D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: More Classes/Subclasses, Retraining & Playing Without Subclasses

[1of3]

I hope that they find some way to bring back the 3.5 Complete Divine Spirit Shaman. I have a player that loved playing that class... and it was missing from 4E and PF... Maybe as a Druid subclass?

For the casting method? In that case, everyone is a Spirit Shaman in 5e. Making a subclass with Chastise Spirits, Ghost Touch and Gaseous Form wouldn't be too hard either though.

 

[Li Shenron]

First off, what is so wrong with having more classes in the future? Why is subclass "bloat" okay but new classes something to be avoided like the plague?

I hear you... I am not sure, but subclasses might be very similar to AD&D "kits", and I seem to remember that people hated the proliferation of kits. Then nowadays a lot of people say they were disgusted by the proliferation of prestige classes in 3e, but at that time it was us who constantly begged WotC for more and more prestige classes...

If every subclass would start at level 3, where does that leave the Mage and every subclass under it? The idea that you play a general Mage and then decide if you want to be a Warlock, Wizard, Sorcerer, Artificer, Psion, etc at level 3 would be the stupidest idea in the history of RPG design.

Those are not Mage subclasses. They are spellcasting variant. They obviously must be fixed since the start.

Mage subclasses are the Arcane Traditions (if you chose Wizard), and probably later Bloodlines (if you chose Sorcerer), Pacts (if you chose Warlock) and so on. These can start at any time.

 

[variant]

Those are not Mage subclasses. They are spellcasting variant. They obviously must be fixed since the start.

Mage subclasses are the Arcane Traditions (if you chose Wizard), and probably later Bloodlines (if you chose Sorcerer), Pacts (if you chose Warlock) and so on. These can start at any time.

Mearls has called them subclasses.

 

[Li Shenron]

Mearls has called them subclasses.

That proves to me that are messing up, confused by their own work

He can call them what he wants, but if it walks like a duck...

Arcane Traditions function mechanically just like Fighter Paths, Druid Circles etc: they are a list of "add-on" features spread over a number of levels, starting from whatever they want them to start.

Wizardry is one big thing that can't start later than 1st level because it totally determines your spellcasting mechanic. At the moment all features of Wizardry happen at once (tho this could be changed for the secondary features such as Arcane Recovery). It's a different mechanical framework compared to other classes subclasses.

 

[pemerton]

Retraining is a form of retcon, and should require explicit permission from the god of time and space (DM).

Why is retraining retcon. Sometimes it is, but it need not be. A character practices hard fighting with the longsword (Weapon Focus: longsword) but then practices hard with the khopesh instead, letting his/her longsword skills decline a bit (retrain to Weapon Focus: khopesh). That's not a retcon.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I still don't know what "weight" a class is carrying.

It can't be equipment -- a fighter who uses a big sword should probably still be the same class as a fighter who uses a sword & board. It can't be spellcasting -- if Mages can all have different spellcasting subsystems, then the Mage can't have one. It can't be in-world archetpes, concepts like Fighter and Mage are waaaay too broad for that. Is it HD? Then why is, say the Palaidn (d10) not a Fighter (d10) subclass? And what if we want to change the Wizard subclass of Mage from d6 to d4 (or vice versa)? Attack bonuses are already decoupled from level advancement thanks to bounded accuracy.

I'm not really seeing much of a niche for "class" to fill.

 

[Kinak]

I'm not really seeing much of a niche for "class" to fill.

Agreed. They've offloaded so much on subclasses that the classes are just... well, weird. Some of them are hollowed-out husks, while others still have their own mechanics.

As far as I can tell, classes are what people want to be able to call their characters and subclasses are what they want characters called that to be able to do. Maybe I'm just projecting too many threads onto the design, but it feels like everything everyone asked for got thrown into a pot and stirred.

Which, don't get me wrong, is an interesting way to design a game. I think it's pretty unlikely I'll want to play that game, but I'm interested to see how it turns out if that's what they're doing.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Li Shenron]

It can't be in-world archetpes, concepts like Fighter and Mage are waaaay too broad for that. Is it HD?

IMO mechanics are only a minor part of that. Sure Rage is part of the Barbarian class, Ki is part of the Monk class, and spellcasting classes have their rules (albeit the same for all of them), but it's not the most important thing (and there might be multiclassing feats or other classes' subclasses granting similar mechanics).

It's really just archetypes at the end. People want to play a Wizard or a Barbarian or a Druid, although each has different expectations, a lot of them coming from fiction (books, movies, PC games...). Some classes might be going after a wider archetype, but the presence of narrow-archetype classes in the same game can manage to narrow e.g. the Fighter's archetype, in the sense that if you have a Paladin class then it tends to "absorb" the holy warrior concept, even tho nobody's forced to choose Paladin over Fighter.

My bottom line is, that while we D&D-nerds are here splitting hair over what is a Fighter there are probably a lot of both casual and serious players who don't care about academic reasoning, and just know what a Fighter is in their mind, they pick up the Fighter class, and make it work as a whole, while we're thinking too much about why this detail here and there doesn't perfectly fit.

Agreed. They've offloaded so much on subclasses that the classes are just... well, weird. Some of them are hollowed-out husks, while others still have their own mechanics.

I think that's only the case of the Mage class, which is almost empty if Wizardry is a selectable feature. But it's not the case for all other classes, the features from class are still more than the features from subclass. Even if you take classes where the subclass is huge e.g. 7-8 features, you still get at least as many level-based features from the class directly.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Why is retraining retcon. Sometimes it is, but it need not be. A character practices hard fighting with the longsword (Weapon Focus: longsword) but then practices hard with the khopesh instead, letting his/her longsword skills decline a bit (retrain to Weapon Focus: khopesh). That's not a retcon.

That description is far too much of an abstraction for my comfort.

Skills decline from lack of use, and they do so slowly over time. Moreover, they usually come back quickly.

Retraining doesn't resemble this pattern. It comes across as unlearning something to learn something else.

 

[Kinak]

I think that's only the case of the Mage class, which is almost empty if Wizardry is a selectable feature. But it's not the case for all other classes, the features from class are still more than the features from subclass. Even if you take classes where the subclass is huge e.g. 7-8 features, you still get at least as many level-based features from the class directly.

I totally agree that they're not all hollow. It's the inconsistency that really bothers me, not the hollowness or lack thereof.

The Mage has nothing without subclasses and possibly two tiers of subclasses. Fighters can gain or lose entire mechanics. Monks and Barbarians can choose talents ala carte, but only within certain subclasses. Some classes are completely rewritten by their subclasses while others barely scratch the surface.

If they're going to give each class the same structure, they need to actually give it the same structure. If they're going to make each class mechanically distinct, they don't need to be crammed half-heartedly into the structure.

Cheers!
Kinak