Taking the Class Out of Classic d20 Mechanics

During the Biggus Geekus show this week, I think Randy suggested the idea of making a game without classes, and maybe even without levels. Among many games, I'm sure, Shadowrun, the WEG version of Star Wars, GURPS, Dragonball Z, Bubblegum Crisis, BESM, and every White Wolf game I've bothered to read all operate this way: you get some form of currency and just build the character however you want.

One upside is that you aren't hindered by arbitrary restrictions, such as fighters not being able to have access to "thief" skills, or wizards unable to meaningfully wield weapons. Another is that can create and develop your character organically: did your fighter (or fighter-oriented character) spend a lot of time sneaking around? Well, during downtime or whenever you can spend points to buy into or improve his sneaking skill.

Mind you this isn't always the case in class systems, it's just a lot of d20 derivatives seem to be allergic to this idea for some reason.

For example, in 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons you can buy into "cross-class" skills, which cost twice as many points to improve and have a reduced cap compared to "class" skills. And this would be fine if the math wasn't so borked that a fighter who managed to max out either Hide or Move Silently (due to piddlingly poor skill points) would still be spotted about half the time against a monster with half his Hit Dice, even if you were to waive the absurd armor check penalty.

So it's somewhat organic but the end result is a character that can at best do what the core archetype allows, but barring a specialized build sucks at everything else.

4th Edition throttled this initially by only allowing you to spend feats to pick up automatically incrementing skills, and purchasing a pittance of powers from another class. So, yeah, you could have a fighter that learned a few wizard spells, but that's it. There was no way to officially shift gears into something else. Later they introduced some system where you could cobble a new class out of two others, but most of these didn't work as conceptualized.

5th Edition is degenerate trash with a thin veneer of Dungeons & Dragons smeared over the top, a lazy cash-grab churned out by a company of pretentious, self-hating narcissists that despise beauty and normalcy, so we'll just skip it. It's mostly just 3rd Edition with some rehashed 4th Editionisms tucked in, because the mentally ill diversity hires are incapable of creating, only destroying.

In Dungeons & Delvers we retained 3rd Edition style multiclassing, though it's not nearly as silly: if you multiclass into fighter, you don't spontaneously become proficient with all weapons and armor, and if you multiclass into wizard you don't figuratively or perhaps literally, magically gain a spellbook with every cantrip and a bunch of 1st-level spells.

Instead, you gain some key parts of the class and maybe a Talent or two. Nothing worse than if you started as that class and gained a level. Additionally, skill points can be spent on any skill, no matter what class you leveled up in. This means that a fighter can have the same skill bonus in Arcana as a wizard, though the wizard is probably smarter and can better utilize it. Similarly, while a wizard can have the same skill bonus with Thievery as a rogue, but the rogue has Talents that make it better.

Also in 1st Edition you only normally get 1 Skill Point per level, so a fighter upping Arcana means he isn't upping Athletics or Perception, skills that will probably be more useful. Plus there are also Skill Perks, which let you do more with a skill: these require a Skill to be at a minimum Proficiency Bonus and cost a Skill Point, so it's not an easy choice.

Melissa inadvertently playtested our version of multiclassing quite extensively, starting as a rogue before multiclassing into ranger when they found a baby owlbear. She wanted it as a pet, I mentioned that ranger had an Animal Companion Talent that would cause it to level up with her, so she picked that up asap. Much later she wanted to be able to see in the dark, so went into wizard for the Darkvision spell, which could be Sustained at the cost of most of her Willpower points.

In the end her character was something like rogue 7/ranger 6/wizard 4, and there was never a point where you could say her character was "underpowered" or even incompetent.

This design process made me consider on more than a few occasions going with a classless system, and I ended up writing a sort of campaign setting where everything was dead or dying, and killing things would leave lingering souls that the characters could absorb/consume. These souls would be linked to the warrior, rogue, or wizard archetype (clerics in this setting didn't exist, but I would leave them out anyway as adventuring clerics don't generally make sense), and when you absorbed enough would be able to choose a Talent from that archetype.

Each time you chose a Talent, or chose enough from a given archetype, you would be awarded a Skill Point, which could only be spent on a skill thematically tied to that archetype (ie, warrior lets you choose stuff like Melee, Ranged, Endurance, etc). These choices would also help determine when you received additional Wond Points and/or Vitality Points, as well as how many.

