YOU are in charge of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3e...

spongeknight · Post by **spongeknight** » Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:51 pm

Say, for the sake of this example, that someone over at Hasbro grows a brain and finally fires Mike Mearls. As they look around for fresh blood to revitalize D&D they (somehow) put you in charge of remaking 3.5 edition into Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition.

As this is incredibly broad, let's just focus on the actual numbers on character sheets at this point. How would you handle the numeric advancement of heroes and monsters? What kinds of numbers would people start with, how do you keep them from diverging too hard, how far apart do you want specialists and laymen? Should people advance all their numbers via level (like 4th edition), or have greater discrepancies on level up? Do you want feats to add numbers or not add numbers? How does damage/hp scale, do AC and to hit also scale?

Etc.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Aug 21, 2016 9:09 pm

If I'm were to be charge, my focus would be recruiting a team of marketers, artists and designers and then getting out of their way.

If I'm just spitballing ideas for design direction, I think that I'd go all in on making open multiclassing work; even though that would mean drastically changing many of 3e's assumptions.

It would be assumed that all characters would gain levels from multiple different classes as they leveled
Dipping into various classes would be the primary means of character customization, overshadowing and perhaps even replacing feat and skill selections.
To support this paradigm, most classes would be short -- 5 levels or fewer.
Every level of every class would have to grant abilities which scale with character level.
Since everyone would get more abilities each level, and those abilkties would also get better each level, that makes for quadratic increases in power level -- and to manage that you would need to keep level ranges tighter. PCs would only be expected to fight challenges very close to their own level; all PCs in the same party would always be the same level, and the game itself would run fewer than 20 levels.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 12:01 am

The numbers on the character sheet are the wrong places to start in any case. The first thing to do is to establish your challenges. Once you've determined when a character is expected fear an ogre or stop a tidal wave, then you can determine what your character sheet needs to look like at various points.

-Username17

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 6:19 am

I've compiled some of the writing I like from TGD here: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=55089& ... highlight=

monster first design and all that. So many of my ideas are based on that

"If I did it" AD&D3e

* Standard/Move/Swift action economy
* Every class has something to do with their swift actions
* Avoid off turn actions, find a new way to do immediate/interrupt/Opportunity actions
* No "claw claw bite", attacks are almost always 1 roll
* Fort Ref Will, with Sense added in as the "Perception defense"
* Reflex and touch AC are the same, AC is basically Reflex+armor stuff
* Hitpoints and damage dice be sacred cows so I'll keep that instead of a hitbox system
* STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA another sacred cow I have to live with to keep it D&D

* Skill proficiencies instead of points
* Background skills to handle stuff like being good at painting and being a blacksmith or something
* Short list of skills, no more than 20, with specialization within a skill like..

Athletics: uses STR, CON, or DEX depending on the act. Specialize in swimming, jumping, etc.

* Classes are 5 levels long and fit into tiers of 1-5, 6-10, etc.
* Monster templates and powerful species treated as race+some class levels
* Monster manual monsters designed in a somewhat similar fashion, who knows if thats actually possible
* Characters expected to multiclass within those 5 levels

Most "full" 5 level long classes will follow a pattern like:
1- Class resource mechanic
2- Class option
3- Class resource mechanic+
4- Class option+
5- Class resource mechanic+

The main factor of what makes a class is their resource mechanic.

Core starting classes would be...

Fighter: uses TOME monk style maneuvers, has a pool of extra actions to use per encounter that can be refreshed mid battle. Ex: You use your extra swift action to stack two combat maneuvers together, on your next turn you can spend your swift action to recharge that swift action next turn. Based on what Project Orcus was going for that turned into a Warblade.
Rogue: Has a pool of "Just as planned!" points to pull off stunts, basically like a Ki Pool. Spend a round 'observing' to refresh your Just As Planned points, so similar to the swordsage but with an explicit flavor to stop people from whining about versimilitude and fightan magic.

Totemist: Barbarian's berserker rage and Druid's wildshaping combined into one class. Some "spend X turns being awesome then you are fatigued" mechanic.
Shaman: The nature magic half of the druid, covers "Wears skins and lives in the wilderness" types of domains.
Chosen: Aura generating party buffer/debuffer, uses Kaelik Cleric mechanic. If you're a nature priest you should be a shaman instead, Chosen covers "wears clean robes and builds grandiose temples" types of domains that could be its own classes.

