The main purposes of subclasses is to offer more choice and diversity in your progression. It's all about customization. You can have two member of a same class in a party that could play and feel different depending on their choice of subclasses.
You can achieve the same thing by simply having 3 different classes without the need for them to be the same for 3 levels.
That's a lot more design work and a bigger pain to balance (insofar as things get balanced anyway).
How would that be more difficult exactly? Sub-Classes are just classes, you have to balance them against every other class just the same as if they were a normal class. Quite literally the only difference between a sub-class and a regular class from a design perspective is that one starts at 3rd level and the other at 1st. There is no more or less design work.
Subclasses cover abilities at 4 levels. Classes cover abilities at 20 levels (16 if we discount the subclass abilities).
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The purpose of subclasses is not to kick the ball down to third level. They don't all start at third level. Some start at 2. Some of them start at LEVEL ONE. The point is to diversify options within classes, without having to constantly be making more core classes. The level they start at doesn't really have anything to do with their primary purpose.
It's easier to add on a subclass to a class than to make a new class from scratch. It's a lot less time, and allows you to build off of the skeleton of the base class in different ways.
If all classes got their subclass at level 1 that would not in any way alter or diminish their main purpose. As is, they still serve their main purposes at their different starting levels.
It's about having different types of fighters, different types of rogues, wizards etc. Without having to reinvent the wheel of base class mechanics.
They do contribute to people making 'builds' because they are a significant choice that every class has to make, but IMO it's in a way that adds variety and flavor rather than complication for the sake of it. And even without subclasses, some classes would still have builds regardless. (What metamagic and spell options does my sorcerer focus on? What invocations and pact boon does the warlock take? etc.)
They called it "Advanced" because they marketed the game as being for adults, and implied that the Basic game was only for young teens. It did in fact contain most of the things that Wizards of the Coast now says they don't want in their game.
They also called it Advanced so that Gary Gygax could claim sole ownership over it, rather than share the honour with the other originators of the D&D system.
I think the point of subclasses is actually to help get away from being forced to plan a build. It means for most characters, there's two decision points, class and subclass and from there, you're kind of on autopilot. (Yes, there's feats, but they're optional. I mean technically.)
You have the exact same effect with a standard class.
In 3.x and 4e, but 3 in in particular, there were so many class and feat options, that system mastery was far more important to the game than it is now. You had to know which feats to take, in which order, which ones were prerequisites, which ones to avoid because they looked good but were useless. The end result was it was easy to end up with a pretty ineffective character in those editions. Subclasses allow for some customization, but remove most of the decisions, and so remove the chances you'll make a bad decision. Yes, people still build more effective and less effective characters in 5e, but the gap between them is not nearly as large as it used to be.
3e complexity had nothing to do with classes and everything to do with the feat system and building this system instead of class options.
I agree that having them kick in at level 3 isn't great, but, like bogwitch said, it can help new players ease into the game, giving them fewer things to track and slowly adding them on.
That is all I'm saying, its an arbitrary thing, essentially designed to create a forced tutorial on players. If your not a new player, it just gets under your feet, their is no benefit to its existance for everyone else and the reality is that your a new D&D player for all of 5 minutes before this sub-system nonsense gets in your way.
If you don't see the absolutely huge difference between having complexity at level 3 and having complexity at level 1, I'm not sure you're playing with a lot of new players. There is a huge difference between having a cliff of complexity which is a barrier to entry, and hitting that cliff after you've already played a few sessions and are hooked. Look, I've got a player in my campaign who has been playing off and on for 2 years, and he still doesn't even really get how his wizard spellbook works. Not his fault. He's a busy guy and doesn't have a lot of time to study the rulebook outside of sessions. You vastly overestimate how much complexity the average player is willing and able to handle. If you insist that everyone should have to play the advanced game from level 1, you're basically gatekeeping D&D as an elite hobby.
They do contribute to people making 'builds' because they are a significant choice that every class has to make, but IMO it's in a way that adds variety and flavor rather than complication for the sake of it. And even without subclasses, some classes would still have builds regardless. (What metamagic and spell options does my sorcerer focus on? What invocations and pact boon does the warlock take? etc.)
