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

[Cap'n Kobold]

Yes, I am aware that strength based rogues are good, if you multiclass into barbarian, but Dex based ones are rewarded more.

Strength-based Fighters are also good, but outside of a couple of specific builds it is arguable that Dex-based ones are better. Dex is just that good a stat, irrespective of class mechanics.

Nah. The rogue is clearly Dex biased. Sneak attack only triggers with advantage and "flanking". The main way they get advantage is stealth. Flanking relies on having good defensive state, which for Rogues mean high Dex. The book has Dexterity as the rogue's primary score.

The book suggests Dexterity for a quick and simple rogue build. That doesn't mean that you can't make an effective rogue in a different way. The book suggests Strength as a primary stat for a paladin, but an Elven dex-based paladin is very powerful.
In order to get Sneak Attack, a Rogue can walk up to a creature fighting an ally, make an attack, and walk off again. Or just chuck a dagger. And that is assuming that the rogue isn't enabling sneak attack with a different method such as . . .

Sure but it is to me is rather tame. There is little espression of lore and knowledge in how Insightful Fighting works.To me at least.

A Loremaster version would probably require an Int check with proficiency based on the creature type. You don't want to require too many checks in addition to attack and damage each round.

I want skill to have defined worldly effects like they do in the real world and many fantasy.

I wan Nature to allow me to analyze venoms. I want Arcana to allow the character to understand and affect magical items, obstacles, and beings.. I want Religion to reinforce holy objects and items. I want Persuassion and History to allow use of special terms and laws during negotiation.

I want my character to use theirbrain to do something other than magicing some problem away.

That isn't an issue with a class or lack thereof. Its an issue with the 5e skill system (or lack thereof), and how it is used by your DM.

Does Science not exist in D&D?
Does the FR have no law schools?
Does chemical reactions not happen in Eberron?
Do people not study philosophy in Dark Sun?

Yes, but in the context of using special words to alter your foes, enhance your allies, reveal secrets etc . . . There is already a system in the game that does precisely those things.

Does mundane science, arts, and diplomacy not exist in D&D?
Does fantasy science, arts, and diplomacy not exist in D&D?
Is everything magic?

Science is almost literally "How the world works". Magic is part of the world and thus subject to study and analysis as much as science. Knowledge Nature tells you about magical natural creatures as well as mundane ones for example.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Strength-based Fighters are also good, but outside of a couple of specific builds it is arguable that Dex-based ones are better. Dex is just that good a stat, irrespective of class mechanics.

Though that is arguably true, Fighters don't have features designed specifically to favor Dex.

 

[cbwjm]

Barbarians are focused on strength but that doesn't stop them getting strength based abilities. Evasion is the only ability that really focuses on dexterity, but even with a 10 dexterity (for arguments sake), you're still taking half damage on a fail, it doesn't really require a good dexterity to make use of it. No other ability specifically references dexterity, however, I do still think that if you made a strength focused "dirty fighter" that having at least a 14 dexterity and picking up medium armour from elsewhere would be a good idea.

You'd actually make a pretty good warrior who uses hard hitting ability against your opponents. You hardly need advantage to make use of sneak attack, I find in most games with a rogue, it is the use of pack tactics and making sure you have an ally in range of your target (or play a swashbuckler to provide additional targeting parameters) that gets sneak attack off most of the time.

 

[Minigiant]

Strength-based Fighters are also good, but outside of a couple of specific builds it is arguable that Dex-based ones are better. Dex is just that good a stat, irrespective of class mechanics.

Dexterity is a primary score for fighters.
Fighter's Primary score is STR or DEx.
Rogue's Primary score is Dex

The book suggests Dexterity for a quick and simple rogue build. That doesn't mean that you can't make an effective rogue in a different way. The book suggests Strength as a primary stat for a paladin, but an Elven dex-based paladin is very powerful.
In order to get Sneak Attack, a Rogue can walk up to a creature fighting an ally, make an attack, and walk off again. Or just chuck a dagger. And that is assuming that the rogue isn't enabling sneak attack with a different method such as . . .

I'm not saying theyou can't customize your rogue.
My point is that your rogue favors DEX and DEX based skills. Not Int, Wis, and Cha and their skills.
Sneak attack only works with finesse and ranged weapons.
cunning action lets you Hide as a bonus action.
Evasion triggers off Dex saves
Rogue armor relies on high Dex
Rogues get all 3 Dex skills and no lore skills.

A Loremaster version would probably require an Int check with proficiency based on the creature type. You don't want to require too many checks in addition to attack and damage each round.

That's not how I'd do it.

That isn't an issue with a class or lack thereof. Its an issue with the 5e skill system (or lack thereof), and how it is used by your DM.

Doesn't matter.
Rogues don't get prof in any of those skills in their base pool.

Yes, but in the context of using special words to alter your foes, enhance your allies, reveal secrets etc . . . There is already a system in the game that does precisely those things.

And here is my problem.
All science in 5e D&D is overt spellcasting.
There is no rules (yet) for applying lore and tools to predictable worldly effects.