Illusionist: deals with mind/pattern/shadow magic
Necromancer: deals with spooky skeletons and such
Summoner: Can focus on summoning a variety of pokemon, or building up one unique stand/persona
Arcanist: Does the stuff leftover from the above casters like tossing fireballs and force fields and stinky clouds.

Demifiend: Badtouch class that's the infernal bloodline part of sorcerer and grow horns and wings.
Dragonblood: Badtouch class that's the dragon bloodline part of sorcerer and grow horns and wings.
Elementalist: Possibly a badtouch class, for people who want to be immune to fire and on fire and shoot fire and fly by shooting fire part of sorcerer.

Some class concepts like "Bard" and "Ranger" are multiclass combinations of the above plus a feat. So being an inspiring musician is something a Fighter can do and call himself a Scald or a Rogue/Illusionist can do and call himself a Bard. Tracking bears and calming bears are things that the skill system should cover, though having a loyal bear ally seems like the sort of thing feats can get. Concepts like "Artificer", "Alchemist", "Beastmaster" could also be feats, or could be 1-2 level long classes that you dip into, or be full classes.

Some class concepts like "Paladin" in 3e was pretty "like a cleric diluted with fighter levels", so now you get to choose how fighty or aura-y your Paladin concept is with what multiclass combinations to take. I'm mainly interested in lower level D&D play so I haven't given much thought as to what 6-10 and 11-15+ looks like.

Release schedule somewhat like MTG blocks. You get a book that details the setting with PC options and adventure modules, plus some metaplot that is advanced in a smaller cheaper supplementary book later that year. Perhaps make up some bulldookie about how players who buy the 1st book get a code to submit how their real authentic playthrough of that adventure path turned out so it affects the outcome of the 2nd supplement when in reality its whatever I feel like.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 8:13 am

I would go a different tack on multiclassing. Break it into tiers similar to 4e where you are locked into a single class at each tier. This lets you scale things consistently and easily. No restrictions really from one tier to the next for what classes you can take. Have a classplosion.

I'd probably break tiers into 4 level chunks since that's minimally sufficient granularity for each set of challenges and scope of stories.

Pre-requisites are level only. The accounting nightmare of lining up pre-reqs in 3e was a clusterfuck of a 'solution' worse than any problem it could have been designed to prevent.

Tier based tags will define awesomeness level for skills and combat schticks. Tier based DR/SR will help limit growth of huge numbers for attacks, HP, AC, saves.

Maintain a complete divorce between skill mechanics and combat mechanics. If there is hiding/noticing, tumbling, feinting, intimidate or whatever in combat, it is not a skill, it is a maneuver or defense.

Bundle Save/Defenses with AC.

Magic items give horizontal options, not vertical bonuses. Closest you get to vertical bonuses would be stuff like summoning armor/weapons, which doesn't stack with already having armor/weapons.

Buffs follow Kaelik's scheme (on all day, dismiss for secondary effect)

Replace alignments with factions.

Every faction has a reason to adventure with another. Likewise for races/classes/whatever.

Races give abilities, not bonuses. Advanced races have a bottom floor for starting tiers with the sub-floor tiers being race levels.

Monsters designed with the same process as characters.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 10:52 am

- Get partnerships with celebrities who played D&D, make them publicly talk about it and organize events with them, so that D&D becomes the cool game of the moment (think of Poker a few years ago)

- Make something that can be played on your mobile phone/tablet/computer, preferably something that you can play for a few minutes now and then, but still have something you can play as "game night", preferably something that scales nice so that people can join at the last minute or miss the game without cancelling the game or causing any problem.

- Base everything on a single campaign that everyone plays at the same time, so that people share their experience in the playgrounds and around the coffee machine, forcing everyone to play in order not to feel left out.

- Change mechanics to be simple so that everyone can play, but have some depth (or fake depth) so that those who are a lot into it can spend a lot of time and effort (and money) into it. Keep "strange dice" so that people still feel like they're playing D&D.

- Cash in on the events, micro-transactions, partnerships, "official strategy guides" and stuff. Sell the brand when it's very valuable and retire.

