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

[Corwin]

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?

So you think a fighter-cleric looks like a paladin? Thematically and mechanically? Fighter-clerics do the things a paladin does? That's your take?

 

[Barolo]

As long as there is a Magic-User, a Fighting man, a Thief and a Cleric, (don't even care about the names) I'm good. Actually, golden.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day going forward, doesn't it all really boil down to "What classes are a major story part of the seven primary D&D campaign settings, and does it require adding them to the game?" And if a major part of the setting's story is "missing", then WotC will add a class to finish it off. But if not... then I imagine they have less need or desire to just add classes for the sake of adding classes.

Like it or not... the Mystic and the Artificer are the only two "new" classes for which they are a primary story point for two separate settings. Dark Sun has an incredibly strong psionic focus... mainly because psionics have replaced divine magic. Without having psionics in the game, you lose an incredibly important part of Dark Sun's story.

Likewise, the Artificer is the focus of where all magic has gone to in Eberron. The construction of magical items (both powerful and basic) is a foundation of the setting's economy, its technology, and on a party-level a "healer" for one of the main races in the game. Eberron was designed and built under the idea of the Artificer class and what that type of character means to its setting and story.

But once you get past those two and you look at the remaining primary campaign settings... Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Planescape, Birthwright... all of them use just what is already in the game. There's no "missing" class for any of those settings where you'd say "Nope, it's not X without having Y class!" Which means that WotC has no imperative to create any other class just because. I mean, they could of course... they could create any number of classes if they wanted to. But I don't think they'd necessarily feel the setting was incomplete if they didn't. Now yes, I'm sure that someone will try and make the case that Nentir Vale isn't Nentir Vale without the Warlord... but I personally wouldn't agree. There's nothing inherent in that pseudo-setting's story that needed a whole host of tactically and inspirationally motivated warriors. Heck, war is the furthest thing from what's happening in the Nentir Vale right now, so there's no in-story necessity for having warlords and tacticians and inspiring leaders milling around.

Now that being said... if anyone wants to argue that even psionics and artificing don't necessarily have to be new classes either because you could fulfill them as (for example) Monk & Sorcerer subclasses for the former and a Wizard subclass for the latter... I won't argue or disagree with you. I really don't care how these ideas are represented mechanically, because I personally create and differentiate characters through fluff rather than mechanics. So if the Basic Game had been the entirety of 5E in terms of classes, I wouldn't have any issue creating "paladins" and "rangers" and "barbarians" and "bards" using the Core Four, backgrounds and multiclassing. So making mystics and artificers using current foundational mechanics in the PH would be a fine alternative for me too. But that's just me.

At the end of the day though... looking through the prism of what is at the heart of the settings WotC has... psionics and artificing are the two classes from the past which I'd argue are intertwined with the settings they are a part of and which need to get made in some form or fashion (class or subclass) just so the setting can be played at a baseline level. Any classes past that though? Sure, they can be made if WotC wants to... I just don't know if any more are "required" per se.

 

[Sacrosanct]

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...

Curious to know why you would think it would fail 3. Did the warlord exist previously? Yes. Is there a significant amount of people who want it? Yeah, it seems so. It's not like people are asking for some really wonky outlier here. Does it fit the theme of a high fantasy RPG? Sure does. Is it redundant? Possibly. But like I mentioned in my OP, so is the ranger (and others mentioned the paladin). So if it's not exactly or near exactly what another class does, it seems to pass there too. I do agree that at some extent those criteria are subjective, but probably not as much as you think they are. The first three seem pretty objective, not subjective.

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.

What I meant by that was if a class has a history and identity within D&D, that can make up for other areas. See the ranger and paladin examples again. Or in my personal case, the bard. I don't see any need for it at all, but it's a class that's been around for a long time and has an identity in D&D.

Massive mischaracterization of an argument detected.

