An alternative to Iconic Classes

[Taleran]

nothing

I don't see it being that big of an issue

[Mister Andersen]

So dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs & rootwalkers are getting 8 point species?

[Taleran]

again I don't see it affecting the game that much, maybe the insanly picky people will, but I didn't like the concept so I trashed it

I just feel it seems weird having something Iconic one way or another in a game world created entirly by the DM, Iconic implies that the race has been around for a long time and known for a specific role then it doesn't affect game play at all

If I were doing Iconic classes it'd be something like

Iconic Classes: You can only multiclass if either your starting class or the class being multiclassed into is X or Y

[Mister Andersen]

Not liking a penalty =/= not needing a penalty.

[Taleran]

not really DM Rule 0 trumps that

[Desertpuma]

The idea behind Iconic classes is they represent what the race is known for being the game world. The ones listed on those races are classes traditionally known to be taken by those races. If they are different in your game, then just switch the classes. Otherwise, it unbalances the game giving those specific races a leg up. Crafty Games prides itself on putting balance throughout the system and that is why those are included.

[MDL]

Problem is the races with iconic limitations are already greater than 7 point builds depending on circumstances.

The Iconic Classes tend to be the classes the races are best suited for.  Builds that use the already present race/class synergy to its maximum suffer no penalties at all, and effectively have an 8 point talent that synergizes well with their primary class and build concept.   Builds that focus on atypical classes for a race will suffer double.  They'll invoke the iconic penalty in addition to at best a complete lack of synergy with their racial bonuses (or at worse various mechanical penalties, points docked from key attributes due to race etc...).

Since the Iconic Classes tend to be the best classes for min-maxing the races in general(or amongst the best classes for min-maxing a specific race), if they're going to be broken in game they probably already are.

Taking away the Iconic limitation primarily opens up the option of taking non-min-max, non-stereotyped builds without a significant penalty added on top of the inherent non-min-max synergy of the race.

To be honest, the lack of flexibility that choice of Talent provides is, perhaps not huge, but certainly significant penalty that the current number system doesn't really take into account...

[Desertpuma]

Part of that is the point though in the balancing. It may not appear to be so but Humans are also balanced in their versatility of Talents.

The Iconic limitations are necessary in the overall build of the Race to bring them below their number down to 7 points. That is why they are necessary. It does not matter the class because the Iconic Limitation is what generates the negative to their point total.

[Taleran]

Indeed so someone who goes to build a character that doesn't use one of those classes is probably going to be no stronger than race that may point wise be weaker


its a null point and I don't see it having a major effect on my game therefore I cut it out

[MDL]

The idea behind Iconic classes is they represent what the race is known for being the game world. The ones listed on those races are classes traditionally known to be taken by those races. If they are different in your game, then just switch the classes. Otherwise, it unbalances the game giving those specific races a leg up. Crafty Games prides itself on putting balance throughout the system and that is why those are included.

Err... that's making a huge assumption.

'represent what the race is known for being in the game world.'

What if in the game world you're running as a GC, non-human species don't actually fall into narrow stereotypes and within setting there is supposed to be just as much variety and breadth in non-human populations as the human populations.

Just changing the iconic classes does jack squat about that.

The short-hand way to represent that will necessitate stripping out the Iconics.  From there, the choice is to either acknowledge that the lack of Talent choice is a penalty, and shrug and let it equal out to the removed Iconics, or tack on a new penalty(or remove an already present benefit) to rebalance the numbers.  Considering playing rules as written, races with Iconic Classes could typically take the class they're best suited for without penalty... well, just stripping Iconics away is not likely to make the races more powerful in general(since they could already build a min-maxed built completely unaffected by Iconic Classes).

Admittedly, if you want to make a thorough 'humans aren't the only widely varying species' hack, you would need to heavily house rule things and break Species into its own non-tied to Talent chunk.   But that would be a massive amount of work, admittedly.

[Mister Andersen]

OR give humans their own talent. Which is actually quite easy in and of itself but the difficulty comes from (a) deciding just what is human, and (b) how that should balance against some species + talent mixes picking up massive attribute bumps -- an Agile Pech starts with a +5 Dex bump, leading to a 13/18/13/13/13/13 array, while a Single Minded Pech is gimped an Enlightened skill (unless you house rule 2 identical enlightened skills stack similarly to thick hide OR alter the species). Other combinations (admittedly including a feat) can end up with Thick Hide 6

[Foghorn]

An idea I had was instead of subtracting from the player's action dice, give the GC bonus action dice to use to activate his criticals or complications or something along those lines.

[Eärendle]

Origin skills have little to do with the ground the Iconic penalties are trying to cover. More than that, they're there to make up for the deficite of class skill lists to match concept and ExC requirements. So basically, very bad idea.

Really? I was considering it from the perspective that a PC would have fewer opportunities to receive training in a non-traditional class and that the extra effort needed to develop in such a role would preclude time spent on other areas. Similar in my mind to the way that Iconic Specialties restricts eligibility for their bonus feats. Likewise why I initially thought of limiting interests but decided it was not a harsh enough penalty.

I don't necessarily feel that Action Dice occupy "the ground that Iconic penalties are trying to cover". The more I think about it, some type of social stigma might be more appropriate. Either a disposition penalty as utilised in Spider Nation or perhaps an increased Reputation cost for Favors and Contacts.

[Morganti]

Iconic Classes: If your level in any base class is higher than your level in either [class 1] or [class 2] your error range with all checks is increased by X*.

*Pick a number that seems stiff enough to warrant a -1.  or stick with 2, and add "and your threat range is reduced by 2"
Now is just easier for things to go horribly awry!

[Mister Andersen]

Ewwww, no. Never. Ever. Why should being atypical doom you to a life of increased failure AND lack of success? That's a really really bad idea.

Consider that Iconic classes means that take anything other than an IC and you're (a) putting off your game breaker for a base class by 2 levels, and by corollary (b) forced into an expert class if you want one at level 14.

The current penalty seems to be going with the idea that being atypical, you have to work harder for opportunities to go your way. Its flaw lies in making it starting action dice instead of just affecting the number of AD you begin a session with, because it means that being atypical you're also inherently less competent for all abilities keyed to Starting AD.

Core abilities, however, are more about being really suited to something/grokking the core concept of a class. Mucking around in some fashion with that -- delaying it or withholding it until some condition is met -- seems the best way to reflect the design intent of certain species being better suited to some careers than others.