[DnD] Class Rarity

[Lilithgow]

So, my friends and I have been debating for some time over the rarity of classes in the world of DnD.

I run a variant world of my own, with a far lower magic level than forgotten realms, and so the rarity of wizards came up in discussion. But then, as with all discussions we drifted to 'in-general' and that way everyone can join in!

We've come to the conclusion that outside of the NPC classes, Fighter is probably most common, because it comes down entirely to a guy swinging a sword, and that's going to be common - soldiers, sturdy villagers, plucky amateurs and so on - while the studious wizard is going to be rarer than that - years of study and so on.

So, my question to you is, what do you reckon are the rarest and most common base classes and if you're feeling adventurous, prestige classes in general dnd or in your particular world.

In ours we decided that the rarity probably went something like:

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Fighter- A regular guy could easily become a fighter.
Rogue- Grow up in the big city, pinch a few pockets, the world has no shortage of thieves, after all.
Ranger- A hunter could easily just decide to become an adventurer one day.
Cleric- Every village has a true believer, in a world with gods frequenting...
Barbarian- This is something you'd have to be from birth, growing up in nature and practicing getting angry. I imagine Barbarian has a high failure/mortality rate...
Bards- It is a bit of a jump for someone to get up one day and say "I reckon I should go adventuring, what with my amazing flute abilities." - It takes a very zealous person indeed!
Wizard- Decades of hard study isn't for everyone. In fact it's for very few, I'd wager.
Sorcerer- Someone with innate abilities should probably be the one in thousand kind of guy.
Monk- There can't be that many temples for monks, can there?
Paladin- A true exemplar, bastion of faith and unshakable resolve is not the guy you bump into every day. Or year.
Book of Nine Swords Classes- See Monk, subtract all but one temple!
Psionics- They are the kind of guy who doesn't fit in even more than sorcerer. I'm not looking to get into an argument about if they fit or not, but they'd have to be rare, surely?

[Tvtyrant]

There are likely tons of monks, the rarity comes from them leaving their monastery.

[Goober4473]

This depends pretty heavily on setting. In general, I'd say the non-supernatural classes from the PhB would be most common PC classes, follwoed by the PHB classes, then the Complete series and PHB2, then weirder stuff like Psionics, Incarnum, and the Tome classes, simply because that's the approximate likelyhood anyone will own those books.

My current setting is Eberron, but Psionics, Incarnum, and Tome of Magic classes are all story-based. i.e. you can't take levels in them, but you can gain their abilities through plot, so they're rare. In regular Eberron, it seems like PC classes in general are pretty rare, but as usual Fighters, Rogues, and Barbarians aren't quite as rare as the rest.

[Angry Bob]

How common sorcerers are in your world depends on how many of your dragons have realized what the best use for Polymorph and Alternate Form abilities is.

I'd consider fighter an "elite" NPC class; something you put on an NPC that you want to have a gimmick or two(likely charging or aooing) to bring to bear without having the plethora of options to keep track of that a ToB character has. "Fighters" that actually go out and adventure are probably actually Warblades.

[TheDMofDMs]

Hey, I just hopped on this thing, and saw your thread, so here's my first post.

I agree with most of what you have here. I do think that Cleric would be relatively common, more so than Rangers. The gods exist. Pray to them, you get powers, etc.

I do think one of the issues here is a matter of culture: Monks are a lot more common in Eastern-based culture, I'm sure. Just as Barbarians are more frequent in less-developed areas.

Prestige classes, alternative base classes, etc.: I think the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide says it all: Players should ask their D.M. before using any supplement books, to see if those materials are, in fact, in the campaign setting.

That's how rare psionics and the blank of the blank blank prestige classes are; sometimes, or, if your storyteller is smart, most of the time, they don't even exist.

Another interesting comment about class-rarity is their abundance as a whole compared to the rest of the world.
Adventurers are all perhaps just a little off-kilter. They're willing to put themselves in tremendous risk to gain wealth and power. Which they then promptly use to put themselves at even more risk, to gain more wealth and power.
I mean, how many people get up each morning and think "I hope I don't get stabbed too much today. But once we get back to civilization, I'll be rich! I can afford to buy a better sword, so the next time someone tries to kill me, I'll be able to fight them better"?

That'd be like your boss offering to quadruple your wages if he gets to periodically send hit-men to your house. Would you do it? Of course not. It takes a certain deranged dare-devil attitude to be an adventurer.

So...there's my first post.

