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

[TwoSix]

Nah.

It would take a lot of the rigid classes to grant all the possible character types. Many many books and articles would haves to be written and who knows how long it would take for the class that matches your idea to be published?

Which book would the draconic warrior show up? Or a beastmaster? Or a staff fighter? Or alchemist? Or a pyromancer? Or a fortune teller? First? Second? Eighth?

And this would be a problem for WotC why, exactly?

It's not like the Complete books with dozen of PrCs and new base classes didn't sell.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The tendency to want to have a class for every little niche--or conversely, to bang a class system into two or three classes only, making it effectively not even a class-based game--are both extremes that try to avoid the nitty gritty facts of a class-based system. You have some variety, and you have some limits. The classes are meant to help you navigate those in a clear way.

In a given list, ideally there will be no more than 8-15 items. Certainly not more than 30. (This is why a well-designed user interface does not include more than 32 items in a list box, and gets near that total only when desperate. It's not a perfomance issue and avoided for only that reason. Rather, it's also a performance issue because you aren't supposed to do it. That many choices in one pick confuse the user and often should not be mutually exclusive, anyway. The resemblance to classes here is rather striking to me.)

If you want 100 possible results, then you want at least two lists--class with something else, theme, role, archetype, etc. If exactly two lists, you want more than 10 options in each list--or at least the product of the two lists to be considerably more than 100 results. The last thing you want to do is start "filling out the grid" when some of the results will not be very attractive. Or if you find yourself shoehorning things that don't fit, then you want a third list. This will have the happy result of increasing your results while shortening your lists.

The first design team that faces squarely this basic property of combination of discrete elements will have a class system that provides maximum flexiblity with minimum hassle. Until someone does, we'll keep arguing over edge cases that shouldn't even be problems--or pushing to expand the lists beyond all reason to cover everything, or shorten the lists to almost nothing in a vain attempt to evade the essential problem. (This characteristic is by no means limited to classes, either.)

 

[mkill]

So why not let the players do so from the start, instead depending on the designers to get around to making a particular theme? Oh to be sure, the designers can, over time, come up with specific combinations from this hypothetical toolkit and call it "such & such". But if this toolkit were already built, why withhold it and shove it in a black box instead of taking the time to explain how to properly use the kit?

Unless the assumption is that the designers will do it right and only they should be trusted w/ the keys to the black box?

Support for homebrew classes? Sure, good idea.

Obviously, players come in a wide range of types, from casual to heavily invested (the latter typically found on RPG boards).

For casual players, a system with many, but simple classes is perfect. It's like a food menu with pictures: browse through the book, look at the character images. When you find the one you like, point at it. "I want the halfling riding on a white wolf!" It's simple enough to make the character yourself without reading the whole book, but if you get stuck, the guy across the table with the Blind Guardian t-shirt will help you to piece it all together.

For the heavily involved players, sure, there should be a section in the DMG, or even an entire splatbook like Unearthed Arcana, that gives you all the support imaginable to build your own class, in case the 70 or 80 published at that point don't fit your tastes.

As an aside ... if you've got a hundred different classes iterating over the same powers ... why are you set on making a class-based game again?

Because classes are a good way to define archetypes. And since D&D is meant to cover a broad range of different flavors of fantasy, there are many many archetypes it needs to cover, from the bog-standard farmboy who picked up a sword to the psionic thrallherd.

 

[mkill]

In a given list, ideally there will be no more than 8-15 items. Certainly not more than 30. (This is why a well-designed user interface does not include more than 32 items in a list box, and gets near that total only when desperate.

Good point. Of course, D&D has broken this rule very often. I have the 3.5E PHB feat list in front of me (p.90/91). 71 choices for a first-level character (discarding the ones that have other feats as prerequisites, and you can easily skip them because they are visibly indented). It's horrible user interface design, and that's just "core", before you start to sift through splatbooks.

Back to 100 classes of 5E.
If you split the class-selection process in two stages, it should be easy to select among a huge number of classes. Divide the classes in chapters, each with a different theme, like
* warriors
* skilled
* arcane
* divine
* nature
* racial
* mixed
(* psionic)
8 categories * 13 classes = 104

 

[mkill]

100 classes is unwieldy, unnecessary, and off-putting; too much information/too many choices. It's also the equivalent of putting a big red warning label on the new PHB: New Players, Keep Out! This could --- let me stress "could"-- only appeal to a small subset of mechanics-focused gamers (already a subset of the overall player base).

