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

[Minigiant]

That's a general weakness of the class, sure. But 4 at-will spells doesn't feel at all "great grandma breaths fire", to me. Like, 0%. I would never look at the base sorcerer and think "this might be a thing that happens when a dragon shags a human".

Also, I'd rather get a couple draconic ribbon features and a "couple times a day transform into a more dragonlike being" feature, at level 3, than wait for most of the time I'll ever play the character before I even get wings.

If there was such a barb subclass, I'd combine that with a draconic gift feat and feel plenty "born of dragons".

The cantrips don't scream dragon origin but they display the fact that you have an sorcerous origin.

As a sorcerer, I can display the results of my grandpa seceding a dragon. The magic matches the source of the origin. They just wont be dragon flavored.

However unless dragons are natural rageholic, babrabrians don't have a feature that display dragonness. And f you go to other sorcerous orgins like Shadows, Psioincs, Clockworks or Celestials, barbarians make no sense. My dad marched with modrons and it makes me RAGE!!!!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The cantrips don't scream dragon origin but they display the fact that you have an sorcerous origin.

As a sorcerer, I can display the results of my grandpa seceding a dragon. The magic matches the source of the origin. They just wont be dragon flavored.

But how does having spellcasting display the result of grandpa seducing a dragon? IMO, it doesn't. If the idea had never been published in dnd, and you were a PC in a game with any of my PCs, and you said "My grandma is a silver dragon. See, I can cast spells!" I'd just go, "Um, my grandma is a halfling, and I can too."

IMO there is no connection between the two.

However unless dragons are natural rageholic, babrabrians don't have a feature that display dragonness. And f you go to other sorcerous orgins like Shadows, Psioincs, Clockworks or Celestials, barbarians make no sense. My dad marched with modrons and it makes me RAGE!!!!

Rage is a transformation, first of all, so the feature dsplays having an unnatural origin much better than being able to do some stuff that any wizard can do. Second, I literally explicitly mentioned rage being recontextualized for this purpose in a previous post in this discussion.

Transforming into a draconic creature, essentially becoming a were-dragon, makes a hell of a lot more sense for someone with a draconic ancestor (who clearly had to use some sort of transformative magic in order to accomplish making babies with a human in the first place), than imagining that having a white dragon ancestor makes you a very powerful spellcaster!

In fact, it makes more sense for nearly every possible "sorcerous" origin to have a limited feature that eventually becomes less limited and then ultimately unlimited wherein you become more like the thing you are born from, than to be born a spellcaster.

"I was born of shades, and so I can...summon a shadow dog thing and cast absorb elements!"

vs

"I was born of shades, and a shade I can become, though it taxes me to do so. I worry, though. What does it mean to grow in this power, to become more and more of a shadow myself? Will I someday enter the shadow and never leave it?"

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It doesn't need to be literal random in "randomise your subclass" sense, merely that the character build options are such that the character can organically grow and branch into different directions depending on what makes most sense in the emerging narrative, instead of it all being preplanned from the get go.

And that's a good thing - but it shouldn't preclude players having enough control to feel like it's the character they wanted to play.

Which is a tough balance to strike.

A better, pithier response I could not make.

I get wanting organic character growth; I do. But every system I've seen for actually making organic character growth tends to produce...well, the kind of stuff that came out of 3e. Skill points were supposed to let you invest in whatever you wanted, and instead ended up being really punishing and meticulous. Feats (in 3e) were supposed to feel like chunky blocks of cool stuff, and instead were either fiddly-nothing (or worse), or overwhelmingly powerful and (almost) ne'er the twain shall meet. The two systems specifically intended to encourage variety ended up punishing it instead. Ability scores are at risk of the same, e.g. in 3e you'd rarely see an Int 18 Fighter and never an Int 8 Wizard, the former because they have no use for such high Int apart from skill points, the latter because the game forbids a Wizard from casting spells if they don't have at least 10+spell level Intelligence (meaning an Int 9 or lower Wizard cannot even cast cantrips--and every Wizard worth their salt always aims for at least Int 19 to be able to cast 9th level spells--preferably Int 20.)

It really is an extremely difficult design issue. Keep things loose and open, and people are quite likely to feel punished (whether or not that feeling is accurate or appropriate) for not measuring up. Keep things tight and focused, and people (such as yourself) feel it's "preplanned from the get go." Several middle-of-the-road options have failed miserably, making the situation worse in both directions (heightening the feeling of "punishment" for "falling behind" AND the feeling that things need to be preplanned.)

Personally, I think you are over-reacting at least a little to the existence of classes with levels. Like...that's what having "a class" IS, mechanically. It's something where you can see where it goes going forward, a collection of elements. By fogging, or randomizing, or making vague those things, you are directly disrupting the class-based design of the game. If "organic" growth is what you want, classes will never truly fulfill that desire, you will always be compromising on it to some degree.