If people want "D&D but fixed/better" there are tons of heartbreakers. And you can't get everyone to like yours better than theirs. The only advantage of D&D is its brand, so rather than spend a lot of time and effort doing something that won't really please anyone, I'd rather turn it into a complete cash cow.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 11:02 am

When you're designing, you have lots of tradeoffs you can make as to complexity: usability is a necessary output for a game, but plurality of outputs is a necessary output for a cooperative story. Things like 3e style Open Multiclassing are appealing to the roleplayer because they allow more voluntary direction, but if it's as fiddly as 3e multiclassing ended up being the process ends up being a chore and it isn't good. Things like 4e pre-packaged monsters are appealing to the gamer who wants to plug and play, but if it's actually as straight jacketed as 4e the game fails to be a meaningful story telling exercise when you realize you can't give your Ogres bows or halberds without tossing the rules to the wind.

Your goal as a designer is to thread that needle as tightly as possible. And what that means is that you should present things as usable finished products that can also be broken down into constituent pieces and reassembled if you are so inclined. The Ogre With Hide Armor and Club should indeed be a stock creature that is fully formed and playable right out of the Monster Manual. But the Ogre should also be hotswappable to using a warhammer or a glaive or a sword and shield without having to redesign anything from scratch. The club maneuvers go out and the sword maneuvers go in and the game doesn't groan or cry.

This also of course means that player characters need to be able to hotswap their weapons and armor and shit. And that means that players need to be able to add maneuvers to their character sheet during play. 4e style special spear strikes are fine, but waiting an entire level or two before you can do anything interesting with a new weapon is not.

Multiclassing is an interesting problem because you aren't doing it to create more options but to prevent players from feeling trapped. It's important to note that there is no actual benefit or difference in the game between a Paladin and a Fighter/Cleric or a Fighter: sub-Cleric. At the end of the day, the game simply allows whatever options it allows, and each of those options will be as balanced or not as the designers have made them. However, it is an undeniable truth that there are players who derive pleasure from saying "All of them Katie" when asked which option (singular) they would like. It is true that letting people pick one or two classes from a list of 4 is in reality 10 different options and that presenting people with 11 fixed classes is objectively more than that. But it is also true that there are people who will be turned off by the fact that they "can't multiclass" in the latter case and would be happier with the former setup.

The purpose of multiclassing is to present character options that are not finished but instead composed of building blocks that the player assembles themselves. It is precisely the extra work and the thrill of discovery that makes players want to play a Warrior/Rogue rather than just having a Swashbuckler class pre-made for them. As such, it is imperative that multiclassing be an ordeal, because the players who want to do it are doing it because it is an ordeal. If they wanted it to be easy, they would play a pre-made class that's conceptually similar. Seeker or Jedi or whatever instead of writer Warrior/Mage on their character sheet. But once you realize that multiclassing is and must be extra work in character creation, you are then forced to the conclusion that most players shouldn't be multiclassing. So open multiclassing or any ubiquitous multiclassing scheme is right the fuck out. The vast majority of characters should be single classed, and that means that the vast majority of character concepts supported should be supportable with single classes that you can pretty much pick up and play.

What this implies is that you should pull a 2nd Edition AD&D trick, where only a few classes can be multiclassed. Say, you can multiclass "basic classes" like Warrior or Mage, but not "advanced classes" like Ranger or Necromancer. In this way, the number of multiclass combinations would remain manageable and a majority of things people would want to play would be something they could take right off the shelf and the people who wanted to be build-a-class special snowflakes could go do their thing without making chargen take forever for everyone.

-Username17

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 1:45 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:It is precisely the extra work and the thrill of discovery that makes players want to play a Warrior/Rogue rather than just having a Swashbuckler class pre-made for them. As such, it is imperative that multiclassing be an ordeal, because the players who want to do it are doing it because it is an ordeal. If they wanted it to be easy, they would play a pre-made class that's conceptually similar.

I have to disagree with this. Players want multi-classing because they want to be playing their exact vision of a character or class, and they're willing to put up with the extra work to get to be Steve the Charming Swashbuckling Outlaw rather than Human Swashbuckler #1982746.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:52 pm

Previn wrote:I have to disagree with this. Players want multi-classing because they want to be playing their exact vision of a character or class, and they're willing to put up with the extra work to get to be Steve the Charming Swashbuckling Outlaw rather than Human Swashbuckler #1982746.

I'm sure you can find such players, but I'm also absolutely positive that they aren't a significant portion of D&D's player base. The reality is that people who want to play their exact vision of a character have their mechanic - it's called point based character generation. And in the nineteen eighties, it was all the rage. The reality is that while point based character generation delivered exactly what was promised (greater levels of customization than you could ever get with class based games at a cost of more player effort to build and less transparency to the other players of character capabilities), they never supplanted class based games. And they aren't going to, either.

