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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8957769" data-attributes="member: 6988941">So I've been making a 5e clone game of my own that also uses a standard subclass progression, which due largely to chance (and where one can fit these things), happened to end up almost the same as WotC's for OneD&D.In any case I did have a breakthrough in terms of realizing that I could have some subclasses be interchangeable between several classes. It opened up a lot of design space to support incorporating versions of standard D&D classes alongside my own custom classes, since coming up with a bunch of new Rogue archetypes not covered by the subclasses for my Knave class was pretty difficult, but rewriting a couple of the Knave subclasses to work with the Rogue was pretty trivial. And in doing this I realized I had a variety of subclasses that only really lived with the class for thematic reasons rather than building off of core class mechanics. My Astrologer subclass was designed for my Arcanist class, but the abilities, which are a little like Diviner Wizard mechanics with more star themes, could theoretically be plopped onto any of my classes without much trouble if someone wanted to make an astrology focused character. A few of WotC's classes (Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock) use their subclasses in key class lore ways that don't work with such an approach, but none of my classes really do that.I think there is a lot of room for class-flexible subclasses in a 5e-based game. I think committing to making all or most subclasses work like that is a mistake, because there should also be subclasses that build off the unique features of their base class, but committing to making all subclasses tie mechanically to a specific class is also  a mistake, as it leads to lots of perfunctory or obligatory tying of subclass to class mechanics rather than letting such things be organic to what thematic idea the subclass is evoking.In any case at this point in developing my game my approach is just to pick certain subclasses that don't integrate particularly deeply with their classes, rewrite them for compatibility with other classes (often this just means replacing the words "Charisma modifier" with "Spellcasting modifier" and the like), and leave them appended to the class they are written for but with a note at the top of their entries about what other classes you could potentially use them with. If I end up with enough ideas for subclasses that could literally pair with any class, I might create a separate section for those.</blockquote>

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