D&D 5E Should 5e have more classes (Poll and Discussion)?

[Stormonu]

I read some, but skipped forward a bit. I think I would be okay if D&D had the classes a bit more folded together - roll classes like the Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger into subclasses for the Fighter, Bard* into Rogue, Monk and Druid into Cleric and Artificer, Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard into a "Spellcaster/Magic-User" class (I think generalist/specialist Wizard should be a subclass, rather than the "main" class arcane casters hang off of).

That folding wouldn't reduce the number of subclasses nor reduce more being hung on and created, but with a "basic four", the DM & players can pick and choose which ones they want in their games and which they want to keep out a little easier - and how deeply they want to flavor them.

Just wish there were more extensions to the Backgrounds so they provided more structure and benefits that a couple of starting options and props at character creation.

* Bard is the oddball, since it is really an "all classes in one", but I'm in the minority I suspect as I quite like Bards (namely due to my readings of [translated & summarized] old Celtic bard tales.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Except as a parent, I would never do that. Instead, I would say, "OK, kids. Here are the requirements (clean you room in X number of minutes, do X number of pushup in X number of minutes, etc.) for attaining the ice cream. If you complete those successfully, you will receive ice cream as a reward."

The same thing happens in D&D: the DM presents the challenge / situation, then players compete for the spotlight in the same was Homer's myrmidons and Arthur's knights competed for glory.

That doesn't invalidate my point in any way. Sure, you can put a prerequisite for the ice cream, but if that prerequisite isn't equal to all the children, that's unfair as a parent. The same thing applies to D&D character classes.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That doesn’t make them super. That makes them happier.

You edited my post, apparently.

To address your point, super is the equivalent to happier in my analogy.

 

[DND_Reborn]

We could divide up every spell into one of those 3 lists with no overlap!

Oh wait...I already got that T-shirt.

Yeah, we did that exercise before when we all discussed the "sameyness" of magic in 5E... it would involve too many classes losing spells and just wouldn't sit well with people. Unfortunately, because of such thinking the game won't really progress much more IMO.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I am just unable to merge the two massively opposing thoughts of 5E that we are seeing here on the boards.

The last 5 years it's all been about "We need more game mechanics!" "More playing-facing material!" "More subclasses!" "More this!" "More that!" "I'm bored of what we already have, we need more!!!" And yet we have people here also claiming the game needs to condense the number of classes down to just like 4 of them because they are redundant? Really?

So I'm assuming then that none of those people bought Xanathar's, nor will buy Tasha's... since it makes no logical sense to want more playing-facing game mechanics from new books while simultaneously wanting to remove 2/3rds of the existing class game mechanics by taking those classes away. You either have game mechanics in these books to create a "monk" (whether that be via subclasses, feats or actual classes) or you don't. But wanting a specific pattern on how to acquire those mechanics rather than having several different patterns to use to get there seems kind of pointless.

Seeing as how we already have the Basic Rules, which is as stripped down a game as we can have... there is absolutely no reason why anyone should feel like the game is losing something by having 12 classes in the Player's Handbook. Because no one HAS to use the Player's Handbook. They can just use the Basic Rules and create their own Backgrounds to make their Entertainer Wizard bard clone... their Outlander Rogue ranger clone... their Noble Cleric paladin clone... their Hermit Fighter barbarian clone, etc. The game can support that playstyle and in fact already does. So there really shouldn't be any complaints.

 

[Undrave]

some are saying that certain classes are still here because of legacy reason, but let's not forget the storm of complaint 4e got for not having the Bard, Sorcerer and Barbarian (and Gnome and Half-Orc) in the first PHB...

I voted more, but only because I'm bored with the current offerings.

I want to know why some people want less, though. I see a lot of people ask for it, but never give any reason why it would make the game better.

I'm curious too. It's a CLASS based game. I'd rather have more options.

Where there are two or more equally valid methods of representing a character concept, the choice of which method to use becomes more important than the character being represented. It shifts the focus of the game away from the actual table, and toward character creation.

Removing redundant options would allow us to shift the focus back toward the table.

I dunno why that's such a big deal. I don't think any classes properly overlap in 5e. Its more of a Venn Diagram thing where certain classes touches and others exist in the overlap of two larger circles.

Classes as they currently exist are very inconsistent in terms of conceptual specificity. You’ve got “guy who fights” sitting in the same character building and conceptual space as “guy who made a pact with a powerful and potentially sinister otherworldly entity for magic power.” The ranger struggles to find a niche somewhere between the broad conceptual spaces filled by the fighter, the rogue, and the druid. Paladins and Clerics compete for being “the holy warrior.” It’s a huge mess. Pairing down to a small number of very broad character archetypes and allowing them to be further refined by subclasses and kits would address this problem.

Personally I'd go the other way and break off the wider classes. Wizard in particular is just a grab bag of stuff from an era when there WERE only a few classes. But while the Fighter and Cleric (and Thief) got their stuff stolen, the Wizard only got copied and remain the arcane grab bag it used to be.

In 4e, the Cleric, Paladin, Invoker and Avenger could all exist and feel distinct, I don't know why it wouldn't be possible in 5e.

One of the things I liked about 4E was the power sources, although the big flaw was that the underlying mechanics were all the same. If I were doing a 6E, I'd take the basic idea and differentiate them thematically and mechanically.

For instance, primal classes would draw from the power of nature itself. A range wouldn't just be a naturalist warrior, but a warrior whose abilities are infused with primal power. So they wouldn't cast spells as much as draw upon primal energy to augment their actions.

