D&D 5E Which classes have the least identity?

[steeldragons]

Because most people view flavor as uniqueness, not adaptability.

Oh, right. I forget if one isn't "unique" then they can't possibly have an identity. Yes, yes. Everyone is "special." All tiktok and youtube channels are created equal/matter.

By your standard, the food most with the most identity is white bread. Think of all the stuff you can make with it! Sandwiches, toast, stuffing! You know what doesn't have identity? Mac and cheese. Oh sure, you can toss bacon or tomatoes on it, but you only can ever make Mac and cheese with it. Given a choice, people will choose white bread over Mac and cheese for dinner, right?

Well, no. Your metaphor nicely sums up why there is a Fighter (white bread) and a Paladin (mac n cheese) as separate classes, however.

The White bread can be made into many many different things. But it can never be turned into Mac n cheese. The mac n' cheese is something fundamentally different...i.e. needs to be its own class. It can have a few different flavors. Be done different ways. Use different pastas. Different assortments of cheeses. Add toppings. But never, can be nearly as many different things as the white bread and will always still be mac n' cheese.
Both have their own identities. I will maintain, and you seem to illustrate well, the white bread's is larger (covers more ground), than the mac n' cheese.

 

[Remathilis]

Pretty sure one of my posts already covered that. The Fighter uses weapons, engages/specializes in being good at combat. The Wizard uses knows about and uses magic.

Those are the roles. Their "jobs," as it were. Their identity within the game...any game. Any world. That's what they do. They can fit in anywhere. THAT is a LOT of "identity."

Whether the magic is learned from "a book" (which, again, baffling why this is such a problem/foreign an idea for so many people) or a bloodline? Comes out of a wand you bought at the wand guy's store on Whozzitsever Alley? Or you're covered in rune tattoos that you peel off as solid shadows? You make magic happen. That's your identity.

Are you a samurai with a katana and longbow, a knight with a sword and backup morningstar, or a "lancer" with a lance on a horse does not alter the FIghter's identity. You are to get into combat and break heads! You can do that with "honor" or "chivalry" or a reckless abandon for skewering things at the end of your polearm. That's up to you, the player, to make your character happen the way you want. That is not "the class" having or not having "identity."

What "fluff" (or mechanics, for that matter) you dress that magic-use or fighting up in is completely immaterial to the "identity" of the class. You being able to "ask about a paladin's "order or holiness" or whatnot does not give the class "identity." It's just narrative specificity needed to justify the additional mechanics to warrant the class being separate from a Fighter (with an oath) or a Cleric (with a sword).

And then the reduction goes further.

What is a cleric but a magic user with a holy symbol and healing magic. What is a rogue but a lightly armed fighter with better skills? Why not just have a tank/healer/DPS or a warrior/caster/expert Trinity? Why not just warrior or caster? Why not just one class that chooses weapons and armor instead of a book and wand? Why have any classes at all?

Which is why the existence of a class, any class, is purely a question of taste.

 

[tetrasodium]

This question can be answered in a few ways.

The classes that for some lack “game identity” do so because they are necessarily broad.

Think of “the old wise person” in jungian sorts of archetypes. How many cultures have a sense of what a “warrior” is supposed to be? The things that people say lack identity actually have the most identity historically.

A van helsing sort of cleric has its most direct roots to literature back 100 years. A fighter is older than civilization. An artificer? That’s much newer and less universal.

In terms of what a class does, a fighter has a very clear identity even if some find it to be a narrow focus.

In addition to Daedalus I'd add Brokkr, you might be familiar with some of his work.

Also potentially how Dian Cecht and Credne worked together to make Nuada Airgetlám's silver arm too.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

No problem. Internet discussion is turn-based combat. See that's what I don't want. Right now, if I want to play an arcane caster, I have five possible classes (artificer, bard, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard) and dozens of sub themes (alchemist, archfey pact, diviner, shadow sorcery, etc). What threads like this do is say "but what if we could take all those options you have and condense them down to a handful, then you can pretend your dark magic user is a necromancer, a warlock, a shadow sorcerer, or a witch, despite them all having basically the same abilities and options. It's the "they look the same if you squint" design principle gm that looks good on a forum post and plays bad when all casters play the exact same except for the color of their robes.

Well, I find for me there is a sweet spot.

I like having warlocks along with wizards and (gulp) sorcerers. I just think it can be overdone.

too specific gets too specific for me. I like a little creative space for theme as well as mechanical contribution to the team.

I suppose though I am saying some breadth and non specificity (ie warrior) increases coverage so to speak.

 

[Mecheon]

Pretty sure one of my posts already covered that. The Fighter uses weapons, engages/specializes in being good at combat. The Wizard uses knows about and uses magic.

Those are the roles. Their "jobs," as it were. Their identity within the game...any game. Any world. That's what they do. They can fit in anywhere. THAT is a LOT of "identity."

That's not identity though? Everyone uses weapons, everyone's good at combat, over half the classes in the game use magic?

What is the Fighter and Wizard's unique identity? What makes them the Fighter and the Wizard? Fitting in everyone isn't unique

Whether the magic is learned from "a book" (which, again, baffling why this is such a problem/foreign an idea for so many people) or a bloodline? Comes out of a wand you bought at the wand guy's store on Whozzitsever Alley? Or you're covered in rune tattoos that you peel off as solid shadows? You make magic happen. That's your identity.

