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

[GrimCo]

What I am suggesting is full powered classes that are made deliberately simple quit few choices after initial setup, outside of subclass.

It might be heresy to say, but something like basic classes and advanced classes? Basic are simple, easy to use, without lot's of moving parts. You do your thing, repeatedly and efficiently.

Think the champion fighter except for that's the base class and it gets even more critical hit threat range increases.

Champion is great example of simple to use class. You hit things. Over and over. Some passive stuff (adv to checks) and simple recharge mechanic (action surge/second wind).

Or the 3e Warlock.

3e warlock is great model to build simple caster. It had no spells per se. It had eldricht blast ability that progressed like sneak attack with levels and few invocations that were at will "spells". Something similar could be used for basic magic user. Mana blast - basic spell attack, invocation spells - few select control/debuff/utility spells which are at will and thats it. Same could be used for cleric, but center it on healing, restoration, buffing and thats it. I think that 3e warlock had something like 6 invocations at lv 10. Curate "spell list" so it doesn't have situational, niche or downright bad choices, something like dozen or so options (so by the lv 20, you have them all).

 

[Minigiant]

The fundamental divide in this thread is the people who want a dozen specialized casters with unique effects and abilities and the people who want one singular "I use magic" class that does everything and let's the player figure it out. The current game tries to support both by having a wizard who can do 80% of the game's magic and then a bunch of niche casters that can do a fraction of that, with some unique effects not given to wizards (like healing or nature spells) which only serves to make the wizard too good at everything but their specific weaknesses and everyone else suck unless they have access to those specific strengths.

Exactly

Like I said said on Subsystems, it's a how far you go.

1 super mage, 1 super priest. No ultra specialized mage

VS

1 super wizard, 1 super cleric. 3-6 ultra specialized other casters

VS

6-12 ultra specialized casters

 

[Remathilis]

Exactly

Like I said said on Subsystems, it's a how far you go.

1 super mage, 1 super priest. No ultra specialized mage

VS

1 super wizard, 1 super cleric. 3-6 ultra specialized other casters

VS

6-12 ultra specialized casters

I'd personally rather the third option.

 

[Aldarc]

I'd personally rather the third option.

What would be your 6 to 12 casters?

 

[Minigiant]

I'd personally rather the third option.

I favor the MTG/Guild Wars/Daggerheart model where each type of magic is specialized and each classs has access to 1-3 types of magic.

 

[bmfrosty]

Either 4 or 7. Depending.

 

[Aldarc]

I favor the MTG/Guild Wars/Daggerheart model where each type of magic is specialized and each classs has access to 1-3 types of magic.

Since I mentioned it before, but one of the nice things about Shadow of the Demon Lord/Weird Wizard is how it organizes magical traditions by themes: e.g., pyromancy, chronomancy, psychomancy, etc. As you level in various paths that grant access to magical traditions, you often have to choose between depth and breadth.

 

[jmartkdr2]

What would be your 6 to 12 casters?

Different person but I listed 17 several pages ago.

Arcane gets wizard and artificer,
divine gets cleric (white mage really) and paladin,
primal gets druid and beastmaster ranger and warden/primal barbarian,
dragon magic gets sorcerer and dragoon,
fiendish magic gets warlock and hexblade,
wild magic gets wild mage,
shadow magic gets shadowcaster,
rune magic gets runesmith.
Bards either get their own kind of magic or the ability to dabble in multiple other types.
Qi gets the mystic and monk.

I'm lumping psion in with monk here, and I had forgotten about elementalists (sha'ir and a warrior type) entirely. And yes, I have slightly different mechanical implementations in mind, though a lot of that comes from only using "spell slots" for arcane magic.

It's not that hard to come up with a lot of different ways to fantasy; the hard part is keeping it from getting out of hand.

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

I'm back to four: fighter, wizard, thief, bard. If you need something other than that, multi-class or use the sufficient skill system, or grab a feat. That would make the D&D Monk a kind of "thief" tho. Maybe: knight, athlete, wizard, and bard?

www.enworld.org

 

[Vaalingrade]

Class and subclass not being part of the same trenche and overwhelming new players is one of the good parts of this.

I will say this forever: we vastly underestimate the ability of new players to grok gameplay.

I've watched a ten year old master the dozen or so buttons on a modern console controller in an impossible number of combinations all while juggling a stream of consumable and recharging abilities and honing the situational awareness and reflexes to keep up with a maddeningly ubiquitous 'perfect parry' combat system.

And yet I come on here and get told that same ten your old is too incompetent to operate Barbarian Rage and a feat that asks them to use basic addition.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I will say this forever: we vastly underestimate the ability of new players to grok gameplay.

I've watched a ten year old master the dozen or so buttons on a modern console controller in an impossible number of combinations all while juggling a stream of consumable and recharging abilities and honing the situational awareness and reflexes to keep up with a maddeningly ubiquitous 'perfect parry' combat system.

And yet I come on here and get told that same ten your old is too incompetent to operate Barbarian Rage and a feat that asks them to use basic addition.

just because it is possible for some new players to understand how to play the game very quickly it is not a free pass nor good idea to therefore make the learning curve as steep as we possibly can.

having been a new player for 5e myself, at the time in my mid-20s, aparrently the 'most approachable ruleset' of DnD, let me just say it can still be pretty damn complicated, there is a very large wall of rules knowledge to this hobby, don't make it harder simply because you can.