Are classes like the Samurai superfluous?

[Shinkuro]

the big issue with the tier 1 classes comes from Vancian Casting. and the fact they have access to their complete lists.

a more balanced spellcasting class would be one that has a limited list of spells known (like a sorcerer) and a power point system (Like DSP Psionics). something like restricting the amount of known spells could give spellcasters a unique identity based on their specialty. even with full access to the complete spell list, the flavors would be determined by choice. but i would allow such a class to choose it's spellcasting stat and class skills to model different styles of casting and different backgrounds. from a rebel prince like Lelouch (charisma dependant, focused on controlling minds and bending wills, has a high diplomacy, sense motive, bluff, intimidate, knowledge of nobility, and spellcraft), or a Shrine Maiden like Hakurei Reimu (wisdom dependant, focused on dispelling and creation of wards, healing of wounds, and exorcising demons, has high heal, diplomacy, knowledge of religion, perception, sense motive, and spellcraft), to a Dragon Priest (Strength Dependant, focused on water manipulation and healing, Has high Perception, Diplomacy, Swim, Sense Motive, Knowledge of Arcana and Religion)  or Shinigami Blooded Necromancer (High Constitution for casting, focuses on necromantic debuffs, and has swim, perception, diplomacy, heal, harvesting and sense motive due to her shinigami background.)

[veekie]

Not always a good idea to go fully generic, the advantage of using class structure is structured abilities, and too much variety(especially deep seated variety like what you mention) can undermine that. In a class structure you can get earlier and later abilities to play off and synergize with each other, which grows more difficult the more options there are. You can also stave off both the need for optimization(by building required features for their core styles directly into the class) and the potential for optimization(by required certain degrees of investment to get what you want)

[Shinkuro]

Not always a good idea to go fully generic, the advantage of using class structure is structured abilities, and too much variety(especially deep seated variety like what you mention) can undermine that. In a class structure you can get earlier and later abilities to play off and synergize with each other, which grows more difficult the more options there are. You can also stave off both the need for optimization(by building required features for their core styles directly into the class) and the potential for optimization(by required certain degrees of investment to get what you want)

fully generic means less need to produce a bunch of books and the books can produce archetypes instead. the classes could be presented as example packages.

[zugschef]

generic is the opposite of a class-based concept. i personally prefer either or, not some hybrid.

[Shinkuro]

generic is the opposite of a class-based concept. i personally prefer either or, not some hybrid.

a series of design it yourself type classes could work wonders in the d20 system. allowing players who want the excess freedom to utilize it. they would probably be slightly weaker than a prepackaged class to make up for the flexibility.

Example Packages

D10 Full BAB 2 good saves, 4 spell levels 4+int skills choose 9 class skills to accompany craft/profession

D8 3/4 BAB 2 good saves 6 spell levels 6+int skills treat all skills as class skills

D6 1/2 BAB 2 good saves 9 spell levels, 4+ int skills  choose 9 class skills to accompany craft/profession/knowledge

all 3 packages would choose their class features and spells from a pair of master lists akin to rage powers or rogue talents, but would have level restrictions. but the prepackaged classes would generally be better at a given predetermined task.

[sirpercival]

This sounds familiar...

[Eldritch_Lord]

the big issue with the tier 1 classes comes from Vancian Casting.

Vancian casting isn't inherently problematic, and in fact is much better than a point-based system when it comes to preventing novas and spell spamming.  The reason the Vancian prepared casters are Tier 1 and the point-based psionic classes are Tier 2 is that there are almost 2000 spells to choose from and the T1 casters can learn as many of them as they want and change their selection daily, as you mentioned, while there are at best a few hundred powers to choose from and the T2 manifesters can only learn a limited number of them, not because of the Vancian vs. points distinction itself.

This is demonstrated pretty well by the fact that the spell-to-power erudite (who is a psion with a bazillion powers to choose from and unlimited powers known) is also T1, and arguable more powerful than the T1 casters despite the unique powers limit because he chooses "prepared" spells on the fly and can access effects that psionics has and magic doesn't, making him more T1 Always Prepared than the T1 casters themselves.

a series of design it yourself type classes could work wonders in the d20 system. allowing players who want the excess freedom to utilize it. they would probably be slightly weaker than a prepackaged class to make up for the flexibility.

If you're going to do that you might as well go full point-based instead of trying a class/points hybrid.  Now, it's possible to have a more customizable class-based system by using things like advancing in multiple classes at once (gestalt, dual-progression PrCs), having small "subclasses" that you can either detour into instead of your main class (PrCs, racial paragons) or bolt onto your existing class (ACFs, the "+1 level existing class features" PrCs).

Something like divorcing class special abilities from the base chassis and letting players mix and match those could work fairly well (so e.g. you could stick the rogue abilities on the ranger or fighter chassis for more of a thuggish enforcer, or on the wizard chassis for more of a combat-averse scoundrel, and so forth), as could taking the mostly-useless classes like CW samurai or healer and turning them into feats/talents/ACFs/etc. for "real" classes, but making a build-your-own-class system for player use really suffers from the disadvantages of both class-based and points-based systems.

