These.. have had no thought of balance, use etc. into them aside from what might work, like I said it's a little rough and more as food of thought than an actual system :embarrass
So without further adue, here are the first three levels of the Farmer, Apprentice, and Acrobat background classes, each of which in theory would recive a utility or ability every odd numbered level. If they were to be used, they would probably be picked in leu of choosing a background.
Farmer
Farmers receive a +2 bonus to Endurance.
Work Keyword: Can’t go swinging that plough all day can you? Whenever you perform an action that has the work keyword, you gain a work counter. Whenever you try to perform a task with the Work keyword, make an Endurance check with a DC equal to your work counters * 2 – Con Mod. If you have ranks of Endurance greater than the DC, you automatically succeed. If you fail the Endurance check, the task doesn’t occur, and you can’t perform any tasks with the Work keyword until you take a short rest. Ploughing without the use of the Plougher ability has the Work keyword.
Level 1:
Choose one of the following:
Plougher (Work)
Melee 1
You may plow a square of dirt ready for planting as a minor action, and convert grass to dirt as a minor action. In addition, as a move action you may convert a square of outdoors difficult terrain into dirt or grass. This square no longer counts as difficult terrain.
Harvester
Whenever you harvest food from a farm or garden, you take half the time it would normally take and gain +half-level additional rations.
Level 3:
Choose one of the following:
Sower
You may cast the Bloom ritual once per day without spending any components, and even if you do not have the Ritual Caster feat or know the ritual. You may only use this ritual to cause crops and garden plants to bloom food, not to cause difficult terrain or use it on wild plants.
Live-stockeer
Animals you care for, including animal companions and mounts, take + level minutes shorter to recover from travelling and exhaustion. They also gain a + half-level bonus on saving throws against disease.
Level 5:
Choose one of the following:
Sowing the fields
Each ploughed space in a burst 5 of you grows a sprout. Sprouts take ten days to grow to maturity, and can be any combination of mundane, non-exotic fruit or vegetable that doesn’t grow on a tree. When grown, each sprout provides 2 days worth of rations for one person. If combined with Bloom, the plants only provide as much food as Bloom would normally allow, and the sprouts can no longer sprout naturally. You may use the power once per day.
Filling the pit (Work)
Melee 1
Target space of hazardous terrain becomes difficult terrain as a standard action. You cannot make this difficult terrain dirt or grass. You must have a readily available supply of dirt to use this ability.
Level 7:
Choose one of the following:
Great Plough (Work)
Once per Encounter, you may plough as the Plougher ability in a burst 2 centred on yourself. Doing so ploughs dirt squares, turns grass into dirt, and turns outdoor difficult terrain into dirt or grass.
Sheepherder
You gain a +10 bonus to checks made to control, win over or calm domesticated animals.
Apprentice
Apprentices receive a +2 Bonus to Arcana
Level 1:
Choose one of the following:
Spell Caster:
You gain Cantrips as the wizard class feature, except as encounter powers instead of at-will. If you already have any of these cantrips as encounter powers, you may use them at-will instead. If you already have any of these cantrips as at-will powers, they only take a minor action to activate.
Ritualist:
You gain the ritual caster feat for free. If you already have the ritual caster feat, you may take two-first level rituals of which you meet the perquisites for for free.
Level 3:
Choose one of the following:
Skilled Ritualist:
Rituals cost you 10% less. If this would reduce the cost of a ritual that would not normally be free to 0, that ritual instead costs you 10% of its base price. This ritual may not lower the cost of rituals with the price of Variable.
Spell Casting Prodigy:
You gain one of the following level-2 Wizard Utilities of your choice in addition to any other utilities you have: Feather-fall, Jump. You do can use this in addition to any other utilities you have.
Level 5:
Choose one of the following:
Quick Ritualist
Rituals take you 2 minutes less to perform, to a minimum of 1 minute.
Detect Magic
You gain a +5 bonus to Arcana when using any form of Detect Magic. You must still be trained in Arcana.
Level 7:
Choose one of the following:
Ritualistic Surge
Once per day, you may cast a ritual you know and that is 5 levels than you or you lower for free as a standard action. This cannot be a ritual with a cost of Variable. In addition, casting a ritual in this way requires intense concentration, and thus cannot be cast during combat. (Combat is defined as having an enemy within thirty squares and line of sight. Invisible creatures and creatures you can’t otherwise see still count as within line of sight if you are aware they are there.)
