What classes are neccesary?

[crabwizard77]

I am working on a D&D clone. What archtypes do you think I should have in the Player's Handbook?

[JNAProductions]

This thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?662730-What-Archetypes-Need-To-Be-There) might be of some help.

[Skrum]

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:smallcool:

Dunno if that's the route you're going, but I think a more organic leveling method where characters got better at specific things (as opposed to a tiered, get better at everything at once system) would be preferable. Under that kind of progression, there wouldn't be archetypes in the traditional sense, there'd just be what characters called themselves in game.

[Mastikator]

All of them, plus artificer. :smallsmile:

[GooeyChewie]

As JNAProductions said, the Archetype thread should help in this regard. I would say the necessary classes are some form of Fighter, Rogue, Wizard and Cleric, harkening back to the archetypes of “fighting man,” “thief,” “magic user” and “cleric/healer.” Everything else is either a twist based on one of those, or a combination of two of those.

[InvisibleBison]

As JNAProductions said, the Archetype thread should help in this regard. I would say the necessary classes are some form of Fighter, Rogue, Wizard and Cleric, harkening back to the archetypes of “fighting man,” “thief,” “magic user” and “cleric/healer.” Everything else is either a twist based on one of those, or a combination of two of those.

There's no need to have wizard and cleric as separate classes, especially in a game with 5e-esque subclasses. Having a single class of "magic user" with subclasses determining what kind of magic they use would work if one wanted a minimal amount of classes.

[Oramac]

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I've been playing with designing a classless system. It's certainly an interesting challenge. Of course, I'm also abandoning the d20 and 6 Ability Scores too, so that kinda makes it more difficult. :biggrin:

To the OP: I'd agree that the bare minimum would be some form of "fighter", "thief", and "magic-user".

[clash]

I would build a class tree starting with most generic and move to more specific and decide where you want to be on it.

Magic user. weapon user
/\ /\
Offensive | supporting melee | ranged

Etc and you'll land with the classes you want without falling into the trap of having genetic classes like fighter vying for identity beside specific archetypes like paladin

[Mastikator]

I've been playing with designing a classless system. It's certainly an interesting challenge. Of course, I'm also abandoning the d20 and 6 Ability Scores too, so that kinda makes it more difficult. :biggrin:

To the OP: I'd agree that the bare minimum would be some form of "fighter", "thief", and "magic-user".

I once designed a classless level-less system from scratch. I did end up going for 6 ability scores but not exactly the ones that D&D use, it went through many genre phases and I found that design goals are key. Asking "what classes should I include" is not a good question. "What is the game about", "what themes are present" and "how should it play" are better starting points. If you have those figured out then the answers to "what classes" become inevitable.

[Kane0]

Rule of threes!

Pures: Warrior, Mage, Expert

Half-and-halves: Warrior/Mage, Warrior/Expert, Mage/Expert

Major-minors: Warrior (Mage), Warrior (Expert), Expert (Warrior), Expert (Mage), Mage (Warrior), Mage (Expert)

Which coincidentally makes 12.

Try not to make an equal-parts warrior/expert/mage lest it fall into the trap of being either the default best allrounder or not good enough at anything.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm going to buck the trend here a tiny bit.

There should be exactly as many classes as
1) you're willing to build AND have the system fully support
2) and can justify being separate both mechanically (each class should have something unique, what I call a Unique Cool Thing) and thematically
3) and meaningfully fit at the same level of generality.

If you want generic classes, you'll end up with many fewer of them. Maybe down to 3. Or even 2 (Warrior + magic-user, with Expert rolled into those). That's because those classes eat most of the possibility space. But in exchange, those classes will be mostly just bland holders for "roll your own" and balance will inevitably suffer. At the extreme, you end up with classless (which is isomorphic to only having one class, whose class features are all slots in the component sense). Note: level-by-level multiclassing is basically generic classes with more hoops.

More tightly-defined classes can be more numerous without overlap. And don't think you need to have a class (or even class/subclass) for all the "required" archetypes--it's totally ok for a game to say "thus far and no further", or in this context "here are the supported archetypes. If you want more, make your own."

