D&D 5E Class Inclusion Criteria (general discussion)

[FitzTheRuke]

My attitude is that if you're going to introduce a new class, you should cover as much untrodden ground as possible. I like the idea of a nonmagical support class, but a 4E-style warlord overlaps too much with the battlemaster fighter. What I would like to see would be a "noble" class, where you provide inspiration and leadership and tactical advantages, but swinging a sword is optional (probably a subclass option, like a Valor bard).

Basically, make the "lazy warlord" into the core of the class and then let non-lazy warlords be a subclass of that.

I've been saying that too. Warlord would be a fine name for the subclass that puts the warrior back in the otherwise support-king class. It's just been tricky to find a name. Maybe somone should make a name-the-not-exactly-warlord thread. Not that people would be happy with another Warlord thread...

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[Dualazi]

Overall, pretty great post, and one that I think does apply to future discussions beyond the recent influx of warlord discussions.

The balance section is correct in theory but somewhat disingenuous in regards to the warlord in particular, however, as one of the big reasons there’s still a push for it as a standalone class is exactly what you mention; people are well aware that a fighter chassis with full warlord ability is overpowered. Broadly speaking, I think people are quite content with a low damage character that can sufficiently fill the role of nonmagical buffer/healer, which in the minds of a large number of warlord fans isn’t reproducible at this time.

Back on the topic of balance at large, it somewhat has to be a two-way street, though, and I admit I’m certainly guilty of knee-jerk reactions from time to time. What I’m getting at is that it’s a tricky art to balance across campaigns, tables, and the class as a whole. The Artificer’s Thunder Monger or whatever it’s called looks super overpowered at a glance, but the base class has so little innate fighting power that it works out.

I'm more a fan of subtractive design. Here's a good blurb I found:

"Subtractive design is the process of removing imperfections and extraneous parts in order to strengthen the core elements. You can think of a design as something you build up, construct and let grow, but it’s pruning away the excess that gives a design a sense of simplicity, elegance, and power."

So in order to add something as heavy as a class, it has a significant burden of inclusion to overcome. Saying "this is as good as a PHB class, we should add it" will be met with "we should be cutting the fat from the existing classes before even thinking of adding another. Tell you what, cut a PHB class that you feel this new one fulfills iconic roles better".

No, that one-size-fits-all approach doesn't always work. There are genuinely new ideas that we do need to cover. But it's a starting point for a conversation of "if I had to drop something to include this, would I?". Proves worth and help combat bloat.

This doesn’t really apply to D&D though. Other fantasy RPGs can and have boiled classes down to 3, and you could conceivably go lower with 2, magic and non-magic. Problem is that it gets messy, often doesn’t have the necessary granularity for desired distinctiveness, and of course goes against the history of the game that is still enjoyed by many. As others have pointed out, with the eldritch knight framework you can already cross off paladin and ranger, and probably barbarians as well. I don’t advocate that of course, but the potential to include a theme or concept within another class isn’t in and of itself a reason to not create it as a standalone class.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Overall, pretty great post, and one that I think does apply to future discussions beyond the recent influx of warlord discussions.

The balance section is correct in theory but somewhat disingenuous in regards to the warlord in particular, however, as one of the big reasons there’s still a push for it as a standalone class is exactly what you mention; people are well aware that a fighter chassis with full warlord ability is overpowered. Broadly speaking, I think people are quite content with a low damage character that can sufficiently fill the role of nonmagical buffer/healer, which in the minds of a large number of warlord fans isn’t reproducible at this time.

Back on the topic of balance at large, it somewhat has to be a two-way street, though, and I admit I’m certainly guilty of knee-jerk reactions from time to time. What I’m getting at is that it’s a tricky art to balance across campaigns, tables, and the class as a whole. The Artificer’s Thunder Monger or whatever it’s called looks super overpowered at a glance, but the base class has so little innate fighting power that it works out.



This doesn’t really apply to D&D though. Other fantasy RPGs can and have boiled classes down to 3, and you could conceivably go lower with 2, magic and non-magic. Problem is that it gets messy, often doesn’t have the necessary granularity for desired distinctiveness, and of course goes against the history of the game that is still enjoyed by many. As others have pointed out, with the eldritch knight framework you can already cross off paladin and ranger, and probably barbarians as well. I don’t advocate that of course, but the potential to include a theme or concept within another class isn’t in and of itself a reason to not create it as a standalone class.

I think that last bit is the point I was trying to make with my dissing the Paladin.

D&D would probably be well-served with only the four main classes, and everything else subclasses. (Actually 2ed did just that, but only really as headers). Of course, the base-class chassis would have to be lighter than it is.

But that's not how 5e works. So there's room for a few more classes. The most probable candidates seem to me, the Artificer/Alchemist, the Psion/Mystic, the Noble/Warlord, and perhaps the Shaman (though I personally think that could work as a spirit-beastmaster druid, but maybe I don't understand what the Shaman is to a Shaman fan).

