[W] at 25; effect: choose one of the following
-target stunned until EoNT; aftereffect: dazed (s/e)
-Str + 5 ongoing dam (s/e); Str + 8 at 9; Str + 10 at 19, Str + 11 at 29
- 3[W] + 2d6 dam; 4[W] + 3d6 at 5; 5[W] + 4d6 at 9; 6[W] + 5d6 at 15; 7[W] + 6d6 at 19; 8[W] + 7d6 at 25, 8[W] + 8d6 at 29; miss: half damage

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-21, 06:26 PM
Alright, martial isn't my strong suit, but I'll see what I can chip in. It seems to me there are two main questions. First off, 4e being a tactical game, how does the class fight. Second, what do they do outside of combat.

To me the rogue suggests a cunning fighter and an opportunist, let likely to go toe to toe and more likely to use hit and run and misdirection.

Mechanically, I image they'd have the following:

The ability hang back and maneuver when the heat isn't on them, coming with a strong follow up.
The ability to be slippery bastards when the heat is on them.
The ability to press the advantage while they have it.


We can get into details next, but I wanted to see if this matches how you'd imagine a rogue fighting. Flexible, adaptive, and deadly if given an opening.


Sounds right to me.



For out of combat. I imagine they'd be skill based. I'd likely take a page from earlier in the main thread and give them a supply of skill tricks. I expect their primary category would be physical, with social the most likely second. Scholar rogues are possible, but less common unless you're going for a mastermind.


Yeah, I would be inclined to defer to tradition here and say that Rogues, due to the many and varied skill sets they need to have at their disposal, should have a high number of trained skills and/or skill tricks. I'd lean toward a distribution of 3 physical, 2 free, 1 mental and 1 social, that would give a pretty solid array of possible playstyles while fitting within the archetype.



I'd say we should make this a tier dependent thing. At heroic, it's reasonable to expect actions to fall within the realm of what's believable from historical heroes. That may mean limiting magic a bit, but that should be fine for the tier.

On the flip side, no epic character should be mundane. As such, I'd be inclined to say dial martial character up to apparently magical feats in that tier, with outright wuxia and mythic acts being acceptable.

That leaves paragon at a bit of a mid point, so we'd need to work out exactly where that middle ground lies.

I'd also say we can let magic items "cheat" those bounds a bit. If both magical and mundane classes can break mundane limits with the right gear, we've got parity while still having room for wonders. They don't even need the same gear to do so. Maybe martial types are better at unlocking and using hidden weapon powers while arcane types are more adept at obscure rituals.


That's fair, and I do like the idea of tying certain higher-level gear abilities to specific power sources. The same could probably be done with implements as well.



Actually, the cleric is an example of a specific class. It started specifically as a vampire hunter class inspired by Hammer films. It really wasn't meant to cover holy men of all stripes. The magic user was a bit muddier as it was spells from different sources tied to a setting specific magic system.

So yeah, D&D have never been generalized by default. It's always had classes tightly tied to a narrow concept.

That's true, I forgot about that. I wouldn't necessarily say it was "always" the case, though, as the old Basic Set was pretty general as I recall, but in a way it was its own game or at least more the exception than the rule. It didn't have all the simulationist rules lawyering that AD&D was famous for, for one thing.


This is the rogue that I've got in my homebrew.


I like it. The only concern I would have is that giving up 1d6 damage at levels 1-5 to gain at-will daze or immobilize seems like too good of a trade-off. 3.5 average damage isn't much to speak of really, even at level 1, but potentially negating an enemy's entire turn depending on how tactically savvy the Rogue's player is, is valuable at any level. If Sneak Attack remained 2d6 at those levels, I think it would be a fairer trade, but then I haven't playtested it and I'm assuming you have, so maybe you've seen otherwise.

ThePurple
2016-03-21, 06:59 PM
I like it. The only concern I would have is that giving up 1d6 damage at levels 1-5 to gain at-will daze or immobilize seems like too good of a trade-off. 3.5 average damage isn't much to speak of really, even at level 1, but potentially negating an enemy's entire turn depending on how tactically savvy the Rogue's player is, is valuable at any level. If Sneak Attack remained 2d6 at those levels, I think it would be a fairer trade, but then I haven't playtested it and I'm assuming you have, so maybe you've seen otherwise.

Well, one of the things I'd want to do is make it much harder to get CA than it is with the massive plethora of feats and features that rogues have access to (especially at range). The most common way to get CA should be flanking and, in that context, you have to remain in melee in order to maintain it (btw, the daze intended to last until the end of the target's next turn, not the rogue's), which leaves you within attack range of that monster.

The other aspect of that was that maces and slings are pretty substandard weapons for rogues in general. A mace is a +2/d8 and slings are +2/d6 when the other weapon options are +4/d4 with a dagger, +3/d8 with a rapier, and +2/d8 with a crossbow (which also has better range than the sling). As such, for using what amounts to a substandard weapon, it makes sense that they would end up with superior secondary effects.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-21, 07:50 PM
Fair enough. I agree that the myriad ways of getting CA need to be pared down, and I didn't realize it's until the end of the enemy's turn, not the end of the Rogue's turn so that makes a difference. Still seems like a good deal for low-level characters, but if it makes it more palatable to use subpar weapons like maces and slings maybe that's a good thing.

Shimeran
2016-03-21, 09:25 PM
This is the rogue that I've got in my homebrew.

It seems like a solid base. I'll need to mull over it a bit as how it flows from round to round isn't quite gelling for me yet. The fundamentals seem to be there, so I'll try to digest this and see if anything that makes it pop a bit more occurs to me.


Hp: Con + 7 + 5 per level

Remember we're switching to using mods over scores, so we may want to shift this up a bit after damage progression is locked down.


+2 Ref

It just occurred to me that the class bonuses could partly offset the fact that non-armor defenses don't get the armor bonus. Any opposition to adding "+1 to Will or Fort"? It's not necessary, but the it would smooth the spread a little bit.


Weapon Finesse: use Dex instead of Str for basic attacks with rogue weapons (light blade, mace, sling, crossbow)

I'd honestly like to see the rogues weapon selection tied more to weapon properties than specific weapons, especially as I'm fond of the kind of weapons you can wield in Gamma World.

In this case, you could probably go all out and just give them dex for one handed melee weapons, maybe restricting one's with a weighted head like axes or hammers.


Rogue Weapon Talent: +1 to hit with dagger; d6 damage die with sling

This kind of specificity I don't mind so much as it's effectively broadening the weapon pool.


Sneak Attack: when you hit a target granting you CA, choose one of the following
- +1d6 dam v. CA; +2d6 at 6; +3d6 at 16; +4d6 at 26
- if you are using a mace or sling, target is dazed until EoNT
- if you are using a crossbow or sling, target is immobilized until EoNT
- if you are using a light blade, target is slowed (s/e)
- if you are using a light blade, target takes ongoing damage equal to DEX mod (save ends)

Here's a good example where linking it to weapon properties can work well. Mace and sling are blunt weapons. Crossbow and sling are ranged. In both cases there's an easily identifiable property you can riff off of.


Yeah, I would be inclined to defer to tradition here and say that Rogues, due to the many and varied skill sets they need to have at their disposal, should have a high number of trained skills and/or skill tricks.

Let me be clear. I think the idea that rogues should be better out of combat because of tradition can go jump in a lake, to put it politely. If we're balancing classes in combat, they could have similar overall utility outside of combat. I say this in particular as it was used as a justification for making the fighter and barbarian skill poor.

That being said, I agree that thieves should be skilled and the way they should contribute out of combat should be largely through skills and skill tricks. I just think when we get to other classes we should have an eye on giving them a similar level of utility, even if through other means.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-21, 09:47 PM
Let me be clear. I think the idea that rogues should be better out of combat because of tradition can go jump in a lake, to put it politely. If we're balancing classes in combat, they could have similar overall utility outside of combat. I say this in particular as it was used as a justification for making the fighter and barbarian skill poor.

That being said, I agree that thieves should be skilled and the way they should contribute out of combat should be largely through skills and skill tricks. I just think when we get to other classes we should have an eye on giving them a similar level of utility, even if through other means.

Yeah I agree, I certainly don't want to go back to the bad old days of skill points, but I wasn't saying that other classes should be reduced in out-of-combat effectiveness in any way--just that Rogues should have a broader base to work off of. My two alt-Warlocks got five skills trained, compared to the six I was suggesting for Rogues. Not a huge disparity.

ThePurple
2016-03-21, 09:48 PM
Let me be clear. I think the idea that rogues should be better out of combat because of tradition can go jump in a lake, to put it politely. If we're balancing classes in combat, they could have similar overall utility outside of combat. I say this in particular as it was used as a justification for making the fighter and barbarian skill poor.

That being said, I agree that thieves should be skilled and the way they should contribute out of combat should be largely through skills and skill tricks. I just think when we get to other classes we should have an eye on giving them a similar level of utility, even if through other means.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Balance in combat should translate into balance out of combat.

This doesn't mean I think that rogues shouldn't have *some* kind of advantage outside of combat (re: in skill challenges), which is why I provided the Advanced Training class feature (I actually provided similar features to all of the martial classes, though the rogue's is, by far, the strongest, especially that first one that lets them give training to an ally in exchange for a small penalty).

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-25, 04:15 PM
So I think we've got a good start on some striker and controller ideas, but I also think we should try and get a discussion going on the two roles that are often thought to be vital to a successful party--defender and leader.

My feeling, and I've seen others echo it, too, is that the Essentials defenders have the best approach to the role, with an aura that acts as a mark-and-punish feature. I think if we stick with this model for all our defenders, we should also be careful that the ones that have actionless damage deal less damage than require an opportunity action (and none of them should be immediate actions, which I personally feel should be on the same continuum as minor/simple actions)--that is if we even want to vary them at all, and I'm not convinced that they need to be.

What about leaders though? Yeah, they all have 2/encounter minor action heals, but they aren't standardized and they certainly don't have equal support like they should. And even then, unlike defenders that's not the core of the role, which really seems to hinge on how well each of them enable other party members to fulfill their roles--and that is almost entirely dependent upon their powers, especially their at-wills. What if, instead of having a RBA or MBA as default actions of their own, they have the ability to have an ally make a Basic Attack at the leader's own bonus whenever they would be able to make one? This would make every leader stronger by default, but it would also mean that they would have to keep up with their own combat ability to be effective. I would also recommend leaders have either INT, WIS or CHA as their key offensive stat, as it only makes sense for leaders to be smart, wise and/or charismatic, otherwise no one's going to listen to them.

ThePurple
2016-03-25, 05:20 PM
My feeling, and I've seen others echo it, too, is that the Essentials defenders have the best approach to the role, with an aura that acts as a mark-and-punish feature. I think if we stick with this model for all our defenders, we should also be careful that the ones that have actionless damage deal less damage than require an opportunity action (and none of them should be immediate actions, which I personally feel should be on the same continuum as minor/simple actions)--that is if we even want to vary them at all, and I'm not convinced that they need to be.

While I fully support the Essentials design for defenders that you mention, I don't think it should be the *only* design we use for every defender.

I came up with an idea for an arcane defender inspired by the oft-maligned Bladesinger from 4e (which I actually felt was a pretty effective class, barring the lack of legitimate dailies because a leveled up bladesong was really powerful). I'm not sure exactly how I would design it, but, in effect, the class would have 2 different marking and retributive options. By default, they have the Essentials set up; when they hit with a melee attack, they have the option to mark any target within 10 squares/hexes with a divine challenge style retributive effect (e.g. if they don't move closer to or attack the defender, the retributive effect happens) but doing so gets rid of their aura until the start of their next turn (so they can swap between marking/retributive styles on the fly).

They could even have feats (or features) that allow them to either teleport into any square adjacent to a marked target (or teleport the target into any empty square adjacent to them) whenever they trigger either retributive effect with the option to make an MBA instead of whatever happens normally (which is basically the assault swordmage and ensnaring swordmage concepts) or a different feat that allows them to reduce the damage dealt by the triggering creature instead of taking the retributive effect (or reduce damage dealt by the triggering attack if they hit with the retributive attack; this is basically shielding swordmage).

It wouldn't be that hard to design the class to allow for heavy armor or light armor (obvious and previously mentioned reasons), INT *or* CHA as mainstat for all features (CHA mainstat would probably allow them to use CHA instead of INT for AC when in light armor; I would probably accomplish it most simply by giving them the choice of two Weapon Finesse-esque class features and have their abilities trigger off of MBAs), and allow for single weapon, two handed, or dual wield options (single weapon would basically be sword and board with the board being a magical shield created by their offhand).

It could even probably be tied to the same "schools" concept as I used for wizard (possibly with different names), wherein different schools allow for different retributive effects (like Abjuration providing the shielding swordmage feature; Teleportion providing the assault feature; Conjuration providing the ensnaring feature) and a couple other schools that give other roles (Evocation lets them be artillery as an example; I would probably make it more restrictive and focused upon, at most, 3 total roles).


What about leaders though? Yeah, they all have 2/encounter minor action heals, but they aren't standardized and they certainly don't have equal support like they should. And even then, unlike defenders that's not the core of the role, which really seems to hinge on how well each of them enable other party members to fulfill their roles--and that is almost entirely dependent upon their powers, especially their at-wills.

The problem is that the defining feature of a leader *is* the ability to provide their minor action heals. Beyond that, they're kind of like controllers in the sense that, beyond that single element of their role, they're defined by their power selection. Admittedly, it's kind of problematic, but I don't see it as *that* big of an issue, mainly because that's a huge and unique (for their role) capability that they can provide. If you do the math, the leader's ability to heal is basically the single biggest swing that players have in their arsenal (if you ever tried PvP in 4e, leaders either needed to be prevented from healing or totally dominated everyone).

The number of occasions they activate their heal is also reasonably similar to how often defenders tend to get to activate their retributive effect. The threat of it is always there, but the actual use of it tends to be comparatively rare.

If we really wanted to provide something a bit more cohesive, we could always go with something like the Skald Bard had, wherein they had an aura that was a fundamental element of their role (Clerics could have divine presence, bards have the song, a psionic leader would have emotional discharge/leakage, etc.). So their at-wills benefit an ally or debilitate an enemy within their aura, encounters either benefit one ally greatly or all allies to a lesser extent, and dailies do interesting weird things to their aura (like having the cleric's divine presence cause damage to enemies and resistance to allies or causing fear, etc.). Class features could even provide leader benefits; imagine how much better runepriest would have been if it wasn't just an "allies adjacent to you" class feature.


What if, instead of having a RBA or MBA as default actions of their own, they have the ability to have an ally make a Basic Attack at the leader's own bonus whenever they would be able to make one? This would make every leader stronger by default, but it would also mean that they would have to keep up with their own combat ability to be effective. I would also recommend leaders have either INT, WIS or CHA as their key offensive stat, as it only makes sense for leaders to be smart, wise and/or charismatic, otherwise no one's going to listen to them.

The problem I see with this is that it basically turns all leaders into lazylords, which isn't fun or interesting to a lot of people (lazylords are, easily, the outright most effective/potent/powerful leaders in the game, but I've had loads of problems actually getting people in my campaigns to try one out because, as soon as they hear "you don't attack; you make other people attack but better" they look dejected and stop caring). It recreates the old problem with clerics/leaders where they basically stood in the back and let everyone else do stuff while throwing heals and the occasional buff. 4e was great because they made it so that the "healers" actually attacked and healing was just something they did on occasion that didn't actually interfere with their ability to punch things.

I'm not opposed to lazy-style powers, but I don't think it should be a defining feature of the leader role. I do agree that they need to use a mental stat as a major stat, however. Even if they're not actually the party "leader" (which is one of the main things that 4e tried to point out to players: just because your class role is leader doesn't mean that you have to take the reins and be in charge of the party; role describes mechanics, not social dynamics), I still have a hard time imagining anyone who makes their allies more effective at combat being an unlikeable, obtuse, unaware meathead.

If we're going multi-role, however, I don't think we should make ourselves beholden to making it the mainstat because, if we do so, we force ourselves to either have the character inferior by default at one role or the other (which sucks) or require that the both/all of the roles run off of that stat. In my knight/warlord-style defender/leader fighter design, I had their attacks trigger off of STR but their secondary effects (both leader and defender) trigger off of either INT or CHA.

Multi-role design does require a bit more leeway in mainstat and secondary stat allocation and design, especially if you want to keep play comparatively simple (having two mainstats for attacks gets a bit annoying, imo).

Shimeran
2016-03-25, 06:14 PM
I'll go over this more later, but I'd say the core of the leader role in 4e was acting as a lifeline ("You'll not fall on my watch!") backed by "make allies more awesome" powers.

On the other hand, the defender acts as a kind of counter to the otherwise dominant focused fire tactic. After all, focusing the defender blunted the enemies attacks and their other mechanics let them keep all the enemy from focusing on an ally. Artillery powers could also punish focused fire to a degree, though only for melee opponents.

In contrast, strikers were actually good at providing focused fire as their powers tend to support more flexible targeting, often through mobility.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-25, 07:25 PM
While I fully support the Essentials design for defenders that you mention, I don't think it should be the *only* design we use for every defender.

