For my preference; we had enough classes after the 3 LBB's, and Greyhawk.  If that isn't enough for someone to roleplay out, let them Multi class / Dual class.  A creative person can turn those few classes into almost anything.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 03, 2022, 11:21:53 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 03, 2022, 11:05:48 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 03, 2022, 10:50:50 PM
I've mentioned this a bunch of times every time that the subject even remotely comes up, and BoxCrayonTales already covered much of it, so I'm not gonna repeat everything, but YES! There are WAY too many classes, and Sorcerers are the most redundant class in 5e.

If it were up to me there'd only be three classes: Warrior, Specialist and Mystic. I'd do away with the artificial Arcane/Divine distinction, and ALL customization would be done through Feats (yes, FEATS), and maybe Subclasses (which would probably grant Feats you can pick individually anyways, but they get more immediate access to them). Differences between different types of casters would be handled with traditions, similar to Shadowrun Hermetic Mages and Totemic Shamans, which grant bonuses to magic related to their traditions, but all basically have access to the same magic.

It only feels artificial because it's the exact same mechanic.

I disagree, Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard is perfectly fine.

I do agree that customization should be handled by subclasses, Backgrounds (skills) AND FEATS, YES! FEATS!

Just ask Jaeger.

Just not the, ALSO bloated, mess of Skills and Feats 3.0 and 5e have.

I don't like dealing with different mechanics for magic/super power type stuff. They needlessly complicate things, and are ultimately about making artificial distinctions between different magic approaches, with the exception of stuff like Spellcasting vs Ritual Casting. Plus the Arcana/Divine distinction was pretty much made up by D&D. Real life mystical traditions don't make a hard distinction between the two, and invariably acknowledge some type of divine presence, even if they're "wizard" traditions, like Hermetic types.

"Thou shalt not allow the witch to live"

No, not all real life mystical traditions conflate the divine with the arcane.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 04, 2022, 12:06:47 AM
No, not all real life mystical traditions conflate the divine with the arcane.

I'm pretty sure Divine/Arcane distinction did not originate in D&D.  My imperfect understanding of a lot of cultures that believed in gods and in magic does not assume they are one and the same.  I think our understanding of Norse mythology has the gods doing magic in some cases, but not necessarily because they are gods.  With Egypt, which is better preserved, it definitely sounds like they thought of magic as something underlying things.

I guess I could be wrong here- these are old things and subject to modern interpretation.  But the idea that the divine/arcane split was originated by D&D, or is even all that new, I think is the claim that would need a lot of backup.  If you have a society that believes magic is a thing that gods and men can do, and that gods can also cause things to happen, then I think it's reasonable to claim that divine and arcane are different, even if the society kind of believed in only one magical "substance"- the very fact that they also acknowlege gods helping their people sort of means that that divide between those ideas is present.

Many of the other concepts do come from trying to have stuff that explains a bigger world.  For instance if you design a system for a low magic Hellenistic society based reasonably closely on ancient Greece, you could take more liberties with everything that the Greeks believed and did during that period.  If you also have to incorporate all of everything that the Chinese believed around that time, you would need a system that is more generic.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 04, 2022, 12:06:47 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 03, 2022, 11:21:53 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 03, 2022, 11:05:48 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 03, 2022, 10:50:50 PM
I've mentioned this a bunch of times every time that the subject even remotely comes up, and BoxCrayonTales already covered much of it, so I'm not gonna repeat everything, but YES! There are WAY too many classes, and Sorcerers are the most redundant class in 5e.

If it were up to me there'd only be three classes: Warrior, Specialist and Mystic. I'd do away with the artificial Arcane/Divine distinction, and ALL customization would be done through Feats (yes, FEATS), and maybe Subclasses (which would probably grant Feats you can pick individually anyways, but they get more immediate access to them). Differences between different types of casters would be handled with traditions, similar to Shadowrun Hermetic Mages and Totemic Shamans, which grant bonuses to magic related to their traditions, but all basically have access to the same magic.

It only feels artificial because it's the exact same mechanic.

I disagree, Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard is perfectly fine.

I do agree that customization should be handled by subclasses, Backgrounds (skills) AND FEATS, YES! FEATS!

Just ask Jaeger.

Just not the, ALSO bloated, mess of Skills and Feats 3.0 and 5e have.

