Chris_Nightwing
First Post
I've been mulling this over for a while, and my hypothesis is this: the designers' use of subclasses shows that they want to reduce the complexity of character building, but the various subsystems in the game show that they don't care so much about complexity of rules.
Subclasses are a single decision point for a player to make at 3rd level. Whilst, of course, the options to customise a subclass with the DM, or change subclasses if you are not happy with your decision exist, there are no character creation decisions within a subclass. In fact, taking the Fighter as an example, you select your race, your ability score assignment and your equipment at 1st level. At 3rd level you select your subclass. You're then one of the lucky classes, because you get to choose between feats/ability scores 7 times during your career. However, if you're a Knight, you're a Knight, like every other Knight, indeed quite identical given the defensive abilities of that particular subclass.
During actual play though, you get to make a lot of decisions. You have your Action Surge, you can take a Second Wind, and if you become a Gladiator you have new resources to consider spending. That's quite a large selection of tactical options, which is good, but the implementation is one that requires mastery of a new subset of rules. In fact, throughout the game there are quite a few subsystems that require mastery of new rules. If the very first thing you learn is to roll your d20 and add your attack modifier to see if you hit a certain AC, then ability checks and saving throws follow logically. Then some classes get expertise dice, so you have to add dice, remember which dice you're entitled to and when you're entitled to them - which checks and saving throws. You might indeed pick the Gladiator as your subclass, and then you need to track superiority dice, which aren't expertise dice, but they definitely don't fit in with anything you've learned so far.
In my opinion, one of the biggest breakthroughs in 3rd edition was the mechanical streamlining. No longer was there a different dice for initiative, for surprise, a different way to calculate whether you passed a proficiency check compared to whether you hit a target. Whilst the general rule, roll d20 and add X, still exists, I think the use of other dice to add or check in other ways is an unnecessary inelegance. The designers seem happy with rules complexity at the table, with an intransitive learning curve, and yet they seem afraid of letting players make character decisions during their development.
There's a glimmer of hope though with the ability score/feat decisions. If those decisions exist for each class - take a simple thing or a complex thing - then I hope we can see some subclasses implemented in the same way. I don't think this is necessary for all - it seems thematic that the Wizard in particular select their speciality school almost right away and grow with it - but the Fighter? Each path has 5 abilities, and presented we have 1 simple path and 2 complex paths. Why not instead offer 5 choices, each with simple and complex options, where the complex options use a universal mechanic (be that superiority dice if it must)? Sometimes even the most seasoned player just wants to crit on 19s, and sometimes a new player, with enough levels under their belt, wants to take a complex option, to learn that for the next time they play.
TLDR: Character development shouldn't be hardcoded by the subclass decision point. We can afford more complexity there, whilst we ought to reduce the complexity of the myriad of subsystems elsewhere.
Subclasses are a single decision point for a player to make at 3rd level. Whilst, of course, the options to customise a subclass with the DM, or change subclasses if you are not happy with your decision exist, there are no character creation decisions within a subclass. In fact, taking the Fighter as an example, you select your race, your ability score assignment and your equipment at 1st level. At 3rd level you select your subclass. You're then one of the lucky classes, because you get to choose between feats/ability scores 7 times during your career. However, if you're a Knight, you're a Knight, like every other Knight, indeed quite identical given the defensive abilities of that particular subclass.
During actual play though, you get to make a lot of decisions. You have your Action Surge, you can take a Second Wind, and if you become a Gladiator you have new resources to consider spending. That's quite a large selection of tactical options, which is good, but the implementation is one that requires mastery of a new subset of rules. In fact, throughout the game there are quite a few subsystems that require mastery of new rules. If the very first thing you learn is to roll your d20 and add your attack modifier to see if you hit a certain AC, then ability checks and saving throws follow logically. Then some classes get expertise dice, so you have to add dice, remember which dice you're entitled to and when you're entitled to them - which checks and saving throws. You might indeed pick the Gladiator as your subclass, and then you need to track superiority dice, which aren't expertise dice, but they definitely don't fit in with anything you've learned so far.
In my opinion, one of the biggest breakthroughs in 3rd edition was the mechanical streamlining. No longer was there a different dice for initiative, for surprise, a different way to calculate whether you passed a proficiency check compared to whether you hit a target. Whilst the general rule, roll d20 and add X, still exists, I think the use of other dice to add or check in other ways is an unnecessary inelegance. The designers seem happy with rules complexity at the table, with an intransitive learning curve, and yet they seem afraid of letting players make character decisions during their development.
There's a glimmer of hope though with the ability score/feat decisions. If those decisions exist for each class - take a simple thing or a complex thing - then I hope we can see some subclasses implemented in the same way. I don't think this is necessary for all - it seems thematic that the Wizard in particular select their speciality school almost right away and grow with it - but the Fighter? Each path has 5 abilities, and presented we have 1 simple path and 2 complex paths. Why not instead offer 5 choices, each with simple and complex options, where the complex options use a universal mechanic (be that superiority dice if it must)? Sometimes even the most seasoned player just wants to crit on 19s, and sometimes a new player, with enough levels under their belt, wants to take a complex option, to learn that for the next time they play.
TLDR: Character development shouldn't be hardcoded by the subclass decision point. We can afford more complexity there, whilst we ought to reduce the complexity of the myriad of subsystems elsewhere.
