[5E] Advancement, layout, multiclassing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

All right. A couple of people have been bugging me about how I think that 5E should do multiclassing and powers. So let's get all of the shit out of the way. I'm fusing how I think the primary sourcebook should be written, how I think how powers should be arranged, my Winds of Fate system, and also how Multiclassing should be done. Obviously there are huge gaps in it. That's fine, I'm just getting a couple of things down.



First thing of note, I designed the system chart with a '3rd Edition' power level in mind; meaning that you start at around Green Arrow/Robin level and you end up at about Dragonball level. For the power chart I intentionally compressed it down to 10 levels. This is because I am a big hater of level filler; I arranged things so that you can 'stretch' it out to fill 20 or even 30 levels. Honestly though it should really be about 20 levels, because people get crybaby at the thought of 'only' having ten levels of advancement even if the levels of advancement are pretty immense. I fucking hate people and their obsession with meaningless labels, but, hindsight. Also personally, I think that the 'commoner' tier and the 'legendary' tier from Frank, while inspired, should really have their own sourcebooks. I'm not doubting that they wouldn't sell really well, it's just that we're already space-starved. And I don't think that we should be hitting new customers with such a huge paradigm shift.

New Multiclassing system. People are 'triple' classed from the start, but it's not like it was in the olden days. People have a Major class, a Sub class, and a Minor Class. The ratio of abilities you get is more like 50%/35%/15%. This means if you just want to be an evenly-split Fighter/Wizard, you're something like a Fighter/Wizard/Wizard or a Wizard/Fighter/Fighter. If you want to be mostly Paladin with a minor in druiding, you're a Paladin/Druid/Paladin. If you want to be a Warlock with just a smattering of necromancy spells then you're a Warlock/Warlock/Necromancer.

People have selectable class features, like in 4E. However, unlike 4E, class features are split up along the major/sub/minor lines. To not punish 'single' classers, there are a couple unique class features only available to people who picked the major/sub or sub/minor options.

Now. Powers. There are two major divisions of powers: Exotic and Universal Powers. Exotic powers are powers you have access to due to your specific class selection. Universal powers are those you have access to due to your power SOURCE. This means that while wizards and warlocks do have unique exotic powers, they also draw from the same source of universal powers. This means that the person slinging a Sleep spell at you might be of either class, but someone using Fireball is a wizard.

Exotic Powers for the most part only have combat applications. However, Universal Powers always have a double-edge to them. They have a 'utility' use (like in 4E, meaning temporary non-attack effects) and a a 'combat' use. For example, instead of having a Cure Light Wounds/Inflict Light Wounds split, it's just 'Influence Minor Wounds'. The 'cure' side heals hit points, while the 'inflict' side damages them.

Characters also get a 'Sustain' slot, one per column they have on their roulette wheel (so no stances at level 1, 2 stance slots at levels 2-4, 3 at 5-7, and 4 at 8+). Most powers, both exotic and universal, might also the 'Sustain' keyword to it. Meaning that you can extend the effect (and sometimes lessen it) by putting it into your Sustain slot. For example, Mage Armor typically only gives you a +4 bonus to AC for 1 minute, but if you put it into your Sustain slot it lasts for however long you feel like. Fireball put into your Sustain slot causes people who failed the reflex save to be set on fire, taking the effects. Create Undead put into your Sustain slot weakens the pack of ghouls you summoned but causes them to last indefinitely. Wall of Stone put into your sustain slot causes the structure to become permanent after 1 hour until you take it out. You can take anything out of your Sustain slot as a free action, but you can only put a power into it in by rolling it on your Winds of Fate roll or by taking 1 minute to prepare it.

This system uses Winds of Fate. The table used to determine which powers you have is called a Roulette Wheel. At level 1, when you do not have enough powers to fill a Roulette Wheel, you can use them At-Will. This is so new people can get used to their powers. At level 2 and beyond however, you add one column to the roulette wheel and have four rows in it. Every entry in the RW must be filled with a power, though you are allowed to arrange the powers any way you want to. At level 5, your roulette wheel expands to a 3x5 matrix. At level 8, your roulette wheel expands to a 4x6 matrix. Extra powers do not go into the matrix, though I calculated the powers so that most of the time you won't have that many 'free' powers anyway.

At the start of your very first turn and at the end of your first turn and every turn thereafter, you roll 1d4/2 round up if you have two columns, roll 1d6/2 round up if you have three, and roll a 1d4 if you have four. The result determines which row of powers you have access to.

