D&D 5E L&L: Subclasses

[JamesonCourage]

Take out the "exotic weapons" part and the term is already in the game-- Skirmisher.

But in any event... there's not going to be any Fighter mechanic (whether it be expertise dice or some other thing) that is going to require that specific of a load-out of equipment. We've already talked about this upthread-- if the sub-classes are how Fighter's fight... then we've already seen the terms in the game of how they can be laid out:

Weapon & Shield - Defender
Greatweapon - Slayer
Dual-wield - Tempest
Finesse weapon - Duelist
Loaded ranged - Marksman
Thrown ranged - Hurler
Impovised/unarmed - Brawler
Tactical - Warlord

Other than the Warlord (only listed here because of legacy issues), none of these names imply any sort of world, or specific culture, or job, or scenario/plotline as to why they are that sub-class.

You say 'Gladiator'... that implies who you are, where you learned your technique, and how you got where you are. You say 'Brawler'... that implies much, much less about the specifics as to who your character is... and thus allows you to create your character's history yourself.

If you still question my point on this, then let's turn things around. The sub-classes (and thus the abilities you get) of Cleric are no longer based on the god you worship, but are now 'Hospitaler', 'Chevalier', 'Priest' and 'Missionary'. Do you feel that's a better system? If you think so... then fine. Your point is made, and I just disagree with it.

I agree with this post (can't XP). As always, play what you like

 

[Stormonu]

I kind of wish they'd go back to 2E for this kind of thing. Have four basic divisions - warrior, rogue, priest, arcanist. Then have packages to further subdivide them.

Want a druid? Start with a priest and take the 'druid' package. Want a warlock? Take the arcanist and the 'star pact warlock' package. Thief is a package for rogue, as is the Bard. Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian, Warlord, Blackguard, Avenger, etc. are warrior packages. Generalist wizard, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Enchanter, Elementalist, Shi'ar, etc are arcanist packages.

Heck, throw in 'kits' and I think you've got a structure reminicent of Specialties and Backgrounds.

 

[steeldragons]

I kind of wish they'd go back to 2E for this kind of thing. Have four basic divisions - warrior, rogue, priest, arcanist. Then have packages to further subdivide them.

Want a druid? Start with a priest and take the 'druid' package. Want a warlock? Take the arcanist and the 'star pact warlock' package. Thief is a package for rogue, as is the Bard. Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian, Warlord, Blackguard, Avenger, etc. are warrior packages. Generalist wizard, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Enchanter, Elementalist, Shi'ar, etc are arcanist packages.

Heck, throw in 'kits' and I think you've got a structure reminicent of Specialties and Backgrounds.

Can't xp again at the moment. But yes, completely behind this. [except the Shi'ar are a race a bird-feathered-aliens from the Marvel universe who had a deposed empress in love with Prof. X, but other than that, yes. ]

 

[I'm A Banana]

What I want is to do exactly what you say here... without needing to "refluff" the sub-class when there's no need to put fluff on the sub-class in the first place.

You haven't shown me a situation in which a player would have to re-fluff anything. Sailor-pistoleer-rogue-bandit doesn't involve any refluffing to be a pirate. Neither does soldier-tempest-fighter-samurai, for that matter. Or dwarf-leader-bard-trickster. Or whatever. All of these things are equals in pirate-potential.

Again, this is also making the big assumption that there's not going to be a way to accomplish Archetype X directly called out.

Fighters fight using weapons and fighting styles. And those are the types of things that I think should be called out as the sub-classes in my opinion. Because that way, I can choose how my Fighter fights, gain the bonuses from it that the sub-class will grant me... and not have to strip away any unwanted fluff like being a Samurai or a Gladiator. I'm quite capable of adding samurai or gladiator fluff to my Fighter after the fact without the game doing it for me.

You can choose how your fighter fights without worrying about a sub-class, though. Nor do you ever have to strip away un-wanted fluff. And the game only gets richer for allowing you to jam things together to get unexpected results. My character wouldn't be seeking out training from a ronin if there wasn't a samurai sub-class, they'd just be fighting with a particular weapon style.

