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From the Ultimate Combat! thread:
They said that there WILL be rules for playing Ninja and Samurai. They also said the Magus is likely to be the last base class for a while. I think we can surmise that they will be Archetypes.
That brings up a hypothetical question. Using the "classic" four classes -- cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard -- could one create all the other classes like druid (subclass of cleric); paladin, ranger (subclasses of fighter); etc., using the archetype system from Paizo's APG or SGG's Archetypes?
Could you? Yes. Could you do it efficiently? Not in all cases.
There's absolutely no way to efficiently re-create anything resembling the Summoner using Paizo's Archetype system.
I did something similar after support for 3.5 started to wane but before the final Pathfinder came out. It's not complete. It's not pretty. But here it is...
There is a tipping point where you start changing so much you've basically built a new class.
Try doing the Bard. Who's your base, Rogue or Wizard? Well traditionally that was the rogue so... aside from some skills and basic BAB/Save/HD, the classes have virtually nothing in common. Take it from the wizard side and you not only heavily modifying the spell list, but have virtually no connection to the way even specialized schools are laid out.
Even the Paladin and Anti-Paladin share several common threads despite class ability alterations. Most of the Anti-Paladin powers are inverted Paladin ones and make a logical since for replacement. However they definitely require more detailed write up then some of the other archetype replacement, just for the sake or readability if nothing else.
Really where you start drawing the line between an archetype/sub-class is and a new base class is when you have a competently different core ability to address. The Summoner, the Alchemist, the Bard, are some examples.
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As I'm seeing it, Archetypes serve the purpose of addressing variations on classes that are not very adequately addressed by a Prestige Class (Drunken Master) or involve creation of a base class which still borrows many components from others (Swashbuckler) with very little new material in the grand scheme of things. Essentially, it's to avoid a ton of PrCs where most of the class is just a resuming of progression for all other features the base class it clearly comes out of have that are still applicable. Or base classes that just feel like a highly specialized base class that supports a slightly different take (Archer fighter archetype for example) than what you'd normally see.
Personally some of my favorite material towards the end of 3.5 were 'substitution levels' for classes. Especially things like Paladins of Sune which were different than your normal Paladin by their nature in the setting or racial substitution levels that acknowledged a warforged Artificer may look different than a human one without having to go out of your way in character progression to achieve this.
Personally, I feel Samurai is better encompassed as an archetype of Cavalier if no an alternate class which borrows heavily from it (a la Antipaladin). A whole new mechanic I'm not too sure of. The same could be said of Ninja and Rogue. I never particularly felt the Ninja base class in 3.5 D&D had a whole lot to offer outside Ki abilities. And with Rogue Talents those are easily matched.
I think another question is whether the thing starts to fall apart under its own weight. I was beginning to feel that way in the waning days of 3.5.
For example, Deadlands D20 has a class called the Maverick. One could probably make a Maverick by taking a Rogue and doing substitutions/archetypes/prestige classes/et cetera/and so on. But do this a lot for a setting and it starts to become complicated. Writing up a simple 20 level Maverick base class makes it a lot simpler for someone who just wants Mavericks in his campaign, i.e., rogueish characters who do more of what the Mavericks do and less of what the Rogues do.
The other side of the coin is if you have a hundred base classes, many of them minor variations of a theme. Perhaps it would be useful to pare it down a little and use archetypes.
Another side of the coin is that if I get my Maverick by taking the Deadlands D20 sourcebook and just adapting the class for a fantasy setting, that's a lot easier than coming up with a Maverick archetype and me, being pressed for time, will probably do the former.
But since some of my concepts, like Celestial Druid, don't yet exist as fully-detailed base classes, it might be easier to define a Celestial Druid archetype, especially since the Druid and the Celestial Druid are so similar: they both live in the woods and cast spells.
Exactly. Jason said yesterday that he'd like to avoid wasting space re-printing rules. He'd rather give us real substance. How many times can you junk up a supplement with classes that have the same basic architecture and many of the same or similar abilities? If all the Archetypes in the APG were mixed in favor of a small handful of new base classes, that would have been an enormous waste of resources and the book would have had far less true substance.
As I'm seeing it, Archetypes serve the purpose of addressing variations on classes that are not very adequately addressed by a Prestige Class (Drunken Master) or involve creation of a base class which still borrows many components from others (Swashbuckler) with very little new material in the grand scheme of things. Essentially, it's to avoid a ton of PrCs where most of the class is just a resuming of progression for all other features the base class it clearly comes out of have that are still applicable. Or base classes that just feel like a highly specialized base class that supports a slightly different take (Archer fighter archetype for example) than what you'd normally see.
Personally some of my favorite material towards the end of 3.5 were 'substitution levels' for classes. Especially things like Paladins of Sune which were different than your normal Paladin by their nature in the setting or racial substitution levels that acknowledged a warforged Artificer may look different than a human one without having to go out of your way in character progression to achieve this.
