D&D 5E (2014) Open Interpretation Inspirational Healing Compromise.

[TwoSix]

That is 4e.

What is? Hundreds of classes, or terrible?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I doubt 4e had more classes then 3e... I think maybe even 2e had it beat...

 

[Tony Vargas]

YOu seem to be avoiding the question. One more time.

Have you looked at the Noble class?

Not avoiding, it's just not an important question. No, I couldn't care less what's on EN5ider, or in someone else's home game. More power to 'em for creating the content, but I'm more concerned with D&D, itself, with how well it accomplishes it's stated goals - and with bringing new players into the hobby - and maybe getting around to play an interesting character at some point.

Though, there's already a 'Noble' background and I can't pretend a great deal of interest in the concept, in general.

When people did not like 4E we went to Pathfinder.

And there's nothing like a Pathfinder-style virtual re-print/continuation of 4e. So even if I wanted to rage-quit WotC and wallet vote against 5e - which I don't, I actively support and promote 5e - I would have no where to place that petulant vote (the GSL makes a Pathfinder analog to 4e impossible), anyway.

If everyone would get class they enjoyed in previous editions, we would have hundreds.

Gee, that sounds terrible.

That is 4e.

I doubt 4e had more classes then 3e... I think maybe even 2e had it beat...

3e did go crazy with classes - if you count PrCs and oddball variations, it's hundreds, over 300, IIRC - if you look at classes /just/ in it's two PHs, it's not so crazy, 15 or so. 4e, if you count hybrids and Essentials+ sub-classes & the Vampire, had 77; if you just consider actual classes in one of the PHs, it had 24. AD&D had 11 classes OA ~doubled that, and there were may 'unofficial' classes in Dragon, AD&D 2e trimmed away the Monk & Assassin & made the Illusionist a specialty, for 8 in the PH, plus the psionicist... and went up from there with many supplements having several novel classes or minor-to-bizarre variations on existing ones, probably north of 50 if you just count every last class-ish thing.

Obviously, there's a lot of redundancy in there. But, if you really did want /exactly/ every class, sub-class, unofficial-NPC class, setting-specific class variation, and PrC ever, it'd be hundreds, in deed.

[sblock="PH1 class-counting in detail"]If you restricted yourself to full classes in a PH1, it'd be 13 - if you want to consider anything in a PH1, add the Assassin as a sub-class, and the Wizard specialties and Cleric mythoi/domains, and a psionics appendix, at the outside.

Broken down like this:

Fighter (1e, 2e, 3e, 4e)
Cleric (1e, 2e, 3e, 4e)
Magic-user/Wizard (1e, 2e, 3e, 4e)
Thief/Rogue (1e, 2e, 3e, 4e)
Monk (1e,3e)
Bard (2e, 3e)
Paladin (2e, 3e, 4e)
Ranger (2e, 3e, 4e)
Druid (3e)
Barbarian (3e)
Sorcerer (3e)
Warlock (4e)
Warlord (4e)
+
Assassin, Paladin, Ranger, Druid & Illusionist sub-classes (1e)
Bard proto-PrC Appendix (1e)
Psionics Appendix (1e)
Illusionist, Enchanter, Evoker, Abjurer, Conjurer, Transmuter, Necromancer, Diviner (2e, 3e)
Druid specific-mythos priest (2e)
Air, Animal, Chaos, Death, Destruction, Earth, Evil, Fire, Good, Healing, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Magic, Plant, Protection, Strength, Sun, Travel, Trickery, War, & Water -Domain Clerics (3e)
Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, or War

5e has 12 full classes, omitting only the Warlord, and 38 sub-classes, omitting the Chaos, Death, Destruction, Evil, Good, Law, Luck, Magic, Protection, Strength, and Travel Domains (and possibly re-naming Healing to Life, Sun to Light, Air to Tempest, and folding Animal, Plant, Earth, Fire & Water into Nature), as well as any sort of Psionics, and adding/breaking-out the Wild Sorcerer, Totem Barbarian, Lore & Valor Bards, Shadow & Elemental Monks, Moon & Land Circles, Ancients & Vengeance Oaths, Champion, Hunter, Battlemaster, Beastmaster, Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Trickster.[/sblock]

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

...and, as a DM, I don't have to wait, I can go ahead and run those things, without letting the rules (or lack thereof), get in my way. That's the most amazing thing about 5e, not that it /says/ that the DM has that prerogative, but that at actually seems to have convinced the player base that it's OK to trust the DM to exercise it. I did not think they were going to be able to neatly reverse 14 years of 3.x/PF groupthink like that, but they did. It seems like every new ed has had at least one pleasant surprise for me.

This is an ironic case where mine and your respective usual preferences are flipped. When it comes to combat, I'm pretty okay winging it as a DM with the existing options, and as a player I'm okay with that too. I recognize some limitations and DM dependencies (e.g. if the DM forgets to ever include terrain features, you'll never get to exploit terrain; if rooms never have doors or furniture, you'll almost never get to use your free object interaction) but for the most part I'm okay with the amount of structure martial combat has today. You'd like more mechanical options to increase the scope for player agency. Is that a fair synopsis?

