D&D 5E New D&D WotC survey! On classes.

[Garthanos]

Back in 1984, I got a Time-life book called "Wizards & Witches". A large chapter of the book covered Taliesin, a Welsh bard. That book forever shaped how I saw and wanted my bards to be. Taliesin was depicted as a wise scholar and suble wizard, who could spin his magic via song. He was not a rockstar like so many people try and portray bards.

In fact, that series [The Enchanted World] also left me enamored with fighters with it's rendition of Cuchulain).

Ore people know merlin than Taliesin though

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That, and I recently heard someone actually say the word barlock out loud. I kind of lamented my lack of smiting ability.

...and that's another thing. Bard-lovers (you know who you are, Brad) have this unquenchable thirst for not just human flesh, but also to multi-class their bards and given them cutesy-names.

Brad: This character is going to be the coolest since my Bardlock. He's a ... Bardbarian!

Me: No. Please, for all that is holy. Just no.

Brad: Oh, you're right. I'm going to make Sir Smites-a-lot, the smiley Bardadin! That guy will totally be better than a Barderer.

Me: Erer? Erererererererer? There is no god.


That's right. It's worse than labradoodles and jackhuahuas and cockapoos. Some kind of terrible bard-adjacent tic.

 

[Stormonu]

Ore people know merlin than Taliesin though

More people associate Merlin as a Wizard than a bard, though.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But nobody ever wants to play one of those. It's always the same smarmy class clown with the same stats, the same cantrip, the same proficiencies, and the same rapier. So my problem isn't necessarily with the Bard class; it's with the Bard trope. And it's not their fault; the game mechanics for the bard expect a specific way of playing it...and for all the talk about "versatility" and "jack of all trades," there are few incentives to reward deviating from that expectation.

I think this is fair, but I think the same 'its solved' could be leveled at more than Bards?

Oh I agree. There are plenty of D&D classes that have become little more than clichés. The bard just happens to be the most odious to me.

And this is exactly why my main trope as a poster here on EN World is always talking about why this focus on the miniatures board game that so many people have is inevitably resulting in a detriment to their own enjoyment. And if they could only come at the game much more focused on the narrative (with combat mechanics just being one smaller facet of their PC) they'd be much happier. But it requires them to literally change how they think.

But the fact is that if people keep coming up with the same "build" for any one class... it's because they have decided that there's only one way the game mechanics should be run to have a "good" or "standard" character. As @Scribe says, the game has been "solved" for a good many characters and classes. I mean heck... four years ago all the talk was about how it seemed every melee player was going Great Weapon Master and every ranged player went Sharpshooter all the time, because those feats were "solved" and made for the most DPR. And DMs were getting justifiably bored with all their players playing these mechanical characters. But I would of course then say that if these players felt like playing these "solved" mechanics was the only way to play... it said a lot about how those DMs were running their games and what THEIR focus was on. And that they might have needed to change how they ran their games to convince their players that these cookie-cutter builds weren't actually necessary.

Which is why I think everyone would be a heck of a lot happier if they just stopped worrying about the board game and how well they can do "in combat" and instead just created the characters they wanted purely from a narrative perspective and then played into that narrative when combat started. Because then you could play your cool Monk concept that wasn't just focused on the end-all-and-be-all of white room DPR. Or you could play a Beastmaster Ranger and enjoy the roleplaying that comes with a favored pet, knowing that the DM wasn't going to intentionally gun straight for the animal because it was the "optimal combat choice" for them to make. Or you could play any one of the various subclasses in the game because their stories were really cool, even though they weren't "as good" in combat as another.

Unfortunately, I know quite well I'm barking at the moon when I say all this though.

 

[Bolares]

Given the shenanigans I could get up to with a 3.5 bard and optimised Inspire Courage I'm going to disagree here.

I think they were mostly talking aboutn themes. And in that I agree. there is no theme you could play a bard in 3.5 that you can't play in 5e. Sure, mechanics will always be different, but the themes are still very broad.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Was an interesting survey. Doubt it will get used for anything interesting though.

Had a nice long rant about the eldritch knight in the survey, as my hatred for that thing knows no bounds.

Spent a while praising the paladin, warlock, battlemaster fighter, and tasha's ranger.

Then bitched about the sorcerer for a while.

Then at the end suggested a warlord and swordmage class.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No 4e kept mechanics and flavor distinct and clear

I'd disagree. 3.x put the mechanics into the flavour, 4e put flavour into the mechanics. 5e's written like 3.X but keeps at least some of 4e.

To illustrate the difference, the 4e wizard had a number of at will/cantrip attacks for various elements. What type of damage they did was only different by a single word and their name in a consistent statblock - but they differed in what they did.

• The frost one in the PHB attacked a single target and slowed them by chilling them. (If you recognise this as Ray of Frost in 5e have a cookie; the spell also existed in 3.5 but did damage and nothing else)
• The fire one in the PHB was a small ball of fire that attacked a 3*3 area because fire flares
• The first electrical one was Storm Pillar - a spell that didn't actually make any attack rolls but created a tesla coil that blocked a square and zapped anyone who tried to move past it.

Each had a name and a single sentence of description. But the flavour was in the mechanics and because one was cold and another electrical they did different things in the world that went beyond their damage type. All of those spells had uses and you could only take a couple.

For some reason people considered it blander to have different effects on the world than to have a paragraph of text obscuring the mechanics.

 

[Bolares]

...and that's another thing. Bard-lovers (you know who you are, Brad) have this unquenchable thirst for not just human flesh, but also to multi-class their bards and given them cutesy-names.

Brad: This character is going to be the coolest since my Bardlock. He's a ... Bardbarian!

Me: No. Please, for all that is holy. Just no.

Brad: Oh, you're right. I'm going to make Sir Smites-a-lot, the smiley Bardadin! That guy will totally be better than a Barderer.

Me: Erer? Erererererererer? There is no god.


That's right. It's worse than labradoodles and jackhuahuas and cockapoos. Some kind of terrible bard-adjacent tic.

Well... to be fair, the warlock is the biggest "offender" in this. Sorlock, Bardlock, Paladock....

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Well... to be fair, the warlock is the biggest "offender" in this. Sorlock, Bardlock, Paladock....

It's not the Warlock's fault, though. Clearly, the Warlock's patron loves portmanteaus.

The Devil made me do it.

 

[Maxperson]

Well... to be fair, the warlock is the biggest "offender" in this. Sorlock, Bardlock, Paladock....

A Padlock will fix that.