My brain won't shut up about it. Lack of symmetry is killing me, man..
Basically there are no Constitution primary class and only one Intelligence primary class.
Sure many classes can benefit from high values in these scores but you don't really get the joy of using them without abusing a feat or waiting for a setting heavy class or subclass.
I'd think by now D&D would have either thought up some CON and INT classes and raised their popularity. Or at least pull setting classes like bloodmages, paragons, blood knights, grafters, alchemists, gunsmiths, engineers, swordmages, and artificers to more core leanings. Or at least push them with subclasses.
But it looks like any of these will be late edition books if ever. Expand your archetypes people. We accept robed old guys who know all magic arcane. Can we have blood mages, hellfire channellers, gadget guys, and weapon mages?
I don't worry too much about CON because it's already the second or third favorite stat for most classes. I see what you mean though. Having some primary-CON classes would be good.
As far as INT goes, I assume that both the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster subclasses will heavily leverage INT, probably to the point of being dual-primary classes.
frothsof wrote:
Lack of symmetry is killing me, man..
Basically there are no Constitution primary class and only one Intelligence primary class.
I already have me a level one Hill Dwarf Barbarian ready to go. 16HP! Just need that PHB to make sure it's correct.
What kind of class could be realistically* defined as a CON primary roll? What does it do? What is its niche?
And to a lesser extent, Intelligence suffers a bit from the same problem, IMO...
(*I'm not talking about shoehorning something or forcing the peg in the hole "just to have parity". I mean, actually having CON be its core feature...)
I find Intelligence to be better for classes to be based on than Wisdom, truthfully.
For the most part, Wisdom is a glorified "awareness" attribute, mixed with a good bit of self-composure. Its how attuned you are to your surroundings. Charisma, as a force of will, and Intelligence, as your raw calculation ability, both make sense when it comes to affecting the world around you. Awareness, however? How does that affect the world around you? Its like a mental version of Constitution, allowing you to shrug off mental attacks. Why does it lend itself to the cleric, druid, and ranger so much? To me, that doesn't make sense. Nor do the skills associated with Wisdom either - using medicine should be a mental challenge, not a perception one. Training animals requires firm hands instead of a good eye, though arguments for the need of an "animal insight" more than "animal persuasion" exist.
To me, all spellcasters should be cut between Intelligence and Charisma, just like warriors are between Strength and Dexterity.
That said, Intelligence is likely to appear in the Psion and Artificer classes, when they appear. The latter, because building machines, even magic machines, should require brain power. The former because of tradition. Good luck ever having Constitution be a main stat; Wisdom gets the "because magic!" excuse to do stuff, while the physical attributes are held to a higher standard.
Int is somewhat under-represented at this point, unless you count all 8 potential arcane traditions as separate classes (which is a bit of a stretch). It might say something about adventuring when most of those who engage in this sort of endeavor are not primarily the smart ones.
Constitution... Is a difficult stat to base a class on. You are looking for an entire archetype who is defined by being really physically hardy - not strong, not fast, not hard hitting, just realllly healthy. You are looking for a class that uses Con as the go-to stat for their abilities. Somehow they are leveraging innate toughness into action - and more than just niche tricks. Competitive eater/drinker isn't exactly an adventuring-ready skillset. Marathon running is handy, but not terribly useful in situations less than 26.2 miles apart. Of the existing classes barbarian is closest, but I would still consider them Strength primary.
The alternative here is that you are designing a class with extraordinary features that key off of Constitution. The 3.5 Dragon Shaman was something of a Con primary, as their signature offensive ability (Breath Weapon) used Con for the save DC... but their other stat-related class feature (healing) relied on Charisma.
Anyone have ideas?
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Joe_the_Rat wrote:
Aldente wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Con is too important of a stat to base a class around. I wish this wasn't the case, but it is. A 20 Con class that can ignore Str and Dex would be ridiculously powerful with 2X more HP than some other PCs.
COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
But, seriously. Battlemind was may favorite Con based class. The idea is the you're using the physicality of your own nervous system to drive your psionic powers. I think of the cult classic, Scanners, where people temble and shake till their nose bleeds while they psionically blast people.
A non-magic shapeshifter might use Con. The change is purely physical and driven by the body itself. In a lot of Dean Koontz books, shapechangers burn through calories like crazy, starving and eating like fiends. All that stress and strain might be controllable by a really tough person who can take the strain. Maybe even allowing burning hit points and hit dice to fuel more changes.
Shapechanging could be simple like changing a hand to a blade. More challenging like lungs to gills. Or radical such as changing into something like another creature. Changers would rarely suffer from disease, would heal quickly, but might be in danger of burning out (through voluntary hit point loss). A class like that could have a d12 for hit points and still burn through hp and hd.
The "my daddy was a dragon" (or "I ate a dragon's heart") fluff for sorcerer suggests more con than charisma, since you would be channeling power through your body, or did the heart you ate miss your stomach and go straight to your brain? Psychic powers strike me as more charisma than int, since charisma is "force of will." Artificers should be int-based, and it seems like ranger abilities should be int-based as well (based on my study of giants/dragons or hordes of goblins, I have devised X tactic to do more damage).
There's also the tough hero class from D20 Modern:
http://spellbooksoftware.com/d20mrsd/toughhero.html
Resistance to damage types. Better at death saving throws. Better at healing. Lots of physical abilities like unarmed fighting. Maybe be able to boost physical stats. Maybe be able to take hits for allies.
Orethalion wrote:
Symmetry for the sake of symmetry is undesirable.
A class shouldn't exist solely to fill some empty grid. It needs to exist for story reasons and have some background in fantasy.
We do have some classes still to see, like the psion and artificer. They'll likely use Intelligence as well.
I don't think classes should be created for reason of symetry. If there is a concept that works best with Int or Con I'm all for it, but to try to apply "The Great Wheel" logic to ability scores would have terrible results.
Con giving a bonus to hit and damage, for any class, feels like pure cheese, that would only exist so that a character can be super-optimzed by only maxxing out defensive stats without sacrificeing offensive capability.
Karnos wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Karnos wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Orzel wrote:
I would like to see Intelligence actually be remotely applicable to ANY character at all-- ANY character-- without it having to mean "use magic" or "use machines".
Seriously-- otherwise it is a complete and utter dumpstat in the game. Seriously-- as things stand, all successful D&D characters except Wizards are likely to be a bunch of mentally impaired mouth breathers. Their characters sheets will indicate that they would be outsmarted by a chimpanzee-- but players will never play them that way. Because the PLAYERS have the ability to calculate how to idealy use those high physical and magical attributes in such a way that the system most favors and work out tactics totally outside of the game, spending way more time on deciding an action than their characters get-- effectively making all characters super geniuses despite having an Intelligence score of 8.
Can't there be a class that grants the team mechanical benefits based on its intelligence and the assumed tactical options that the higher intellect allows them to open up?
Or at least have it be remotely meaningful to skills that adventurers are likely to use. (Seriously-- when the hell was the last time an adventure had a life and death scenario involving knowledge of History? Or chose to have someone roll for Search/Investigate rather than Spot/Perception?)
It always has struck me as absolutely bizzare how much D&D chooses to vastly devalue the impact of Intelligence and Charisma among mundane people in a game about well... effectively mercenary "heroes" who are out to change and lead the world.
Charisma has, to some degree, been fixed-- but there is still a huge issue with Intelligence given that the only reason any character of any sort ever would consider investing in it is if they intend to cast Arcane spells.... and even then they can do that using Charisma by choosing something other than Wizard.
They should just stop calling the stat "Intelligence" and just call it "Arcane Magic" instead.
Well mediocre compared to a 3e god wizard played by my friend.