I mean, you don't even need classes to still have builds. You still want to pair Dex with a finesse weapon and Str with a powerful melee weapon, whether you're a Barbarian or Fighter or Ranger.
I think the point of subclasses is actually to help get away from being forced to plan a build. It means for most characters, there's two decision points, class and subclass and from there, you're kind of on autopilot. (Yes, there's feats, but they're optional. I mean technically.)
You have the exact same effect with a standard class.
In 3.x and 4e, but 3 in in particular, there were so many class and feat options, that system mastery was far more important to the game than it is now. You had to know which feats to take, in which order, which ones were prerequisites, which ones to avoid because they looked good but were useless. The end result was it was easy to end up with a pretty ineffective character in those editions. Subclasses allow for some customization, but remove most of the decisions, and so remove the chances you'll make a bad decision. Yes, people still build more effective and less effective characters in 5e, but the gap between them is not nearly as large as it used to be.
3e complexity had nothing to do with classes and everything to do with the feat system and building this system instead of class options.
I agree that having them kick in at level 3 isn't great, but, like bogwitch said, it can help new players ease into the game, giving them fewer things to track and slowly adding them on.
That is all I'm saying, its an arbitrary thing, essentially designed to create a forced tutorial on players. If your not a new player, it just gets under your feet, their is no benefit to its existance for everyone else and the reality is that your a new D&D player for all of 5 minutes before this sub-system nonsense gets in your way.
If you don't see the absolutely huge difference between having complexity at level 3 and having complexity at level 1, I'm not sure you're playing with a lot of new players. There is a huge difference between having a cliff of complexity which is a barrier to entry, and hitting that cliff after you've already played a few sessions and are hooked. Look, I've got a player in my campaign who has been playing off and on for 2 years, and he still doesn't even really get how his wizard spellbook works. Not his fault. He's a busy guy and doesn't have a lot of time to study the rulebook outside of sessions. You vastly overestimate how much complexity the average player is willing and able to handle. If you insist that everyone should have to play the advanced game from level 1, you're basically gatekeeping D&D as an elite hobby.
To say nothing of pick-up games where you might have a player who had never heard of the game until 5 minutes ago, and you have them a character sheet. Now, Cleric actually has you pick your subclass at level 1, but if you just hand someone a character sheet with the Divine Domain already chosen, all it means at level 1 is there are a few extra spells on your sheet.
There's nothing wrong with starting subclasses at level 1, but just most classes didn't have subclass features that they wanted to give out at level 1. So why not give you some time to decide?
I wouldn't support the idea of moving subclasses earlier and giving more class features at level 1. Two class features at level 1 is about right, and for a lot of classes, those aren't even active abilities you use, but just modifiers to your rolls on actions anyone can do (e.g. Ranger Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer).
If you don't see the absolutely huge difference between having complexity at level 3 and having complexity at level 1, I'm not sure you're playing with a lot of new players. There is a huge difference between having a cliff of complexity which is a barrier to entry, and hitting that cliff after you've already played a few sessions and are hooked.
Seconding this, but I also want to point out there's a massive accessibility difference between showing a brand new player 200 classes, and showing them 9 classes that happen to have 200 subclasses combined between them. It's far less daunting, lets you quickly discard the majority of character archetypes you're simply not interested in, and once they've learned the class's features, that knowledge is immediately transferable to other subclasses. For DMs, the class/subclass division gives you a very clear and easy to use template for new homebrew. Those levels where you get subclass features? They might as well say "INSERT HOMEBREW HERE."
Exploding the character archetypes back into individual classes has almost no usability upsides.
If you don't see the absolutely huge difference between having complexity at level 3 and having complexity at level 1, I'm not sure you're playing with a lot of new players. There is a huge difference between having a cliff of complexity which is a barrier to entry, and hitting that cliff after you've already played a few sessions and are hooked.