But when it comes to out-of-combat options, it sounds like you're the one who's okay winging it based on what's intuitively reasonable, and I'm the one looking for additional rules and mechanical options to increase player agency. I've done things like create rules for trade routes and taxation, so my players know that they can increase their monthly income by X amount if they recruit Y new colonists. One consequence: when they learned recently that a certain warlord was demanding tribute for 5000 gold per month from them as "rent", and that he had a signed deed to the rock their colony is on and everything, they discussed among themselves several options including recruiting more colonists... but they concluded that getting enough colonists to pay the rent purely on that basis was infeasible. They didn't have to break flow to consult with the DM because they already knew how the economics of their colony worked. They might have stopped to ask me a question about the potential rate at which they could recruit colonists, but they didn't have to ask me anything about the consequences of success or failure at recruitment. I see that as a win for player empowerment and I am constantly trying to create more of it.

Edit: or maybe our positions aren't flipped, maybe it's just a matter of me being 90% eager for noncombat rules and you being 55% eager.

 

[Aldarc]

YOu seem to be avoiding the question. One more time.

Have you looked at the Noble class?

When people did not like 4E we went to Pathfinder. The Noble is non WotC (just like Pathfinder) but if you are that keen on a warlord pay $3 and check it out. Sure it might not be called a warlord but it doesn't have connotations of child slavers or African despots. THe name Warlord has some negative connotations its not quite as bad as Schutzstaffel but it is a terrible class name (Officer, Noble, Marshal are all better).

And 'noble' doen't? I would be open to other class names, but in some regards I would prefer 'warlord' since it helps the class gain traction as far as tradition goes. 'Cavalier' could potentially work as a name and be combined with the 'warlord' if the core concept of the cavalier was divorced from being mounted.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

How about Poncy Aristocratic Git as a class name? ;-)

 

[Tony Vargas]

And 'noble' doen't? I would be open to other class names, but in some regards I would prefer 'warlord' since it helps the class gain traction as far as tradition goes. 'Cavalier' could potentially work as a name and be combined with the 'warlord' if the core concept of the cavalier was divorced from being mounted.

The core concept of the cavalier is either a) a noble, mounted knight fighting for honor or b) a long-haired poncy 17th-century English noble who wrote poetry that people are still forced to study to this day.

Both are too specific as name alternatives (though the mounted knight Cavalier was a whole class in 1e UA, and even ate the Paladin), and neither are as wholly inappropriate as one might wish....

How about Poncy Aristocratic Git as a class name? ;-)

Like Sir Percy Blakeney or Don Diego de la Vega?

Who'd want to play someone like that?









(Cool thing is, you /can/ in 5e, though with the Charlatan rather than Noble background.)

 

[ZickZak]

What is? Hundreds of classes, or terrible?

Possibly both of the above

 

[Remathilis]

The Warlord is a legitimate class that has been done very well in the game before. Some people are opposed to the very concept. They don't have to use it. That's a fair compromise, but how it turns out is of no interest to them.

What remains to iron out is whether the Warlord goes into the Standard Game and AL - which would be faithful to 5e's goal of including fans of all editions, but slightly inconvenience its detractors - or only the Advanced Game, with no AL play at all, which would still leave a lingering appearance of exclusion, but wouldn't inconvenience detractors in the least.

That's not a compromise, that's negotiating the terms of surrender.

"Take it" or "Leave it" aren't compromises. There are a number of people who want a warlord, but don't want the exact warlord 4e produced and they certainly don't want pseudo-4e mechanics or concepts introduced into 5e to get him. You've basically told us to take a hike. If you feel that way fine, but you've moved me from "hesitantly in favor" straight to "no way in Hell".

So feel free to continue to push against the tide, but I feel you are in the distinct minority waiting for a perfect port.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you feel that way fine, but you've moved me from "hesitantly in favor" straight to "no way in Hell".

I'm not sure that isn't just rhetorical, but you do bring up a point. There are really more than the two extreme camps. There are those who want the Warlord in 5e, those who want it purged from the game forever, those who might want something like the Warlord but find it some how not quite meeting their need, there are those who want to exclude the warlord for whatever reason but would settle for making it so bad no one would ever play it, there are those who despise the concept of the warlord, there are those who despised it's mechanics in 4e, there are those who despise it for being new-to-4e, there are those who are fine with the concept as long as it's strictly inferior to magical alternatives.

For most of those who despise the warlord, are still fighting the edition war, never want it at their table, want to dictate to the world that it never be played, or want it to be unplayable or strictly inferior, changing the warlord in a reasonable way will never be an acceptable compromise. The only plausible compromise is to make it more convenient for them to keep the warlord from the tables where they actually play. 5e already does that by Empowering the DM to ban or modify any part of the game, but that empowerment could be made easier (for instance, with modules), or effortless (opt-in).

For others, though, the exact mechanics, fluff and implementation might matter. The compromise here, since we are talking 5e, still needs to be inclusive. Not least-common-denominator (the Warlord least objectionable to the largest plurality, but but satisfying to few among them, and inevitably excluding the rest), but most customizeability, so everyone can get as close as possible to what they want, while opting out of what they don't.

That means things like the OP: Phrasing the fluff of the class to leave open loopholes that make it more palatable to some, without undermining the concept for everyone else. It also means designing a class with a great deal of both build and play flexibility.