New Player Class

[manikus]

I have a pretty good idea of how to implement illusionists when the time comes, and I've heard a rumor that someone knows a way to implement bard. And I already know that with a slight work-around the official rules, thief-acrobat will work.

[nologgie]

The bard creation method I came up with requires work on the designer's part.  The class change occurs in a druid grove instead of a training hall   A human dual classed or half-elf multi-classed fighter/ thief of appropriate level with the requisite abilities and alignment may petition to become a bard.  The changes were all done via scripts.  Advancement was accomplished in druid groves instead of training halls.  I didn't get too complex with spells and abilities in my tests.

I think the recent changes should simplify things, especially skills, but I haven't tried it yet.

First Choice:  Assassin

[manikus]

Do you see any drawbacks, hidden or otherwise to coding the assassin? It seems straight forward enough. What about the fees? Should that be left to the designer's discretion?

[nologgie]

Like most in my campaigns I ran non-guild assassins and very rarely took contracts.  They were killing specialists with thief skills, able to use any weapon.  I only used poison for traps.  Oddly, trap construction was often in higher demand than assassination in our p&p campaigns, but I don't expect that to carry over into CRPGs.

[noctoskanan]

Assassin (first)

Barbarian (second)

Illusionist (third) necromancer (first)

Thief-Acrobat (fourth)
Monk (fifth)
Bard  (never)
Cavalier (never)

[BryanMaloney]

The bard creation method I came up with requires work on the designer's part.  The class change occurs in a druid grove instead of a training hall   A human dual classed or half-elf multi-classed fighter/ thief of appropriate level with the requisite abilities and alignment may petition to become a bard.  The changes were all done via scripts.  Advancement was accomplished in druid groves instead of training halls.  I didn't get too complex with spells and abilities in my tests.

Not all AD&D1 campaigns took place in Greyhawk, though, and not all of them had such tight ties between bards and druids. Does this also mean that druids cannot train in training halls, either? If bards must train outside a training hall, so should thieves. Clerics should be forced to train only in temples of their own pantheon, etc. "Special" features like "bards are the only class that can't train in a training hall" usually end up being disliked by the audience at large.

[BryanMaloney]

Another point about the bard: The way the class is written, bards can use the Manual of Puissance at Arms and the Manual of Stealthy Pilfering. These magic items grant, respectively, an additional level of fighter (Puissance) or thief (Pilfering). I had a bard character years ago who went to max level fighter, then to max level thief, then switched to bard, managed to acquire each of these, and used them.

Also, according to the PHB: "A bard must have scores of 15 or better in the following abilities: strength, wisdom, dexterity and charisma. Furthermore, a bard must have at least a 12 score in intelligence and a 10 in constitution." This is in direct contradiction to "the character with two classes", which states "In order to switch from one class to another, the character must have an ability score of 15 or more in the principal attribute(s) ability of the original class and a 17 or 18 in the principal attribute(s) of the class changed to."

A bard only has to have a 15 in dexterity, not a 17, which would be a prerequisite for changing to thief. The way it was implemented in pencil and paper in the game I played the bard in was that, if dexterity was 15-16 (my bard's dex was 15, I think), one did not actually change to "thief", one changed to "bard-in-training", which was 100% identitical to "thief", with all the limits of "character with two classes" but a hard level cap of 9th level for "thief" abilities (excepting the use of a Wish/Limited Wish/Manual of Stealthy Pilfering AFTER becoming a fully-fledged bard).

[SilentThief]

Is there a way to limit class training in a training hall to only a certain SA? For example, you have a necromancer who can only train where the specialist (necromancers) gather. Just curious, being interested in specialists

ST the curiosity specialist

[BryanMaloney]

Is there a way to limit class training in a training hall to only a certain SA? For example, you have a necromancer who can only train where the specialist (necromancers) gather. Just curious, being interested in specialists

ST the curiosity specialist

Illusionists are 2nd edition AD&D, while it looks like DC is going to be 1st edition AD&D with some possiblity of 2nd-edition bolt-on modifiers that might come later.

[nologgie]

The bard creation method I came up with requires work on the designer's part.  The class change occurs in a druid grove instead of a training hall   A human dual classed or half-elf multi-classed fighter/ thief of appropriate level with the requisite abilities and alignment may petition to become a bard.  The changes were all done via scripts.  Advancement was accomplished in druid groves instead of training halls.  I didn't get too complex with spells and abilities in my tests.

Not all AD&D1 campaigns took place in Greyhawk, though, and not all of them had such tight ties between bards and druids. Does this also mean that druids cannot train in training halls, either? If bards must train outside a training hall, so should thieves. Clerics should be forced to train only in temples of their own pantheon, etc. "Special" features like "bards are the only class that can't train in a training hall" usually end up being disliked by the audience at large.

Nope.  It had to do with the mechanics of the Training Hall event and the limitations on classes and baseclasses (DC terms, not AD&D).  This has changed under the latest DC revision.  Many of the databases and functions are still in work, and I'm waiting until the big bugs are solved before I try the 'nice to have' stuff.  The reason I built a bard was to see if it was possible.  Whether any classes beyond those in FRUA are included in DC 1.0 is up to manikus.

We usually played a straight 3d6 for stats, so bards were extremely rare.  They weren't in Greyhawk, but they were under druidical tutelage because the book said they were.  House rules may differ.  We didn't use training halls until the DMG came out, and many of us didn't even then.  I haven't tried level-ups without training halls with the new DC version yet, but I think it's possible.

Many FRUA designers split out training halls by class, as did some of the gold box games.  It wasn't possible to restrict clerical/paladin training by deity in FRUA, but it is in DC.  I don't know whether designers will choose to. 

[nologgie]

Is there a way to limit class training in a training hall to only a certain SA? For example, you have a necromancer who can only train where the specialist (necromancers) gather. Just curious, being interested in specialists

ST the curiosity specialist

Illusionists are 2nd edition AD&D, while it looks like DC is going to be 1st edition AD&D with some possiblity of 2nd-edition bolt-on modifiers that might come later.

Illusionists were actually 1E, but I think the 'school' breakout was 2E.  (I never played much 2E, or even 1.5E.)

In any case, we should be able to add classes and races as soon as we get 1.0 out.  I have no idea how the different revisions will be 'packaged'.

And yes, necromancers may be restricted to necromancer training halls.  Or not.  Designer's option.

[manikus]

Tom has really covered everything, but I wanted to add a little bit.
With scripting, either via SAs, Logic Block events or GPDL triggers, we can check for just about anything you can imagine. The caveat is if you want be able to check for freckle-faced, one-armed, bow-legged, winged hobbits, no problem, as long as you do something to mark your hobbits as such (which can be done through all the methods mentioned above).

While illusionists are 1e, the other schools were not broken out until 2e. But designers will be able to do what they want - add necromancers, elementalists, etc. I won't make any promises, but I think with a big of fore-though and planning, we can likely even introduce some aspects of wild magic.

[Milos Gulan]

Wild magic is cool I hope I will be able to see some of it.

[steve_mcdee]

I already posted this on the "feature request" board but it seems somewhat relevant here, so I will mention again my desire for an option to impose particular class level limits on training halls. So, for example, a particular training hall might train fighter types to level 12 but other classes only to level 5. After that, those classes would need to seek out specialists to train them. All at the designer's option, of course.

[manikus]

I haven't been keeping up on the feature's request thread, but I will get caught up someday.

I assume you mean something in the editor for level limits for Training Hall? You could write scripts to do this now, and they would be part of the GPDL script trigger for the Training Hall event.