D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: More Classes/Subclasses, Retraining & Playing Without Subclasses

[sidonunspa]

I can see a lot of campaigns starting at third level rather than first level

heck they said that very thing on the WoTC message boards... they fully expect many campaigns to start at 3rd....

1st & 2nd are for beginning characters (like the campaign I'm starting in two weeks where my players are playing the next generation of a famous adventuring party)

 

[The Shadow]

I can see a lot of campaigns starting at third level rather than first level

My understanding was that they intend for more experienced groups to do just that. First and second level are for beginners.

 

[thundershot]

I hope that they find some way to bring back the 3.5 Complete Divine Spirit Shaman. I have a player that loved playing that class... and it was missing from 4E and PF... Maybe as a Druid subclass?

 

[Li Shenron]

I would like all subclasses to start at 3rd level for a variety of reasons. Besides this, point (1) suggests me that they should give more room to subclasses features, e.g. have at least 6 features (currently the Monk has 4 and a couple more classes have 5, the rest have 6+). Not so much because the current subclasses necessarily need that many, but having only 4-5 eventually might be restrictive for future subclasses concepts. They could consider taking some of the less iconic class features for some classes and turn them into subclass features.

I strongly dislike retraining rules, thus I very much hope that what they say in (2) is going to become true... Guidelines in the DMG are fine, even a default rule in the DMG is acceptable, but please no rule in the PHB. It's too much player's entitlement to have retraining rules available by default, which means they end up making the default very rigid/limited, and then it always screw up that only player that would need help because he made an honest mistake.

Point (3) sound totally fine, it's what they've been talking for a long time. I could see Berserker, War Domain, Circle of the Land (Forest), Path of the Warrior, Way of the Open Hand, Oath of Devotion, Path of the Horde Breaker and Thievery Style already being the possible choices. We may not have a Wizard Tradition yet for this, perhaps some Academic/Generalist School is needed.

 

[gyor]

I see Domain of Life and Circle of the Moon being default personally.

 

[Greg K]

I would like all subclasses to start at 3rd level for a variety of reasons.

I want them to start at first level and think that they should play more of a role from the very beginning. Then again, I continue to be very disappointed with every class.

 

[TwoSix]

I hope that they find some way to bring back the 3.5 Complete Divine Spirit Shaman. I have a player that loved playing that class... and it was missing from 4E and PF... Maybe as a Druid subclass?

I saw a note that the Arcanist class in the Pathfinder Advanced Class Guide coming out next year is supposed to use a very similar mechanism. Which would be great, because I loved the spirit shaman.

 

[Falling Icicle]

We’re hoping that the array of classes we end up with, combined with the versatility of subclasses, will eliminate the need for more core classes in the future. That’s why it’s so important for us to make sure to get the unchanging portions of the classes in good enough shape, so that subclasses (both initial and future) can carry the weight of the really big differences. During an exploration of all previous iterations of the game, one of the things we found was that many of the post-initial release classes shared a great deal of space (both thematic and mechanical) with the classes released early in the edition.

First off, what is so wrong with having more classes in the future? Why is subclass "bloat" okay but new classes something to be avoided like the plague?

Second, you talk about the unchanging portion of classes and how in previous iterations of the game many classes shared a lot of stuff with previous classes. This may be true of some of them, but it was certainly never true of psions and warlocks (in comparison to wizards). They really didn't have much in common at all. They had totally different casting mechanics, radically different spell/power/invocation lists, etc. If you guys really feel you must put the wizard and sorcerer together, fine. I can stomach that. They were, after all, extremely similar, even sharing the same spell lists. But psions and warlocks? Hell no. Those should be separate classes from the mage. You already have 10 classes. What would be so terrible about having 12?

 

[variant]

If every subclass would start at level 3, where does that leave the Mage and every subclass under it? The idea that you play a general Mage and then decide if you want to be a Warlock, Wizard, Sorcerer, Artificer, Psion, etc at level 3 would be the stupidest idea in the history of RPG design.

 

[GSHamster]

First off, what is so wrong with having more classes in the future? Why is subclass "bloat" okay but new classes something to be avoided like the plague?

It's mostly so that they can reference the classes in future supplements. For example, let's set up the following situation in a world without subclasses:

Book A: Has a class called Fighter
Book B: Has a class called Knight which is like a Fighter, but more emphasis on mounted combat.
Book C: Has a feat which is only usable by Fighters.

Can the book C feat be used by Knights? Not in this formulation.

But if Knight is a subclass of Fighter, then anything which applies to Fighters also applies to Knights, even if Book C does not know that the Knight exists.

It's essentially an attempt at future-proofing classes. One of the issues with multiple classes in previous editions is that the classes in the PHB got a lot of extra options from supplements. But a class that came out in a supplement tended to be static, and never really got any benefits from future supplements, especially if it used unique mechanics.