What's with WotC avoiding Class bloat but not Race bloat?

[heavyfuel]

Since the dawn of 5e, WotC made it clear that they wanted to avoid the class bloat that 3e suffered from. This makes sense as 3e had about 70 Base Classes, plus about 700 Prestige Classes (basically a class that you could only enter after a certain level and only with some pre-requisites).

They are so against the idea of new classes that they were even going to make the Artificer a Wizard subclass before they came to their senses! In 8 years, they added exactly one class to the roster.

This isn't a bad thing. Keeping the number of classes low simplifies the game, which seems to be the intent.

However, why are Races treated in a completely different manner? WotC can't seem to get enough new races!

And now, it looks like we're getting even more races with some of some subraces decoupling from the base race.

Again, not a bad thing. Just seems weird to keep such a tight grip on the number of playable classes, but go completely crazy with the number of playable races.

[DeadMech]

It takes almost no effort to make a race compared to a class.

[Sparky McDibben]

It's easier to create, and it's easier for DMs to justify excluding them if the mechanics suck.

[Ganryu]

I'm with you. I've turned to homebrew alot of the time, people like KibblesTasty who do good work. {Inventor, Psion, Warlord, Occultist}.

It's a case of, once you've played all the classes, then what? Gets a bit boring.

They've only psuedo accepted Mercer's class: Bloodhunter in a sort of weird limbo of almost a class, recognized by WoC, but not an official class. Why not? It's a bit weak if anything.

[Willie the Duck]

For all the gnashing of teeth over this flying race or that race with spell resistance or whatnot, the overall ground covered by races, rulewise, isn't as great as what classes cover. This means there's a greater continuity in what the gameplay looks like (greater, not complete, of course), and people just coming into the game have less feeling like they have to understand (and have purchased) it all at once, etc.

Also, you can only play one race at a time, so there's less risk of massively-multiple interaction issues (no 3-race pileups like you have with, say, the cha-based classes in 5e or some of the multi-prestige class insanity builds from 3e).

[Mastikator]

Step 1) Make race of antagonistic sapient creatures that lazy DMs can throw at players without thinking "why are they attacking".

Step 2) Someone sympathizes with sapient race or questions "how are they not extinct if they're this self destructive and evil", so someone has to come up with exceptions to the "always evil"

Step 3) Someone wants to play the sapient evil race as a non-evil option

Step 4) Lazy DM throws sapient evil race at party with non-evil version of said race, party tries to find peaceful solution.

Step 5) Lazy DM has to find/make new race to throw at party

It's no wonder there are more "monster" and "exotic" races than normal races available. (also how the f are tieflings and dragonborn not exotic?)

[Ralanr]

Races are easier to design over classes.

It's better than the only player bloat being more spells.

[Dork_Forge]

1) It's quicker and easier to crank out races

2) The effect on balance of any given class is huge, and hard to measure given how many plates you need to spin. You not only need to consider how it interacts with itself and races, but also feats and multiclassing. And whilst they say those things are optional, that doesn't mean this don't have to/shouldn't have to put the work in

I'm not really sure what entire classes are even needed, maybe this is just me only being exposed to 5e, but the only real hole to fill seems to be a full Psionic class.

[JackPhoenix]

It takes almost no effort to make a race compared to a class.

And even that seems to be too much effort for WotC the way things are going lately with everything being changed to be more bland and same-y.

[Ganryu]

1) It's quicker and easier to crank out races

2) The effect on balance of any given class is huge, and hard to measure given how many plates you need to spin. You not only need to consider how it interacts with itself and races, but also feats and multiclassing. And whilst they say those things are optional, that doesn't mean this don't have to/shouldn't have to put the work in

I'm not really sure what entire classes are even needed, maybe this is just me only being exposed to 5e, but the only real hole to fill seems to be a full Psionic class.

I mean, psionic, reaction based martial, martial version of bard {warlord}, all come off top of my head.

Ambush or trap master would also be nice, you know, an ACTUAL RANGER! Let them have herbs on hand, heal without magic, set up traps, ambush people from shadows, be a ranger! None of this 'not quite fighter, rogue, or druid' bit!


