Particle_Man
Explorer
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D&D 3E/3.5 What was the original intended function of the 3rd edition phb classes?
Particle_Man
Explorer
Fair enough. I will edit my original question to focus more on the intended original function of the classes.
I believe that the writers of 3e had a bit of a disagreement... no that isn't the right word,
maybe scattered and spread out philosophy??
maybe just they were in the middle of a change that they didn't know they were in...
Simulation Vs Recreation.
sometime they went with "What would happen if" and sometimes they went with "wouldn't it be cool if" and monte cook built in traps along the way
maybe scattered and spread out philosophy??
maybe just they were in the middle of a change that they didn't know they were in...
Simulation Vs Recreation.
sometime they went with "What would happen if" and sometimes they went with "wouldn't it be cool if" and monte cook built in traps along the way
Let's go back to basic and AD&D. And 4 classes.
You had the Magic User, the Cleric, the Fighting Man and the Thief.
The Magic User could cast spells, but had a limited supply of magic and was fragile. As they gained levels, they gained the ability to cast more spells per adventure, and the impact of their most powerful spells (if they worked) was greater on the world. At the same time, spells fully working on monsters became less and less likely.
The Fighting Man gained in durability more than any other class. They had a weapon and armor, and could survive blasts from a dragon or an enemy wizard better than anyone else. Their offence grew as well, but frankly slower than their durability did. In addition, they had the wildest selection of magical weapons and other equipment they could use.
The Thief was a marginal combatant; better than the wizard, way worse than the Fighting Man. But the thief could move around the dungeon environment better than the Fighting man could.
The Cleric was also a worst combatant than the Fighting Man. They had access to a limited set of magical weapons. Their spellcasting was weaker than the Wizard, and less of it involved blowing enemies up, and more of it involved healing and boosting their allies.
They also had impressive anti-undead capabilities; the first Cleric was a class specifically designed to kill Sir Fang, a PC-vampire, by the DM at the time.
---
We then go forward. The 3e Rogue is a better combatant than the old-school Thief (its sneak attack is less situational).
BEMCI, AD&D and AD&D 2nd made the Fighter's offence scale more than it used to.
The Paladin and Ranger subclasses of Fighting Man where introduced.
The Bard is a spellcasting Thief variant in role.
Other than that, the rest is basically similar in the intended role.
The Wizard is supposed to be fragile and guarded by the front line, and blast stuff when things get hard, and otherwise conserve their power. The Cleric is supposed to be guarding the flank of the Fighters, and using support magic. The Rogue/Bard is supposed to try to avoid the thick of combat, and be a support expert in their field. The Fighter are supposed to defend their party by physically being between them and the hostile foe, and fight toe-to-toe with the enemy.
Rangers are sort of a Thief/Fighter hybrid in role. Paladins a bit of a Cleric/Fighter hybrid role. Bards a Thief/Wizard hybrid. Druids are variant Clerics in their role. Monks where maybe Fighter/Thief in role.
Ie, they are supposed to play like AD&D 2e characters do, with new mechanics.
...
Things that went wrong.
The spell count of high level spellcasters gets insane. Spell save DCs scale faster than saving throws do; in the old saving throw system, the chance of a spell landing on a level-appropriate foe went down at higher levels, while in 3e it went up in practice.
And attempts to make the cleric feel less of a 2nd line combatant ... resulted in them eclipsing the fighter at fighting. The same happened with the Druid, who has a class feature that is as good as the entire fighter class (animal companion).
You had the Magic User, the Cleric, the Fighting Man and the Thief.
The Magic User could cast spells, but had a limited supply of magic and was fragile. As they gained levels, they gained the ability to cast more spells per adventure, and the impact of their most powerful spells (if they worked) was greater on the world. At the same time, spells fully working on monsters became less and less likely.
The Fighting Man gained in durability more than any other class. They had a weapon and armor, and could survive blasts from a dragon or an enemy wizard better than anyone else. Their offence grew as well, but frankly slower than their durability did. In addition, they had the wildest selection of magical weapons and other equipment they could use.
The Thief was a marginal combatant; better than the wizard, way worse than the Fighting Man. But the thief could move around the dungeon environment better than the Fighting man could.
The Cleric was also a worst combatant than the Fighting Man. They had access to a limited set of magical weapons. Their spellcasting was weaker than the Wizard, and less of it involved blowing enemies up, and more of it involved healing and boosting their allies.