Personally, I feel Samurai is better encompassed as an archetype of Cavalier if no an alternate class which borrows heavily from it (a la Antipaladin). A whole new mechanic I'm not too sure of. The same could be said of Ninja and Rogue. I never particularly felt the Ninja base class in 3.5 D&D had a whole lot to offer outside Ki abilities. And with Rogue Talents those are easily matched.
I totally agree with this, although archetypes can be used to eliminate the need for a lot of base classes, I don't think it was directly designed to do that. It's more like they (Paizo's) wanted to eliminate a lot of prestige classes and I mean a lot at one time in 3.5 there was over 900 prestige classes counted. (I only heard this I have never counted them myself)
I know there is a big divide on the message boards on just how many classes are necessary, but I think Paizo's is doing it right by keeping the number at around 20. That's just enough to create interest without being to many.
I think in terms of how many classes does someone need, the answer is that there needs to be enough classes to create characters that do what needs to be done.
The Ranger and Barbarian classes could, in theory, be combined into a Woodsman class. But in some settings, they make a big distinction between those who are Rangers and those who are Barbarians. In my homebrew of Audor, they pretty much guess which one you are by the color of your hair.
Some settings could get along just fine without a Druid or a Monk class. Other settings need them.
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Personally some of my favorite material towards the end of 3.5 were 'substitution levels' for classes. Especially things like Paladins of Sune which were different than your normal Paladin by their nature in the setting or racial substitution levels that acknowledged a warforged Artificer may look different than a human one without having to go out of your way in character progression to achieve this.
It's been a while. Could you refresh my memory on how "substitution levels" worked again?
In a similar vein I would love to see a "build-your-own-class" system. Not necessarily with just the four mentioned in the OP. Take all the features found in all the base classes pets, full casting, saves, feats, SLAs, etc and give them a point value. Give each starting class so many points to start with and let people make their own "base" classes.
An example would be: with a base class having 10 pts
1- Eidolon 5 pts
2- d10/full BAB 2 pts
3- martial weapons/heavy armor/shields 2pts
4- 4 bonus combat feats 1pt
And now you have a Dragon Rider base class.
I would love to see paizo breakdown class abilities this way to give building blocks for new classes. I think a system like this will avoid things like class bloat, and at the same time make it so there are infinite possibilities for people to try. A final perk would be that paizo could then create new class features and not have to worry about new classes. Psionics could be one of those new class systems. Give it a point value and let people make their own classes instead of three new base classes that have psionic elements.
In a similar vein I would love to see a "build-your-own-class" system. Not necessarily with just the four mentioned in the OP. Take all the features found in all the base classes pets, full casting, saves, feats, SLAs, etc and give them a point value. Give each starting class so many points to start with and let people make their own "base" classes.
An example would be: with a base class having 10 pts
1- Eidolon 5 pts
2- d10/full BAB 2 pts
3- martial weapons/heavy armor/shields 2pts
4- 4 bonus combat feats 1ptAnd now you have a Dragon Rider base class.
I would love to see paizo breakdown class abilities this way to give building blocks for new classes. I think a system like this will avoid things like class bloat, and at the same time make it so there are infinite possibilities for people to try. A final perk would be that paizo could then create new class features and not have to worry about new classes. Psionics could be one of those new class systems. Give it a point value and let people make their own classes instead of three new base classes that have psionic elements.
The BESM D20 book had a way to do this. Every class value was assigned a point value, and a class had 10 points per level. Points not used for class abilities, you could use to purchase additional perks. The except was the Adventurer class which only gained 5 character points per level, after BAB, saving throw, and skill progression, on the grounds that this class gave you so much customization, that you had to pay for this flexibility over all.
Personally, I hesitate to endorse this approach because it can become like D20 GURPS, and who wants that? But your mileage may vary.
The BESM D20 book had a way to do this. Every class value was assigned a point value, and a class had 10 points per level. Points not used for class abilities, you could use to purchase additional perks. The except was the Adventurer class which only gained 5 character points per level, after BAB, saving throw, and skill progression, on the grounds that this class gave you so much customization, that you had to pay for this flexibility over all.
Personally, I hesitate to endorse this approach because it can become like D20 GURPS, and who wants that? But your mileage may vary.
I never played D20 GURPS, was it a bad system? I was thinking of making a base class one time not buying features every level. Although with multiclassing I imagine that it amounts to the same thing. I have really liked paizo products thus far, and think they could make an efficient system. Seems like they have their plate full for the near future, though.
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It's been a while. Could you refresh my memory on how "substitution levels" worked again?
Personally some of my favorite material towards the end of 3.5 were 'substitution levels' for classes. Especially things like Paladins of Sune which were different than your normal Paladin by their nature in the setting or racial substitution levels that acknowledged a warforged Artificer may look different than a human one without having to go out of your way in character progression to achieve this.
They were normally a set of three or so replacement levels for a class, which you could take if you had another condition, generally race. So for example a Kobold Sorcerer could replace a couple of abilities at different levels to make the class more Koboldy. Similar to archetypes, but a bit smaller and with more stringent prerequisites.
