D&D 5E Do Classes Have Concrete Meaning In Your Game?

[Remathilis]

See, while I agree that he'd probably have the Acolyte background, I have no interest in him having learned those skills from some barbarian tribe. I much prefer the idea that it's either unique to him, or to a particular order of warrior monks. Mechanically/out-of-character, it may resemble barbarian rage, but in-character/flavor-wise, they're not related whatsoever.

But then, assuming it fit the flavor of a campaign (and how dragons were portrayed in that campaign), I have no problem whatosever with reflavoring an infernal-pact warlock to a dragon-pact warlock, either.

Yeah, there's my hangup: it sounds a bit like "I want to be a barbarian, but I don't want the baggage of being a tribal/backwater character, so I'll say he's a priest/monk and avoid those connotations." I know that's not what you're going for, but I've seen a few too many players try to do that. And it a lot of cases, its to get the best mechanical benefit without regard to the class archetype attached to it. (My 3e example of the guy who took 1 level of barbarian with his "thief" because he wanted +10 ft of movement and extra hp when in melee)

Class names mean something. If they didn't, they'd all be generic descriptors (fighting-man, healer, magic-user, skill-expert, outdoorsman, unarmed warrior, etc). Instead, most provide some archetype. You don't have to hew close to it, but it has to be there somewhere.

YMMV, IMHO, and all that jazz.

 

[Jester David]

Fighter and rogue don't but everything else has unique origins.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

Kind of. I have, for example created Wizard Guilds full of Wizards with Wizard Class levels. I've also had to start new games with new people, and in some games classes existed as things that can be referred to by characters, and in some they couldn't.

Currently I work on the basis that most characters are more complex than just a class, but that some classes, if used to build NPCs or are even emulated by some NPC types (such as the Mage statblock in the 5e Monster Manual), then people would wind up using, if not the classes actual name, then at least some specific name to describe all people in that category.

So, all the Wizards are Mages, or Book-Carriers, or...Wizards. And maybe some other NPC types are called by the same name. However, some individuals, despite their class levels or mechanics, may not be referred to by the standard name, such a former Wizard who left the order and now called a Book-Thief instead.

 

[empireofchaos]

This is one of my big problems with "refluffing" arguments; class names mean something. Bob the Fighter might not use that term to introduce himself, but he knows his skills are different than a barbarian's or a ranger's. He might think himself a woodsman and scout (esp with the outlander background, leather armor, and longbow) but he doesn't think himself a ranger (ranger's have magical connections to the world and skills the fighter cannot match, but then again the ranger lacks the fighter's raw combat prowess). Ranger is a tangible idea in the world, as it describes those who have certain skills (like spells, pets, etc).

In my worlds, classes represent a specific type of training--like degree in a field of study. Class levels are not just feature packages you can mix and match and flavor to taste. Taking a level of a class represents a significant amount of formal training in the techniques of that class. Multiclassing is pretty rare because it represents doing that again in an entirely different feel.

Many classes and subclasses are tied to formal organizations...

If I wanted to go with simply picking up a variety of features to build the mechanics of the character that I want, I would (and do) play a skill-based game. I think using a class based game in that manner defeats the purpose of classes.

Yes, precisely. Class is too central to the reality of this game's universes, and refluffing to obscure that seems to me unnecessary (why not play a skill-based game?) and clumsy.

If a class does not seem to offer you what you want, it maybe a) a problem of nomenclature (e.g.

One character I really want to play appears to be a monk--not in the game/class sense, but in the Medieval religious ascetic sense

) - just because the Pali bhikku (basis for the Bhuddist cenobites, hence the Shaolin, hence the D&D class) happens to be translated as "monk" doesn't mean that your choices for a character like Cadfael must either be that members of the monk class, or the class category is useless. It might simply mean that a "monk" in that setting is something else - like a cleric (it used to be easier to tailor the cleric class to be a Christian monk in 2e than now...

A second option if no existing class fits is to simply make a custom class for the character. It should be easy enough to do if you are in command of the rules, and feel strongly enough about the uniqueness of the character. In a class-oriented game, that approach seems preferable to refluffing.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Why make a custom class when there is a class that does exactly what you want with only a change in fluff?

This. I don't want to play a skill-based game. I like D&D's class system--in part for the easy archetypes, but in part because it can handle reflavoring like this without breaking. This, to me, is far preferable to playing a class that doesn't fit as well, or making up my own when there's a perfectly good mechanical framework right there.