And if you're capable of adding your own fluff, you're also probably capable of ignoring what's already there. I really don't think that's out of the realm of your capabilities. I believe in you.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And if you're capable of deleting your own fluff, you're also probably capable of creating what's not yet there. I really don't think that's out of the realm of your capabilities. I believe in you too.

 

[Li Shenron]

I kind of wish they'd go back to 2E for this kind of thing. Have four basic divisions - warrior, rogue, priest, arcanist. Then have packages to further subdivide them.

Isn't this pretty much what they are doing? The only difference being that they apply it to a basis of ~10 classes instead of 4.

 

[RevTurkey]

I don't know if anybody has suggested this yet (I may have missed it) but it occurs to me that Paladin should be a subclass of Cleric rather than Fighter. Especially if you make being a Knight a subclass of fighter in some way. This way you get a simple distinction between Priest (non combat directed) and Paladin (combat directed) which I think the game has often struggled with. Just a passing notion....

 

[I'm A Banana]

And if you're capable of deleting your own fluff, you're also probably capable of creating what's not yet there. I really don't think that's out of the realm of your capabilities. I believe in you too.

Ah, but I'm a super-advanced gaming ninjae who has been playing for decades at this point.

Newbies are not so capable or confident in creating, deleting, or modifying their own fluff. They're mostly going to play the game as it is. And they don't dream of being a Defender, they dream of being samurai pirates.

If you suck as much flavor as possible from the rules, you're left with bland, dull, dry text, and that doesn't inspire ANYONE to be the student of a disgraced samurai on the high seas.

For comparison, it would kind of be like if the monsters published for the game consisted entirely of this: raw maths, no story.

 

[Ratskinner]

Then I must have misunderstood what you meant when you said "Totally irrelevant, you're going to be writing all that stuff down in the "abilities" section, anyway."

Possibly. I only meant that calling it "Samurai Bowmanship" or "Mounted Archery" doesn't really save anything on the character sheet. The way D&D works nowadays, writing "Samurai" or even "Light Cavalryman" won't be sufficient notation about the mechanics to be useful. There are games where that is sufficient, and that would be my personal optimal choice, but D&D seems to eschew the mechanics that make that sort of thing possible. (It is a playstyle issue, I guess, and it doesn't fit with many people's conceptions of how D&D works.)

A third choice is to write the real name on the Sub-class line of your character sheet and work the reflavored name into the Background/History/Notes section of your character.

That will help, but still cause that cognitive static (especially as a DM, where I've learned to just rewrite the whole darned thing.) I couldn't say how much, though.

 

[Ratskinner]

Ah, but I'm a super-advanced gaming ninjae who has been playing for decades at this point.

Newbies are not so capable or confident in creating, deleting, or modifying their own fluff. They're mostly going to play the game as it is. And they don't dream of being a Defender, they dream of being samurai pirates.

If you suck as much flavor as possible from the rules, you're left with bland, dull, dry text, and that doesn't inspire ANYONE to be the student of a disgraced samurai on the high seas.

I don't think newbies are quite as incompetent as we often seem to assume around here, nor do I think that "gaming" is some sort of super-skill that takes decades to master. Furthermore, I don't think it'd be any great trauma to have a "to build a Samurai" section somewhere.

For comparison, it would kind of be like if the monsters published for the game consisted entirely of this: raw maths, no story.

I really don't have a problem with that, and in fact happily play games with even simpler/less math than that, and I even play it with my "newbie" kids. The critical part is making sure that you present players with the ability and good advice on creating the fluff, or supply them with the fluff, if you want fluff-regulation.

IME: Creating/supplying "fluff" is not a problem newbies typically have. The problems newbies have usually center around the math or procedural end of mechanics. Having dealt with newbies playing both FATE and D&D, I can tell you that its the procedural/numerical end of D&D that causes the problems, because there's where you need to get it "correct". Often, when introducing people to D&D, I find that I'm having to constrain their fluff to meet the mechanics. Throughout this conversation, with all the wacky examples, I keep thinking "This is just so much easier in FATE" because the mechanics are simple and straightforward. Now, if people want to re-work D&D so that it has something like FATE's aspects (which Backgrounds seem to be recently orbiting) and ditch all these feats and subclasses and make it a rules-light(er) game....I'm all behind that. I don't think that's a very popular notion, though.