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

[Ruin Explorer]

Which is actually pretty bizarre...

Yeah I've got to imagine it's not a war-elephant, so presumably if the DM was being mean that could lead to a ton of checks to keep control of it in battle, when a mouse/rat/halfling rushes by near it, when it sees fire, etc. But y'know, I probably wouldn't.

 

[Blue]

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For versatility, the bard class relies a lot more on racial features than other classes do. For example, I went with Mountain Dwarf to get the weapon and armor proficiencies I needed for a "warrior" build. I considered going with High Elf to get a more useful cantrip, or Tiefling to get more useful spells. It's unfortunate, but I couldn't find a way to make a baseline human bard that could keep pace with other character classes.

The Lore bard was the obvious choice for a gap-filler. In my "mounted warrior" build here, the three extra proficiencies allowed me to pick up the Animal Handling skill that I needed, and a handful of other gladiator-style skills to better round out the character. It's essentially giving you the Skilled feat for free at 3rd level.

In conclusion: the Bard still isn't my cup of tea, but I'd rather play this bard than, say, an Eldritch Knight or a Sorcerer.

I love the idea of a elephant riding dwarven bard. Great fun!

To make a side comment, you don't even have to go that far to replace the action economy. While cursing someone to death with vicious mockery makes one giggle, and honestly the debuff is nice on a cantrip, or the pokey-pokey of a rapier does some damage, think about a bard doing none of them.

The best of the bardic spell list are all concentration. That's why having a "fill in" action is nice. But having a bard that when not casting just plays and takes the dodge action to help preserve that concentration tactically works just fine while handing out bardic inspirations and healing words with their bonus action. (I learned this playing a Loxodon Cleric, who would run up and engage enemies while Spirit Guardians and Spirtual Weapon were up and just dodge. If they wanted to try to get out of the spirit guarians I got an opportunity attack, and if they wanted to attack me they had disadvantage.) Or heck, skill use is an action - a leader of men could wait until foes are demoralized when losing and then call for them to surrender in the most intimidating way. Basically I'm saying that the need to directly project force, be it by rapier or discovering elephant polo using foe's heads, is orthagonal to the multiplier bards are by freezing out half the foes forces with a crowd control or the like.

But I'd play Ivann, feels like a hoot to play.

 

[CleverNickName]

Yeah this is enjoyably nuts! I would definitely play him for the duration of adventure, maybe not a campaign but an adventure for sure!

I wouldn't sweat the gold, the only really expensive thing is the breastplate, and could easily have been found on a dead enemy or something. Mountain Dwarf is a smart choice and the elephant is hilarious and should be pretty effective for a while at least, that's a ton of easy Advantage! Fun times with Dissonant Whispers too.

I do wonder if not going Valor/Sword is a mistake given you're about to hit 5th and would get an extra attack though, and this guy is clearly built around melee attacks.

I love the idea of a elephant riding dwarven bard. Great fun!

To make a side comment, you don't even have to go that far to replace the action economy. While cursing someone to death with vicious mockery makes one giggle, and honestly the debuff is nice on a cantrip, or the pokey-pokey of a rapier does some damage, think about a bard doing none of them.

The best of the bardic spell list are all concentration. That's why having a "fill in" action is nice. But having a bard that when not casting just plays and takes the dodge action to help preserve that concentration tactically works just fine while handing out bardic inspirations and healing words with their bonus action. (I learned this playing a Loxodon Cleric, who would run up and engage enemies while Spirit Guardians and Spirtual Weapon were up and just dodge. If they wanted to try to get out of the spirit guarians I got an opportunity attack, and if they wanted to attack me they had disadvantage.) Or heck, skill use is an action - a leader of men could wait until foes are demoralized when losing and then call for them to surrender in the most intimidating way. Basically I'm saying that the need to directly project force, be it by rapier or discovering elephant polo using foe's heads, is orthagonal to the multiplier bards are by freezing out half the foes forces with a crowd control or the like.

But I'd play Ivann, feels like a hoot to play.

Two down, one to go! What say you, @Snarf Zagyg?

Honestly, once I had decided on 4th level, I didn't even look at class features beyond it. Valor would be the more optimal choice for a purely melee warrior, but...meh. Optimization is overrated.

Don't forget that @Faolyn wanted in on this action (link).

Yeah I've got to imagine it's not a war-elephant, so presumably if the DM was being mean that could lead to a ton of checks to keep control of it in battle, when a mouse/rat/halfling rushes by near it, when it sees fire, etc. But y'know, I probably wouldn't.

Well that's what Animal Handling is for, right? I wouldn't try to drive one of those things without being able to handle it properly, maybe have a few words with it via Speak With Animals. An out-of-control elephant sounds like loads of fun for DM and player alike, so I wouldn't even try to fight the DM over it.

