Legends & Lore: Clas Groups

[TwoSix]

It's only terminology, but I'm fine with saying that Bards are Rogue characters. However, I wouldn't call them thieves. Bards are not people who steal but also happen to sing while doing it (which wouldn't be conductive to a long and successful career, I might add )

I'm starting to think that Rogues/Thieves have just as much of a "it's not a skillset, it's a culture!" issue that Barbarians have. Maybe the whole concept of criminal underworld guy who's connected to a guild should be moved to a background.

 

[TwoSix]

But rules-wise, we're back to the fireball-tossing fighter. It's too much of a corner case and too much of a hassle to include in the core rules. If you want them, house-rule them.

Sword-wielding magic dude is one of the backbone archetypes of pretty much any anime or video game RPG on the market. D&D should certainly default to supporting them. If anything, "guy who fights with magic" or "gish" should be the class group, and cleric should be a member of it.

 

[SageMinerve]

I'm starting to think that Rogues/Thieves have just as much of a "it's not a skillset, it's a culture!" issue that Barbarians have. Maybe the whole concept of criminal underworld guy who's connected to a guild should be moved to a background.

I sometimes think so too. But those issues, in my mind, are much more important with Barbarians, Paladins and Monks.

 

[tuxgeo]

L&L: Class Groups

Worth noting: I just went to the DDI Compendium and looked up all 4E Feats that include the phrase, any arcane class. I got 47 hits, all from Arcane Power and Dragon Magazine.

OK, that kind of thing lets feats apply to existing and future arcane classes without having an overarching super-class named "Mage" or "Magic-User" or "Arcanist," or whatever; so couldn't the same sort of thing supplant the proposed super-classes entirely? We could have feats and items apply to "any arcane class," or to "any divine class," or to "any martial class," or to "any technical or artistic class," or to "any primal class," or to "any psionic class" without loss of generality.

If that would work, what do the players of the game need the super-classes for? Especially if the super-classes are going to be little more than handy labels for the designers?

 

[SageMinerve]

Sword-wielding magic dude is one of the backbone archetypes of pretty much any anime or video game RPG on the market. D&D should certainly default to supporting them. If anything, "guy who fights with magic" or "gish" should be the class group, and cleric should be a member of it.

Not a bad suggestion, actually: non-caster fighters, mages and "hybrid" (blends fighting with magic) would make sense as class groups.

 

[DMZ2112]

I'm starting to think that Rogues/Thieves have just as much of a "it's not a skillset, it's a culture!" issue that Barbarians have. Maybe the whole concept of criminal underworld guy who's connected to a guild should be moved to a background.

Ha, yeah, sure.

"Personal possessions: one leather mask--"

"It's a cultural thing."

"--One set of thieves' tools--"

"ROGUES' tools, thank you very much."

"--One grappling hook and attached elven silk rope--"

"I'm a performance artist."

"--One serrated stiletto."

"...It's the weapon of my people?"

 

[TwoSix]

"--One serrated stiletto."

"...It's the weapon of my people?"

Sure, but that's the marriage of a skill set (stealth, lock and trap expertise, sneak attacks) and a culture (urban assassin). You could do the same job with a warrior base, or a caster base. You can be a stealthy guy from a barbarian culture.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

My objection is to people declaring it does in fact work a specific way, ignoring possible counter-examples, and then beating that strawman down with said axe. I'm trying to address what I view as an overreaction to an unproven assumption that's being declared as fact.

No kidding. Some people seem oddly fixated on the possibility that this "class group" concept might be used to constrain the design of the game in specific ways contrary to their personal preferences, despite any concrete evidence that the designers will do so. When someone is ignoring or dismissing out of hand other's points of view, it's less of a discussion and more like preemptive edition warring. Let's all just not engage.

In the interest of making a positive contribution to this thread, here's another way in which these descriptive labels might hypothetically help the game. Certain feats and magic items could be organized by class group in the PHB and DMG (respectively), not as any sort of prerequisite but to help players and DMs sort through all the options. A player for a warrior class can start by looking at all the warrior-oriented feats. A gaming group without a warrior in the party can look at these feats for their non-warrior PCs to help fill the role. A DM can give warrior-oriented magic items to that party for the same purpose. An adventure writer could use these tables as quick guide to ensuring balanced treasure distribution in an adventure. Obvious, many feats and magic items would NOT be oriented towards any class group. Example: a wand of cure light wounds, usable by anybody, might be categorized as a "Priest" item since it helps Priests fill their role more efficiently, or it helps stand in for an absent Priest.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Certain feats and magic items could be organized by class group in the PHB and DMG (respectively), not as any sort of prerequisite but to help players and DMs sort through all the options.

I think the ways that people will want to sort through the options start making indexes like that less useful than they could otherwise be. If I'm looking for healing powers or powers that reference symbols or fire powers or powers that key off of a given ability score or whatever, that's not going to be captured by that list. This is perhaps the kind of thing that is better served by an online compendium with multiple power types than by some pages in a book. In that environment, the word "warrior" or "rogue" would be broad enough that it would be pretty meaningless.

Example: a wand of cure light wounds, usable by anybody, might be categorized as a "Priest" item since it helps Priests fill their role more efficiently, or it helps stand in for an absent Priest.

I think the issue here is defining the "role" of a priest. What is a party missing if it is missing a priest? Maybe healing, but not if they have a warlord-style or 4e-style bard, no? Maybe a party without a priest isn't actually missing anything? Certainly if 5e continues 4e's principle of "you don't need a cleric!" and expands it to even "you don't need ANY particular role!" as it seems to be, priests wouldn't do anything essential that isn't available to everyone else.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I'm starting to think that Rogues/Thieves have just as much of a "it's not a skillset, it's a culture!" issue that Barbarians have. Maybe the whole concept of criminal underworld guy who's connected to a guild should be moved to a background.

Well, we do have a "Thief" background in the current playtest packet. That's probably where something called "Thief" belongs, given the apparent interpretation of "Background" as "Profession prior to becoming an adventurer". (Note that this is different from 4E, where the original PHB2 backgrounds where largely "Circumstance of how you grew up" and themes were the "What you were doing just before you became an adventurer".)

It's just a matter of not having a better name yet. "Barbarian" as a class is shorthand for "warrior who fights more with ferocity than discipline and who stays up due more to savage endurance than heavy armor". "Barbarian" as a culture would be a better fit for a PHB2-style background or perhaps a human sub-race.