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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ZombieRoboNinja" data-source="post: 5946589" data-attributes="member: 54843">There have been a lot of threads on which pre-5e classes deserve to be classes in 5e. I think it might be worthwhile to take a look at what a "class" actually seems to consist of in 5e, based on what we know so far.Looking at the playtest characters, the things explicitly tied to class are pretty straightforward: weapon and armor proficiencies, spells, HP/hit dice, and a fairly limited selection of "core" class abilities. We also have good reason to think that various "hidden" bonuses are tied to class (e.g. the fighter gets +1 to attack and damage, and I think someone figured out that there are class bonuses to ability scores). Some classes also seem to get an extra background (the rogue's "thief scheme") or an extra theme (a possibility mentioned for the fighter).Beyond that, the class seems pretty stripped down. It's not the character's 4e "role" anymore; that's at least partly defined by theme. For non-spellcasters, it's not a 4e-style list of "powers." It's not a list of class skills, or BAB, or saving throw progression, which were a pretty big deal in 3.x. It's apparently not a roleplaying "paradigm" either, since the fighter class is supposed to cover everything from archers to swashbucklers to knights. (Even the cleric class is supposed to cover both battle-clerics in platemail and priests in cloth.)Here's the interesting part, for me: the rogue class (my favorite from the playtest) demonstrates just how much a character can be defined by a few powerful class abilities. The rogue has three unique class abilities: an extra roguey background, Skill Mastery, and Sneak Attack. Taken together, these abilities are enough to make the rogue play very differently from, say, the fighter, even if that fighter was a halfling commoner (or even a halfling thief, if the thief scheme is available as a background for other classes, which I hope is the case). These abilities are elegant and powerful enough to define the character both in and out of combat. Moreover, they're flexible enough to (potentially) allow all sorts of different rogues that are tied together in a clear way. You could have a skirmisher who uses a theme to gain advantage from flanking, or a diplomat who poisons his enemies, or a plain ol' backstabber.Spellcasters are a different kettle of fish, because they're very much defined by their spells and how they access them. But when it comes to other "martial" or hybrid classes like fighter, ranger, paladin, and warlord, what kind of class abilities can you imagine that would define those classes sufficiently to make them stand out as unique?The current fighter class seems to get fighter's surge (a cool ability) and some extra bonuses to weapon damage and attack rolls. Is this enough to define the fighter's role as master of weaponry? What if it's combined with more cool higher-level class abilities?What about the ranger - can you think of 2-4 elegant class abilities that would define a 1st or 2nd-level ranger enough to clearly differentiate him from an archer-fighter or an archer-rogue? Or the paladin from a war-domain cleric?</blockquote>

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