Cinco: Class Templates

Vodka Gobalsky / Gin Bradbury gave me a much better idea for a name for FIVEY / FMCNEXT / D&DEEEEE that meets my very strict aesthetic requirements. Going with Cinco now! Anyway, there is an obvious lineage between Cinco and the GLOG insofar as both reduce class features to very simple one-paragraph descriptions, and reduce characters to just a handful of those paragraphs. However, there's problems with each approach that I want to tackle.

While playing Cinco and making characters, the amount of feats past 0-level are kind of overwhelming. Sure, you only need to pick up to 4 over the course of the campaign but, the way it was, there's big lists of feats to pick by category with little guidance for how they might interface or synergize. Like if you want a magic or martial feat, you have your choice out of 10 in either basket. That's obscene.

The GLOG make this easier by defining character classes as templates of 4 feats. Just pick what class you want to play, and you're good to go. My only problem, and it's not a problem except that I demand total flexibility which is obviously totally unrealistic, is that the feats (1) must be taken in sequence, (2) build on each other rather than working independently, and (3) may depend on a general class definition or power. The biggest example of this is the wizard where you gain magic dice each level, learn potentially better spells each level, and rely upon an overarching magic system.

So my goals for Cinco feats are:

• Grouped into class-based picklists to guide players.
• Can be picked arbitrarily and non-sequentially.
  
• Independent of other feats, without pre-requisites.
• Qualitative, i.e. independent of aspect bonuses.
  

And here's my attempt! Rather than associating feats with classes per se, I might try associating them with backgrounds to make it even easier? But that's a question of arranging the text itself, which is a more annoying topic than imagining how it will play in practice.

Feat Templates

Cleric

Pairs with the Acolyte background.

• Divine Blessing: Spend 1 rest action to cure an ally of an ailment, restore hit points equal to their healing rate, or make them resistant against a certain type of damage for the next day.
• Guardian Angel: Summon one invisible servant with the physical capabilities of an average person but supernatural powers such as levitation and without physiological needs such as oxygen. They cannot harm (this is from Nick's ORWA campaign! really fun).
• Multiply Food: Spend 1 rest action to convert an inadequate number of meals into enough to feed as many creatures as desired for the day. The food must be consumed immediately.
• Turn Undead: Spend 1 combat action to force a contest against all undead monsters within 2 paces; those who lose the contest are frightened and cannot move towards you lest they take d6 holy damage.

Knight

Pairs with the Noble background.

• Charge: Make a free melee attack at the end of your turn if you spend both actions moving.
• Feint: Give yourself or an ally advantage against a creature witin melee range of your figure.
• Mount: If you stay in place for your entire turn while mounted, your mount makes a free attack.
• Rally: Spend inspiration to give allies an attack bonus against all who target an enemy you choose.

Mage

Pairs with the Sage background.

• Elemental Adept: Ignore a target’s resistance or make a neutral target vulnerable against magic you cast for an element of your choice; the target can be a creature, a surface, or any mass.
• Maleficence: Spend inspiration to deal that many d6s of elemental damage against an enemy, potentially subject to resistance or vulnerability.
• Sorcery: Cast a spell without destroying its physical form by spending inspiration equal to its level; this also applies to mental copies of spells, which are otherwise also destroyed when cast.
• Wizardry: Spend 1 rest action to copy a spell onto your brain so you need not carry its physical form, up to a number equal to your level. Also start each adventure with as many spells thus “memorized” as possible.

Rogue

Pairs with the Spy background.

• Assassinate: Gain advantage if you attack a surprised enemy.
• Lucky Strike: If you have advantage on an attack roll, treat it as two attacks rather than one.
• Sneak: Gain 1 free combat action to move or hide.
• Swipe: If an enemy moves out of your reach, make a free attack against them.

Warrior

Pairs with the Veteran background.

• Champion: Add your level to your hit points, and increase your weapon's damage die by one step.
• Cleave: When you defeat an enemy, make a free attack against another one adjacent to you.
• Riposte: When an enemy misses you, make a free attack against them.
• Sure Strike: When you add inspiration to an attack or maneuver roll, deal damage equal to that amount even if you miss or wouldn’t usually deal damage.
  

Thoughts

This is a lot of, I don't know a better phrase, positivist design. It feels almost like writing boilerplate except it isn't really because it's all new and from scratch. It's the sheer quantity that feels suffocating. Maybe it's that when it comes to rules, my tendency is to cut and simplify rather than like actually write rules? Which isn't a bad thing except then this feels like a chore just to have something solid that exists so you don't need to come up with it on the spot later.

I also worry about, as always, how this will be presented or arranged in the context of the larger... text. Are these separate from origins or backgrounds, which by themselves are just an aspect plus a feat? Are they attached strictly to backgrounds, so if you're a veteran then eventually you will become a full-fledged fighter? What about having a bunch of cute feats, unassociated with any background/class? It's funny realizing to what extent I don't want to write this or any game, but also that it won't exist unless I do.

That being said, I think these all hit the spot pretty well as individual feats? The magic ones were difficult because they had to encapsulate a lot of typical magic functionality into one paragraph, and then I had to come up with other feats that would complement those, but I think it worked out?

Another question: for a while I've been assuming that characters would have 4 class-inspired feats, spread across either 4 or 10 levels depending on what pacing feels better. But is that satisfying? Should feats that I wrote for backgrounds be part of their associated class set instead? But isn't it weird in that those feel like background feats, whereas the others feel like they can be taken in any order at any time? Maybe list feats in order with the caveat that they can be taken out of order?

Since I prefer early over late game anyway, maybe this is an opportunity to ignore all this and come back to it later. Time for actual creative stuff!