D&D General 6 Core Classes: You are in charge

[ezo]

I'll do you even better and cut it down to three:

Fighter
Rogue
Magic User

Everything else is a subclass of one (or more) of these.

I'd go the more generic route:

Warrior
Expert
Magus

But, yeah, subclasses abound.

 

[TwoSix]

4 classes:

Martial:
HD: d12
martial weapons
starting armor light+medium, option for heavy(or extra skills)
extra attack every 4 levels(4,8,12,16,20)

Gish/half caster
HD: d10
martial weapons
starting armor light+medium, option for heavy(or extra skills or extra cantrips)
extra attack every 5 levels(5,10,15,20)
half caster, 1-5 spell levels, new spell levels at class level 1,5,9,13,17

Adept:
HD: d8
simple weapons, option for martial(or extra skills or extra cantrips)
starting armor light, option for medium(or extra skills or extra cantrips)
extra attack every 6 levels(6,12,18)
2/3rd caster, 1-7 spell levels, new spell levels at class level 1,4,7,10,13,16,19

Caster/mage
HD: d6
simple weapons
starting armor none, option for light(or extra skills or extra cantrips)
extra attack every 8 levels(8,16)
full spellcasting, 1-10 spell levels(yes, add 10th spell level), new spell level at class level 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19.

I'd go like this:

Warrior
Class skeleton is weapon proficiencies, fighting styles, extra attacks, possibly other attack and damage bonuses.

Skill Expert
Class skeleton is extra skills, expertise, reliable talent, extra bonus actions/reactions. Subclass features often require skill checks.

Pacted Caster
Class skeleton is pact magic and invocations, with spells known list.

Mage
Class skeleton is full spell slot casting, with spells prepared from a tight, subclass specific thematic list.

On top of this, also has AD&D multiclassing at 1st level. If you don't multiclass, you get bonuses (extra hit points and feats).

 

[tetrasodium]

In some ways this is needlessly restrictive and I think talking about the reasons for omissions is more useful than reasons for inclusion sooooo....

• Artificer
• Cleric
• Druid
• Druid
• Fighter
• Wizard

The most obvious omission is the rogue and that is no accident. Depending on archetype rogue falls into bins of "kinda like a fighter but some extra training like so" or "some kinda spellcaster but more martial focus and slower caster progression. Both of those can be better represented by one of the six above

Paladin is missing because they can trivially slot under fighter again and any edge case archetypes can go under the base class where they fit best.

Sorcerer had a distinct niche back in 3.5, but now it's bost wizard with a better attribute that serves as a black hole for subclasses because so much of wizard is baked into sorc rather than sirc leaning more on bloodline and heritage from the subclass.

Warlock was omitted Because "best in class caster weapon user cantrip familiar etc is a niche that only comes with dating the GM.

Ranger was omitted because it fits better being able to have relevant archetypes slot in under druid/wizard/fighter as best fits allows better concept development


monk was omitted because it has never bothered to accclimate itself to d&d and has instead spent decades trying to square peg David karrodine's kwi chang kang character to the destroyer and cultivation tropes into d&d.. if those things have a place, they can slot in under one of the six above where they bear the burden of supporting their own weight rather than making the GM do what no setting since Oriental adventures supported

All casters can go back to 3.5prc style subclass based slot progression

 

[Skayaq]

STR: Warrior - Subclasses include Weapon Master, Paladin and Warlord
DEX: Rogue - Subclasses include Thief, Swashbuckler, Bard and Scout
CON: Barbarian - subclasses include Berserker, Beast Master ad Shapeshifter
INT: Mystic - Includes the wizard, alchemist and psion
WIS: Acolyte - would be a mashup of cleric and monk
CHA: Sorcerer - Mashup of warlock ad sorcerer

 

[Gammadoodler]

Strength - The Muscle - specializes in the..shall we say.."direct" approach

Dexterity - The Sneak - for when the first rule is "don't get caught"

Constitution- The Wild Card - capabilities vary but one thing remains the same, they're gonna be bleeding when the job is done.

Intelligence - The Hacker - masters of various tricks and games. They know the rules of the environment and how to break them.

Wisdom - Mission Control - someone has to keep eye on the team and identify threats

Charisma - The Face - It's not always about what you know, but about who you know, and how you ask.

 

[Autumnal]

Strength: Psychic Warrior
Dexterity: Lurk
Constitution: Psiknife
Intelligence: Psion
Wisdom: Adamant
Charisma: Wilder

Sign me up for this world, please. Every so often I think about doing the Forgotten Realms or something as an all-psi setting.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Fighter (strength)
Rogue (dexterity)
Athlete (constitution)
Wizard (intelligence)
Cleric (wisdom)
Merchant (charisma)

 

[Remathilis]

Sign me up for this world, please. Every so often I think about doing the Forgotten Realms or something as an all-psi setting.

I got this close to running a psionics only setting in 3.5. game fell apart for other reasons, but I had a really cool pseudo -sci fi setting using only martial and psionic classes and psionic races plus human.

I really wish 5e had done more with psionics because it was a cool idea that has no mechanical support. 3-5 subs don't cut it.

 

[Cadence]

<resisting the urge to reply with the core stats changed to what I would want them to be... but then realizing I'm not sure how to split up the classes for dexterity vs. agility... and then failing to resist throwing that out because it's bothering me a bit... my brain is stuck on acrobat (from a billion years ago) for agility>

 

[Jack Daniel]

Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, Black Mage, White Mage, Red Mage.

But in all seriousness, I kinda-sorta do this now. In D&D games, the six classes I use are:

Fighter (Str)
Mage (Int)
Cleric (Cha)
Thief (Dex)
Ascetic (a psionic monk that uses Wis and Con)
Ranger (actually the forester/elf class from BXCMI, flavored as a bard-like lore-master and elf-friend; benefits from all stats equally because it's a jack-of-all-trades)

But if I'm setting a game in a steampunk milieu, I change to:

Fighter (Str)
Mage (Cha)
Scholar (a fighter/mage/healer that uses Wis)
Thief (Dex)
Artificer (Int)
Ranger (a fighter/scout/alchemist that uses Con)

Under the most absolutely generic circumstances, though, if I were to try and recreate modern, d20-style D&D around six classes, one-to-one reliant on a single ability score each? I'd have to go with:

Fighter (Str)
Rogue (Dex)
Monk (Con)
Wizard (Int)
Cleric (Wis)
Bard (Cha)

Everything else can be legitimately constructed from those classes. A barbarian can just be a flavor of fighter, a druid can just be a flavor of cleric, and so on. Monk and Bard have to live in the normally unoccupied Con and Cha slots precisely because you can't easily build them out of other classes, not really. And because they were the fifth and six base classes 1st edition (which I point out in the futile hope that the cavalier being the seventh has been truly memory-holed once and for all).