D&D 5E Challenge: Invent a PHB Class List with 6 Classes

[squibbles]

Six classes?

IMHO, the key to mega-classes is to take a page out of how video games often approach class design: i.e., playstyle and theme are important. I recall that Elder Scrolls Online has a six class setup,** which actually represents a fairly good spread and distillation of the sorts of archetypes that I often find players drawn towards.

• Martial Heavy: heavily-armored strength-based fighters, knights, warlords, barbarians, etc.
• Martial Light: dex-based fighters, rogues, scouts, spell-less rangers, etc.
• Arcane/High Magic: arcane mages, wizards, sorcerers, etc.
• Holy/Divine/Psionic: paladins, priests, clerics, psions, mystics, etc.
• Primal/Nature/Fey/Green: druids, spell rangers, wardens, animists, etc.
• Shadowfell/Necromancy/Dark: necromancers, warlocks, edge lordy magic, etc. [...]

Curious. I have never played Elder Scrolls Online or even really read anything about it, but that's more or less the list I came up with:

Warrior = martial heavy​

Rogue = martial light​

Wizard = arcane/high magic​

Thaumaturge = holy/divine​

Enchanter ~= nature/fey/green​

Diabolist = shadow/necromancy/dark​

[...]
Witch
Witches make alliances and pacts with supernatural powers that are not divine. In both combat and exploration, they summon allies to their aid or transform themselves.

• The druid subclass calls upon the forces of nature and can call animal allies or become a beast.
• The warlock subclass strikes bargains with extraplanar powers. They can summon fiends, elementals, undead, and other such magical allies, and can take on aspects of those creatures themselves.

Interesting choice to put Druids and Warlocks together and to flag the forces they worship/serve as "not divine." A lot of the solutions to this challenge have novel impacts on D&D's implied setting, and this is one of the cooler ones. I like it a lot better than the FR convention that Druids serve nature gods but... somehow differently than Clerics. I wonder where this idea might lead. Makes me think of the Elric series' Beastlords, though that's not really what it implies.

Yeah, I was surprised myself. But, of course, you wind up in very different places when you pick a destination ahead of time, versus pick a starting point and a rule for wandering from there. Evolution produces stranger results than intelligent design.

Too true, just as restrictions enhance rather than detract from creativity.

That's the purpose of this challenge tbh. Adding or subtracting one or two classes is an obvious change, dropping down to the core 4 or fighter/wizard/rogue is an obvious change, going classless is an obvious change, but a good list of six classes isn't at all obvious--a lot has to be finessed or contrived to keep all the concepts in the current list but put them in six classes.

Serious question: what's the most recent poll on the most popular character classes? At least you could see what everyone likes to play. I've seen, for example, that 'evil' options like half-orcs and tieflings and warlocks ('evil' in quotes as the character of course may not be evil at all, but will be perceived to be) have become more popular. You can Google around and find a bunch, but I'm wondering if anyone has a sense of what the most recent one is.

IIRC, it's not too surprising and hasn't changed as much as the top races, where Dragonborn have been making a slow but steady rise over the course of 5e. I don't think D&D Beyond has released data since 2020, so we kinda have only that data to go on.

And from this, it would seem the top six classes are Fighter, Rogue, Warlock, Wizard, Cleric, and Barbarian. Which, curiously, means that the top six classes actually DO give us a six-attribute spread: Fighter (Str), Barbarian (Con), Rogue (Dex), Wizard (Int), Cleric (Wis), and Warlock (Cha).

The wisdom of crowds solution eh... and it actually gives us a pretty cool list.

How would the remaining classes go into those? Maybe:

Fighter (+Monk, +Paladin, +Ranger)​

Rogue (+Bard, +Monk?)​

Warlock (+Sorcerer, +Bard?)​

Wizard (+Artificer?)​

Cleric (+Druid)​

Barbarian (+Ranger?)​

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Too true, just as restrictions enhance rather than detract from creativity.