Seconding this, but I also want to point out there's a massive accessibility difference between showing a brand new player 200 classes, and showing them 9 classes that happen to have 200 subclasses combined between them. It's far less daunting, lets you quickly discard the majority of character archetypes you're simply not interested in, and once they've learned the class's features, that knowledge is immediately transferable to other subclasses. For DMs, the class/subclass division gives you a very clear and easy to use template for new homebrew. Those levels where you get subclass features? They might as well say "INSERT HOMEBREW HERE."
Exploding the character archetypes back into individual classes has almost no usability upsides.
I have created or played at least half a dozen homebrew subclasses. I have created precisely 0 homebrew classes.
Even if the class/subclass system never existed, the first thing I'd do would be to create it. If I were helping a new player create a character, one of my explanations would be, if they were say wanting to create a magic user, that there are spellbook-using ones, ones that use music to create magic...etc. it's a natural level of organisation. We already go a step further, do we not? When I will run through character creation with a new player on Saturday, the first thing I'll ask will be, "Do you want to be a martial character (that uses mostly weapons to have a straight up fight), a sneaky character (that tries to get a surprise attack and then disappears ready for another attack) or a magic user (that uses magic to alter the circumstances of the battle to their favour)? Even though it's not an official system to my knowledge, it's really useful method of making things simpler that we, presumably, all use. It very much reduces the cognitive load to think in that way, rather than trying to list all 13 classes and explain the differences between them simultaneously. The class/subclass system is here to stay, and rightfully so.
Now, the question is, should there be level 1 subclass features and so force the decision to be made at character creation?
There is something to be said about reducing cognitive load for new players, and is a very real concern for anyone trying to introduce D&D to new players. D&D has a very steep initial learning curve that could benefit a lot from anything being able to be spread out. Giving that space for new players to learn things could be very useful. I also found that playing as a Wizard, it helped to playthe campaign a little first before committing to my School. If I'd decided at the start, I'd have probably chosen Necromancy. However, since the encounters had very enemies, I realised that the source of corpses to reanimate wouod be very unreliable, so I went for Evocation instead - with it's pretty guaranteed source of damage.
On the other hand, having thr ability to develop that aspect my character from the outset rather than having to wait a few sessions is appealing. WotC also evidently feels that level 1 subclass choices is not insurmountable, because Warlocks get their's at level 1. I think that, ultimately, this is going to be personal preference, there is no objectively better way of doing it, unlike the existence of class/subclasses.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Yes, there is variety baked into classes intentionally. Warlock is simple mechanically but complex narratively. Wizard is complex mechanically and moderate narratively. Clerics also choose their subclass at level 1. There is also variety in complexity of martial classes. Monks have a diversity of situationally appropriate limited-resource abilities, whereas Fighters will spam extra attack and maybe their fighting style on most turns. Charisma-based classes emphasize roleplay. Int-based classes emphasize problem solving and lore. Rangers emphasize exploration. Str-based classes emphasize combat and risk.
My point is that this is great IF you are a new player which is a very short period, perhaps a few adventures or short campaign. The next time you come back and you want to play an Assassin, you must first be a Rogue for 3 levels and this is my complaint. I don't want to be a rogue for 3 levels, if my character design is to be an Assassin, that is what I want to be from day one.
You don't need the Assassinate ability to set up assassinations. You don't need to have an animal companion already to flavour in being adept at handling and training wild creatures. Lay the groundwork. It's not like characters, even ones with subclasses that start at level one, don't have to grow into their strengths.
And the complexity of the game is not the same whether you have 72 subclasses spread out over 9 classes or 72 full classes. The nine classes will have maybe 350-ish class abilities in total, the 72 classes will likely have at least twice as many, possibly more.
I agree that subclasses should all be at level 1 ideally. I think that would be better in general than having them scattered between levels 1 2 and 3 depending on the class. It works fine for sorcerer, warlock and cleric to get theirs at 1. I think with a few tweaks you could make the rest of the classses work just fine like this too.
I hard disagree that the game would not be more complex if every subclass was its own class. One of two convoluted things would happen.
