D&D General What is the right amount of Classes for Dungeons and Dragons?

[Minigiant]

Okay, but I still probably wouldn't use your schema. I think that what you do in 10-11 casters could be done in roughly 6 plus subclasses. Like I still don't see the reason what justifies the need for the Warlock or Sorcerer in this setup, and I still find your notion for Arcane as "cold magic science" to be incredibly vague.

Of course you could.

That's the point of the thread.

You could have
2 casters
4 casters
6 casters
10 casters

But there are ramifications.

Like how @doctorbadwolf said Telekinesis is a bad spell for the game. Giving Wizards Telekinesis and not having a Psion class means you have to plus Telekinensis up to a mid-level 5th level spell to balance the wizard.

Having a Psion lets you have low level telekinetic, telepathic, and telepotation spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

Having a Warlock with its own list lets you have low level glamours, demon summoning, and weird far realm spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

Having a Shadowcaster lets you have low level undead summons and strong illusion spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

Having a Astrologer lets you have low level prediction, clairovoyance, and cosmic spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

The Wizard can tend focus on its science magic like geometric shape spells and reality warping like wingless fight, straight lighting, and stopping and speeding up time.

The Sorcerer can go into the spontaneous and metamagic usage of magic.

 

[Aldarc]

Like how @doctorbadwolf said Telekinesis is a bad spell for the game. Giving Wizards Telekinesis and not having a Psion class means you have to plus Telekinensis up to a mid-level 5th level spell to balance the wizard.

All of the below seems to presume the Wizard and its chassis. I do not.

Having a Psion lets you have low level telekinetic, telepathic, and telepotation spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

This would be my mind mage, though teleportion would not necessarily be a part of it.

Having a Warlock with its own list lets you have low level glamours, demon summoning, and weird far realm spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

I don't really see the need for this as its own class. You can put demonic summoning, for example, in the dark arts caster below. You could even put the far realm spells onto a mind mage subclass. And the illusions would be part of the mind mage.

Having a Shadowcaster lets you have low level undead summons and strong illusion spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

This would be my Warlock, which has little to relation to the class of the same name in D&D, but just a placeholder name for the dark arts caster.

Having a Astrologer lets you have low level prediction, clairovoyance, and cosmic spells because you don't have to balance it with the Wizard chassis.

I would just put the first bit into the mind magic bit since that's pretty psionic anyway, and the cosmic spells in the class mentioned below.

The Wizard can tend focus on its science magic like geometric shape spells and reality warping like wingless fight, straight lighting, and stopping and speeding up time.

Yeah, this would mostly be my Arcanist (placeholder name), though with a greater focus on magical essence, space and time, gravity, magnetism, etc. The Arcanist would be the magical physicist.

The Sorcerer can go into the spontaneous and metamagic usage of magic.

With Neo-Vancian, everyone is basically spontaneous and I don't see the need to have a class just for the sake of metamagic.

 

[Minigiant]

All of the below seems to presume the Wizard and its chassis. I do not.


This would be my mind mage, though teleportion would not necessarily be a part of it.


I don't really see the need for this as its own class. You can put demonic summoning, for example, in the dark arts caster below. You could even put the far realm spells onto a mind mage subclass. And the illusions would be part of the mind mage.


This would be my Warlock, which has little to relation to the class of the same name in D&D, but just a placeholder name for the dark arts caster.


I would just put the first bit into the mind magic bit since that's pretty psionic anyway, and the cosmic spells in the class mentioned below.


Yeah, this would mostly be my Arcanist (placeholder name), though with a greater focus on magical essence, space and time, gravity, magnetism, etc. The Arcanist would be the magical physicist.


With Neo-Vancian, everyone is basically spontaneous and I don't see the need to have a class just for the sake of metamagic.

Well my Sorcerer would have spontaneous access to all spells under a certain level X/day in my world. I'd tap into the "I am magic. I feel it" aspect of it.

What's the difference between your Arcanist, Mindmage, and the D&D Wizard.

Because my additional casters would have greater access into certain schools and subschool spells at the penalty of loss of access to others.

My shadowcaster- would have cheap illusions and undead but only be able to deal the highly resisted necrotic, cold, and poison damages.

 

[Aldarc]

Well my Sorcerer would have spontaneous access to all spells under a certain level X/day in my world. I'd tap into the "I am magic. I feel it" aspect of it.

I don't think that the Sorcerer's whole "I am magic" is really a strong enough archetype to warrant a class. I would prefer to create classes around playstyles and themes in the way that Magic the Gathering does. IMHO, a D&D Sorcerer sticks out like a sore thumb in that sort of setup.

What's the difference between your Arcanist, Mindmage, and the D&D Wizard.

