D&D 5E Should 5e have more classes (Poll and Discussion)?

[LuisCarlos17f]

A summoner class could be a good hook for fans of collectable monster pets videogames, but as crunch it would need a lot of playtesting to avoid possible abuses by munchkin players.

Sometimes I imagine the summoner as a shaman with a mixture of vestige binder and incarnum totemist. Summoning and changing summoned allies it would be like vestige pact magic, and when the creature is summoned, adding monster traits and powers as incarnum soulmelds. A special summoned creature would work like a symbiotic living armour.

Other option it would allow something like a monster demi-PC class, but the XPs rewards would be laid out how there was an extra PC (technically it's like this).

Maybe if Hasbro created a mobile videogame about skirmishes wargames the warlord and the summoner would be possible. I would bet the videogames will the future way to introduce new ideas.

5th Ed was published in 2014, and there is only the artificer, and working in the developing of the blood hunter the psionic mystic. The warlord and the shaman are in the list of future options. In the next ten years we can allow ourself three new classes, maybe one of them remake of the martial adepts.

If the new generations of players are used to tablets with virtual tabletops apps then they can allow to play with bigger groups, using monster pets, minions, troops and squires+sidekicks. Here the warlord (with a subclass using the martial maneuvers of the white raven school) could be more useful.

To say we have enough classes is how saying we have enough dragons or other monsters, enough magic item, enough feats or enough PC races.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

A summoner class could be a Shaman, for those asking for what that would even look like.

It would look exactly like shepherd druid. Rename shepherd druid 'shaman' and we're done.

 

[glass]

@Crimson Longinus, you have made a lot of posts since I last checked back here so I have not bothered to do a massive wall of quotes, and in pretty much all of them you are still conflating your personal preference with objective quality.

Your opinion, as someone who does not like or want a Warlord anyway (as per the D&D 4e class, not any other definition of the word "warlord") on what a Warlord needs is frankly less important than the views of people who actually like the class. Similarly I really like Paladins, and in fact it was liking what I was hearing about the 5e version of the Paladin class that persuaded me to give the finished 5e game a go after the horrific playtest period. If WotC had taken the view that Paladin could be a Fighter subclass, or a multi-class Fighter/Cleric or something, then that would not have occurred.

Also, you should probably not categorise both editions of Pathfinder (and by inferrence anyone who plays them) as not "sensible". I personally think that PF2 at least is a lot more "sensible" than D&D 5e!

_
glass.

 

[Nytmare]

I'm always a fan of fewer classes, and more options to make the base classes describe a wider array of characters.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Crimson Longinus, you have made a lot of posts since I last checked back here so I have not bothered to do a massive wall of quotes, and in pretty much all of them you are still conflating your personal preference with objective quality.

Your opinion, as someone who does not like or want a Warlord anyway (as per the D&D 4e class, not any other definition of the word "warlord") on what a Warlord needs is frankly less important than the views of people who actually like the class. Similarly I really like Paladins, and in fact it was liking what I was hearing about the 5e version of the Paladin class that persuaded me to give the finished 5e game a go after the horrific playtest period. If WotC had taken the view that Paladin could be a Fighter subclass, or a multi-class Fighter/Cleric or something, then that would not have occurred.

Of course it is about preferences and opinions, that's what we're discussing. But I don't think it is at all sensible to say that because you liked 4E version of the warlord whilst I found it a flawed execution that your opinion on what 5E warlord should be would somehow to be more valuable. I want a warlord, I just want it to be a fighter subclass (and there has been some excellent ideas in this thread how to do just that.) And if you liked 4E version that much, it still exists, you can play that version of the game if you want. A lot of people play much older editions too.

Also, you should probably not categorise both editions of Pathfinder (and by inferrence anyone who plays them) as not "sensible". I personally think that PF2 at least is a lot more "sensible" than D&D 5e!

I have not once mentioned Pathfinder in this thread, and never played either edition of it. I have some knowledge of it, but ultimately I don't care. But again, if you think it is more 'sensible' then perhaps you should play it instead?

