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Pathbreaker - musings of an amateur game designer
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<blockquote data-quote="Lord Mhoram" data-source="post: 8599877" data-attributes="member: 4789"><p><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=talented&manufacturers_id=6101&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=" target="_blank">The talented classes</a> were also a huge thing for me... again by Owen K.C. Stephens originally with later books being other writers but still RGG.</p><p></p><p>I bring these up as they are a big part of how I approach game design, but specifically two books of stuff that were published by Dreamscarred Press (those will be up soon). </p><p></p><p>The talented classes, if I recall correctly, started with Talented Fighter. Each ability a fighter had (from base fighter and all the various official archetypes) were list as a "Talent"... and there was a talent that was "Fighter combat feat". The Talents were split into normal talents, advanced talents and grand talents. Advanced came online at 10th level, and the grand talents were basically capstone and you got one at 20th. So the class table listed things like BAB and Saves, then all the class ablities were just "Fighter Talent". This approach really opened up the class to make it exactly the kind of fighter you want to be. Don't like Bravery, toss it. It also let some interesting synergies which could give a power boost to fighters, and in 1st ed PF, that was something that was to be valued.</p><p></p><p>The idea that hit me was the simple way a class could represent so much, by using talents. In some ways Pathfinder 2nd ed uses something like this each level getting a type of feat from a limited choice of them to fine tune the character, but the Talented classes were much more open. As I have mentioned, I spent a lot of time playing HERO, so that freedom was something that really appealed to me.</p><p></p><p>A number of other talented classes followed, Rogue, Monk, Barbarian, Cavalier... then later Bard, Cleric and Witch. But I was mostly focused on the non or very limited casting classes for a couple of reasons: First, they needed the wider options available this way, spell-casters had a lot more flexibility, just by spells. Second I didn't especially like the way spell-casting was handled. Not that it was bad by any means, it just didn't sing to me the way the other stuff did. One other difference the later classes had were "edges" these were like super-talents, and each class access to a few of them... usually foundational concepts to the class; looking at monk edges were things like AC from Wis and raising by level, Chi pools, Evasion that sort of thing. Much fewer edges coming in with the classes.</p><p></p><p>As Rogue and Monk came out, there was an appendix that talked about merging them and/or what talents could (or should) be shared between them, with talks of balance issues with those options.</p><p></p><p>Well I was doing a solo game, so balance was not as much an issue, the more the merrier, the stronger the better. I reconfigured the Talented Monk, and then again when the Unchained Monk came out. I also got a large number of third party monk options and collected all the Paizo produced monk support stuff, and pulled that all together as options for the Talented Monk.. as well as access to Monk, Rogue and other talents. </p><p></p><p>I played a couple of monk types with that and had a blast. One of the <em>Ionia</em> was basically a gestalt "Talented Monk/Magister" with all the magic being flavored as "super Ch'i (fireball hadoken, CLW was healing touch as mystic ability).</p><p></p><p>I worked on a number of other talented martial classes, but as monk was always my favorite martial type class, it got the most work. Going forward in created the "final" Pathbreaker a lot of my work incorporated the "Talented" idea for class structure.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lord Mhoram, post: 8599877, member: 4789"] [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=talented&manufacturers_id=6101&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=']The talented classes[/URL] were also a huge thing for me... again by Owen K.C. Stephens originally with later books being other writers but still RGG. I bring these up as they are a big part of how I approach game design, but specifically two books of stuff that were published by Dreamscarred Press (those will be up soon). The talented classes, if I recall correctly, started with Talented Fighter. Each ability a fighter had (from base fighter and all the various official archetypes) were list as a "Talent"... and there was a talent that was "Fighter combat feat". The Talents were split into normal talents, advanced talents and grand talents. Advanced came online at 10th level, and the grand talents were basically capstone and you got one at 20th. So the class table listed things like BAB and Saves, then all the class ablities were just "Fighter Talent". This approach really opened up the class to make it exactly the kind of fighter you want to be. Don't like Bravery, toss it. It also let some interesting synergies which could give a power boost to fighters, and in 1st ed PF, that was something that was to be valued. The idea that hit me was the simple way a class could represent so much, by using talents. In some ways Pathfinder 2nd ed uses something like this each level getting a type of feat from a limited choice of them to fine tune the character, but the Talented classes were much more open. As I have mentioned, I spent a lot of time playing HERO, so that freedom was something that really appealed to me. A number of other talented classes followed, Rogue, Monk, Barbarian, Cavalier... then later Bard, Cleric and Witch. But I was mostly focused on the non or very limited casting classes for a couple of reasons: First, they needed the wider options available this way, spell-casters had a lot more flexibility, just by spells. Second I didn't especially like the way spell-casting was handled. Not that it was bad by any means, it just didn't sing to me the way the other stuff did. One other difference the later classes had were "edges" these were like super-talents, and each class access to a few of them... usually foundational concepts to the class; looking at monk edges were things like AC from Wis and raising by level, Chi pools, Evasion that sort of thing. Much fewer edges coming in with the classes. As Rogue and Monk came out, there was an appendix that talked about merging them and/or what talents could (or should) be shared between them, with talks of balance issues with those options. Well I was doing a solo game, so balance was not as much an issue, the more the merrier, the stronger the better. I reconfigured the Talented Monk, and then again when the Unchained Monk came out. I also got a large number of third party monk options and collected all the Paizo produced monk support stuff, and pulled that all together as options for the Talented Monk.. as well as access to Monk, Rogue and other talents. I played a couple of monk types with that and had a blast. One of the [I]Ionia[/I] was basically a gestalt "Talented Monk/Magister" with all the magic being flavored as "super Ch'i (fireball hadoken, CLW was healing touch as mystic ability). I worked on a number of other talented martial classes, but as monk was always my favorite martial type class, it got the most work. Going forward in created the "final" Pathbreaker a lot of my work incorporated the "Talented" idea for class structure. [/QUOTE]
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