Hmm, interesting thread. I had some (rather long) thoughts to add.
Races:
I think the classic four races of human, elf, dwarf, and halfling are more or less a given. They've been every edition since 0e, even if most of them were originally classified as "classes" so it stands to reason they'd be in 4e.
Everything else is a little bit ambiguous. By themselves the classic races fit the usual fantasy archetypes of everyman, archer, grim fighter, and cheeky rogue, so there's no real reason for any other races. But I think they'll want to include others anyway and it'd probably be a good idea to include at least one or two races that appeal to non-traditional players.
Eladrin suffer a little bit from the associated lore dissonance amongst old school fans as well as the fact that they're basically just elves but with extra magic, but they're a fairly popular race from what I'm given to understand and I don't see any good reason for WotC to abandon them. Plus, there isn't really a "mage race" among the above four, so keeping eladrin makes sense from that standpoint.
I that the idea of eladrin as the fey equivalent of humans, briefly hinted at in design documents, should be explored more fully, with eladrin representing as great a cultural and political force in the Feywild as humans do in the Prime. Also, to please the 3e crowd it'd probably be a good idea to figure out a way to reconcile the celestial eladrin with the player race.
Tieflings are a personal favorite of mine - the idea of the fiends interfering with the mortal world and leaving behind scions just tickles my fancy for some reason - although I don't think I'm alone here. The race, which is easily the most popular of the planetouched races in my experience, has been around since 2e and was even core to the 3e Realms so I don't see any reason to dismiss them in 5e. And although they'd surely be added in a supplement I'd be disappointed if they didn't make the cut.
Still, I think they could use some work. For one thing, they need an art redesign. I don't dislike every aspect of the 4e tiefling look - they certainly look more like a distinctive race and not just humans with a few odd features now - but it needs tweaking. Tiefling tails in particular seem to me way off with the 4e design and don't even match certain mechanics (like the prehensile tail feat). They're devil/demon people. Given them barbed tails. What's so difficult about that?
Dragonborn are not a huge favorite of mine but I think it makes sense that a draconic race would be included in D&D. As the design documents released by WotC before 4e's launch noted, a lot of players really want to play a dragon anyway and half-dragons usually aren't balanced enough to work as a player race. The only other equivalent available are kobolds, who like gnomes, often end up as a joke race and aren't really suitable for the gravitas a player who wants to play as a dragon is looking for.
Redesigning the look and feel of dragonborn is optional for me. Personally, I'd tie them in closer to dragons thematically, perhaps even drawing a relation between their breath weapon and their color, as is the case with dragons. I might remove the breasts, though some people seem to really like them and I don't honestly care all that much. Overall, though, I think dragonborn are probably ready to launch as are.
Half-orcs have been a core race for two editions and an optional one for two others. Personally, while I've played half-orcs and enjoyed them, I think they should be left out. Why? Because why have half-orcs when you can have
full-blooded orcs? While there might be an objection to a monster race being included in the core rules, it's worth noting that in at least two of the major campaign settings for D&D (FR and Eberron) orcs are no longer a faceless horde of enemies, possessing their own culture and kingdoms now. So it's not beyond reason to include them.
Plus, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of players would like to play as them. This is particularly true of young players (who should theoretically be one of WotC's primary targets) who will already be used to playing orcs in games like
World of WarCraft or
Skyrim. Sure, you can give them the half-measure that are half-orcs, but why bother when you can let them play orcs right out of the gate?
On that note, I think
5e should seriously revisit the concept of half-breed races like half-elves and half-orcs. I've always felt the way D&D handled half-breeds to be more than a little strange, particularly in 4e where half-elves and half-orcs share very few of the traits from either side of their lineage. Half-elves have a +2 Con and +2 Cha? What?
In my mind, 5e already has an excellent model for hybrid races: 4e hybrid classes. Just adapt that model to races and allow players to pick pieces of their character's two parents races rather than just running with some unnecessary third race. Plus, it would more accurately reflect real-life hybridization, which rarely (if ever) results in uniform offspring as distinct from its parents as they are from eachother.
Honestly, it seems strange to me that D&D has never tried this until now (aside from 3e's half-dragon template which is a bit different in practice).
Classes:
Most of my players really like 4e but have two common complaints:
- Combat is too slow.
- Character creation is too damn complicated.
The first point is another topic entirely, but the second one directly feeds into 4e classes: there's too damn many of them.
While I appreciate the fact that most people can create the kind of character they want because of 4e's class diversity, I think it could be accomplished without the bloat that drives some of my players crazy.
