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

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Why is it that the difficulty of telling players "no" or the difficulty of just ignoring something in a book is enough reason for people to rail against WotC releasing splats, but when someone wants their favorite class/race/whatever carried over to the new edition that they are expected to do the work to convert it? Isn't saying a two letter word or pretending something isn't there much easier than having to translate mechanics between drastically different systems?

Because I'd rather WoTC, or any game company, cater to the type of game I want to run, and the type of game that requires the least work for me to run. Its cool that others can have fun with the same game but in the end I'm thinking of my game I run at my table. The more work I have to do to cut things out I dislike is time I'm not doing something more interesting. I'm sure people who want Warforged, Warlords, Artificers, Kender, etc in the core game feel the same. They have to do work to add in what they want rather than spending that time better. But I'm concerned with what I want the game to do.

Splats is just seem to end up being power creep and feature creep, what killed me on 3e, though the core game wasn't my cup of tea to begin with. Feats, classes, feats, prestige classes, and more feats didn't make the game better IME. And the splats have to be aimed at players, way more of them and DMs, so they have to put in tons of options and power boosts to get them buying. 5e so far saying they are not going down the 3e/4e path in terms of game development is welcome news to me. Endless fiddly bits were never what made games fun, the rules getting out of the way of the players interacting at the table is what makes a fun game design. 5e rules mostly stay out of the way whic is why I'm having fun again running D&D.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I remember that bladesinger popping up in Neverwinter. Not sure about the EK. Where was that?

Dragon.

If you count subclasses then it has everything.

Even if you count sub-classes, there's no Warlord and no Psionics in the PH, both appeared in prior edition PH1s. If you look /only/ at full classes in past PH1's being represented in the 5e PH, you could excuse the lack of Psionics (and the Illusionist & Assassin appearing only as sub-classes, since their only appearance in a PH1 was technically as sub-classes0, but the Warlord is still an issue.

How long did monk fans wait in 4e again?

20 months for the PH3. I doubt we'll see psionics in print in less than 6 months, let alone the Warlord.

And, it's not like waiting on the Monk was creating an appearance of taking sides in the edition war.

"everything from a PH1" wasn't a 'promise.' It was a stated design goal. And, the goal was to get everything from a 1st PHB to be/get in the PHB, not "get its own full class." It's something they wanted to try to do. Something they were shooting for, not a 'promise.'

Sure, and I'm not saying a promise was broken, just that stuff is missing and some of it still not yet on the horizon.

There was no promise at all that any specific class would be in the 4e PH, and the side-bar on Sources made it abundantly clear that 'missing' classes would be quickly forthcoming (and they were), but the nerdrage from the most vocal segments of the player base was overwhelming and hystrionic. The call for Psionics, the Warlord, and other missing classes in 5e has been positively polite by comparison.

The Illusionist is there...as a subclass and with various other avenues to achieve. The Assassin is there...as a subclass and with various other avenues to achieve.

The Assassin and Illusionist are present as sub-classes, as they were in their only prior PH1 appearance, and the Assassin retains it's "inflammatory" murder-for-hire name. They are both at least as capable as they were in their original appearance, arguably much more so.

The Warlord is there, under a less inflammatory name,

There's no need for a 'less inflammatory' name. Heroes can have edgy career paths. James Bond is an Assassin, John Carter is a Warlord.

In the context of the hobby, it'd be more inflammatory to exclude the warlord or put it under a different name than to include it, since doing so would create the appearance that WotC has, with an edition meant to bring fans of all prior editions together, instead, taken sides in the edition war.

Leaving the Warlord for the Advanced Game is a concession (and an very large one) to the contrary fear - that including it, and 'forcing' h4ters to 'opt-out' by banning it in their game - would create an appearance of 'excluding' taking the opposite side.

...as a subclass and with various other avenues to achieve.

The Battlemaster is the 'complex fighter' option, not an expression of the Warlord. Saying that the Battlemaster is the Warlord is like saying that the Arcane Trickster is the Wizard - if the Arcane Trickster only had 3 first-level wizard spells in it's entire list. The Battlemaster, Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight all cast some wizard spells, and there are feats that nab bits of the Wizard's shtick, but that doesn't mean there's no need for a Wizard class. The same is true of several other classes and sub-classes.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Bluenose]

With regards to the Warlord, I think that people are just going to keep obsessing about it regardless of arguments that a) it is catered for via feats and Fighter/Battlemaster options already, b) it lacks a genuine narrative archetype, while stepping on the shoes of a Fighter and c) it sucks more than sucking a sucky sweet on a sucky street on a sucky afternoon......so I'm just going to ignore any mention of it from now on.

I'm sure you can point to a huge number of archetypes that the D&D Cleric fits, that aren't the D&D Cleric itself. And a host of spellcasters that resembles the D&D Wizard. We can wait.

 

[Tony Vargas]

...so I'm just going to ignore any mention of it from now on.

Promises, promises.

That said, at a certain point everyone knows that not everything from every edition will be 5e.

At least not right away. If 5e had as long a run as AD&D, it'd probably end up scrapping the bottom of every barrel it could find.

But, that's always been the case. There's no reasonable expectation of a new edition having everything a past edition did. It's less the case for 5e, though, which set out with the lofty intention of bringing fans of every past edition together. 5e also made it clear what wasn't on the table for inclusion in the PH: anything not in a previous-edition PH1. Since only 3.5 and 4e had PH2's, that was already creating a slight appearance of favoritism towards the classic game, not that it was the only thing doing that.

There's a lot from 1e and BECMI that I miss.

Like what? The Elf as a class or something else from BECMI?
Every class and sub-class from 0D&D and/or the 1e PH is in 5e, most of the sub-classes as full classes. Every race is in. Psionics just got a UA. Are there some spells or magic items or monsters you're missing?