I believe that a game should start with 12 classes and four power sources: martial, primal, divine, and arcane. I'd personally like to kick the martial power source in the balls and tell it to go fuck itself, but I'd be perfectly willing to transform people who use it after a certain level into Chuck Norris jokes if people acceptable. But seriously, fuck that retarded Badass Normal non-badass. Anyway, if you look at my chart, every class has 10 associated levels of power to them. To balance things around people who want to become, say, a Rogue/Rogue/Rogue, every level has 7 powers that you can pick from. Meaning that each class needs 70 powers written up for them. This means that 5E needs to write up 840 exotic powers in the basic book. The space concern is a concern, I'll grant you that; it'll look more like the 3E spellbook than the 4E one, the latter of which existed mostly to waste space. For the 'universal' powers, every power source should have 10 powers of every level to select from. Meaning that You will need to write up 400 powers. So you need to write up 1240 powers. Accounting for an average of a half of a page of art on every other page, you should be able to fit an average of about 6 powers on each page. If each class gets 4 pages devoted to detailing class features, that's another 48 pages. Meaning 255 pages will be devoted to explaining classes and their powers. By comparison, the Rituals (which we won't use anymore) + Powers + Magic Items (which are going back in the fucking DMG) sections in 4E gives us 170 pages. There will be 12 starting races. Each gets 1.5 pages of description with at least a page of artwork (doesn't have to be the same size) between then. So 2.5. Meaning that the races will take up 30 pages. 30 pages (what 3E uses) will be in the combat section. 20 pages will be devoted to explaining keywords and status effects. 25 pages will be the introduction + core mechanic + character creation. 15 pages for equipment/services. 22 pages for skills, which is about what 3E uses but with the art amount inflated. 10 pages for backgrounds. An 8-page glossary. A 5-page index. 15 pages for 'adventuring'. 30 pages on feats (1.5x 4E uses). 3 pages for frontmatter. And 7 pages detailing the backstory of the default campaign setting. So a total of 470 pages. That's the thickness of (covers excluded) a 3.0E PHB1 revised and PHB2 together. That's thicker than any book done before and will probably be the thickest book in any edition. But unlike 4E, where most of the stuff existed to waste space, it'll be packed to the brim with content.

So here's the advancement table of our 5E character.
[/td][td] [/td][td]Primary Major[/td][td]Primary Sub[/td][td]Primary Minor[/td][td]Universal Major[/td][td]Universal Sub[/td][td]Universal Minor[/td][/tr]

1	2x Level 1	1x Level 1	----	1x Level 1	1x Level 1	----
2	1x Level 1 2x Level 2	2x Level 2	----	2x Level 2	1x Level 1	----
3	2x Level 2 1x Level 3	1x Level 2 1x Level 3	1x Level 3	2x Level 2	2x Level 3	----
4	1x Level 2 1x Level 3 2x Level 4	1x Level 2 1x Level 3	1x Level 3	1x Level 2 2x Level 4	1x Level 3	----
5	1x Level 2 1x Level 3 2x Level 4	1x Level 3 2x Level 5	1x Level 3	2x Level 4 1x Level 5	1x Level 3 1x Level 5	1x Level 5
6	1x Level 3 2x Level 4 2x Level 6	1x Level 2 2x Level 5	2x Level 6	1x Level 4 1x Level 5 2x Level 6	1x Level 5 2x Level 6	1x Level 5
7	1x Level 3 2x Level 4 2x Level 6	2x Level 5 2x Level 7	2x Level 6	1x Level 5 2x Level 6 1x Level 7	2x Level 6 1x Level 7	2x Level 7
8	2x Level 4 2x Level 6 2x Level 8	2x Level 5 2x Level 7	2x Level 6	1x Level 4 2x Level 6 1x Level 7 2x Level 8	2x Level 6 1x Level 7	2x Level 7
9	2x Level 4 2x Level 6 2x Level 8	2x Level 5 2x Level 7	1x Level 6 2x Level 9	2x Level 6 1x Level 7 2x Level 8	1x Level 6 1x Level 7 2x Level 9	2x Level 7
10	1x Level 4 2x Level 6 2x Level 8 2x Level 10	1x Level 5 2x Level 7 2x Level 10	1x Level 6 2x Level 9	2x Level 6 2x Level 8 2x Level 10	2x Level 6 2x Level 9	2x Level 7

Explanation:

Starting with the powers you get at level 1, every even level thereafter you gain new exotic and universal major powers of your new level. For Exotic Sub powers, you gain new powers at level 2, 5, 7, and 10. For exotic Minors and universal subs, you gain new powers at levels 3, 6, and 9. For Universal minors, you gain a new power at level 5 and 7.

Every time you gain a power, you replace your lowest-level power of a category with one of your new level. You also gain one additional power for the same level.

In addition, at level 3, you replace a level 1 Exotic Major and an Exotic Sub power with a level 3 power for each category. At level 5, you replace a level 2 Universal Major and Universal Sub power with a level 5 power in each category. At level 7, you replace a level 4 Universal Major power and a level 5 Universal Sub power with level 7 powers. I did this replacement so that major and sub powers don't lag too far behind minor powers, which I didn't care for.

