User talk:ProphetPX/Xal'Anim (3.5e Campaign Setting)/Classes

Yeah...
You might want to pick a balance point and stick with it. Having everything from fighter-level to wizard-level classes in the mix just isn't a good way to balance campaigns... --Ghostwheel 08:43, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I think your list is fine ProphetPX, and wouldn't tweak it for metagame concerns like intraparty balance. For something as broad as a campaign setting, I wouldn't worry about trying to balance classes at all. You probably want your campaign to be playable by as many people as possible, so it makes sense to include material from multiple balance ranges and then leave it to the individual games to sort out what's allowed, and what's not. Then people can play in their single balance range games, or their multiple balance range games. And since multiple range games include things like sandbagging games, "no opportunity cost artifact swords" games, or even E6/E8 games, styles that work well enough and that plenty of people use without even knowing it, you get the widest audience for your work. - Tarkisflux Talk 16:31, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Info would be nice on why some of these classes were selected. --Franken Kesey 17:56, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * First, thanks for all your input and advice.
 * Second, to Ghostwheel: This is a campaign setting, which (will) spans multiple worlds (it only includes 1 world for now). There are NO SUCH THING as "balance points" when taking into consideration multiple inhabitable planets (each of which will be different and ALL of which allow interplanar and interstellar (ie: Spelljammer-ish) travel and communication. This campaign setting is also a little bit steampunk, and a little bit technological (beyond the former). Most campaign settings or authors may be content with simplistic, minimalist (I say: obtuse) views on how small their world may be. Not I.
 * Third, to Tarkisflux: I think you have the right idea. I honestly do not know what "multiple range games" or "sandbag games" are, nor do I know what E6/E8 or whatever that is. I was given some of the best advice on your IRC channel one day when it came to creating or modifying playable races and basically they just said: "write whatever you want (basically out of sheer inspiration alone) and just compare what you come up with to what others have, for the sake of balance. Albert Einstein once said that education is not as important as imagination and frankly I am coming at all of this purely from a writer's free creativity, and thereby drawing most all of this out of my imagination and PURPOSEFULLY (but only initially) with BLATANT and OPPROBRIOUS DISREGARD for such HORRIBLY CAGING, limited things such as "balance" and "point systems", which would seek to confine my ideas into scads of cursed, compartmentalized, finite tiny boxes. I will moderate all of my content for balance purposes LATER! Right now, the idea for me is just to brainstorm and get ideas "out there" so that people can see where I am coming from and (maybe) might want to keep suggesting helpful options for what I am doing here.
 * Fourth, to Franken Kesey: The reasons for why I picked these classes (which hopefully you will have refreshed the page since a week or 2 ago, since it has been majorly updated since then, with many MANY new additions and promising new creations to come) are simply this: because I wanted to. This is my creation, and you do not have to play in it. You can freely play anywhere else that you like. Other than the preceding, my world is a very different world from what most people are used to (ie: most have central Suns which power their life, mine does not, as it offers an alternative cosmological concept which drives all life, called a "rotating rift ring" (a radical new idea that people have probably never even conceived of before!). And it has a lot more to do with life on the planet than most people can probably expect right now (especially due to it's closer-proximity than any helio-centric star would be). THEREFORE: the reasons why I picked these few classes are because they fit my mind's eye's idea of what sort of things people should be doing inside my world (for one), and for two: elemental, psionic, druidic, pseudo-scientific, and shamanic classes are going to be greatly uplifted, and have become very prominent on my world (unlike other worlds where they are merely left to the background dressing, in favor of outlining and underlining the prominent fame of wizards of all kinds -- wizards will still be just as powerful as on other worlds, but they will no more be as prominent or important as they once were. Wizards are basically going to just have to "suck it up" when it comes to how their power shapes or sees their world, here). Clerics will still exist, but they will find themselves somewhat frustrated with "ordinary" gods here (for reasons I am not yet ready to disclose yet).