 

[empireofchaos]

Why make a custom class when there is a class that does exactly what you want with only a change in fluff?

I gave another option - it might just be a question of changing the name.

I don't want to play a skill-based game. I like D&D's class system--in part for the easy archetypes, but in part because it can handle reflavoring like this without breaking. This, to me, is far preferable to playing a class that doesn't fit as well, or making up my own when there's a perfectly good mechanical framework right there.

I don't think the people who disagree are stating an injunction; they are voicing an aesthetic preference. But the key question has already been stated:

if you want to be a barbarian, you need to tell me how you learned those skills rather than cherry-picking them for the best mechanical benefit.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Right, and I'm saying that "Because that's the closest conceptual mechanical match" is, for me, more than enough. I'm picking that, in my above example, because it best fits the character concept, not for "best mechanical benefit." What I don't agree is that I need an in-game reason why it resembles barbarian rage, because it doesn't resemble barbarian rage in-game; it only resembles it on a mechanical/meta/out-of-game level. If you put the "warrior monk" next to a barbarian warrior, their styles wouldn't look similar to an in-game audience at all. They just happen to use the same game mechanics.

 

[Rushmik]

In mine, no. For example - I'm running a Feudal Japan themed game - the players may clearly recognize a samurai by his two swords. This samurai, should they choose to fight him, might fly into a rage, take up a defensive stance, or wield both swords akimbo. Hell, he may unsling a bow instead. The players would receive proper description of his gear and visual style sure, but his class only serves as a place for me to write him up a stat block.

I might one day say that each class represents a different samurai school, but I like to keep things unpredictable!

 

[I'm A Banana]

With the usual "play how you prefer" caveat, I'd hate to see those assumptions enforced. They're often true, but they don't have to be, and some of the coolest characters I've seen/played have come from deliberately mismatching class choice with apparent archetype.

One character I really want to play appears to be a monk--not in the game/class sense, but in the Medieval religious ascetic sense. A Friar Tuck or Brother Cadfael sort, apparently.

He wears no armor. He fights with a staff. But his faith is strong enough that when he enters combat, he can enter a semi-rapturous state that makes him capable of striking great blows and of shrugging off physical harm, because his might is that of his god, etc.

Mechanically? He's a barbarian. An unarmored, difficult to harm front-liner who dishes out great damage, but cannot draw on his full strength all the time.

He'd be impossible to play in a "class must match archetype" campaign.

That's pretty classic refluffing, but I can't help but think that this is making do when there'd be a better way to represent that archetype with better class mechanics.

Like, a "divine rage" archetype has existed in D&D for a while (I think even OD&D equated a kind of zealous nomad with berserkers), though the system hasn't always been great at representing it. It's just a missing niche - give a cleric or a paladin or a monk a rage (and perhaps swap armor proficiency for unarmored AC abilities), or give the barbarian a "divine" subclass (proficiency in religion, perhaps, and maybe something a little more magical than a berserker but on a divine path not a totemic one - an aura of blinding light? the ability to ignore terrain and walk on water? benefits for picking bludgeoning weapons or using unarmed attacks over greataxes?) and we'd be back to class matching archetype.

I imagine my own experiences playing a "human" (water genasi) who could transform into droplets of rain (4e swarm druid). It was entirely functional, but it was also clearly kludged, and you could tell at the edges ("that's a lot of poison for a rainstorm..."). I'd much rather have played a mechanical class built to support that character archetype from the ground up, rather than beating other mechanics into shape.

Not necessary, by any means, but still very valuable.

You say "impossible," I say "it just doesn't have mechanics yet," and 5e fortunately makes it pretty easy to solve the no mechanics problem. As a system, it seems to generally prefer that answer to the "refluff" answer that I used to make a living rainstorm in 4e. I think I'm on board with that. It's not impossible to refluff, but I'd typically rather just make new mechanics for the thing, so that I've got the supported character I want, rather than some other character that I sort of need to squint at to see the one I envision.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I can see that with some concepts, but so far I haven't come across many. In my example above, for instance, I don't feel like I'm "squinting" at all. It's doing exactly what I want it to do. In such cases, or even if it's just really close, I'd rather reflavor and go with existing mechanics. It's only when I can't get close enough that I'm really inclined to create brand new mechanics--and even then, I often find I can get there by tweaking an existing class or subclass pretty minimally.