A. You have your 72 different classes, but similar to the subclass system, they still all share 90% of their class features and only differ where the subclasses currently differ. In this case you've split them out for no real reason. The subclass system is great for organization in this case. This doesn't make the game more complicated in theory but makes the organization of classes more difficult to grasp instead of having the subclasses organized under their appropriate core class.
B. You make new mechanics for each of those 72 subclasses, so that rogue, thief and arcane trickster for example no longer all share the same skeleton that they branch off of. This absolutely makes the game more complicated, I don't even see a way to argue against it making the game more complicated.
I LOVE subclasses in and of themselves...just wish they all started at level 1 like the sorcerer/warlock/cleric do.
I don't really get the point of them... The only purpose of a sub-class compared to a standard class is that you don't get your sub-class until 3rd level. What is the mechanical point of that? What is the gameplay point in that? What is the relevance to the game of doing that? The whole thing to me feels like it just pushes the video gamey aspects of the game where you have to plan your "build".
if it helps think of them like the the Kits from 2e Sub-classes help add some variety without having to reinvent the classes from the start. I see sub-classes as the prestige classes from 3.x done correctly.
Perhaps you might want to look to an earlier edition of the game.
Many of your ideas already exist in the 1st Edition AD&D rules.
I think it's funny (both interesting and 'ha ha'), that someone tries to bring up 1e ideas, then another person says :"no one would play that". Of course, we did for 15 years.
In fact, there's a strong 1st edition community that welcomes new players (more welcoming than some of the current groups).
Notably prestige classes were also pretty terrible and for a lot of the same reasons. Essentially they took cool character concepts, put them in a class and then said "hey you can be this in X levels if you pick all the pre-requisites" rather then just taking that concept and building it up from 1st level to give players an opportunity to start the game from unique perspectives.
Not all prestige classes were great, that's for sure, but the prerequisites pretty much were exactly "building it up from 1st level".
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When AD&D 2e hit the streets, we all jumped on that train.
Then I jumped off. I found that one of the PCs was no longer an option - they'd removed the Half-orc Assassin.
Small things aside, the 2e system just felt like they rounded out the edges of the game, I enjoyed the challenge of being a DM. It was a challenge.
Being a DM was hard and required some serious effort, now Steve Jackson's parody game is almost the reality.
For the original poster, the next version of the game will have less character details, the character will be some blob that gets defined by the player to achieve modifiers (sure some of the blobs will be Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling, but blobs nonetheless). Apart from the player saying, "My character is an elf" two races with similar modifiers and abilities could be anything if you didn't know the race "Here's my 5th Level Bard, Fighter, Wizard, Rogue character with the following stats and skills".
Old school (yes, I understand that 'new' players don't like comparisons - and it's not about one version being better or worse, just the differences) Magic-users started weak and grew to be extremely powerful, Fighter types started solid, but didn't really 'grow' unless the Player took the character down a a path, Rangers and Paladins were hard to be, they were hard in stats and also in their class limits; yes, there were also racial limits, an Elf could be a powerful Magic-user and yes, they could multi-class as a Fighter/Magic-user, but that Fighter was probably only ever going to get to 5th Level.
We played those AD&D games and loved it. So, aside from a very few of those original 21 points for discussion from the OP, they were all covered in AD&D 1st edition years 1978 to 1989 (or thereabouts). There's a strong mentality of 'old = bad', which isn't the case. Like how AD&D 1e assumed the players and DM had played Basic D&D ('75 to '79) or were part of the Gygax's original D&D game (OD&D), there were many 'rules' left out because the DM had the experience to know what to do. I was chased off a modern D&D server (with the torches and pitchforks) by suggesting that it might be worth looking to some of the older rules of previous editions to be able to cover the gaps that some DMs were encountering in their games.
As an interesting side note: If you could afford a computer in the mid-70s, the owner received a 200 page photocopied book on how to use the device which also included pages on all the physical hardware specs - that's just how we rolled back then.