I came up with an idea for an arcane defender inspired by the oft-maligned Bladesinger from 4e (which I actually felt was a pretty effective class, barring the lack of legitimate dailies because a leveled up bladesong was really powerful). I'm not sure exactly how I would design it, but, in effect, the class would have 2 different marking and retributive options. By default, they have the Essentials set up; when they hit with a melee attack, they have the option to mark any target within 10 squares/hexes with a divine challenge style retributive effect (e.g. if they don't move closer to or attack the defender, the retributive effect happens) but doing so gets rid of their aura until the start of their next turn (so they can swap between marking/retributive styles on the fly).

They could even have feats (or features) that allow them to either teleport into any square adjacent to a marked target (or teleport the target into any empty square adjacent to them) whenever they trigger either retributive effect with the option to make an MBA instead of whatever happens normally (which is basically the assault swordmage and ensnaring swordmage concepts) or a different feat that allows them to reduce the damage dealt by the triggering creature instead of taking the retributive effect (or reduce damage dealt by the triggering attack if they hit with the retributive attack; this is basically shielding swordmage).

I like a lot of this, especially swapping mark/retribution styles as needed, and FWIW I agree there should be some variety, though I would like to have the Essentials aura serve as the baseline for design purposes and build off it like you did with your Bladesinger. I would, however, rephrase it just a bit to say that the enemy subjected to the mark violates it "if they either move away from or make an attack that doesn't include the defender," that works better than saying "if they do not move closer to the defender." Otherwise you end up with situations where enemies violate their mark by taking no actions, and that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the game.



It wouldn't be that hard to design the class to allow for heavy armor or light armor (obvious and previously mentioned reasons), INT *or* CHA as mainstat for all features (CHA mainstat would probably allow them to use CHA instead of INT for AC when in light armor; I would probably accomplish it most simply by giving them the choice of two Weapon Finesse-esque class features and have their abilities trigger off of MBAs), and allow for single weapon, two handed, or dual wield options (single weapon would basically be sword and board with the board being a magical shield created by their offhand).


That sounds really good, and I agree there should be options for both light and heavy armor. One thing we definitely want to be certain of is that every defender gets something like Weapon Finesse/Melee Training for their primary ability score. Intelligent Blademaster is a feat tax that needs to be cut.



It could even probably be tied to the same "schools" concept as I used for wizard (possibly with different names), wherein different schools allow for different retributive effects (like Abjuration providing the shielding swordmage feature; Teleportion providing the assault feature; Conjuration providing the ensnaring feature) and a couple other schools that give other roles (Evocation lets them be artillery as an example; I would probably make it more restrictive and focused upon, at most, 3 total roles).


That could be interesting. In keeping with Tegu's suggestion though, that's one area, though, where we probably should wait and see what the Wizard (or whatever we end up with) looks like before we get too deep into the Arcane Warrior's design.



The problem is that the defining feature of a leader *is* the ability to provide their minor action heals. Beyond that, they're kind of like controllers in the sense that, beyond that single element of their role, they're defined by their power selection. Admittedly, it's kind of problematic, but I don't see it as *that* big of an issue, mainly because that's a huge and unique (for their role) capability that they can provide. If you do the math, the leader's ability to heal is basically the single biggest swing that players have in their arsenal (if you ever tried PvP in 4e, leaders either needed to be prevented from healing or totally dominated everyone).

The number of occasions they activate their heal is also reasonably similar to how often defenders tend to get to activate their retributive effect. The threat of it is always there, but the actual use of it tends to be comparatively rare.


Hmm, true. Healing is a lot more viable in 4e than it ever was before, and it's basically a necessity with MM3/MV monsters serving as the baseline, but it really isn't what you want to specialize in from a CharOp point of view. More attacks is always better than anything else, and at least in my experience there's a lot of demand strikers and defenders place upon the person playing a leader class to be able to help with that. I just want to make sure that everyone is able to contribute meaningfully to the success of the group.



If we really wanted to provide something a bit more cohesive, we could always go with something like the Skald Bard had, wherein they had an aura that was a fundamental element of their role (Clerics could have divine presence, bards have the song, a psionic leader would have emotional discharge/leakage, etc.). So their at-wills benefit an ally or debilitate an enemy within their aura, encounters either benefit one ally greatly or all allies to a lesser extent, and dailies do interesting weird things to their aura (like having the cleric's divine presence cause damage to enemies and resistance to allies or causing fear, etc.). Class features could even provide leader benefits; imagine how much better runepriest would have been if it wasn't just an "allies adjacent to you" class feature.


I do like this, I think the Skald's aura is a really nice idea--one that would have made Runepriest fun to play instead of completely forgettable--and logically the concept behind it could fit any type of leader like you've shown. Cleric spells in 3.5 did a lot of stuff like this, so it's hardly without basis, and I'd like to see more leader encounters and dailies (or recharge powers and whatever dailies end up being) function off a dynamic like this instead of just turning enemies into HP fountains or whatever.



The problem I see with this is that it basically turns all leaders into lazylords, which isn't fun or interesting to a lot of people (lazylords are, easily, the outright most effective/potent/powerful leaders in the game, but I've had loads of problems actually getting people in my campaigns to try one out because, as soon as they hear "you don't attack; you make other people attack but better" they look dejected and stop caring). It recreates the old problem with clerics/leaders where they basically stood in the back and let everyone else do stuff while throwing heals and the occasional buff. 4e was great because they made it so that the "healers" actually attacked and healing was just something they did on occasion that didn't actually interfere with their ability to punch things.

I'm not opposed to lazy-style powers, but I don't think it should be a defining feature of the leader role.


I hear you, I do. Like I said, I agree with how 4e made in-combat healing actually worthwhile, I just see a power gap between healing and enabling that I feel needs to be addressed somehow. Lazylords are boring for a lot of gamers though, so I agree with that concern. I'm not entirely sure though that it would turn all leaders into lazylords by having them be able to make OAs through their allies, I see that as something they could do on top of attacking+healing that would effectively expand their influence over the battlefield, which IMO should be equal to that of controllers.



I do agree that they need to use a mental stat as a major stat, however. Even if they're not actually the party "leader" (which is one of the main things that 4e tried to point out to players: just because your class role is leader doesn't mean that you have to take the reins and be in charge of the party; role describes mechanics, not social dynamics), I still have a hard time imagining anyone who makes their allies more effective at combat being an unlikeable, obtuse, unaware meathead.

If we're going multi-role, however, I don't think we should make ourselves beholden to making it the mainstat because, if we do so, we force ourselves to either have the character inferior by default at one role or the other (which sucks) or require that the both/all of the roles run off of that stat. In my knight/warlord-style defender/leader fighter design, I had their attacks trigger off of STR but their secondary effects (both leader and defender) trigger off of either INT or CHA.

Multi-role design does require a bit more leeway in mainstat and secondary stat allocation and design, especially if you want to keep play comparatively simple (having two mainstats for attacks gets a bit annoying, imo).

That's an important point, thank you for making it. I've been wondering how a KOS and KDS method would work with multi-role classes. Maybe what we could do is allow them to be swapped depending on the role they're currently fulfilling? Say a defender|leader attacks off STR but gets its AC and leader riders from WIS--which it would only get when its leader aura is active, while only getting its mark/punish in its defender aura. Or maybe what we should say is that all classes are V-classes and get to choose which of their two key stats they attack off of, with the one they don't choose being defensive by default, and then using that choice as the basis for different builds.

Tegu8788
2016-03-25, 10:59 PM
One thing I definitely appreciated was that each leader had its own speciality. The cleric had extra heals, warlord had the best enables, bard was a taxi, shaman could multiheal, and ardent was a solid buffer. They all are fully capable of doing the healing they needed. Aura healing is cool, but what the Skald really does well is that it gives off-turn healing triggered by allies, which can be real useful.

ThePurple
2016-03-25, 11:30 PM
One thing I definitely appreciated was that each leader had its own speciality. The cleric had extra heals, warlord had the best enables, bard was a taxi, shaman could multiheal, and ardent was a solid buffer. They all are fully capable of doing the healing they needed. Aura healing is cool, but what the Skald really does well is that it gives off-turn healing triggered by allies, which can be real useful.

The problem I had with that was that the specialties of each leader had very different levels of usefulness. The enabling allowed by a warlord made them totally eclipse every other leader in terms of contribution to the fight. Enabling is just *that* powerful. Shaman multihealing was nice, but it was way too situational in my experience to be equal to the generally more powerful overall healing that the cleric got. The bardic taxi service was nice when you actually needed to move but when you didn't, it was basically wasted. Ardent and runepriest were both supposed to be buff specialists, but I always found artificer did that job better (and artificer came with the additional benefit of then healing surge credit card).

If we're going to give each leader its own mechanical niche, we really need to put forth the effort to make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes that 4e made by assuming that every specialty is equally useful.

Tegu8788
2016-03-25, 11:41 PM
Agreed. Even though the Leader isn't just a healer, making sure each one is good and different is hard. I've tried to figure out a THP based Leader, or a ongoing multi-turn heal Leader. I think having each Leader drawing more on their power sources could diversify them more. Which is also why I suggested focusing on Striker and Defender first, they are the easier ones to build.

Shimeran
2016-03-27, 05:35 AM
I'd agree that giving each leader it's own specialty will help. That balance concerns can likely be addressed by giving weaker or more situational specialties a supporting secondary speciality.

Slipping back to the aforementioned striker, I've been thinking over the rogue. In keeping with the fighting style I mentioned earlier, what if we set them to go full striker mode, complete with the associated mobility, when not attacked? That works well with the "strike from the shadows" element usually associated with them.

As a counterpoint, when attacked they could be set to retaliate with a combination of damage and control effects. That way attacking the rogue does disrupt their focused fire, but it also messes with the enemies ability to act in return.

I'd also be inclined to make the retaliation only apply against the first attack, but have it give them a defense bonus against subsequent attacks until the start of their turn. That discourages focusing fire on the rogue. In fact, if we let them raise their threat when ignored you could potentially get somewhat defender like focused fire disruption as the enemy is encouraged to keep a one of them focused on the rogue at all times.

Tegu8788
2016-03-27, 09:12 AM
What you're talking about is the Rogue Defender idea I've played around with. It actually works pretty well as an evasion/back-stab tank. Basically take the Brawny Rogue to its logical end.

I love the idea, but let's set aside for now, and focus on the Striker-Rogue and a Defender-Fighter. Once we get a model for those two classes and those two roles, we can expand more easily from there.

Shimeran
2016-03-27, 10:29 AM
Not quite. An outright defender would want a mechanic to single out certain foes. Being able to discourage focused fire does not make it a defender in an of itself. For example, the avenger hand mechanics that punished anyone ganging up on it while still staying firmly a striker.

The intent there is basically to lend mechanical support to the striking from stealth and nipping at their heels while they're otherwise distracted, which are very roguish tactics. This approach is set so corning a rogue makes them fight more like a riposte oriented duelist, where as failing to pin them down means someone's getting backstabbed.

You can get some of that from using combat advantage, but the easiest form of combat advantage is flanking, so a "wolf pack" like approach tends to spring the forefront.

Basically, I'd like to see striking from shadows and fading away to strike again feel like a natural flow for the rogue. If you've got any alternate approaches to encourage that I'd definitely like to hear them.

Tegu8788
2016-03-27, 11:11 AM
Ah, I see, you're talking more about a Lurker. I'd question if playing a character that is spending half of their actions hiding is fun, but I'm a Paladin, so I'm the wrong one to ask.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-27, 12:34 PM
I'm playing a Lurker right now, an Executioner|Warlock with Eyebite and Garotte Strangle, and it's not bad but so far I'm finding it difficult to pull off its main trick and it's basically turned into a charger. That's as much due to encounter design as the mechanics of 4e strongly favoring charging for melee DPR, even without building for it specifically. I do think striking from stealth is something that Rogues should be able to do pretty consistently, I'm just not sure if that's what we should build a 4e class around.

I have some thoughts on a stance-based defender|striker and a weapon-based defender|controller, I'll get them posted as soon as I can.

ThePurple
2016-03-27, 02:40 PM
In keeping with the fighting style I mentioned earlier, what if we set them to go full striker mode, complete with the associated mobility, when not attacked? That works well with the "strike from the shadows" element usually associated with them.

The problem with this design is that it takes the role choice out of the hands of the player. You're basically leaving it up to the GM what you're allowed to do on each turn, which is bad, especially as a central mechanic for a class.


As a counterpoint, when attacked they could be set to retaliate with a combination of damage and control effects. That way attacking the rogue does disrupt their focused fire, but it also messes with the enemies ability to act in return.

That doesn't really make much sense to me as far as a rogue is concerned. Rogues aren't supposed to be counterattack specialists. They're supposed to be specialists in striking an enemy when they are weakest. Sure, counterattacking is a totally valid mechanic for them to have access to, but I don't think that it's really a good mechanic for them to be built around (it also means that they can only act as a controller in very specific circumstances that, once again, they have no direct control over).

If anything, rogues should be the *least* defender-like of all of the strikers. Rogues should be attracting as little attention as possible and mechanically encouraging/requiring them to make a target out of themselves doesn't really work for that. I could see it being a PP of some kind that increases a character's functionality when they're solo/cornered, but it doesn't really grok with the archetype that a vast majority of people have of a rogue.


Ah, I see, you're talking more about a Lurker. I'd question if playing a character that is spending half of their actions hiding is fun, but I'm a Paladin, so I'm the wrong one to ask.

The problem with lurkers in player hands is that lurkers is that lurkers are designed to attack and be attacked every other turn. It works for monsters because Lurkers are controlled by the GM, who also controls every other monster on the field, and Lurkers have a very specific and simple set of tactics that they follow: disappear in one round and attack for high damage the next. When a Lurker disappears, it's eases up the load on the GM while providing a changing tactical situation to the players (and, oftentimes, rewarding the players for having otherwise low value sense abilities), which works out very well. Player "Lurkers", on the other hand, don't work very well because, if they're actually a Lurker, they're only attacking and able to be attacked every other round using a very simplistic strategy, which gets boring very quickly and has all kinds of balance implications (since they're only supposed to be attacked every other round, unless they have absolutely terrible hp, they're going to be insanely hard to kill; they'll be great against enemies with poor senses but almost worthless against enemies with good senses, like truesight; since they should also be dealing roughly twice the damage per round as other roles, since they only attack every other round, they have absolutely insane alpha strike capability; if they don't have such high damage per attack compared to other player roles, they'll end up being a liability because they have laughable DPR).

It's much the same reason why Leader is a main role for players but a subrole for monsters. The different design and play needs of monsters and players prevent there from being absolutely identical overlap (also indicated by the separation of Brute from Skirmisher).

Player "Lurkers" operate best when they are an optional tactic that is available to be used in those rare situations when it is most appropriate, not as a primary tactic that the class is built around. Lurker-style tactics before or at the start of a fight are entirely appropriate, and, while a class designed to flit in and out of the fight seems like it would be fun, quickly becomes incredibly boring (I actually designed a Soulknife concept and playtested it a bit; the player found it to be an interesting concept, as a class that created a weapon with a standard action and then "spent" it with another by unleashing a massive single attack that dealt huge damage and consumed said weapon in the process but found that it was an incredibly restrictive playstyle that stopped being fun very quickly because it had only one tactic).

Rogues should really be striker/controllers in my mind. The precision strikes that player Rogues are largely built around are best represented by massive damage and application of debilitating effects (e.g. akin to called shots in other versions of D&D, like a called shot to the head dazing or causing blindness, a called shot to the leg causing slow/immob, etc.), the "lurker" elements are best represented by "First Strike" style mechanics that encourage and allow for large amounts of damage during the opening volley of a fight, and the opportunism is best represented by operating with and specializing in gaining CA, which gives them plenty of strategic options in order to gain it.

(On a tangential note, I've believed for a long time that Lurker shouldn't be a main role for monsters; it should be a subrole like Leader; I could easily imagine an Artillery Lurker that unleashes hail of arrows or blasts of energy and then disappearing for a round before repeating the process, as well as a Brute Lurker that unleashes incredibly devastating strikes whenever it appears; I also can't really imagine a Leader that disappears from the battlefield on a regular basis and it *really* doesn't work as a viable role for a solo creature to have because they can't really disappear every other round since they take up so much of a fight's resources; as such, Leader and Lurker are somewhat mutually exclusive but the Lurker role isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with the other roles, which makes me think that we should implement it as a secondary role with the specific mention that it should be designed to attack every other turn and deal roughly 75% more damage after any round that it spends "disappeared" and not be applied to solo creatures or implemented as a specific monster category alongside minion, standard, elite, and solo with a listed multiplier to hp and damage like elite and solo get)

Shimeran
2016-03-27, 03:50 PM
Ah, I see, you're talking more about a Lurker. I'd question if playing a character that is spending half of their actions hiding is fun, but I'm a Paladin, so I'm the wrong one to ask.

Not quite. The ability to switch between offensive and defensive is lurker like. However, I'm not calling for them to spend major actions hiding.

My original thoughts were simply the rogues should be at their best, or at least their most flexible, when the enemy is kept distracted. That actually lines up with the first part of this:


Rogues should be attracting as little attention as possible and mechanically encouraging/requiring them to make a target out of themselves doesn't really work for that.

