Now that we know for sure what all the subclass pairings will be in the 2024 PHB, I wanted to revisit Crawford's idea of "subclass pairings" and see if we know what the designers had in mind when choosing which subclasses to include in the PHB. Crawford outright told us some of them in the respective class videos, and others are fairly obvious, but there's still a few I'm not totally sure on that I wanted to open up to the community to help me with.
What surprised me going back through these is that some of them appear to be shared by multiple classes, unless I'm way off... Anyway, enough preamble:
Barbarian
Primal Power vs Cosmic Power (stated by Crawford in the Barbarian video)
As crazy as it might seem, all three of these appear to be some variation of Body (more martial) vs Mind (more magical). Can anyone confirm or spot a different theme?
Truth/Revelation vs Lies/Deception, as well as Preservation vs Destruction (stated by Crawford in both videos).
Truth: Light Cleric, Diviner Wizard
Lies: Trickery Cleric, Illusionist Wizard
Preservation: Life Cleric, Abjurer Wizard
Destruction: War Cleric, Evoker Wizard
Druid
Earth and Sky
Earth: Land, Sea
Sky: Moon, Stars
Monk
This is one of the two I have no clue about. Their subclasses are Elements, Mercy, Open Hand, and Shadow and I can’t tell what the thematic pairs are meant to be.
Paladin
This is the other one I have no clue about. There might be an offense / defense thing going on with Devotion and Vengeance… but Ancients and Glory I’m really unsure. Self vs. Nature maybe?
Ranger
Material Plane vs Material Echo Planes (stated by Crawford in Ranger video.)
Weird. Why would they bother making these arbitrary connections? Since a character will only ever have one subclass per class, I don't see what is gained by linking subclasses within a class. I also doubt that the decision to include one subclass over another came down to these obscure pairings.
Also FYI: transitory and inner planes are not the same. Inner planes are elemental planes.
I forget what he said about pairs. Sort of something about being opposite sides of a coin?
It comes up in this UA, starting at 38:47 when Crawford explains why they dropped Necromancer in favor of Abjurer - in part because Necromancer has consistently had significantly lower satisfaction and lower play numbers than the Abjurer (he mentions that Necromancer being so low on both metrics is a bad sign - some classes are low satisfaction but still get played a lot, like Ranger); but the other part is that Abjurer fit well into this whole quartet / opposing pair idea they ended up basing the subclass selections on, due to it contrasting the Evoker (defense vs. offense as I noted above.)
Weird. Why would they bother making these arbitrary connections? Since a character will only ever have one subclass per class, I don't see what is gained by linking subclasses within a class. I also doubt that the decision to include one subclass over another came down to these obscure pairings.
The reasons he give include wanting to illustrate "different corners of a class' identity" (which is honestly a fair point - blasting, warding, information-gathering and trickery sum up Wizards reasonably well) to quickly get newcomers up to speed on what a class is all about. The other reason he gave is that for newcomers who have no idea what these subclasses are about or can do, the chosen subclasses should represent "a clear set of aesthetic and mechanical hooks" to help guide them to pick the subclasses within a class; you figure out one subclass after all, and its thematic opposite shouldn't be that far off.
Ugh, I remember in one of Treantmonk's videos during UA, someone posted a very detailed comment on what the subclass themes they thought WotC was going for per class. When all the subclasses were revealed during the playtest, it turned out that his comment was spot on at the time. It's been a long time since then so I dug in and found the reddit post HERE. Obviously some of the subclasses changed for the final release, so I'll give my opinion based on that on bold:
Druid: Land & Sea; Moon & Stars
Fighter: Psi Warrior & Eldritch Knight (psionics vs magic); Battle Master & Champion (tactics vs brawn)
Barbarian: Berseker & Zealot (frenzy vs devotion); Wild Heart & World Tree (animals vs plants)
Warlock: Fiend vs Celestial (heaven and hell, duh); Archfey vs Great Old One (nature and beauty vs aberration and horror)
Sorcerer: Wild Magic vs Clockwork (chaos vs order); Draconic vs Aberrant (material plane/elemental vs far plane/psychic)
Wizard: Evoker vs Abjurer (offense vs defense); Illusionist vs Diviner (lies vs truth)
Cleric: Life (healing) vs War (harm); Light (revelation and truth) vs Trickery (hiddenness and deception)
Paladin: Devotion vs Vengeance (white knight vs black knight); Ancients vs Glory (nature vs civilization)
Ranger: Hunter vs Beast Master (lone wolf vs wolf pack); Gloom Stalker vs Fey Wanderer (Shadowfell vs Feywild)
Rogue: Soulknife vs Arcane Trickster (psionics vs magic again); Assassin vs Thief (surprise vs cunning)
Monk: Open Hand vs Elements (technique vs power); Shadow vs Mercy (killer vs healer)
Bard: Lore vs Dancer (mind vs body); Glamour vs Valor (clever trickster vs honorable warrior)
I forgot Nature vs Civilization for Ancients and Glory, that one actually makes sense to me!