[Red_Rob]

One reason players like more levels of advancement is that you get to go up levels more often in the campaign, and going up levels is fun. It feels like a reward for your efforts, you get some cool new powers and you get to see your character grow in standing in the world.

There's a good reason games like Diablo and WoW went for more levels rather than less. In a game with levels, people actually want to go up those levels, rather than play for 5 sessions without advancement.

If your campaign can only have 10 points where you advance in power at all, you have to space them out pretty far. If you don't want the campaign to end in Dragonball Z territory you have even less.

Regarding Bad-Ass Normals, the problem with removing them outright is that they are incredibly common in the fiction and stories that actually get people interested in the fantasy genre in the first place. This means that a lot of people are looking for that experience, and whilst having you all play basically superheroes is fun, its a disconnect from what people expect when they hear "Fantasy". I think you need a Bad-Ass normal, at least at lower levels, to draw these people in.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I think you need a Bad-Ass normal, at least at lower levels, to draw these people in.

Fine, but I'm not cool with letting them 'stay' Badass Normals. They either upgrade to Rob Lucci or Iron Man archetypes, but they stop being 'Conan' at level 3 (or level 6, if you're that in love with level filler, see below).

and going up levels is fun. It feels like a reward for your efforts, you get some cool new powers and you get to see your character grow in standing in the world.

Sure, going up levels is fun, but only when you actually get stuff from it. If you don't want players to ascend in power too quickly, you have to implement level filler. Which is fuckiing horseshit.

That example chart I gave you? Implement an empty level between each of the levels I gave you and stick some level filler in it. You know, some +RNG numbers, some feats, some class features, whatever. You can get to level 20 like that easily. If you want to do the 4E thing and get to level 30 you'll have to adjust the rate of power gain by shifting things around.

I thought about doing that at first but then seeing the naked amounts of padding thrown into the game completely turned me off to the idea of having 20/30 levels. It was like a slap in the face, seeing how easy it was to put people in the level treadmill. I might end up rewriting things for 20 levels though, mostly because I know that D&D fans are crybabies who want their bullshit comfort blanket numbers even when it doesn't make any sense. So stay tuned.

[Josh_Kablack]

If your campaign can only have 10 points where you advance in power at all, you have to space them out pretty far.

Bullshit.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50 ... xt&start=5

10 levels is more than enough for the vast majority of all games. The 20% of you who live in a nirvana of consistent schedules can just play some other system or write houserules

[Lago PARANOIA]

Couple of things I forgot to mention about the 'Sustain' slots.

If you're looking to sustain a power, you must choose to do so when you first use the power. If a power lasts for several rounds, you cannot choose to sustain it later if you didn't choose to do so in the first place.

Putting something in your Sustain slot does not preclude you from putting or keeping it in your Roulette Wheel. You also do not need to have a power in your Roulette Wheel in order to sustain it; For example:

Ghoul Touch
Arcane Universal 2
Offense: [Melee, Necrotic] [vs. Fortitude] [Stack] Hit: xd6 damage. Slowed (save ends). First Failed Save: Immobilized (save ends). First Failed Save of Immobilized: Paralyzed (save ends).
Defense: Personal. You automatically save against the next three effects of Necrotic powers of your choice.
Sustain: [Move] [Touch] You or a target gains a +5 saving throw bonus against necrotic effects.

Greater Elemental Summons
Druid 7
[Summoning] [Dependent] [Dismissable]
Pick one monster from the list of 'Greater Elementals', three from the list of 'Elementals', or ten 'Lesser Elementals'. They do not have to be the same kind or element. These summons last for five minutes.
Sustain: You and your elements take a -4 penalty to attack and defense. You can give your elements the [Independent] tag for your and them lose your move and minor actions.

Reserves of Strength
Martial Universal 3
Defense: [Free] Gain a +25 bonus on any strength check you make until the end of your next turn.
Sustain: [Free] [Personal] Until you stop sustaining this power, your strength score is treated as 20 points higher than it is for the purpose of carrying limits and strength checks. You cannot be fatigued or exhausted.

Even if you sustained these powers you would still be able to use them again if you rolled the appropriate row on your Roulette Wheel.

[Red_Rob]

10 levels is more than enough for the vast majority of all games. The 20% of you who live in a nirvana of consistent schedules can just play some other system or write houserules

The problem is that not every game wants have you go from being the shit on the town guards shoes to an immortal god king. If I got this right, the idea is to compress the current 20-level D&D progression down to 10 levels. The thing is, not many campaigns currently go from level 1 to 20 because its such a massive power jump that you end up almost unrecognisable from your humble beginnings. Most campaigns, as you pointed out, go from 1-10. In this system, that would mean they go from 1-5. Thats still half the amount of levelling.

