D&D 5E Do Classes Have Concrete Meaning In Your Game?

[Arial Black]

So what I learned is:

"I have a cool idea for a character. He's a tough old human who was a former thug for a local guild. He fights with a pair of shortswords, wears beaten leather armor, but otherwise looks like a normal laborer in any town and NOT an adventurer. He has a slight limp, but hearty against poisons. Here are his stats:

Garruk
Hill dwarf (refluffed human) fighter (refluffed enforcer), N, criminal
S 15, D 12, C 16, I 10, W 12, CH 8
AC 17 (chain, refluffed as leather armor, defense style)
HP 14, Spd 25
Skills: Athletics, Stealth, Perception, Deception, Thieves tools
Atk: greatsword (refluffed as two shortswords) +4, 2d6+2

The rules tell you the game mechanics. You can re-fluff a shortsword as a BFK or a jian or a seax, you can re-fluff a greatsword as a flamberge or a claymore or a no-dachi, but you're talking nonsense if you re-fluff one greatsword as two shortswords.

If you want to play an Alice-In-Wonderland type of surreal game go ahead, but this is not the same thing as playing an expert in unarmed combat who's never seen a monastery, or a paladin who *gasp* doesn't wear full plate!

 

[Arial Black]

Then why are you asking for a rulebook reference?



No, but they'll understand the concept of 'apprentice', 'journeyman', and 'master', and they'll recognise different skill levels they see them. So when Bob first picks up a sword, they'll identify him as an apprentice (or beginner, or whatever term you prefer). Once he's trained a bit and is able to handle himself in a fight, they'll equally identify the progress. And once he's advanced to the point that only stupid punks out to make their name dare challenge him, they'll recognise that also.

People may well not identify individual levels, but that doesn't mean they can't identify poor, good, and better when they see it.

Well, we agree on all that! But creatures observing the result of game mechanics (like believing that you're a very deadly warrior) doesn't mean that they can perceive the game mechanics that give rise to those in-game results (such as class, level, hit points, Action Surges, etc). The problem is the assertion that the game mechanic of 'character class' is an observable quality in-game.

 

[Remathilis]

The rules tell you the game mechanics. You can re-fluff a shortsword as a BFK or a jian or a seax, you can re-fluff a greatsword as a flamberge or a claymore or a no-dachi, but you're talking nonsense if you re-fluff one greatsword as two shortswords.

If you want to play an Alice-In-Wonderland type of surreal game go ahead, but this is not the same thing as playing an expert in unarmed combat who's never seen a monastery, or a paladin who *gasp* doesn't wear full plate!

Garruk is mechanically 100% correct, so it shouldn't matter if he looks like a human, a goblin, or a dwarf. It shouldn't matter if I represent his armor a chain or leather, nor does it matter if his weapon looks like a greatsword, two shortswords, or a flower on a long stem.

Unless, of course, mechanics have some bearing on the fictional world after all..

 

[delericho]

Well, we agree on all that! But creatures observing the result of game mechanics (like believing that you're a very deadly warrior) doesn't mean that they can perceive the game mechanics that give rise to those in-game results (such as class, level, hit points, Action Surges, etc).

Yep, I'm with you on that.

The problem is the assertion that the game mechanic of 'character class' is an observable quality in-game.

True... ish.

I wouldn't apply it to any of the classes in the 5e PHB, but I think there is room for a secret society where all members (and only members) are taught some sort of secret technique. Such that that technique becomes a calling card for the organisation, and so if you see someone bust out the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique, you know they're a member of the Brotherhood of Pai Mei. In effect, then, the order and the Prestige Class become synonymous.

 

[delericho]

nor does it matter if his weapon looks like a greatsword, two shortswords, or a flower on a long stem.

What happens if he loses one of his swords?

 

[Remathilis]

What happens if he loses one of his swords?

Then he can't fight with either of them (a small fiction tradeoff, perhaps the disadvantage of losing both weapons at the same time when you could just lose one could be offset by his armor being immune to heat metal?)

That's a DM ruling based on the situation though.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't really get why 5e Monks get those abilities as standard in the first place.

But, in any case, they're teen-level abilities. By that point the character is so far into superhuman territory that I don't really care.

That's that squinting I was talking about...

...and Monks get those abilities in the first place because they point at the archetype that the monk is meant to allow you to role play, and that archetype isn't just "fist-fighty-person."

I'm not saying it doesn't work fine, but I am saying that I prefer it when the mechanics fully support the role I want to play, rather than just kinda support it (and thus that class has a pretty concrete meaning in my games, and that I think it's a GOOD idea that it does and want it to be even MORE concrete).

Changing fluff is a lot easier than changing mechanics. And it's not just that he's good with his fists - I'd be looking for a fast-moving, unarmed, and unarmoured combatant. The Fighter class as presented is too dependent on his gear to really be suitable without significant changes.

Plus, labeling him a Thug would be as wrong as labeling him a Monk.

