"Your Class is Not Your Character": Is this a real problem?

[CleverNickName]

Not really. It's one of those things that people harp about online, but I've never heard it at a game table.

 

[jayoungr]

the idea is that you don’t have to be an baby-eating psychopath just because your sorcerer has the Abyssal bloodline. You don’t have to be a purehearted hero just because you know your way around a smite evil.

I'm curious if this is a real problem that people have encountered, or if it's just a good soundbite. Have you ever encountered a GM or another player who told you that you were "playing your class wrong?"

Nope, I haven't seen this at any of my tables. And frankly, I'd rather have a player who takes class as prescriptive of personality than a player who just sees the character as a token and a collection of mechanics, with no personality at all.

Re paladins, I think other factors are sometimes at work there--some of which I put into a thread a while back, if people will forgive me for a little self-promotion by linking my own thread:

Musings on the "Lawful Jerk" Paladin

Fortunately for me, all the paladins I've dealt with have been great characters. But I've been thinking about the problem of the "lawful jerk paladin" lately, and I thought I'd post my somewhat rambling and definitely incomplete thoughts to test them out. I think the problem arises largely...

www.enworld.org

 

[TwoSix]

This boils down to competing ways of playing for which there is no right answer: is class a purely game mechanic way of describing a character, or is it something that is real within the fiction of the game world?

Yep. In my games, no character is a "wizard" or a "paladin".

 

[Beleriphon]

Yep. In my games, no character is a "wizard" or a "paladin".

Question then, on the wizard part. Could I describe a wizard as a wizard, in the sense of Merlin is a wizard or Harry Dresden is a wizard? Not a mechanical bundle of abilities, but more that that the word is a noun or an adjective depending on use.

 

[TwoSix]

Question then, on the wizard part. Could I describe a wizard as a wizard, in the sense of Merlin is a wizard or Harry Dresden is a wizard? Not a mechanical bundle of abilities, but more that that the word is a noun or an adjective depending on use.

Sure. In my Ravnica game, it tends to get used to as a slang term for magical practitioners of various guilds, normally Izzet and Simic.

 

[FrozenNorth]

If it was possible for a Warrior-nun of the Raven Queen to be accurately represented with multiple different classes, then that indicates a severe mis-match between the reality and its reflection. We shouldn't be using these classes to represent a reality where they don't hold. The consistent approach would be to define Warrior-nun of the Raven Queen as its own class.

Except it currently is possible to represent a Warrior-Nun of the Raven Queen with multiple different classes: Paladin, Grave Cleric, Fighter/Swashbuckler Rogue with the Acolyte Background (and maybe the Cleric Initiate feat).

 

[TwoSix]

Because the mechanics of the game reflect the reality of the game world. That's why we're using one set of mechanics, instead of some other set of mechanics.

If it was possible for a Warrior-nun of the Raven Queen to be accurately represented with multiple different classes, then that indicates a severe mis-match between the reality and its reflection. We shouldn't be using these classes to represent a reality where they don't hold. The consistent approach would be to define Warrior-nun of the Raven Queen as its own class.

Seems to me a far greater sin towards simulationism to suppose any two individuals would have access to the exact same set of capabilities. The only way that class as a concept makes sense in any kind of simulationist sense is if you’re playing one those “MMO but real life” concepts that are so popular in modern anime.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Well powergaming if all agree on it is also cool for a change, but not by using system loopholes. I cannot verify if a paladin / lock multiclass would be overpowered somehow, for me that MC in 5e is considered the way to power does not seem so, since all threads about it forget the costs of MAD, levels were you not shine so much, and so on and some really only watch the end result and not the way there.
Personally I shun most MC, more often than not I did not want it at my table and I think it is subpar to optimized single classes, if you got a balanced group.

Not relevant to the broader point, but the paladin/warlock multiclass reduces MAD, not increases it: a Hexblade Paladin can ignore Str and Dex and fight using Cha. That, plus regenerating slots for smites and an Eldritch Blast that improves with your total level rather than your Warlock level is why many people consider the paladin warlock multiclass OP.

 

[Beleriphon]

Seems to me a far greater sin towards simulationism to suppose any two individuals would have access to the exact same set of capabilities. The only way that class as a concept makes sense in any kind of simulationist sense is if you’re playing one those “MMO but real life” concepts that are so popular in modern anime.

Maybe, but I figure at a certain point D&D is a game, it needs to have structure. If you want to have archetypal abilities/classes/structures those things are going to look the same. I mean a wizard casts spells, that's kind of the whole point of a literary wizard (I'll not argue how that looks in fiction vs D&D, my point is wizards use magic to create effects that do things). D&D uses the spell structure system to represent what a wizard does in the fiction as a game usable mechanic. That usually means repeatable and consistent.

In the end since D&D is a game, it needs rules and consistency. Simulation has never, ever been the point of the rules.

 

[MichaelSomething]

also not sure how an artsy warrior wouldn't be allowed to lead a small army that terrorizes the countryside. ransacking a town is one big musical number for them!

I got a song for that