I have to ask the OP: is this a joke and did we all just fall for it? (no hard feelings if so...)

It's not a joke. I'm serious.

If I was lead designer of 5E, I would plan the system in a way that it has design space for a hundred classes. Or at least 50. Because that's how far the system will expand in 3-4 years anyway. So you might as well plan for it. However, it's possible, but impractical, to put all 100 classes in the PHB. I'd probably shoot for around 30, and spread the rest in splatbooks and Dragon.

As for newb-friendlyness: Depending on how you design this, it could be more newbie-friendly rather than less. Since each class is a clearly-defined chunk, you don't need to bake many options into the class itself, at least at first level. As I wrote, once you've settled for your class, you'd make one or two picks from a short list of maybe 5-6 class features. That's it. Write it on your character sheet and play.

[B]Swashbuckler[/B]
Proficiency with fencing weapons, main-gauche, buckler, light armors
Medium hp
Skill: Savoir Vivre (Cha) +3
Class features (pick 2): Taunt, Chandelier Swing, En Garde, 
    Riposte, Sword & Cape style, Dashing Swordsman

That's the entire first level. You'd need to read the 6 class abilities, pick 2 and understand the unique class skill, but that's it. Everything else is default from your ability score picks, given to all classes, or irrelevant.

That's what I mean by focused: Everything you could want from that archetype is right under your nose, you don't need to piece together skills, feats and whatnot to get there.

If not, well, let's just say if we run a competition for the worst ideas for D&D Next, this is a strong contender!

A few years ago, allowing humans to multiclass was considered a strong contender for the worst ideas for D&D Next.

 

[Minigiant]

And this would be a problem for WotC why, exactly?

It's not like the Complete books with dozen of PrCs and new base classes didn't sell.

I don't know if such blatant class books would fly now. I wont buy a book whose sole purpose is to add 30 classes rather than expanding current ones. Especially if I don't plan on playing any of those classes.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Back to 100 classes of 5E.
If you split the class-selection process in two stages, it should be easy to select among a huge number of classes. Divide the classes in chapters, each with a different theme, like
* warriors
* skilled
* arcane
* divine
* nature
* racial
* mixed
(* psionic)
8 categories * 13 classes = 104

Not gonna get it done. Really. You can't evade the essential nature of the problem with organizational grouping to make it a bit more accessible. Why? Because the "mixed" category is by definition going to be a lot bigger than any other--at least if done with any kind of thought to the contents. (You can always shoehorn concept to make the numbers work, but that is letting your organization scheme drive the content--and we are back to filling out the grid again.)

All a hundred of more classes does is replicate the issues of feats into classes. There is no way that is an improvement.

 

[the Jester]

No thanks. One thing I really want to see is a reduction in option overload.

 

[Mengu]

Perhaps a better approach to what the OP wants, is a book of 100 pregenerated characters. So they pick a 100 archetypes, and they build them. As player, you pick the one that you like the most, and start tweaking. For instance they have the archer archetype, but he is built as an elf. You switch it to human woodsman, and switch a couple feats around, since you can't gain improved elven accuracy, you replace that with greatbow proficiency, and you are not happy with just leather, so with your bonus feat from human you upgrade your armor to studded leather, change your stats around a bit because you want a little more charisma and a little less intelligence, swap out a background tidbit, instead of +2 history, you want +2 streetwise, add your bonus skill as streetwise, and you're good to go.

This is closer to the approach they are currently taking to the game anyway. The "basic" game is going to have "simple" characters, that are not drowning in options, and can be playable, alongside more complex characters with lots of options. How do you think this can be done in a balanced way? By pregenerating the simple character with the less complex choices, and via modular replacement of features for the complex character. I see the 4e analogy of starting point of 5e as Essentials with preselected feats and skill-like entities. This starting point will be trying to define the power level of a PC with the simplest options possible.

 

[hanez]

I disagree with OP. WHile I have no problems with lots of classes, I think classes should be large, customizable and flexible. Arcana Evolved is a great example of this. Class witch had 5 different types of witches you could be. The champion (like a paladin) could be a champion of 8 different causes, and it showed you how to make your own. I want classes to be customizable and have choices within the class.