The intent was to reward the rogue player for avoiding attention, not attracting it. The counter-attack angle was simply there so they don't loose out if the enemy does turn their guns on them.

Maybe a better approach would be just give them more targeting flexibility as that incentive. Perhaps if they manage to avoid notice they get a freer hand in placing the hurt where they may while if they do draw attention they have to take what they can get.


The problem with lurkers in player hands is that lurkers is that lurkers are designed to attack and be attacked every other turn.

I wasn't actually advocating that style. I'm well aware that despite striking from stealth being a rogue shtick, only striking every other turn can be tedious. As such, while I think they should keep that shtick it needs to be implemented so that it doesn't eat a whole turn.


The precision strikes that player Rogues are largely built around are best represented by massive damage and application of debilitating effects

No arguments there, that lines up with how I'd expect a rogue to fight.


the "lurker" elements are best represented by "First Strike" style mechanics that encourage and allow for large amounts of damage during the opening volley of a fight

The problem I have there is that it presents the rogue as the first into the fray and encourages being the first to charge the enemy lines, which is a weird niche for the rogue to fill. That's the kind of things I'd honestly expect the warrior types to do. I'd agree if that first strike was due to stealth, but as written it's usually just the rogue rushing into the fight and getting rewarded regardless of tactics.


the opportunism is best represented by operating with and specializing in gaining CA, which gives them plenty of strategic options in order to gain it.

I can see this working when they both exploit and produce CA, but it's tricky territory. If they just exploit it, then the easy CA provided by flanking is likely to be a go to tactic. That's certainly an appropriate tactic for them, but not one I'd want to see dominating their options, especially given how it's less ranged attack friendly. On the other hand, if they can produce CA too readily it's in danger of becoming an always on bonus and less of a tactical consideration.

ThePurple
2016-03-27, 04:37 PM
The problem I have there is that it presents the rogue as the first into the fray and encourages being the first to charge the enemy lines, which is a weird niche for the rogue to fill. That's the kind of things I'd honestly expect the warrior types to do. I'd agree if that first strike was due to stealth, but as written it's usually just the rogue rushing into the fight and getting rewarded regardless of tactics.

I think it's somewhat a problem in trying to marry the ranged rogue with the melee rogue. Both of them are, mechanically, very similar (strike with CA in order to get bonus damage/effects), though the method for acquiring said CA varies by a great deal.

For a ranged rogue, the first strike makes a lot of sense because it's effectively sniping from a hidden position. Balance-wise, that gets pretty difficult mainly because, if you can attack while hidden and remain hidden in the process, you're pretty much untouchable and get to attack with abandon without much threat of (direct) retaliation.

For a melee rogue, a first strike is best epitomized by sneaking up adjacent to a target and then stabbing them in the back/side/etc when they're not expecting it. It doesn't really make much sense for a rogue to be charging into combat in the first round, I agree, since that's much more of the warrior's shtick. The main reason it's the fighter's shtick, of course, is that the fighter wants everyone to group up around her while rogues aren't really partial to that situation. I think this is *supposed* to be addressed by rogues having very good init mods (so that they act early in combat) while fighters (since they tend to have low DEX) have low init mods (so they act later in combat). If enemies act somewhere in the middle, a rogue would want to hang back until later when the fighter charges in to draw attention away from them so charging doesn't really make sense. It's only when the fighter and the rogue act together that charging actually makes thematic and tactical sense, since you could interpret that as the rogue coming in alongside the fighter to follow up for devastating effect.


I can see this working when they both exploit and produce CA, but it's tricky territory. If they just exploit it, then the easy CA provided by flanking is likely to be a go to tactic. That's certainly an appropriate tactic for them, but not one I'd want to see dominating their options, especially given how it's less ranged attack friendly. On the other hand, if they can produce CA too readily it's in danger of becoming an always on bonus and less of a tactical consideration.

One option that might work would be to separate rogue bonus damage from CA and instead tie it to the marked effect. In essence, rogues get to sneak attack a target that is marked by a target other than them. CA would provide a discrete tactical advantage in increasing their accuracy, while making a bit more sense given that "distracted" and/or "attention on someone else" is really better epitomized by the marked condition rather than CA.

If we were to go this route, I would probably do 2 things. First, I would have their Sneak Attack damage apply to any creature that has yet to act during combat (basically First Strike) as well as any creature that is marked by another target (or one of their allies, depending upon how we want to have weird stuff like enemies marking their allies work via dominating effects and the like). Second, I would make sure that they have an at-will that allows them to cause an ally adjacent to the target mark the target (so they wouldn't be able to get CA while fighting on their own, but they'd be able to get it while fighting with someone else and only when that target is already being engaged by one of their allies).

In this way, rogues would become more teamwork centered as opposed to "flank and spank" centered, which is a lot nicer, in my mind. They would play well off of defenders (since they don't need to use their attack that lets an ally mark a target) but not *require* defenders (since they can give allies marking capability) while still having a definite stealth/first strike capability.

My only concern would be that it would make rogues absolutely terrible solo characters, which I'm not sure how exactly I feel about that. One option to address that would be providing an at-will that allows them to deal increased damage but prevents them from using Sneak Attack until the start of their next turn, so they'd have better damage than normal while solo but still worse than if they had a friend to work with.

Tegu8788
2016-03-27, 07:22 PM
I do love the idea of the Rogue getting bonus damage to a target marked by someone else. Someone else, to prevent a Rogue|Fighter exploit.

Shimeran
2016-03-27, 08:52 PM
For a ranged rogue, the first strike makes a lot of sense because it's effectively sniping from a hidden position.


For a melee rogue, a first strike is best epitomized by sneaking up adjacent to a target and then stabbing them in the back/side/etc when they're not expecting it.

I hear you, but I don't think the rogue really need to go first for either of these to work. They could just as easily be keyed off the first attack the rogue makes. I feels like the intent of the initiative bonus was to let them get the drop on enemies, but they can already do that selectively with stealth, so it ends up making them all look more gung-ho and aggressive instead of careful and calculating.

Maybe we can just replace that with letting them pull off a sneak attack on a target of their choice if they're haven't been attacked yet. Make it "since the start of the encounter" for a one shot and tack on "since the end of their last last turn if you want it to be an ongoing thing. That way even if they lose initiative but stay hidden or behind an ally they're still golden for that alpha strike.


If enemies act somewhere in the middle, a rogue would want to hang back until later when the fighter charges in to draw attention away from them so charging doesn't really make sense.

That reminds me. One idea I'd considered is giving rogue more flexibility in delaying their actions. Maybe they can pull of a delayed attack an interupt, for example. It seems very in keeping with their archetype to have them jump in an stab and enemy just as they're about to strike.


One option that might work would be to separate rogue bonus damage from CA and instead tie it to the marked effect.

I like that as a starting point. It plays nicely with the idea of the rogue as an affliction specialist if they can take advantage of negative conditions placed by allies.

I'd probably throw in at least one more triggering condition though, so more allies can get in on the fun. Ideally, it would also be a condition they can throw out when in controller mode so when they're on their own they can set themselves up if need be. They'd still prefer having an ally do it as it frees them up to keep up the sneak attack pressure, but it at least leaves them with an option if the support isn't available.

I think you actually had something like that in your rogue write up. We'd just want to make sure it's front and center.

ThePurple
2016-03-28, 04:04 AM
That reminds me. One idea I'd considered is giving rogue more flexibility in delaying their actions. Maybe they can pull of a delayed attack an interupt, for example. It seems very in keeping with their archetype to have them jump in an stab and enemy just as they're about to strike.

That still doesn't do much in the way of providing a real tactical advantage. Waiting for someone else to do something before taking an action yourself doesn't really translate into anything particularly positive, unless said delay is specifically capable of interrupting actions (which ends up making said interrupt actions incredibly powerful).

The most I could see would be providing rogues with an at-will attack power that isn't actually an attack but reads as something like this: "Effect: The next time the target makes an attack against you before the start of your next turn, you may make a basic attack against the target and gain your Sneak Attack damage even if you otherwise wouldn't qualify for it." I'm not sure whether it should really be required to have the attack be against you and I'm waffling a bit on whether it should be restricted to melee attacks to prevent abuse by ranged rogues, but that's about as I would go for making rogues interruption specialists.


I'd probably throw in at least one more triggering condition though, so more allies can get in on the fun. Ideally, it would also be a condition they can throw out when in controller mode so when they're on their own they can set themselves up if need be. They'd still prefer having an ally do it as it frees them up to keep up the sneak attack pressure, but it at least leaves them with an option if the support isn't available.

I could see providing feats that allow rogues to benefit from other debilitating effects (like one that allows a rogue to trigger SA off of the slowed, immobilize, and restrain; another that triggers off of ongoing damage; a lot like the numerous "get CA in this special case" feats that rogues already have access to, but instead having them provide SA damage exclusively), but I would shy away from making more than marked, daze, and stun as baseline. Marked is already a very easy status effect to operate off of and encourages rogues to stick with their defender rather than running off on their own (which, in my mind, is more appropriate for Avenger style strikers which are *supposed* to be defender-y and have a decent reason to try and attract attention to themselves) while daze and stun are both comparatively rare (also, you'd have a hard time explaining how someone who is dazed or stunned isn't "distracted" enough to get in a SA).


I think you actually had something like that in your rogue write up. We'd just want to make sure it's front and center.

The closest that I got to that in my rogue write up was giving rogues an at-will attack that gave them CA until the end of their next turn but could only be used if they did not already have CA against the target (basically to prevent straight up spamming of that attack ad nauseum). There was also a power that was intended to provide non-CA damage functionality by allowing the rogue to deal STR mod additional damage but prevent them from using SA until SoNT.

Shimeran
2016-03-29, 04:30 AM
That still doesn't do much in the way of providing a real tactical advantage. Waiting for someone else to do something before taking an action yourself doesn't really translate into anything particularly positive, unless said delay is specifically capable of interrupting actions (which ends up making said interrupt actions incredibly powerful).

Delaying or readying an action does have situational use. It's most often used when waiting for enemies to move into a better position for one's own strikes. That being said, anyone can do those and have them resolve after the triggering action. The idea behind letting them do so as an interrupt was to avoid letting the enemy get in an extra attack because you delayed.

In any case, it's more of an offshoot idea. Appropriate, but not core to rogue's identity of how the rogue fights.


The most I could see would be providing rogues with an at-will attack power that isn't actually an attack but reads as something like this: "Effect: The next time the target makes an attack against you before the start of your next turn, you may make a basic attack against the target and gain your Sneak Attack damage even if you otherwise wouldn't qualify for it."

Isn't the first part basically readying an action? You might be able to trim the wording by referencing that, something like "When you ready an action to make a basic attack if the target attacks you". That being said, it runs into the same problem as readied actions in that if they don't trigger you've lost a standard action, making it a bit pricey.


I could see providing feats that allow rogues to benefit from other debilitating effects (like one that allows a rogue to trigger SA off of the slowed, immobilize, and restrain; another that triggers off of ongoing damage; a lot like the numerous "get CA in this special case" feats that rogues already have access to, but instead having them provide SA damage exclusively), but I would shy away from making more than marked, daze, and stun as baseline.

Slowed was actually the first one that popped in my head as it's a really common control effect and makes it easy to justify them leaving an opening. Still I can get behind dazed readily enough.

Stunned is appropriate as well, though I'm more cautious in handing out things that take away all ability to act. It's usually workable against monsters as there's enough of them the DM can still do something, but it's a bit of a mess with solos. Something like having it steal a set number of actions might be better as it means it can affect solos without completely shutting them down.

In any case, the above two can be grouped under "enemies who have lost an action".


Marked is already a very easy status effect to operate off of and encourages rogues to stick with their defender rather than running off on their own (which, in my mind, is more appropriate for Avenger style strikers which are *supposed* to be defender-y and have a decent reason to try and attract attention to themselves) while daze and stun are both comparatively rare (also, you'd have a hard time explaining how someone who is dazed or stunned isn't "distracted" enough to get in a SA).

The somewhat nagging point it does mean you either need to have a defender or the ability to make enemies marked by an ally, which is an otherwise odd ability for the rogue. Granted, having a defender is common so it's not a huge thing, but it's a hard coded role dependency you don't usually see. I still think it's a good trigger, I'm just not sure if it should be the only easy trigger.

Speaking of which, we seem to be missing a trigger for when the rogue strikes from stealth. Marked works well from when they engage, but it's very in keeping with the class's flavor to hit big when they're not noticed. I'm aware that can be an easy condition to maintain. I suppose that ties into how rare we want sneak attacks to be. Other strikers are fine getting their damage every hit and if we're tying this to as easy a condition as marked we might want to shoot for similar levels of output.

With all this, I'm tempted to use "you can sneak attack any enemy who hasn't attacked you since the end of your last turn". It gives soft coverage to marking, stealth, and can even cover first strikes if we stretch it to the start of the encounter. After all, if they attack you while marked they take a penalty to hit and trigger the defender's retaliation, so they're taking a hit anyway. If they attack you when stealthed, they have to guess your square and might miss anyway.

On a related note, I think rogues should still have access to some controllers options when they can't sneak attack. That way it's less of big loss of output when they can't sneak attack and more that their options are limited. We'd already want something like that for set up strikes to support the solo rogue.

ThePurple
2016-03-29, 02:31 PM
Stunned is appropriate as well, though I'm more cautious in handing out things that take away all ability to act. It's usually workable against monsters as there's enough of them the DM can still do something, but it's a bit of a mess with solos. Something like having it steal a set number of actions might be better as it means it can affect solos without completely shutting them down.

How is this handing out things that take away the ability to act *at all*? I was simply saying that SA could be worded to key off of the marked, dazed, and stunned conditions. I didn't say *anything* about SA letting rogues stun targets (except maybe as a daily).


The somewhat nagging point it does mean you either need to have a defender or the ability to make enemies marked by an ally, which is an otherwise odd ability for the rogue.

I don't really see a problem with it mainly because it's along the lines of "don't pay attention to me, pay attention to him!". A straight up "don't pay attention to me" ability would be incredibly powerful so it's not really entirely appropriate to build off of that, in my opinion.

One way I could see us doing it is having the damage of the marking attack be low (like just [W] damage, without any mod) but have the target who ends up marking the target (your ally) gain a bonus to their next damage roll against the target equal to your DEX mod, explaining the mark as something like a combination of "obviously setting up your ally to strike especially hard" and "making it seem like you don't really do much damage and aren't much of a threat". It doesn't even necessarily have to be an attack; it could be an effect (if it did this, I probably wouldn't have it deal damage; just have it mark the enemy and buff your ally).


Granted, having a defender is common so it's not a huge thing, but it's a hard coded role dependency you don't usually see. I still think it's a good trigger, I'm just not sure if it should be the only easy trigger.

Which is why I say we also have it trigger off of daze and stun and provide optional (re: nice but not necessary) feats that allow SA to trigger off of other conditions. Getting to SA off of slow, immob, or ongoing going damage are nice but not necessary, and, honestly, could be a bit overpowered since those effects are incredibly common (and, at least in my design, also able to be caused by a rogue). Marked is common, but it's not something that rogues do on their own. Just like a solo defenders and leaders doesn't really have much point (since what's the point of marking a target if you're their only target or using an ability that buffs an ally if you don't have any around), I don't see why we can't have other classes/roles that are optimal performers when they've got friends around.


Speaking of which, we seem to be missing a trigger for when the rogue strikes from stealth.

Part of the problem is the whole idea of "striking from stealth" in the middle of combat, which doesn't really make sense to me outside of some very specific tactics (which translates into not actually being part of a combat except to strike just once every minute or so, at most). As I've said before, for players, striking from stealth is either incredibly suboptimal (if it requires you sacrifice half of your attacks to alternate between hiding and attacking, like a lurker) or incredibly overpowered (if it allows you to strike and then immediately hide, since enemies are basically never going to attack you). By default, we shouldn't force rogues to do the first and, even with feats and features, we shouldn't allow the second.

The only way this could see this being effectively handled is if we included the condition that a "target that cannot see you" can be subject to your SA, such that the four conditions that, by default, a rogue can use to trigger SA are: "marked by someone other than you", "has yet to act in the encounter", "dazed or stunned", and "cannot see you". If you want more than that, you need to take a feat or get it from a PP.


I suppose that ties into how rare we want sneak attacks to be.

In my mind, SA should be as common as other striker bonus damage conditions when rogues are in a group that is working together but, by default, basically require a turn of set up in order to get it when they are solo.

The origin of SA is in the old school thief "backstab", which literally required you stab someone in the back. In a fight, there isn't really ever a reason for an opponent to present a lone target with their back (unless they're basically asking to be killed) even if they're fighting multiple people (when fighting a pair of opponents, it generally works best to place yourself such that you have one arm facing each opponent, with your back facing "empty" space) which is kind of where this is coming from: getting someone to open themselves up for a strike to an especially vulnerable area is really hard unless you can someone get them to focus intensively upon their opponent.


With all this, I'm tempted to use "you can sneak attack any enemy who hasn't attacked you since the end of your last turn".

