You don't make new mechanics just because you have a class and need a mechanic. YOu make a new class because you have a good mechanic that is worthy of a new class.
I think that's backwards of the 5e design philosophy. In the podcast, Mr. Mearls said (rather stream-of-consciousness, but as best I could follow) that the warlord didn't deserve to be a class because it was originally concieved as a mechanic (martial healing, I suppose?) not as an archetype.
He worked with Heinsoo, who came up with the class, so he should know - or maybe its sour grapes because he didn't like working for Heinsoo. ::shrug::
In any case, the Warlord certain /does/ represent a substantial archetype, and one that other classes consistently failed to model.
If you can represent a class with existing mechanics - that means it is really just a variant of one or more existing classes.
A nice argument for classless systems. If your mechanics are good enough, you don't need classes.
If two classes are mechanically distinct but conceptually identical, I can't fathom what problem that could create at the table. If I want to play a character of that concept, I have two mechanical representations to choose from. Choices are good. I only need to be familiar with one of them, so I don't see how the existence of another makes the game more difficult for me to pick up.
That's system mastery, though. If you only know of one of the classes (say the other is from an obscure supplement), then you can make your character that you want and everything is fine (because there is no system mastery required); if you have the choice between the two, then you must analyze everything about the entire game in order to choose between them. It's like a starving dog who is equidistant from two bowls of food which are not identical but which require lengthy analysis in order to determine the many differences.
If two classes are conceptually distinct but mechanically identical, why have two classes?
The language could probably stand to be clearer, but I see a difference between "a mechanical distinction" and "distinct mechanics." Classes should be distinct withinthe system mechanics, but that can be something as small as saying a swashbuckler has a better weapon attack progression and a rogue has more skills. New mechanics should only be introduced when the difference between concepts cannot be adequately expressed with the existing mechanics.
I have yet to see a character concept which cannot be mechanically distinguished from other classes through any combination of weapon/armor proficiencies, attack progression, HP, save progressions, skills, spell progressions (known/per-day), and (especially) spell list.
None of those scream "magic in the blood" at me, and I could imagine a schooled wizard using spells in the same way.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone starts out with choosing the system mechanic, and then post-rationalizes the concept to make it fit that mechanic. The whole point of a game system is so that we can take our story/narrative/characters and resolve how they interact with each other in a reasonable and consistent way. The translation must always flow from narrative to mechanics; to go the other way around would subvert the whole point of playing the game in the first place!
If two classes are mechanically distinct but conceptually identical, I can't fathom what problem that could create at the table. If I want to play a character of that concept, I have two mechanical representations to choose from. Choices are good. I only need to be familiar with one of them, so I don't see how the existence of another makes the game more difficult for me to pick up.
That's system mastery, though. If you only know of one of the classes (say the other is from an obscure supplement), then you can make your character that you want and everything is fine (because there is no system mastery required); if you have the choice between the two, then you must analyze everything about the entire game in order to choose between them. It's like a starving dog who is equidistant from two bowls of food which are not identical but which require lengthy analysis in order to determine the many differences.
Isn't it only system mastery if one is better than the other?
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin." NPC: "Really?" Fighter: "Yes." NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?" Fighter: "I do." NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?" Fighter: "What?" NPC: "I don't know what it means either." Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do." NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics." Fighter: "These what?" NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
Isn't it only system mastery if one is better than the other?
I've never seen it formally defined, but the definition I've been using is, "requires unreasonable amount of research before making a character." When one is just better than the other, I think the colloquial for that is, "trap option".
I want to say, "system mastery is unreasonable amounts of research before making an effective character," but that part is all relative - a monk created on the first day of 3E was perfectly capable of fulfilling her party role (striker), relative to her team-mates. Even if the feat she took was Toughness. The same is true today: you can start a 3.5 game with all new players who have never seen the system before, and they can all create their (relatively effective) characters within an hour or so.
That's kind of a tangent, but my point was that a system with lots of conceptually-similar classes requires me (and anyone similar enough to me to behave similarly under similar circumstances) to stop and evaluate all of the options to determine all of their differences before making a character, in the same way that I would need to stop and read up on a hundred different class options and feats if I wanted to make an effective character in an established Pathfinder group, (assume I'm not just going to accept their advice on the correct way to build a character, and want to actually understand any choices before I commit to them).