Bigger jumps in power means that the game has to change more radically when you level. If you are levelling at the same rate that means the game has to change more often.

[Josh_Kablack]

And my counter argument is that D&D campaigns where characters actually progress from level 1 to level 20 within a campaign are so rare in practice that we can safely treat them as nonexistent for design purposes.

Furthermore, even just a 1-10 range of advancement provides enough discrete advancement packets to more than suffice for the vast majority of games at common advancement rates.

And as I said on the linked thread, my personal experience is that games which last long enough to need more than THREE levels of advancement are rare enough to be highly noteworthy.

[Saxony]

What do you actually mean by "level 10"?

The amount of experience required to attain that level and/or the average number of sessions required to attain that level? Are you saying most DnD campaigns end before enough XP or sessions can be accumulated to reach level 20?

Or just an arbitrary number choice? Are you saying "There's not enough shit to put in 20 stages of progression but there is enough shit to put in 10 stages of development"?

Or a power level reference point; related to the power level of 3.5 edition level 10 characters?

Some options are more stupid than others. I'd to know how much I'll be headbashing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Saxony, answering your questions in no particular order:

I didn't originally even consider Josh Kablack's point of most games ending before they even get within sight of the level 10 goalpoint, though when I think about it that's a very good point. In my experience it takes way too long to get to that point. I believe that a roleplaying group that plays one night a week for two school semesters (8 months) should be able to get from level 1 to level 10 without rushing.

I set the 'ten levels of advancement' thing the way it is for two reasons. The first is that I imagined a range of advancement that follows PCs from, in comic book terms, going from competent street detective all of the way up to Green Lantern/Superman. I'd say that you could easily stick 10 discreet units of advancement from here to there. You could probably do 15 units of advancement if you're a fanboy, but 20 levels is just too much of a stretch. That's getting into fanboy argument territory of 'how many levels does Colossus have on Wolverine?'.

Moreover. I'm not a fan of level filler. At all. I firmly believe in the principle that when you gain a level someone familiar with genre conventions but not the mechanics can tell that you advanced. If you're advancing but people can't tell, then all you're doing is fiddling with numbers. I also believe that no one can keep a game balanced if there's too much room to stick in new crap, because fans and developers can't resist the urge to cram number-fucking shit where they see dead spots.


Also, I put in ten levels because I wanted to make room for expanding with Frank's 'Legendary' and 'Commoner' tier. 'Superhero' tier in my opinion is the most interesting and the one we have the most experience with so I focused on that. If 5E designers get good systems of those things going then I want the 'Superhero' tier to slip between those two points without causing the numbers to inflate too much and to create a reasonable rate of advancement. That is, if people feel that 10 levels just isn't enough to whet their D&D whistle, then they can advance into the legendary tier.

[TheFlatline]

10 levels is more than enough for the vast majority of all games. The 20% of you who live in a nirvana of consistent schedules can just play some other system or write houserules

The problem is that not every game wants have you go from being the shit on the town guards shoes to an immortal god king. If I got this right, the idea is to compress the current 20-level D&D progression down to 10 levels. The thing is, not many campaigns currently go from level 1 to 20 because its such a massive power jump that you end up almost unrecognisable from your humble beginnings. Most campaigns, as you pointed out, go from 1-10. In this system, that would mean they go from 1-5. Thats still half the amount of levelling.

Bigger jumps in power means that the game has to change more radically when you level. If you are levelling at the same rate that means the game has to change more often.

If memory serves, it takes something like a year to a year or so of weekly games, 4-6 hours a game session, to go from level 1 to level 20. That's a long, long time to play. Most games don't last that long. In fact, the longest playing D&D game that didn't have an alternate character progression that I've run or been in petered out at around level 13, having started at level one.

Games like GrimDark... er... I mean Dark Heresy, are vastly compressed compared to that. Running their suggested experience, you'll level cap at around 11 or 12 (whatever it is) in about 4-6 months of weekly sessions. However, they take the approach of constant, frequent, small additions to your character, and "levels" are points at which more powers open up.

Perhaps, if we look at a 10 level, "compressed" level scheme, perhaps doing something similar would be in order. If it costs 1000xp to go up a level, and leveling gives you 10 goodies, perhaps you could purchase/unlock one of those goodies every 100 xp the character earns.

I personally don't have an issue with a 30 session character "lifespan" however. That's anywhere from 120-240 hours worth of roleplaying, or even more if you take your time. Hell that's a lot of character development. Most games won't even make it that far.

