Why not combine the Fighter and Monk Classes?

[Remathilis]

I would say three.

Warrior = Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Monk, Warlord.
Rogue = Ranger, Rogue, Assassin, Bard
Mage = Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Warlock

Why not 5?

Warrior
Mage
Explorer
Diplomat
Rogue

Don't laugh, /no classes/ is an option that's worked very well for a lot of games.

There are a lot of games that having 2, 3, 4 or no classes at all would make sense.

None of those games are D&D.

You can make all the well-balanced games in the world with 1d4 generic classes and a wealth of backgrounds, kits, themes, prestige classes, paragon paths, and whatever else you want to completely mimic any class of yore, and the FIRST THING people will do is want their Ranger, Bard, and Druid classes back.

Since we're talking about monks, lets review what happened when TSR took them out of the game in 2nd edition. They told people to buy Oriental Adventures (a 1e product). They make a priest kit in 2e. (Perhaps more than one?) They brought it back as a weird spellcasting Priest-class in Faiths and Avatars. Finally, they reprinted it in Scarlet Brotherhood in its full glory after dozens of fan-made conversions and half-baked attempts for the better part of eight years. People wanted their monk. They didn't want lousy kits or Martial Arts proficiencies. Luckily WotC figured that out and put them in the PHB for 3e.

I say get it out of the way. People will WANT Paladins, Rangers, Bards, Warlords, and Monks, and they should be allowed to have them. D&D is famous for them. Leave the generic classes for the Fantasy Heartbreakers and OGL spinoffs. If I'm playing D&D, I want Paladins, Monks and Rangers as full-bodied classes, not Generic Fighting Man (Flavor to Taste).

You can't make a "Unity" edition by removing 9/10ths of the classes people expect to be there...

 

[mlund]

You can't make a "Unity" edition by removing 9/10ths of the classes people expect to be there...

Removing? No. Restructuring? Definitely!

Will you have some senseless edition-warring by people who demand D&D conform to their semantic definition of class to mirror their AD&D, 2nd Ed, 3E, or 4E experience? Sure. You have -ahem- "Unique" people still stumping for returning to Elf and Dwarf as classes. You could still play Elves and Dwarves in AD&D - even ones that resemble OD&D race-classes versions.

So in OD&D Dwarf and Elf were classes - they got replaced in AD&D with Dwarf Fighters and Elf Fighter/Mages. In AD&D the Paladin and the Ranger weren't classes - they were Fighter Sub-classes. In 2nd Edition several classes became kits. In 3E everything became a class and got multi-classed and prestige-classed out the Yin-Yang.

This is starting to look like a "certain builds that were stand-alone classes in 3.X must be executed exactly as they were in 3E / Pathfinder or I'm taking my ball and going home," argument.

As long as key touch-stones are playable builds out of the Core (be they sub-classes of a Cardinal Class, hybrid spaces between two or more Cardinal classes) I'm going to feel like the "class" is still represented.

I mean, a signature class feature of the wizard (the familiar) got broken out into a theme in the playtest. I guess there's no longer a real Wizard class. There's just this freak class that killed the Wizard and took some of his stuff and now everybody and their grandmother can take a familiar so my precious snow-flake AD&D MU / 3E Wizard isn't a class in 5E. This isn't a unity edition - it's a travesty!

Or, maybe - just maybe - some of the more narrow archetypes that were called a "class" under one edition might just be sub-classes or combinations of class features/options, themes, and/or backgrounds in 5E without the sky falling down and killing us all.

- Marty Lund

 

[Minigiant]

How about:
A fighter class that can fight armed or unarmed
A monk class that can fight armed or unarmed
and
A theme that boosts unarmed damage and adds Wis to AC.

 

[Dausuul]

Just right, the monk doesn't need to be be better or even as good as a fighter in combat. That isn't their job. What they are supposed to do, and do so successfully, is be a decent melee combatant AND have extra tricks. They do it well, but they could always do it better. It is the same problem as a cleric outshining the fighter in his own role. The solution isn't to roll clerics in with fighters and be done with it. The solution is to let each class have things they do well, and that are unique to them, and then let them fill whatever roll they can from there. The monk is a fighter+ just like the paladin, ranger and barbarian are all fighter+. Giving me a fighter with a monk package isn't going to cut it - for reasons I gave above.

