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

[AbdulAlhazred]

But see, I wouldn't even imagine that in my world there are such 'stock' groupings of 'powers' and such. The player of the paladin is playing a unique character with unique capabilities. There might be some others in the world that are enough like him that there's a name for that, but not even AO (or whatever) can guess what other abilities you have just by knowing some 'rule' that says if you have X, Y, and Z you're an A and must thus have B too.

The corollary of this is that there aren't any NPCs that have the 'wizard class', or any other class. Its possible you might make an NPC by following the rules used by the character who plays the PC wizard, but that's just a convenience. The DM can and should make the character anything he wants.

Of course, we play 4e mainly, for all these reasons. It makes this sort of concept much easier in practice.

 

[Arial Black]

How can they know it wasn't a spell? Because a spell wasn't cast. I don't think there is a single spell in the game that doesn't at the very least have a verbal component. And before we get into what exactly they are saying and if your paladin always declares "For Helm" before activating Divine Smite and how that could be construed as the verbal component for a spell, again I'll say that for the paladin example I was talking about Orcus. An immortal being who has fought many, many paladins as well as clerics. I think he might even have truesight (will need to confirm) which could allow him to see enough to know the difference between a spell and a magical ability. Also, he would know that while he normally can effect people with his spells, he historically has a harder time of it when Paladins are around, law of averages plays in here by extension of my example being that you are fighting a Demon Lord.

Was it a spell? What if it was a subtle spell cast by a sorcerer? What if it was a spell-like or supernatural ability? What if it was an NPC whose abilities don't map directly to a character class; there are infinitely more NPCs than PCs? What if it was a multiclass PC? What if you just didn't notice the components?

And 'Law of Averages'? I've worked in casinos for over quarter of a century, and that little myth is what keeps us in business. The fact that more PCs than usual made their saves (how is that observable!) does not indicate that there must be an aura around which gives them a bonus to their saves, therefore there must be a paladin around! What about good or bad rolls? What about other abilities/spells which increase saves? What about magic items? There is absolutely no way for Orcus or anyone else to reason that because four out of five targets made their save that therefore there must be a paladin about!

The point is that if it is real, concrete, then beings can observe it. Even if it is only those beings whom are so massively powerful that they are end game fights, if they can make these connections and observations then classes are real and concrete.

But class abilities are not always concrete. 'Saving throw bonuses' are not observable, and frequency of saves being made/failed is not only difficult to observe (if at all) but impossible to pin down to the bonus. When dealing roulette, I know that there is an equal chance of a red number or a black number, but if I didn't know that but tried to work out the odds by simply tallying the results, you might expect that there would be an equal number of red and black, but you'd be a fool to believe that. I've spun 17 black numbers in a row before now, and it was just a mild curiosity because we have an electronic board which shows the last 17 numbers and they were all black. For any period of time short of infinity, your mere observations are extremely unlikely to see an equal number of reds and blacks, therefore you could not reach the conclusion that there must be an equal chance for each result.

The only reason we know that the chances are equal is that we can see the numbers in the wheel! 18 red and 18 black. The point is that although the game rules can tell us that there is a definite +2 to this save, the creatures in the world cannot know the game mechanics, only observe the results, and the results do not reveal the game mechanics with any certainty.

In real life, physics is what it is, but even we cannot know what it really is for a certainty, only to have our guesses get closer and closer.

Damage is observable through more than effect. Rolling a 1 on a swing of the greataxe would have to be a different swing than rolling a 12. A fireball that does 40 damage is different than one that does 10.

Rubbish! Rolling a 1 on damage is as much about the target trying to twist out of the way as the force of the blow. Luck and unpredictable chaos is such a huge factor that the game never said that weapons do, say, 7 damage; they made it a random number to account for this. The orc isn't swinging with random strength or skill, but the result is random anyway. You cannot observe a single swing and know the game mechanics behind it, and therefore you cannot know them even by observing multiple swings. Even if you get a set of results which seem to prove a point, what point? You can say that these swings did more damage on average (although that is unreliable; you just might have rolled well lots of times), but you cannot say that the increased damage must be because he is raging, therefore he must be a barbarian! There are many, many ways to increase damage!

If the 10 hp fireball kills 5 people but the 40 point one only scorches 5 others, how can the creatures in game know which fireball was more deadly?

