When discussing how many classes the new edition of D&D ought to have, I think its important to also consider what a class is. Because the two are interrelated. When you definition of class is broad, you tend to think you should have fewer classes, while a narrower definition leads to many classes. I think the traditional definition of class in D&D is the type that will give us a list of around 15-20 classes, but I'd like to focus here on what a class is.
Other than the very first sets of rules, where the game was still being worked out, we find four basic classes plus a few more. Fighter, Magic User, Thief, and Cleric are the basic four, but Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling were quickly added to that mix. So saying that there should only be four classes is really going back pretty far, and one could go further back to just fighting-man and magic user if you really wanted.
But early in in the line, we had these four plus some. AD&D gave us sub-classes of the basic four. Paladins and rangers were types of fighter, druids a type of cleric, assassins a type of thief, and illusionists a type of wizard. But then there's the monk. Later on, Unearthed Arcana made paladins a type of Cavalier, and Gary Gygax was considering making Bards their own class with jester being a bard subclass. We even see the Mystic (Monk) as a class in the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. So classes, early on, weren't just the basic four. Look to Oriental Adventures for more evidence: Gygax maintained the same classes, even if there are new subclasses.
We get sub-classes too then. Second edition has kits, third edition has some character choices (archery rangers vs two-weapon rangers, clerics have domains, etc), and fourth edition has distinct builds or class feature choices (Hunter or scout sub-classes, the two-weapon build, the archery build, the beastmaster build, the skirmisher build, etc.). This means that two instantiations of a class can be distinct from one another, and you could have two clerics or rangers in the party and they'd play differently. I think this is crucial. I can hardly imagine going back to play an earlier edition of D&D for any length of time where my cleric and my friends' cleric might only differ based on rolled stats and possibly the race chosen.
So while it may be hard to define what a class is exactly, I think its easy to define what a class isn't. It isn't the broadest possible archetype, though it was in the earliest editions. You could easily categorize characters into weapon-users and magic-users, allowing for some hybrids of the two if you wanted this. This is too broad though. Even the basic four as archetypes is a bit broad. Gygax allowed cavaliers, monks, and bards to be their own category of character, even if they are similar to others.
Classes are also not to narrow. They should be customizeable in some ways. We should be able to have at least two clerics or rangers in the party that play slightly differently. And these sub-classes should reflect some sort of distinct archetype within the general range of the class. So maybe clerics choose a domain or two related to their deity which grants them different spells. Maybe they can choose to be crusaders by giving up one domain and gaining more weapon/armor traing, or mystics / theurges by gaining a third domain instead. Likewise, rangers might focus on a combat style, favored terrain, and/or favored enemy.
I think there are benefits to defining classes at this sort of intermediate level as well. If classes are both broad and customizable, there is no longer much of a benefit to a class system, either in terms of some purported game balance or in terms of ease of character creation. Basic D&D succeeded with a smaller number of basic classes because they weren't customizable. The benefit comes from having the right level of granularity.
I think 20+ character classes is about as high as one can get and still have a manageable set of options for any given campaign. Twenty classes with two-sentence descriptions will easily fit on one sheet of paper. They can be grouped into Warrior, Magician, Priest, and Rogue types, or Arcane, Divine, Martial, and Primal (and psionic?) types (or give a couple different classifications). But this broad decision is easy to make, then classes help make the next (and more crucial) level of distinction. That's the organizing principle above the class level. Let's say you want to be a warrior. Your next decision is between a weaponmaster, a knight, a berserker, or a hunter. Not only does that breakdown cut up the warrior pie quite well, but it also is a quick way to let people know what is included as options in the pie. Getting down into individual weapon choices (Archer, axe guy, staff, long sword), or combat styles (honorable, weapon mastery, berserk rage, tactical, hunting/slaying) is too much for the decision making process.
Classes also get unique mechanics. This is why we see things like the specialty wizard as a sub-class of wizard. They're all using the same mechanics as the basic wizard, just with one little tweak. It gives nine options with the basic schools, plus more if you include elemental specializations or other thematic specializations (shadow magic, song magic, etc.). But you have the same mechanics there, you're just tweaking the basic class features a bit. This is hardly much different from the fighter and berserker. Both are trained warriors. But where fighters master their weapons and hone their technique, berserkers give in to primal rages. Some berserkers might channel primal spirits and have some magical effects, while others might be more mundane rages. But they're all berserkers and not fighters if rage is their mechanic over weapon mastery.
This is a subtle distinction, and maybe I'm using it to allow things that we've traditionally called classes in while excluding things that I feel are too narrow, like an archer class, for example. The archer is too narrow and a copy of the broader fighter (weapon master) and ranger (hunter) concepts. A swashbuckler, on the other hand, might be a decent class candidate. He needs some distinctive feature though that could distinguish him from a rogue or fighter class though, and still have some nice variation in it to cover a few distinct types of swashbuckler. Maybe swashbuckler could cover some non-western concepts of a flashy and flamboyant fighter? I'm not sure.
