D&D 5E What classes do you want added to 5e?

[mellored]

Invoker. I think it filled a great niche - the robed Holy Man that spoke the word of his Deity as an extension of the divine... something different than a mere priest.

Divine Sorcerer seem to fit. (invokes where imbued with god fragments).

Different from favored souls with their weapons and armor.

 

[mellored]

My mistake, I assumed they got added in later supplements. Pathfinder then?

There are so many systems with an overbuilt glut of options already; do we need another?

If it's different enough, yes.

If it's just a minor variant then no.
I don't see any need for ninja's for instance, unless they use a particular mechanic that i don't know about.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

4e rogues could be a battlemaster rogue sub-class. With maneuvers like dirt in the eyes and hamstring.

Or even just a battle master fighter with a background picking up a few rogue-like traits, and choosing to favor Dexterity and the equipment that lets that Dexterity shine.

But i don't see much difference between 4e and 5e rangers.

Interesting. I see worlds of difference, and assumed others did too considering many complaints about the 5th edition ranger appear, to me, to be it not matching the expectations about the class given to people by 4th edition's take on it.

 

[Andor]

So there are three bits to it, as I read it. Genre, role and crunch (I.E. Mechanical support.)

Role-wise you desire this:

Same thing it was in 4e: a character who could use tactics, inspiration, and martial training to help a D&D party through the challenges of adventuring, filling the critical support role that had traditionally been done by the cleric.

Just the stereotypical hero who 1) doesn't have supernatural powers, 2) is competent, 3) provides inspiration and/or leadership and/or tactical insights &c as a way of getting things done. It's a very common archetype in genre. Much, much more common than the 'Cleric' who stands behind the hero and touches him periodically to make his wounds disappear, or the 'Wizard' who memorizes spells but forgets them when he casts them.

And to be frank, you have it. At the roleplaying level this is a series of actions you as a player take at the table. It does however require buy-in from the rest of the players. If you offer sound tactical advice, and the group accepts you as party leader or tactician then you are good to go.

Contrast that to the casters sub-classes available and what they represent in Genre. We have 7 flavors of Cleric, and there's not a single glowy-handed-healing, heavy-armored, forgets-his-prayers-as-he-recites-them character outside actual D&D licensed fiction. We have 8 wizards and do any of them play remotely like Gandalf or Harry Potter or anything in-between? Warlocks at least start to cover archetypes actually in genre - mostly villains, but at least they're in genre - and their Vancianism is less pronounced, so you can kinda squint & see them looking like something you might actually see in a story. The Sorcerer comes closest to modeling magical powers something like you might expect a character in genre to display (maybe not talk up 'I know hundreds of spells of opening..,' but actually use to some effect).

These are true statements, but I think you will find the Warlord is also a D&Dism. Yelling exhausted soldiers back onto their feet is soundly in genre. Yelling stab wounds closed or the comatose back into fighting trim is purely a D&D thing, and a 4e thing at that.

Get a downed ally back into the fight, for one example. Out of a potential 336.

Play a character without having to deal with neo-Vancian casting.

So now onto crunch. Is there mechanical support to playing the non-magical tactical support role in 5e? Yes. It is present, although the degree to which it is present depends heavily on the options your GM is employing. If you are playing in a theater-of-the-mind no options game then you are pretty much limited to the Battlemaster and the aid another action, and I'll grant you that is pretty weak. If you are using map-based tactical combat your options go up. If you are using multi-classing your option go up. If you are using feats your option go way up.

With the Healer feat you do posses the ability to get a downed character back on his feet. With some of the others like sentinel or polearm master you can gain considerable ability to protect your party, and control the battlefield. To the degree that you could in 4e? No, but no one in 5e has the kind of battlefield control 4e offered. It's a different system with different standards.

For example, if we flipped the question around and asked "Can I model a Warlord in 3.5?" what would the answer be? For myself, it would be yes. Between the Marshall class, and the Devoted Spirit and White Raven schools from Bo9s I could make a "martial" support character who inspired the party with his spirit, lungs and steel. Could he do everything a 4e Warlord can do? No, but he'd have tricks of his own. Each edition is different, and interpretations of the same concept in each edition are different.

As far as no neo-vancian casting goes, I'm going to call shenanigans. In 4e there was no way to break out of the AEDU power structure aside from (eventually) the essentials line, and unless I missed it the Warlord was never in essentials. In 4e you couldn't warlord without AEDU. In 5e you can't cast without neo-vancian, although you can add Warlock to bring in a little AEDU. Looks like edition equivalency to me.

