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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeoneer" data-source="post: 6260731" data-attributes="member: 91777">As others have said, classes are just a design tool. Whether they meet the needs of a particular game depends on the game.The thing about classes in D&D is that they act as a language to communicate very specific ideas about characters which everyone understands. If I say my character is a 'Level 1 Dwarf Fighter', you automatically know what kind of character I'm talking about, regardless of what edition of D&D you play.Mechanically, D&D allows different types of characters to have different rules and behave in different ways. For instance, the Wizard has access to the 'Vancian casting' sub-system. Classes make a lot of sense for this approach, as you need some way to decide who has access to what. A point system works better for a game where all characters have largely the same abilities. I don't think it makes as much sense for a system like D&D where one player casts spells and another hits things with a sword and another sneaks around. At any rate, the argument that classes are out-dated goes back to the early 90's, making the argument itself outdated.</blockquote>