ParanoydStyle
Peace Among Worlds
So, a classplosion is happening for D&D 5E, and it's overwhelmingly third party. Actually it's been going on for quite a while but I'm just becoming aware of just how many homebrew 5E classes are floating around as I develop my own homebrew classes. Now my own homebrew classes for 5E are not, strictly speaking, for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Some are for Dragonrun, and some will be for a more serious commercial project I'm developing using the 5E OGL but little or no Dungeons & Dragons specific content. With that said, personally speaking I wouldn't buy "10 new classes for 5E" for a dollar even if I recognized the names of the authors and thought they'd be balanced and fun, because personally speaking, I take a "less is more" approach to my D&D. To me, the amount of character options in the core rulebook was just right. Adding in the the three published WotC guides, and it went from just right to "plenty". I have no desire for any more character options.
One of the things I like about the core classes and sub-classes (besides the old school fanboy/grog in me that just plain likes things have been around forever like wizards and fighters better than new things) is that broadly speaking the number of them is just about right for a player to learn to play a few intelligently and while playing that character, also observe the combat capabilities of NPCs belonging to those same classes and learn the right tactics for fighting them invisibly. If you have enough character classes that there's no reason not to make every enemy NPC a special snowflake, so you can't have this kind of learning.
ANYWAY: it strikes me that the more classes become available, the LESS NECESSARY sub-classes become, as the point of sub-classes was to allow for ample character differentiation in a game with relatively few classes. Thus: poll.
One of the things I like about the core classes and sub-classes (besides the old school fanboy/grog in me that just plain likes things have been around forever like wizards and fighters better than new things) is that broadly speaking the number of them is just about right for a player to learn to play a few intelligently and while playing that character, also observe the combat capabilities of NPCs belonging to those same classes and learn the right tactics for fighting them invisibly. If you have enough character classes that there's no reason not to make every enemy NPC a special snowflake, so you can't have this kind of learning.
ANYWAY: it strikes me that the more classes become available, the LESS NECESSARY sub-classes become, as the point of sub-classes was to allow for ample character differentiation in a game with relatively few classes. Thus: poll.
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