I never played D20 GURPS, was it a bad system? I was thinking of making a base class one time not buying features every level. Although with multiclassing I imagine that it amounts to the same thing. I have really liked paizo products thus far, and think they could make an efficient system. Seems like they have their plate full for the near future, though.The BESM D20 book had a way to do this. Every class value was assigned a point value, and a class had 10 points per level. Points not used for class abilities, you could use to purchase additional perks. The except was the Adventurer class which only gained 5 character points per level, after BAB, saving throw, and skill progression, on the grounds that this class gave you so much customization, that you had to pay for this flexibility over all.
Personally, I hesitate to endorse this approach because it can become like D20 GURPS, and who wants that? But your mileage may vary.
There is no such thing as D20 GURPS. It's just that GURPS is a system designed to build whatever you want by just spending the point values to put your character together. It's very flexible, but also very complicated, and not many people run GURPS games.
D20 GURPS would be an evolution of D20 that went in that direction, where your character had to be put together like in GURPS. As far as I know, nobody has actually done this, because it goes against the Dungeons and Dragons philosophy of identity: "I am a paladin! It doesn't matter what paladins do, what is important, is that I am a paladin!"
I believe Unearthed Arcana had the "Generic Classes", and they did it in 3 base classes: The Warrior (combat), the Expert (skills), and the Spellcaster (magic), with the divide between arcane and divine chosen when making your spellcaster.
After that, it was basically a series of bonus feats that gave you your class features. Uncanny dodge (with Improved built in) was a "bonus feat" choice, for example.
Making new "classes" would simply be coming up with a new set of abilities that could be picked up as a bonus feat.
It's a different way of playing... and I don't think it's a bad idea, but it's definitely a different feel from regular D&D. I got the impression it felt more like making a "fantasy character" than a "D&D character". Not bad, but different.
You could better emulate characters from books this way, for example...
The system I posted is as close to point-buy as you can get without actually being point buy. The way it's set up does solve some of the stacking issues that you can get with point buy but not all of them. That's the problem with that kind of character creation system; you need to find a way to make some of the non-munchtastic offerings compelling to take. This is the reason I gave out 4 different kinds of abilities, Traits for flavor stuff, Enhancements which were improvements to other abilities or were stand-alone abilities about as powerful as feats, Prestige abilities which were the high-powered stuff like Sneak Attack and such, and Defining abilities which were abilities that improved every level such as Spellcasting.
Even this still led to people stacking up on things like Sneak Attack. You need to be sure to set hard caps on each ability based on level such as "You may only take this ability at level one and once every third level" or something like that. That WAS going to be my next step in the system (that and getting rid of the point trade-ins for most abilities), but Pathfinder came out and I abandoned the system entirely.
You absolutely can do this. I just wouldnt want to play that game. While a few alternate class features or 'archtypes' is a good thing, more options, awesome. But having a system that relies completely on them is not something i would want to take part in. There is a level of customization that becomes infuriating to me. I like things to be somewhat self contained, where I can pick a class and at least some of the choices for my character have now been made. Systems like d20 modern or star wars saga edition where everything is customizable becomes a scattered nightmare. Nothing is self contained, everything can be one of 100 choices scattered between a dozen books. Building characters becomes alot more tiresome, and alot less fun for me.
You absolutely can do this. I just wouldnt want to play that game. While a few alternate class features or 'archtypes' is a good thing, more options, awesome. But having a system that relies completely on them is not something i would want to take part in. There is a level of customization that becomes infuriating to me. I like things to be somewhat self contained, where I can pick a class and at least some of the choices for my character have now been made. Systems like d20 modern or star wars saga edition where everything is customizable becomes a scattered nightmare. Nothing is self contained, everything can be one of 100 choices scattered between a dozen books. Building characters becomes alot more tiresome, and alot less fun for me.
Agreed. It gets to the point where the advantages of a class based system (simplicity and coherance) are lost and you might as well have a fully customized character system (usually skill based). The skill based system always sounds good, in theory, but the complexity and lack of coherance are a problem with it. Especially for the DM / GM. Right now I think Pathfinder is striking the right balance between a class based and skill based system. My 2 cp, ymmv.
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D&D specifically doesn't do well with "build your own" engine. Spells are so much more powerful, that it'll be impossible to assign the correct values to them, along with many other abilities. The people who really love to optimize will do so constantly, and if it spreads, many players could be playing the same characters.
I think D&D's system is quiet archaic and wouldn't put it with it with other settings. But it works for D&D, mostly out of familiarity and tradition.
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D&D specifically doesn't do well with "build your own" engine. Spells are so much more powerful, that it'll be impossible to assign the correct values to them, along with many other abilities. The people who really love to optimize will do so constantly, and if it spreads, many players could be playing the same characters.
I think D&D's system is quiet archaic and wouldn't put it with it with other settings. But it works for D&D, mostly out of familiarity and tradition.
Sorry, but you're referring to the 3.x and older versions of D&D, correct? Because DnD 4e can do a lot of what you just said. ^_^