What would be an easy-to-understand class for young children?

Question

My son, who is 6, loves playing D&D with myself and his older brother. He is all for creating a full fledged character, and for the most part understands what is going on. However, during play, especially combat, it is difficult for him to make full use of his characters ability. Being 6 his ability to implement strategy, tactics and resource management is limited. We will offer hints to help him, but many times he has already decided his path and just wants to play. I don't really blame him for this, it's what we all want to do :)

So the question is, are there any homebrew classes that are geared towards being easy to manage, but are not penalized for there simplicity. For instance, he likes using melee characters, So I was considering creating a 'Soldier' class that basically starts with 2 d10 hit die, and maybe a +3 proficiency, but no traits or special abilities. Would this stack up well against say a level 1 Fighter? The next question would be how to level him, maybe a combination of stat bonuses, proficiency bonuses and extra attacks in lieu of archetypes and what not.

Answer 1

"...many times he has already decided his path and just wants to play".

He's off to a great start!

Are his decisions negatively impacting the experience for other players at the table? If not, encourage his behaviour. Allow your son to express WHAT he wants his character to do, and it's your job as the DM to translate that into actions, and prompt your son what (if anything) he should roll for.

Don't allow rules to get in the way of roleplaying or having a good time.

You could always make a homebrew class, based off an existing class with simplified actions - but if the limitation is gameplay/combat complexity - I don't think the solution is in creating a new class, but rather an environment that isn't constricted by paper rules.

Answer 2

Is your son having fun? Is anyone else actually experiencing a problem related to this? Because if not, don't mess with his character. As you say…

We will offer hints to help him, but many times he has already decided his path and just wants to play.

He knows what he wants to do and is doing it. If he's having fun too, then he's playing his character well and correctly already.

There's no greater standard of "correct" play that your son needs to achieve to be permitted to play this character. And speaking from parental experience, the last thing a kid busily engaged in imaginative play wants to hear is that they're playing "wrong" and their thing is now being taken away / taken over by the adult / changed for their own good.

Kids have different standards of play than adults. How I played RPGs when I was a kid is different from how I play today. How my daughter plays RPGs with her friends or with me is different from how I would play. Neither need to achieve an adult's concept of living up to their character's potential power or tactical efficiency in order to have fun.

Kids are kids for such a short time. Let him enjoy what he's already enjoying. There's plenty of time for him to learn the joys of more mature approaches to his character's abilities — as he matures himself.

Answer 3

Leave him room to grow

You think his tactics are in need of improving. Reducing his options will not improve his tactics for him, only you. While I'm assuming you mean well, this ends up having a net-selfish result, which is the opposite of your stated goals.

Keeping his options open allows you to, at various intervals, point out ways he can improve his play without changing his character. Options he was missing.

Give him chances to fail

We learn through failure, especially failure that's the result of our choices. Before game, make sure he knows he can talk to you about how to prevent failures his character experienced -this- session for -next- session. And then, let him fail sometimes. If he charges to his doom, it happens, re-roll a new character, and then let him bring up the conversation about how to better handle that situation next time. If his character does something foolish, have NPCs laugh accordingly.

After all, these are GREAT conversation starters for learning moments in his life.

Its hard to let people choose for themselves

Its hard as a person. Hard as a father. Hard as a DM/Team-mate. But its part of growing up, a part I learned way too late in life, and struggle with at my table sometimes.

Answer 4

In my opinion, the simplest class for someone who isn't used to having a bunch of options at their disposal would be the basic Barbarian which takes the Path of the Unstoppable when offered Primal paths at level 3.

• The only thing that the player needs to think about is entering Rage when combat begins. This is done as a bonus action so the player can still move and fight on the first turn
• All rage-related changes are based on static rules (such as +2 bonus to damage) so the player doesn't need to make any hard decisions to optimize play
• There are still fun ways to customize your character outside of combat, such as choosing whether or not to take advantage of Unarmored Defense
• The Path of the Unstoppable doesn't add any complexity; it only makes the character beefier. Even the resistance is simplified - the PC resists all damage types instead of only bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing starting at level 6

The player can still use positioning to help other players to gain flanking etc., so you can use that to try to help teach him more nuances of combat while keeping the midfight decision-making at its simplest.