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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DMZ2112" data-source="post: 6223478" data-attributes="member: 78752">I feel like this observation is dismissive.  It is not incorrect, but, taking your robed water cleric example: while he turns fire elementals instead of undead the turn mechanic remains intact; while he wears no armor his other abilities are buffed in some way to make up for that loss because armor is still the default assumption.  He may not strongly resemble the default cleric in aspect, but on paper he is defined by the same elements.  The robed water cleric is not a "cleric and," he is a "cleric but."  And I will take that distinction all the way to the bank -- the cleric I describe has been the D&D standard for at least 35 years.What story unifies an undead-turning, hammer-and-shield-wielding chaplain and an elemental-turning, staff-wielding priest?  Certainly their stories are no more the same than the same chaplain's and a fighter's?All right, but logistically you must realize this is impossible.  If classes must be definitive, and the source of that definition is based in character concept rather than capability, the only possible solution is that there be a class for all possible character concepts.  Even when tempered by setting -- Eberron may be improved by the inclusion of the artificer, but by your rules it is hopelessly crippled by the countless nameless classes it omits!At my table, a cheer goes up for a natural 20 even if the party is fighting giant rats in a cesspit.  Admittedly I lack empirical evidence, but my gut feeling is that the dungeon master simply announcing, "Put those dice down -- you kill Drogthul with a mighty blow to the throat; as his life blood spills to the floor, Arcthresh's cerulean energies surge through his body and pop his accursed eyeballs in a shower of gore," is significantly more disappointing than him saying, "Nat 20, huh?  Nice.  The orc king dies.  In his hoard you find..."  At least in the latter case the characters had a role in the victory. And I went to the Forge specifically to look it up to make sure I was approaching the discussion correctly.  Sigh.  Oh, well, at least we seem to have come to similar places, if through different means.This is my understanding as well.My concern was that you were suggesting that membership in the class itself "made moves available" to a character, for instance, "I am able to bully the shopkeeper because I am a barbarian."I absolutely agree.  As long as the flavor colors mechanics, and it is those mechanics that define their relevant class, I have no objection to "class flavor" influencing character positioning in the fiction.</blockquote>

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