D&D 5E What Seven Classes Would You Keep? (and why!)

[Tony Vargas]

The core four at there because they cover the most common archetypes.

What? In genre? The Fighter certainly does.
The Rogue - much expanded from the Thief - arguably does, though in part by overlapping with the fighter.
The Wizard... not really that common in genre, as the hero, or even as the mentor traveling with the heroes at least some of the time, like Gandalf...
The Cleric? Not hardly at all, especially the narrow, weirdly-hybridized Xtian/Pagan D&D take.

Regardless if you want to play them, they're needed. Actually, "cleric" can be any healer type - it's D&D that codified that to religion.

Well, were needed. Starting in 3.0, at least in concept, you were meant to be able to swap out a Druid for a cleric or Barbarian for a fighter or the like.

It's no surprise the big 4 are leading.

They always do. But, aside from the Fighter's perennial popularity, only because they're D&D institutions.

nteresting that in a different recent thread people said they felt the Warlock was one of the best designed 5e classes, but here it's one of the least required if forced to chop.

Understandable, actually, it was /slightly/ innovative.

If you want to be minimal, it's the Big 4.

If you really want to be minimal, it'd be by what 4e labeled "source." You wouldn't need both the Fighter & Rogue. You might add the Psion.

 

[Lanefan]

Skill monkey, combat monkey, spell monkey.

Steal no evil, hit no evil, cast no evil?

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Cheers to everyone who said Warlord.

 

[Draegn]

I have four. Divine, Arcane, Mundane and Nonpareil (which is a combination of the first three) Together these DAMN heroes just ruin a nice dragon's day.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Quick visual.

View attachment 114975

Classic 4 dominate as expected.

Yep. A mix of traditionalism/familiarity, and some folks preferring the most basic, “low flavor” options over the more specialized “heavy specific flavor” options, means this will always be the case. Still, I’ll give it to 5e, the fighter and rogue are actually pretty good in this edition, and I can imagine playing a wizard or cleric at some point.

The the game has been going with thinning the line between divine and arcane magic, I think the cleric could be subsumed into a sorcerer type class. You could have "White Mages" and such, that get access to different spells. I kind of like what Sorcerer (and Warlock) have done with new ways to see magic, so I want to keep one of those. The Ranger has been unsatisfactory in most of the recent editions of the game, so fold that into the Fighter. Same for barbarian. Might as well throw the paladin in as well. Maybe keep the monk around for it's flavor and uniqueness.

I’d be down to fold the Cleric into the sorcerer, but none of the rest.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Still, I’ll give it to 5e, the fighter and rogue are actually pretty good in this edition, and I can imagine playing a wizard or cleric at some point.

The Druid and Bard seemed to do well this edition - the Druid's definitely my favorite class, again, this ed, for the first time in a long time.
The fighter - after the elegance of the 3.x fighter design, and the agency & genre-fidelity/role-support of the 4e Fighter & Warlord - I find really quite disappointing.

 

[Maxperson]

You forgot the monk!

I try.

 

[Slit518]

Warrior - you can find warriors in every culture.
Priest - you can find different kinds of priests throughout the world.
Thief - they like to steal; they may also like to sneak & hide.
Magic Caster - tales of people with the ability to cast magic are rife through many cultures.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Thanks to everyone for contributing!

I picked other. Really it should have been "none of them" instead. I want D&D to no longer be a class/level based system so that you can get even further towards the idea of a actually-effective sword-wielding Gandalf, or a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or any of a number of fantasy characters that D&D doesn't do a good job of portraying.

I want a lifepath-based system where you could bounce from being a cleric to a administrator to a gladiator, for example, and not do so out of a necessity to take "x levels in this class so I can get these specific abilities."

How many times have we seen ridiculous characters with a string of levels in multiple classes just to get one specific ability out of them?

Interesting... very interesting....

Skill monkey, combat monkey, spell monkey.

Works for me.

Oh, you're getting close... so close! MWAHAHAHA!

 

[Shiroiken]

Like Shadow of a Demon Lord?

Unfamiliar with the system, but possibly. Basically you'd have 4 classes (warrior, specialist, priest, mage), 12+ subclasses (the classes), then themes (sub-classes). All classes would have similar base abilities, with sub-classes providing more detail, then themes even more detail. It could theoretically allow 2 different sub-classes to use the same theme, but I haven't looked into it enough to see if that's viable. It prevents some silly multi-class options, since you can't multi-class into the same type, but I'd probably include an option to take lower level sub-class features within your class (so a paladin could pick up a lower level rage ability instead of a higher level paladin ability). A "Base Game" would have the 4 classes, maybe 8 sub-classes (2 each), then 16 themes (2 each); this may seem like a lot but it's really only 3 choices.