D&D 5E Do Classes Have Concrete Meaning In Your Game?

[Solandros]

They don't really in our game, they limit what kind of spells or abilities a character gets but doesn't really force em into a particular lable. I think giving class to much influence over what a player can do with their char puts a bit more emphasis on optimizing then we'd be comfortable with.

 

[TwoSix]

That was certainly one of my least favourite aspects of the system.

So you would agree, then, with the explicit assumption that spells exist within the game world as knowable, discreet entities, and are therefore transferable between practitioners of a shared casting style?

I wonder if there's a related concept here. Not so much "class-in-fiction", but magic in fiction. Assumptions about the nature of D&D magic obviously create class concepts centered around that magic, which then must be embedded into the fiction at large. Wizards exist as a class because practitioners of D&D wizard-style magic must exist to be able to create and share spells, because the concepts of discrete and sharable effects is the underlying fiction that's really desired?

 

[Miladoon]

Spells fit in the kinda discrete zone.

My magic missiles often look like dwarven forge hammers when they fly off to hit their target unerringly.

 

[Remathilis]

So you would agree, then, with the explicit assumption that spells exist within the game world as knowable, discreet entities, and are therefore transferable between practitioners of a shared casting style?

I wonder if there's a related concept here. Not so much "class-in-fiction", but magic in fiction. Assumptions about the nature of D&D magic obviously create class concepts centered around that magic, which then must be embedded into the fiction at large. Wizards exist as a class because practitioners of D&D wizard-style magic must exist to be able to create and share spells, because the concepts of discrete and sharable effects is the underlying fiction that's really desired?

I think magic is the one area where where class-in-fiction is strongest, both because caster mechanic and spell selection is tied to class and therefore implicit to a certain "style" of magic. Nobody but the members of class "wizard" can use a spellbook for anything more than a doorstop or paperweight. That implies a strong in-game connection to a certain style of magic, and it would be logical than practitioners of that style would name themselves something.

Now, if a WotC had done the "mage" caster who picks his own caster style (wizardry, sorcery, or pact) and had some flexibility in spell selection, then the borders would be broken down enough that magical ability wouldn't be cut-and-dry and forced into either wizard, sorcerer, or warlock-shaped boxes. However, that begins the problem of breaking down the classes into larger, nebulous "super-classes" which ultimately leads you toward the breakdown of the class system.

I'm sure a system could be done where magic-users could all have unique spellcasting quirks and magic only they could ever master, allowing a character to mold himself into whatever type of caster he wanted (and with whatever label he desired), but would that be preferable to the discrete classes we currently have and would it still feel "D&D" to most players?

 

[Shasarak]

So you would agree, then, with the explicit assumption that spells exist within the game world as knowable, discreet entities, and are therefore transferable between practitioners of a shared casting style?

That has certainly been my experience.

 

[empireofchaos]

There were several nuances to this argument that I think have been resolved.

* Do classes have a concrete meaning in your game? Differs based on the DM, but for my game Yes.
* Do classes have concrete meaning in the core rules? Yes, but the DM can feel free to change that.
* Can you use a class to model something other than the archetype the class was designed for? Yes, if the DM allows it.
* Does the game assume that classes will be used for things other than the archetype it was designed for? No, that's purely DM fiat.
* Is the DM obligated to use allow classes to be used in ways different from the archetype they were designed for? No, not if it its going to go against his setting.

I think its safe to say that the game assumes class-as-fiction is the default setting, but like many other things in D&D can be changed to suit the group playing. Just don't give the line that the default setting is class-as-metagame, since there is enough evidence to refute that.

It CAN be done, but that's not how its assumed to be done.

I'm not sure they've been resolved, though they have certainly received a more-or-less full airing.

