D&D 5E Making the classes more generic

[R_J_K75]

Not upset, just curious.
If you house rule it (and can talk your group into playing that), no harm done.
But your preference made standard? It would destroy it for the majority of the rest of us who do like D&D for what it is.

Fair enough and Im sure that WotC isn't going to cater to me so the class system is most likely here to stay. I don't have the inclination to take the time to house rule it, or write it down to articulate enough for other players. The OP was asking about modifying the classes to be more generic, my answer was to eliminate classes altogether. Why, because I think multi-classing is a waste, and if you want to play a martial type character that can pick locks with a few psionic powers then a classless system would achieve this quite well. Further as a DM I always found it a little difficult keeping class abilities straight in my head while playing, and there seemed to be a bit of overlap from class to class where abilities were called something different but did relatively the same thing. Just what I would like to see is all.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not sure why my post or the fact that I play D&D upset you so much but, I dont feel like investing in another game system. Just because I dont like the class system doesnt mean there arent other things I do like about the game. I think the class system could be removed without upending the entire core rules.

The class system is D&D's shtick. The vast majority of PnP RPG systems are classless. There isn't any reason to play D&D unless you like classes.

 

[R_J_K75]

The class system is D&D's shtick. The vast majority of PnP RPG systems are classless. There isn't any reason to play D&D unless you like classes.

I'll keep that in mind when I start a new campaign.

 

[Horwath]

if you modify sidekick NPC classes a little, you can get 3 nice generic classes

 

[cbwjm]

I've just been flicking through Into the Unknown, a 5e RPG that attempts to capture some of that OSR flavour. One of the things the author has done is strip it back to 4 classes, those classes can be further customised so that the Priest (basically the cleric) can choose a divine order of cleric or druid, with channel divinity powering the druid's wild shape. The Magic-User then allows for the classes of wizard, warlock/witch, or sorcerer with each altering the way the learn spells. Something like that I think would be good as a baseline for DnD, even if you alter the base classes to expand it out beyond just fighter, rogue, priest, and magic-user.

 

[Bagpuss]

So why are you playing D&D? You know what it is. And you know other systems exist that do what you're suggesting.
So why keep playing D&D if you don't like its core?

To be fair there are a lot of reasons to play D&D even if you don't like it.

a) Very easy to find a player base compared to any other RPG.
b) Support is significantly better both by WotC and 3rd parties.

I'm not a great fan of D&D but is a lot easier for me to get a game of D&D or run a game of D&D than any other system I could name.

Although saying that if I house ruled classes out of my D&D I imagine most players that were looking to play D&D wouldn't be interested as it would effectively stop being D&D if you change it that significantly.

 

[Olrox17]

A thread about fighters and one about monks got me thinking that a few of D&D's classes are really specific. We might be better suited if we made tweaks to them to make them more broadly applicable.

What I'd like to accomplish here is to identify baggage that classes have that prevent them from being used more broadly. It's odd to mention things that could be taken away from classes (and moved to Subclasses) as an improvement, but I do think there are a few.

The Ranger and Paladin are both rather specific. The Paladin was shifted to being about oaths instead of just LG and instead of inherently being tied to a deity. This oath connection helps differentiate a paladin from a fighter/cleric, and that's good! The ranger is another story and is its own thread, but I'll leave things open here in case people have ideas on what might be excess baggage.

The Druid is a very specific class. Wild Shape might be over applied. Without it, other nature oriented priests/spellcasters could be emulated.

The Bard is an interesting class, but it could be so much more if it didn't have it's tight connection to music and performances. What do I mean? The bard could serve as a magical interpretation of the Warlord (just like the paladin is the fantastical knight in shining armor, and the ranger is the fantastical woodsman). As the jack of all trades, the bard can also function well as a Hero class, referencing open JRPGs and the like where the protagonist character can do a little of everything.

The Monk could be made more diverse if they had a choice of their ki abilities. Choice here would allow the Monk to range from a more grounded martial artist to wild wuxai and anime inspired stuff. Tomorrow, I'll post something I've been working on in this regard.

The Fighter has an opportunity to make their heavy armor more of an optional thing. Dex fighters don't really get the full use of it, and might not even qualify for it, so making it an option could be good (trade heavy armor for an extra skill, for instance).

Last on my list, if the Rogue didn't have their thieves' tool proficiency and thieves' cant feature, they could apply to more characters. Nobles come to mind. Swashbucklers and other rogue archtypes don't necessarily need those thief trappings as well. They could be moved to the thief subclass or be part of the criminal background, and the rogue could get something else.

I've already expressed (in a recent thread) my desire for a "less is more " approach to base class features, to allow subclasses to do more of the heavy lifting.
I find this to be especially true for full spellcasting classes: having a full caster progression in your class features is very powerful, and thus it really reduces subclass design space for those classes.

 

[Oofta]

The class system needs to go, its limiting and boring. Just eliminate it altogether and give players the option to pick from a list of abilities.

You've never heard of the paradox of choice? Give people too many options and they don't know what to do. It's confusing, causes anxiety, people give up without following through. Add in the vastly greater combinations and the need to keep them more or less balanced.

I could see some optional rules that gave you more flexibility if you wanted it, but I don't see a huge call for it and then there's always the balance issues.

 

[Coroc]

I'll keep that in mind when I start a new campaign.

Try out DSA Das schwarze Auge (The black eye) Although it has "pregenerated" packages (e.g. Soldier or Black Mage), you can play everything you want to (e.g. a hatchet expert who is mainly butcher or a musician or an architect)

Not tonly is this system classless, it is levelless also.

 

[R_J_K75]

Try out DSA Das schwarze Auge (The black eye) Although it has "pregenerated" packages (e.g. Soldier or Black Mage), you can play everything you want to (e.g. a hatchet expert who is mainly butcher or a musician or an architect)

Not tonly is this system classless, it is levelless also.

That might be fun. I want to play a cobbler by day, sociopath by evening then bard at night.