Bloat already?

[interwyrm]

I've been really excited about 4e... and EnWorld has been my only source of information about it. One of the things that made 3.5 start to bog down after a while (to me at least) was the insane variety of classes, prestige classes, and races available to players.

It seems like people are clamoring for such and such race and new power sources with 4 more classes. How many classes do we actually need?

As a slightly related aside. I've been irritated by the fact that they standardized the appearance of tieflings. It seems like the design decision has been to create a lot of little boxes that players can jump into, rather than give players a toolkit to build what they want.

I'm starting to think I'd prefer just four classes: Leader, Controller, Striker, and Defender. Feat chains would determine the primary power source.

Eh... this is turning into a rant.

Fin.

 

[ShadowyFigure]

Kinda like the Generic Class Variant in Unearthed Arcana? That may actually work and would be a very interesting way of doing things, especially with powers.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

For me, it's because I like flavor, which requires specialized classes and races. If you have a class called Striker, it might be a bow wielding fighter type, a sneaky rogue who tried to get in surprise attacks with daggers, a arcane caster who shoots beams of energy at people and gets benefits my making pacts with otherworldly creatures, and so on. The class itself has almost no flavor, instead you have to give it flavor. And for unmotivated players the flavor might be "I have a sword and I do damage." It also is so broad that it tends to allow broken mechanics. If I can mix an match all of the abilities of Rogues, Rangers, and Warlocks then I can find the best of each and make a super character with no theme other than "I have no flaws."

I'd prefer a class to say "You are the sneaky type, you use daggers and small weapons to catch people unaware to hit them in vital spots." I like my class to give me a role and a theme.

But I also get bored easily and want to play different things. So, I want a new class to play every month or 2 in my home game. There are 8 classes in the PHB, so I figure it'll last me 6-8 months before I'll want a book with new classes in it. Or at least new options for the classes that exist so I can play a slightly different variant on them.

 

[breschau]

I can see where you're coming from, but what else do you expect with a class based system?

You have to always add new classes, feats, powers, races, etc to keep it interesting for the hardcore set.

That's why I prefer classless systems. And why I'll make a classless version of 4E asafp.

 

[Voss]

I've been really excited about 4e... and EnWorld has been my only source of information about it. One of the things that made 3.5 start to bog down after a while (to me at least) was the insane variety of classes, prestige classes, and races available to players.

It seems like people are clamoring for such and such race and new power sources with 4 more classes. How many classes do we actually need?

Eh. The bloat is built into the production schedule. There will be races and classes and powers and paths in the FR book, more powers/builds/paths for classes in martial power, more races and classes in PHB II. And then the Eberron campaign setting, with yet more races and classes and... and either arcane or divine power next year..

well, you get the picture. Thats all happening in the next 18 months or so. So whether people are clamouring for them or not, there will be bloat.

 

[Jack99]

Eh. The bloat is built into the production schedule. There will be races and classes and powers and paths in the FR book, more powers/builds/paths for classes in martial power, more races and classes in PHB II. And then the Eberron campaign setting, with yet more races and classes and... and either arcane or divine power next year..

well, you get the picture. Thats all happening in the next 18 months or so. So whether people are clamouring for them or not, there will be bloat.

Maybe it's a good bloat?

 

[ZappoHisbane]

Maybe it's a good bloat?

Lollipop?

 

[DreamChaser]

I'm starting to think I'd prefer just four classes: Leader, Controller, Striker, and Defender. Feat chains would determine the primary power source.

I'm not sure how trading class bloat for feat / power bloat fixes the problem. For many (esp. casual) gamers it would make it worse by stripping the primary guideline they use as a lens to select abilities for their characters: the class.

Thinking now, if a person chose striker, they would have all of the powers, class abilities, and related feats for ranger, rogue, and warlock to choose from (plus, possibly some from other "classes" as well). This would turn character creation from a "choose 1 of eight, then 2 of 6, then 1 of 5, etc." to choose 1 of 4 then choose 2 of 20 then 1 of 20" as the number of sources for powers etc increases, the choices become harder not easier.

I firmly believe that classless / general class systems strongly favor power gamers and make the experience much less enjoyable for the average / casual gamer.

just my opinion.

DC

 

[The Sword 88]

If you dont want more classes and such just don't buy the expansion books and only play your games out of the PHB

 

[Ulthwithian]

I would like to excise the word 'bloat' from this discussion, and replace it with the word 'content'. 'Bloat' is unnecessarily negative in its connotations; as no one has this additional content (or 'material', if you feel 'content' is too positive), no one can judge whether or not it exists simply for its own sake or whether it adds value to the IP.

Surely, 'bloat' refers to material that offers no value to the IP, in the same manner that 'bloat' in a human refers to fat that has no value to the body? Since we are not in a position to judge its value, there is no need to use the term, correct?