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

[Arial Black]

The crunch is what's true to the player; the fluff may be irrelevant.

The fluff is what's true to the character; the crunch may be irrelevant.

The only question is which of these truths you want to care about, and which one you want to ignore. Are you looking at things through your eyes as a player (which it seems you are), or your character's eyes as a character (which I'd prefer to do)? That's the disconnect.

I disagree. Characters are both fluff and crunch, and they should each make sense in relation to the other.

When I make a PC, I don't do the crunch first, then do fluff, then finish. Nor do I do fluff first, then crunch, then finish. For me, both fluff and crunch are informed by one another, bouncing ideas back and forth, until I'm finally happy with both.

At the end of this process, the final fluff (which is made up by me) has to explain the crunch (which are the game rules).

The DM can certainly say, "No monks in my game", and if he does then I won't make a monk and expect to play it in his game. But if he does allow monks (meaning: the game mechanic of the monk class), and my monk's abilities are at least as plausible as 'I was taught these techniques in a monastery', then job done. The DM has already allowed these techniques to be taught and learned, and it's frankly preposterous to claim that such techniques can only be learned from people who live in a monastery and impossible to learn from individuals that don't live in that kind of building.

 

[S'mon]

I'll take your word for it. To me personally the real "bachelor" degree doesn't start till the archetype level, but maybe it's my previous editions speaking here, as i am still quite new in 5E.

You don't feel like a Hero in 3e until 3rd level (moon druids excepted). I don't see a 3-4 year veteran as a Hero.

 

[S'mon]

The DM can certainly say, "No monks in my game", and if he does then I won't make a monk and expect to play it in his game. But if he does allow monks (meaning: the game mechanic of the monk class), and my monk's abilities are at least as plausible as 'I was taught these techniques in a monastery', then job done. The DM has already allowed these techniques to be taught and learned, and it's frankly preposterous to claim that such techniques can only be learned from people who live in a monastery and impossible to learn from individuals that don't live in that kind of building.

Do you even talk to the GM about it? Or you just reskin away and call him preposterous?
Or the GM doesn't care what you do?
Do you play regularly & if so how does this work?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Lets drop the politics - including SJW accusations - and get back on topic.

 

[Arial Black]

Do you even talk to the GM about it? Or you just reskin away and call him preposterous?
Or the GM doesn't care what you do?
Do you play regularly & if so how does this work?

When I actually play (as opposed to the theory of play) I find that the more you and the DM bounce ideas off each other, the more each of you like the character. Each of you will think of things that the other wouldn't, inspired by ideas they have. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this scenario, the arguments we've been having on this thread have been solved before they've arisen.

Ideally, the DM will be open to ideas for the world and for his own PC that have been put forward by a player, but the DM has the final say. I'm not saying that his rulings must make sense, but they should.

Ideally, the player will be open to character ideas from the DM, but within the rules permitted by the DM, the player has the final say on the characterisation and concept of his own PC. If he doesn't, it's just 'DM story time', with the players as mere listeners.

A bit extreme, perhaps, but if the player doesn't have agency of his own PC he might as well stay at home and read a book.

Just as for the DM, the player's ideas don't have to make sense (although they should); the player just cannot break the rules. Fluff is not rules.

But the risk players take by 'not making sense' is that the DM doesn't allow that PC. The player has an incentive to make a PC that fits into the world. The DM has an incentive to make reasonable rulings or he loses players.

So there is a happy medium. Lines of demarcation say that the player controls and creates his own PC (according to the rules), while the DM controls everything else in the world.

It's a judgement call. If we are playing a Lord of the Rings game using 5E rules , then if I want to play a Space Ranger with a rocket pack and the DM says no, is the DM being reasonable? I think we'd agree that he is. But if the player wants to play a PC with some ranger class levels without belonging to The Rangers of the North, and has a backstory that explains how he learned his weaponskills, favoured enemies, spells, every ability of the class, is the DM unreasonable if he says no? I think so, but I wouldn't be surprised if he said no.

But if the DM allows the monk class and allows multiclassing, if the DM says that it's impossible to learn supernatural combat techniques in any other kind of building than a monastery, he's overstepped the mark.

