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


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doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
True. They save some slots for smiting in the next fight. The point is that I don't see them casting spells with those slots.
I very clearly understood what you were saying. I’m saying that your experience is directly opposite of mine. Smiting makes up less than half of spell slot use of any Paladin I’ve seen IRL, and even every Paladin I’ve observed in an actual play casts actual spells.
 

Aldarc

Legend
And considering the Wizard has 8 friggin' subclass in the book, it's pretty egregious. And then the SCAG adds the Arcane Domain Cleric...

Wizard bias strikes again...
I'm not particularly sure that having the eight traditions as eight separate subclasses really adds anything, especially since the spell choices tend to be the samey. While I once hated spell restrictions for traditions, I almost now would prefer it simply for seeing a greater variety of spell selection with wizards.
 

CleverNickName

Limit Break Dancing (He/They)
Well, that's just not true. None of the bards that've ever been in any of my games are like this at all. This is just a meme, not reality.
I mean, if you say so. I've been playing 5E for almost a decade and I've never seen a bard that wasn't a smarmy class clown with the vicious mockery cantrip and a rapier. So my perspective is going to be different.
 


Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
All of my experiences with having a bard in the party (witnessed as both a fellow player and the DM) can be summed up in the following meme:

View attachment 142771
This is going to come across as an attack but it really isn't. If every experience you've had with a bard in your party is that, it sounds like you've never grouped up with a competent bard.

It's one of the strongest crowd control, action denial, and buffing classes. It is absolutely force multiplier when played well - it's when people don't understand that and try to play it like a force projector that it falls flat. It's one of the few classes to have a good supply of non-Concentration buffs in Bardic Inspiration, both the base usage (oh, your GWM and SS characters love it) and whatever their subclass brings. For example my halfling glamour bard does whole-group tactical repositioning with a side of tHP multiple times every battle.

Splitting off a third or more of foes with crowd control like Hypnotic Pattern. Be an off healer to stand up PCs so they don't lose actions waiting for the healer, or stand up that healer. Buff allies.

And yes, occasionally they are doing something directly, like a heat metal or animate object or polymorph. They can, but that's not what they do best.

People forget that if a character is up because foes lost their action or were debuffed, whatever they do is thanks to the bard. If the vengeance paladin lands a GWM strike due to bardic inspiration, that damage is only there because of the bard. Does the bard need them to do it? Sure, they're a multiplier and 0 x anything is still zero, leaving a bard to rely on their own meager to moderate to directly apply force. But when they are part of a team they make everyone shiny.
 

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Okay, okay...I'll level with you guys.

I don't have a problem with bards, at least not as big of a problem as @Snarf Zagyg has, anyway. I think that "sound magic" can work really well in a heroic fantasy setting. I imagine things like the Wishsong from the Heritage of Shannara series of books. I imagine the bells that the Abhorsen uses in Sabriel. I imagine the shouts that the Dragonborn uses in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

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.
My first bard ever (AD&D 2nd) ended up becoming a harper and writing propaganda songs to sway hearts for them, he ended up marrying another PC, and even after getting widowed wasn't "that" bard. I've played a variety of bards, from the one who's performance was weapon drills (fancy sword spinning and such) who was more than a bit piratical but not "that bard" to my current halfling bard who's a silver-tongued herald and neither smarmy nor of high libido. He was described by one of the other players as "the most wholesome D&D character I've seen in a long time".

I hear you, a tired trope is a tired trope, and it's sad that people are not moving past it.
 


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