Fantastic concept, nice balance, but treatment leaves me wanting more


Advanced Class Guide Playtest General Discussion


There's something so familiar and exciting about a bunch of melded classes. Whether trying to combine a sorcerer and monk into a "spellfist", or working out a way to empower a cleric to channel more dangerously while raging, ever since 3rd Ed came out, my friends and I have tried various ways to merge classes into a new concept: gestalt, dual classing, writing our own classes, etc. None of these were ideal, so I was naturally thrilled when I first got my hands on the ACG playtest.

As I looked everything over, I loved the balance (a tweak here and there will surely come of the playtest and improve things even more). Some things, like the Bloodrage ability to cast spells while in a blind rage, felt weird, even taboo, while others, particularly the skald, were things I myself have tried to cobble together at some time in the past. There were things I might have changed, and a couple things felt a bit forced, but all in all, I found nothing that I actually disliked.

And yet, when I was done reading it over, I felt like the whole thing just fell too short of the mark. I was actually disappointed even though I had enjoyed it. As I sat there wondering why I wasn't thrilled, I realized what was lacking; these weren't the customized, tweaked out characters I have gotten used to. These were blended classes that were so specific that they feel like they should fill a larger role, not a niche, and so they fell short of similar mixes I had envisioned or even tried to play. They look great, but I feel no compulsion to play with them.

That said, I immediately knew what I wanted: Bits and pieces of classes that I could put together my way! I want to see the classes broken down into more basic components and then be allowed to fit the parts together into a new creation. I want to take "unarmed combatant" and "spontaneous divine caster" and blend them together with a bit of "feat-based abilities" and see what comes out. I'm curious what might come of combining an "armed combatant" with a "precision damage dealer" and give him "companion-based abilities". And while a "firearm wielding" character isn't likely to be a "rage-based warrior" with "domain-based abilities", that should be my choice. If there are even just 20 good partial classes like these, that leaves hundreds possible combinations for me to play with.

And finally, I think this book would do well with a number of solid prestige classes and, if possible, archetypes. Maybe even a class builder similar to the race builder in ARG. So while much of what I've seen seems to hit the mark so well, as a whole, it seems to fall short. But that's just my opinion!


I keep coming back to the "a la carte" class idea...

Assign an XP progression to each type of class ability, then spend XP on the class abilities you want (would need a "1st level pool" of XP to get started, naturally).

No ability progression could be raised past the number of Hit Dice you purchased (so BAB would cap at HD, Saves would cap at the "Good Progression" for your HD, etc).

Yeah, there'd probably be nasty synergies that you'd either have to embrace, or develop rules/mechanics to prevent stacking such abilities.

I know it'll never be an official Paizo thing. Classes are at the heart of D&D/Pathfinder and power creep would be harder to catch before it happened.

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