The monk class was inspired by Shaolin monks, just as paladins were inspired by the Twelve Peers. But Shaolin monks' martial arts was created accidentally IRL when the head monk thought that his monks were unfit and devised a way to get them fit. Over the centuries people created variants, left and created new monasteries, or left and trained students privately. Some of those students also trained others privately, without the new guy ever seeing a monastery.

Once the basic idea of this kind of unarmed combat had been thought of (and it's only an accident of fate that they were created in a monastery at all), the idea exists within the world and masters can train students wherever they like.

In a world where magic exists and magic can be harnessed as 'ki', then it doesn't matter if 'ki' has different names in different places (just like in our world), doesn't matter if the training takes place in a monastery. The DM has ruled that these techniques (this class) exists in his world, and it's unreasonable, even illogical, to say that no-one in 10,000 years could possibly have trained someone outside of a monastery.

Once anyone ever trained a student privately, then they could start a line of non-monastery trained 'monks'. There is no class ability from the monk class that requires religion or a type of building without which those techniques are impossible.

The DM could very well concepualise a class ability like, say, Deflect Missiles and say that The Dark Disciples of the Red Redemption call this technique 'Cobra Striking Hummingbird', and he can certainly say that Cobra Striking Hummingbird is only taught by The Dark Disciples. But the player can certainly say that the Lachrymae Shevarash call Deflect Missiles 'Falling Rain' technique, and this training is (supposedly) only taught to other Tears of Shevarash.

Now, to an observer, each technique may look very different, but they share the same game mechanic: Deflect Missile. But it is unreasonable to say that Cobra Striking Hummingbird is allowed in your world, but Falling Rain technique cannot possibly have been learned outside of a monastery!

 

[Ovinomancer]

For me, usually, they don't know them as "classes," but they know them as things with meaning, to varying degrees. They know that someone with supernatural martial arts skills (ie, "I can punch a dragon for 1d8 damage!") has been trained by people who know how to use those skills, and such people gather in certain organizations that occupy certain locales in the world. They know that someone who is keenly accurate with a blade (ie, "I crit on 19-20") is associated with cadres of warriors known to hone skill to that degree, who occupy certain roles and locales in the world. They know that a nature-priest who transforms into beasts (ie, "I have Wild Shape and the Druid spell list!") are linked to groups of people in the world that can do that.

Cool. I don't have such narrow groups in my game, nor are there enough classed people to warrant such specialization. I have broad groups that focus on broad concepts, like Guild Mages, that hire out to provide enchantments and abjurations, specializing in protecting spaces and persons. Membership open to whoever has applicable skills, including a number of on hand physical security experts and testers which are often reformed criminals sporting no ability to cast magic. Or the Thaumic Knights, who focus on all the ways of combining magic with martial skill. People would know and recognize members of these organizations by their dress or heraldry, but not necessarily by their skill. Certainly not by the fact that they have an expanded crit range. I don't think that would be noticeable without long term observation.

And since the mechanics are expressed in the fiction (meaning, someone who crits on a 19-20 IS exceptionally accurate with their attacks, someone who punches dragons for 1d8 damage IS using supernatural martial arts skills), someone with those mechanics should also be linked to that fiction, IMO.

That's why, for me, in general, classes are primarily about fiction, not about mechanics. The mechanics are there to support the fiction. If you'd like to use the mechanics to support some other fiction, it's generally a pretty awkward fit unless you hand-wave or ignore where it doesn't fit. It's fine to do that, but I don't find it very satisfying - I prefer when my mechanics and fiction work together to build on each other, not when they're fighting because they don't really work. Think of your fiction first - the character you want to play. We'll then come up with how to represent them doing those things mechanically.

I disagree that this is so generally so. If you strip the fluff and look at just the mechanics, you have a wealth of options that don't necessarily fit within the default fluff. Like the Franciscan-esque monk that channels the might of his god in battle being a barbarian class, but not the barbarian fluff.

I think one thing that might help to illustrate my point: that's a distinction in the fluff, but it's not a distinction in the mechanics.

