Sunday, September 11, 2016

Classes & Slates (Beta 4)

Towards the tail end of Beta 3, the first two slates of classes were finalized, with two classes for each Class Die. That looked like this:

  • d4: Mage, Monk
  • d6: Rogue, Trickster
  • d8: Ranger, Druid
  • d10: Paladin, Mystic
  • d12: Warrior, Warlord
Now, each class had at least 2 archetypes. Sometimes archetypes were "Roles" and other times they were subclasses. In some instances, archetypes served to put classes with similar fluff and skillsets together, despite having different mechanics.

The other notable thing is that there was a distinct split between the two slates; the first was mostly fighty-types, and the second was mostly magic-users. So the idea came to me that I should try and have a slate of "martial" and a slate of "magical" (a slate being one of each Class Die.) The problem comes with the fact that in the d12 slot, there were two very decidedly-martial classes, and that shortly after finishing the first 10 classes, I came up with an 11th (the Archer, a d4 class.)

The solution was to try and have more slates:

Monk and Paladin would be the beginnings of the Divine slate.
Druid and Warrior would be put into the Primal slate.
Archer, Rogue, Ranger, and Warlord would just about make a complete Martial slate.
Mage, Trickster, and Mystic would likewise form a strong base for the Arcane slate.

This presents the problem of trying to "fill in the grid."
What does a d12 Arcane class look like?
Should archetypes that are 'mechanically' closest to being their own class, be split off? Or should it be archetypes that better fit a slate thematically, that get moved over (even if this results in 2 or more classes with very similar mechanics?)

Another concern is that abilities were already starting to get borrowed between the first 10 classes, so expanding that out further might just serve to compound that problem.

Instead of focusing on making full slates thematically, it might be better to simply fill slates mechanically -- such that each class die has the same number of character options to choose from.

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