How Many Classes Do We Really Need?

No, sorcerer is a name for a profession. A class, if you will.

If the system supports allowing a wizard to opt for spontaneous casting, which it sounds like it will, there's no need for a separate class.

So you have wizard: spellbook, wizard: spontaneous, wizard: at-will, etc.

Savage Wombat said:

If the system supports allowing a wizard to opt for spontaneous casting, which it sounds like it will, there's no need for a separate class.

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Precisely. So hopefully, we will not see "Sorcerer" in the class list...but the 'Theme" list.

Savage Wombat said:

So you have wizard: spellbook, wizard: spontaneous, wizard: at-will, etc.

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Apologies if this is an obviously answered question...but how does "spontaneous" and "at will" differ in play/crunch?...or narrative/fluff?

steeldragons said:

Apologies if this is an obviously answered question...but how does "spontaneous" and "at will" differ in play/crunch?...or narrative/fluff?

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Well, the original 3.5 warlock was an "at will" caster because he could use any power he had as often as he wanted. So that's one.

A 3.5 sorcerer had a list, and limited spell slots, but could choose what to spend them on spontaneously. That's two.

And in 4.0 both classes had the AEDU power's list. That makes three.

And naturally we've got the classic "prepared spells" wizard. So I'm at four.

So unless we introduce a spell point system (which may be) we've got four, minimum, ways of casting spells from the wizard list in order to have full backwards compatibility.

Did I miss any?

But there is more to a class than just mechanics, it is also flavor and role. A sorcerer is way more than just a spontaneous wizard. It also bears a different flavor, skill set and niche. As witnessed by the treatment 4e made of them (they are strikers where wizards are controllers) and how the character options of the late 3.5 treated them (giving sorcerers not only feats to differentiate their heritage, but also giving them optons to be more melee oriented).

Also a Warlock was way more than just an at-will wizard. And a warlock and a sorcerer are distinct enough between themselves. Compressing them all into a single class and leaving themes and backgrounds to differentiate betweem them would not only make them fiddly and more complex, that also would deprive us of the chance of customizing them, because we have already used up the customization tools just to get the standard, run-of-the-mill wizard, warlock and sorcerer.

ArmoredSaint said:

The "Core Four" are good enough; everything else can be represented by the right combinations of themes and backgrounds layered on top.

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Not if the Core Four wizard is a Vancian* caster, they're not! I am seriously freaking tired of having all arcane casters shoved into the box of that stupid, stupid mechanic. 3E was the only edition that gave us other options, and it's the one thing I really love about 3E. I accept that there are those who love the Vancian wizard, and by all means 5E should support those people. But I am not one of them and hate being forced to use their system if I want to play an arcanist.

And I don't see any indication that the wizard class will have a non-Vancian option in 5E. I don't really see how it could--it's not like Vancian casting is a little fillip on top of the class, it's built into it right down to the core. A theme that stripped away Vancian casting would require gutting the class to such an extent that you might as well just make a new class anyway. So give us the sorceror and the warlock and leave it at that. Vance-lovers are happy. Vance-haters are happy. It's all good.

Then, once you finish up with the arcanists, there are psions (don't like psionics myself, but it is very definitely Its Own Thing); monks (sorta fighters, sorta rogues, sorta clerics, not really any of the above); and bards, as you yourself point out. There are probably a few other oddballs I'm forgetting right now.

[SIZE=-2]*Clarification: By "Vancian," I mean that they rely heavily on fire-and-forget abilities, where each ability is like a grenade. You throw it and then it's gone, and you can't use it again until you rest and restock your grenades. In classic 4E, every class is Vancian. Essentials made it possible to play a mostly non-Vancian fighter or rogue, but wizards were still stuck with it.[/SIZE]

DEFCON 1 said:

Druids aren't the specialty priests of the nature god... they are their own group, gaining their power and abilities from their own primal source (the spirits of the prime plane). You do that... then yes, absolutely Druid should be its own class. And then wardens and shaman could be backgrounds or themes to be taken.

And my reference to warlocks above? If Druids for some reason do not get classified as a nature god specialty priest (and instead are their own special case where they get their power from nature itself), but are still considered a Divine class... then the game is basically redefining what Divine means. It no longer means your power is granted to you from a GOD, but rather that your power is granted to you from someone or something.

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Divine encompasses "power from nature" just as much as it does "power from gods" because bivine energy is granted by the beings at the heart of a religion. Priest : polytheism :: druid : pantheism (alternatively, cleric : monolatrism :: shaman : animism).

Fighting-man, Magic-user, Cleric

Three.

Neonchameleon said:

First my most controversial theory is that the rogue doesn't need to be a class so much as a fighter specialty.

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I'm with you in spirit.

Eldritch_Lord said:

Divine encompasses "power from nature" just as much as it does "power from gods" because bivine energy is granted by the beings at the heart of a religion. Priest : polytheism :: druid : pantheism (alternatively, cleric : monolatrism :: shaman : animism).

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I'd buy it if pantheism was ever a part of D&D cosmology, but that's pretty much never really been the case. But even if it was... that would put Cleric and Druid on equal footing in my eyes (polytheism and pantheism being two sides of a divine coin), rather than Druid being sublimated underneath the Cleric.

I actually believe the Druid really should be a part of the "Big Five" of classes, as the main class of the pantheistic (or primal) source of power in D&D.

Druids certainly fit an impersonal divinity, while clerics in D&D have become closely associated with personal gods.