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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6178914" data-attributes="member: 2067">I don't think that's it. "Assassin" and "illusionist" and "knight" and "Holy Liberator of Arborea" and "Dwarf" aren't classes, and people absolutely do want to call their characters that.......except, Wizards are under the umbrella of "Mage," and "Barbarian" and "Druid" aren't under an umbrella, so why is it OK for one class to have a super-broad, meaningless, milquetoast name and force the subclass to carry the weight of archetype, and it's not OK for other classes? If Wizard gets lumped under Mage, shouldn't Barbarian get lumped under Fighter(/warrior)? And maybe lump druid under Cleric(/priest)?There's no consistency here. That feels like a problem to me. Admittedly, it might not be as big of a problem as I feel it is, but it seems like this disorganization might just confuse newbies. I can make one choice to be a character like Conan, but I have to make two choices to be Harry Potter or Gandalf? Why is one up front and the other behind a decision-point wall?...I actually think that makes quite a bit less sense. They're already on record as rejecting explicit and mandatory class roles, and power sources are mentioned as something decoupled from class with things like the shadowdancer rogue and the hexblade fighter. So why isn't Paladin just an option for a fighter who wants a bit of Divine spark to their class, like Hexblade is an option for a fighter who wants a bit of Arcane knowledge?There's a whole bucket of problems in defining class by combat role that I'm really hoping 5e has learned enough about to avoid. Yeah, this is where I am. I just want to know what I should be thinking of a "class" as, since as far as I can tell, most of the load that was born by the "class" concept (ie: the character's fictional archetype and the conflicts they are meant to solve) seems to now be sometimes a class and sometimes a subclass and sometimes even a feat, so why the class? Why not just ditch the unnecessary silo and have Shadowdancers and Hexblades and Assassins and Thieves and Knights and Gladiators and Wizards and Sorcerers and Psionicists all be different?I don't get what purpose a "class" serves right now in 5e. Right now, I'd just as soon get rid of the concept of Class and turn all subclasses into their own Class, because that defines more what kind of archetype your character is. I imagine it's trying to serve the purpose of "a group for abilities that are common to all subclasses underneath the class, and not part of other subclasses" but in that case, Barbarian and Ranger and Paladin probably should be under the Fighter umbrella, because there's not a whole lot those guys can do that a Fighter shouldn't be able to do. It works for the level of Mage subclasses, though, if you imagine that a telepath and an enchanter and an artificer should all probably be able to access an effect like charm person, even if one gains it through studying tomes, one gains it through psychic training, and one gains it through love potions. Though if you apply that logic globally, I don't see any reason why fighters and rogues and bards and all the rest shouldn't be able to access an effect like charm person. As a memorized well of power, a telepathic coercion, a love potion, or just a diplomatic turn of phrase or a rakish charisma, the story is dramatically different, but the effects are largely similar, if that's what you're thinking about for exclusive abilities......yeah, there's basically just a lot of confusion over what they're trying to do here.</blockquote>

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