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alexandraerinSo, I've been kicking around ideas for a game that is a lighter, streamlined spiritual successor to D&D 4E. A lot of the ideas I've been kicking around, I've since rejected as being too far from the spirit of what 4E is and what was (or had the potential to be) great about it.
But it can be instructive to start something and see why it doesn't work, so now I'm finding myself undertaking round II. This time, I have a particular challenge for myself, and it's to try to allow for 3E-style multiclassing in a game that feels like 4E.
I think I've got it.
Here's the basic draft of the idea.
First, like 3E, have the idea that your character has an absolute experience level and then class levels. If you never multiclass, these are one and the same.
Now, the weakness of the 3E system--and one of the reasons it wouldn't have worked in 4E--is that some classes have their best benefits "front loaded" in the early levels and some gain power over time. Taking one or two levels of a front loaded class and then spending the rest of your career leveling up in a class that gains power over time is better than doing it the other way around. Then there are the specialized builds that consist of getting to a specific "sweet spot" in multiple classes that give a combination of special abilities and feat access that give gamebreaking advantages.
In the 4E model, every class is front loaded. Combining the benefits you get as a level 1 anything and level 1 anything else is far more powerful than the benefits of being two levels of anything. That's why the promising hybrid system was so nerfed, and came with a game balance warning on it anyway. The original multiclass system at launch wasn't "true" multiclass, it was more a matter of dabbling.
So here's how I would marry the two together.
First, off-load some of the "front loaded" benefits that 4E classes have by making more things that are the flashy, gimmicky class features (like a Paladin's divine challenge and lay on hands) into the equivalent of powers, then making new character have more power selections at level 1 so they can "afford" these things that would otherwise be automatic.
Anyone who trains into a new class can select these same benefits, but they have to do so one level at a time.
Second, give each character class's front loaded benefits a case-by-case nerfing for cross-class characters. Not a huge thing, just tweak some stuff downwards. Make some stuff that they would have at level 1 be things that have to be grown into.
Third--and this is more tentative than the above but related to point two--but make characters who are multiclassing take a level 0 of the new class. So if you're a level 5 Ranger and you get a level up and you're crossing over to Druid, you're now a level 6 character who's a level 5 Ranger, level 0 Druid. Level 0 would confer some partial benefits of being a member of the class. You'd get the generic benefits of having gone up a character level, but each time you multiclass you'd fall slightly behind the curve on class benefits.
A less confusing version of this would be to have a more nerfed level 1 and then some of the missing benefits come in on level 2. This would be less confusing because then a character who is Ranger 5/Druid 1 would be level 6, as you'd expect from adding up their levels.
Fourth, just basically make sure that front-loaded class abilities don't really stack. If being the fighter class means you have an attack bonus with all weapons and being the rogue class means you have an attack bonus with small weapons and being the ranger class means you have an attack bonus with ranged weapons, you'd use the highest such bonus when you throw a dagger at someone, not the combined bonus.
Note that with a power scheme identical to 4E--where the powers you choose each level escalate--this whole scheme would make multi-class characters markedly weaker than single class ones. You couldn't just apply this as a patch to 4E, because then you'd have things like level 15 characters picking level 3 encounter powers.
But I've never liked the idea of powers that go obsolete as you level. So instead of level 1 powers, level 2 powers, and so on, I'd just break the powers into tiers. Make it so that most times you gain a new power, the benefit you're getting is having another option or another Big Gun to whip out, not simply a Bigger Gun.
With this change, then a fighter who cross-classed to rogue who's picking a new power would have a mix of fighter and rogue powers. If they were a fighter for longer, they might have more fightery moves in their repertoire, but picking a rogue one next wouldn't put them at a serious disadvantage compared to the fighter ones they've taken before.
But it can be instructive to start something and see why it doesn't work, so now I'm finding myself undertaking round II. This time, I have a particular challenge for myself, and it's to try to allow for 3E-style multiclassing in a game that feels like 4E.
I think I've got it.
Here's the basic draft of the idea.
First, like 3E, have the idea that your character has an absolute experience level and then class levels. If you never multiclass, these are one and the same.
Now, the weakness of the 3E system--and one of the reasons it wouldn't have worked in 4E--is that some classes have their best benefits "front loaded" in the early levels and some gain power over time. Taking one or two levels of a front loaded class and then spending the rest of your career leveling up in a class that gains power over time is better than doing it the other way around. Then there are the specialized builds that consist of getting to a specific "sweet spot" in multiple classes that give a combination of special abilities and feat access that give gamebreaking advantages.
In the 4E model, every class is front loaded. Combining the benefits you get as a level 1 anything and level 1 anything else is far more powerful than the benefits of being two levels of anything. That's why the promising hybrid system was so nerfed, and came with a game balance warning on it anyway. The original multiclass system at launch wasn't "true" multiclass, it was more a matter of dabbling.
So here's how I would marry the two together.
First, off-load some of the "front loaded" benefits that 4E classes have by making more things that are the flashy, gimmicky class features (like a Paladin's divine challenge and lay on hands) into the equivalent of powers, then making new character have more power selections at level 1 so they can "afford" these things that would otherwise be automatic.
Anyone who trains into a new class can select these same benefits, but they have to do so one level at a time.
Second, give each character class's front loaded benefits a case-by-case nerfing for cross-class characters. Not a huge thing, just tweak some stuff downwards. Make some stuff that they would have at level 1 be things that have to be grown into.
Third--and this is more tentative than the above but related to point two--but make characters who are multiclassing take a level 0 of the new class. So if you're a level 5 Ranger and you get a level up and you're crossing over to Druid, you're now a level 6 character who's a level 5 Ranger, level 0 Druid. Level 0 would confer some partial benefits of being a member of the class. You'd get the generic benefits of having gone up a character level, but each time you multiclass you'd fall slightly behind the curve on class benefits.
A less confusing version of this would be to have a more nerfed level 1 and then some of the missing benefits come in on level 2. This would be less confusing because then a character who is Ranger 5/Druid 1 would be level 6, as you'd expect from adding up their levels.
Fourth, just basically make sure that front-loaded class abilities don't really stack. If being the fighter class means you have an attack bonus with all weapons and being the rogue class means you have an attack bonus with small weapons and being the ranger class means you have an attack bonus with ranged weapons, you'd use the highest such bonus when you throw a dagger at someone, not the combined bonus.
Note that with a power scheme identical to 4E--where the powers you choose each level escalate--this whole scheme would make multi-class characters markedly weaker than single class ones. You couldn't just apply this as a patch to 4E, because then you'd have things like level 15 characters picking level 3 encounter powers.
But I've never liked the idea of powers that go obsolete as you level. So instead of level 1 powers, level 2 powers, and so on, I'd just break the powers into tiers. Make it so that most times you gain a new power, the benefit you're getting is having another option or another Big Gun to whip out, not simply a Bigger Gun.
With this change, then a fighter who cross-classed to rogue who's picking a new power would have a mix of fighter and rogue powers. If they were a fighter for longer, they might have more fightery moves in their repertoire, but picking a rogue one next wouldn't put them at a serious disadvantage compared to the fighter ones they've taken before.