# Forum > Gaming > Homebrew Design > D&D 4e Identity for Source, Role, and Specialty

## Mark Hall

Ok, so this is somewhat branching off a topic in the 4e section. The idea floated was to create stronger identities for power sources, so a Martial Controller had things in common with a Martial Striker, and felt different than an Arcane or Primal controller. I've also thrown in "specialty", which I think of as skill suites.

To start with, the Roles, which are already pretty well defined:

*Roles:*
Controller: Combat control. Forced movement, impeded movement, conditions. A "debuffer" class.

Defender: Defense and stickiness; attracting attacks, and mitigating their effect.

Leader: Healing and party buffs.

Striker: DPS.

Next, the Specialties, which are relatively easy to sum up:

*Specialties:*


Face: Key Skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Insight, Intimidation, Streetwise

Loremaster: Arcana, Dungeoneering, History, Nature, Religion

Scout: Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, Stealth, Thievery

(Unassociated skills: Endurance, Heal)

I'm not quite sure what the specialties should DO, but they're pretty common collections of skills, and weirdly work out to 5 skills per specialty without any real stretch.

And, lastly, Power Sources:

*Power Sources:*

Arcane: Power from another realm; this is somewhat nebulous, as both Warlocks and Sorcerers make this a difficult assessment. I want to say "Far Realm", but both of those throw that into question.
Divine: Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos, granted by an entity from those
Martial: Prime Material, physical action 
Primal: Feywild 
Psionic: Prime Material, mental action 
Shadow: Shadowfell

(I have seen Elemental listed as a power source, but I can't find any classes associated with it

At the confluence of Role and Power Source is a class; most classes will have one or two available secondary roles available (a paladin is a Divine Defender, but has a lot of Leader options available, for example). Classes are named by Power Source, and noted with C, D, L, or S for their role:

Arcane: Wizard (C), Bard (L), Sorcerer (S), Swordmage (D), Warlock (S), Artificer (L)
Divine: Cleric (L), Avenger (S), Paladin (D), Invoker (C)
Martial: Fighter  (D), Ranger (C), Rogue (S), Warlord  (L)
Primal: Druid (C), Shaman (L), Warden  (D), Barbarian (S), Seeker (C)
Psionic: Psion (C), Battlemind (D), Monk (S), Ardent (L)
Shadow: Assassin (S), Vampire (S)

Now, obviously, there's gaps in here, and I made Rangers a Controller, rather than Striker; give them some space to work. I view Divine, Martial, and Psionic as being somewhat "ideal"... they have 1 of each Role for their power source. Arcane doubles up on Leaders and Strikers, Primal has a spare Controller, and Shadow has two classes, both Strikers.

Next: Making everything ideal.

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## Mark Hall

I say "Ideal", but what do I mean? The ideal is that each power source/role combination will have a single class. Some of the removed classes will become Paragon Paths; Runepriest becomes an Paragon Path of Cleric, not a class in and of itself.


Ok, a slightly more ideal arrangement of things:

Arcane: Wizard (C), Sorcerer (S), Swordmage (D), Artificer (L)
Divine: Cleric (L), Avenger (S), Paladin (D), Invoker (C)
Martial: Fighter (D), Ranger (C), Rogue (S), Warlord (L)
Primal: Druid (L), Warden (D), Barbarian (S), Seeker (C)
Psionic: Psion (C), Battlemind (D), Monk (S), Ardent (L)
Shadow: Assassin (S), Bard (L), Warlock (D), Shaman (C)

Woo-boy, I stuck my foot into it. Here's the rationales of the moved and changed classes:

Druid: Controller to Leader. AD&D druids were required to have high Charismas, and were decent healers, which easily put them in a leader role. While Druids will have a secondary controller role, the focus will be to make them leader-types, with group buffs.

Bards: Bards become Shadow Leaders, rather than Arcane Leaders. This somewhat emphasizes their role as an illusionist and party buffer; some of it was just to make everything "pretty" and match the one source/role, one class ideal. They'll secondary as controllers.

