D&D 5E What single new class would you like to see?

[Guest 6801328]

Healing/damage reduction is too essential in the game to be totally dominated by a single class. It really is weird to think that every single adventuring part in the world is required to drag along a religious zealot to constantly give sermons on his/her deities superiority to all others.

Yet, somehow, the evangelical zealot has been a requisite party member since 1st edition and not nearly enough in terms of feasible alternatives has yet been presented.

This is a common assertion/complaint, but it hasn't been my experience with 5e at all. In various games I've been in nobody seems to want to play a Cleric, but between other classes having a range of healing abilities, healer kits (and Healer feat!), healing potions, generous hit dice mechanics, and clever use of both tactics and magic (i.e., avoiding damage in the first place), it all kind of works out anyway.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

One where terms like pyrokinesis, telepathy, and clairvoyance aren't taboo.

Two of these three are the names of spells in the PHB.

Just sayin'.

 

[Quickleaf]

EXPERT
A class focused on doing interesting things with the skill system. Beyond Expertise, no other classes really focus on the skill system in 5E. Subclasses include:​

• Alchemist - Skill Focus on creating temporary but potent mixtures / poultices.
• Artificer - Skill Focus on creating machines / traps.
• Investigator - Skill Focus on learning more things through Insight / Investigation.

I think it's a terrific idea! I'd probably merge Alchemist & Artificer, possibly replace them with an Archivist/Sage type, but that's just a matter of personal preference or setting assumptions.

There is a considerable design challenge here, however, as far as interpreting where the line between a Ranger making a hunting trap and an Artificer creating a trap lies. Likewise for what a character with proficiency in alchemist's supplies vs. an Alchemist are capable of, and likewise for what an Investigator can learn vs. what, for example, a Mastermind Rogue can learn.

I think it could be surmounted with a couple design iterations and playtesting though, and certainly expands the scope of the class beyond just "artificer" which is popular but might not fit all settings.

 

[Guest 6801328]

There is a considerable design challenge here, however, as far as interpreting where the line between a Ranger making a hunting trap and an Artificer creating a trap lies.

I personally don't like ideas like Artificer for a vanilla D&D campaign...maybe for a specific setting, sure...but I have to say that I wish the Ranger had been designed with traps, and bonuses vs. targets that are restrained or in difficult terrain, as core competencies. Or at least a sub-class.

 

[Quickleaf]

I personally don't like ideas like Artificer for a vanilla D&D campaign...maybe for a specific setting, sure...but I have to say that I wish the Ranger had been designed with traps, and bonuses vs. targets that are restrained or in difficult terrain, as core competencies. Or at least a sub-class.

That's fair. I think many of us have ways we'd like to see the 12 PHB classes improved upon to suit our needs/vision.

I think Russ' OP was about a prospective release through ENWorld's EN5ider Patreon, so "vanilla D&D" in that context is less meaningful than what supporters of the Patreon are interested in.

 

[Erik Westmarch]

I would like to see some classes that focused on spirits and the spirit world. You could make sub-classes of existing classes to support this.

Spirit-world Fighter: Totem warrior
Spirit-world Warlock: Witch
Spirit-world Sorcerer: [Open to suggestions here]
Spirit-world Bard: Shaman
Spirit-world Rogue: Roma


The core features of the spirit classes are information gather (they can speak to the stones and faeries. "Did you see someone pass through this way?" "Who was the last person to swim in this pool?"), get the local spirits to perform minor tasks (take messages, bring a set of keys to you, tie shoelaces, etc.), and the like. Higher level spells may summon the Princes of the Air or the King Beneath the Mountain.

The ability to create magical items by binding spirits into them should also be available. These items could be limited in some ways. Perhaps a Totem Warrior can made a magic sword that works like a standard magic sword for him alone, but the spirit isn't loyal to anyone else.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I would like to see some classes that focused on spirits and the spirit world. You could make sub-classes of existing classes to support this.

Spirit-world Fighter: Totem warrior
Spirit-world Warlock: Witch
Spirit-world Sorcerer: [Open to suggestions here]
Spirit-world Bard: Shaman
Spirit-world Rogue: Roma


The core features of the spirit classes are information gather (they can speak to the stones and faeries. "Did you see someone pass through this way?" "Who was the last person to swim in this pool?"), get the local spirits to perform minor tasks (take messages, bring a set of keys to you, tie shoelaces, etc.), and the like. Higher level spells may summon the Princes of the Air or the King Beneath the Mountain.

The ability to create magical items by binding spirits into them should also be available. These items could be limited in some ways. Perhaps a Totem Warrior can made a magic sword that works like a standard magic sword for him alone, but the spirit isn't loyal to anyone else.

Here's somebody's excellent Witch class which is all about spirits.

(My own Warlock subclass I just posted is not really spirit-oriented.)

 

[Salamandyr]

Lemme see...

An Alchemist with two subclassesP: a mage-like one who uses bombs and elixirs, and a warrior one who uses elixirs for personal mutation.

Monster classes...

A lycanthrope class..where your subclasses are various kinds of lycanthropes.

An undead class...instead of something like the revenant being a class, imagine a class for undead, with subclasses like revanent or vampire.

Just please...no more classes slicing the warrior archetype into thinner and thinner slices, each of whose niche protection requires all the other classes suddenly be incompetent at the new classes schtick.

 

[5Shilling]

I think any class should represent very clear type of character found in fantasy fiction and/or mythology. I'm having a real hard time trying to think of such a character that can't already be created with existing class, archetype, race and background combos. Spirit shaman is about the only one. Maybe, very possibly, a speed and mobility based class, for characters like Hermes (or The Flash for a superhero example) but that could be best expressed as an 'Acrobat' archetype for either rogue or monk. Most things not already in the game would best be added as archetypes for existing classes, and even then there are very few. I like the idea of Investigator but I think the recent UA 'Inquisitive' very nearly captures that.

One more slim possibility left is The Fool - not in the 'jester' sense, but in the Tarot sense; the naive everyman who wins because of luck (Red and Pleasant Land has a version of this in The Alice class). Again, in 5E it would probably be better as a Rogue archetype than a full class.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

Just please...no more classes slicing the warrior archetype into thinner and thinner slices, each of whose niche protection requires all the other classes suddenly be incompetent at the new classes schtick.

That's one of the reasons I really dislike the Pathfinder 'gunslinger' class. 'Master of all armor and weapons' is traditionally the fighter niche, from using all types of weapons and magical weapons in OD&D, to weapon specialization in AD&D, to fighter-exclusive feats including weapon specialization in 3E.

To me, having a gunslinger class implies that you could then have an archer class, a swordsman class, a spearman class...

(The other thing I dislike about it is that a gun-based character means guns that can be fired every round, which is a feature of technology way out of the medieval-to-Renaissance D&D milieu.)