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

[Jaiken]

Was wondering this when it comes to new editions of Dungeons and Dragons. How many classes are too many and how many are too little?

Is it for flavor purpose and fulfilling certain archetypes? Having certain roles be fulfilled?

 

[Aldarc]

Enough.

 

[Shardstone]

There should at be at least one class every two years.

 

[Horwath]

It should either be only 1 class or 15 of them.

 

[Corinnguard]

As long as you can come up with a class concept that is distinctly and clearly different from those that came before it, then you can add as many as you want to your game. If the concept contains elements that are too similar to those belonging to another class, then it's best to treat that new concept as a potential subclass of the latter.

 

[Minigiant]

Depeding on how free or open the subsystems of an edition, D&D supports about 10-15 base hero fantasies in its raw form. So

15

 

[DEFCON 1]

Depends.

Classes that anyone and everyone can design for themselves and/or publish on DMs Guild or Reddit or places like that for people to use? Infinite.

Classes that WotC desires to publish themselves in their own books? Basic Rules: 4. Player's Handbook: 12. All WotC material: 13.

Anyone who has an issue with any of these numbers is free to adjust them on their own to their own satisfaction for their own game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Was wondering this when it comes to new editions of Dungeons and Dragons. How many classes are too many and how many are too little?

Is it for flavor purpose and fulfilling certain archetypes? Having certain roles be fulfilled?

As many as are needed for the playstyles you want to encourage. How long is a piece of string?

One of the good things I will say about 5e is that a well written subclass can take the place of a full class in many cases.

 

[Ringtail]

I really like the core set of classes in 5e's PHB, or Pathfinder 2e's CRB. I think that's a good number and covers all the "iconic" classes that give D&D its identity.

Beyond that, I certainly don't mind new classes, but I want them to be rather distinct. I like how many of 5e's subclasses are full-classes from previous editons, or Pathfinder 2e's Archetypes which help you modify your existing class. If your new class feels too much like another class, maybe it should just be a subclass or archetype.

 

[Sulicius]

I think right now we're at a point where one more class would have more overlap than we already have. I'd say somewhere between 8 and 12.

To me the most important thing is that when players get together to make characters for session 0, they still feel like they have a good amount of options when the other players have made their choice.