I'd also consider a splat book/chapter/series of articles specifically for bringing characters out of retirement. It's a common trope in comics and movies, and is worthy of discussion from a player and DM's viewpoint. Sometimes they make the best stories. Look at Unforgiven for inspiration. If "Superhero" is tier 2, and "legendary" is tier three, I'm thinking of like tier 2.2. More than what the superhero can usually offer, but nowhere near legendary. A small selection of monsters and villains who challenge the heroes in unconventional ways (not puzzles, because those can be memorized, and not necessarily by just hitting harder, because there's always young kids who can hit back) and force them back in the game would serve as a lovely coda to a distinct character arc.

[Red_Rob]

Okay, the actual amount of levels is immaterial. What matters is how much your characters abilities advance with each level.

Whilst having a major jump in power each level is good in that it makes levelling worthwhile and actually impact the game, it also makes it harder to tell a coherent story. The fact that yesterday you were Glorth, struggling apprentice and today you are Glorth the Mighty, Wizard of Reknown is a problem with the binary nature of gaining a level in one go.

10 levels is fine if you are planning to start tougher and end lower than 3.5. If you are covering what 3.5 covered in levels 5-15 then you are pretty much golden. However, if you are planning on having the same start and end points what you are effectively saying is that you level twice as fast as in 3.5, or level half as often. Try playing a 3.5 campaign where whenever you level you gain 2 levels, and see how it feels.

Of course, without seeing the suggested powers and power levels this is just food for thought. I'm not saying 10 levels can't work, just pointing out some pitfalls to be aware of.

[TheFlatline]

Lago already established "superhero", as opposed to "commoner/heroic" and "legendary".

So yes, in 3.5 terms you're looking at 5-15. Or rather 2 or 3 through 15, with the path between 2 and 5 being extremely abbreviated (you go from having at wills to the winds of fate).

[ubernoob]

In my tabletop game over the summer I actually did give out two levels at a time every time. The reason for this is that we had monks, spontaneous casters, and prepared casters at the table so two levels gave EVERYONE something at once.

We started at level 8 and ended at level 14 I think. Worked out pretty great. Had the system made even and odd levels just as important for all classes, I would not have leveled up two levels at a time. As is, I kind of had to in order to make leveling equally exciting for everyone.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Splat for Unforgiven-style stories? I'D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR.

Seriously, though, it always seems like old-age characters are never very well handled, mechanics-wise. It would be nice to see a reasoned look at how to play a logically statted-out William Munny, or "New Hope" Obi-wan, or Quint, or Pei Mei.

[TheFlatline]

Splat for Unforgiven-style stories? I'D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR.

Seriously, though, it always seems like old-age characters are never very well handled, mechanics-wise. It would be nice to see a reasoned look at how to play a logically statted-out William Munny, or "New Hope" Obi-wan, or Quint, or Pei Mei.

The difficulty seems to come from the very real hurdle that a lot of these "old timers' last dance" stories are thematic more than mechanic. Themes of the world changing, not fitting in, being in over your head, old demons, so on and so forth, really don't fit into the relatively static mechanics of D&D.

It's way doable, but I think the discussion would have to be more in a white wolf "this is a genre of story you could tell that would be really powerful, and here's how you work those themes into the game" type of discussion than a "here's how you mechanically build a retirement-story". It's why I don't know if it could support an entire "splat" book. A series of articles? Hell yes. Maybe a chapter in a book somewhere? Yeah that'd work too. A book though would require a great writer to pull off with style *and* make relevant.

But you're right. I'd love to see one. Hell, I'd love to see one enough that I want to write a one-off adventure that focuses on those themes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That said, if there's really a demand for it (i.e. fans who are too attached to the level 20 paradigm) I can put out a new Winds of Fate chart for 15 or 20 levels. Again, while I'm not a fan of level filler someone pointed out to me that just having 10 levels makes it too hard to have a design goal of 'characters should curbstomp foes with too far of a level difference' because... there's not enough levels for this.

For example, you could hold the idea that if someone is three levels behind you you could take on several of them at once, six levels behind you they couldn't threaten you even with twenty of them. And I think that's fair.

Of course I'm not very good at creating quadratic power curves where the numbers don't get too crazy. Ah, well.



Speaking of which, what did you guys think of the 'sustain' and 'dual use' mechanic? I thought that it would be a good way to handle buffs and als to handle the problem of utility powers without inflating the number of powers PCs have to deal with too much. For example, paladins can choose whether to have a loyal celestial mount that lives with them 24/7 that they can power up temporarily on the WoF chart. Note that sustaining a power doesn't necessarily make it worse (as in the summon elemental monsters paradigm).

[Lago PARANOIA]

Perhaps, if we look at a 10 level, "compressed" level scheme, perhaps doing something similar would be in order. If it costs 1000xp to go up a level, and leveling gives you 10 goodies, perhaps you could purchase/unlock one of those goodies every 100 xp the character earns.

