Evolution of Classes in D&D

The next step of evolution is the brown book supplements. These are presented in alphabetical order because I'm not entirely certain that the supplement publishing order reflects the order of class creation.

Original Dungeons & Dragons supplement books
Assassin (Thief sub-class 1975; Blackmoor)
Cleric (Revised 1976; Greyhawk) FC; d6
Druid (Cleric sub-class 1976; Eldritch Wizardry) FC; d6
Fighting Man (Revised 1976; Greyhawk) FC; d8
Magic-user (Revised 1976; Greyhawk) FC; d4
Monk (Cleric sub-class 1975; Blackmoor)
Paladin (Fighter sub-class 1976; Greyhawk)
Thief (1976; Greyhawk) FC; d4

Three notable things here.
1. The creation of the Thief class, which many consider to be one of the classic “big four” classes. Many ‘back to the basics” OD&D campaigns seem to go with white box plus the thief.
2. The creation of the "sub class" where it was assumed that many of the class abilites applied without being specifically stated as such. So, for example, I suppose we can assume that the FC for the Monk would be identical to the Cleric even though there is no FC given for the Monk.
3. The variable hit-dice model comes into play. Rather than giving all characters a d6, each class is given its own type of hit dice and the HD table is revised for each class. This means that new classes (not sub-classes) without FC designation could never "officially" get one.

So, the total "tree" of OD&D classes looks something like this:

Fighting Man
* Paladin (sub-class)
* Ranger (sub-class)
* Female variant

Magic-user
* Illusionist (sub-class)
* Female variant

Cleric
* Alchemist (variant class)
* Druid (sub-class)
* Monk (sub-class)
* Female variant

Thief
* Assassin (sub-class)
* Female variant

Bard

I remember those NPC classes. I didn't use them either.

I hadn't thought to include any of the Judges Guild or Arduin stuff -- I was trying to focus on TSR material. I'll have to ponder how much to expand my thinking.

Litigation Tricksters, appearing in JG's City State of the Invincible Overlord, were assigned regular PC classes like M-U or FTR, so they don't count. Supplements like CSIO and Tegel Manor list some, but not all female NPCs as belonging to the "FEM" class; details of them were never published to my knowledge (unless they appear in Judges Guild Journal or are references to the TSR article). I can't recally with certainty whether amazons were classed as AMZ. I don't have Shield Maidens of Sea Rune at hand, and that's a later era product anyway.

Paul Jaquays and friends produced multiple new classes for The Dungeoneer: ice wizards (four spell levels, NPC only), women (female analogies to the standard three classes in Men&Magic), and maybe others.

Quoted from above:

Fighting Man I use this
* Paladin (sub-class) I use this
* Ranger (sub-class) I use this
* Female variant I don't use this

Magic-user I use this
* Illusionist (sub-class) I don't use this
* Female variant I don't use this

Cleric I use this
* Alchemist (variant class) I don't use this
* Druid (sub-class) I use this
* Monk (sub-class) I don't use this
* Female variant I don't use this

Thief I use this
* Assassin (sub-class) I don't use this
* Female variant I don't use this

Bard I use this

I was looking at the blurb on the back of my PHB yesterday and it specifically advertises "no more looking through 'zines to find the content you're trying to remebr the rules for" (I forget the exact wording, but it's a call out to the classes, etc from zine articles).

I love your thoughts about the Cleric, as they mirror my own.

I'm not as sold on elimination of the thief, however, as I have a couple of players who really like to play them. Certainly, in the pre-thief days, regular characters felt they could try thief things more often. I do lament the loss of creativity for characters who now default to watching the thief in action, but I think my solution is to give everyone a level of thief at the onset of the campaign and then let each player decide if they want to improve those skills or not.

That depends on how your Turn Undead ability works - ever since I read OD&D's entry "Monster turned away" we play that the affected undead actually just turn away, they can't bear the sight of the cleric and their holy symbol. It doesn't matter if they actually "see" them, it's pretty much instinct to them to shrink away, cower down... But they don't run away, so they'll still be there and need to be destroyed. The cleric can't use other abilities while holding the undead at bay, so no healing the others who combat those undead who didn't turn away. Destroy the cleric's concentration and the turned undead will recover within [2d4-HD] rounds and attack the cleric with priority.

