D&D General Which of these should be core classes for D&D?

[EzekielRaiden]

A full class should be a class with it's own concept that doesn't tread on the concept of another class.

By that same token, "doesn't tread on the concept of another class" is a hella squishy term. I, personally, don't think that there's any problem with having Swordmage, Bard, Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Artificer all in the same game.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'd like way more classes, but less archetypes.
I can think of a full class necromancer, illusionist, artificer all with 20-level features etc but having to provide 3-4 archetypes per class might make those archetypes really thin.

 

[Corinnguard]

By that same token, "doesn't tread on the concept of another class" is a hella squishy term. I, personally, don't think that there's any problem with having Swordmage, Bard, Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Artificer all in the same game.

True. The "doesn't tread on the concept of another class" idea was something I saw in PF1's Advanced Class Guide a while back. That book had an entire chapter on how to create character classes, and one of the first things it talked about was the concept behind a given class. If the concept behind a class you were designing treaded on the concept of another class, there was the risk of rendering the latter obsolete. Their opinion, not mine. The ACG had 10 hybrid classes which did some treading on the two parent classes they were designed from.

Hybrid Classes – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

 

[Scribe]

By that same token, "doesn't tread on the concept of another class" is a hella squishy term. I, personally, don't think that there's any problem with having Swordmage, Bard, Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Artificer all in the same game.

By default, those are all different concepts, and not particularly close even.

The issue is with the various flood of Subclasses, that pull things closer.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I realized I never responded to this.

By "core class" i mean a class that is not a subclass of another class. It has its own place in the game and bespoke mechanics and progression, rather than being something layered on top of a different class. For example, the ranger and paladin were subclasses (or even proto-prestige classes) in BECMI but core classes in most other iterations (the class groupings in 2E notwithstanding).

Based on that: I will double-down on “nearly everything on the list.” I prefer PF2’s approach of having lots of classes with subclasses, if any, only described a small-ish aspect like favored skills. Trying to jam swashbuckler into fighter weakens the ability to deliver on either fantasy well.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't know how many of those classes should be core classes. "Should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

I will say, however, that I do think that Magic the Gathering would be an interesting place to start when considering archetypes for at least caster classes. The five colors of the pie, IMHO, provide a pretty good spread of both archetypes and playstyles, especially for different varieties of mages. I will not go so far as to say that this is what D&D should do, but I would at least consider this design space.

Could even take a cue from 4e as per @EzekielRaiden and use the five colors for the power sources and then design classes with different roles using these power sources.

 

[Hriston]

Six classes:

Fighter​

Magic-user​

Cleric​

Thief​

Monk​

Bard​

The rest are subclasses or multiclass combos.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I'd probably have a PHB with 8 classes, followed by a PHB 2 with another 8 classes released like 5 years later.

PHB (Initial Release):

• Fighter
• Rogue
• Wizard
• Cleric
• Ranger
• Paladin
• Bard
• Warlord

Eberron (Year 2):

• Artificer

PHB Part 2 (Year 5):

• Monk
• Barbarian
• Sorcerer
• Druid
• Warlock
• Summoner
• Swordmage
• Swashbuckler

Dark Sun (Year 7):

• Psion

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Only bard.

 

[Tony Vargas]

They Bard tells you stories about the other classes. That's the game.