As part of my thinking on classes and class development, I’ll offer up this tidbit. I think PC development in the lower levels should set up play at higher levels. As it stands in the extant rules tomes of the early D&D lineages, PCs, upon reaching name level, can build or buy or take over a base of some sort, suddenly being possessed of administrative and leadership abilities that haven’t been expressly developed anywhere along the line. Having a few henchmen regularly accompanying the PC doesn’t impart such abilities, nor does anything else along the way.

So, we should reset our classes to do exactly that. Here are a few things I think would help:

Recast generic henchmen as Apprentices or Protoges or some such. A fighter acquires a squad of fighting men as henchmen. These are the NPCs who will become, should the fighter live to raise a stronghold, his officers and advisers. Magic Users will have apprentices who will join them in their future towers. Thieves will have protoges and students who will provide the core of a future guild.

I think the class descriptions should also formalize finding and maintaining contacts among the movers and shakers in the classes’ areas of operation. Fighters will develop contacts with military leaders in the service of surrounding nobility or other authorities. Thieves will earn allies of a sort with underworld figures. MUs will develop a network of allied casters.

The flip side is that it could also be a very good thing to develop some animosities with notable NPCs. That, though, may be best a purely diagetic issue within the purview of the GM.

A PC should also develop some abilities that will be necessary or useful at higher levels of play. Wizards develop not only knowledge of, but also some abilities surrounding travel to and existence on other planes of existence, for example. Thieves develop spying abilities beyond simple stealth skills so they can perform spying missions on behalf of friendly authorities and allies. Fighters develop leadership skills in keeping with the need to defend stronghold lands and the peasants who move there.

Keeping an eye on the prize, so to speak, of high level play is something to do throughout the early and middle levels of a PC’s advancement. The PCs should always be preparing for what’s next in their advancement.