Something I noticed about most editions of D&D or its derivatives is that casters have arbitrary limitations when it comes to combinations of casting tradition (e.g. arcane, divine, psychic/psionic, clerical, druidic, bardic, witchcraft, etc) and requisite spellcasting ability score (Int, Wis or Cha). In the SRD 5.0, we have Wizards casting from Int, Clerics and Druids and Rangers from Wis, Bards and Paladins and Sorcerers and Warlocks from Cha. Pathfinder adds a bunch more like Oracles and Witches and blah blah. What I noticed is that we never get combinations like an arcane caster who uses Wis or a druidic caster who uses Cha, outside of obscure sourcebooks, third party products or homebrew.

Another thing I notice with the classes is that they tend to be weirdly restrictive. Rather than making existing classes easy to customize (like with archetypes), we get new classes for niche concepts all the time. The concept of archetypes, or a more toolkit approach like point buy or something, is rarely promoted as much as it could be. This might have to do with the typical rules generally being too complex for the toolkit approach to work well, as opposed to a super simple system like Dungeon Crawl Risus.

I would like to be able to more easily represent concepts like thieves with illusion magic, arcane casters that get magic from revelation, shamans that bargain with spirits, etc. The existing methods to replicate that sort of functionality are generally too complicated or unbalanced to bother with in my opinion. Not that the rules were ever balanced to begin with: I never play games without limiting the class options to the balanced tiers of 3-4 in systems where that is applicable.

I don't know. What do you think?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037131Something I noticed about most editions of D&D or its derivatives is that casters have arbitrary limitations when it comes to combinations of casting tradition (e.g. arcane, divine, psychic/psionic, clerical, druidic, bardic, witchcraft, etc) and requisite spellcasting ability score (Int, Wis or Cha). In the SRD 5.0, we have Wizards casting from Int, Clerics and Druids and Rangers from Wis, Bards and Paladins and Sorcerers and Warlocks from Cha. Pathfinder adds a bunch more like Oracles and Witches and blah blah. What I noticed is that we never get combinations like an arcane caster who uses Wis or a druidic caster who uses Cha, outside of obscure sourcebooks, third party products or homebrew.

Another thing I notice with the classes is that they tend to be weirdly restrictive. Rather than making existing classes easy to customize (like with archetypes), we get new classes for niche concepts all the time. The concept of archetypes, or a more toolkit approach like point buy or something, is rarely promoted as much as it could be. This might have to do with the typical rules generally being too complex for the toolkit approach to work well, as opposed to a super simple system like Dungeon Crawl Risus.

I would like to be able to more easily represent concepts like thieves with illusion magic, arcane casters that get magic from revelation, shamans that bargain with spirits, etc. The existing methods to replicate that sort of functionality are generally too complicated or unbalanced to bother with in my opinion. Not that the rules were ever balanced to begin with: I never play games without limiting the class options to the balanced tiers of 3-4 in systems where that is applicable.

I don't know. What do you think?

I completely agree, and if you're looking for an OSR game with this kind of ideas (i.e., great customization) I can pimp you my own game or other OSR games that do something like that (archetypes rather than confined calsses).

With that said... there is plenty of people that like D&D EXACTLY because of classes, with limitations and all.

There is a strong archetypal weight when you encourage PCs to be, well... archetypal I guess. I like "muscle wizards", sure, but I'm not sure letting MUs use Str as their casting stat would do the game any favors. To a lesser extent, the charismatic paladin, the introvert wizard, the wise druid, etc, are all strong archetypes - more than the genius zealot, suave magician, and stupid druid.

People who play class based games tend to like classes. Back in the day, the thing I'd most look forward to in Dragon magazine was a new class. And that's still true, they are my favorite OSR products.

1e had a ton of classes (as did 0e), but then 2e trimmed it down and introduced "kits" as a was to customize them. And then PF2 seems to be doing something similar by making archetypes more prominent than in PF1

While not all classes are balanced (the only real way is for many people to to play them for years), at the same time, I think even the worst are far more balanced than classless games with deep customization (point buy like Hero/GURPS).

If you want an OSR game with easy character customization, check out Sine Nomine's Scarlet Heroes or Godbound.
He did a free proto-version called Exemplars & Eidolons (which I dearly love to pimp).
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/144651/Exemplars--Eidolons

You pick a class, then modify it with a couple meaningful choices. 10 minutes of chargen, probably less, and you'd have an illusionist thief, muscle mage, etc.

If you don't want a D&D clone, I suggest peeking at Warrior, Rogue and Mage (also free) from Stargazer Games.
http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/

Lots of free support, feels like GURPS lite, lots of optional rules, 10 minute chargen, lots of customization.

A really simple but elegant system is Beyond the Wall.

Your basic classes are Magic User (witch, wizard, spell wielding priest), Rogue (hunter, thief, trader, expert) and Warrior (et. al.)