However, none of that matters. When I brought up the Fireball it was in direct reference to the Evoker Wizard's ability to create pockets of safe space within the fireball, where targets he/she chose were not effected. No matter how you flavor the creation of those pockets, they exist and have the same effect, and are also only possible to be created by Evoker Wizards.

How do you know that only evoker wizards can do this? What about NPCs? Magic items? multiclass PCs? Classes, spells yet to be written? Don't sorcerers have a metamagic ability to do this? If not yet, they might in a future supplement.

And all this doubt, even when you have the PHB in your hand! The creatures in game cannot know any of that!

Yeah, critical hits are based on luck and a bad example. Does not invalidate the other parts of the discussion, because even though they are difficult to observe, all Champions do get crits more often than normal people, so it still has to have some meaningful impact on the game world.

No they don't! Champions have more chance of critting, but this does not mean that they actually get more crits! And as you pointed out, crits are not observable.

I acknowledge that some class abilities are observable, but I'm saying that those observations cannot allow the creatures in game to know what 'class' a person is, because they can never be certain that what they are observing is the result of a class ability, because 'class' is a game mechanic and they cannot know about game mechanics.

Does he turn into a bear by casting a spell? Or does it just happen? Can he also turn into an Elemental? Is he capable of becoming a dragon? There is a difference between casting Polymorph and using Wildshape, even if it is just the use of the bonus action instead of an action and the fact that a wizard, sorcerer and bard all approach magic differently than a druid.

First, 'bonus actions' are not observable as being 'bonus actions'! Next, although wizards/sorcerers/bards/druids in some ways (but not all ways) approach magic differently, so does each individual wizard/sorcerer/bard/druid! Every character is an individual, and an observer cannot know that the differences he observes are because they are different 'classes' (a game mechanic) or just different styles. Sure, a guy might say he is a Druid, and 'Druid' might very well be an in game title, but the guy may be lying? He may be pretending to be a Druid by using similar abilities and be skilled in Deception. He may legitimately have the in game title without actually having any druid class levels.

That's the other part of the argument by the way. It isn't just each individual ability. It is the fact that these abilities tie into other ablities. If you can do one thing you can most likely do this other thing or you will in the future.

Since PCs can multiclass, can acquire magic items, fluff their abilities in many different ways, and since NPCs are not limited to the class system and vastly outnumber PCs, there is no way for an in game observer to assemble the observations into 'class' that matches the info in the PHB. He can't even tell if a person he meets is a PC or an NPC.

The entirety of my point is that class effects the game world. Since it effects the game world it is real. Since it is real, as per my understanding of the term, they are concrete. It is more than fluff, it is real in some way, shape or form

And my rebuttal is that so many things affect the game world in similar ways is it not possible for an observer to observe the game mechanic of 'class' through observing what happens in his world.

 

[Remathilis]

This is reflecting how reductionism, if taken to its logical extreme, makes the class system break down.

If its impossible for an observer to tell the difference between a Light Domain Cleric casting fireball and a Evoker Tradition Wizard casting a fireball, do we need a distinction at all? To the in-world commoner, two dudes in robes both shot blasts of fire into a crowd of kobolds. When they asked how they did that, one says "I am a servant of Radiant Light" and the other says "I am the keeper of the secrets of Fire". At this point, we can start to ask the question "Do these two PCs need separate classes to do this with?" Why not one spellcasting class that can customize their spell lists; the servant of Light picks fire and healing magic while the Keeper of Fire picks fire and divination magic.

Likewise, we don't need several martial classes to map out different types of combat either: a single martial class with the ability to customize his skills can easily make an armored warrior, a raging berserker, a mobile assassin, a martial artist, an inspiring leader, a tricky skirmisher, etc. Hell, you can even mix-and-match so Mouse can have his Raging Martial Artist if he wants.

I mean, if its all so malleable that there is NO way to determine if someone is a Fighter or a Rogue, a Cleric or a Wizard by looks, abilities or personal beliefs, why bother keeping the distinction mechanically?

 

[Xvartslayer]

This is reflecting how reductionism, if taken to its logical extreme, makes the class system break down.