Spell Casting Prodigy II
You gain one of the following wizard utilities in addition to any other utilities you have: Disguise Self, Dispel Magic, Invisibility, Levitate, Jump or Feather Fall. You do can use this in addition to any other utilities you have.
Acrobat
Acrobats receive a +2 bonus to acrobatics
Level 1:
Choose one of the following:
Stuntman:
You receive a +2 circumstances bonus when performing an acrobatic stunt or trying to reduce falling damage
Regular Houdini:
When trying to escape from restraints, you may do so as a standard action without the DC of the task increasing.
Level 3:
Choose one of the following:
Tight-rope Walker:
You gain a +2 circumstance bonus when trying to Balance. In addition, the DC of the task does not increase by 5 for being less then 6 inches, though you do not gain the circumstance bonus when you walk on such a narrow surface.
Hand-stand:
You may walk on your hands at half-speed without any skill checks being necessary. When doing so, you may treat difficult terrain as though it were normal terrain.
Level 5:
Choose one of the following:
Tumble Through Traps
You may perform an Acrobatic stunt as a move action to move half your speed and gain a +4 bonus to all defences against non-monster attacks until the beginning of your next turn.
Dramatic Exit
Once per day, you may ignore damage equal to your level you would take from a fall. You are also immune to damage from glass shards.
Level 7:
Choose one of the following:
Wall runner
You may walk along walls as though they were the floor. You cannot run up walls, only along them to bypass hazards, pressure plates and so forth. You must end your move on the floor.
Easy Squeezy
You may crawl through gabs and squeeze through spaces as though you were one size smaller than you actually are. In addition, you don’t grant combat advantage while you are squeezed into a space appropriate to you actual size.
Chef
Whenever a chef prepares a meal for their party, they may choose to use one less unit of rations than they normally would, to a minimum of one.
Recipes: You may choose to use a recipe whenever you prepare a meal for your party to eat. Preparing multiple recipes during the day does not mean that you use a days worth of rations for each one: rather, it is assumed that you spread out the day’s rations among all the meals. Recipes are divided into three types: Breakfasts’, Dinners’, and Snacks. Breakfasts’ can only be used at the start of the day, right after an extended rest. Dinners’ can only be used at the end of the day, before an extended rest. Snacks can be performed during a short rest. You can only perform one recipe during this time slot, and multiple recipes of the same time don’t stack.
Level 1:
Choose one of the following:
Oatmeal (Breakfast)
Everyone who eats the meal receives a +2 bonus to a single skill check for that day. They must say that they are using their daily bonus before they make the roll.
Sausages (Dinner)
Everyone who eats the meal can benefit from an extended rest after only four hours, instead of six. Those who would normally received the benefits of an extended rest in less than six hours receive no benefit.
Level 3:
Choose one of the following:
Chicken Soup (Snack)
Everyone who eats the meal gets a +2 circumstance modifier to any attempts to resist a disease they have (their Endurance of somebody else’s Heal)
Turkish Delight (Snack)
Everyone who eats the meal gains 3 temporary hitpoints. This increases to 6 temporary hitpoints in Paragon Tier, and 9 temporary hitpoints in Epic.
Level 5:
Choose one of the following:
Omelette (Breakfast)
Everyone who eats the meal gains a +1 bonus to saving throws for the rest of the day.
Steamed Carrots (Dinner)
Everyone who eats the meal gains a +5 bonus to Perception checks until the morning.
Level 7:
Choose one of the following:
Light salad (Snack)
Everyone who eats the meal gains a +1 bonus to Reflex defence for the next encounter.
Mini-burger (Snack)
Everyone who eats the meal gains a +1 bonus to Fortitude defence for the next encounter.
Well, there you go
. The prequisite stats are there so you don't end up with 8 Intelligence Barbarians being able to cast spells as well as a Wizard, or a frail weak Warlock ploughing fields as easily as a strong burly Fighter. And I appreciate that some of these features are probably useless, but like I said, rough draft :embarrass . So does this seem a viable direction to take, or is it just needless clutter on a character sheet?EDIT: Added the Chef. Added 5th level powers. Added 7th level powers. Added the Work keyword to the Farmer. Changed Apprentice's abilities that involve ritual prices to not effect rituals with a variable price, instead of just item creation rituals.
Plougher:
-Plowing and converting grass to dirt is now a minor action, and removing difficult terrain a move. Now has a range of melee one to prevent any wondering of whether you hev to be in the square to use it.
