D&D 5E Heroic Archetypes and Gaps in Class coverage

[Tony Vargas]

A few of the Archetypes being discussed, especially those like Indiana Jones and James Bond are solo Archetypes and this don't really port to D&D very well.

Fantasy archetypes tend to shake out into solo BDH, helpers, and villains. Ensemble casts like LotR are the exception, even after LotR made such a big splash and influenced the genre.

Still, The Hero is basically the same thing, just toned down to give everyone else a chance to shine. If there were a Hero-worthy class, it could probably handle a whole adventure by itself - if it were enough levels above the adventure's intended challenge levels.

t broadening the Fighter to really cover the nuances of "The Hero". Similarly, the Rogue could be broadened to be "The Explorer"...
If the Fighter and Rogue were cleaned up a bit, then they could serve as super classes that can be used with multiclassing to help make more characters.

I still say the fighter & rogue could be outright combined into one class without breaking anything. The fighter is overly focused on combat, the rogue not quite as badly on exploration, add the two together /and/ add significant support for interaction, and you're still only working your way towards a fully-adequate 'Tier 3' class, not an OP one.

 

[Ratskinner]

I think this is one of those areas where D&D has some design issues. Namely, as this thread suggests, you have no clear distinction between combat functionality (which, if we're being honest, is what class is all about in D&D) and narrative concerns (the handling of which is probably larger discussion). Mushing the two, in a game where combat plays such a huge mechanically distinct role, makes this discussion tougher to have.

Personally, I think 5e does pretty well covering everything that I would call a fantasy archetype, and a lot of what people are throwing around seem much more specific than I would consider for that term.

Then again I'm probably an outlier on this matter. I was very excited at one point early in the design phase when it was suggested that some things that were formerly classes might be converted to some other character facet. So "Paladin" and similar things might have represented a set of abilities and traits which you could mix with a small number of classes to get a wild diversity of combos like Paladin-Wizard. By the end, Backgrounds were the relatively anemic result.

I'm highly intrigued by a game called "Uncharted Worlds". In UW, player's pick a backround and two claases. They then select two moves from one class and one from the other. In DJD terms, this is like "Paladin" being Armor plus Divine. Barbarians as we know them could be Rage plus Nature.





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[Seramus]

The biggest missing Archetype for me is... Alchemist/Tinker/Engineer.

The girl who wins with her physical creations.

 

[Xeviat]

The biggest missing Archetype for me is... Alchemist/Tinker/Engineer.

The girl who wins with her physical creations.

There was a time that the 5E 12 classes were the only ones I wanted to see. I wanted everything else to be a subclass. Now, I'm happy to have the Artificer and the Mystic join them.


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[Irda Ranger]

I think this is one of those areas where D&D has some design issues. Namely, as this thread suggests, you have no clear distinction between combat functionality (which, if we're being honest, is what class is all about in D&D) and narrative concerns (the handling of which is probably larger discussion).

Yes you do! You have Backgrounds. Maybe Backgrounds don't have enough meat for your taste, but honestly 5E is the best Edition of D&D to date when it comes to providing some functionality for distinguishing one Fighter from another.

I mean take a Human (Variant) Fighter, one with the Outlander Background and Mounted Combatant Feat. Boom, he's a Mongol horse nomad! Another Human (Variant) Fighter takes the Sailor (Pirate) Background and Mobile and you're Erol Flynn. They can even both be Dex builds (Yay, horse archer) and still be very distinct archetypes.

I was very excited at one point early in the design phase when it was suggested that some things that were formerly classes might be converted to some other character facet. So "Paladin" and similar things might have represented a set of abilities and traits which you could mix with a small number of classes to get a wild diversity of combos like Paladin-Wizard. By the end, Backgrounds were the relatively anemic result.

As you say yourself, the Classes are where the combat abilities are kept, and the Paladin class has too many combat abilities to work as a Background, which are more like your profession in the game world when you're not adventuring. To make Paladin work as a Background you'd either have to make every background as useful as Divine Smite (not realistic) or water down Paladin to something that's pretty weak.

Personally I'm glad the Paladin got the full class treatment. It's a great class.

If I wanted to make Backgrounds better I'd add high-level "social" Features that tie you into the game world and effect your relationship with NPCs. Like a 10th level Criminal gets his own Thieves' Guild. A 15th level Noble gets a Castle. A 9th level Acolyte is a Prelate of major Church. Etc.

In fact you could bring back the OD&D idea of Titles by class level and give those to Backgrounds. That would be pretty sweet.

I'm highly intrigued by a game called "Uncharted Worlds". In UW, player's pick a backround and two claases. They then select two moves from one class and one from the other. In DJD terms, this is like "Paladin" being Armor plus Divine. Barbarians as we know them could be Rage plus Nature.

Interesting take on multiclassing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes you do! You have Backgrounds. Maybe Backgrounds don't have enough meat for your taste, but honestly 5E is the best Edition of D&D to date when it comes to providing some functionality for distinguishing one Fighter from another.

