the "truth" about classes

[Lonely Tylenol]

You're spot on here.

My real problem with this comes from an open gaming standpoint. If we get a PHB with fewer classes than before, and the ones that are later introduced are not open content, this makes it harder for a company to make an OGL product that contains as much content as you see now.

And that would be a bad thing.

--Steve

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if the PHB/DMG/MM series is mostly open content, while the other splatbooks are closed. That way there will be a feedback effect since 3rd party publishers can make use of newer classes and rules, which will make it more important to buy the newer core books to use those 3rd party books (since it's a pretty safe bet that people won't just use the SRD, but will actually buy the books), which will open up a market for WotC supplements aimed at people with those books. Everyone wins, except poor people.

 

[Logan_Bonner]

There are 8 classes in PH1, but more will come out later in other books and the magazines.

Think of it this way: There are many classes, but each will fit into one of the four roles. This way you have plenty of variability, but you can always be sure that the class is filling a basic function it's expected to.

 

[borc killer]

So what 8 are we talking about? hehe

 

[Snapdragyn]

There are 8 classes in PH1, but more will come out later in other books and the magazines.

Wow. So we've already had confirmed in an interview with GamerZero the following classes:

Fighter
Paladin
Cleric
Warlord
Wizard
Ranger
Rogue

In another post here at EN World, WotC_Logan confirms:

Monk

There's our 8 classes in the PHB. I'm not entirely thrilled -- I can handle druid being folded into a cleric 'tree', & barbarian into a fighter (or ranger?) tree, but...

• Why make the barbarian a tree but not the monk?

• Whither the sorceror (or warlock)?

• Why the apparently imbalanced allocation of classes for each role (i.e. unless they make monk a controller, there's only 1 controller & 3 of something else)?

• I'm particularly displeased that a revamped bard isn't currently scheduled for the initial core books. As I've said elsewhere, no matter what WotC may say about each new PHB (PHB2 in '09, PHB3 in '10, etc.) being core, there is NO WAY they will get every DM to accept that 'core' means more than the 3 initial books -- & players lose out because of that.

 

[fanboy2000]

3e started off exactly the same way.

No, it didn't. 3e has 11 PC classes in the PHB. Two of them, Sorcerer and Barbarian were new to the core rule books. Antother one, Monk, had been dropped from the AD&D 2e PHB.

 

[Knight Otu]

I can handle druid being folded into a cleric 'tree', & barbarian into a fighter (or ranger?) tree, but...

I think it's best not to assume that this is the case. The 3.X druid is very much of a controller role rather than a leader role, and the 3.X barbarian is very much a striker role. While we are being constantly told not to rely on 3.Xisms when analyzing the new information, occupying those roles is very much traditional and in flavor for them.

Plus, we've been told that those classes that were dropped will resurface again.

Why the apparently imbalanced allocation of classes for each role (i.e. unless they make monk a controller, there's only 1 controller & 3 of something else)?

Traditionally, I'd put monks as strikers. Probably Martial Controller, though, so that each role has two classes to fill it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

No, it didn't. 3e has 11 PC classes in the PHB. Two of them, Sorcerer and Barbarian were new to the core rule books. Antother one, Monk, had been dropped from the AD&D 2e PHB.

Actually, barbarians were from 1E as well. They were introduced in Unearthed Arcana.

Edit: D'oh! You said new to the core books. So I guess, technically, UA wouldn't count.

 

[DonTadow]

Wow. So we've already had confirmed in an interview with GamerZero the following classes:

Fighter
Paladin
Cleric
Warlord
Wizard
Ranger
Rogue

In another post here at EN World, WotC_Logan confirms:

Monk

There's our 8 classes in the PHB. I'm not entirely thrilled -- I can handle druid being folded into a cleric 'tree', & barbarian into a fighter (or ranger?) tree, but...

• Why make the barbarian a tree but not the monk?

• Whither the sorceror (or warlock)?

• Why the apparently imbalanced allocation of classes for each role (i.e. unless they make monk a controller, there's only 1 controller & 3 of something else)?

• I'm particularly displeased that a revamped bard isn't currently scheduled for the initial core books. As I've said elsewhere, no matter what WotC may say about each new PHB (PHB2 in '09, PHB3 in '10, etc.) being core, there is NO WAY they will get every DM to accept that 'core' means more than the 3 initial books -- & players lose out because of that.

My guess is that its
Fighter
Cleric
Rogue
Wizard
Sorceror
Ranger
Warlord
?????
Monk gets rolled into fighter as does barbarian, bard is rolled into ???? (which will be sometype of social/control class). Sorcerors with inate magic will be distintcly different from wizards (learned spell casters).

 

[Umbra_Kaitou]

If I might speculate on a couple things,

With Spell casting being fundamentally changed, this changes the one key difference of a wizard and a sorcerer, which was resource management.

now my guess is they don't want to drop sorcerer entirely, hence why they say it wasn't folded into wizard, yet it now needs to find a different role to just play than that, so they are postponing it long enough to revamp it and polish its new role, whatever they decide (my guess a more battle-wizardy type but who knows)

As for Druids, from my experience in 3.5, it seems they suffer from balance issues in most of their stages of life, and thus might be taking longer to smooth out in 4e than other classes. Also with polymorph/wild shape issues and errata and perhaps a change in summoning procedure they could have even more kinks to work out.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Ugh, confusing use of terminology & ambiguous statements.

Designer: x is in 4e!
Designer posting later: It's in 4e, but I didn't say core! Even if I did, we're using the new definition of 'core' that doesn't match the definition used by many players & DMs, so you don't know if we mean old 'core' or new 'core'! Haha!

:/

Nobody has said which 8 classes are in or out of the PH1. We've talked about classes in seminars and on the boards, and we've mentioned way more than eight classes in them. All the classes in the 3.5 PH will appear at some point in the game's lifespan, but the only ones you can call "confirmed" in the PH1 are fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard.

So we have one designer in an interview discussing ranger, paladin, & warlord -- oh, but those might all be in later books. We have another designer talking about paladins being able to be other than LG -- but wait, that still might be for later books.

Personally, I wish they'd limit their comments to what's in (or at least planned for) the first 3 books for now; it'd be much less confusing.