If we have specialities, why do we need a plethora of classes?

[Grimmjow]

im okay with having classes like ranger and paladin, as long as they are there OWN classes.

 

[Ratskinner]

This is a very good point. But D&Dnext seems a bit ambivalent, at present, about exactly how it wants to handle "story oomph". As can be seen in the current thread about backgrounds and skills, for example.

Which I guess reinforces the point that working out what to do with rangers and paladins is intimately connected to working out exactly how to handle backgrounds and specialties.

Absolutely. What are we in? version 0.3? 0.4? Honestly, if they changed backgrounds to work more like I want them to, then my feelings on many of these classes would change as well.

If a paladin has more hit dice than other PCs in order to fuel selflessness powers, is it going to be overpowered when used selfishly (I'm thinking of the problems with the 3E cleric who plays as a buffer/controller rather than a healer)?

Personally, I'd prefer it if the paladin was somehow resistant to things like disadvantage when he was being "heroic", or his abilities triggered through heroism. So maybe he doesn't get extra HD all the time, but if he jumps on a metaphorical grenade, he can heal 2d6 hp.....or something.

 

[Li Shenron]

Overall I agree with the OP, but the subject is complicated by at least the following factors:

- tradition: a game without Druids, Paladins, Rangers and Bards is probably quite unfamilar for most of those who played previous editions of D&D at least starting from AD&D

- available space in the PHB: I definitely prefer to have less classes and more material for each of them in the PHB, than a lot of classes but each of which having so few options to choose from that you cannot make significantly different PCs of a class without buying splatbooks

- multiclassing: is 5e multiclassing going to work really well? If that was the case, then we probably need less classes overall. But if it happens that after solidifying the rules of 5e, it turns out that it's just too hard to find a multiclassing system that works, the designers could then compensate by introducing many additional classes to represent hybrid concepts. IMHO it's much more important to get single classes (all of them) work really well, and then check if multiclassing is possible and smooth with these current classes or not, rather than forcing multiclassing in the game at the expense of lowering the quality of the base design.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

We need classes because they have always been around despite the obvious fact that many step on each others toes and there is very little difference between some of them thematically speaking. IMO of course.

They crank out class after class after class because they think they have to, and people eat them up, and they crank them out because they think it leads to modularity and options but no matter how many classes they created (pre 4e) your group always needed a Cleric.

4e had some good ideas and I agree with some earlier posts that it had four Archetypes... Striker, Defender, Controller, and Leader. There were many flavors, but four basic Archetypes to fill a party, and if you were missing one and a you played with a smart DM, you could be screwed, which was part of the fun in 4e.

But, for 5e, they claim to be going Modular, and having Backgrounds and Specialties as Optional leads to that modularity, which is good. They haven't gone far enough though. Skills need to be Optional too.

Regarding the discussion of classes though, I can see all view points... if you use BGs and Specialties then just 4 very broad core classes would work. Take away BGs and Specialties and suddenly if you want to play a Paladin or Ranger, you are screwed... unless the 4 classes had those options, and it would be easy to do, with just a little paradigm shift in game design.

But let's say we want Rangers and Paladins and Bards... we have to ask, what's their purpose?

Paladins seem like the best candidates to being most defenderesque of the core classes... give them some serious Holy powers, let them be defenders of the innocent, upholders of life and their God's and give them a Holy aura. Let them stand up straight in the face of evil. Give them a Mark Power that compels targets to focus on him. Give them Avenger powers as well. Make people fear them. Make them Holy Warriors who never back down. Make them immune to fear. Let them Lay on Hands and Heal but give them Holy options to turn their Lay on Hands into an Avenger's Strike at Close Range. Give them an AC bonus while wearing Medium or Heavy Armor. Give them Detect (opposite Alignment) at will.

Basically, combine Paladins and Avengers into a single class and refluff everything to fit the Paladin.