For the original poster, the next version of the game will have less character details, the character will be some blob that gets defined by the player to achieve modifiers (sure some of the blobs will be Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling, but blobs nonetheless). Apart from the player saying, "My character is an elf" two races with similar modifiers and abilities could be anything if you didn't know the race "Here's my 5th Level Bard, Fighter, Wizard, Rogue character with the following stats and skills".
This feels a bit reductive to me. Yes, a new edition would probably move away from set racial ASIs like Tasha's did. And if you personally don't like that, fair enough.
But I've seen nothing to suggest racial features in and of themselves would be stripped away. Your tiefling isn't getting trance. Your halfling isn't getting fire resistance, etc.
Rolled stats will still, regardless of racial asis, provide different base ability scores. And even then not everyone is going to invest in them the same.
You'll have str fighters and dex fighters. Arcane archers and eldritch knights who invest into int some and others who choose not to. Different spell choices, maneuvers, invocations, subclasses etc. All before even touching RP and backstories.
I think people are really overreacting to the fact that now the wood elf wizard can also start with a +3 int modifier alongside the high elf with point buy.
We played those AD&D games and loved it. So, aside from a very few of those original 21 points for discussion from the OP, they were all covered in AD&D 1st edition years 1978 to 1989 (or thereabouts). There's a strong mentality of 'old = bad', which isn't the case. Like how AD&D 1e assumed the players and DM had played Basic D&D ('75 to '79) or were part of the Gygax's original D&D game (OD&D), there were many 'rules' left out because the DM had the experience to know what to do. I was chased off a modern D&D server (with the torches and pitchforks) by suggesting that it might be worth looking to some of the older rules of previous editions to be able to cover the gaps that some DMs were encountering in their games.
There is also a strong mentality of "new=bad", which your post heavily implies. I do not think mere suggestions would warrant being chased out of a server, but the hostile tone and extreme bias against new players and their play style certainly would.
There is a minority of Grognards that resist the current edition, I would hope in the minority. I enjoy the current game, I have my preference (which is fine), but when people want to play, it's the current version we're playing unless I get a specific call to play something older.
As a DM, when there's a gap in the rules and I have to make a ruling, I use my experience as a whole to determine the outcome, not just limiting myself to the narrowest field, classic example, in one of my games (new version) a player wanted to make a potion.
So I revert to the old rules (where it was spelled out in fine detail) and adapt a little for the current version.
Don't crucify me please because I used something from 1978 as a reference.
There is a minority of Grognards that resist the current edition, I would hope in the minority. I enjoy the current game, I have my preference (which is fine), but when people want to play, it's the current version we're playing unless I get a specific call to play something older.
As a DM, when there's a gap in the rules and I have to make a ruling, I use my experience as a whole to determine the outcome, not just limiting myself to the narrowest field, classic example, in one of my games (new version) a player wanted to make a potion.
So I revert to the old rules (where it was spelled out in fine detail) and adapt a little for the current version.
Don't crucify me please because I used something from 1978 as a reference.
I do not crucify people over preferences. I do not care if people are roleplayers, dungeon crawlers, murderhobos, or however they want to play D&D as long as they are having fun, and I certainly do not care what edition of D&D they play.
However, I will call people out for talking smack about others over preferences, whether it is directly insulting them or doing it in a roundabout passive aggressive way through misrepresentation. I do not think most people automatically equate old with bad; people do not care how old a mechanic or tradition is. I absolutely hate classes, but my peers do not share my opinion on that matter. What I do share with many of my peers is that we like the freedom to assign ability scores however we want to further customize and personalize our characters to better fit our fantasies. We do not dislike static racial because it is old, we dislike it because it is boring and restrictive. And for some of us, it reminds us of being told what we can or cannot do because we are too dumb or stupid because of our race, sex, culture, etc. Just as people have a right to use D&D to escape the realities of political correctness, people have a right to use D&D to escape the realities of prejudice and racism.
Subclasses cover abilities at 4 levels. Classes cover abilities at 20 levels (16 if we discount the subclass abilities).