[Xefas]

I would think Clerics would be reasonably common. In D&D, religion isn't much a matter of "faith", as it's plain for everyone to see that you can pray for the ability to shoot fire out of your eyes and then it happens. So, the barrier is going to be more with "Do I have 11+ Wisdom?" and "Do I want to dedicate myself, in some capacity, to this cause?"

With the latter, you have to consider that, in many D&D worlds, the alternative is being a dirt farmer just waiting to get murdered by goblins/kobolds/wolves/zombies/whatever. The opportunity to sit around in a well defended temple, amongst like-minded individuals, and use your superpowers to heal the sick, much to their adoring praise, is probably not a bad deal.

Hell, more than one non-Evil god/goddess has their temples set up as 24/7 orgy pits. Can anyone say Clerics wouldn't be common? And if your wisdom isn't up to snuff, there's always Paladin Crusader.

[Greenish]

There are no classes in a D&D world.

[Fox Box Socks]

I know in 4e RAW, the rarest classes in the world by far are Fighter and Wizard. Wizard because that level of arcane mastery is so rare, and Fighter because being a Fighter is more or less the zenith of martial achievement, and most people simply cannot get there, no matter how good they are at swinging swords around.

[Kaiser Omnik]

I agree that clerics are not among the rarest classes, but let's not forget that in D&D 3.x at least, most divine spellcasters in the world are actually adepts.

[Lilithgow]

There are no classes in a D&D world.

Sure there are! Upper class, lower class...

[Greenish]

I agree that clerics are not among the rarest classes, but let's not forget that in D&D 3.x at least, most spellcasters in the world, divine or otherwise, are actually adepts.

Or magewrights.

Sure there are! Upper class, lower class...

The bourgeoisie hardly count, the riffraff even less.

[arguskos]

Sure there are! Upper class, lower class Wizards, Everyone Else...

Sorry. Had to fix that for you for a moment.

Also, to be serious, this isn't taking things like the Tome of Magic or the Incarnum classes into account (note that I really doubt any of the preceding would be anywhere near common).

[true_shinken]

I know in 4e RAW, the rarest classes in the world by far are Fighter and Wizard.

What? NPCs in 4e don't have classes.

There are no classes in a D&D world.

Of course not. That's why they have a demographics section in the DMG. Eberron has this for the same reason.

[Kaiser Omnik]

Indeed, magewrights. I had forgotten adepts are purely divine.

[Fox Box Socks]

What? NPCs in 4e don't have classes.

From Martial Power, page 16

The rank-and-file soldiery of the local barony, the band of mercenaries who sell their services to the duke, the bandits who raid caravans traveling the King's Road, the savages who plunder outlying farms - these aren't fighters. But fighters do emerge from among these sorts of people. Your fighter character might have served in the military, trained for the knighthood, or fought among bandits or raiders, but you rose from those ranks to become something greater than your colleagues. You're not just a solder; you're a hero, and that forever sets you above the common folk of the world.

And from Arcane Power, page 99

Fighters and wizards are both exceedingly rare in the world, but wizards are perhaps slightly more so. Common soldiers, mercenaries, and bandits aren't fighters, but fighters might emerge from among those sorts of people. It's harder to find example of people among the mass of common folk who have the potential to rise to the status of a full-fledged wizard. You might one have been a scribe, a scholar of history or arcane lor, a priest of Ioun or some other deity, an herbalist, or an alchemist in your town or village. But the mometn you learned your first cantrip, you were set on a path toward a greater destiny. You are far more than a scholar or a sage - you're a hero who wields the power of arcane magic, and that ability forever sets you apart from, and indeed above, the common folk of the world.

[Telonius]

Bard: Fairly rare. You're not going to find these in any kind of smaller settlement.
Barbarian: Not quite as rare as Bards. More common than Fighter in nomadic communities.
Cleric: Quite common. At least one per town, lots in the larger cities.
Druid: Very rare. Old hermit in the woods-type rare. Maybe a dozen of these in an entire kingdom, and most people don't even know they're there.
Fighter: Quite common in organized cities or places with regular armies.
Monk: Fairly rare overall, but tend to be bunched together in monasteries and/or big cities.
Paladin: Rare. Way too much dedication required.
Ranger: Medium. Very common in the rural communities, not so much in the cities (unless you're using the Urban Ranger variant).
Rogue: All over the place. Every pickpocket and thief on the streets of a major city is one of these.
Sorcerer: Depends entirely on whether the setting is high- or low-magic.
Wizard: Depends on the setting, like Sorcerer; but always more common than Sorcerer.

