Class design: resource management vs constant abilities


Homebrew and House Rules


I decided to revisit a class I started last year and made a choice to try an approach I have not used in a long time: no point pools, no spells, no uses per day, etc. I wanted to give another go at making a class who can use any of its abilities at any time, instead of one who can only do the fun stuff a limited number of times per day.

The only current class I can think of that is completely this way is the fighter. The rogue falls in the same category if certain talents are avoided. The ranger comes in right behind, and thats only because of a meager selection of spells beginning at 4th level.

On the rest of the spectrum we have primary spellcasters (wizards, druids), classes with rounds per day (bard, barbarian), uses per day (paladin, alchemist), and point pools (gunslinger, magus, monk). Some of have more than one of these.

Classes with a selection of "always on" abilities were once fairly standard in RPGs but no longer. I'm having a hard time being creative with this class. The player would have fewer options in game and it feels less dynamic. Are classes with no resources except hit points and equipment just an outdated design style?


The variety in this case needs to come from one at a time type abilities, like the various combat styles. Sure you have eight different sword attacks, five unarmed strike options, and two ways to do a flaming headbutt, which do you use this round?

Another thing to work with is some kind of activation/ success roll. You may attempt your leap attack as often as you like, but if you fail the acrobatics roll, it doesn't work.


Isn't one of the main criticisms of fighters that they're just numbers? To me that is having no resource management all, your abilities are just having more numbers you unlocked flaming b$*!*!%s what does that mean? 4 more damage. It's just a bit boring you don't make any choices during play except who to hit.

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

Interesting abilities require the players to make meaningful choices. There are different ways to achieve that, but they all require resource investment of some kind (action economy, risk exposure, coordination with other player characters). The rogue's sneak attack would be a simple example for such an ability that isn't based on a resource pool (though somewhat limited in scope, admittedly).

Resource pools have a few advantages. They give players additional agency, allowing them to decide when they need an extra edge in a particular challenging situation. At least in theory, they ensure that a character performs at different power levels over the course of an adventuring day. Resource pools are also an easy way to create synergy effects and other interrelations between different class abilities, which helps to create gameplay. Finally, they assign discrete values to each ability, which makes it easier for the player to evaluate their worth.

There's also the whole problem of the '15-minute adventuring day' that discriminates against characters without limited resource pools.


Characters with always-on abilities suffers from having a necessitated consistent performance. It's not bad to be able to perform well consistently, but the game doesn't really favor that. Damage is swingy, so sometimes you will need to double down on a certain defense, patch yourself up quickly, or go berserk and take down an opponent hard to prevent further loss. But also, GMs adjust to how well you seem to be doing. If you're playing a swingy, resource management-intensive class, and are doing poorly, the GM will probably give players concessions and either weaken the enemies or provide a way to recover. You can save your resources for when it really matters. But with a consistent, always-on class, you don't really have that ability. All your cards are on the table from the start, so the GM will toss in some oozes to challenge your Sneak Attack, or some invisible enemies to challenge your lack of magic sight. GMs could set their expectations for players on average, make the game easier when the players do poorly, and congratulate the players when they do well.

Perhaps instead of a point pool thing or whatever, you have switchable abilities? Somewhat like how the Medium can get a spirit every day, and how Slayers can pick studied targets basically immediately. If you had, say, three abilities, one of which you could change on a daily basis (or by taking an hour of meditation, perhaps), and the other two which you could change on a round-by-round basis, you could have a class with a more interesting playstyle than the Fighter.


Kineticist who spends his burn on his kinetic defense when he wakes up until he is full up on elemental overflow (since after that he hp loss is annoying), and doesn't otherwise use burn can operate as a class with at-will powers and "effectively" no resource management while still having a range of different abilities aside from just numbers.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

Amanuensis hits the nail on the head. Great class features create gameplay by facilitating meaningful choices. There's very little meaningful choice involved with an ability that's always useful and has no limitation.

