D&D (2024) The more I think about it, the least I like class groups.

[Li Shenron]

I actually think better designs usually occur when feats are siloed off to some degree. The designers can be more creative when they don't have to worry about how the feat in question interacts with 20 different classes and 80 different subclasses. Instead, only needing to consider the ramifications for a few classes opens up his design space by freeing him of unnecessary constraints.

As soon as multiclassing enters the picture, ramifications are up again despite precautions.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Okay, but what is the essence of the sorcerer? Everyone I ask gives me different answers. Or they default to the old 3e version.

This is exactly why WotC doesn't get too far in the weeds over it when they design this stuff. Because every person has a different list of what they think is 100% required for X thing in the game, and WotC knows that it is literally impossible to please everyone. And it isn't just the Sorcerer... if we take a look at all the old Psion and Warlord threads, every person in there had their idiosyncratic list of things a potential new Psion or Warlord class HAD to have to be a Psion or Warlord... and none of the lists ever really matched up.

It's why my skipping record response is always "If you wait for WotC to publish what you want you'll never be happy... just use house rules to truly get what you want." But no one seems to want to accept that. Which I kind of understand right now, during a playtest... because of course there is still time to see our hopes and dreams actually come to some sort of fruition if we can make the proper arguments and get enough people to respond to the surveys the same way... but even then the odds are 1000s to 1 that every single thing we think is "required" for X class is going to be agreed upon and responded upon by every survey respondent... and that WotC will actually then decide to include it. Which is why I still think everyone should maintain a healthy amount of expected and planned for disappointment.

 

[MoonSong]

It's why my skipping record response is always "If you wait for WotC to publish what you want you'll never be happy... just use house rules to truly get what you want." But no one seems to want to accept that. Which I kind of understand right now, during a playtest... because of course there is still time to see our hopes and dreams actually come to some sort of fruition if we can make the proper arguments and get enough people to respond to the surveys the same way... but even then the odds are 1000s to 1 that every single thing we think is "required" for X class is going to be agreed upon and responded upon by every survey respondent... and that WotC will actually then decide to include it. Which is why I still think everyone should maintain a healthy amount of expected and planned for disappointment.

And this is why I keep responding, "how am I supposed to get a houserule as a player?" I don't have a stable group, and if I got one, I'd be stuck as forever-DM. The only way I get to play as a player is in the open market of the internet and in the open market of the internet the written book is law. Heck, I get rejected a lot because DMs prefer to have a wizard player than a sorcerer player, if I asked for a houserule on top of it I would get no game at all. "House rule it" is a non-answer to my problems.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And this is why I keep responding, "how am I supposed to get a houserule as a player?" I don't have a stable group, and if I got one, I'd be stuck as forever-DM. The only way I get to play as a player is in the open market of the internet and in the open market of the internet the written book is law. Heck, I get rejected a lot because DMs prefer to have a wizard player than a sorcerer player, if I asked for a houserule on top of it I would get no game at all. "House rule it" is a non-answer to my problems.

And I feel for you, I really do. But unfortunately (as you well know having dealt with it these past 8 years)... your wants and needs for your game aren't likely to get served by WotC as they just don't seem to see things the same way you do. Which means the open market of the internet is really all you have, and trying to find a group that will let you play a Sorcerer at least partially in the manner you prefer. Does that suck? I'm sure it does. Unfortunate, but painfully true. So all I can wish is for you to keep fighting the good fight on those bits of the Sorcerer you think are important... and maybe you'll luck out on a few of them this time around in 2024. Best of luck!

 

[rules.mechanic]

Class groups might end up being useful for multi-classing etc where you want to gate a feature on how many martial levels or caster levels a character has.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If they do have class groups, I want the Bard to be outside of it. The Bard should be a weird mis mash of stuff that sort of does everything.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The whole OneD&D project has an unfortunate obsession with orderly schemes. At best it is largely pointless and misguided. At worst it achieves broad conceptual simplicities at the cost of actual simplicity to learn or use the materials. It favors grand simplicity of orderly taxonomies over the sort of simplicity that actually helps accessibility. It is a sad direction for the game to go, and I hope they give it all a serious rethink.

I don't agree with every 5e design choice, but there's usually an accessibility argument behind the more questionable choices that I can at least respect. That has not been my OneD&D experience.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Among the many things I don't like, the class groups don't really bother me as such, but the hidden danger of such categorization could be pretty much the subtle effect it can have on further design, like thinking "we shouldn't give the Ranger this new ability because it's an expert and not a warrior". The beauty of classes is that each one of them has a strong identity of its own, they don't need to be put in boxes.

The Ranger playtest document already demonstrates how they work around this: The Ranger is allowed to access Fighting Style feats despite not being a Warrior class.

The grouping is there to apply general rules, but I'm pretty sure that every class is going to have specific exceptions to some of them. You have to set some rules before you can break them.

 

[Amrûnril]

The Ranger playtest document already demonstrates how they work around this: The Ranger is allowed to access Fighting Style feats despite not being a Warrior class.

The grouping is there to apply general rules, but I'm pretty sure that every class is going to have specific exceptions to some of them. You have to set some rules before you can break them.

At this point, though, I'd argue we haven't seen the rules for class groupings do anything actually useful. Rather than worrying about exceptions, I think the the game would be better off simply not having them.

 

[FrogReaver]

Class groups might end up being useful for multi-classing etc where you want to gate a feature on how many martial levels or caster levels a character has.

That's an interesting idea. Perhaps extra attack my key off your levels in warrior class group. That would be interesting.