D&D 5E Why the fixation with getting rid of everything but fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard?

[redrick]

Complexity might not have been the correct word. To me it flows better when groups core concepts together. I'll explain further down below the next quote.



You bring up a good point. Though I do think some subclasses do alter character concept. A Wild Magic Sorcerer and a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer seem very different in concept to me, as do Totem Warriors and Zealots.

Here is a scenario I face. For me it's something I see pretty often but for others that may not be so. I present the game to a new player, and show them the list of available classes, and they get overwhelmed.

"I just want to hit stuff" "I just want to kill stuff with magic" are some of the responses I get. With the current system, I say "Do you want to get mad and Hit stuff? Do you want hit stuff with Divine Power? Do you want to hit stuff with Technique gained through training?" or "Do you want to use Magic gained form Study? from Prayer? from a bargain with a questionable being? from an inherited genetic trait?". I often get the response "Can you just pick for me" so I do and that has had wildly varying results.

With concepts grouped together I can say "here's the Warrior class," or "here's the Mage class." This gives them a place to start. They can start thinking "My character is this." Which for some may make answering questions like "Where did you get your power from?" a little easier.

It has now occurred to me that I can present the classes to the players as The Warrior Classes, the Mage Classes, etc and have perhaps the same effect.

I'll try it and see how it works out.

I played with a group of new players yesterday, and that is basically how it went. I showed them the list of classes from the PHB, and when a player said, "I want to play somebody with magic," I broke down, in my mind, how the Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock differentiate.

Wizards also has these great pre-generated characters that are presented narratively, with a monster-style statblock. There's a "pitch" at the top of the page, and then an explanation of the Background, Race and Class features. I wish they came with filled-out character sheets as well (since, once we get into play, I think it's easier if everybody is playing off a character sheet than a monster stat-block), but for presenting the different character classes to new players, they are awesome.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I played with a group of new players yesterday, and that is basically how it went. I showed them the list of classes from the PHB, and when a player said, "I want to play somebody with magic," I broke down, in my mind, how the Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock differentiate.

Wizards also has these great pre-generated characters that are presented narratively, with a monster-style statblock. There's a "pitch" at the top of the page, and then an explanation of the Background, Race and Class features. I wish they came with filled-out character sheets as well (since, once we get into play, I think it's easier if everybody is playing off a character sheet than a monster stat-block), but for presenting the different character classes to new players, they are awesome.

I do have those statblocks. I think I got them from the DMsGuild. Boiling down a character's features into Action, Bonus Action, and Reaction was a nice way of laying it out. I prefer it over the standard character sheet. Though I still have to remind character's of Dodge, Dash, Disengage, etc.

 

[Wiseblood]

I can break it down like this. I want to play. I want to do heroic stuff or villainous stuff. Picking a feat or class or spell is not fun to me. I want to kill the dragon take it's treasure and make a pair of boots out of it. Now, I should be clear. I do not want rules for dragon boot making. I want to play. I want enough rules to get on with adventuring. Enough rules that I can just about recreate the fun I had last time. Some rules for things in the world that don't change much. Adventurous stuff Eg.. Falling hurts this much, fire hurts this much, swords can kill these guys in just a few hits.

The difference between classes like Fighter and Barbarian feel superfluous the same goes for Wizard and Sorcerer. Yes they play differently but you can play 2 fighters with the exact same stats differently.

It boils down to "I think this is a ribbon and it does not need a special mechanic." "This goes double if the ribbon or class or build decision stalls playtime like a loadscreen." I guess that about sums it up.

Thank you for asking.

 

[Remathilis]

With concepts grouped together I can say "here's the Warrior class," or "here's the Mage class." This gives them a place to start. They can start thinking "My character is this." Which for some may make answering questions like "Where did you get your power from?" a little easier.

The D&D Next playtest did with with the Mage class during its test run; a single class designed to hold the wizard, sorcerer, and warlock classes (and perminations there of) and potentially the psion as well. You picked your casting style (wizardry, sorcery, and uh, warlocky?) which determined your spell selection, caster stat, and special mechanics regarding your class. (spellbooks, spontaneous casting, etc). Then you could get a subclass that determined if you were a necromancer wizard, draconic sorcerer, or fiend-pact warlock. It was designed to consolidate all those types of arcane casters into one class.