Since you don't want to have limited uses, then you will need to create a game mechanic that either requires action economy or requires a circumstance or risky maneuver to work. The slayer's Studied Combat (use move action to gain a buff) and Ultimate Psionics's psionic focus mechanic (spend action to gain a resource, expend resource to perform special ability) are great examples of the former. Amanuensis already mentioned a good example of the latter (rogue's sneak attack).

I know it's difficult to come up with a good mechanic. This is why the core class feature mechanic is the first thing I design when creating a class.


@Cyrad mentioned action economy which is really the only point you can give the player meaningful choices if they have no pool/resource/per-day abilities.

There are a couple of ways you could work this. One would be to have different abilities become available starting at a certain level and have their use tied to a particular type of action e.g. standard, move, swift, immediate, free. Then you can have them "scale" upward in "speed" at a certain level.

So "Uber Attack" becomes available at level 4 for a standard action, granting one attack with a +20 modifier with a bonus +80d6 damage (your numbers may vary a little :) ). At level 8 it becomes a move action. At level 12 a swift action (no point in making it immediate or, heaven forbit, free).

Now create a set of abilities to choose from, with meaningful non-trap choices, and limit the number of abilities the player may choose, and you have a kinet-... you have a class that doesn't require much resource management and has always on abilities with no real restrictions on use.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:
Classes with a selection of "always on" abilities were once fairly standard in RPGs but no longer. I'm having a hard time being creative with this class. The player would have fewer options in game and it feels less dynamic. Are classes with no resources except hit points and equipment just an outdated design style?

Since some players like very reliable mechanics, I wouldn't call it outdated.

And I think it's totally possible to design such a class (or archetype): Give it several options that compete with each other. For example imagine a specialist on combat actions, gaining a lot of (preset!) combat feats for free:

* 'Combat mode' feats like Power Attack, Combat Expertise etc.
* Cleave and Whirlwind Attack
* A few related improved combat maneuver feats, for example for bull rush and reposition
* A few combat styles

Now in each combat situation the player has to make a choice: What do I use now? And it will make a difference - so we have 'meaningful choices'!

Now you could build this as a fighter, with their many bonus feats - but most players won't. They will try to pick the 'best' options of all groups, ending up with a focussed character. Which is valid and might even work well, but it doesn't include a lot of choices. Meaning a class design with built-in multitude of related choices can be justified.


Witches and shamans have great access to a resource that lasts all day, even though it's not "always on" -- hexes. Yes, they also cast spells, so they're somewhere around Rangers in your list. I love hexes because they're a spontaneous choice ("what do I want to do this round?"), and yet they don't burn out except on a per-target basis. So if you eliminate spell-casting, a new class with hexes that could apply to targets again & again (no stacking) would be interesting.

{Added: So now I'm coming up with an idea of my own, instead of helping the OP with his class directly. Still, this may strike sparks of inspiration for him... Let's name this the Mystic.}

My homebrew class could still not hex a given target with the Fortune hex, for example, multiple times for a stacked effect (although you might allow the duration to extend at higher levels). OTOH, if she hexed a friend with Fortune, she could hex them again at any time after it wore off for full effect.

(Note: This makes this new class potentially decent healers, since the Healing hex could now be applied as often as a cleric could cast a spell, but (unlike a spell) lasts all day. OTOH, you would have to choose Healing for a very limited list of hexes known, and are unlikely to do so if the party includes a cleric. I personally like seeing a broad list of classes that can heal while doing a variety of other cool stuff! And clerics have access to condition-removal spells that a class without any spells would certainly not.)

Now, eliminating spell-casting makes for a lot of work. I suppose I'm thinking more of something based off of the shaman, in that I think the variant class should have a 3/4 BAB, and there should be a variety of packages of additional hex options like the shaman has. The main package, however, should provide hexes that directly assist a ranged & a melee fighter -- so unfortunately, I'm thinking more along the lines of the hexes the witch gets. Is this a witch/shaman hybrid class I'm proposing?