 * Fifth, keep in mind that this is still a work in progress, and is NOWHERE YET EVEN ANYWHERE NEAR an "alpha level" of playable completion. NOBODY should be even considering creating a campaign here at all (YET!), and if they are? I'll bust their nose! ;)
 * Sixth, keep in mind that I have (for now) purposefully allowed all WOTC base/core classes in my campaign world. Not much has yet been explicitly blacklisted. So stop fretting. :) --ProphetPX 22:15, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Not advice or complaints or whatever, just some definitions for you:
 * Multiple Range Games - These are games where you have classes of wildly different power, like tactical wizards (not blaster wizards) and fighters and monks, all playing together without players feeling overshadowed by anyone else. It is generally accomplished in one of two ways:
 * No cost Artifact swords - In these sorts of games, the fighters and monks get awesome powers because they have awesome weapons. Or a lot more magical item wealth than the rules suggest they are supposed to, while the casters have a lot less. Lots of groups do this already, when they say things like "give it to the X, I have spells and don't need any more items".
 * Sanndbagging games - Sandbagging is a ballooning term used to discuss keeping yourself at a lower altitude on purpose. So the casters and high powered classes in these games simply don't use their high levels of power unless they need to pull out a last second win against the odds. Plenty of optimizers who don't want to annoy people in different play styles will play like this.
 * These would be compared with a single balance range game, where everyone was approximately the same power level (high, low, or whatever) through careful class and ability selection. None of these are inherently better than any of the others, though everyone has their preferred style. - Tarkisflux Talk 18:01, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Tarkisflux. This is really my first time creating anything original for D&D and i have never heard of any of those terms before. I am not a professional writer nor a professional game creator, so those terms and ideas were unknown to me. I really did not intend on injecting any sort of "balance" or re-balancing anything until much later after I had put invested as much as I could possibly do. People told me when creating monsters that the best thing is just to write originally and then compare what I create to what others have done (for balancing purposes). I am really just trying to do the same thing here, with world creation. --ProphetPX 21:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The Red Links
There are so many of them, you could fill in more WotC source books with those classes than WotC published. And you don't need that many variant base classes. Prestige classes and feats exist for a reason. Use those to variate players. A small core number of base classes is usually a good thing. --Havvy 07:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Obviously there isn't enough druids. We're gonna need about 80 more. :P -- Eiji-kun 08:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I fear for you if you're going to make a separate druid and monk class for every one of those things. Sounds terribly wasteful of time and bandwidth when they could be condensed into one of each. - TG Cid 15:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess that most of you do not know how to read? I DID SAY (on that page) that I was planning on shifting some or many of the (new) classes I had put on that page to INSTEAD BE PRESTIGE CLASSES. I have to wonder if some of you are just being way too HASTY with your replies and not considering that I HAD ALREADY SAID that I was not going to make too many new base classes and was instead going to alter some of what i had already listed into prestige classes ... All I am doing right now is sheer brainstorming, so please just BE FREAKING PATIENT already! seriously, have some respect for the creative PROCESS! WTF?! --ProphetPX 19:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It's culture shock, ProphetPX. When a person who's used to being here sees something that isn't in a sandbox, they have a hard time holding back any helpful criticism they can think of, especially if nobody asked for it. That said, that many prestige classes would be pretty absurd too. --Foxwarrior 17:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is culture shock. but there is little I can do about it. I doubt J.R.R. Tolkien experienced any of this when he first started reading his draft-noted stories to his son (or was it his grandson?) I doubt anyone even had an inkling of a clue with which to criticize him and his writings before they were ever finished and it is not like a little boy (in his case) was going to be able to pick apart the various story elements like people here are doing (and i know they do not know any better, but are just trying to grasp the concept). I am actually mixing a lot of historical sci-fi/fantasy ARCHETYPES together in my world building... I know I haven't yet divulged what these sources/inspirations/archetypes are, but that was a goal of mine in the near future once I had fleshed out more of what I wanted to put on here. I guess I cannot expect much patience seeing as everyone seems to regard my world as just being one giant acid trip... sigh (it really isn't meant to be and i have never been a druggie lol) --ProphetPX 20:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Ultimatum
