D&D General What kind of class design do you prefer?

[Scribe]

It's become the "invisible" fourth pillar of the game. People seem more invested in the "character build" pillar than actually playing the game, or in some of the pillars that are actually detailed in the game itself.

Is this actually an issue?

There are people in Magic the Gathering.

Interested mostly in competitive play.
Interested mostly in the story of the game.
Interested mostly in the mechanics of the game.
Interested mostly in the art of the game.

All are valid ways to engage with the game, why should D&D be different?

Canon/Lore?
RP?
Combat Math/Optimization?
Character Builds?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Then what's the point of classes? Why not just a fantasy Mutants & Mastermind?

Because classes serve as a useful design backbone for the general direction you're going for. Fighters were the tanks, Rogues are the skill monkeys, sorcerers are the internal magic classes and wizards are the reason none of them can have nice things.

 

[billd91]

I find that "builds" are bad for the game. You have people who are more invested in chargen than the game itself. The game becomes just a tool, an operation to "test/prove/showoff" their build. A bit like photographers more interested in what their camera can do vs taking good photos.

I think that depends on just how you approach the term "build". For some people, the stink of the worst of CharOp clings to it - which I think is the direction you're coming from.
But I don't have a problem with build as a verb for creating a character from one step in the process to another, even in a game or environment that doesn't have or value optimization options.

 

[Stormonu]

Lots of classes with tons of subclasses, heaps of backgrounds and hordes of races. I want my options.

To me, there’s at least one class missing from D&D - the martial caster, which some have called Swordmage, Eldritch Knight or otherwise.

 

[Scribe]

I mean I've put probably 10-15 hours, easily, in the Character creation for the Wrath of the Righteous video game.

There are legit "AAA" titles I've put less time into, and completed.

Thats some seriously value for the dollar there.

 

[Mind of tempest]

No, I mean something like four or five classes that have two or three distinctive abilities.

what if large amounts of people do not like any of those options? also, how would you sell more non-adventure books?

 

[Blue]

I want to be able to be mechanically supported playing the tropes and archetypes of my genre and my setting.

Now, if there's a grouping where many of them would make sense to have a similar chassis, while others are rather far apart, then that's how you represent that mechanically.

The idea of trying to shoehorn what should be covered so that meets some arbitrary decision to equalize the number of subclasses per class for symmetry seems to be harmful to good design. One way it gets rid of valid concepts that mechanically need to be expressed differently (e.g. as their own classes) but don't have the requisite number of reasonable variants, and the other way it causes needless duplication of basic features because you're only allowing a few subclasses per class but there's a grouping of archetypes that would be well established by a class but it's "too many".

The answer is: I want a varied amount of subclasses and classes to properly be able to mechanically support the concepts wanted without having to be balanced against arbitrary limits on number of classes or subclasses.

 

[Vael]

... Both?

Like, I have no problem with having both wide and narrow classes. Have both a wide Rogue class and a narrow Swordmage class, for example.

 

[overgeeked]

Is this actually an issue?

When you get them in your game and they spend hour after hour building a character...then drop out...yeah. It's an issue. The game is playing the character, not building one. There's also the knock-on effect of people optimizing and throwing off the balance of the game. That's an issue.

There are people in Magic the Gathering.

Good thing D&D and Magic aren't the same game. At least for now.

All are valid ways to engage with the game, why should D&D be different?

Who said they were invalid? I didn't. I said I don't like that style of engagement.

Canon/Lore?
RP?
Combat Math/Optimization?
Character Builds?

It doesn't affect the game as played if someone's a lore-hound...unless you're running that setting and they correct the DM. It only affects the game if someone's a hardcore RPer if they hog the spotlight or don't cater to the expectations of the table. Optimizers throw off the balance of the game and force the rest of the players to either optimize or get squished in the arms race between the optimizer and the DM. Character builds are optimization.

 

[Scribe]

Who said they were invalid? I didn't. I said I don't like that style of engagement.

Thats fair. I'm not telling you your preferences are invalid, or that you have not had issue with different players who emphasize different avenues to engaging with the game.

I've been told by a few folks around here across multiple threads that what I care about either:

A: Doesnt matter.
B: Is wrong and ruins the game.

I just dont believe things are that clear cut.