"Back in my day, you picked a subclass when you got to "Name" level. I bet you don't even remember what a Name level was! That was the level by which your character had made a
name for themselves, which meant ninth level for most of us!
Ninth! Three times as long as this new-fangled 5th Edition that the kids won't shut up about! It took
ages, and by the time you got to that level,
literal years had passed since you'd rolled up your character! And you couldn't even remember why you decided to be a Fighter in the first place! And that's the way it was,
and we liked it!!"
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Seriously though, thanks to the Name Level mechanics of BECM, and the Prestige Class mechanics of 3.5E, it just feels weird to get subclasses so soon in 5E--some of them are available even at 1st level. It feels like--I dunno, like I don't really have anything to look forward to. No major decisions to make, no pivotal moments in my character's career, nothing to strive for. It feels like everything gets mapped out at 1st level, and...that's it. The biggest decision I'll end up making after that point is whether or not to get another +2 bonus to Whatever, or some kind of feat. Everything else has already been decided.
I get why people want subclasses at 1st level. Heck, people want
as much as possible at 1st level so that they can "be done with it." And that's understandable, it's totally fine, I don't want to keep them from doing it. (And it looks like it would be a losing battle anyway, following the trend from BECMI to the present day.) I just hope the devs leave enough flexibility in the game for those of us who still want delayed gratification and major character build decisions past 1st level.