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

[Frozen_Heart]

One thing I've noticed about 5e is that it really struggles to handle concepts which are too redundant to be a class, but too unique and large to be a subclass.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Pugilist seems to be popular, though. I generally agree but I think people really do want a strong, punchy-guy thematically.

ideally we want monk to be like the fighter and work of both str and dex

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If anything happened to the monk I'd rather see it go more martial, and not more gish like. DnD has barely any martials as it is and needs more.

The 'classic' 4e swordmage has light armour and teleports around the battlefield, being extremely movement based itself.

How is the martial artist distinct from the fighter? Why would it not be miles better to give he fighter a variant level 1 class feature that loses heavy armor and shields but gains Unarmored defense?

That, Unarmed fighting style, and Battlemaster, is a better martial artist than most monk subclasses, as it is!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I will say this, if there is enough demand for different kinds of martial artists, that picking different maneuvers to build your style wouldn’t cut it, fine, make a class.

But it isn’t the Monk, guys. If you remove the mysticism from the monk, you have…only the level 1 features, and extra attack, left. That’s a different class.

So sure, Martial Artist can hang out with my Archer and someone else’s Knight and another person’s Swashbuckler, and my Captain, in a whole suit of martial classes.

And then the monk can be rewritten as a mystic warrior without the orientalism. And maybe bigger subclasses.

 

[Faolyn]

But "can fight" is all fighters have in common. There's subsets of that, but there's nothing else to the Fighter class. But lookig at the others: "can fight by getting angry" and "can fight with fists because magic" and "can fight with holy magic" and "can fight and do woodsy stuff" are the other fighty options - why does "can fight with arcane magic" not pass the test?

Paladins don't "fight with holy magic." They fight with the fervor of their convictions. In earlier editions, those convictions were always divine in nature; now, their convictions stem from the oaths they take. Even monks don't really fight with magic; they "fight with their fists" and use magic (ki) to enhance their physical abilities.

So a swordmage or gish or whatever you want to call it doesn't pass the test because "can fight with arcane magic" doesn't explain how they fight. An eldritch knight as well as several other Fighter archetypes can fight with arcane magic--and so can bladesingers and swords bards, as well as any martial/arcane spellcaster multiclass.

Now, take a page from the hexblade and say that they fight because of a mystical bond with a blade-spirit, and that bond manifests as a magical energy construct which they don't actually hold, effectively turning them into a summoner class (maybe at 5th+ level they can attack both physically and with this construct as their form of Extra Attack). That might be different enough to be its own thing and not just a different type of fighter. I have no idea what this class' archetypes would be like, though.

 

[Minigiant]

A Pugilist feel much like a Fighter subclass with maneuvers and bonus Unarmed Fighting fighting style and Unarmored Defenses.

Unless you go full Street Fighter Ii through V

 

[Aldarc]

A Pugilist feel much like a Fighter subclass with maneuvers and bonus Unarmed Fighting fighting style and Unarmored Defenses.

Unless you go full Street Fighter Ii through V

A Paladin feels like a Fighter subclass with divine magic. A Barbarian feels like a Fighter subclass with rage powers.

 

[Rogerd1]

On the monk front, why not remove chi, and call their abilities Heroic abilities similar to Legend. So you could say their powers come from anywhere in game. This should remove the oriental flavour.

 

[Minigiant]

A Paladin feels like a Fighter subclass with divine magic. A Barbarian feels like a Fighter subclass with rage powers.

They don't have Action Surge.

You make a Pugilist not feel like a Fighter, you need it's replacement for Action Surge and Second Wind.

It can be done. But you need the mechanics to justify it not being a subclass. Like I said you could go full Street Fighter or King of Fighters.

 

[Scribe]

Its all right here for the Gish, trust me, its fun and interesting.

Magus – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com