The 4th edition class list so far

[Khaalis]

To jump in a bit late, I suspect we will end up with the following, from the information we have seen to date.

PHB1:
Cleric (Divine Leader)
Fighter (Martial Defender)
Paladin (Divine Defender)
Ranger (Divine Striker) - no I dont like it but being "divine" is a sacred cow now it appears, and I don't see them releasing 2 martial strikers
Rogue (Martial Striker)
Warlock (Arcane Striker)
Warlord (Martial Leader)
Wizard (Arcane Controller)

D&D Insider: I expect to see classes like the Barbarian, Bard, Druid, and Sorcerer released as D&D Insider content in the 1st few months after the PHB1 arrives and D&D Insider goes into Subscription Mode. This would give a serious boost to draw more people into the subscription. It makes good business sense.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Ranger (Divine Striker) - no I dont like it but being "divine" is a sacred cow now it appears,

That's what I was thinking, but apparently the ranger has mugged the scout and taken his purse, so I actually think the ranger will be a Martial Striker.

Maybe the Rogue will be a more melee focused Martial Strike, and the ranger will be more of a ranged Martial Striker?

All I do know is that whatever they do I hope they remove any spell-casting from the ranger class, as I have never thought it was appropriate (since 1st edition).

 

[Talassa]

Actually, and this is the point everybody keeps missing...8 was the 'confirmed' number over a month ago...

That's the assumption I am working with, too.

My guess is that the confirmed number has changed and 8 was always the minimum.

My guess is that the number was initially fixed as 8, and then, at some point, given the increase of PHB number of pages, increased to, maybe, as much as 12.

If sword-mage was, for instance, referred to as a class that would not probably be out in 2008, and then they had increased the page count in PHB, where did that leave us?

Best,

J.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

That's the assumption I am working with, too.




My guess is that the number was initially fixed as 8, and then, at some point, given the increase of PHB number of pages, increased to, maybe, as much as 12.

I think it's more likely that there are still 8 classes in the PHB and Wizards have discovered that they needed more pages to present what they already had planned.

11x20=220 and 8x30=240. Not in real pages of course.

 

[Baby Samurai]

At this time I am thinking:


-Cleric (Divine Leader)

-Fighter (Martial Defender)

-Paladin (Divine Defender)

-Ranger (Martial Striker – maybe ranged focused?)

-Rogue (Martial Striker – maybe melee focused?)

-Warlock (Arcane or Divine Controller or Striker…?)

-Warlord (Martial Leader)

-Wizard (Arcane Controller)

 

[Driddle]

It amuses me that there's still some talk of playtesting the classes and deciding the final picks for the core PHB, when the UK Amazon.com site is offering a race/class preview book for sale by Dec. 17. Doesn't that pretty much imply that the big decisions should have already been made by now?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It amuses me that there's still some talk of playtesting the classes and deciding the final picks for the core PHB, when the UK Amazon.com site is offering a race/class preview book for sale by Dec. 17. Doesn't that pretty much imply that the big decisions should have already been made by now?

From comments (about the Ranger killed the Scout and taking his stuff, and about the Warlock being in the PHB1), it sounds like early in development they had a conversation about which classes (out of all books in 3.5) they wanted in 4e. It was decided that Scout was too much like Ranger to be a separate class and Warlock was deemed so popular it needed to be in for sure (no comments have been made about the rest, so who knows what their status is).

It seems that they started development on ALL the 3.5e PHB classes, the Warlock, and developed at least one new one (Warlord). I'm guessing that at some point it was decided that no more than 8 classes would be in the PHB1. At that time, they probably took a look at how far development was along on all the classes and prioritized finishing them based on how much time they had left and the popularity of the classes.

My best guess is that:
-Bard didn't have an established niche(they are a leader, but their ability to do so is less powerful than a Cleric, or they are a striker who isn't as good at it as a fighter or rogue is), so was going to be harder to create powers for them in 4e(you'd have to replace almost all their abilities rather than convert over the old ones)
-Monk was considered to be without a truly established niche(are they a striker, a defender, or a controller?) and less popular than other classes
-Barbarian was considered so similar to Fighter that it needed an overhaul and new defining characteristics
-Druid was consider the class with too many things it could do and therefore hard to balance as well(they are a defender, striker, leader, AND controller) and needed a lot of thought and changes to balance them in the new system
-Sorcerer was likely found to be too close to Wizard and needed a way to tell them apart and therefore a major redesign of the Sorcerer.

I imagine that Cleric and Wizard posed similar problems to the Druid, but they were some of THE defining classes in D&D and had time specifically put aside to fix them.

The rest of the classes are fairly easy to come up with narrow, established roles for and that's why they got put into the PHB1.

The PHB isn't in its final draft until October 5th from what we've been told. I imagine that the reason there was a lot of last minute discussion about what classes would be in the PHB1 is that they have mostly finished versions of one or all of the Bard, Barbarian, Druid, Monk, and Sorcerer. So, if they wanted to, they could have replaced any of the classes that were in with any of those that were far enough along.

 

[Benben]

Is it possible that the Paladin has been renamed Warlord?

I thought I saw earlier hints that the paladin would not be deeply to LG alignment.

 

[alaric]

Is it possible that the Paladin has been renamed Warlord?

I thought I saw earlier hints that the paladin would not be deeply to LG alignment.

The Roles video lists Paladin as a defender and Warlord as a leader (in the span of about 10 seconds), so presumably no.

 

[Kaffis]

I really like the idea of the barbarian as ranger talent tree; I never thought there was enough meat on it to be a full base class anyway. I also readily agree that 8 is far too few and 12 would be far superior, but I think to put 12 in the PHB I they'd need to fill the 3x4 grid, and martial controller is going to be hard. I'd settle for 10, being Green Knight's list plus a Divine Controller druid and that sweet, sweet swordmage.

Martial controller? This seems like an excellent niche to build a delicious swashbuckler around. Previous swashbucklers and duelists have always seemed to me to be poor strikers or poor defenders, with silly things like intelligence bonus to damage or AC. Yet all the most classic swashbuckling stories involve the swashbuckler shaping the battlefield with his wit, ingenuity, and martial prowess -- holding ten men at bay to cover his allies, using his environment to catch his foes unaware, etc. Finding inventive ways to give them control abilities seems, to me, an ideal way to spin the swashbuckler as the fighter who laughs in the face of superior numbers without simply declaring that they always fight mooks.