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The purpose of subclasses is not to kick the ball down to third level. They don't all start at third level. Some start at 2. Some of them start at LEVEL ONE. The point is to diversify options within classes, without having to constantly be making more core classes. The level they start at doesn't really have anything to do with their primary purpose.
It's easier to add on a subclass to a class than to make a new class from scratch. It's a lot less time, and allows you to build off of the skeleton of the base class in different ways.
If all classes got their subclass at level 1 that would not in any way alter or diminish their main purpose. As is, they still serve their main purposes at their different starting levels.
It's about having different types of fighters, different types of rogues, wizards etc. Without having to reinvent the wheel of base class mechanics.
They do contribute to people making 'builds' because they are a significant choice that every class has to make, but IMO it's in a way that adds variety and flavor rather than complication for the sake of it. And even without subclasses, some classes would still have builds regardless. (What metamagic and spell options does my sorcerer focus on? What invocations and pact boon does the warlock take? etc.)
They also called it Advanced so that Gary Gygax could claim sole ownership over it, rather than share the honour with the other originators of the D&D system.
If you don't see the absolutely huge difference between having complexity at level 3 and having complexity at level 1, I'm not sure you're playing with a lot of new players. There is a huge difference between having a cliff of complexity which is a barrier to entry, and hitting that cliff after you've already played a few sessions and are hooked. Look, I've got a player in my campaign who has been playing off and on for 2 years, and he still doesn't even really get how his wizard spellbook works. Not his fault. He's a busy guy and doesn't have a lot of time to study the rulebook outside of sessions. You vastly overestimate how much complexity the average player is willing and able to handle. If you insist that everyone should have to play the advanced game from level 1, you're basically gatekeeping D&D as an elite hobby.
I mean, you don't even need classes to still have builds. You still want to pair Dex with a finesse weapon and Str with a powerful melee weapon, whether you're a Barbarian or Fighter or Ranger.
To say nothing of pick-up games where you might have a player who had never heard of the game until 5 minutes ago, and you have them a character sheet. Now, Cleric actually has you pick your subclass at level 1, but if you just hand someone a character sheet with the Divine Domain already chosen, all it means at level 1 is there are a few extra spells on your sheet.
There's nothing wrong with starting subclasses at level 1, but just most classes didn't have subclass features that they wanted to give out at level 1. So why not give you some time to decide?
I wouldn't support the idea of moving subclasses earlier and giving more class features at level 1. Two class features at level 1 is about right, and for a lot of classes, those aren't even active abilities you use, but just modifiers to your rolls on actions anyone can do (e.g. Ranger Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer).
Seconding this, but I also want to point out there's a massive accessibility difference between showing a brand new player 200 classes, and showing them 9 classes that happen to have 200 subclasses combined between them. It's far less daunting, lets you quickly discard the majority of character archetypes you're simply not interested in, and once they've learned the class's features, that knowledge is immediately transferable to other subclasses. For DMs, the class/subclass division gives you a very clear and easy to use template for new homebrew. Those levels where you get subclass features? They might as well say "INSERT HOMEBREW HERE."
Exploding the character archetypes back into individual classes has almost no usability upsides.
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I have created or played at least half a dozen homebrew subclasses. I have created precisely 0 homebrew classes.
Even if the class/subclass system never existed, the first thing I'd do would be to create it. If I were helping a new player create a character, one of my explanations would be, if they were say wanting to create a magic user, that there are spellbook-using ones, ones that use music to create magic...etc. it's a natural level of organisation. We already go a step further, do we not? When I will run through character creation with a new player on Saturday, the first thing I'll ask will be, "Do you want to be a martial character (that uses mostly weapons to have a straight up fight), a sneaky character (that tries to get a surprise attack and then disappears ready for another attack) or a magic user (that uses magic to alter the circumstances of the battle to their favour)? Even though it's not an official system to my knowledge, it's really useful method of making things simpler that we, presumably, all use. It very much reduces the cognitive load to think in that way, rather than trying to list all 13 classes and explain the differences between them simultaneously. The class/subclass system is here to stay, and rightfully so.