I can see a few problems with this. First, if a target uses the total defense action (or elects to double move instead of act or any other "pure defense" options), it opens them up to a rogue SA when it really doesn't make sense (if you're on total defense, you should be especially on guard and present fewer openings than if you were actually attacking the rogue). Second, if a rogue provokes an OA (say, by moving), they lose the ability to SA even though an OA isn't really supposed to represent a heavy focus on the target (it's an attack of opportunity, not an actual planned and focused attack). Third, AoE attacks don't really make sense either because someone making an AoE attack still might not know where a rogue is exactly (or might be attacking them "accidentally" when attacking one of the rogue's allies) and would still prevent the rogue from making their SA.

To account for all of these exclusions, you lose all of the efficiency in phrasing it so simply. The best way, in my mind, is to outright state the exact intended conditions that allow a rogue to SA: marked by someone else, cannot see you, is dazed or stunned, and/or has yet to act.


On a related note, I think rogues should still have access to some controllers options when they can't sneak attack. That way it's less of big loss of output when they can't sneak attack and more that their options are limited. We'd already want something like that for set up strikes to support the solo rogue.

I know at some point I had "slowed until EoNT" as one of the at-will options in my rogue build. I think I got rid of that because it allowed for too much simultaneously striker and controller (since you could do the slowing and full SA damage simultaneously). One of the outright controller options I did provide was a penalty to its next saving throw, which I've adopted as a controller exclusive mechanic (since they're the class that does ongoing effects the vast majority of the time, I see no problem in them making sure that they can keep those effects up).

If we are going to add more straight up control options, I recommend we make them mutually exclusive with any form of striker bonus damage we provide. In my build, I did this by making them choose between either dealing bonus damage or getting to use powerful control effects. There *is* another option though, that lets us have our cake and eat it too.

We could reword SA is that it doesn't provide a global bonus to all attacks you make (i.e. your powers do something provided by the SA class feature when you fulfill the conditions) but instead have it so that SA allows you to access additional effects on your powers (i.e. SA is a class feature that you use to "unlock" additional effects of your powers when you fulfill the conditions).

It would have the benefit of allowing every rogue power to do something different (the striker ones would all probably still do the additional damage) as well as allowing for better hybrid balancing (since only rogue powers would benefit from SA by virtue of being the only powers with SA entries), though it would require more writing in general. It does afford us a lot more control over power effects though, which is nice.

Shimeran
2016-03-29, 09:52 PM
It feels like we might be in danger of either overcomplicating things or going around in circles. Let me go back to basics for a moment and work from there.

I think at it's core, the sneak attack is supposed to be about making a strike the target is not prepared for, hitting them before they can react.

In that vein, I'd say the best example of that would be when they're not expecting an attack from the rogue at all. Mechanically that's usually reflected by being surprised, though not knowing the rogue is there works too. Technically it could happen if the rogue befriended an enemy then switched sides, but that's a lot more of a corner case and takes a lot more narrative and roleplaying set up.

Unfortunately, that usually only works once, so we need something more reliable. Our best bet is focusing on the "before they can react" part. Prime targets would be those who's reactions are impaired or who are actively focusing on someone or something else.

Looking back over this, I suppose striking from concealment isn't critical. It's extremely useful for surprise, but if the enemy is focusing on the rogue, it would be hard for them to keep getting in free shots. Maybe a distracting shot could be a set up ability.

Perhaps setting a trigger to "targets who can not make reactions" is a good start. That covers surprised, dazed, stunned, and unconscious.

The ally based option is trickier though. If we set it on just being marked, enemies who ignore the mark can still be sneak attacked, which is weird considering doing so means they're obviously paying attention to the rogue. The bigger indicators of attention are whether they knowingly ignored you to attack an ally or if an ally just attacked them. This is a point I'd honestly like more opinions on, as I can see it going multiple ways.

In any case, here are some more specific points.


How is this handing out things that take away the ability to act *at all*?

My apologies. I simply meant to state my general hesitancy on such abilities as a bit of a tangent. I wasn't trying to say this set up make such effects especially likely.


One way I could see us doing it is having the damage of the marking attack be low (like just [W] damage, without any mod) but have the target who ends up marking the target (your ally) gain a bonus to their next damage roll against the target equal to your DEX mod, explaining the mark as something like a combination of "obviously setting up your ally to strike especially hard" and "making it seem like you don't really do much damage and aren't much of a threat". It doesn't even necessarily have to be an attack; it could be an effect (if it did this, I probably wouldn't have it deal damage; just have it mark the enemy and buff your ally).

I can kind of see the set up strike angle. It's still got some awkward points though as it means you can only sneak attack every other turn and both rounds must be dedicated to a single target. You can also exploit it so you shift the mark around, letting multiple allies minor in defender.


First, if a target uses the total defense action (or elects to double move instead of act or any other "pure defense" options), it opens them up to a rogue SA when it really doesn't make sense (if you're on total defense, you should be especially on guard and present fewer openings than if you were actually attacking the rogue).

Fair enough. Making it more based on what they did do would address that. The phrasing is tricky. "Made an attack that didn't knowingly include you" cover most of it, though I'm not sure if triggering of the enemy making attacks or being attacks (and thus distracted) makes more sense.


Second, if a rogue provokes an OA (say, by moving), they lose the ability to SA even though an OA isn't really supposed to represent a heavy focus on the target (it's an attack of opportunity, not an actual planned and focused attack).

Only against the enemy making the OA, since it's not longer "a create that hasn't attacked them", but if you were planning on sneaking attacking them you'd likely attack them before moving. I can only see that being an issue if you're making ranged attacks and can't shift away or quick draw a melee weapon.


Third, AoE attacks don't really make sense either because someone making an AoE attack still might not know where a rogue is exactly (or might be attacking them "accidentally" when attacking one of the rogue's allies) and would still prevent the rogue from making their SA.

Adding "knowingly" would address that.


To account for all of these exclusions, you lose all of the efficiency in phrasing it so simply. The best way, in my mind, is to outright state the exact intended conditions that allow a rogue to SA: marked by someone else, cannot see you, is dazed or stunned, and/or has yet to act.

My concern is our specific list is getting kind of big. It's why I've been proposing things that cover multiple points when I can. The "enemies you can't reaction" bit above is one such attempt to consolidate dazed and stunned.


If we are going to add more straight up control options, I recommend we make them mutually exclusive with any form of striker bonus damage we provide.

My thinking was more if we're not going to let them do their striker job every round we should likely let them fall back on a secondary job.

On a side note, I can totally see a rogue fighting like a swashbuckler or duelist when forced to face a foe head on and alone.


We could reword SA is that it doesn't provide a global bonus to all attacks you make (i.e. your powers do something provided by the SA class feature when you fulfill the conditions) but instead have it so that SA allows you to access additional effects on your powers (i.e. SA is a class feature that you use to "unlock" additional effects of your powers when you fulfill the conditions).

I can definitely see that, though we'd want to keep an eye on how much it bloats up powers, especially with weapon specific effects factored in.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-29, 10:55 PM
Well, here's the thing: combat advantage already covers most of what you two are talking about, moreso even. The definition of combat advantage is that the target can't properly defend itself from the attacker, which includes blinded, dazed, flanked, helpless, prone (melee only), restrained, stunned, surprised and unconscious. I think that sums up sneak attacking fairly well. For the "strike from the shadows" part of it, what about adding encounter/recharge powers that render some of these effects?

I'm somewhat intrigued by the idea of granting some kind of bonus that triggers off another character's mark, although if it triggers even when the marked target attacks the Rogue it probably shouldn't be called sneak attack. Also, I know all this stuff will have to be playtested, but I'd want to see how it changes the way DMs have their monsters interact with the defender. One thing about defenders that's a little disappointing is that they tend to struggle to do enough damage to be a sufficient threat (which is why I like defender|striker hybrids), so without a consistent way to impose movement penalties it can be a challenge to "hold aggro," so to speak. If marking meant that the Rogue is going to do its job regardless of who the marked target attacks, would it make them more or less likely to violate the mark? I'm not sure.

Same goes for feats or PPs that allow sneak attacks off of more common conditions like slowed and immobilized: it sounds good, but would it allow for de facto combat advantage? Something to consider.

Oh, and before I forget, I think Rogue could definitely cover the parry/riposte "swashbuckler" concept--as could Fighter, which is something I'm working on right now--but I'm not sure if that should be represented through class features, feats, powers and/or something else.

Tegu8788
2016-03-29, 11:02 PM
I'm a fan of having the Rogue have a non SA option. "Minor Action: If you can not apply your SA damage this turn, inflict status condition X on your next successful hit, until the end of your next round."

Or maybe reverse it as a power, so you give up the chance to deal SA damage until the start of your next turn. "Sure you're staring me in the face. And I just threw sand in it." That would give them the duelist option when soloing, which should be rare anyway. But it would let them bounce between Striker and Controller at-will. Perhaps another power that grants bonus damage but also sacrifices SA until the start of your next turn, which also grants some solo efficacy. But again, a Rogue by himself is not a happy Rogue.

Dacia Brabant
2016-03-29, 11:12 PM
How about a feat or a skill trick that lets them make a feint using Bluff as a move action--or a power that allows them to do it as a minor action?

Tegu8788
2016-03-29, 11:16 PM
I would support something like that.

ThePurple
2016-03-30, 12:07 AM
I can kind of see the set up strike angle. It's still got some awkward points though as it means you can only sneak attack every other turn and both rounds must be dedicated to a single target. You can also exploit it so you shift the mark around, letting multiple allies minor in defender.

Both of those were kind of the point. Rogues wouldn't be able to be pure striker just by their lonesome but they would make up for it by being able to do some other weird stuff when they can't just do straight damage because the situation isn't perfect.

Part of the problem with tying rogue damage to a certain condition is that either you make that condition so easy and ubiquitous that it's trivial to get it (what 4e basically ended up doing with CA, which I really don't like because it deadens the importance of proper tactics) or you end up having a striker that can't be a striker all the time, which, admittedly sucks. You can to balance that out by making conditional strikers deal higher damage (once again, something that 4e attempted to do by making SA bigger, but ended up getting rendered irrelevant when they realized that they got their math wrong because they just kept adding more and more conditional and static damage bonuses) which is itself problematic because, as soon as players figure out how to guarantee that condition more often than we accounted for in the math, they become OP as hell (I always design with the assumption that players are going to do something that I didn't account for unless I go out of my way to account for *everything*, which you can't do with something as vague and variable as player tactics).

If rogues are built with multiple roles, however, it does give us some leeway. Sure, a rogue might not be able to do full striker damage all the time, but that's okay because, as long as they can still contribute by defaulting to controller, they're not at a significant disadvantage.


Adding "knowingly" would address (targeting hidden rogues with AoEs to prevent them from being able to sneak attack with the wording that SA is applied to targets that didn't attack them since the start of their last turn).

The problem with "knowingly" is that it is very vague and open to interpretation, which I really don't like when creating mechanics. If a rogue is invisible/hidden but a wizard knows where they are roughly enough that they can drop a web spell and ensure that they catch the rogue within the area (like the rogue just made a noise or the wizard is detecting magic and senses the rogue's magical gear), does that qualify as "knowingly"? They know that they're going to hit the rogue because they know where the rogue is in a general sense, but they still can't actually see the rogue or where the rogue is *precisely*.

"Knowingly" is just too vague. Specific conditions that have explicit interpretations with no room for variations in interpretation should be the goal of anything we do. For a properly designed and written mechanic or rule, RAW and RAI are identical.


My concern is our specific list is getting kind of big. It's why I've been proposing things that cover multiple points when I can. The "enemies you can't reaction" bit above is one such attempt to consolidate dazed and stunned.

The problem with trying to use terms that try to cover multiple conditions without explicitly stating those conditions is that it is *really* easy to end up creating loopholes and unintended consequences. For example, what if, at some point, we can't to create something akin to Iron Soul Flurry of Blows which prevents a target from making opportunity attacks and also include immediate actions (probably as some kind of anti-defender retribution mechanism; random note: we really need to make sure that more soldier creatures actually have marking and retributive mechanisms like player defenders do; what's the point of having low damage high survivability enemies if there's no real practical impetus to attack them?). With your wording on SA, such an ability would give the rogue carte blanche to SA as much as they wanted, even though the actual intent of that power is to shut down out of turn actions.

Also, "enemies that are incapable of performing immediate or opportunity actions" is using a comparatively long and, in that context, strange terminology. "Stunned", "dazed", "marked", "has yet to act" (possibly just written as "during a surprise round"), etc. are all well defined and stated using precise, consistent terminology that is used throughout the entire game. I don't think that "incapable" is actually used anywhere in the game's mechanical terminology.

Even if it's a relatively short list (it's only 4 items; it's not that bad), it's better than having a ruling that is open to interpretation, especially if there are only 1-2 of those items that players are going to care about 90% of the time.


I can definitely see that, though we'd want to keep an eye on how much it bloats up powers, especially with weapon specific effects factored in.

That's definitely a problem and was a concern of mine when I recommended it.

One solution might be to have Sneak Attack entries for each power without any weapon dependent properties but have specific entries for different weapons under Sneak Attack that allow you to substitute the weapon dependent effect for whatever Sneak Attack effect that the power might have.

For example, imagine we implement Dazing Strike so that it deals "on hit: 2[W] damage and dazed until EoNT; Sneak Attack: the target is instead dazed (save ends)". In the description of the Sneak Attack class feature, we could have it so that, if you are wielding a crossbow, you can replace the Sneak Attack line of any rogue power with "the target is slowed until EoNT". As such, a rogue using Dazing Strike on a target that triggers Sneak Attack, she could choose to either daze (s/e) or daze and slow until EoNT (and deal 2[W] damage regardless).

Weapons could still be given specific mechanics that they are especially adept at causing while still allowing for each power to have a different Sneak Attack specifically designed for it.

Tegu8788
2016-03-30, 12:51 AM
Giving every rogue power a unique SA line, in addition to different weapon based SA options, and the subclass bonus lines, that's a lot of wordage for each power.


But I really do like the idea.

ThePurple
2016-03-30, 01:24 AM
Giving every rogue power a unique SA line, in addition to different weapon based SA options, and the subclass bonus lines, that's a lot of wordage for each power.

I'm not sure that the subclass bonus lines are really all that necessary.

Shimeran
2016-03-30, 06:14 AM
Well, here's the thing: combat advantage already covers most of what you two are talking about, moreso even.

Yeah, I was starting to suspect we were running in circles. I think the marked link came up because flanking was a dominant melee tactic, limiting the strategy involved in getting sneak attack. However, if we're thinking it should be more or less a given if coordinating with an ally, that becomes less an issue.


Oh, and before I forget, I think Rogue could definitely cover the parry/riposte "swashbuckler" concept--as could Fighter, which is something I'm working on right now--but I'm not sure if that should be represented through class features, feats, powers and/or something else.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking with the earlier mode switching ideas. I do think that the non-striking rogue should be more defensive, whether delivered through bolstered defenses or control effects that hinder enemy attacks.

Dacia Brabant
2016-04-03, 05:54 PM
I got inspired to get some work done on a possible melee defender|controller, which for simplicity's sake I'll call a Fighter. There's a defender|striker version I'm tooling around with, not sure what to call it though, other than Ranger. :smallconfused:


Fighter


While anyone technically is capable of fighting, the term Fighter is reserved for those men and women who train all their lives for hand-to-hand combat. Whether ye be a professional soldier out for glory or a hired mercenary craving coin and excitement, if arms and armor be the tools of your trade then Fighter ye most likely be.

Fighters are equal parts tough and agile, their rigorous physical training making them hardy combatants, but as any warrior who has survived battle on the front lines will tell you, you only survive if you either have eyes in the back of your head, or if you and your friends learn to watch each other's backs. Their true talents lie in their skills at arms, and through much practice have honed those skills to get the full potential out of themselves and their preferred armaments.



Power source: Martial
Roles: Defender|Controller
Key Abilities: STR or DEX, WIS
Armor: Cloth, Leather, Hide, Chain, Scale, Plate, Light Shields, Heavy Shields
Armaments: Simple and military melee and ranged
Best Defense: Fortitude
Trained Skills: Perception plus 2 physical, 1 social and 1 at-large
Health and Vitality: Very High
Stamina: High
Class Features: Provoke, Retaliate, Melee Training, Battlefield Awareness, Fighting Stances


Class Features

Provoke: As a minor action, mark a single target within Aura 1*. Once a target is marked in this way it stays marked until it falls dead or unconscious, or until you choose to mark a different target with this power.

*Aura of Provocation: enemies within the aura have a -2 penalty to attacks that do not include you as a target, and may be subject to your Provoke as a minor action and your Retaliate as an opportunity action. This aura is active so long as you are conscious, but deactivates if you are ever unconscious. It may be reactivated as a free action.

Retaliate: As an opportunity action, make a rote attack* with a range of Melee 1 on a target marked by you who either moved away from you on their turn or who made an attack that did not include you as a target.

*A replacement for basic attacks and possibly the idea expressed in the other thread for generic attack actions as well.

