D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XII: Rogues)

[doctorbadwolf]

Warlocks, Clerics, and Sorcerers all get spells by endowment. This is a well-established pattern.

The absolute fundamental defining point of Warlocks even existing as a class is that they break the universal rules of magic. They offend wizards and clerics and Druids because what they do is unnatural in a world where fireball is natural.

“By endowment” is so vague that you could delete it from the sentence and all you’d lose is some grammatical coherence.

Rangers do tricksy wilderness things, knowing what herbs can heal a wound or kill a beast. That's nothing remotely like an endowment of magical power from an outside source. Nor is it all that much like Wizard, Bard, or Druid spells. It is a much looser, more ad-hoc thing.

Maybe, maybe not.

I honestly don't get what is confusing about this. I want a diversity of approaches to supernatural power. This requires that there be more than just the very specific mechanical and thematic limitations imposed by "you have X/Y/Z slots of level M/P/Q, which specifically refresh daily and which are totally fungible between your different magical abilities of a given level, and which are disabled or defeasible under specific well-defined circumstances no matter how you perform them, and you must specifically engage nondescript physical motions, highly specific magical materials, or nondescript verbal expressions if and only if they are mentioned in the text."

Eh, I’m never gonna find this argument compelling on any level. This is what I mean. I don’t see anything about this topic the same way you do, so this won’t go anywhere.

That's a very specific mechanical niche. It can do a lot of things (it is magic, after all), but it isn't, and shouldn't be mistaken for, a totally generic "this truly does cover all possible supernatural powers someone might want to use." As demonstrated by numerous supernatural/not-fully-mundane effects in 5e, like Rage, Bardic Inspiration, Ki, Channel Divinity, Wild Shape, Auras, etc. Spells would struggle to replicate several of these without massive kludge.

Bardic Inspiration is the only one that would even be mildly difficult. Rage is extremely easy. Like at a glance I’m not sure I’d change much of the wording, it just would be packaged with the structure of a spell. It’s not like you’d have to give Barbarians spell slots in order to format Rage as a spell.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Bards should not be full casters. They are the F/M/T (well, F/T/D...?) of old and should be balanced that way.

• Good at fighting, but not great (as good as "fighting" clerics, but not as good as fighters)
• Good at spells, but not great (half-casters)
• Good at (most) skills, but not great (lots of skills, but no expertise--leave that to the rogues)

They are meant to be well-rounded, but bards as full-casters is overkill, bards with expertise is overkill, bards with multiple attacks is overkill.

In 5E, they have everything really, and that is the reason why I would never allow a RAW bard in my game.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The absolute fundamental defining point of Warlocks even existing as a class is that they break the universal rules of magic. They offend wizards and clerics and Druids because what they do is unnatural in a world where fireball is natural.

I personally never got the impression that warlock magic was any sort of unnatural or broke sorts of magical laws, what i saw as offending about them is the selling of your immortal soul for power in a world where the afterlife is a known thing, wizards hate warlocks because they took the quick and nasty path to magic when the wizard put the hard work in and did it honestly off their own back, the entities that warlocks make deals with are not like the gods in that they have private goals and ambitions and warlocks are their indentured pawns in their schemes and see the material plane as somewhere to be conquered and used rather than tended to as the gods (somewhat) do.

 

[Ancalagon]

Bards should not be full casters. They are the F/M/T (well, F/T/D...?) of old and should be balanced that way.

• Good at fighting, but not great (as good as "fighting" clerics, but not as good as fighters)
• Good at spells, but not great (half-casters)
• Good at (most) skills, but not great (lots of skills, but no expertise--leave that to the rogues)

They are meant to be well-rounded, but bards as full-casters is overkill, bards with expertise is overkill, bards with multiple attacks is overkill.

In 5E, they have everything really, and that is the reason why I would never allow a RAW bard in my game.

a small quibble...

"good at fighting but not great" can be represented pretty well by 2 attacks and "nothing else". If you have 2 attacks but no smites, no fighting styles, no action surge, no rage, no damage adder like hex etc, no flurry of blows/stunning strike etc etc etc... that's definitely not great.

 

[DND_Reborn]

a small quibble...

"good at fighting but not great" can be represented pretty well by 2 attacks and "nothing else". If you have 2 attacks but no smites, no fighting styles, no action surge, no rage, no damage adder like hex etc, no flurry of blows/stunning strike etc etc etc... that's definitely not great.

Either or, but not both.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Bards should not be full casters. They are the F/M/T (well, F/T/D...?) of old and should be balanced that way.