I'm doing basically the same thing (a 5e fork) and have settled on the core having 12 classes, with not all subclasses defined yet:

* Arcanist (FKA sorcerer + wizard). INT-based arcane full caster. Subclasses include innate magic and book magic. UCT: metamagic.
* Armsman (FKA fighter). Martial switch-hitter. UCTs are versatility (they get all the fighting styles/weapon traits + can use STR or DEX for any weapon) and Momentum (built up by repeated attacks, can be spent for damage or conditions).
* Brawler (FKA monk). Martial skirmisher. UCTs are martial arts + various ways to add conditions easily.
* Oathbound (FKA paladin). Martial/divine half-caster. Mostly unchanged, but subclasses are different.
* Priest (FKA cleric). WIS-based divine full caster. More white mage than armored cleric. UCT: Miracles (chance to cast spell without spending resources) + Overflow (adding riders on specific spell casts)
* Ranger. Ranged or TWF DEX/WIS primal half-caster. UCT is Focused Foe (sorta Hunter's mark, but as class feature) + at higher levels Aether Strike (basically a scaling steel wind strike as class feature).
* Rogue. DEX-based martial/expert. UCTs are extra skill tricks[1] with early entry, sneak attack, and cunning action.
* Shaman (FKA druid). No wild-shape. WIS-based primal full caster. UCT are Manifest Zones (placeable persistent AoEs with control/buffing effects).
* Spellblade. DEX/CHA-based arcane half-caster. UCTs: Aether Manipulation (inverse bardic inspiration, place on enemy to penalize attacks/saves) and Channeling (cast spell into weapon as part of attack). Gets one extra skill trick, but no early entry
* Warden (FKA barbarian). STR-based martial. UCTs: Rage (defensive) + Furious Blows/Focus (offensive). Crit-fisher supreme, gets expanded crit range and extra crit damage. At very high levels is basically anti-magic in form.
* Warlock. CHA-based special-caster. Doesn't get a spell list, but can use invocations (and has more of them) to steal spells from any list. UCT: EB as class feature + blast shapes/blast effects.

I might, if I want, add a dedicated shapeshifter and a few other classes.

[2D8HP]

There should be:

a Conan class (Barbarianish Fighter)

a Gray Mouser class (Fighter/Thief/sometimes Magic-User)

an Indiana Jones class (Scholar Fighter/Thief)

a Robin Hood class (Rangerish Fighter)

a Sir Percival class (Cavalier-Fighter)

a Van Helsing class (sort of a scholar Cleric)

maybe a Bilbo Baggins class (Thief)

a Anakin Skywalker/Medea/Saruman class (an eventually evil Magic-User, maybe have separate Witch and Wizard classes for flavor)

Frankly, you could drop the Van Helsing class, have some sort of combination Fighter/Thief class for all PC’s, with some with a Criminal, some with an Outlander/Woodsman, some with a Sailor, and some with a Soldier background; and just have Magicians as NPC antagonists/hirelings/mentors

Some previous thoughts on this here:


Right, what archetypes should there be?

The Barbarian:
Conan from the stories by Howard, and Fadhrd from The Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories by Leiber, a strong outlander swordsman

The Explorer/Treasure Hunter:
Indiana Jones from The Raiders of the Lost Ark film, a fighting man scholar

The Knight:
Sir Gawain, and Sir Percival from the film Excalibur, an armored cavalier who fights with lance and sword

The Magician:
Aeëtes in Jason and the Argonauts. Circe in Homer's The Odyssey, Elezer Whateley in Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”, Hristomilo from Leiber’s “Ill Met in Lankhmar”, Koura in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Morgan le Fay in Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur, Tolkien’s Saruman, Sokurah in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Yara in Howard’s “The Tower of the Elephant"; some like Medea in Jason and the Argonauts may perhaps be initially benevolent, but as they cast more and more spells all shall in time they will be doomed and turn to evil, perhaps something like the Call of Cthulhu game’s “sanity” mechanic should be employed to track a magician’s character’s inevitable descent into damnation, definitely their should be a change in Alignment so that they eventually become Evil, and as their madness afflicts their mind they should become Chaotic as well. None (if they live long enough) should stay good like Tolkien’s Gandalf, or Le Guin’s Ged. Perhaps a Magician may be redeemed like Star Wars’ Darth Vader, but they shouldn’t live long afterwards.

The Sailor:
Captain Sinbad from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad film, Long John Silver from Treasure Island, a sailor and usually also a swordsman

The Thief:
The Gray Mouser from Leiber’s tales, a skilled, agile, stealthy, and tricky swordsman

The Undead Hunter:
Van Helsing from Dracula, who uses holy symbols and their wisdom to vanquish unholy abominations; their Alignment should be “Good”, probably “Lawful” as well. Perhaps Undead Hunters may be in peril of becoming evil Magicians from too close proximity to the abominations they fight.

The Woodsman:
Robin Hood from The Adventures of Robin Hood film, and Tonto from the Lone Ranger television show; warriors who are masters of woodcraft

In terms of traditional D&D classes most of the above should be something like a sub class of fighter (including 1e Rangers), or a multi-class fighter/thief; the Undead Hunter is most like the D&D Cleric, and the Magician is like a D&D Magic-User or Warlock

Whether there should be three, eight, or nine (give the Sorcerer and the Witch different enough flavors) classes is a level of rules fine tuning that’s up to the game designers.