Science is almost literally "How the world works". Magic is part of the world and thus subject to study and analysis as much as science. Knowledge Nature tells you about magical natural creatures as well as mundane ones for example.

And that's the problem. D&D's base assumption currently removes all advanced nonmagical science.

As long as there is no lore based class, no system for tool and lore proficiency in high fantasy, and no crafting system... all smarts is magic.

Many people don't like this and this is why you see many mad scientists, herbalists, gadgeteers, tinkers, doctors, archeologists, beastmasters, warlords, occulists, and the like in many new games.

 

[DND_Reborn]

My point is that your rogue favors DEX and DEX based skills. Not Int, Wis, and Cha and their skills.
Sneak attack only works with finesse and ranged weapons.
cunning action lets you Hide as a bonus action.
Evasion triggers off Dex saves
Rogue armor relies on high Dex
Rogues get all 3 Dex skills and no lore skills.

Just to chime in on this one part of the discussion:

Finesse weapons don't have to use DEX, they simply can. You can still use STR with a sneak attack. Thrown weapons, which also use STR, are used to also make ranged attacks. So, STR works just as well with sneak attack as DEX, with "ranged" weapons being the only exception.

Cunning action also lets you Dash and Disengage, neither of which require DEX. Also, with expertise, a Rogue with little to no DEX can high as well as any other non-expertise PC.

Evasion is a DEX save, but you still have proficiency in it. It is actually sort of better when you don't have the DEX because you are more likely to fail the save, but will still only take half damage compared to others who fail but take full damage.

While Light Armor relies on DEX, MCing or feats can allow you to use heavier armors and have an even better AC than the DEX-based Rogue in Light Armor. If you happen to play at the insanely rare table which allow neither MCing nor feats, AC is not as important in 5E as it was in other editions due to HP bloat (and there are always Mountain Dwarves, as we all know... )

Only 30% of the Rogue skills are DEX. Sure, there is only Athletics for STR, but that is the only STR-based skill... You also can get any skills you want via background, and then take expertise in them so be awesome with any skill you want. I mean, it is a point of annoyance (personally) that in tier 4, a Rogue with expertise in Arcana is +12 but a Wizard with INT 20 is only +11...

I love rogues, along with wizards, they are one of my top two classes in 5E. So, while DEX can easily favor rogues, you definitely don't need it to have a very fun and effective rogue PC.

So, I know you aren't saying you can't make a non-DEX-based rogue, I just wanted to reinforce rogues have a lot of other options-- they aren't as pigeon-holed as a lot of people seem to think IMO.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Minigiant]

My point was that rogues are tilted to dexterity, sneakiness, underhandedness, and agility and not titled to lore and knowledge at all. So making loremasters rogues seems very forced and just to not create a new class.

In fact, fighters make a better loremaster and scholar in 5e than rogues. Fighter has an Intelligence lore skill: History and 2 WIsdom knowledge skills (Animal Handling, Survival). The problem is the fighter gets little benefit for using their brains and go extremely heavy into combat prowess.

 

[Undrave]

The starting point should be the fiction and the imagery of the class.

Ah yes the fiction of the Fighter: "He haz weapns, He be good with them." Riveting! What even IS a Fighter? How do you explain what a Fighter is to a newbie without mentionning stuff like "easy to learn" or "subclass" or "has feats and extra attack"?

Anyway, just because you start from the fiction doesn't preclude a clear design goal, quite the opposite. You can imagine how that character would act in a battle and then come up with mechanics to support that image. What you imagine them doing is basically the 'core role' of the class. Everything else is just dial and levers to reinforce or modify that core role in various ways.

There are many different kinds of fighters, many different kind of rogues. And if you tie the class too tightly some mechanical role, that flexibility suffers. That definitely happened in 4E and a lot of people didn't like that.

I think the 4e Fighter had a much clearler identity, of being in the thick of things and not letting people through no matter what. The stickiness was real and enforced! It wasn't just the DM deciding not to ignore the Fighter. The Fighter was a living shield! But he had different ways to go about it. Martial Power even introduced the Battlerager Vigor class feature that essentially made you a mundane Barbarian (you got Temp HP everytime you got hit AND you could stack the Temp HP from powers with the 'Invigorating' keyword with any other Temp HP and finally you, while wearing light or medium armor, you got a damage bonus when you have Temp HP. And you had the Tempest Style that let you do the twin weapon thing... Sure it didn't get archery support...big friggin' deal. It didn't try to be everything for everybody, it was focused on this basic image of 'Guy at the frontline holding back enemies' and I think the design was cleaner and more focused for it.

(And I'm pretty sure the 4e Rogue didn't really miss anything compared to the 5e Rogue, maybe free expertise or the ability to be an Arcane Trickster at level 3 (but that's more of a structural thing with 5e). The 4e Rogue even had powers and abilities made use of STR as a secondary ability so you could be a thug.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Ah yes the fiction of the Fighter: "He haz weapns, He be good with them." Riveting! What even IS a Fighter? How do you explain what a Fighter is to a newbie without mentionning stuff like "easy to learn" or "subclass" or "has feats and extra attack"?

