#class design

[chromajistyle]

It is possible that i do alt color palettes for Enira Skies tho, & the few Empyrean Guild refs would be alt colors.

Like this!

Though a bit more with the hairstyle. Type A's hair was the initial hairstyle I had for this design. I still had it saved, so I could slap it back on. Different hairstyles for Type A and B... this could be the move.

[chromajistyle]

With these two, all Swashbucklers' 1st concept designs are complete!

Swashbucklers fight by building up their foes' Aggression, then unleashing devastating attacks on their rage-addled targets. Pester, taunt, and beat them into submission! And be flashy with it, please!

[chromajistyle]

Swashbuckler Concepts (Elf & Bietu VER)

[rollandwrite]

My DM is launching a new 5e campaign (and maybe his last in that system) and while I was creating characters for it, I thought:

WotC was fairly cowardly in its class design.

Now, I have lots of problems with 5e design (not shocking, given how much time I spend reading indie designers discuss design).

But among my problems with 5e's classes (and I've got a few) is that I wish they just committed to one banner skill for each class that makes them OP in one way.

Wizards have ritual casting, and this is hugely confusing for new players because it's buried in Wizard text. Instead, make it their banner ability.

Give bards advantage on all non-magical lore checks. Call it "I've heard about that..." or something.

Give rogues a "sixth sense" for when loot and/or traps are nearby, or something.

Make the classes feel more different.

[kiranjagaha]

डि Jagaha - Your Design Partner

Design Creates Culture. Culture Shapes Values. Values Determine Future and डि Jagaha is here to build your commercial spaces by smart interiors and class design which will direct you to a better future. To know more reach us at - [phone] or Mail us at -  [email protected] 

[crescentcarressedcat]

The basic idea is a custom class for an RPG game, tile based, turn based, and ATB. Analytic: A class which specializes in studying various things and understanding them, though how it appears is based on their perception of the world. The general idea is what they can view is the world in statistics but what stats are to them varies. This is fairly big, so I added a Keep Reading.

Health/Endurance 2/5 Physical 3/5 Spirit/Will 4/5 Reflex/Speed 2/5 Generally balanced around the idea of will and being fragile due to taking time and focus to study things and not being hands on. A weaker version of Emulator/Copy Cat classes that mimic but focuses more on special skills. Analytics, their natural ability, lets them view stats, abilities, skills, and general other details on interaction over periods of time. While this might be like finding out someone is a Master Chef without seeing them cook it takes time and generally doesn't tell you who a person is and they'd figure this out without said ability. Things outside of their perception/understanding take an extreme time to figure out. This is best thought of understanding if someone is going to give out or be unable to handle an task. Think of it like seeing the world as an RPG in a sense, if you could actually see your health bar and such. Their unique skill, Analyze, functions a bit different then traditional "See enemy stats and weaknesses and whatever other basic information" by actually being their "core" ability. It lets them see Unique details, in game this could be seen as 50% more fire damage but 40% more wind damage for example, and class skills/abilities. Analyze has a second function, they can learn up to 5 class skills at a given time through memorization. Unlike a Emulator/Copy Cat that can retain any number of skills or learn any type of skill, the Analytic can only learn skills that use Spirit/Will. (This includes if it uses the target's defensive version or even their offensive version) Similar to Ems/CCs they can use generally any realistic weapon type and armor type, limited by experience but have to spend time learning unlike them. The origin of this was from a little fan fiction of a fan fiction...? Using a character of mine named Esterum. It was a deviation from the normal power that would come from a Em/CC being able to essentially over a long period of time become god like, similarly this was also the plot point involved with the main villain. Esterum did survive the story... unintentionally thanks to being weaker then an Em/CC while the main villain lost for the opposite reason. Continued the pattern of my MCs having copying as an ability for at least 1 member.

[grandpagreymane]

Something I’ve noticed lately while playing alts (crit in class design)

I’ve always seen this sort of thing since even the Legion pre-launch patch on my Warrior, but as I’ve been playing and leveling alts now, I see more of it and how prevalent it is. Basically, a lot of DPS specs are designed around crits to function, and also have ways to guarantee a critical strike, meaning you don’t always need to actually stack the crit stat.

Now personally, I think this is a fucking GREAT direction they’re heading in. I mained Fury Warrior in Warlords of Draenor and let me tell you, the spec was a hot goddamned mess back then specifically because it was designed around crits without some way to guarantee them. Basically, in WoD, the entire Fury rotation hinged around Bloodthirst critting, because BT crits were the ONLY way to get enraged without popping Berserker Rage, which had a lengthy (30 seconds to a minute, it’s been a while) cooldown. The rest of Fury’s main damaging abilities could only be activated while enraged, or cost more rage than a non-crit Bloodthirst would give you, since BT crits also generated twice as much rage. So essentially, if Bloodthirst didn’t crit, you were locked out of your rotation. You didn’t get to DPS. That’s it, eat shit, go home, you suck, try again in 6 seconds when BT comes off cooldown, loser. I wouldn’t wish this playstyle on anyone, because it mandated stacking crit, and even if you did you would still run into dry spells where BT just refused to crit, and even the best Fury players had parses with insanely wild variations from one raid week to the next, and it was entirely out of their hands because their DPS rotation hinged on a slot machine.

Contrast it to the way Fury works now, where none of your abilities are gated by rage cost or the Enrage state if you choose them to be, there is a way to guarantee both Bloodthirst crits AND a second way to become enraged in Rampage that ALWAYS hits as if you’re enraged, is powerful, and is the spec’s primary rage dump all in one ability, and it’s like night and day with how much the spec has improved over one expansion. In fact, you don’t even need to stack crit anymore, you stack haste instead to maximize how fast you can get your abilities out to ensure you’ll always have a Rampage or Bloodthirst up to always be enraged. I love my Fury Warrior again thanks to the Legion changes, and I’m glad Blizzard understands that this is a healthy direction to take the spec down and left them relatively unchanged so far in the Battle for Azeroth alpha. Granted, Fury isn’t perfect, especially in the talents department, but that’s a whole other post entirely really, and eventually I’ll get into that too. Another spec I’ve seen where this sort of design is implemented are Frost DKs, who may not need crits to function like other classes, but they just get so many free crit procs that feed into more free crit procs that you’re essentially always critting in some form, and Fire Mages, who can use their artifact ability on top of their normal rotation to guarantee a second crit to keep their Hot Streaks going.

The point is, designing a spec around having to crit to be effective is a bad idea unless you can in some way guarantee that a crit is going to happen. Consistency in performance is a must in terms of game design and players don’t enjoy when their own performance is influenced by things outside of their control. I’m really glad Blizzard has realized this and acted on it to make these crit specs more consistent for the people using them.