D&D (2024) New Classes for 5e. Is anything missing?

[Parmandur]

The point is that strict adherence to simple elegance can lead to bad ideas and shunning of good ideas

The 3e Fighter was simple and elegant. It also was a bad class with bad design because of it.

I'm sure a Gish that can designed that is different than the Artifficer, Ranger and Paladin. The key is getting the people who don't see it to not instinctively hate it for being different.

I mean the easiest laziest way to design the class is to have a class that has spells use weapon hit rolls over saving throws. Guy hits you with Exploding Sword, there is an explosion, you fly back 50 ft and take bonus fire damage. No saving throw. Classic Comics/Manga/VideoGame move.

Of course, which is why there over 100 basic Class/Subclass combinations, with about a quarter of those being Gishes by my quick conservative count.

Exploding Sword could be a new spell easily enough, or a reflavor of Smite.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Completely untrue.
While you could claim the idea that the inspirations for the cleric and paladin are the same, claiming that there are no clerics in the literature means ignoring history

It may be more a matter of different strictness of definition. I can’t think of any clerics in fiction that actually look like a D&D cleric, but aren’t better made as paladins.

It's less the difference between a 1/3 and 1/2, and more a load of other abilities which set them apart.

As eldritch knight is tied to the fighter power budget, all the things which set the gishes apart in prior editions have had to be axed, nerfed, or delayed to high level.

Like for example due to being a subclass it has to just use the wizard list, which is awful for martial combat blended with weapons. A single class swordmage would have its own list, full of spells which it can integrate into its weapon strikes. Look at the paladin and ranger lists, and compare them to the cleric and druid lists. The theme is the same, but the spells have a different focus.

Exactly. When they did what was actually needed to make a spellcaster (Hexblade Warlock) into a working gish (kinda, still has too low HP), half the community freaked out that it was super broken! And it’s still just not tough enough and too much of your actions are spent choosing between weapon-attacking and Spellcasting.

Still, it's useful to know the narratative examples of the archetype (from whatever the source) to use as a basis to build a class or sub-class.

Idk about that. How useful is familiarity with Gandalf when designing the Wizard?

Adding 11 spells seems simpler than making a new class

Simpler, but also won’t make the Bladesinger a swordmage. Maybe if you could also spend spell slots to extend the Bladesong, it’d get closer than nearly anything else in 5e, but it’s still gonna mostly just be a Wizard.

See, it's exactly this kind of logic that's incredibly frustrating.

Why would you even bother making something where "all the features are just renamed versions of what the EK and BS have"? Of course that would be pointless, even foolish. A proper Swordmage should actually have its own mechanics. Ideally, they should be ones where you can see some kind of relationship to what Bladesingers or Eldritch Knights do, because that enhances the lore of the situation (making EK and BS more like half-steps toward Swordmage, rather than half-steps from Fighter to Wizard or vice-versa), but that's an ideal that may not always be workable.

Hence why I suggested the "Spell Combat" proposal earlier, using runes that ride on top of physical attacks to deliver spells. Or perhaps you literally dual-wield, with a sword in one hand and a spell in the other like how it's done in Elder Scrolls games, and Swordmage blends the two together in its own unique way. Maybe if you hold a spell focus in your offhand, you can shape magical energy into various forms for a round, e.g. a shield of force or a bonus-action attack or a temporary utility effect like "pull one enemy into melee range" or "ensnare one foe within 15 feet" or whatever.

Or an “aegis” that can be temporarily weakened in order to do a damage spike. Or that can be used 1/round to either reduce damage as a reaction, or boost damage as a bonus action. Yeah there is a a lot of stuff.

It's not that hard to come up with actually-interesting but reasonably-straightforward mechanics to play around with in this space, ones that differ from EK, BS, and Paladin. But what can be really, really hard is getting some folks to even consider the possibility that something with new mechanics could actually be interesting to engage with.

Yeah basically. And this is a thing where sometimes designers are best served by taking the chance and just making the cool new thing.