I don't like dealing with different mechanics for magic/super power type stuff. They needlessly complicate things, and are ultimately about making artificial distinctions between different magic approaches, with the exception of stuff like Spellcasting vs Ritual Casting. Plus the Arcana/Divine distinction was pretty much made up by D&D. Real life mystical traditions don't make a hard distinction between the two, and invariably acknowledge some type of divine presence, even if they're "wizard" traditions, like Hermetic types.

"Thou shalt not allow the witch to live"

No, not all real life mystical traditions conflate the divine with the arcane.

That's a religious precept, not a mystical tradition. And Christianity can be extremely anti-mystical sometimes, even persecuting their own mystics occasionally and declaring people heretics left and right. Christian mysticism is also related to Hermeticism, which is where most modern notions of "wizards" come from. There's a difference between a particular religion being overly concerned about people's spiritual practices and driven to persecution, and "arcane" and "divine" elements within mysticism being fundamentally separate at the core.

Most of that is just RP from a game PoV anyways. The real question mechanically is what sort of magic you have access to, in terms of "schools" or "spheres" of magic, or different types of magical skills (healing magic, combat magic, mind control, etc.). And in terms of your character's "magical affinity", that could be handled as bonuses to specific types of magic, or in specific situations (under the full moon, at a church/temple, sacred grove, etc.) similar to Shadowrun traditions, like I mentioned earlier.

QuoteThat's a religious precept, not a mystical tradition. And Christianity can be extremely anti-mystical sometimes, even persecuting their own mystics occasionally and declaring people heretics left and right.

If I'm reading that correctly, that was the point- that certainly those cultures had the idea of thing that god is doing versus things that are magical in nature.  Even today you will literally find actual people in America that believe that magic is real, and that you can get it from making deals with demons or whatever.  This is even the position of some churches I think, and that definitely means that you have stuff God does, and stuff not done by God, and that's a pretty solid dividing line.

You point out that Hermeticism does have some links to God, as at least the versions of it that we have today assume the existence of a version of God that would probably be accepted in most (perhaps all) Christian churches, and add a couple semi-official archangels and such.  And that's fine, but there's plenty of evidence that the same people who believed in Christianity also believed that there were people in distant lands who performed magic, and in many cases paid for astrologers to make predictions.  Or what of geomancy and aeromancy?  The same people who banned divination did so because they believed it to be magic, and definitely not a miracle from God.  They believed it to be real, and different to, for instance, a priest who healed the sick.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 04, 2022, 12:42:53 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 04, 2022, 12:06:47 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 03, 2022, 11:21:53 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 03, 2022, 11:05:48 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 03, 2022, 10:50:50 PM
I've mentioned this a bunch of times every time that the subject even remotely comes up, and BoxCrayonTales already covered much of it, so I'm not gonna repeat everything, but YES! There are WAY too many classes, and Sorcerers are the most redundant class in 5e.

If it were up to me there'd only be three classes: Warrior, Specialist and Mystic. I'd do away with the artificial Arcane/Divine distinction, and ALL customization would be done through Feats (yes, FEATS), and maybe Subclasses (which would probably grant Feats you can pick individually anyways, but they get more immediate access to them). Differences between different types of casters would be handled with traditions, similar to Shadowrun Hermetic Mages and Totemic Shamans, which grant bonuses to magic related to their traditions, but all basically have access to the same magic.

It only feels artificial because it's the exact same mechanic.

I disagree, Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard is perfectly fine.

I do agree that customization should be handled by subclasses, Backgrounds (skills) AND FEATS, YES! FEATS!

Just ask Jaeger.

Just not the, ALSO bloated, mess of Skills and Feats 3.0 and 5e have.

I don't like dealing with different mechanics for magic/super power type stuff. They needlessly complicate things, and are ultimately about making artificial distinctions between different magic approaches, with the exception of stuff like Spellcasting vs Ritual Casting. Plus the Arcana/Divine distinction was pretty much made up by D&D. Real life mystical traditions don't make a hard distinction between the two, and invariably acknowledge some type of divine presence, even if they're "wizard" traditions, like Hermetic types.

"Thou shalt not allow the witch to live"

No, not all real life mystical traditions conflate the divine with the arcane.

That's a religious precept, not a mystical tradition. And Christianity can be extremely anti-mystical sometimes, even persecuting their own mystics occasionally and declaring people heretics left and right. Christian mysticism is also related to Hermeticism, which is where most modern notions of "wizards" come from. There's a difference between a particular religion being overly concerned about people's spiritual practices and driven to persecution, and "arcane" and "divine" elements within mysticism being fundamentally separate at the core.

