D&D 5E How many classess/subclasses is too much?

[Undrave]

Well you are wrong, I absolutely love fun and humor, in context. And that is the problem context or call it fluff, many of the new subclasses bring fluff with them. Take the PDK for example, it requires you to have a knightly order of purple dragon knights. There is one in Cormyr, so no problems for FR.

There ain't none in Ansalon or Athas or Oerth. Some of these campaign worlds have different knightly orders so creating a subclass for that would be in order in my pov. Some have none so any discussion about it is pointless. Athas e.g. in my book and many of the people who are much more invested in that setting does not even have paladins.

But none of the class features rely on there being a particular order. Your Purple Dragon Knight could just be a regular Knight with some specialized tricks. It's why they mention that outside Forgotten Realms they are called 'Bannerets'.

I think that aside from the Warlock none of the classes are so wedded to their fluff that they can't be hand waved into any setting easily enough.

This way you might be a little bit less flexible but you can have a lot of combinations and some specialized subclasses like arcane trickster are not needed.

But some of those 'Just do it with MC!' subclasses, like Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight or something, have unique features that you can't reproduce otherwise, like the Mage Hand Legerdemain.

 

[TwoSix]

But that was just for official worlds, you might say, what about something totally homebrewed?
It is not my understanding of fun, as a DM, to shoehorn fluff into any campaign no matter if official, official + homebrew or pure homebrew.

You and I have very different versions of fun, if you don't find reskinning and refluffing material to fit in your campaign fun.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No, it's a Feat chain, so more like 4E.

Except in 4e the feats were more of a tax ... ok, surcharge: You'd normally get a class power, say, at a certain level, you pay a feat, you swap it for a power from your MC class, instead, the feat has no other benefit. So, you have the same number & level of powers as any other character, but one less feat in return for having one power from another class. In PF2, unless I totally misunderstand it (which is possible, it's all second hand), you get a feat, that you can spend to gain something from your class, or from a different class - no surcharge. (Someone who's actually cracked PF2 can correct me if I'm wrong.)

 

[MechaTarrasque]

But none of the class features rely on there being a particular order. Your Purple Dragon Knight could just be a regular Knight with some specialized tricks. It's why they mention that outside Forgotten Realms they are called 'Bannerets'.

I think that aside from the Warlock none of the classes are so wedded to their fluff that they can't be hand waved into any setting easily enough.



But some of those 'Just do it with MC!' subclasses, like Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight or something, have unique features that you can't reproduce otherwise, like the Mage Hand Legerdemain.

The Great Old Ones are in all settings, they just haven't always been found yet. And where GOO's go, can warlocks be far behind

 

[Parmandur]

Except in 4e the feats were more of a tax ... ok, surcharge: You'd normally get a class power, say, at a certain level, you pay a feat, you swap it for a power from your MC class, instead, the feat has no other benefit. So, you have the same number & level of powers as any other character, but one less feat in return for having one power from another class. In PF2, unless I totally misunderstand it (which is possible, it's all second hand), you get a feat, that you can spend to gain something from your class, or from a different class - no surcharge. (Someone who's actually cracked PF2 can correct me if I'm wrong.)

OK, so, in PF2, all abilities and powers are Feats. So, using General Feats (not to be confused with Class Feats, obviously) to gain abilities from another Class's Class Feats is balance neutral (theoretically).

 

[Coroc]

You and I have very different versions of fun, if you don't find reskinning and refluffing material to fit in your campaign fun.

Oh i do that, but it has to fit at least somehow, again, no amount of reskinning could get a paladin into dark sun true to the setting to givfe you a prime example of what i mean.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

OK, so, in PF2, all abilities and powers are Feats. So, using General Feats (not to be confused with Class Feats, obviously) to gain abilities from another Class's Class Feats is balance neutral (theoretically).

Has anyone else found the term "Feat" that 3e started using odd? I think of a "feat" as action--something you pull off. A "feat of daring", etc. Some of the original feats (things like Cleave or Power Attack) would qualify, but even at the start, most of them didn't. I'm not sure if the intent was that it was a "feat" to learn/acquire that ability in the first place or what. But the non-standard usage of language still kind of bothers me.