A Return to the Stars
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After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got
together to play more Stargrave in recent days. It was good! It was also a
bit ...
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Rethinking the Favored Class
With all the zillions of new base classes floating around it seems to me that it would make sense to re-examine the core PC races and see if they a different base class would work better for them. My ideas off the top of my head are to reassign the dwarves to the Warmain class from Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved and use the Duskblade (PHB II) for elves to recapture that old school charm of casting spells in armor. The Artificer from Eberron could work for gnomes. Gnome bards leave me cold and illusionist spells never did anything for me. The halfling could be left as is, but I would seriously consider reassign them to rangers in my own campaign world. Half-orc barbarians have been a staple of the hobby for almost a decade now, but back in the day the half-orc was most associated with the assassin class. If halflings are re-imagined as rangers, I could see using the rogue for sneakier, back-stabbier orcs.
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How about allowing two to three favored classes for each race, then? Your suggestions seem like good ones, but the current sets of core classes still seem to resonate. Would it hurt things for each of the races to have two core classes?
ReplyDeleteI think that Beguilers would work well for Gnomes (says the guy playing a gnome artificer).
ReplyDeletePersonally, though, I don't like the favored class mechanic. It punishes rather than rewards, which strikes me as bad design.
If you want to stick with the idea of favored classes (and - if you do - you should ask yourself why... a rule for the sake of a rule is kinda pointless), I'd move to giving a minor bonus to characters who advance as their favored class... maybe a +2 racial bonus to a class skill every 4th level or something.
But don't you think the most interesting characters are the ones that don't stick to the most "favored" class? In the realm of the Savage Species possibilities, isn't it a deeper character when you make an orc bard? Or at least, doesn't it make you (as a player) focus more on the actual personality and character of your character when you don't just plug them into the stereotypical roles? I understand that you're looking at rethinking those stereotypical roles, but for me it still comes with a problem for the players of: Here's your premade character-- fill in the stats.
ReplyDeleteYou all make good points.
ReplyDeleterob: With as many base classes as are available that might be a good idea.
Stuart: The favored class mechanic itself is less than stellar and could certainly use some work. What is we turned it on its head and made buying favored levels cheaper? Also, I think your Tinker class would also be a good option.
brasky: I don't intend to limit player choice. I'm approaching this more as a way of looking at default class choices for NPCs, not as shackles for PCs.
I think the best argument for some sort of favored class mechanic is if you want certain races to make particularly good members of certain classes.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the current rule doesn't do this. Instead it encourages players to multiclass with a particular class (and give no benefit if they stick with that class exclusively). This seems backwards to me.
Cheaper advancement could work, but it seems like more bookkeeping than I'd like.
"Cheaper advancement could work, but it seems like more bookkeeping than I'd like."
ReplyDeleteIf your previous level was in a favored class you get a 10% bonus?
I think it is better than what we have now, but, in general, I think it is a bad idea to add rules that increase level disparity in a party. I'm also lazy, so I don't want to have to figure out bonus xp.
ReplyDeleteLet's say that the elf has wizard as its favored class. To me, that means that an elf should - all else being equal - be a better wizard than an equal xp human or halfling or whatever.
How to accomplish this?
The best thing I've come up with are racial bonuses to class skills. If the elf gets a bonus to Knowledge (arcana), Concentration, and/or Spellcraft... that seems like it would make him a better wizard.
I'm in favor of doing away with the favored class (ala D20 Mod), and going with substitution levels.
ReplyDeleteBy Races of the Wild, a Elf Wizard has the option to trade specialization for gaining an additional spell per level, trade their familiar using touch spells for doubling their granted bonus, and trading their 5th level feat for a selection of martial feats. Plus, they add search as a class skill. Not bad.
Substitution levels aren't bad.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, they amount to race-limited alternate class features. One of the nice things about this method is that you can have multiple racial substitution options (Elf Wizard, Elf Ranger, Elf Superhero, whatever.).