D&D General What elements does D&D need to keep?

[Remathilis]

It's why the whole "strip the classes down to 3 or 4" idea rarely pans out for long. It's very limiting on possible PCs types unless the DM adds classes or house rules OR allows players to all run unicorns.

On a macro-level, saying "we only have 4 (or 3, or 2) classes and a bunch of subclasses" seems reductive for the point of reduction. For example, a Druid and a Cleric are both "priests" but their isn't a lot shared. They don't share weapons and armor, roughly 50% of the spell lists are different, they don't share class features (channel divine vs wild shape). What exactly is gained by combining them? You'd either carve out so many exceptions that they end up separate classes OR you merge them to the point that are a generic soup that link the distinction between them (compare the nature domain cleric to a land druid; ask if the former could replace the latter).

 

[ART!]

That idea is more of an exception than the rule.

But PCs are supposed to be exceptional.

I think a lot of this depends on what you're trying to emulate at your table. In real life, a person would have to train for a long time (or a short time very intensively) to be proficient (significantly more likely to hit) with basically every kind of weapon and all armors, like a D&D fighter.

But exactly one bajillion movies and tv shows depict a young hero quickly (meaning, in days or weeks at most) training under an older mentor, and then totally knows how to shoot/fight/etc.

 

[Minigiant]

But PCs are supposed to be exceptional.

I think a lot of this depends on what you're trying to emulate at your table. In real life, a person would have to train for a long time (or a short time very intensively) to be proficient (significantly more likely to hit) with basically every kind of weapon and all armors, like a D&D fighter.

But exactly one bajillion movies and tv shows depict a young hero quickly (meaning, in days or weeks at most) training under an older mentor, and then totally knows how to shoot/fight/etc.

But they supposed to be exceptions of exceptions?

Many D&D fans wish to be random villagers and city slickers thrusted into adventurer life by destiny and fate.

However if that is true, you need classes of low additional training like rogues, bards, sorcerers, and warlocks (artificers, warlords, scholars, etc) to fill in the gaps for prodigies and normies.

Otherwise the whole basis of a class based game falls apart if anyone with positive Intelligence can pick up a random spellbook and be a wizard.

 

[MichaelSomething]

So you want a subsystem that decides which classes a character can take levels in?? That'll turn out as well as weapon speeds...

 

[Minigiant]

So you want a subsystem that decides which classes a character can take levels in?? That'll turn out as well as weapon speeds...

No. I'm just saying D&D is a class based game of strong narrative archetypes.

Combining some archetypes together into single classes because they look similar doesn't always work because the narratives behind the classes are too different that you end up dilluting what the class means.

This is one of many reasons why D&D ended up with so many additional new classes and option rules in the past.

There can be exceptions to the rule in a forced case. Your farmboy might be a natural at fighting. Your princess might be chosen by the gods. Your wanderer might be powered by an oath to a magic artifact. But it's a kludge.

In D&D, when a kludge become popular and constantly used, it is excised and made its own class, race, spell or whatever. That's a very D&D thing.

 

[Remathilis]

No. I'm just saying D&D is a class based game of strong narrative archetypes.

Combining some archetypes together into single classes because they look similar doesn't always work because the narratives behind the classes are too different that you end up dilluting what the class means.

This is one of many reasons why D&D ended up with so many additional new classes and option rules in the past.

There can be exceptions to the rule in a forced case. Your farmboy might be a natural at fighting. Your princess might be chosen by the gods. Your wanderer might be powered by an oath to a magic artifact. But it's a kludge.

In D&D, when a kludge become popular and constantly used, it is excised and made its own class, race, spell or whatever. That's a very D&D thing.

You're losing me. The current system already allows for farmboy fighters (folk hero), princess clerics (noble) and wanderer warlocks (outlander) thanks to the background system. Are you suggesting each background it's own class that you can multiclass into fighter, cleric or warlock from?

 

[Greg K]

Thing is, the 5e Bard probably isn't a good example of anything except of how to make Bards not be nearly as cool and interesting as they could be.

To work properly, IMO, Bards need to be divorced from the casting mechanics of any other class and have their own unique system, completely based on sound and sonic energy and with most of their abilities - which may or may not vaguely resemble other class' spells - on a modified at-will basis rather than using slots.

And they shouldn't be able to heal.

To each their own. The 5e Bard is the first D&D version to come close to fitting my view of a fantasy bard

 

[Vaalingrade]

Otherwise the whole basis of a class based game falls apart if anyone with positive Intelligence can pick up a random spellbook and be a wizard.

Isn't this a worldbuilding problem centered around the magic system though?

If wizardly magic is easy to pick up, difficult to master and the spellbooks are just rare or well-guarded, then randos becoming wizards becomes a matter of coming up with a way to explain how they got the book, yes?

Or... we could have an actually magical world as opposed to the ISO standard of the game where it's Renaissance Earth pretending to be Medieval Earth with magic haphazardly stapled on and made weirdly rare because people can't tell 'scarce' from 'special'.

 

[cbwjm]

Isn't a random person stealing a spellbook and becoming a wizard the example in Xanathar's for the character story?

 

[ART!]

Luke Skywalker was a farm boy with an innate knack for using The Force, and then a couple days (at most) with a wizard showing him the ropes is all it took to get him formally into...whatever class Jedi like Kenobi are.