I realize my belief that each class should do one thing, and do it well -- and that a moderate to high number of more specific classes is better than a lot of flexible ones -- isn't a common viewpoint here, but still...
Races - all the 3.x races
Classes -
martial: fighter, rogue, ranger [as per the HoFK hunter], warlord
divine: paladin, monk, druid [as per core PH3 druid], cleric
arcane: swordmage, sorcerer, wizard, bard
notes here:
1 - I realize this is blatant grid-filling. If anything like 4e combat roles and power sources persist, WotC will almost certainly do it anyway in the long run, so let's take care of it from the start.
2 - I believe monks in D&D have always had a very divine-ish flavor, even if they've always had martial movie-ish abilities. Hence a better candidate for the divine striker than the avenger (kind of cool, but no traction), blackguard (evil-tolerant classes shouldn't be in core), or inventing something new.
3 - Druids go back to their divine roots. Yes, that makes the 'no divine in Dark Sun' thing harder. And I like invokers, too. But druids are still the best traditional D&D class for a divine controller.
4 - Rangers get the archer schtick.
5 - I think warlords really have caught on, even if some people don't like them.
6 - And swordmages cover a fantasy archetype that D&D was missing a good class for pre-4e.
No Epic in the initial rulebook. I realize that some people really like Epic stuff, but starting from first level, playing almost every week, and leveling up every four sessions... and you take almost two years to reach Epic.
Races - all the 3.x races
Classes -
martial: fighter, rogue, ranger [as per the HoFK hunter], warlord
divine: paladin, monk, druid [as per core PH3 druid], cleric
arcane: swordmage, sorcerer, wizard, bard
notes here:
1 - I realize this is blatant grid-filling. If anything like 4e combat roles and power sources persist, WotC will almost certainly do it anyway in the long run, so let's take care of it from the start.
2 - I believe monks in D&D have always had a very divine-ish flavor, even if they've always had martial movie-ish abilities. Hence a better candidate for the divine striker than the avenger (kind of cool, but no traction), blackguard (evil-tolerant classes shouldn't be in core), or inventing something new.
3 - Druids go back to their divine roots. Yes, that makes the 'no divine in Dark Sun' thing harder. And I like invokers, too. But druids are still the best traditional D&D class for a divine controller.
4 - Rangers get the archer schtick.
5 - I think warlords really have caught on, even if some people don't like them.
6 - And swordmages cover a fantasy archetype that D&D was missing a good class for pre-4e.
No Epic in the initial rulebook. I realize that some people really like Epic stuff, but starting from first level, playing almost every week, and leveling up every four sessions... and you take almost two years to reach Epic.
