The APG classes have serious issues with class concept overlap. Between core and the APG, we now have five lightly-armored classes ......
Druids get medium armor and shields just like clerics.
Druids get medium armor and shields just like clerics.Lightly armored, not Light Armor in game terms. Without extraordinary gear, druids are limited to hide armor, which has near-identical statistics to chain shirts, and hide armor doesn't look too terribly different from leather armor. (Note that Lini, the iconic druid, isn't even wearing hide armor.) If Lini was pictured with a viper familiar or didn't take an animal companion at all, would you be able to tell her from a witch, sorcerer, or wizard? Even if she turned into a wolf, that only excludes one of the four classes. [/QUOTEOk I misunderstood. The following statement threw me off
Incidentally, I don't mention the cleric because it has two clear things t"hat set it apart: armor........"
Yeah it is hard to tell them apart, but they do have their own places in culture. In movies sorcerers and wizards are pretty much the same. The witch could have been given invocation similar to the 3.5 warlock and maybe a limited spell list. I have no idea how that would have worked though. I guess a lot of things could have been different, but they do work differently enough in the game for it to matter. That statement mostly applies to the base classes since I have not really tried the newer classes out yet.
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If we take the character concept “ a wizened old crone communing with animals to gain magical lore” and there are several PC classes she could conceptually be? I for one think this is a good thing. I think it provides for more subtlety.
I remember the days of 2nd edition when you could tell a character class by his gear. Oh look there is a guy in leather armor short sword and cloak- most likely a Thief. Armored character with a great sword could it be a fighter? Oh that armored character has a mace and shield- he could only be a cleric. And that old guy over there with the quarterstaff and a small furry animal- yep he bothered to get himself a familiar. He must be a wizard.
I now like the idea that “ a wizened old crone communing with animals to gain magical lore” could be a Witch, a druid, a wizard, a sorceress, and possible a class or two I haven’t thought of.
And my friend, Jagyr Ebonwood, as usual you have asked a far more question then I.
What class are they?
# A wizened crone living in the woods, communing with animals to learn magical lore
# An avenger of nature, endowed with the ability to blast the enemies of the natural world with the power of the elements
# A character cursed with power of origins she can't understand, who unleashes this curse on her foes
# A character who uses magic learned from the fey to charm and confuse his foes
# A character who has inherited an ancient pact with an archfiend, and uses the power and knowledge from that pact to obliterate his foes with hellfire
1 - Druid, or Sorc(fey).
2 - Druid, or Sorc(fey/elemental), Ranger3 - Sorc (Many)/Cleric
4 - Wizard (Illusion), Sorc (Fey)
5 - Wiz, or Sorc (Infernal, Abyssal), Cleric
That said, I am not sold on the Witch/Alchemist/Oracle classes - I found them not particularly revolutionary and generally can't see any of my guys ever rolling one, except out of morbid curiosity.
Paladins? The paladin drawback is all drawback. Wizards' signature item has a wicked drawback. Monks, barbarians, druids, and clerics have mechanics which are nothing but drawbacks. That's more than half the core classes. It's not a unique niche to have an ability that comes with a situational drawback. It does translate to visual effects, but it translates to visual effects in inconsistent and incoherent ways when it translates to visual effects at all. A character who doesn't speak any language you speak in combat may just not share a language with you, and a character who's lame or blind just might be lame or blind.
Well, there's a certain difference in the drawbacks of a paladin/druid/cleric, those of a favored soul/sorcerer, and those of a barbarian. I can't see the exact drawback of a monk, except for a slight alignment restriction and being generally a suboptimal choice. Possibly one could group them in with the paladin/druid/cleric, explanation below. When comparing drawbacks thematically, they should be compared to the regular citizens of the world: The commoners. A drawback is when they are weaker than normal people.
- The paladin, druid and cleric all have the drawback that if they don't adhere to their moral rules or the rules given to them by a higher power, they loose their abilities. Thematically, this is rather that "as long as they DO follow the rules, they are given powers". It's much like the ranger's combat styles being limited to when wearing light armor; it's a bonus gained under certain circumstances. Granted, this is a bonus the classes need to work properly, but it's not thematically "they are cursed to do good" but rather something that they choose. If there would be some other penalty for not adhering to the alignment rules and code of conduct, such as a sinning cleric being turned into a pillar of salt by his god, it could be seen as a true drawback.
- The drawback of a barbarian, being illiterate (if that's what you're talking about) is due to simply never having learnt how to read. It's more a lack of a common feature than it's a drawback - thematically, that is.
- Favored Souls, and in some cases Sorcerers, are cursed. This isn't something they've voluntarily done generally, and it's not a lack of being un-cursed as opposed to the lack of being literate. In the case of the favored soul, it actually has an important drawback, while for the sorcerer, it's purely thematic.
So in a way, the favored soul IS the only class where a significant thematic and mechanic drawback is seen. In a certain way, they're weaker than the normal citizens of the world, and commoners might pity them.
