Legends & Lore: Clas Groups

[pemerton]

Mearls mentioned on Twitter that these Class groups will be used mostly as a shorthand for "these types of characters". His example: they could have an adventure where the thief king will let tricksters into his throne room, but all others must remain outside.

That sounds bad to me. Aren't backgrounds and their traits meant to handle this sort of thing?

 

[Mistwell]

What it illustrates is the power and danger of classifications.

Only if your assumptions about how it will play out are correct. And odds are they are not because, as I said, you're not a professional game designer and neither am I. It's only a bad thing if it's not done well. I think you will admit classification systems can work well.

It's you're assumption it cannot work out well, or that you fully comprehend what they're doing despite lack of enough information to know how it will play out, that I am questioning. I think it's fair to question what they've said so far, of course, I just don't think your fairly strong conclusions are well supported by the information at your disposal.

 

[Sunseeker]

Hey look! A definition of classes that still gives the Warrior/Fighter/Guy with a pointy stick the short end. Gee...what a surprise. /eye roll

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, but that gets into problems like a fighter with a strength of 15 getting less benefit out of a potion of heroism than a cleric with a strength of 16.

That's not really a problem, in my mind. No one needs to get a big bonus out of any particular magic item, and if the party fighter has a lower strength than the party cleric, perhaps the item is a better fit for that cleric, anyway (the fighter is probably a better fit for things that require, say, a high DEX or a high WIS or something -- clearly, that fighter shouldn't be the one doing things that revolve around having a high STR in the party).

Its easy to section off caster-items (a wand of fire only works for those who know fire-magic) but I don't want to give clerics and wizard access to every cool toy a fighter and rogue can get as well. I'm fine with some unique, group-class specific items that a caster can't use regardless of ability score or proficiency. Wizards get to dream of staves of power and clerics maces of disruption, let the fighter dream of vorpal swords and the rogue rapiers of puncturing.

I don't see any problem with giving everyone access to all the cool toys, personally. I don't know why anyone who loves swords (from the fighter to the skill-based ranger to the sword-dancing monk to the spell-casting bladedancer to the tanky swordmage to the skald-like bard) shouldn't dream of a vorpal sword, and why all characters who love light weapons (from the light-weapon fighter to the cleric of the nobility to the Musketeer-esque paladin to a wizard-dilletante) can't dream of a rapier of piercing. I also don't see why any character who can cast spells (hexblades and paladins and arcane-tatooed barbarians and runic axe-users and monks who learn elemental ki arts and whatever) can't dream of items that let them use those spells more often (scrolls, wands, whatever).

None of those distinctions make any sense to hard-code into the game. "Oh, I suppose my cleric of bravery and courage can't get the extra bonus from a potion of heroism because I forgot to check the right box during character creation" isn't a situation I want to see. 3e and 4e combined have given me more than my fill of pointless, niche little items that are only useful to very specific kinds of characters.

That sounds bad to me. Aren't backgrounds and their traits meant to handle this sort of thing?

I'm with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], here. Some thief-king in the world is going to decide based on the little box you checked at character creation that the priest of the god of thieves and luck isn't welcome in a place that the foppish noble bard-duellist with ties to the knights is, just because one happens to be a "priest" and one happens to be a "trickster," based purely on academic class distinctions? This sounds like a recipe for frustration and facepalming.

All of these distinctions are going to be artificial at some point. There's no getting around it -- they don't grow organically out of the game as it is played, they represent someone trying to overprocess and over-define from a high level. My fallen ronin doesn't need to check a box that says "Rogue" to say that he gets by on his wits, or a box that says "Warrior" to say that he uses heavy armor, or a box that says "Priest" to say that he holds his ancestors as still helping him to this day, or a box that says "Mage" to use the magical abilities the souls of his ancestors, trapped in his swords, give him.

This model is useful for demonstrating that "rogue" and "fighter" (and, to a large degree, "priest") are as meaninglessly vague as "mage" was in their own ways, but I don't really see much of a benefit in using it in any way.

