In his latest Legends and Lore column, D&D designer Monte Cook stated:

"Having lots of tools to customize characters is good for players. Lots of complexity is bad for players."

Cook began by explaining how earlier editions of D&D offered little in the way of customization for PCs, but followed it with an observation that rings true with me:

"By having no skills, feats, and so on, you could—in theory—create anything at all."

When I first played D&D, no Samurai class existed. Did I give up on my dream of playing as one of history's deadliest warriors? No -- I created a Fighter that specialized in the use of the bastard sword, and flavoured it such that he was a katana-wielding Samurai.

Skills, feats, abilities... these mechanics are simply the engine that makes the car run -- on the surface, you can be looking at a Corvette, a Ferrari, or a Porsche. A pirate and a ninja, while both miles apart from a flavour perspective, could have the same character sheet: a Rogue.

In earlier editions of D&D, PC classes were archetypes that could capture a wide flavour of characters. 3rd Edition Prestige Classes could be applied to a generic archetype to get a specialized concept. Today, so much additional material is provided in supplemental rulebooks that we end up with highly specialized classes like the Runepriest, which feels like a Prestige Class or Paragon Path for the Cleric.

While I've gone off target of Cook's message by expounding on this one line of thought, it brings me to my point: Do we need all these classes? Is it possible to have too many options?