Important note on Provoke and Retaliate: While your Aura of Provocation is active so long as you are conscious, the actual powers Provoke and Retaliate may only be used when you are in a Defensive stance (see below). An enemy marked by your Provoke does not cease to be marked by you if you switch to an Offensive stance, however you cannot Retaliate against it while in an Offensive stance nor can you Provoke a different enemy until you switch to a Defensive stance.


Melee Training: You may apply either STR or DEX to melee attack and damage rolls; this choice must be made upon character creation.


Battlefield Awareness: Perception is automatically a trained skill for you. Also, you may use either DEX or WIS for initiative checks, whichever is higher.


Fighting Stances: Fighters begin play knowing at least 2 stances, at least one of which must be marked as Defensive. When rolling initiative, choose which stance you are in at the start of combat. As a minor action, you may change to another stance you know or currently have access to.

Note: you may only use the Provoke and Retaliate actions while in a Defensive stance. As an immediate action (Recharge 6) you may switch to a Defensive stance and regain use of your Provoke and Retaliate actions; if you have not already used an opportunity action this turn, this may allow you to Retaliate if your immediate action interrupted an enemy within range marked by you who made an attack that doesn't include you as a target. Like other immediate actions, this consumes your minor action on your next turn.


Sample Stances

Stance of the Giant's Reach (Defensive, requires two-handed armament): while in this stance, the range of your Provoke and Retaliate increases to Aura 2 and Melee 2.

Stance of the Battering Ram (Offensive, requires a shield): while in this stance, your successful rote attacks with your shield also push the target up to your STR or DEX and knock it prone.

Stance of the Spitting Asp (Defensive, requires any melee armament with the Thrown property): while in this stance, your successful attacks with Thrown armaments may also mark the target, or one of the targets of your choice if more than one target was hit. This counts as your use of Provoke for the turn and may not be used in the same turn as Provoke. If the marked target makes an attack that does not include you, you may Retaliate against it with a Thrown armament while you are in this stance.

Stance of the Snapping Tortoise (Defensive, requires a shield): while in this stance, you may make a rote attack with your shield after making a successful Retaliate attack. This is not an action.

Stance of the Giant's Hammer (Offensive requires two-handed armament): while in this stance, your successful rote attacks also daze the target until the end of its turn.

Stance of the Spinning Cyclone (Offensive, requires dual-wielding): while in this stance, your rote attacks may be made as a close burst 1; if so, any targets who are hit are also pushed up to your STR or DEX and knocked prone.

Stance of the Stinging Wasp (Offensive, requires any melee armament with the Thrown property): while in this stance, your successful rote attacks with Thrown armaments also immobilize the target until the end of its turn.

Stance of the Lashing Scorpion (Defensive: requires dual-wielding): while in this stance, you may make a rote attack with your off-hand armament after making a successful Retaliate attack. This is not an action.

Tegu8788
2016-04-03, 08:16 PM
I like the look of this. This is a pretty solid start, Battle Awareness is gold. A few nagging thoughts.

Why not just call this the Warrior, and bypass the confusion with Fighter/Fighting Man/guys who fight?
I want your justification for giving out Plate to this class? Not fighting this, just your reason.
Some of the wording about Defensive stances needs to be cleaned up, but it's a solid start.
I'm not sure I'm keen on making this class able to be Dex primary, second easily, but not primary.
This completely removes this class's multimarking ability and stickiness.

Dacia Brabant
2016-04-03, 09:22 PM
I like the look of this. This is a pretty solid start, Battle Awareness is gold. A few nagging thoughts.

Why not just call this the Warrior, and bypass the confusion with Fighter/Fighting Man/guys who fight?


Warrior is fine, we can go with that.


I want your justification for giving out Plate to this class? Not fighting this, just your reason.

The justification for plate is purely thematic. I get that the developers had Paladins, but not Fighters, start with plate for balance reasons, but if they're equalized in other ways it shouldn't be necessary. It's absurd to me though that the only archetype running around in full plate is the holy (or unholy) knight when there are so many examples of guys (and gals) in plate mail fighting for a cause that had nothing to do with gods. In short, it shouldn't be limited to the Divine power source at the start.


Some of the wording about Defensive stances needs to be cleaned up, but it's a solid start.

Sure, it is a first draft so I expect that. Can you point out anything specific that I can fix?


I'm not sure I'm keen on making this class able to be Dex primary, second easily, but not primary.

Hmm, yeah that's a good point. Since the class could just as easily go with light armor, it would allow them to go all in on DEX and I'm not sure we want that. Maybe the way around this is to say that your attack+damage ability mod can't be the same as your AC ability mod?


This completely removes this class's multimarking ability and stickiness.

Yeah, I had thought about multi-marking. My idea was that when I got around to making the powers (so it's not reflected in the writeup), I would add something similar to the Paladin's Divine Sanction: basically a Taunt that acts as a mark for a turn as part of the power's effect as a way to make up for it. As for lost stickiness, I can see that being an issue, though again one that can be made up for via powers; I hadn't intended for stances to replace at-wills.

ThePurple
2016-04-03, 10:43 PM
Trained Skills: Perception plus 2 physical, 1 social and 1 at-large

I'm not sure I agree with giving out Perception automatically. I can understand where you're coming from, what with the "Awareness" aspect, but something rubs me wrong about it. I could actually better see it as providing either Perception or Insight, so that you're either reacting to small environmental cues or reading your opponents.

Also, the 1 at-large power without providing a mental power is providing a way for characters to focus on physical skills and excluding their mental skills (Perception is weird, insofar as it's "mental" but not always appropriate for mental skill challenges). I would generally shy away from providing at-large training when possible, especially if it allows a class to exclude one or more categories. Instead, just make it a mental skill (which makes sense for a fighter, since mental includes History, Heal, and Streetwise, all of which make a lot of sense for fighter types).


Provoke: As a minor action, mark a single target within Aura 1*. Once a target is marked in this way it stays marked until it falls dead or unconscious, or until you choose to mark a different target with this power.

The problem with this is that it restricts the class to only being able to mark a single target at a time, which is in stark contrast to how the Essentials defenders are actually built. Single mark defenders are great against a single target, but they are much less effective and when fighting multiple opponents. On top of this, you're requiring the mark be applied during the defender's turn, which reduces the value of ally driven forced movement effects that push a target into the defender's aura.

If you're going to have an aura, make it an aura that applies constant effects to the entire aura. As it stands, there isn't really a reason for it to actually be called an aura since it only serves as the range of Provoke. The Knight aura is an incredibly good model to use. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, especially when you're reinventing it into an oval instead of a circle.


Important note on Provoke and Retaliate: While your Aura of Provocation is active so long as you are conscious, the actual powers Provoke and Retaliate may only be used when you are in a Defensive stance (see below). An enemy marked by your Provoke does not cease to be marked by you if you switch to an Offensive stance, however you cannot Retaliate against it while in an Offensive stance nor can you Provoke a different enemy until you switch to a Defensive stance.

This is really, really klutgy. It would work much more effectively and be worded much more efficiently for the aura to just turn off while you are not in a defensive stance with the retributive action keyed off the marked keyword (since you can't mark a target outside of a defensive stance in the first place) or having the aura active.


Melee Training: You may apply either STR or DEX to melee attack and damage rolls; this choice must be made upon character creation.

Why does it need to be made at character creation? Players are basically going to decide which one of their attributes are highest for the entire life of the character anyways, so there isn't really much of a reason to include that addendum. It forces players to make a choice that doesn't actually change anything.


Battlefield Awareness: Perception is automatically a trained skill for you. Also, you may use either DEX or WIS for initiative checks, whichever is higher.

This is something of a balance issue for me. STR and DEX fighters are supposed to be balanced against each other, but you're providing an explicit benefit to STR + WIS fighters over DEX + WIS fighters by allowing STR + WIS fighters to replace a stat that is high for DEX + WIS fighters automatically. If you're going to include something that benefits STR + WIS fighters, you need to include something of commensurate tactically similar benefit to DEX + WIS fighters (like a +1 bonus to speed or the ability to move up to half of their move speed as a free action when they roll initiative).


Fighting Stances: Fighters begin play knowing at least 2 stances, at least one of which must be marked as Defensive. When rolling initiative, choose which stance you are in at the start of combat. As a minor action, you may change to another stance you know or currently have access to.

This is pretty much just a rework of the Knight, which I'm don't really care about. It just seems kinda pointless to include the mention that you can only have a single stance active and have to activate it as a minor action when both of those are already explained by the power entry of the stance itself and the stance keyword.


Stance of the Giant's Reach (Defensive, requires two-handed armament): while in this stance, the range of your Provoke and Retaliate increases to Aura 2 and Melee 2.

This I like because it actually makes polearm and reach weapon fighters not irrelevant until they get to paragon and take a specific PP and a specific feat. In a similar point as my one referencing the aura, if you go with that change, you could much more easily state that the Retaliation is limited to melee reach (which would provide a slight benefit to using a reach weapon even outside of this stance because, if you mark a target through some other mechanism, you're still able to react to it).

I have an itching suspicious that there's a balance concern here that I haven't quite noticed yet, though.


Stance of the Battering Ram (Offensive, requires a shield): while in this stance, your successful rote attacks with your shield also push the target up to your STR or DEX and knock it prone.

This is crazy insane powerful. You're talking about a push 4 or 5 that knocks prone and increases to a push 8 to 10 that knocks prone at epic level. And it applies to *any* basic attack, which is gonna make at-will attacks completely nuts.

Also, I'm not sure that it should outright require a shield. Hammers and bludgeoning weapons would make just as much sense for this.


Stance of the Spitting Asp (Defensive, requires any melee armament with the Thrown property): while in this stance, your successful attacks with Thrown armaments may also mark the target, or one of the targets of your choice if more than one target was hit. This counts as your use of Provoke for the turn and may not be used in the same turn as Provoke. If the marked target makes an attack that does not include you, you may Retaliate against it with a Thrown armament while you are in this stance.

This is straight up OP as hell and would very quickly render any other defensive stance irrelevant. Even if thrown weapons are automatically inferior, the ability to use Retribution at thrown range against any target you have marked is going to be absurdly powerful, especially when you consider that we're going to allow other classes to mark for the defender.

There is no way that this should actually see implementation. I can see the reasoning behind it (e.g. defender marking at range when they can't get into melee), but the ability to act like a full defender at range is just too powerful.


Stance of the Snapping Tortoise (Defensive, requires a shield): while in this stance, you may make a rote attack with your shield after making a successful Retaliate attack. This is not an action.

This stance is rendered redundant by the later Stance of the Lashing Scorpion because shields are going to be written as armaments. There's no need to create separate powers for both because Lashing Scorpion already does what Snapping Tortoise does.

That said, this is OP as *hell*. With this, there's no real reason to use a non-reach 2-handed weapon because you'll do more damage with a shield (because it's an additional attack and, at worst, a d4 or d6 damage die, which is an average of 2 or 4 on a hit, which, even when you factor in the miss chance, is more than the die advantage of a 2 hander) *and* have all of the defensive advantages inherent in using a shield.

At best, I could see you including something like "deal additional damage equal to your offhand armament's damage die when you hit with Retaliation", but that still ends up having a sword and board deal the same (or more, albeit less than your initial writing) damage as a 2 hander.


Stance of the Giant's Hammer (Offensive requires two-handed armament): while in this stance, your successful rote attacks also daze the target until the end of its turn.

Once again, crazy powerful, especially when you combine it with a reach weapon: daze and stand just out a target's reach and they can't ever attack you. Also, you're allowing the fighter to daze with any basic attack they make, which is going to turn them into the automatic target of any leader enabling ability since it's providing full damage *and* a powerful control effect.


Stance of the Spinning Cyclone (Offensive, requires dual-wielding): while in this stance, your rote attacks may be made as a close burst 1; if so, any targets who are hit are also pushed up to your STR or DEX and knocked prone.

Controller != artillery and AoE is the artillery schtick, especially since you're allowing this to be applied to all basic attacks. On top of this, you're talking about a massive amount of pushing and proning, just like battering ram.


Stance of the Stinging Wasp (Offensive, requires any melee armament with the Thrown property): while in this stance, your successful rote attacks with Thrown armaments also immobilize the target until the end of its turn.

The exact same concern mentioned with giant's hammer is present here. Immobilize a target at range, and they can't do anything to get to you. Get a full ranged party and you can trivialize any melee combatant with ease.

Overall, it's a really bad design. You're attempting to create a tweaked version of the Knight with a weaker and more kludgy marking mechanism and retributive effect and stances that are obscenely powerful with *very* specific stances intended for *very* specific builds. If you're going to design that specifically, why not just have them pick a specific combat style and assign them the stances, since that's what you're really doing, only providing them with the illusion of a choice that matters (which turns into a pit trap for newbies).

One of the biggest traps is that you allow the class to swap between roles without any real cost (a minor action, of which they don't really spend on much of anything) and, in fact, allow them to switch as an immediate action (there's also a concern, but I'm not sure how you intend "recharge" powers to be implemented; either they all use the same recharge and the recharge 6 you're providing for the immediate action sucks so hard that no one would ever really want to use it or it's got its own recharge, which is going to forces a lot of die rolls and recharge tracking at the start of every turn; both of these are bad things). Role swapping needs to be either conditionally limited or per-encounter limited (outside of the artillery role, since that's basically the same as having a role that is *always* "conditionally limited") so as it make it tactically important.

Personally, I really don't like the combination of defender and controller, largely because, as a lot of people have mentioned, defenders are extremely similar in tactical application to controllers even if they don't use the same mechanics. I see fighters operating much more effectively as defender/leaders (warlord or knight archetype), defender/strikers (slayer archetype; my slayer is striker/artillery though), and/or controller/strikers (non-traditional attacker archetype, disarming, tripping, etc).

For at-will control powers, you should really limit them to slowing (s/e), prone, and limited range push/slide. If they dip into dazing, immobilization, blinding, or the other strong control effects for non-tactically conditional at-wills, you get a lot of problems because they can very effectively control the field using only their at-wills and, because of that, the only difference you can make between at-will and encounter/dailies with them is that the encounters/dailies end up doing slightly more damage because, if you don't, controllers end up being able to completely dominate any fight they belong to, more than they already can in baseline 4e.

In addition, I understand that you were attempting to include the "weapon group benefits" that I mentioned as a general mechanical martial theme as well as providing viable options for all 3 of the armament loadouts, but you didn't really do it in a way that makes them all appealing, especially since you tied that choice directly to stance/power selection. Effectively, your weapon loadout picks your stances for you or your stance selections pick your weapon loadout (and your weapon selection doesn't really factor in at all as long as it satisfies that loadout).

The weapon group benefits for martial classes should be general benefits and tactical options applied regardless of power used. In my defender/leader design, the weapon selection benefits allow the defender to change or add to the normal benefit of their retributive attack (based upon the weapon used to make the retributive attack). If they're wielding a hammer or mace, instead of the normal damage dealt by their retributive attack, they can deal damage equal to their secondary ability mod and daze the target until the end of the the target's next turn. If they're wielding a light blade or heavy blade, they can shift 1 before or after making the retributive attack. If they're wielding a flail, on a hit, they can knock the target prone. If they're wielding an axe or pick, on a hit, the target takes a penalty to their AC until the end of the target's next turn. If they're wielding a spear, on a hit, the target is immobilized until the end of its next turn. If they're wielding a shield, as an effect after their attack, they can slide the target 1 square.

In all of those cases, the weapon selection provides a tactical option without restricting their existing tactical choices (and, in fact, can be seen more as a bonus to the normal retributive effect even though it's basically default since they're pretty much never going to not be using one of those) and isn't determined by their weapon loadout.

The only specific benefit I provide to any loadout is to two-handed weapons (they are treated as if they are one size category larger for the purpose of their damage die) in order to provide them with enough of a damage advantage to make up for the survivability and retributive attractiveness of sword and board and the versatility inherent in getting an additional choice for your retributive attack (as well as choosing between more damage and higher defense). I'm probably going to do something like this for all defenders for the same reason (leaders too, possibly).

Concerning at-will powers, I've always felt that defender at-wills should focus on either marking more targets (one of my favorite effects is "on hit: a target within X squares is marked until the end of your next turn" in addition to the existing marking aura) or on augmenting their own survivability (increases to defenses, temp hp). I really don't agree with the stances that change basic attacks (at least without the addendum "made during your own turn"), mainly because those make leader enabling and opp attacks of any kind *way* too powerful, which gives a major advantage to any class/power source that happens to have those basic attack augments.

Shimeran
2016-04-04, 07:50 PM
It kind of feels like you started with the concept of martial defender and worked from there. That's certainly workable, I'm just not picking up a strong class identity from the mechanics. Is it meant to be a straight at-will user with no encounter or daily powers? That would explain the strong at wills, though I see a risk of each round getting kind of samey in terms of options.

How do you imagine the character operating in play? Personally, when I think of warrior as soldier I think of a more tactically minded character that's good at teamwork, holding the line, and applying steady pressure. What kind of play pops into your head?

On a side note, the term "stance" should be free thanks to Path of War. I haven't found sources other than 4e that use "marked" for aggro-like mechanics though, so that might warrant a rename.

