D&D 5E (2014) D&D Class Design Criticism

[Lanliss]

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.

The benefit, IMO, is that I can play what I want. Instead of a multitude of abilities in my main class that are "Almost, kind of, what I want", I can mix a couple of classes and get a character I actually want. Now, they could make a bunch of subclasses for the base classes, that represent the multiclassing, but that just sounds silly.

I currently have a character that, if I were to play him to 20th level, would be Rogue 8/Warlock 12. Are they meant to have a Warlock subclass that represents the Swashbuckler I get from rogue, as well as the sneak attack damage to go with it? Or a Swashbuckler that pulls in some Bladelock? Both, for people who want more Swashbuckler or more Blade-lock? That sounds way more complex than just being careful to not front-load a class too much.

I have had exactly one character that I thought of that only requires a single class. If you gave me a choice between simplicity or customization, I would choose customization every time.

 

[SmokeyCriminal]

I think you can get what you want if you accordion class, and subclass features, but leave Proficiency Bonus, HD, Spell progression, Extra attack, Sneak attack, and ASI the same. The basic 4 classes look interesting.

Thief Rogue:

1st lvl - Expertise, Sneak attack,Thieves Cant, Cunning Action
2nd lvl - Fast Hands, Second-Story Work Uncanny Dodge
3rd lvl - 2d6 Sneak Attack, Expertise, Evasion
4th lvl - ASI
5th lvl - 3d6 Sneak Attack, Supreme Sneak, Reliable Talent
6th lvl - Use Magic Device, Blind Sense
7th lvl - 4d6 Sneak Attack, Slippery Mind, Thief's Reflexes
8th lvl - ASI
9th lvl - 5d6 Sneak Attack, Elusive, Stroke of Luck
10th lvl - ASI
11th lvl - 6d6 Sneak Attack
12th lvl - ASI
13th lvl - 7d6 Sneak Attack
14th lvl - ---
15th lvl - 8d6 Sneak Attack

Champion Fighter:

1st lvl - Fighting Style, Second Wind, Action Surge
2nd lvl - Improved Critical, Remarkable Athlete
3rd lvl - Indominable (one use), Additional Fighting Style
4th lvl - ASI
5th lvl - Extra Attack
6th lvl - ASI
7th lvl - Indominable (two uses), Superior Critical
8th lvl - ASI
9th lvl - Action Surge (two uses), Indominable (three uses), Survivor
10th lvl - ---
11th lvl - Extra Attack
12th lvl - ASI
13th lvl - ---
14th lvl - ASI
15th lvl - ---

Evocation Wizard:

1st lvl - Spell Casting, Arcane Recovery, Evocation Savant, Sculpt Spells
2nd lvl - Potent Cantrip, Empowered Evocation
3rd lvl - ---
4th lvl - ASI
5th lvl - ---
6th lvl - Overchannel, Spell Mastery
7th lvl - ---
8th lvl - ASI
9th lvl - ---
10th lvl - Signature Spell
11th lvl - ---
12th lvl - ASI
13th lvl - ---
14th lvl - ---
15th lvl - ---

Life Domain Cleric:

1st lvl - Spell Casting, Bonus proficiency, Disciple of Life, Channel Divinity (1/rest),
Turn Undead
2nd lvl - Channel Divinity (2/rest), Blessed Healer,
3rd lvl - ---
4th lvl - ASI
5th lvl - Destroy Undead (CR1/2)
6th lvl - Divine Intervention, Supreme Healing
7th lvl - ---
8th lvl - ASI, Divine Strike
9th lvl - ---
10th lvl - Channel Divinity (3/rest), Divine Intervention Improvement
11th lvl - Destroy Undead (CR2)
12th lvl - ASI
13th lvl - ---
14th lvl - Destroy Undead (CR3), Divine Strike (2d8)
15th lvl - ---

You basically go down the list getting 2 levels worth of Features for every level you gain skipping ASI, extra attack, ect. It keeps Combat Power Creep at a minimum but gives you your class features twice as fast. At 3rd level you have Uncanny Dodge and Evasion, which is super cool. But your HP is still just 22, your AC 15, and to-hit +5. It Works for the Fighter the same, since Extra attack is still at 5th lvl, he does't get too much more powerful. And It works pretty well for the Wizard.

