D&D 5E Why the fixation with getting rid of everything but fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard?

[MichaelSomething]

Why do we need Bards when you can make a multi class Fighter/Rouge/Sorcerer who specializes in enchantment spells?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0050.html

 

[Lanefan]

It's not a stereotype, it's an iconic part of medieval fantasy. If new age Wiccans arbitrarily started calling themselves paladins, would we be having the same conversation about how the D&D paladin is such a stereotype? Yes, we would. Sheer silliness.

The D&D Paladin is also a stereotype...in fact, it goes one better: it's two stereotypes at once!

It's the holy crusader stereotype (which not everybody finds pleasant to have in the game, in part because it's based on the knights of one particular religion)

It's also the lawful-stupid stereotype from within the game itself.

But the broom-flying cackling witch stereotype has really had its day, and doesn't require yet further perpetuation.

And, yes, not every concept needs to be reflected mechanically, but not every concept needs to not be reflected mechanically. Insinuating that it's somehow wrong to homebrew classes that are interesting enough for some people to want to homebrew is absurd.

I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying look closely at the reasons you're doing it with an eye to less mechanics rather than more.

And the absurdity of the official cleric class is that it insists the cleric is martially trained, when it's very easy to imagine an adventuring cleric that is not martially trained. But there are no cleric options that fill that concept, so it leaves those interested in having it to create it.

Shouldn't be that hard to forego all martial-based feats in favour of other things and play either as a pacifist or just a person who is very poor with weapons. Most half-decent DMs would probably also let you take some other ability in place of heavy armour use.

Lanefan

 

[Einlanzer0]

T
Shouldn't be that hard to forego all martial-based feats in favour of other things and play either as a pacifist or just a person who is very poor with weapons. Most half-decent DMs would probably also let you take some other ability in place of heavy armour use.

Lanefan

But, why settle for that when you can have an enjoyable time creating a homebrew or class variant that properly represents a scholarly/wizardly cleric instead of doing it in a hand-waved or half-assed way? Clerics being more like divine wizards than holy warriors is a huge part of my campaign world, so I wanted to have a designed player class that represents them, which I linked in a different thread.

Ultimately, that's what it boils down to - is this concept interesting and broad enough to present it to players as an option rather than them having to cobble it together? There are a handful of concepts I feel this is the case with, which I already presented earlier.

The witch is admittedly the most debatable one, but I still like the idea of a class for it because it's essentially a primal arcane caster, and it's not difficult at all to come up with numerous characteristics that would distinguish them from the existing roster of spellcasters as well as a full set of different subclasses for it. My favorite version of the witch is one that features circle casting, giving them lots of abilities to cast through other people, recover spell slots for other casters, and form ritual circles. Their subclass choices revolve around coven themes such as blood magic, spirits, fey magic, and moon magic. I would link it but I don't want to seem like I'm taking credit for the author's work. In my opinion, this design justifies them being a separate class from the wizard.

Really, it just comes down to one's creativity, and what concepts they really want to exist in a significant way in their world.

 

[Remathilis]

The D&D Paladin is also a stereotype...in fact, it goes one better: it's two stereotypes at once!

It's the holy crusader stereotype (which not everybody finds pleasant to have in the game, in part because it's based on the knights of one particular religion)

It's also the lawful-stupid stereotype from within the game itself.

But the broom-flying cackling witch stereotype has really had its day, and doesn't require yet further perpetuation.

I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying look closely at the reasons you're doing it with an eye to less mechanics rather than more.

Shouldn't be that hard to forego all martial-based feats in favour of other things and play either as a pacifist or just a person who is very poor with weapons. Most half-decent DMs would probably also let you take some other ability in place of heavy armour use.

Lanefan

Have we really reached #notallpaladins ?

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't really want to "get rid of" anything, personally. But when it comes time for me to roll up a character, I'm pretty good at ignoring anything that isn't a Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, or Wizard.