No, not really. Go back and look at all of those threads. What you'll find is people saying a whole list of things they want/need in a warlord class, and it's usually powers/abilities that would make it an OP class. Look at the feedback from the PDK. Almost universally the response is "it doesn't have enough powers" and "the powers it does have can't be used enough". To make the PDK do what people wanted it to do would make it a completely imbalanced OP subclass. While there are some people who have given (by suggesting things like lowering HP and reducing armor proficiencies, etc), those are by far the more infrequent posts.

 

[Barolo]

(...)

Dark Sun has an incredibly strong psionic focus... mainly because psionics have replaced divine magic. Without having psionics in the game, you lose an incredibly important part of Dark Sun's story.

(...)

Has it? How so?

 

[cmad1977]

I really doubt that this "unwilling to compromise to balance" thing you see actually applies to anyone.

I think you haven't been reading the warlord threads.


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[DEFCON 1]

Has it? How so?

I'm probably mischaracterizing it slightly... but because there are no gods in the setting, clerics (and deity-focused paladins) aren't supposed to exist. Divine magic really isn't meant to be a "thing". Instead, it's arcane magic and psionics (with a side order of primal magic) which are the main oogity-boogity focuses in the setting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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?

I'm pretty sure the Paladin only exists at this point because of Legacy.

Huh. It occurs to me that you could model the Paladin as a Fighter subclass that is Clericish the way the Eldritch Knight is Wizardy.

(For the record, I am not actually offended that the Paladin exists, but IMO it may be the worst example of redundancy in concept in the game.)


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I'd fold the cleric into the wizard before I'd get rid of the Paladin as it's own class. IMO, the cleric fails on multiple fronts. The Paladin has an actual thematic point of reference other than DnD. It's a much more universally understood concept than "armored priest with magic powers". Second, the cleric wizard tradition could simply have access to divine spells, and Channel Divinity as a subclass feature. Literally that would do it.

The Paladin is one of the most distinct, "grokable", concepts in the game.

And I don't think that a fighter/cleric would do a good job of it, but hat might be because I dislike both of those classes pretty strongly.

 

[Sacrosanct]

On a side note, to sort of expand a statement I made in my OP, it is of my personal opinion that if one were to stop playing a game because a certain class or race existed, then I think that's being incredibly immature and silly. D&D is built with the explicit design that your DM (or you as the DM) can approve or disapprove of any class or race in your game. I know this is a fairly emotionally loaded comment for me to make, but I like to think of myself as a logical thinker, and logically no one is ever forcing me to play with any class or race in the game.

I don't like bards. I don't like tieflings. Don't like psionics (except 2e) and HATE wild magic. So I don't play those characters. I think it would be entirely selfish of me to demand that the game exclude a class or race that passes muster of most of the criteria just for my personal feelings, because the game is not played just at my table.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my kid the other day in the store, when he looked at a can of Bean and Bacon soup and said, "Why do they even make that crap?". "Well, because some people like it, and no one said you have to eat it."

To put my designer hat back on, what I would do (and have done in the past) is if I don't like or don't play a class like the artificer, I will reach out to the fans of that class to come up with an idea for me to include. That's who is going to be playing the class, and that's who should feel like their needs are met.

OK, rant over. Carry on.

 

[Barolo]

I'm probably mischaracterizing it slightly... but because there are no gods in the setting, clerics (and deity-focused paladins) aren't supposed to exist. Divine magic really isn't meant to be a "thing". Instead, it's arcane magic and psionics (with a side order of primal magic) which are the main oogity-boogity focuses in the setting.

Interesting perspective. For me, divine power is also not present, but what substitutes it, to one side, is the connection with elements and the land itself the free or savage peoples that live in the less "civilized" areas on the world have, represented by the elemental cults and druids, and to the other side by the earthly-present-yet-almost-godlike sorcerer-kings with their Templar lackeys.

I always faced psionics as a sort of omnipresent aspect of the scenario, with all the wild talents and psionic monsters, while arcane power was supposed to be mostly a villainous trend, except for the few outcast preservers, following an arduous path, hunted by the evil guys and mistrusted by the common folk.