They also had impressive anti-undead capabilities; the first Cleric was a class specifically designed to kill Sir Fang, a PC-vampire, by the DM at the time.
---
We then go forward. The 3e Rogue is a better combatant than the old-school Thief (its sneak attack is less situational).
BEMCI, AD&D and AD&D 2nd made the Fighter's offence scale more than it used to.
The Paladin and Ranger subclasses of Fighting Man where introduced.
The Bard is a spellcasting Thief variant in role.
Other than that, the rest is basically similar in the intended role.
The Wizard is supposed to be fragile and guarded by the front line, and blast stuff when things get hard, and otherwise conserve their power. The Cleric is supposed to be guarding the flank of the Fighters, and using support magic. The Rogue/Bard is supposed to try to avoid the thick of combat, and be a support expert in their field. The Fighter are supposed to defend their party by physically being between them and the hostile foe, and fight toe-to-toe with the enemy.
Rangers are sort of a Thief/Fighter hybrid in role. Paladins a bit of a Cleric/Fighter hybrid role. Bards a Thief/Wizard hybrid. Druids are variant Clerics in their role. Monks where maybe Fighter/Thief in role.
Ie, they are supposed to play like AD&D 2e characters do, with new mechanics.
...
Things that went wrong.
The spell count of high level spellcasters gets insane. Spell save DCs scale faster than saving throws do; in the old saving throw system, the chance of a spell landing on a level-appropriate foe went down at higher levels, while in 3e it went up in practice.
And attempts to make the cleric feel less of a 2nd line combatant ... resulted in them eclipsing the fighter at fighting. The same happened with the Druid, who has a class feature that is as good as the entire fighter class (animal companion).
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Stormonu
Legend
The proposed intent we were presented with was that the classes had parity. You could choose any class and they should contribute to the game equally.
Unfortunately, behind the scenes it was never designed that way. For the first 3 levels or so, Martials (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Monk) had interesting things going on that they could be beneficial. Unfortunately, around 5th level the martials starting hitting glass ceilings where there abilities seemingly couldn't get better without becoming "magic". Skills had limits - far below even Olympic or guinness world record standards whereas spells could accomplish things without a check or limit, or low-level spells giving you bonuses that outstripped anything that level advancement could get you close to.
On the other hand, spellcasters quickly outstripped the "mundanes" - there wasn't a glass ceiling they would hit and they kept getting stronger the more spells were added to their repertoire. And even the low level spells got better as you leveled up. A 1st level attack spell cast by a 1st level caster was slightly inferior to a 1st level fighter's sword attack. But a 1st level attack spell cast by 10th level wizard could outshine a similarly leveled fighter's entire attack routine - and the wizard still had 2nd-5th level spells to fall back on. It was literally Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard. Didn't help Clerics getting 8th and 9th level spells while still retaining decent combat bonuses and good armor.
In the end, post 6th level if you didn't have spellcasting available to you, running martials was a fool's errand. And looking back, the designers meant it to be that way. I think that's why there was a large population that adopted the idea of the E6 variant; your character capped out at 6th level ability, mainly to reign in spellcasters and not leave the martials too far behind that they could no longer contribute.
Unfortunately, behind the scenes it was never designed that way. For the first 3 levels or so, Martials (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Monk) had interesting things going on that they could be beneficial. Unfortunately, around 5th level the martials starting hitting glass ceilings where there abilities seemingly couldn't get better without becoming "magic". Skills had limits - far below even Olympic or guinness world record standards whereas spells could accomplish things without a check or limit, or low-level spells giving you bonuses that outstripped anything that level advancement could get you close to.
On the other hand, spellcasters quickly outstripped the "mundanes" - there wasn't a glass ceiling they would hit and they kept getting stronger the more spells were added to their repertoire. And even the low level spells got better as you leveled up. A 1st level attack spell cast by a 1st level caster was slightly inferior to a 1st level fighter's sword attack. But a 1st level attack spell cast by 10th level wizard could outshine a similarly leveled fighter's entire attack routine - and the wizard still had 2nd-5th level spells to fall back on. It was literally Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard. Didn't help Clerics getting 8th and 9th level spells while still retaining decent combat bonuses and good armor.