Each level gets twice as much stuff so its twice as complicated to play so new/er players might overwhlemed. Encounters would obviously need to be adjusted, but I don't think it's by too much. Idk, How does it look at a glance?

 

[schnee]

That's a good question, because what I hear the OP asking is: "why can't I have all my cool abilities at first level?"

Or, "can't WotC just make all abilities into a gradient that gets more powerful each time you go up a level?"

You know, after playing games that do that, and D&D, I've come to like a system that adds discrete abilities over time rather than marching along a smooth gradient. That way you can see how a character works within a smaller context, given a certain set of parameters, then you get a 'new toy' to play around with from time to time. It keeps it fresh.

It also means you get 'bumps' in power that level out as enemies get tougher, which adds a bit of swinginess to the way the game plays that probably makes balance change over time - fire is really effective at low levels, but later on you get other ways of dealing damage about the time fire-resistant creatures become more common. So, it creates distinct 'phases' in the life-cycle of a character that leads them to try and do new things.

You can get that in a way by having one mechanic that scales, but what does that mean, for, a Druid's Land Stride? Do you have phases where you only move 5' faster through rough territory, then 10', then full movement speed? When monsters have subtle differences in their movement speeds, that makes it fiddly, not work out the way characters hoped for, and sometimes going unused. It's like Thief skills in AD&D - people just ended up not using things that were too risky, because the high chance of failure was such a bummer. Putting things in all at once makes them reliable and more fun.

Games with smooth power gradients play completely differently. I like them, but if I want that sort of thing I'll fire up a Basic retro-clone, or Shadowrun, or (gulp) see if I can convince a group to try a Chaosium system.

 

[CapnZapp]

Most abilities given at levels 11+ are too weak or inconsequential to be given at that level.

They would be fun and important if handed out at levels 6-10.

To matter at all in charbuilding decisions, level 11+ abilities need to be significantly stronger than currently.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[redrick]

Most games hit third level after one or two sessions at maximum.

I've always been confused by this assertion. With a party of 4, you need roughly 6 deadly encounters to get the 300 xp needed to reach 2nd level. Or 12 medium encounters. I've never squeezed that much out of a single session, especially if there's even one new player in the group. In most games I've played, PCs reach 2nd level during or after the 3rd session, unless the DM is simply leveling by fiat.

As for defining character abilities not coming online until double digit levels — I agree with others that, for me, the defining character abilities are generally all in place by 5th level if not sooner.

I guess, if you wanted to hasten the high level abilities, you could replace early ASIs with class abilities. No feats or ASIs until all your class abilities come online. I'm sure it would take some care to do it right.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The benefit, IMO, is that I can play what I want. Instead of a multitude of abilities in my main class that are "Almost, kind of, what I want", I can mix a couple of classes and get a character I actually want. Now, they could make a bunch of subclasses for the base classes, that represent the multiclassing, but that just sounds silly.

I currently have a character that, if I were to play him to 20th level, would be Rogue 8/Warlock 12. Are they meant to have a Warlock subclass that represents the Swashbuckler I get from rogue, as well as the sneak attack damage to go with it? Or a Swashbuckler that pulls in some Bladelock? Both, for people who want more Swashbuckler or more Blade-lock? That sounds way more complex than just being careful to not front-load a class too much.

I'm not sure where you're going with this. Any RPG represents a finite setting-space, and some things aren't going to exist. Even in Forgotten Realms, which is noted for having everything in every D&D supplement ever, there are character concepts which simply don't work there. You're never going to get a Zentraedi ninja, or a Cosmo Knight, because this is D&D and not Rifts.

If you're playing a game without multi-classing, or without cross-class sub-classes or anything like that, then the Rogue/Warlock character that you're imagining gets tossed into the pile with the Zentraedi and the Cosmo Knight. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the character concept, it just isn't something that you can play in this game, because the rules reflect a finite setting-space where that isn't a thing. In fact, most potential character concepts are going to end up in that pile, because that's how rulesets work.

