The Utility of Class Rarity

[GM Dave]

Wouldn't spellcasters of any sort be rare to very rare in almost every campaign setting?

And actually, shouldn't the "easy" ways to power (warlock, say) be more common than the "hard" way (wizard)?

In the historical play of DnD, every small thorp or village has someone a PC can learn magic from (to level up). Usually there is someone of around level 3-5 MU/Wizard around every place which can provide spells for the spell book of the first 3 spell levels. I mean, if you know fly and fireball then you can pretty much help the local militia beat off most attacks and animal threats.

It was when you wanted to learn beyond level 3 spells that you had to find some great college or go on a quest to find a full wizard as your mentor.

That makes a MU/Wizard present for roughly every 100 humans. Many humanoid races used to have a MU/Wizard for every 20 to 30 individuals depending on their attraction to magic.

This would hardly make them rare but more like computer programers or auto mechanics.

-- Many people might be familiar and know a few tricks.
-- You probably know one or two that you go to for your daily needs
-- You have to look up in the yellow pages for an expert for something that is out of the normal

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If organized play used rarity as a way to control class choice it would end up having a riot on its hands at the next convention. People want to play what they want to play or they'll go elsewhere.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Rarity exists in AD&D. The paladin, ranger, monk, and illusionist are all rare due to the ability score requirements for the classes.

You roll your stats and see what classes your would-be character is qualified for. If your scores aren't good enough then you cannot play certain classes. This is simply rarity via the generation mechanics.

If we start off with an assumption that a player may just choose any class and assign abilty scores as desired then these classes are no longer rare. The entire rarity concept is meaningless. Every player just picks exotic race X and obscure class Y and goes with it.

As long as character creation revolves around designing special snowflakes from the ground up rather than generating stats and seeing what can be done with them, rarity is pointless.

 

[kitsune9]

One way to make classes more rarer than others is to have higher entry ability score requirements. Back in 1e AD&D, paladins had to have a Cha 17. If you did stat generation on 3d6 or 4d6 drop lowest, that made this a pretty tough class to get into.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Rarity is a good indicator for new players and new DMs. It's easy to explain, easy to judge, and EASY TO COMPLETELY IGNORE IF YOUR "PERSONAL" CAMPAIGN SETTING DOESN'T FOLLOW IT.

Jeez... with all the talk everyone goes on and on about wanting to "expand the player base" in order to keep the game relevant for the future... some people sure seem to want to completely strip away anything that might actually help those people.

"Don't include a default setting in the DMG... it goes against MY campaign setting!"

"Don't include basic cultural touchstones for your typical or campaign-neutral dwarves or elves... they aren't how MY dwarves and elves behave or live!"

"Don't tell me that monks tend to be a smaller subset of church warrior than clerics... MY game is completely DOMINATED by roving bands of monks!"

Sheesh. You'd think that just using words like "occasionally", "usually", "oftentimes" or "tend" would pretty much solve any problems of this type (since they all leave a nice wide door open to have things NOT be that way)... but apparently not.

 

[Mattachine]

What if, instead of rarity, the term "complexity" were used? Classes could be classified as Simple, Standard, and Complex. That would certainly be more useful to me and the new players I see every year than "rarity".

 

[Sunseeker]

What if, instead of rarity, the term "complexity" were used? Classes could be classified as Simple, Standard, and Complex. That would certainly be more useful to me and the new players I see every year than "rarity".

But it wouldn't benefit the classes IMO. Making certain classes "simple" and others "complex" I think would just make everything fall back into that rut of assuming that martial classes are simple and caster classes are complex. Class complexity should depend on the amount of effort a player puts into creating their character. All classes should hover around a "moderate" level of complexity with build options for greater or lesser complexity. Not to mention it's really easy for "simple" to become a dirty word.

 

[Mattachine]

4e Slayer would be Simple or Standard, whereas the 4e Fighter would be Complex.

I disagree that all classes should hover around moderate complexity. That was a failing of the initial launch of 4e. Many players want Simple, and a few want very complex.

Perhaps different versions or builds could offer differing amounts of complexity.

 

[Li Shenron]

Rarity is a good indicator for new players and new DMs. It's easy to explain, easy to judge, and EASY TO COMPLETELY IGNORE IF YOUR "PERSONAL" CAMPAIGN SETTING DOESN'T FOLLOW IT.

All it takes to help (?) new players, is a line in the PHB class description saying "paladins are rare" or "fighters are common". That's fine.

What it not fine is coming up with a mechanic for it, a formal definition and categorization of "class rarity". That is really, really useless, and it can only open up can of worms: what is a DM supposed to do with it? If two players in the same group want to be paladins, is the DM going to ban one of them because "it's rare"? Should the publisher release more material and options for fighters rather than paladins and rangers because "they are rare"? Should adventure writers be carefully not to put too many rare class NPCs in the same story? The problem with having a mechanical/rulewise definition of rarity is that it's going to be used more restrictively than creatively, or it's going to be ignored. So it would be just so much better to just ignore the idea by default.

 

[Boarstorm]

I think we need to shift away from the mindset that rarity would restrict which classes a player can take, and look at it as a descriptor of the world AROUND the PCs.

As I said in the OP, the PCs are already extraordinary by definition. Of course they can pick any class they like (assuming its welcome at the DM's table).

Choosing a "rare" class just means your run-of-the-mill NPCs don't know how the strange "mind-wizard" running around with the party does his "magic."

(All this assuming Class Rarity as a World Building tool, of course.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

If two players in the same group want to be paladins, is the DM going to ban one of them because "it's rare"?

I dunno... why don't you ask that specific DM why he chose to not allow it?

Should the publisher release more material and options for fighters rather than paladins and rangers because "they are rare"?

No.. they're going to release more material and options for fighters because they're going to discover (just like they have in EVERY edition) that more players play fighters and thus buy product that has fighter stuff in it.

You think they keep producing wizard builds in 4E because they can't think of anything better? No, they do so cause people keep buying it.

The problem with having a mechanical/rulewise definition of rarity is that it's going to be used more restrictively than creatively, or it's going to be ignored. So it would be just so much better to just ignore the idea by default.

And you know this... how? How do you know people aren't going to be creative? If you can't think of ways to make class rarity interesting, that doesn't mean it's not doable. And doesn't mean therefore that it shouldn't even exist. That's short-sightedness in its worst form.