Origin & Evolution of Player Classes

[Palanan]

Are there any published sources—books, articles, interviews—that document the inspirations and influences for each of the player classes, and how they changed through each edition?

I suspect a lot of this is scattered in old Dragon articles and interviews on the WotC site, but it would be great if anyone can recommend a source that’s already compiled a narrative.

[HidesHisEyes]

Are there any published sources—books, articles, interviews—that document the inspirations and influences for each of the player classes, and how they changed through each edition?

I suspect a lot of this is scattered in old Dragon articles and interviews on the WotC site, but it would be great if anyone can recommend a source that’s already compiled a narrative.

Not sure, but Matt Colville has a great series on his YouTube channel where he makes a fighter in each edition of D&D. Obviously it’s focused on the fighter specifically but he goes into a lot of depth looking at how the game as a whole developed and how that influenced the fighter.

[KorvinStarmast]

It all started with Fighters, in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign, underneath a castle looking for ... well, ask Greg Svenson. He emerged with a magic sword.

[dafrca]

Are there any published sources—books, articles, interviews—that document the inspirations and influences for each of the player classes, and how they changed through each edition?

I would love to read such a book. I think it would be quite interesting.

... but Matt Colville has a great series on his YouTube channel where he makes a fighter in each edition of D&D. Obviously it’s focused on the fighter specifically but he goes into a lot of depth looking at how the game as a whole developed and how that influenced the fighter.

I am going to have to go find this set of videos.

[Malphegor]

This would be interesting from an anthropology standpoint, as a lot of modern fantasy has been shaped by games, D&D and it’s influence on early video game RPGs in particular. And nobody really seems to talk much about where any of it comes from.

Where does the wizard even come from? I can point out any number of wizards in media and myth that come close, but apart from Odin and his questing to learn all the magics ever no matter the type or stigma of learning X magic, or Gandalf’s studiousness of old lore to learn what the current threat actually is, the ‘knows all the things’ wizard who wields unfathomable cosmic power through work and effort to learn it more than inborn gifts seems to have existed in pop culture, a lot of stuff alludes to wizards learning spells, but until rpgs codified rules for it I think wizards were just in the general ‘magic using person’ category, and they could be synonymous with witch or sorcerer or even magician, which all have very specific meanings nowadays.

I think we’re heading into a weird time right now (as in the past century and the next few centuries going forward) in fantasy writing where everything is getting hyper specific and having a very singular meaning, which is so rarely the case in their mythic roots. Mythology and legend typically plays by calvinball rules, every village and hamlet depicts a dragon or a wizard or a troll as a different kind of thing working off different rules. So something that examines the roots of the stuff we’re playing with would be super cool.

[Thrudd]

This would be interesting from an anthropology standpoint, as a lot of modern fantasy has been shaped by games, D&D and it’s influence on early video game RPGs in particular. And nobody really seems to talk much about where any of it comes from.

Where does the wizard even come from? I can point out any number of wizards in media and myth that come close, but apart from Odin and his questing to learn all the magics ever no matter the type or stigma of learning X magic, or Gandalf’s studiousness of old lore to learn what the current threat actually is, the ‘knows all the things’ wizard who wields unfathomable cosmic power through work and effort to learn it more than inborn gifts seems to have existed in pop culture, a lot of stuff alludes to wizards learning spells, but until rpgs codified rules for it I think wizards were just in the general ‘magic using person’ category, and they could be synonymous with witch or sorcerer or even magician, which all have very specific meanings nowadays.

I think we’re heading into a weird time right now (as in the past century and the next few centuries going forward) in fantasy writing where everything is getting hyper specific and having a very singular meaning, which is so rarely the case in their mythic roots. Mythology and legend typically plays by calvinball rules, every village and hamlet depicts a dragon or a wizard or a troll as a different kind of thing working off different rules. So something that examines the roots of the stuff we’re playing with would be super cool.

