D&D 5E D&D Class Design Criticism

[Tony Vargas]

OS was more about what the characters did, whereas 5e is more about what the characters are.*

That's fair (though 5e is a lot /less/ about what your characters *are* than 4e was or 3.x/PF is, too). I'd say it was also more about what they had. A Basic or 1e (that's as OS as I ever got) character could easily be primarily defined by the magic items he'd found (or even by one particularly powerful/distinctive or unique/non-standard item).

D&D has just added more and more character-customization options as it evolved. OD&D started with 3 classes and added one and several sub-classes. 1e bundled all that, UA added weapon specializations and couple more classes. 2e added kits & school specialists and specialty priests. 3e added feats and PrCs and skill ranks and barely-restricted MCing, and made existing classes more customizeable (except for Clerics that were less customizeable than 2e CPH Priests), and then added lots more classes and lots more PrCs, and made magic items more of a PC resource via make/buy & wealth/level. 4e dropped PrCs, but balanced the classes, added Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, Backgrounds & Themes, and added 'wish lists' to make/buy & wealth/level.

5e pulled back from all that, but not all the way back.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[discosoc]

I'm not seeing the truth in the premise. Can you provide concrete examples of high level abilities that are fundamental and required for character concepts?

None are fundamental or required, but most would be fun or interesting to use for more than just the tail-end of the campaign.

 

[discosoc]

I've been waiting, and I've still heard nothing to suggest an answer to my question, just lots of random wishlisting.

I've tried explaining my opinion more here and there (and just above), but one thing I guess I haven't mentioned is that I'm pretty much a full-time DM. My complaints aren't that I want to be all powerful right off the bat, or that I don't want to "work for my abilities" or something. My complaints are more along the lines of criticism for the way classes are designed (hence the thread title). Specifically, there's a quarter of class levels that simply don't get played by many people and aren't really even supported with any official AP's or anything. Even in rare groups that get to 20 without starting at higher than 1, or without simply speedrunning to 20, how many of those groups continue playing at level 20 long enough to really get to use those capstones for very long? Two sessions? Five sessions? I have no idea, but I do know that between the difficulty of designing high level (tier 4) adventures and the lack of official options there can't be many.

It just seems like a waste to have things like capstones and interesting stuff come online so late in the game, even if you do eventually get them. But I do think that if you read my OP and came away with the impression that I claimed the high level abilities are fundamental or required for gameplay, then you totally failed to understand the point of the post. They're optional, but their existence is mostly wasted as a result of the way the game is played by most people (and supported by official products).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Oh, I agree. I just think that what the characters had happened through the adventures (what they did), thus the adventures defined the characters to a greater degree, if you follow my reasoning.

Same thing, yeah. If you decided to claim one magical cloak, you became the Jacques Cousteau character who could explore the oceans in the form of a manta ray, if you put on a different one, you became the character with bat-wings, if, having seen that you anxiously put on the next magical cloak, and it was of poisonousness, you died. 'Sall 'bout whachya did.

And I also agree that 5e pulled back somewhat- generalizations being general, and all that. Just something I've been thinking about. Everything has tradeoffs!

And it also tried to let you (as DM) pull the game in the direction you wanted. You could turn on feats & MCing, and it's more 3e like.

One thing about the class designs at low level, though - they seem to be informed by the MC rules, to an extent. Not so class-definingly 'front loaded' so as to avoid issues with 'dipping,' for instance. Maybe, instead, the MCing rules 'should' have gone further in changing what you got for taking the first few levels of a class? Just a thought.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[The Crimson Binome]

By the way, I'm not saying that one way is preferable; after all, it certainly gives the player a lot more options, and provides a lot more player-engagement when they can customize their choices (as they can in 5e). But that level of engagement and choice in empowering the character leads to slightly less involvement in engagement with the story; it's the difference between telling the story of how you advanced based on your choices, and how you advanced based on what you did.** Put another way, a character changes in OS based upon the adventures they undertook, a character changes in 5e based upon the choices made by the player.***

Personally, I'm saying that the old way is preferable, because all of those choices you make about which feat to take and which paragon path to follow are not part of the game. Character-building turned into its own game in 3E (or even in 2E Skills & Powers), and any focus spent on the character-building game is focus that's taken away from the actual game.

The game in an RPG is deciding what your character would do; it's what happens after you all meet in a tavern. Deciding which character to play is just bookkeeping, and no matter how much complexity you add there, it doesn't change what you do with the character.

 

[Yunru]

Personally, I'm saying that the old way is preferable, because all of those choices you make about which feat to take and which paragon path to follow are not part of the game. Character-building turned into its own game in 3E (or even in 2E Skills & Powers), and any focus spent on the character-building game is focus that's taken away from the actual game.

The game in an RPG is deciding what your character would do; it's what happens after you all meet in a tavern. Deciding which character to play is just bookkeeping, and no matter how much complexity you add there, it doesn't change what you do with the character.

But it does change what your character can do, thus what you do do with your character.

 

[Lanefan]

One thing about the class designs at low level, though - they seem to be informed by the MC rules, to an extent. Not so class-definingly 'front loaded' so as to avoid issues with 'dipping,' for instance. Maybe, instead, the MCing rules 'should' have gone further in changing what you got for taking the first few levels of a class? Just a thought.

A far simpler answer would have been to flat-out ban a character from operating in 3 or more classes (fluff rationale: most if not all classes require a great deal of work, study, practice, and effort in order to keep their skills fresh; operating in two classes strains what most people can handle, while operating in three or more is simply beyond mortal capabilities)

Then they could have come up with some really good rules for how double-class characters could work.

Lanefan

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But it does change what your character can do, thus what you do do with your character.

It gives you the opportunity to play as a different character, but it doesn't change how you actually play the character that you end up with. You're still limited by what the character can do, and whether those capabilities are pre-determined or customized from a million different options is irrelevant to the quality of the game.

Even if you're playing a basic game with four classes and no multi-classing, you can still get the full game-play experience out of that. A multi-class character with feats isn't inherently better or worse than a single-class character without feats, as far as playing the game goes, but it is inherently more complex and requires more work to make. So given that there's a cost associated with that complexity, and no real benefit in terms of game-play, I don't really see the appeal to this model of class design.