I would like you created one of these classes. Perhaps it will shed some light on things and help the community understand you. The way I see it, this project could take a lifetime to complete correctly. If you wish not to at least attempt to be diplomatic, then this needs to be sandboxed! --Franken Kesey 18:19, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Projects don't need to be sandboxed in the same way articles do. As long as they are regularly worked on and improved, they're fine. If this is just one big brainstorm though, that probably should be boxed until the direction is more clear. - Tarkisflux Talk 19:17, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Why am I being given an ultimatum? have i violated some site or community rule? what have I done wrong? I have much more to add to this campaign setting (including creating not just one class but all of them) but i have been VERY busy in my real life with more pressing concerns, and time for this has been badly lacking lately. Is there a way I can download all my posted content IF the admins plan on removing/deleting any of it? I have most of this generally in my head already but not all of it and basically most of my key work on this setting is ONLY on this site, and nowhere else (not even my own notes contains all of this data!). If I have violated some rule or something or if admins are going to be strict with their "1 month" validation policy then please at least give me a method to download everything i have published here thus far, and I will be glad to comply with whatever you wish. I cannot get back to seriously working on this until maybe next week. I am really not in any hurry (nor did i feel compelled or pushed to be so) about finishing or completing this (even in a brief way) until now. Is there a backup method on this site or should I just spider my data from this site with a program? --ProphetPX 20:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * PS: What i have done on this site is NOT just brainstorming but it was expanding from my notes which I had already drafted on my own computer before I ever signed up here. There is much more to this world than what is on this site but at the same time, I also have stuff on here that is not (yet) in my notes, also... Thanks. --ProphetPX 20:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Ignore Franken Kesey. His grasp of English is as bad as his homebrew, and he seems to try to use polysyllabic words at random to sound smart when in context they don't make sense. I'm pretty sure English is his second language, but regardless of how much we tell him, he persists in attempting to use big words with the result of losing any sense of meaning he might have had. No one plans on removing it, since you're actively working on it, so don't worry about it. Just keep trucking away and everything'll be fine. --Ghostwheel 21:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * THANK YOU, Ghostwheel! That is the best news I have heard about this in the past 2 months?? I was very afraid that all my work so far would just suddenly disappear into the void, without any chance of saving it. I have 4-5 characters to create (Dragonborn Samurai, Fey Halfling Rogue, Were-rat/Rat-man Scout, a Half-orc Ogrekin Were-Wolverine Barbarian, and a Lightning Genasi Storm-bender/Shugenja), in the space of 1-2 days for a new campaign and I am not even 1/4 done yet ... I should not even be on here, so, thanks, and c-ya maybe next week! :) --ProphetPX 21:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry if I wasn't clear, but you haven't violated any community rules and there's no plans to move this at present, much less delete it. When we talk about sandboxing something, we just mean that it's a subpage of your user page instead of a page in the main navigation. Sandboxes are treated as private work spaces and tend to be left alone unless you ask for assistance with something, so you can work at whatever pace you wanted. If you went for a while without updating this like you have been (a month or so), we'd probably move it for you at that time. But we wouldn't just delete it. That would be mean :-p. - Tarkisflux Talk 21:56, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Sandboxing does not remove it from this site; it only marks it as a work in progress – keeping gamers from playing with an incomplete work. You have certainly not broken any rules, nor stepped on any toes.


 * It may help you if you made one of these classes. --Franken Kesey 22:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Couple Things
First, just on a very nitpicking note, the Warblade, Duskblade, and Hexblade are not SRD material. They are published by Wizards of the Coast, sure, but the difference between WotC-published and SRD is that the SRD is a catalog of things listed by WoTC as available to be published and distributed online. That's why we can have the SRD on this wiki, for instance, but why we don't have any of those aforementioned classes (if you were looking for them here, that's why we don't have them).

Second, I sincerely hope you are not planning on making a separate class for each style of monk (that's what appears to be happening from my view). Not only is that horribly time-consuming for you, I personally think that it would be extremely difficult to create enough variability in the monk classes to make it worthwhile to make one for each style. Instead, incorporating the ability to create many different styles of monk from within the same template (like the Tome Monk), would be much more preferable in my opinion. I could be being deceived by the links, but I thought it would be better to say this preemptively. - TG Cid 05:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)