Classless Pathfinder System


Homebrew and House Rules


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The class based DnD system has a lot of good points to it. However, it does very much encourage a single class play style. It also requires that you take everything a class offers, weather its fitting to your character concept or not. Due to this, I have created a classless system to encourage a wider variety of choices to be made when making your character.

WHAT THIS IS NOT: This is not a debate on weather a classless system is needed. Some are happy with classes and can customize them in many ways. Some are not. To each their own opinion.

WHAT THIS IS: This is a classless system where the goal is to balance the cost of abilities versus making sure every class can be constructed. Some classes have too many abilities while others have too few. They will not be balanced. However, if every ability is balanced comparatively to each other then everyone will be balanced in respect to each other.

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR: I am looking for advice on weather the point values seem appropriate and balanced in respect to each other. Also, does the system seem close in line to balance when compared to a class based character? I set up level requirements to to keep the abilities in line with what level you should get them.

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THE SYSTEM

Characters gain experience at the normal progression. This maintains the level system and the 'DnD feel'.
At character creation a character gains the following:
Character Creation
-Starting character points = 18(Used to buy abilities - see below)
-Weapon Proficiency: All Simple + Choose any 2 Martial
-- Each Additional costs: 1 point per simple, 2 points per Martial, 3 points per exotic
-Armor Proficiency: Light
-- Each Additional costs: 4 points for Medium, 4 additional for Heavy, 2 points for Shields, and 1 additional for Tower Shields
Starting Feats: Any 2 (Must meet Prerequisites)
- Each Additional Feat: 5 points each
Starting Skill List: Treat all Skills as “Class Skills”

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Every time a character gains a level they gain the following benefits for free (including 1st level):
-HD: d6 plus con mod (Max at level 1)
-Saves: 1 point (Max=1/2 level+2)
-BAB: As Wizard
-Skill Point: 2+Int mod
-Special: 12 Character points

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Advanced Character Options:
A player may choose to forgo acquiring armor or weapon proficiency and instead gain additional points to purchase Skills/Abilities/Stats at character creation.
Armorless: If a character chooses to start without armor proficiency, gain 4 additional points to spend.
Weaponless: If a character chooses to start without martial weapon proficiency, gain 3 additional points. If a character chooses to start without any weapon proficiency, they gain 5 points instead of the previously mentioned 3.

HD|Cost
D4|-1 Points (The character gains 1 additional point at this level)
D6| 0 Points
D8|1 Points
D10|2 Points
D12|3 Points

Base Attack
Progression|Cost (Iterative attacks at the normal rate)
0.50 |0 Points
0.75 |2 Points
1.00 |4 Points

Saves
Type|Cost
Base save: | 0 Points (gain 1 point per level t any save)
Bonus save: |3 Points - (Gain 1 additional per purchase - Max=1/2 level +2)

Skill points
Progression|Cost
(2 + int mod)| 0 Points
(4 + int mod)|1 Points
(6 + int mod)|2 Points
(8 + int mod)|3 Points

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Special Abilities:
For ease of reading I am not listing out the prerequisites for the abilities. Currently they build off of previous options in the chain and usually have a level requirement to prevent gaining it early - so, for example, tireless rage will require purchasing rage and greater rage as well as a level 11 requirement.
-Any ability is given at its most favorable level, IE, any character can select evasion at 2nd level when a rogue would gain it.