One last thing that a class is, is multiclassable. However multiclassing works, each class should be combinable with the other classes. This is why we might want to be able to have wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers. I can imagine what a multiclass wizard/sorcerer looks like, even though they're all similar caster classes. It might be an argument agains having clerics, crusaders/warpriests (slightly more militant clerics), and theurges (clerics who focus a bit more on spells like the Final Fantasy white wizard) as distinct classes though. Unless these are set up as completely different things that one can multiclass between, I'd say that they're not sufficiently distinct (in terms of mechanics or archetypes) to warrant being classes. Crusaders and Theurges (or cloistered clerics) might be variants of the cleric just like illusionist and enchanter are types of wizard, or just like warlocks might have infernal or fey pacts.
So a class, then, should be something that fits into an accepted category, but broadly. It encompasses a few related archetypes. Perhaps a class fits into multiple categories (the ranger could be a warrior due to his fighting prowess or a rogue because he lives by his wits and nature-skills). A class is a type of something broader. Likewise, each class should have sub-types within it. I think this is where some of the fourth edition classes failed, like Seeker and Warden or Avenger. Mechanically, I like them. But they seem like types of ranger/druid (seeker and warden) or paladin/monk, rather than distinct entities. They definitely have some unique powers, which might mean they're worthy of being a class, I'm not sure though. I think the power system contributed to that failure because, early on, you couldn't build a druid-type that was a defender (warden) or a paladin type that was a striker (Avenger). Conceptually, an Avenger might make a little more sense if they had an armored and/or ranged option, so that the Avenger class could also represent a crusading knight (no reason crusading knights couldn't be clerics or paladins or fighters either), a holy slayer, an inquisitor, or witch hunter.
Which classes should exist in the game then? I think the list should be fairly broad still to allow for later customization. Three to five per broad group sounds about right. They should not only cover most archetypes for western (Tolkien) but also other fantasy worlds (East Asian, Indian, Arabian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Aztecan, Ethiopian...). So Paladins/Cavaliers should be broad enough to hit the Samurai, the Oriental Adventures sohei and shugenja should be able to be portrayed by something in the priest group, alongside the Arabian Adventures hakima or any number of "shaman" concepts.
Individual campaign settings then can customize things as needed by removing classes, adding customizable kits/builds, or even adding entirely new classes. A vikings setting might ban paladins and shamans (at least for native characters), but add a runecaster as a priest or wizard class or a build/kit/theme for one of the existing classes (a variant of the warlock class, perhaps, where instead of making pacts he discovers the power of runes).
Other than the very first sets of rules, where the game was still being worked out, we find four basic classes plus a few more. Fighter, Magic User, Thief, and Cleric are the basic four, but Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling were quickly added to that mix. So saying that there should only be four classes is really going back pretty far, and one could go further back to just fighting-man and magic user if you really wanted.
But early in in the line, we had these four plus some. AD&D gave us sub-classes of the basic four. Paladins and rangers were types of fighter, druids a type of cleric, assassins a type of thief, and illusionists a type of wizard. But then there's the monk. Later on, Unearthed Arcana made paladins a type of Cavalier, and Gary Gygax was considering making Bards their own class with jester being a bard subclass. We even see the Mystic (Monk) as a class in the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. So classes, early on, weren't just the basic four. Look to Oriental Adventures for more evidence: Gygax maintained the same classes, even if there are new subclasses.
- Cavalier (Samurai)
- Cleric (Shukenja, Sohei)
- Fighter (Kensai, Barbarian, Bushi)
- Magic User (Wu Jen)
- Monk
- Thief (Ninja, Yakuza)
We get sub-classes too then. Second edition has kits, third edition has some character choices (archery rangers vs two-weapon rangers, clerics have domains, etc), and fourth edition has distinct builds or class feature choices (Hunter or scout sub-classes, the two-weapon build, the archery build, the beastmaster build, the skirmisher build, etc.). This means that two instantiations of a class can be distinct from one another, and you could have two clerics or rangers in the party and they'd play differently. I think this is crucial. I can hardly imagine going back to play an earlier edition of D&D for any length of time where my cleric and my friends' cleric might only differ based on rolled stats and possibly the race chosen.
So while it may be hard to define what a class is exactly, I think its easy to define what a class isn't. It isn't the broadest possible archetype, though it was in the earliest editions. You could easily categorize characters into weapon-users and magic-users, allowing for some hybrids of the two if you wanted this. This is too broad though. Even the basic four as archetypes is a bit broad. Gygax allowed cavaliers, monks, and bards to be their own category of character, even if they are similar to others.
Classes are also not to narrow. They should be customizeable in some ways. We should be able to have at least two clerics or rangers in the party that play slightly differently. And these sub-classes should reflect some sort of distinct archetype within the general range of the class. So maybe clerics choose a domain or two related to their deity which grants them different spells. Maybe they can choose to be crusaders by giving up one domain and gaining more weapon/armor traing, or mystics / theurges by gaining a third domain instead. Likewise, rangers might focus on a combat style, favored terrain, and/or favored enemy.
