D&D (2024) Should a general Adventurer class be created to represent the Everyman?

[Minigiant]

Very true. Some classes are prescriptive (I am a wizard, that is my job) and some are descriptive (I am a treasure acquisition expert, but my class is called rogue by others). And some straddle the line. (I channel divine energy the same as any priest in the seminary, but I'm not a cleric in the sense that they are).

If you are of the opinion that all classes are all prescriptive (that is, fighter is a specific profession) then you need something to represent adventurers that didn't go to fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue etc school. But if you argue some or all classes can be descriptive, the need is much less.

And even if you say the classes are descriptive, you have to design them that way.

3e, 4e, and 5e were designed heavily into single concepts. You couldn't squint and play anything. This is why 3e and 4e bloated with classes and 5e with subclasses. That's why the barbarian and sorcerer even exist.

 

[Remathilis]

And even if you say the classes are descriptive, you have to design them that way.

3e, 4e, and 5e were designed heavily into single concepts. You couldn't squint and play anything. This is why 3e and 4e bloated with classes and 5e with subclasses. That's why the barbarian and sorcerer even exist.

Bear in mind that the difference between prescriptive and descriptive if it is diegetic in the fiction. Bob would call himself a knight, a soldier, a bandit, or a marshal, but at no point would he call himself a "fighter", while Sir Charles would absolutely use the term "paladin" to describe his profession. It doesn't matter if a bandit and a knight have the same fighter chassis*, the point is that Bob wouldn't call "fighter" a profession the same way "paladin" or "ranger" are.

All that said, I don't think you could really do any better in a class-based system with niche protection. Whether fighter is an actual concept in the world or merely a description of the archetype the class is supposed to invoke, It's going to protect to have to fill its niche as the nonmagical combat class. Even in Basic, the fighter isn't able to fill the niche of the smuck commoner who knows a lot about gardening and not war. The only reason it looks like that is the Basic Fighter isn't getting anything new aside from combat # improvements for the majority of its lifetime. The minute you start giving the fighter anything, you begin the process of justifying it. Doesn't matter if its weapon specialization, bonus feats, martial maneuvers, or weapon masteries.

The best way your idea would work is in a classeless system where the Baker starts out spending all his skill points on mundane skills and then as he levels up begins to spend skills on combat or magic or adventuring skills if he wants. Everything else is going to end up with specialists protecting their specialty niches.

 

[Minigiant]

Bear in mind that the difference between prescriptive and descriptive if it is diegetic in the fiction. Bob would call himself a knight, a soldier, a bandit, or a marshal, but at no point would he call himself a "fighter", while Sir Charles would absolutely use the term "paladin" to describe his profession. It doesn't matter if a bandit and a knight have the same fighter chassis*, the point is that Bob wouldn't call "fighter" a profession the same way "paladin" or "ranger" are.

The question is whether Bob say he has Weapon Mastery in longsword, greatswords, and longsword or describe an in world practice that world similar.

The premise is to create a PC who could fill one of the warrior, expert, priest, or mage roles without the years of study or implied mastery the classes assume.

Could a butcher function as an expert or warrior with his towny skills and knowledge of butchery and not Mastery and Expertise? Does he have to be a particularly lucky or blessed butcher to do it? Or could he accelerate his knowledge and learn bits and pieces of different bits of adventuring faster due to the extra space in their head learning Masteries, Expertises, and Cantrips later in levels?

 

[Remathilis]

The question is whether Bob say he has Weapon Mastery in longsword, greatswords, and longsword or describe an in world practice that world similar.

The premise is to create a PC who could fill one of the warrior, expert, priest, or mage roles without the years of study or implied mastery the classes assume.

Could a butcher function as an expert or warrior with his towny skills and knowledge of butchery and not Mastery and Expertise? Does he have to be a particularly lucky or blessed butcher to do it? Or could he accelerate his knowledge and learn bits and pieces of different bits of adventuring faster due to the extra space in their head learning Masteries, Expertises, and Cantrips later in levels?

Let me ask you this question: how do you handle multi-classing? Susie the sorcerer decides to take a level in bard. Where did she learn all the bard abilities from? What if she takes a level in paladin or warlock next? Unless the character was developed her sorcerous talent, then became a musician, and then became the chosen of a god/made a pact with the devil all in the time it took to explore Phandelver, it cannot make any sense. (I see this as a general flaw with multiclassing, btw).

But whatever excuse justifies Susie jumping three classes in three levels justifies the Butcher going from slaughtering hogs to slaughtering goblins. Maybe you justify it in fiction. Or implement mandatory training time. Or you handwave and ignore it. But that's the way the Butcher can become a fighter as well.

