Watch it or do I get to say the same about Eberron, Planescape and Spelljammer. I dislike all three, but a) I am not going to claim they are not D&D; and b) Darksun is just as much D&D as those three settings.
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D&D 5E What classes do you want added to 5e?
- Thread starter rfkannen
- Start date
Watch it or do I get to say the same about Eberron, Planescape and Spelljammer. I dislike all three, but a) I am not going to claim they are not D&D; and b) Darksun is just as much D&D as those three settings.
I started with Homes basic and I agree.
Psikerlord#
Explorer
I would take classes away rather than add any.
Well, take away as in turn them into subclasses: sorcerer, warlock (subclass wizard), ranger and paladin (subclass fighter).
Well, take away as in turn them into subclasses: sorcerer, warlock (subclass wizard), ranger and paladin (subclass fighter).
SailorNash
Explorer
Put me down for more subclasses, backgrounds, playable races, and the like. But I think I'd rather keep the class list a little simple...anything that looks and feels like a Cleric IS a Cleric, though perhaps with a special class option or domain. Without something strong flavorwise to distinguish them, I dislike having to keep separate things like Rogues and Scouts and Spies and Thieves and Assassins, the way that was required in editions past. I wouldn't mind a few more martial options, however, if theme and mechanics warranted them. The previous ideas of a time mage and a blue magic / enemy skill mimic appeal to me, as would an exotic beast tamer as an alternate summoner / Ranger pet class.
SwivSnapshot
First Post
Expanded spell lists and feats so players can fine tune existing classes would be my choice.
Andor
First Post
I think the flexibility of 5e means that there is less need than in previous editions for a specific class to cover any given concept. In 3e for example the "magic using fighter" concept metastasized into the blade singer, dusk blade, hex blade, etc. etc. etc. because no one was ever really satisfied with it due to the limitations of 3es math. With 5es simplified framework I think any reasonable take on the idea is achievable with at most an altered spell list and cosmetic tweaks from the existing pool of options.
In addition I, personally, do not care for, and do not want to see classes based around purely mechanical design goals. For example in 3.5 the Bo9S classes were created to fix the linear fighter, quadratic wizard problem. Since 5e suffers from this much less, I see no need to reintroduce them.
There are some classes/fantasy archetypes the current pool of options covers poorly or not at all, however.
As many have mentioned, the artificer. The binder from the ToM was a fantastically flavorful class. I always loved the Totemist from MoI although the rest of the book I could happily leave in a ditch.
It occurs to me that for all those classes, the mechanical schtick is magical effects, which are less powerful than spells, but more reliable/available.
I suspect you could easily make a single base class built around that idea, and then offer the Artificer/Binder/Totemist/dragon shaman/whatever as sub-classes to it.
In addition I, personally, do not care for, and do not want to see classes based around purely mechanical design goals. For example in 3.5 the Bo9S classes were created to fix the linear fighter, quadratic wizard problem. Since 5e suffers from this much less, I see no need to reintroduce them.
There are some classes/fantasy archetypes the current pool of options covers poorly or not at all, however.
As many have mentioned, the artificer. The binder from the ToM was a fantastically flavorful class. I always loved the Totemist from MoI although the rest of the book I could happily leave in a ditch.
It occurs to me that for all those classes, the mechanical schtick is magical effects, which are less powerful than spells, but more reliable/available.
I suspect you could easily make a single base class built around that idea, and then offer the Artificer/Binder/Totemist/dragon shaman/whatever as sub-classes to it.
Jester David
Hero
I said Dark Sun is the least D&D you can make D&D, not that it was a bad setting. I have a fondness for Dark Sun, and mostly because of its differences. But the entire tone of a Dark Sun game is very different than most other D&D games. Heck, there's only one dragon so it can't even really be called Dungeons & Dragons.
Still, campaign settings are an iffy bar for what is or is not D&D. As you can play Dark Sun using FantasyAge or FATE or GURPS it's still Dark Sun. Settings are pretty much system neutral.
D&D is funky. It's equal parts a generic ruleset for fantasy roleplaying and a setting and cosmology. It balances between both more than any other RPG.
What D&D is will vary between campaigns. Sometimes it can even vary between session and session.
I've thought about this long and hard and there's not really a good definition for what defines and limits D&D.
It's not anything with the name, because then you include board games and video games. It's not the ruleset because then you include Star Wars and Gamma World. It's not the IP because then you include the television series and licensed properties. As mentioned above, it's not the worlds as those are settings and can be played with any rules.
At best, D&D is the point where all those things intersect. The nexus of ideas and concepts.
Still... classes and being "D&D enough". That's tricky.
Obviously, you could make anything into a D&D class if you wanted. A shapeshifter, a truenamer, an alchemist. Or a gunslinger. Pathfinder did that one. But is a gunslinger D&D? Does it fit what the majority of people consider D&D and would use in their games? That's the tricky part.
I'm a Ravenloft fanboy. I can handle a gunslinger. Black powder weapons are found in the Mists. But how about other worlds, other games? Is the content getting the maximum play? Is it worth the investment of pages and time to design and playtest? Can it be used in Adventurer's League??
Jessica
First Post
Why are we worried about gatekeeping material for not being "D&D enough"? IMO D&D is at it's best when it is being the least self-referential and trying new things and breaking new ground and maybe even eating a couple of burgers made out of sacred cow. The Player's Options series weren't terribly well balanced and I'm not even sure they were entirely compatible with each other much less other 2e books, but it's existence took guts and pushed the game in new and interesting directions that really sparked the imagination in a lot of ways. Player's Options, Requiem: the Grim Harvest, all of those crazy 3.5 prestige classes, the entire 4th edition. D&D in my opinion has always been at it's best when it's thrown caution to the wind and tried to be revolutionary even when the end result is a flaming wreck.
