Character and Class Paths

[Star*Master]

I'm obviously getting into the community tomes rather late, but I recently went through re-vamping all the 3.5 core classes, plus adding a few more. What prompted this was threefold. The first was that I kind of liked some of the things that Pathfinder did. The second was liking some ideas that Monte Cook had posted online. The third was that I thought some of the class abilities were rather pointless, especially the high level ones, and seemed inordinately silly for the high level needed to gain it.

I'd also posited Warlocks as a class on my campaign world, but had never really developed it. So that was the first one I started with. While I'm not a fan of 4e, there is still a lot of neat creative material there.

My basic premise, stemming from Monte Cook's material, was that classes should be given choices. I began grouping these choices into 'Class Paths'. As a corollary, though, it seemed like some options should be available to all character classes. These became Character Paths with each having 20 options. You choose a particular path at character creation, and then you gain an ability of your choice from that path at every odd level. This pretty much assured that no two characters would be identical even at the same level (feats no withstanding).

The Character Paths I came up with are:
Aerial Lore
Arctic Lore
Athletic Lore
City Lore
Dungeon Lore
Mountain Lore
Sea Lore
Urban Lore
Wilderness Lore

Each one is targeted at a specific environment. If a campaign is set in the Frostfell, you might want your character to be knowledgeable and skilled in arctic conditions. None of the abilities are game-breakers (I hope), but they are intended to give character to your character.

Class Paths are kind of the same thing, but choices are determined by level availablity and not all paths have 20 options. The Rogue, for instance, has Combat Finesse, Rogue Talents, Rogue Tricks (every even level) and Sneakiness (every odd level) as her paths.

Some choices are scaled and some have prerequisites. The shortcoming is probably that they aren't consistent, and that the later classes I worked on are more 'refined' than the earlier ones.

Does this sound like something anyone would be interested in?

[...You Lost Me]

I only kind of understand. For the average campaign, everyone will have similar (if not exactly the same) environment lore, because they will all be adventuring in one environment.

The other thing seems very much like Legend, and not very different from most of D&D, so I'm wondering what you're planning to do to seperate it.

[Hieronymous Rex]

Is this along the lines of Arctic/Desert/Jungle Druids and Urban Rangers, or something else?

[Star*Master]

I don't know what Legend you are referencing, but the intent was to give a player a choice at each level, rather than just a fixed ability at, say, 5th level. For example, a monk might want to choose Diamond Body earlier than 11th level. It's hardly a game breaker.

And, yes, the Character/Class Paths were along the lines of the Arctic Druid or whatever. The Ranger has paths that allow focus along one of those lines.

So any character can choose to specialize in one type of environment, or use it as his background. My campaign examples were probably not good ones; I was thinking more along the lines of a campaign venturing into the Frostfell, for instance, rather than totally set there. So one character might come from the warm south while another grew up on the edge of the Frostfell.

[Whipstitch]

The regional paths are the only thing that I balk at since virtually by definition they're the sort of things where people start tying abilities directly to what kind of terrain you're on in order to function. Such things are notoriously hard to balance and tend to dissuade people from making fish-out-of-water characters, an archetype that from a meta-game perspective is actually pretty handy to have in a party given that everyone is only pretending to have spent their whole lives in X culture. Thus having someone around who can ask goofy tourist questions in-character without coming across as a total idiot can be kinda nice to have around.

[Stubbazubba]

I don't know what Legend you are referencing

Here ya go.

[Star*Master]

Okay, I see what you mean by Legend, although I found their rules a bit confusing. But, yes, all my classes have 2 or 3 'tracks' (sometimes a bit more). In some cases, you get each path at every level; in others, you might only get a particular path option at every other level or every 3rd level. Each time you gain that path option, however, you can choose from the list of options for that path.

As far as tying abilities directly to what kind of terrain you're on, I'm not sure that'll work all that well, but on the other hand, that's exactly the point. Since the whole role-playing experience is about story-telling that the DM and players 'co-write', the DM should 'tailor' adventures to whatever the abilities of the PCs are.

Anyway, here's a sample.

ATHLETIC LORE Character Path
Athletic Determination
Athletic Dodge
Athletic Fortitude
Athletic Might
Athletic Mobility
Athletic Nimbleness
Athletic Prowess
Athletic Stamina
Athletic Stride
Endurance of the Bear
Extreme Dodge
Fortitude Prowess
Grace of the Cat
Rapid Climb
Run Like The Wind
Strength of the Bull
Superior Endurance
Superior Grace
Superior Strength
Swim Like A Fish

You are very athletic. You gain a +1 athletic bonus on all athletic skill checks (Climb, Jump and Swim). Whenever you gain a Character Path option, you can choose to enhance your Athletic Path with one of the following selections. You cannot choose the same talent more than once unless otherwise indicated.

Athletic Determination: Your stamina is amazing. When you select this talent, you gain a +6 determination bonus on the following checks and saves: Swim checks made to resist nonlethal damage, Constitution checks made to continue running, Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from a forced march, Constitution checks made to hold your breath, Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst, Fortitude saves made to avoid nonlethal damage from hot or cold environments, and Fortitude saves made to resist damage from suffocation. Also, your Armor Check Penalty is reduced by -2, and you may sleep in medium armor without becoming fatigued.