In the end, post 6th level if you didn't have spellcasting available to you, running martials was a fool's errand. And looking back, the designers meant it to be that way. I think that's why there was a large population that adopted the idea of the E6 variant; your character capped out at 6th level ability, mainly to reign in spellcasters and not leave the martials too far behind that they could no longer contribute.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
The intent of the 3.0 classes was to be a reboot by WotC of D&D after it had languished for years under TSR with nothing new.
In terms of the "technology" used to play, it was a huge leap from AD&D - the industry had been making a lot of progress, and the three Lead Designers were big names.
But that means that there's lots of places where things are very new, such as the multiclassing system (very different then what came before), the very concept of Prestige Classes, feats, and of course the aggressive publishing schedule that put out lots more character creation/advancement content, often not playtested with other expansions that were being developed at the same time.
Asking "what was it supposed to be" was a new version of D&D - that things morphed later is something we can evaluate in hindsight but it false to say that the designers knew everything from the beginning.
Looking back at the 3.0 classes, they were meant to evoke spirit of earlier editions of D&D while at the same time modernizing it without killing too many sacred cows. We can look at AD&D classes for a clue, but that's only part of it. Unless you talk to an insider from that time, the best place to get a feel for what the 3.0 classes were supposed to be is the fluff describing them in the 3.0 PHB.
In terms of the "technology" used to play, it was a huge leap from AD&D - the industry had been making a lot of progress, and the three Lead Designers were big names.
But that means that there's lots of places where things are very new, such as the multiclassing system (very different then what came before), the very concept of Prestige Classes, feats, and of course the aggressive publishing schedule that put out lots more character creation/advancement content, often not playtested with other expansions that were being developed at the same time.
Asking "what was it supposed to be" was a new version of D&D - that things morphed later is something we can evaluate in hindsight but it false to say that the designers knew everything from the beginning.
Looking back at the 3.0 classes, they were meant to evoke spirit of earlier editions of D&D while at the same time modernizing it without killing too many sacred cows. We can look at AD&D classes for a clue, but that's only part of it. Unless you talk to an insider from that time, the best place to get a feel for what the 3.0 classes were supposed to be is the fluff describing them in the 3.0 PHB.
Lyxen
Great Old One
Honestly, all these were fairly well designed and with relatively clear intent. The one thing that they did wrong, and they missed that with 4e as well, was not recognising that the market had changed and that consumer's opinion was everything, you just could not decide to impose something and people would just follow the brand. 5e got it right with a huge multi-year survey that ironed out most of the kinks in the system. It's not perfect, but it's neither so full of holes that the internet cannot tear it out like tissue paper or so far from the expectations that it's massively rejected by the fan base.
And this is why we won't be seeing a 6e for a veeerrryyy long time, because such a long survey is extremely costly and immediately shears into the profits of year 1 of the survey, as, apart from fanatics, people will not buy something for a soon-to-be-obsolete edition. WotC had to do it since 4e was dropping like a stone, but there is zero reason to do it with 5e for which almost every book is a best seller and where they are extremely well managed the power drift.
And this is why we won't be seeing a 6e for a veeerrryyy long time, because such a long survey is extremely costly and immediately shears into the profits of year 1 of the survey, as, apart from fanatics, people will not buy something for a soon-to-be-obsolete edition. WotC had to do it since 4e was dropping like a stone, but there is zero reason to do it with 5e for which almost every book is a best seller and where they are extremely well managed the power drift.
yeah, I think the "extraordinary' subtype of abelites was a great idea, but a joke because like you said... if I look up the worlds strong man and the last 5-8 people to break records would need 30str, or the long jump record that 2 record breaks ago a fighter below 18th level can't match and it breaks....
Burning hands and magic missle were super useful as 1st level slots at 7th level... (5d4 fire small AOE) (4d4+4 auto hit) but also mage armor would last all day by then...
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
To be fair, high spell counts for high level spellcasters was nothing new. 1e/2e had it as well.
The issue of spell save DCs was an interesting one. While it's true that the chances of a similar (or higher) level foe failing the save went down in 1e/2e, there were elements set up in the 3e system that were set up to do something similar for strong saves and common bonuses you could get to your saves were cheaper than most bonuses the caster could get to boost your save DCs. What that ran into was optimization-mania. Most likely targets weren't going to focus on just boosting their saves while spellcasters had all sorts of incentive to invest in their spellcasting stat. I figure this sort of issue is one of the reasons 5e caps the stats. It no longer can skew way out of proportion.
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