D&D 5E You Cant Fix The Class Imbalances IMHO

[deganawida]

1. Enforced roles. You are a defender or leader etc.

2. Ranger design. You're basically a 3.5 Scout. Only Rangers can dual wield effectively.

3. Class design in general PHB. You essentially have one of 2 obvious paths.

You xan pretty much look at a spreadsheet. XYZ damage at ABC level mobsters sonething similar.

Side effect slow, grind (broken in a different way), anemic damage (10 levels stretched over 30). Level 21+ is anemic as well.

Number 3 is not true. martial Power 1 had a fighter option that could fight with two weapons effectively. I believe that it was call the tempest, but it’s been 14-15 years since I last read it.

Now, I can’t recall it the role changed with that to striker, but I don’t believe that it did.

 

[Vaalingrade]

1. Enforced roles. You are a defender or leader etc.

Roles were a class design thing and each power source has a secondary role. It let you understand what the class is good at without checking a forum to discover thinks like how it took five years of being called useless for the community to figure out the 3e bard was a control class.

2. Ranger design. You're basically a 3.5 Scout. Only Rangers can dual wield effectively.

Both rogue and fighter got TWF options like a month into the edition. When did 5e fighters get that? Oh right, never.

3. Class design in general PHB. You essentially have one of 2 obvious paths.

These were build suggestions you could do what you wanted and for the warlord, the community immediately found a way cooler way.

You xan pretty much look at a spreadsheet. XYZ damage at ABC level mobsters sonething similar.

Monster rules on a business card. I thought we likes simple math light designs. Or is that just for non-DMs and the DM needs to pretend CR is a valid monster design tool?

Side effect slow, grind (broken in a different way), anemic damage (10 levels stretched over 30). Level 21+ is anemic as well.

Side effect of what? anemic compared to what?

God, you side won the edition war. The tidal wave of bad arguments and pure distilled misinformation carried the day. Why keep firing shells into no man's land ten years after the fact?

 

[Zardnaar]

Roles were a class design thing and each power source has a secondary role. It let you understand what the class is good at without checking a forum to discover thinks like how it took five years of being called useless for the community to figure out the 3e bard was a control class.


Both rogue and fighter got TWF options like a month into the edition. When did 5e fighters get that? Oh right, never.


These were build suggestions you could do what you wanted and for the warlord, the community immediately found a way cooler way.

Monster rules on a business card. I thought we likes simple math light designs. Or is that just for non-DMs and the DM needs to pretend CR is a valid monster design tool?


Side effect of what? anemic compared to what?

God, you side won the edition war. The tidal wave of bad arguments and pure distilled misinformation carried the day. Why keep firing shells into no man's land ten years after the fact?

Talking about game design. Been going through see what they got tight or wrong.

Fighters get the dual wield option level 1 5E btw.

 

[deganawida]

I have held off on starting a thread on this, but I hope that I can put this in without derailing the thread, as the OP came close to stating it outright:

There continue to be large numbers of threads, with hundreds upon hundreds of posts, trying to fix 5e class imbalances. I see brilliant new ideas” to spice up 5e combat due low challenge or boredom which borrow 4e innovations. I find it amusing that many of these solutions utilize concepts which were formative for 4e. Essentially, the way to fix WotC-era D&D is by making 4e.

 

[Zardnaar]

Number 3 is not true. martial Power 1 had a fighter option that could fight with two weapons effectively. I believe that it was call the tempest, but it’s been 14-15 years since I last read it.

Now, I can’t recall it the role changed with that to striker, but I don’t believe that it did.

I specified PHB. It's very obvious comparing 4E to 5E phb. Lots of missing classes and basic things.

Cutting content to sell to you later is fairly scummy. Added bonus if you offend them bad enough they're not going to hang around later to buy said cut content.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Cutting content to sell to you later is fairly scummy.

This post eats its spinach because it is chock full of irony.

 

[Zardnaar]

This post eats its spinach because it is chock full of irony.

More info?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Fighters get the dual wield option level 1 5E btw.

Are we talking about the opportunity to hold a second weapon or to actually be competent with it?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

1. Enforced roles. You are a defender or leader etc.

No. Starting roles. You have the tools to be a defender or leader etc. You can always get other tools as you level up. You are no more "forced" to use them than you are forced to heal people as a cleric in 5e--even though absolutely every cleric knows, and can prepare, healing spells. Nor how a Fighter is forced to use a shield because they know how to use one. I know that the "roles are straightjackets" thing is quite ingrained, but it's as false today as it was in 2007.

2. Ranger design. You're basically a 3.5 Scout. Only Rangers can dual wield effectively.

Okay. Name a class in 5e that can dual-wield "effectively." Because the only one I know of is rogue--every other class, you really want a shield or a 2H weapon, because that's where all the damage is. For anyone that isn't a rogue, including rangers, it's mediocre at best past 5th level. And, as @deganawida said, in 4e there's also Tempest Fighter, but further, there's Whirling Barbarian, and both the Rogue (especially if using hand crossbows) and the Assassin very much benefit from dual-wielding.

3. Class design in general PHB. You essentially have one of 2 obvious paths.

How is that not the case for PHB classes in 5e--or 3e, for that matter? Choose Dex or Strength, for example (and usually Dex, unless you have to use Str.) Choose sword-and-board or two-handed. Etc.

You xan pretty much look at a spreadsheet. XYZ damage at ABC level mobsters sonething similar.

Er...what? Not if they're actually designed to do things. MM3 on a business card is for basic monsters. The absolute bare minimum. I don't even know how you got this.

Side effect slow, grind (broken in a different way), anemic damage (10 levels stretched over 30). Level 21+ is anemic as well.

It isn't "10 levels stretched over 30." And frankly I find your characterization of level 21+ being "anemic" hilarious, considering that the design of characters at that level fully expects that you'll frequently die once a day. That's literally why Epic Destinies have features that trigger when you fall to 0 HP. They might as well openly say, "Once per day, when you die..."

The one and only complaint you've made here that actually lands is the grind--and WotC agrees with you! They addressed it with MM3. Which, admittedly, is rather a long time to wait for what should have been the rules from the beginning. But it was, nonetheless, addressed.

 

[Zardnaar]

Are we talking about the opportunity to hold a second weapon or to actually be competent with it?

The 5E dual wielder is fine up to level 10. Assuming you go dex based.