D&D 5E New class concepts

By looking at the many homebrew sites, I think there's a case to be made for a 1/2 arcane caster. There's two theme that appears a lot on those sites:
- Gish, as in a arcane equivalent to paladins and rangers
- Artificer/Witcher/Alchemist self-enhanced warrior who use arcane items or concoction or spells to improve its performance as a fighter.

I personally dont like science or mechanical themes in me fantasy, but there's seems to have a demand for such things and at the same time there's a great demand for 1/2 arcane gish with a unifying theme and flavor.

I think those two thing could be fused together to create a distinctive class with a flavor wanted by a lot of players. I pretty sure that if you took the attempt at the artificer class that felt a little off and restrictive and made it a 1/2 caster with Extra-attack at level 5, with one archetype based on Self-Forging, one with a pet and one with infusion-style feature, it could be well received as the ''missing'' arcane gish.

New classes are problematic.
Twenty levels is tricky to balance. Because your class impacts every round of every combat for the entire campaign. and requires a good year or two to play test. But no edition prior gave them that.

Sticking to large concept classes with lots of subclasses helps. Because you can maximize the options with the least amount of balancing.

New classes add to bloat more than anything else in the game. Identifying your class tells people what you do and what to expect. New classes make it harder to identify what to expect from a character, how to imagine what a chatracter is doing in the game.
3e, 4e, and Pathfinder all added more and more classes to the game, and it always escalated.

The thing is, you can make an infinite amount of classes. There’s no shortage of mechanics. You can always invent more. And more. And more.
Just just because you can make more classes doesn’t mean you should.

The argument that adding classes adds to bloat, with many attendant problems (balance, optimization, identity, etc) is a cogent one...

..but, considered dispassionately, it's hard to justify drawing that line very far down DEFCON1's pyramid, at all.

A Hero ( no supernatural power, but preternatural courage, determination, and resoucefulness), a Mage (supernatural powers), maybe, if you're edging towards story over game, a Companion (lesser than, but somehow complements, completes, or/and motivates the hero).

Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Paladin?
Cultural baggage.

Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock, Bard, Druid, Mystic/Psion?
All just wielding supernatural power with different window-dressing & needlessly baroque mechanics.


But, really, the argument is strongest in support of classless systems. No bloat, play whatever you want, within your budget.

Jester David said:

New classes are problematic.
Twenty levels is tricky to balance. Because your class impacts every round of every combat for the entire campaign. and requires a good year or two to play test. But no edition prior gave them that.

Sticking to large concept classes with lots of subclasses helps. Because you can maximize the options with the least amount of balancing.

New classes add to bloat more than anything else in the game. Identifying your class tells people what you do and what to expect. New classes make it harder to identify what to expect from a character, how to imagine what a chatracter is doing in the game.
3e, 4e, and Pathfinder all added more and more classes to the game, and it always escalated.

The thing is, you can make an infinite amount of classes. There’s no shortage of mechanics. You can always invent more. And more. And more.
Just just because you can make more classes doesn’t mean you should.

Click to expand...

As someone working on a new class I almost feel hurt. Mainly kidding, I know you didn't intend anything by it, nor would I take offense.

I think every one of those points should be addressed by a new class. I am running mine down the checklist as I write this.