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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 5826276" data-attributes="member: 1465">I am getting progressively more and more against splitting the classes. On the contrary, I would be more in favor of merging them back to a smaller number.Eventually it is the mechanics that should cause a class to split in two. For instance, the 3ed Wizard and Sorcerers would be a tough job (tho definitely not impossible) to merge into a single class which partly casts spontaneously and partly vancian. Paladins and Rangers have a problem with their spells IMHO, because by how 3ed spellcasting works, being "half-casters" doesn't really work well, at least with spells that are meant to affect other creatures (but is mostly fine with utility non-combat spells).I do not feel the need to have different classes to cover different flavors, for example to separate a hard-gained knowledge based arcane caster (Wizard) from an inner-talent arcane caster (Sorcerer) from a pact-enabled arcance caster (Warlock), unless I do want to represent these flavor differences with different mechanics. But for instance in 3.0 we've had several Sorcerers in our games whose flavor was really that of a Warlock (or a Witch), and nobody felt like a different class was truly needed.Besides mechanics and flavor, the third main point is flexibility in what you can do, maybe we can call it the "tactical spread". I think here people want to split a class because they feel like it has too wide tactical spread: a single class who can learn sword-and-board, two-weapon fighting, archery, tanking, swashbuckling... is this too much? Let's not forget that the wizard has always had a much wider tactical spread, and so has the cleric (healing, melee secondary fighter, buffer, curser of enemies, save-or-die'r, protection caster...) but also the rogue (striker/backstabber, searcher/explorer, trap & locks dealer, sneaker/scout/eavesdropper...), so this should be also considered when talking about splitting up the fighter class (which as an extra note... it already is! see barbarians, paladins and rangers!).Now the problem I have with this, is that if you have classes with wide tactical spread, you can both cater to players who want a specialist and players who want a mixed-role character or "generalist".If instead you split up the classes too much, getting narrow tactical spread, you cater only to specialist players, while to support everybody who wants the versatile character you then need additional mechanics (multiclassing, cross-class dipping etc.) that unfortunately will have problems of their own, so it is more probable to end up with faults such as valid character concepts that get the shaft.Hence my preference for not splitting the classes. I would even go as far as making barbarians and monks "themes" or subclasses so that they are essentially pushed back into the fighter class (I might like it also for paladins and rangers although these two character concepts have additional problems).</blockquote>

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