The D&D wizard mechanics are inspired largely from the magic system in Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" stories. The magic user's original function, just prior to D&D, was being a fantasy version of artillery units (with fireballs and lightning) in tabletop war games. Lots of their D&d spells (and the spells of clerics) were inspired by powers from a variety of stories and mythology as well as just practical game utility for dungeon crawlers.
So mechanically, they are purely designed for the game. You were just expected to ignore the fact that this did not match up to almost any mythical or fantasy version of wizards or sorcerer, while still claiming that they represented an "archetype" of the wizards of fiction. They only could reasonably be "Dying Earth" wizards, and don't exactly match up to that, either.
I think the nearest reality is D&D, for Gygax, was originally conceived as a treasure hunt tabletop miniatures game with the classes designed to fill practical game roles. As the role-playing element expanded, it was mostly inspired by things like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Conan, and Dying Earth, with a paint-job of Lord of the Rings races and some mythical monsters tossed in.

[Thrudd]

Also, I think a thing to remember is that D&D was not originally conceived as a way to emulate fantasy or mythology stories. The way classes were designed were not to fill a story role, but to fill a game role. It was largely a miniatures game, taking place in a generic "fantasy" setting, where players had the goal of collecting as much treasure/points as they could before their characters died, pitted against the mazes and monsters designed by the dungeon master. It was a grab bag of things inspired by any and all fantasy fiction and mythology the creators were familiar with, where what are basically game pieces were given names.

The basic mechanics remained largely stable, even as the idea of "role playing" entered the game and stories and characters became just as important as the tactical battles and collecting of points (for some). The creators and players started taking more time to imagine the fictional world the game was taking place in, and tried to blend fiction and mythology tropes with the mechanics, which mostly looks like using a warhammer mini as your monopoly pawn (the fiction rarely ever matches or is relevant to the actual game mechanics).

So, all of this is to say "where they got the idea for this character class" is almost irrelevant in the earliest iterations, since the fiction never had much to do with what was actually taking place in the game. Later on, classes were designed based on specific fictional characters or stories, but even then, they were mostly transformed to work in the game and not to emulate the role of those characters in stories.

[Morty]

The purpose of D&D classes is to be D&D classes, because otherwise people will complain. They've been designed by accretion and things that felt like a good idea at the time, then became fixtures that no one dares remove. That's about the long and short of it.

[Prime32]

Wikipedia has some info

[KorvinStarmast]

I think the nearest reality is D&D, for Gygax, was originally conceived as a treasure hunt tabletop miniatures game with the classes designed to fill practical game roles. As the role-playing element expanded, it was mostly inspired by things like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Conan, and Dying Earth, with a paint-job of Lord of the Rings races and some mythical monsters tossed in.

Yep.

Also, I think a thing to remember is that D&D was not originally conceived as a way to emulate fantasy or mythology stories. The way classes were designed were not to fill a story role, but to fill a game role.

Yes, the RPG grew in the playing.
From Men and Magic, pages 5 and 6

When this task is completed the participants can then be allowed to make their first descent into the dungeons beneath the "huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses". Before they begin, players must decide what role they will play in the campaign, human or otherwise, fighter, cleric, or magic-user. Thereafter they will work upwards — if they survive — as they gain "experience". First, however, it is necessary to describe fully the roles possible.

This is before the term "role playing game" was found in any D&D book. (First place I found it was in a 1975 printing of Greyhawk, supplement 1).

CHARACTERS:

There are three (3) main classes of characters:

This was a plain English use of the term class (A grouping of things; see also kingdom-phylum-order-class taxonomy for a similar usage)

Fighting-Men
Magic-Users
Clerics

Interestingly ... we may see the genesis of the LF - QW model in this description of the Magic User

Magic-Users: Top level magic-users are perhaps the most powerful characters in the game, but it is a long, hard road to the top, and to begin with they are weak, so survival is often the question, unless fighters protect the low-level magical types until they have worked up. The whole plethora of enchanted items lies at the magic-users beck and call, save the arms and armor of the fighters (see, however, Elves); Magic-Users may arm themselves with daggers only. Wizards and above may manufacture for their own use (or for sale) such items as potions, scrolls, and just about anything else magical. Costs are commensurate with the value of the item, as is the amount of game time required to enchant it.

Note, in this usage, Wizard was name level and was character level 11.

