Though 4th Edition D&D is made up of classes- which are intrinsic to the design of the system- you can try something new with your next campaign by getting rid of them altogether. Some sub-systems in 4th Edition will have to stay, such as those for purposes of multi-classing and the feats and powers associated with them. But for the most part, you can choose to just simply get rid of all classes.
Character Creation
Have your players choose a base class. This will be the delimiting factor that will prevent possible wide-scale/hardcore abuse and keeps certain feats a viable choice (i.e. multiclassing.)
At character creation, and again when a PC levels up, allow them to choose any power from any existing class list without modifying them at all. Naturally, they will still be choosing from a set of powers that likely compliments their existing attributes. But, this deviation from the normal system opens the game up for any array of powers and abilities or the combination thereof. You may just be surprised how it all plays out and the choices your PCs make. It will open up new options and allow for characters to break the normal modes of play that some in the D&D community are not in favor of.
With this system change, you will find that any combination of possible builds will inspire your PCs to create diverse and truly unique characters. Here are some rules that I suggest. As always, mileage may vary:
- Characters must choose 1 At-Will from their base class.
- Starting Hit Points for all characters equals their Constitution score + 12.
- Each character gains an additional 8 Hit Points at each level.
- All feat prerequisites must still be met in order to take a given feat (i.e. Channel Divinity, etc.)
Class Features
One of the cool things about 4e is the neat class features that are associated with each class. You can still keep these features and just keep them attached to the base class the PC chooses. This can represent the propensity of a character to lean towards a specific profession in life and could make for some unique and enjoyable character histories. This will also help balance out additional benefits gained through the multiclassing feats.
In example, with this system you can take your dwarf and choose the base class of a fighter with a warlord at-will. So instead of a straight fighter, you can mix in some leader abilities. There is also nothing stopping you from dropping a barbarian power in there at some point as well. This goes so on and so forth and you will soon see the benefits of this immersive system change.
Try it out, and let me know what you think. It could be a great reprieve from the standard play of 4e. You, as the DM, are encouraged to adjust these simple changes accordingly and they by no means are all-inclusive. Take care and have fun!
For more ideas, come visit me at Loremaster.
I’m all for systems like this. However, I do see some easily abusable flaws.
Class powers are balanced against each other on the whole, but not individually. For example, wizards (and arcane characters on the whole, I think) have much stronger utilities than martial characters – compare the wizard utility that allows a character to shift twice their speed, vs the rogue utility that allows a shift of half the character’s speed. Likewise, barbarian rage dailies are probably not meant to be combined with other strikers’ encounter powers.
Obviously this is for a group that cares more about roleplaying than mechanics, so that sort of thing is likely not a big deal.
For a combat optimized group, I agree- there are a lot of possibilities for abuse. This should be closely watched by the DM. In my home games, combat is a fun part of it, but not so much that you need to find how to min/max options on the battlemap.
.-= Matt James´s last blog ..Article: Review of Winning Races: Fighting Styles of the Valenar =-.
It’s also not hard to min-max for crazy skills/non-combat utility. (Bard+encounter utilities picked from various classes that boost skills, for example)
I think you’ll be looking at much more powerful characters, unless you limit everything that has synergy, especially with the extra HP per level.
Overall, I’d think this would be a better idea with a small group, where the role flexibility will give the players a bit more survivability – in a large group, it’s too easy for for one character to purposefully or accidentally do everything better than another character, and everyone will be stepping on each other’s toes role-wise.
The real problems with the system are the class features or, more specifically, that of strikers. All strikers have some sort of damage boosters, except barbarians. That’s why all the at wills, etc. always have more dice attached to them, that’s just how they strike. Under this system, I could potentially add sneak attack to that. Class features are really not intended to mix too far, for example, I’m a wizard, can’t I put my fighter powers in my spell book? This is really a neat idea, but class features are a major stumbling block to making this work
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I have often thought that D&D was rigid compared to several other systems that list a set of abilities and, instead of classes, you pick abilities a la carte. The campaigns that I run focus much more on role-playing situations and puzzle solving than on combat, so I don’t think that many of the issues mentioned by other readers would affect my games.
I will definitely have to give this a try sometime.
.-= Carson F. Ball´s last blog ..Don’t Neglect Story Telling =-.
Great article, Matt! I love when people take preconceived notions and turn them on their ear. ESPECIALLY notions related to game systems.
What I like most about this article is that it isn’t the end of the concept…it’s only the beginning. In much the same way that Mike Mearls’ “Ruling Skill Challenges” articles forced me to start thinking about skill challenges in a new and exciting way that completely changed my outlook on 4e, you’ve gone ahead and encouraged me to take what I’ve assumed about 4e — that it’s a rigid, structured rules set with a well-defined class/role system with no room for deviation — and toss all of it out the window in favor of trying something new and seeing where it leads.
I won’t be able to test out this suggestion in my regular group…but I just might set up an online game and feature this type of progressive experimentation.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Kudos, Matt!
