ParanoydStyle
Peace Among Worlds
So, I think there are a few too many sub-classes in what I think of the core D&D rules (which to me consist of the three core rulebooks plus the trilogy of Mordenkainen's, Volo's, and Xanathar's). Namely, I think that there are few places where subclasses feel very redundant in the face of existing classes and class combinations. Colloquially, there have been a lot of conceptual fixes to stuff that simply wasn't broke in the first place.
Oath of the Ancients Paladins are the first one on the proverbial chopping block. There are already multiple ways to explore this exact character concept across other classes. Namely, cross-classing between Fighter and Druid, or the entire Ranger class and any subclass in it.
Path of The Zealot Barbarians is another character option that I don't think really needs to exist. I think that players wanting to go with this kind of character should just be Paladins, or if they really want rage, Paladins with a dip into Barbarian.
To me the Celestial Pact Warlock, and to a (much) lesser degree the Divine Soul sorcerer, should not exist because the sub-class contradicts what I consider the critical fluff of the bass class. Warlocks are supposed to be sinister and suspicious, distrusted by everyone. Warlocks have always been a sinister and "dark" class option with the implicit understanding that other characters will be suspicious of the dark pact you've made with an outside force. Celestial Pact warlocks screw this up all over the place. Also, Celestials don't strike me as the kind of beings that grant power in exchange for some kind of deal (a "Pact") or more accurately, it strikes me that "deals" characters might make with the forces of heaven are already codified in the form of the Paladin and Cleric classes.
In most of my settings, non-spellcasters, especially warriors and commoners, are extremely distrustful of magic. Particularly of Sorcerers, who can just DO magic as opposed to Wizards which have to get a PhD in it first. Also Divine Souls as arcane rather than, well, DIVINE, casters, since they have DIVINE in the friggin' name, are weird and awkward.
Finally, while many sub-classes are re-imaginings of what used to be prestige classes, such as the Arcane Archer, Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Assassin and Horizon Walker, the only one of these former prestige, now sub classes that feels inappropriate in its new role to me is the Mastermind roguish archetype. And I am by no means sure that there was ever a mastermind prestige class, but that's neither here nor there. (For the record, I LOVE that Eldritch Knight and Arcane Archer are options for fighters, especially Eldritch Knight; it was extremely difficult to build a competent "gish" build in 3.X.)
I am totally fine with a rogue being called an assassin, an arcane trickster, inquisitive, scout, or swashbuckler by Level 3; I'm even cool with a rogue being on the path of a Master Thief, but for whatever reason, a rogue being a "Mastermind" by Level 3 bothers me. Mastermind, more than any other subclass, even if it never WAS a prestige class in 3.X (closest thing I can think of is "Spymaster"), feels like a completely inappropriate label to put on a 3rd level Rogue. There is a fairly intractable part of my mind that is diametrically opposed to Rogues being "Masterminds" before 10th level.
Contradicting myself somewhat, I think we need more Cleric Domains.
Then there's races. There are no Dragonborn in my Greyhawk campaign because AFAIK there are no Dragonborn in the world of Greyhawk. I feel more certain that there are no Dragonborn in Krynn because Draconians are a thing. But beyond the very reasonable decision as a DM not to allow players to play races that don't exist in the campaign setting, sometimes I find myself disliking the huge variety of PC races available. On some primal OSRtard level, I prefer parties composed at least mostly of the "classic" races and classes that have been around in one form or another since the 80s: humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes (okay, I will admit here that I think halflings and gnomes should be combined into one race called GNOMES), fighters, clerics, rogues and wizards. Like, if one party member is a Tortle Gunslinger, whatever, but once you start adding a Dragonborn Warlock on top of that, and/or a Tabaxi Drunken Master (I've always hated the Drunken Master concept in D&D: too many D&D players are teetotalers that have no idea how to roleplay being drunk which is just annoying, also I'm a child of an alcoholic and the idea of booze giving you super powers other than liver damage is very slightly offensive to me) or whatever, the entire party becomes "monster mash" and I really can't stand it.
Now, I want to have players so I don't actually pose anywhere near the restrictions I would if I knew all potential players would be okay with those restrictions in perpetuity, which would take a miracle. I don't actually restrict all THAT much. In my current campaign I've only forbidden the character options mentioned above +1 campaign specific forbid. So, Dragonborn cuz they don't exist, Oath of the Ancients Pallies, Drunken Monkens, Celestial Path Warlocks, Mastermind Rogues, and Great Old One Warlocks--this last one is campaign specific, not just campaign setting specific. The main antagonists will be GOOs and their agents, including many GOO Warlocks, so I obviously didn't want PCs to play as what they'll ultimately be fighting against.
Other things are not restricted but come with a fair warning about how they're likely to be received by other characters, namely Tieflings and Drow who will very understandably be killed on sight in many places. What I do do instead of restricting or forbidding (even more) character concepts is that I try to give some minor incentive players to players playing the "classic" races and classes, letting them start with inspiration or giving them slightly better gear. (FWIW I also standardized some things that are normally in nonplayable "ask the DM" territory, namely orcs and goblins which I've felt for some time should be core races. Although like Tieflings and Drow they will frequently have to deal with prejudice.)
So what do you guys think, both about my examples and about the general question of whether limiting player options somewhat is okay at least sometimes? Is it sometimes even a good thing?
