D&D General Druid vs. Paladin - March Madness 2024 - Final Round!

[el-remmen]

Personally, I think 5e’s insistence on making all classes self sufficient of each other and ‘competent’ in combat was detrimental to overall class design.

In the 5E clone I am intermittently futzing with I tried to account for this by separating "proficiency bonus" into "combat bonus," "skill bonus," "magic bonus," and "faith bonus" and each one of the core four classes excels in one of those four, and is moderate to untrained in the other three. All other classes are subclasses in branching paths that lead from one of the four (and some overlap - so both someone who started as rogue and someone who started as warrior could both reach "swashbuckler" by different routes and look different using those abilities.

Still working out the kinks.

 

[GuardianLurker]

"Faith Bonus"? The other three have obvious mappings. Is "Faith Bonus" the saves bonus?

Also, re: the combat self-sufficiency design:
Yes-ish and No-ish. You don't want a class that doesn't need anyone-else, that can do everything. On the other hand when your class can't contribute meaningfully to a pillar (combat, exploration, social) that part of the game is inherently boring for the player involved. (This isn't necessarily against their desires, but that's a different thing.) Combat is problematic because so many players want to be able to contribute directly to it. So there's a sweetspot between "Do Everything" and "Do Nothing". It's hard to find.

Arguably, the 3.x Bard did NOT find it, and was perilously close to do nothing in combat. "Yay. Team. Go. Team. Yay." is a combat quote from when one of my players was running an epic-level(!) bard. OTOH, outside of combat, the bard was a Diplomonster. "If the party would just shut up, I could get these {hostile, in-combat] NPCs to Help Us." is also a near quote.

How much should one class depend on another? How much redundancy is acceptable?

 

[OB1]

Personally, I think 5e’s insistence on making all classes self sufficient of each other and ‘competent’ in combat was detrimental to overall class design.

And for me, it's one of the best features of 5e class design. Being able to effectively have a party of 4 Bards or Monks opens the game for players to play what they want without worrying about filling certain roles. It's about what type of fantasy character you choose to play.

Going back to the poll, I think Druid and Paladin both have excellent mechanics to back the fantasy of playing those types of characters, with Druid just edging out Paladin in the overall design (I wish Paladin smites were all bonus action casts with a rider instead of the smite on a hit version).

 

[Tonguez]

Even though I'm more likely to play a Druid, I've decided to smite the tree huggers and bless Paladin with my vote - theyre a better designed class, now have a broader range and allow some nice in game interactions

 

[el-remmen]

"Faith Bonus"? The other three have obvious mappings. Is "Faith Bonus" the saves bonus?

It is what I am calling acuity with divine magic and powers (for now - i hope to find a better name or may still scrap this whole idea) as opposed to the magic bonus which is arcane. Saves make use of different bonuses depending on the source (another kink that is kinkier).

 

[GuardianLurker]

It is what I am calling acuity with divine magic and powers (for now - i hope to find a better name or may still scrap this whole idea) as opposed to the magic bonus which is arcane. Saves make use of different bonuses depending on the source (another kink that is kinkier).

Hmmm... unless you have a single character using both arcane and divine magic, and you explictly want them to be able to have differing bonuses with their two differing types of magic, I'm not sure this gets you much, or even enough to be worth the extra-complexity.

It also implies that if you ever add a different "source" of magic - like PF2e's Primal, or 4e's Mystic - you'd need another bonus for that as well. Or if you decide that "Dragons", "Elementals", "Fiends", "Fey", and "Great-Old-Ones" are all sufficiently different to merit the same distinction. I don't know how likely that is for you, but it's something to consider.

 

[CreamCloud0]

In the 5E clone I am intermittently futzing with I tried to account for this by separating "proficiency bonus" into "combat bonus," "skill bonus," "magic bonus," and "faith bonus" and each one of the core four classes excels in one of those four, and is moderate to untrained in the other three. All other classes are subclasses in branching paths that lead from one of the four (and some overlap - so both someone who started as rogue and someone who started as warrior could both reach "swashbuckler" by different routes and look different using those abilities.

Still working out the kinks.

rather than having separate stats for arcane and divine magic i'd personally merge them into a single 'magic' stat and have the fourth bonus be social, i might actually add knowledge as a fifth type of bonus with the full set being combat, skill, magic, social and knowledge.

 

[Tonguez]

rather than having separate stats for arcane and divine magic i'd personally merge them into a single 'magic' stat and have the fourth bonus be social, i might actually add knowledge as a fifth type of bonus with the full set being combat, skill, magic, social and knowledge.

I think that point is that arcane prowess should work differently to Divine prowess and for the difference to be reflected by different proficiencies.
The difficulty is that DnD only makes distinction Combat-Skills-Magic so theres nothing for Faith to do with an overhaul of how Divine powers work.

That said I do like your Social and Knowledge bonuses. Maybe a clerics faith is reflected in their Social influence? (especially when dealing with celestial/fiendush creatures)

 

[TwoSix]

In the 5E clone I am intermittently futzing with I tried to account for this by separating "proficiency bonus" into "combat bonus," "skill bonus," "magic bonus," and "faith bonus" and each one of the core four classes excels in one of those four, and is moderate to untrained in the other three. All other classes are subclasses in branching paths that lead from one of the four (and some overlap - so both someone who started as rogue and someone who started as warrior could both reach "swashbuckler" by different routes and look different using those abilities.

Still working out the kinks.

Like a ….Job system?

Cause I do love me some Job systems.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think that point is that arcane prowess should work differently to Divine prowess and for the difference to be reflected by different proficiencies.
The difficulty is that DnD only makes distinction Combat-Skills-Magic so theres nothing for Faith to do with an overhaul of how Divine powers work.

That said I do like your Social and Knowledge bonuses. Maybe a clerics faith is reflected in their Social influence? (especially when dealing with celestial/fiendush creatures)

maybe i'm lacking information on how you would be implementing it and the things it would effect, and i understand the desire to distinguish the two magics, but i'm not seeing a huge benefit to separating the two right now, unless there's specifically a class which uses both arcane and divine magic who's skill bonuses don't progress at the same rate,