Do you have a preferred class that you play?

[Dragonhelm]

I tend to play a lot of psionic classes. I like the flavor. Plus, it used to be hard to even be able to get to play one.

Beyond that, I like sorcerers and paladins lot.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I find that more often than not I tend to pick a class/subclass based on what sort of theme I'm interested in the moment, or one that might compliment an interesting character story I have in combination with a particular species, especially with some of the more strange ideas I come up with.

Good example of the latter was an idea I had for a Thri-kreen character, originally just a normal fire ant queen living in a forest with her colony before an arcane catastrophe devastated and warped the forest and every living thing within it. She was warped into a sentient bipedal creature and has to try and understand her new reality with her newly awakened mind. As I looked at the class and subclass options, I found that the Swarmkeeper Ranger could add to this concept, having her swarm be the remnants of her colony turned into primal spirits that work together with their queen to survive in the greater world. Add in the Druidic Warrior Fighting Style to pick up two of either Primal Savagery, Infestation, Poison Spray, or Produce Flames to serve as her primary means of attack that somewhat mimic how ants attack and I was good to go. Not a powerhouse of a character but so, so fun.

However, I tend to gravitate towards Artificers, Druids, Sorcerer, Rangers, and Warlocks more often than not for most of 5e's run, with Monks joining that list after the release 5.5.

 

[ART!]

Fighter. Although I'm having a lot of fun with a Cleric right now.

I'm kind of the same: I generally alternate between fighter and cleric, with the occasional bard now and then.

 

[DammitVictor]

Good example of the latter was an idea I had for a Thri-kreen character, originally just a normal fire ant queen living in a forest with her colony before an arcane catastrophe devastated and warped the forest and every living thing within it [...] Not a powerhouse of a character but so, so fun.

That's brilliant; thri-kreen have been one of my absolute favorite D&D races since back in the AD&D days, even before Player's Option: Skills & Powers made them available as a PC race outside of Dark Sun. (Which is canonically appropriate, thri-kreen having been in the Fiend Folio years before Dark Sun was conceived, and included in Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk adventures.) I feel the the rules for the Xixchil were badly implemented in Spelljammer, but the complex relationship between the two Kreen races is amazing stuff for a setting that incorporates both of them intentionally.

There should be three Kreen races, but the differences between thri-kreen and tohr-kreen aren't really sufficient to require two separate PC races... and I'm not certain that thri-kreen and xixchil are close enough to function as subraces of the same main race.

 

[DammitVictor]

Also a huge damn fan of both the Githzerai and the Githyanki, and I wish they'd both been included in Skills & Powers instead of just the Githzerai. I have to own a separate whole book to have both.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

I have a few main archetypes I use:

1). Detectives. In the case of 5E, Warlock Detectives. A LOT of Invocations trivialize exploration segments, usually by giving at-will "Detect..." and "Speak With..." spells.

2) Guardians of Nature. Nature Clerics and Scout Rogues fill this niche perfectly well.

3) "Minimalist" Adventurers. Those that rely on their class features over their equipment. Unarmed/Unarmored Martials and Full-Casters. The College of Dance Bard is the best of both, in my opinion.

 

[ECMO3]

I mix it a lot. That said what I played most in 5E was probably Ranger. 5.5 the most I have played is Warlock, and Ranger is 2nd. Most of the Rangers I have played since TCE came out have been Fey Wanderers (in both 5E and 5.5E)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I almost always do acquire a favourite class or two, but they tend to be game-specific. Like, I have a friend who will play a Rogue in pretty much any fantasy game, has done for decades, and he'll do it even if Rogues suck (though they sucked so hard in 3.XE it did cause him to branch out to playing Rogue-adjacent casters), and I'm just not built that way.

For me, every game pretty much has a different vision of what exactly the classes are, what they can do, what their vibe is, and so on. Even D&D. Like, D&D is the closest, because in 2E, 4E, and 5E, Bard is my favourite class, and definitely "preferred" (though I've also played plenty of Clerics, Paladins, Druids, Warlocks and others in 5E). In 3.XE I wouldn't have played a Bard with a gun to my head. And the same is true in a lot of close D&D variants, including ones I like! Like Daggerheart, I love DMing that, pretty sure I'd love to play it, would I play the Bard? Absolutely not. Not my vibe - I'd probably actually play a Brawler. Or PF2, which has a bunch of cool classes, would I play the Bard? Probably not. 13th Age either edition's Bard? Nah.

I think what you could probably say across all fantasy/science-fantasy RPGs (which are the ones most likely to have true "classes", by far), you could probably say I usually want to play something which has the following characteristics.

1) Can use some magic or supernatural powers, even if not a huge amount.

2) Isn't the bottom of the barrel in terms of fighting capability (but also doesn't need to be top).

3) Can significantly help/support the party. Not necessarily in a Bard-like buffing way or whatever, but just has something that's going to help us all to succeed, whether that's magic, healing, skills, some combination thereof or whatever. I often end up filling in a role no-one else seemed to want as a result, which is fine with me.

(I notice this latter is true even in non-classed RPGs, like, if we've somehow managed to come up with a CoC party and nobody has Library Use or whatever, I'll make sure to play someone who is good at that.)

 

[Tigris]

I almost always do acquire a favourite class or two, but they tend to be game-specific.

For me, every game pretty much has a different vision of what exactly the classes are, what they can do, what their vibe is, and so on. Even D&D. Like, D&D is the closest, because in 2E, 4E, and 5E, Bard is my favourite class, and definitely "preferred" (though I've also played plenty of Clerics, Paladins, Druids, Warlocks and others in 5E).

For me its less the vibe and more the mechanics but I agree. (Not with the bard necessarily but overall). Sometimes it can even be the same mechanics, but the game system being overall different, so that these mechanics just feel differently in the game.

Differences of classes between editions or D&D clones is just quite big in the end. And just because I like a Warlord in 4E does not mean I like the commander in 13th age.

 

[Ashrym]

My favorite classes are bard, fighter, and rogue. It's because of how flexible they are for me to develop as opposed to the more baked in fluff I typically see for something like a cleric or paladin.