If its impossible for an observer to tell the difference between a Light Domain Cleric casting fireball and a Evoker Tradition Wizard casting a fireball, do we need a distinction at all? To the in-world commoner, two dudes in robes both shot blasts of fire into a crowd of kobolds. When they asked how they did that, one says "I am a servant of Radiant Light" and the other says "I am the keeper of the secrets of Fire". At this point, we can start to ask the question "Do these two PCs need separate classes to do this with?" Why not one spellcasting class that can customize their spell lists; the servant of Light picks fire and healing magic while the Keeper of Fire picks fire and divination magic.

Likewise, we don't need several martial classes to map out different types of combat either: a single martial class with the ability to customize his skills can easily make an armored warrior, a raging berserker, a mobile assassin, a martial artist, an inspiring leader, a tricky skirmisher, etc. Hell, you can even mix-and-match so Mouse can have his Raging Martial Artist if he wants.

I mean, if its all so malleable that there is NO way to determine if someone is a Fighter or a Rogue, a Cleric or a Wizard by looks, abilities or personal beliefs, why bother keeping the distinction mechanically?

The reductionism becomes a problem when one conflates the necessity of having mechanics in a game, and with how those mechanics are expressed in the fiction. We don't have mechanical distinctions because they add meaningfully to the fiction - though they might - but because we need rules to play the game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The reductionism becomes a problem when one conflates the necessity of having mechanics in a game, and with how those mechanics are expressed in the fiction. We don't have mechanical distinctions because they add meaningfully to the fiction - though they might - but because we need rules to play the game.

That reasoning, while entirely valid, is very difficult for a meaningful--though I know not how large per se--segment of the gaming public to swallow. If I let loose my cynical side, it's because such thinking leads to the kind of "tradition is less important than game design" thinking that fuelled 4e. What the actual reason for this reluctance is, I have no idea, though I'm sure those in the thread who dislike it will be more than happy to provide their takes.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is reflecting how reductionism, if taken to its logical extreme, makes the class system break down.

If its impossible for an observer to tell the difference between a Light Domain Cleric casting fireball and a Evoker Tradition Wizard casting a fireball, do we need a distinction at all? To the in-world commoner, two dudes in robes both shot blasts of fire into a crowd of kobolds. When they asked how they did that, one says "I am a servant of Radiant Light" and the other says "I am the keeper of the secrets of Fire". At this point, we can start to ask the question "Do these two PCs need separate classes to do this with?" Why not one spellcasting class that can customize their spell lists; the servant of Light picks fire and healing magic while the Keeper of Fire picks fire and divination magic.

Likewise, we don't need several martial classes to map out different types of combat either: a single martial class with the ability to customize his skills can easily make an armored warrior, a raging berserker, a mobile assassin, a martial artist, an inspiring leader, a tricky skirmisher, etc. Hell, you can even mix-and-match so Mouse can have his Raging Martial Artist if he wants.

I mean, if its all so malleable that there is NO way to determine if someone is a Fighter or a Rogue, a Cleric or a Wizard by looks, abilities or personal beliefs, why bother keeping the distinction mechanically?

Because you can also take those classes AND have them exist. The game is supportive of both the strict classes as game fiction and the strict classes not present in game fiction and every interpretation in between.

Also, classed systems have an easy of play aspect, where system mastery is less necessary to achieve player goals. That works fine for me - I like the less fiddly mechanics of the classed system of 5e. I don't want to go to a system that requires much much more system mastery to achieve a concept rather than to come up with a concept, look at the available classes and see which one has the mechanics set that does the job best. If, instead, you like looking at the classes and get inspired by their mechanics and fluff, that works, too.

So your reductionist approach is ignoring that there are benefits to maintaining a classed system even if you prefer to allow liberal reskinning. It makes the game a bit easier to deal with.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is reflecting how reductionism, if taken to its logical extreme, makes the class system break down.

If its impossible for an observer to tell the difference between a Light Domain Cleric casting fireball and a Evoker Tradition Wizard casting a fireball, do we need a distinction at all? To the in-world commoner, two dudes in robes both shot blasts of fire into a crowd of kobolds. When they asked how they did that, one says "I am a servant of Radiant Light" and the other says "I am the keeper of the secrets of Fire". At this point, we can start to ask the question "Do these two PCs need separate classes to do this with?" Why not one spellcasting class that can customize their spell lists; the servant of Light picks fire and healing magic while the Keeper of Fire picks fire and divination magic.