I would add that the poll addressed only the first question, and most people who answered it didn't really voice their reasons or their take on the other questions. Though I would agree that a more literal reading will likely yield the answers you give above for questions two and four.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The Miller isn't a Druid, even if he follows the Old Faith. He's a miller. Nobody goes to him when the wolves are getting too numerous, the crops need a storm to grow, or orcs are despoiling the forest. They go to a Druid. The Druid is trained in the ancient arts of the Faith. He has magic, he can shapechange. He was trained by another druid. He belongs to an ancient order of people who was trained in the same way he was. They share a common language, a common set of skills, and a belief. The miller or the knight is just a miller or knight that follows a particular faith, they aren't DRUIDS in terms of the world or game any more than I can become a minister and claim I'm the Pope.

And yet in the real world a number of Borgias were Popes. They were about as priestly as you or I, probably a lot less! In fact in a realistic campaign world the 'Great Druid' is probably a lot LESS likely to be a druid class character and a lot more likely to be some political hack. And maybe you do go to the miller, because maybe he's the guy that takes care of that stuff, and if he needs to talk to the Old Man in the Forest, then he does.

Yeah, not a selling point. I remember in the very first 4e game I ran (Into the Shadowhaunt), there is a wizard at the end with some cool spells (one I remember was called Bone-Wearying Gaze, which weakened you). Now, I had a PC wizard at the time who thought it was a cool spell and, like wizards of yore, wanted to steal and learn that spell. I had to tell him that spell was "NPC only" and he couldn't learn it. It was the first time I ever told a PC that NPCs and PCs played by different rules IN WORLD as well as IN GAME.

This old saw? 90% of the stuff that is attached to stat blocks in every edition is not reproducible by a PC, unless the DM wants to add a power/spell/whatever to the game to make it happen. So calling this a 4e problem is silly. Beyond that how hard is it to add a power to a class in 4e? Since EVERY CLASS has the same power structure its actually vastly easier than working out something similar in other editions of the game (though truthfully I don't think that's necessarily a problem, but 4e does allow for some interesting stuff if you want to go there).

Oh, a Holy Order might contain Fighters, Paladins, and Clerics, but they all don't call themselves PALADINS. That is like every person in a hospital calling themselves a doctor. A doctor has a certain set of skills and responsibilities, you can't have nurses, techs and aides doing a doctor's job. A nurse doesn't get to call himself a doctor, he doesn't have the training. I doesn't matter that they're all there to heal the sick and injured, they aren't all doctors and they don't get that title.

I think a lot of them would call themselves paladins. And maybe more to the point, some paladins might not be mainly involved in fighting, they might do other stuff. The hospital administration probably is mostly Drs. They're just not the ones practicing medicine every day, they're older, or just got into that side of things.

The warlock joins a wizard guild and realizes he has nothing to add or need when they all discuss swapping spell research and copying spells in their spellbooks and all he's there doing is drinking their mead. Fighter's rangers, and rogues all join a Holy Order and then are kicked out because they aren't adhering to the Code of Conduct a Paladin must. A cleric of the god of theft might be closely aligned with a thieves guild, but he's not sent out to do pick pockets or burgle houses. An avenger might have been a noble in his background, but he had to swear an oath of vengeance and train as a paladin.

You can have flexibility and still have the classes mean something.

I don't see any reason why the 'wizards guild' couldn't be interested in lore that pertains to things known by a warlock or vice versa. It makes perfectly good sense to me. Why can't a rogue adhere to a code of conduct? Why wouldn't a cleric belong to the thieves guild? He goes along, casts bless, detect magic, cure disease/poison, etc and shares in the loot, sounds perfectly fine to me.