These are then blended together taking bits from two classes.

Examples include:

Templars, Beast-keeper, Dwarven Runcaster, etcetera.

I cannot recommend this enough.

I see.

I think 4e was on to something when it refined the meta-classes of 2e into roles and power sources. Every class, sub-class, etc may essentially be boiled down into a combination of role ("controller", "defender", "leader", "striker", or combination thereof), power source (arcane, divine, martial, primal, psionic, shadow, elemental, or combination thereof), and flavor (e.g. wizard versus sorcerer versus warlock).

That sort of thing would easily cover all classes ever published. For example, the psionic classes from Dreamscarred Press easily fit into such roles: psionic controller "dread", psionic defender "aegis", psionic leader "tactician" or "vitalist", psionic striker "soulknife".

I am not sure which of these systems supports on-the-fly class design like that. Any advice?

Well, in Lion & Dragon it's established that there's some forms of magic that anyone can do. Magisters are just better at doing it. Summoning is the big one from the main book; in theory anyone could try to summon a demon. There's some others that show up in some of the additional magical material in the RPGPundit Presents supplements.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037131Something I noticed about most editions of D&D or its derivatives is that casters have arbitrary limitations when it comes to combinations of casting tradition (e.g. arcane, divine, psychic/psionic, clerical, druidic, bardic, witchcraft, etc) and requisite spellcasting ability score (Int, Wis or Cha). In the SRD 5.0, we have Wizards casting from Int, Clerics and Druids and Rangers from Wis, Bards and Paladins and Sorcerers and Warlocks from Cha. Pathfinder adds a bunch more like Oracles and Witches and blah blah. What I noticed is that we never get combinations like an arcane caster who uses Wis or a druidic caster who uses Cha, outside of obscure sourcebooks, third party products or homebrew.

As a DM, I am okay with hacking classes on a case by case basis. In fact, I would rather do it that way than just make blanket statements with regards to choices. If you want to play a Strength based Monk or a Charismatic Rogue or a Constitution based Tanky Paladin, then I will hear you out and then see what changes can be made while making some pretense of caring about balance. The first thing I check is to see how this affects combat, or otherwise gives some sort of advantage that could be problematic. I let the player know beforehand that I could make rulings if a problem comes about. This is the kind of thing you really want to do on paper, because you don't want to gimp nor overpower the PC. It would certainly be nice to see such variants baked in.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037131Another thing I notice with the classes is that they tend to be weirdly restrictive. Rather than making existing classes easy to customize (like with archetypes), we get new classes for niche concepts all the time. The concept of archetypes, or a more toolkit approach like point buy or something, is rarely promoted as much as it could be. This might have to do with the typical rules generally being too complex for the toolkit approach to work well, as opposed to a super simple system like Dungeon Crawl Risus.

A bit over a decade ago, I was really into Mutants and Masterminds 2e as well as True20, both by Green Ronin. They had similar combat mechanics and if you looked at some of the M+M stats for D&Dish type monsters, you would see that they come close to their True20 counterparts, which meant I could use the Bestiary and just drop things into M+M 2e. On the old True20 forums, a fellow named Shadow reverse engineered the game and made a conversion to the M+M 2e Power Point system. I think this actually predated the True20 Companion which had rules for creating your own character class. Basically what he did was outline how much things cost in M+M points, as well as how many points you get per level. Mutants and Masterminds characters have 15 Power Points per level and it turns out that True20 works out to about 7.5, nearly exactly half. Though I think it was more like something like 17 points at first level and 7 per level thereafter. But the point was, you could use the system to just create something that was the same power level as a level based character, which was handy. I am sure something similar could be done with other d20/OSR based systems with or without points.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037131I would like to be able to more easily represent concepts like thieves with illusion magic, arcane casters that get magic from revelation, shamans that bargain with spirits, etc. The existing methods to replicate that sort of functionality are generally too complicated or unbalanced to bother with in my opinion. Not that the rules were ever balanced to begin with: I never play games without limiting the class options to the balanced tiers of 3-4 in systems where that is applicable.

The first thing I would do is see if there is some existing precedent that can mechanically do what you want to do, with a little refluffing. Odds are pretty good there is something out there which could be adapted. I think Mutants and Masterminds 3e had a nice approach by making powers effect based. You have your attack powers, your defense powers and your utility powers, which could be fluffed as needed. You could have a blast attack, which could be fire, ice, electricity, kinetic force, or what have you. I think this sort of thing could be adapted to an OSR/D&D like game since D&D was the root of the mechanics used in M+M 3e. The idea is to have the rules cover the mechanical effects of an ability while leaving the flavor of how they work up to the player.

But you don't really need a new game for something like this. It can be done on an individual player/DM level, though it takes some work especially if you are the DM. But it is worth it, because it can get the player more invested in the game, and hopefully the setting.