But why?
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Pathfinder 2.0 sidestepped this issue by having class-specific feats instead of subclasses. Just pick which features you want dude, no need to be silly about it. And you get a new choice of class specific feats often.
Mutants and Masterminds (and I think GURPS) sidesteps it entirely by having point buy with all the abilities and stats. You don’t even have classes.
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Took me longer than it should have to realize this was about D&D, not programming.
No I want to see a programming language with multiclassing. Not just inheritance or Interfaces, but properly being able to make an object from any two classes.
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Hah! Don’t really see the appeal of Macs either
No shade to people who do like either (my wife likes macs and my brother likes D&D!) They just both feel so constraining to me, and it feels like that’s kind of the point? -
Warlock: I promised my soul in exchange for great power.
Rogue: To which great power?
Warlock: All of them. Let them fight over it when I am dead.
Rogue: Waitasec, how many boons do you have?!
Warlock: I dunno, a bunch. I lost count.
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Remember the one rule of D&D everybody forgets, no matter how much Gygax emphasized it: if you don’t like a rule, don’t use it in your campaign. In my game I allow any and all combinations of classes. I might even allow a Paladin/Assassin, but the player would have to come up with a really good in-world rationale for it.
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Fiend: Look, I’ll take what I can get. Can I get the legs? I’ll take the legs. She can have the top part.
Archfey: Did you just call the head the “top part”? That is so fucked up.
Great Old One: wait its not called the top part? What do you call the tentacles at the end of the bigger tentacles?
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Mutants and Masterminds (and I think GURPS) sidesteps it entirely by having point buy with all the abilities and stats. You don’t even have classes.
Sometimes restrictions breed creativity, though.
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I just want to point out, with GURPS templates, players can absolutely get a character ready to go pretty quickly without missing crucial skills or abilities. GURPS’s Dungeon Fantasy line comes with a set of templates that mirror D&D’s character classes; you follow the guide for your preferred archetype and put together a character that has what you want. If you want to mix and match between them, you just invest the points and pick it up; it even has some guidance on what likely will and won’t synergize well.
And if that’s still too granular, the Delvers to Grow add-on lets you just select “packs” of upgrades, worth 25 character points each, and tailored to specific templates. This lets you roll up basic characters in about 20 minutes (10 if you know what you’re doing!)
You could do that, but then you have players who don’t really know what their Traits do. My preferred method is to sit down with each player with GCS open and go through step by step: Basic Attributes, Advantages central to their character concept, Skills central to their character concept, then fill in some extras until they run out of points. I’m comfortable enough with the major options to walk them through it pretty quickly, although unless someone has a very clear idea of what they want to play, that can still take well over half an hour.
Choosing everything forces the player to at least be aware of what abilities they have. With templates, they still need to familiarize themselves with the included Traits, and then inevitably fiddle with things a bit to get closer to their vision. Accounting for that, I don’t think they have much time unless you’re playing a very generic character and rely on the GM to keep track of your abilities.
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Or Savage Worlds where you literally build your “class” from the ground up
Or Pathfinder for Savage Worlds, which is Savage Worlds with Pathfinder classes converted into Edges (limited to one per rank).
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I’ve mostly got the vernacular down now! Also, I want to say “how dare you?” a second time. Just read to the most recent chapter of kill 6b demons, and now I need more!