First of all, I think the number of classes should be cut down. By a lot.
As of
Heroes of Shadow there are
26 different classes available for 4e.
Twenty-six. A lot of that, of course, has to do with the desire to fill the chart of power source crossed with combat role, but in some cases there's actually significant repetition: there's two arcane strikers, two arcane leaders, two divine leaders, and two primal controllers. That's eight extra classes for the number mandated by the power source / combat role mix (though I suppose you could say the lack of a martial controller, shadow leader, or shadow controller sort of makes up for it). That, more than anything else, strikes me as bloat.
The way I see it,
the number of base classes should be struck down to a more manageable and comprehensible number, maybe about a dozen or so.
And each of these classes would have several sub-classes, filling the roles previously occupied by many of 4e's classes both thematically and mechanically.
This isn't that strange of an idea. D&D Essentials already toys with it and both 1e and 2e explicitly used a very similar system as does Pathfinder. It already fits with WotC's theme of "modularity," since you could have a base archetype for each class that players could jump into with relative ease as well as alternate ones for players who wanted something different. I see no reason why it can't be used again, other than personal attachment to particular classes that I think can easily be emulated using this model.
I'd probably break the classes down into the following:
Cleric. While there's been a long stigma with playing this class (for reasons I don't quite understand TBH) it's one of
the classic D&D classes and one with a distinctive and important party role.
Fighter. Fighters are a given, they've been with the game since the beginning and have a pretty distinctive role: mundane guys with swords who are good at hitting things and taking hits in return.
Mage/Wizard. Like fighters, these are a given. You're not going to have any kind of D&D without a guy who knows how to use magic missile.
Rogue/Thief. Although their role has shifted a lot over the years, the rogue is a classic archetype of D&D, to the point that most other fantasy RPGs have shamelessly stolen it for themselves.
Bard. Bards are probably distinct enough from the other classes to merit their own place outside of my proposed sub-class system. Although they're arcane spellcasters they have as much in common with mages as they do with rogues, while also having buff abilities similar to traditional clerics. As always, they're the jack-of-all-trades.
Druid. In easier editions druids could easily be rolled into a sub-class of cleric but I have a feeling most fans of the class would really loathe this with a fiery passion and 4e's done a pretty substantial job of differentiating the two, to the point that druids don't even use divine magic anymore. So druids, I think, should be included.
A psionic class of some sort. I'm not a huge fan of psionics and have never used them so I can't add much to the discussion here other than to say that a lot of people seem to really like them so there should be at least one psionic class in 4e. Whether it should be the psion, battlemind, monk, or ardent, I can't say, though of those classes only the monk has been a core class for more than one edition.
Maybe a shadow class. I'm not attached though.[/B] While I don't have anything against assassins, the vampire class to be honest seems... kind of a stretch to me and there's not much distinguishing shadow magic from necromantic magic, which is already a purview of arcane magic. I'd also wager that the flavor of the 4e assassin class can be achieved simply by hybridizing rogues with mages who focus on necromancy but maybe that's just me.
In the end, though, I'd say that while there's certainly a place for a shadow power source in 5e it needs to more than the afterthought it was in 4e if it's going to be included.
Of these classes, almost every single one represents a single power source, with the exception of the rogue and the fighter, who are both martial classes, and the mage and bard, who are both arcane classes. There's a reason for this - almost everyone of the other classes can be covered in some way through sub-class forms of the above classes or as class hybrids.
You want to play a paladin? Two flavors to pick: 3e paladins are the knight sub-class, possibly multiclassing into cleric, with 4e paladins representing a cleric/fighter hybrid.
Rangers? Play the archer sub-class of a fighter with a focus on exploration skills, a fighter/rogue hybrid, or if you're going for that old magic-wielding variety, a fighter/druid hybrid.
Warlocks? They're basically just a specific kind of mage who draw their power from Faustian deals.
Warlords? Play the warlord sub-class, which comes with tactical abilities and increased healing powers.
Avengers? Easy, they're either a cleric sub-class or a cleric/rogue hybrid.
Barbarians? Sub-class of fighter, maybe with a fighter/druid hybrid as well.
Invokers? Cleric sub-class.
Shamans? Druid sub-class.
Sorcerers? Basically mages with a specific backstory and a focus on attack spells.
Swordmages? Mage/fighter hybrids.
Wardens? Druid/fighter hybrids.
This list goes on, but you get the idea: we don't really need 26 classes for every player to play 26 different kinds of characters. We just need a few classes that can do a lot of things.