I think the "mechanics is too hard" hurdle might be more in peoples' minds than in their games. Though 3e and 4e arguably had that condition, 5e isn't too complex. It accommodates a change like "swap heavy armor for a monk's unarmed defense and martial weapon proficiency for a monk's martial arts" pretty gracefully.

What's hard is thinking of good names for things. Pugilist? Make it a fighting style? More than one way to skin that cat. Someone who wants to punch dragons shouldn't have to be a Monk to do it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Isn't that what 4e did, though? "Fighter" became specifically the defense-oriented martial character, though it could do competent damage if you built for it even before the introduction of the Slayer. They forked out all the purely-killinate-stuff to Ranger, and the leader-of-men stuff to the Warlord. People complained that it was a horrible awful sin against God and Man that someone who wanted to play a "bow Fighter" had to play a Ranger. They also had Avengers, which are pretty Rogue-like but with distinctly Divine flavor. I don't recall a Primal or Arcane equivalent, though one could argue that the Bard (or maaaaaybe Artificer) could qualify, being all skilly and tricksy (or potion-y, for the Artificer), and of course there was the Assassin. You even had the Seeker as an attempt, albeit not very successful, to add further options for archery-focused characters.

I mean sure, it's entirely possible that 4e could have gone further with this stuff--but I really think it's a question of degree and not kind. Particularly given how negatively much of this was received, even by 4e fans (Runepriest is just a weird Cleric! Seeker is just a poorly-made Controller Ranger! Assassin should be a Rogue thing!), and how much people bellyache about requests for stuff like an actual Warlord class in 5e. I agree with you, in that I think that making things a bit narrower and more focused would probably be good for the game, in terms of design...but I'm not sure most people want that, even if it WOULD be a better deal!

Yeah, I agree that 4e could've gone farther and I think that the reaction against 4e's "do one thing" fighter is part of why we have a fighter in 5e that doesn't have a strong independent flavor. To a certain degree, I think rogue is in the same camp - kind of Generic Town (though here the subclasses do some significant heavy lifting and convey a lot of flavor, so it gets a bit better). If the Warlord and the Slayer were better anchored into fiction (ESPECIALLY the Slayer), and the "Fighter" given a different name in 4e's initial release (Knight?), we might have seen a less narratively empty warrior class (or classes) out of 5e.

I think as you go narrow you still have to be conscious of how big a class is (especially in 5e) and if it's really something that needs a whole class to support it, and really what the difference in the fiction and the world really is. Some of the failed classes of 4e are failed archetypes - there is little demand for a "ranger whose arrows turn into bees" or "a cleric, but with runes," perhaps. And when you lean into "your class is you in the world," you can't half-cheek it (the 4e fighter might've been a little hamstrung by 4e's general "fluff is meaningless" design choices here). But those are all, I think, the right problems to be facing.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Garruk is mechanically 100% correct, so it shouldn't matter if he looks like a human, a goblin, or a dwarf. It shouldn't matter if I represent his armor a chain or leather, nor does it matter if his weapon looks like a greatsword, two shortswords, or a flower on a long stem.

Unless, of course, mechanics have some bearing on the fictional world after all..

Of course they do. The question isn't 'do game mechanics and game fiction interact' it's 'do game mechanics define game fiction?'

I would allow some of your character's refluffing, because it doesn't alter how the mechanics functions (class and race refluffs). The AC refluff does alter how the mechanics function (you only get defense when you're wielding a weapon, leather is not metal, medium armor has restrictions light armor does not, etc.) so it (and the weapon refluff) are out. That's not a difficult to grasp line, it doesn't reduce to absurdity unless you strawman the actual argument.

The reverse position is that you cannot alter any fluff from what's presented in the books, ever, which I'm pretty sure isn't a position you hold. So, glory be! We both seem to favor positions somewhere in between the extremes. I don't like game mechanics defining game fiction as a default, but I do very much allow that game mechanics influence and interact with game fiction, and should do so in ways that make sense (like a greatsword refluff staying as a heavy weapon and not becoming two lights because the dice look similar). You seem to fall more towards the game mechanics defining the game fiction as a default, with only a few, limited exceptions. There's room for us both, we don't have to turn this into politics where any deviation from the party line is grounds for mocking and ridicule.

 

[delericho]

I'm not saying it doesn't work fine, but I am saying that I prefer it when the mechanics fully support the role I want to play, rather than just kinda support it

But unless your character just happens to fit exactly into one of the choices in the PHB, it will always only kinda support it. Eventually, some sort of compromise will have to be made.

I think the "mechanics is too hard" hurdle might be more in peoples' minds than in their games. Though 3e and 4e arguably had that condition, 5e isn't too complex. It accommodates a change like "swap heavy armor for a monk's unarmed defense and martial weapon proficiency for a monk's martial arts" pretty gracefully.

Yes, but there comes a point where it's quicker and easier to modify the Monk than the Fighter to get where you want to go.