I've made a planar mage before as well for homebrew, it's working decently well.

[Ortho]

Since the dawn of 5e, WotC made it clear that they wanted to avoid the class bloat that 3e suffered from. This makes sense as 3e had about 70 Base Classes, plus about 700 Prestige Classes (basically a class that you could only enter after a certain level and only with some pre-requisites).

They are so against the idea of new classes that they were even going to make the Artificer a Wizard subclass before they came to their senses! In 8 years, they added exactly one class to the roster.

This isn't a bad thing. Keeping the number of classes low simplifies the game, which seems to be the intent.

However, why are Races treated in a completely different manner? WotC can't seem to get enough new races!

And now, it looks like we're getting even more races with some of some subraces decoupling from the base race.

Again, not a bad thing. Just seems weird to keep such a tight grip on the number of playable classes, but go completely crazy with the number of playable races.

We're comparing apples and oranges here. Races and classes are on completely different levels.

Here's a thought experiment: make a D&D character whose race is irrelevant. Now make a D&D character whose class is irrelevant. I think you'll find that the latter is significantly harder than the former.

[Dr. Murgunstrum]

The newly announced racial changes seem designed exactly to mitigate this: races now only need to be balanced by their proficiencies, spells or other special abilities.

Now Dex buffing races and AI races aren’t automatic gold and won’t eclipse similar side packages that buff weaker stats.

Races are now different based on their special abilities, most which are more universally applicable (a fighter can still use a cantrip or fairy fire, a wizard can still benefit from armour or an HP buff), rather than a stat package that favours a small range of classes

[KOLE]

Here's a thought experiment: make a D&D character whose race is irrelevant. Now make a D&D character whose class is irrelevant. I think you'll find that the latter is significantly harder than the former.

That’s… A really good way of putting it. A cookie for your succinctness.

I could play a +1/+1 floating ASI amorphous blob sized medium humanoid with 30 feet of movement and no other traits other than speaking common and actually do okay, all things considered.

[KOLE]

Races are now different based on their special abilities, most which are more universally applicable (a fighter can still use a cantrip or fairy fire, a wizard can still benefit from armour or an HP buff), rather than a stat package that favours a small range of classes

This is actually the best argument I’ve seen in favor of what some folks are calling “the 5.25 tweak”. And that’s coming from someone who’s not really in favor of it (though not as staunchly as some others in this forum). Well put!

[Dork_Forge]

I mean, psionic, reaction based martial, martial version of bard {warlord}, all come off top of my head.

Ambush or trap master would also be nice, you know, an ACTUAL RANGER! Let them have herbs on hand, heal without magic, set up traps, ambush people from shadows, be a ranger! None of this 'not quite fighter, rogue, or druid' bit!

I've made a planar mage before as well for homebrew, it's working decently well.

Being a true psion requires actual support right now, but I don't see how those other things necessarily need an entire class:

-Reactions are too limited to build a class around them, the Cavalier already strides into this territory to do some degree.

- When you describe it as a martial bard, that really seems like it could fit in a subclass. It's literally just an improved Banneret

For something to warrant an entire class, it would need to require a huge amount of mechanical support to realise without being feat heavy. I think jumping on every character concept as it's only realised class is exactly how class bloat happens.

Some stuff you just have to compromise with certain spells/feats/other options and any refluffing, there can't be everything and to a very real degree less is more.

[KorvinStarmast]

Races are easier to design over classes.

It's better than the only player bloat being more spells.

Bloat isn't good and it's a disappointment that bloat is casually inflicted.

Step 3) Someone wants to play the sapient evil race as a non-evil option

how original (wait, no it's not).

We're comparing apples and oranges here. Races and classes are on completely different levels.

Here's a thought experiment: make a D&D character whose race is irrelevant. Now make a D&D character whose class is irrelevant. I think you'll find that the latter is significantly harder than the former.

Nice post.

[Ganryu]

Being a true psion requires actual support right now, but I don't see how those other things necessarily need an entire class:

-Reactions are too limited to build a class around them, the Cavalier already strides into this territory to do some degree.

