D&D (2024) Theory of Class Design

[Paul Smart]

When thinking of a class design, the designer must answer these central questions.

What is my character concept?
What do you do?
How do you do it?
What stat do you use?

Character concept is what you envision your character to be. It can be almost anything.

For Example:

A tough frontline fighter using a sword and shield
A knight in shining armour
A sneaky assassin
An exiled barbarian chief
A spymaster
An old wizard who lives in a tower

What do you do breaks down into the following:
Note: Pick 2 of these

• Damage Dealer
• Tank
• Battlefield Control
• Support (non-heal buffing, enhancement, divination, etc.; all distinct from battlefield control)
• Skill Expert (pick locks, sneak, create things etc.)
• Sage (you know things)
• Face (good in social situations)
• Healer
• Explorer

How do you do it breaks down into the following:
Note: One primary and one secondary

• Use Weapons - Strength or Dexterity or Intelligence
• Use Technology - Intelligence or Wisdom or Dexterity
• Use Arcane Magic - Intelligence or Wisdom or Constitution - Primary Full Caster Secondary 1/2 Caster
• Use Divine Magic - Intelligence or Wisdom or Charisma - Primary Full Caster Secondary 1/2 Caster
• Use Psychic Power - Intelligence or Wisdom or Constitution - Primary Full Caster Secondary 1/2 Caster
• Use Yourself - Constitution or Charisma
• Use other creatures - Any stat

(For example, Warlord with Troops, Necromancer with the undead, Druid with animals)

Stats are straightforward - the standard 6.

Newer players have some pre-built classes. For more advanced players, make your own.

For example:

Pre Built Fighter:
What do they do? Tank and Damage Dealer
How do they do it? Use weapons and use Technology
What stat do they use? Chose 1 for Weapons Use and 1 for Technology

For Example:
Chooses Strength for Heavy Armour and Weapons and selects Intelligence for Technology.
They see themself as a Heavy Armed combat Engineer.

Chooses Dexterity for Light Armour and Missle Weapons and selects Dexterity for Technology.
They see themself as a sniper.

Pre Built Paladin

What do they do? Tank and Damage Dealer
How do they do it? Use weapons (primary) Use Divine Magic (Secondary)
What stats do they use? Chose 1 from Weapons Use and 1 from Divine Magic

For Example:
Chooses Strength for Heavy Armour and Weapons and Wisdom for Divine Magic
They see themself as an elite religious warrior.

Pre Built War Priest

What do they do? Healer and Damage Dealer
How do they do it? Lead Troops (primary) Use Divine Magic (Secondary)
What stats do they use? Choose 1 from Leading Troops and 1 from Divine Magic

Example
Chooses Charisma for Leading Troops and Charisma for Divine Magic
They see themself as a Devoted Religious Leader using Divine Miracles to inspire their troops

Pre Built Mage:

What do they do? Battlefield Control and Sage
How do they do it? Arcane Magic (primary) and Leading Troops (summoning) (secondary)
What stats do they use? Choose 1 for using Arcane Magic and 1 for Leading Troops.

Example:
Use Intelligence for using Arcane Magic and Cha for controlling the arcane creatures they summon and consult. They see themself as a Sage conversing with other planes of existence.


Custom Built Wizard:
What do they do? Sage and Skill Expert
How do they do it? Use Arcane Magic and Use Psychic Power
What stats do they use? Choose 1 for using Arcane Magic and 1 for using Psychic Power.

Example:
Uses Wisdom for spell casting (Wizard means wise one) and Intelligence for Skill Use. They see themself as an expert archeologist and treasure hunter.

Custom Built Blood Mage:

What do they do? Damage and Battlefield Control
How do they do it? Use Arcane Magic and Lead Troops
What stats do they use? Choose 1 for using Arcane Magic and 1 for Leading Troops.

Example:
Uses Con for Arcane Magic (they fuel it with their blood) and Intelligence to lead their undead hoards. They see themself as a necromancer.

Custom Built Warlord:

What do they do? Damage and Battlefield Control
How do they do it? Lead Troops (primary) and Use Weapons (Secondary)
What stat do they use? Choose 1 for Leading Troops and One for using Weapons.

Example:

Chooses Intelligence for leading troops and selects Dexterity for Light Armour and Missle Weapons. They see themself as a Tactician and Scout Leader.

Chooses Charisma for Leading Troops and selects Strength for Heavy Armour and Heavy Weapons. They see themself as a Charismatic Captain leading from the front.

Note: Edited with expanded lists and an additional question based on feedback.

 

[Krachek]

My first question would be:
is the three pillars still the three pillars of the game?
If they do, how can we adjust existing classes to be more efficient and implicated in the three pillars.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

More important questions are what sort of thematic archetype the class represents and what sort of mechanics would evoke it.

 

[Blue]

A couple of issues with this.

First, before you even have any of the questions, you have the more general "what do we need to tell the stories" - the archetypes of the heroes and villians. How you sort them, into the same or different hats, will make a large impact on your first questions. For example D&D separated arcane and divine back in the earliest edition. What if that was just magic, but things like ranged vs. melee in combat were separated out. 5e fighter, ranger, rogue would look very different.

And this is just one way. A single edition back we broke up by a list of combat roles and by power source - martial, arcane, divine, primal, etc.

You need to have a design philosophy before you can make meaningful choices to the first question.

The second question has a few warts. First, based off it's wargaming roots, D&D has always had that every character can contribute roughly equally in combat. So you need to be able to balance a number of different points from this list, plus the ones that have gotten left off it like action denial, crowd control, and the like. And to balance you need to be able to pick not some static number, but fractions of many of them. How those fractions have are represented can change mechanically - this one has some control by having limited usage or targeting, this one also has some control but it does it by making it soft control instead of hard.