Right now D&D is trying to be "safe" and really it's coming off as being milquetoast. It's not taking any risks and it's not being all that innovative. In the last twenty years we went from a game with about a dozen campaign settings where D&D could pretty much be anything you wanted it to be where one game you could be space explorers and the next game a party of zombies and ghouls and vampires, to a game where large amounts of detail and simulationism in some ways almost made the game classless and tried to bring life to even the weirdest concepts like nature-destroying Druids and atheist Clerics in addition to the insane level of support from non-WotC designers, to a game that reached the heights of amazing and engaging game design that made combat feel like a battle of wits between two opposing minds and stimulated you on a level you had yet to experience, to a game that tries to be as inoffensive as possible and do what it can to make people not be angry with them. It's D&D asking itself what D&D is and trying to be the D&Diest D&D that ever D&Ded and D&D is just not that good when it's trying it's hardest to be as D&D as it can be.
Even though we'll probably never see it again because D&D is now an office staffed with a skeleton crew who coordinate brand management while publishing a handful of house rules every month or so, since we live in a world where if you aren't an M:tG-practically-printing-your-own-currency level of profitable then people with money don't give a crap, but I wish we lived in a time where the company that owned D&D would go back to being like "f*** it! you do you, boo!" when it came to their writers. :/
Right now D&D is trying to be "safe" and really it's coming off as being milquetoast. It's not taking any risks and it's not being all that innovative. In the last twenty years we went from a game with about a dozen campaign settings where D&D could pretty much be anything you wanted it to be where one game you could be space explorers and the next game a party of zombies and ghouls and vampires, to a game where large amounts of detail and simulationism in some ways almost made the game classless and tried to bring life to even the weirdest concepts like nature-destroying Druids and atheist Clerics in addition to the insane level of support from non-WotC designers, to a game that reached the heights of amazing and engaging game design that made combat feel like a battle of wits between two opposing minds and stimulated you on a level you had yet to experience, to a game that tries to be as inoffensive as possible and do what it can to make people not be angry with them. It's D&D asking itself what D&D is and trying to be the D&Diest D&D that ever D&Ded and D&D is just not that good when it's trying it's hardest to be as D&D as it can be.
Even though we'll probably never see it again because D&D is now an office staffed with a skeleton crew who coordinate brand management while publishing a handful of house rules every month or so, since we live in a world where if you aren't an M:tG-practically-printing-your-own-currency level of profitable then people with money don't give a crap, but I wish we lived in a time where the company that owned D&D would go back to being like "f*** it! you do you, boo!" when it came to their writers. :/
There is a conceptual home for the Psion/Mystic in D&D and I for one really am looking forward to its inclusion.
The Artificer I could get behind, as there are certainly character concepts that fit the D&D ouvre (Eberron in particular but also Lantanese inventors in FR). Additionally there are some ready packaged archetypes for the Artificer that just beg to be made: Alchemist, Apothecary, Pyrotechnic, Fetishist (that's my favorite...)
I believe the idea mentioned above by jrowland is worth going back to:
"I wonder if there is room for a "Universal Pet Class"?
A single class with multiple sub-classes to cover things like the Beastmaster Ranger, or perhaps even a summoner? Not sure how you would do it, mechanically, but I think there is a "problem" with pet classes and perhaps that's because they are designed in whole cloth as a pet class."
Okay, Paladins call mounts, Rangers make friends, PCs that can cast rituals have access to familiars but there are characters in D&D lore that have an even deeper connection to their 'pets' then any of these examples can muster in the current edition. Guenhwyvar is more than a Ranger's animal companion to Drizzt. Dragonlance has Dragonriders, drawing a blank on more though there are a million D&D adjacent examples).
I could see that being ripe for possible material...
As for things like the Warlord I believe there is plenty more that the design department can give us to bolster existing classes and archetypes to recreate previous edition characters. My hope is they are actively working on that because like it or not a Battlemaster with a middling Intelligence or Charisma and one rallying feat does not a Warlord make.
The Artificer I could get behind, as there are certainly character concepts that fit the D&D ouvre (Eberron in particular but also Lantanese inventors in FR). Additionally there are some ready packaged archetypes for the Artificer that just beg to be made: Alchemist, Apothecary, Pyrotechnic, Fetishist (that's my favorite...)
I believe the idea mentioned above by jrowland is worth going back to:
"I wonder if there is room for a "Universal Pet Class"?
A single class with multiple sub-classes to cover things like the Beastmaster Ranger, or perhaps even a summoner? Not sure how you would do it, mechanically, but I think there is a "problem" with pet classes and perhaps that's because they are designed in whole cloth as a pet class."
Okay, Paladins call mounts, Rangers make friends, PCs that can cast rituals have access to familiars but there are characters in D&D lore that have an even deeper connection to their 'pets' then any of these examples can muster in the current edition. Guenhwyvar is more than a Ranger's animal companion to Drizzt. Dragonlance has Dragonriders, drawing a blank on more though there are a million D&D adjacent examples).
I could see that being ripe for possible material...
As for things like the Warlord I believe there is plenty more that the design department can give us to bolster existing classes and archetypes to recreate previous edition characters. My hope is they are actively working on that because like it or not a Battlemaster with a middling Intelligence or Charisma and one rallying feat does not a Warlord make.
