D&D 5E Q&A: Basic Subclass, Can Subclasses Change the class, Non-Vancian Subclasses

[Sadrik]

Moreover, the important thing to know about a subclass is that it’s not about mechanics, it’s about the archetype. That’s why we want to look at things like “Knight” for a subclass, not “Defender;” the word “Knight” puts a face on the subclass and describes its place in the world.

Nope that sounds a lot like background to me.

Let me get this straight:
Class
Subclass
Class spells/maneuvers etc.
Background (optionally you also pick skills)
Specialty (optionally you also pick feats)
Race
Subrace
Equipment

This is getting a lot more complex than I imagined. Subclasses are options? So I can chuck it if I want?

I am still of the opinions that backgrounds need to embody more. The classes need to be more generic like fighter, wizard, and even some of the more detailed ones like paladin should be made as general as possible. Then add in the background to flesh them out. Like adding the gladiator background this is what should "describe your place in the world". Subclass should be a mechanical deviation from the root class, not a background tacked on and a mechanical deviation.

How about:
Class (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric)
Subclass (Ranger, Paladin, Druid, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Bard, Monk)
Fighter (Monk, Barbarian) (Warrior types)
Rogue () (Skill types)
Wizard (Sorcerer, Bard) (Arcane casters)
Cleric (Druid, Paladin, Ranger) (Divine casters)

If they are planning on looking at it this way, I might be more obliged to get what they are doing... But they are not. Each of those classes will have subclasses.

Edit: I think were this gets weird is when you add in multi-classing, perhaps they do not want to add that feature in? It feels like they are designing without multi-classing in mind and they will tack on a multi-classing system afterward as an afterthought. They should be thinking about multi-classing up front.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is getting a lot more complex than I imagined. Subclasses are options? So I can chuck it if I want?

Uh, kinda, sorta? But in my opinion, not really.

Unless things have changed QUITE a bit... subclasses seem to be the new wrapping paper that the fighting styles / combat maneuvers / expertise dice spending abilities have become.

So yeah... subclasses are optional *if* you just want to use the singular, generic, basic "fighting style" that I'm sure the Basic game will assign to the fighter.

But if you do that... you have to HOPE that any of the special combat maneuvers a fighter might want to take (in order to do more than just swing a weapon for straight damage) are found within the Feats section of character creation. So you get your class to give you the regular "hit fast and hard" ability, and then your feats get you your defender's shield abilities, or your dual-wielding special moves, or your extreme archery maneuvers, etc. etc. etc.

Otherwise... you're gonna end up using subclasses just to get more of your Fighter's "special moves"... and you'll just have to strip away a lot of unnecessary fluff if you didn't want to also be a Samurai at the same time.

Which in my opinion is bass ackwards... but hey, WotC just loves them their giant Feat bucket.

 

[Weather Report]

Not so much as seems to be "choosing Feats and Skills in order to customize your character", IMO. Although it seems that they are still playing with the basics of the system much more than I would have anticipated, given some of their other comments.

They mentioned bumping ability scores instead of taking Feats, and a whole-cloth Skill system you can drop in.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Nope that sounds a lot like background to me.

Let me get this straight:
Class
Subclass
Class spells/maneuvers etc.
Background (optionally you also pick skills)
Specialty (optionally you also pick feats)
Race
Subrace
Equipment

This is getting a lot more complex than I imagined. Subclasses are options? So I can chuck it if I want?

I agree that it is getting a bit complex, even if it's relatively easy to follow, because some of the choices function as funnels. Choosing a subrace is a simple matter after choosing race. Same with subclass. At least in the case of subclass, I believe they intend to have a default option.

It seems that the next packet will expand the roll of backgrounds while dropping skills entirely. The past few packets have neutered specialties. I'm beginning to feel like they should simply merge the two and call them themes.

 

[Sadrik]

So the order I would design the character section would be this...
Race
Subrace
Background
Skills (if using)
Class
Subclass
Selectable character features
Specialty
Feats (or stat bonuses)
Equipment

The key here is I would put your background above your class. No matter what class you are your background. For instance I am a player and I have it in my mind I want to play a magical knight with Mage armor spell and a sword that he can enchant. So say he selects human (why wouldn't you under the current rules) he then selects knight then he selects the wizard class with the evocation subclass. Then he selects Mage armor and magic weapon spells along with a couple of offensive spells. He fully has it in his mind that he will add some fighter at a later time to enhance his knightly potential. In the meantime he grabs the ravager specialty to deal some wicked sword damage. Then around 10th level he wants to take the sky knight prestige feat that opens up other cool feats to allow riding aerial beast riding. He figures this will help in the tasks he is asked to do.

So the knight, can be something anyone can select, not just a fighter. Also the background is something that you carry through your adventuring career. It defines your base concept the classes you select only further define your background albeit in a much more profound way at the game table but in the character design process no matter how many classes the example character took he still was a knight. I don't see that as possible if the class fluff is too pronounced.

 

[Li Shenron]

So the knight, can be something anyone can select, not just a fighter. Also the background is something that you carry through your adventuring career. It defines your base concept the classes you select only further define your background albeit in a much more profound way at the game table but in the character design process no matter how many classes the example character took he still was a knight. I don't see that as possible if the class fluff is too pronounced.

I totally second this view. This is how it's been working so far but (as I wrote previously) the upcoming Fighter's subclasses are going to break this design principle.