–The Secret DM
Classless 4E makes about as much sense as colorless Magic: the Gathering. Aside from the balance issues, which you didn’t try to address, you give up niche protection (the fighter might end up better at crowd controlling than the wizard) and you make it so making a new character requires looking through the entire PHB for each power instead of just your class list. I don’t think you understand that game design is hard and screwing with a game more often than not makes it less fun.
What about Hybrid Class that will be publish in PHB 3 ?
A balanced system that allow your character to mixand match to classes …
@Noumenon: Umm…wow. Obviously, some people NEED all that structure, I guess.
I don’t want to step in Matt’s spotlight, but I think you missed the point of the article; this isn’t a start-to-finish redesign of the rules…it’s just a suggestion to try something a little different. It prods the reader to open their mind and approach the game from a different angle.
In his first sentence, Matt acknowledges that classes are intrinsic to the design of the system – but thankfully, that doesn’t prevent him from messing with canon and trying something new. I commend that type of forward thinking. In fact, it’s this type of “hey, try this” thought process that actually LEADS to the creation of new games; it’s literally what Gary Gygax did when he added fantasy rules to Chainmail. Through trial and error and playtesting, D&D was eventually born. Sure, it’s all structured and rigid now…but it inevitably all started with the suggestion, “Well, what if we try it this way?”
So I’d say Matt has a pretty good idea on what game design entails. As for it being fun — well, that just depends on the type of players involved. Some people really let loose during experimental play. Others, make generic comparisons to Magic: the Gathering. I’m just glad you’re not sitting at MY gaming table. 🙂
@Groumy: the hybrid system is definitely interesting, but it isn’t the end-all/be-all of cross-class design. I think it offers a fresh alternative to the initial multi-class system, but it requires a bit more work, as well. And if you have any homegrown classes, it’s a challenge because you have to design the hybrid skeleton and make sure THAT balances with all the other classes. What Matt offers up here is a quick, “flash-in-the-pan” way of just letting loose and mixing up the characters. I will say my friends and I considered testing a style of play that was a cross between what Matt suggests here and the hybrid system, back @ 4e’s initial release. We were really unsatisfied with the multi-class system as presented, and felt there was a way to create a “branch-like” system where features from two or more classes could be combined. In our concept, we took the HPs and other stats, added them together and divided by the number of classes to get an average. We imposed a limit of a max of 3 classes, and you had to choose an at-will from two different classes. I think you also had to sacrifice one class power…either one in general or one from each class…I don’t really recall. But the game was so new, we never explored the concept further, because we wanted to unerstand how 4e worked the way it was intended.
I’m sorry we don’t agree, Noumenon. I tried to make it abundantly clear in my editorial that mileage may vary and that DMs are encouraged to expand upon the very small options I provided. As for my understanding of game design, though it may not appear to sate your own preferences, I feel the comment was a low-blow meant to incite some form of negative reaction. My game design credentials are open for all to see and extend for more than a decade. And like all game design, not everyone will like what is presented. My only hope is that my article was at least thought-provoking and gets you to think outside the box.
.-= Matt James´s last blog ..Article: Review of Winning Races: Fighting Styles of the Valenar =-.
Interesting idea… But, to make it practical for most group would be close to impossible without seriously restricting the field of choices in some way. The amount of choice available to player at level up would be too much for all but one of my players, in most group your casual players will just be overwhelmed. They’ll roll into a ball and start sucking their thumb.. 😉
The quick fix I could think of, would be to limit the choice to power of the same role or power source (Arcane, martial, etc…). Role seems to be the best in case of mechanic and power source seems best in terms of fluff. Even then still a lot of choices too much for most players.
But definitely food for thought.
As an exercise in thinking outside the box this is a fine idea. As something practical beyond a small number of groups this would be more problematic than helpful. I can’t begin to imagine how a new GM would fair trying this, but then, I don’t think this article was aimed at the new GM.
Taking the premise at its face value…there is a synergy within a class, providing more power in some areas and weaker ones in others. Allowing people to cherry-pick powers negates some of that inner balance. If you then need to apply exceptions (you can do this but not this and then not this unless you do this, and later you can do this but not that) to rebalance things then its not really a system.
When I first read this the first thing that popped into my head were a myriad of characters running around doing large damage, using the best protections and then healing themselves.
I think to make this concept actually work you’d have to rework the system from the ground up. This might be a fun idea to try out. Just trying a classless system with the caveats you mentioned will not provide for a viable system. It can however, be the basis for some thought. (In fact I am sort of doing just that on my latest project; allowing less powers per “class” but allowing people to take two full “classes”.)
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That or as a limiter they can only pick abilities that would fit into their role. Like a defender picking up some Paladin and Fighter abilities that are attached to the defender ideal. Given, that complicates things more, but it keeps people from mixing too much damage and survivability and making their character overshadow everyone else.
Another possibility is let them pick a couple classes and let them mix and match from them both. More freedom than the current multiclass, but a greater risk of breaking your character and making them either too overpowering, or making yourself unintentionally useless.
And yes, both ideas are similar, but the first gives them a more rigid structure in clinging to your role, the other giving them a chance to try to create a role that fits to their own personal tastes.
