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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Undrave" data-source="post: 8745359" data-attributes="member: 7015698">It’s just that I think that, when designing a class, it’s much better to start with a strong foundation. You start with one archetypical guy with a clear concept and goal, an idea of what that character would look like in play, build that guy to have solid mechanics… And THEN you work backward to find all the spots where you can branch off. Like building a tree or something.You have a trunk in the middle that’s solid and you hook branches onto it and then more branches from there until you get a full healthy tree.Sometimes you can realize your tree is getting too big and could collapse so you spin it off into another tree. And sometimes you realize you can’t find more branches so you might be better off seeing if you can attach it to an existing tree.If you just start from a bunch of disparate ideas with no real plan, you end up with the Ranger or the Monk: just a bunch of vaguely thematic features with no coherence or synergy.The 5e Fighter’s ‘trunk’ is just the guy that goes ‘I attack faster and faster in one round then spend my action surge to attack again and then that one guy’s dead’. While I think the trunk should be the Squire-Knight-General-Lord pipeline. Once you have figured out how that Knight works, you can start working out what parts you can trade for damage to make the other guy or what parts you can trade for more leadership abilities, or maybe some spells, or Psionic powers.So, when I discuss a class’ design I tend to think in terms of a core archetype, and not specifically what each and every single version of the character with that class should be like. When I say I want the Fighter to be the Warlord in disguise, I just mean that they should figure out how to make an interesting battlefield commander before they simplify him into the Champion or turn him into an Eldtrich Knight for people who want to play the Fighter that way. Yeah, having less page is simpler (is simpler always BETTER? Now that's subjective...) but the way to get to fewer page isn't a one size fit-all thing, hence why it's subjective. The problem is that some spells just end up way better than other. Have you ever played a 5e Cleric? You have to basically self-nerf yourself  to stand out because the good options are just SO good compared to the fun but weak options. You're level 1 with +2 WIS and it's like "Oh, I might want a ranged option so I should pick up the ONE attack Cantrip I can pick (Sacred Flame) and Guidance is just SO good I gotta have it. I should probably prepare Healing Word in case of emergency, and then maybe Bless or Shield of Faith as my second spell and then I'll prepare a ritual because it would suck to not get to use this feature." Every damn time I played one, the same options just jumped at me simply because I'm just a LITTLE aware of the optimal way to go (at least for my play style). I get 1 Cantrip to play with.</blockquote>

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