So, the other thread about the fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard classification got me thinking, and, as I posted there, there are two separate categorizations:
1) Mechanical categories: Martial, Skill, Magic
2) Roles: Fighter, Healer, Skill-monkey, Agent of Change (more commonly referred to as Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard).
And thought about how to break the class structure down using these concepts.
- Martial
- Attacker — Barbarian
- Defender — Paladin
- Skill Monkey — Monk
- Agent of Change — Fighter
- Skilled
- Attacker — Ranger
- Defender — Druid
- Skill Monkey — Rogue
- Agent of Change — Bard
- Magic
- Attacker — Warlock
- Defender — Cleric
- Skill Monkey — Sorcerer
- Agent of Change — Wizard
And it fits together surprisingly well, though I'm a little uncertain on Monk vs Fighter roles in the Martial section. I changed Healer to Defender, as that's the more general umbrella role being served. The Agent of Change
should be the one who has the most capability to completely alter any encounter scenario due to the tools they have available. They can "change the scene".
Other than that, you have the Attacker role, whose job is to make things dead, and the Skill Monkey, who can dance around all the rules that the others have to abide by.
The Magic category classes are all full casters. The Martial category are mostly non-casters, but could get 1/3 casting in a subclass, and can push to 1/2 caster on Paladin. The Skilled category is flexible, covering the entire range of non, 1/3, 1/2, and full casting.
Extra Attack shows up in all the Martial classes, as well as the Skilled Attacker (Ranger), and one subclass of Bard. Again the Skilled category shows that it's pulling things from various different areas, depending on specialty.
The mechanical category shapes what sorts of abilities are likely to show up, while the role category shapes how they are likely to be applied. Subclasses would allow you to shape the class into a different role, or a different flavor of the role. (EG: Barbarian Totem and Ancestral Guardian subclasses tend to shift it to a Defender role.)
Anyway, taken this way, instead of just a flat, alphabetical list, it seems much easier to grasp how things would be built. New classes would have to explicitly sit next to existing classes, competing for the same role (and thus having to justify their existence as something other than a subclass), unless you created an entirely new mechanical category. For example, if you added a Crafting mechanic as a class category, you might be able to do something like:
- Crafting
- Attacker — ???
- Defender — Alchemist
- Skill Monkey — Engineer
- Agent of Change — Artificer
Not sure what to put in the Attacker slot. Which kind of illustrates the difficulty with this expansion approach.
So, suppose you wanted to add a Mystic class. Does it fill a new role? Not really. Does it add a new mechanic? Nope; it can fit under Magic. So it has to sit next to an existing class, and prove that it is unique enough to merit existing that way, or it has to be formed as a subclass. Honestly, it sounds like a reskinned Sorcerer (innate casting class), so I would make it a subclass or alternate implementation of Sorcerer. (Of course, that requires that the classes have to be designed to be able to accept those sorts of modifications.)
