Tag: character class

September 23, 2007

Iron Chef, v 0.1a

So, in Angela’s D&D game, I play a dwarven chef. For some time, I’d joked about him being an iron chef… and making up a prestige class for him around those themes. Yesterday, I was seriously in need of some procrastinating, so I wrote up a draft. I haven’t given too much thought to how balanced this is yet. I...

September 10, 2007

Character Roles, Part II

So… last night Angela and I were talking a bit about Character Roles. It occurred to me (sometimes I am slow), that the roles presumably designated in 4e (Controller, Defender, Leader, Striker) are primarily combat roles. What about non-combat roles? One of the big reasons why I think that many D&D games move from fight-t0-fight with little in-between is that...

September 5, 2007

Character Roles

There has been a lot of talk about character roles in 4e. It sounds as though each character class is designed to produce PCs who will fill one of the following roles: Defender, Striker, Leader, or Controller. I understand, I think, why this is the case. It’s frustrating when you really want to play a Monk but what the group...

August 31, 2007

Some people like to buff?

This morning, I read the D&D article on PC Roles. It looked at a Fighter 4/Bard 7 under running under 3.5… and how the PC was relatively ineffective. The character, Nils, could increase his party’s effectiveness though bardic music and spells, but that took actions in which he wasn’t actively accomplishing anything on his own. The 4e solution to this...

July 2, 2007

WoAdWriMo: Day 32?

I has been a hell of a month. I mean, it would have to be in order to make it to day 32, right? As predicted, I didn’t finish my WoAdWriMo adventure. I have a good bit done with it, and I am fairly happy with what I do have (but I still need to add a couple of action...

June 15, 2007

NPC class: The Cutthroat

So, I’ve been frustrated with the current group of NPC classes. Mainly, the issue is that it is hard to make sneaky, combat-effective goblins without using PC classes. Warriors don’t have any stealthy skills on their skill lists. Experts aren’t that combat-effective. To fill the gap, I decided to create a new NPC class. I’ll eventually tweak it up and...

June 12, 2007

NPC classes

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating new NPC classes. Most of those I’ve thought about (such as the Bureaucrat) can be easily modeled with the Expert. Two that don’t fit, though: I’d like to see a Hedge Mage class that does for the Wizard what the Adept does for the Cleric. This class would also be good as...

May 17, 2007

Current Projects

So many things are going on… At work I have a conference coming up at the end of June that I am planning – and this is a busy time of year otherwise. Personally, I will be going away for at least two weekends in June. This upcoming weekend is a friend’s wedding (tonight is his bachelor party – I...

April 16, 2007

Class Creation Workshop Part II (Martial Artist)

Some refined thoughts on the Martial Artist (with some notes toward the Ascetic): HD: d10BAB: BestGood Fort and Reflex saves. Poor Will save.Skills: 4+ Int bonus/level (skill list unfinished, but close to the Monk’s) Weapon Proficiencies: Simple + Monk Armor Proficiencies: none Class features by level:1. Improved Unarmed Strike (bonus feat) Martial Focus Focused Strike +1d6 Unarmored AC bonus2. Martial...

April 6, 2007

D20 Core Class Theory

My recent martial artist/ascetic musings have me thinking about the role of core classes. Recently, Wizards seems to have been developing very niche core classes (Dragon Shaman) and core classes that are more efficient mixes of archetypes (Duskblade) than you can normally get by multiclassing. I wonder how much of this could be handled by designing core classes to be...