Why do you play a Fighter? Why do you play a Cleric? Why do you play a multiclass Fighter/Cleric? Why do you play a Paladin? What’s the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer? Why an Assassin and a Thief? And is it Thief or Rogue? Warlord or Marshal or Bard or Fighter? Or Jester?
The selecting of a class for your character is one of the boldest choices you can make as a player. More than race, more even than ability scores, it defines what you are going to spend the next few months with this character doing. But it’s a choice we often make without much thought as to how or why.
Let us see if we can’t do anything about that.
Character class can be a remarkably contentious topic. People have different views of what classes are and what they should be and what they’d like them to be. Look at any given paladin thread (from the dawn of the internet, even), and you’re going to see a lot of variation on what a “paladin” is, from table to table. Every time there’s a new edition, the question is raised: how many classes? How narrow? How broad? What goes into one class, what goes into another? Did Class X kill Class Y and take its stuff? Does Class Z deserve to be its own class? Is Class P anything more than a combination of Class I and Class D? Whisper the word “warlord” around any D&D message board now, and it’s like yelling fire in a crowded theater. People have strong freakin’ opinions on the topic of what word should be used to categorize a given set of abilities.
Part of this is because classes have represented some varied and indistinct things over the course of the D&D editions. 2e’s intentionally limited class list serves a very different purpose than 3e’s massively expanded class list, which serves a different purpose than 4e’s “role and power source grid checkbox” tendency. There’s also fuzziness in definition: what is a class vs. what is a kit vs. what is a prestige class vs. what is a paragon path vs. what is a multiclass combo…there’s a lot of different game elements that serve similar-but-not-quite-the same as a class.
So rather than articulate what classes have been (and what they haven’t been) over the course of D&D, I think a smarter approach here is to try and define what a class can be used for. That is: what could the purpose of something like a class be?
CLASS AS AN ABILITY SET
One model of classes is that they simply provide access to a group of vaguely related abilities that any character can buy into. If you want spells, get a wizard. If you want healing, get a cleric. If you want sneaking, get a thief. If you want to be skilled with weapons, get a fighter.
In this model, most different kinds of characters can be reliably expressed through the time-honored tradition of re-fluffing. That is, say your character is a barbaric creature of the wilderness. If you want your character to be a barbaric warrior, be a fighter. If you want your character to be a skilled wilderness navigator, be a thief. If you want your character to be a shaman, be a cleric. If you want your character to work in curses and hexes, be a wizard.
The ability sets are what define a class, so the kind of character you lay on top of that is largely secondary and superfluous. What is an “assassin” rather than someone who is paid for killing? What is a “warlord” aside from a leader of warriors? The class doesn’t speak to the kind of character you are, simply the kinds of abilities you display in gameplay.
If this is your view of a class, then you’d probably favor classes to only exist when there is a strong mechanical reason for this distinction to occur. If you have a character who casts spells, can’t they be a wizard or a cleric before making a whole new class for them? Do we really need warlocks, artificers, sorcerers, wu jens, druids, or whatever? Can’t we just be clerics with slightly different fluff, and maybe some different feats/themes/kits/etc.? Why isn’t a paladin just a multiclass fighter/cleric?
You’re also not adverse to classes that have limited mechanics. If you don’t pick a fighter, the idea goes, you shouldn’t expect to be very good in a fight. If you want to excel in an area mechanically, pick the right class.
CLASS AS ARCHETYPE
Another view of class is that they are actually less about abilities, and more about the fiction. That is, a class is a character type, and the abilities the class gets are in service of that kind of character. A thief is a particular archetype – the Grey Mouser type, or the Bilbo Baggins type, or the Robin Hood type, or even the Batman type.
The class is defined by the kind of character you are, so it should be supported with relevant abilities. Can’t very well play Bilbo Baggins without the ability to sneak around unseen in the darkness, can we, now? If my Robin Hood isn’t a very good archer, or my Batman isn’t dexterous and agile, I’m not doing well to represent the archetype I’m trying to play as, here. The mechanic is important only so long as it supports a given character type: there’s no need for one unifying mechanic for a class, and the abilities can be more a la carte.
