As you may know, I’m a big Matt Colville fan. I backed his MCDM RPG on Kickstarter, like many, many people have.
During the pitch for the game, Matt talked a lot about how the game is going to be inherently tactical, in a way that 4e was. I was excited about this, and wanted to get a taste of it now, so I found a highly regarded, turn-based, grid-based, tactical combat video game. I found XCOM 2. XCOM is a game about resistance fighters during an alien occupation of Earth. You build up several soldiers, and take them on covert missions to fight against the Aliens. Your soldiers aren’t all the same, they actually have classes. You start the game with four classes, and can unlock others through gameplay.
- Sharpshooter – This soldier is equipped with a sniper rifle, as well as a handgun. Their skills focus on finding an advantageous position, and staying there as long as possible, making huge attacks, but able to defend themselves up close with their handgun.
- Grenadier – This soldier has a minigun, and a double slotted grenade launcher. Their skills focus on being a tank, absorbing lots of damage, as well as destroying cover and armor of your enemies.
- Ranger – This soldier has a sword and a shotgun. Their skills focus on staying hidden, then running right up on a target and cutting them down. They have high mobility, but low armor.
- Specialist – This soldier has a standard rifle, as well as a flying drone they control. Their skills focus on hijacking computers and machines, as well as healing their allies.
These are the four core classes of XCOM, and they remind me a lot of D&D, because many team-based combat games have very similar balances of DPS (Damage per Second or Turn), Tank (damage absorber), and healer (damage reversal).
When fans started theorizing how the MCDM RPG would be designed, I hoped that they would make their class and subclass system reminiscent of the XCOM class system. It doesn’t seem like they are, so here’s how it can work, using the 5e system instead. This has not been tested, just a theory.
XCOM 2 Subclasses
As I mentioned when I broke down the XCOM classes, each class has two different focuses. Whenever your soldier levels up, you don’t get both, you actually have to choose between the two options, how you want your soldier to specialize. The Sharpshooter class abilities are listed below, with simple descriptions.
| Sniper Focus | Gunslinger Focus |
| Long Watch – Be able to make Opportunity attacks from across the battlefield. | Return Fire – When targeted by enemy fire, automatically fire back with your pistol once per turn. |
| Deadeye – Take a shot with a small aim penalty for a significant damage boost. | Lightning Hands – Fire your pistol at a target without costing an action. |
| Death From Above – Killing an enemy from a higher elevation with your sniper rifle allows you to take an extra action. | Quickdraw – Firing your pistol no longer ends your turn. |
| Kill Zone – Take an opportunity attack against any enemy within a cone. | Faceoff – Fire once at every visible enemy with your pistol. |
| Steady Hands – If you didn’t move last turn, gain a bonus to your aim. | Aim – Sacrifice this turn, gain a boost to your aim on your next turn. |
| Serial – Each kill with your sniper restores your actions for this turn. | Fan Fire – Fire your pistol 3 consecutive times at a single target. |
So as you can see, one track focuses on your ability with your sniper rifle, one track focuses on your ability with your handgun. But you don’t have to pick a track and stay with it. Every time you level up, you can choose which of the two you want to have. This allows you to have a degree of focus that you want. If you want to be full sniper, you can. If you want to be mainly handgun, except for one or two sniper abilities, you can. It’s entirely up to you each time.
Make It 5e
What if you could do this with 5e subclasses? What if when you get a Subclass ability, you can choose between the core class ability, or the subclass ability? Of course, I wouldn’t want that to mean you have fewer abilities. So how do we give the Core Class more abilities that can be chosen at the same time as the Subclass, without making it overpowered?
You make one of the subclasses just part of the core class. You take the most basic subclass, the one that the designers consider the basic, and make it the core class. We know which ones the designers consider the basic, because it’s the one that is in the SRD. That’s how they design it, they come up with a basic version of the class, then expand from there. Now when you get to take a subclass feature, you have a choice of how simple or diverse you want to play the character.
Example: Cleric
Let’s say you have a Cleric character. At first level you choose your Divine Domain, and you can choose from anything, except for Life Domain, as that’s now core to the class. A player in my game right now is playing a Trickery Cleric, so let’s choose that.
At Level 1, you get your first Divine Domain. Would you like the Bonus Proficiency and Disciple of Life (Life/Core) or Blessing of the Trickster (Trickery)? Would you like the spells Burning Hands and Faerie Fire, or Charm Person and Disguise Self? These are two separate options you can make. It’s made clear which are the core options, so new players can feel comfortable making the easy choice, knowing it’s not a wrong one.
At Level 2, you can choose to your Channel Divinity to be Preserve Life (Life/Core) or Invoke Duplicity (Trickery).
Each Divine Domain feature (levels 1, 2, 6, 8, and 17) you get to make a choice of how basic or specific you want your Cleric to be.
- Barbarians – Path of the Berserker
- Bard – College of Lore
- Cleric – Life Domain
- Druid – Circle of the Land
- Fighter – Champion
- Monk – Way of the Open Hand
- Paladin – Oath of Devotion
- Ranger – Hunter
- Rogue – Thief
- Sorcerer – Draconic Bloodline
- I’d actually probably do Wild Magic, as it’s less thematic than Draconic Bloodline
- Warlock – Fiend Patron
- Wizard – School of Evocation
- I’d probably do School of Abjuration, again because defensive spells seem more compatible with the most amount of other schools.
Are all of these perfect? No, some of these are certainly easier to implement then others. But it would allow PC’s more options after choosing their subclass at 1st or 3rd level.
But What About MinMaxing?
Doesn’t this just give more potential problems of broken characters?
Yes, it does. If you already have problems with your players combining different feats with subclasses and making ridiculous combinations, then don’t try this out.
If your a player, and you just like making characters to see how different abilities react to each other, this can just be a fun thought exercise. A new way to come up with new build theories.
At my table, my players aren’t focused on maximizing their abilities. We play very character-focused games, and when they choose their class or subclass, it’s based on their backstory, not the other way around. When they choose their spells, they don’t make sure they have a melee spell and a range spell, a damage spell and a healing spell, a buff and a debuff. They choose spells that feel like the kinds of things their character would be interested in studying. If they mutliclass, it’s not for the combination, it’s because something happened in story, that made them interested in a new set of abilities to study.
This might not be for you, and again this hasn’t been playtested. This is just a cool idea I had from a video game, that would give my players more options, more agency in how they wanted to grow their characters. How basic or specialized do you want to be? It’s up to you!
Maybe the folks at MCDM might be thinking of something similar, and I’ll be even more excited to play the game.
The Nerdd 