D&D 5E What I Don't Like About Subclasses, and Potential Solutions.

Corinnguard · Wednesday at 8:40 PM

deadman1204 said:
Why do you think most people never play a single class all the way up but multiclass instead?

Back in 3e, it was the presence of too many 'dead' levels where the character didn't get a new feature or an improvement of an earlier class feature. The 3e Sorcerer, was a good example of this. At 1st level, a 3e sorcerer got Eschew Materials and Summon Familiar in addition to their spellcasting, and that was it. There was no real incentive for someone to play a sorcerer beyond 1st-level if all they got was more spells. Then along came Pathfinder 1st edition, its' solution to getting rid some or all of the dead levels and ensuring that players stayed with a single class was to fill each level with a class feature with something appealing and a 20th-level capstone ability. If that wasn't enough to keep a player in a single class, there were the class archetypes which altered or replace a particular class feature to meet a certain class concept.

5e sort of has the same problem as 3e did. The base class doesn't off you much in terms of interesting and useful features. All of the interesting and useful stuff is locked up in a subclass. If the subclasses were removed, the base class would need to be stocked up with more features IMO. And these features would need to be designed in such a way for the player to meet whatever they had in mind for their initial character concept.

CreamCloud0 · Wednesday at 8:41 PM

Reynard said:
You need to define what you mean by convoluted then, because when I used it for subclasses I meant that they were a mess of stacked options that were a pain to work with and demanded more than they gave.

i mean it was you who used it first so what did you mean by it here? i understand convoluted to mean 'a needlessly complex design that is often unclear or leads to misunderstanding the information'

Reynard said:
The first 12 pages of this thread go into why, but the short version (for me) is that they are convoluted and don't actually add much to the game that, say, talent trees wouldn't add (and talent trees would at least provide some choices).

i fail to see how a subclass is anything but a lone talent tree with a single progression path, how would it be more complex than the mess you would have with a dozen branching paths?

also, 'a mess of stacked options'? 'demanded more than they gave'? please clarify what you mean with these.

Reynard · Wednesday at 8:51 PM

CreamCloud0 said:
i mean it was you who used it first so what did you mean by it here? i understand convoluted to mean 'a needlessly complex design that is often unclear or leads to misunderstanding the information'

i fail to see how a subclass is anything but a lone talent tree with a single progression path, how would it be more complex than the mess you would have with a dozen branching paths?

also, 'a mess of stacked options'? 'demanded more than they gave'? please clarify what you mean with these.

I don't know what to tell you. You are imagining a full Diablo IV mess and that's not what I am saying.

I do not like subclasses. They are restrictive and turn progression into a boring treadmill, unless they are an absolute mess of sub-features. Never mind the balance. They are the last way I want character customization in D&D.

deadman1204 · Wednesday at 9:18 PM

Reynard said:
I don't know what to tell you. You are imagining a full Diablo IV mess and that's not what I am saying.

I do not like subclasses. They are restrictive and turn progression into a boring treadmill, unless they are an absolute mess of sub-features. Never mind the balance. They are the last way I want character customization in D&D.

I Agree that D4 has alot of needless complication. Literally nothing matters, you can choose all your skills at random (And not even spend some) and still cant help but beat the campaign and move on.

As for dnd, what do you want then instead of subclasses? Many of us want a large menu of choices where we can mix and match things, and subclasses offer no such thing. you seemed to say that multiple choices are bad and bothersome. Subclasses is how they remove the bother of having to make character decisions, because its 1 choice for the lifetime of the character (which I view as an utter design failure).

Reynard · Wednesday at 9:26 PM

deadman1204 said:
I Agree that D4 has alot of needless complication. Literally nothing matters, you can choose all your skills at random (And not even spend some) and still cant help but beat the campaign and move on.

As for dnd, what do you want then instead of subclasses? Many of us want a large menu of choices where we can mix and match things, and subclasses offer no such thing. you seemed to say that multiple choices are bad and bothersome. Subclasses is how they remove the bother of having to make character decisions, because its 1 choice for the lifetime of the character (which I view as an utter design failure).

I don't mind relatively few choices as a player and I really don't mind it as a GM, but if I was trying to find a balance for players to be able to customize characters while keeping some control over options I would probably rely on a few things:
1) more robust and granular skills that have actual uses in game along with inherent "skill talents" (like skills did in Alternity).
2) Classes have a few core values, including class skills and favored talent trees, plus HD and saves and whatever.
3) streamlined talent trees for categories like animal companion, smiting, stealth attack, archery, rage and so on. Also, spell casting would be in dedicated talent trees so casters don't get to be versatile casters and otherwise awesome.

But, to be clear, that would not be my preference. I think the game is better and more fun with a more limited list of abilities per character (but not none) and a reliance on skills rather than class abilities.

cbwjm · Wednesday at 9:35 PM

I can't remember what I've already said in this thread (I may even be talking against my previous post), but I wouldn't mind more weight being on subclasses with the actual class being even more generic than they already are. Having at least 5 or 6 levels for subclass abilities would really help differentiate different subclasses.

jmartkdr2 · Wednesday at 9:45 PM

Subclasses provide a certain amount of player-driven customization - whether that's "too much," "too little" or "just right" is simply a preference. The market seems to think it's just right, otherwise either PF2 or DCC would be taking over.

Aldarc · Wednesday at 10:05 PM

jmartkdr2 said:
Subclasses provide a certain amount of player-driven customization - whether that's "too much," "too little" or "just right" is simply a preference. The market seems to think it's just right, otherwise either PF2 or DCC would be taking over.

These are the sort of assertions that I could do without. It basically takes the success of 5e on the whole as a sign of the success of each individual aspect, which may or not be the case. There may be a variety other reasons apart from the given explanation of subclasses that contribute to the overwhelming success of 5e over PF2 and DCC.

Like imagine if someone said "The market seems to think that Bonds, Flaws, and Ideals are just right, otherwise PF2 or Dungeon World would be taking over." It's just nonsensically fallacious.

Micah Sweet · Wednesday at 10:30 PM

Reynard said:
Except all the people playing OSR games and Dragonbane and Shadowdark and ....

Those games have ways to differentiate PCs from each other too.

Micah Sweet · Wednesday at 10:32 PM

deadman1204 said:
Yes, but that is the goal. You make a single decision for your 5e character lvl 1-20. What subclass then done.. 5e goes out of its way to remove all options. We talk about "less complexity" but fail to realize that "less complexity" is dull and boring. A blank piece of paper is less complex than a novel, but I like the novel more.
Why do you think most people never play a single class all the way up but multiclass instead? Its more powerful and more interesting. If you want a character more complex than a single decision point, you must multiclass.

Level Up classes and subclasses have multiple decision points as you...level up, far more than WotC 5e. One of many great things about it.

D&D 5E What I Don't Like About Subclasses, and Potential Solutions.

Corinnguard

Hero

CreamCloud0

One day, I hope to actually play DnD.

Reynard

Legend

deadman1204

Explorer

Reynard

Legend

cbwjm

Seb-wejem

jmartkdr2

Hero

Aldarc

Legend

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

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