Frankly I'll go further, and reiterate, I don't think NPCs largely are ANY specific class. They have abilities and whatnot that fall into categories and classes emulate those categories so that PCs can fall into them as well. So IMHO the wizard's guild isn't filled with wizard class characters, its filled with experts in magical lore of various sorts. The ways that they cast spells and do whatever they do parallel and are simulated by wizard class PCs, but the 'real' world is much messier and less clear-cut than the classes, which exist strictly to regulate PC access to different resources. Truthfully most NPCs are bit players in the game, and IMHO the older rules simply took the easy path and said "use class X for that" but if you were to detail every NPC in such a world in exact detail they'd have a wide variation and most of them wouldn't fit well into a class. Now, maybe 3.x can pretty much handle that. Note though that even 3.x in its generic rules systems generally doesn't expect the DM to go to the detail of MCing and PRCing every little NPC to make them all unique. Most of them die long before it matters. 4e is the same, you use a stat block, that doesn't imply that every NPC is that simple. Just that you don't need more detail.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So you would agree, then, with the explicit assumption that spells exist within the game world as knowable, discreet entities, and are therefore transferable between practitioners of a shared casting style?

I wonder if there's a related concept here. Not so much "class-in-fiction", but magic in fiction. Assumptions about the nature of D&D magic obviously create class concepts centered around that magic, which then must be embedded into the fiction at large. Wizards exist as a class because practitioners of D&D wizard-style magic must exist to be able to create and share spells, because the concepts of discrete and sharable effects is the underlying fiction that's really desired?

I don't think its too hard to have a concept of discrete effects in 4e. First of all there's a HUGE list of powers in 4e, so its likely that your class has something that is pretty similar, if not identical, to any given power in a stat block, assuming its thematically appropriate to your character. Most 'wizard' NPCs in 4e cast fireballs and whatnot, which are quite accessible to PCs.

In the example given the NPC sounds like specifically a Necromancer. There wasn't any necromancy per-se in the PHB1 version of the wizard, so it maybe lacked a good selection of spells, but even previous editions weren't too good on that point.

Finally, you can so easily just use a power, even one from a stat block. The DM might need to expand it to a full version, and it might change a bit, but it isn't THAT hard. Often just reflavoring existing powers works fine too. Maybe you don't cast EXACTLY the power verbatim, but again that gets back to the assumption that this is how magic works. It seems quite reasonable to me to be able to say "well, yeah, you CAN do that, but yours can only target two monsters, and they get a save" or whatever.

 

[empireofchaos]

And yet in the real world a number of Borgias were Popes. They were about as priestly as you or I, probably a lot less! In fact in a realistic campaign world the 'Great Druid' is probably a lot LESS likely to be a druid class character and a lot more likely to be some political hack. And maybe you do go to the miller, because maybe he's the guy that takes care of that stuff, and if he needs to talk to the Old Man in the Forest, then he does.

Borgia may not have been particularly saintly, but he was certainly more priestly than you or I (assuming you're not a priest), because he was ordained, and rose through the church hierarchy. Before he was ordained, he was a university trained lawyer, at a time when university doctors were members of the priestly estate.

On top of that, the world in which Borgia lived did not have systems of magical spells, including ones that allowed priests to raise the dead (or dragons, or beholders, for that matter). If it did, you can be pretty sure access to such magic would have been tightly controlled and regulated, perhaps to the point of the priesthood becoming a caste (which is in fact what was happening as the church grew more nepotistic, which allowed Rodrigo to rise). And the people who play a key role in regulating access to such magic tend to have to assume some dose of political power (though the alignment between class power and political power doesn't have to be an exact one). The point is, it's up to the DM to define, and it can be defined badly, in a way that causes the sophisticated player to not take the world seriously, or it can be defined well.

Last, the idea that NPCs have classed levels doesn't seem particularly controversial to me - most published adventures that I'm aware of have them, and there seems to be at least some correlation between class level and political power (in urban settings, at least).

 

[Shasarak]

90% of the stuff that is attached to stat blocks in every edition is not reproducible by a PC, unless the DM wants to add a power/spell/whatever to the game to make it happen. So calling this a 4e problem is silly. Beyond that how hard is it to add a power to a class in 4e? Since EVERY CLASS has the same power structure its actually vastly easier than working out something similar in other editions of the game (though truthfully I don't think that's necessarily a problem, but 4e does allow for some interesting stuff if you want to go there).

Most editions just used spells for the majority of powers with the odd exceptions for things like Dragons breath, Swallow Whole, Rend etc.