I concede that 5e does not support the Warlord/Tactician role or archetype as strongly as 4e did. It will not allow you to play a 'lazy warlord' to be sure. However with all the options on, and an agreeable table it looks more than supported strongly enough to match the genre fiction. If I've understood your position adequately, I don't think I see the cause for your vehemence.

Out of curiosity, if the Battlemaster has been called the Warlord, would you feel it was an insult to Warlord fans, or merely an inadequate interpretation?

 

[yoshikawa666]

Yikes.

Why not just play 4e?

I already do and some of forementioned classes are not present in 4e. And as thread title says, these are the classes I would like to see in 5e.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My mistake, I assumed they got added in later supplements. Pathfinder then?

Yoshi was clearly asking for a combination of 3.5/PF (the gunslinger is PF) /and/ 4e classes.

He's not alone. I'd really like to see a worth take on both the 3.5 and 4e versions of the Fighter, since the 5e fighter, though a beautiful take on the 2e fighter and then some (genuinely awesome in that sense), isn't up to either.

There are so many systems with an overbuilt glut of options already; do we need another?

There were some pretty overbuilt systems in 1989. Maybe we didn't need any of the subsequent version of D&D?

And to be frank, you have it. At the roleplaying level this is a series of actions you as a player take at the table. It does however require buy-in from the rest of the players. If you offer sound tactical advice, and the group accepts you as party leader or tactician then you are good to go.

That's about as practical as saying you can 'role play' a wizard without needing any magic system by describing to the DM the arcane words and gestures you employ, and if you get them right, a spell will happen.
'Tactics' on the player side in D&D are essentially meta-gaming, and I'm fine with that as far as it goes. Tactics on the character side need to be modeled by the rules & stats that define the character.

These are true statements, but I think you will find the Warlord is also a D&Dism. Yelling exhausted soldiers back onto their feet is soundly in genre.

Yep. Genre.

Yelling stab wounds closed or the comatose back into fighting trim is purely a D&D thing, and a 4e thing at that.

Nope. Not what Warlords ever did, nor what anyone wants them to start doing (I hope!). Strictly an edition-war era bit of misinformation. Sorry you were exposed to it. Please, treat it like any other toxic rhetoric from a regrettable historical era.

So now onto crunch. Is there mechanical support to playing the non-magical tactical support role in 5e? Yes.

In very small quantities, trace amounts, you might say.

although the degree to which it is present depends heavily on the options your GM is employing. If you are playing in a theater-of-the-mind no options game then you are pretty much limited to the Battlemaster and the aid another action, and I'll grant you that is pretty weak.

That's two kinds of tactics, there.
- Player (meta-game) tactics: TotM might be considered to constrain the tactics of the meta-game (player decisions), but, really, it just shifts them from grid-based positioning to 'gaming the DM,' and, really, grid or TotM, the D&D hp systems makes "Focus Fire" prettymuch /the/ meta-game tactic, anyway.
- Mechanics-modeled (character) tactics: that is something the Battlemaster does, just a bit while mainly being a fighter who just hits things, rather like the EK does just a bit of casting while mainly being a fighter that just hits thing, but, I'm afraid, less so, since only a few Battlemaster maneuvers really scream 'tactics,' let alone warlord-appropriate ones.

If you are using map-based tactical combat your options go up. If you are using multi-classing your option go up. If you are using feats your option go way up.

Certainly there are more opportunities for a player to 'tactically' (or strategically) apply system mastery the more player options you introduce. Not many of them model the tactical ability of a given character, though.

With the Healer feat you do posses the ability to get a downed character back on his feet.

Mechanically, yes, but not a very practical way, and not one that's in keeping with the concept, nor the way it played, /mechanically/.

With some of the others like sentinel or polearm master you can gain considerable ability to protect your party, and control the battlefield. To the degree that you could in 4e? No

To the degree a Warlord could, though, those aspects are comparable. It's really the 3.5 fighter that those options fall short of. They're not really part of the Warlord concept, at least not a large or specific part. (The Warlord might come up with a strategy that involved pole-arms - in one situation, but in another it might be pit traps, or archery volleys, or almost anything, really. Feats lack the flexibility for those sorts of things. The Warlord needs to be very flexible, with a lot of options, some of them decidedly situational.)

