For core PHB classes --> sorcerer and warlock

[gyor]

I think 1 and 3 on your list are pretty much the same thing. By the time a character idea has established itself so firmly in fantasy that you could call it ubiquitous, I think it embodies a pretty specific archetype.

I also think that a class needs to satisfy both of your (now consolidated) points if it is going to be made. It needs to have a specific niche in the gameworld to give players and GMs a starting point for how to include it in the game. Playing off of existing fantasy tropes is a great way to do this, because you get a lot of mileage out of relatively little text thanks to the miracle of association. If you want to make a class that blazes new ground without a huge body of fictional predecessors to back it up, good luck, but you'll be swimming upstream in getting people to accept it.

Mechanically all the classes should be distinct as well. If they aren't, then you open yourself to the criticism that you are publishing unnecessary bloat. If my ranger is nothing more than a slightly modified fighter, why couldn't you just give me the fluff about the ranger and a couple of feats and called it a day? Why is the ranger class taking up valuable page space in the expensive book you expect me to buy?

When you get classes that are unique in both fiction and mechanics then you get great classes that players love. The 3.X warlock, love it or hate it, is a good example. It was fictionally distinct from other arcane casters (something that the many wizard/sorcerer derivatives like wu jen, warmages, shugenja etc. failed to do), mostly by dint of being dark and shadowy. Its mechanics were something that hadn't been seen yet in 3.5, which was especially refreshing after the dozens of published classes that basically reused the same mechanics in slightly different combinations.

If all the classes are as distinct in those two categories as are the sorcerer/warlock/wizard in the playtest, I'll be a happy camper.

Another example of unique classes like warlocks, Binders and Shadowcasters, although tradgically in 4e they made Binders a type of warlock and the flavour completely died. Binders were my favouritey 3.5 class and my least favourite Warlock pact in 4e.

Can't think of a better reason not to dump everything in four classes.

 

[gyor]

As for price of 600 pages vs 300 pages, right now on Amazon I could pick up pathfinder core book for 32 bucks Canadian, or on Paizo's own site 50 bucks, although I imagine it was more expensive when it first came out.

Still one also has a pdf verson for 10 bucks and honestly the PDF is of more practical use and versitiality if you have compatible equipment. Having cheaper pdf option, more expensive book version and maybe a kickstarter deluxe verson give people of different needs and economic means choices ti fit thier needs.

Personally I perfere PDF's when possible (for 4e its isn't), because you can have a whole stack of books on PC, laptop or tablet or smartphone, plus other rpg aids, without carrying a ton of stuff.

Also to note the simplfied basic rules will take very little room. But a couple of rules modules will.

As for space each class takes up it depends on how many builds (like domains, bloodlines) the,classes get and how much room they take up. Hopefully they can get two per page. So if say 7 pages of domains for the cleric then you could have 16 domains.

If each class got say 10 pages for everything, including multiclassing and you have 15 classes that's 150 pages for the class section. Say they have races for every race that's been in a PHB that's and each race gets 2 pages that's twenty pages for the race section. Lets say 400 spells and an average of four spells per page for 100 pages for spells. Lets say 50 pages for backgrounds and 50 for specialties. 30 pages for explaining the basic rules and magic items and a 100 pages for key modules and some prestige classes. That 500 pages, less then pathfinder.