That said, I DO feel a redundance in too many classes. I think several of these should just be alternate class features, and others should be prestige classes and/or feats.
Bleh. Wrote a long post about visual appearance of classes and ecological/thematic niches and lost it to a board error. I'll rewrite it later.
It's strange how the board only loses long post. I have yet to lose a short one.
It's strange how the board only loses long post. I have yet to lose a short one.It times out.
I know. Vic explained it before. It just reminded me of how certain things happen at the worst time, like hitting every stop light when I have to be somewhere.
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I believe that between all the abilities the Witch gets much closer to the Disney Cackling Old Lady shtick, which does appeal to many (it even appeals to me, zomg, much surprise). I would prefer to have the "fairy tale" aspects pumped up and the "classic" spellcasting downplayed. It always jarred me that the "old crone of the woods" or "barbarian mad shaman" player idea needs to be channelled either into a Sorcerer or a Druid (ok, Adepts ride the short bus).
As for the Oracle ... I'll just call them Favoured Souls and check off the "spontaneous divine caster for those who hate choosing from 300 spells every morning" box. I have a player who wants just that, so the OraFavSoul will fill the job nicely.
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Man in black, you make a good point about the Iconics being distinct from one another visually being an excellent marketing and demonstrative technique. From a player’s point of view, I like the variation and from a DM’s perspective, I enjoy the lines being blurred, it helps keep my players on their toe’s.
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I know. Vic explained it before. It just reminded me of how certain things happen at the worst time, like hitting every stop light when I have to be somewhere.It's strange how the board only loses long post. I have yet to lose a short one.It times out.
What helps me is to get in the habit of "copying" the entirety of my post before I hit submit, so I can recoup the loss.
What helps me is to get in the habit of "copying" the entirety of my post before I hit submit, so I can recoup the loss.I know. Vic explained it before. It just reminded me of how certain things happen at the worst time, like hitting every stop light when I have to be somewhere.It's strange how the board only loses long post. I have yet to lose a short one.It times out.
That is what I do now also. It would have gotten me a few days ago, had I not done that.
Well aside from the big guy in heavy armor, ideally most classes should /look/ relatively similar.
Just as you can't *look* at most people and divine their exact profession by their clothing alone, you really shouldn't be wearing a Character Class ID Card on your vest either.
The guy in heavy armor could be a fighter.. or a paladin. Or a barbarian with Mithril FP and the prof.
The lightly armored guy with a rapier could be.. a fighter.. a ranger perhaps.. a rogue..
If rapier and no armor at all he could be any of those or a wizard or sorc or.. well heck nearly anything.
PC classes aren't like air planes where you can look at a card and match up the silhouette and know what you are dealing with. And they shouldn't be.
Its the things the classes can do- the specifics of their abilities and mechanics that set them apart not the way they look or dress.
Sure the two rapier holding guys may look apart but one lifts his other hand and shoots a fireball while the other is sneaking around your back to stab it through your kidneys.
-S
Well aside from the big guy in heavy armor, ideally most classes should /look/ relatively similar.Why? If all the classes look alike, in what sense are they iconic?
Their abilities make them iconic, but I would not say the should look the same/similar. I do think its acceptable if certain ones happen to look the similar.
Let me start out by saying that I fully agree with you, I think all of these classes are too similar and could use some features to distinguish them from each other or lose a feature or two which they share with each other for no apparent reason other than tradition.
My question is simply this: What can be done to fix this from now on? The core classes (druid, wizard, sorcerer) are pretty much set in stone and I don't really see what changes can be made to the APG classes without changing their role drastically.
I suppose alternate class features could help, though. Looking forward to see those.
To illustrate this problem, here are some character concepts. What class are they?
A wizened crone living in the woods, communing with with animals to learn magical lore
An avenger of nature, endowed with the ability to blast the enemies of the natural world with the power of the elements
A character cursed with power of origins she can't understand, who unleashes this curse on her foes
A character who uses magic learned from the fey to charm and confuse his foes
A character who has inherited an ancient pact with an archfiend, and uses the power and knowledge from that pact to obliterate his foes with hellfire
I don't see this as problem problem. I see it as a great feature. Take your first example. The wizened crone, what is she class wise. You haven't a clue. She could be anything from Druid to a witch maybe a wizard or sorcerer. Now maybe this wizened old crone is the BBEG. How do you prepare. Is she a wizard or is she something else. That's great in my books.
I ran a game where 'druid' was a somewhat loose title that encompassed druids, clerics with nature domains, some sorcerers and wizards, and a few Expert/Aristocrat types.
I'm often hot and cold about the class names; on the one hand, there's a lot of strength in linking concept to class. On the other hand, definitions and positions often have some fluidity.