Ability - Cost
Rage - 4, plus 4 for each upgrade (Duration = 1 rnd/lvl, plus 2rnd/rage power)
Rage power - 4, then 2 for each additional
Uncanny Dodge - 4, plus an additional 2 for improved
Damage Reduction - 4, plus 4 per upgrade
Indomitable Will - 4
Trap Sense - 4, plus 2 per additional per upgrade

Bardic Knowledge - 4
Cantrips (Choose class) - 4
Bardic Performance - 4 for the performance, plus below
-Countersong - 2
-Distraction - 2
-Fascinate - 2
-Inspire Courage - 2, plus 1 per increase
-Inspire competence - 2, plus 1 per increase
-Suggestion - 2
-Dirge of Doom -2
-Inspire Greatness - 2
-Soothing Performance - 2
-Frightening Tune - 2
-Inspire Heroics - 2
-Mass Suggestion - 2
-Deadly Performance - 2
Versatile Performance - 3, then 3 for each additional
Well versed - 2
Lore Master - 3, plus 1 for each additional use
Jack of all Trades - 3

Aura (Good, evil, ...) - 2
Channel energy - 4, plus 2 per upgrade
Domains - 4, plus 4 to unlock 8th lvl ability
Orisons (Choose class) -0 4
Spontaneous Casting (Choose class) - 3

Nature Bond - 4
Nature Sense - 2
Wild Empathy - 2
Woodland Stride - 2
Trackless Step - 2
Resist Nature's Lure - 3
Wildshape - 4, plus 2 per additional use. At will at 20th lvl
Venom Immunity - 2
A Thousand Faces - 3
Timeless Body - 2

Bonus Feat - 5 each
Bravery - 4, plus 2 each upgrade
Armor Training - 4, plus 2 per upgrade, 5 for mastery
Weapon Training - 4, plus 4 per upgrade, 5 for mastery

Flurry of Blows - 4, plus 4 per upgrade
Stunning Fist - 4
Unarmed Strike - 4
Unarmed Damage - 3 plus 2 per upgrade
AC Bonus - 4 plus 2 per upgrade
Fast Movement (As per monk) - 4 plus 2 per upgrade
Evasion - 5, then 4 for improved
Still Mind - 2
Ki Pool - 3
Slow Fall - 2 (Upgrades distance for free)
High jump - 1
Purity of body - 2
Wholeness of Body - 3
Diamond Body - 2
Abundant Step - 3
Diamond Soul - 5
Quivering Palm - 4
Timeless Body - 2
Tongue of the Sun and Moon - 2
Empty Body - 5
Perfect Self - 4

Detect Evil - 2
Smite Evil - 4, plus 2 per additional use
Divine Grace - 5
Lay on Hands - 4
Aura of Courage - 3
Divine Health - 3
Mercy - 3, plus 1 per additional
Divine Bond - 5
Aura of Resolve - 4
Aura of Justice - 4
Aura of Faith - 2
Aura of Righteousness - 4
Holy Champion - 4

Favored Enemy - 4, plus 2 per upgrade
Favored Terrain - 3, plus 2 per additional
Wild Empathy - 2
Hunter's Bond - 4
Master Hunter - 4
Track - 3
Swift Tracker - 2
Quarry - 3
Improved Quarry - 3
Woodland Stride - 2
Camouflage - 3
Hide in Plain Sight - 4

Sneak Attack - 5, plus 3 per upgrade
Trapfinding - 3
Rogue Talent - 4, plus 2 each additional
Trap Sense - 3, plus 1 per upgrade
Uncanny Dodge - 4, then 2 for improved
Advanced Talents - 4, plus 2 each additional
Master Strike - 4

Bloodline Power - 4 each
Cantrips (Sorcerer) - 4
Bloodline Spell - 2 each

Arcane Bond - 2
Arcane School - 4, then 4 for 8th lvl ability
Cantrips (Wizard) - 4


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A system like this will probably get trashed on the forums, because a classless/point-buy system can be really easy for an experienced player to exploit or for a novice player to screw up. Some gaming systems do fine with it, and I think that's because they are this way from the beginning.

A game like PF has classes that fit archetypes (more or less), and so are built as a complete package (for better or worse). You've attempted to make the old system fit a new system, and I have absolutely no reason to think that you have done a job job either. It looks like you have tried to make some sense of the classes are they currently are and weighed the value of each feature. The existing classes include abilities of little worth, staggered between abilities of actual worth. With a classless system, you can focus on just the good stuff and disregard everything non-essential. Typically, systems like this are used from the very beginning, and the game system is designed around it. You're retro-fitting, so there has to be compromise..