Likewise, we don't need several martial classes to map out different types of combat either: a single martial class with the ability to customize his skills can easily make an armored warrior, a raging berserker, a mobile assassin, a martial artist, an inspiring leader, a tricky skirmisher, etc. Hell, you can even mix-and-match so Mouse can have his Raging Martial Artist if he wants.

I mean, if its all so malleable that there is NO way to determine if someone is a Fighter or a Rogue, a Cleric or a Wizard by looks, abilities or personal beliefs, why bother keeping the distinction mechanically?

This is silly because it ignores all of the things that classes ARE for, which is to provide the PLAYERS with the ability to do all this. If everyone that uses a weapon is a 'fighter' and they just get 'customized' then gosh golly we need 'theme' to represent the various customizations, and you're right back to arguing the same argument with different words.

IMHO there's no way to determine if someone is a rogue or a wizard because there ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS ROGUES AND WIZARDS. My PC is sneaky and pokes holes in things using precision attacks with light weapons, and has a bunch of skill at playing with traps, locks, etc. Your character has made a deep study of magic and casts spells. In the GAME WORLD those are simply choices that these people made, based on background opportunity, innate talent, etc. Its quite possible that your wizard is the master of the thieves guild. Its quite possible that my thief is enrolled in Merton's Magic Academy (maybe he's not a terribly good student!). If that's so then we might expect its likely your wizard PC got some theme or feats or whatnot that perhaps gives him great streetwise and appraisal skills or something, and maybe my thief is a wizard's apprentice and can cast a cantrip, and maybe he'll become an Arcane Trickster, but maybe not.

The world is much richer than a bunch of people all typecast into classes where everyone that casts spells lives in a tower and gets called a wizard, and everyone that picks pockets belongs to a bunch of skulking guild thieves, and everyone that worships the old faith has druid class levels. PCs have these things because it makes it possible to run the game, but they're just examples of unique individuals that populate the world.

 

[ZickZak]

Yes, it matters except
Barbarian - would be called fighter
Wizard/Sorcerer - interchangeable

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's true, Doctor Strange carries the title of Sorcerer Supreme, but he clearly preps his spells like a wizard.

Right, there are probably all sorts of titles in a game world. If PCs have titles its not unlikely that they roughly correspond with their classes (fighters are knights and such, wizards are 'wizards' or whatever, etc) assuming they have titles at all. That doesn't make class IN AND OF ITSELF a meaningful in-game concept. Especially if the PCs are unique in terms of abiding by class rules.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Was it a spell? What if it was a subtle spell cast by a sorcerer? What if it was a spell-like or supernatural ability? What if it was an NPC whose abilities don't map directly to a character class; there are infinitely more NPCs than PCs? What if it was a multiclass PC? What if you just didn't notice the components?

And 'Law of Averages'? I've worked in casinos for over quarter of a century, and that little myth is what keeps us in business. The fact that more PCs than usual made their saves (how is that observable!) does not indicate that there must be an aura around which gives them a bonus to their saves, therefore there must be a paladin around! What about good or bad rolls? What about other abilities/spells which increase saves? What about magic items? There is absolutely no way for Orcus or anyone else to reason that because four out of five targets made their save that therefore there must be a paladin about!



But class abilities are not always concrete. 'Saving throw bonuses' are not observable, and frequency of saves being made/failed is not only difficult to observe (if at all) but impossible to pin down to the bonus. When dealing roulette, I know that there is an equal chance of a red number or a black number, but if I didn't know that but tried to work out the odds by simply tallying the results, you might expect that there would be an equal number of red and black, but you'd be a fool to believe that. I've spun 17 black numbers in a row before now, and it was just a mild curiosity because we have an electronic board which shows the last 17 numbers and they were all black. For any period of time short of infinity, your mere observations are extremely unlikely to see an equal number of reds and blacks, therefore you could not reach the conclusion that there must be an equal chance for each result.

The only reason we know that the chances are equal is that we can see the numbers in the wheel! 18 red and 18 black. The point is that although the game rules can tell us that there is a definite +2 to this save, the creatures in the world cannot know the game mechanics, only observe the results, and the results do not reveal the game mechanics with any certainty.