I'm inclined to agree with you tyveise; a high level wizard is almost too powerful for the point of view of class balance. Pathfinder tamed it down quite a bit, but it is still a very powerful "I want to be a god" class that makes creating any variation of arcane caster a challenge thematically. Cleric is the same way with divine spells; you can't make a divine caster without someone saying why bother a cleric is going to be able to do everything better. That said, I really like these new classes, and I suspect once Paizo tightens them up, the witch, summoner, oracle, and alchemist are going to be really cool classes that offer something a wizard or cleric can't.
Allow me to restate my earlier statement. Wizards and clerics, from the perspective of trying to create new classes that are similar to them, are problematic. For the amount of power they have, in both versatility and raw power, they can cause headaches since any new class has to have sufficiently different (read new and untested) mechanics not available to wizards or clerics while retaining the overall power level of the wizard or cleric to keep them interesting to more than a handful of players. That is what I meant when I said they were, at least as new class building was concerned, a touch overpowered. While I may have stated it differently then Tyveise, I was basically trying to say the same thing.
The point is that you don't need the oracle or witch to make a single one of these characters.
My point would be that we didn't need these classes in the first place, and all they have contributed is clutter.
The divining focus (which would need another name) could be a crystal, or bones, or dice, or runes, or whatever; just something oracular they use to cast spells.
I think the party would get miffed real quick if every time they needed a spell cast in an emergency they had to wait for the goat to be sacrificed and its entrails read... and there's only so many chickens you can fit in a backpack...
Really though, what you are looking for is pretty cosmetic, and doesn't add value to the game as it stands - more productive would be to simply say that your Wiz/Diviner is an Oracle and his schtick is to cast the bones, roll the die, cross the Rubicon or whatever. You don't need a whole new class just to get a 'look'.
A class should be unique in what it does, otherwise its not a Ninja, its just a kungfu dude in black pyjamas.
The witch to way to much like the wizard for my taste. It uses int and has a spellbook, even though its a walking one. I statted one up as a boss character, but I see no reason to use it. I may just go with my idea to use wisdom to make it feel slightly different, but the walking spellbook is still an issue.
Yeah I know some will say "but it's not a spell book", however it is beyond my suspension of belief to think of it an anything but that.
YMMV.
I look at the witch iconic, and I see a character that could trivially be a sorcerer, wizard, or even druid; if it weren't for the fox in the image she could easily even be an oracle. I look at the oracle iconic, and she could certainly be a sorcerer, wizard, or druid. This isn't to nitpick Wayne Reynolds's work. I believe he's working well with what he's being given, but merely to show that these illustrations clearly illustrate the lack of a clear difference between these classes.
I would say that the "iconic" characters that you can identify based on the artwork is definitely the minority rather than the majority. The only real standouts are the druid (animal companion), monk (unarmored, funky weapons) and of the new classes summoner (eidolon) and alchemist (flasks of stuff). Everyone else falls into "weapons and armor" or "no weapons and armor".
But frankly I don't really care about the artwork. I'm slightly more concerned about having three or four classes sharing one schtick, but even that I don't get too worked up about.
I don't see this as problem problem. I see it as a great feature. Take your first example. The wizened crone, what is she class wise. You haven't a clue. She could be anything from Druid to a witch maybe a wizard or sorcerer. Now maybe this wizened old crone is the BBEG. How do you prepare. Is she a wizard or is she something else. That's great in my books.The point is that you don't need the oracle or witch to make a single one of these characters.
I agree you don't need new class to make these concepts. Still having multiple classes that can be that concept is good in my opinion. Really you could have only 3 base classes and make every concept you want. All you need is a spiritual, mental, and physical class and the options to apply to said class. Or to put class names to them Cleric, Wizard, fighter. Gary Gygax designed a game exactly like this in the early 90s called Dangerous Journeys. A flawed game but it had a lot of potential.
Personally I dont have a problem with classes being visually or thematically similar. It is hard to find a theme that isnt covered by the core classes in some way, what is important to me is that they are mechanically different. If i want to play a wise old crone who works with arcane magic, being able to play it as either witch or wizard doesnt bother me. I just want there to be a reason to choose between the two in terms of what the character will be able to do. I see that in many of the APG classes, but some specifically the witch, offer very little difference. One of the biggest problems I think is like someone said the wizard can already do everything. So it is challenging to make a class that occupies the wizard's seat that doesnt just feel like a slightly different wizard.
I agree you don't need new class to make these concepts. Still having multiple classes that can be that concept is good in my opinion. Really you could have only 3 base classes and make every concept you want. All you need is a spiritual, mental, and physical class and the options to apply to said class. Or to put class names to them Cleric, Wizard, fighter. Gary Gygax designed a game exactly like this in the early 90s called Dangerous Journeys. A flawed game but it had a lot of potential.
Dangerous Journeys was interesting if rather complex (especially for that time). I have it boxed around here somewhere. It still irritates me, when I think of what happened to it. GDW published it, TSR sued them and some half wit judge decided that since it was an RPG and EGG developed D&D at TSR that the new game had to belong to TSR too. They killed it of course. Given the complexity I doubt it would have made a huge dent in D&Ds dominance of the market but it would have been nice to see where he went with it.