My feeling is that you should see if you can get your gaming group to try this out. Theory-crafting a system like this will be criticized, but if you can produce actual playtested results then that is something people can appreciate - and can't really argue with. Nice work.


Check out True 20 by Green Ronin.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:

A system like this will probably get trashed on the forums, because a classless/point-buy system can be really easy for an experienced player to exploit or for a novice player to screw up. Some gaming systems do fine with it, and I think that's because they are this way from the beginning.

A game like PF has classes that fit archetypes (more or less), and so are built as a complete package (for better or worse). You've attempted to make the old system fit a new system, and I have absolutely no reason to think that you have done a job job either. It looks like you have tried to make some sense of the classes are they currently are and weighed the value of each feature. The existing classes include abilities of little worth, staggered between abilities of actual worth. With a classless system, you can focus on just the good stuff and disregard everything non-essential. Typically, systems like this are used from the very beginning, and the game system is designed around it. You're retro-fitting, so there has to be compromise..

My feeling is that you should see if you can get your gaming group to try this out. Theory-crafting a system like this will be criticized, but if you can produce actual playtested results then that is something people can appreciate - and can't really argue with. Nice work.

I do certainly understand what you are saying. I do realize that this system does allow for a greater chance to min/max by an experienced player. I know I only gave a short guideline to the prereqs, but many of the higher level abilities will require some of those nonessential abilities to get. Also, the weaker filler abilities all have been assigned a low point value to account for their lack of use. Those filler abilities only cost 1-2 points each so purchasing them for the flavor wont take much from your overall points and stripping them out wont help you save many points either.

With this system there is no perfect balance. Some classes just can't be recreated and stripping those nonessential abilities down will save you points to get what you want from the class. Its not perfect, but no system is.

I wasn't as clear as I thought I was (go go posting when your tired) but I was mainly hoping for help on determining the balance of the various points assigned to each ability. I've run several test runs on the values and believe they are balanced. However, I also know that my opinion is a little biased as the creator. I wanted to make sure other opinions thought I was on the right track before I start playtesting it (It will be a couple months before were ready to switch gears again and I hope to have this ready for a test run by then).

Vidmaster7 wrote:
Check out True 20 by Green Ronin.

Thank you for the suggestion. I have skimmed that system and it looks interesting. I will check it out in more detail later this weekend.


An easy way to abuse this system is to allow players to "bank" points from levels.

I would put in a requirement that all points must be spent in leveling, and you're going to have to think hard about a retraining system.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

An easy way to abuse this system is to allow players to "bank" points from levels.

I would put in a requirement that all points must be spent in leveling, and you're going to have to think hard about a retraining system.

You are right on that, but unfortunately, I have not found a good way to work around that yet. If I don't allow any to be banked then some classes (like sorcerer) can't be built. Some levels would have a few points left over while some require spending more than you get. Due to this I was considering allowing only a certain number of points to be banked between levels - Like 3 as there is no reason to save more than what is needed to buy an ability (and 4 points is the baseline cost for abilities)

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I am convinced that a "buy your class features" system is a bad approach to creating a classless system after I've seen so many homebrew attempts, studied published classless games, and worked on several drafts for a classless system for my vScape RPG.

It's a bad approach because it's extremely difficult to adequately create opportunity costs between powerful options. Some options are so powerful and iconic to a character's contribution that you cannot compare them with other options numerically. This is so true that even classless games usually don't take this approach, even when they have point systems. Shadowrun has the priority system that balances different archetypes. Tenra Bansho Zero locks special abilities behind modular packages. Legend of the 5 Ring ties special abilities to your clan and school choices.

An approach I took was creating several "skeletons" with preset BAB, saves, skill progressions, and maximum spell level. Then depending on your skeleton, you can choose a primary class feature and then choose an X amount of secondary class features that you get at various levels.

