D&D 5E Red Flags For Classes In Sources Beyond The Player's Handbook

[bedir than]

Don't eliminate classes/races/feats/etc based on them being over/under-powered. Eliminate them because they don't make sense for the stories you are trying to tell.

I'm telling stories about man's best friends, re-awakened magic and the return of fey creatures. So everyone has an animal companion and a cantrip. No one is a wizard (because magic is so new that studying it doesn't make sense). Warlocks are out because there are not those types of entities that are not gods. The races allowed up until session 10 (i think it was) were just human, halfling and goliath (variant). Now golbinoids, elves, dwarves (as a kind of fey) and gnomes (also fey) are allowed too. A wizard could exist from the three creatures.

 

[Syntallah]

The sub-classes are not a problem. What you need to decide is if you will allow feats or multiclassing, since both are optional systems. And if you allow feats, do you allow all of them or do you ban just the troublesome ones?

Those two items I'm not too concerned about. I have a house rule in effect for multiclassing that requires you to keep your two levels as close as the second class' primary stat (e.g. a fighter/rogue with a Dexterity 15 needs to keep within two levels of each other; 4/2, 7/5, etc). Discourages dipping, which I loathe with every fiber of my being.

Feats, I've gone through and made several changes/adjustments...

 

[Syntallah]

I don't use "what people on the internet say" as a red flag because there are so many times where those issues simply aren't a problem that ever rears its head at my table.

To name just a few examples:
- Medium armor needing fixed
- Dexterity dominating Strength
- Eldritch blast spamming warlocks
- Bless spamming clerics.

None of these are a problem. But because you are hesitating, I'd suggest adopting that dreaded Adventurers League rule, PH+1. Or go an alternate, perhaps mean route - If a player uses any source other than the PH, then they are locked out of feats and/or multiclassing.

Although my best suggestion is to just allow it all, and encourage players to scale back (respec a little even) if broken combos are actually discovered during play. I mean, the most broken thing about my halfling druid right now is the wand off lightning bolt that holds 7 charges - I'm avoiding using it because I'm afraid the DM will scale up encounters to match its power, and then I'll be stuck having to use it . . . I oughtta ask for it to be respeced into something more akin to a 1st level spell.

Very true, but I've been hanging around these particular boards for quite a while, and there's some good solid folk here.

I do happen to be a bit compulsive at times and have fallen into the white-room-theory trap before. I'm just after raw data and opinions so I can make up my mind on a few things...

 

[Satyrn]

Very true, but I've been hanging around these particular boards for quite a while, and there's some good solid folk here.

Ah, so if you use these threads like I use movie reviewers that should definitely help you decide.

(I read the same few reviewers regularly, so I get an understanding of what each of them likes and looks for in a movie, and can judge how well their preferences align with mine.)

 

[Blue]

I've heard rumblings that the Hexblade is "better at melee fighting than a fighter"; likewise with the Zealot and frenzy barbarian. I'm just after some opinions before I make up my mind.

There is no world where the Hexblade is better at melee then the fighter.

There is a world where Hexblade is better at being a gish then the EK.

Hexblade is good though on the lower half of the acceptably power curve. It's problem is it's a great dip for paladins to move everything to a single stat, CHR.

 

[Blue]

Exactly. Why play a Pact Blade Warlock when you can play a Hexblade? And so on.

Um, you know that one is a patron and one is a pact. They don't get in the way of playing the other one,a nd actually complement quite nicely.

 

[Syntallah]

Um, you know that one is a patron and one is a pact. They don't get in the way of playing the other one,a nd actually complement quite nicely.

Yes, sorry, I misspoke. I was referring to the argument that the hexblade is such a superior patron to all of the others.

Now, I personally understand the role-playing aspect, and why the others can be a good choice (I have a very cool warlock with the tome pact rolled up, but alas, I DM all the time and don't get to play...), but I am going to have some new players in my Game. Oft times when new players come from the nuts & bolts crunch of video games (where there is one true build), or the high numbers of a 3E/PF game, then they tend to gravitate towards something that obviously looks more powerful. I would like to remove that as much as I can...

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Are your players likely to min/max/optimise as far as they can bend the rules, or are they likely to simply create characters on the basis of the sort of concept that they would like to play?

 

[Syntallah]

Are your players likely to min/max/optimise as far as they can bend the rules, or are they likely to simply create characters on the basis of the sort of concept that they would like to play?

I suspect I'll have a mixture, some role-players and some optimizers. Although, I do not have any hardcore scour-the-interwebs-for-PUN PUN-builds kind of guys, thankfully...

 

[outsider]

IMHO, when you are comparing balance from PHB to splat books, you don't compare the new class to the closest PHB class. You compare it to the best PHB class. Certain PHB classes are quite simply not good(ie Ranger, Champion Fighter, Berserker Barb), and if you limit powerlevel based on those classes, you're dooming entire archetypes to mediocrity.

People have been making this mistake as long as D&D has been a thing.