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

[Corinnguard]

I feel like you made my point for me.

TBH, you didn't give me much to work on. I take it you were referring to how all of the current classes in 5e are just variants of warrior, expert, arcane adept, divine adept?

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I’d say I would want probably about 15-20 classes, I think that would be a good amount. Then I’d make the subclasses a bit more meaty and more impactful. Then I’d want some sort of paragon path/epic destiny/prestige class-like system that could add more customization, either from the get go or at higher levels.

 

[Mind of tempest]

That is merely the absence or presence of light as well as saturation.

Regardless, to reduce all color to its color wheel ratio is to do a disservice to the notion of color. Periwinkle is more than light blue/red. A sunset is more than Red, Red/Yellow, Yellow, and Red/Blue with varying shades of darkness.

my point was humour, I clearly need to work on my jokes

 

[Mind of tempest]

That sounds a lot like how Soulsborne games do world building and story. Trough the item descriptions. And some people love it. Others hate it and bash them because they have "no story". What they mean is, they don't have classic method of storytelling trough exposition, dialogue and monologue (they do have later two, but in smaller quantities than usual).

soulsborne games have lore but about the same amount of plot as a doom game.

some things need to be spelled out to people others prefer the mystery damned either way

 

[ezo]

I would say 5 to 9. Fewer than that and it feels like you are trying to do too much with too little, more than that and it feels like you have overlap and commonality.

While I can certainly appreciate the grouping into three: caster, expert, warrior; a logical mixing of those in combination would yield 4 additional options: caster-expert, caster-warrior, expert-warrior, and caster-expert-warrior.

So, all in all, 7 (with the aforementioned +/- 2). Every variation beyond that is easily regulated to subclasses, etc.

 

[Corinnguard]

I would say 5 to 9. Fewer than that and it feels like you are trying to do too much with too little, more than that and it feels like you have overlap and commonality.

While I can certainly appreciate the grouping into three: caster, expert, warrior; a logical mixing of those in combination would yield 4 additional options: caster-expert, caster-warrior, expert-warrior, and caster-expert-warrior.

So, all in all, 7 (with the aforementioned +/- 2). Every variation beyond that is easily regulated to subclasses, etc.

Divine caster-expert, Arcane caster-expert, Divine caster-Warrior, Arcane caster-Warrior, Divine Caster-Expert-Warrior, Arcane Caster-Expert-Warrior.... it gets bigger when you start throwing in more descriptors.

 

[Minigiant]

15 in base D&D

1. Artificer
2. Babrbarian/Berserker
3. Bard
4. Cleric
5. Druid
6. Fighter
7. Gish
8. Monk/MAster
9. Paladin
10. Ranger
11. Rogue
12. Sorcerer
13. Summoner
14. Warlock
15. Wizard

 

[ezo]

Divine caster-expert, Arcane caster-expert, Divine caster-Warrior, Arcane caster-Warrior, Divine Caster-Expert-Warrior, Arcane Caster-Expert-Warrior.... it gets bigger when you start throwing in more descriptors.

Such descriptors are subclasses.

 

[Corinnguard]

Such descriptors are subclasses.

How many descriptors could be used before you start repeating yourself? If each descriptor is a potential subclass and there are a lot of them, then there is got to be a point where you will say to yourself, "didn't I already make this one?"

 

[niklinna]

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?

There will be no new editions of Dungeons and Dragons, so we don't have to worry about those questions!