[HouseRules]

From Chainmail Fantasy Wargaming

Fighters
level 1/4 = light foot
level 1/2 = heavy foot
level 3/4 = armored foot
level 1 = light horse
level 2 = medium horse
level 3 = heavy horse
level 4 = hero
level 5 = ranger = hero with +1 sword or +1 bow
level 8 = superhero

Wizards
level 1 = seer
level 2 = level 7 (because worn out die, the 2 looks like a 7)
level 3 = magician
level 4 = warlock
level 5 = sorcerer
level 6 = wizard 6
level 7 = wizard 7

For normal combat purposes, all Wizards attacks as 2 light horse and defends as 2 armored foot.

[Pauly]

Paladin, Ranger and Barbarian started life as sub-classes of fighter. I believe first published in Dragon, then in source books. It was only after the playing public fully accepted them that they became their own distinct classes.

iirc the Barbarian class was only fully developed after “Conan the Barbarian” was released, and the class took on many of the tropes associated with that movie. The writing of Howard obviously contributed a lot, but the movie adaption was the bigger influence. Also mixed in were various historical types, with the Viking Raiders generally and the Bezerker in particular being the most prominent. The “history” was more soft history based on popular perceptions, not hard history based on known facts and sources. Think more Kirk Douglas’ “The Vikings” than any academic treatise.

The Paladin class is obviously a questing knight in the mode of Le Morte d’Arthur and the Song of Roland. There was no attempt to make Paladins true to history, even when ported over as proxies for Samurai, the basis was the mythical idealized version of the historical figure, not true history.

I’m not sure of the basis of Ranger apart from the name and wilderness warrior from LotR.

Edit to add.
D&D was never my main thing so I may not have this 100% right, but I blieve the last true new class added to D&D was the Rogue. As discussed above Dragon would publish optional character templates, which if they got traction got into a sourcebook and if they took off then became a new character class.
Druid was a spinoff of Cleric
Sorcerer and Warlock were spinoffs of Wizard
Bard was a spinoff of Rogue.

Part of the reason for doing this is marketing. It gives players an incentive to keep buying Dragon and new source books.

Frankly you can go back to absolute basics and use the 4 basic classes (Fighter wizard cleric rogue) and the 3 basic races (human elf dwarf) in current D&D and the game doesn’t suffer. Rogue is needed now because of traps and locks which are now a staple feature of the game.

[HouseRules]

Cleric is a reaction to Vampires.

Thief stole the "Clerics' search for traps" and "Wizards' trap removal".

Psionic is last, but not many like Psionic stuff.

Psionicist is actually Psionicist/Fighter
Psionicist/Thief
Psionicist/Wizard is horrible
Psionicist/Cleric is horrible

Edit:
Original: Dwarf, Elf, Hobbit, Human; Cleric, Fighter, Wizard
Supplement I Greyhawk: Half Elf; Paladin, Ranger, Thief
Supplement II Blackmoor: Assassin, Monk
Supplement III Eldritch Wizardry: Druid, Psionicist

[dafrca]

... but I blieve the last true new class added to D&D was the Rogue ...

Wasn't Rogue just the renaming of Thief then later Thief added back as a subclass of Rogue?

The way my brain works I am unsure I am remembering things right. LOL

[HouseRules]

Wasn't Rogue just the renaming of Thief then later Thief added back as a subclass of Rogue?

The way my brain works I am unsure I am remembering things right. LOL

The formal change is 3E, but many people use Rogue even if the formal name is Thief.

[Kurald Galain]

Ainspirations and influences for each of the player classes, and how they changed through each edition?

Well I can share some things.