[dman11235]

I've done an exploration on exactly why vancian casting (or, rather, /day abilities) are indeed inherently problematic before, and I can do it again.  The basic gist of the issue is that /day abilities need to be inherently good enough to justify making yourself weaker for the rest of the day, yet not make you weaker for the rest of the day.  Even if you did actually take the penalty, you can just rest, and resume, creating the 1 encounter adventuring day issue that exists, eliminating the problems but still reaping the rewards from the increased power.  This is a problem with ALL /day abilities, but it's not always "too powerful" with the outcome.  It turns the power into a binary, either too powerful or worthless.  See: Stunning Fist.  That feat would be pretty cool if it wasn't a /day ability.  Spells are worthless unless they are more powerful than they should be, and encounter ending (otherwise, you just wasted an action AND a resource).  The real reason powers are less affected is because of the fact that you can choose the power of the...power..., and you have the smaller amount of utility (wizards can choose the spells they want that day, psions are stuck with known powers)

[Eldritch_Lord]

I've done an exploration on exactly why vancian casting (or, rather, /day abilities) are indeed inherently problematic before, and I can do it again.

Power points are also per-day resources, though, just more granular ones.  I'm not saying that Vancian doesn't have any problems at all, just that the problems identified with Vancian casting were actually problems with any per-day resources, and if you're comparing Vancian to power points (or any other per-day resource, for that matter) they handle certain problems better and so aren't strictly inferior.  You can solve several of the problems mentioned while still keeping the system Vancian; for instance, if you think automatic spell scaling is a problem and the augmentation system is better, you can use spell level a la Heighten Spell instead of caster level and require more powerful spells to be prepared in higher-level slots, but that's still a Vancian approach.

[dman11235]

Please read the rest of my post.  Thank you.  I did indeed bring up the problems with manifesting and its relation to /day abilities, and pointed out why they are better.

[Eldritch_Lord]

I did read the rest of your post, thank you.  The points you brought up were that:

• Per-day abilities need to be good enough to justify using up, which is the same concern whether you're using up 1/40 spells or 20/300 power points;
• Per-day abilities need to not weaken you for the rest of the day, which is the same concern for both magic and psionics because neither has any inherent penalties for use and buffs can last quite a while;
• Per-day abilities create the 15-minute work day, which is the same whether you're dumping four encounters' worth of prepared spells on one encounter or four encounters' worth of power points on one encounter;
• Per-day abilities are too binary, which is always the case in D&D given its save and AC paradigm; both spells and powers can be either too powerful or worthless, and the marginal utility of being able to spend juuust enough PP for a certain effect (assuming you can figure out exactly how much you need to use) is basically the same as lower-level spells auto-scaling by CL.
• Powers are more limited due to having less utility than spells, which is entirely a function of the number of spells published vs. number of powers published and the flavor of magic vs. psionics, and has nothing to do with Vancian vs. points itself.

So what benefits does manifesting have that Vancian doesn't, exactly, and what drawbacks does Vancian have that manifesting doesn't?  Spells are just as broken (if not more so) if you use the UA spell point system, and psionic powers don't suddenly break the game more if you use Vancian instead of points with them, and the brokenness of spells has nothing to do with the actual resource management systems.

[zugschef]

vancian casting at least prevents spamming. and most problems with spellcasting in dnd is based on overpowered spells.

[veekie]

Per-day abilities need to not weaken you for the rest of the day, which is the same concern for both magic and psionics because neither has any inherent penalties for use and buffs can last quite a while;

Depends on availability. If high, like D&D(you literally cannot finish using them across the standard 4 encounter day), then having a penalty(one that lasts across multiple encounters) induces the player to avoid blowing them in the early encounters...or encourages the 1 round work day if nova is still possible.
Lots of ways to manage this.

Per-day abilities create the 15-minute work day, which is the same whether you're dumping four encounters' worth of prepared spells on one encounter or four encounters' worth of power points on one encounter;

Indeed. There is some leeway where resources are concerned, though D&D tends to focus on the daily effects.

Encounter resources are instanced, which makes them good for combat balance because their availability is consistent, and their refresh cannot be hurried, but terrible for dramatic tension because you don't weaken.
Hourly(or similar gradated regeneration methods where you recover X amount of Y resource every interval), gives a middle ground, they work for pacing and tension because it's just fast enough that waiting it out feels cheap(a psyche tactic mainly) but the party would tend to preserve some in reserve so they can take the next encounter with their usual ease if it turns up early. It can also mean that fully nova-ing puts you at below a day's worth of recovery, which gives you deep reserves to push through a boss encounter or campaign, while discouraging reckless expenditure because it's too much trouble to sit it out.

Campaign resources take extended time, peace and often specific locations to get back in more than trickles. It's a pretty quick way to ensure people are miserly with their resources. Not always suited to the group, since a lot of players can't manage things on this timescale well. It does preserve peak capability while lowering median capability though.

Per-day abilities are too binary, which is always the case in D&D given its save and AC paradigm; both spells and powers can be either too powerful or worthless, and the marginal utility of being able to spend juuust enough PP for a certain effect (assuming you can figure out exactly how much you need to use) is basically the same as lower-level spells auto-scaling by CL.

More or less a D&D-ism, nothing to do with the resource model. A bunch of spells generate absolute or unresisted effects, others don't. So some effects last until an immunity consistently comes into play which obsoletes them. While other stuff would go in a bell curve(unavailable->potent but limited->impotent and unlimited), absolute effects is basically a plateau, once it becomes available, it'd always be relevant.

There are a lot more, but pretty much all the factors are rooted in D&D 'traditions' and resource models. What psionics give over vancian is more granular access to power, and more things cost appropriate to their effects(due to augments, you'd generally be spending the right amount of resource proportion to challenge ratio) Vancian is also much, much bigger resource pool than psionics, allowing effectively endless stamina.

[dman11235]

My point was that both suffer from those problems.  So yeah, I agree with you, manifesting is problematic.  The issue was that powers are less problematic, but due to an entirely separate issue (limited utility, reason psion is tier 2, and spell-to-power erudite is tier 1).