For example, if we flipped the question around and asked "Can I model a Warlord in 3.5?" what would the answer be?

3.x has wonderfully customizeable character creation rules, so to some extent, certainly. In fact, though I didn't realize I was doing it at the time, I tried for something very like a Warlord with a complex fighter-based build for 8 years and through 14 levels. It was not a rousing success. While 3.5 made great strides in modeling character abilities with skill points and feats, it hadn't made the leap to modeling inspiration or leadership or tactical acumen on the character side.
Even at 14th, I hadn't bothered with any Marshal levels, it was just a poor build component.
Bo9S never made it into that campaign, though.

As far as no neo-vancian casting goes, I'm going to call shenanigans.

That was specifically in response to the idea of using a Valor Bard as a Warlord substitute. Supernatural powers are just contrary to the concept. Also, I got pretty tired of Vancian back in the late 80s, but that's just me.

I concede that 5e does not support the Warlord/Tactician role or archetype as strongly as 4e did.

And 4e didn't exactly support it fully or perfectly, either. Tidy and convenient as the formal roles may have been, sticking the Warlord in the 'Leader' box put some obvious things the concept might do out-of-bounds or at least, forced them to be de-emphasized. Modeling ways to 'out maneuver' or 'psych out' or demoralize enemies, for instance - there were a few, but they were limited to keep from stepping on the Controller role. A 5e Warlord could do the concept better, because it focus on concept first (a tautology, maybe, but 5e deserves the props).

If I've understood your position adequately, I don't think I see the cause for your vehemence.

I'm trying not to be too vehement, but it's mostly in reaction. And, no, you missed a bit here or there, I hope I've clarified them.

Out of curiosity, if the Battlemaster has been called the Warlord, would you feel it was an insult to Warlord fans, or merely an inadequate interpretation?

It could certainly have been taken as an insult, and I've said as much, but I'm thinking that might have be an over-reaction, even if a hypothetical one.

The Battlemaster was presented as a 'complex fighter option' to be more like the resource-managing 4e fighter. It fails at that, but that was inevitable given the base fighter's DPR-focused, multi-attacking design. Calling it the Warlord would have closed the door to a better expression of the concept down the line, which would have been a bad thing, but it would at least have acknowledge the class in the PH1, which would have been a good thing. A different sort of compromise. I'm happier with the door still being open to a worthy version of the class in the future, though.

 

[UnadvisedGoose445]

Nope. Not what Warlords ever did, nor what anyone wants them to start doing (I hope!). Strictly an edition-war era bit of misinformation. Sorry you were exposed to it. Please, treat it like any other toxic rhetoric from a regrettable historical era.

This is what I'm having trouble understanding. The desire is healing that can raise an unconscious character out of that state. Can you "fluff over" what is actually happening in a situation like this? Without magic traveling through the air somehow, how does so-called "inspirational healing" work when the recipient isn't conscious enough to process emotions like inspiration?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Without magic traveling through the air somehow, how does so-called "inspirational healing" work when the recipient isn't conscious enough to process emotions like inspiration?

The same way alarm clocks work, unconsciousness doesn't cause deafness. Neither does it mean you're brain-dead. Think of the character hovering between semi-consciousness and the black abyss, or even between life & death, he hears a familiar voice calling his name and comes to. Doesn't that sound not only familiar, but downright cliche?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This is what I'm having trouble understanding. The desire is healing that can raise an unconscious character out of that state. Can you "fluff over" what is actually happening in a situation like this? Without magic traveling through the air somehow, how does so-called "inspirational healing" work when the recipient isn't conscious enough to process emotions like inspiration?

You have to look at movies like rocky, comic books (spiderman maximam carnage always comes to mind) and real life examples and blend them...

When you get hit with a brick and fall over, and would be out of the fight, or when cargage just slamed you down and your seeing stars, or when rocky just got hit by the Russian, and someone yells and they get up it isn't magic healing them... it's someone getting them to tap in and go on inspite of the injury...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The same way alarm clocks work, unconsciousness doesn't cause deafness. Neither does it mean you're brain-dead. Think of the character hovering between semi-consciousness and the black abyss, or even between life & death, he hears a familiar voice calling his name and comes to. Doesn't that sound not only familiar, but downright cliche?

wow... I like the alarm clock example best of all