In real life, physics is what it is, but even we cannot know what it really is for a certainty, only to have our guesses get closer and closer.



Rubbish! Rolling a 1 on damage is as much about the target trying to twist out of the way as the force of the blow. Luck and unpredictable chaos is such a huge factor that the game never said that weapons do, say, 7 damage; they made it a random number to account for this. The orc isn't swinging with random strength or skill, but the result is random anyway. You cannot observe a single swing and know the game mechanics behind it, and therefore you cannot know them even by observing multiple swings. Even if you get a set of results which seem to prove a point, what point? You can say that these swings did more damage on average (although that is unreliable; you just might have rolled well lots of times), but you cannot say that the increased damage must be because he is raging, therefore he must be a barbarian! There are many, many ways to increase damage!

If the 10 hp fireball kills 5 people but the 40 point one only scorches 5 others, how can the creatures in game know which fireball was more deadly?



How do you know that only evoker wizards can do this? What about NPCs? Magic items? multiclass PCs? Classes, spells yet to be written? Don't sorcerers have a metamagic ability to do this? If not yet, they might in a future supplement.

And all this doubt, even when you have the PHB in your hand! The creatures in game cannot know any of that!



No they don't! Champions have more chance of critting, but this does not mean that they actually get more crits! And as you pointed out, crits are not observable.

I acknowledge that some class abilities are observable, but I'm saying that those observations cannot allow the creatures in game to know what 'class' a person is, because they can never be certain that what they are observing is the result of a class ability, because 'class' is a game mechanic and they cannot know about game mechanics.



First, 'bonus actions' are not observable as being 'bonus actions'! Next, although wizards/sorcerers/bards/druids in some ways (but not all ways) approach magic differently, so does each individual wizard/sorcerer/bard/druid! Every character is an individual, and an observer cannot know that the differences he observes are because they are different 'classes' (a game mechanic) or just different styles. Sure, a guy might say he is a Druid, and 'Druid' might very well be an in game title, but the guy may be lying? He may be pretending to be a Druid by using similar abilities and be skilled in Deception. He may legitimately have the in game title without actually having any druid class levels.



Since PCs can multiclass, can acquire magic items, fluff their abilities in many different ways, and since NPCs are not limited to the class system and vastly outnumber PCs, there is no way for an in game observer to assemble the observations into 'class' that matches the info in the PHB. He can't even tell if a person he meets is a PC or an NPC.



And my rebuttal is that so many things affect the game world in similar ways is it not possible for an observer to observe the game mechanic of 'class' through observing what happens in his world.

You know, I was going to tackle this... but what's the point?

I could ask if you use the Holy Avenger or the Staff of the Magi in your game, as those require specific classes to attune to them, and I don't believe it is logical to conclude that a person could build and craft an item to reflect something that doesn't exist. But of course you are going to tell me how you've home-brewed this or make some claim about some twisting that makes it absolutely impossible to tell.

I could also tell you that denying the law of averages because a wheel rolled the same type of number 17 times in a row seems to indicate you don't have a good grasp of what that means. Check the last 10,000 numbers and I'm sure it is more even than that. Check 10,000,000 and it will be even more even. That is, if it was designed to be fair and not designed to favor one side more than another.

What's the point? At this crossroads it is just abundantly clear that you are bound and determined to bend over backwards to avoid any sort of title to your character beyond the backstory you thought up, and that you if hearing the term ranger or paladin used to describe a player at the table, and not having an in-game specific group that follows those names, will likely rage about it or at least be insulted by it, despite the fact that the base assumption of the game is that these are things that people can know and recognize in the world.

So... since you are so determined to avoid it... avoid it, I really can't see the point anymore.

Edit: this may be coming across more angry than I intend. I am very tired at the moment, and my phrasing may be slightly off. I just don't see the point in arguing something when it has become abundantly clear we cannot agree to a baseline and you seem determined to deny any sort of baseline agreement we could come to.

Heh.... "Nothing is True. Everything is Permitted" So said the time wizard pretending to be an assassin or a barbarian, depending on whether or not he took the favored soul part after being revealed he had the DNA of gods coursing through his veins. Of course, he was really a bard with magic items that no one could actually see.