Sorry, I can't believe that I overlooked that.

In my opinion, that's actually a VERY good idea. That way people can still feel like their characters are advancing without throwing off the power curve too much and also give themselves some flexibility.

For example, say you're a level 2 character. In order to advance to level 3, you need to gain 1000 experience points. Aside: I recommend keeping the total fixed so that people have an idea how long it takes for them to get advanced, just decrease the experience you hand out for older-leveled tasks.

For example, every 250 experience points you get, you get to advance one of these things:

A) Your defense score.
B) Your attack bonus.
C) Replace an old power with a newer one.
D) Your hit points.

You only get to advance one of these for each chunk of 250 experience points that you get, but you advance them in any order. When you get to level three, that's when you get to advance things like your Roulette Wheel and your class features and the like.

You could even randomize it with every discrete chunk of leveling that you get, roll 1d4 to see which aspect to advance. If you really want to stimulate the reptilian cortex of peoples' brains, you could do it like this:

Roll 1d6.

1) Don't advance anything.
2-4) Advance this aspect of your character. Once you select something, it's 'dummied out' and if you roll it again you get one more chance to roll for advancement. If you get a 'dummied out' result on the second roll then you don't advance anything.
6) Pick up to two aspects to advance.

And when people level up, if they were very unlucky they get backloaded on all of the intra-level advancement they missed out on and are brought up to speed.

I'm not a fan of extra rolling, but people salivate over the chance of getting to try out for random power-ups and I think that this is worth exploring.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Also, it's a very minor thing, but I also think that 5E should let players roll for treasure when they have a chance to gain random treasures 2E-style.

So instead of the DM rolling for treasure and telling the players what they've won, the players should be able to do it on their own while the DM supervises. The players pick a designated roller or two and then they roll on charts to see what they get. I think that this simple change will get players much more excited about their rewards than 3E and 4E's system.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So now then, what about basic classes?

Well, first of all, I believe that a lot of 'integral' classes in D&D are either too fractured to stand up as its own class or have too many schticks of their own. For example, unless you have a very rigid class system like 4E D&D, there's no need for a barbarian or a scout class exist. to exist. Unlike, say, a druid that archetype doesn't have enough of its own unique flavor to matter.

So what classes do I think that 5E should have? It's pretty simple.

The Wizard class has too much shit in it. Seriously, you could make a fully functioning and flavorful superhero from each spell school. Here's how I think that it should go:

Spiritualist: Combines Necromancy and Divination. More malevolent-focused spiritualists are called Necromancers, more nature-themed spiritualists are Shamans.

Artificer/Engineer: Combines transmutation and conjuration. They range somewhere between Ersa Scarlet and The Engineer in terms of flavor.

Wizard: Summoner of intelligent creatures and conjurer of blasty shit.

Warlock: Enchantment and Illusions. A bard is a specific archetype unlocked by multiclassing Rogue with Warlock.

Monk: The idea is sound, but the archetype has evolved beyond the 70's chop-socky monks. 5E Monks should resemble... you play Jade Empire? That.

Druid: Druids lose one of three of: Summoning nature critters/spirits, shapeshifting, and calling down elemental forces. I recommend splitting the first one away from druids and giving it to the:

Ranger: Rangers are what Wardens are in 4E. That's one of 4E's few genuine good class ideas. Rangers staple nature spirits onto their and others' souls and summon some up to help them perform tasks.

Paladin: They're what clerics used to be called. Clerics have too much shit in 4E and not enough flavor distinctive from paladin. Paladins will be the 'premier' healing/buffing classes.

Psion: Both because Psions have a flavor very different from other classic D&D classes and that they should be in the core books to stop psionic fanboys from slathering their dicks over the class. Sadly, Bruce Cordell's nonsensical changes to the power were a fucking IMPROVEMENT to the class design. Isn't that sad?

Gish: You'd think that we wouldn't need this class with our multiclassing system, but the other arcane-flavored classes tend to have an emphasis on long range, keep-your-ass-safe powers. This class would be like a Fighter/Wizard hybrid but the 'wizard' part of the equation focuses more on close-range, personal effects.

Rogue: Definitely have these. However, the rogue has a conceptual problem. See Warlord for more details.

Warlord: The Fighty Guy with Charles Atlas Superpowers is a classic fantasy archetype. The class suffers from two major conceptual problems.

1) The Fighter is defined solely as being able to fight well. This is EXTREMELY LIMITING, because every other class 'fights well'. This is a trap every fighter class falls into, even in Tome Material.

