Core Classes: What and how many

[Wormwood]

I think it would nice to have a good swordmage/bladesinger/gish in core without resorting to multiclass rules.

 

[Disparue]

Warrior, expert, spellcaster. Three classes, apply CleverNickName's skill trees. Why separate the cleric and the wizard?

 

[Dausuul]

I've never thought that D&D needed more than 4 classes.

Here's my idea (which also happens to be a lot of other peoples' idea.) Start with the Big 4--fighter, cleric, thief, and mage--then use a handful of skill trees to add complexity and make for unique combinations.

My main problem with this is that sorcerors and warlocks are not wizards with a different skill tree. They have a totally different core mechanic. I do NOT want a Vancian sorceror or warlock, and while I personally wouldn't give two figs if the wizard went non-Vancian, plenty of other people would be quite upset.

There's a real danger of oversimplification here. 5E shouldn't make 4E's mistake of trying to plug everyone into the same framework. Part of the appeal of the different classes is that they work in different ways.

 

[dangerous jack]

My vote (although I'm not really expecting it) would be for:
* Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue (the classics)
* then add in Druid and Psion to cover primal / psionic style powers (and they should work differently)
* and have really good multi-class rules.

Then later decide on whether a:
* Paladin is more than a Fighter / Cleric?
* Monk is more than an Rogue / Psion?
* Ranger is more than a Fighter / Rogue or Rogue / Druid (depending on your flavour)?
* Swordmage is more than a Fighter / Wizard?
* Sorcerer is more than a Wizard / Druid (yeah, I know this one's a leap)?

If the answer is no to the above, then you don't need a special class.

 

[drothgery]

I would start with the 4E class list, but merge a few classes. Essentials has shown that with subclasses (I'd call them paths) you can have different builds that fill different roles.

Essentials has done this. I don't think it's done it well. You mostly have 'builds' that are separate classes all but in name.

 

[paladinm]

2 core classes.. fighter and spellcaster.. everything else is determined by skills, feats, etc. Thief tricks become feats/skills.

 

[hemera]

You can burn my assassin, and boil my warlock but you can't take my bard from me.

In other notes though I would like to see a roster similar to 3.5 but I would love to see the warlord added, and maybe swap the barbarian for the assassin for a little 1e flair.

4e not having a core bard made me a sad sad fox.

 

[Hassassin]

Essentials has done this. I don't think it's done it well. You mostly have 'builds' that are separate classes all but in name.

Organization matters. Imagine a conversation with a new player:

"Do you want to play a Cleric, a Fighter, a Rogue or a Wizard?"
"Fighter."
"Ok, a Defender, a Slayer or a Warlord?"
"What's the difference?"

Compare to:

"Do you want to play an Ardent, an Artificer, an Assassin, an Avenger, a Barbarian, a.."
"Forget it, this game sucks."

 

[Lanefan]

There's two things that haven't come up yet I'd like to see as their own core classes:

Cavalier or Knight (something that sets the knight-in-shiny-armour archetype apart from the run-of-the-mill foot soldier Fighter)
Battle Priest or War Cleric (works much like a Cleric except battle spells are augmented and curing is dialled way back)

Also, I see all kinds of things on the poll list that to me are just Wizard variants (Invoker, Warlock, etc.) but where are the Illusionist and Necromancer?

As for Swordmage, that to me sounds like a class that wants to do everything - fight, cast, both at once - a one-man-band, in effect. Tricky to design so as not to overshadow the rest of the party, and to still need a party to run with.

And I'll throw this out there yet again: Barbarian should be a race; a sub-race of Human, not a class.

Lan-"and what in the nine hells is Vampire doing on that list?"-efan

 

[Zireael]

Lan-"and what in the nine hells is Vampire doing on that list?"-efan

Good question. I can't believe I missed it...