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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9205478" data-attributes="member: 7006">No.  So long as the game is built with multiple classes over many, many levels... you need different ways to do things in order to make those extra classes and extra levels mean something.  If your higher levels in the game are run and played exactly as they do at lower levels except that just the numbers are "bigger" across the board... it makes a person wonder what is the point of having those higher levels.  If they don't do anything to make the game different-- proportionally OR narratively-- then there's no reason to bother with them.  It's the same as the old World of Warcraft problem of your character fighting 5th level spiders at the start of the game and then fighting 89th level spiders that look exactly the same seven expansions in-- the spiders are no different, its just that the numbers are bigger. So what's the point?Likewise, if you have twelve different classes but the mechanics all work very similarly (because you want less resource management of different types for players to have to learn and remember), it certainly makes them easier to learn across all the classes... but unless the flavor and narrative of them is really strong and can overpower the mechanical similarity... it can make one wonder why it's necessary to have all those classes.  If the rules do not do anything to distinguish one class from another, then it comes down to the actual players and DMs to infuse their characters and monsters with enough flavor, personality, and non-mechanical fluff to make these things seem and feel different.  And that comes down to description, detail, and acting.  If you don't act (or narrate) as though your warrior is different than the wizard (both in how you behave and in what you do and try to accomplish)... then the fact that they both would have the same mechanical rules and same resource management means the characters aren't different.D&D is a merging of board game and improv game.  That's what it is.  You need both for it to actually be what it was designed to do.  But if you are a table that ignores one side and only focuses on the other... you need that side you focus on to be compelling and different in the places where that difference is meant to be meaningful.  If you forsake the improv game and only focus on the board game... AND you want Classes to be meaningfully different from one another... then you HAVE to make the mechanics work differently for each one.  Otherwise you get the "tokens in Monopoly" problem, where playing the Shoe or the Iron or the Car means literally nothing to the game other than the aesthetics of the token itself.   Those rules of Monopoly better be so engaging as a board game that it doesn't matter that the "class" of your token has no impact to how the game is played and how you enjoy it.  Just like how being a Fighter versus a Wizard doesn't matter if the game mechanics for both of them are the same as well.That D&D board game better be really really good.  Otherwise, you're going to want the mechanics for each class or different levels of the game to be different enough to make their individual experiences unique.  Either that... or you better really go all-in on the narrative and story and improv because THAT'S how you'll make the Fighter and Wizard different and 3rd level and 16th level different in D&D even if the mechanics are exactly the same.</blockquote>

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