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Original post by loufoque As I understand, the main critic of that system is that there are some quite lethal builds so people who use better combinations are at an advantage. That's actually something I like.

Oh yes there are certainly some really lethal builds. I had a Druid that could out damage a Rouge (2 * 1D10 damage each round) and out tank a fighter (the healing spells). Admittedly I did try to tweak it a bit, but it was mostly by accident.

In the first combat encounter the DM gave us, the fighter was dropped on then first round, the rogue didn't hit the creature, and I dropped it first hit (also if it wasn't undead, I would have done death from massive damage anyway).

My character was only level 1.

The trick with 3rd ed D&D Druids is to make liberal use of the Spell "Shillelagh" and use a Quaterstaff. It makes it the equivalent of a great sword in damage for each attack, the to hit bonus puts you up there with a fighter and you can get two attacks a round!

This is an example of where synergies between abilities can make other class' abilities obsolete.

It is also why I suggested listing the actions that the players are going to perform in your game as it give you the ability to see where you ahve doubled up on abilities, and where you want to have similar degrees of abilities between classes.

I used this when I am GMing pnpRPGs. I list all the abilities that the characters have, then I use these to design the adventures so that each character has something to do in the adventure. I also try to list the skills that the players themselves have and then present things that gives each player, as a player not as their character, time to shine. E: one of my players was quite knowledgeable about real estate (he was a real estate agent), so I introduced an NPC that was trying to sele them a house and gave the party some interaction with him. The player used their knowledge to role play that interaction better by becoming more immersed in the events that were unfolding.

This is the problem with a lot of cRPGs that I ahve played. The games give you all these different abilities and skills, but you never really need to use them. Take Neverwinter Nights as an example:

You are given skills like bluff, diplomacy, etc, but you almost never use them, and when you ahve situations that you do use them for, it does not really impact the story much. Either you can retry the check again and again until you achieve it, or it just gives a slightly different dialogue that ends up achieving exactly the same as if you failed or succeeded the check.

And that is all it comes down to as well, it is just a simple check. One roll and you either succeed or fail. It is not interesting and not very interactive.

Rolling dice to see which branch of a conversation tree is displayed to you is not role playing. It is not even really gameplay.

This is why you need to know, before you decide what skills or abilities each class has, what you are wanting your players to do in the game. A "Craft Delicious Banana Sunday" might be a really interesting idea for an ability to give a certain class, but if the player is not going to even need to Craft Delicious a Banana Sunday, then it is absolutely pointless to include in the game. And if the game is set in a hard core fantasy world, it will seem forced and break the immersion of the world to force the player to Craft Delicious a Banana Sunday just so you can justify the inclusion of such a skill.

I approach very similar to Edtharan. Think very hard on what the gameplay activities are and what your game is about. When you've done that you can start to create classes accordingly.

The thing people shouldn't do is to start by saying "My game should have 15 classes! Let's figure out which!" That's starting in the wrong end.

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Original post by Kekko I approach very similar to Edtharan. Think very hard on what the gameplay activities are and what your game is about. When you've done that you can start to create classes accordingly. The thing people shouldn't do is to start by saying "My game should have 15 classes! Let's figure out which!" That's starting in the wrong end.

Sounds like what Age of Conan did. 24 classes. How many were in the final rendition? Less than 12 I think. And its a good thing they cut them out too.

Haven't played MUD's in ages, but I used to be hugely into them. I even convinced my High School computer science teacher to let me work on one for my senior year, but I digress.

Completely different style but I always started with the lore of the world I was attempting to create. Building back-stories, history, layouts for social organizations, interactions between NPC's, that kind of stuff was always my favorite and also when I used to play a lot of D&D in the day. From there I would build on the character types coming from the perspective of "How do I want the characters to interact" rather than how are Fighters or Spellcasters going to behave. Class balance is one of the hardest things to achieve in RPGs but you don't always have to base character balance on combat effectiveness(even though that seems to be the most common thing to do these days). On my favorite MUD of all time my character was a thief. In a straight up One-on-One fight with a fighter or spell caster I was toast in no time, but what made the character so fun was the non-combat stuff. I remember being with friends while we would spy and creep around while looting stuff off of higher level players and the rush we felt when we knew we got caught and had to hide for hours because death actually carried a stiff penalty.

Just throwing it out there.

Another thing you should think about is how you want players to group up, if at all. Is this going to be options for single player? If so you will need to have each class able to survive on their own fairly well. If it's all multiplayer I suppose you can force players to work together when they need to take on bigger and badder challenges.

Just my $0.02

I have the same idea 'bout there are only 3 class, but diffirent at: melee, range and spellcaster.
And I also create and collect musch ability as possible. The quality of ability are : useful, clear and unique.
There is no limit to such things called classes like fighter, combatant, ranger, scout, priest or wizard.
Each character is a combine of various skill that player could acquire, of cause, there must be some requirement for them not to learn all.
Each player can create a new class, they may learn advantage and disadvantage from their play times. No formular, player must keep learning, the way to use skill the way to take advance on enemies and etc...
And I have a feeling that a time after, some really weird classes will appear, how about Great Red Alien classes, absolutely weird, espcially in a fairy RPG. But that what player create, they want it and they have fun.

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Original post by Dwiff From there I would build on the character types coming from the perspective of "How do I want the characters to interact" rather than how are Fighters or Spellcasters going to behave.

This is a pitfall I fell into several times in the past, and I completely agree with Dwiff on this one. Too many people are stuck in the dark ages - and by the dark ages I mean Dungeons and Dragons. If you flip through an old classic D&D book, the original classes were figher, cleric, and magic-user (thief was added eventually as well) to form these common 4 stereotypes. The majority of games nowadays feature these classes in elaboration or combination.