ChrissP
2016-04-05, 02:11 AM
Thank's so much, guys!! :smallsmile::smallsmile::smallsmile:

ThePurple
2016-04-07, 04:50 AM
In order to prevent this thread from falling to ruin, I'll post my three variants on the fighter for people to peruse.

Warrior: Martial Defender/Leader (warlord/knight archetype); intended primary is STR; intended secondaries are CON and CHA; DEX is a viable secondary if you're willing to have weaker heals

Hp: Con + 9 + 6 per level
HS: 9
+2 Fort
Armor: cloth, leather, hide, chain, scale, plate, light shield, heavy shield
Weapon: simple melee, military melee, simple ranged
Skills: 1 physical, 1 mental, 1 social, 2 at-large

I elected to go with 2 at-large skills mainly because warlords and knights have excellent reasons for training in pretty much *anything*.

Class Features

Defender's Aura: all enemies adjacent to you are marked by you. In addition, When an enemy marked by you shifts away from you or makes an attack that activates the marked penalty, you may make a basic attack against the target as an opportunity action.

Inspiring Word: 2/encounter; minor action; close burst 10; one target; effect: target may spend HS and gain Cha/Int mod additional hp and you cannot use Defender's Aura until the end of the encounter. In addition, until the end of the encounter, you can target an ally within 5 instead of yourself with the additional effects of your at-will attacks.

Defender's Training: When making an attack granted by Defender's Aura, you gain one of the following
-if the attack is made using a heavy blade or light blade, you may shift 1 square before or after making the attack
-if the attack is made using a hammer or mace, on a hit, instead of the normal damage, you may deal damage equal to your Str mod and daze the target until the end of its next turn
-if the attack is made using a flail, on a hit, you may knock the target prone
-if the attack is made using an axe or pick, on a hit, the target takes a -2 penalty to AC until the end of its next turn
-if the attack is made using a spear, on a hit, the target is immobilized until the end of its next turn
-if the attack is made using a shield, after the attack, you may slide the target 1 square

Heavy Warrior: While wearing heavy armor, you may use Con instead of Dex/Int for Ref defense. In addition, when wielding a weapon in two hands, you may treat that weapon as if it were one size category higher for the purpose of its weapon damage die.

Advanced Training: choose one of the following
-you may ignore the armor check penalty to speed from wearing heavy armor
-you may ignore the armor check penalty to skill checks from using a shield
-you gain +1 bonus to speed while wearing light armor

Powers

At-wills: Str v. AC, on hit: 1[W] + Str dam; choose one of the following additional effects:
-You gain Cha mod temp hp; Cha + 2 at 6, Cha + 3 at 16, Cha + 4 at 26
-you gain a +1 bonus to AC until EoNT
-you may shift 1
-you gain a +1 bonus to your next attack roll before the end of your next turn

Encounters: Free action, once/round when you hit a target with an at-will attack, effect: triggering attack deals +1[W] damage, +2[W] at 17, and choose one of the following:
-you or an ally within 5 may spend a healing surge
-target is dazed until EoNT
-you gain resistance equal to 5 + one-half level until EoNT
-the additional effect of the triggering attack affects all allies within 5

Dailies: minor action, stance; effect: choose one of the following
-you and all adjacent allies gain a +1 power bonus to hit
-you and all adjacent allies gain a +1 power bonus to all defs
-you or an ally adjacent to you or the target may shift 1 whenever you hit with an attack

You may end the stance as a standard action to make the following attack; Str v. Fort or Ref; 2[W] + Str; 3[W] at 5, 4[W] at 15, 5[W] at 20, 6[W] at 25; miss: half damage

Fighter: Martial Striker/Artillery (ranger/slayer archetype); intended primary is STR; intended secondaries are CON and DEX
Hp: Con + 7 + 5 per level
HS: 8
+1 Fort +1 Ref
Armor: cloth, leather, hide, chain, scale
Weapon: simple melee, military melee, simple ranged
Skills: 2 physical, 1 social, 1 mental, 1 social or mental

Class Features
Fighter's Training: You gain the following benefits
-while wielding two offhand weapons, once per turn, when you hit a target granting you combat advantage, you deal Con/Dex + 1[W] offhand additional damage; Con/Dex + 1 at 6, Con/Dex + 2 at 11, Con/Dex + 3 at 16, Con/Dex + 4 at 21, Con/Dex + 5 at 26; You may only deal this additional damage to one target per attack
-while wielding a two handed weapon, once per turn, when you hit a target granting you combat advantage, you deal Con/Dex mod additional damage; Con/Dex + 1 at 6, Con/Dex + 2 at 11, Con/Dex + 3 at 16, Con/Dex + 4 at 21, Con/Dex + 5 at 26

Fighter's Mobility: You gain the following benefits
-while wearing light armor, gain a +1 bonus to speed
-while wearing heavy armor, you may use Con instead of Dex/Int for Reflex

Advanced Training: Choose one of the following
-You may ignore the skill penalty while wearing armor
-You gain skill training in one additional skill

Powers
At-wills: Str v. AC; on hit: 1[W] + Str; choose one of the following additional effects
-on hit: gain CA against the target until EoNT
-effect: take a -2 penalty to the attack roll; on hit: deal Con/Dex additional damage
-on hit: move up to move speed; gain res all 5 + Con/Dex during move; 7 + Con/Dex at 11; 10 + Con/Dex at 21
-effect: shift 2 before or after the attack
-effect: repeat the attack against each enemy adjacent to you and you take a -2 penalty to defenses until EoNT

Encounters: Free action, when you use an at-will attack; reliable; on hit: +Con/Dex additional damage and choose one of the following
-push target 2
-slide target 1
-shift your move speed

Dailies: minor action, stance, lasts until end of encounter; effect: choose one of the following
-+1 power bonus to hit
-Fighter's Training does not require CA
-whenever you hit a target with an attack, you may deal Str mod damage to a creature adjacent to the target of that attack as a free action

You may end the stance as a standard action to use the following attack:
-close burst 1, all enemies, Str v. Fort or Ref; on hit: 2[W] + Str damage, 3[W] at 9, 4[W] at 19, 5[W] at 29; miss: half damage; effect: you have CA against all targets of this attack; special: if you are wielding two weapons, you deal Con/Dex additional damage with this attack

Armsman: Martial Controller/Striker (tactical attack specialist; trip, prone, slide, push, etc); intended primary is STR; intended secondaries are DEX and WIS
Hp: Con + 7 + 5 per level
HS: 8
+1 Fort +1 Ref
Armor: cloth, leather, hide, chain, scale, light shield
Weapon: simple melee, military melee, simple ranged
Skills: 1 physical, 1 social, 1 mental, 1 physical or mental, 1 at-large

Class Features
Armsman's Training: You gain the following benefits
-when wielding a flail, if you attempt to pull a creature that is already adjacent to you while using a flail, it is knocked prone instead
-when wielding a polearm, staff, hammer, or mace, increase the distance of any slide or push by 1
-when wielding a light blade, pick, or spear, all of your powers that slow or immobilize gain "Aftereffect: the target is subject to the effect until EoNT"

Tactical Punishment: Once per turn, you can use one of the following benefits
-if you attempt to push or slide a creature with a weapon attack into a square that it cannot occupy because it is a solid object or occupied by another creature, it takes Dex/Wis mod damage; Dex/Wis + 1 at 6, Dex/Wis + 2 at 11, Dex/Wis + 3 at 16, Dex/Wis+ 4 at 21, Dex/Wis + 5 at 26
-if you pull a creature that is already prone, it takes Dex/Wis mod damage; Dex/Wis + 1 at 6, Dex/Wis + 2 at 11, Dex/Wis + 3 at 16, Dex/Wis + 4 at 21, Dex/Wis + 5 at 26

Opportunistic Advantage: Choose one of the following
-you gain CA against slowed and immobilized targets
-you deal Dex/Wis mod additional damage to dazed and stunned targets

Armor Training: You gain the following benefits
-while wearing light armor, whenever you are pushed, pulled, or slid you may shift 1 sq as a free action
-while wearing heavy armor, you may reduce the distance of any forced movement by 1, minimum of 1

Advanced Training: Choose one of the following
-You gain training in one additional skill
-Whenever you assist an ally, you may assist one additional ally

I couldn't think of any way for heavy blades and axes to have controller-y benefits since they're less about controlling your opponent and more about just damaging them or making them easier to damage. If anyone can think of ways that they could be applied (outside of when they are also polearms), I'm open to suggestions.

Also, I have a feeling that there should be a Tactical Punishment option for slowing targets that are already slowed (since the intention there is to provide a benefit when the control effect you're applying wouldn't do anything), but I'm not sure how to apply it since you already get a possible benefit against slowed and immobilized targets via Opportunistic Advantage and the Armsman's Training benefit is designed to make slowed and immobilize effects last longer than they otherwise would. If it were as simple as slowing a target that is already slowed (even if it has to be one that is save ends), you can just continually apply the slow effect and get your full damage which seems a bit too good compared to the other bonus damage mechanisms.

Powers
At-wills: Str v. AC, on hit: 1[W] + Str mod damage; choose one of the following additional effects
-target slowed (s/e)
-push or pull target 2 sq
-slide 1 sq
-knock target prone

Encounters: Free action, when you hit a target with an at-will attack; effect: +1[W] damage, +2[W] at 17, and choose one of the following
-target immobilized (s/e)
-target dazed (s/e)
-target blinded (s/e)

Dailies: minor action, stance, lasts until end of encounter; effect: choose one of the following
-+1 to hit
-deal additional damage from Tactical Punishment on all attacks
-gain a +1 bonus to defenses and you may shift 1 whenever you hit a target with an attack

You may end the stance as a standard action to use the following attack:
-Str v. Fort; on hit: 2[W] + Str damage, 3[W] at 5, 4[W] at 9, 5[W] at 15, 6[W] at 19, 7[W] at 25, 8[W] at 29; miss: half damage; effect: choose one of the following
-target is stunned until EoNT; aftereffect: dazed (s/e)
-target is restrained (s/e)

Tegu8788
2016-04-07, 07:22 PM
These are some good starts. I'm liking everyone getting 1 skill in each area minimum, with the possibility of specific skills being granted free, a specific type being included, or a floating anything. I am leering of giving Fighters Con to Fort and Reflex, because it grows. Just give a flat class bonus.

ThePurple
2016-04-07, 07:59 PM
I am leering of giving Fighters Con to Fort and Reflex, because it grows. Just give a flat class bonus.

Getting to use Con for Fort and Ref (only when wearing heavy armor, too, I believe) doesn't really do much because Fighters are still driven by Str as their attack stat. The intent of those abilities was to prevent doubling up on your Fort defense (since Con is a secondary stat, this is actually encouraged) from depriving you of having NADs that all scale properly.

The problem with any flat class bonus is that it can be pretty easily exploited by anyone who *is* willing to completely junk their Will by stacking Dex, Con, and Str so that their Reflex is so high as to be nearly untouchable.

I don't think it's *necessary* to include the "ability mod can now be used to calculate X defense and no longer be used for Y defense" wording previously mentioned concerning feats that perform as such, but I can include it if there's actual potential for significant exploitation, which I'm not seeing.

Tegu8788
2016-04-07, 10:32 PM
I'm always looking at things from the hybrid lens, and that feature screams exploit to me. Would make a Fighter|Conlock or Fighter|Battlemind very potent.

Not saying we can't use it, just that that would be something worth keeping an eye on.


But we do need to fix the Fighter stats. Even the V-classes are less MAD than the Fighter, needing Str, Con, Dex, and Wis.

ThePurple
2016-04-07, 11:10 PM
I'm always looking at things from the hybrid lens, and that feature screams exploit to me. Would make a Fighter|Conlock or Fighter|Battlemind very potent.

That can be fixed by not having those features be available to hybrids. Not really a problem.


But we do need to fix the Fighter stats. Even the V-classes are less MAD than the Fighter, needing Str, Con, Dex, and Wis.

The 3 classes I've designed to accommodate everything that fighter has been historically are STR + CON/CHA/DEX (and DEX is only there because of the light armor option), STR + CON/DEX, and STR + DEX/WIS.

In effect, I solved the problem of "fighters use too many different stats" by separating all of the functions that fighters have into completely separate classes that use an appropriate number of abilities. Part of my problem with fighters is that, historically, they've always been a catch-all for anything that the more specialized martial classes (ranger, rogue) didn't, which still leaves a metric crapton of stuff for them to catch. If you pare the intended functions down to individual suites that are complimentary and sensible from an archetypal and thematic viewpoint, you can fix that fighter construct pretty easily.

It's also one of the advantages of the dual role class constructs: you can get more diversity out of a single class.

ThePurple
2016-04-10, 03:41 AM
Even though I get the feeling that I'm unwittingly dominating this entire discussion, to prevent the thread from falling into obscurity, here are a few more classes (the divine ones).

The major mechanical schtick of the divine classes is deity selection, though not all of them have the same impact. This is somewhat limited since it's basically a selection made at character creation that you can't really do much with from a tactical standpoint. One thing I've considered is having each deity provide 2 different domains, with the cleric/paladin switching between the two as a minor action (or even picking whenever they use a power).

Also, I did notice that there is actually a pretty heavy defender rather than leader bias among the classes. It just kind of worked out that way, and I think it makes a bit of sense. I imagine divine character being more about protecting with healing being something within their toolbox.

Cleric Divine Leader/Controller: primary stat is wisdom; secondary stats are con and cha
Hp: Con + 7 + 5 per level
HS: 8
+1 Fort +1 Will
Armor: cloth, leather, chain, light shield
Weapon: simple melee, simple ranged
Skills: Religion, 1 mental, 1 physical, 1 social, 1 at-large

Features
Ritual Casting: Gain Ritual Casting (Religion) as a bonus feat

Strength of Conviction: You may use Wis instead of Str for melee basic attacks.

Pastoral Training: Choose one of the following
-When performing a ritual, you spend resources as if it were one level lower than it actually is
-When you perform a ritual, choose one ally. That ally gains a +2 bonus to their next skill check as part of the skill challenge.

Sacred Vow: Choose one of the following
- while you wear cloth or no armor, you gain a +2 bonus to AC. In addition, you may make cleric attacks as ranged 5 and use Cha instead of Dex for AC and Ref
- while you wear heavy armor, you gain a +1 bonus to all saving throws

Divine Devotee: Choose one of the following, based upon your preferred deity.
-Life Devotee: divine damage is radiant
-Death Devotee: divine damage is necrotic
-Storm Devotee: divine damage is thunder
-Winter Devotee: divine damage is cold
-Fate Devotee: divine damage is psychic
-Craft Devotee: divine damage is fire
-Beast Devotee: divine damage is poison

Holy Cleansing: Choose one of the following at creation. While you have not used healing word during this encounter, you gain the chosen benefit.
-when an enemy succeeds on a saving throw against an effect caused by you, it takes Con mod divine damage, Con + 2 at 6, Con + 3 at 16, Con +4 at 26
-when an enemy succeeds on a saving throw against an effect caused by you, it grants CA to you and all of your allies until EoNT

Healing Word: 2/encounter, minor action, close burst 10, one target; effect: the target may spend a healing surge; additional effects depending upon choice of deity
-Life Devotee: the target regains 1d6 additional hit points, 2d6 at 11, 3d6 at 21
-Death Devotee: bloodied enemies within 5 take Cha/Con mod necrotic damage
-Storm Devotee: the target gains a power bonus to damage rolls equal to Con/Cha until EoNT
-Winter Devotee: the target's next attack reduces their target's damage dealt by Con/Cha mod until EoNT
-Fate Devotee: the target may roll twice and use the better of two rolls on their next attack roll before EoNT
-Craft Devotee: the target gains a +1 power bonus to attack rolls and defenses until EoNT
-Beast Devotee: the target's can shift 2 as a free action

Powers
At-wills: melee, Wis v. AC, on hit: 1[W] + Wis dam; in addition, choose one of the following
-on hit: target slowed (s/e)
-on hit: target takes a -1 penalty to saving throws (s/e)
-effect: one ally w/i 5 gains temp hp equal to Cha mod, Cha + 2 at 6, Cha + 3 at 16, Cha + 4 at 26
-effect: one ally w/i 5 deals divine damage equal to your Con mod on their next attack before EoNT

Encounters: standard action, one target; melee weapon, Wis v. AC, on hit: 1[W] + Wis dam, 2[W] at 7, 3[W] at 17, 4[W] at 27, or ranged 5 Wis v. Ref, on hit: 1d8 + Wis divine damage, 2d8 at 7, 3d8 at 17, 4d8 at 27; miss: half damage; choose one of the following effects;
-the target is dazed until EoNT
-push the target Cha mod sq
-the target grants CA (s/e)
-ally w/i 5 can spend a HS as a free action
-all enemies w/i 5 deal Con mod less damage on next damage roll before EoNT

Dailies: standard, one target; melee weapon, Wis v. AC, on hit: 2[W] + Wis dam, 3[W] at 5, 4[W] at 15, 5[W] at 25, or ranged 5, Wis v. Ref, on hit: 2d8 + Wis divine damage, 3d8 at 5, 4d8 at 15, 5d8 at 25; miss: half damage; choose one of the following effects;
-you gain an additional use of Healing Word that must be used before the end of the encounter
-one ally w/i 5 gains a res all equal to your Cha mod until the end of the encounter; you may change the target of this effect to another ally within 5 as a minor action
-one ally w/i 5 deals Con mod additional divine damage; you may change the target of this effect to another ally within 5 as a minor action

Paladin Divine Defender/Striker; primary ability is STR; secondaries are CON and WIS; this is more of a crusader model of the paladin as "divine champion" rather than "divine servant"; admittedly, it's kind of like a divine barbarian in heavy armor

Hp: Con + 9 + 6 per level
HS: 10
+1 Fort +1 Will
Armor: cloth, leather, hide, chain, scale, plate, light shield, heavy shield
Weapon: simple melee, military melee, simple ranged
Skills: Religion, 2 physical, 1 mental, 1 social

Features
Paladin's Purity: Choose one of the following
-You may use Cha or Wis for Endurance checks
-once per round, whenever you succeed on a Diplomacy or Endurance check by 5 or more, you may repeat the check

Divine Inspiration: Choose one of the following. Whenever you reduce a non-minion enemy to 0 or fewer hit points or score a critical hit, all allies within sight gain one of the following.
- gain Cha temp hp, Cha + 2 at 6, Cha + 3 at 16, Cha + 4 at 26
- gain Wis mod res all until EoNT, Wis + 2 at 6, Wis + 3 at 16, Wis + 4 at 26
- +1 power bonus to hit until EoNT
- +1 power bonus to AC until EoNT

Divine Devotee: Choose one of the following, based upon your preferred deity.
-Life Devotee: divine damage is radiant
-Death Devotee: divine damage is necrotic
-Storm Devotee: divine damage is thunder
-Winter Devotee: divine damage is cold
-Fate Devotee: divine damage is psychic
-Craft Devotee: divine damage is fire
-Beast Devotee: divine damage is poison

Defender's Aura: all enemies adjacent to you are marked by you. When an enemy marked by you shifts away from you or makes an attack that activates the marked penalty, you may deal Str + enh + 2 divine damage to the enemy as an opportunity action.

