D&D General What is the right amount of Classes for Dungeons and Dragons?

[pemerton]

People got burned out on prestige classes because they became just another level of build complexity. They need to be returned to their original idea of being "narrative loot". You don't choose to become an Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, you find a very rare grimoire in an ancient ruin that gives you the keys to pursue that path.

But making such a key part of PC build subject to GM decision-making (on a conventional assumption about how gets to introduce loot into the fiction) is pretty controversial!

4e D&D made boons and training analogous to magic items, rather than to levels or feats, to manage this problem.

 

[fuindordm]

D&D has 3 main mechanics. Attacks (melee and ranged), spells and skills. And that's class trifecta. One class for each of 3 main mechanics.

Or six classes for the possible prioritizations of those mechanics:
spell > combat > skill ~ Cleric
spell > skill > combat ~ Bard, Wizard, Socerer
combat > spell > skill ~ Paladin or Eldritch knight
combat > skill > spell ~ Ranger or Barbarian
skill > combat > spell ~ rogue
skill > spell > combat ~ Arcane Trickster?

Or twelve classes if you give the possibility to knock out one mechanic entirely:
melee > skill (no spell) ~ Fighter
skill > melee (no spell) ~ Rogue
etc.

You get the idea...

But the problem with this approach is that if everyone fights the same and casts spells the same then the classes end up playing the same. What we need is nuances and subsystems to support significantly different ways of approaching combat (like fighter vs rogue vs barbarian), or different ways of acquiring and using magic (like wizard vs warlock)

 

[Corinnguard]

Mechanics wise, Aragorn is half elf fighter. Pure and simple. Stealth, athletics, survival, perception and herbalism kit. Here you go.

If 5e allowed players to choose which skills they wanted to be proficient in (instead of having them being handed to them), then you could have a Fighter being proficient in Stealth and a herbalism kit.

 

[GrimCo]

Paladin. He turns undead and heals with a touch.

He does? He commands them cause of ancient oath given to his ancestor. He heals using poultice made from athelas plant. No magic whatsoever. Not that i remember anyways. It was at least decade since i last read the books.

@Corinnguard
Yea, but you can get skills and tool proficiency from race and background. Half Elf gives 2 skills to chose from, or you can go with custom lineage or custom background. It's very easy to have Fighter proficient in stealth and herbalism kit.

 

[pemerton]

He does? He commands them cause of ancient oath given to his ancestor.

On Weathertop he driver off the Nazgul.

He heals using poultice made from athelas plant. No magic whatsoever. Not that i remember anyways. It was at least decade since i last read the books.

The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.

No one else could heal the victims of the Nazgul. And he healed many others too, entering Minas Tirith incognito.

 

[TwoSix]

But making such a key part of PC build subject to GM decision-making (on a conventional assumption about how gets to introduce loot into the fiction) is pretty controversial!

4e D&D made boons and training analogous to magic items, rather than to levels or feats, to manage this problem.

That's me, I lean into controversy!

My advocacy (for D&D, specifically) is for a concept that's not really discussed (or I've not stumbled across it); robust character creation options prior to game start, followed by somewhat randomized, "roguelike" progression triggered by in-narrative discoveries.

Since I'm basically arguing for "neotrad in the front, OSR in the back", my advocacy is doomed to fail.

 

[FrogReaver]

I mean... it depends on the design goals. There's a lot that depends on the overall system and stories the game is intending on telling.

Exactly. Though I’d add alot also depends on the base system expectations. Early on d&d split out casting from its attribute system via int and wisdom and later on charisma as well. That informs and restricts alot of later design. It explains why merging the wizard and sorcerer doesnt work well (at least without a pick your casting attribute system, which d&d has never done).

In many ways a mage class with subclass of wizard, sorcerer, druid, bard makes alot of sense and would work great outside some already established d&d/5e design norms.

Each class can have multiple variations that allow you to feel different, based on weapons options and chosen abilities.

When I look at systems that do fewer classes well (Stars without Number) they tend to enable a lot of concepts within those 3 classes (hybrids between them) and by having more choices and flexible subsystems than 5e.

*Side note - weapon options seems like the worst differentiator possible for something that mostly should be a flavor choice IMO.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Somewhere between 18 and 24.

These numbers are not invented out of nowhere. It's the collection of archetypes I've seen well-represented across 3e, 4e, 5e, and PF1e. 18 is just enough to cover most of the bases while still having some minor gaps, 24 is comprehensive enough that even PF1e struggled to come up with genuinely new concepts to squeeze into that space, especially when we recognize that the Cleric's original niche was not "soldier of god," but rather "Van Helsing-alike."

 

[Minigiant]

why do so many want four?

There Is a section of the fan base who believes that you can just re fluff everything.

Of course they usually want to as specialties to match the refluff.


That's how you get 300 specializations or feats.

 

[FrogReaver]

Somewhere between 18 and 24.

These numbers are not invented out of nowhere. It's the collection of archetypes I've seen well-represented across 3e, 4e, 5e, and PF1e. 18 is just enough to cover most of the bases while still having some minor gaps, 24 is comprehensive enough that even PF1e struggled to come up with genuinely new concepts to squeeze into that space, especially when we recognize that the Cleric's original niche was not "soldier of god," but rather "Van Helsing-alike."

When you look at how early d&d designed classes it was often based on a single fictional character they were trying to represent. I don’t think that’s the best way to design classes, but given 5e’s character options outside class and subclass we are almost there.