This system won't work for most settings--and while I think it's interesting in theory it's also way more bookkeeping--but you can adjust it so that performing and completing certain actions and tasks grants XP for a given archetype. For example, killing monsters grants warrior XP, sneaking around awards rogue XP (as would using many other skills), and learning/casting spells nets you wizard XP.

I would award XP on successful completion of something, as opposed for each skill use (which is something I initially considered), because in combat you'll be making attack rolls frequently, and I would expect most characters to rack up warrior XP quickly, plus it could be tedious to constantly track XP gains in this manner. However, if you want to award XP for a successful use, or some on a failure and a different amount on a success, just reduce the amount gained.

The other change is that you wouldn't gain Skill Points through Talent selection. Instead, you'd have to spend XP to improve them, with the amount required being based on either the current bonus or the bonus you are trying to increase it to (ie, standard procedure for these sorts of mechanics). Here I think you could tie skills to more than one archetype, with some archetypes having a different ratio. For example, when improving Melee, warrior XP counts on a 1:1 basis, but rogue would be 2:1, or even 3:1.

Wound Points and Vitality Points I'd have improve based on total archetype XP spent, not on Talents purchased and Skills improved. This way you avoid gaining a bunch of WP/VP by picking up cheaper skills and Talents. Something like, every 100 warrior XP spent is +3 WP/+1 VP, every 200 rogue XP is +2 WP/+1 VP, and every 300 wizard XP is +1 WP/+1 VP. You could also make it a Hit Die roll if you prefer randomness.

Saving throws would work similarly: the more XP spent for an archetype, the more specific ones improve (ie, warrior XP ends up boosting Strength and Constitution saves). Defense would either effectively be a skill, or it would improve based on archetype XP spent. Probably the latter, as it would just be a modifier, not a skill you roll. Oh, this could also eventually lead to stat boosts, and you could make the XP requirement higher if you want to reduce the rate. Perhaps every 5,000 XP from a specific archetype, so when you spend 5,000 warrior XP you can boost Strength or Constitution.

While this system is more complicated than just earning XP and gaining a level, it does resolve several potential issues (and I say "potential" because you might consider these to be features, not bugs, or issues where the solution isn't worth the effort):

• First, it helps ensure that a character acquires new abilities and skills based on the character's actions. For example, a fighter can't go around killing monsters and then suddenly learn to cast spells.
• Second, there's no need to worry about "balancing" Skills or Talents. If a Skill has a narrow use, the XP required to improve it is just lower than others. The same goes for Talents. Instead of trying to ensure that all Talents are relatively balanced and compelling, you can just make some of them cheaper.
• Third, it avoids a character suddenly growing in power, gaining more hit points and skill points, as well as an improved attack bonus, defense, saves, class features and/or Talents, all at once.

One reason I haven't attempted this for Dungeons & Delvers is because our multiclassing system is very organic (another big one is the amount of work this would take). We don't rely on D&D math, so a wizard can multiclass into fighter and be competent in melee. A fighter can multiclass into wizard in order to learn a few spells, and they'll be useful, because monsters and challenges aren't built around the assumption that by x level the characters will have y bonuses or values to a given statistic.

So you can easily get away without maxed-out skills and attack bonuses and spell save DCs. You'd be better off if you had them, the game would be easier, but they aren't necessary.

The only reason I would bother implementing such a system is to address characters gaining a bunch of new stuff at all once, which like hit point inflation is something that bothers me but I can ultimately live with. Leveling up is easier to track, removes some choice paralysis (players don't have to fret about upping a skill, choosing a Talent, or purchasing/improving something else), and it also makes it easier to essentially eyeball a character's overall degree of competence.

Were I do implement a classless system, I wouldn't employ multiple XP tracks. Instead, it would all get pooled together, and players would just spend it on whatever they want. This greatly reduces complexity and bookkeeping, and while not as "realistic" still resolves the issue of gaining a bunch of stuff all at once. I think this is worth it if that's something that bothers you, and like the Initiative system I proposed a few weeks ago, it would not only help our d20 game stand out even more, it would have an actual purpose, as opposed to absurd gimmick mechanics that don't make any sense (like usage dice, item slots, and letting the player declare that his character's shield breaks to completely avoid a hit).

The only hurdle is playtesting and assigning XP values to everything.