Witches have familiars in all the lore, and shamans have spirit animals -- but the hybrid class could simply eliminate that class feature. Instead, I'd like to see the class become more and more ethereal or incorporeal over time, as they steep themselves in meditation within the spiritual realm. It probably should take a standard action to make their weapons able to strike corporeal targets, but again, they'd be able to do so as many times a day as they wanted. {Added: Corporeality for the weapons might last 1 minute/level once activated. New addition: Or it would take a move action to make them Corporeal, and it lasts only 1 round/level.} I'd like them to develop personal flight & invisibility spell-like abilities, too, to be honest. Eventually they'd achieve Overland Flight & Greater Invisibility. However, given our quest here, while these are spell-like abilities, they'd have unlimited uses per day. So the class would have to get access to a given SLA {at least} three levels later than a wizard would. {Added: Melee weapons turned corporeal should probably lose invisibility if readied.}

Again, this is going to be balanced with a 3/4 BAB. Still, it could make for a h*llacious fighter. Is this a wishful foray into OP-land?


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

What are some "always available" class features in the game now? A list might help stir up some creativity.

Considering primarily core combat abilities or enhancers, so far I've got:

Kineticist blasts
Kineticist talents
Vigilante Warlock blasts
Witch/Shaman hexes (limited by once per target per day)
Extra Combat Feats
Weapon/Armor Training
Sneak Attack
Studied Target
Favored Enemy (limited by selection)
Monk/Warpriest bonus weapon damage
Damage Reduction
Bonus Armor/Saves
Animal Companions/Familiars

And there must be more.

I can already see lots of options for archetypes that could potentially trade out class features for "always on" options from the above list. As for completely new classes, I feel like there must be plenty of ways to take the base ideas from the above list and mix them up.

What about things like:

1. Applying hexes with a weapon attack
2. "Studied target" on a friendly player that gives them bonuses of your choosing
3. Negating chosen enemy combat feats
4. "Hex auras" that apply diminished hexes to an area.
5. Diminished kinetecist style blasts delivered through your animal companion's claws.


WatersLethe wrote:

What about things like:

1. Applying hexes with a weapon attack
2. "Studied target" on a friendly player that gives them bonuses of your choosing
3. Negating chosen enemy combat feats
4. "Hex auras" that apply diminished hexes to an area.
5. Diminished kinetecist style blasts delivered through your animal companion's claws.

Two thoughts that I have about abilities that don't require resource management but that still might be interesting:

* Long activation times. For example, the ability to vanish at will, but it requires an entire round to activate (like casting sleep or summon monster). For longer buffs, you might (for example) be able to get a 10 min/level buff, but it takes ten minutes to cast. Are you willing to spend ten minutes chanting in the middle of the Temple of Infinite Ogres just for a see invisible effect?

* Contingency triggers. Like DR, but more active -- whenever something happens, something else happens. DR is boring, not because it's always on, but because all it does is shift numbers around. On the other hand, a Countercoup ability that lets you make an attack roll against anyone who hits you in melee (and that does not count as an attack of opportunity) but only doing one point of damage (+ Str mod) might be interesting. [Actually, that would really slow the game to a crawl, but the idea is still interesting. One way to make it more balanced, for example, would be to give at-will spell turning but only against certain specific spells/effects, so you could turn fire spells against their casters, but not lightning.]

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I would look at the 3.5 classes warlock, binder, truespeaker, and dragon shaman.

Warlocks had a very limited number of invocations, but could use them at will. Some of them turned off when it was used again (no infinite number of walls of fire!!!).

Binders picked one or more "suites" of powers. Some powers were constant, and others were usable once every 5 rounds. Suites could be changed every day.

Truespeakers had to make a skill check to cast a spell, and the DC increased each time a specific spell was used repeatedly throughout the day.

Dragon shamans had a variety of auras they could emit at will, but only one at a time. They had breath weapons they could every 1d4 rounds.

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