The fighter is ubiquitous in fiction. In 1E/2E they are an offensive melee character who eventually gets a castle and troops as a class feature, to a more defensive melee character in later editions. They used to have a class feature that would let them kill a number of mooks equal to his own level, each round.
The paladin is from Arthurian legend, specifically Sir Galahad. In early editions they were capital-r-Rare to the point where you had to be very lucky on your stat rolls to play one in the first place. Smite evil is a 3E concept.
The ranger is Aragorn in early editions, Drizz't in later editions.
The barbarian is Conan, obviously.
The rogue (formerly "thief") is Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, as well as Bilbo Baggins. In 1E/2E they don't do a whole lot in combat but level really quickly (XP tables differed by class); them being an offensive melee character is mostly from 3E.
The wizard, you'd think he's based on Merlin, but mostly he's the artillery piece for settings that are too low-tech to have cannon. In early editions he is very squishy, effectively cannot cast when engage in melee, and is intentionally weak early, really powerful later. Later editions tone that down; however the notion that wizards are the uber-I-win-the-game class is largely from 3E.
The psion is from 1950s pulp books with psychic powers, but also fulfills the role of someone who didn't study magic but was born with "powers" that he don't fully understands. The sorcerer takes that role in 3E.
The druid used to have this weird thing where there Can Only Be One 12th-level druid in the region, so you can only level up if you find that druid and defeat him. Only one 13th-level in the country, only one 14th-level in the world. Again, find and defeat. 15th and up are retired from this political BS.
The bard used to have this weird thing where you became one by starting as fighter for some levels, then wizard for some more levels, then rogue for some more (I forget exactly how many), making it effectively the first Prestige Class in D&D. 2nd edition made it a regular class instead, and one that levels really quickly.

HTH!

[Khedrac]

Another change in the later days of 1st Ed was the Cavalier - the specialist in mounted combat.

Iirc Cavalier was a sort-of variant of Fighter but it was made a separate main class with Paladin moved across to become a sub-class of Cavalier not Fighter.
I think they got to roll for percentile strength (along with fighters and variants).

It should be mentioned that in AD&D (1st) the bonus hit points per die for a high constitution were capped at +2 unless you were a fighter - so unless you somehow got 19+ in a statistic only fighters (and variants) for the full benefit of a 17 or 18 Con and to roll for percentile strength.

Earlier in the 1st Ed AD&D era the Thief Acrobat was published and Dragon (and Imagine) (and eventually Unearthed Arcana) - similar to Barbarians
This thief stopped raising a lot of their thief skills and got acrobatics skills instead - in some ways they were another attempt at a prestige class, though later than the bard.

it is also worth noting that TSR (and Gary) were not the only people producing expansions for AD&D - White Wolf magazine (before it became Games Workshop only) produced an alternative Barbarian class at about the same time. (They actually produced a number of possible classes such as the Houri, and a lot of them probably influenced later TSR material.
(Remember that White Dwarf was the origin of most monsters in the original Fiend Folio - mainly sent in by readers.)

Companion D&D introduced Paladins, Avengers and Druids as options mid-level fighters, fighters and clerics could take - another set of proto-prestige classes. Most people I think just put the druid in at level 1 instead.
One interesting thing about basic D&D clerics which I think goes back to "original D&D" is that they did not get spells at first level - they were weaker fighters (limited on weapons and fewer hit points) who could turn undead.

If you look carefully you will probably also find inspiration flowing to and from other gaming systems, for example Dragon printed a dwarf race for Traveller (1st ed - the Game Designers Workshop system). The AD&D DMG even included cross-over rules for Gamma World and Boot Hill!

[KorvinStarmast]

From Chainmail Fantasy Wargaming
For normal combat purposes, all Wizards attacks as 2 light horse and defends as 2 armored foot.

Nice.

Paladin, Ranger and Barbarian started life as sub-classes of fighter. I believe first published in Dragon, then in source books.

Paladin in Greyhawk, Ranger in Strategic Review, Barbarian in Dragon.

It was only after the playing public fully accepted them that they became their own distinct classes.

That's not right. They (Ranger/Paladin) became their own classes thanks to WoTC; they were sub classes of Warrior, as was Fighter, in AD&D 2e. Barbarians were sub classes of Fighting Man in 1e UA, paladins got moved over to Cavalier in 1e UA.

iirc the Barbarian class was only fully developed after “Conan the Barbarian” was released, and the class took on many of the tropes associated with that movie.

It took a few years to get into print, 1985, AD&D 1e, UA, but I think there was a Dragon article a few years before that. Can't find it at the moment.

The Paladin class is obviously a questing knight in the mode of Le Morte d’Arthur and the Song of Roland. There was no attempt to make Paladins true to history, even when ported over as proxies for Samurai, the basis was the mythical idealized version of the historical figure, not true history.

Close enough.

I’m not sure of the basis of Ranger apart from the name and wilderness warrior from LotR.

Guessing Aragorn, from what it said in Strategic Review.
Edit to add.

