Most people who have come in contact with D&D 3.5 will (at some point) have come across the "tier system" for classes, someplace on the internet, or another. The main thing you'll notice when making your way down the list, is that the classes get less and less magical as you go along (i.e. the lower-numbered tiers -- being the most powerful -- are the most magical.)
Now, my personal experience with playing 3.5 was generally limited to only allowing classes from the first PHB, with maybe a few extra classes thrown in for variety. One of the main (or perhaps, better) reasons for limiting your game this way, is if you intend to play 3.5 using only its freely-available SRD content.
If we look at the tier system, and filter it such that we only include classes of Tier 3 or "lower" that appear in the PHB, we get this list:
- Bard
- Rogue
- Barbarian
- Ranger
- Fighter
- Monk
- Paladin
This was sort of the main point of influence; another piece of the puzzle was some goon offering advice along these lines:
If you want to play a balanced game of 3.5 using only the PHB classes, do this:
Don't use Wizards, use Bards.
Don't use Clerics, use Paladins.
Don't use Druids, use Rangers.
Don't use Fighters, use Barbarians.
(Side note: if this sounds like something you wrote, please let me know, because I have forgotten over the years who said it, and would like to start giving out the appropriate credit.)
There were some other pieces of advice (I think Rogues were allowed to stay, and not Monks) but the main thrust of this entire line of thinking was basically, don't use Tier 1 or Tier 2 classes that just step on the toes (in terms of niche, or design space) of other classes. (In the case of Barbarian vs. Fighter, it was more about "Barbarians actually get class features, rather than just more and more feats.")
With all of this in mind, about 3 years ago, one of the first things I ever uploaded to Google Drive was a set of house rules for 3.5; this was limited to a handful of PHB classes, with some tweaks and buffs as desired.
...
Around the time the 5e PHB dropped (August of 2014, as I recall) was when I started working on TNP in earnest. I called it 'The Next Project' because as the previous game I had worked on was winding down, I kept telling people, "well, for my next project, I want to do this..."
One of the earliest mentions of TNP design that I can dig up is from the "Retrocloning 4e" thread, on August 20th, 2014. Back then, the original slate looked like this:
- Mage (d4)
- Rogue (d6)
- Ranger (d8)
- Fighter (d10)
- Barbarian (d12)
As the classes got more and more fleshed out, I noticed that the Fighter and Barbarian (as you might guess) tended to overlap too much in their skills; I eventually decided to change the Fighter to a Paladin. This gave the class a whole new bent in terms of skills, but also allowed me to add things like 'Lay on Hands' to their abilities. This would give us the original slate, as it appeared in the first playtest-ready version of the game.
Shortly thereafter, subtype options for the classes would start to appear (with the Barbarian warping into the "Warrior" as it absorbed more of the Fighter design space) and a 2nd slate of classes would inevitably start to shape up. Much like 13th Age, Monk and Druid were always sort of "first in line" for the 2nd slate, with Warlord also being popular among 4e fans. But perhaps I'll touch more on that another time (assuming I didn't cover the 2nd slate enough, when I started to finalize the classes in Beta 4.)
...
One of the key design components of TNP is the use of Class Dice; I would like to touch on that in a future post in this series, which will include talking about how the original slate was... well, slated, into that paradigm.
I've been very busy this past week with other things, which is why I am writing about this topic, rather than doing an update on the writing of the new draft -- I basically haven't had time to do that, since the last post. So hopefully, the next post will have more on that, rather than being another retrospective.
Check back February 10th!
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