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

[delericho]

2.) Just because you post something in a forum doesn't make it true.

No, the fact that it's true is what makes it true.

 

[Valador]

No, the fact that it's true is what makes it true.

I see where our breakdown happened, at least part of it. Your quote and response didn't specify which term, LOH or Paladin, you were referring to out of what you quoted and I thought you were talking about the term Paladin. So I'll apologize for the confusion on my part and I will agree with you about the LOH origins.

Edit - I've been awake too long and I'm getting very irritable. I apologize and I'm going to take a break. Until later.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As an aside, Of all the sacred cows that I wished 4e would've slaughtered, the existence of a single monolithic "fighter" class would've been one of the big ones (and, by narrowing the fighter's focus and giving them a party role and floating alternate classes like the Warlord, 4e almost did that!). I'd even like to see the Rogue broken up and given renewed purpose! We haven't talked about a single "magic-user" class since at least 2e, and no one seems to miss it all that much.

Isn't that what 4e did, though? "Fighter" became specifically the defense-oriented martial character, though it could do competent damage if you built for it even before the introduction of the Slayer. They forked out all the purely-killinate-stuff to Ranger, and the leader-of-men stuff to the Warlord. People complained that it was a horrible awful sin against God and Man that someone who wanted to play a "bow Fighter" had to play a Ranger. They also had Avengers, which are pretty Rogue-like but with distinctly Divine flavor. I don't recall a Primal or Arcane equivalent, though one could argue that the Bard (or maaaaaybe Artificer) could qualify, being all skilly and tricksy (or potion-y, for the Artificer), and of course there was the Assassin. You even had the Seeker as an attempt, albeit not very successful, to add further options for archery-focused characters.

I mean sure, it's entirely possible that 4e could have gone further with this stuff--but I really think it's a question of degree and not kind. Particularly given how negatively much of this was received, even by 4e fans (Runepriest is just a weird Cleric! Seeker is just a poorly-made Controller Ranger! Assassin should be a Rogue thing!), and how much people bellyache about requests for stuff like an actual Warlord class in 5e. I agree with you, in that I think that making things a bit narrower and more focused would probably be good for the game, in terms of design...but I'm not sure most people want that, even if it WOULD be a better deal!

And lastly, to restate a point: if class is better as metagame fluff, why not race, too?

Two answers. First: because you can identify an unconscious, naked member of a particular race (that is, without any ability to refer to behavior or equipment it is entirely possible to identify an individual's race/species, but almost impossible to identify their class).

Second: Some people totally DO do that. Especially in 4e, lots of people talked of doing it. An example that comes to mind: a "Dwarf Noble" character, who was actually an Earthsoul Genasi. Her different stats and magical abilities were explained as a result of her noble heritage and (IIRC shamanic?) education. But she totally looked, talked, and acted like a (high-status) dwarf would.

Greataxe? No, because the quarterstaff has other mechanical traits, such as being usable with the Polearm Master feat, that the greataxe doesn't. But halberd, just changed to bludgeoning damage? If the character was already proficient with the halberd--IOW, if it was truly just a flavor request, and not a mechanical advantage--I'd absolutely allow it. I'd just say the staff was heavier than most, perhaps reinforced by iron bands or caps.

Edit: Forgot halberd has reach, so that may not be the best example, but you get the idea. I'd allow "swapping up" on damage, as long as it wasn't superior, with a combination of damage and traits, to any other weapon the character could legally use.

Honestly, this is one of the areas where I personally feel 4e kinda dropped the ball. They did a good job of making different weapons actually feel different--but they also made it fiddly and often an impediment to "fun" unless you treated all weapons as stat-sticks. I'm not entirely sure how to solve the problem (making axes feel distinct from swords means giving some meaning to the difference; letting someone use whatever weapon they like to fulfill their concept means reducing the meaning of the differences between them), but it does feel like an area that wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

I've already dealt with the race is 100% correct thing, and what the out-of-game source of this claim is.

Actually, at least in 4e (and I *think* 5e as well? Correct me if I'm wrong), half-elf and half-orc are true-breeding, a distinct type of being from both 'origin races.' 4e, of course, actually gave some heft to the distinction, since both half-elves and half-orcs have unique abilities that aren't found among humans, orcs, or elves. We have no real standard of comparison for 5e orc vs. half-orc, but half-elves aren't super different from their parent races (especially Variant Human + pre-subrace Elf).

