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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6762190" data-attributes="member: 2067">In 5e, I don't get why your half-orc boxer can speak every language or why they can't be magically aged. I could probably think of an excuse or two, but that's that "squinting" I mentioned. If the idea is just to have a half-orc who is good at fighting with their fists, that just seems to me to speak to maybe a new Fighter subclass (the thug!), or even a simple feat. In general, 5e supports modifying class proficiencies like this. Even when your pious monk is tempted to use a friggin' magical greataxe instead of their trusty quarterstaff and is getting boosts to their Strength score and plateauing their Wisdom and doesn't want to wear armor? My intent here isn't to say that refluffing isn't good enough or anything. It works just fine, sometimes. But I'd really hate to see D&D designed with that in mind. I'd even say that mechanics that don't give a strong in-world feel are guilty of being bland and uninspiring - a class should be an archetype, a kind of character you want to play, and if it can be easily reinterpreted, it's not really doing a great job of being that specific archetype. This goes deeper. If you want to see class as a pure metagame construct, and design the game around that, you ultimately drift away from a class-based game entirely. You have one "adventurer" class who, at any level, can improve their spellcasting or their martial ability, and, depending on their proficiencies in various types of spells or martial abilities, can do different things in the adventure. You get to point-based or package-based or skill-based character construction, super customizable, but without any bearing on what your character is in the world.D&D started that way - that's why we still have "fighters" - but it rapidly drifted away from that (clerics had pretty strong flavor, and thieves kind of sealed the deal). IMO, for the better: the class is an archetypal package of abilities that anchors you to the setting in a significant way. It's a fantastic aid to imagination and role playing. D&D's still in a bit of a middle ground, but 5e is pretty strongly on the side of "your class has meaning," to the extent that the generic abilities of the fighter are something that the design team thinks they might've missed the boat on. Refluffing isn't impossible (it never really is), but 5e is anchored in the narrative, and I think that's a great thing. 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.</blockquote>

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