Even in the nineties, the high water mark for RPGs that weren't D&D overtaking D&D, the "point-based" games that did the best were also class/point hybrid systems. Point based games didn't really threaten to take over until they adopted templates and priority systems that functioned as soft classes.

I do not believe that a single sweet spot exists on the line between rigid classes and point-based chargen. There are many valid positions to hold. Too little customization and players don't identify with their character. Too many fiddly dials in chargen and players don't want to play the game at all. The penumbra of acceptable amounts of effort of input and personalization of output is different for every player. While we can improve the game by simplifying fractional algebraic accounting operations on the one side and we can improve the game by removing "because fuck you" restrictions like race/class bans, most of our choices are simply zero sum. Every time we add the option to take an archetype or choose a background we give the people who want more choices in chargen more to sink their teeth into and we pile more burdens on the people who want chargen to be over already.

The multiclass problem is actually quite separate from that. Certain people want to choose options that aren't on the list. It doesn't matter how many options are on the list. RIFTS has a class list so long that you can be an Angakog or a Fallen Cosmo Knight, and some people still want to multiclass. It also doesn't matter if the off-menu options are good - some people still want to play Mystic Theurges in 3.5 even though they are bad.

So while to an extent you could say that multiclassing is about not wanting to play a generic Swashbuckler, in the much more important sense it's about wanting to be iconoclastic. You could make a Swashbuckler class that was literally exactly what your game's multiclass rules output for mixing Warrior and Rogue, and certain people would still want to write up a multiclass of their own. You could could write a Llama Master class that happened to be what the multiclassing rules output for mixing Gaucho and Mindbleeder and those people would still demand to multiclass something of their own. That rabbit hole never ever ends, because it is the act of rejecting the menu items that is providing satisfaction to the player, not the end result. Whatever combos or capabilities the multiclass provides are valued because they are owned by the player who derived them.

-Username17

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:08 pm

I don't think that many people dislike point-buy per-se; they dislike highly granular point buy. FATE, for example, is closer to point-buy than to any kind of class system, and I haven't heard anyone say that was too complicated.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:19 pm

While Frank's not wrong about the complexity tradeoffs, his hostility to multiclassing is such that I feel I need to provide some reasoning for my stated direction

As a design direction I would consider fully open multiclassing because:

Tradition: all editions of AD&D have had some form of multiclassing rules. If you ditch it entirely, grognards will gripe.
Edition: if this is a 3e legacy project, 3e's multiclassing was the most open of any edition, it is a mechanic which people liked about 3e and extending it is likely to appeal to those players.
Splatbook Publication: If everyone takes different levels in different classes, then each new class written in a new book is providing potentially useful crunch for a player of any character at all levels. This contrasts sharply with the dealio where only Wizards want to look at the Arcane book and so forth.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:22 pm

Pointless analogy time:

I was at a fast-food restaurant that has a drink dispenser where you select your drink from a touch screen. Unlike a conventional fast-food restaurant where you have 8 or 10 options (that you could mix to taste) this one allows you to modify each drink with flavor shots if you desire. For example, you could choose 'Coke Zero' as I did, but if you didn't want plain Coke Zero, you could get Cherry Coke Zero, Vanilla Coke Zero, Orange Coke Zero and several others. In general, making a selection that's 'just what you want' is easier, but it requires making choices on 3 menus. 'Zero Calorie Sodas', Coke-Zero, Specific flavor.

I think that type of multi-classing would appeal to the folks that like multi-classing. I think it's at least as much about getting 'exactly what you want' as it is getting to play with the mix. For the player that does want to 'mix their own', you can still use that as a starting point. Just like with the conventional dispenser, I could have filled my drink with 1/2 Plain Coke zero, 1/4 Cherry Coke Zero, 1/4 Vanilla Coke Zero and had my 'custom drink'.

If you can establish 'equivalencies' (similar to what Unearthed Arcana tried) where you can build a 'druid that gives us wild-shape and instead picks up rogue skills and sneak attack' to make your vision, most people will be good.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:32 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:I could have filled my drink with 1/2 Plain Coke zero, 1/4 Cherry Coke Zero, 1/4 Vanilla Coke Zero and had my 'custom drink'.

Yuck!

Also, that's a great analogy. How is that pointless? Have more confidence!

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:48 pm

If you have Open Multiclassing + everyone gets level appropriate abilities at every level + You get the abilities of whatever level you are taking.