- When you describe it as a martial bard, that really seems like it could fit in a subclass. It's literally just an improved Banneret

For something to warrant an entire class, it would need to require a huge amount of mechanical support to realise without being feat heavy. I think jumping on every character concept as it's only realised class is exactly how class bloat happens.

Some stuff you just have to compromise with certain spells/feats/other options and any refluffing, there can't be everything and to a very real degree less is more.

You can make a better monk as a fighter, or barbarian too, but there's a certain amount of flavor with the abilities. Half the time, my party doesn't know what I'm playing, because I can build classes any way I like with RAW with a little imagination, and the rest is flavor. I can almost build a paladin with fighter 11/cleric 9, but no one is going to want to get rid of a paladin.


Technically, you could have fighter, bard, and wizard, and you've got everything covered and don't need more classes. You have martial who hits stuff, wizard's bs spells, and healing & skill monkey in bard. What, really, is there otherwise? We have 13 classes.


As far as reaction based class, it's pretty well possible. For example, one homebrew is The Savant, which is based around reactions. Just one of many reaction based HB.
https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M0ZVK6ndhFyImQPF_aJ


Warlord, not quite a fighter. It's about commanding allies and buffing them for being nearby. There are few takes on this, apparently a popular class from 3.5 called the marshal. It's about giving bonus to teammates without being magical. Imagine a paladin's aura, but that was the entire class, giving up smites and spell casting and nova damage, but everyone around you gets benefits. One HB of this.
https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LW4agTNJcbwe6kSv4H2


They are both unique and bring a flavor that takes difficulty using vanilla Dnd, which, I think is enough to build a class around. Homebrewing is hard, don't trust 80% of it, but it does give good ideas at the very least. Artificer proved, even if albeit badly, wizards CAN add more classes to the game. Twilight cleric proved that apparently being busted isn't enough to stop it getting into Dnd :eyeroll:. {That may have been my breaking point for reaching outside of official material.}

[P. G. Macer]

I'm with you. I've turned to homebrew alot of the time, people like KibblesTasty who do good work. {Inventor, Psion, Warlord, Occultist}.

It's a case of, once you've played all the classes, then what? Gets a bit boring.

They've only psuedo accepted Mercer's class: Bloodhunter in a sort of weird limbo of almost a class, recognized by WoC, but not an official class. Why not? It's a bit weak if anything.

Blood hunter has not been recognized by WotC; it has been recognized by D&D Beyond, which Wizards of the Coast does not run or own, and never has.

[Kane0]

I'm with you. I've turned to homebrew alot of the time, people like KibblesTasty who do good work. {Inventor, Psion, Warlord, Occultist}.

Ooh, thats a good few days worth of reading you have provided there.

[Leon]

They way they are heading they only need one generic race and a drop table of pick a bonus racial feature and apply your free floating stat to X class stat

[HPisBS]

They way they are heading they only need one generic race and a drop table of pick a bonus racial feature and apply your free floating stat to X class stat

Considering the topic of that other thread currently at its 6th page, I can't really argue with you....

[Waazraath]

I do think it's slowly becoming a bad thing, at least for me. Given the lifetime of 5e, I'd be more content if the edition has less new race and spell options, and more feats, totems, fighting styles, maneuvers, alternative class features, and even a few extra classes.

[Lunali]

At least with race bloat you still have each character only using the rules for a single race. With class bloat you would have to consider not only how to balance each class, but how they potentially interact with every other class.

[heavyfuel]

Some general thoughts to the responses thus far:

@"It's easier to churn out races": True, but it doesn't explain why they were so against the idea of using new classes to sell splat books, but are fine with using new races. And also, it's not like creating a new class is especially difficult. It's more difficult than a race, sure, but not super difficult.

@"Race isn't as important to your character as class": Again, true, but it's the same case as the above. Plus, it's only true for the mechanics of the game, not for the actual Role Playing part of the Role Playing Game.

@"Races don't have to worry about multiclass": Now that multiclass and feats are explicitly optional rules, I fail to see how that's an issue. If a DM thinks a multiclass combo is too powerful, they can just say no and point to the PHB where it says you must check with the DM first.