Monk I'm a lot less sold on; Mercy is pretty handy at killing too, and Elements isn't big on power imo, so it seems like a stretch. And Rogue seems odd too, wouldn't you need cunning to catch people by surprise? I think the double split of Mundane/Mundane/Magic/Magic fits them better.
I forgot Nature vs Civilization for Ancients and Glory, that one actually makes sense to me!
Monk I'm a lot less sold on; Mercy is pretty handy at killing too, and Elements isn't big on power imo, so it seems like a stretch. And Rogue seems odd too, wouldn't you need cunning to catch people by surprise? I think the double split of Mundane/Mundane/Magic/Magic fits them better.
Looking at the subclass descriptions, it does make sense.
Monk
Open Hand Monk: Masters of combat (technique)
Elements Monk: Manipulate the Elements (power)
Shadow: Ninja, Shinobi, etc (killer)
Mercy: manipulate the life force of others to bring aid (healer)
Rogue: I think this is a better description for Assassin vs Thief:
I saw Paladin as standing for something outside of yourself (Ancients for nature, Devotion for gods or goodliness) and standing for something that is self-serving (Glory for personal achievement and Vengeance for personal satisfaction)
I forgot Nature vs Civilization for Ancients and Glory, that one actually makes sense to me!
With that rationale, I would have thought crown instead of glory, I mean, you don’t need to be civilized to want to be the best at something. But, I realize that’s just an opinion.
My guess for what happened with the monk, and some others is they had an idea for these pairings, but it didn’t always work. I think they either picked subclasses that were more popular, or needed the most work, and then fit the pairs around those choices. If they really, really wanted pairs, they could have just made new subclasses from scratch, as they did in a few cases. So they chose the subclasses they wanted to use, and when they can hit the pairs theme dead on, great. But when they can’t, they just kind of do what they can, and try not to mention it.
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Now that we know for sure what all the subclass pairings will be in the 2024 PHB, I wanted to revisit Crawford's idea of "subclass pairings" and see if we know what the designers had in mind when choosing which subclasses to include in the PHB. Crawford outright told us some of them in the respective class videos, and others are fairly obvious, but there's still a few I'm not totally sure on that I wanted to open up to the community to help me with.
What surprised me going back through these is that some of them appear to be shared by multiple classes, unless I'm way off... Anyway, enough preamble:
Barbarian
Bard / Fighter / Rogue
Cleric / Wizard
Druid
Monk
This is one of the two I have no clue about. Their subclasses are Elements, Mercy, Open Hand, and Shadow and I can’t tell what the thematic pairs are meant to be.
Paladin
This is the other one I have no clue about. There might be an offense / defense thing going on with Devotion and Vengeance… but Ancients and Glory I’m really unsure. Self vs. Nature maybe?
Ranger
Sorcerer
Warlock
Did I get any of these wrong? And did anyone figure out Paladin or Monk's themes?
I forget what he said about pairs. Sort of something about being opposite sides of a coin?
Weird. Why would they bother making these arbitrary connections? Since a character will only ever have one subclass per class, I don't see what is gained by linking subclasses within a class. I also doubt that the decision to include one subclass over another came down to these obscure pairings.
Also FYI: transitory and inner planes are not the same. Inner planes are elemental planes.
