how many classes is too many?

[Fetfreak]

I don't think it's much of an issue when you are able to create a powerful combo in a classless system. I find it much worse when one class is significantly more powerful or weaker than other classes in a class based system.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And I agree that Runequest and its derivates, e.g. Call of Cthulhu is one of the few systems that (probably) cannot be abused.

I wouldn't say that, having played a few other RPGs that used the RuneQuest system, like those based on Michael Moorcock's stuff, like Stormbringer, Hawkmoon, etc.

 

[kill the bard!]

Thanks for the replies, guy. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts regarding the subject. The reason the question is important to me is I'm working on a set of homebrew rules for my friends and me, as we've yet to find that one system that fits us comfortably. It also gives me a chance to flex my creative muscles, but sometimes those creative blocks weight too much for one person to lift by himself. And so I'm turning to you guys, and you've given me plenty to think about thus far.

I presented this question to my friend the other day. He, like me, feels that a class-based system with three classes (fighter, rogue, and magic-user) is too few. He also sees little purpose in having a rogue, an assassin, a ninja, a thief, a spy, etc. when they are all just variations of the same thing.

We felt the fighter could be split into a heavy melee fighters and a ranged fighter. The rogue is a usually a light melee fighter of some kind. And magic-users can easily be split into an offensive magic user and a defensive/supportive magic user; with the option to split the offensive magic user into a pure offensive caster and a crowd control/enfeebling caster. Throw in a jack of all trades class and we're sitting at seven classes.

What personally comes to mind when I think of each class type is:'
- Heavy Fighter - Warrior
- Light Fighter - Rogue
- Ranged Fighter - Ranger
- Offensive Caster - Wizard
- Defensive Caster - Cleric
- Jack of all Trades - Bard

With just those six classes I think the mechanics of each class provides a player the option to do just about anything he wants. And the list is nice and clean, there's no needless bloat or excessive fluff. But thematically, I still feel the list is missing a few things that can't quite be replicated by rolling a class from that list.

Options (through class abilities) can allow a warrior to be played as a rage-fueled barbarian, but the temptation to split these two classes is strong. But getting a monk/martial artist from rogue abilities (or those of any other class) isn't as easy. This is especially true if you want to incorporate Chi into the monk's abilities. Furthermore, I like the idea of splitting wizards and necromancers. Maybe it's my time spent playing video games that leads me feel these two classes can and should be designed to perform differently? The necromancer is also the obvious choice for a pet class. And there's still a paladin and druid waiting for seats at the table.

Now I've got a list of classes that runs anywhere from six to eleven. Splitting the rogue and the monk feels right, as does splitting the wizard and the necromancer. That's eight. Eight feels like it should be perfect, but the temptation to split the warrior and barbarian continues to gnaw at me. I do like paladins, so perhaps combining them with the cleric would be the way to go. In combat, clerics are essentially jr paladins. In casting, paladins are essentially jr clerics. No great sacrifice comes from combining the two classes.

That leaves the druid. I wouldn't mind replacing the bard as the jack of all trades class with the druid. In AD&D 2e the druid could do just about everything the bard could do; the bard had thief skills and they used different spell lists, but other than that the druid could do pretty much anything the bard could do.

So now my list looks like this:
- Warrior - heavy melee fighter
- Rogue - light melee fighter
- Monk - light melee fighter
- Ranger - ranged fighter
- Wizard - offensive spell caster
- Paladin - defensive spell caster
- Necromancer - enfeebling spell caster and pets
- Druid - jack of all trades

All that remains is a way to distinguish the rogue from the monk in more than theme. The rogue can be made to excel at or be given big bonuses while utilizing stealth, and the monk can be given Chi. But they're both still light melee fighters. I could take a page from many mmorpgs and make the rogue more of a burst fighter (a physical combatant who specializes in critical hits and high-damage attacks) and leave the monk as the quick, light fighter; but that might feel a little "gamey". I'd prefer class distinctions to feel organic...natural.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. Again, all feedback you guys might offer in response to my original question or this rather long-winded post is most appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Celebrim]

The various articles relating to the classes are of special interest to me, but lately I've been asking myself the question, "how many classes is too many classes?"

I wrote a few years back that if your class based system had more than 20 classes - regardless of whether you called them 'base classes' or 'advanced classes' - it pointed to fundamental flaws existing in your design.

Some examples:

a) Encoding personalities in to your classes such that any two members of the class will tend to be fundamentally similar.
b) Encoding moral philosophies in to your classes: ex, you've got a class for champions of lawful good, so now you need parallel classes for chaotic good, chaotic evil, lawful evil, etc.
c) Making non-archetypal trivia mandatory in your class design. ex, your clerics all must use non-bladed weapons.
d) Having more than one class that does the exact same thing but with different mechanics, ex: your sorcerer class is so inflexible that you also have to have a Psion class, or your wizard class is so inflexible that you need a necromancer class. Or maybe more to the point you have fighter, knight, samurai, chevalier, warmain, warlord, duelist, monk, kensai, and two dozen other classes which have as their core concept 'excels in some aspect of martial combat'.
e) Encoding cultural artifacts into your classes when the culture is not universal to your entire setting, ex: you have both a samurai and a chevalier class when really all you need is someway to build a noble horseman.
f) Siloing very generic abilities into particular non-generic classes so that any concept that involves that generic ability must in some way involve the class, ex: the ranger's tracking ability or the rogues climbing ability in 1e.

