Essentially I would remove a lot of the classes in the game and condense the list. Why would I do such a thing? Because I would rather have fewer choices that feel significant, than more choices that don't feel significant. This is a personal hangup of mine, and I realize not everyone will feel this way, and I know a lot of people will suggest ways I should feel differently, but there it is.
Or, as
@commandercrud says:
Pretty much, yeah.
Anyways. In my mind, the best way to do it is to just be selective of which subclasses you want/need in the game, or maybe combine the best features of the subclasses into a single one, and use it. Take the Rogue for example: you would just pick the variety of "bard" that best fits the campaign and setting, and make it a subclass of the rogue.
Rogue
- Arcane Trickster
- Assassin
- Your favorite kind of Bard, or a FrankenBard
- Thief
Or maybe like this, if you prefer long lists, or if you want more than one flavor of bard in the game:
Rogue
- Arcane Trickster
- Assassin
- Favorite kind of Bard
- Second-favorite kind of Bard
- Third-favorite kind of Bard
- Another Bard
- Yet another Bard
- Bard II: Bard Harder
- Bard III: Live Free or Die Bard
- Thief
But it would not look like this, unless you are trying to make a mess:
Rogue
- Arcane Trickster
- Assassin
- Bard
- Thief