As some classes are being altered, with suggestions flooding in for more changes, it seemed important to revisit the basic idea of classes.
- Fighters, barbarians, and paladins should be the best at straight physical combat. If they cannot fulfill that role, they need to be re-evaluated.
Clerics and druids should be able to heal, cast buff spells, and serve in a combat support role.
Wizards and sorcerers cast spells of many different types. Enough said.
Rogues (and bards and rangers) should be highly-skilled, relative to the other classes.
If rogues are consistently out-fighting fighters by virtue of their sneak attack, then some loopholes in that ability NEED to be closed.
If clerics and fighters have almost as many skill points as rogues, then rogues become obsolete; their niche has been stolen. A 3.5 ranger is basically a fighter who trades his heavy armor and higher HD for a lot of skills. If fighters get almost as many skills as rangers, then rangers are obsolete.
Other examples are easy to think of. If everyone dislikes class roles, then we should play a class-less system, like maybe GURPS. If a class-based system is retained, then the classes should keep their meaning.