Because my additional casters would have greater access into certain schools and subschool spells at the penalty of loss of access to others.

The idea about the setup that I presented was about looking at the sort of general archetypes, themes, and playstyles that people generally like to play and build classes around them rather than trying to justify the classes that exist in D&D. IMHO, you don't want to have too many because it becomes difficult to support all of them. Magic the Gathering picked around five, which became the basis for their Color Pie: i.e., Blue, White, Red, Black, and Green. I think that those Colors demonstrate a pretty good thematic spread: i.e., the clever mage, the support mage, the blast mage, the dark mage, and the nature mage. However, my proposed setup uses six rather than MtG's five, as it kinda takes Blue and splits it between the Mind Mage and the Physics Mage.

The Arcanist (Physics Mage) would focus more on the essence of magic (mana), arcane symbols and sigils, leylines, and cosmic forces (e.g., space, time, gravity, etc.). Again, it's more like the magical physicist. It's the class for people who like playing mages that do clever things with magic on a sort of meta-level.

The Mystic (Mind Mage) focuses on magic that generally involves the mental effects: e.g., illusion, charm, enchantment, psychic magic, etc. So Mystic = Psion + Illusionist + Enchanter + Diviner. It's the class for the people who like playing mages with mental powers.

The Cleric (Support Mage) would focus more on magic that involves healing, defensive support, buffing, abjuration, etc. It's the class for people who like playing support mages.

The Warlock (Dark Mage) would be designed for people who like playing the dark mages that work in forbidden dark arts, necromancy, shadow, blood, etc. Just put all of that sort of stuff into this one class.

The Elementalist (Blast Mage) would be designed for people who generally like blasting with their spells, wielding the various four elements to varying levels of preference, and/or being "the Avatar."

The Druid (Nature Mage) would be designed for people who like playing nature-focused mages that cast spells dealing with weather, land, plants, animals, etc. So it's the caster for being close to nature and wielding the wrath of nature.

I hope you understand how these are different to the D&D Wizard. The D&D Wizard basically feels entitled to all of our ideas and claims them as "theirs." It's the class that wants it all and often gets its way in that regard.

My shadowcaster- would have cheap illusions and undead but only be able to deal the highly resisted necrotic, cold, and poison damages.

My preference here is more to build a more generic Dark Mage for the people who like playing edge lord mages, so it would involve spells with necromancy, shadow, dark summoning, etc.

 

[Minigiant]

The idea about the setup that I presented was about looking at the sort of general archetypes, themes, and playstyles that people generally like to play and build classes around them rather than trying to justify the classes that exist in D&D. IMHO, you don't want to have too many because it becomes difficult to support all of them. Magic the Gathering picked around five, which became the basis for their Color Pie: i.e., Blue, White, Red, Black, and Green. I think that those Colors demonstrate a pretty good thematic spread: i.e., the clever mage, the support mage, the blast mage, the dark mage, and the nature mage. However, my proposed setup uses six rather than MtG's five, as it kinda takes Blue and splits it between the Mind Mage and the Physics Mage.

The Arcanist (Physics Mage) would focus more on the essence of magic (mana), arcane symbols and sigils, leylines, and cosmic forces (e.g., space, time, gravity, etc.). Again, it's more like the magical physicist. It's the class for people who like playing mages that do clever things with magic on a sort of meta-level.

The Mystic (Mind Mage) focuses on magic that generally involves the mental effects: e.g., illusion, charm, enchantment, psychic magic, etc. So Mystic = Psion + Illusionist + Enchanter + Diviner. It's the class for the people who like playing mages with mental powers.

The Cleric (Support Mage) would focus more on magic that involves healing, defensive support, buffing, abjuration, etc. It's the class for people who like playing support mages.

The Warlock (Dark Mage) would be designed for people who like playing the dark mages that work in forbidden dark arts, necromancy, shadow, blood, etc. Just put all of that sort of stuff into this one class.

The Elementalist (Blast Mage) would be designed for people who generally like blasting with their spells, wielding the various four elements to varying levels of preference, and/or being "the Avatar."

The Druid (Nature Mage) would be designed for people who like playing nature-focused mages that cast spells dealing with weather, land, plants, animals, etc. So it's the caster for being close to nature and wielding the wrath of nature.

I hope you understand how these are different to the D&D Wizard. The D&D Wizard basically feels entitled to all of our ideas and claims them as "theirs." It's the class that wants it all and often gets its way in that regard.

I believe something similiar.

