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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7329954" data-attributes="member: 6775031">I was mostly talking about the mechanical class features here - things like the Evoker's spell sculpting, or the Conjurer's minor creation. If the wizard was the only class that could cast magic missile or fireball or teleport, then you could literally remove everything from the class features (aside from the spellcasting), and the one class (with no sub-class) would cover that entire role. If you have fiendlocks and draconic sorcerers and evoker wizards, then those three sub-classes all share the tiny design space of blowing stuff up; but if all you have is wizard, then that one wizard covers the entire design space for blowing stuff up and summoning elementals and teleporting and transmuting. It becomes a broader class, when there's nothing nearby to compare it against.It's kind of like the difference between reading an X-Men comic, and reading Howard the Duck or Patsy Walker. When you're reading a comic about X-Men, all of the heroes and villains will be mutants, so the role of mutants within that world is expanded to cover everything we care about. When you're reading a comic that simply takes place in the greater Marvel universe, the 616 has to spread the super-power spotlight between mutants and Inhumans and aliens and wizards, so mutants become a much narrower category since they're no longer monopolizing the talent pool.Additionally, though it might be a bit topic-adjacent, if there's only one magic class then you can use it to model other concepts that don't exist. I recall a story from... I don't remember whether it was 4E or 5E... but one of the designers wanted to play a Psion character, which didn't exist, so they just took the Wizard class and just changed some of the names and descriptions. If you really want to play a Sorcerer or Warlock, and the only arcane spellcaster you have is the Wizard, then your DM may give you permission to use the Wizard rules for a spellcaster that could cast innately or through some pact or something. Even if the class concept had always been as narrow - which is a fair point - it could easily be expanded as necessary for the setting.</blockquote>

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