The problem with having lots of and lots of classes is that not only is it unwieldy from a rules perspective, but it tends to actually reduce player choice rather than increase it. Regardless of what concept the player has in mind, there is some fiddly class out there that comes close to that concept but in fact shoe horns the character into a rigid development path and forces the player to carry or offload a bunch of baggage whether thematic or mechanical that is unrelated to his concept. Trying to solve this problem by create a nearly infinite array of highly specialized classes suggests you'd be better off dumbing classes for a different character building methodology. However, the problem can be avoided almost entirely by avoiding bad design in your classes in the first place.

True classes are configurable archetypes that collectively cover all concept possible in the setting. There isn't a fixed set of classes that do this or a fixed division of roles that accomplish it, but regardless of setting the set of all classes is probably a number between 3 and 20.

 

[Celebrim]

So now my list looks like this:
- Warrior - heavy melee fighter
- Rogue - light melee fighter

ok, but...

- Monk - light melee fighter

The monk has serious problems IMO. First, it is in most forms hugely inflexible, with a fixed progression of class powers gained every level in a fixed order. Giving it a bunch of little 'kits' helps provide some choice but doesn't actually solve the problem because it is now up to the DM to provide the choice rather than the player to create the concept. Secondly, its fundamentally tied not only to real world eastern monastic traditions that are hardly universal to monasticism, but to an arguably singular instance of that tradition, and even more to the point to 1970's movies inspired by though traditions. It's hugely specific to a cultural setting. Moreover, it silo's 'martial artist' into a very narrow philosophical tradition and even personality that is far more narrow than the range of martial artists found in the source material, much less that could be imagined. Is the entire cast of 'Kill Bill', for example, to be considered lawful aligned characters motivated primarily to achieve personal self-actualization through honing their discipline? What about the cast of Five Deadly Venoms? Enter the Dragon? Moreover, does every setting even have a good justification for these kinds of characters existing, and what are the economics of making fighters just as capable without weapons and armor as those that must by expensive weapons and armor? Does this really work, especially when we consider that at no point did the Shao-lin ever actually treat unarmored combat as preferable to having a weapon?

Ranger - ranged fighter

But the existing ranger class probably carries more non-essential and annoying baggage than any other class in the game. Not only does it historically require the character to be a champion of some philosophy, but also that anyone particularly skilled in ranged combat also end up being a divine spell-caster. And why must all ranged combatants ultimately have some relationship to nature and a duty to protect it?

Paladin - defensive spell caster

Wait, what? So the class evoked by characters like Lancelot, Gwain, Orlando, and other chivalric heroes is now to be defined primarily as a spellcaster? What if your concept is 'defensive spell caster' and you don't want to be saddled with the tropes of a Paladin? What if your concept is 'champion of good', but you don't really want to be defined primarily by having spells? What if your concept is 'champion of evil', does it make sense to have a suite of protective magic as your primary shtick?

Necromancer - enfeebling spell caster and pets

Why can't a wizard do necromancy? Cast enfeebling spells? Have pets?

Druid - jack of all trades

The druid is nearly as bad as the ranger. The underlying concept is animist or pantheistic priest and or wizard. But why must all animist spell-casters be defined primarily shape changers? For example, suppose I wanted to do a 'Voodoo Man'. Does it make sense that my primary powers are related to changing into animals? Why is my class for animist spell-casters primarily defined by the archetype of only such spell-casters from a small section of northern Europe? It makes sense to have shamans for Siberian, Polynesian, Australian aboriginal, American aboriginal, and African peoples. Does it makes sense to have them all be 'druids'? Does it make sense to make them primarily nature priests and specifically temperate forest nature priests? Is 'maintaining a balance' really an essential aspect of every imaginable shaman?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'd recommend ditching the D&D class names -- they all come with too much baggage. Frankly, I think it's better design to work from class archetypes (e.g. warrior, scout, scholar) rather than combat roles ("heavy melee fighter"), but using your definitions I might instead propose names like:

- Soldier - heavy melee fighter
- Scout - light melee fighter
- Skirmisher - light melee fighter
- Bowman - ranged fighter
- Warmage - offensive spell caster
- Abjurer - defensive spell caster
- Witch - enfeebling spell caster and pets
- Explorer - jack of all trades

Of course these names still have their own baggage ...

 

[steenan]

Most games I play are classless. That does not mean that I despise classes. I just don't want them where they obfuscate and restrict, instead of helping.

In general, I see classes as useful in three cases:
- When there are a few distinct character types in the setting, with separate areas of high competence and different social roles.
- When the genre uses a small number of strong archetypes, and each character is expected to follow one of them. This often coincides with the previous point, but is not equivalent.
- When the game focuses on tactical combat and the classes correspond to different tactical roles and/or different types of mechanics.


In first two cases, the number of classes is dictated by setting/genre, and will usually be between 3 and 6. More than 7 is definitely too many.

In the third case, I don't think it's reasonable to use more than 5 distinct tactical roles or types of mechanics. But if classes are divided by both, the upper limit is high. The more restrictive limit is the ability of authors to properly design and playtest all of them to ensure balance - which is crucial in a tactics-focused game.

 

[Herobizkit]

Definitely no more than 36.

http://www.riftgame.com/en/characters/

Take the core 4, strap on up to 3 "add-on" jobs and customize!

 

[TMRose]

To be honest I have always preferred games with ZERO classes and that players build what they want.

 

[jasper]

I don't know but the "050-what part to hold sword " needs to go for the basic fighter class.