Crusader's Wrath: As a minor action, you may enter the Crusader's Wrath. While you are in the Crusader's Wrath, Defender's Aura is deactivated and, whenever you hit a target granting you CA with a weapon attack, you deal Wis/Cha mod additional divine damage, Wis/Cha + 1 at 6, Wis/Cha + 2 at 11, Wis/Cha + 3 at 16, Wis/Cha + 4 at 21, Wis/Cha + 5 at 26

Powers
At-wills: Str v. AC, on hit: 1[W] + Str dam; choose one of the following
-on hit: increase any divine damage dealt by Cha until SoNT
-on hit: 2 additional divine damage for each enemy adjacent to you
-on hit: gain Wis mod temp hp; Wis + 2 at 6, Wis + 3 at 16, Wis + 4 at 26
-effect: push the target 1 sq and shift 1 sq into an empty sq adjacent to it

Encounters: free action, once per round when you make a basic attack. Choose one of the following.
-+1[W] damage, +2[W] at 17; miss: half damage
-effect: Cha mod ongoing divine damage (s/e)
-effect: all enemies adjacent to you take Cha mod divine damage
-effect: push the target up to 3 sq and all enemies adjacent to the target take Cha mod divine damage

Dailies: standard action; Str v. AC; on hit: 2[W] + Str + Wis/Cha divine damage, 3[W] at 9, 4[W] at 19, 5[W] at 29; miss: half damage; one additional effect depending upon Divine Devotee:
-Life or Fate Devotee: on hit: target is blinded (s/e); miss: target is blinded until EoNT
-Craft or Beast Devotee: effect: target takes Wis/Cha ongoing divine damage (s/e); Wis/Cha + 2 at 5; Wis/Cha + 4 at 15, Wis/Cha + 6 at 25
-Death or Winter Devotee: on hit: target is weakened (s/e); miss: target is weakened until EoNT
-Storm Devotee: on hit: target is deafened and dazed (s/e); miss: target is deafened and daze until EoNT

Invoker Divine Artillery/Controller: primary is either WIS or INT; secondary is either CON or CHA, but it feels kind of kludgy; the general idea here is for a Truespeaker/Malediction style invoker; many of the powers allow the target to choose to either suffer an effect or take damage, which, to me, gets across the feeling of resistance to the divine authority being painful and/or deadly

Hp: Con + 6 + 4 per level
HS: 7
+1 Fort +1 Ref
Armor: cloth, leather
Weapon: simple melee, staff, rod
Skills: Arcana and Religion, 1 mental, 1 social, 1 physical


Lexical Training: Choose one of the following
-Monastic: you may use Wis instead of Str for melee basic attacks and your Invoker attacks use Wis for attack and damage rolls. In addition, you may use Con instead of Dex/Int for AC
-Academic: you may use Int instead of Str for melee basic attacks and your Invoker attacks use Int for attack and damage rolls. In addition, you may use Cha instead of Con to determine your hit points

Deific Lexicon: choose three damage types, depending upon your deity. Whenever you use a power, choose one of those damage types. Divine damage is of the chosen type.
-fire, cold, lightning, thunder, acid, psychic, force, radiant, necrotic

Lexicon of Reality: when you roll initiative, choose one of the following. Whenever you are bloodied or use a daily power, you may change your decision.
-Command: your attacks target Will unless otherwise mentioned
-Censure: your attacks target Fort unless otherwise mentioned
-Curses: your attacks target Ref unless otherwise mentioned

Lexical Mastery: Choose one of the following
-Once per round, whenever you fail a Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check by 2 or less, you may reroll the skill check
-Once per round, whenever you succeed on a Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check by 5 or more, you may make an additional skill check for an additional success.

Powers
At-wills: Wis or Int v. defense, choose one of the following on use
-ranged 5, one target; on hit: 1d8 + Wis or Int divine damage
The following powers can only be used while using the Command Lexicon
-ranged 5; on hit: the target may choose to let you apply one of the following additional effects to it; if it does not, it takes 1d10 + Wis or Int divine damage and a -1 penalty to saving throws until EoNT
-slid 4
-slowed (s/e)
-target fails its next saving throw against an effect of your choice that a save can end
-knocked prone

-close blast 3, all targets; on hit: the target may choose to let you pull or push it 2 squares or knock it prone; if it does not, it takes 1d8 + Wis or Int damage
The following powers can only be used while using the Censure Lexicon
-area burst 1 within 10, all targets; on hit: 1d6 + Int or Wis divine damage
-close blast 3, all targets; on hit: 1d8 + Int or Wis divine damage
-ranged 10; on hit: 1d8 + Int or Wis divine damage and all adjacent targets takes Wis or Int divine damage

Encounters: minor action, until the end of your next turn, you gain a bonus equal to Con or Cha mod to your next damage roll. In addition, you may apply one of the possible additional effects for the next power you use, in addition to the choice given to the target (e.g. two of the additional effects or damage and an additional effect). Instead of two additional effects, you may instead choose one of the following:
-dazed(s/e)
-blinded and deafened(s/e)

Dailies: I haven't come up with any yet. I'm always open to ideas

The wording on the encounter power feels really bad to me. If anyone can find a way to clean it up, I'd be grateful.

Runepriest Defender/Leader; the primary ability is Str; the secondary abilities are Con and Wis; the main idea here kind of follows along the same thematic lines as the Invoker except that, instead of speaking the words of power, you create your own words by combining runes; more could probably be added to diversify the role selection, but I tried to keep it limited

Hp: Con + 9 + 6 per level
HS: 9
+1 Fort +1 Will
Armor: cloth, leather, chain, scale, light shield
Weapon: simple melee, military melee, simple ranged
Skills: Religion, 2 physical, 1 mental, 1 social

Ritual Caster: You gain Ritual Caster (Religion) as a bonus feat

Runic Training: Choose one of the following at creation.
-You gain training in heavy shields and one additional HS. In addition, while using a heavy shield, you may use Con instead of Int/Dex for Reflex defense.
-You gain training in plate armor. In addition, while using a melee weapon in two hands, you may choose an ally within 5 sq to be the target of your powers instead of 2

Rune Word: When you roll initiative, you may choose two runes with which to create a rune word. You gain the benefit of both runes. Once per encounter, as a minor action, you may change one of the runes to create a new rune word.
-Rune of Protection: all enemies adjacent to you are marked by you
-Rune of Retribution: when an enemy marked by you incurs the marked penalty or adjacent enemy shifts away from you, you may make a basic attack against the target or have the target take Con mod damage as an opp action.
-Rune of Healing: whenever an adjacent ally spends a healing surge, they regain Wis mod additional hp
-Rune of Warding: all allies adjacent to you have res all 3, 4 at 6, 5 at 11, 6 at 16, 7 at 21, 8 at 26

Spoken Rune: twice per encounter, as a minor action, you may speak your rune word. You gain the benefit of both runes.
-Rune of Protection: you gain a +1 bonus to all defenses until EoNT
-Rune of Retribution: you deal Con mod additional damage with opportunity attacks until EoNT
-Rune of Healing: you or an ally within 2 spends a healing surge
-Rune of Warding: you or an ally within 2 gains res all equal to your Wis mod until EoNT

Powers
At-wills: melee weapon, Str v. AC, on hit: 1[W] + Str mod damage and choose one effect depending upon your active runes on use
-Rune of Protection: effect: the target is marked until the end of your next turn
-Rune of Retribution: on hit: the target takes a penalty to damage rolls equal to your Con mod until EoNT
-Rune of Healing: effect: one ally within 2 gains Wis temp hp, Wis + 2 at 6, 3 + Wis at 16, 4 + Wis at 26
-Rune of Warding: effect: one ally within 2 gains a +2 power bonus to the defense of your choice until EoNT

Encounters: free action, when you hit with an at-will power. The triggering attack deals +1[W] dam, +2[W] at 17, and gains the benefit of two of your active runes

Dailies: standard action, melee weapon, Str v. AC, on hit: 2[W] + Str mod damage, 3[W] at 5, 4[W] at 15, 5[W] at 25; miss: half damage; effect: choose one of the following additional effects at creation; at 5, 15, and 25, you may choose another option; only one option may be used at a time
-you may change one or both of your runes to create a new rune word
-your rune word gains the Rune of Vengeance
-Rune Word: whenever an enemy attacks you, you gain a +1 bonus to your next attack roll before EoNT; this bonus stacks with itself
-at-will: on hit: +1 additional damage for each +1 bonus to hit you had from the Rune Word, +2 at 11, +3 at 21
-your rune word gains the Rune of Regeneration
-Rune Word: at the start of your turn, any adjacent bloodied ally regains Wis mod hp
-at-will: on hit: one ally within 2 loses Wis mod temp hp and regains that much hp
-your rune word gains the Rune of Reinforcement
-Rune word: adjacent allies reduce the distance of any forced movement by 2
-at-will: on hit: target pushed 1; If the attack roll was 7 or more higher than the target's Fort, the target is also knocked prone
-your rune word gains the Rune of Elements; when you use this power, choose fire, cold, lightning, or thunder
-Rune Word: adjacent allies gain resistance to the chosen damage type equal to 5 + Wis, 6 + Wis at 11, 7 + Wis at 21
-at-will: on-hit: the damage dealt by this power is of the chosen damage type and the target loses any resistance to this damage type until EoNT

Oracle Divine Striker/Defender: primary ability is Wis; secondaries are Dex and Int; It's basically a reimagining of the Avenger with the Oath functionality interpreted as flashes of divinely inspired foresight; one of the problems I have with it is that every oracle, regardless of choice of deity, is identical, with bothers me somewhat; the lack of burst damage is intended to be made up for by the ability to swap from striker to defender once your selected target dies as well as the lack of conditional requirement
Hp: Con + 9 + 6 per level
HS: 10
+1 Fort +1 Ref +1 Will
Armor: cloth
Weapon: simple melee, military melee
Skills: Religion, 1 physical, 1 mental, 1 social, 1 at-large

Features
Ritual Caster: You gain Ritual Caster (Religion) as a bonus feat

Oracular Training: Choose one of the following:
-Whenever you perform a ritual, you may increase the cost of the ritual by 50%; if you do so, all allies may roll twice and use the better of the two rolls of their next skill check made as part of the skill challenge
-whenever you perform a ritual, you may roll twice and use the better of the two rolls on your next skill check made as part of the skill challenge

Divine Guidance: while wearing cloth or no armor, gain a +2 bonus to AC. In addition, you may use Wis instead of Str for melee basic attacks

Aura of Sight: you gain a +2 bonus to AC; in addition, enemies adjacent to you are marked by you; whenever an enemy marked by you shifts away from you or makes an attack that incurs the marked penalty, you may make a melee basic attack against the target as an opp action

Focused Sight: as a minor action, while you benefit from Aura of Sight, you may choose an enemy that you can see; until the end of the encounter or the target dies, you may roll twice and use the higher of the two rolls whenever you attack the chosen target, but you cannot benefit from Aura of Sight while this effect is active; when the target dies, your Aura of Sight reactivates

Oracle's Gift: Choose one of the following
-whenever you miss a target with an attack gained from Aura of Sight, you may deal Int mod psychic damage to the target
-whenever you would hit with both attack rolls from Focused Sight, you may deal Dex mod additional damage to the target

Combat Style: you gain the following benefits
-you gain a +1 bonus to AC while wielding a two-handed weapon
-while wielding two weapons, whenever you miss a target by 5 or less, you deal half damage with the triggering attack

Powers
At-wills: melee weapon, Wis v. AC; on hit: 1[W] + Wis mod damage and choose one of the following
-gain +1 power bonus to attack rolls against the target until EoNT
-gain +1 power bonus to all defenses against attack rolls made by the target until EoNT
-shift 1 and pull the target into the nearest sq adjacent to you
-slide the target 1 and shift into the nearest sq adjacent to the target

Encounters: melee weapon, Wis v. AC; on hit: 1[W] + Wis + Dex/Int mod damage; miss: half damage; effect: choose one of the following
- +2 power bonus to attack rolls until EoNT
- +2 power bonus to defenses until EoNT
- gain Dex/Int temp hp, 2 + Dex/Int at 3, 3 + Dex/Int at 13, 4 + Dex/Int at 23
-teleport the target and yourself up to 3 sq; teleport 4 at 7, teleport 5 at 17, teleport 6 at 27

Dailies: standard action; Wis v. AC; on hit: 2[W] + Wis dam, 3[W] + Wis at 15; miss: half damage; addition effect: choose one of the following
- +Int/Dex mod pow bonus to dam rolls until end of encounter
- until the end of the encounter, you may shift up to your Dex mod as a move action; in addition, you gain a +2 pow bonus to AC and Ref
- res all Int until the end of the encounter, Int + 2 at 5, Int + 3 at 15, Int + 4 at 25
- until the end of the encounter, if both of the attack rolls you make would hit the target, the attack automatically does maximum damage (does not affect critical hit bonus damage)

Tegu8788
2016-04-10, 05:44 PM
Ho crap that's a lot of stuff to short through. It'll take me a while to short through all this. I'm seeing some stuff I like, some stuff I question the balance of. I think we need to drop building powers right now, focus on class features. That will also help us from building poach powers for now.


But good effort. Very good effort.


I think before we do much more I'd like us to figure out what classes we actually need. I don't think the paladin is one. My main is a paladin, and I love the fluff of a paladin, but we the debate between what's a Paladin and what's a Fighter|Cleric mechanically is important. Not just can we make a difference, but do we need to make a difference. Same for the Invoker. Let's not just make D&D classes, let's make tropic classes.

ThePurple
2016-04-10, 07:40 PM
I don't think the paladin is one. My main is a paladin, and I love the fluff of a paladin, but we the debate between what's a Paladin and what's a Fighter|Cleric mechanically is important. Not just can we make a difference, but do we need to make a difference.

While I agree that paladin has always existed in this weird place between a fighter with divine proclivities and a cleric with martial proclivities, it's a strong enough trope within the confines of the fantasy (gaming) genre that it needs to be present in a form that doesn't require someone that wants to play one to go hybrid. It's like forcing someone who wants to play an arcane warrior style class into playing a Fighter|Wizard hybrid. All of those are tropic concepts that are discrete enough from their constituent parts to require making classes that fulfill theme rather than forcing players to merge classes together.

In effect, I'm saying that we shouldn't force people to use the hybrid system to play something that there's a reasonable expectation of them playing. Hybridization shouldn't be something we expect people to utilize heavily, just like we shouldn't expect players to utilize paragon multiclassing heavily.

I'm not even sure that paragon multiclassing or other major mixing of the classes is all that necessary, given how we're designing classes with multiple roles. The mechanical reasoning posited by the 4e developers for the hybrid system was allowing players to create characters to fulfill multiple roles when the group was short on one or more of them.

For those individuals that want to create thematic mixtures, it would behoove us then to create themes to accommodate them rather than creating complex rule systems (with all kinds of developmental blind spots). In that sense, a paladin wouldn't be a discrete class or even a hybridization of fighter and cleric, but rather a fighter that takes a theme that gives it access to divine utility powers and some other thematic benefits like automatic training in Religion and the ability to use CHA instead of some other stat for a defense of their choice (since Paladin really is generally viewed as "fighter plus").

