Willie the Duck
Hero
Oh look, an inter-edition comparison thread is morphing into whether 4e was the best or worst or what it really was. Bet this one will finally resolve the matter.
Anyway, some of my takes:
Barbarian -- I think I'm going to say 3e*. Mind you, 'the guy who rages' is a specific subset of barbarian power fantasies, but for that subset, this version finally committed. The rage seemed like one -- got stronger and tougher while getting easier to hit. Like much of 3e, it has issues with the full attack with 6'+ of movement, but after the various fixes for that came about, you could very well do the power fantasy of the class. *The version many of us ended up playing with house-rules or gentleperson's agreements to keep the worst of the balance issues at bay.
Cleric -- Another vote for 2e specialty priests -- at least in theory. Some implementations worked better than others. Still, you could say 'I am playing a priest of a war god, and they stride out with sword and heavy armor and limited spells' or 'I am playing a priest of a goddess of mysteries, and she has little armor or weapons, but lots of spell options and probably some additional special powers' and both worked.
Druid -- oD&D supplement I. The scary NPC type that could cast cleric and magic user spells, change into animals, and command a pack of barbarians is something that the PC variations have never approached.
Fighter -- cheating a bit, but my answer is Chainmail. At 'high-level*', fighters could cut a swath through normal soldiers with nominal fear of harm, never suffer morale failures** and raise the morale of those around them, are always last to fall to arrows, can shoot dragons out of the air (Bard from The Hobbit-style), and can detect hidden or invisible opponents (no magic explanation, they are just that bad-ass). If D&D had kept more of Chainmail fighters (notably needing the multiple HD of hits in the same round to drop them), there would be a lot less linear-vs-quadratic discussions there on out.
*paying the points for a Hero or Superhero army piece
**in a system where nearly everything else is subject to it
Monk -- 4E and 5E. I think up to the 2024 upgrade, the 5e one suffers relative to other classes (it trails the pack, whereas in 4e it is in the middle), but isn't really less of a realization of the power fantasy. Everything before was a poor implementation of the intended goal (itself a pretty nebulous bunch of tropes that only approximated 'martial arts guy'). oD&D-AD&D had characters with lots of special features on top of low HP, middling saves, AC that was impressive for unarmored but maybe just keeping pace with fighters, and a whole lots of limitations about what magic items they could use and whether attribute bonuses even applied*
*Rules Cyclopedia Mystics could get con bonus to hp and dex to AC, etc., but still had attribute requirements and 3d6-dtl attribute determination to keep these minimal. And still couldn't put on a ring of protection.
Special mention goes to AD&D (Oriental Adventures) or 2e AD&D (various splatbooks) martial arts rules which let you play the power fantasy of a member of any class who also knew martial arts -- that had massive penalties going up against people in heavy armor with swords and bows, but you could bring out in polite company. A decent implementation of a different power fantasy.
Paladin -- I really don't know what to think. The 4e and 5e versions are a lot more playable (in the average looting-and-violence party), and are each decent implementations of 'Oath-champion.' That said, the knight of rather un-pragmatic virtue and nobility is a power fantasy.
Ranger -- 2e&3e*. Earlier versions were fighters with perks in exchange for no castle at name level. Later versions kept trying to figure out an identity. These staked out a niche of lighter-armored fighter-types with survival and stealthing/stalking skills, some magic, and animal companions. 2e's skill system was more vestigial, but at the same time the edition overall was better for middling-martials (especially twf, which in 3e ran afoul of the 5' step/full attack rules).
*again, the 3e that people landed on actually playing.
Rogue/Thief -- B/X. Hear me out. Although their percentages stunk, they stunk less than BECMI, and the game was structured to fit mostly in the levels where you would need their abilities at all. Also, the game overall was presented as a dungeon-crawl focused on traps and treasure and the parts of the game the thief directly addressed, moreso than any version since.
Special mention to pre-supplement I oD&D, before it was established that everyone couldn't sneak and hide and find traps.
Sorcerer -- 3e. As much as they were clearly the less-loved child of the arcane casters, they had a full distinct identity. While wizards were still spending each evening trying to mindread the DM regarding how many Magic Missiles vs how many Sleeps they would need tomorrow, the sorcerer was partying with the bard (and a decent Cha score) knowing they'd figure it out when the situation arose.
Warlock -- 5e, sorta. I don't know what the fantasy of being infused with power as an agreement to a more powerful being is supposed to look like, but if that isn't clear, 'just pick some stuff' is not a bad implementation. So the build-a-bear class makes sense. And you can have warlocks who run the gamut of effectively-martial to odd-implementation caster to 'has lots of tricks' to anything in between (so long as you are either a hexblade or like spamming eldritch blasts when not doing your specific schtick).
Wizard -- Who boy. See, kinda like the above about thieves working best in the dungeon-crawl treasure-hunter game, I think there's something to be said about Vancian casters really fitting in the game where you carefully weigh which spells you will use that day. For that reason, oD&D-3e wizards have a very distinct identify that -- if you like that kind of thing -- is a solid power fantasy. Later wizards more closely approach the generic 'spell wielder' power fantasy that many others want to play, but it's harder to sell the wizard specifically in that instance. I guess I'm voting no-score-drawn until I see more evidence.
Artificer -- unfamiliar with non-5e versions. points others have made about iron man vs gadget mage are convincing. This is a very specific power fantasy.
Psionicist/Psionics User -- Split. If you want 'weird supernatural,' then 2e has my vote. If you want 'spellpoint caster with 19th/early-20th century mysticism/psychic powers or sci-fi 'psi' theme, then 3e makes a really well-built and functional system.