And that's okay. If 4e is what you love, there is absolutely no requirement that you play 5e, or 1e, or anything else.

And there was no requirement that fans of past edition play 4e, yet the edition war happened, and we now have 5e, which is trying to heal that rift and include fans of all past editions.

I would rather support 5e and see it include all fans than abandon it. That means supporting the inclusion of things from past editions that I didn't care for. Afterall, I'm not obliged to use them if it turns out I don't find the 5e versions any better.

 

[mellored]

Maybe, someday, WoTC and/or 3PP will publish more advanced tactical rules and/or a Warlord class. That would be good for you and those similarly situated. I do not believe, given what they have done with 5e to date, that it will ever be part of a PHB2 (and I would very much not like there to be multiple Player's Handbooks- at most, a revised Player's handbook).

Warlord was not a top popular class, but it wasn't bottom either.

So it makes perfect sense for them to rework the ranger and add a new sub-class for the sorcerer first.
And even make psion or artificer classes. Since while warlord was more popular, there is at least a partial warlord in 5e, while there is no psion or artificer at all. And they are key classes for 2 settings.
Possibly even a few low hanging ones, like a warden barbarian, or arcane paladin.

But the warlord rework (or more likely, new class) should still be on their list. And before the jester.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I'm sure you can point to a huge number of archetypes that the D&D Cleric fits, that aren't the D&D Cleric itself. And a host of spellcasters that resembles the D&D Wizard. We can wait.

Seriously? You can't find these blatantly obvious archetypes outside of D&D?! You need to read more...but not wanting to upset Tony Vargas any more while he enjoys his personal crusade, I'm outie.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Also, WTF are these people to tell me that I don't really want what I want? Do they know better than me what I really want? It seems really disingenuous that what side A wants is legitimately good for the game and what side B wants might be worthless because side B might not actually want it even though they think they do.

You are misreading what I said.

Side A Wants: The developers not to spend their limited time on things which Side A isn't going to use, and Side B might decide they don't like the actual implementation of that the developers choose to go with (see: any complaints about the ranger class; people that insist that the characters which can be built with 5th edition that have great similarity to characters built with 4e's warlord class aren't warlord enough)

Side B Wants: The developers to make what they want, how they want it made, even if that means asking for a re-do because the prior effort wasn't deemed satisfactory.

Side A says to Side B: Make it yourself, that's the only way to be sure it comes out exactly how you want it to - and it frees up the developers to spend their limited time on something that maybe we will both use.
Side B says to Side A: No, the developers should make it, and remake it, until I'm satisfied and you can just ignore it if don't like it - and says nothing of how dev-time spent on something one side might like and use, but the other side definitely won't like or use, is failing to be compared to dev-time spent on something both sides might like and use.

No one is saying "No, you don't actually want that" to you, certainly not me at least. Though I did say "Yeah, you want that... but that doesn't mean that WotC making it is going to result in their "that" being the "that" that you wanted."

Also I want to point out, as someone who often plays with online DMs, that doing my own conversion is worthless. The vast majority of the games I've played in are generally official material only

Get better DMs, have higher standards for who you will allow to be your DM - accepting a game you aren't satisfied with is entirely on you.

and even when with a group of friends and trying to do conversion material the arguments over minutia of a thing often make any attempts at a conversion into five or six different ideas of what a conversion should be and the other four or five conversions being wrong.

The exact reason why WotC doing it is even less likely to result in what you want - if the people you actually share a table with can't agree on what is the "right" way to do it, how are people that have never met you expected to manage?

Even 3PP material generally seems to warrant a lot of suspicion about quality and something created by some dude on the internet somewhere is generally right out. Conversions generally aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

And yet there are people that embrace 3PP materials, some even to the point of using a particular 3PP to the exclusion of even the first-party product, and entire web communities that are dedicated to fan-driven conversion because they believe, and rightfully so, that WotC isn't going to get around to any official conversion nearly soon enough, because "soon enough" means "I need it for my next session."

 

[Tony Vargas]

So it makes perfect sense for them to rework the ranger and add a new sub-class for the sorcerer first.
And even make psion or artificer classes. Since while warlord was more popular, there is at least a partial warlord in 5e, while there is no psion or artificer at all.

A GOO Warlock is a better Psion than a Battlemaster Fighter is a Warlord. A re-skinned Bard (temporarily enchants gear rather than singing) would probably make a better Artificer than an-even-more-re-skinned Valor Bard could do as a Warlord (at least the Bard & Artificer are both casters).

And they are key classes for 2 settings.

Neither of which has been attempted by 5e so far - though such a setting book'd be an obvious place to put them. Is such a book on the horizon?

But the warlord rework (or more likely, new class) should still be on their list. And before the jester.

heh. The Warlord is the last full class from a previous-edition PH1 to still be excluded from 5e. It'd've made more sense for it to precede the Psion, but it should be up soon. The longer they wait, the more the mere unfortunate appearance of catering to the prejudices of the edition war that they've inadvertently created will start to look like the grim reality of intentionally doing so - and the better the Warlord will have to be to be 'worth the wait.'

I don't think even the worst-case scenario (6e comes around with still no Warlord in sight, and every decision snubs 4e and caters to h4ters) would create anything like the nerdrage of the edition war itself, though.
It'd just be disappointing.

 

[Saplatt]

Well, just to answer the original poll question, I've got every class I want. If we have expansions, I'd prefer subclasses, especially for clerical domains and the sorcerer.

I wouldn't oppose a splatbook that contains warlords, wardens, shamans, psions, and whatnot, but I probably wouldn't buy it.