They're almost there, they just need to get rid of the cleric.
I agree with True20 that there are only three major divisions in D&D - fight guy, skill guy and magic guy. D&D Next seems to agree that the rogue is the skill guy, and the fighter is the fight guy. The cleric then should just be a combo of fight guy and magic guy.
The idea that the cleric is extraneous is new to 3e/4e. In the BECMI/AD&D days, when wizards were more fragile and rogues almost never pulled their backstab off, there was a much clearer distinction between clerics and magic-users. Clerics had much fewer offensive spells, unless they were 2e specialty priests in which case they likely
only had offensive spells, but in either case they were more combat-focused casters, either slaying enemies or healing allies while safely ensconced in their heavy armor. Wizards, meanwhile, couldn't really take a hit, but had all of the handy utility magic to survive dungeoneering and/or ward a sanctum. Fighters were the kings of combat, and thieves were the only ones with nonmagical utility but got that at the exchange of most of their combat power.
So "fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric" really boiled down to "nonmagic combat class, nonmagic noncombat class, magic combat class, magic noncombat class." Sure, clerics had some downtime spells and wizard blasted, just like fighters had some noncombat utility and thieves had backstab, but really, if you wanted to survive combat you brought a fighter and a cleric, and if you wanted to get through the dungeon alive you brought a thief and a magic-user. Nowadays the lines have blurred, of course, but I'd favor a move back to more distinct arcane and divine magic. A magic/nonmagic split between Magic-User and Expert classes makes sense, the above 4-way split between fighter/wizard/rogue/cleric makes sense, but a nonmagic/nonmagic/magic split is just plain inelegant and gives the wizard too much.
Well it's kind of back to closer to how things were to start with I'd say... Some classes are just sub classes.
I agree with you though... What the heck IS the difference between a paladin and a multiclass fighter/cleric?
Guess we'd have to see what the multiclass rules look like.
To use an example most here are probably familiar with, the difference between a cleric/fighter and a paladin is Mass Effect.
That probably didn't make sense; let me explain. People who have played Mass Effect know that there are three basic "power sources" in the ME games: tech, biotics, and
neither explosives.
You have three pure classes (Engineer, Adept, and Soldier, respectively) and three hybrid classes (T/B = Sentinel, B/E = Vanguard, T/E = Infiltrator). Each class shares roughly 1/3 its powers with the two classes on either "side" (e.g. ME3 Adepts share Warp and Throw with Sentinel and Shockwave and Pull with Vanguard). So what makes a Vanguard different from an Adept plus a Soldier?
Unique powers. ME3 Vanguards have Biotic Charge and Nova, two powers which no other class has and which encourage drastically different playstyles, while the Adept has Stasis and Singularity and the Soldier has Adrenaline Rush and Concussive Shot. A Throw is a Throw is a Throw is a Throw, but a Stasis + Throw is not a Throw + Charge. Each class has
two powers (plus base stat boosts, different equipment bonuses, etc. etc. etc.) that separate it from other classes, yet it is those two powers that make all the difference.
So you could have a paladin cast cleric spells and use fighter feats and still have it play differently from a cleric/fighter. You
can fold it into a cleric/fighter, but you don't have to, and if you did you'd lose out on what makes the paladin unique. Specifically, its benefits against evil creatures and its resistance to harm--paladins are better than (and different from) fighters when fighting evil creatures and have better (and different) self-buffs than clerics--make it worthwhile to keep as a separate class.
Hoping Def Con 1 is right. I actually DO want to see common ability pools shared between classes rather than the nutso power proliferation of 4E. I just want to see the pally get something unique and substantial, and I don't want it to get forced into feeling like a mini-cleric.
This article (in isolation) doesn't give me the confidence that they are thinking deeply about what the non "big four" classes, and that's a shame.
The class-specific 4e power lists were a mistake, I feel. Multiclassing made it too easy to cherry-pick specific powers, powers were too redundant and same-y, and so forth. What would have been better instead would have been a list of generic powers everyone could take, a list of powers by power source, a list of powers by role, and a list of "specific" powers, with each class having unique class features and granting access to some of those.
A paladin might be a class with access to the defender, divine, and Channel Divinity power lists; druids, fighters, and wizards would all have access to the simple weapon powers on the Weapon Specialization power list; a fighter would use a power differently than a ranger or rogue due to his class features; and so forth.
Tovec said:
Clearly we are not going to agree about most things here. I have huge issues with everything Bo9S because it is unbalancing in large quantities and too odd in small. I don't find maneuvers or stances to make sense from a reality standpoint and have since disallowed use of the book in my games. I say this while asserting that 3.5/PF is by far my preferred system.
While I don't want to rehash the usual ToB debate here, let me just state for the record that ToB is only unbalancing if you think the monk, fighter, and paladin are balanced (they aren't), it's only too odd if you think named maneuvers are an Eastern thing (German fencing styles had
named maneuvers too), and the only quasi-magical maneuvers in the book belong to the class meant to replace the already quasi-magical monk.