In this view, the class says something about who you are as a character. If I’m a fighter, I’ll get by on strength and weapons and war. If I’m a warlord, that’s different – I get by on leadership and persuasion and inspiration. The abilities are there to support the kind of character I choose to be by choosing the class, which means that there’s a significant difference to between a wu jen and a wizard, even though they both cast magic spells. One is the type of character to dwell in an arcane tower of mystery, the other is a magical hobo who gains magic by obeying arbitrary taboos. A vague overlap in abilities (“casts spells”) is less important than their very real, distinct character types.
If this is your view of a class, then you’d probably favor classes to represent distinct character types, even if it is kind of a broad character type. Ideally, the class mechanics then support this division, so that a wu jen and a wizard do feel different in play, but this can be accomplished by something as simple as a slight tweak on the existing mechanics. Paladins are not necessarily the same thing as fighters, or the same thing as clerics, because their character type is different. Specific class abilities trump broad class abilities, but specialization within a class might be fine, too (“I’m a thief with the Batman kit, so I play a bit differently than a thief with the Scout kit, but we’re both thieves because we’re both clever characters who get by on our wits and skills!”).
Here, it’s a bit more of a problem to separate the powers. Even if I’m not a fighter, I should have some awesome fighting capacity – Batman gets by on his wits, but this doesn’t mean he can’t kick butt! And on the same side, if I AM a fighter, I need stuff to do outside of combat, too. That stuff needs to reflect the kind of character I am as a fighter, even when I’m not in my main element.
CLASS AS A PLAYSTYLE CHOICE
A third type of view is a little between and to the side of our two major perspectives. In this model, the important thing is that the class supports the things the player wants to do with the character. When a player chooses a class, it is a statement about how they want to overcome obstacles in the game.
The class then becomes about “what you do in play.” Say your character needs to get the MacGuffin out of the local dungeon. Your class is the way in which you do that. If you’re a fighter, you charge in and beat up goblins. If you’re a thief, you sneak in and take it while the guardian is sleeping. If you’re a wizard, you maybe teleport it away and replace it with an illusion. It is a path for approaching the challenge.
The specific mechanics for each class need to enhance this preferred approach, but the class is much more about the approach than it is about the mechanic specifically. If you’re a fighter, you need good combat rules that you can interface with via your class. If you’re a thief, though, exploration rules become more important, and if you’re a wizard, you want some complex and interesting interactions in your arcane arts. Because fighters roll attack rolls, and thieves roll skill checks, and wizards have others make saving throws, and that’s how the MacGuffin is captured and retrieved.
A class in this model influences, but does not define, the archetype. A fighter might be a lot of different kinds of character, as long as that kind of character would fight their way to victory. Fighters are action movie protagonists. But thieves star in an intrigue-laced drama, and Wizards flirt with esoteric sci-fi. Your class is a genre, not a specific character type but a specific behavior type.
Here, class helps to define the kind of game the DM is going to run, communicating about the players’ intentions. If the DM is focused on providing adventures, then the classes of the players give a hint as to how they will try and achieve their goals in the adventure. One would not throw an intrigue-heavy game at a group of fighters, or a game all about combat to a group of thieves and wizards.
If this is your view of a class, you are focused on mechanics in support of a strategy, rather than mechanical distinctiveness per se. What is important is the context of the dice that are rolled by a player using an ability from the class: is it an ability that depends on fighting? Deceit? Using other players? Here, a wu jen and a wizard may come from the same class, as they are both focused on solving their problems with esoteric knowledge, but a warlord and a fighter would be different, as one uses other characters as their tool, and another uses weapons and armor. A warlord and a bard might be the same thing, though, both using other characters to achieve their goals.
INTERNAL CLASS STRUGGLE
There are likely other ways to view the “class” distinction in D&D, so I’m interested in hearing what you think warrants a division. I’m less interested in which specific classes you like and dislike, and more interested in the general rule you’d apply to determine what is a class, and what would be a sub-set of another class. When the walls come down, are you one who favors mechanical distinction? Archetype? Playstyle? Some other quality? Maybe class distinctiveness is subjective to you, determined mostly by personal preferences? Let me know in the comments!