As for the IRL vs. in-game thing: the terms really aren't used the same way. They may have a common origin, but they're pretty heavily divergent at this point. When "Fighter" can apply just as much to a Noble as a Street Urchin, it cannot possibly be the same kind of "class" as referred to in Marx's "class struggles." "Race" is much closer, I'll grant you that, but the assumption that cultural groups are defined along lines of genetic incompatibility (or un-hybridized states, for human/elf etc.) is not necessarily unwarranted. It requires a level of cultural adaptation to be able to process and accept, for instance, dynastic marriages between biologically incompatible parents (e.g. a dragonborn and a human, a dwarf and an elf, etc.) If the associated species also have dramatically different lifespans and physiological needs, the likelihood of tension and/or separation between the two is high. There's also the very simple "looks like us GOOD, not look like us BAD" tribalism, which has defined human social interactions practically from the dawn of time (just check out tensions between North African and Sub-Saharan African peoples, or the tensions between the various ethnic groups of East Asia,* or the hatred between the Arab and Kurdish populations of Iraq, or the current racial divisions which contribute to the horrible situation in France); differences which are both more dramatic and more fundamental than anything appearing among anatomically-modern humans could easily foster even deeper tribalist feelings. I mean, if Europeans were willing to burn people at the stake for having warts in the wrong places or something, can we really say that pseudo-medieval humanoids would never act that way toward beings that are demonstrably different from them biologically?

*One of my high school teachers was a wonderful lady of Korean descent, though she was born and raised here in the States. Her husband, also a native-born American citizen, was of Chinese descent. Her (maternal, IIRC) grandmother, a native-born Korean, never quite got over the fact that her granddaughter had married a Chinese man, and had a tendency to express...uncomfortable opinions in private conversation. These sorts of lingering ethno-cultural attitudes are hardly uncommon even today. In a medieval kind of society, where average education levels are far lower and overall violence higher, it seems very plausible that such straightforward, obvious distinctions would be ready-to-hand justification for exclusion...if not worse.

 

[delericho]

Honestly, this is one of the areas where I personally feel 4e kinda dropped the ball. They did a good job of making different weapons actually feel different--but they also made it fiddly and often an impediment to "fun" unless you treated all weapons as stat-sticks. I'm not entirely sure how to solve the problem (making axes feel distinct from swords means giving some meaning to the difference; letting someone use whatever weapon they like to fulfill their concept means reducing the meaning of the differences between them), but it does feel like an area that wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

My suggestion for this one would be make the "special stuff" something that is unlocked by some mechanism if it's something that the players cares about.

So, if Bob the Commoner picks up a sword, there's basically very little difference from if he picks up a battleaxe, or a flail, or a rapier, or whatever. In his hands, they might as well just be "hand weapon" - d8 damage, no particular traits, roll the dice and move on.

But if Boromir the Fighter picks up a sword, because he's a trained weaponsmaster he gets a bonus to hit with that weapon (using the 4e convention that it had a higher proficiency bonus). If he picks up a battleaxe, on the other hand, he just gets his standard to-hit bonus but his criticals are more devastating. With the flail, maybe he gets access to a special trip option. While the rapier switches to a Dex-based attack.

Or whatever. Basically, though, weapons become differentiated... but only in the hands of a character whose player cares enough about those differences to bother unlocking them. To everyone else, the pointy end goes in the other guy.

 

[delericho]

Actually, at least in 4e (and I *think* 5e as well? Correct me if I'm wrong), half-elf and half-orc are true-breeding, a distinct type of being from both 'origin races.'

I think you're right that that's the default fluff. But I suspect that this is one of those things that will be largely ignored - that in actual play we'll see as many half-elves with mixed parentage as with two half-elf parents. If the player even gives any thought to the character's parents, that is, rather than making them the standard-issue orphan.

It requires a level of cultural adaptation to be able to process and accept, for instance, dynastic marriages between biologically incompatible parents.

That's a whole other can of worms, and indeed one that ties also into the new policy of inclusion. (It also crops up in the most recent "Pathfinder Tale", in which one of the characters is both gay and the heir to a noble family, and so there is some discussion of his duty to provide the family with another heir. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about their handling of the subject, but I'm quite impressed that they tried.)

I suspect the answer to those questions will inevitably be setting-specific, and indeed may well differ in different parts of a setting. One culture could have a policy of inheritance via declaration rather than blood (so the nobleman can just pass his estate and titles on to an adopted child, or to a cousin, or indeed to his butler if he wanted), while another might insist that in the absence of a biological child then the estate reverts to the crown. Or something else entirely.

 

[Arial Black]

Apprentice adventurers = 1st level; journeymen = 5th level, masters = 9th level.

Can you tell me which 5E rulebook this is from? What page?

Other than that, you're bang on here in that characters should fit in seamlessly with the rest of the living game world.

However, there's most likely quite a few "tells" that show any party (that isn't taking pains to disguise itself) to be adventurers of some sort to anyone who's at all familiar with the type; let's take a typical party-walks-into-a-bar setup:
- they haven't bathed in a month

Prestidigitation is your friend here.

- they're of unusually mixed racial stock: a Dwarf, an Elf, a Part-Orc and a what-the-hell-is-that? walk in together in a mostly Human-Hobbit town - yep, adventurers

Or travellers from a far land...

- they have (and spend) way more money than the common folk yet don't look the least like they're high class or nobility {edit: and the bar is probably in the wrong part of town for such types}

Nouveau riche merchants, obviously...

- they act like they're the baddest asses in the place, mostly because they probably are the baddest asses in the place

Mercenaries, then.

