D&D 5E What 5E needs is a hundred classes

[mkill]

Now, before everyone screams WTF?, remember that both 3E and 4E had close to 50 classes towards the end of their edition run. Having an RPG with a hundred classes isn't unrealistic at all. In fact, Prestige Classes / Paragon Paths easily go into the hundreds.

So why do you want so many classes? - To keep each of them focused.

If classes are tied to one niche, one unique mechanic, one progression, and a small set of options and customizations, players only need to make one big decision - which class to choose. Once you have your class, making the character is simple and straightforward.

In 4E, when you decide to take a fighter, the next question is immediately "which fighter?". And then all the different features and power picks and feats work together in a big net of interdependencies that is very hard to disentangle.
In 3E, when you decide to take a fighter, you are given a blank sheet, and then you need to figure out from the feat list what you want to do.

How much easier would it be if there was no Fighter but a Brawler, a Knight, a Slayer, a Weapon Master, a Guardian, a Samurai, a Tempest, an Archer, a Gladiator, a Mercenary, a Swashbuckler, a Legionaire and a Berserker. You pick your class, then maybe a feature from a list of two or three, and you are set to start your adventuring career.
Instead of the Rogue, you could have the Circus Performer, the Conman, the Catburglar, the Street Rabble, the Thug, the Pirate, the Guild Thief, the Spellthief, the Jack of All Trades, the Tomb Raider, the Assassin ...
Instead of Wizard, there could be the Illusionist, the Evoker, the Summoner, the Beguiler, the Necromancer, the Oracle, the Transmuter and the Abjurer. And since we're at it, the Hedge Wizard, the Witch, the Ooze Mage, the Dragon Disciple, the Pyromancer, the Truenamer, the Binder...

I think the desire to have every possible fantasy archetype that is skilled in combat crammed into one class, every spellcaster in another one, and every skilled guy in a third leads to classes that are overloaded with features and hard to design for. Ask three D&D players what "Fighter" stands for, and you get ten answers.
Even worse, as the edition grows with splatbooks, the developers are hardpressed to find space that is not yet covered by the overly broad base classes, and you end up with something like the <insert your least favorite obscure class here>.

In fact, designing the game for 100 classes is not so hard to pull off. All you need is a common pool of abilities that classes can pick from. The arcane and divine spell lists up until 3E are a prime example of that. But there were other class features that show up in many classes, such as Evasion and Uncanny Dodge. If the class designs themselves are short, you can easily fit a lot of them in one PHB. (3E manages 11 classes on 34 pages; 4E has 8 classes on 110 pages. 5E could do 25 classes on 75 pages, and add more in splatbooks or dragon).
If you have a hundred classes, it's not so much about making each class totally unique, but rather about taking a fantasy archetype and then shaping it in a dedicated class that is fun to play.

 

[Yora]

So you are forced to pick premade characters without being able to make your own custom character? Since there wouldn't be enough unique abilities, ther would be hundreds, if not thousands of duplicate abilities. And if you have an idea that does not have it's own class, you can not play that. That's even worse!

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

One decision I am stuck with, vs. many decisions that lets me change focus as I learn the ins of the game?

 

[delericho]

There are two* ways to build a class-based system. Either you have a few, broad, customisable classes, each covering a wide range of characters, or you have a huge number of narrow and focussed classes, each tied to a very specific niche.

My preference is very much for the former. In fact, I'm almost inclined to say that the 5e idea of including all core classes from every previous edition is too many - Barbarian and Ranger should be combined; Cleric and Paladin should be combined; Fighter and Warlord should be combined (and perhaps with the Bar/Rgr); and Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard should be combined.

(That would give nine classes: Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Wizard, with an optional tenth for psionics.)

That way, when creating a character, a player just has to choose from a fairly small and manageable number of options, safe in the knowledge that he can customise his character later.

If classes are tied to one niche, one unique mechanic, one progression, and a small set of options and customizations, players only need to make one big decision - which class to choose. Once you have your class, making the character is simple and straightforward.

The problem with this is: what happens if the player later changes his mind? What if he initially had a Brawler in mind, but later decides that he'd rather be an archer? Or his thief decides to become a mercenary warrior, then a pirate, then a war leader, then a king?

Either you need a lot of classes for a huge number of archetypes (and still can't cover them all, and you still need some powerful multiclassing), or you straightjacket the player's role for the entire campaign right at the outset.

* There is a third way, which seems to be the one taken by late-3e and also 4e: have a few big, broad classes, and then also have a bunch of little niche classes. But because the broad classes cover so much, the niche classes become almost entirely worthless. This approach achieves the worst of all possible worlds, and really shouldn't be adopted.

 

[mkill]

So you are forced to pick premade characters without being able to make your own custom character? Since there wouldn't be enough unique abilities, ther would be hundreds, if not thousands of duplicate abilities.

Not "hundreds of duplicate abilities" ... one ability that is shared across many classes. Is that really a big deal? Take "Cure Light Wounds". That spell is shared between 5 of the 11 classes in the 3E PHB, almost half of them. And why not? You don't need 5 versions of "cure 1d8+1/level hit points"

Or if you want a 4E example, take "second wind". More than 40 classes have that ability!

And if you have an idea that does not have it's own class, you can not play that. That's even worse!