I also see tons of problems with the point buy of the system proposed in the OP. For example, there's no such thing as a d4 HD in Pathfinder and HD should be tied to BAB. The d12 HD option is heavily underpriced. It's only 50% more than the d10 option despite there being only two creatures in the entire game that have a d12 HD. It should be very pricey option. It also looks like the system isn't finished as it doesn't indicate how much spellcasting is.


Cyrad wrote:

It's a bad approach because it's extremely difficult to adequately create opportunity costs between powerful options. Some options are so powerful and iconic to a character's contribution that you cannot compare them with other options numerically. This is so true that even classless games usually don't take this approach, even when they have point systems. Shadowrun has the priority system that balances different archetypes. Tenra Bansho Zero locks special abilities behind modular packages. Legend of the 5 Ring ties special abilities to your clan and school choices.

An approach I took was creating several "skeletons" with preset BAB, saves, skill progressions, and maximum spell level. Then depending on your skeleton, you can choose a primary class feature and then choose an X amount of secondary class features that you get at various levels.

I agree that it is a difficult approach to adequately create a balance in the costs. My goal is to focus on how much an ability is worth to give everyone an equal opportunity to build off of that.

I have considered an approach similar to what I believe you are referring to as the skeletons. I dismissed that as it locks you into certain parameters that make certain combinations impossible (or too costly to be worth it) to pull off. Using Shadowrun as an example, it is just not feasible to build a troll decker. Troll simply requires too high of a priority to be worth the investment when compared to how little you actually gain as a decker.

Cyrad wrote:
I also see tons of problems with the point buy of the system proposed in the OP. For example, there's no such thing as a d4 HD in Pathfinder and HD should be tied to BAB. The d12 HD option is heavily underpriced. It's only 50% more than the d10 option despite there being only two creatures in the entire game that have a d12 HD. It should be very pricey option.

The d4 hp isn't something I am completely certain about yet. You do bring up a very good point about pathfinder not using that type and so I may remove it.

I do disagree with your other sentiments though. Pathfinder does structure the HD to be based on BA, however, would it really be unbalanced to let a bard have d10 HD if they were forced to trade out other abilities for it?

I do understand that d12 HD is a very uncommon number, but I am not convinced that it should cost a high amount just because of that. I'm trying to price abilities based on their value and worth to a player in a game. Your only getting the chance at an extra 1-2 hp per die type. As such, I priced the amounts accordingly.
Imagine that I set d10s at a cost of 2 pts and d12s at a cost of 6pts. The difference is 4, which is the average cost of a new ability. Is the extra die type really worth the cost of an extra ability per level?

Cyrad wrote:
It also looks like the system isn't finished as it doesn't indicate how much spellcasting is.

Thank you for pointing that out! I realized I was missing that this morning and got pulled away before I could add those numbers in!

Spellcasting costs:
Currently I don't have anything restricting Rangers or Paladins from gaining spells at 1st level. This will likely be added later.

There are many ways a person can learn how to cast spells and each method has their own challenges and benefits. Each purchase of this ability allows the character to advance along 1 spellcasting list. Costs vary depending on the list chosen.

You may advance on multiple lists, but all must be purchased separately and each advance allows you to progress one stage.
Max level: You must meet all prerequisites and cannot purchase more ranks than your character level in any individual list.

Alchemist
Requirements: Alchemy
Each advance: 4 points

Bard
Requirements: Cantrips
Each advance: 4 points

Cleric
Requirements: Orisons, Domains
Each advance: 7 points

Druid
Requirements: Orisons, Nature Bond
Each advance: 6 points

Inquisitor
Requirements: Orisons and Inquisitor Domain or Inquisitions
Each advance: 4 points

Magus
Requirements: Cantrips
Each advance: 4 points

Oracle
Requirements: Orisons
Each advance: 6 points

Paladin
Requirements: Aura of Good
Each advance: 4 points; Special: Max rank is 16

Ranger
Requirements: Wild Empathy
Each advance: 4 points; Special: Max rank is 16

Sorcerer
Requirements: Cantrips
Each advance: 8 points

Witch
Requirements: Cantrips
Each advance: 6 points

Wizard
Requirements: Cantrips
Each advance: 8 points


It looks like it'd take a very long time to have this system cover all the archetypes.