Backgrounds could use some more meat - right now they're between 4e Backgrounds and 4e Themes, that way, and they could easily go all the way to a Theme level of meatiness. Particularly in having options to grow with level like Themes could (Themes did it with the odd feature and with substitution utility powers, but I'm sure 5e could come up with something...)

And, I still have a soft spot for the elegant, customizable design of the 3.0 fighter, so I have to say you could distinguish one of those fighters from another better - and working within the class, itself - than you can with the class in 5e. Throw backgrounds and MCing into it, and it's closer, but 3e still comes out ahead, just more options and more customizability. Of course, all that is hampered by the 3e fighter languishing in Tier 5 the whole time. ;(

If I wanted to make Backgrounds better I'd add high-level "social" Features that tie you into the game world and effect your relationship with NPCs. Like a 10th level Criminal gets his own Thieves' Guild. A 15th level Noble gets a Castle. A 9th level Acolyte is a Prelate of major Church. Etc.

In fact you could bring back the OD&D idea of Titles by class level and give those to Backgrounds. That would be pretty sweet.

That'd be a great way to get a Background to grow with the character as he leveled.

 

[BookBarbarian]

If I wanted to make Backgrounds better I'd add high-level "social" Features that tie you into the game world and effect your relationship with NPCs. Like a 10th level Criminal gets his own Thieves' Guild. A 15th level Noble gets a Castle. A 9th level Acolyte is a Prelate of major Church. Etc.

In fact you could bring back the OD&D idea of Titles by class level and give those to Backgrounds. That would be pretty sweet.

This sounds great! A character with the Mercenary Veteran background becoming leader of the Mercenary Company would be very cool. It would also add a lot of distinctiveness between a Mercenary Veteran Sorcerer and say an Acolyte Sorcerer.

 

[Ratskinner]

Yes you do! You have Backgrounds. Maybe Backgrounds don't have enough meat for your taste, but honestly 5E is the best Edition of D&D to date when it comes to providing some functionality for distinguishing one Fighter from another.

I don't disagree with 5e backgrounds being a good addition to the system, precisely for the reason you cite. However, I was referring to the other end of things. That is, many classes in D&D are packaged with too much narrative fluff, which has people looking to fill in narrative stuff with additional classes, when, mechanically speaking, an existing class could easily have been used to fill that purpose.

If I wanted to make Backgrounds better I'd add high-level "social" Features that tie you into the game world and effect your relationship with NPCs. Like a 10th level Criminal gets his own Thieves' Guild. A 15th level Noble gets a Castle. A 9th level Acolyte is a Prelate of major Church. Etc.

I would find that acceptable, if not good. I think I might suggest a more generalized advancement scheme. That way, the former acolyte could reject his priesthood and pick up a new direction in life as he climbs the role-playing ladder. I think that would be a good place to have RP requirements for many of them.

Interesting take on multiclassing.

I like the idea a lot. That way, you sort of particulate mechanical and narrative functions in a way that lets people splice them together to form their own character. However, I suspect it works better (or is more easily designed) because combat is a relatively small portion of that game's mechanics. It doesn't have scads of picayune tactical detail. Instead, you sorta pick a strategy, make an appropriate roll and see how it turned out. That lightweight combat (I mean a fight could be one roll) frees up a lot of design space.

 

[Ratskinner]

Yes you do! You have Backgrounds. Maybe Backgrounds don't have enough meat for your taste, but honestly 5E is the best Edition of D&D to date when it comes to providing some functionality for distinguishing one Fighter from another.

I don't disagree with 5e backgrounds being a good addition to the system, precisely for the reason you cite. However, I was referring to the other end of things. That is, many classes in D&D are packaged with too much narrative fluff, which has people looking to fill in narrative stuff with additional classes, when, mechanically speaking, an existing class could easily have been used to fill that purpose.

If I wanted to make Backgrounds better I'd add high-level "social" Features that tie you into the game world and effect your relationship with NPCs. Like a 10th level Criminal gets his own Thieves' Guild. A 15th level Noble gets a Castle. A 9th level Acolyte is a Prelate of major Church. Etc.

I would find that acceptable, if not good. I think I might suggest a more generalized advancement scheme. That way, the former acolyte could reject his priesthood and pick up a new direction in life as he climbs the role-playing ladder. I think that would be a good place to have RP requirements for many of them.

Interesting take on multiclassing.

I like the idea a lot. That way, you sort of particulate mechanical and narrative functions in a way that lets people splice them together to form their own character. However, I suspect it works better (or is more easily designed) because combat is a relatively small portion of that game's mechanics. It doesn't have scads of picayune tactical detail. Instead, you sorta pick a strategy, make an appropriate roll and see how it turned out. That lightweight combat (I mean a fight could be one roll) frees up a lot of design space.

 

[Uchawi]

The baggage I wish 5e did carry over is an equivalent of customized powers for all classes. In 5E terms it would be maneuvers for martial classes to match spells for casters. That would create a ton of customize choices without much effort, versus cranking out class/subclasses to fill in missing niches.