Now, the question is, should there be level 1 subclass features and so force the decision to be made at character creation?
There is something to be said about reducing cognitive load for new players, and is a very real concern for anyone trying to introduce D&D to new players. D&D has a very steep initial learning curve that could benefit a lot from anything being able to be spread out. Giving that space for new players to learn things could be very useful. I also found that playing as a Wizard, it helped to playthe campaign a little first before committing to my School. If I'd decided at the start, I'd have probably chosen Necromancy. However, since the encounters had very enemies, I realised that the source of corpses to reanimate wouod be very unreliable, so I went for Evocation instead - with it's pretty guaranteed source of damage.
On the other hand, having thr ability to develop that aspect my character from the outset rather than having to wait a few sessions is appealing. WotC also evidently feels that level 1 subclass choices is not insurmountable, because Warlocks get their's at level 1. I think that, ultimately, this is going to be personal preference, there is no objectively better way of doing it, unlike the existence of class/subclasses.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Yes, there is variety baked into classes intentionally. Warlock is simple mechanically but complex narratively. Wizard is complex mechanically and moderate narratively. Clerics also choose their subclass at level 1. There is also variety in complexity of martial classes. Monks have a diversity of situationally appropriate limited-resource abilities, whereas Fighters will spam extra attack and maybe their fighting style on most turns. Charisma-based classes emphasize roleplay. Int-based classes emphasize problem solving and lore. Rangers emphasize exploration. Str-based classes emphasize combat and risk.
You don't need the Assassinate ability to set up assassinations. You don't need to have an animal companion already to flavour in being adept at handling and training wild creatures. Lay the groundwork. It's not like characters, even ones with subclasses that start at level one, don't have to grow into their strengths.
And the complexity of the game is not the same whether you have 72 subclasses spread out over 9 classes or 72 full classes. The nine classes will have maybe 350-ish class abilities in total, the 72 classes will likely have at least twice as many, possibly more.
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I agree that subclasses should all be at level 1 ideally. I think that would be better in general than having them scattered between levels 1 2 and 3 depending on the class. It works fine for sorcerer, warlock and cleric to get theirs at 1. I think with a few tweaks you could make the rest of the classses work just fine like this too.
I hard disagree that the game would not be more complex if every subclass was its own class. One of two convoluted things would happen.
A. You have your 72 different classes, but similar to the subclass system, they still all share 90% of their class features and only differ where the subclasses currently differ. In this case you've split them out for no real reason. The subclass system is great for organization in this case. This doesn't make the game more complicated in theory but makes the organization of classes more difficult to grasp instead of having the subclasses organized under their appropriate core class.
B. You make new mechanics for each of those 72 subclasses, so that rogue, thief and arcane trickster for example no longer all share the same skeleton that they branch off of. This absolutely makes the game more complicated, I don't even see a way to argue against it making the game more complicated.
if it helps think of them like the the Kits from 2e
Sub-classes help add some variety without having to reinvent the classes from the start.
I see sub-classes as the prestige classes from 3.x done correctly.
Perhaps you might want to look to an earlier edition of the game.
Many of your ideas already exist in the 1st Edition AD&D rules.
I think it's funny (both interesting and 'ha ha'), that someone tries to bring up 1e ideas, then another person says :"no one would play that". Of course, we did for 15 years.
In fact, there's a strong 1st edition community that welcomes new players (more welcoming than some of the current groups).
Not all prestige classes were great, that's for sure, but the prerequisites pretty much were exactly "building it up from 1st level".
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When AD&D 2e hit the streets, we all jumped on that train.
Then I jumped off. I found that one of the PCs was no longer an option - they'd removed the Half-orc Assassin.
Small things aside, the 2e system just felt like they rounded out the edges of the game, I enjoyed the challenge of being a DM. It was a challenge.
Being a DM was hard and required some serious effort, now Steve Jackson's parody game is almost the reality.