Are you a samurai with a katana and longbow, a knight with a sword and backup morningstar, or a "lancer" with a lance on a horse does not alter the FIghter's identity. You are to get into combat and break heads! You can do that with "honor" or "chivalry" or a reckless abandon for skewering things at the end of your polearm. That's up to you, the player, to make your character happen the way you want. That is not "the class" having or not having "identity."

What "fluff" (or mechanics, for that matter) you dress that magic-use or fighting up in is completely immaterial to the "identity" of the class. You being able to "ask about a paladin's "order or holiness" or whatnot does not give the class "identity." It's just narrative specificity needed to justify the additional mechanics to warrant the class being separate from a Fighter (with an oath) or a Cleric (with a sword).

Most of the classes in the game use magic. It isn't their identity. Its why the How you use magic comes into it, and that's the wizard's one defining thing that gives them flavour. They use magic through a book. All those other descriptions you've put down? Those are so different they should be unique classes, not slammed together into one. Its losing any identity of having those unique features together

I don't just play D&D, I also play other video games. And y'know an old favourite of mine? The Soul Calibur series, first seen with Soul Edge and then Soul Blade's amazing intro sequence for the PS1. Each character in that game is someone using a weapon. But, they're absolutely distinctive aside from each other with their own identity due to how they use those weapons. If sword and shield using Sophitia decided to put armor on one day, you're not going to confuse anything about her fighting style with the knight Siegfried and his ridiculous giant sword. Heck, when Siegfried becomes Nightmare in later games, they have completely different styles despite being the same person. That is identity. Getting into combat and breaking heads is what every single class in the game does. That isn't an identity and it sure as heck isn't unique to the Fighter. It needs somethign that's unique, that's its own, so it has an Identity. So it means something to be a Fighter

Fluff is completely material to the identity of the class. Its what makes it breaks a lot of them. Its what turns druids from "I can turn into animals" to "I know the old ways forgotten by civilisation, I hold the raw force of nature". Its what makes sorcerer from "I'm like a wizard but more different" to "In my blood is magic itself, it is my birthright, and I will harness its strength to defeat my enemies"

 

[Yaarel]

With the following school descriptions, each of the mages can focus mainly on four schools.

• Abjuration = healing, restoration
• Conjuration = planes, summoning, celestials, fey
• Divination = time-space, teleportation, prescience
• Dunamancy = force, ethereal, telekinesis, flight, simple force constructs
• Enchantment = mind effects, telepathy
• Evocation = elemental energy, fire-radiance, air-lightning-thunder, water-cold
• Illusion = quasi real constructs
• Necromancy = darkside planes, summoning, fiend, aberration, undead
• Transmutation = elemental earth (soil, crystal, metal), weapon (pierce, slash, bludge), acid (salts, chaos): plant, animal


ARCANE
Wizard (creator) = Dunamancy, Illusion, Evocation, Transmutation
Sorcerer = Conjuration, Necromancy, Evocation, Enchantment

PRIMAL
Bard = Divination, Enchantment, Abjuration, Illusion
Psion = Divination (prescient, teleport), Enchantment (telepath), Dunamancy (kinetic), Transmutation (metabolic)
Druid = Evocation-Transmutation (elementalism, life), Abjuration, Divination

ASTRAL
Warlock = Necromancy, Dunamancy, Enchantment, Illusion
Cleric = Conjuration, Abjuration, Divination, Transmutation

 

[Vaalingrade]

Pretty sure one of my posts already covered that. The Fighter uses weapons, engages/specializes in being good at combat. The Wizard uses knows about and uses magic.

That's not identity. That's a mode of interaction EVERYONE picks between.

The rogue uses weapons and is good at combat as a mobile fighter with a focus on skill use.

The cleric uses magic under the tenets of a god for their cause.

 

[Gradine]

We are talking about class design & how their mechanics result in being played in an indistinguishable way at the table not writing a novel where "imagination" rather than mechanical design is the deciding factor.

Yes, that is why the terms "mechanically" and "design of the class" are the key points of the exact sentence you quoted.

& your comparison somewhat depends on an assumprion/implication that wizards are swapping out prepared spells regularly.

Now this explains so much. The assumption that wizards are swapping out prepared spells regularly is baked into the class. It is the main mechanical purpose/benefit of the spellbook, the core defining feature of the class which you appear to be ignoring entirely and blaming a whole other class for.

Of course your Sorcerers are going to play a lot like Wizards if you play your Wizards like they're Sorcerers

 

[Undrave]

Fighter.

it's beyond generic

fighter features should embrace that.

extra attack and feat slots.
that is it.

What, exactly, is SOOOO exotic about the current Fighter class that it doesn't fit as a generic feature???

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes, that is why the terms "mechanically" and "design of the class" are the key points of the exact sentence you quoted.

Except you were not talking about mechanics. I mentioned oranges and socket wrenches but wasn't taking about food or tools either.

Now this explains so much. The assumption that wizards are swapping out prepared spells regularly is baked into the class. It is the main mechanical purpose/benefit of the spellbook, the core defining feature of the class which you appear to be ignoring entirely and blaming a whole other class for.

Of course your Sorcerers are going to play a lot like Wizards if you play your Wizards like they're Sorcerers

Have you ever actually played d&d with wizard's being played at the table? What you are describing is a quantum spell book or quantum prep list. How you wish or imagine it could be does not create space for the clone stamp known as sorcerer to claim an identity