2) The martial powertype is schizophrenic. People can very clearly draw a dotted line of advancement from Harry Potter to Elminster. Or Peter to Darth Vader. The conceptualization of King Arthur to Kenshiro is one that has people's brains fall out of their heads. We've gone over this several times before with no progress whatsoever.

If the martial archetype is going to work then we need to beat it into peoples' heads very firmly that after a certain point you stop being a mundane action hero and then turn into a Chuck Norris joke. Or you can limit the range of advancement for 4E. Or you can force them to abandon the archetype altogether (making them become a gadget knight or artificer).

So you know what I suggest? Don't call them martial anymore. Call the power source transcendential; the backstory for this source is that people of this gain abilities that exceed normal human limits by digging deep down in their own reserves. The flavor from the Psion and Monk will backbleed into the Rogue and Warlord and help people get over the paradigm shift the latter two classes need to undergo.

You get all that? So here are our 12 classes, arranged by power source:

Arcane: Engineer, Wizard, Warlock, Gish
Divine: Paladin, Spiritualist, Ranger, Druid
Transcendential: Psionicist, Monk, Warlord, Rogue

So, tiding people over with missing classes. This is actually a problem. There are going to be people who are going to whine 'where's my sorcerer class?! Where's my rogue class?!' and soforth.

The solution to that is actually pretty simple. Certain multiclass combinations (such as Rogue / Warlock) give you the bard class. Rather than it being a kit, being certain multiclass combinations unlock both kit features and certain bard-specific powers. This means that you have some power lists that are unique to specific MC combinations. For example:

Warlord + Druid = Barbarian
Warlock + Rogue = Assassin
Psion + Paladin = Jedi Crusader. Play up the Jedi elements though as much as you can without getting a lawsuit.
Paladin + Spiritualist = Cleric
Paladin + Rogue = Bard
Warlord + Monk = Samurai
Rogue + Monk = Ninja

And so on.

[Username17]

Spiritualist: Combines Necromancy and Divination. More malevolent-focused spiritualists are called Necromancers, more nature-themed spiritualists are Shamans.

Spiritualists is a dumb name, but Necromancer and Shaman are both pretty in-demand. Sounds like you want to be heading towards a Might & Magic VII style light/dark class divide. Where each class has a Light version that is extra defensive and a Dark version that is extra offensive.

So Monk might be "Martial Artist" and go Monk or Ninja. While the Rogue could go "Swashbuckler" or "Assassin".

-Username17

[Archmage]

Transcendential: Psionicist, Monk, Warlord, Rogue

I think you might want to consider going with "Transcendent." It's marginally shorter and means the same thing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I wasn't really interested with having a 'light' and a 'dark' class. When I suggested having a Necromancer and a Shaman, I meant more like keeping them kits and build suggestions. Like Kensei vs. Gladiator or Shintao Monk vs. Animal Fist Kung Fu Master. The yin/yang separation was wholly unintentional.

Spiritualists is a dumb name, but Necromancer and Shaman are both pretty in-demand.

Well, here's my problem with keeping them as a separate class.

Necromancer is a very in-demand class, but the flavor of a necromancer is extremely narrow due to the content of the class and the history of the name. Like you could describe your character as 'oh, I don't flood the field with skeletons and such, I talk to my ancestor spirits and get visions of the future from ghosts' and people are still going to visualize your character as a cackling madman who is itching to cause the next zombie apocalypse because you're a necromancer.

Shaman is also in-demand, but the flavor given to them by 3E and 4E D&D will already be subsumed by the Ranger and the Druid. The flavor I imagined for them was futzing with the spirits of the sapient dead and the forces of life and death to do shit. They're the gypsy fortunetellers, the mediums, the etc.. not the kind of tribal shamans 3E and 4E gave us. The problem with calling this fusion a Shaman is the same thing. You could say that your character is the Necromancer King presiding over the tortured spirits of the dead who aches to liberate the souls from the living, but people are still going to struggle not to imagine a medicine wheel and a totem pole next to your skull throne.

I was going to fuse the two concepts together so that you had a class that wasn't so narrow in scope and flavor. The problem is coming up with a cool enough name for it.

... Diabolist? Mystic? Caller?

[Ferret]

... Diabolist? Mystic? Caller?

Medium?

Ghost Whisperer?

[JonSetanta]

... Diabolist? Mystic? Caller?

Medium?

Ghost Whisperer?

Wraithlord
Soulbinder
Ghostmaster (derp)

[Lago PARANOIA]

Alterations:

So now we're down to three power sources, which is honestly about what 3E had. This means that you can shrink the number of pages devoted to powers from 570 to 545. Still a lot of pages, but whatever.

