Yeah. 20 year olds have their faces stuck in their phones and don't pay attention. I've got one of them in my game.
Only one, and no similar problem with thirtysomethings? Lucky you!
I feel that some people just won't acknowledge any reasonable critique toward 5e, because it only could be just perfect and thinking it lacks something, like specific character concepts is pure blasphemy.
Nod. Par for the course, there are always critics & apologists who go too far. At least this time around the critics aren't rabid enough to start an Edition War.
But, 5e is in the mold of classic D&D, and the classic, class(npi)-based approach to modeling characters is based on, well, having a list of classes, and expanding the number of classes you can model by expanding that list. That's just the bottom line. If you turn on 3e style MCing, you can get /some/ of the ability of that edition to mix-and-match to model different concepts, and 5e does, like 4e, have Backgrounds that can be appended to any class to do likewise. It's also possible to re-skin 5e content - more so than in 3e, less so than with 4e, but it's possible.
So even as a player, you have some flexibility to reach beyond class stereotypes. But, adding classes is still necessary to bring everyone on board. Not every class ever, but at very least every class (or character concept later implemented as a class) ever in a PH1, preferably every one ever in a PH, and a selection of the most unique/compelling examples from non-PH classes.
That's as close as they could come to fulfilling the 'big tent'/inclusiveness mandate, while also working within the 'evoke the classic game' mandate. But, hey, they knew the job was tough (impossible) when they took it!
For me, the alchemist may be best done as a subclass of artificer, but I can see a full class too. But I don't like the PF mutagen chugger alchemist, so your mileage may wildly vary.
Agreed.
A mystic, a more psionic subclass for monks, and a fighter type that makes various weapons with their mind, and augments their physical abilities with psionics. Also, I loved the ardent in 4e, at least conceptually.
I never cared for psionics, personally (too sci-fi, a common complaint), nor the ("orientalism" of the) Monk for that matter, so I wasn't open to the PH3 versions of psionics - and I was suspicious of the PP mechanic. Then I held my nose long enough to actually play in a game with a few of 'em, and, they were fine, actually. In fact, I finally played a hybrid Ardent, and, yes, I have to admit they're a fine class concept. Given how mushy 5e is with source and role, they might just as easily be a Warlord or Mystic (or even Artificer, if a Shaman can be one, why not?) sub-class as be a class in their own right, I suppose.