That's the purpose of this challenge tbh. Adding or subtracting one or two classes is an obvious change, dropping down to the core 4 or fighter/wizard/rogue is an obvious change, going classless is an obvious change, but a good list of six classes isn't at all obvious--a lot has to be finessed or contrived to keep all the concepts in the current list but put them in six classes.

Though, as I said in my initial post, the critical element of achieving "less is more" is by actually doing more with less. I.e., each individual element must work harder because you are choosing to have fewer of them. If the individual elements aren't actually working any harder (or indeed are working less hard than they were before), then less is, in fact, less.

The wisdom of crowds solution eh... and it actually gives us a pretty cool list.

How would the remaining classes go into those? Maybe:

Fighter (+Monk, +Paladin, +Ranger)​

Rogue (+Bard, +Monk?)​

Warlock (+Sorcerer, +Bard?)​

Wizard (+Artificer?)​

Cleric (+Druid)​

Barbarian (+Ranger?)​

Personally, I would fold Monk into Rogue (ninja are often characterized as a subtype of Monk), and Ranger into Barbarian. That way, no class is absorbing more than two other classes.

I think I'd favor lumping Bard and Warlock together, rather than Rogue. So you might have, as Patrons, options like the Unending Chorus (music/song focus) and the First and Last Word (oratory, Vicious Mockery), while the Pact of the Harp could be a new feature to cover some of the other Bard components. Meanwhile, the Pact of the Bloodline would be all about unlocking the secret potential within you, and various bloodlines would become Patrons, e.g. Elemental Dragon or Grandmother Storm. Sadly, the Pact of the Bloodline would almost certainly need more features because the only thing Sorcerers get is metamagic.

It of course pains me greatly to see Paladin demoted to a mere subclass, but that's likely what would have to happen. Personally, I think Cleric is already a bit overstuffed with subclasses, so I might actually favor having Cleric not absorb anything and instead fold Druid into Barbarian. Rage and the Totem options already resemble transformation effects, so it's not a huge leap.

 

[Lanefan]

Though, as I said in my initial post, the critical element of achieving "less is more" is by actually doing more with less. I.e., each individual element must work harder because you are choosing to have fewer of them. If the individual elements aren't actually working any harder (or indeed are working less hard than they were before), then less is, in fact, less.

If one's goal is to cut down on bloat*, "less" may well be the desired result.

* - I'm not sure if that's the OP's primary goal here, but cutting down bloat is always a worthy goal.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If one's goal is to cut down on bloat*, "less" may well be the desired result.

* - I'm not sure if that's the OP's primary goal here, but cutting down bloat is always a worthy goal.

Well...again, that's presuming that less either accomplishes the same amount of goals, or (as "less is more" usually implies), actually accomplishes more goals than the current set of things.

Like, you can say "less may well be the desired result," but I don't think even a single person who favors cutting down on classes is straight-up saying, "You should not be allowed to play a divine warrior anymore, that archetype has been deleted from the game. If you want that archetype, look elsewhere." That's what "less is less" would mean in this context, and very few people--I'm pretty sure not even you!--actually want that.

Instead, what most advocates of "less is more" are saying is that you can accomplish either more things, the same number of things, or (if they're pushed) possibly a very very slightly reduced number of things, while using substantially fewer "moving parts" as it were. It's not that eliminating Paladin is good because not having "holy knight" as an archetype would be good; it's that eliminating "Paladin" because it is unnecessary (or so they claim) is good, but eliminating it would not eliminate the "holy knight" archetype. Instead, that archetype can either be represented extremely simply (e.g. Fighter with the Acolyte or Knight of the Order background) or less-simply (e.g. writing a new Divine equivalent of Eldritch Knight to take the Paladin's place).

Unless, that is, you truly are saying that you wish to outright eliminate archetypes from the D&D playspace? As always, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I think you'll find that particular opinion will not get much traction in the vast majority of discussions.