But it's also been a team game, where characters can't do everything themselves. So trying to pick these out in a vacuum is not D&D.

And then, all classes are supposed to have features in various other pillars of play. That needs to come from a separate pool than from combat - that's a failing design pattern we've learned from games like Mechwarrior. The quick of that is that your starting mech, your skills pilotting a mech, and everything else that you do in an RPG come from the same pool. You can and will end up with a party where half of them are gods on the hexes and the DM can't challenge them without killing the rest of the party, and the same half are likely to kill themselves the first time they try to drive or do anything else remotely dangerous out of their mechs. Protecting people from shooting themselves in the foot is an important aspect of character creation, especially in a game that wants to attract new roleplayers like D&D always has.

Which brings us back to new player friendliness. Roll some states, pick background, race, and class, is already a challenge at time. Especially for people who aren't joining existing groups but trying to pull themselves up just by reading. Having to juggle the value of a large amount of options, and how the interact with other options, isn't really on the table. It's why feats and multiclassing are optional - to reduce starting complexity.

What you have may work for a more crunchy RPG, but it doesn't meet that simplicity test for new players, even with a couple of pre-built archetypes.

 

[Mind of tempest]

A couple of issues with this.

First, before you even have any of the questions, you have the more general "what do we need to tell the stories" - the archetypes of the heroes and villians. How you sort them, into the same or different hats, will make a large impact on your first questions. For example D&D separated arcane and divine back in the earliest edition. What if that was just magic, but things like ranged vs. melee in combat were separated out. 5e fighter, ranger, rogue would look very different.

And this is just one way. A single edition back we broke up by a list of combat roles and by power source - martial, arcane, divine, primal, etc.

You need to have a design philosophy before you can make meaningful choices to the first question.

The second question has a few warts. First, based off it's wargaming roots, D&D has always had that every character can contribute roughly equally in combat. So you need to be able to balance a number of different points from this list, plus the ones that have gotten left off it like action denial, crowd control, and the like. And to balance you need to be able to pick not some static number, but fractions of many of them. How those fractions have are represented can change mechanically - this one has some control by having limited usage or targeting, this one also has some control but it does it by making it soft control instead of hard.

But it's also been a team game, where characters can't do everything themselves. So trying to pick these out in a vacuum is not D&D.

And then, all classes are supposed to have features in various other pillars of play. That needs to come from a separate pool than from combat - that's a failing design pattern we've learned from games like Mechwarrior. The quick of that is that your starting mech, your skills pilotting a mech, and everything else that you do in an RPG come from the same pool. You can and will end up with a party where half of them are gods on the hexes and the DM can't challenge them without killing the rest of the party, and the same half are likely to kill themselves the first time they try to drive or do anything else remotely dangerous out of their mechs. Protecting people from shooting themselves in the foot is an important aspect of character creation, especially in a game that wants to attract new roleplayers like D&D always has.

Which brings us back to new player friendliness. Roll some states, pick background, race, and class, is already a challenge at time. Especially for people who aren't joining existing groups but trying to pull themselves up just by reading. Having to juggle the value of a large amount of options, and how the interact with other options, isn't really on the table. It's why feats and multiclassing are optional - to reduce starting complexity.

What you have may work for a more crunchy RPG, but it doesn't meet that simplicity test for new players, even with a couple of pre-built archetypes.

More important questions are what sort of thematic archetype the class represents and what sort of mechanics would evoke it.

do you guys mean what is the fantasy that we wish to invoke?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

do you guys mean what is the fantasy that we wish to invoke?

Yes.

 

[Paul Smart]

My first question would be:
is the three pillars still the three pillars of the game?
If they do, how can we adjust existing classes to be more efficient and implicated in the three pillars.

That is an excellent question, Krachek. A character should be good at 2 of the 3 pillars, one being primary and one being secondary—that way, no one character can do it all. For example, a Fighter might be good at combat (primary) and exploration (secondary). A Paladin might be good at combat (primary) and social encounters (secondary). A ranger might put exploration as their primary while a bard might put social.

 

[payn]

That is an excellent question, Krachek. A character should be good at 2 of the 3 pillars, one being primary and one being secondary—that way, no one character can do it all. For example, a Fighter might be good at combat (primary) and exploration (secondary). A Paladin might be good at combat (primary) and social encounters (secondary). A ranger might put exploration as their primary while a bard might put social.

I'd prefer all classes can do things in all three pillars. Instead of worrying about one class/character that does everything, Id focus on classes doing everything, but differently. That way you dont have people sitting out any part of the game.

 

[HammerMan]

That is an excellent question, Krachek. A character should be good at 2 of the 3 pillars, one being primary and one being secondary—that way, no one character can do it all. For example, a Fighter might be good at combat (primary) and exploration (secondary). A Paladin might be good at combat (primary) and social encounters (secondary). A ranger might put exploration as their primary while a bard might put social.

Interesting theory (I would love to see it played out) but in a game system that isn't 33.3% each pillar how does it work out? I mean I would say most campaigns I have seen are closer to (and yes these numbers are both made up and situational) 60% combat 30% exploration 10% social

 

[Krachek]

That is an excellent question, Krachek. A character should be good at 2 of the 3 pillars, one being primary and one being secondary—that way, no one character can do it all. For example, a Fighter might be good at combat (primary) and exploration (secondary). A Paladin might be good at combat (primary) and social encounters (secondary). A ranger might put exploration as their primary while a bard might put social.

I think that today, the trend is that no one want to be left behind in any aspect of the game. Two out of three is not enough!