* Bonus question. Thoughts on new classes w/o subclasses? I'm not talking about taking away existing subclasses from existing classes, I'm just asking how mandatory it is that every class I homebrew for D&D contain 2-3 subclasses, or can some of them just be "one track" so to speak?
Oath of the Ancients Paladins are the first one on the proverbial chopping block. There are already multiple ways to explore this exact character concept across other classes. Namely, cross-classing between Fighter and Druid, or the entire Ranger class and any subclass in it.
Path of The Zealot Barbarians is another character option that I don't think really needs to exist. I think that players wanting to go with this kind of character should just be Paladins, or if they really want rage, Paladins with a dip into Barbarian.
To me the Celestial Pact Warlock, and to a (much) lesser degree the Divine Soul sorcerer, should not exist because the sub-class contradicts what I consider the critical fluff of the bass class. Warlocks are supposed to be sinister and suspicious, distrusted by everyone. Warlocks have always been a sinister and "dark" class option with the implicit understanding that other characters will be suspicious of the dark pact you've made with an outside force. Celestial Pact warlocks screw this up all over the place. Also, Celestials don't strike me as the kind of beings that grant power in exchange for some kind of deal (a "Pact") or more accurately, it strikes me that "deals" characters might make with the forces of heaven are already codified in the form of the Paladin and Cleric classes.
In most of my settings, non-spellcasters, especially warriors and commoners, are extremely distrustful of magic. Particularly of Sorcerers, who can just DO magic as opposed to Wizards which have to get a PhD in it first. Also Divine Souls as arcane rather than, well, DIVINE, casters, since they have DIVINE in the friggin' name, are weird and awkward.
Finally, while many sub-classes are re-imaginings of what used to be prestige classes, such as the Arcane Archer, Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Assassin and Horizon Walker, the only one of these former prestige, now sub classes that feels inappropriate in its new role to me is the Mastermind roguish archetype. And I am by no means sure that there was ever a mastermind prestige class, but that's neither here nor there. (For the record, I LOVE that Eldritch Knight and Arcane Archer are options for fighters, especially Eldritch Knight; it was extremely difficult to build a competent "gish" build in 3.X.)
I am totally fine with a rogue being called an assassin, an arcane trickster, inquisitive, scout, or swashbuckler by Level 3; I'm even cool with a rogue being on the path of a Master Thief, but for whatever reason, a rogue being a "Mastermind" by Level 3 bothers me. Mastermind, more than any other subclass, even if it never WAS a prestige class in 3.X (closest thing I can think of is "Spymaster"), feels like a completely inappropriate label to put on a 3rd level Rogue. There is a fairly intractable part of my mind that is diametrically opposed to Rogues being "Masterminds" before 10th level.
Contradicting myself somewhat, I think we need more Cleric Domains.
Then there's races. There are no Dragonborn in my Greyhawk campaign because AFAIK there are no Dragonborn in the world of Greyhawk. I feel more certain that there are no Dragonborn in Krynn because Draconians are a thing. But beyond the very reasonable decision as a DM not to allow players to play races that don't exist in the campaign setting, sometimes I find myself disliking the huge variety of PC races available. On some primal OSRtard level, I prefer parties composed at least mostly of the "classic" races and classes that have been around in one form or another since the 80s: humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes (okay, I will admit here that I think halflings and gnomes should be combined into one race called GNOMES), fighters, clerics, rogues and wizards. Like, if one party member is a Tortle Gunslinger, whatever, but once you start adding a Dragonborn Warlock on top of that, and/or a Tabaxi Drunken Master (I've always hated the Drunken Master concept in D&D: too many D&D players are teetotalers that have no idea how to roleplay being drunk which is just annoying, also I'm a child of an alcoholic and the idea of booze giving you super powers other than liver damage is very slightly offensive to me) or whatever, the entire party becomes "monster mash" and I really can't stand it.
Now, I want to have players so I don't actually pose anywhere near the restrictions I would if I knew all potential players would be okay with those restrictions in perpetuity, which would take a miracle. I don't actually restrict all THAT much. In my current campaign I've only forbidden the character options mentioned above +1 campaign specific forbid. So, Dragonborn cuz they don't exist, Oath of the Ancients Pallies, Drunken Monkens, Celestial Path Warlocks, Mastermind Rogues, and Great Old One Warlocks--this last one is campaign specific, not just campaign setting specific. The main antagonists will be GOOs and their agents, including many GOO Warlocks, so I obviously didn't want PCs to play as what they'll ultimately be fighting against.
Other things are not restricted but come with a fair warning about how they're likely to be received by other characters, namely Tieflings and Drow who will very understandably be killed on sight in many places. What I do do instead of restricting or forbidding (even more) character concepts is that I try to give some minor incentive players to players playing the "classic" races and classes, letting them start with inspiration or giving them slightly better gear. (FWIW I also standardized some things that are normally in nonplayable "ask the DM" territory, namely orcs and goblins which I've felt for some time should be core races. Although like Tieflings and Drow they will frequently have to deal with prejudice.)
So what do you guys think, both about my examples and about the general question of whether limiting player options somewhat is okay at least sometimes? Is it sometimes even a good thing?
* Bonus question. Thoughts on new classes w/o subclasses? I'm not talking about taking away existing subclasses from existing classes, I'm just asking how mandatory it is that every class I homebrew for D&D contain 2-3 subclasses, or can some of them just be "one track" so to speak?