I don't know about Halflings, but in my headcannon Thunderstep is trained to hunt gnomes. Stomp the ground to flush them out of their burrows, run them down across open ground...

 

[Aldarc]

I'm convinced it was a bad design. It set a bad precedent for Wizard subclasses and really cut off a bunch of ideas for relatively subpar repetitive builds.

Diviner is a good one because of its Portent ability, and Illusionist could work as a full on subclass because of the strong theme, and you could add spells to both that aren't on the Wizard spell list. Then they could have a generic subclass that gets the whole 'scribe your favoured school spells for cheaper' feature and just be a generic 'School Specialist' subclass. Maybe give them a 'You can use this feature once and you can use it again after you spend a slot on a spell of your chosen school' based on your favoured school (like the Abjurer shield).

Pretty much. You scribe your tradition cheaper. You get back a lower level spell slot or feature when casting from your tradition. Throw in a few more things. Boom. Done.

I did rate the Illusionist well. It doesn't necessarily win the Diviner's power awards but it has been one of the most fun wizard subclasses to see in play, which is also worth lauding. I do think that more Illusionist wizard players tend to lean into their tradition more than others.

I'd have kept proper Necromancer for later when you have room to add more necromancy spells.

I did write that I've encountered a fair number of players who were disappointed with the Necromancer in D&D, though it has more to do with how the D&D Necromancer doesn't really fit with the archetypal fantasy that they want to play when they see "Necromancer": e.g., Diablo 2-3 Necro, Guild Wars 1-2 Necro, ESO Necro, etc. Or that one can't be a master of "life and death" with this Necro because of how Necromancy is partially siloed in the Cleric and partially siloed in the Wizard. And then there's the micro-managing of undead by HD and how long they last, etc.

IMHO, rating these classes and subclasses are not just about whether they are good on paper or balanced, but also about my experiences of dealing with players coming to this game and how these character options meet or fail their expectations, which may also involve the class fantasies.

Edit: Show of hands. Who had choice words to say about the Pact of the Blade and the Hexblade in this survey?

I am somewhat worried how WotC plans, if at all, to revise the PHB without somehow invalidating their later splat book options. Like how do you fix the Pact of the Blade without messing up the Hexblade further?

 

[Maxperson]

Well, it depends on whether you're getting it at Arby's ... or IKEA.

Isn't IKEA horsey sauce glue?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't know about Halflings, but in my headcannon Thunderstep is trained to hunt gnomes. Stomp the ground to flush them out of their burrows, run them down across open ground...

In the wild elephants tend to freak out when small things move near them - hence their semi-legendary fear of mice - it's not that they're actually afraid of mice, but just any smaller creature, esp. one moving fast, at their feet. That said yeah if you train 'em as animal handling would surely allow, I'm sure they'd be stomping gnomes in no time!

Also yeah Speak with Animals should like, in a training situation, speed up and ease training absolutely massively. It'd be nuts. I'm loving what you did here.

Edit: Show of hands. Who had choice words to say about the Pact of the Blade and the Hexblade in this survey?

I meant to and then forgot

But yeah that is a major issue, Pact of the Blade is a mess w/o Hexblade, not totally unusable, but very close to a trap option, and I've literally seen a player slowly work this out - he was Fiend but went Pact of the Blade, and I didn't want to give unasked-for build-advice, but yeah he eventually realized that actually, the Pact was pretty pointless, he was better off in almost all situations just with good old Agonizing Blast. The DM offered to let him change, but he kept it for the style and because really, Warlock is so well-designed that whilst Chain or Tome would definitely have been more powerful, he was absolutely solid as it was, just gained basically no benefit from his Pact.

I am somewhat worried how WotC plans, if at all, to revise the PHB without somehow invalidating their later splat book options. Like how do you fix the Pact of the Blade without messing up the Hexblade further?

I really think, based on the fact that they're asking about this stuff, we're looking at a highly-compatible 6E or a 5.75E or something, rather than them just "adjusting the PHB" as it were. I mean, they might, but they're asking about like, individual abilities and stuff, and that strikes me as making bigger revisions than anything we wouldn't call an edition change.

It's basically what I've been expecting - most of the changes 5E could do with are player-facing stuff, though I do think monsters could benefit from moving more to abilities and less use of spells, but that's a whole other thread.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Pretty much. You scribe your tradition cheaper. You get back a lower level spell slot or feature when casting from your tradition. Throw in a few more things. Boom. Done.

I did rate the Illusionist well. It doesn't necessarily win the Diviner's power awards but it has been one of the most fun wizard subclasses to see in play, which is also worth lauding. I do think that more Illusionist wizard players tend to lean into their tradition more than others.