Most of that is just RP from a game PoV anyways. The real question mechanically is what sort of magic you have access to, in terms of "schools" or "spheres" of magic, or different types of magical skills (healing magic, combat magic, mind control, etc.). And in terms of your character's "magical affinity", that could be handled as bonuses to specific types of magic, or in specific situations (under the full moon, at a church/temple, sacred grove, etc.) similar to Shadowrun traditions, like I mentioned earlier.

Definition of mysticism
1 : the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics. 2 : the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (such as intuition or insight)

So, you might be operating under a different definition than I.

IIRC, people in Africa believe that witches exist and that they do magic by pacts with demons. They also believe in God/gods. This isn't new due to Christianity or Islam either.

Many tribes in the Americas believed something very similar well before the arrival of the Europeans.

Same is true all over the world if not in all the different cultures.

So, again, under the definition of mysticism I'm operating, not all mystic traditions conflated the divine and the arcane.

To decide how many classes a game should have, you must first decide what classes are supposed to be and do.  Are they purely mechanical silos?  Are they purely archetypes?  Some combination of both?  Restrictions into select groups?  And so on.  Depending on your answers, you'll get a very different list.  The only thing for sure is that no matter how you answer, WotC will screw the pooch, probably by both having classes that aren't needed and leaving out a class or two that would have been obvious had the dregs been cut.

I prefer my class-based systems to use classes that are primarily mechanical.  Archetypes supported will be very broad, almost to the point of the class not being an archetype at all.  Mainly because I do like some niche protection built into the system, for ease of building up a party of characters and helping players avoid the jack of all trades, master of none problem.  I see a lot of casual players that will shoot themselves in the same foot, repeatedly, given something like GURPS to play with.  I'm tired of having to explain to them why they made a character that they thinks sucks.  YMMV, but mine most assuredly does not on this point.

For a D&D-style class game, given the above, what typically works well for me is a set of minimal classes and then the "half" classes that fill in the gaps.  If you start with Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, then I don't mind the Ranger and Druid, for example, though already the mix is not ideal.  I'd like the Paladin better if the basic Cleric was replaced with a mostly unarmored Priest, but then it does start to blend into the Wizard quite a bit (depending on how magic is divided up, if at all, naturally).  Plus, I like Fighters a little more skilled by default, instead of uber combat monkey with nothing else attached, which starts to eat into the Ranger's main use. 

Naming them would be a lot of fun (Narrator voice:  It was not fun) given the traditions, but conceptually you could do worse in D&D than a set of classes that basically boiled down to: 
- Mostly fighting guy
- Mostly sneaking guy
- Mostly magic guy
- Adequate fighting and adequate magic guy that can do magic in armor
- Adequate fighting and adequate sneaking guy
- Adequate sneaking and adequate magic guy

If you don't make the first three All fighting, all sneaking, and all magic--and nothing else--it leaves some design space to work. Likewise on tying certain combos arbitrarily to races.  Of course, to do that, you have to start at the foundations of the game.   

Quote from: Venka on September 04, 2022, 12:32:59 AMI'm pretty sure Divine/Arcane distinction did not originate in D&D.

If it did not originate with D&D then where are all the historical and literary sources that make an explicit distinction between the two, beyond just religious prejudice or rivalries?

Shamans (where all religion/spirituality originates from) are often referred to as "magicians" outside of D&D—and not just in a fictional context, but by religious scholars and such. Jesus himself has been referred to as a magician (https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Magician-Renowned-Historian-Reveals/dp/157174715X). Odin was a magician as well. Magical rituals often involve invoking gods or calling on them or other spiritual entities to witness your work. Pretty much every mystical tradition around the world involves spiritual components to it because magic is inherently spiritual in nature and involves command over otherworldly forces.

And before anyone brings it up, the idea that "spirituality" and "religion" are different things is largely a modern concept that arouse out of the need for some people to distance themselves from religious institutions. But the word "religion" itself comes from the Latin word "religare" meaning "to tie, to bind" or connect with something (presumably the divine or spiritual). You can't be "spiritual" without technically being "religious", even if you don't identify with any specific religious tradition or institution.

That "religiosity" or "spirituality" can take many forms or interpretations, particularly once you throw specific religious traditions (with their own teachings and prescriptions) into the mix, but they're all part of the same religious/spiritual and ultimately mystical, otherworldly or "magical" continuum.

It's only once we get to RPGs (which have been influenced by D&D since the early days) or literary works derived from them or influenced by them that the distinction between arcane ("magician") and divine begins to be made.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 04, 2022, 01:13:17 AM
Definition of mysticism
1 : the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics. 2 : the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (such as intuition or insight)

So, you might be operating under a different definition than I.