@"They should introduce new classes": No arguments here. After 8 years, I do think 5e is getting stale with lack of new options. Subclasses can only do so much when 80% of your character is a rehash of a previous one.

[Contrast]

They've only psuedo accepted Mercer's class: Bloodhunter in a sort of weird limbo of almost a class, recognized by WoC, but not an official class. Why not? It's a bit weak if anything.

Blood hunter has not been recognized by WotC; it has been recognized by D&D Beyond, which Wizards of the Coast does not run or own, and never has.

Both the Blood Hunter, Gunslinger Fighter and Cobalt Soul Monk are on D&D Beyond because D&D Beyond sponsors/advertises using Critical Role and those classes have been played by someone on Critical Role. Mercer has other homebrew that hasn't made it to D&D Beyond because no-one on the show has played it. They come on D&D Beyond with a large warning in red letters saying 'THIS IS UNOFFICIAL MATERIAL'.

As has been said, their presense on D&D Beyond is pretty much entirely unrelated to how 'official' WotC deems them.

[KorvinStarmast]

Given the lifetime of 5e, I'd be more content if the edition has less new race and spell options, and more feats, totems, fighting styles, maneuvers, alternative class features, and even a few extra classes.

No extra classes, please. Maybe some new sub classes.

At least with race bloat you still have each character only using the rules for a single race. With class bloat you would have to consider not only how to balance each class, but how they potentially interact with every other class.

Spot on.

@"They should introduce new classes": No arguments here. After 8 years, I do think 5e is getting stale with lack of new options. Subclasses can only do so much when 80% of your character is a rehash of a previous one.

Disagree. We don't need new classes.

[Willie the Duck]

Some general thoughts to the responses thus far:

@"It's easier to churn out races": True, but it doesn't explain why they were so against the idea of using new classes to sell splat books, but are fine with using new races. And also, it's not like creating a new class is especially difficult. It's more difficult than a race, sure, but not super difficult.

Difficulty in writing the thing is probably not the big issue. Keeping tabs on what a game of D&D looks like (both for the designers themselves, and someone coming into the game for the first time) as you start adding classes probably has more to do with it.

@"Race isn't as important to your character as class": Again, true, but it's the same case as the above. Plus, it's only true for the mechanics of the game, not for the actual Role Playing part of the Role Playing Game.

Same speculation as above. As for the RP part, I don't think that's seen as a problem. Giving groups more RP hooks is an efficient way of increasing re-playability without having to deal with potential rules-interaction issues. In no small part because the groups themselves will tend to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of making it work for themselves.

@"Races don't have to worry about multiclass": Now that multiclass and feats are explicitly optional rules, I fail to see how that's an issue. If a DM thinks a multiclass combo is too powerful, they can just say no and point to the PHB where it says you must check with the DM first.

'DM can just say no' is a universal, not limited to things expressly denoted as optional. Regardless, for all the nice clean optional tags on those rules, I think many to most groups do play with those rules. Regardless regardless, optional or not, WotC probably doesn't have a grand incentive to making a lot of too-powerful combos (well, above what they already have) for those people who do use those optional rules.

@"They should introduce new classes": No arguments here. After 8 years, I do think 5e is getting stale with lack of new options. Subclasses can only do so much when 80% of your character is a rehash of a previous one.

Boy, I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, every other Dragon magazine used to come out with a couple of extra new classes and the game worked fine*. On the other hand, I don't see new classes, in particular, solving the issue of a certain subset of gamers needing new mechanical options to stay interested.
*Although it should be noted that, in the 1E period of which I am thinking, if you didn't buy Dragon, there was something like only one (Unearthed Arcana) introduction of new classes in a dozen-year run of the game and that also worked fine.

[Pildion]

Since the dawn of 5e, WotC made it clear that they wanted to avoid the class bloat that 3e suffered from. This makes sense as 3e had about 70 Base Classes, plus about 700 Prestige Classes (basically a class that you could only enter after a certain level and only with some pre-requisites).

They are so against the idea of new classes that they were even going to make the Artificer a Wizard subclass before they came to their senses! In 8 years, they added exactly one class to the roster.

This isn't a bad thing. Keeping the number of classes low simplifies the game, which seems to be the intent.