 

[Mecheon]

It would look exactly like shepherd druid. Rename shepherd druid 'shaman' and we're done.

Eh, this may be one and a half decades of Warcraft talking, but I reckon there's more space in shaman as well. Shepherd druid is certainly towards the direction though

Not quite as much space as Warlord or Psion though, but there's room there to do something with it

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Eh, this may be one and a half decades of Warcraft talking, but I reckon there's more space in shaman as well. Shepherd druid is certainly towards the direction though

The druid/shaman thing has gotten weird because in real mythology shapeshifting is something that is strongly associated with shamanism and not really with druidism, but in D&D and WoW (no doubt due D&D influence) it has become a druid thing. D&D druid resembles more a real world shaman than it resembles a real world druid, thus any attempt to somewhat accurately represent (of course trough a fantasy lens) a shaman will produce a class that is super similar to the druid. So yeah, I strongly feel that a separate shaman class would be a mistake. Rename druids shamans and call nature clerics druids. That would be pretty accurate.

 

[TwoSix]

The druid/shaman thing has gotten weird because in real mythology shapeshifting is something that is strongly associated with shamanism and not really with druidism, but in D&D and WoW (no doubt due D&D influence) it has become a druid thing. D&D druid resembles more a real world shaman than it resembles a real world druid, thus any attempt to somewhat accurately represent (of course trough a fantasy lens) a shaman will produce a class that is super similar to the druid. So yeah, I strongly feel that a separate shaman class would be a mistake. Rename druids shamans and call nature clerics druids. That would be pretty accurate.

I think shapeshifting as a trope is primarily viewed as part of the toolkit of nature/primal magic users. I do think that a primary shapeshifter ability is better off a druid subclass than a druid main class feature, though. That would leave more run for various shaman and druid abilities underer a broader "druid" main class. (The druid I use in my own games doesn't have shapeshifting as a core feature, as an example.)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have also thought about something like the shifter class from Pathfinder but I suggest the name "nagual".

Nagual - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I imagine this class like a remake of the totemist class from magic of incarnum, but to change the powers she had to summon totem spirits with a game mechanic like the vestige pact magic, and maybe some powers would work as primal martial-maneuvers, nor at-will neither once-encounter but in the middle, you could reload with special actions for the fight.

Magic of Incarnum Excerpt

Magic of Incarnum Excerpt

archive.wizards.com

Other times I wonder about a class what add monster traits spending points like the prestige class Demonbinder from "Drows of the Underdark"

Drow of the Underdark Excerpts

Drow of the Underdark Excerpts

archive.wizards.com

Today the main strategy by WotC is to sell modules. The production of new bluff(lore, background) is too linked to multimedia projects (comics, novels, videogames, toys, media productions) and today players who want bluff only need to read the free fandom wikis about their favorite IPs. For 3.5 Ed they sold a lot of books about crunch, with lots of prestige classes, magic item, feats, spells.... but they notice their customer don't want to spend their money into lots of serie B titles some some pieces of AAA titles. D&D players don't have enough money to buy more books, or are an older generation without enough time to play because they are too busy with their works and family lives.

WotC has to sell the best crunch, something 3PPs can't offer. Each new base class is a lot of work, and not only the power balance, but a fun gameplay and the right favor to can be used in fiction for D&D as multimedia franchise.

In this decade we may see the psionic mystic, the warlord, the shaman, the martial adept, and in the last years they can dare some risks as the remake of the incarnum soulmelders.

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Paizo has published new base classes for Pathfinder 2, and 3 more for Starfinder and one comingsoon. The second videogame of Pathfinder will have a lot of base classes.

Could WotC to hire Dreamscarred Press as an outsourcer company to create the 5th Ed of the psionic powers?

Saying 15 class are enough is as saying DC or Marvel need to sell only 15 titles of comic series.

 

[Cadence]

Wouldn't a well done summoner be the true Vancian spell caster, with the ability to summon sandestins and daihaks. (My favorite use for them is in Dan Simmons' "The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz" (from the Songs of the Dying Earth anthology).