Class Granularity

[Voss]

It depends on the system really, and if it works.

What worries me for 4e is the initial classes have a lot of overlap, conceptually even if the power lists are distinct.
Fighter--Paladin--Cleric form a fairly close spectrum of fairly blurred archetypes- Fighting Guy and Holy Warrior. The Warlord, as much as I like the concept, further complicates this by being Inspirational Guy, with a side of Fighting.
So thats 4 of the initial classes, all in a few overlapping boxes.

The Ranger and Rogue might be distinct, conceptually, since you can picture them as Wilderness Guy (and maybe Archer Guy) and Urban Guy, but there seems to be some shared space with mobile Swashbuckling melee guy.

Wizard and Warlock could have some conceptual overlap, or not, depending on how you want to argue it. Both sound like they can easily be Blaster Guy if they want, and depending how their fluff (what is magic? where does it come from?) is defined, they can blur even further. And, of course, 'getting magic from an another entity' blurs the line between Cleric and Warlock.

So even though there are 8 classes, the granularity doesn't seem very high, or even middling. And with more classes in later books, there may well be a very high number of classes, the differences between them may even shrink with time- think of it a rainbow with each power source being a different color. One class may be solidly in the middle of the color, but the rest will fade toward other colors at the edges.

And of course, the class training feat will really blur the lines.

So I'm really expecting low granularity with what will become an absurdly high number of classes. Hopefully it will be done in a way that avoids the class train wreck of 3e, but we'll see...

 

[Incenjucar]

I like mid to high.

Thing is, I want to have a wide variety of extremely different ideas.

I like varied mechanics, if they can remain intuitive, and a liberal dose of extremely varied concepts with a large range of options within those concepts. Blame it on my exposure to comic books, perhaps. I'm especially looking forward to how they're going to differentiate specialist wizard types, now that they've tossed aside the old Mage-based wizard classes.

I'm hoping we see something like Incarnium again, especially.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Depending on how you do it, this is a point-buy system (or at least, a very very simplistic one with little mechanical depth -- either each level of fighter gives you lots of options, there are a lot of things named fighter with relatively few options, or each level of fighter gives you very few options and there's no other way of improving your fighteriness.
Glass cannon wizards (depending on how little wizard gives you) are a bug, not a feature, in D&D's terms.

Well, I would not consider a system where every character level, a player took, say, three class levels (in different columns), a "point-buy". It's merely an enforced multiclassing system, with multiclassing taking over much of the baggage of overlapping classes. That's also part of the solution for the glass cannon issue: Don't enforce it through the classes, enforce it through the rules for multiclassing (and expected archetypes for the game in question).

Anyway, I know such a system would never be accepted by D&D fans, but I don't like the suggestion that high granularity only comes from having lots of classes.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I don't like the idea of having too many classes. With feats and talent trees, I don't see why we can't just have Warrior, Expert, and Spellcaster classes.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't know exactly where you classify me, but I rely on system theory for my answer.

It's often (half-jokingly) affirmed that the ideal number of interacting objects is probably somewhere between 3 and 12. Fewer than three and each object is too complicated and tries to do too much beyond its own strict function. More than 12, and the entire system of objects is too complicated (and probably has overlapping functionality).

I won't theorize which number is best in this case. I will say that I believe that 4e if well designed should be designed from the outset such that it never needs an additional class. I would see the need for an additional class to represent an implicit failure of design.

 

[Thanee]

Less is More

Bye
Thanee

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Less is More

Bye
Thanee

Well said, Thanee, as always.

I have seen too many systems go to pot with the addition of classes that offer trivial variation. For me, of all the non-core classes in D&D 3e products, most were minor variations on what was already available, even if you couldn't exactly model it on the rules.
And most of them had names which didn't offer any real conceptualisation of the classes (what is a Hexblade, after all?). Perhaps the most evocative to me was "Scout", but as much as anything they seem to be a mix of Ranger and Rogue.

I remember back in the day playing the board game Talisman, which in its base form had a few class types (can't remember, probably about 20?) but as the game was given expansion after expansion, the number of classes just got bigger and bigger - I think there was around 100 at the end. And too many of those were similar to each other.

Even rolemaster suffered from the problem - it had about 16 classes in the base rules, IIRC, with over-arching categories and then finer detail within them. But along came the companions and other additions, each with many new classes and it always seemed to me that I could make new class (x) by taking old class (a) and using skills (1, 2 & 3).

I always imagine it this way - in a city in your fantasy world, how many of Class (X) are there? (or country, if you prefer). If you imagine that there might be one or two of a class in your city/country, how often are your PCs going to meet them? If they never meet them, does it matter if they don't exist?

K.I.S.S. - you can make a swashbukler using Fighter/Rogue, weapon finesse, tumble/balance/jump and a pirate shirt, IMO - it's just all about the roleplaying.

Duncan

 

[Incenjucar]

The important thing is for them to make classes only when there is a niche gap that can't be fulfilled with a new power set for an existing class.

Classes should not be the new kits, feats+powers should be the new kits.

Classes should be as different as "I can change my body into monstrous shapes so that I can use specific abilities normally restricted to monsters, like breath weapons" and "I control the elements dynamically and simultaneously, allowing me to surf on a wave of earth while rushing through enemy ranks slashing a whole row of them with my electric fists, while the perpetual winds around my body keep arrows at bay."

Something like a samurai, when we already have fighters... eh... may not be different enough for their own class.

 

[Moochava]

I like the four "roles," coupled with as many power sources--"styles"--as are appropriate to the campaign. I like how what you do has been decoupled from what you look like. For example, if I want to play a ranged striker, I like the idea that I could play a warlock, a hunter with a bow, a knife-throwing catburglar, a sorcerer, some sort of ki-blast channeler, a psionic telekineticist, a musketeer, or anything else that's appropriate for the game. And I want them all to be mechanically equitable in filling out their primary combat role ("I shoot folks!"), though with different areas of focus outside of combat.

So I guess low granularity is what I want, with high conceptual flexibility. If 4E provides that, I might even, one day, be able to play a divine blaster. Ah, one day.

 

[Voss]

The important thing is for them to make classes only when there is a niche gap that can't be fulfilled with a new power set for an existing class.

Classes should not be the new kits, feats+powers should be the new kits.

Classes should be as different as "I can change my body into monstrous shapes so that I can use specific abilities normally restricted to monsters, like breath weapons" and "I control the elements dynamically and simultaneously, allowing me to surf on a wave of earth while rushing through enemy ranks slashing a whole row of them with my electric fists, while the perpetual winds around my body keep arrows at bay."

Out of curiosity, then, do you think the initial classes are different enough?