However, why are Races treated in a completely different manner? WotC can't seem to get enough new races!

And now, it looks like we're getting even more races with some of some subraces decoupling from the base race.

Again, not a bad thing. Just seems weird to keep such a tight grip on the number of playable classes, but go completely crazy with the number of playable races.

It's much easier to make a Race, and balance that. Though even that is gone now, the races are getting overhauled and will just be a skin over what ever ability choices you choose.

[Luccan]

This got kinda rambly, so tl;dr is that most people want to play races outside the default more than they want to play classes outside the default, many previous classes can be collapsed into a subclass, and future classes have to be narrow enough to not feel incomplete when released but wide enough to be expanded upon in the future.

You can play D&D without an Artificer and no one will complain unless you're specifically playing Eberron. You can't play D&D without orcs. You can play D&D without Psionics and unless you're playing Dark Sun no one will complain. You can't play D&D without Gith. And you can have Artificer without Psion (and vice-versa) but you can't have Tiefling without Aasimar and Genasi

That's a generalization so it's not universally true, of course. People will complain, you can play D&D without orcs. But I think the list of "this must be playable or it isn't D&D" is bigger for races than classes for most people. And unlike 3e, there's not an easy conversion between monsters and PCs, so WOTC has to fulfill the "bonus" race allotment before even doing their own thing. And then when they do a custom setting like Eberron or Ravnica they might have to add a class or a couple subclasses, but they also need to add multiple races or else it won't "feel right" to play in those settings. So, you get race bloat.

Additionally, a lot of once independent classes now slot comfortably into subclass territory. Artificer Wizard would've been too much, I agree, but I can also see where the designers were coming from. We certainly don't need Samurai, Cavaliers, Swashbucklers, Assassins, Anti-Paladins, and Blackguards to all be independent of existing classes they already slot nicely into. And subclasses also create another issue.

Based on what they've done so far, they're not gonna release a class they can't think of at least two subclasses for. I also doubt they're going to release a new class that initially has more than 3 or 4 subclasses to avoid overwhelming players on the new class. So you have to have a concept you can cover most of the basics of in less than 5 subclasses, but that isn't so narrow you can't get at least 2 subclasses out of it. And let's be honest, they'll want to be able to release more subclasses, so it does still have to be expandable. Most people selling a 3rd party Psion class (some of which are very nice) aren't expected to be able to sell future books to people who want Psion options.

[CIDE]

It's largely been touched on in some way or another but it comes down to the overall size of the system. Adding new races doesn't really add or change anything for the mechanics of the game. It's a splash of more variety and, depending on which route you go, a little bit of fluff options. To expand classes past a certain point you're going to have to likely introduce entirely new game mechanics to make it work since there's only so many variations you can get out of the class templates we already have available that could both feel unique and balanced.

To use some 3.5 classes as an example, the Dragonfire Adept, Binder, and the Truenamer. The first one would be an easy port since it could likely just be baked in as a dragon-themed Warlock subclass. If done right it would feel true to its 3.5 source, could be balanced, doesn't break or change the Warlock class any more than any other subclass, and doesn't change the way 5e would have to work or introduce anything new.

Binder and Truenamer probably wouldn't check off all of those boxes. Both of them would likely have to introduce entirely new mechanics to the system in order to feel true to their source material. Also, the Binder heavily steps on the toes of the Warlock fluff for 5e inevitably making either one redundant in the long run. It would take a lot of effort to try to include the Binder in a way where it would just be pure bloat. The truenamer doesn't mess with any fluff but there's no built in feature for 5e that can be used to build the class around and still make it feel true to source. It likely wouldn't do anything that the Wizard isn't already doing either.

The list could go on with a lot of martial classes. Stuff that may have been a separate base class or a PrC in 3.5 is taken up by a sublcass spot. So, instead of 30 different classes that are essentially a Fighter+, we get a Fighter+ from the start. Or the numerous "Paladin but not" classes from 3.5 that just become a subclass.

The system is nice and streamlined. Far from perfect, but much easier to digest. There are still some classes I'd love to see make a come back and some get a revision but you take what you can with a system like 5e.