Just some ideas to limit the Turn Undead ability.

Turning undead is still going to exist, it's just going to be different for each undead and something any character could do, rather than a roll made by one specific class. For instance, some undead will probably still be turnable by the presentation of some symbol, but the players will not necessarily know what kind of symbol. Maybe they discover the symbol while in the dungeon itself. Some other undead may have a completely different weakness which negates them, like fire, water, certain odours or sounds, etc.

The concept will remain, it just won't be a roll.

tdenmark I also considered replacing cleric with monk, I think it would be a good fit in a lot of games.

I'm trying to make my next game more black and white in general, for many reasons not least of which is getting a lot busier in my personal life.

Another complicating aspect of player clerics is having multiple sources of magic on the player side and the whole DMing job of worldbuilding the divine magic and the gods, it's easier to keep this locked away and rule by fiat there... Having a player who is a servant of a deity just opens the whole can of worms. It throws the game off too because the cleric serves a god, while the other players 'work' for themselves.

In my game, all the gods are chaotic, somewhat hideous ancient beings which at some point may have been men, or at least constructed out of parts of men. 'Law' is more of an idea, not really a god in my game. I like the idea from some of the appendix N books that magic comes from pure mathematics, which is how (in my game) MUs can cast spells from their mind without material components. This puts it above divine magic as I'm conceiving it in this game. The gods may be powerful but they are still physical which is why their magic involves material components and observances, another complicating thing which would give me more work and create cross-purposes within the party, while the cleric gathers resources or is commanded around by some god or demigod.

Cleric characters are always the ones who have the hardest time just slaying the bad guys too, which is what I want to see more of, instead of plying them for their life story and trying to make them do good or change. So there's another reason 

In LBB + GH
Fighters are general enough they could be vikings or samurai or zulu warriors or any kind of melee character you can imagine.
Magic-Users can be necromancers or witches or illusionists or whatever kind of spell-casting character you can imagine.
Thieves can be burglars or bandits or con artists or any kind of roguish character you can imagine.

But for some reason Clerics are clerics. A very specific kind of holy character. Instead of being specifically Van Helsing types, I like the idea of making them more general so they could be demon slayers, martial monks, holy knights, or any kind of religious order you can imagine.

This is in the spirit of OD&D. And also what I like about Swords & Wizardry. Campaign settings can then have their own specific class types appropriate to that world.

Fighting-man and magic-user terms allow one to mimic/integrate with the HERO & SUPERHERO nomenclature framework of Chainmail, by enabling one to refer to each level (and its implied abilities) with a unique descriptor-name.

So when a character who is not a HERO walks out into battle, one can call him an apt title, like SWASHBUCKLER, and one would know instantly their capability. (Hard to keep straight sometimes with 10+ titles for just one class, but hey...!)

The correlate for the Cleric might be devoted-man; or, possibly to sync with the triadic alignment system, divisional-man, or stance-man. (Tongue in cheek, maybe, but textually pure.)

And when I say religious man, what I really mean is someone who follows an Order, a way, a greater power, a philosophy, or a deity. It's a really good trope for a D&D class. Just no one word really encapsulates it.

There are also the secular 'clerics,' or people who received clerical status but were not in the church, I'm thinking specifically of teaching masters and students in medieval universities, at least the English ones. I think on the continent it went even farther and some masters and doctors were specifically allowed to wear armor, carry weapons, and employ a set number of bodyguards or slaves in addition to other rights.

But the clerical status just meant you were subject to the church's judicial system as opposed to the temporal one.

Before the 14th century, there were basically no "halls" or "colleges" formed at English unis, just individual teaching masters in their own lodgings. To be a student meant your name was inscribed on the roll of one master, and this meant you attended his lectures, but outside of that you lived on your own and had little restriction, which would work for an adventurer.

Additionally, most students and also most teachers had their eye the entire time on professional positions outside the university, there were no long tenures at this time, it just wasn't conceived of yet as a lifelong career, and the pay was low. This could also serve as an excuse for a cleric going out into the world.