You know, I won’t go to deep into it, but it was an idea like this about 25 years ago that started me on my way towards the system I ended up creating for my games. And contrary to what some may think or post, this has led me to a waiting list for those 25 years in my campagn. There is a lot of room in between the continuum that is (classbased vs skill based)
Kudos for Matt for openning up the box and shaking it.
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Games such as the Hero System of course have no classes and do just fine. Experienced players will generally try to fill out roles such as controller/striker/defender/healer even without the classes there to guide them.
Because it totally sucks to have a character that doesn’t really have a niche within the group, a “thing that they do”. This was the thing that classes brought to the tabletop when they were first invented. Everybody had a job to do, and you could see how they all contributed to the success of the group. I’ve seen classless games end up in problems when people found that the character they built sucked.
I’ve come to feel that it’s best for play if everyone at the table is engaged during every activity, whether that’s a puzzle, a combat, or a social interaction. Which is why I like the Obsidian skill challenge system.
Ok, with all that said, Matt’s idea is certainly one that could be fun for a campaign or Dungeon Delve among experienced players who are aware of the kinds of problems I outlined above.
.-= Toldain´s last blog ..Innovation in EQ2 =-.
Let’s avoid the insulting of someone’s game design ability in the course of simply disagreeing, shall we?
The whole thing brings to mind the popular “Gestalt” system from 3e’s Unearthed Arcana, in that it beefs up singular characters quite a bit. I think it might especially be worth trying in a game for 2-3 PCs.
Hmm… here’s an idea: Every level you get to add a point to a Role or a Source. This then determines the highest level power you can pick up along those vectors. Of course, these two variables are added together, so if you had Striker 3 and Martial 4 you could choice powers up to 7th level in Ranger or Rogue, up to 3rd for Barbarians or Avengers, and 4th from Fighters or Warlords. You could decide to focus on 1 basic aspect, like just leveling Arcane and cherry picking from all those classes, or you could vector like the example above, having 1 or 2 excellent options with a wide range of lower level secondary options.
And for every one griping about power level, it’s really a non-issue. This sort of reminds me of a 3.5 game I played where we all had Gestalt characters. In Gestalt you basically pick 2 classes and every level improves both of them. You get the best hit points, best BaB, best Saves. These characters were friggin RIDICULOUS. At 5th level my character was routinely doing attacks with upwards of 10D6+ damage. But we were ALL ridiculous. That’s sort of the point. I focused my character on being a bazooka, doing crap loads of damage. Another focused on being a skill master with tons of nifty side abilities. Another was an honest to god Tank. AC was in the 30’s by end of the game and had the hitpoints of two characters. Increases in power level only really matter on 2 aspects: 1) Is it spread evenly between the players? and 2) Can the GM keep up and still keep the game challenging and interesting?
For those who take issue with the paralysis of choice, you have valid concerns. But this sounds like the sort of experiment you would do with seasoned gamers anyways. Plus, most players would still want some sort of cohesive concept to bind the character together. If the other players would all keep an eye out for powers that might be useful to each other I think this could work fairly well.
This wouldn’t be the end of the world that some of the commenters see it as. It would also be hard to acheive the flexibility that others have. This is because all the powers have ability score limits. You’d end up with most people choosing their attack powers from a few classes. If you want to have powers from a set of classes with a different group, then you’ll likely have lower stats.
Barbarian damage bonuses would be a bit of a problem. I can see two fixes – one is to say that striker bonuses only apply to powers from that class. The second is to put the barbarian damage adds as part of the class features – you don’t get them unless you’re a barbarian.
What might be the biggest problem for me is concept. I can see a concept that spans a couple of power sources. But it’s ahrd to have a concept that spans all of them. Let alone a party of them.
It also brings up the possibility I see in a lot of point-build games. The majority of people buy certain powers because they’re so useful. It ends up reducing flexibility.
I apologize for being a jerk in this post. I didn’t even want to come back and see what replies there were to my comment. I also didn’t know you were having a “homebrew week” on Critical Hits, which would have answered my question “Why would you want to do this?”
However, the Magic: the Gathering comparison was based on Mark Rosewater’s “Making Magic” column over at dailymtg.com — it’s basically a weekly tutorial on how to turn creative ideas into good game design, and I highly recommend it.
No worries Noumenon 🙂
I have played and DM’d gestalt games and it’s true that the characters get uber powerful and each can contain a vast array of skills, but if the characters work out their own roles in the group, the group as a whole can stay balanced without too much intervening from the DM. The biggest struggle is creating adventures that challenge the players while still allowing them to use all the nifty destructive abilities they have hoarded. I ran one game of “evil” characters and was using a fairly wide mix of various angels against them at regular intervals. I think near the end of the campaign it was very common for characters to bounce down to zero hit points and back to full health in rapid succession, the fighter/barbarian got “killed” twice in the same round.
The best thing to do is play whatever style works for the group of players (and DM). If the group wants to play an all role-play, no combat campaign, that is what they should do. If, on the other hand, the group wants to make the most powerful characters they can and have massive pitched battles, then they should, after all, the game is about having fun, not following rules just because someone wrote them down.