The funny thing is the mage who draws power from self or gets fatigue as he casts has stronger fantasy background than the "prepare and store" wizard. Heck in most setting Intelligence just let's you learn spells. Power came from vitality or mental reserves. Especially setting with low amounts of battle magic and mages blast til they were killed, overwhelmed, or passed out.
The_Jester wrote:
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
When a new class/race/whatever is made, it should be from the standpoint of: We have this great idea for a class, now how do we translate it into game mechanics; and not: we have this game mechanic, so let's design a class based around it. The second way leads to shoehorning and a torrent of splatbooks full of unnecessary and unwanted things like shardminds and vampire classes. The six ability scores are there to mirror the basic physical and mental descriptors common to living beings; they are not just design space fodder for symmetrical splat book stacking.
Lawolf wrote:
I like the idea of Blood Mage being CON primary INT secondary. I really enjoyed the class in Dragon Age. I'd see CON being the fuel, INT being the focus (so using INT to hit, to set save DCs, and using CON to increase spells slots or damage at the cost of HP).
I like how both camps are coming together to say no to Con classes, but for completely different reasons. Can we start a list of things we both agree on, with this at the top?
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
OrwellianHaggis wrote:
Saelorn wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Saelorn wrote:
I hope they don't go this route. I think it was an error in 4e. I liked that there were classes that fit all the ability scores but at the same time it was also forcing a square peg into a round hole. Con does just fine without needing a class shoe-horned onto it.
Saelorn wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Orzel wrote:
A couple 3.5e classes have been namedropped a couple times.
For those not aware, the totemist came from Magic of Incarnum and the dragonfire adept came from Dragon Magic.
The totemist is basically the martial class using the Incarnum power source. The Incarnum version of the ranger or the paladin. Based on the product spotlight, Magic of Incarnum was literally doing something new for the sake of doing something new. James Wyatt says:
I've always been really excited about the entire 3E product line, but while it has brought forth tremendous innovations in mechanical concepts, it hasn't expanded the world of D&D in a really significant way. [...]I really wanted to see us push the boundaries and come up with a completely new concept. So in meeting after meeting over a period of about two years, I stressed the need to do something that had never been seen in D&D before.
It wasn't an idea that cried out to be made and added to the game, but a deliberate attempt to add something to the game. They set out to create new content for the sake of new content and the story and mechanics came after.
Dragon Magic isn't much better. WotC discovered the books that sold best were ones with "dragon" or "magic" in the title so they scheduled a book that combined the two terms.
Funny story about the dragonfire adept. The designers of the book sat down to create new classes and created what was basically the dragon shaman from the Player's Handbook II. The two teams were working seperately, so it was a case of two designings having the same idea at the same time. But the PHB2 was coming out in May and Dragon Magic was coming out in September so they writers of the later set out to throw together a brand new class at the last minute.
I haven't looked at the classes much prior to now.
The dragonfire adept strikes me as being a dragonic warlock. Which does sound like a wicked warlock patron. But not really a class, as much of its coolness overlaps with the sorcerer and the dragonborn.
The totemist is pretty incomprehensible. There's a lot going on with a lot of new terms that aren't really explained in the preview. From what I remember, incarnum was something like soul energy, which was some kind of magical fuel. I dunno. Incarnum might be cool for a campaign setting, but it's weird for a generic books and D&D in general, which already has four or five different sources of magic.
Not what I'd call sterling examples of new classes. A lot of new crunch, but not a lot of flavour or history in fantasy.
The_Jester wrote:
JC999 wrote:
JC999 wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Monk is another class that is a perfect fit for constitution as a primary ability.