That's about it, as far as I can tell.

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[Li Shenron]

If those classes pass the first four criteria, and higher priority classes have already been done, then there is no reason why there shouldn't be a warlord or artificer or whatever introduced into the game officially (assuming the developers are still creating that sort of content).

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve with this thread, but the problem for me is that we cannot even agree on whether a new classes "passes the first four criteria", because even those are subjective.

For example, IMHO both the Warlord and the Artificer fail 3 criteria out of 4, but I am pretty sure that other people would argue that they pass all 4 with flying colors...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Speaking of redundancy... How is the Paladin not just a Fighter-Cleric? Has anyone ever bothered to play a multiclass Fighter-Cleric? What would be the point with the Paladin existing?

Eh?

The Paladin is Sir Lancelot. A Fighter/Cleric is Friar Tuck.

The Paladin has no place in the priestly hierarchy. He isn't a cleric/priest at all. He's just a man of virtue. In 5E, this means among other things that his spells aren't based on Wisdom.

 

[Dualazi]

Eh?

The Paladin is Sir Lancelot. A Fighter/Cleric is Friar Tuck.

The Paladin has no place in the priestly hierarchy. He isn't a cleric/priest at all. He's just a man of virtue. In 5E, this means among other things that his spells aren't based on Wisdom.

Except that whether it's part of the priestly hierarchy or not is entirely campaign dependent, and more to the point, the claim was that a fighter/cleric could sufficiently replace the paladin thematically and mechanically. If you squint, then this does appear to be the case, since he's still a heavy-armor character with multiple attacks, some low level spells and an affinity for the divine (which can easily be refluffed as a byproduct of virtue). This really is the cause for this thread as a whole, since there are people who claim you can achieve X unreleased class by mixing features Y and Z, and others claiming that there's too much effort or thematic baggage attached for that to be a real solution.

This is ultimately why I support class expansion, because I would agree that a paladin is more than a cleric/fighter, just as I would say that a warlord is more than a bard/PDK or a shaman is more than a druid/ranger.

 

[Li Shenron]

* precedent: has the class existed in previous editions and/or does it have a clear established identity with D&D?

This is actually so not-necessary and yet not-sufficient that it can be a moot point...

Just because a class was published in a supplement (or in a core book of maybe a short-lived and harshly contested edition) is not sufficient.

And neither is mandatory, consider that every class except the oldest 3 have entered the game at some point, obviously without prior inclusion.

If they come up with an unprecedented class idea that captures everybody's attention, we'll be happy to handwave the "precedent rule". And yet an edition could function fairly well even without some previously major class.

 

[Blue]

Seriously, though, while I agree with Subtractive Design in principle, it's not something D&D is capable of doing, without edition changes. (Which is almost certainly why there ARE edition changes, beyond selling all the books all over again!)

Ah, late night posting. My comment was too absolute not to be taken literally as this response and [MENTION=6855537]Dualazi[/MENTION] did, but it was really the last statement that is important here, to combat bloat which is a real danger and has happened to every single edition of D&D.

Being well designed and balanced are just what you need to get into the door to be considered for a new class. It's like requisite skills on the resume that without you don't even get the interview. But I think the barrier to add something new should be that it is at least as iconic as the existing classes. That there are at least as many archetypes, characters in books and stories, that when someone mentioned their name you leap to "Oh, they're an X".

And that's one of the interesting things about settings with different feel. That number is reduced all around, perhaps just to what you want for that setting. If Dark Sun wants to remove all divine classes, add in a differentiation between preservers and defilers for arcane magic, and add in new races and psionics - well, that's the feel for that setting. Go for it. (But still watch out for bloat.)

 

[Aldarc]

But here's where it gets tricky, and comes up in every thread about potential new classes (not just the warlord): the final point--balance with other classes. Nearly everyone from a previous edition has a favorite class type. But what I see too often is people will try to import that class and its mechanics into the new edition without taking this final bullet point into consideration. For example in one of those warlord threads going around, it was argued that a warlord should be able to do things equivalent to, and as often as, a haste spell (and other spells). But there was no give. I.e., the warlord would still have all the abilities of a fighter, PLUS all the other extra stuff of a wizard or cleric, or whatever.

Massive mischaracterization of an argument detected.

 

[TwoSix]

Being well designed and balanced are just what you need to get into the door to be considered for a new class. It's like requisite skills on the resume that without you don't even get the interview. But I think the barrier to add something new should be that it is at least as iconic as the existing classes. That there are at least as many archetypes, characters in books and stories, that when someone mentioned their name you leap to "Oh, they're an X".

I would probably clarify that they need to be at least as iconic and recognizable some of the less "recognized" classes; it's pretty hard to identify any class that would match up with "fighter" in terms of archetype and character matches. Druid or sorcerer is probably the "name" value you need to meet.