Then you actually can't have more than one resource management system across all classes.

Because if you do, then by definition, someone who takes one level of X and one level of Y and one level of Z is better than anyone with fewer classes.

Now, you will probably, even if you have one resources management system, still make it so that characters are bad to the exact amount that they have fewer classes, and stronger to the exact amount they have more classes, but it will definitely be the case if you have different resource management systems.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 2:11 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Previn wrote:I have to disagree with this. Players want multi-classing because they want to be playing their exact vision of a character or class, and they're willing to put up with the extra work to get to be Steve the Charming Swashbuckling Outlaw rather than Human Swashbuckler #1982746.
I'm sure you can find such players, but I'm also absolutely positive that they aren't a significant portion of D&D's player base. The reality is that people who want to play their exact vision of a character have their mechanic - it's called point based character generation. And in the nineteen eighties, it was all the rage. The reality is that while point based character generation delivered exactly what was promised (greater levels of customization than you could ever get with class based games at a cost of more player effort to build and less transparency to the other players of character capabilities), they never supplanted class based games. And they aren't going to, either.

Even in the nineties, the high water mark for RPGs that weren't D&D overtaking D&D, the "point-based" games that did the best were also class/point hybrid systems. Point based games didn't really threaten to take over until they adopted templates and priority systems that functioned as soft classes.

I do not believe that a single sweet spot exists on the line between rigid classes and point-based chargen. There are many valid positions to hold. Too little customization and players don't identify with their character. Too many fiddly dials in chargen and players don't want to play the game at all. The penumbra of acceptable amounts of effort of input and personalization of output is different for every player. While we can improve the game by simplifying fractional algebraic accounting operations on the one side and we can improve the game by removing "because fuck you" restrictions like race/class bans, most of our choices are simply zero sum. Every time we add the option to take an archetype or choose a background we give the people who want more choices in chargen more to sink their teeth into and we pile more burdens on the people who want chargen to be over already.

The multiclass problem is actually quite separate from that. Certain people want to choose options that aren't on the list. It doesn't matter how many options are on the list. RIFTS has a class list so long that you can be an Angakog or a Fallen Cosmo Knight, and some people still want to multiclass. It also doesn't matter if the off-menu options are good - some people still want to play Mystic Theurges in 3.5 even though they are bad.

So while to an extent you could say that multiclassing is about not wanting to play a generic Swashbuckler, in the much more important sense it's about wanting to be iconoclastic. You could make a Swashbuckler class that was literally exactly what your game's multiclass rules output for mixing Warrior and Rogue, and certain people would still want to write up a multiclass of their own. You could could write a Llama Master class that happened to be what the multiclassing rules output for mixing Gaucho and Mindbleeder and those people would still demand to multiclass something of their own. That rabbit hole never ever ends, because it is the act of rejecting the menu items that is providing satisfaction to the player, not the end result. Whatever combos or capabilities the multiclass provides are valued because they are owned by the player who derived them.

-Username17

That's a really long winded way of setting up a strawman to knock down. Poo-pooing on point buy and how it's ultra terrible and multi classing is bad? That's a pretty wild tangent there. Incidentally, for the people who want to play their exact character, it's called home-brew, and it's pretty system agnostic, be it classes or point buy.

You literally claimed people wanted complexity so they could feel like they were doing work. I have yet to see anyone say how awesome a game was just because of how much work they had to put into it.

What I do see is people putting in work to make their special snowflake character or idea, not because of the work but in spite of it.

deaddmwalking's example is very poignant to this. It's more work to get the drink with 1/2 Plain Coke zero, 1/4 Cherry Coke Zero, 1/4 Vanilla Coke Zero you want, but you do it despite the extra work to get what you want.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 2:26 am

I think deaddm's point is a great example that proves literally the opposite.

People who make suicides don't do it because they actually think so random ass combination of soft drinks is better tasting, they do it because the joy of being off menu is the only reason to do it.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 3:21 am

Oh look. More war on players ever being allowed to choose stuff, everyone should make classes more rigid and inflexible than ever for no reason, the usual bullshit.

Wake me up when either that bullshit stops or if it, oh, I dunno produces something of value.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 3:25 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Oh look. More war on players ever being allowed to choose stuff, everyone should make classes more rigid and inflexible than ever for no reason, the usual bullshit.

Wake me up when either that bullshit stops or if it, oh, I dunno produces something of value.