[Millstone85]

Rule of threes!

Pures: Warrior, Mage, Expert

Half-and-halves: Warrior/Mage, Warrior/Expert, Mage/Expert

Major-minors: Warrior (Mage), Warrior (Expert), Expert (Warrior), Expert (Mage), Mage (Warrior), Mage (Expert)

Which coincidentally makes 12.

Try not to make an equal-parts warrior/expert/mage lest it fall into the trap of being either the default best allrounder or not good enough at anything.Under that approach, and to keep existing themes, here are the names that come to mind:




Warrior
Fighter

Warrior(Mage)
Paladin

Warrior/Mage
Cleric

Mage(Warrior)
Druid

Mage
Wizard



Warrior(Expert)
Warlord





Mage(Expert)
Sorcerer





Warrior/Expert
Ranger



Mage/Expert
Bard







Expert(Warrior)
Monk

Expert(Mage)
Artificer









Expert
Rogue

[Sorinth]

I'll second the idea that a smaller collection of unique and well designed/balanced/themed classes is probably better then a large collection of generic classes there to cover all the bases and are mostly just a mix of abilities from two or more other classes. And I'd note it's also easier to achieve that if the game world itself is less generi. For casters in particular the more well defined/themed the magic system is, the better you can define/theme of those classes.


That said if you want coverage, in some ways you should consider how they approach encounters/problems. For example, most encounters can be solved either through combat, sneaking around them, or through social interaction. So you could divide the archetypes/subclasses be derived from that POV.

Martials could have Barbarian or Figher as Combat, Rogue or Ranger or Monk as the Sneak, and Paladin as the Social.
Caster could have Evoker or Bladesinger as Combat, Illusionist as Sneaky, Bard or Enchanter as Social.
If you want an arcane/divine caster divide then War Cleric, Trickery Cleric, and maybe Peace as the Social
If you want a nature vs arcane divide then Moon Druid, Ranger, and not sure there's a good fit for Social in current 5e but can certainly envision one.
You can divide martials up as well, Rogues can do any of them depending on where they put their expertise
Rangers could be defined as Hunter for Combat, Gloomstalker for Sneak, and Fey Wanderer as Social


Now it's worth noting 5e handled this stylistic problem solving approach by giving everyone decent access to every skill and by keeping the DC within bounded accuracy so that if you wanted a Social Druid just not dumping Charisma and grabbing Persuasion would give you a decent chance at succeeding with Persuasion. It's not actually a bad way of handling things but there's been endless discussions about the lack of clarity/rules in handling the non-combat skill stuff and how it's a source of casters/martial disparity, etc... So you'll probably actually want to figure out the rest of the game before defining the things like what classes need to be there.

[Amechra]

I once designed a classless level-less system from scratch. I did end up going for 6 ability scores but not exactly the ones that D&D use, it went through many genre phases and I found that design goals are key. Asking "what classes should I include" is not a good question. "What is the game about", "what themes are present" and "how should it play" are better starting points. If you have those figured out then the answers to "what classes" become inevitable.

This, really... though the fact that you're making a D&D clone kinda pre-fills the answers for some of those questions. :p

...

I'd argue that you're asking the wrong question entirely, because one of the strengths of a class-based system is that they're a very efficient way of making sure that you get characters that "fit" a setting. There's a reason why most D&D settings end up feeling very similar even if the particulars are different, because they're all predicated things like "there are multiple types of sentient beings that can hang out together and go on adventures together without much fuss" and "you've got to have magic that works in ways that makes the Wizard class make sense". A very quick-and-dirty way of making your own set of classes would be to sit down, write down 4-5 different things you want players to do or features of the kinds of settings you want to support, and then base your classes off of that list.

Or you could do what actual D&D did, start with Fighting-Man and Magic-User, and then make classes out of whatever random stuff you think sounds fun. Like, the Cleric is literally the result of one player wanting to play Van Helsing because someone else was playing a Vampire, while the Monk exists because someone thought Kung Fu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(1972_TV_series)) was super cool.

So, I dunno, just make a list of classes that you think might be fun, and don't sweat getting it "wrong"?

[Mastikator]

This, really... though the fact that you're making a D&D clone kinda pre-fills the answers for some of those questions. :p

...