I did write that I've encountered a fair number of players who were disappointed with the Necromancer in D&D, though it has more to do with how the D&D Necromancer doesn't really fit with the archetypal fantasy that they want to play when they see "Necromancer": e.g., Diablo 2-3 Necro, Guild Wars 1-2 Necro, ESO Necro, etc. Or that one can't be a master of "life and death" with this Necro because of how Necromancy is partially siloed in the Cleric and partially siloed in the Wizard. And then there's the micro-managing of undead by HD and how long they last, etc.

IMHO, rating these classes and subclasses are not just about whether they are good on paper or balanced, but also about my experiences of dealing with players coming to this game and how these character options meet or fail their expectations, which may also involve the class fantasies.

Exactly this. With its craving for all things passed, 5e shoot itself in the foot by focusing to much on its self-references (magic schools, spells slots) instead of things players will know as fantasy archetypes.

Where are the Summon Bone Scythe, Bone Spear, Armor of Bones, Summon Arcane Skeletons ?
Danse Macabre is probably the closest thing to the idea of Necromancers new players have.

I'd prefer if the mage archetypes where more like the Warmage, mixing some schools to make a thematic and flavorful caster.

Warmage -> Invocation + Abjuration
Summoner -> Conjuration + Abjuration
Warder -> Abjuration + Transmutation
Nomad -> Conjuration + Transmutation
Beguiler -> Illusion enchantment

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I did write that I've encountered a fair number of players who were disappointed with the Necromancer in D&D, though it has more to do with how the D&D Necromancer doesn't really fit with the archetypal fantasy that they want to play when they see "Necromancer": e.g., Diablo 2-3 Necro, Guild Wars 1-2 Necro, ESO Necro, etc. Or that one can't be a master of "life and death" with this Necro because of how Necromancy is partially siloed in the Cleric and partially siloed in the Wizard. And then there's the micro-managing of undead by HD and how long they last, etc.

IMHO, rating these classes and subclasses are not just about whether they are good on paper or balanced, but also about my experiences of dealing with players coming to this game and how these character options meet or fail their expectations, which may also involve the class fantasies.

Absolutely agree with this as well (just noticed it properly), and I pulled up Necromancer for the same thing.

Necromancer is an extremely well-established fantasy archetype, across games, books (including the amazing recent Gideon the Ninth), even movies and so on. It's a person who can raise and control undead (corpses, spirits, etc.) to do their bidding - and usually they can raise quite a few of them quite quickly.

At this point, whilst I think Wizard should retain their necromancy spells and so on, I think Necromancer should actually be its own class. Worlds With Number, which is OSR-based, does this, and provides an extremely competent and well-designed Necromancer who absolutely feels like fantasy fiction Necromancer, not a crummy Wizard with slightly more death-themed spells than usual.

I've also seen multiple players over the last 15-20 years come to D&D, or even as established players, finally look at playing a Necromancer, and end up completely disappointed and not playing that because jeez. WotC just really need to look at WWN here.

And yeah in general they need to consider player expectations, not just Grog expectations. 5E was designed largely for the latter, but with 50m players, apparently most of them new, I think that needs to take a back seat.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Absolutely agree with this as well (just noticed it properly), and I pulled up Necromancer for the same thing.

Necromancer is an extremely well-established fantasy archetype, across games, books (including the amazing recent Gideon the Ninth), even movies and so on. It's a person who can raise and control undead (corpses, spirits, etc.) to do their bidding - and usually they can raise quite a few of them quite quickly.

At this point, whilst I think Wizard should retain their necromancy spells and so on, I think Necromancer should actually be its own class. Worlds With Number, which is OSR-based, does this, and provides an extremely competent and well-designed Necromancer who absolutely feels like fantasy fiction Necromancer, not a crummy Wizard with slightly more death-themed spells than usual.

I've also seen multiple players over the last 15-20 years come to D&D, or even as established players, finally look at playing a Necromancer, and end up completely disappointed and not playing that because jeez. WotC just really need to look at WWN here.

And yeah in general they need to consider player expectations, not just Grog expectations. 5E was designed largely for the latter, but with 50m players, apparently most of them new, I think that needs to take a back seat.

casters need to be worked on to make more sense, martials need to have more to do.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Two down, one to go! What say you, @Snarf Zagyg?

A wicked dumb lore bard?

thinking

Checks out!

I truly appreciate the effort gets out some d4s, and it's a different gets some horsey sauces and slathers the d4s and even interesting bard right down the hatch but fundamentally it's still a bard.

Giving the bard some money and giving the bard a fancy shirt? Still a bard.

No matter how cool the pattern might be. Better to use your per diem to buy food, and to use a class that isn't a bard, than to waste such good concepts on the bard class.

If you have to buy an elephant to distract people from the class, the problem isn't the elephant, it's the class.

10/10 effort.
0/10 bard.