Anyway, some of my takes:
Barbarian -- I think I'm going to say 3e*. Mind you, 'the guy who rages' is a specific subset of barbarian power fantasies, but for that subset, this version finally committed. The rage seemed like one -- got stronger and tougher while getting easier to hit. Like much of 3e, it has issues with the full attack with 6'+ of movement, but after the various fixes for that came about, you could very well do the power fantasy of the class. *The version many of us ended up playing with house-rules or gentleperson's agreements to keep the worst of the balance issues at bay.
Cleric -- Another vote for 2e specialty priests -- at least in theory. Some implementations worked better than others. Still, you could say 'I am playing a priest of a war god, and they stride out with sword and heavy armor and limited spells' or 'I am playing a priest of a goddess of mysteries, and she has little armor or weapons, but lots of spell options and probably some additional special powers' and both worked.
Druid -- oD&D supplement I. The scary NPC type that could cast cleric and magic user spells, change into animals, and command a pack of barbarians is something that the PC variations have never approached.
Fighter -- cheating a bit, but my answer is Chainmail. At 'high-level*', fighters could cut a swath through normal soldiers with nominal fear of harm, never suffer morale failures** and raise the morale of those around them, are always last to fall to arrows, can shoot dragons out of the air (Bard from The Hobbit-style), and can detect hidden or invisible opponents (no magic explanation, they are just that bad-ass). If D&D had kept more of Chainmail fighters (notably needing the multiple HD of hits in the same round to drop them), there would be a lot less linear-vs-quadratic discussions there on out.
*paying the points for a Hero or Superhero army piece
**in a system where nearly everything else is subject to it
Monk -- 4E and 5E. I think up to the 2024 upgrade, the 5e one suffers relative to other classes (it trails the pack, whereas in 4e it is in the middle), but isn't really less of a realization of the power fantasy. Everything before was a poor implementation of the intended goal (itself a pretty nebulous bunch of tropes that only approximated 'martial arts guy'). oD&D-AD&D had characters with lots of special features on top of low HP, middling saves, AC that was impressive for unarmored but maybe just keeping pace with fighters, and a whole lots of limitations about what magic items they could use and whether attribute bonuses even applied*
*Rules Cyclopedia Mystics could get con bonus to hp and dex to AC, etc., but still had attribute requirements and 3d6-dtl attribute determination to keep these minimal. And still couldn't put on a ring of protection.
Special mention goes to AD&D (Oriental Adventures) or 2e AD&D (various splatbooks) martial arts rules which let you play the power fantasy of a member of any class who also knew martial arts -- that had massive penalties going up against people in heavy armor with swords and bows, but you could bring out in polite company. A decent implementation of a different power fantasy.
Paladin -- I really don't know what to think. The 4e and 5e versions are a lot more playable (in the average looting-and-violence party), and are each decent implementations of 'Oath-champion.' That said, the knight of rather un-pragmatic virtue and nobility is a power fantasy.
Ranger -- 2e&3e*. Earlier versions were fighters with perks in exchange for no castle at name level. Later versions kept trying to figure out an identity. These staked out a niche of lighter-armored fighter-types with survival and stealthing/stalking skills, some magic, and animal companions. 2e's skill system was more vestigial, but at the same time the edition overall was better for middling-martials (especially twf, which in 3e ran afoul of the 5' step/full attack rules).
*again, the 3e that people landed on actually playing.
Rogue/Thief -- B/X. Hear me out. Although their percentages stunk, they stunk less than BECMI, and the game was structured to fit mostly in the levels where you would need their abilities at all. Also, the game overall was presented as a dungeon-crawl focused on traps and treasure and the parts of the game the thief directly addressed, moreso than any version since.
Special mention to pre-supplement I oD&D, before it was established that everyone couldn't sneak and hide and find traps.
Sorcerer -- 3e. As much as they were clearly the less-loved child of the arcane casters, they had a full distinct identity. While wizards were still spending each evening trying to mindread the DM regarding how many Magic Missiles vs how many Sleeps they would need tomorrow, the sorcerer was partying with the bard (and a decent Cha score) knowing they'd figure it out when the situation arose.
Warlock -- 5e, sorta. I don't know what the fantasy of being infused with power as an agreement to a more powerful being is supposed to look like, but if that isn't clear, 'just pick some stuff' is not a bad implementation. So the build-a-bear class makes sense. And you can have warlocks who run the gamut of effectively-martial to odd-implementation caster to 'has lots of tricks' to anything in between (so long as you are either a hexblade or like spamming eldritch blasts when not doing your specific schtick).
Wizard -- Who boy. See, kinda like the above about thieves working best in the dungeon-crawl treasure-hunter game, I think there's something to be said about Vancian casters really fitting in the game where you carefully weigh which spells you will use that day. For that reason, oD&D-3e wizards have a very distinct identify that -- if you like that kind of thing -- is a solid power fantasy. Later wizards more closely approach the generic 'spell wielder' power fantasy that many others want to play, but it's harder to sell the wizard specifically in that instance. I guess I'm voting no-score-drawn until I see more evidence.
Artificer -- unfamiliar with non-5e versions. points others have made about iron man vs gadget mage are convincing. This is a very specific power fantasy.
Psionicist/Psionics User -- Split. If you want 'weird supernatural,' then 2e has my vote. If you want 'spellpoint caster with 19th/early-20th century mysticism/psychic powers or sci-fi 'psi' theme, then 3e makes a really well-built and functional system.
Last edited:
