How many classes do you need?

 How many classes does D&D need? Some editions, especially OD&D and the "basic" D&D games (B/X and BECMI) stick to a few essentials, at least in the core game. AD&D and its supplements add quite a few more that are considered iconic to one degree or another, and have been adapted innumerable times for basic D&D and its retroclones, but I don't believe any of them really breaks any new ground. 

I suppose how many classes you need depends on what exactly a character class represents to you. Is it a broad archetype, a representation of a specific legendary or literary character, or does it encapsulate a particular approach to the business of adventuring? For me, it's this last definition. Building upon that, three character classes seem most essential to the game (and it's not the original three, oddly enough.)

The first approach to adventuring is to face it with physical prowess and skill at arms; the way of the fighter. This simple class models a plethora of different characters: mercenary soldiers, knights, brigands, swashbucklers, archers, hunters, centurions, street thugs. None really needs any mechanical distinction to differentiate them; just equip and play them according to your character concept. 

The second approach is to harness and manipulate the arcane and mystical forces of the universe; the way of the magic-user. (I've often wondered why Gary and Co. chose such a clunky term, but that's neither here nor there.) Again, this class covers a wide swath of archetypes: homely hedge-mages, dark and mysterious sorcerers and conjurers, kindly healers, studious academics, and so on, with no need for distinction beyond spell choice and equipment.

The third approach is that of the mundane skills of stealth, guile, and wit; the way of the thief. The word "thief" doesn't really capture the breadth of this particular sort of adventurer, but it's the one the older iterations of the game use, and I detest the pretensions and baggage bundled into the "rogue" label of later editions. Perhaps "knave" might suit better, but again, I digress. As before, this class covers a lot of ground: cat burglar, grave robber, street thief, spy, assassin, vagabond, trickster, and even honest or semi-honest treasure hunter. Throw in a few alternate skills (e.g. a character could swap out Pick Pockets for Tracking) and you've got the makings of a very diverse class indeed.

The final class of the "core four" of old school D&D, the cleric, is really sort of an oddball. In theory, the class is defined by its religious nature, but that is not, in and of itself, a method of facing the challenges of an adventure. In practice, it's essentially a hybrid of fighter and magic-user, albeit with a special spell list drawing heavily from Christian mythology. The only thing truly unique to the cleric class is a niche ability to turn undead, which almost seems bolted on as an afterthought. There is nothing about the core competencies of fighting and spellcasting that is either necessary or sufficient for defining clergy-type people. It's easy to imagine a church or religion in a fantasy world in which the bulk of its priests and adherents are normal humans, with single-classed fighters acting as enforcers or crusaders, and single-classed magic-users (perhaps with special spell selections in harmony with the faith's ethos) as oracles, saints, or gurus. Any of these sorts - unclassed normal men and women, fighters, or magic-users - might hold actual ranks within the clergy or religious hierarchy. There's no reason for them to have a special class unto themselves, and conversely, there's no special reason why the combination of fighting and spell-casting should be unique to religious orders. The stuff that makes the class a "cleric" is purely a matter of fluff; it could just as easily be reskinned as a mystic knight or militant sage.

Other classes from AD&D and other sources also don't expand on the three fundamental approaches to adventuring in any profound way. They all, at least the ones that come quickly to mind, simply mix and match the three fundamental approaches, perhaps add a few situational bonuses and penalties, and top it with some fictional fluff which is largely irrelevant to the mechanical functioning of the class. 

Paladin? He fights. He draws on supernatural power. He's really just a fighter/magic-user hybrid with more fighter and less magic-user than the cleric, but with the cleric's fluffy trappings of piety.

Ranger? Mostly fighter, with a dash of thief (tracking even uses essentially the same mechanics as thief skills) and magic.

Barbarian? Like the cleric, it's mostly a cultural thing, not a distinguishably different approach to the adventuring life. There's no reason it needs to be a class unto itself, or even a subclass; the standard fighter works just fine. Indeed, it's perfectly plausible to imagine barbarian mages and thieves in addition to the stereotypical barbarian warriors. Just equip them with weapons and armor of flint, bone, and hide, and play them as ignorant or disdainful of "civilized" customs, and there's your barbarian. 

Bard? Singing and storytelling do not a unique approach to adventuring make. The standard RPG bard class is a mashup of thief and magic-user, possibly with a bit of fighter thrown in, but that's hardly the only way to model the archetype. It's not what he does that makes him a bard, but the particular flair with which he does it. A bard could easily be a single-classed thief, silver-tongued and with fingers equally adept at picking pockets or locks as picking lute strings. A bard could also be a single-classed magic-user, invoking spells through music and song. 

Druid? Whether you prefer the flavor of mysterious lorekeeper, guardian of universal balance, or medieval hippie, he's still essentially just a magic-user, with arguably a dash of thief-like skill.

Monk? A fighter with some level-based bonuses to take the place of weapons and armor, and a few magic-like powers, plus a fluff of eastern religion. 

My thinking is that all you really need class-wise is the Basic Three described above, and possibly the hybrids of those three: fighter/magic-user, fighter/thief, magic-user/thief, and perhaps a fighter/magic-user/thief. It's best to leave them generic, so they can be fluffed into almost any character type you could ever want to play.

Next up, I plan on taking a look at just how the hybrid classes might be handled and the possibilities for character types using generic hybrids rather than codifying a different class for every cultural variant.