IIRC, people in Africa believe that witches exist and that they do magic by pacts with demons. They also believe in God/gods. This isn't new due to Christianity or Islam either.

Many tribes in the Americas believed something very similar well before the arrival of the Europeans.

Same is true all over the world if not in all the different cultures.

So, again, under the definition of mysticism I'm operating, not all mystic traditions conflated the divine and the arcane.

The word "mystic" and it's variants can extend to include a variety of mystical, esoteric, or occult practices, and otherworldly powers, etc., beyond just union with God specifically (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mystic). "Mystical" is basically synonymous with "magical" or supernatural.

And the reason that witches were persecuted in various parts of the world, even before Christianity, wasn't based on the belief that there's some sort of Arcane/Divine split in the practice of magic, but that they practiced magic that was harmful to people and consorted with evil entities (which from a D&D PoV could be interpreted as evil gods and the like). Yet non-witch "magician" also existed in many of those same cultures, but they didn't face the same type of persecution because they weren't perceived as evil.

We could eliminate the need for different classes if the mechanics simply allowed you to pick a suite of abilities at each level without limitation as a function of skill levels.  That is, instead of "at level x, the fighter gets these abilities and the ranger gets those abilities," instead you go "I'm throwing 3 skill points into melee combat which gets me second wind and I'm putting 3 points into ranged combat which gets me archery and I'm putting 4 points into druidic magic so I can cast 2nd level druidic spells." Bingo - you now have the skills of a ranger and a fighter without being rigidly defined as either.

It also would be interesting if successful use of skills have you the ability to automatically advance them when you level up (maybe an 2 uses at 1st level, 4 at 2nd, 8 at 3rd, etc." Without having to spend skill points buying them.

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 04, 2022, 10:10:23 AM
We could eliminate the need for different classes if the mechanics simply allowed you to pick a suite of abilities at each level without limitation as a function of skill levels.  That is, instead of "at level x, the fighter gets these abilities and the ranger gets those abilities," instead you go "I'm throwing 3 skill points into melee combat which gets me second wind and I'm putting 3 points into ranged combat which gets me archery and I'm putting 4 points into druidic magic so I can cast 2nd level druidic spells." Bingo - you now have the skills of a ranger and a fighter without being rigidly defined as either.

It also would be interesting if successful use of skills have you the ability to automatically advance them when you level up (maybe an 2 uses at 1st level, 4 at 2nd, 8 at 3rd, etc." Without having to spend skill points buying them.

Mythras Classic Fantasy is a skill-based d100 OSR game. It doesn't have levels, but it treats all the various class abilities as skills. Classes are presented as pre-selected skill packages.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 04, 2022, 09:52:20 AM
To decide how many classes a game should have, you must first decide what classes are supposed to be and do.  Are they purely mechanical silos?  Are they purely archetypes?  Some combination of both?  Restrictions into select groups?  And so on.  Depending on your answers, you'll get a very different list.  The only thing for sure is that no matter how you answer, WotC will screw the pooch, probably by both having classes that aren't needed and leaving out a class or two that would have been obvious had the dregs been cut.

I prefer my class-based systems to use classes that are primarily mechanical.  Archetypes supported will be very broad, almost to the point of the class not being an archetype at all.  Mainly because I do like some niche protection built into the system, for ease of building up a party of characters and helping players avoid the jack of all trades, master of none problem.  I see a lot of casual players that will shoot themselves in the same foot, repeatedly, given something like GURPS to play with.  I'm tired of having to explain to them why they made a character that they thinks sucks.  YMMV, but mine most assuredly does not on this point.

For a D&D-style class game, given the above, what typically works well for me is a set of minimal classes and then the "half" classes that fill in the gaps.  If you start with Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, then I don't mind the Ranger and Druid, for example, though already the mix is not ideal.  I'd like the Paladin better if the basic Cleric was replaced with a mostly unarmored Priest, but then it does start to blend into the Wizard quite a bit (depending on how magic is divided up, if at all, naturally).  Plus, I like Fighters a little more skilled by default, instead of uber combat monkey with nothing else attached, which starts to eat into the Ranger's main use. 

