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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7184685" data-attributes="member: 996">Until 5e, the WotC era was more player-focused than the TSR era of the game.  There were more player-facing options, and less built-in DM latitude.  That created a strong focus on the statistics that defined & differentiated a character (or build), like BAB or DPR or save DCs or skill ranks that could be optimized to create huge advantages within a specialty, but also left a great deal of room to customize characters to a given concept.The optimization ('math') mindset peaked late in 3.5, with the Class Tiers, and 5e continues to reduce the emphasis on that side of the game, retaining even advancement in skills and attacks/DCs, and bringing the gross numbers down under Bounded Accuracy so that advancement is constrained to a narrow range of numbers.  At the same time, though, it's reduced concept-based customizability.  Instead, concepts are covered by take-it-or-leave-it Classes, Races, and, to a lesser extent, Backgrounds.  Inevitably, though, some simple quantitative comparisons - most notably DPR - get made, simply because they are so very easy to do.  But that's always been the case, even if we called it 'average damage' back in the day instead of DPR.   Yes.  For one thing, there's no indication that 5e, with the prominent goal of Bounded Accuracy, somewhat consistent DPR scaling across classes, elaborate CR calculations, and the like, was in any way ignoring 'the math.'   Ironically, including the guy you replied to.  Yours is the first mention of the word.  The title seems to imply it's about /not/ judging classes by the math, but instead judging them on concept.  And, it would be interesting to evaluate classes on the concepts they try to cover, and how well they model them......(even if the latter might require some math!)IMHO, the three stand-out examples of classes with concept issues are the Ranger, Sorcerer, and Fighter.The Ranger has gone through repeated re-builds and re-imaginings, and there's still no clear consensus I can see on what it's really supposed to be.  It was clearly inspired by LotR's Aragorn, then twisted around by Drizzt, with a side of Grizzly Adams.  So, no, not that coherent.  With fighters well-able to handle archery and TWFing, and the Outlander background readily available, it seems the concept of 'wilderness warrior' is handled - better than a lot of other fightery concepts, really.Sorcerer.  Wow, were to start.  The most specific dictionary definition of 'sorcery' I could find in a few seconds was:  " the use of power gained from the assistance or control of evil spirits especially for divining."  (Ironically, a lot of RL words for magical practices focus on divining, because, well, unlike conjuring bolts of lightning, you can guess about the future and be right some of the time.)  So, of course, D&D has the Warlock make pacts for supernatural power, and makes Sorcerers users of in-born magic.  S'Okay.  Then, to back that up, they get a small spell list than wizards, fewer spells known than any other full caster, and metamagic.  And, only two sub-classes.  Fighter:  The fighter has always suffered from being the mundane, everyman, class.  Any concept that /doesn't/ call for a supernatural powers - or, arbitrarily, thieving skills - gets dumped on the fighter.  As a result, the fighter has to stand in for most heroic archetypes of myth/legend/literature, and prettymuch all of those from history.  It's support to cover all that?  A d10 HD, plenty of armor & weapon proficiencies (though only one of the former and a handfull of the latter will be optimal for a given fighter), the game's worst skill list, and, most significantly, high DPR via multi-attacking.</blockquote>

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