 

[Laurefindel]

Let me ask you this question: how do you handle multi-classing? Susie the sorcerer decides to take a level in bard. Where did she learn all the bard abilities from? What if she takes a level in paladin or warlock next? Unless the character was developed her sorcerous talent, then became a musician, and then became the chosen of a god/made a pact with the devil all in the time it took to explore Phandelver, it cannot make any sense. (I see this as a general flaw with multiclassing, btw).

But whatever excuse justifies Susie jumping three classes in three levels justifies the Butcher going from slaughtering hogs to slaughtering goblins. Maybe you justify it in fiction. Or implement mandatory training time. Or you handwave and ignore it. But that's the way the Butcher can become a fighter as well.

To be fair though, that’s one of the reason some people have issues with multiclassing: it often makes no narrative sense. It was a background joke for a segment of the Order Of The Stick too.

 

[Minigiant]

Let me ask you this question: how do you handle multi-classing? Susie the sorcerer decides to take a level in bard. Where did she learn all the bard abilities from? What if she takes a level in paladin or warlock next? Unless the character was developed her sorcerous talent, then became a musician, and then became the chosen of a god/made a pact with the devil all in the time it took to explore Phandelver, it cannot make any sense. (I see this as a general flaw with multiclassing, btw).

But whatever excuse justifies Susie jumping three classes in three levels justifies the Butcher going from slaughtering hogs to slaughtering goblins. Maybe you justify it in fiction. Or implement mandatory training time. Or you handwave and ignore it. But that's the way the Butcher can become a fighter as well.

Ideally if it were up to me there would be 4 tiers of classes.

Basic classes represent classes that require almost no training to get into and train on your own. At most there would be an adjustment period to understand your basic powers. The requirements outside of story would be easy. You would get everything upon multiclasssing into it. This would be the Adventurer as well as the Warlock.

Advanced classes would assume some level of training. For these classes your powers would be mostly innate so once you learn how to harness your powers, you are straight. You would get all of the class's features but not all their training and proficiencies. This would be the Barbarian and Sorcerer.

Elite Classes would would assume months or a few years of training. You wouldn't get the full capacity of the class when muliclassing. Some of your features might be less in number.

Prestige or Master classes would assume years of training. Not only will you not get all your features at full strength, the requirement to multiclass into them would be higher (a 15. Maybe a 17). Only a person really attune to the abilities of the class could take the class without spending a their race's equivalent of a decade learning it. You Wizards, Clerics, Druids, and Monks.

So basically Sue the Sorcerer could multiclass into bard but she doesn't get all of a bard's 1st level features at full power. Maybe only 2 prepared Bard spells and no light armor training.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Let me ask you this question: how do you handle multi-classing? Susie the sorcerer decides to take a level in bard. Where did she learn all the bard abilities from? What if she takes a level in paladin or warlock next? Unless the character was developed her sorcerous talent, then became a musician, and then became the chosen of a god/made a pact with the devil all in the time it took to explore Phandelver, it cannot make any sense. (I see this as a general flaw with multiclassing, btw).

But whatever excuse justifies Susie jumping three classes in three levels justifies the Butcher going from slaughtering hogs to slaughtering goblins. Maybe you justify it in fiction. Or implement mandatory training time. Or you handwave and ignore it. But that's the way the Butcher can become a fighter as well.

I almost never see people multiclass in my games, but if I did we would work together to make sure there was a plausible narrative, requiring from the PC whatever is necessary in-fuction to make that happen.

 

[Remathilis]

Meh. I'd rather multiclassing be removed and more customization via feats and subclasses used to multiclass.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Meh. I'd rather multiclassing be removed and more customization via feats and subclasses used to multiclass.

There's plenty of feat and subclass material to support that vision of multiclassing in 3pp. I would recommend banning multiclassing at your table and using that rather than call for something you don't like to be excised from the game for everyone.

 

[ECMO3]

I almost never see people multiclass in my games, but if I did we would work together to make sure there was a plausible narrative, requiring from the PC whatever is necessary in-fuction to make that happen.

I usually multiclass my characters. The narrative is always there, but sometimes it bends conventional class paradigms. For example I had a Vampir Long Death Monk-Death Cleric, but she didn't really have a God .... well she had someone she called her God that she didn't really worship and that God was clearly dead, killed by other gods and with no more church, clergy (other than her) or worshipers. So how was she getting her spells? A mystery really that even she didn't know.

The narritive is sometimes skewed on single class characters too. I had a Chaotic Good Kender Conquest Paladin that worshiped 3 gods - a good God of Minataurs (Kiri-Jolith) a good god of nature (Branchalla?) and an Evil God of Magic (Nuitari). If you have read the Dragonlance lore this character leaned heavily into the Kender identity, but took quite a few liberties with the Paladin identity ..... "I found this cool black disk so I started praying to it", but all her Paladin abilities and spells worked and she did live by her skewed interpretation of the oath. She was constantly lecturing the Wizard on how he had it all wrong when it came to the gods of magic, and lecturing the Cleric on Gods in general.