D&D 5E Which classes have the least identity?

[James Gasik]

I will point out that Americans regularly buy impractical gas-guzzling sports cars that are impractical for anything they do with them, and this is not that they are not informed as the fuel mileage is listed right there on the window sticker.

I think this actually serves my point- if we know humans are capable of making bad choices when presented with options, then in a team game where everyone works together to complete the same goals there's very little reason to not make all the choices the best ones they can be.

EDIT: I originally said "in a game" but then realized there are some wacky games out there that multiple roles you can take on, and for whatever reasons, some are better than others. Looking at you, Talisman!

 

[tetrasodium]

I think this actually serves my point- if we know humans are capable of making bad choices when presented with options, then in a team game where everyone works together to complete the same goals there's very little reason to not make all the choices the best ones they can be.

EDIT: I originally said "in a game" but then realized there are some wacky games out there that multiple roles you can take on, and for whatever reasons, some are better than others. Looking at you, Talisman!

If you go back a few posts to 394 you will see some problems with that conclusion in the fact that I described a totally different type of gas guzzler and a sports car. The level of "suboptimal" you are ascribing to fighter really only ever happens in point buy games like shadowrun when a player can not even bother to take anything that doesn't directly contribute to killing or tanking. Take the fighter skill options as further evidence; the vast majority of them are relevant to social and exploration type scenarios yet players almost always choose the few that can be pretty much only used in combat and exploration scenarios and the fighter still has race+background skill choices.

 

[Celebrim]

You don't want a base class to be saddled with a lot of identity. Base classes should be broad archetypes. It should be possible to build a party of six characters with the same base class, where each character had a very distinctive identity. If you can't do that, the problem is that your base class has too much identity.

And in fact, in the list you gave the biggest problem isn't classes with too little identity, but classes that have too much identity and need to be made more generic so that their current identity becomes just one of many possible identities.

And that list for me is: barbarian, druid, ranger, monk, paladin and warlock. Those aren't base classes; those are subclasses. You could potentially add Artificer to that list as well.

 

[Celebrim]

Sorcerer bloodlines were introduced in 4e, but otherwise I agree.

3e. In an early article in Dragon magazine shortly after 3e was on the market IIRC.

 

[Aldarc]

Wizard has no identity beyond "Knows a lot of spells" yet outside of the class it has so much identity, even in NPC D&D wizards.

A big part of that latter part likely has to do with how it was generic and only class for the "mage."

This kinda why I think that the wizard should be hacked up. Threads are running together so this discussion likely happened either here or how many classes thread, but maybe we would be better off if the wizard (and sorcerer) was dead and we had actual fantasy mage archetypes that people gravitate towards (e.g., Elementalist, Necromancer, Psychic, etc.) rather than just "wizard."

 

[James Gasik]

If you go back a few posts to 394 you will see some problems with that conclusion in the fact that I described a totally different type of gas guzzler and a sports car. The level of "suboptimal" you are ascribing to fighter really only ever happens in point buy games like shadowrun when a player can not even bother to take anything that doesn't directly contribute to killing or tanking. Take the fighter skill options as further evidence; the vast majority of them are relevant to social and exploration type scenarios yet players almost always choose the few that can be pretty much only used in combat and exploration scenarios and the fighter still has race+background skill choices.

Yes but this isn't about the Fighter. The assertion was made that the Rogue should be worse at fighting because Skills (including Thieves' Tools) that may or may not have a large impact on play.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes but this isn't about the Fighter. The assertion was made that the Rogue should be worse at fighting because Skills (including Thieves' Tools) that may or may not have a large impact on play.

It's myopic to claim that the fighter is not lifting the bar high enough there.

I can see the logic behind that but blame 5e's relentless efforts to streamline and simplify things causing the fighter's advantage there§ to be irrelevant. The restrictions once present on sneak attack should never have been eroded to what is effectively little more than"anytime at least one other party member is also in the fight". They could have out a sidebar with the 2014 version somewhere to offer that streamlined simplified version if a gm wants to use it.

§ in that fighter : rogue matchup.

 

[FrogReaver]

Here’s the thing. You can make a great game with hyper specific classes. You can make a great game with completely generic classes.

Trying to isolate class specificity or genericicity alone as the determiner of good design is the problem. Its really about how everything works together.

If 5e has a problem it’s that class+subclass combos are about 99% of your character customization while maintaining a design principle of little to no overlap between the class+subclass combos. There either needs to be a lot more customization options outside class and subclass or there needs to be a lot more hybrid class and subclasses.

Example: Fighter+Rogue style subclass make an amazing subclass. Why the heck don’t we have something like that?

 

[ECMO3]

And that list for me is: barbarian, druid, ranger, monk, paladin and warlock. Those aren't base classes; those are subclasses. You could potentially add Artificer to that list as well.

I would disagree about Ranger. The current Ranger class with TCE improvements, spells and subclasses is very felxible.

I play a lot of Rangers and I almost never play a Woodsy Warrior guy. I am usually playing a high Wisdom, high Charisma, low Constitution face that casts spells in combat more than she uses weapons.

 

[ECMO3]

If 5e has a problem it’s that class+subclass combos are about 99% of your character customization while maintaining a design principle of little to no overlap between the class+subclass combos.

I don't think it is near 99%. Even if you play without multiclassing your race and feat options still account for more than 1%.

With multiclassing in play there are an innumerable number of customization options in a point buy game. The only thing that is fenced out are mutliple subclasses of a class you already have levels in (and you can even change subclasses RAW, you just cant have 2 at the same time). In a game where you roll abilities it is somewhat less flexible in that it is possible to roll too low for a specific multiclass, but if you are rolling for abilities the rolls themselves have a pretty big impact on character identity.