I thought about this a while ago, but now that the books are out I though I would share this idea in more detail and see what everyone thinks.
Character Creation:
- All characters are proficient in simple ranged and melee weapons
- All characters are proficient in cloth, leather, and Hide
- All characters gain Leader HP (CON+12, +5 per level after first)
- All characters gain Leader Surges (7 Surges per day)
- All characters gain a +2 bonus to a single defense, or +1 bonus to all three.
- All characters gain 4 trained skills
- Choose your Role
- Choose two character features
- Choose 2 At-Will, 1 Encounter, and 1 Daily power. These powers can come from any class list.
Role:
1) Defender: Divine Challenge, Lay on Hands, and +1 healing surge/day
2) Defender: Combat Challenge and Combat Superiority
3) Leader: Holy Word
4) Leader: Inspiring Word
5) Striker: Hunter's Quarry (Dice are D8's instead of D6's)
6) Striker: Sneak Attack
7) Striker: Warlocks Curse
8) Controller: Tome of Knowledge, but you have two less armor proficiencies then normal.
Tome of Knowledge: You gain a tome of knowledge which stores all the spells, exploits, and prayers your character knows. Each time you gain a new utility or daily power choose two (these can be from any list). When you take an extended rest choose one of the two as your memorized power. As a standard action you can change your memorized power, but once it has been used it cannot be changed again until you take an extended rest.
Character Features:
1) Devote Follower: Gain access to the Channel Divinity class feature (choosing two of the following: Turn Undead, Divine Fortitude, Divine Mettle, Divine Strength). In addition you can use holy symbols as implements and gain one of the following: Ritual Casting like a cleric and Healing Word or military melee proficiency and one additional armor proficiency then normal.
2) Weapon Mastery: You gain access to all military weapons as well as a +1 bonus to all attack rolls with weapons. Due to the amount of time spent mastering a group of weapons, you have one less trained skill then normal.
3) Armor Mastery: You gain access to Chain and Scale Armor, as well as light shields and heavy shields. Additionally you gain +3 HP at first level, +1 HP per level thereafter, and two additional healing surges per day.
4) Quick Learner: You gain access to all military weapons as well as a bonus trained skill of your choice.
5) Fighting Style: Choose one of the following: Archer Fighting Style or Two-Blade Fighting Style. The Archer fighting style grants you the Defensive Mobiliy feat and the Prime Shot ranger class feature. The Two-Blade fighting style allows you to wield a one-handed weapon in your off-hand and grants you the Toughness feat.
6) Dastardly Training: You are trained in the Stealth and Thievery skills and gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with one light blade weapon and increase the damage dice of another light blade weapon (these cannot both be the same weapon and must be chosen when this feature is taken). Because of your focus with light blades and quick and agile fighting, you have one less armor proficiency then normal.
7) Rogue Tactics: Your character gains the first strike ability (You have combat advantage against any creatures that have not yet acted in that encounter). Additionally you choose one of the follow: Artful Dodger or Brutal Scoundrel. Artful Dodger grants you a bonus to AC against opportunity attacks equal to your charisma modifier. Brutal Scoundrel grants a bonus to damage rolls against opponents you have combat advantage over equal to your strength modifier.
8) Shadow Walk: On your turn, if you move at least 3 squares away from where you started your turn, you gain concealment until the end of your next turn.
9) Pact Boon: You can use Rods or Wands as implements and gain the prime shot class feature. In addition choose one of the following: Fey Pact, Infernal Pact, or Star Pact. You gain the pact boon of the chosen pact. The boon occurs whenever you reduce a target to 0 HP or whenever an enemy under the effect of your warlocks curse is reduced to 0 HP by any source. Because of your reliance on your pact for protection or mobility you start with one less armor proficiency than normal.
10) Battle Presence: You are proficient with chain armor, light shields, and military melee weapons. In addition choose one of the following: Inspiring Presence or Tactical Presence. When an ally who can see you spends an action point to take an extra action, that ally also regains lost hit points equal to one-half your level + your charisma modifier (Inspiring Presence), or gains a bonus to the attack roll equal to one-half your intelligence modifier (Tactical Presence). Finally you and each ally within 10 squares who can see and hear you gain a +2 power bonus to initiative.
11) Arcane Schooling: You can use Orbs, Staffs, and Wands as implements and have mastery in one of them (Orb, Staff, or Wand). In addition your character gains access to rituals like a wizard.
12) Arcane Talent:Your character gains the following five At-Will powers: Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, and Ray of Frost. These powers are known as cantrips and do not count towards your regular number of starting At-Will powers.
13) Class Mastery: You gain one additional encounter or At-Will power from any class list. This power does not count towards the maximum number allowed by your character and follows the normal retraining rules.
Additional Changes:
- Humans bonus At-Will power would become: "Gain a bonus at-will power from any class list that shares the same role as your character."
- Half-elves bonus Encoutner power would become "Gain a bonus encounter power from any class list that doesn't share the same role as your character."
Obviously this is not complete, but I wanted to get these idea's out there so that I could get some constructive criticism on the subject.
Thanks,
Korvanus
Just kidding.
So my big question is what balances are in place in this? You have 'select your role' but what makes that role important? For instance, what prevents someone from loading up on striker attacks and defender defense abilities to be both a defender and a striker?
I really don't know the system well enough yet to have any idea what specific balance issues this will cause. I don't think anyone does. So this would probably work just fine for now, since few people have the experience with 4e to break it.
As far as I can tell, a large portion of a charaters role is hardcoded into their class features. The defenders both have the ability to mark with additional effects if their target fails to pay attention. Leaders have the ability to heal a couple of times per encounter. Strikers all have a special way to deal extra damage each round. Controllers is the only one that doesn't really have any class feature that allows them to control better.
Most powers are balanced based on their level and funtion (AoE, single target, etc...) as opposed to the type of role that power plays. Again correct me if I am wrong in this assumption.
One thing I would already change from my original post is to remove the controller role from the list altogether. Since there are no class features that make a good controller, but rather their powers, I don't really see the point. Instead I would get rid of the tome of knowledge and change it back to a spellbook and place it in the arcane schooling character feature, along with the -1 armor proficiency. Infact I would probably put both the arcane schooling and arcane talent features together, assign them the -2 armor proficiencies, and call them Arcane Talent. The spellbook would be usable for any power that has the implement keyword, instead of just wizard powers (think prayerbook and spellbook rolled into one).
The shadow walk character feature strikes me as too weak compared to the otherones, so I might need to add something to it.
So far I've found it fairly easy to do. I distill most of the class abilities into feats or coupled two abilities into one feat (like the multiclassing feats that are a skill and an ability) and give a handful of bonus feats at character creation to mix and match as they like.
Now that we are so close to an official class-less system we can just as well get rid of the last remnants of such an ancient holy cow I think I would go even further though, removing the "roles" entirely...