Uchawi wrote:
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Saelorn wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Gunthar wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Orzel wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
If by powerful offensive spells, you mean, nothing higher than 4th-Level spells, I would gather you're right. However, what they have is probably pretty darn good. If it's anything like the rumours, Eldritch Knights will have access to all Evocation and Abjuration school spells on the wizard list, plus a few extra spells for their book, from 1st-4th, plus some cantrips, and have ways to pump up their weapons into magical forms, kinda Eldritch Strikey. Arcane Tricksters would have similar with Illusion and Enchantment schools, plus a few extra, and have some cool legerdemain with the Mage Hand cantrip as well as Spell Thief abilities Blue-mage style. Of course, this is all on top of non-subclass Fighter or Rogue abilities, so you're still attacking 4x a round by 20th level as a Fighter, not to mention having a Fighting Style, Action Surge (act once? I act twice!), Second Wind (pain? I feel no pain), and Indomitable (saves? I don't need to roll saves), not to mention having more feat slots and/or ability score improvement points than any other class. As for the Rogue, remember those spells are on-top of all those Rogue abilities like Sneak Attack and those action granting abilities, evading abilities, skill improving abilities, and luck-bending abilities. I'd say it about balances out against what those classes get in their other subclasses, and against other classes in general. Clerics are never going to be hitting as hard as Fighters, and if EK Fighters can cast and attack at the same time, then not having high spell slots doesn't matter if you're making up for the lack of 9th-level fireball with ice storm + 12 hits of your elemental weapon (ice) greatsword (2 action surges as per 17th level Fighter). That's like, 2d6 slashing + 1d4 cold x 12 + 2d8 bludgeoning + 4d6 cold vs everyone in the ice storm (average of 148 points on one enemy and 26 points on everyone else caught in the ice storm); versus just 12d6 fire damage from a 9th-level fireball attack (average of 48 damage). Clearly, the Eldritch Knight doesn't need higher level spells to keep up his DPR; just being a fighter does that just fine. And having access to things like elemental weapon makes him all the more effective. That is, of course, if the EK in the book is like what that rumoured document says it's like, and we KNOW that there have been at least some fundamental mechanical differences between the final book via what we've seen in the previews and what's in that rumoured document.
Orzel wrote:
It comes down to the fact that Constitution is very internal, and hard to use for external influence. Every other stat can be used to directly influence the outside world, but constitution only comes into play internally. This makes it very hard to create a class that uses his constitution to overpower foes.
The one usual idea that comes up is someone using their own lifeforce/body to fuel attacks, and that could work. But other than it, it's pretty tough to come up with something that can really force their constitution on enemies.
I agree. Although not on the Intelligence point - Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight both work for me (still not sure why there isn't a Blademage class - half caster Arcane, but thats probably just me).
I love the Battlemind and Infernal Pact Warlock from 4e, which were both great Con classes.
My issue with Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters is that they historically suck at offensive magic. Since Magic ability score only affects DCs and to hit, you could dump Intelligence (if they don't link it to an additional class feature)much how Rangers could dump Wisdom during the playtest.
As for lore for Con casting there is plently. Many anime and manga use it from Naruto, DBZ, and Deadman Wonderland. Many books use it like Dresden andEragon. Video games use it like Final Fantasy. MTG love using life for power. And many comic heroes go the nonlethal way with fatigue.
Subclasses would be a regular bloodmage who casts from HP and metamagics from HP. Another is the dark/ bloody knight who spend HP for damage and DR and gets gets bonuses when bloodied. Then there is the Shifter who transform partially and gets claws, wings, spikes, and fins. Finally you have "portal to Plane of Fire strapped to hand" who simply spends HP to burn things. Simple cast finally.
Cennedi wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Mephi1234 wrote:
I do not see many new classes coming out for 5th Ed (much like 2nd Ed), I think the Psion, and/or psionic classes, will be pretty much it.
Brock_Landers wrote:
And now, a moment with your neighborhood Ivstin...
Many people have asked me "What do stats look like on a character, Ivvy?"
Well, here you go - if we all had one stat that was our best, it might look like this...
- Strength. I WILL BREAK IT! SMASH! ...
- Dexterity. I wiggle my fingers better than anyone else... oh and you can't catch me. Ever.
