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).
Personally I would very much wanted to return classes back to roots. Something like if from the beginning would be only four roles(warrior\rogue\cleric\mage) and after(lets say by 3rd lvl) you could choose a class(something like fighter\paladin\barbarian for warrior) and long after take a subclass.
Well here is the thing. Are we talking about class features of class names and concepts? Because A Barbarian is a Warrior so as a character concept, you could skip a Ranger, Barbarian and Paladin class and simply use the Warrior class as a concept and just retheme him. If we are talking about class features (aka options) that define cool stuff the class can do, most players are going to want to just get right to it. If I'm an Elven Fighter Magic User.. I don't want to fumble about without magic for X amount of levels before I can start doing what my character IS thematically & conceptually.
It's a matter of taste. For me, an 1st lvl Elven Fighter Magic User seems illogical, because he is novice who just start his way on warrior route and his skills must be limited(all he knows is how to wear armor and hold a sword). Later he become veteran, he learns new abilities, let's say...rage(barbarian) and move on by choosing a berserker subclass at higher levels. So the approach I'm mention is not quite about simplification, but more about a consistent class progression(1lvl role>3lvl class>5lvl subclass).
And second thing I also want to note that if you try make many unique, no one is unique. In the "classic four" everyone had their own unigue role, and what different role does a ranger have from a fighter, or sorc from a wizard now?
It's a matter of taste. For me, an 1st lvl Elven Fighter Magic User seems illogical, because he is novice who just start his way on warrior route and his skills must be limited(all he knows is how to wear armor and hold a sword). Later he become veteran, he learns new abilities, let's say...rage(barbarian) and move on by choosing a berserker subclass at higher levels. So the approach I'm mention is not quite about simplification, but more about a consistent class progression(1lvl role>3lvl class>5lvl subclass).
And second thing I also want to note that if you try make many unique, no one is unique. In the "classic four" everyone had their own unigue role, and what different role does a ranger have from a fighter, or sorc from a wizard now?
Yeah, I can understand that logic and actually for a long time I actually thought along these lines as well. I think what changed my mind is when I became disillusioned about D&D in which the characters were effectively an endless list of growing character powers, tricks and effects. I suppose it started in 3e, with feats got worse with 4e and kind of continued with 5e where the focus of character classes and general character concepts became about an endless list of features and powers. Players stopped making characters and started making builds. When modern editions of D&D just stopped speaking to me as a game design I started going back in D&D's history using earlier and earlier systems based on nostalgic memories of how the game used to feel and I discovered that while the rules themselves were a bit dated the class design was simpler. I ultimately settled on 1st edition Basic where I discovered that players in my game started approaching and playing the game like I sort of expected and ultimately desired. People stopped building characters and started writing characters again.
The reality of the 1e Basic system is that even a 36th level character is still way simpler than a 1st level 5e character. A 1st edition AD&D Elven Fighter/Magic User at max level is still simpler than a 3rd level Eldrtich Knight for example. Class design matters here so when we are talking about the logic of a Fighter/Magic-User and what that means in terms of class features and powers, it really depends a lot on that design.
In 1e Basic, and classes that followed in BECMI and my favorite version of the game OSE (Old School Essentials), when you make a 1st level character with a few exceptions like Magic-User spells, character classes get all of their powers at 1st level. It doesn't make them "powerful" or "experienced" as all of these powers start out at a very low yield and are generally quite mild and often not combat-related. But the player gets the complete character concept from day one when they choose their race and class.
The point here is that the Level should determine the power of the character and their experience, it shouldn't mean in my opinion that the player should be denied the vision of his character concept until X or Y level as a way to control their "power" level. That is what the level is for. I can understand that with higher levels a class should expand on the effectiveness of powers (New spells, improved rage, etc..), but for me personally, I don't want it so that when a player creates a character concept he can't realize it until X or Y level.
Notably receiving increasingly more powers per level and expanding the list of features as you level up is what makes modern D&D nearly unplayable at higher levels cutting the life of a campaign short. I mean, 5e is a decent game until you hit about level 7-8 but beyond that its a complete cluster f!!!. Most players can't even remember all the stuff they can do at a certain point and we end up with this circular discussion and problem where everyone complains about the balance of the game almost always driven by uneven class advancement.
The bolded part I agree with. While I do like subclasses a lot, I do wish every class started with them. So that if you want to play a swashbuckler, you start as a swashbuckler. If you want to play an eldritch knight, you start off with at least like, a cantrip or something for a bit of magic before level 3.
For the point about people making builds versus characters I think that largely depends on the table, the games I run and play in tend to have a lot of emphasis placed on roleplaying and story. And while there is some element of making builds, there's still a lot of character building and people aren't just min maxing for maximum dpr etc.
Again, talking about the old-school: the 1st Level Fighter/Magic-user of AD&D 1e means the character is from Elf stock (Elf or Half-elf); the old school way also meant the age of a Multi-classed character was higher than a single class.
A 1st Level Magic-user in Human years starts in the late 20s (average of 2HP to 3HP), compared to the Elf Magic-user has a maximum starting age of 130years (and equates to about 15 years old in Human terms - and explains the Elf preference/weakness for magic). However, an Elf Fighter/Magic-user starts at an age about 160years (averages about 3HP to 4HP).
In part, yes, it takes time to become a 1st Level character is any class (the 1st Level Fighter is titled Veteran); Being 1st Level was not an apprentice, but the PCs are touched by a sense of destiny compared to the others of their kind making them that 1st Level.
