One way to do this, rather than going completely classless, is to broaden the concept of “character class” to the four class roles, Defender, Striker, Controller and Leader, each with it’s own generic mechanic promoting the role. This would determine defensive bonuses, hit points, healing surges, etc. as well as basic function.

From there, players choose a power source similar to the way you mentioned, from which to draw their powers. Each power source could have a unique mechanic for each of the generic role function mechanics that enhances it’s effect. For instance the striker’s extra damage mechanic could do an extra die of damage to a single foe for the Martial source, while a Divine striker’s extra damage does damage equal to the relevant ability modifier to foes adjacent to the target.

You could also institute a favored ability mechanic, similar to Castles & Crusades, wherein the player chooses a favored attribute for their character, granting them a +1 for all roles pertaining to this attribute, increasing to +2 at paragon tier and +3 at epic tier, effectively replacing the weapon expertise and implement expertise feats.

I would do away with class skills and allow characters to choose 5 trained skills from the entire list. Access to extra power sources and class features can be purchased using multi-class feats.

No thoughts as yet on how to go about adjudicating weapon and armor proficiencies.

Joshua Sorenson (Shazbot)’s last blog post was Blog Archive Update