Warlocks: Shadow Defenders. I think Warlocks as being Shadow-aligned is pretty defensible, but turning them into defenders? Warlocks have a number of powers that grant them temporary HP, which is a good defender trait. They'll need some options to be "sticky", but I think hexes and such punishing those who look away from them works pretty well.

Shaman: Shadow Controller. I think a link with ephemeral spirits fits well with Shadow, and their legion of spirits can go very well into a Controller role.

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## Mark Hall

Sailing the Seas of Cheese: What your Power Source says about you

Part of the goal here is to provide some commonality between classes of the same Power Source... Something that makes each power source unique. Here's some suggestions:

Arcane: Arcane should have Really Big daily attack powers, which goes back to its roots as the Glass Cannon of other D&D wizards. Normal 1st level dailies do 3dx or 3|W| to a single target, with a single effect? Arcane spells should be doing that to several, with a couple effects. When Arcane goes big, everyone goes home.

Divine: Divine should have a variety of powers. My suggestion is that they have all the Encounter Attack powers of their class available, but are limited in use... so at 1st level, a cleric has Cause Fear, DIvine Glow, Healing Strike, and Wrathful Thunder, but can only use one of them for any given rest. After they recover encounter powers, they can use the same one, or a different one.

Martial: Two ideas: One option is that Martials have all of the at-will attacks of their class available. In this version, they have versatility in their basic options... a fighter could choose to do damage to a couple people, be more accurate, do damage on a miss, or push people around. This version, however, has a problem working with the human ability to choose an extra at-will from their class, and falls to the problem that At-Wills are somewhat of last resorts. The other would be that they recover encounter powers more quickly. This would represent that their is less "power" and more "skill"; a martial exploit might have another chance of working in a single fight. I'd lean towards an encounter power recharging any time you roll a 1 or a 20 on an attack, or when you spend an action point to take an extra action; a 10% chance of getting an encounter power back, plus the option of gaining one from an action point.

Psionic: Psionic already has this built in... power points to customize abilities on the fly.

Primal & Shadow: not sure what to do with these.

Another aspect of providing some unity for power sources will be a pool of common utility powers; any Martial character might be able to choose what's now the Fighter's Boundless Endurance, for example, or every Arcane can learn Shield. I figure each class would contribute one Utility power to the "pool" at each utility level.

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## lesser_minion

My suggestion for martials would be to make their limited resources into explicitly metagame things like re-rolls and retcons. The stronger powers could be limited by power checks (which could also be combined with the first attack roll of the power, where applicable). This seems like it would satisfy both giving them more of a distinct identity and also help to address the whole "why can't my fighter use this kind of strike more than once per day?" complaint.

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## Mark Hall

> My suggestion for martials would be to make their limited resources into explicitly metagame things like re-rolls and retcons. The stronger powers could be limited by power checks (which could also be combined with the first attack roll of the power, where applicable). This seems like it would satisfy both giving them more of a distinct identity and also help to address the whole "why can't my fighter use this kind of strike more than once per day?" complaint.


I'm not quite sure what you mean by "retcons" here?

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## lesser_minion

> I'm not quite sure what you mean by "retcons" here?


Retconning/partially retconning your action after rolling some of the dice. In a power check system, it'd basically be there to reduce the risk of rolling a natural 20 and having it feel terrible because you 'wasted' it on an easy power.

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## Keledrath

Just a quick note, 4e psionics are actually linked to the Far Realm, iirc. I believe it was that psionics basically developed as a kind of "allergic reaction" to far realm incursions. Which is why a handful of psionic Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies have bonuses against aberrant creatures.

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## Garfunion

> Part of the goal here is to provide some commonality between classes of the same Power Source...


In my ongoing pursuit in creating a smaller numbers added to a d20 and adding the bounded accuracy system of 5e to 4e. I stumbled upon the idea of sharing the utility powers list among all classes in the same power source. This idea of course makes it easier for me to edit the powers list and provide a commonality between classes of the same power source.

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## Yakk

Power Sources should be tied to story, in my opinion.




> Divine: Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos, granted by an entity from those


I would make Divine power source be what happens when you have a little shard of a god placed into your soul.