As for subclass choice being optional, it won't be, but there is probably going to be a solid simple subclass choice for each class, e.g. the one which grants the smallest amount of fiddly bits, just a couple of strong benefits. The Scholarly Wizard is definitely going to be the default subclass of the Wizard because it just makes you "more wizard" without taking a specific direction. Also, it will always be possible to just look at the Basic book and pick that description of the class, since it will contain the default subclass already built-in, e.g. it will say straight that the Wizard learns 2 spells per level (unlike the Standard Wizard saying you learn 1 spell + 1 spell if you have the Scholarly tradition).

I don't however agree with your preference of having 4 core classes and then have the other classes turned into subclasses for a couple of reasons.
First, most of the other classes are very different. If Barbarian was just Rage, Ranger was just Favored Enemy, Druid was just Wildshape, then maybe we can do so, but in the past these classes grew to be archetypes of their own, so it's quite hard to describe them anymore like subclasses, not impossible but it would require to reduce the class "skeleton" a lot because the subclasses packages will be much bigger than currently.
Second, the subclasses can be used to deliver alternatives that groups can allow/disallow in their games, depending on fantasy setting and gamestyle: take the Scholarly Wizard again, this can be used to allow rituals to be cast from spellbooks instead of from prepared spells, and if one group does not like the idea, they can just ban the subclass, same thing with non-LG Paladins. Similarly it might be possible to have a Barbarian subclass which has Rage as an encounter-based feature instead of daily, or a spell-less Ranger, or a Rogue without sneak-attack... If Barbarian is a subclass of Fighter, then you can only allow/ban all Barbarians, thus subclasses give more room for customization at group's level, not just as player's level.

Multiclassing is not affected by subclasses, it should work like a charm.

 

[Sadrik]

I don't however agree with your preference of having 4 core classes and then have the other classes turned into subclasses for a couple of reasons.

Note that I agree with your two points. I was offering an alternative idea where having fluffy subclasses could work. This is not my preferred approach. I would prefer to have a good amount of classes that cover quite a bit of territory. Although I would like classes to be as much of a skeleton as possible. I want the background to fill in the flesh.

One thing I will disagree with in your points... the barbarian should be a subclass of fighter. I think rage could be one of the alternative ways to use combat expertise that they talked about. Additionally, I would rename it berserker, and I would make barbarian a background. Barbarian is your trade it is how you survived and made your way in the world. Besides, I think barbarian background druids, rangers, rogues, fighters, heck even cleric, and wizard (warlock) could work with a barbarian background.

Multiclassing is not affected by subclasses, it should work like a charm.

I disagree, If the subclasses are going to be really fluffy, you may wind up with taking fighter twice because you want to be a samurai/knight or whatever. That has been specifically barred in past editions, but if you have fluffy subclasses where you want to actually multi-class into two subclasses of the same class. This is a problem in my eye.

 

[Sadrik]

One thing before I head off... Why cannot the fighter just use two specialties! I means really, one from fighter and one from just being a character. So the fighter has as many subclasses as there is specialties. The specialty might also offer how they spend their fighter dice pool. It really does not seem that hard.

So in a game where feats are not used, the fighter has his class specialty, its still his schtick. In a game where players pick feats instead of using a specialty, the fighter still gets tied to his specialty but selects his other feats. He only adds more feats from his bonus specialty based on his fighter level. This in my mind makes so much sense to me. Then the name of the specialty is the name of the subclass and further when additional specialties come out in splat books the fighter becomes infinitely extensible. Clean and simple.

 

[DEFCON 1]

One thing before I head off... Why cannot the fighter just use two specialties! I means really, one from fighter and one from just being a character. So the fighter has as many subclasses as there is specialties. The specialty might also offer how they spend their fighter dice pool. It really does not seem that hard.

This is precisely the reason why I think the idea of the "Specialty" should get tossed out at this point in the playtest process. Grouping a bunch of feats in a fluffy package seems to have become unnecessary, if indeed the classes themselves are going to have the fluffy packages already in them via subclasses.

The whole original point of the Theme concept in 4E was to create fluffy packages that up until that point in the game were just created by the player in his head as part of his character concept. But the Theme wrote those character concepts explicitly because they also granted additional mechanical benefit to layer on top of what you got for your class. So if you decided your character was a Noble, there was now an in-game benefit you got for making that character concept choice.

When they started creating D&DN... they decided rather than create new mechanical benefits for these Themes out of whole cloth... they just brought over the idea of Feats and used them for the mechanical benefits. But the character concept part of the Theme/Speciality was unchanged-- that was meant to put a fluffy package onto your character (to go along with the mechanical benefit) because your class didn't provide it.

But now that our classes ARE apparently going to provide these fluffy packages... then having another system in the game that also does it is redundant in the best case or more often than not going to cause story conflict in the worst. After all... if you are a Fighter and you are a Scout... do you need to know you're a Skirmisher too? Is that "designation" layered on top of being a Scout Fighter really necessary anymore? Doesn't just taking the feats that make up the Skirmisher specialty do enough to tell us who your Scout Fighter is?

I know many people here like the idea of multiple (possibly conflicting) layers of character fluff... but I still think it's messy and unnecessary. At some point... the game needs to be able to trust its players to once again in part invent their own character concepts and just supply the mechanical benefits that allow us to create them... rather than needing to add fluff to every aspect of character creation.

Because I know that I'm going to go a bit cross-eyed when I keep looking at created characters identified as things like Mountain Dwarf Priest Scout Fighter Hedge Magician... or Lightfoot Halfling Bounty Hunter Acrobat Rogue Skulker.

 

[Nymrohd]

Isn't there a point though were too much design space has to be covered by a singular mechanic? I like my game to make sense and it doesn't make sense to me that I have to pick between being a knight and being good at using a greatsword. How did those two compete as aspects of my experience?