I'd argue that you're asking the wrong question entirely, because one of the strengths of a class-based system is that they're a very efficient way of making sure that you get characters that "fit" a setting. There's a reason why most D&D settings end up feeling very similar even if the particulars are different, because they're all predicated things like "there are multiple types of sentient beings that can hang out together and go on adventures together without much fuss" and "you've got to have magic that works in ways that makes the Wizard class make sense". A very quick-and-dirty way of making your own set of classes would be to sit down, write down 4-5 different things you want players to do or features of the kinds of settings you want to support, and then base your classes off of that list.

Or you could do what actual D&D did, start with Fighting-Man and Magic-User, and then make classes out of whatever random stuff you think sounds fun. Like, the Cleric is literally the result of one player wanting to play Van Helsing because someone else was playing a Vampire, while the Monk exists because someone thought Kung Fu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(1972_TV_series)) was super cool.

So, I dunno, just make a list of classes that you think might be fun, and don't sweat getting it "wrong"?

It kinda prefills those questions with answers, but I think a double take is still needed. After all, why make a D&D clone? Only OP can answer that. Whatever they want to accomplish that D&D already doesn't accomplish, therein lies the answer to "what classes are necessary".

[Amnestic]

You need a stabguy, a brainiac, a wiseman, and a chatty bloke.

Therefore the necessary classes are paladin, artificer, monk, and bard. Everything is fluff that derives from these four core classes - sub archetypes, you might say.

[Rukelnikov]

Fighting Man, Magic User and Thief

Or if you want even less, just go for "Adventurer"

[Arkhios]

Nowadays every game has at least one of each some sort of tanky, healery, sneaky, and blasty spell using types, and I would say they align pretty well with the classic "quartet".

To be honest, I would prefer if those four were hard coded in the system so that they each have a unique niche. Especially in regards to spells and healing. Why does it always have to be spells that provide the healing? Why cannot the healing be done with something unique and different from spells.

[Anonymouswizard]

I am working on a D&D clone. What archtypes do you think I should have in the Player's Handbook?

It depends on what you want the game to be. Last time I tried to make a game with crunchy combat like D&D the basic classes were the Knight (big guy who gets in your face), Ranger (nimble guy who hates being still), and the Bard (yells at you to give buffs), a very 'your class is what you do' setup. If I go back to it I'd likely add the Magician to the roster as a debugger and make it clear that you're not just picking a combat role but also an archetype (do every Knight is a noble with connections to a family and order and the associated noncombat skills, every Magician studies forbidden magic, every Bard is a scholar expected to remain neutral, every Ranger is a protector of common folk with a reputation in smaller settlements and a network of allies...). But I was also going for a very specific thing.

But classes don't have to be your skillset! They can also be stuff like your narrative archetype, reason for adventuring, or outlook. This works a lot better if you go for a more hybrid system, so your skill scores or whatnot are selected separately from your powerset, but it can also work by explicitly combining the broad archetypes with skillets. If you go for such an approach I'd recommend looking at things like result or intention based abilities, although they would admittedly vastly alter the feel of the game.


At the core if you want to replicate D&D you need to know what version of D&D you're emulating. I'd personally like to have a proper go at recreating BD&D's strong archetyping where each race gets a very small number of classes (so you can be a standard Elf or a Warrior-elf*, but even thieves aren't an option).

* the one class I'm annoyed the Rules Cyclopaedia lacks.

[Mindflayer_Inc]

I am working on a D&D clone. What archtypes do you think I should have in the Player's Handbook?

D&D Clone?

Warriors, Adepts, and Hybrids

D&D needs to start integrating skills into both Warriors and Adepts more thoroughly. Rogues are just sneaky warriors. Don't punish fighters with a lack of non-combat skills. Like, I know plenty of soldiers irl that have plenty of skills outside of combat and I don't see why a fantasy character must be more restricted.

Warriors: Str Based Melee, Dex Based Melee, Str Based Ranged Class, and a Dex Based Ranged Class.

Call them whatever you want. Soldier, Bandit, Hurler, and Sniper. Integrates skills system with combat.

Mages... Warlock (Int), Sorcerer (Cha Warlock), Oracle (Divine Warlock), and Druid (Nature Warlock). (Though less 5e/One DND Warlock).

Would make a very different base setting to keep WotC from being too interested in me. Would just say all magic above cantrips has to be "given" to the character from outsiders, deities, or primal spirits.


Hybrids are things that blur the lines Bards, Paladins, Wardens, Spellblades, etc.

[Leon]

Nothing is.

But at the very broadest you have the Skillful, Caster and Combatant types ~ Depending on what your doing with them any character could be all of these at once or in parts.

I've been trying to work out a system based on a book series I like where there is no "class" but what your bloodline/ trainings are determines what core traits / skills you have and can do eventually.