This can be done in multiple ways, hence multiple Divine classes or patterns.



> Arcane: Power from another realm; this is somewhat nebulous, as both Warlocks and Sorcerers make this a difficult assessment. I want to say "Far Realm", but both of those throw that into question.


The split between Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard is a tricky one here.

Sorcerers do Arcane magic innately.
Warlocks get it explicitly provided by some being.
Wizards learn information and use it to cast spells.

Making these coherent is tricky.  What is a spell?  Why is a spell different than a prayer?  That might be a better way to handle it.

I mean, we could make Arcane be the Language of Creation -- but then that steps on Divine lore.

Arcane tends to be more elemental than other kinds of magic, honestly.  Maybe it should be tied to the Elemental Chaos.  Instead of being powered by the Divine, it is powered by the Primordials?

That sort of works; fueled by the power that created the universe, instead of the one that shaped the prime material plane.  The Divine has its language that shaped creation, but the Arcane has the language that brought it into being.

Warlock patrons can provide mortals with access to this power.
Wizards can learn it.
Sorcerers can express it from their blood.

It is a deeper, less friendly kind of magic than Divine magic.  To Divine magic, the soul is the important part; but Primordial magic predates ensouled creatures.

Divine area attacks avoid friendly souls, because it is *soul aware*.  Arcane ones don't, unless the practitioner manually shapes the effect to avoid them.



> Martial: Prime Material, physical action


Again, it is Power Source -- so we should think about (in world) how you got that good.  Martial is the "you trained insanely" and just got gud.




> Primal: Feywild


Primal in baseline 4e is not Feywilde.  It is the Primal Spirits.  I'd make Primal a kind of bargain thing, where you make a deal with one or more spirits.




> Psionic: Prime Material, mental action


Far Realm in 4e baseline.  I like the "allergic reaction to the far realm" and "shards of the living gate" explanation.




> Shadow: Shadowfell


Yep.

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## Mark Hall

> In my ongoing pursuit in creating a smaller numbers added to a d20 and adding the bounded accuracy system of 5e to 4e. I stumbled upon the idea of sharing the utility powers list among all classes in the same power source. This idea of course makes it easier for me to edit the powers list and provide a commonality between classes of the same power source.


I like it; it would also let people cross-role a bit.

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## Morphic tide

For Martial mechanics, one could standardize on wording that allows Encounter and Daily powers to be stacked on At-Wills, the way they run on combining modifiers to actions in 3.5. Would demand on-paper weaker Encounters/Dailies to have room for the inherited At-Will value, but would also free up list space for a lot more reveling in player skill.

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## Yakk

The name I gave in a 4e heartbreaker for a Martial Technique that could be attached to an attack was "Boost".  I don't like it that much anymore, however, as it is very gamey.

If I wanted unified martial mechanics, I might back up and do something like...

Stances provide your baseline attack options.  Some stances are at-will, others are daily.  A few rare stances are per-encounter and have a kicker when you leave it, or a reason to leave it.

*Techniques* apply on top of an attack.  A problem I have is that if you apply a Technique after you hit, combats get very samey-samey (there isn't a chance the technique misses after all).  And if you don't, we get analysis paralysis.

To fix that, one thought I have was opportunity dice.  You roll these dice at the start of your turn.  Based on the value, various techniques can be used this turn.  They represent oppotunities you spotted.

You can get more such dice, or rerolls, as you gain levels.

Now, ideally, technique dice could be replaced with a random draw from a technique deck.  Doubles on a roll corresponds to drawing the same card twice; for that to work, you'll want a reasonably big deck.

One drop-in weaponmaster rebuild had ... 3 dice?  One red, one blue one black.

The black was the daily die, the red was the encounter die, and the blue was the utility die.

Your encounter powers slotted into 1-6 on the encounter die.  Your "per encounter" utility 1-6 on the utility die.  The daily die, if it matched the encounter die, activated the daily attack power in that slot.  If it matched the utility die, it let you use a utility power flagged as daily (otherwise you could not).

No reuse limitations other than that.

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