My family has a Urban fantasy universe with colored magic that was influenced by MTG and WH. Part of the reason why I go for more magic types is because we have a lot of colors

• Red- Elementalists- Elemental Magic
• Orange- Summoners- Conjurations
• Yellow- Alchemists/Artificers- Alchemy
• Green- Shamans- Spirit Magic
• Blue- Wizards- Wizardry
• Purple-Psions- Psionics
• Brown- Druids- Primal Magic
• White- Clerics- Holy Magic
• Black- Warlocks- Eldritch Magic
• Gray- Shadowcasters- Shadow Magic

No David, the Pink Mages are all dead. We voted. You lost.

 

[Aldarc]

I believe something similiar.

My family has a Urban fantasy universe with colored magic that was influenced by MTG and WH. Part of the reason why I go for more magic types is because we have a lot of colors

Ah. Yeah. I would probably not have so many.

For example, I probably would not have a separate summoner class as summoning is probably something that all could do, albeit with different summons: e.g., Warlock (undead, fiends, etc.), Cleric (angels, ancestral spirits, etc.), Druid (beasts, fey, nature spirits, etc.), Elementalist (elementals), etc. That also means that there is less need in that regard for a Shaman dedicated to such things. Depending on how you build the classes, it just means that the Nature Shaman is a play build of the Druid whereas the Elemental Shaman is a play build of the Elementalist and so on.

No David, the Pink Mages are all dead. We voted. You lost.

That's a shame.

 

[Minigiant]

Ah. Yeah. I would probably not have so many.

For example, I probably would not have a separate summoner class as summoning is probably something that all could do, albeit with different summons: e.g., Warlock (undead, fiends, etc.), Cleric (angels, ancestral spirits, etc.), Druid (beasts, fey, nature spirits, etc.), Elementalist (elementals), etc. That also means that there is less need in that regard for a Shaman dedicated to such things. Depending on how you build the classes, it just means that the Nature Shaman is a play build of the Druid whereas the Elemental Shaman is a play build of the Elementalist and so on

The Summoner more or less exists to balance having tons of summons or one big summons.

People want that. It's a tripe.

So the Summoner gets that and loses 90% access to all other types of magic. Their heal is weak unless targeting the summon. Their attack spells are weak. Their illusions and defensive spells don't exist.

The Shaman would have the ability to summon sports for knowledge, attacks, warding, perception. They can mend and hand souls. Shamans can turn people into spirits and solidify spirits.

 

[Aldarc]

The Summoner more or less exists to balance having tons of summons or one big summons.

People want that. It's a tripe.

Do you mean "tripe" here in the sense of food (i.e., edible stomach lining) or nonsense/rubbish?

Sure, the Summoner is common, but I don't really see why that needs to be one class when that is something that all flavors of mage would be interested in to some degree or another.

The Shaman would have the ability to summon sports for knowledge, attacks, warding, perception. They can mend and hand souls. Shamans can turn people into spirits and solidify spirits.

My issue here is that "spirits" are again sort of a category that multiple mage types likely have interest in. Are necromancers uninterested in spirits? What about holy mages? Or nature mages? Or elemental mages? That's sort of the reason why I didn't propose the Shaman. Again, I think that the risk is that you create too many mages, keeping in mind that our discussion has not even touched (if only ever so slightly) on things like partial casters and non-casters. So IMHO you don't want to juggle too many mages when you know that you will also have to juggle other class options.

 

[pemerton]

Do you mean "tripe" here in the sense of food (i.e., edible stomach lining) or nonsense/rubbish? '

I noticed that too. Presumably "trope" is what was intended?

On the issue of how to locate effects in classes, I like your idea (if I've got it right) of treating summons, spirit pets etc as sub-classes within the broad flavour/effect categories.

 

[Minigiant]

Do you mean "tripe" here in the sense of food (i.e., edible stomach lining) or nonsense/rubbish?

Trope.
Typo.

Sure, the Summoner is common, but I don't really see why that needs to be one class when that is something that all flavors of mage would be interested in to some degree or another

Every edition of D&D states that summoning is OP if you have any other strengths.

You have to silo it out to it's own class and nerf everything else that class can do to the ground

My issue here is that "spirits" are again sort of a category that multiple mage types likely have interest in. Are necromancers uninterested in spirits? What about holy mages? Or nature mages? Or elemental mages? That's sort of the reason why I didn't propose the Shaman. Again, I think that the risk is that you create too many mages, keeping in mind that our discussion has not even touched (if only ever so slightly) on things like partial casters and non-casters. So IMHO you don't want to juggle too many mages when you know that you will also have to juggle other class options.

That's why I don't have a necromancy class.

No the elementals class does not have spirits They can't contract elemental spirits.

No the druid class can't summon spirits They can't summon Elemental spirits.

This is where the gameplay affects the narratives. Although it would think certain classes would have ability to do things with spirits in order to balance the game they do lock those things out.