Nothing, mechanically, says I can't use a longsword and a shield and re-fluff it as "a magical wand that projects a field of force that I slash with and my other hand can be used to make powerful, nearly instantaneous magical defenses made of the bones of my enemies with a simple gesture." There's nothing in a bow that says that it can't be "a powerful bolt of eldritch energy sent screaming through the air into the flesh of my foes."

I can also do it the other way around - magic missile is my superbly accurate archer taking time, aiming, and letting an unerring arrow hit. Burning Hands can be my character spitting some hard alcohol through a torch. Mage Armor can be, well, regular armor. Faerie Fire can be my character pointing out the flaws in enemies' defenses.

Well, nothing changed except for some mechanics. Wouldn't make much sense that your magic wand of perforation kept working in an anti-magic field, for instance. But you could probably make those work. Perfectly fine, if the DM thinks it works in his game. I'd have to give those some thought and work through some ramifications to make sure they balanced out okay, but there's nothing wrong with the concept*. Sounds a bit neat, really. If someone did come to be wanting to use the fighter chassis to build an upclose and personal magic user (like that one build in D3) I could let that fly. I didn't think of it before you mentioned it, which is exactly why I keep my door open for such things.

*Except for the Faerie Fire -- how do you talk invisible things into be visible with your tactical knowledge? But that's turning a wizard into a fighter -- another interesting exercise, but not for me right now.

4e's a pretty good example of this thought process in practice - a level X ability is largely on par with other level X abilities, mechanically. You have your "martial fireballs" and your "magical multi-attacks" and the like. I find 5e generally shies away from this, though.

Yes, 5e shies away from mechanically similar powers. That doesn't cut against my thinking, though, because I'm not looking for mechanically similar powers, I'm looking for abilities that fit a concept even if they need to be re-explained a bit. Like the not-barbarian (actually totally a barbarian!) not-Asian monk.

Anyway, the same thought that goes into you dividing magic from martial is the same thought that goes into "Monks are a specific thing," just more deeply applied.

And it's more deeply applied, for me, because it leads to a much more developed play experience, ESPECIALLY for newbies. Having monks be a specific thing is a frequent reminder that you are playing a fantasy character in a game of make-believe, not a set of stats.

I'd like to step away from the claims that you have a more developed play experience. You have no idea the level of my play experience, or the depth and variety of my currently campaign. I'll admit I've run some shallow things in the past, but I don't see how treating your classes as having specific origins automatically means you have a more developed play experience. My game doesn't have that laser focus on class origin points because I find it more useful to have organizations based on shared outlooks and goals, not common skills. So I will thank you not to presume that your way results in better experiences.

Which isn't to say that a more abstract view is bad, just that I find it makes you think about a character more in terms of mechanics than in terms of fiction, which is not the most fun place for me to play D&D at.

No, it doesn't. Again, you are assuming that the characters in my game are player by players that only see them as bags of mechanics. That's how we tend to look at classes, but our characters are quite round and full without needed the anchor of a commonly shared fiction with other members of the character class. They're quite well tied into a deep and vibrant background tapestry by way of their families, the organizations they belongs to, the city they inhabit, the quest they are on, and in discovering the hidden histories of the world they live in. I don't feel the need to have common origins for classes -- I don't build my game around explaining where or how the character classes exist. I assume that characters exist and have abilities, but where they come from and how they express those abilities is largely up to the players to envision and tie into the game world. And they do and deeply. So, again, please drop the assumption that your playstyle achieves a greater depth than one that doesn't do what you do. I'm quite sure you have a deeply rewarding narrative that backs your game, and I don't think that because you do class fictions differently that you must also have a somehow deficient narrative. It's just different from mine, and I like that there's room for both of us to do it how we like. There is no better way to play.

 

[PMárk]

No, but some classes names have in-game meanings. Like druid, ranger, bladesinger, purple dragon knight, bard etc. These are mostly overlappng with the classes, but not 100%.

 

[Tony Vargas]

*Except for the Faerie Fire -- how do you talk invisible things into be visible

Presumably you just figure out where they are and tell your allies (the concept was 'point out flaws in their defenses'), but in a way that doesn't just let them attack the invisible target, but maybe attack it unexpectedly enough to cancel out the defensive benefit of invisibility.