 

[Tovec]

Mearls mentioned on Twitter that these Class groups will be used mostly as a shorthand for "these types of characters". His example: they could have an adventure where the thief king will let tricksters into his throne room, but all others must remain outside.

And IF the monk is a trickster, why should the thief king let him into his throne room?

That sounds bad to me. Aren't backgrounds and their traits meant to handle this sort of thing?

I agree. And 5e is just getting stranger as this keeps happening.

There is no reason I can see that the outlook of a thief king should depend on a superclass that he can't see. I mean if Mearls is accurate and it will be descriptive only, how do characters in a game know a ranger is a warrior or a trickster? Or a bard a trickster instead of an arcanist (really digging this new name over mage).

It just raises too many random questions and doesn't seem to define enough things clearly enough. The argument a couple pages ago about multiclassing seems to be the best argument I've seen in favour of these superclasses and that (as already said) is easily solved if you include a multiclass section of a class.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Just to pile on (just caught up on this thread), why wouldn't a Cleric with thief-like domains and/or deity be invited in? What about someone with a thief-like Background? As pemerton mentioned, why wouldn't the thief king want these PCs there? Isn't this something that his traits / personality play into?

I'm just not getting why this is necessary. And not in a "I disagree" sort of way; I'm just not seeing the logical benefit of this type of thing yet.

 

[Blackbrrd]

...
None of those distinctions make any sense to hard-code into the game. "Oh, I suppose my cleric of bravery and courage can't get the extra bonus from a potion of heroism because I forgot to check the right box during character creation" isn't a situation I want to see. 3e and 4e combined have given me more than my fill of pointless, niche little items that are only useful to very specific kinds of characters.

....

I'm with @pemerton , here. Some thief-king in the world is going to decide based on the little box you checked at character creation that the priest of the god of thieves and luck isn't welcome in a place that the foppish noble bard-duellist with ties to the knights is, just because one happens to be a "priest" and one happens to be a "trickster," based purely on academic class distinctions? This sounds like a recipe for frustration and facepalming.
...

I hope the designers listen to you, because I agree with every word you write here.

How would the Thief-King know what boxes are checked on your character? It's not like the characters are wearing labels with their class groups.

Basically, I think they should just drop the idea, since none of the examples of how it can be used makes the game better (in my opinion).

 

[WhatGravitas]

How would the Thief-King know what boxes are checked on your character? It's not like the characters are wearing labels with their class groups.

Detect class group?

Yeah, it reeks of game-ism when in-world events are suddenly referencing metagame terms. Classes can almost get a pass for that, since they often denote a certain training as well (though you should be able to bluff your well around it with some improv and appropriate clothing), but that's about it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

As a side-note, I generally like the idea of character options with in-game meaning. The idea of a thief-king only really listening to the members of the local thieves' guild makes a lot of sense, and rewards engagement with an element of the world, like the guild.

I even think that "class" can be the place where that hangs: I love the idea of lots of very world-specific classes embedded in a flexible system.

Trying to put every character into a broader class group is just cramming square pegs into round holes, though. Let each class, and magic item, and feat, be authentic to itself, and we don't need to worry about ill-fitting general categories.

 

[Wicht]

Only if your assumptions about how it will play out are correct. And odds are they are not because, as I said, you're not a professional game designer and neither am I.

Come off of it. I've done design work and been paid for it and I think its a generally bad idea. Being a professional game designer is not some guarantee that any given idea will be good. We all have good ideas and bad, regardless of income or experience. This particular rule is bad in my opinion because it would create unnecessary restrictions and does little to improve the game experience in game: it merely makes new design easier. Its a cop-out in design. Its not even novel. Some boardgames already do the same thing. But a boardgame delivers a different experience than an RPG and I would not advise RPG designers to emulate boardgames in their design, the flow should go the other way imo.