I think there are benefits to defining classes at this sort of intermediate level as well. If classes are both broad and customizable, there is no longer much of a benefit to a class system, either in terms of some purported game balance or in terms of ease of character creation. Basic D&D succeeded with a smaller number of basic classes because they weren't customizable. The benefit comes from having the right level of granularity.
I think 20+ character classes is about as high as one can get and still have a manageable set of options for any given campaign. Twenty classes with two-sentence descriptions will easily fit on one sheet of paper. They can be grouped into Warrior, Magician, Priest, and Rogue types, or Arcane, Divine, Martial, and Primal (and psionic?) types (or give a couple different classifications). But this broad decision is easy to make, then classes help make the next (and more crucial) level of distinction. That's the organizing principle above the class level. Let's say you want to be a warrior. Your next decision is between a weaponmaster, a knight, a berserker, or a hunter. Not only does that breakdown cut up the warrior pie quite well, but it also is a quick way to let people know what is included as options in the pie. Getting down into individual weapon choices (Archer, axe guy, staff, long sword), or combat styles (honorable, weapon mastery, berserk rage, tactical, hunting/slaying) is too much for the decision making process.
Classes also get unique mechanics. This is why we see things like the specialty wizard as a sub-class of wizard. They're all using the same mechanics as the basic wizard, just with one little tweak. It gives nine options with the basic schools, plus more if you include elemental specializations or other thematic specializations (shadow magic, song magic, etc.). But you have the same mechanics there, you're just tweaking the basic class features a bit. This is hardly much different from the fighter and berserker. Both are trained warriors. But where fighters master their weapons and hone their technique, berserkers give in to primal rages. Some berserkers might channel primal spirits and have some magical effects, while others might be more mundane rages. But they're all berserkers and not fighters if rage is their mechanic over weapon mastery.
This is a subtle distinction, and maybe I'm using it to allow things that we've traditionally called classes in while excluding things that I feel are too narrow, like an archer class, for example. The archer is too narrow and a copy of the broader fighter (weapon master) and ranger (hunter) concepts. A swashbuckler, on the other hand, might be a decent class candidate. He needs some distinctive feature though that could distinguish him from a rogue or fighter class though, and still have some nice variation in it to cover a few distinct types of swashbuckler. Maybe swashbuckler could cover some non-western concepts of a flashy and flamboyant fighter? I'm not sure.
One last thing that a class is, is multiclassable. However multiclassing works, each class should be combinable with the other classes. This is why we might want to be able to have wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers. I can imagine what a multiclass wizard/sorcerer looks like, even though they're all similar caster classes. It might be an argument agains having clerics, crusaders/warpriests (slightly more militant clerics), and theurges (clerics who focus a bit more on spells like the Final Fantasy white wizard) as distinct classes though. Unless these are set up as completely different things that one can multiclass between, I'd say that they're not sufficiently distinct (in terms of mechanics or archetypes) to warrant being classes. Crusaders and Theurges (or cloistered clerics) might be variants of the cleric just like illusionist and enchanter are types of wizard, or just like warlocks might have infernal or fey pacts.
So a class, then, should be something that fits into an accepted category, but broadly. It encompasses a few related archetypes. Perhaps a class fits into multiple categories (the ranger could be a warrior due to his fighting prowess or a rogue because he lives by his wits and nature-skills). A class is a type of something broader. Likewise, each class should have sub-types within it. I think this is where some of the fourth edition classes failed, like Seeker and Warden or Avenger. Mechanically, I like them. But they seem like types of ranger/druid (seeker and warden) or paladin/monk, rather than distinct entities. They definitely have some unique powers, which might mean they're worthy of being a class, I'm not sure though. I think the power system contributed to that failure because, early on, you couldn't build a druid-type that was a defender (warden) or a paladin type that was a striker (Avenger). Conceptually, an Avenger might make a little more sense if they had an armored and/or ranged option, so that the Avenger class could also represent a crusading knight (no reason crusading knights couldn't be clerics or paladins or fighters either), a holy slayer, an inquisitor, or witch hunter.
Which classes should exist in the game then? I think the list should be fairly broad still to allow for later customization. Three to five per broad group sounds about right. They should not only cover most archetypes for western (Tolkien) but also other fantasy worlds (East Asian, Indian, Arabian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Aztecan, Ethiopian...). So Paladins/Cavaliers should be broad enough to hit the Samurai, the Oriental Adventures sohei and shugenja should be able to be portrayed by something in the priest group, alongside the Arabian Adventures hakima or any number of "shaman" concepts.
Individual campaign settings then can customize things as needed by removing classes, adding customizable kits/builds, or even adding entirely new classes. A vikings setting might ban paladins and shamans (at least for native characters), but add a runecaster as a priest or wizard class or a build/kit/theme for one of the existing classes (a variant of the warlock class, perhaps, where instead of making pacts he discovers the power of runes).
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