"Fighters are the dasic mundane warriors, they're soldiers, knights and mercenaries. They know to use wide variety of weapons and armour. Their expertise is fighting in mundane means without relying on magic or favour of gods. "

I think the 4e Fighter had a much clearler identity, of being in the thick of things and not letting people through no matter what. The stickiness was real and enforced! It wasn't just the DM deciding not to ignore the Fighter. The Fighter was a living shield! But he had different ways to go about it. Martial Power even introduced the Battlerager Vigor class feature that essentially made you a mundane Barbarian (you got Temp HP everytime you got hit AND you could stack the Temp HP from powers with the 'Invigorating' keyword with any other Temp HP and finally you, while wearing light or medium armor, you got a damage bonus when you have Temp HP. And you had the Tempest Style that let you do the twin weapon thing... Sure it didn't get archery support...big friggin' deal. It didn't try to be everything for everybody, it was focused on this basic image of 'Guy at the frontline holding back enemies' and I think the design was cleaner and more focused for it.

Right. So heavy focus on 'defender' stuff. That is limiting and doesn't logically flow as only possible approach from the fiction of the class. A lot of people wanted 'striker' fighters. Roles like 'striker' and 'defender' (and the overlooked 'hybrid') should not be things that define whole classes, at most they should be build options withing classes.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

That's not how I'd do it.

That's fair. How would you do it?

Doesn't matter.
Rogues don't get prof in any of those skills in their base pool.

Subclasses are allowed to give extra skills and even change the focus of a class.

And here is my problem.
All science in 5e D&D is overt spellcasting.
There is no rules (yet) for applying lore and tools to predictable worldly effects.

Knowledge and Tool proficiencies to ability checks. Those are the rules for applying lore and tools to predictable worldly effects.

And that's the problem. D&D's base assumption currently removes all advanced nonmagical science.

As long as there is no lore based class, no system for tool and lore proficiency in high fantasy, and no crafting system... all smarts is magic.

I'm not sure what you think of science is what I think of science.
Science is incremental and repeatable. Advanced nonmagical science in the D&D worlds is what leads to advances like the metallurgy capable of creating rapiers and effective handcrossbows in a medieval setting. If your character has abilities based on having invented gunpowder for example, then gunpowder will become, and forever after be, part of the setting, because anyone can do it after it has been discovered.
If your character invents a grapple-gun, or works out a herbal formula for PCP, everyone from there on can use it when they share their findings.

Many people don't like this and this is why you see many mad scientists, herbalists, gadgeteers, tinkers, doctors, archeologists, beastmasters, warlords, occulists, and the like in many new games.

A lot of those could be covered in the Artificer class. Their 'spells' are pretty explicitly fluffed as using devices or formulas that they have created.
Yes, they are magical, but that is because they use magical principle in their design to perform effects that mundane devices could not. Nonmagical devices are called "Equipment" and are available in the PHB.

My point was that rogues are tilted to dexterity, sneakiness, underhandedness, and agility and not titled to lore and knowledge at all. So making loremasters rogues seems very forced and just to not create a new class.

Subclasses are allowed to change the focus of a class. It strikes me that a class that is very good at Lore and application of skills would need:
A method of getting a bonus to those skills above simply being proficient in them.
An ability that reduces the chance of the character not being good at those skills when they just get a low roll.
Possibly at high level, the capability to take an important ability check that they failed and say; "No. The character is at the peak of knowledge. He is successful in this check."

Possibly some combat abilities demonstrating the character's tactical awareness and analysis and sense of timing.

In fact, fighters make a better loremaster and scholar in 5e than rogues. Fighter has an Intelligence lore skill: History and 2 WIsdom knowledge skills (Animal Handling, Survival). The problem is the fighter gets little benefit for using their brains and go extremely heavy into combat prowess.

That's a good point. You could do it with a fighter, but you would need to put almost all the support for ability checks in the subclass, because the fighter class doesn't have those as the base class like the rogue does.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In fact, fighters make a better loremaster and scholar in 5e than rogues. Fighter has an Intelligence lore skill: History and 2 WIsdom knowledge skills (Animal Handling, Survival). The problem is the fighter gets little benefit for using their brains and go extremely heavy into combat prowess.

Respectfully, I still have to disagree. Expertise alone would make Rogues better than Fighters.

But now that I think of it, if you want a loremaster and scholar, why aren't you building it around the Lore Bard??? (Sorry if that was already covered in your discussion.) Bards get any skills, one more than Fighter, and one less than Rogue but as you pointed out Rogue base skills don't reflect well for a loremaster and you'd have to rely more on the background skills. The Lore subclass actually gets 3 more skills as well, so your breath of knowledge is greater and since Bards also get expertise (albeit a bit later) they can also make out the proficiency bonus double to four skills. And of course Bards get Jack of All Trades so can add half proficiency to other skills.

I mean, isn't the Lore Bard really a loremaster/scholar already? If the "music" thing bothers you, have it be proficiency in oratory or storytelling or some other non-instrument performance art.