Oh you mean like every single class written for Tome Community material ever?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 3:26 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Wake me up when either that bullshit stops or

You are the loudest sleeper I've ever seen.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 3:31 am

I've drafted a plethora of classless and point buy D&D variants over the decades and NONE of them turned out to be functional.

The recent game I made, Domain, isn't even D&D. I scrapped all the sacred cows and just kept the fantasy tropes. And it works (as long as you don't play a Sprite)

So it looks like you must abandon the D&D paradigms if you want to avoid the D&D problems.
I'm not recommending everyone go make their own fantasy heartbreaker, but at least TRY something different rather than bitching about 3rd edition over and over and over and over and over.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:24 am

Kaelik wrote:Oh you mean like every single class written for Tome Community material ever?

Haha. No. Clearly that worthless patchwork of endless bandaids on top of bandaids doesn't qualify as "anything of value". Not to mention as an endless amateur hour fountain of custom made material for patching in specific player desires that even an already relatively flexible system could not handle it doesn't even qualify as a fucking narrow and restrictive class system as constantly advocated in these "Den edition what if?" by the usual suspects.

If the grand ideal of D&D is tightly designed highly limited play space of limited numbers strict and constricting races and classes devoid of player input then fuck you guys, stop wanking over it, and produce something.

Don't go being a retard and pointing at years of random homebrew free customization clutter from a dozen confused sources and pretend you've achieved your grand ideal of "fuck you no multi-classing, no points based, no customization, final destination".

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:29 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Oh you mean like every single class written for Tome Community material ever?
Haha. No. Clearly that worthless patchwork of endless bandaids on top of bandaids doesn't qualify as "anything of value". Not to mention as an endless amateur hour fountain of custom made material for patching in specific player desires that even an already relatively flexible system could not handle it doesn't even qualify as a fucking narrow and restrictive class system as constantly advocated in these "Den edition what if?" by the usual suspects.

If the grand ideal of D&D is tightly designed highly limited play space of limited numbers strict and constricting races and classes devoid of player input then fuck you guys, stop wanking over it, and produce something.

Don't go being a retard and pointing at years of random homebrew free customization clutter from a dozen confused sources and pretend you've achieved your grand ideal of "fuck you no multi-classing, no points based, no customization, final destination".

Yes PL, as long as everything valuable produced by constrained classes like Snowscaper and Cold Mage and Stormlord is "not really constrained at all and secretly open multiclassings greatest success" then you are totally right that multi-classing is the only thing for everyone.

Just keep burning those strawmen. Eventually you will conquer the world.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:34 am

Seriously, the existence of a patched on narrow concept homebrew class is NOT evidence of a working tightly designed narrow concept class only system.

It's evidence of the exact fucking opposite. It's evidence that the system it was patched onto lacked the ability to represent a specific narrow concept and you resorted to homebrew to provide the customization and choice that you desired.

I mean how much of an idiot are you? You don't even know WHY you people keep writing these classes to do these things you want to do but otherwise can't? You don't even notice that your changes are fueled by frustration with the existing options not being enough for you?

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:39 am

sigma999 wrote:I've drafted a plethora of classless and point buy D&D variants over the decades and NONE of them turned out to be functional.

The recent game I made, Domain, isn't even D&D. I scrapped all the sacred cows and just kept the fantasy tropes. And it works (as long as you don't play a Sprite)

So it looks like you must abandon the D&D paradigms if you want to avoid the D&D problems.
I'm not recommending everyone go make their own fantasy heartbreaker, but at least TRY something different rather than bitching about 3rd edition over and over and over and over and over.

Do you realize what the point of this thread is?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:45 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Seriously, the existence of a patched on narrow concept homebrew class is NOT evidence of a working tightly designed narrow concept class only system.

It's evidence of the exact fucking opposite. It's evidence that the system it was patched onto lacked the ability to represent a specific narrow concept and you resorted to homebrew to provide the customization and choice that you desired.

I mean how much of an idiot are you? You don't even know WHY you people keep writing these classes to do these things you want to do but otherwise can't? You don't even notice that your changes are fueled by frustration with the existing options not being enough for you?

So the fact that I'm unsatisfied with an open multiclassing system for not providing me with that specific direct themed classes that I want and resort to homebrewing those classes is the perfect evidence that actually what I really want is open multiclassing and not directed theme classes...

Yes PL, that doesn't make you sound like a crazy person at all.