This is kind of tangential, but it bugs me a little bit when a system presents the differences between two classes as being different from what the actual mechanical differences between the two classes back up. I'm going to pick on the 3.5 PHB, because it's pretty familiar to most people.
For those who don't know (I assume very few), the 3.5 PHB contains two primary arcanist classes - the wizard and the sorcerer. They both have poor attack bonuses, few skill points, one good save (Will), full nine-level spellcasting progression (the sorcerer's is about a level delayed, even though its spellcasting system is a bit weaker to begin with). They can choose from the exact same (very large) spell list. The both get a familiar at level one. In most respects, the classes are very similar. There are only a few differences, from least to most significant in terms of differentiating them in terms of feel -
Sorcerers get access to a slightly different set of crummy weapons than Wizards do. Sorcerers get (slightly) more spells/day, wizards gain access to spells slightly earlier. Sorcerers get hosed on metamagic a little bit. They have slightly different class skill lists. Wizards get some bonus feats that encourage them towards crafting (which their spellcasting system and main stat do anyway.) Wizards can specialize in a school of magic, giving them some bonuses to that school, but prohibiting them from casting spells of a few other schools (their choice). Wizards have a spellbook, which is tied into their distinct casting system (although you could do their casting system without the spellbook, and simply have them actually know whatever spells they've learned instead of being total blank slates who can totally swap powers with another wizard by swapping spellbooks.) Wizards use Int as a casting Stat, Sorcerers use Cha. Wizards choose their spells for the day at the beginning of the day; when they cast a spell, it's discharged. So if they choose two copies of Magic Missile and one copy of Mage Armor at the beginning of the day, that's what they have for the day. They prepare spells from a spellbook, and don't actually know any spells (except read magic). They can "know" (have in their spellbook, since wizards don't really know any spells) any number of spells. Sorcerers actually know their spells, but have a limited number of spells known, which they choose when they level up and then keep (they can also slowly swap out old spells they don't want any longer). If a sorcerer knows Magic Missile and Mage Armor and has three level 1 spell slots, he can cast any combination of those spells with those spell slots.
Those are the actual differences between the two classes. However, the 3.5 PHB makes an interesting choice; it chooses to adopt the flavor that Wizards are characters who have studied to learn their magic, and Sorcerers are people who just naturally are magic. Maybe other people will disagree, but that strikes me as incredibly loose flavor, given the actual characteristics of the classes. It feels very much like the sorcerer exists as an expression of a more natural spellcasting system then D&D's traditional one, and just sort of had the "born spellcaster" flavor pasted on. There's nothing at all that keeps the sorcerer's spellcasting system from being a good model of someone who studied to learn their spells, and in fact magic is usually portrayed in fiction, even among spellcasters who learned their magic, as looking far more like the sorcerer's system. There's a small amount of additional material that's added on top of the core spellcasting system to reinforce the flavor a little, but not much. Even the way their features are divided up sometimes feels off; why is the guy who belongs to a tradition of learning about a spell and then transcribing the spell the guy who ends up being just incapable of casting spells from two schools no matter how important it is, while the guy whose power boiled up unbidden is the guy who can freely access any sort of spell?
Here's the thing, though. While the 3.5 PHB does spend some time talking about the real differences between the classes, it spends way, way longer expounding on the post hoc fluff hat it's stuck on the mechanics. A player who wants to play a guy who learned his magic might even end up thinking that wizard is somehow a better fit for that concept, even though it's not. A player should really be choosing between the classes based on whether he wants to be a prepared or a spontaneous caster, or if he doesn't know or if that's too system-y, based on whether he imagines the character as more charming/intimidating or more brainy. (Int and Cha are mostly low-priority stats for the arcanist that doesn't use them as a main casting stat.)
This isn't local to 3.5; D&D throughout editions has tried to distinguish classes in the flavor text in ways that are completely alien to the mechanics. It's not even a "I refluffed the Favored Soul class into a Space Marine" kind of thing, where you can figure out ways to change what different mechanics of the class represent. It's a "here's what these guys are like, but not in any way that's really suggested by the mechanics" thing. If requiring system mastery to know whether you want to play a Fighter or a Warblade is bad, I'd argue that completely fabricating differences between them isn't really any better. (Which 3.5 did, by the way, with its decision to make Warblade default fluff that they're impious glory-seekers, with fighter default fluff being "nothing, we're just the flexible catch-all class for fighty-types that aren't really anything else".)