- Constitution. HUUUUUGH! I STAND HERE AND YOU CANNOT BREAK ME!
- Intelligence. I'm pretty sure I can figure this out. This looks just like that...wait what? What did you say? I can't hear you over my brain.
- Wisdom. I have a feeling. A feeling that something is amiss. Look over here - see that? That is a sign. My intuition tells me... I like cookies.
- Charisma. Hey, get me a beer. No, really... just take a chance. One beer. Thanks. You're sweet.
All joking aside, the physical stats are pretty safely tucked away in our human understandings of the material world. Strong people move things by force. Dextrous people use finesse to interact with objects. People with a high constitution?... take a beating? I see no "active" way of using constituion with the present rules system's definition of constitution. But, let's take a look at the mental aspects of abilities and their correlation with our understandings of personality in the Myer's Briggs style. These are based on Introversion/Extroversion (I/E), Sensing/Intuiting (S/N), Feeling/Thinking (F/T), and Judging/Perceiving (J/P). For more information on these archetypes, visit this Human Metrics site about Myer's-Briggs.
We can see a correlation with the D&D Abilities related to the personality types.
Introversion/Extroversion - Charisma based. A Low Charisma tends to be seen as Introverted; a high Charisma sends the Extroverted message. These are not absolutes, but general statements and expectations of personality.
Sensing/Intuiting - This is the relationship between Intelligence and Wisdom. Sensing (requiring a material investigation of a problem, rather than just 'knowing innately') is Intelligence based; while Intuiting ('innate knowledge') is conceptually compared to the Wisdom score.
Thinking/Feeling - Intelligence is based on Thinking; Wisdom is based on Feeling.
In the realm of magic and ritual ceremony, Charisma would be the force of personality upon reality. Intelligence would be the calculating extrapolation of the mechanics of the universe. Wisdom would be the innate connectedness of the soul with the universe.
I can understand, even feel an agreement with every statistic being the basis of a class... except constitution. I just do not understand how you would use that in an active fashion when classes seem to be built on active interactions and training. I have a friend who can drink me under the table. He can withstand almost any physical trauma and keep smiling. But that isn't going to make him able to crush foes. Even a mage who uses his blood as a material component, weaving magic through his veins, I think would be Intelligence based because of the precise calculations - if not Charisma based because of the force of will and "self" identity in the basis of blood (keeping in mind that Charisma in D&D is also the sense of "self.")
What I like about the new system is that a Wizard who is proficient in a Shortsword (let's say a High elf wizard)... is just as good with his shortsword as a fighter is, numerically speaking. As an alchemist and swordsman, I get fed up with games that do not allow me to be great at swordfighting and great at my alchemical processes without lengthy level gain. Clearly, as a 30 year old public educator and musician (M.M.) working on my doctorate... I am not a high level adventurer. I'm just a commoner with a dream.
CAN I NOT DREAM?!
Ahem.
I'd like to see detailed argument for a constitution based class in an active manner, not thematic. Not because I want to disagree, but because I want to be convinced. Once upon a time I believed in Con based Psionics and such. My time away designing LARP rules has made me soft.
I desire to be convinced.
Also: Charisma is powerful only because we view people with a force of personality as influential. A lone, charismatic, influential human without anyone to influence is useless.
I say this with my 18 in charisma. 
Gunthar wrote:
Constitution is training, perseverance, and durability. It may appear to be secondary to other abilities that have a primary focus, but it also represents dedication that eventually leads you down the path of success; even if you are scrawny, not that intelligent, etc. But defining attributes has the same problem as hit points. No one is going to agree on an exact definition. So I tend to favor more abstract, or broader use of attributes, and that started when they introduced updated classes like the shukenja during the 3E days for D20 supplement for legend of the five rings. WIth that class you could pick constitution as a primary stat to represent an earth shukenja. From there, it was reasonable to do the same thing in 4E with a con based infernal pact warlock, battlemind, etc.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
kalil wrote: