You are told by some people who like 5e that you should just stop complaining there - but not told that by everyone.
And you sound exactly like them. With the main difference being that they do not want new work put in on something they don't care about but you want to actively unmake an already existing sunk cost. And in a game that has twice as many classes as 5e and was producing more than half a dozen new classes every year at the time the Slayer came out.
Well, I am 'complaining' but really as a contrast, not so much because I had some goal of complaining about some 5e thing. Heck, I WROTE MY OWN GAME, so I can just go do what I want
. But I would say that, while 4e has a goodly number of classes, a large fraction of them seem kind of redundant to me. Like, all the e-classes for one! I mean, the post-essentials era is RIFE with stuff that barely rises to the rank of 'class', or is effectively just a build, like the Witch. It also contains a lot of dubious experimentation, much like late 3.5 material does. In fact, in my ACTUAL play of 4e, I think classes outside of PHB1 and 2 were ALMOST never even contemplated. There were a smattering of e-class characters that a couple players experimented with, a Slayer we made to be a "visiting player" PC, a psion that a guy dropped in and played for a few sessions (we weren't charops enough for him, lol) and that was about it, really.
Nobody ever played a PHB3 class, except the one psion. Nobody played an HoS class, or a HotFW class that I can remember either. There was a mage, a slayer, a knight, a sentinel, and I think a thief. Otherwise it was actually pretty heavily PHB1. We did have an Invoker, a Warden, a couple Barbarians, a Druid, a Shaman, and a Sorcerer that I can recall. Possibly I have forgotten some, but there were numerous fighters, wizards, rogues, warlocks, rangers, clerics, and paladins. Oh, there were a couple bards, and at least 2 warlords. Oh, and one each Artificer and Swordmage.
So in terms of classes that are really needed to play 4e... I think even amongst those mentioned above some are fairly redundant, like the e-classes, and honestly the invoker and the warden, while quite interesting, are somewhat thematically redundant. I do think that HotEC's version of the sorcerer, the Elementalist, was thematically a good idea, though perhaps a bit simplistic. Still, I thought the idea of a ranger-level simplicity 'spell blaster' was probably pretty good. The Vampire, though nobody played one in my campaigns before they wrapped up, was also pretty cool and I've played around with it in other games. Blackguard, Necromancer, both good concepts. Oh, we did have a Esassin, which was a bit of an odd class, but seemed pretty solid.
And honestly, there are definite areas where 4e design proved awkward over time, but no more so than any other edition, and less than some.
We then have two questions:
- Was the number of classes being deliberately kept down?
- In 4e? No. There were 23 classes before Essentials (8 in the PHB 1, 8 in the PHB 2, 6 in the PHB 3, plus the shroud-Assassin).
There was also the Swordmage and Artificer, making 25. ALL of those are pretty solid, though I think about 5 of the 6 PHB3 ones are fairly unneeded (the monk being the exception). Actually the Seeker is a good concept, though it needs more love to make it really on a par with the others.
- In 5e? Yes. There have been precisely two splatbooks and one new class (the Artificer) since the PHB. This is a deliberate strategy
- Is there a significant group that would be served by adding this new class?
- For the Slayer in 4e, in my experience, yes. As mentioned two people at my main table. And so what if it was because they had thirty years experience of pre-4e D&D each. That doesn't make them not people or not interested.
- For the Warlord in 5e? Again yes. Something better than the piss-poor warlordesque abilities the Battlemaster got would be a start. (I've said in other posts what it would need for me for 5e to scratch at least some of the Warlord itch - but it isn't there right now).
- For the Cancer Mage from the 3.5 Book of Vile Darkness? Show me that people actually are demanding it as more than a meme and we'll talk.
I don't know about Cancer Mages... lol. I think 5e could use a few more classes, but as I said above, there's a bunch in 4e that are just cruft, at least TO ME. But 'class' means a bit different thing in each game, so we should be careful how we look at that.