Humans (except those very special ones), could only have one class, but weren't limited by level (the Elf Fighter is often 5th Level max, and Magic-user topped out at 11th Level - which was still kick ass!).
Levels are different in the modern form of the game. Again, back in older editions, where the average NPC had between 3 and 6 hp (depending on race), PCs of 20HP and 30HP, seem like power personified.
In the DMG, Gygax makes mention of his Greyhawk campaign setting in the most briefest of terms and almost insists that the DMs build their own worlds. Otherwise, the DMG would be more of a Greyhawk reference. There was a lot of balance inside the rules, and yes, Gygax disliked the idea of Magic-users, but placed a heavy emphasis on Vancian magic in response. An 11th Level Magic-user casting the Fireball spell inflicting 11d6 damage, or the Magic Missile spell throwing up to 6d4+6 damage, made the class very powerful at a point when the Fighters and Thieves were beginning to stagnate.
I may be the only person in the whole world that uses those rules you mentioned, but they certainly added to the game. They weren't difficult, they weren't overbearing, or even horrible. I never had a problem with them and their adoption of those rules made the most sense to me (why would someone in plate mail be as vulnerable to a club as a non-armoured person?). Maybe it's because I used those rules (which meant so did my players). I'll admit, I'm tired of making justifications to the reasons that I used them, I'm at the point where I just want to agree with everyone and move on (but secretly use the rules).
Big Lizzie, I'm happy for you to join my one-shot once I have it sorted - pure AD&D 1e with all those terrible rules you've never seen in use - maybe not, who knows.
Back to the topic of an Advanced D&D 5e (?); we have a saying in my country (Australia): "Yeah, nah"
Personally I would very much wanted to return classes back to roots. Something like if from the beginning would be
only four roles(warrior\rogue\cleric\mage) and after(lets say by 3rd lvl) you could choose a class(something like fighter\paladin\barbarian for warrior) and long after take a subclass.
It's a matter of taste. For me, an 1st lvl Elven Fighter Magic User seems illogical, because he is novice who just start his way on warrior route and his skills must be limited(all he knows is how to wear armor and hold a sword). Later he become veteran, he learns new abilities, let's say...rage(barbarian) and move on by choosing a berserker subclass at higher levels. So the approach I'm mention is not quite about simplification, but more about a consistent class progression(1lvl role>3lvl class>5lvl subclass).
And second thing I also want to note that if you try make many unique, no one is unique. In the "classic four" everyone had their own unigue role, and what different role does a ranger have from a fighter, or sorc from a wizard now?
The bolded part I agree with. While I do like subclasses a lot, I do wish every class started with them. So that if you want to play a swashbuckler, you start as a swashbuckler. If you want to play an eldritch knight, you start off with at least like, a cantrip or something for a bit of magic before level 3.
For the point about people making builds versus characters I think that largely depends on the table, the games I run and play in tend to have a lot of emphasis placed on roleplaying and story. And while there is some element of making builds, there's still a lot of character building and people aren't just min maxing for maximum dpr etc.
Again, talking about the old-school:
the 1st Level Fighter/Magic-user of AD&D 1e means the character is from Elf stock (Elf or Half-elf); the old school way also meant the age of a Multi-classed character was higher than a single class.
A 1st Level Magic-user in Human years starts in the late 20s (average of 2HP to 3HP), compared to the Elf Magic-user has a maximum starting age of 130years (and equates to about 15 years old in Human terms - and explains the Elf preference/weakness for magic). However, an Elf Fighter/Magic-user starts at an age about 160years (averages about 3HP to 4HP).
In part, yes, it takes time to become a 1st Level character is any class (the 1st Level Fighter is titled Veteran); Being 1st Level was not an apprentice, but the PCs are touched by a sense of destiny compared to the others of their kind making them that 1st Level.
Humans (except those very special ones), could only have one class, but weren't limited by level (the Elf Fighter is often 5th Level max, and Magic-user topped out at 11th Level - which was still kick ass!).
Levels are different in the modern form of the game. Again, back in older editions, where the average NPC had between 3 and 6 hp (depending on race), PCs of 20HP and 30HP, seem like power personified.
In the DMG, Gygax makes mention of his Greyhawk campaign setting in the most briefest of terms and almost insists that the DMs build their own worlds. Otherwise, the DMG would be more of a Greyhawk reference. There was a lot of balance inside the rules, and yes, Gygax disliked the idea of Magic-users, but placed a heavy emphasis on Vancian magic in response. An 11th Level Magic-user casting the Fireball spell inflicting 11d6 damage, or the Magic Missile spell throwing up to 6d4+6 damage, made the class very powerful at a point when the Fighters and Thieves were beginning to stagnate.
I may be the only person in the whole world that uses those rules you mentioned, but they certainly added to the game. They weren't difficult, they weren't overbearing, or even horrible. I never had a problem with them and their adoption of those rules made the most sense to me (why would someone in plate mail be as vulnerable to a club as a non-armoured person?). Maybe it's because I used those rules (which meant so did my players). I'll admit, I'm tired of making justifications to the reasons that I used them, I'm at the point where I just want to agree with everyone and move on (but secretly use the rules).
Big Lizzie, I'm happy for you to join my one-shot once I have it sorted - pure AD&D 1e with all those terrible rules you've never seen in use - maybe not, who knows.
Back to the topic of an Advanced D&D 5e (?); we have a saying in my country (Australia): "Yeah, nah"