Sower:
-Entire ability replaced with power to cast the Bloom ritual once per day for free, only using the second effect and only working on cultivated plants.
Hopefully this equals things out a little better
I'd prefer if the abilities weren't combat useful. Right now the Farmer is a useful addition to a combat class to gain the ability to remove difficult terrain.
I think the ability requirements are a bit too steep. If you require 14+ Str only classes with Str as primary or secondary will take it. If you put it at 11+ you still require some ability without barring any classes.
Hmm, that's a good point, but at the same time aren't they supposed to be difficult to achieve for some classes? Fighters shouldn't be better at casting Rituals than Wizards through allocating one stat to Intelligence imo... but I can see how it would be a bit of an issue. I'll wait until I get a little more feedback from other people before I make any changes though
I'd prefer if the abilities weren't combat useful. Right now the Farmer is a useful addition to a combat class to gain the ability to remove difficult terrain.
The powers are supposed to be mostly for utility purposes. However, PC's can easily use combat powers for non-combat purposes, whether it be smashing down doors, creating an obstacle as they try to escape from an angry mob, putting some guards to sleep so they can sneak past... by the same token I'm not too concerned with a few of the powers from the non-combat classes being able to be used in combat, as long as they remain primarily utility.
- I agree with Discordian on the ability reqs being too steep. 11 is great, although I might've gone without altogether. I don't think fighters should be better than wizards at rituals "by default" either...but default is a tricky word in 4e. Some things are so vague, the modifiers could be coming from anywhere, so I'd merely point out that wizards are much more likely to have a big honkin' Int and Wis, and more likely to be trained in the major skills (Arcana/Nature/Religion vs the fighter's Heal).
- I think we should avoid tying the abilities to any particular attribute for secondary classes. For example, the Chef's Turkish Delight ability could be 2/4/6 temporary hp (per tier) instead of Wis mod.
. A few concerns that I'm having:1. Balance. It seems as though some of these powers are much greater than others... the Farmer seems to have swung from under to over powered with the advent of Fill the Pit. What's more, including these would require altering the DC's to skill checks and the like just to keep things challenging.
2. Starting at 11. I'm not sure, but do some of these powers seem like they should be gotten at a higher level? And even if they seem in line with the level, where to go from here? I've been toying with the idea of epic level Farmers being able to plow and soe miles of earth at a time, and dominate animals to join their flocks and herds (but not being able to force them to attack), but there's a lot of space in between...
However, since I'm not doing anything myself but just criticizing the one who's actually going somewhere you should feel fully free to ignore me.
Not to poo-poo this very promising start, but personally I'd rather do something more... I dunno, role-oriented rather than profession-oriented. (Not "role" as in defender, controller etc.) More like "Trickster", "Maker" (for any kind of craft etc), "Destructive Force", "Fount of Knowledge" and so on. With classes these specific you're either going to have go make several dozen of them or you'll end up forcing characters into weird matches.
Hmm, that's actually a fair point... although I really couldn't think of anything that role oriented. I prefer to think of the fluff and let the crunch come than vise versa. What I'm kind of going here is for numerous proffession etc that can be used for numerous archetypes, similar to the way 4e classes work. For example, the farmer could also work as a gardener, beast master (more animal abilities to come... need to make more than two abilties per level I think), plant mage and so forth. The chef, though working with rations, could also be a sort of enchanter or alchemist. And I think Apprentice is generic enough to work as is for pretty much anything...
That said, you're right to be concerned. The farmer is pretty hard to refluff with all that ploughing, and as much as you might say the Chef is a master of enchantment, he can only enchant food... if anyone has any better ways to crunch things except by proffession like I'm doing, feel free to speak up
. Also feel free to speak up any ideas for other classes and abilities, I don't mind some help ;)-Added 7th level powers
-Added the work keyword to the Farmer to avoid removing difficult and hazzardous terrain all day.
-Changed the Apprentice's price reduction abilities of rituals to not work on Variable price rituals instead of just item creation rituals to avoid any confusion or potential abuse.
Some more concerns I'd love to see some feedback on:
-Apprentice over-powered? Ritualistic Surge is a pretty good ability, not to mention all those extra utilities...
-Farmer is hard to quantify. There's no precedent for creating food, tending to flocks and the like, it's hard to know what's under-powered and what's over-poered.
-Isn't there a Monk utility that does something similar to the Acrobats Wall Runner? If so, if it's a much higher level I might be undervaluring it...
And there we go