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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6104035" data-attributes="member: 17106">I don't know about "classic D&D", but I doubt the concept of clerics as being church leaders or wizards/mages as being academics is a 3e-ism. Thieves' guilds, wandering bards, freelance assassins. The druids are a pretty explicit example of a class that represents an in-world class  of nature worshipping priests. All druids are druids, not just PCs. Most of them do not ally with non-druid adventuring parties, and most of them do not follow an adventuring lifestyle.Well, yes. That's what's "gamist" about it (it's not a PC-specific concept, but it is a gamist construct; the abilities given clearly favor combat). All I have to do is open up my good old copy of BGII and run to the temple district to find a bunch of clerics that wear armor and have all the cleric abilities, but do not leave their temples, have adventuring parties, or function according to 4e combat roles.Classes as in-world castes of people is a notion that is well-developed in 3e, but is hardly exclusive to that edition.That's often true, but we're not talking about exemplars. Your stereotypical ranger may be Aragorn, but in LotR there is an entire group of rangers with similar abilities. It is somewhat of a career choice. Conan may be your archetypical barbarian, but in that same fiction there are tons of other barbarians.So a class can be drawn from fictional inspirations, but still represent an in-world caste of people, not just one individual.Yes, but that doesn't preclude the other side of things. It facilitates gameplay by organizing characters into castes that facilitate adventuring and are geared towards combat. But those mechanics are still in-world truths.There's a great thread that I'm struggling to find from not too long ago about asking what a character in the world knows about whats on his character sheet. I'm struggling to find it, but it was a very interesting discussion.Essentially, it's quite clear that whatever terminology the characters used, they would know who was a fighter and who was a druid, what spells or feats they had selected, and with a little experimentation, could likely determine the value of most numerical bonuses. You can take one archer and have him shoot at a target a hundred times, take another archer and do the same, and conclude that one of them hits 5% more often than the other (or some multiple of 5%).Is it weird that all aspects of human skill are quantized in intervals that increase their chance of success by 5%? Yes. Again, that's what's gamist about it. This is done to make the game simple, standardized, and to provide the opportunity for advancement. But if you're playing a d20 game, that's the world you're playing in.Again, the idea that the rules of the game describe tangible properties of the game world is not a new idea, and it is not my idea. Nor does it preclude the concept of gamism. It simply means that the world itself is gamist; that it has been altered from its simulationist starting point in ways that (hopefully) facilitate a better game experience.I think the avenger concept makes sense but isn't really a class. "Avenging" isn't a shtick on the same level that "fighting with berserk rage" or "worshiping gods for magic" or "stealth and deception" is. This is where kits/archetypes or other similar ways of modifying classes come in handy. The avenger concept could be well embodied by modifying any number of mixed martial/magic classes (a hexblade or duskblade in 3.5, a magus in PF, maybe a psychic warrior; I'm not seeing the divine aspect but maybe a paladin mod). Likewise, warlord abilities make perfect sense for barbarians (with a "general" or "commander" archetype for fighters). [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] Good point; these concepts also make sense as prestige classes in that they're rarer and you grow into them.For (oddly enough) gamist reasons, a class needs to be a more general archetype that could describe many people, incorporates a comprehensive lifestyle, not just a combat role in an adventuring setting, and posits a 20 (or 30) level arc.</blockquote>

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