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
Swanmay Syndrome: Despite the percentages given in the Monster Manual, in reality 100% of groups of swans contain a Swanmay, because otherwise the DM would not have put any swans in the game.
Here's the thing, though. While the 3.5 PHB does spend some time talking about the real differences between the classes, it spends way, way longer expounding on the post hoc fluff hat it's stuck on the mechanics. A player who wants to play a guy who learned his magic might even end up thinking that wizard is somehow a better fit for that concept, even though it's not. A player should really be choosing between the classes based on whether he wants to be a prepared or a spontaneous caster, or if he doesn't know or if that's too system-y, based on whether he imagines the character as more charming/intimidating or more brainy.
I'd prefer a system where choosing class means picking the "class of mechanics used". Power source, Fluff, and Theme would be chosen separate from Class of Mechanics. The Class of Mechanics might be Vancian. The character could then pick if the character would cast arcane spells, divine spells, use martial abilities, or some other powers with this foundation of ability growth. The character might be a Vancian warrior with abilities that recharge on a daily basis.
Another character might have a class of mechanics that is more at will in nature similar to the current fighter with a mechanic similar to the martial damage dice. This character might cast at will arcane spells which a charged differently from a small at will pool.
A third type of mechanics might be similar to 4E mechanics with a mixture of daily, encounter, and at-will abilities.
This is what picking a class should give. The power source (arcane, divine, martial, nature, ki, shadow, etc.) should be unrelated to this class. Themes and fluff would be added later in the character creation process.
eh, we've been down this road. we've seen what happens.
What I really would like is for there to be a clear delineation between concept and mechanic. If class is defined by unique mechanics, then that's cool, but I want concept and thematic considerations to be removed from class and for that to be shifted elsewhere.
Here's the thing, though. While the 3.5 PHB does spend some time talking about the real differences between the classes, it spends way, way longer expounding on the post hoc fluff hat it's stuck on the mechanics.
There's also a possibility that they honestly tried to make the mechanics match the fluff, and didn't go far enough, rather than doing it backwards and just making stuff up.
I mean, the whole "smart people read and learn from books" thing does make sense to be represented with Wizards who are Intelligent and can add spells from scrolls, and the whole "doesn't really understand her powers" thing does make sense to be represented as Sorcerers not needing Intelligence or being able to learn new spells (and what spells she does get, they never go into whether that's the character's choice or just the player's). Granted, they probably didn't go far enough in translating the worldliness of the Sorcerer (relative to the Wizard) in only allowing simple weapon proficiency (rather than giving better BAB, or a d6 hit die), but that doesn't mean they didn't try.
For things like the Warblade, though, that's pretty indefensible. They were clearly just adding fluff because they felt like they had to, whether or not it was particularly appropriate.
Here's the thing, though. While the 3.5 PHB does spend some time talking about the real differences between the classes, it spends way, way longer expounding on the post hoc fluff hat it's stuck on the mechanics.
There's also a possibility that they honestly tried to make the mechanics match the fluff, and didn't go far enough, rather than doing it backwards and just making stuff up.
It's technically possible, but I feel as though that makes it a hundred times worse. Of course the sorcerer and wizard are neither purely a top-down design (start with the flavor, make mechanics that match it as closely as possible) nor purely a bottom-up design (start with fun mechanics, lay flavor over the top of it.) Their stats, for example, were surely assigned top-down, while the spellcasting mechanics (especially the wizards) are assigned bottom-up. (By default, since they're zero-resonance.) Later additions to the classes, like bloodline feats for the sorcerer, have top-down origins (the idea comes from the idea of representing the sorcerer's bloodline mechanically) and top-down mechanics (without the flavor tying them together, bloodline feats are just random collections of bonuses.) I don't know if I can believe, however, that the genesis of the sorcerer was an attempt to represent an intuitive spellcaster. (At best, it might have been two desires getting awkwardly paired together - the desire to have a somewhat more resonant primary arcanist class and the desire to represent an intuitive spellcaster.)
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
Swanmay Syndrome: Despite the percentages given in the Monster Manual, in reality 100% of groups of swans contain a Swanmay, because otherwise the DM would not have put any swans in the game.
This isn't local to 3.5; D&D throughout editions has tried to distinguish classes in the flavor text in ways that are completely alien to the mechanics.
It's hardly just D&D and classes, it's endemic to RPGs. Flavor text and mechanics (and art, for that matter) fail to sync. It's just (here I go again) "bad design."
