MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
No, no. Why have to when we could have one that does everything? Or better yet why not make players act out every single thing they do and judge success based on their execution?
D&D 5E Obsolete Classes From Previous Editions
No, no. Why have to when we could have one that does everything? Or better yet why not make players act out every single thing they do and judge success based on their execution?
Yesss I miss playing my old Shaman I had back in 4ed. Also yeah I miss the swordmage from 4ed god that class was such good fun.
Class I'm most excited for is the Psion and psionic subclasses.
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LuisCarlos17f
Legend
No class is obsolete when it can rebooted with a remake.
The keys of a character class:
- Right balance of power, of course.
- Interesting background. Each class is like wearing a halloween costume. It has to be its own mark of identity. Two failed examples are the soulborn and incarnate from "Magic of Incarnum", too close to paladin.
- Fun gameplay. The psionic wilder was boring to play with its psychic enervation. At least Dreamscarred Press fixed that with its own option for the Pathfinder version.
Some classes could be recycled as martial adepts with maneuvers (let's "Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords"), or like hybrids. For example the divine soul could be a spontaneous divine spellcaster with some incarnum soulmelds, for players who would like to add monster traits or monster templates to their PCs. The warden could be a primal defender whouse source of power is a amulet or life-shape symbiont armour (like the bionoids from Spelljammer), the seeker would be a martial adept with primal power and maneuvers about ranged attack. The rune scribe could be a hybrid class with a game mechanic like pacts with vestiges. The warlord could be a martial adept with maneuvers of the school of the white raven. The shadow assassin would be a stealth version of martial adept with martial maneuvers of the shadow hand school.
The keys of a character class:
- Right balance of power, of course.
- Interesting background. Each class is like wearing a halloween costume. It has to be its own mark of identity. Two failed examples are the soulborn and incarnate from "Magic of Incarnum", too close to paladin.
- Fun gameplay. The psionic wilder was boring to play with its psychic enervation. At least Dreamscarred Press fixed that with its own option for the Pathfinder version.
Some classes could be recycled as martial adepts with maneuvers (let's "Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords"), or like hybrids. For example the divine soul could be a spontaneous divine spellcaster with some incarnum soulmelds, for players who would like to add monster traits or monster templates to their PCs. The warden could be a primal defender whouse source of power is a amulet or life-shape symbiont armour (like the bionoids from Spelljammer), the seeker would be a martial adept with primal power and maneuvers about ranged attack. The rune scribe could be a hybrid class with a game mechanic like pacts with vestiges. The warlord could be a martial adept with maneuvers of the school of the white raven. The shadow assassin would be a stealth version of martial adept with martial maneuvers of the shadow hand school.
jgsugden
Legend
To an extent, there are four archetypes in the game - the mage, the priest, the warrior and the thief. With wizard, cleric, fighter and rogue you can pretty much make any character concept roughly fit.
The beauty of other classes is to take the roughness out of the fit and build something more tailored to a concept. Once we realize this, then pretty much nothing is obsolete as even small changes result in better tailoring.
The beauty of other classes is to take the roughness out of the fit and build something more tailored to a concept. Once we realize this, then pretty much nothing is obsolete as even small changes result in better tailoring.
Celebrim
Legend
By this approach, there are many classes that are not only obsolete in 5e, but which were obsolete when they were printed in the editions that they appeared in.
That's because most editions ended up engaging in "There Is More Than One Way To Do Things" to one extent or the other. Prior editions invariably reached points where a particular character concept could be realized in a number of ways, and there was no obvious reason why you would choose one over the other, besides preferred mechanical advantages. Third edition in particular often had multiple classes with closely overlapping concepts, and character building often resembled taking the most mechanically advantageous parts of several similar classes and stacking them together. First edition classes often had no built in mechanical flexibility, resulting in idea that even concept required a separate class regardless of how close the concept was to any other concept. Second edition featured multiple classes that would each have a kit subclass with the same name, resulting in three or four characters with identical character concept ('swashbuckler') potentially having mechanically almost nothing in common under the hood.
That's because most editions ended up engaging in "There Is More Than One Way To Do Things" to one extent or the other. Prior editions invariably reached points where a particular character concept could be realized in a number of ways, and there was no obvious reason why you would choose one over the other, besides preferred mechanical advantages. Third edition in particular often had multiple classes with closely overlapping concepts, and character building often resembled taking the most mechanically advantageous parts of several similar classes and stacking them together. First edition classes often had no built in mechanical flexibility, resulting in idea that even concept required a separate class regardless of how close the concept was to any other concept. Second edition featured multiple classes that would each have a kit subclass with the same name, resulting in three or four characters with identical character concept ('swashbuckler') potentially having mechanically almost nothing in common under the hood.
The-Magic-Sword
Small Ball Archmage
I've got a half example- the 4e Swordmage is hard to emulate with current gishes, but it feels irresponsible to keep throwing gish subclasses at the problem, and the full class probably wouldn't fit 5e very well.
Instead I propose that a bunch more melee spells like booming blade, Sword burst and yes, Steelwind Strike, be brought into the game and placed on the wizard spell list, if there were, the two Bladesinger play styles (actual Bladesinger vs. God Wizard with the Bladesinger defensive features) could merge so the Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger would both make fairly good Swordmages (at least accounting for the power scale difference between 4e and 5e.)
Instead I propose that a bunch more melee spells like booming blade, Sword burst and yes, Steelwind Strike, be brought into the game and placed on the wizard spell list, if there were, the two Bladesinger play styles (actual Bladesinger vs. God Wizard with the Bladesinger defensive features) could merge so the Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger would both make fairly good Swordmages (at least accounting for the power scale difference between 4e and 5e.)
Mercule
Adventurer
Barbarian. 2E is the only edition that got it right -- it's a kit/PrC/archetype for an angry Fighter. Associating totems with rage makes as much sense as associating backstab with spell slots and would be better put on a ranger or (theoretic) warden class archetype. As it stands, the class is a hot mess of random "big, angry fighter" gears.
I guess that's not so much "obsolete" as "pointless", though. So, a more in-line answer:
Binder. I loved the concept of this class, in 3.5. In 5E, it could be quite well represented with a Vestige patron for Warlock.
I guess that's not so much "obsolete" as "pointless", though. So, a more in-line answer:
Binder. I loved the concept of this class, in 3.5. In 5E, it could be quite well represented with a Vestige patron for Warlock.
