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pukunui · Sep 28, 2023

TarionzCousin said:
As I constantly tell myself "Something is better than nothing."

I can think of plenty of examples where nothing would have been better than the something we got. Darth Vader’s origin story, for instance.

Mirrorrorrim · Sep 28, 2023

Remathilis said:
For the LIFE of me, I will never understand why we got things like wild magic barbarians, swarm rangers and clockwork sorcerers before elementalists, summoners, witches and psychics.

Agree on some accounts.

An eventually updated Conjurer should be built around "Summoner" and teleport abilities.
There REALLY needs to be an updated "Elementalist" Sorcerer. It is such an iconic power source for a soul to be connected to. I agree that it should exist in a core book before a Clockwork Sorcerer.
"Psychics" are screwed. If it's not the Aberrant Sorcerer, then it is the Psion, and no one can agree on what a Psion should be.
It is pretty apparent to me that Witches are a diverse concept of their own, not a single class. There just isn't an established suite of abilities that universally screams "Witch" that is exclusive to the witch. There are arcane mystical witches and primal hedge witches. Warlocks do a really good job covering the arcane witches and if the Fey warlock doesn't cover primal witchery, then Druids cover the concept pretty well. Heck, witches have a lot of lore overlap with Hags, and I don't want a new "Witch" class that entwines the two even further, essentially looking like a newbie Hag.
Bonus bullet point: Shamans are just druids that have spiritual leadership over a tribe. Not every alternative title means that a new class has to be made for it. Maybe a subclass that uses a Channel Nature differently instead of Wildshape?

But as for having to fill those other martial subclass roles before caster roles? The designers needed to create more subclasses for classes that don't have many. There are WAY more spellcaster concepts to fill than barbarians and rangers, so some are left in the cold longer. They needed to invent more barbarians and rangers to get a baseline before printing even more spellcaster concepts.

Frozen_Heart · Sep 28, 2023

Kurotowa said:
Elementalists have the problem that D&D's spells aren't arranged in a clear elemental array. Most of them are not elementally aligned at all and of the ones that are, no one element has enough variety to stand alone very well. And any attempt to make a generalist "Master of Elements" just looks like a more narrow Evoker.

Summoners have the problem that D&D doesn't handle minions well. They always run into problems of action economy and shared power budget. It's really hard to hit the good middle ground between completely broken and utterly useless. Especially if you try to have temporary or customizable minions available, rather than a permanent Beast Master type pet.

Witches have the problem that if you ask five players what their idea of a Witch class should look like, you'll get six different opinions. Also half those ideas are just Druids or Warlocks or Alchemist Artificers with a different name tag. So it's not like there's a clear slot to put them in.

Psychics have the problems that not everyone agrees they fit D&D's tone, not everyone agrees how similar or different their mechanics should be from other casters and magic in general, and not everyone agrees what sort of abilities a physic class ought to have. If every choice is a losing one, the right one is to do nothing at all.

tl;dr D&D at this point is its own genre, both thematically and mechanically, and you can't just shoehorn in any old fantasy archetype like the days when Dragon magazine was full of weird new classes. It's a lot easier to put out a odd subclass variant than to build an entirely new class.

Elemental themed stuff doesn't have to rely on spells. The elemental sorcerer UA had a set of class abilities for each which weren't just spells. The elemental scion feats weren't just spells. And even the tangentially elemental giant feats aren't just spells. If you wanted, you could make a fighter subclass without a single spell, which is still elemental themed.

Likewise, summoner is an awful name for what people are actually asking for. Pathfinder 2e has a 'summoner' class. It's not summoning hordes of minions. It's actually a dedicated pet class. You have one single monster you fight alongside, and it grows in power as you level. The 'pet' has almost the entire power budget compared to the character, so it's free to do far more than beastmaster. It also has an alternate option where you can become your summon, so it's a single character again, but you're playing as a monster.

And you say psychic stuff doesn't suit DnD.... but psionics has been in dnd for almost as long as dnd has existed. The main reason it's lost any focus in 5e is because they axed the setting where psionics is the main focus. And that was done because said setting has topics which can no longer be covered by modern literature.

I'm not going to comment on the witch as though I know it's a popular class, I know almost nothing about the concept of how it works in other systems.

Micah Sweet · Sep 28, 2023

Remathilis said:
For the LIFE of me, I will never understand why we got things like wild magic barbarians, swarm rangers and clockwork sorcerers before elementalists, summoners, witches and psychics.

Because WotC thinks those concepts are adequately handled through existing mechanical widgets.

Micah Sweet · Sep 28, 2023

TarionzCousin said:
As I constantly tell myself "Something is better than nothing."

Not if that something "taints the jury pool" for a better version of it.

Weiley31 · Sep 28, 2023

I kinda don't care if the backgrounds and feats are crappy, but man, no Modro-(I'm sorry) no Glitchlings OR Bariaurs just seems like such a miss for the player options section.

Especially when you can clearly see them in the art* or have a Modron adventurer fully visible on one of the alt cover books.

Parmandur · Sep 28, 2023

Weiley31 said:
I kinda don't care if the backgrounds and feats are crappy, but man, no Modro-(I'm sorry) no Glitchlings OR Bariaurs just seems like such a miss for the player options section.

Especially when you can clearly see them in the art* or have a Modron adventurer fully visible on one of the alt cover books.

They are in the Monster book. Better than a specific Player option, I'd rather they made general rules to turn any Monster into a PC.

Divine2021 · Sep 28, 2023

Remathilis said:
For the LIFE of me, I will never understand why we got things like wild magic barbarians, swarm rangers and clockwork sorcerers before elementalists, summoners, witches and psychics.

Can’t get the copy right on those.

Remathilis · Sep 28, 2023

Kurotowa said:
tl;dr D&D at this point is its own genre, both thematically and mechanically, and you can't just shoehorn in any old fantasy archetype like the days when Dragon magazine was full of weird new classes. It's a lot easier to put out an odd subclass variant than to build an entirely new class.

Sorry, not buying that. D&D is chock full of "old fantasy archetypes" that exist because someone wanted to play Van Helsing or Aragorn or Conan. Better than half the classes evoke some fantasy trope or another and arguing how successful it is at it is an age old D&D tradition (stares in Ranger). There is no argument you can make that will convince me that druid or monk deserve to be classes, cavalier and necromancer subclasses, and witch and summoner not all.

Micah Sweet · Sep 28, 2023

Remathilis said:
Sorry, not buying that. D&D is chock full of "old fantasy archetypes" that exist because someone wanted to play Van Helsing or Aragorn or Conan. Better than half the classes evoke some fantasy trope or another and arguing how successful it is at it is an age old D&D tradition (stares in Ranger). There is no argument you can make that will convince me that druid or monk deserve to be classes, cavalier and necromancer subclasses, and witch and summoner not all.

Yup. All of those should be classes. And in the right 3pp they are. That's the wonder and joy making a break with WotC.

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