[true_shinken]

From Martial Power, page 16

And from Arcane Power, page 99

That's a waste of pages, then. Character classes are for players and for players only. This is the problem with 4e - they pretend to make a simulationist game. It gets irritating at best.

[Crossblade]

There are no classes in a D&D world.

Yes there is.


On topic: I just do the lazy thing and use the Class/Race table in the DMG.
Works for random NPCs, non random NPCs are assigned a class appropriate to their role.

[nightwyrm]

That's a waste of pages, then. Character classes are for players and for players only. This is the problem with 4e - they pretend to make a simulationist game. It gets irritating at best.

Wait, what? 4e is quite open about its non-simulationism.

[true_shinken]

Wait, what? 4e is quite open about its non-simulationism.

What Fox Box Socks posted goes completely against that notion, doesn't it?

[Kaiser Omnik]

You do know that even back in the DMG 1, there are rules to make NPCs with class templates, right?

[CockroachTeaParty]

In a generic, non-setting-specific D&D world, this is about how I would rank class rarity, top being the most common, bottom being the least common.

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Commoner
Expert
Warrior
Rogue
Fighter
Adept
Barbarian
Ranger
Cleric
Bard
Marshal
Monk
Knight
Archivist
Warmage
Crusader
Warblade
Wilder
Ardent
Divine Mind
Totemist
Dragon Shaman
Dragonfire Adept
Wizard
Aristocrat
Psion
Beguiler
Truenamer
Druid
Shadow Caster
Sword Sage
Duskblade
Psychic Warrior
Warlock
Soulknife
Lurk
Hexblade
Incarnate
Dread Necromancer
Soulborn
Binder
Sorcerer
Paladin
Favored Soul

[Fox Box Socks]

...no, no it actually doesn't.

Both of those options are presented in books aimed at players, and it's mostly roleplaying advice. The advice there is that, well, the PCs, even at level 1, are exceptionally good at what they do, and are rare in the world. Lots of NPCs can cast spells, but being able to use cantrips with ease means that the Wizard PC is something special. A level 1 Fighter isn't just someone who knows which end of the pointy stick goes into the fleshy parts, he needs to have a level of pure talent and grit that simply isn't present in 90% of the population.

It's also useful information for DMs; since class templates can be placed on monsters with relative ease, it's nice to know which classes are more common than others. A Hobgoblin with the Rogue template is probably going to be more common than one with the Fighter or Wizard templates.

As for being a simulationist system...I'm not really sure where you're getting that from. 4e goes out of its way NOT to be a simulationist system. Simulationism goes out the window when they make diagonal movement not cost extra (Pythagoras apparently doesn't exist in 4e). But it doesn't try to be simulationist either.

[Kurald Galain]

So, my friends and I have been debating for some time over the rarity of classes in the world of DnD.

Common: fighter, rogue, cleric
Uncommon: ranger, barbarian, bard, monk, sorcerer
Rare: wizard, druid, paladin

[Comet]

I've personally always liked the idea of being able to pick up the first few levels of Wizard or the equivalent thereof with just a few weeks/months of rote memorization and learning the basics of how to draw spells from a spellbook.

I mean, you already depend on the text in the spellbook to cast any of your magic. Why would you need to spend 20 human years to learn to read the thing? Just learn the basics of verbal, somatic and material spellbinding and get your hands on a novice's spellbook. The rest ought to come with time, as you adventure.

[Keinnicht]

There are likely tons of monks, the rarity comes from them leaving their monastery.

Probably not "tons." When you think about it, the number of monasteries is probably pretty low.

[nightwyrm]

What Fox Box Socks posted goes completely against that notion, doesn't it?

I get the impression that the quote uses the terms fighter and wizard colloquially or descriptively. An NPC aren't built the same way as PC using classes but they can have abilities that are similar to those used by certain PC classes and would be refer to as such as a description. An NPC who throws around magic spells after reading a book is a "wizard" and an NPC who wears heavy armor and uses sword and shield really well can be called a "fighter" even though neither are built using the PC classes.

Of course, I personally hate the idea that you can classify (pun not intended) every single person in the world into discrete categories that perfectly describes their capability. That is just so...gamey.

[arguskos]

Common: Fighting-Men.
Uncommon: Clerics, Dwarves, Hobbits.
Rare: Magic-Users, Elves.

[Kurald Galain]

Common: Fighting-Men.

What about Fighting-Women?

[arguskos]

What about Fighting-Women?

NEVER! 'sall good. :P