Naming them would be a lot of fun (Narrator voice:  It was not fun) given the traditions, but conceptually you could do worse in D&D than a set of classes that basically boiled down to: 
- Mostly fighting guy
- Mostly sneaking guy
- Mostly magic guy
- Adequate fighting and adequate magic guy that can do magic in armor
- Adequate fighting and adequate sneaking guy
- Adequate sneaking and adequate magic guy

If you don't make the first three All fighting, all sneaking, and all magic--and nothing else--it leaves some design space to work. Likewise on tying certain combos arbitrarily to races.  Of course, to do that, you have to start at the foundations of the game.   

I like those character options.  Warrior, Rogue, Mage.

Yes, there are too many classes. I even kicked out the cleric from the core four in my most recent OD&D. There are other ways to bring that element to the table.

I kind of vary.  One the one hand I sometimes like playing specialized or niche classes, but on the whole I also like the idea of just a few core ones.  I think you can pretty much get by with the core four, though I hate the name rogue for a class, so I'd just call it a thief, or maybe scout.  One thing you can do is offer variations of skills based on cultures/settings.  I also really like the idea of variant spell lists for different types of casters, including priest spells by deity/pantheon, though that's a fair amount of work.  For example, Hyperborea has different lists for witches, pyromancers, cryomancers, and necromancers.  The way Warhammer 2e did magic was cool, too.  Everyone has access to a few basic spells, but then it's determined by specialty.

And I think it can vary a bit by setting or tone.  Certain classes & sub-classes obviously fit certain settings.  The forthcoming Swords & Chaos rpg has just 7 classes to fit its Swords & Sorcery vibe.  These are assassin, barbarian, fighter, knight, ranger, rogue, and sorcerer, which is good in terms of limiting choices, but the choices themselves seem a bit strange to me.  The rogue and assassin could be rolled into a single thief classes with certain abilities by background/homeland, a feature that is already built into the game.  The ranger seems too Tolkienian for S&S.  Why not a warder, or frontiersman or something?  And I know they have knights in Conan, but that class also seems off, being "too medieval" in my opinion.  And though they don't have a cleric, I'd been fine with something like a Cultist, certainly as a villain.  The barbarian seems less attractive than the fighter, judging from the preview, at least in terms of abilities.  We haven't seen the final version of the rules yet so I'll be curious to see exactly how the rules work and integrate the setting into them.

This is a long-winded way of arguing for fewer classes with more setting/roleplaying details to customize them.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 03, 2022, 10:46:33 PM

Quote from: deadDMwalking on September 03, 2022, 10:04:16 PM
The game I play has 6 classes: Berserker, Knight, Mystic, Rogue, Warrior, Wizard. With these six classes we can build the equivalent of any 3rd or 5th edition class or prestige class.  The big thing for D&D is that lots of classes have access to a small amount of magic (like the Paladin).  Building generic access to magic for ANY class (like a Rogue that wants to learn invisibility) is the best way to make sure that a small number of classes can cover the widest variety of 'archetypes'. 

For us, each of those classes approaches combat in a unique way - the Berserker gets extra damage when Raging, while the Rogue gets extra damage by Sneaking or taking advantage of someone that is engaged by 2+ other people (Sneak Attack) - and we give class abilities that are specific and helpful in that role.  Any other abilities outside of the class are selectable.  If you want to be a Ranger, you probably take Rogue or Warrior, then take an Animal Companion.  If you want to be a Paladin, you take Knight, and you take 'knows some spells' instead of (or in addition to) Animal Companion (if you really want a mount). 

So yes, I think ultimately, a small number of flexible classes is better.  But then how can you sell more books?

Berserker & Knight are subclasses of Warrior, just like Barbarian is a background for Warrior/Fighter.

I take it that Mystic is the Cleric for edgy Atheists, while the Wizard is the Wizard.

So that system already has two Classes too many.

As for selling more books... Make good settings.

No.  That's basically completely wrong.  The berserker gets rage while the knight gets Designate, and the Warrior gets special abilities that work when making attacks like Disarm and Trip.  The reason they're different classes is that we have very different mechanics that make them feel different when you play. 

A Mystic is not at all like a cleric.  They're more like a Binder.  Clerics are just wizards that take healing spells.  Mystics have bound spirits that cast spells foe them. They're a different class because they have different mechanics that make them feel different. 

If we could make fewer classes and maintain their uniqueness, we would have.  The best way to make sure that people can't select abilities like Sneak Attack and Rage is to make them mutually exclusive.  By making it part of the class, you can't double up.

For me the issues is not the number of classes but the expectation that any and all classes can be used in campaign. It makes the setting feel spread to thin when every class could and does exists. I take no issue with the big book of classes, so long as the playable list is reduced to a manageable choices. 6 options is good from a human factors perspective.