D&D was never my main thing so I may not have this 100% right, but I blieve the last true new class added to D&D was the Rogue.

Hardly, I suspect Artificer was. (Rogue was a replacement and bowdlerization of the Thief Class from Greyhawk in AD&D 2e; Thief and Bard were the two sub classes of rogue). Just so you know, Bard was its own class in its original form, Strategic Review, and then it became this bizarre amalgamation (more or less the first ever Prestige Class) in AD&D 1e.

Frankly you can go back to absolute basics and use the 4 basic classes (Fighter wizard cleric rogue) and the 3 asic races (human elf dwarf) in current D&D and the game doesn’t suffer.

True. We did that in our first 5e campaign:
a human cleric(Lief), a human rogue(Assassin), a dwarf Paladin(Vengeance), a half elf bard(Lore), a human barbarian(Totem), and an elf wizard(Transmutation). Worked fine. The game my brother runs has: human warlock, human barbarian, human bard, dwarf fighter, elf wizard, elf rogue/ranger, gnome Rogue(Arcane Trickster (could have been an elf): and we played without the rogue for long stretches of the campaign due to RL removing the player from us.

Supplement III Eldritch Wizardry: Druid, Psionicist

Not quite with "psionicist" there. Originally, psionics were tacked on to any class that was eligible (Not Monk, Not Druid) in Eldritch Wizardry based on a percentile die roll. (Yeah, we messed with it when it first came out, of course we did. It was, to be charitable, fiddly).
Not their own class at that point (Psionicist) as it later became.
AD&D 1e did the same: tacked psionics on to a class based on a roll (If the rule was used).

[Eldan]

There is the famous appendix of books Gary Gygax recommended as inspiration:
https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Appendix_N

Other than the Matter of France, one should mention Three Hearts and Three Lions as the main inspiration for the Paladin.

[hewhosaysfish]

Brandes Stoddard has a series of articles on Tribality about the history of DnD classes. Called "History of the Classes".
https://www.tribality.com/columns/hi...f-the-classes/
It's focused mostly on how the classes changed from edition to edition, less so on the historical and/or pop-cultural inspirations (although it does touch on those).

[dafrca]

Brandes Stoddard has a series of articles on Tribality about the history of DnD classes. Called "History of the Classes".
https://www.tribality.com/columns/hi...f-the-classes/
It's focused mostly on how the classes changed from edition to edition, less so on the historical and/or pop-cultural inspirations (although it does touch on those).

Thanks for the Heads Up. I will need to check them out.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Eldan
There is the famous appendix of books Gary Gygax recommended as inspiration:

This is very helpful, thanks. A good starting point.

Originally Posted by hewhosaysfish
Brandes Stoddard has a series of articles on Tribality about the history of DnD classes.

…Interesting, thanks. But I’m not quite sure what to make of these—they seem more like a stream-of-consciousness ramble, rather than a thoughtful analysis. And there’s apparently no index to the posts, so it’s hit-or-miss as to what you find.

[Khedrac]

A couple of other random thoughts that I think relate to this topic.

Vancian Spellcsting
Vancian spell-casting has come in for a lot of hate over the years, but what alternatives did Gary have to based D&D on?
He needed something that was quantifiable whihc virtually nother else published was back then. Pretty much all fantasy stories had casters able to cast whatever the author wanted them too whenever they needed to. So did Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels, but he included a descrition of a mechanism that limited what spells could be cast.
The main mana pool model appears to come from computer games which did not exist back then, the cloest I know of was Runequest's power-point based casting which was both smaller sacale (in terms of the limit) and pubished after D&D. I think Runequest's look at how else to do roleplaying was just as groundbreaking as D&D, but it did need D&D to come out first to inspire it (Greg Stafford invented Glorantha as a setting to write stories in).
Gary and co's invention of RPGs was a huge step forward and very innovative for the day - you cannot realisticly expect them to have invented brand new concepts to base their magic on in a brand new concept of a game, adapting someone else's concept to fit their needs was always going to be the first method tried.