- they dress funny; by that I mean you've got the wizard in robes, the cleric in holy raiment (or at least holy colours), the warriors look like warriors, etc.

Holy men don't wear the same gear to go spelunking as they do in church on a Sunday. Unless you're the most powerful wizard in the world, best save the pointy hat for Hallowe'en.

- the party Bard inevitably becomes the evening's entertainment, supplanting whatever house band might have been playing

Unless you've chosen 'Oratory' as your instrument, speaking in Patrick Stewart's best Jean-Luc Picard voice to Inspire Courage consistent with his Soldier background, and the party's cleric has the Entertainer background...

You must take your 'deductions' with a pinch of salt. The idea that players 'must' live up to childish stereotypes or they're playing the game 'wrong' and should 'find another system instead' seems ridiculous, and ridiculously limiting in a game which is meant to free your imagination.

Shall I go on?

No, my turn now.

The list above is a list of fantasy RPG cliches, and I hate cliches! They make me....sick as a parrot!

But it is not required that the PCs first meet in a bar! You aren't playing the game 'wrong' if you don't stick to these cliches. In fact, the further you steer away from then, the more verisimilitude the game will have.

Even the part about just looking at a person and knowing what game mechanics they must have based on how they dress is metagaming. Even though a person could, in-game, deduce certain things by dress, body language and so forth, creatures in-game are not aware of game mechanics, only what observable effects those mechanics might produce in the game world. Creatures may very well see a caster using VSM components, saying the magic words, wiggling the fingers, persuading the pet bat to produce the material component for a fireball ("I can't go when you're looking at me!") and see a spell come out. They may (on a successful Arcana check) recognise the spell. But there's no way they could observe a warrior attack twice and deduce that "They must be a fighter using Action Surge because we're not 5th level yet!"

If you dress in such a way that you advertise your abilities (metagaming or legitimate deduction), then you have put yourself at a disadvantage. It is in your interest to conceal your abilities in a combat situation, even if you display them in a social one. IRL, army officers wear a different style of uniform than 'the men', but officers and radio operators soon learned to conceal that as soon as enemy snipers became a threat. If you show which of you is the wizard, which the fighter, cleric, rogue, then you allow your enemies to target each with the worst thing. If you can predict which of them has a low will save, low hit points, can cast spells, etc. then you have a huge advantage. Behavior will evolve to account for this.

I play a lot of warrior-types. They usually wear light armour (mithral shirt under normal clothes, mithral breastplate) and could be any class. Fighter? Could be. Rogue? Possible. Elven wizards can use longswords. You could look at most of my PCs and not 'know' what class they are. Who guessed paladin? Well done. His holy symbol is behind his lapel, and I make sure that all my PCs wear a holy symbol anyway, regardless of whether or not they use divine magic.

The cliches in your list above are much more common in actual play by players who haven't thought it through. Teenagers, older players more interested in comedy then realism....people who think that 'class' is a real thing in the game world....

 

[delericho]

Can you tell me which 5E rulebook this is from? What page?

The tiers are in Basic, p.10. Though the break from the second to third tier is at 11th level.

 

[Arial Black]

The tiers are in Basic, p.10. Though the break from the second to third tier is at 11th level.

So 'tiers' are a game construct that helps a DM set appropriate challenges, but not an in-game reality that creatures know about. Creatures in the game world do not know that D&D 5E game mechanics run their lives. It's as nonsensical for a creature, in character, to ask, "What tier are you?" as it would be for them to ask, "What class and level are you? How many hit points do you have? What is your initiative modifier?"

 

[Remathilis]

So what I learned is:

"I have a cool idea for a character. He's a tough old human who was a former thug for a local guild. He fights with a pair of shortswords, wears beaten leather armor, but otherwise looks like a normal laborer in any town and NOT an adventurer. He has a slight limp, but hearty against poisons. Here are his stats:

Garruk
Hill dwarf (refluffed human) fighter (refluffed enforcer), N, criminal
S 15, D 12, C 16, I 10, W 12, CH 8
AC 17 (chain, refluffed as leather armor, defense style)
HP 14, Spd 25
Skills: Athletics, Stealth, Perception, Deception, Thieves tools
Atk: greatsword (refluffed as two shortswords) +4, 2d6+2

 

[delericho]

So 'tiers' are a game construct that helps a DM set appropriate challenges, but not an in-game reality that creatures know about.

Then why are you asking for a rulebook reference?

Creatures in the game world do not know that D&D 5E game mechanics run their lives.

No, but they'll understand the concept of 'apprentice', 'journeyman', and 'master', and they'll recognise different skill levels they see them. So when Bob first picks up a sword, they'll identify him as an apprentice (or beginner, or whatever term you prefer). Once he's trained a bit and is able to handle himself in a fight, they'll equally identify the progress. And once he's advanced to the point that only stupid punks out to make their name dare challenge him, they'll recognise that also.

People may well not identify individual levels, but that doesn't mean they can't identify poor, good, and better when they see it.