So, given that there are so many things that you already can't play, and which you will never be able to play in a D&D game regardless, what do you really gain by including multi-class characters in the playable pile? It's unlikely that you came up with the character concept before you even looked at the rules, and then saw that mixing these two classes in this particular way would perfectly emulate the picture in head; D&D classes are too hyper-specific to accurately reflect anything other than D&D characters, and even that doesn't work across editions. Is it just that you find the forty class/subclass combinations in the PHB to be too limiting, and none of them appeal to you? You can't get invested in any of these forty character types, because they're all too cliche, but you can find something interesting enough to play if you mix-and-match them?

 

[MichaelSomething]

You can't get invested in any of these forty character types, because they're all too cliche, but you can find something interesting enough to play if you mix-and-match them?

Do you think all those people who want Warlords would be happy by multi classing Bards and Fighters?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Do you think all those people who want Warlords would be happy by multi classing Bards and Fighters?

If fourth edition had never existed, and they'd had no reason to believe that anything like the Warlord was something that should exist in D&D, then I don't think anyone would be complaining about it now.

A world without Warlords isn't significantly different from a world without Bards, Druids, Ninjas, or Cosmo Knights. If something doesn't exist in the game you're trying to play, then you make something that does exist. What's the big deal?

 

[discosoc]

Do you think all those people who want Warlords would be happy by multi classing Bards and Fighters?

Let's be real: the warlord crowd isn't exactly filled with people who will be happy with anything but a perfect 4e port with the Warlord name. They have a special kind of zeal typically reserved for psychopaths and politicians.

 

[Lanliss]

I'm not sure where you're going with this. Any RPG represents a finite setting-space, and some things aren't going to exist. Even in Forgotten Realms, which is noted for having everything in every D&D supplement ever, there are character concepts which simply don't work there. You're never going to get a Zentraedi ninja, or a Cosmo Knight, because this is D&D and not Rifts.

If you're playing a game without multi-classing, or without cross-class sub-classes or anything like that, then the Rogue/Warlock character that you're imagining gets tossed into the pile with the Zentraedi and the Cosmo Knight. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the character concept, it just isn't something that you can play in this game, because the rules reflect a finite setting-space where that isn't a thing. In fact, most potential character concepts are going to end up in that pile, because that's how rulesets work.

So, given that there are so many things that you already can't play, and which you will never be able to play in a D&D game regardless, what do you really gain by including multi-class characters in the playable pile? It's unlikely that you came up with the character concept before you even looked at the rules, and then saw that mixing these two classes in this particular way would perfectly emulate the picture in head; D&D classes are too hyper-specific to accurately reflect anything other than D&D characters, and even that doesn't work across editions. Is it just that you find the forty class/subclass combinations in the PHB to be too limiting, and none of them appeal to you? You can't get invested in any of these forty character types, because they're all too cliche, but you can find something interesting enough to play if you mix-and-match them?

So, your stance is that, because there are things that you cannot do with D&D, even more should be cut out?

Yes, I do find the 40 class/subclasses in the PHB too limiting. Almost none of them tell a story I have any interest in, and a good number have mechanics I don't find that interesting either. Could I play in a game without multiclasssing? Probably, but I would be putting considerable constraints on my normal design thoughts, and probably would not be too invested in my character. Unless I had hit upon a specific story that fit that class that I did want to go through, but that is a different discussion.

The core of my point is, part of the reason I try getting friends to play D&D is "You can do literally whatever you want". I would not enjoy having to add the addendum "As long as you only want to be a backstabber, booky mage, fighting man, or Devout of the Gods". With multiclassing, they can do whatever they want. I don't know what those other classes you listed are, but I am betting they can be added in some way. Then they multiply the possible stories to tell, because you can also multiclass the new class with others, making a GOO Bladelock/ Cosmo Knight, sworn sword of the Ninth Star of Blue Thoughts.