For the original poster, the next version of the game will have less character details, the character will be some blob that gets defined by the player to achieve modifiers (sure some of the blobs will be Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling, but blobs nonetheless). Apart from the player saying, "My character is an elf" two races with similar modifiers and abilities could be anything if you didn't know the race "Here's my 5th Level Bard, Fighter, Wizard, Rogue character with the following stats and skills".
Old school (yes, I understand that 'new' players don't like comparisons - and it's not about one version being better or worse, just the differences) Magic-users started weak and grew to be extremely powerful, Fighter types started solid, but didn't really 'grow' unless the Player took the character down a a path, Rangers and Paladins were hard to be, they were hard in stats and also in their class limits; yes, there were also racial limits, an Elf could be a powerful Magic-user and yes, they could multi-class as a Fighter/Magic-user, but that Fighter was probably only ever going to get to 5th Level.
We played those AD&D games and loved it. So, aside from a very few of those original 21 points for discussion from the OP, they were all covered in AD&D 1st edition years 1978 to 1989 (or thereabouts). There's a strong mentality of 'old = bad', which isn't the case. Like how AD&D 1e assumed the players and DM had played Basic D&D ('75 to '79) or were part of the Gygax's original D&D game (OD&D), there were many 'rules' left out because the DM had the experience to know what to do. I was chased off a modern D&D server (with the torches and pitchforks) by suggesting that it might be worth looking to some of the older rules of previous editions to be able to cover the gaps that some DMs were encountering in their games.
As an interesting side note: If you could afford a computer in the mid-70s, the owner received a 200 page photocopied book on how to use the device which also included pages on all the physical hardware specs - that's just how we rolled back then.
This feels a bit reductive to me. Yes, a new edition would probably move away from set racial ASIs like Tasha's did. And if you personally don't like that, fair enough.
But I've seen nothing to suggest racial features in and of themselves would be stripped away. Your tiefling isn't getting trance. Your halfling isn't getting fire resistance, etc.
Rolled stats will still, regardless of racial asis, provide different base ability scores. And even then not everyone is going to invest in them the same.
You'll have str fighters and dex fighters. Arcane archers and eldritch knights who invest into int some and others who choose not to. Different spell choices, maneuvers, invocations, subclasses etc. All before even touching RP and backstories.
I think people are really overreacting to the fact that now the wood elf wizard can also start with a +3 int modifier alongside the high elf with point buy.
There is also a strong mentality of "new=bad", which your post heavily implies. I do not think mere suggestions would warrant being chased out of a server, but the hostile tone and extreme bias against new players and their play style certainly would.
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There is a minority of Grognards that resist the current edition, I would hope in the minority. I enjoy the current game, I have my preference (which is fine), but when people want to play, it's the current version we're playing unless I get a specific call to play something older.
As a DM, when there's a gap in the rules and I have to make a ruling, I use my experience as a whole to determine the outcome, not just limiting myself to the narrowest field, classic example, in one of my games (new version) a player wanted to make a potion.
So I revert to the old rules (where it was spelled out in fine detail) and adapt a little for the current version.
Don't crucify me please because I used something from 1978 as a reference.
I do not crucify people over preferences. I do not care if people are roleplayers, dungeon crawlers, murderhobos, or however they want to play D&D as long as they are having fun, and I certainly do not care what edition of D&D they play.
However, I will call people out for talking smack about others over preferences, whether it is directly insulting them or doing it in a roundabout passive aggressive way through misrepresentation. I do not think most people automatically equate old with bad; people do not care how old a mechanic or tradition is. I absolutely hate classes, but my peers do not share my opinion on that matter. What I do share with many of my peers is that we like the freedom to assign ability scores however we want to further customize and personalize our characters to better fit our fantasies. We do not dislike static racial because it is old, we dislike it because it is boring and restrictive. And for some of us, it reminds us of being told what we can or cannot do because we are too dumb or stupid because of our race, sex, culture, etc. Just as people have a right to use D&D to escape the realities of political correctness, people have a right to use D&D to escape the realities of prejudice and racism.
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