If we really feel compelled to implement true hybridization, the most elegant way that I can think of to implement it would be to have hybridization and multiclassing coopt themes, which happily circumvents the creation of a complex conversion/customization system like the one 4e used. In effect, if you want a hybrid fighter|cleric, you would go with either a fighter or cleric as your base class and take either the "hybrid fighter" or "hybrid cleric" theme, which each provide a portion of that class's functionality on par with the effects of the other themes (hybrid themes would probably have the requirement that you *not* be a member of that class already).


Same for the Invoker.

The Invoker as I designed draws a bit from a couple of different tropic concepts. The first is the Old Testament style divine caster that the 4e Invoker was intended to exemplify (Moses rather than ). The second is a Truespeaker/Power Word model, kind of like Jesse Custer from Preacher (only not so blatantly OP). They're both strongly codified tropic constructs that differ significantly from other forms, though, admittedly, the latter is in this weird space between divine and arcane magic.


Let's not just make D&D classes, let's make tropic classes.

The problem is in how exactly do we codify which classes are "tropic"?

By the strictest definition that would basically require hybridization of classes in order to accomplish any fusion archetype (which is different than a fusion of archetypes), the only tropic classes would be Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Psion (e.g. Fighter and Rogue for heavy and light combat; Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Psion for the 4 different sources of magic; Psion and Druid are even questionable here because Psions are variant Wizards and Druids are variant Clerics). Under this definition, which is pretty much what D&D did originally, to have any kind of fusion character, you'd be required to do the equivalent of hybridization (multiclassing in older editions is basically what 4e's hybridization tries to provide), even if that hybridization doesn't really do precisely what you'd like it to do (which is why AD&D started creating kits and whatnot; since bladesinger isn't the same as default fighter/mage).

I try to keep an eye out for mechanical distinctiveness, mainly because thematic underpinnings are vague and depend extremely heavily upon interpretation (and are largely designed to be separated from the rules) while mechanics are precise and, should be, the same regardless of their interpretation (and are the explicit representation of the rules). Oftentimes mechanical distinctiveness comes along with a change in those selfsame thematic underpinnings but not always, which is why I shy away from the idea that all classes should be isolated tropic constructs.

The Fighter, Warrior, and Armsman classes that I presented earlier are all subcategories of the same overarching fighter trope. They're distinct classes, however, because the delineation between them isn't derived from their tropic uniqueness (of which there isn't much, especially where Armsman is concerned) but rather derived from the differences in their mechanical application.

Tegu8788
2016-04-10, 08:46 PM
The way I see it, we can use the Paladin and Battlemage, possibly the more magical Ranger, as cornerstone examples of how to make a hybrid. Which, no surprise, I will take the lead on when we get to that point. Though a Theme as a Hybrid would be something I support. Then I can be a Paladin|Warlock/Bard*Sorcerer, and use all the Charimsa classes.


If you've got a mechanical way to express the Paladin as something other than a Fighter that heals and Smites, lay it on me. It's the "do less work" idea. I'm the hybrid guy because I love playing less traditional concepts. I ant to play the melee dude in armor that can sling spells and toss out a heal or two, ideally with a pet. And the more magic sources I can draw from the better.

Edit: Just realized, this would make the Battlemind actually better, being a Fighter with Psion boosts.

Shimeran
2016-04-11, 12:23 AM
Yeah, I like hybrids myself and will definitely be keeping an eye open when we get there.

On a side note, some archetypes do seem like they'd conceptually be a mix of power sources. For example, it's pretty easy to see a holy knight as a warrior with limited ability to call on divine aid. Mechanics wise, that implies martial at-will with divine showing up more in encounter and daily powers. Drawing on divine power at will is usually the domain of dedicated holy men unless you've got something like a consecrated blade shtick.

I will say we should probably have a stronger idea on what a class is supposed to represent, but that's it's own discussion.

Tegu8788
2016-04-11, 06:37 PM
And that's my point. I can very easily see a Divine theme letting a Fighter power swap for some divine powers. Something that leads to bloat is trying to make a class for every concept. The more I learn about the Kits of yore the more I like them.

But I'm starting to detail this conversation. And I'll take full credit for that.


Let's look at a Martial Defender/Striker.

What we want: An aura that marks.
An opportunity action punishment.
Lots of health.
Some kind of optional damage bonus. (I'm inclined to have martial characters all have a +1 to hit win weapons, and/or weapons they use are one die larger to represent weapon mastery.)
A small number of skills, probably with Atheltics pre trained.


In terms of Defender side, I'd throw out Aura range of Weapon. If hits it stops motion. Minor action to drop Aura for 1d8 extra damage to all attacks, can regain aura as a move action. This gives the stickiness of the Fighter to the easy aura of the Knight while letting Reach weapons become more useful. Regain aura as a move I can see being powerful if no one moves, Minor to drop, Major to attack, move to Aura up for off turn. It's a thought.

Edit: Last thing I'll try to say in regards to hybrids for now, can we make all defenders use the same universal term Mark? That will make the game smoother, and hybrids a bit easier to make.

Shimeran
2016-04-11, 09:00 PM
We can certainly make "marked" a shared condition, but we'll likely have to use an alternate term. I'm hard pressed to think of any game besides 4e that uses "marked" for "focus on the one who placed the mark or else". The closest equivalent in other games tends to use terms like "taunt" and "provoke". Still, if anyone can find an open license game that uses "marked" for a defender like purpose let us know.

On a side note, outright stopping motion definitely works well, though it's not strictly necessary. It creates a "sticky" defender, which works well. However, other styles like say the less sticky swordmage and paladin can work as well. (Yes, they're got magic, but all it takes is a thrown weapon to get ranged mark violation punishment.) Just a bit of a side note there.

That being said, I am fond of the idea of a soldier type character who can "hold the line" effectively. It's actually not a bad archetype as it standards as disciplined contrast to more savage fighting styles.

Tegu8788
2016-04-11, 10:54 PM
While I love the idea of a thrown weapon using Defender, I don't think it should the Martial Defender. I'd actually make it a variant of the Arcane Archer. Yes, definitely the Paladin and Battlemage can use magic to defend at range, but not every Defender needs to do it all. Each should have a different trick, that's what makes unique. And gives you a reason to use different mechanics.

If really needed, maybe a feat could let a martial defender throw to protect his mark, but it gets really powerful if their isn't a negative attached. Just imagine if the 4E Fighter could punish at range, it would be insane.

I think we had settled on Challenged, even though someone said Marked was a soccer term.

Shimeran
2016-04-11, 11:16 PM
Challenged works. We'll just want to avoid using the term for other clashes like skill challenges though to avoid confusion.

The hurling defender was more of an idea in passing. Honestly, the first idea that popped into my head on seeing the "stops motion" bit was other conditions that could be applied like say vulnerability or slowing (I think the warden uses that one). The follow up through was while making them vulnerable is nice punishment it does let them get away. Granted, if you're building a striker cross anyway that may not be such a problem as you can use striker mobility to give chase. Basically if they run you go into full on hunter mode.

That's all side musing though. For a starting point, I'd still favor a soldier style warrior who's used to fighting next to and otherwise coordinating with allies. I'm not sure how the mechanics would hash out just yet, but the thematics are appealing.

ThePurple
2016-04-13, 09:11 PM
In terms of Defender side, I'd throw out Aura range of Weapon. If hits it stops motion. Minor action to drop Aura for 1d8 extra damage to all attacks, can regain aura as a move action. This gives the stickiness of the Fighter to the easy aura of the Knight while letting Reach weapons become more useful.

I have a couple problems with this.

The first is in giving defenders extreme levels of stickiness, especially if we're going to not give it to all defenders. Allowing a defender to get in a free hit whenever a target moves away is already a great method of generating stickiness since it's penalizing the target for moving (and increasing the defender's damage). Allowing a defender to end that target's movement if they do hit the target basically makes it next to impossible to get away from the defender because the defender can always just close the gap again during their own turn constantly shutting down a target, and that's assuming that the target is willing to waste a turn just to get away from the defender (double move rather than move and attack).

The extreme level of stickiness that Weaponmaster fighters get in 4e is the epitome of this. It basically prevents anything that gets next to a fighter from ever leaving that square, which can very quickly turn into an instant win (especially when dealing with solos and elites). The only balancing factor behind this is that weaponmaster fighters can only really do it to a single target at a time (since their retributive attack is an immediate interrupt), which we're doing away with by going with the aura + opp action design that Essentials used (since it plays in a much more balanced and approachable manner).

The other problem I have is in having the aura depend entirely upon a weapon's reach. If you do that, it becomes *extremely* easy to completely and utterly dominate a large area by virtue of using a reach weapon, and, because you're dominating a large area, you can start dropping retributive bombs on targets no matter what they do (they either shift to get near you or out of the aura and get punched in the face for it or they attack one of your friends and get punched in the fact for it) as well as getting to do it to an inordinate number of targets. Reach isn't just an offensive advantage insofar as it allows you to attack targets that would otherwise be out of your reach; it is also a significant defensive advantage insofar as it allows you to be out of the reach of other targets and, if you do it properly, prevent them from getting to attack you at all.

If you auto-mark and ret-bomb anything within the reach of your weapon, then reach weapons become the de facto weapon allocation for defenders because they provide a massive boatload of advantages with only minor penalties (namely, your AC and Ref are lower because you're not using a shield; damage is *slightly* lower because you're using a lower weapon die weapon, but that's more than made up for by being able to ret-bomb more targets).

The best way that I've been able to accommodate reach weapons with defender auras is to do 3 things:

1. Restrict auto-marking mechanisms to aura 1, while providing at-wills that allow you to mark. This prevents auto-marking everything within reach while still providing the ability to mark creatures that enter your reach during your own turn.

2. Allow ret-bombs to occur against any creature that incurs the marked penalty while within your reach. This allows you to gain full benefit from the marked condition even when a target isn't within your smaller default auto-marking area.

3. Restrict movement based ret-bombs (e.g. opp attack when a marked creature shifts) to only occur when the marked creature shifts from a square within your aura to one outside of your aura. This allows marked creatures to actually be able to maneuver some as long as they remain next to the defender (which is the point of the marking aura) as well as preventing reach weapons from providing absurd area domination.

Wording wise, this isn't really as hard as you might think. The first is accomplished by using the exact stated elements of the powers (aura 1 as class feature; marking with attack as an at-will power option). The second and third are accomplished by using the wording of "when a target that is marked by you shifts from a square inside your aura to a square outside of your aura or makes an attack that incurs the marked penalty".

Tegu8788
2016-04-13, 11:17 PM
I think it's fair to let the Martial Defender be the stickiest, because he's the only one that can't punish at range. Aura 1 permanent is fine, making it an immediate instead of an opp is fine. I like the idea of an at-will letting you make an additional Challenge.

Every other Defender gets possible ranged punishment or more exotic punishments. The Battlemage doesn't need to be sticky because it can follow. Same with Battlemind. Warden slows and yanks. The Martial guy lacks range and has to make an attack roll, so she gets some strong benefit to balance those two nerfs.


Now, while I thing we all agree that a Challenge shouldn't remove some else's Challenge, we do need to make sure that two Defenders can't double team a target, we also want to make sure that at least one of them does get to punish the target. Just something to keep in mind.

ThePurple
2016-04-14, 12:41 AM
I think it's fair to let the Martial Defender be the stickiest, because he's the only one that can't punish at range. Aura 1 permanent is fine, making it an immediate instead of an opp is fine. I like the idea of an at-will letting you make an additional Challenge.

The advantage of having an incredibly sticky defender is way in excess of the ability to ret-bomb a target at range, since, if you're using a super sticky defender appropriately, nothing you mark is going to be getting away from you in order to make ranged attacks in the first place.


Every other Defender gets possible ranged punishment or more exotic punishments.

If you look at the Warrior defender I posted earlier, it actually gets a lot more in the way of exotic punishments than other defenders because they get different effects based upon their weapon choice (which they can also change much more easily than others can change thinks like deity) as opposed to the paladin who basically just change the damage type of the ret-bomb (and, something that I played around with, but elected not to, was applying a secondary effect).

You're also operating under the assumption that we're going to be using all of the same defender models that 4e did. Swordmage, Battlemind, and Warden are all deeply flawed and not particularly tropic defenders, imo, so I really don't want to see us repeat those same errors.

The berserker barbarian is a much better model for a primal defender than the Warden, and I'm curious why exactly the battlemage ret-bomb necessarily needs to involve teleporting around the battlefield (which tends to make them *less* effective defenders because they're acting like a striker rather than a defender). If anything, I see that highly mobile defender-y-ness as being more psionic than arcane, in a Matrix-style bullet speed sense.

"Has to make an attack roll" is also balanced out by other elements of the ret-bomb. Namely, auto-hit ret-bombs do drastically lower damage (and get the benefit of most +dam effects) and are, as such, significantly less threatening than roll-to-hit ret-bombs.


Now, while I thing we all agree that a Challenge shouldn't remove some else's Challenge, we do need to make sure that two Defenders can't double team a target, we also want to make sure that at least one of them does get to punish the target. Just something to keep in mind.

That's not really a problem at all, and I've explained exactly how to make it work multiple times in both of our 4e rebuild threads.

All you do is have the marked penalty (-2 to attack rolls) only applies when an attack made by the marked target does not include at least 1 creature that currently marks it. You then tie ret-bombs to the activation of the marked penalty. In that sense, multiple defenders marking a single target would provide more options of who to attack (since they're both marking and only one of them needs to be targeted to prevent a ret-bomb) but would provide a much more extreme penalty for breaking their marks (since breaking it would trigger both of the defenders' ret-bombs).

Tegu8788
2016-04-16, 06:13 PM
I agree that the Assaultmage is not an ideal Defender, Sheildmage does a better job. "I don't care where you are, I'm protecting my allies from you!" Bullet-time maneuvers could make the psionic unique if we limited it to them, which I'd be fine with.

And I'll agree that the Berzerker is far more thematic than the Warden. The mechanics are cool, but I could see them being used by any class. I like the idea of some tough psionic character, though Defender-Striker definitely being the split to me. And we will need some kind of "sword and spell" focused type, though I'd see a Striker-Controller cross work better for me.


And if you have the write up to prevent double-Challenge-spam happening awesome. It's been a while, and we've thrown out a lot of ideas. Not sure I like both Defenders getting to punish at the same time, but I could be persuaded. Makes sense narratively, but not sure about mechanical balance.

ThePurple
2016-04-17, 12:34 AM
And we will need some kind of "sword and spell" focused type, though I'd see a Striker-Controller cross work better for me.

It's not quite "sword and spell", but I've got an Arcane Striker/Controller based off of 4e's Spellthief (stab a target to charge your weapon to get Striker bonus damage on all of your attacks; when an adjacent target succeeds on a saving throw, you can expend your charge to force the target to reroll the saving throw; encounters require expending your charge for bonus effects; dailies recharge your encounters).

The "true" sword and spell class that I designed is the Battlemage, which is a Defender/Artillery, which is a mix of sorcerer and swordmage (it's also INT or CHA based, so it can be either "wizard" or "sorcerer", with choice of STR/CON as secondary). Currently, I have the marking occur at the start of the target's turn ("enemies that start their turn adjacent to you are marked until the start of their next turn") and the retributive effect not trigger off of any kind of movement and allow the Battlemage to teleport and ret-bomb the target when it makes a marked-trigger attack.

My problem with it is the same as what I outlined earlier. It feels like a rebuilt swordmage, which I really don't think is quite the same as what I imagine a true Battlemage to be like since swordmage is this weird and specific combination of weapon throwing and teleportation with everything else just being semi-random damage dealing magic spells. One of the ideas I've been messing around with in my head is providing 6 at-wills, 3 of which have a specific marking and retribution methodology, each of which is different (which kind of plays on the "arcane versatility" theme I've suggested; one is traditional "mark aura and ret-bomb attack"; another is more "mark target of choice and ret-bomb effect"; last I'm considering being what I used for Battlemage since it's something of a middle ground); the other 3 would be "artillery" style powers (a close blast 3, an area burst 1 within 10, and a ranged attack with up to 2 targets).


Not sure I like both Defenders getting to punish at the same time, but I could be persuaded. Makes sense narratively, but not sure about mechanical balance.

The mechanical balance, as I see it, is that doubling up on defenders is a pretty low value party composition (since you're creating 2 characters that are "punch me!" while having sub-par performance when they aren't attacked and don't get to ret-bomb) and having both of those defenders on the same target is even lower in value (since you've got 2 characters going "punch me" and one of them is going to be sub-par if the other is attacked).

In effect, doubling up on defenders in a party isn't particularly strong and further doubling up those 2 defenders on a single target makes it even worse. The ability for a double ret-bomb to occur if neither are targeted (which makes it even less likely for neither of them to be targeted because you're doubling up on the real penalty of the marked condition) is really there to try and balance out the otherwise incredibly sub-optimal set up.

If it weren't for the ability to double ret-bomb, I can imagine most groups with a defender/* or */defender just having one of those characters *always* swap to their secondary role at the earliest possible opportunity to prevent double defender badness.