For Rangers, make them the ultimate Wilderness Survivalists. Focus on Terrain Warfare. Traps and Tricks, Animal Companions and make them Harriers and Skirmishers. Make them able to Camouflage themselves in any terrain they have focused on. Make them Stalkers of the wilderness. Give them special Powers based on their focused terrain, so if they are in forests they can walk into one tree and exit another, or communicate with plants or animals in a particular range or even survive harsher weather conditions where other people would need shelter. If in the desert they could summon a sandstorm, gain heat resistance and perhaps even travel through the sand like he was sand. Give him element related, terrain related powers. Leave the Fighting Styles to the Fighter.

 

[triqui]

i disagree. You can make a pseudo paladin by giving a fighter the some cleric especialty, but you get much better granularity if you give to the paladin class a knight especialty, or a peasant hero especialty, or a crusader, or zealot, or inquisitor. Even if you can still use the fighter with cleric stuff as a curch soldier or whatever. Having options is good

 

[Baileyborough]

If I want to play a ranger with the playtest packet with D&D Next, I can pretty much already do it. I I just need a start with a fighter and give him a good dex. Then I need is a background that gives me spot, stealth, survival and nature lore. If I take the sharpshooter speciality, I essentially have the low-level 3.5 ranger. So... why do I need a Ranger class?

I agree - to a point. A lot of classes, (especially Paladins - never understood the point) could be done as backgrounds and specialities.

Except.

Right now, one of the beauties of the Backgroud/Speciality system is that (in theory) you could have a party of fighters,rogues,clerics, whatever, and they can all feel different and unique.

Were you to say that a Ranger is a Fighter with this and this Background/Speciality, you're essentially locking down customisation for that class. Maybe you could squeeze some out of it, and we all know that it isn't just the character selections that make a PC, but there you have it.

At least that's what I think. WotC's real challenge is going to be in making Rangers,Paladins (sigh), and the like work as classes in their own right while at the same time making them somehow better than their B/S equivalent.

 

[Victim]

Sure, but in 3e/3.5 the abilities which the subclasses (Ranger, Paladin, Bard, Barbarian) had were generally weak in comparison to the abilities that they shared in common with the fighter. What was most important was the shared basic attack bonus and the shared feats (whether they got them as class abiltiies or not). The smite and healing of the paladin, and the spells and skills of the ranger, were both minor abilities that were tacked on a fighter shell.

Specialities can certainly carry the weight of those minor abilties, to the same degree that they are carried in 3.5. If it was good enough then (and still now given the amount who play 3.5) why isn't it good enough until we find something that is more robust and interesting as a mechanic for paladins and rangers?

How so? The specialties we have don't provide anything like those bonuses. Smite doesn't require taking a turn to buff up your weapon; specialties do.

Dual weilder: after two feats you do the same damage and have the same AC as a guy with no feats, weapon and shield. The only benefit so far is potentially critting more, and being able to spread damage around more flexibly.

Archer: pretty much the same, except actually good for rogues. You can ignore cover and trigger sneak attack if you have it.

Acolyte: the level 3 takes an action to swap damage types that can be cashed in for a reroll.

Etc. Survivor, Healer, and Guardian are the only things providing broadly useful options at this point. The two that can provide advantage are good for rogues.

Basically, there's CONSIDERABLY more differentiation at levels 1 - 3 between even related classes in 3e. A paladin has an actual smite, healing, fear immunity, aura of grace (one of the defining features of the 3.x pally IME), etc. The specialty/theme provides nothing in comparison.

Classes are more than a chain of weak feats. I mean, no one is saying that the wizard should be a skilled rogue type guy who takes Magic User to get spells. The spells provided by the magic user specialty are a wimpy version of the magic an actual wizard gets, even at level 1. It's the same thing for all the classes.

Even if the specialties were twice as good, they still wouldn't be adequate to recreate actual classes.

It's kind of like how classes like Duskblade or Magus, by having features that allow for ways to combine spells and fightiness in the same round, offer something to fighter/mage types beyond sticking a few weak spells on to a weaker fighter frame.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Yes, Yes, a thousand times Yes. Loads of classes, the more the ...better. let me have ultimate variety.

 

[jshaft37]

Just stopping in to point out that in AD&D the Ranger and Paladin were not alternate classes to the fighter, but were superior options if you met the ability score requirements. The ranger doesn't exist in BECMI and the Paladin (as well as Knight and Avenger) exist as options for name level travelling fighters.