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Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:15PM, Zardnaar wrote:

Not a massive fan of the Gunslinger in PF either (fighter with guns works, nope design a class for it).

The gunslinger actually was originally designed as an alternate class of the fighter, like the Ninja is to the Rogue and the Samurai is to the Cavalier. During development it became its own base class because they wanted to go too far afield of what the fighter does to justify making it an alternate class.

(For those not familiar with PF, it has these things called archetypes, which are sets of abilities you can swap into a class in place of its normal abilities. An Acrobat Rogue, for example, trades Trapfinding and Trap Sense for a bonus to a bunch of acrobatic skill checks and the ability to reroll failures on them. A Charlatan Rogue trades Trapfinding and Trap Sense for some bluff-based benefits. Alternate classes, of which there are only three, are basically archetypes that are too comprehensively different from their base class to be formatted how archetypes are formatted, so they're presented using the same presentation base classes are.)

Nov 20, 2012 -- 1:03PM, Mand12 wrote:

Are you certain that these four are the best option for "core four" or could there be a better configuration?

Me personally? No, I don't agree that the core four are the best representatives of all possible character types.  It would make more sense to me if we had Defender, Slayer, Spellcaster, and Jack; as it stands, we have Combat Guy, Offensive Magic Guy, Defensive Magic Guy, and Non-Combat Guy.

I'm not certain that "Non-Combat Guy" is something that should be one of the four cornerstones of all adventurers everywhere.

Honestly, I don't see why we have to work to a cap on classes.

They are the single easiest things to add and disregard, as long as the mechanics within the game are all covered by the class set a given table decides to use.

However, I do think that people should be mindful when it comes to classes and not assume that all are welcome everywhere. Really, this should be dictated by the campaign world.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 1:03PM, Mand12 wrote:

A question to the "core four" proponents:

Are you certain that these four are the best option for "core four" or could there be a better configuration?

This was one of our biggest struggles when doing our version of the game.

I LOVE the core four...but HATE how they fit into the game as a whole. I also have some trouble with subclasses, though I don't mind hybrids so much, so 'core 4' is touchy.

We ended up switching to core 6 (based on role, which is subsequently based on attribute), to carry on the division by 6 legacy, and then moved from subclasses entirely to hybrids (but role hybrids rather than class hybrids). It seems to have worked out well enough for us.

With 5th I'm flexible. I could live with core 4, I could live with core 6, or I could live with each class wholly independent. I doubt if I'd be swayed by arguments for a core 4 comprised of different classes than original however. Possible, but unlikely.