Elemental Hero' Handbook

[Incenjucar]

No worries. At least you can understand why I tried to limit the discussion to much smaller pieces. This is a point of particular passion for me, so I can write it into the ground. There is definately an argument for fewer, broader silos, I just personally prefer the narrower ones when it comes to D&D. Wizards/mages and their do-anything design give me creative heartburn.

 

[the Jester]

No worries. At least you can understand why I tried to limit the discussion to much smaller pieces. This is a point of particular passion for me, so I can write it into the ground. There is definately an argument for fewer, broader silos, I just personally prefer the narrower ones when it comes to D&D. Wizards/mages and their do-anything design give me creative heartburn.

Again, I think that the real issue is a business one- who's buying it? If the answer isn't "a large part of everyone that plays D&D," it isn't likely to get printed.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

No worries. At least you can understand why I tried to limit the discussion to much smaller pieces. This is a point of particular passion for me, so I can write it into the ground. There is definately an argument for fewer, broader silos, I just personally prefer the narrower ones when it comes to D&D. Wizards/mages and their do-anything design give me creative heartburn.

do you remember 2e with weapon and non weapon profs? What about secondary skills.

I would hope 5e would break feats into 2 sets... Combat Feats, and Non Combat Resources... take feats like rit caster, skill training, skill power, linguestics, and maybe even some others into non combat resources...

then have secondary skills that work like background fluff... blacksmith, that sorta thing...

 

[Incenjucar]

Again, I think that the real issue is a business one- who's buying it? If the answer isn't "a large part of everyone that plays D&D," it isn't likely to get printed.

Alas, we have no access to this information, we don't know how accurate the information is that does exist, and the moment any of us found out we'd be unable to talk about it here.

I tend to feel that innovation and new ideas create opportunities for success in the long run, even if they involve a measure of risk. Relying too much on old ideas just narrows down the audience over time, as many people get bored with the familiar over time.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't see why you can't just tack a rogue's powers on a slayer. Or a warlord's powers on a fighter. Make a build out of it that trades their better armor proficiency for better skill options, and BAM, one less class to waste text on. You could theoretically reduce D&D to two or three and just use powers instead of class features with no loss in "concept," but a lot of loss in flexibility.

Upthread I believe I mentioned "one big list of powers for each power source." I'm certainly on board with that idea.

You could theoretically reduce D&D to no classes just fine.

But classes are useful design elements, precisely because they are so tied to a character's concept. They're a useful "package" of rules that you can choose to take all at once and play with for a long time, that gives your character a strong identity in one word. "Fighter" is a useful shorthand for "Dude in armor who hits things with weapons."

Classes have their uses. But you do not need such extensive development of individual mechanical tricks. There's no demand for it. There's little reason for it. It adds complexity, and it returns few gains. It's an interesting mechanical trick, but an interesting mechanical trick is not character-defining in the way that the simple word "Warlock" is.

Could it be? Sure. Complexity is fairly easy to design. But what's the effect at the table? What do you gain as a player for having this a class, as opposed to having this be a build, or just a few powers? You still get one character for ~ 2 years of play time, a "new class" doesn't do anything for you 9/10 times.

 

[Incenjucar]

A new class is valuable to you if it is the class that most closely matches what you actually want to do in the game. If you already have the class that matches your play interests perfectly then no you don't need more classes. But not everyone HAS. Remember the "gnome" thing?

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Speaking of gnomes, an interesting way to test out some class ideas would actually be to make monsters based on classes as a sort of prototype test run.