Aereas wrote:
However, it does very much encourage a single class play style. It also requires that you take everything a class offers, weather its fitting to your character concept or not.

I do not see this being solved any better in your system. Any system like this will only narrow it down further, into encouraging single build play styles.

The basic problem here is that you're trying to quantify the value in each and every class ability, compared to each other. An additional problem is that it's not "user friendly" - all of a sudden I'd have to dig trough material equivalent of all 40+ classes in Pathfinder to create a single character.

But that's not what you want to hear, so hears my feed-back on your points:

Why is it that a Bonus Feat costs 5 for each and Rage Powers only costs 4 and 2 for every additional? Rage Powers are, generally, considered better than combat feats.

I can't build a Barbarian with these rules; I can only afford full BAB, good Fort save, d12, 4+Int skill ranks per level and rage, but then I'm out of points. I don't have enough for medium armor or fast movement. - This is a great issue. Make sure that you can at least build the existing classes or your system will be more limiting (which in turn makes the system garbage).

You should also review all 100+ archetypes and the 100+ prestige classes to get a more accurate perception of the value in class abilities.


Who will you sell your system to? (Even if you're giving it away for no price in money, you still have to pitch people on using it.) What do they want?

For me, I'd say this isn't remotely enough like Champions. Errr, Fantasy Heroes. When I think classless, I don't want to worry if I can replicate "Wizard" or "Fighter" or even "Magus." If that were what I wanted to play, I'd play them as a class! Instead, I want to be able to take as much combat as I want and as much spellcasting as I want. I want divine & arcane (& possibly psychic) spellcasting, too, in some mix that seems thematic to me. And let's not forget skills & roguish abilities.

At the same time, it makes sense that any given individual is going to have an easier time developing some central focus. In short, I like Cyrad's skeleton idea, although I might implement it differently.

Rudimentary sketch:
I'd need at least five skeletons -- prepared vs. spontaneous full-caster, prepared vs. spontaneous mixed, and full-martial. I'd give the prepared & spontaneous caster skeletons a choice of arcane, divine, or psychic magic as a primary focus. I could give the martial skeleton the choice of combat or skills as their primary focus. The mixed skeletons would then have to pick from both sets of choices. Now, whether at first level or at level-up, this choice of "primary focus" would affect costs and ceilings. Nothing more.

If you want +1 BAB to be on the store shelf, fine. The ratio for cost should be on the order of 2 for the martial, 3 for the mixed, and 4 for the caster. The skeletons would dictate the cost of each save, too, plus its ceiling -- but the player could decide to plug points in or not.

Feats, I'm afraid, would have to get classified in some fashion. Combat feats are pre-classified, as are some (but not all) Magic feats. Sadly, the remaining feats have to get sorted into Magic, Skill, and Universal. A lot of class abilities, like Evasion, would also get translated into feats. Once you've done all that work (!), each skeleton could simply have a listed cost for the different types of feats.

The math for learning new spells & casting spells per day has to be more complex, and frankly escapes me right now. The key is that your skeleton & focus choices dictate a level minimum and spell cost, but not total availability. In other words, if you're playing a martial skeleton, you would have to be of a higher level to learn or cast a 2nd level spell than if you were a full-caster looking at a spell of their primary type. And it will cost you maybe 3-5 times as much per 2nd-level spell, too. But if you've leveled up to whatever the relevant point is, you & the full-caster should be able to learn the spell. Regardless of whether either of you have learned any cantrips or not.

That's the power of classless.

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