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

[Vael]

Which is why I find almost every attempt to boil down the class list futile. Because any attempt to merge or remove classes will inevitably result in dozens of people reinventing them.

I even remember hearing the complaint that 4e was "incomplete" until PH2 brought the Barbarian, Bard, Druid and Sorcerer back. Of course, 4e compounded that with the Role/Power source grid, there were calls for a Martial Controller right up to the end until Essentials tried it.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

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?

My ideal number of classes would be ~15-20. I feel that certain archtypes are currently filled in very unsatisfying ways in 5e, and would be better off being their own thing.

Though I'd also merge/split certain classes so the current 13 might not all still exist.

Fighter (Split into Knight, Skirmisher, and Warlord).
Knight (Includes no magic paladin subclass).
Skirmisher (Includes no magic ranger subclass).
Warlord
Rogue
Monk
Barbarian
Bard (Half caster).
Paladin
Ranger
Artificer
Swordmage
'Play as the monster class'
'Pet Class' (Name pending. Sorry pathfinder, but summoner is a bad name for this concept as it gives people the wrong idea).
Cleric
Druid (Lots of people seem to want a Shaman class, but I'm not familiar with how it differs from druid).
Wizard (Merged into Mage).
Sorcerer (Merged into Mage and Warlock).
Mage (Combines aspects of Wizard and Sorcerer. Subclasses based on types of magic e.g. blood magic, dark magic, bladesinging).
Warlock
Psion

 

[Chalice]

define the ground then, please?

Fighter is obvious: all straight up warrior types fit here. Cleric: well, they are the divine representatives on whatever world we’re talking about in the first place. Thief: stealthy, cunning, resourceful, roguish sorts go here, obviously. Magic-users: wielders of arcane power, naturally.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm basing this off the gw2 mmo, where there were lots of choices, specializations, support abilities, and each weapon brought a suite of 5 different abilities per weapon.

Weapon abilities would be a load of fun. That would help, IMHO, with distinguishing between weapon types.

 

[Corinnguard]

Druid (Lots of people seem to want a Shaman class, but I'm not familiar with how it differs from druid).

In Pathfinder 1st edition, a Shaman is someone who communes with the spirits of the world and the energies that exist within every living thing. I am not sure if the concept for this PF1 class is at all like the one people want for a 5e Shaman class.

Shaman – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

 

[Celebrim]

Fighter (Split into Knight, Skirmisher, and Warlord).
Knight (Includes no magic paladin subclass).
Skirmisher (Includes no magic ranger subclass).
Warlord

So if I want to play a gladiator or a duelist, is that a knight, a skirmisher, or a warlord?

Fundamentally, I don't feel fighter is such an overwhelmingly strong class that you need to silo out capabilities that all fighters might have to some extent to keep them from dominating over the other classes. Like when is the last time you heard someone say, "I'd like to play a spellcaster, but the fighter is just so much more versatile and powerful both in and out of combat that it just doesn't make sense to play a spellcaster."

It's weird because almost no concept gets cut down into smaller pieces than "fighting man" by people attempting to extend D&D and yet the reason mechanically you cut an archetype into smaller pieces is because the archetype would have too much stuff otherwise. So you could justify splitting cleric and wizard to avoid a single class with access to all the best spells, but I think you have a hard time justifying splitting "Good with a sword and shield" from "Good with a bow" or "Good at fighting and moving at the same time." You don't need a class for every weapon and every aspect of martial prowess, so that we have the "Porter" class that is good a carrying things and hiking and a "Slasher" class that is good with whips and so forth.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I even remember hearing the complaint that 4e was "incomplete" until PH2 brought the Barbarian, Bard, Druid and Sorcerer back. Of course, 4e compounded that with the Role/Power source grid, there were calls for a Martial Controller right up to the end until Essentials tried it.

what would a martial controller even be?

Fighter is obvious: all straight up warrior types fit here. Cleric: well, they are the divine representatives on whatever world we’re talking about in the first place. Thief: stealthy, cunning, resourceful, roguish sorts go here, obviously. Magic-users: wielders of arcane power, naturally.

not everything is a sword, arcane or divine so what about every other insane thing going on in the average dnd world, if you had the casters closer to pure functions it would work far better one being damaging the other support, wait that is 4e again.

 

[Mind of tempest]

So if I want to play a gladiator or a duelist, is that a knight, a skirmisher, or a warlord?

Fundamentally, I don't feel fighter is such an overwhelmingly strong class that you need to silo out capabilities that all fighters might have to some extent to keep them from dominating over the other classes. Like when is the last time you heard someone say, "I'd like to play a spellcaster, but the fighter is just so much more versatile and powerful both in and out of combat that it just doesn't make sense to play a spellcaster."

It's weird because almost no concept gets cut down into smaller pieces than "fighting man" by people attempting to extend D&D and yet the reason mechanically you cut an archetype into smaller pieces is because the archetype would have too much stuff otherwise. So you could justify splitting cleric and wizard to avoid a single class with access to all the best spells, but I think you have a hard time justifying splitting "Good with a sword and shield" from "Good with a bow" or "Good at fighting and moving at the same time." You don't need a class for every weapon and every aspect of martial prowess, so that we have the "Porter" class that is good a carrying things and hiking and a "Slasher" class that is good with whips and so forth.

describe what you mean by gladiator?
I think the point of people splitting the fighter is to make it so it can be much better specificity makes it easier to make better mechanics.

 

[Baron Opal II]

So if I want to play a gladiator or a duelist, is that a knight, a skirmisher, or a warlord?

For me, who is considering a similar breakdown, a gladiator would be a knight or skirmisher depending on what they rely on defensively. A Duelist would be a skirmisher.

Much like members of the Thieves' Guild are rogues, fighters, and an odd wizard or two. One's a job (gladiator) and the other is a set of training (skirmisher). Who decides that? The writers and DMs.

* * * * *

To follow up on my previous post, I could see seven classes with 3-4 sub-classes each. That would be a proper use of sub-classes to me. A maximum would be 12-15. With sub-classes, prestige classes, and feats to tweak concepts and take the place of multi-classing you should be able to drill down to whatever concept fits the player's vision and campaign.

RIFTS has in the new core 30 classes (I believe). That setting has to deal with characters being powered by multiple power sources and the resulting modifications that brings. Even so, I think that strains the actual number of archetypes you would play. For example, Barbarian, Crazy, and Juicer* are all very similar concepts that reach the goal in different manners.


* From what I remember, not necessarily in the new core book, not responsible for insertions, deletions, misstatements, unintentional offense, unregulated power sources, or transdimensional possession. YMMV.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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?

The only cap on class quantity is practical (in terms of things like page count and how many can be popular at a time and how many can be designed).

If I had my way, I'd invite a few more classes in. Probably break the Fighter and the Rogue up, maybe nix the Cleric, overall more classes, though.