It didn't work as intended and got quickly dropped. But the idea was there for a minute.

 

[BookBarbarian]

The D&D Next playtest did with with the Mage class during its test run; a single class designed to hold the wizard, sorcerer, and warlock classes (and perminations there of) and potentially the psion as well. You picked your casting style (wizardry, sorcery, and uh, warlocky?) which determined your spell selection, caster stat, and special mechanics regarding your class. (spellbooks, spontaneous casting, etc). Then you could get a subclass that determined if you were a necromancer wizard, draconic sorcerer, or fiend-pact warlock. It was designed to consolidate all those types of arcane casters into one class.

It didn't work as intended and got quickly dropped. But the idea was there for a minute.

Interesting. I think I would have like that, but if the feedback was that it wasn't working out then it makes sense to cut it.

On psionics, I have always preferred the idea of Psionic subclasses for existing classes better than one Psionic class with wildly varied subclasses to represent all the concepts. But I think I'll lose out on that idea too.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

I like the idea of different classes being, well, different. Prepared casters vs point-buy casters, for example. Rage-based fighters vs prepared ones.

I don't like it when classes have the same mechanics but different fluff. For example, I don't really see a need for bard and sorcerer to be different classes. They are both casters who know spells rather than prepare them each day (like the wizard). Why not just have a known-spell class and a prepared-spell class?

To me there doesn't actually seem that much difference between a D&D 5E barbarian, fighter, bard and rogue. Even the paladin and ranger just seem like fighters with some spells. I don't see how that couldn't be done a lot simpler with a base class called warrior and a pile of non-exclusive options like "rage" and "cast a few spells" and "sneak attack".

One of the game systems I've been reading lately is Fantasy AGE/Dragon Age. It has three classes: Warrior (heavy weapons), Rogue (light weapons, acrobatic rather than armoured), and Mage. Each class has talents and specializations which you can choose at certain levels. Talents and specializations have three levels, so you can become a master of one talent or instead be a journeyman in three different talents. Some of the talents are only usable by one class but most are open to all classes.

I like the small number of choices. I also like that few choices lock you in to one path. Your choice at level 3 doesn't block your level 5 choices much.

I think something like this could work in D&D. For example, a "barbarian" is a warrior who took "rage" at level 3 and a "fighter" is one who took "heavy armour" instead. For example, a multiclass fighter/rogue is just a warrior who took "sneak attack" at level 3 and "extra attack" at level 5.

In summary, I like there being a small number of choices at each level (3-5) and I like having choices made early not locking out choices made later. I also don't like multiclassing, so class design that reduces or eliminates the need for it is a bonus in my book.

As an aside, this is a really interesting thread.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I've been meaning to check out the Dragon Age TTRPG for a while. ever since I saw it on TableTop.

 

[Kinematics]

I agree that cleric could fit under the wizard category. Mechanically, there are only three main concepts:

1) Fighter (martial)
2) Rogue (skills)
3) Wizard (magic)

And then you can subdivide them into how they do their thing. With magic, for example: the Wizard studies; a Bard is a Wizard that entertains (the Bard would still have to study to get good at their skills, just like the Wizard); the Sorcerer "just knows" how to cause magical effects, and manipulates things instinctively; the Warlock makes a pact with an otherworldly entity that will grant him power; the Cleric makes a pact with an acceptable otherworldly entity (called a god) that will grant him power; the Druid makes a pact with a worldly (literally) entity for power; and so forth. Particular source entity types get their own category of magic: nature for the world magic, or divine for god-supplied magic. Otherwise it's 'arcane'.

And you can keep expanding from there.

However the four-class categorization is something different. It's not actually a mechanical separation, even though it looks very nearly like that. You can see this by looking at the Cleric — a magic user that's not under the standard magic user category (Wizard). That's because the cleric's role encompasses a particularly important need for most parties — healing — and that's important enough to set off to the side from the others. So it's really more accurate to say that, rather than a four-class system, it's more about it being a four-role system.