It comes up in this UA, starting at 38:47 when Crawford explains why they dropped Necromancer in favor of Abjurer - in part because Necromancer has consistently had significantly lower satisfaction and lower play numbers than the Abjurer (he mentions that Necromancer being so low on both metrics is a bad sign - some classes are low satisfaction but still get played a lot, like Ranger); but the other part is that Abjurer fit well into this whole quartet / opposing pair idea they ended up basing the subclass selections on, due to it contrasting the Evoker (defense vs. offense as I noted above.)
The reasons he give include wanting to illustrate "different corners of a class' identity" (which is honestly a fair point - blasting, warding, information-gathering and trickery sum up Wizards reasonably well) to quickly get newcomers up to speed on what a class is all about. The other reason he gave is that for newcomers who have no idea what these subclasses are about or can do, the chosen subclasses should represent "a clear set of aesthetic and mechanical hooks" to help guide them to pick the subclasses within a class; you figure out one subclass after all, and its thematic opposite shouldn't be that far off.
My mistake, updated.
Ugh, I remember in one of Treantmonk's videos during UA, someone posted a very detailed comment on what the subclass themes they thought WotC was going for per class. When all the subclasses were revealed during the playtest, it turned out that his comment was spot on at the time. It's been a long time since then so I dug in and found the reddit post HERE. Obviously some of the subclasses changed for the final release, so I'll give my opinion based on that on bold:
Druid: Land & Sea; Moon & Stars
Fighter: Psi Warrior & Eldritch Knight (psionics vs magic); Battle Master & Champion (tactics vs brawn)
Barbarian: Berseker & Zealot (frenzy vs devotion); Wild Heart & World Tree (animals vs plants)
Warlock: Fiend vs Celestial (heaven and hell, duh); Archfey vs Great Old One (nature and beauty vs aberration and horror)
Sorcerer: Wild Magic vs Clockwork (chaos vs order); Draconic vs Aberrant (material plane/elemental vs far plane/psychic)
Wizard: Evoker vs Abjurer (offense vs defense); Illusionist vs Diviner (lies vs truth)
Cleric: Life (healing) vs War (harm); Light (revelation and truth) vs Trickery (hiddenness and deception)
Paladin: Devotion vs Vengeance (white knight vs black knight); Ancients vs Glory (nature vs civilization)
Ranger: Hunter vs Beast Master (lone wolf vs wolf pack); Gloom Stalker vs Fey Wanderer (Shadowfell vs Feywild)
Rogue: Soulknife vs Arcane Trickster (psionics vs magic again); Assassin vs Thief (surprise vs cunning)
Monk: Open Hand vs Elements (technique vs power); Shadow vs Mercy (killer vs healer)
Bard: Lore vs Dancer (mind vs body); Glamour vs Valor (clever trickster vs honorable warrior)
I forgot Nature vs Civilization for Ancients and Glory, that one actually makes sense to me!
Monk I'm a lot less sold on; Mercy is pretty handy at killing too, and Elements isn't big on power imo, so it seems like a stretch. And Rogue seems odd too, wouldn't you need cunning to catch people by surprise? I think the double split of Mundane/Mundane/Magic/Magic fits them better.
Looking at the subclass descriptions, it does make sense.
Monk
Rogue: I think this is a better description for Assassin vs Thief:
Possibly for Rogues a two-by-two matrix works:
Mundane vs Supernatural skill:
Thief/Assassin vs Arcane Trickster/ Soulknife
and
Tickery/Evasion vs Offence:
Thief/Arcane Trickster vs Assassin/Soulknife
I saw Paladin as standing for something outside of yourself (Ancients for nature, Devotion for gods or goodliness) and standing for something that is self-serving (Glory for personal achievement and Vengeance for personal satisfaction)
Profile pic - credit to artist unknown
With that rationale, I would have thought crown instead of glory, I mean, you don’t need to be civilized to want to be the best at something. But, I realize that’s just an opinion.
My guess for what happened with the monk, and some others is they had an idea for these pairings, but it didn’t always work. I think they either picked subclasses that were more popular, or needed the most work, and then fit the pairs around those choices. If they really, really wanted pairs, they could have just made new subclasses from scratch, as they did in a few cases.
So they chose the subclasses they wanted to use, and when they can hit the pairs theme dead on, great. But when they can’t, they just kind of do what they can, and try not to mention it.