Edit:
And, on the subject of D&D Clerics in fiction: I challenge you to find any example in fiction, let's say before 1960, of a holy warrior wearing relatively heavy armor (doesn't have to be plate precisely, but shouldn't be parsed as light armor, e.g. not just leather), who fights abominations in the name of their deity, but does not fit the mantle of Paladin. I have set the date specifically so that we avoid picking up fiction that has its roots in the Cleric, which is exactly what I'm criticizing.

If I were a betting man, I'd put real money on the idea that the vast majority, if not the entirety, of your examples will come from Crusader-related literature or King Arthur's knights, both of which very much look more like Paladins than D&D Clerics.

Exactly.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's not so much "justifying" as I can't envision the proposal as laid out being distinct from existing options (all of @Minigiant and @AcererakTriple6 suggestions being doable as is, at any rate).

Okay.

As a general rule of design, less is more: elegance trumps many considerations.

Elegance isn’t the same thing as simplicity, first off all. Second, that’s a preference, not a rule.

5E could afford to be more elegant in the Class structure, but theybhit upon a pretty hood balance of options and elegance. I could see room for a Gish in the game...but I'm not sure the Artifficer, Ranger and Paladin don't have the space covered.

Unless you’ve got a homebrew artificer subclass that lets it use its weapon in a magical way most round (preferably every round), then no, they don’t.

 

[Irlo]

Idk about that. How useful is familiarity with Gandalf when designing the Wizard?

Not at all useful, I would say, because the D&D Wizard is not modelled on Gandalf as an archetype. Or, if it is, then the developers clearly did not have any familiarity with Gandalf when they did their work.

That's my point. I'm hearing people saying that EK and other existing options don't meet their needs for a Swordmage class. I'm suggesting that having models for what the Swordmage looks like is useful, so that we can understand what is missing.

 

[Parmandur]

Elegance isn’t the same thing as simplicity, first off all. Second, that’s a preference, not a rule.

They are kissing cousins, most of the time. And certainly, all game design principles are about preferences

Unless you’ve got a homebrew artificer subclass that lets it use its weapon in a magical way most round (preferably every round), then no, they don’t.

I'm a little taken aback by this, because there are multiple ways to this straight out of the first Eberron book through Infusions, and even more with Tasha's. Absolutely no homebrew or refluffing needed for this. I'm particularly a fan of the magical returning weapon Infusion a la Mjolnir, though that's not what you are going for here.

 

[bedir than]

The Battle Smith has access to most of the Smites. They're really made for the gish-fan

 

[Mecheon]

Swordmages/Gishes have that problem where the EK is a strong baseline for what their stuff would hypothetically do, so a lot of stuff out there tends to be "EK but better". Its an absolutely fine line to balance

(Also in doing some looking into I was reminded there was a good Pugilist class out there so non-magical fist fighter is another archetype)

 

[Parmandur]

The Battle Smith has access to most of the Smites. They're really made for the gish-fan

I just checked and Tasha's also adds the melee weapon Cantrips to the Srtificer spell list. So a Battle Smith makes his own magic sword, and can use magical cantrips with the sword in addition to Smite Spells with the usual Spell Slots? Feels pretty Swordmagey.

 

[bedir than]

(Also in doing some looking into I was reminded there was a good Pugilist class out there so non-magical fist fighter is another archetype)

Tasha's has a path towards this, and lots of other Fighter builds.

 

[Minigiant]

Of course, which is why there over 100 basic Class/Subclass combinations, with about a quarter of those being Gishes by my quick conservative count.

Exploding Sword could be a new spell easily enough, or a reflavor of Smite.

It's not a flavor of Smite.
That's the point.

Smite just does damage.
Smite spells does damage and have little effects on hit and forces big effects on failed saves

My concept of the Gish would have big effects on hit with no save. On hit Blind. On hit knocked 50feet or 100feet away. On hit you feet are frozen/sunk to the ground. That's a big deal. A feature so powerful and different that it can't ever be allowed to another class. So it can't ever be a spell.