Yes, 5e shies away from mechanically similar powers. That doesn't cut against my thinking, though, because I'm not looking for mechanically similar powers, I'm looking for abilities that fit a concept even if they need to be re-explained a bit.

Nod. But, 5e does re-cycle spells a great deal (some spells are on 4 or even 5 different class lists), so it's really not at all shy about mechanically similar - indeed, mechanically identical - powers.

4e's a pretty good example of this thought process in practice - a level X ability is largely on par with other level X abilities, mechanically.

Well... maybe not as much as the AEDU table might imply.

You have your "martial fireballs" and your "magical multi-attacks" and the like.

That latter a bit, sure (though 'multi attack' is not at all distinctive, and magical ones still likely did typed damage), the former, no, not at all. There's very few martial Area attacks (plenty of Close ones, but in 4e, Fireball is Area), none do fire damage, none are as large as a fireball.

But, setting those quibbles aside, yes, 4e was very open to the sort of 're-skinning' that's come up. Powers had fluff text that was entirely separate from the rules texts, and players had license to change it. So, while you couldn't have a fire-tossing fighter, even with the concept of being a highly-trained soldier armed with a unique flamethrower, you /could/ use a ranger with a magic bow or a sorcerer pull off that concept. Because you could change the fluff of the powers.

I find 5e generally shies away from this, though.

Not from giving different classes some similar powers - again, lots of spells get re-cycled, and they're not just similar, they're identical. But in the sense of leaving fluff and text merged to a degree, sure, not nearly as much as in 3.x and earlier, but enough to make teasing them apart and re-skinning non-trivial.

Which isn't to say that a more abstract view is bad, just that I find it makes you think about a character more in terms of mechanics than in terms of fiction, which is not the most fun place for me to play D&D at.

Depends on the context. The more 'abstract'/effects-based or separate fluff approach means you think more about fitting mechanics to the concept ('fiction') of the character at chargen and level-up, and have a closer model of the desired fiction in play, bringing that more to the front.

It's an up-front cost in needing system mastery/out-the-box-thinking/imagination away from the table, in return for a closer modeling of the fiction at the table. Whereas the more concrete approach where fluff and rules are mingled gives a more evocative picture of a potential character right out of the box (or rather, right in the box) when you first look at a new class.

 

[Arial Black]

No. The Class is "Monk". Not "Generic Martial Artist with a hint of Mystical Powers". Monk means something. What exactly it means is determined by the setting of the game, and the setting of the game is determined by the DM. The player has the right to make a unique character within the confines of the setting, and not all concepts are created equal.

The word 'monk' might have an in-game meaning (and may mean different things to different people in that world) but the game mechanic of the Monk is unknowable to the in-game creatures.

But who decides this? If, as a DM, I say "Elven monks belong to the Lachrymae Shervarash..." then I'm allowing such as concept in my world/game. If I say "Elven monks all belong to the Wu-Shu Academy training under Raiden" and you want a Jason Bourne Style super-spy, then we're at a crossroads. Are you arguing that as the DM, I have no right to say "In my world, monks are X?"

You cannot say that and remain credible. Creating that elven wu-shu academy is fine, but saying that it is not possible that other elves could have independently discovered techniques similar enough to share the same game mechanic(s) is absurd in a world where those techniques already exist.

You keep assuming this is a mostly equal relationship here. Its not. I create the world. I set the scene. If I rule gnomes are 20 feet tall and eat nothing but hot-tar, MY word supersedes the PHB and arguing "that's not what the PHB says" isn't going to sway me. As the DM, I reserve the right to change anything in any of the books as long as a.) its applied equally to everyone (DM included), b.) Its informed before play begins (no surprises) and c.) it's done for the benefit of the game. I can ban dragonborn. I can add half-vampires. I can change how monks work, both mechanically and flavor-wise. I even can entertain ideas from players on other ideas, but I DO NOT have to accept them if the contradict my world.

Which is arguing against a different thing. I'm not insisting that the DM has to allow rules on the say so of a player. The DM has already allowed the monk class, and I'm playing a monk according to the DM's allowed rules.

But fluff is not rules.