I don't see where previous editions are better at "play an idea that does not have it's own class". In fact, that is something that 4E is particularly bad at. A flexible, toolbox-like system that allows the developers to create many distinct classes makes it easy for players to do the same. If it's easy to develop for, it's easy to house-rule.

 

[mkill]

One decision I am stuck with, vs. many decisions that lets me change focus as I learn the ins of the game?

As in previous editions of D&D, you could multiclass, retrain, or switch characters.

A system with a lot of classes works best if you have a flexible multiclassing system, something comparable to 3E/d20.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think you'll be able to get what you're looking for with the use of Themes. With this second layer of character customization, you can still get your niche build on top of a wider class structure.

So if you want to be an unarmed brawler... you just choose the Fighter class and the Brawler theme. There. Done. You get to keep the more mechanical class structure in place without needing to try and break it apart into hundreds of little segments... plus you get your more specific niche on top of it. It will work better in the long run.

The funny part is that we kind of already had this in 4E even before the concept of "themes" were introduced. If you just moved the term Class up in place of the term Power Source, and used the term Theme or Kit in place of what was called in 4E Class... you pretty much had it.

The Warrior class was comprised of 4 Themes - the Fighter, the Warlord, the Ranger, and the Rogue. Each theme had their own mechanics, each Theme had their own fluff, and each Theme could be customized with their own internal builds. If you wanted to be a heavily armored warrior, you took the Fighter teme. If you wanted to be an archer warrior, you took the Ranger theme. If you wanted to be the intellectual warrior, you took the Warlord theme. Etc. etc. It all worked wonderful except (as we've discussed many time before), many players had an affinity for certain class names that they wanted to be one spot higher/wider on the hierarchy. So they didn't want to play a Warrior (or in 4E terms, have the Martial power source), they wanted to be a Fighter.

5E now runs into the issue of figuring out how many different types of mechanics they want to have across the classes (weapon combat, exploration skills, divine magic, arcane spell magic, interaction, spirit magic, psionics etc.) and what names they want to use as the overarching identifier for the group, with other names dropping down a level to be Themes or Kits or whatever.

 

[KidSnide]

There is a third way, which seems to be the one taken by late-3e and also 4e: have a few big, broad classes, and then also have a bunch of little niche classes. But because the broad classes cover so much, the niche classes become almost entirely worthless. This approach achieves the worst of all possible worlds, and really shouldn't be adopted.

I don't think this is a bad option, so long as the niche classes aren't rules heavy. A niche class with a few class abilities and a list of existing spells / maneuvers / powers is a perfectly reasonable way of handling a narrow concept that isn't addressed head on by one of the broad classes. Prestige classes (and, to a certain extent, paragon paths and epic destinies) are examples of this.

One of the problems with early 4e is that each class had to have its own complete list of powers. If WotC had organized powers the way spells were organized in 3.x, we would have seen a shorter and more effective rune priest that relied heavily on cleric and paladin powers (and maybe some arcane "runes"?).

-KS

 

[mkill]

The funny part is that we kind of already had this in 4E even before the concept of "themes" were introduced. If you just moved the term Class up in place of the term Power Source, and used the term Theme or Kit in place of what was called in 4E Class... you pretty much had it.

The Warrior class was comprised of 4 Themes - the Fighter, the Warlord, the Ranger, and the Rogue. Each theme had their own mechanics, each Theme had their own fluff, and each Theme could be customized with their own internal builds. If you wanted to be a heavily armored warrior, you took the Fighter teme. If you wanted to be an archer warrior, you took the Ranger theme.

Funny, I'd interpret it the other way around: You had some general category with the power source (arcane), then a "meta-class" like Warlock, and the actual classes were then Infernal Warlock, Fey Warlock, Star Pact Warlock, Vestige Warlock, Binder, Hex-Blade...

4E classes were all cut into these sub-units, that were largely incompatible to each other. It already started in the PHB, where Cha-Warlocks and Con-Warlocks couldn't effectively take each other's powers. You have one class, and you think you have all these options, but if you look closer, half of them don't fit your character anyway. It would be much faster and less frustrating if your class pick list is reduced down to the stuff that is in fact effective for your build.

The most extreme case are probably Slayer and Knight, who have the Fighter label slapped on, but to pick any powers from the normal Fighter list, they pretty much have to take a multiclass feat. If you have the chance to design a system from scratch, you want to avoid crutches like that from the start.

TL;DR: What I want is a system that takes all the 4E class sub-builds, makes them all individual classes, and cuts off the top layer that groups them together. Then, allow players to mix and match to taste with simple multiclassing rules.

One of the problems with early 4e is that each class had to have its own complete list of powers. If WotC had organized powers the way spells were organized in 3.x, we would have seen a shorter and more effective rune priest that relied heavily on cleric and paladin powers (and maybe some arcane "runes"?).

Fully agree. A "martial power list" that Fighter, Ranger, Warlord, Barbarian, Warden and Swordmage pick from would have been just gravy. (Of course, Warden and Barbarian have a second, primal list, and Swordmage gets picks from the arcane list).

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'd prefer to have a few flexible classes. I think its nice to have at least some idea of what all the other classes do. 100 classes is just overwhelming. I would be okay with something like Pathfinder's Archetypes.