Rage is a transformation

It is? That's news to me. People rather play up the fact that Barbarian is one of exactly three classes (it, Fighter, and Rogue) that aren't innately magical to some degree in 5e. Monk ki is magical, and every other class has spells. Rage is one of the few explicitly non-magical class features.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It is? That's news to me.

In the example that was being discussed in that exchange, yes.

Statements are, more often than not, meaningless without context.

 

[Remathilis]

Yea. I'd say the general problem (for me) is that warlock works well with the current predominant paradigm of "Build a character to a specific pre-created vision"; I just don't think that's the best paradigm for D&D style play.

Fundamentally, I don't think sitting down at the table at level 1 knowing exactly what abilities your character will have at level 12 is a good thing; I think there should be a lot more randomness based on narrative events.

That's the problem of any class based system though, you know what you're going to look like 5, 10, or 20 levels down the road. I mean, even if my character has a religious epiphany or strikes an eldritch bargain, your probably not going to become a multiclass cleric or warlock unless you made the forethought to have a good wisdom or charisma respectively.

The only way I could see such freedom is some manner of classes system where you can get features without them being tied to class or influenced by that classes ability modifier. But that stops looking like D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's the problem of any class based system though, you know what you're going to look like 5, 10, or 20 levels down the road. I mean, even if my character has a religious epiphany or strikes an eldritch bargain, your probably not going to become a multiclass cleric or warlock unless you made the forethought to have a good wisdom or charisma respectively.

The only way I could see such freedom is some manner of classes system where you can get features without them being tied to class or influenced by that classes ability modifier. But that stops looking like D&D.

Any class system except Level Up. Classes have choice points all over the place in that system.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In the example that was being discussed in that exchange, yes.

Statements are, more often than not, meaningless without context.

Okay. Even in context, it was confusing--I knew you meant "Rage to represent Sorcerer bloodline stuff," but it very much came across as "Rage is already a transformation, so this should all be fine."

As for the rest, I think you're just going to find a very uphill battle for a lot of folks. "Born with magic powers I don't fully understand" is an incredibly common fantasy trope. "Born with the ability to sometimes hulk out and turn into a violent and dangerous creature"...isn't.

 

[Minigiant]

/But how does having spellcasting display the result of grandpa seducing a dragon? IMO, it doesn't. If the idea had never been published in dnd, and you were a PC in a game with any of my PCs, and you said "My grandma is a silver dragon. See, I can cast spells!" I'd just go, "Um, my grandma is a halfling, and I can too."

IMO there is no connection between the two.

The D&D dragon has been a natural spellcaster for several editions.

One of he default bloodline of a sorcerer is that one of your ancestors was a polymorphed dragon and you inherited their nitural magic.

My question is why can't you inherit their wings, claws, scales, breath weapon, resistance or fear aura?
Especially since half dragons do.

Rage is a transformation, first of all, so the feature dsplays having an unnatural origin much better than being able to do some stuff that any wizard can do. Second, I literally explicitly mentioned rage being recontextualized for this purpose in a previous post in this discussion.

Technically. it isn't. Rage can be a transformtion but it isn't automatically. The berserkers rage, the default barbarian, is natural.

The fact that WOTC dumps magic in everything 5e is a separate point.

In fact, it makes more sense for nearly every possible "sorcerous" origin to have a limited feature that eventually becomes less limited and then ultimately unlimited wherein you become more like the thing you are born from, than to be born a spellcaster.

You have not argument from me that the sorcerer should have a monstrous half and less spellcasting.

But we lost that battle in the playtest.
The Wildmage should have been a Pure caster. The Dragon Mage shoulda been a Mage/Warrior. The Celestial Mage should have been a Mage/Priest. The Shadowmge a Mage/Thief.


So the sorcerer allows you to inherit a dragon's, abberant's or celestial's spellcasting Nothing allowsyou to inherits a dragon's, abberant's or celestial's monstrous ability.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I will be eternally salty about losing the playtest sorcerer.

Just so we could be given a bad wizard with the metamagic feat glued on.

 

[Aldarc]

I will be eternally salty about losing the playtest sorcerer.

Just so we could be given a bad wizard with the metamagic feat glued on.

The 3e Sorcerer had a place, even if it was testing new mechanics. It gave us a spontaneous arcane caster. The 4e Sorcerer had a place. It was an Arcane Striker whereas the Wizard was the Arcane Controller. The 5e Sorcerer? It is spontaneous like everyone else and there are no class roles. It's a hollow, rudderless class. The fantasy archetype it is meant to represent feels so phoned-in.