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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What should the 15th Class be?
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<blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9773601" data-attributes="member: 7035894"><p>One thing that I have been thinking about is whether and how the widespread adoption of DnDBeYond affects WotC's decision making in all things, but especially on adding more stuff to the game.</p><p></p><p>Thanks to DDB, they have a lot of data on class and subclass popularity (every now and then, they share bits of that data with us). So I imagine that they are looking at adding any new class or subclass very much through the lens of costs and benefits.</p><p></p><p>On top of the cost of creating, testing, and publishing, a primary cost of adding something as significant as a new class is that you have substantially increased the complexity of the game. I suspect that WotC is looking hard at their numbers for classes/subclasses that they see as analogous, as well as at their forums for a sense of demand, and, per their general 5e strategy, being very cautious about adding new stuff to the game.</p><p></p><p>So for something like, say, a Warlord, they are probably making internal projections of how much usage the class will actually get. They already have some Warlord-adjacent options, in terms of classes than can be used primarily for support, battlemaster fighters, various feats. Given that context, what percentage of players will want to play a Warlord, specifically? Unless it is going to be signficant (say, 3% or higher***), then WotC does not have much incentive to add the Warlord to the rules.</p><p></p><p>***My understanding is that this is around the percentage of characters that are artificers on DDB. Druids are the least popular of the PHB classes at around 5%, last time I saw data. Other classes were 7% or higher.</p><p></p><p>Edit: the addition of more classes also has very much to be considered in light of WotC's "less is more" strategy for 5e, which is super clear not just from the communications, but from our current threads looking at D&D's publication history through every edition. WotC has determined that publishing more stuff to serve every possible niche is actually counterproductive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Clint_L, post: 9773601, member: 7035894"] One thing that I have been thinking about is whether and how the widespread adoption of DnDBeYond affects WotC's decision making in all things, but especially on adding more stuff to the game. Thanks to DDB, they have a lot of data on class and subclass popularity (every now and then, they share bits of that data with us). So I imagine that they are looking at adding any new class or subclass very much through the lens of costs and benefits. On top of the cost of creating, testing, and publishing, a primary cost of adding something as significant as a new class is that you have substantially increased the complexity of the game. I suspect that WotC is looking hard at their numbers for classes/subclasses that they see as analogous, as well as at their forums for a sense of demand, and, per their general 5e strategy, being very cautious about adding new stuff to the game. So for something like, say, a Warlord, they are probably making internal projections of how much usage the class will actually get. They already have some Warlord-adjacent options, in terms of classes than can be used primarily for support, battlemaster fighters, various feats. Given that context, what percentage of players will want to play a Warlord, specifically? Unless it is going to be signficant (say, 3% or higher***), then WotC does not have much incentive to add the Warlord to the rules. ***My understanding is that this is around the percentage of characters that are artificers on DDB. Druids are the least popular of the PHB classes at around 5%, last time I saw data. Other classes were 7% or higher. Edit: the addition of more classes also has very much to be considered in light of WotC's "less is more" strategy for 5e, which is super clear not just from the communications, but from our current threads looking at D&D's publication history through every edition. WotC has determined that publishing more stuff to serve every possible niche is actually counterproductive. [/QUOTE]
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What should the 15th Class be?
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