• Good at fighting, but not great (as good as "fighting" clerics, but not as good as fighters)
• Good at spells, but not great (half-casters)
• Good at (most) skills, but not great (lots of skills, but no expertise--leave that to the rogues)

They are meant to be well-rounded, but bards as full-casters is overkill, bards with expertise is overkill, bards with multiple attacks is overkill.

In 5E, they have everything really, and that is the reason why I would never allow a RAW bard in my game.

Having seen a lot of Bards in play, they're not that powerful. They in the top half of classes, but they're not easily outshining anyone.

The "not great" part just isn't necessary, with how 5e is built.

Nevermind that the Bard should never have been made into a jack of all trades in the first place...

That's a much better niche for either the Ranger or Rogue. The Bard should be the premiere expert of the game. Yes, they can fight, perform, and do magic, but they are the most broadly knowledgeable archetype conceptually, of all the classes. The Bard should be the person the group turns to for ancient lore, secret knowledge, how to interpret ancient texts, how to treat with the Elf King, what the heck a lich is and how to kill one, etc.

Instead we have...magic song rogue? Kinda?

 

[CleverNickName]

Nevermind that the Bard should never have been made into a jack of all trades in the first place...

...

Instead we have...magic song rogue? Kinda?

Hmm. Now I'm wondering what it might look like if "bard" was a subclass of Ranger instead of Rogue...

 

[DND_Reborn]

Having seen a lot of Bards in play, they're not that powerful. They in the top half of classes, but they're not easily outshining anyone.

The "not great" part just isn't necessary, with how 5e is built.

Experiences differ...

Nevermind that the Bard should never have been made into a jack of all trades in the first place...

That's a much better niche for either the Ranger or Rogue.

I disagree wholeheartedly with this. Rangers and Rogues are not jacks of all trades, that is the role for the bard.

The Bard should be the premiere expert of the game. Yes, they can fight, perform, and do magic, but they are the most broadly knowledgeable archetype conceptually, of all the classes. The Bard should be the person the group turns to for ancient lore, secret knowledge, how to interpret ancient texts, how to treat with the Elf King, what the heck a lich is and how to kill one, etc.

I agree they should be the most broadly knowledgeable, but that means specifically they will not be the one the PC turn to for any sort of knowledge: Arcana to Wizards, Religion to Clerics, Survival to Rangers (or whatever classes you feel fits best, those are just my choices...).

Because of such differences of opinions (which is fine of course!) I've never been happy with the "bard" as a PC concept. No class should be able to "do it all" and be able to do it as well as other classes. Bards might not be as capable in combat as warriors (depending on subclass they can be decently close, just without the explosive potential), but they can cast just as well as any Cleric, Wizard, or whatever and are skill monkeys better than Rogues or Rangers in the long run.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Hmm. Now I'm wondering what it might look like if "bard" was a subclass of Ranger instead of Rogue...

I always imagined if bard was a subclass it would be of wizard, they both focus on arcane magic and bits of odd knowledge, bards are just those who managed to find a different way to channel that power through music and focus more on stories and history than the arcane itself.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Experiences differ...


I disagree wholeheartedly with this. Rangers and Rogues are not jacks of all trades, that is the role for the bard.

But Rangers and Rogues actually have a need for versatility baked into the underlying concept. Rangers especially.
The Bard is a Jack of all Trades because D&D at Some point didn’t know what to do with them, and now it’s stuck in a place it has no business in.

The Bard stereotypes even fit a rogue more than the Bard!

I agree they should be the most broadly knowledgeable, but that means specifically they will not be the one the PC turn to for any sort of knowledge: Arcana to Wizards, Religion to Clerics, Survival to Rangers (or whatever classes you feel fits best, those are just my choices...).

Why? Why is knowledge not a thing a class can be “the best” at?

Because of such differences of opinions (which is fine of course!) I've never been happy with the "bard" as a PC concept.

I enjoyed their unique mechanics in 3.5, in spite of overall performance, and they were very fun in 4e for a magical swashbuckler, but yeah no edition of D&D has actually featured a Bardic PC option, IMO.

No class should be able to "do it all" and be able to do it as well as other classes. Bards might not be as capable in combat as warriors (depending on subclass they can be decently close, just without the explosive potential), but they can cast just as well as any Cleric, Wizard, or whatever and are skill monkeys better than Rogues or Rangers in the long run.

Rogues are better at skills, especially at high level. Reliable Talent is much better than Jack of All Trades. They even have an extra feat so they have more “room” to spend a feat on skills.

Rangers should have been “experts” from the beginning. It’s absurd to me that they don’t have more skill features than the Bard.