Athletic Dodge: When you select this talent, you can designate an opponent during your action and receive +2 dodge bonus against attacks from that opponent. You can select a new opponent on any action. Any condition that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC also makes you lose dodge bonuses.

Athletic Fortitude: When you select this talent, it means you’ve toughened up. You gain +4 toughness bonus to all Fortitude saves.

Athletic Might: When you select this talent, you can better focus your strength into athletic maneuvers. You gain an additional +2 athletic bonus to all Climb, Jump and Swim checks.

Athletic Mobility: When you select this talent, you become skilled at dodging past opponents and avoiding blows. You gain a +4 dodge bonus to your AC against attacks of opportunity caused when you move out of or within a threatened area. Any condi-tion that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC also makes you lose dodge bonuses.

Athletic Nimbleness: Long practice has honed your dexterity. When you select this talent, you gain a +2 nimble bonus to all Balance, Escape Artist and Tumble checks.

Athletic Prowess: You’ve learned when to dodge, duck and move your feet. When you select this talent, you gain +4 bonus to all Reflex saves.

Athletic Stamina: You’ve become tougher than others. When you select this talent, you gain +5 hit points. You can select this talent multiple times. Each time, the additional hit points stack.

Athletic Stride: You are more energetic than normal. When you select this talent, your land speed increases by +10’.

Endurance of the Bear: You have greater vitality and stamina. When you select this talent, you can trigger an adrenaline surge as a swift action that gives you a +4 adrenaline bonus to Constitution, which adds the usual benefits to (temporary) hit points, Fortitude saves, Constitution checks, and so forth. The surge lasts for 1 minute per level, and you can trigger this once per day.

Extreme Dodge: When you select this talent, your dodge bonus for Athletic Dodge and Athletic Mobility increases to +4 vs. one opponent and +8 vs. attacks of opportunity. You must have already selected Athletic Dodge and Athletic Mobility before selecting this talent.

Fortitude Prowess: When you select this talent, your saving throw bonuses to Athletic Fortitude and Athletic Prowess increase to +8. You must first have selected Athletic Fortitude and Athletic Prowess before selecting this talent.

Grace of the Cat: You are more graceful, agile and coordinated. When you select this talent, you can trigger an adrenaline surge that gives you a +4 adrenaline bonus to Dexterity, which adds the usual benefits to AC, ranged attack rolls, Reflex saving throws, and other uses of the Dexterity modifier. The surge lasts for 1 minute per level, and you can trigger this once per day.

Rapid Climb: When you select this talent, you can climb at your full movement without penalty and don’t lose your AC bonuses while climbing.

Run Like The Wind: When you select this talent, your running ability improves. As your full round action, you can run 5 times normal speed. At 7th level, you can run at 6 times normal speed, and at 14th level, you can run at 7 times normal speed.

Strength of the Bull: You have greater strength. When you select this talent, you can trigger an adrenaline surge as a swift action that gives you a +4 adrenaline bonus to Strength, which adds the usual benefits to melee attack rolls, melee damage rolls, and other uses of the Strength modifier. The surge lasts for 1 minute per level, and you can trigger this once per day.

Superior Endurance: When you select this talent, you can trigger the Endurance of the Bear surge three times per day. You must first have selected the Endurance of the Bear talent before selecting this one.

Superior Grace: When you select this talent, you can trigger the Grace of the Cat surge three times per day. You must first have selected the Grace of the Cat talent before selecting this one.

Superior Strength: When you select this talent, you can trigger the Strength of the Bull surge three times per day. You must first have selected the Strength of the Bull talent before selecting this one.

Swim Like A Fish: When you select this talent, your swim speed increases by +10’, and you can swim at ½ your normal speed as a move action or full move as a full-round action. In addition, you can hold your breath twice as long as normal.[/b]

[Leress]

Stop making new bonus types.

[Star*Master]

Why?

Oh, sure, there's a table in the DMG that qualifies various types of bonuses, but I've always found that table to be a bit unwieldy. I use variant types as a 'short-cut' rather than have to write "This stacks with so-and-so but not with such-and-such..." with every entry.

Besides, there's no possible way I could know/remember every rule and condition from 5,000+ published books, supplements and adventures even if I could afford to buy them all and had the time to read them. And that's not mention the bazillion variations you can find on-line.

[Leress]

Adding more makes it more unwieldy.

[...You Lost Me]

It leads to more min-maxing (which is fuck you) as well as more bookkeeping when a person has to go "OK, so I add my athletic bonus to [Insert Value here] and my dodge bonus and my deflection, and my armor and my natural armor and my dexterity and my profane and my untyped and my nimble bonus and etc..."

And when people are learning stuff, you want them to have an easy time. Having lots of names is overwhelming, and decreases the learning aspect. You should just roll your nimble bonus and athletic bonus and the current dodge bonus that all ready exists into "athletics" bonus or something.

[koz]

I'd also like to add that everything you've written is a 'do x, but better' ability. Those aren't good - they're not interesting and don't really give you any new capabilities. You should focus more on 'do y' abilities instead.