D&D (2024) Playing with Subclasses: how flexible is subclass design in the playtest so far?

[Vael]

Class neutral features?
Might those be called... Feats?

Yes, but if you want something bigger than a feat. Like maybe things like the Soulknife or Rune Knight could be made to work with any class. Dragonmarks, in Eberron, could be a feat, but maybe the Dragonmark Adept subclass improves one's existing Dragonmark.

 

[Kobold Stew]

champion impoved crit range on a rouge with full sneak attack

Yes! That will be interesting. Many rogue subclasses give more opportunities to use SA; if that's a given (?), the increased crit range might be very attractive.

 

[cbwjm]

The similar levelling scheme of subclasses is something I've wanted for years, it would have changed the final release of strixhaven considerably since what they put forward in the UA document would have actually worked well.

With subclasses coming in at the same level across classes, I think we can add in generic subclasses that work with any class, this is where I'd put the warlord, a subclass that can make a barbarian a great chieftain, a rogue a guildmaster, a necromancer a master if undead armies. All the abilities would be the same, allowing the PC to have abilities that bolster or grant extra actions to allies.

Themes from 4e, or even kits from 2e could be used as ways to add customisation. Play darksun and have elemental priests or templars as any class or a limited subset (perhaps elemental priest could be a divine magic subclass). The change has really opened up a lot of subclass ideas for me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The similar levelling scheme of subclasses is something I've wanted for years, it would have changed the final release of strixhaven considerably since what they put forward in the UA document would have actually worked well.

With subclasses coming in at the same level across classes, I think we can add in generic subclasses that work with any class, this is where I'd put the warlord, a subclass that can make a barbarian a great chieftain, a rogue a guildmaster, a necromancer a master if undead armies. All the abilities would be the same, allowing the PC to have abilities that bolster or grant extra actions to allies.

Themes from 4e, or even kits from 2e could be used as ways to add customisation. Play darksun and have elemental priests or templars as any class or a limited subset (perhaps elemental priest could be a divine magic subclass). The change has really opened up a lot of subclass ideas for me.

I still feel some people in the internet focus too much on the negative implications.
Here is also a video that showcases the advantage of shared spell lists.


We will see, that consolidated rules will actually result in a boost of creativity.
If you don't have to worry about too much exceptions, you can go nuts like shared subclasses, easily adding spell schools, create new classes.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I could see there being two types of subclasses:

• Specialised subclasses can only be used with one class. Their features directly work with and modify the features of the base class, and so they don't function with other classes.
• General subclasses can be applied to any class, as their features stand independently and don't directly interact with the class features of the main class.

There could even be a 3rd type of subclass:

• Multiclass subclasses. There bring across some features from another full class and apply them to a different base class.

 

[James Gasik]

champion impoved crit range on a rouge with full sneak attack

Would that really be a huge damage boost? I mean, it seems like it, but what's your best case scenario here? Steady Aim for advantage with a 30% chance to get 35 bonus damage at level 20? So that ends up, what, maybe 7 more damage per turn more than Sharpshooter (which we won't have in the future).

Or if the best case is dual wielding, melee Rogues tend to get plastered the instant they annoy a big monster, without Swashbuckler (which they won't have if they're a Champion) or Mobility. But even then, an extra 10.5 damage at level 20 doesn't sound super impressive...oh well, hang on, it'd actually be 11.55, forgot about the d6 from their weapon.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Would that really be a huge damage boost? I mean, it seems like it, but what's your best case scenario here? Steady Aim for advantage with a 30% chance to get 35 bonus damage at level 20? So that ends up, what, maybe 7 more damage per turn more than Sharpshooter (which we won't have in the future).

I don't know for sure how huge it would be without crunching some numbers... but my gut says an 18+ crit on a sneak attack is game changing if not game breaking

 

[James Gasik]

I don't know for sure how huge it would be without crunching some numbers... but my gut says an 18+ crit on a sneak attack is game changing if not game breaking

For most of the career, you'd have a 19 crit on your Rogue, doubling your chance to crit. But while a big blowout critical sounds pretty awesome, it's still a pretty small chance per attack; even with advantage or dual wielding to roll multiple d20's in a turn to get that attack. So even if we say "ok, your level 3 Rogue can now crit 20% of the time" (19-20 rolling two dice, which I don't think is actually 20% but you can talk to some maths guy), all that means is, 20 attacks out of 100 will get an extra xd6 damage. If you're chucking, say, 3d6 sneak attack and using a d6 weapon, that's only 14 more damage on average.

Which can be great in the moment, depending on what you're attacking; a major threat? A monster with most of it's hit points? Fantastic. But it could also be a minor enemy or someone who was brought down to 5 hit points and ANY attack could kill it.

And even if none of that damage is wasted, 20% of 14 is...not even 3 points added to the average damage of this hypothetical Rogue.

Champion on a Paladin has the same issue; you will roll a crit more often but you can't control when it happens. That's why I shake my head at crit fisher Paladins, because they often don't smite when they should, and sometimes when they do crit, the extra damage is meaningless.

Now I'm sure Champion would become a popular choice for some classes, because their eyes get large and they think "BIG DAMAGE", but burst damage < consistent damage.

 

[TwoSix]

For most of the career, you'd have a 19 crit on your Rogue, doubling your chance to crit. But while a big blowout critical sounds pretty awesome, it's still a pretty small chance per attack; even with advantage or dual wielding to roll multiple d20's in a turn to get that attack. So even if we say "ok, your level 3 Rogue can now crit 20% of the time" (19-20 rolling two dice, which I don't think is actually 20% but you can talk to some maths guy), all that means is, 20 attacks out of 100 will get an extra xd6 damage. If you're chucking, say, 3d6 sneak attack and using a d6 weapon, that's only 14 more damage on average.

Which can be great in the moment, depending on what you're attacking; a major threat? A monster with most of it's hit points? Fantastic. But it could also be a minor enemy or someone who was brought down to 5 hit points and ANY attack could kill it.

And even if none of that damage is wasted, 20% of 14 is...not even 3 points added to the average damage of this hypothetical Rogue.

Champion on a Paladin has the same issue; you will roll a crit more often but you can't control when it happens. That's why I shake my head at crit fisher Paladins, because they often don't smite when they should, and sometimes when they do crit, the extra damage is meaningless.

Now I'm sure Champion would become a popular choice for some classes, because their eyes get large and they think "BIG DAMAGE", but burst damage < consistent damage.

Theoretically, you could get Elven Accuracy on a Champion Rogue for a 38.6% chance to crit. So the crit feature is giving you another 24% chance or so to crit (the base chance to crit with Elven Accuracy is 14.3%).

24% chance to do 35 more damage (at max level) is about a 8.7 DPR increase. It's in a weird position where it certainly isn't game breaking but is enough that it might overshadow other possible subclass choices for Rogues, specifically.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Champion on a Paladin has the same issue; you will roll a crit more often but you can't control when it happens. That's why I shake my head at crit fisher Paladins, because they often don't smite when they should, and sometimes when they do crit, the extra damage is meaningless.

Now I'm sure Champion would become a popular choice for some classes, because their eyes get large and they think "BIG DAMAGE", but burst damage < consistent damage.

yeah my first thought was rogue but a paliden has the same thing... or barbarian.