D&D 5E (2014) What classes do you want added to 5e?

[Yunru]

Not necissarily. Take the Battle Master. It has 1/3 the progression of a theoretical Full Maneuver class would.
Therefore a Full Maneuver class can't be made as a subclass.

 

[mellored]

Totally agree that many of the "combos" already exist within the subclasses from the base game. Eldritch Knight is a fighter-mage/bladesinger type, etc.

EK is a fighter/mage, but not a bladesinger.

Bladesinger needs hit+effect spells, like hit+push.
Thunderous smite exsist, but it's a paladin.

That said, not a big tweak to change a paladin to be arcane. Or to change up the EK's spell list.

A new class *must* have a new mechanic. If it is just about the flavor you can build it as a subclass.

Agreed.

But there's still at a few good bits of mechanics to explore. And plenty we hasn't thought of yet.

 

[Miladoon]

nothing official, but I could dig a licensed fansite that posted fan made classes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Spell-less subclasses for Paladin, Ranger, Bard.

I guess a spell-less Bard would be a Minstrel. I could definitely see an Oath of Fealty for a Paladin who was a non-magical Knight in the most traditional sense, but still able to do (EX)traordinary (yeah, 3.5 reference) things due to his preternatural devotion to duty.

Or a 3e fan, given the incarnate, healer, archivist, dragon shaman, beguiler, duskblade, warmage, soul knife, wilder, and swashbuckler weren't updated to 4e.

Even obscure as those are, some got treatments. The swashbuckler and Beguiler got PPs and dragon articles, PPs made a small attempts at incarnate, healer, themes or backgrounds could suggest swashbuckler, healer, archivist, and there was a wilder theme, duskblade was just another 3.x stab at a gish, and 4e also had plenty of those, any arcane striker could probably claim 'warmage' (it was another mechanics-differentiated class)...
... I wouldn't expect any of those to have been satisfying, but given more than 2 years (ie no Essentials re-boot), I'm sure they could have been tackled better eventually. And, of course Pathfinder was there within a year to continue those classes and add ever more, as well.
So, even though there's no expectation of 5e ever being as option-rich as 3.5, it's still no comparison, really.

Within 10 months, 4e had every class that had appeared in a prior PH1, plus a few from more obscure sources, plus some completely new ones.

We're over a year into 5e and it hasn't even covered everything that's been in past PH1s.

Not to offend or insult but...

I hear the phrase "I can't see any new classes for D&D. The current one do pretty much everything." in some form or another in D&D forums a lot.

And I wonder how creative or imaginative the fanbase is. Is it:

"No other classes fit in D&D"
"No other classes fits in my image of D&D"
"I can make almost any other class using what we have."
or
"I just can't think of any other classes."

If we got creative enough (and were charitable enough about meeting concepts with very tenuous modeling and depending on lots of generous DM rulings), we could probably build any concept with MC'ing and a Fighter, Cleric, & Magic-user class. (Even the Rogue would just be a light-fighter with a background and a lot of skills.)

It'd take that level of squinting and settling to do a lot of concepts with the current classes. 5e devotes a lot of sub-classes (~30 out of 38) to doing this or that caster-concept (some of them little more than meta-game concepts) just so. It could do with more classes and sub-classes to handle other sorts of concepts.

With regards to the recent kerfuffle about Warlords, for example, my feeling is that introducing them really just tends to limit what Fighters can be - as in the Fighters can only be grunts

The design of the Fighter class limits what the fighter can be. It can be DPR. It can add a few tricks, it can even actually cast spells, but those tricks are really only viable so far as they support that main function. The 5e fighter is a beatstick, a very good beatstick, and one available in several styles, but still a beatstick. Trying to shove it into any other function renders it sub-optimal or even non-viable.
Which, is not, by itself, a bad thing: It's strongly reminiscent of the 2e fighter, which was a damage king, and exactly what a lot of folks want out of the class.

With the fighter so much more limited than it was in 3.5, and there being so few non-supernatural sub-class options (only 4-5, among Fighter, Rogue, and maybe, Barbarian - out of 38 sub-classes among 13 classes in total), new 'martial' classes are a must.

The Warlord is the obvious one to start with, since it was in a prior-ed PH1, and can fill the critical 'healer' role (even though it never literally healed, just restored hps via inspiration), enabling functional parties even in low/no- magic settings.

Then there's the Scout from 3.5, a more militant/wilderness rogue.

Then there's all the interesting/fun/crazy builds you could do with a Fighter in 3.x/PF...

...and the one you couldn't: a Defender, like the 4e Fighter, or 3.5/Essentials Knight or the 3.x Devoted Defender/Dwarven Defender/etc PrCs...

..then there's Bo9S.

A Duelist/Swashbuckler/non-mystical-Martial-Arts-Master might be a good addition, too.

Once we have 4-6 mostly-martial classes in total and 20 or 30 such archetypes, we might consider further over-stuffing the game with yet more casters...

 

[bedir than]

I guess a spell-less Bard would be a Minstrel. I could definitely see an Oath of Fealty for a Paladin who was a non-magical Knight in the most traditional sense, but still able to do (EX)traordinary (yeah, 3.5 reference) things due to his preternatural devotion to duty.

It isn't that I want them non-magical per se, just without spell casting. So Smite and Lay Hands still exist, but the spell list does not. That kind of 1st edition feel where the spells were so late in play that they were barely casters.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

One issue might be is what can be done with a subclass.

So far subclasses only add things, but if they also could remove and replace core class features you could do a lot more with subclass design.
Also some subclasses might need some subclass specific spells that interact with their subclass abilities.

 

[Bluenose]

I think that almost all spell-casters should be covered by just adapting the Magic-Us... um, Wizard. Subclass.

I mean, I'd love to see an Incantrix, or an old-school Illusionist, but I prefer they be excluded and keep core rule class bloat to a minimum when the Wizard mechanics handle it. I think the same is true with any class which is "Cast spells, but really casts spells that deal with (Time/Illusions/Anti-magic/Shape-change/Whatevs)."

Because god knows, what the Wizard needs is more options for which abilities to use. They're currently so short of different choices, pigeon-holed by the lack of variety in their spell lists. Clearly they need to be able to deal with more different things, depending on what today actually requires, instead of actually having any sort of theme.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It's hard for me to participate in a thread like this because I don't know the 4e classes and it seems like a lot of people have very specific associations between evocative words and 4e class design. (E.g., the sentiment I heard during Next playtesting that a Warlock without "Eldritch Blast" is not a Warlock. Left me scratching my head.)

That said, the archetypes that I would like to see are:

A primal/spirit-based caster. E.g. Shaman, Witch-doctor, etc.

A storybook Witch. Potions, charms, curses, and polymorphs (maybe even a lesser polymorph that allows a save every round). No blasting/nuking spells, but maybe one evocation cantrip.

The Witch could be a new sub-class of Wizard with school restrictions (e.g., Disadvantage on attack rolls, Advantage on saving throws, for Evocation spells.) Alternately, it could be a Warlock subclass (Patron = "The Sisters")

And other than that everything I'd like to see could be a sub-class: Some new Monk options. A Blood Sorcerer. A tree/plant Druid. (And maybe an Underdark druid?) An armor-less Cleric support/healer.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I'd like to see a revamp of the Tome of Magic Binder. It had wonderful flavor but mechanics seemed to leave it a jack of all trades and master of none. I think an updated 5E version and their bounded accuracy dynamic might make it a more viable class.