D&D (2024) Symmetric Balance vs Asymmetric Balance.

[M_Natas]

Really they should get rid of the monk and give most of its abilities to the fighter: more attacks, an increasing minimum baseline amount of damage, some cool effects on impact, etc... All of those things are common in the kind of modern anime/super heroic/action movie inspirational media, even for otherwise "mundane" fighters.

Maybe they should ger rid of all martials and just make them subclasses of the fighter.
Are Monk, Paladin, Barbarian and Ranger really distinct enough that they couldn't be done as subclasses for a fighter?

What is a Monk if not an unarmed fighter?
What is a Paladin but a fighter who's attacks are strengthened by divine power?
What is a Barbarian but a fighter that needs anger management classes?
What is a ranger but a fighter who likes to go camping and hiking?

 

[Aldarc]

wrong thread

 

[Horwath]

Maybe they should ger rid of all martials and just make them subclasses of the fighter.
Are Monk, Paladin, Barbarian and Ranger really distinct enough that they couldn't be done as subclasses for a fighter?

What is a Monk if not an unarmed fighter?
What is a Paladin but a fighter who's attacks are strengthened by divine power?
What is a Barbarian but a fighter that needs anger management classes?
What is a ranger but a fighter who likes to go camping and hiking?

Or just a d12 martial class.
Martial weapons,
Light armor + shields
Proficiency in STR, DEX and CON saves.
3 skills at 1st level
extra attack at levels 5,9,13,17 and 20.

Just a bunch of feats slots,

 

[James Gasik]

Or just a d12 martial class.
Martial weapons,
Light armor + shields
Proficiency in STR, DEX and CON saves.
3 skills at 1st level
extra attack at levels 5,9,13,17 and 20.

Just a bunch of feats slots,

Sure and then a d6 spell caster class.

Simple weapons.
Light Armor.
Proficiency in Int, Wis, and Cha saves.
3 skills at 1st level.
Full casting, pick one spell list of your choice.

 

[Horwath]

Sure and then a d6 spell caster class.

Simple weapons.
Light Armor.
Proficiency in Int, Wis, and Cha saves.
3 skills at 1st level.
Full casting, pick one spell list of your choice.

yes.
But if you keep spell known to current sorcerer level, just have all spells available.
3 spells at 1st level, +1 spell known per level till 11th level, then one extra spell at levels 13,15 and 17.
Highest of Int, Wis or Cha is spellcasting stat.

 

[Reynard]

Maybe they should ger rid of all martials and just make them subclasses of the fighter.
Are Monk, Paladin, Barbarian and Ranger really distinct enough that they couldn't be done as subclasses for a fighter?

What is a Monk if not an unarmed fighter?
What is a Paladin but a fighter who's attacks are strengthened by divine power?
What is a Barbarian but a fighter that needs anger management classes?
What is a ranger but a fighter who likes to go camping and hiking?

That doesn't "get rid" of them, it just shifts the problem to subclass. My point was that if the fighter is a problem because it is boring, shift the fun parts of the monk to the fighter and get rid of the monk. The monk has always been thematically incongruent with the rest of D&D's archetypes anyway.

Personally, my "fix" would be to create fewer classes with much broader archetypes and the mechanical tools -- feats, ability trees, etc -- to allow players to play what they want (with guidelines to build classic archetypes to help out new players).

 

[Emberashh]

Should be noted that just collapsing classes down into each other doesn't fix any of these issues, it just makes them go away while simultaneously closing off a huge design space.

You aren't really fixing poor class design by making them irrelevant. You're fixing bad game feel, sure, but that doesn't change that you're closing off the design space, whilst also introducing new issues.

The more you trend towards point buy type systems, the more you're expecting people to have to learn the entire game before they can play, and the more impetus there is on you as designer to counteract that by making the choices not that consequential.

Which means one of either

A) reducing all the levels, abilities, etc to the point that even they don't actually matter

B) Carefully balancing every option, doing the very same thing you could have just done with the classes in the first place.

 

[Horwath]

Should be noted that just collapsing classes down into each other doesn't fix any of these issues, it just makes them go away while simultaneously closing off a huge design space.

You aren't really fixing poor class design by making them irrelevant. You're fixing bad game feel, sure, but that doesn't change that you're closing off the design space, whilst also introducing new issues.

The more you trend towards point buy type systems, the more you're expecting people to have to learn the entire game before they can play, and the more impetus there is on you as designer to counteract that by making the choices not that consequential.

Which means one of either

A) reducing all the levels, abilities, etc to the point that even they don't actually matter

B) Carefully balancing every option, doing the very same thing you could have just done with the classes in the first place.

yes, and no.

you can have 4 classes based on martial/magic aptitude:

martial:
d12
no spellcasting
extra attacks at levels 5,9,13,17,20

gish:
d10
half-caster
extra attacks at levels 5,11,19

adept:
d8
2/3rd caster: 7 spell levels, gained at class levels: 1,4,7,10,13,16,19
extra attack at levels 5,

caster
d6
full spellcasting
no extra attack,

having more open classes leads to huge open design space.

OFC, PHB can come with 3 or 4 build examples for every of 4 classes that somewhat resemble current classes.

 

[M_Natas]

Should be noted that just collapsing classes down into each other doesn't fix any of these issues, it just makes them go away while simultaneously closing off a huge design space.

You aren't really fixing poor class design by making them irrelevant. You're fixing bad game feel, sure, but that doesn't change that you're closing off the design space, whilst also introducing new issues.

The more you trend towards point buy type systems, the more you're expecting people to have to learn the entire game before they can play, and the more impetus there is on you as designer to counteract that by making the choices not that consequential.

Which means one of either

A) reducing all the levels, abilities, etc to the point that even they don't actually matter

B) Carefully balancing every option, doing the very same thing you could have just done with the classes in the first place.

But the problem is, that the classes are a mess. They have so much mechanically and thematically overlap ...

Like, there is no niche protection, there is no one party role ...

Like, I was thinking the other day how I would create a psionic class.
And the biggest Problem I ran into was, that either the Psionic would be like the Wizard - so versatile with its powers that it could fill most party roles - like the last UA Mystic was - or if we narrow the psionic down, it would just be "Fighter - but with psi!", "Sorcerer - but with Psi!", "Cleric, but with Psi!" - like, yeah, I could give it some different mechanics, but the endresult would be classes that are in direct competition for the same role as existing classes.
And the same Problem is with Fighter, Barbarian, Monk ... especially with the new unarmed fighting style giving 1d8. They all fill the same roll, some just do it better than others.

 

[James Gasik]

yes.
But if you keep spell known to current sorcerer level, just have all spells available.
3 spells at 1st level, +1 spell known per level till 11th level, then one extra spell at levels 13,15 and 17.
Highest of Int, Wis or Cha is spellcasting stat.

The only reason I don't think this is a good idea is that there are several spells that only exist to undo the various terrible things that can happen to players, and a Sorcerer simply lacks the spell choices to acquire these.

I saw this play out in Pathfinder 1e; everyone in my play group thought Oracles (spontaneous divine casters) were far superior to Clerics in every respect. What they quickly found, however, was the ability to cure poison, disease, exhaustion, et. al., is perfectly doable when you can simply prepare them as needed each day. Having a situational restorative spell taking up a limited spell known is thus quite problematic.

Now if the game didn't have so many things that could happen to adventurers where magic is the go to solution, that'd be fine, but...yeah.