Spellcasting - before and After the 2nd Ed / 3rd Ed transformation
Something a lot of new players don't realise is that the expectations of a spellcaster's player changed dramatically with 3rd Ed.
Pre-3rd Ed the higher levels the party the less likely the target will fail its save and at high levels a failed asave is a rare exception to the normal.
From 3rd Ed the system is designed to make all spells have a reasonable chance of success, though targets can be designed to be more resistant to spells and casters cane be designed to have spells that are much harder to resist.
One of the main tacics for casters in 3.X is the "save or lose" spell - one where unless the target makes the save (which is usually unlikely) they are out of the fight.
In 1st and 2nd Ed (and BECMI D&D) most of the time what is considered is what the spell does on a successful save - failure is likely only going to happen 5% or 10% of casts. This is why fireball used to be considered a good spell - it reliably did damage when spells like flesh to stone usually did nothing at all.
The increased number of spells 3rd Ed casters get has a much smaller impact on play.

[KorvinStarmast]

A couple of other random thoughts that I think relate to this topic.

Vancian Spellcsting
Vancian spell-casting has come in for a lot of hate over the years, but what alternatives did Gary have to based D&D on?
He needed something that was quantifiable whihc virtually nother else published was back then. Pretty much all fantasy stories had casters able to cast whatever the author wanted them too whenever they needed to. So did Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels, but he included a descrition of a mechanism that limited what spells could be cast.

From the horse's mouth, EGG explained the choice two years after the game was out.

Spoiler: Strategic Review (Volume 2, Issue 2, the last SR published, April 1976)

Show

The four cardinal types of magic are {formatting mine for ease of reading}

those systems which require long conjuration with much paraphernalia as an adjunct (as used by Shakespeare in MACBETH or as typically written about by Robert E. Howard in his “Conan” yarns),
the relatively short spoken spell (as in Finnish mythology or as found in the superb fantasy of Jack Vance),
ultra-powerful (if not always correct) magic (typical of deCamp & Pratt in their classic “Harold Shea” stories)
and the generally weak and relatively ineffectual magic (as found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s work).

Now the use of magic in the game was one of the most appealing aspects, and given the game
system it was fairly obvious that its employment could not be on the complicated and time consuming plane, any more than it could be made as a rather weak and ineffectual adjunct to swordplay if magic-users were to become a class of player character. The basic assumption, then, was that D & D magic worked on a “Vancian” system and if used correctly would be a highly powerful and effective force.
There are also four basic parts to magic: {Formatting mine to aid in readability}

The verbal or uttered spell,
the somatic or physical movement required for the conjuration,
the psychic or mental attitude necessary to cast the spell,
and the material adjuncts by which the spell, can be completed (to cite an obvious example, water to raise a water elemental).

It was assumed that the D & D spell would be primarily verbal, although in some instances the spell would require some somatic component also (a fire ball being an outstanding example). The psychic per se would play little part in the basic magic system, but a corollary, mnemonics, would. The least part of magic would be the material aids required, and most of those considered stored or aided magic, so as to enable its more immediate employment, rather than serving to prolong spell casting time or encumber the player using these aids.

[Khedrac]

From the horse's mouth, EGG explained the choice two years after the game was out.
Quote from Strategic Review (Volume 2, Issue 2, the last SR published, April 1976)

Thank-you for that, I had not read it before. Oddly it completely misses the point I was making. EGG exlains why the flavor of the magic system he wrote is what it was, but does nothing to address the mechanics of the system. If you look at the other three examples given there is nothing in the sources to show how to define limits for a game - and that was something EGG had to invent, and Jack Vance's novels do come with the beginnings of a definable system to limit magic in game that EGG built into the original D&D magic system.

[oxybe]

a note on fireball:

Fireball's hayday was back when monsters used raw d8s as hp and didn't have any con buffs to it.

a 8hd monster only had 36hp on average. compare that to a 8th level fireball dealing 28 avg damage on a failed save, you're still knocking out 1/3 of the hp on a successful save.

compare that same 8hd 3.5 monster with 20 con, and the 28 avg damage on a failed save starts looking far less impressive vs 76hp and only removing 1/6th of their hp on a save.

the monster in question is an Aboleth.

this is why fireball was good. HP didn't scale in 1st/2nd like in the next edition.

[Palanan]

Originally Posetd by Khedrac
EGG exlains why the flavor of the magic system he wrote is what it was, but does nothing to address the mechanics of the system.