Yeah, this. I will just add that the monk should be able to do certain things in combat better than the fighter; for example, the monk could be better at evading barriers and bypassing defenses, and at temporarily disabling a single large foe. But the fighter still outperforms the monk at "take a sledgehammer to the face and keep on trucking" and "pound enemy into paste."

 

[Remathilis]

Removing? No. Restructuring? Definitely!

Right, because that sooooo worked out well for fourth edition.

WotC is in a precarious spot. The whole Next edition is predicated on "that D&D feel you used to know." Vancian magic is a terrible magic system, but its Traditional D&D and thus it comes back. The Great Wheel is coming back. Monster descriptions are being cribbed from 2e. Even the revised surprise rules sound like old D&D. Do you REALLY think WotC is going to go to a generic 1d4 class system and a build-your-own model of subclasses?

I'll be shocked, and saddened, if that is true.

 

[mlund]

The whole Next edition is predicated on "that D&D feel you used to know." Vancian magic is a terrible magic system, but its Traditional D&D and thus it comes back. The Great Wheel is coming back. Monster descriptions are being cribbed from 2e. Even the revised surprise rules sound like old D&D.

If you can build a character that feels like an old-school monk when you play it then you've lost nothing. People who pitch deal-breaker fits over every detail of the build not being included directly into a stand-alone class aren't going to be happy with anything you do in 5E so they aren't potential customers.

Do you REALLY think WotC is going to go to a generic 1d4 class system and a build-your-own model of subclasses?

Let me introduce you to my friend Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It has 5 classes - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, and Monk. Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Illusionist, are all sub-classes. People played the daylights out of that game. It eventually fell out of favor with the majority of the customer base for other systems that allowed customization of some of the features that AD&D included as class or sub-class based or just generally hand-waived.

Right, because that sooooo worked out well for fourth edition.

Contrast 4th Edition which claimed to put a strong emphasis on options but ultimately was so class-centric it had to roll out 5 PHBs plus splat-books over years and years to support play-styles that were demanded on day one. (Hint: If it takes until Heroes of the Fallen Kingdoms to get a damage-focused Greatweapon Fighter you're doing something wrong.) Complaints included "feat taxes," poor functionality in multi-classing, no viable skill development, and weak customization options in general. Basically if you wanted to do something you had to wait for them to bother to print a silo'd class that did it. The only saving grace was 4E wasn't as averse to overlap between classes as prior editions had been so you weren't quite as straight-jacketed to a theme in exchange for functionality.

- Marty Lund

 

[Gryph]

Honestly if I have to build a character out of component parts to achieve what an earlier version of D&D did with classes then I don't want classes at all. If you don't have classes then I see no reason to buy or play D&D because I already have a couple of choices in games that do that.

Contrariwise, if Next is going to deliver a game that lets me emulate the feel of 1e AD&D then it will have to deliver a set of classes that can get the job done without using themes/backgrounds/feats/skills or any other decorator they may come up with for this edition.

I think @Remathilis was on the right track upthread. If a class has appeared as a full class through multiple editions it should stay as a full class in Next. I despise the sorceror as a purely mechanical construct devoid of meaningful flavor to distinguish it from the wizard; but I fully expect them to include it in Next because a lot of the player base likes it.

 

[Gryph]

Let me introduce you to my friend Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It has 5 classes - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, and Monk. Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Illusionist, are all sub-classes. People played the daylights out of that game. It eventually fell out of favor with the majority of the customer base for other systems that allowed customization of some of the features that AD&D included as class or sub-class based or just generally hand-waived.

I think you are being a little disingenuous here. Each of the "sub-classes" were presented with a full write up. Being a subclass did not mean the two classes shared even the most basic of class definers. Rangers had d8 hit dice for example and started with 2 of them. They most certainly didn't share the same xp progression. There were variances in armor and weapons availlable between main class and subclasses.

The only rules that specifically combined them mechanically were the to hit chart and the saving throw chart. Significant but not the heart of the class.

AD&D 1e had 10 classes plus the odd dual class driven Bard.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

How about:
A fighter class that can fight armed or unarmed
A monk class that can fight armed or unarmed
and
A theme that boosts unarmed damage and adds Wis to AC.

But... then how would we determine who won this thread?

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I despise the sorceror as a purely mechanical construct devoid of meaningful flavor to distinguish it from the wizard; but I fully expect them to include it in Next because a lot of the player base likes it.

As an aside, I always felt the 3e sorcerer was an awesome and iconic concept with terrible execution. (I have the blood of dragons in my veins - behold! I can cast a spell named after a human wizard!)