Also, "cutting down bloat" is inherently a loaded phrase. That is like saying, "It is always desirable to fight evil." Well, sure it is. But we aren't talking about whether it is desirable to fight evil. We're talking about whether it's desirable to fight werewolves. It is a (formal, for once) fallacy--specifically, I believe it is the fallacy of four terms--to invoke "cutting down bloat is always a worthy goal" unless one establishes the link between "game X supports Y/Z/W archetypes" and "game X is bloated." We have something of the form, "It is always desirable to fight bloat. Game X supports Y, Z, and W as archetypes. Therefore, it is always desirable to remove Y, Z, and W as archetypes." The two premises have no terms in common, so the conclusion does not follow. One can only make it follow by adding a middle premise, "It is bloat to support archetypes Y, Z, and W," but that is the very thing the critic of these archetypes is trying to assert in the first place, making their argument circular: it is good to remove them because they are bloat, and they are bloat because it is good to remove them.

 

[Aldarc]

Curious. I have never played Elder Scrolls Online or even really read anything about it, but that's more or less the list I came up with:

Warrior = martial heavy​

Rogue = martial light​

Wizard = arcane/high magic​

Thaumaturge = holy/divine​

Enchanter ~= nature/fey/green​

Diabolist = shadow/necromancy/dark​

That does seem pretty close. IMHO, it's a pretty good distillation of the sort of the roles, both thematically and playstyle-wise, that players are often drawn towards in other games.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

Fighter, Rogue, and Warlock is all you really need.

Barbarians and Rangers and Monks are Fighters.
Artificers are a Rogue (skill-monkeys) sub-class who specialize in weird skills and magic (like the Arcane Trickster).
Clerics (God pact), Druids (nature pact), Sorcerers (ancestor pact), and Wizards (nerd pact) are all Warlocks.
Paladins are either Fighters who do a little magic, like Eldrich Knight, or they've just multi-classed with God pact Warlock.
Bards are clearly multi-classed, as first edition intended.

 

[Shiroiken]

I'd kinda go back to the basics, with Warrior, Priest, Mage, and Rogue. For the other two, I'd use half-casters, such as fighter/priest and fighter/mage.

 

[Aldarc]

I'd kinda go back to the basics, with Warrior, Priest, Mage, and Rogue. For the other two, I'd use half-casters, such as fighter/priest and fighter/mage.

Merge the Priest and the Mage and then you can do Warrior, Mage, Rogue but then also Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Rogue, and Mage/Rogue.

 

[Undrave]

I think I'd favor lumping Bard and Warlock together, rather than Rogue. So you might have, as Patrons, options like the Unending Chorus (music/song focus) and the First and Last Word (oratory, Vicious Mockery), while the Pact of the Harp could be a new feature to cover some of the other Bard components. Meanwhile, the Pact of the Bloodline would be all about unlocking the secret potential within you, and various bloodlines would become Patrons, e.g. Elemental Dragon or Grandmother Storm. Sadly, the Pact of the Bloodline would almost certainly need more features because the only thing Sorcerers get is metamagic.

Hey that's a cool idea.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I would like to see the classes as "clearly" (maybe not so much....?) role-defined:

1. Long ranged attacker (weapon or spell, or pet )
2. Melee attacker (weapon or spell, or pet )
3. Utility character* (limited depth but wide breadth, , or pet )
4. Know-It-All (deep depth but very focused)
5. Sneak (, or pet )
6. Jack-of-all-trades-master-at-none

For any sort of multiclassing, you would have a primary and secondary (beyond that, just choose option #6 above) and you would not choose a subclass for either class. Your secondary advances half the speed of your primary, but in a class/level system you still split XP evenly.

For example, with 48000 XP you would normally be 9th level. If you MC'ed, you would be 24000/ 12000 for your primary/ secondary classes, making you 7/5, but with no subclasses or subclass features.

EDIT: *I mistyped "caster" before when I meant utility character, in any sense. Added pets to some options for @jmartkdr2.