The arcane power source is, of course, pure magical energy, and classes would offer different ways of using it: wizards through trained spells (Vancian), sorcerers through wild magic via will-power, and bards through music.

And so forth. Each power source would still use the d20 mechanic, but would be structured differently.

I totally agree. I feel like power sources were a great way to add flavor and consistency to various classes and I could really go for an edition that leaned into it more. Primal no longer really exist and is, somehow, a type of Divine?! If each had a core mechanical identity (like Channel Divinity) attached to it, alongside class-based fluffier options (like the way the Warden's Forms and Barbarian's Rage had different take on spirits coming into you) it'd be great.

I also think they should have kept the concept of role, and design each class with a main role in mind (only they would have hidden it from the players) then design each subclass with either supporting the main role or adding a secondary role. This would probably have given us a more solid Ranger and Monk IMO.

The warlord is in a similar boat, but could easily be a subclass of Fighter IMO and doesn't warrant a full class. ANY class can lead others, really, and that is another issue I have with Warlord.

There's more than one way to be a Warlord and I think it'd be really boring and limiting to try and pull it off with a single Fighter subclass. There's not just enough room in a Fighter subclass for it! For my home-brew Warlord I wrote up EIGHT subclasses, with a 9th one I have in mind right now, and they aren't as simple as 'inspiring Warlord vs Tactical Warlord'.

the same could easily be said of the Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger. The fact 5e managed to give us multiple subclasses for those prove there is plenty of conceptual ground to work with that would not be fully covered if they were reduced to a single subclass.

It would bug me less if warlock didn't have rules which are thematically more appropriate for the sorcerer. Like always-on magic effects and rapidly recharging magic both sound like features of an innately magical being. So not only are the sorcerer rules lacklustre, another class has the rules they should have. Combining sorcerers with warlocks produces a sorcerer which has rules that support their themes better than the actual sorcerer rules do.

the 5e playlets apparently had this really cool concept for the Sorcerer where the more you used Sorcery points the more of your ancestry you manifested! Stuff like Draconic sorcerers getting scales, claws and wings... It sound like it would have been absolutely amazing but they somehow balked at it and back-pedalled to this boring spell slot based Sorcerer. A lot of people are saying the Sorcerer works best if you use the Spell Point variant instead?

Also, if you're casting by channeling energy from within, your casting stat should totally be CON and not CHA.

 

[Undrave]

Seeing as how we already have the Basic Rules, which is as stripped down a game as we can have... there is absolutely no reason why anyone should feel like the game is losing something by having 12 classes in the Player's Handbook. Because no one HAS to use the Player's Handbook. They can just use the Basic Rules and create their own Backgrounds to make their Entertainer Wizard bard clone... their Outlander Rogue ranger clone... their Noble Cleric paladin clone... their Hermit Fighter barbarian clone, etc. The game can support that playstyle and in fact already does. So there really shouldn't be any complaints.

Sounds like a product that should exist on DM's Guild... some people would probably dig it.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Because they wouldn't exist if the paladin is removed. They are paladin exclusive.

There are several classes and subclasses other than Paladin that have made use of Smite spells.
More to the point, if the paladin was just a subclass of fighter and "smiting" was something that was judged to be required, those spells would likely have been created and given to that subclass.

Just to get back on topic.

5e could use a Scholar/Sage class.

You know.... a smart adventurer who uses knowledge that isn't magic. Science, Tactics, Math, History, Diplomacy.

Like a Rogue with a decent Intelligence and Charisma? Pretty much all of those seem to fall into ability checks/skill proficiencies or player decisions.

Battlemaster gets three manoeuvres straight at the third level. Warlord could in similar vein get three stratagems, so then you already have good toolkit and feel sufficiently different from other fighters. And at higher levels you could get even more stratagems and on top of that other features too. I just don't see how they could need so much stuff that it wouldn't fit in this framework.

The issue is that a lot of the Fighter's capability and power is bound up in class abilities that give personal power. You couldn't create an effective and balanced warlord out of the current 5e Fighter, because the 5e Fighter, with its action Surge and many attacks does not have the "power budget to also include powerful ally-boosting abilities.

Several Battlemaster Maneuvers are essentially what you would want a warlord would be able to do but are just too limited to feel like a full warlord. But if you made them powerful enough to feel like warlord abilities at high level, it would be a direct power boost over the BM. To get what would feel like a powerful enough ally-boosting class to feel like a warlord, you would have to crop out some of the personal power-boosting abilities of the base 5e Fighter, and 5e doesn't do subclasses that remove abilities from the main class.
When I homebrewed a warlord class, I began with the concept of the BM fighter being to the warlord what the Eldritch Knight fighter was to the wizard.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So there really shouldn't be any complaints.

My only real complaint when yet more material and options are released is "How about fixing the stuff that really hasn't been working for the last 5 or so years instead?" Personally, I am tired of fixing it myself.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It makes sense because there's no such thing as a single version of any character, especially a well-known character.
[...]
Heck, this is true in real life. Everyone who knows me would model a different version of me, because they see different aspects of me.

But there's only one true version of a character, within any objective reality. Superman may vary a lot across the decades and different media, but there's only one of him at any given time (barring specific shenanigans). If you're reading a comic that came out last year, he's going to be consistent within that comic arc.

Likewise, there's only one true you in the objective reality we call life. Your ability to swing a sword, and the number of fireballs you can throw in a day, is objectively quantifiable. There is only one true territory, and allowing different people to create their own maps of that territory can only create confusion.