I don't know if I made this obvious enough or not in the preface, but 5E should not have diverging BAB or save bonuses. That idea 'worked' in 3E for making a difference between sword-based and caster classes, but in 5E pretty much everyone follows the caster model anyway. This means:

• Saves: You get a one-time bonus to saves depending on what you picked for your Major and Sub classes. The 'Major' classes grant a total of +4 bonuses to save in an order specific to the class, while the 'Sub' class grants a total of '+2' to bonuses. From then on out all of your saves increase at the same level. Meaning that yes, a 10th-level Wizard/Engineer/Wizard will have (a marginally) better fortitude saves than a 1st-level Warlord/Ranger/Paladin.
• BAB: Fuck that noise.
• Diverging hit points by class: I'm leaning in the direction that melee-based classes should get a one-time bonus to their hit points depending on their class array, but after the debacle in Storyteller and Shadowrun I'm leery of it. Regardless, the number of hit points people get should be small.
• Defense bonuses: Classes that are primarily focused on melee get a defense bonus. Meaning that if you stack nothing but melee classes, you get a bigger inherent defense bonus than someone who picked nothing but ranged classes.
• Nearly-fixed hit points: People get a one-time bonus to hit points based on their size. There will be some events/abilities that can increase the number of boxes that you get, but seriously someone focusing on grabbing nothing but hit-point bonuses should only have about 50% more hit points than someone who didn't do anything. And this is at maximum level.
• Stats: should have no bearing on how you perform in combat. This means that a tiny 9-year old girl with no physical stat higher than 10 should perform just as well as a hulking 28-year old nomad with no physical stat lower than 20 if they're the same level with the same multiclass array. Stats affect skills and skill feats. That's it.
• Skills: Honestly, I have no idea how to do that. 3E's system where after a certain point you kept dumping your same skill points into the same skills and never got a chance to use a new one was unsatisfying. However I also found 4E's system where skills advanced universally unsatisfying too. Suggestions?

I'm really thinking about inflating the chart to 15 levels, called 'Paragon' tier, with the kind of campaign its called being 'Eternal Heroes'. Assuming that there's five levels worth of 'Heroic/Black Forest' and 10 levels worth of 'Epic/Godfall'. The problem of course is normalizing the RNG for conflicts between these tiers, but I haven't even thought of a good RNG spread for Paragon tier. So first things first.

Advancement through Eternal Heroes assumes that except for very specific breakpoints you will not be entitled to an increase in the pluses of your equipment; magical equipment is randomly generated but the game is balanced on the assumption that you don't get much of it. For instance, I'm perfectly fine with coming up with a list of magical items around the range of a +1 sword and awarding them to level 6 characters, with level 12 characters have a suite of items around a +2. But things like +4 swords and Rings of Wishes, you have to roll that shit. I think it's pretty cool for a team to reach a certain level and get outfitted in matching armor and bling, but I also want people to enjoy the experience of finding magical stuff from treasure chests. So yes, you shouldn't feel inadequate at level 5 fighting monsters with equipment you found off the rack and even at level 11 you won't feel too bad about it. At level 12 though is when you need to upgrade from smelly loinclothes to Moderately Blingee Armor.

I strongly think that people should get action points like in 4E. However, action points can be used to provide extra actions or they can be used to select whatever you want on the Winds of Fate roll. Unlike in 4E, people get an action point every encounter with no option to stack them.

RNG assumptions:

• People should hit a level-appropriate enemy, PC or NPC, with an average defense and in an average tactical situation with their powers 70-75% of the time.
• Powers generally go along a scale. Their newest powers are their 'strong' powers and have a damage rating of 1.3x relative to the rest of the powers. Their not-so-new powers (average) have a damage rating of 1.0 relative to the rest. Their oldest powers (weak), meaning the ones that they're about to replace, have a damage rating of 0.7. It should take 3 units of damage to drop a level-appropriate enemy of average endurance, meaning one great, one medium, one minor power; one medium and three minors; two greats and one minor; etc. should be enough to drop them.
• The damage system should be weighted such that people should be able to drop an enemy 3 levels lower than them with one hit of a great power, two of a medium, or two hits of a minor power.
• The CR system should be weighted such that it takes one level-appropriate monster five hits to drop a PC from full to zero health.
• The attack and damage system should be weighted so that a team of four enemies three levels below the PCs is about as much of a threat as one level-appropriate enemy.
• The system should be weighted so that, barring special circumstances, no 'reasonable' amount of enemies in a fight (like 10-12 or so) threatens a PC 5 or more levels above them.
• The RNG should account for the 'mandatory' +1 AC and attack upgrades, but not for random equipment. The catching-up effect should be delayed by two levels so that PCs don't feel like they're on the level treadmill.
• The numbers should be relatively low. Having to add more than 30 to any dice is unacceptable even at level 15 (the maximum level for paragon tier).

Unfortunately, I have no math skillz so I have no idea how to put my idea into a 15-level level-up formula.