Now, I'm not saying this is necessarily a terrible thing. These four classes represent definite tactical positions. However, my issue with them is using them how I did when first trying to come up with ideas for skill sets or classes in games of my own...as templates. I think that a lot of people, especially us gamers, are so used to seeing the sames things over and over again that our minds become narrowed so that everything has a strong essence of past games imprinted on our ideas and concepts. This doesn't happen all the time, but I think it happens a great deal of the time.

If you don't believe me, ask a girlfriend, your parents (stereotyping here, heh), someone who doesn't hardcore game. I was amazed at every time I asked my ex to give me some input about something, it was like pulling teeth, "oh, I'm not as familiar, I wouldn't know how to help, blah blah" and when she finally started giving me ideas, while there were some that weren't on the right level, the stuff that was was original and fresh because she wasn't biased by all the mmo's and rpgs that I had played.

My point is this: we are biased by the games we play heavily. As Dwiff suggested, if you start outside of the classes and look at the genre, the feeling, the essence of your game, think about it, think about who is fighting, who they hate, who they love, how they trained, what their childhood was like, the landscape they grew up in, etc, this fantasy world filled with all types of characters will evolve, and you will end up with the weapons, skills, and classes you want for your game. Even if you don't write any of it down, or if its not important to your game (mine never have story, they're mostly just exercises in game mechanics, combat development, and coding), thinking about it helps a great deal.

If you want to see some of my early fail, check out "Basic Elements of an RPG System" post several years back to see what I mean (damn, 2005?). Last year - three years later - I realized what it was I really wanted/needed; a breakdown of real world combat in a logical sense outlined and described in a way that is applicable to combat forms in all types in gaming (specifically RPGs). I still have my notes on all my thoughts on that, maybe I'll make another post some day on it.

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Original post by WindFlower I have the same idea 'bout there are only 3 class, but diffirent at: melee, range and spellcaster. And I also create and collect musch ability as possible. The quality of ability are : useful, clear and unique. There is no limit to such things called classes like fighter, combatant, ranger, scout, priest or wizard. Each character is a combine of various skill that player could acquire, of cause, there must be some requirement for them not to learn all. Each player can create a new class, they may learn advantage and disadvantage from their play times. No formular, player must keep learning, the way to use skill the way to take advance on enemies and etc... And I have a feeling that a time after, some really weird classes will appear, how about Great Red Alien classes, absolutely weird, espcially in a fairy RPG. But that what player create, they want it and they have fun.

The problem with starting with "classes" is that you don't know if the game really needs all those classes, then as you add in the levels and such, you have to add in stuff for all the classes to do. But sometimes this is not a good idea.

For example, if the game centered around sneak into castles cand cause mischief, then inserting combat scenes just to give the fighter character something to do will seem out of place (if you are sneaking in, why are you engaging in melee combat which makes a lot of noise and give guards time to call out to nearby allies?)

If you had known, before you put in all the effort for the fighter class, that there would be very little direct combat, then you would know that there was no need to put in a fighter class.

Which would you rather do:

1) Spend a little bit of time now and know what classes you need

or

2) Create a lot of classes and spend a lot of effort now only to chuck it out later


Personally, I like to make sure that effort (and if you are being paid - or paying someone to do it) is not wasted.

I know you've stated there will be combat with NPC's etc but...

Do you intend to include PvP.... as that will greatly influence class balance... AND.... as we've all seen over and over...it's realllllllly hard to balance a game for both PvE and PvP.

Personally I would stick to PvE initially as it will save you a lot of headaches.

As for classes... well, I suppose it's partially dependent on your skill level at programming too etc.... Why not start out with 1 or 2 classes.... flesh them out get the game going and then add as your go along. If the game is strictly PvE then there will always be NPC's that the "fighter" handles faster or takes less damage from...and NPC's that the caster will handle faster or take less damage from.

Also, as someone else mentioned/asked.... will there be an option to "group" with other players? Something else that will influence balance...although if the game creates encounters on the fly... IE the game checks to see if you're in a group...if so it creates an NPC better suited to the groups abilities VS creating an NPC suited for just one player...

As for dropping a class like the "Priest" you could initially leave healing up to "Potions" that could be used during combat or after...and food that could be used before or after combat etc. These are both things you would most likely have in the game anyway and it frees you up from developing another class right away...especially because Healing classes are always a pain to balance for SOLO play etc.

anyway, just some random thoughts...

basically I'd start out SMALL... 1 or 2 classes with limited abilities BUT leave yourself the options to add classes and abilities as you progress in the games development/testing etc.

I look forward to seeing where you go with this and how you progress.

projectkmo, you post remined me of the thought processes that have gone into the new D&D 4th edition classes.

In 4th ed, classes are now categorised by a sort of "Meta class", or what they call a Role. You have Controllers that are good at dealing with masses of weak enemies, Defenders that are good at tying up individuals and preventing enemies form moving around, Leaders which are good at protecting and buffing their allies (and de-buffing enemies) and Strikers which are good ant moving around the battle field and doing large amounts of damage to individuals (but are not so good against large mobs of enemies).

Then the individual classes are just variations on each of these Meta Classes. So a Rogue (Striker) is good at sneaking past enemies, avoiding being hit and can backstab enemies for massive amounts of damage. However, the Warlock (striker) can use their abilities to teleport around the battlefield and weaken enemies against their own attacks.

So the two classes are the same in the meta class, but the application of their abilities and tactics they use of the battle field to achieve the same effects are different.

Also, these meta classes are just like, the lists that I am talking about. They have certain tasks that a character that belongs to that meta class can do, even if the actual class implements them different from another class that shares the same meta class.