This is a semantics game more than a fluff-problem; Paladin and paladin are two different concept fighting for the same linguistic space. The easiest thing to do would be to rename the class in this situation "Paladin: In this campaign, non-peer paladins are known as partisans, as Paladin is a unique title. Those who enter such an elite group earn the right to said name." That said, most paladins in a 12 Peers are still going to be knights in service of the church, so aside from the class/title issue, things are fine here.

Which matches what I've been saying; the in-game names may or not be the same as the names of certain game mechanics-including the names of classes-but the game mechanics (including character class) cannot be known by the inhabitants of the world.

Savage paladin's are ok by me, because you're not breaking the tenants of the class (a holy warrior in service of his Oath/God), just the expectation of the stereotype. Cultural changes are fine: I've seen Jungle Druids, Skald Bards, Pirate Clerics, etc. Kits/Backgrounds were built to twist stereotypes. What doesn't work it either cramming a round-peg into a square-hole (No monks in a 12 peers game) or warping the ideas beyond their borders or into other classes space (I'm a monk who thinks/acts like a rogue, except martial arts instead of sneak attack).

The second part is the problem: there is no such thing in terms of in-game reality as "other class' space" because class is a game mechanic, unknowable to the creatures of that world.

As for some classes treading on the abilities of other classes, I'm a multiclass rogue/monk, so I'm perfectly entitled to both kinds of abilities within the rules of the game.

Let me give you a counter-example: I want to play a warlock, but I don't want to be hassled with the "make a deal with the devil" fluff, so I say "my warlock discovered he is the scion of a dragon. He was born with draconic power, which fuels his "breath weapon" (eldritch blast), "dragon scales" (mage armor) and "fiery blasts" (burning hands) and isn't beholden to any force to learn these powers." Is that okay?

My answer would be no: your deliberately trampling another classes archetype (dragon sorcerer) and avoiding a major component of the fluff of other (warlock patrons). If you want eldritch blasts, make a deal with one of the four patron-types, if you want dragon breath be a sorcerer.

As long as the fluff perfectly matches the crunch, there is no problem. If the player expects his eldritch blast to do fire damage (a game mechanic) then he needs the crunch ability to do so.

Well, the one time I ran a brief OA game, I did ban paladins, druids, clerics, wizards, and bards because I had other classes (samurai, sohei, shamans, wu-jen) to replace them. That said, if I did it today, I'd probably rename some classes (such as changing paladin to samurai, or druid to shaman) to remove the more westernized ideas. I might even swap out powers for ones more appropriate to the setting/tales, or restrict subclasses to keep to theme.

Then again, if I'm running OA and you roll in with a half-elf bard that is every bit the English Minstrel, guess what's not being allowed in that game?

Sure, but if my game-legal bard had a backstory entirely consistent with Chinese musical traditions, then it shouldn't be a problem to express that using the bard class.

Answered. Weapons and armor do not make the man. Class identity is derived by skills known, the means they were acquired, and power-source that fuels them. You want to build an unarmed fighter with tavern brawler and grappler? Be my guest. But you're not playing a "monk" as anyone in the world would recognize it.

You're begging the question; that 'class identity is derived from skills known' you're assuming that the game mechanic of 'class' has a single, rules-enforced, unalterable 'identity'. The only things the rules enforce is the rules. No rules enforce fluff.

 

[Lanefan]

The DM can certainly say, "No monks in my game", and if he does then I won't make a monk and expect to play it in his game. But if he does allow monks (meaning: the game mechanic of the monk class), and my monk's abilities are at least as plausible as 'I was taught these techniques in a monastery', then job done. The DM has already allowed these techniques to be taught and learned, and it's frankly preposterous to claim that such techniques can only be learned from people who live in a monastery and impossible to learn from individuals that don't live in that kind of building.

Hmmm...fairly easy to argue that a large part of the training is in fact the very act of living in such a monastery for an extended period; learning their social discipline, their ways of interacting with each other and with the greater world, their rules and laws and ethics and how these are applied to daily life...in other words, the sort of deep cultural immersion you just can't get from training with a lone individual in a different setting.

Thus I feel quite justified in saying Monks come from and train at monasteries, much like Clerics come from and train at temples.

Lanefan