1) Hits things
2) Heals people
3) Finds stuff
4) Breaks the limits

Fighter is role 1: Make the opposition go away. The other party members can help, but that's the Fighter's primary task.

Cleric is role 2: We're going to get hurt; make the hurting stop. Also, undead are bad.

Rogue is role 3: Find the traps, listen in on conversations, know a guy who knows a guy, etc. He can also hit things, but more as support for the fighter, not replacement for the fighter.

Wizard is role 4: Break the laws of reality. Invisibility, massive explosions, flight, conjure a fog, locate object, etc. The Wizard is James Bond's Q, or the director who changed the scene to "something more interesting". The Wizard is the lever of change.


The 'how' of things is not answered by this breakdown. There are many options available.

The Fighter's role is to stop opposition from getting to your party, and make the opposition go away. That can be filled by a Paladin, or a raging Barbarian, or the armored up Cleric, or the Assassin, or the buffed up Sorcerer, or a multitude of other things.

The Cleric's role can most easily be done by a Cleric, but maybe also by a Monk, or a Sorcerer, or just a plain old Fighter with lots of medical skills and potions.

The Rogue's role comes down to the player. Which person in the group engages most in all the sneaky stuff? Who finds the right bar for all the rumors? Who has connections in every city you visit?

And the Wizard's role can be done by anyone with access to magic. It's part of why hybrid classes are so popular: they give you the ability to break the rules. Whoever knows how to break the right rules at the right time is the Wizard.


So the problem with the categorization is that people are trying to simplify two different concepts (mechanical nicety vs party roles) at the same time, and stumbling, because what you need to focus on to get one to work well isn't the same as what you need to focus on for the other.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In summary, I like there being a small number of choices at each level (3-5) and I like having choices made early not locking out choices made later. I also don't like multiclassing, so class design that reduces or eliminates the need for it is a bonus in my book.

Yes, I also enjoyed the class design of D&D 4E.

I'm reading through an AGE book right now, and the way it seems to me, they basically took the standard fantasy sub-classes and broke them up into four steps each, and you get a new rank in one every other level. Essentially, the easiest way to play is that you pick one sub-class to develop for levels 1-10, and then a second sub-class for levels 11-20. It would be like having a fighter class, and from 2-10 you develop as a paladin, and then you're done with paladin advancement, and 12-20 you gain ranger stuff. And while you could pick three or more sub-classes and develop them at un-even rates, it isn't exactly encouraged.

(On other levels, when you don't improve a sub-class, you gain feats instead. Most feats seem to come in multi-step chains, too, so the simplest way to build a character only ends up with like five total decisions - you pick the fighter class, the paladin sub-class, the greatsword feat-chain, the ranger sub-class, and the archery feat-chain. Or you could have twenty independent choices, if you really felt like it.)

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think it could go even below the triumvirate of fighter/rogue/mage.

Let's face it - there are almost not examples of a fighter who only fights, or a rogue who never fights, and turning that into a class split introduces some bizarreness.

Are you sneaky? Guess you have to fight with a light weapon! Are you wearing heavy armor? Guess you can't disarm traps!

And below that... it's just really a choice of how you do your thing. You could easily skin a fighter with a bow as a blasty wizard or a rogue as a utility wizard etc. That's basically what 4e did. Every character class becomes a spell list and the line between classes is just what spells you can pick from.

That said... I probably wouldn't want to do that. Having clear archetypes is a good idea. Having 12 classes to choose from when you make a starting character is a bad idea, especially if you muddy it further with backgrounds and some of those 12 classes subclassing off the bat, and some of those classes filling the same design space but with minor flavour changes etc. Older D&D avoided this with attribute minimums and rolled stats: in essence you ended up with 1 or 2 choices for a rolled character. 3e avoided it more or less by making each class a straightforward archetype... mostly. 4e avoided it to some extent with roles: you typically picked a role first, a class second, and when you picked class you had one or two clearly differentiated choices. 5e just throws 12 classes at you, many of which have zero differentiating abilities at first level and tells you that you're not allowed to change later, so you'd better make your first choice a good one.