This touches on what I’m looking for, which ideally would be a single well-researched source that traces the evolution of features like this, class by class and edition by edition.

There are several books on the development of RPGs, but I don’t know if any of them really focuses on the detailed development of classes per se.

[HumanFighter]

I've watched some videos on this topic (ever heard of a YouTube channel called "DM It All"? It's pretty good)
Yeah, the Rogues (formerly known as Thieves) were so good at climbing it was ridiculous. It was kind of their thing.
In more modern D&D's, I rarely ever see climbing be much of a thing though, sadly.
A bit off-topic, but in Daggerfall, a really old Elder Scrolls game, you could actually climb up walls and I think there was a skill for it. Nowadays in Skyrim you have to "glitch" your way up the mountainside, preferably on a horse (seriously, mountain climbing is the only reason I buy or steal a horse in that game).
Also I heard monks in old editions were almost like secondary thievies, having the open lock skill and whatnot.
Monks were HORRIBLE in D&D 3.5 though, IMO. But in Pathfinder, they made 'em much better, having a Ki Pool and all that, which I think is spot-on and also pretty cool.

[Kurald Galain]

Pre-3rd Ed the higher levels the party the less likely the target will fail its save and at high levels a failed asave is a rare exception to the normal.
From 3rd Ed the system is designed to make all spells have a reasonable chance of success, though targets can be designed to be more resistant to spells and casters cane be designed to have spells that are much harder to resist.

Speaking of evolution:

• As you level up in 1E and 2E, all your saves gradually become something you'll almost always pass.
• As you level up in 3E and PF, your "weak" save stays at more-or-less a 50% chance, and your "strong" save gradually becomes one you'll almost always pass (compared to level-appropiate enemies, and assuming standard wealth).
• As you level up in 4E and 5E, your "strong" save stays at more-or-less a 50% chance, and your "weak" save gradually becomes one you'll almost always fail.

I'm not saying any of these are better or worse, but the math has a very different aim.


Aside from that,
The skill system in 3E and PF is specialist. Characters are clearly good at skills they've trained in, and bad at skills they haven't. Trained characters can routinely perform tasks that ordinary characters struggle with. It is good to have a diverse party, since other PCs are trained in different things, and the country needs adventurers because they markedly possess skill levels that the average people don't.

The skill system in 4E and 5E is generalist. Characters are more-or-less equally skilled at every skill, and the deciding factor is more the roll of the die than how much training the character had. On the one hand, everybody can contribute more-or-less equally to any skill-based situation. On the other hand, untrained characters frequently beat trained characters at opposed skills, and almost all checks can also be made by a group of commoners. I'm sure someone will now bring up an 20th-level rogue as the counterexample, but during most of your campaign the PCs won't be 20th-ish level rogues.

(1E/2E don't really have a skill system).

[KorvinStarmast]

EGG exlains why the flavor of the magic system he wrote is what it was, but does nothing to address the mechanics of the system.

I think that's in a different SR, but I don't remember seeing it fully addressed until AD&D 1e DMG in a D&D book. Lemme check.
*shuffle shuffle*
Here you go, from Strategic Review Issue number 2 (Summer, 1975), page 4:

Spells: A magic-user can use a given spell but once during any given day, even if he is carrying his books with him. This is not to say that he cannot equip himself with a multiplicity of the same spell so as to have its use more than a single time.
Therefore, a magic-user could, for example, equip himself with three sleep spells, each of which would be usable but once. He could also have a scroll of let us say two spells, both of which are also sleep spells. As the spells were read from the scrolls they would disappear, so in total that magic-user would have a maximum of five sleep spells to use that day.
If he had no books with him there would be no renewal of spells on the next day, as the game assumes that the magic-user gains spells by preparations such as memorizing incantations, and once the spell is spoken that particular memory pattern is gone completely.
ln a similar manner spells are inscribed on a scroll, and as the words are uttered they vanish from the scroll.

Sure would have been nice to have that in a book called Men and Magic, eh? It wasn't. But finally, in the AD&D DMG (how many years later) that was covered. (I would need to dig through the PHB to see if he put it there also, probably did, but I am not recalling that and don't have it to hand).

That issue also introduced a perennial favorite monster, the Roper.