D&D 5E Should the Paladin be changed into a more generic half-caster magic knight?

[Frozen_Heart]

As far as the Arcane Half-Caster is concerned... my stance has always been to tell me what the flavor and narrative of this class is in the world that isn't just name-checking game mechanics. The Ranger and the Paladin have narrative placement and a story of who they are in the world, so the gish needs to have one too if there's ever hope to see one get made by WotC. The current game only has three "generic" classes whose flavor and narrative place in the world is defined by the subclasses-- the Fighter, the Rogue, and the Sorcerer-- and I don't believe WotC has any intention of making a fourth any time soon. We already have the Eldritch Knight-- as "generic" and story-less a warrior/arcanist there is-- so making a "full class" to match is unnecessary.

I don't think that a gish has ever had a chance to gain an identity in DnD, as every edition the old version is deleted and a completely new attempt brought in from scratch. Eldritch Knight, Bladesinger, Duskblade, Hexblade, Swordmage. The class concept can't even keep a name, let alone an identity.

It's telling that the Pathfinder Magus is better known and has a more solid identity than any DnD gish, despite Pathfinder being so much younger. They took a DnD 3.5e class, and stuck with it over multiple editions, giving it the same mechanical and narrative identity both times.

 

[Steampunkette]

Worth noting:

In my next release, Martial Artistry, I introduce the Champion as an A5e class compatible with 5e and presumably 5.5e.

While not a half-caster out of the gate, they do have a "Righteous Cause" that they follow at level 1 which is pretty oathlike. And at level 6 they get the ability to set out Quests for themselves as a goal to achieve before the next long rest. So long as they're progressing toward that goal they gain some nice benefits... but if they fail to achieve it before they bed down, they get some repercussions.

One of the benefits of Questing is that you ignore the penalties for fatigue/strife/exhaustion while questing. So you could totally set yourself a goal to travel the entire way across a nation state to bring word of the invading army's approach, do a forced march for 72 straight hours without taking a long rest, then burst into the king's courtroom, warn them of the incoming danger, and immediately die of exhaustion, your quest fulfilled.

Sort of like how Pheidippides ran all the way from Sparta to Marathon to Athens to declare the Greek victory over the Persians then immediately collapsed and died.

Having the Paladin not be utterly generic gives designers like me these additional design spaces to create new classes and class concepts which fill in narrative gaps and provide different ways to approach the same principles within the mechanics.

Also you could -totally- tear off all the combat maneuvers from the Champion and add in a half-caster progression of spells and it'd work just fine! Or just use the already extant "Mystic Champion" archetype with the Arcane Knight martial tradition for quasi-magic martial maneuvers to make a relatively faithful 4e Sword Mage.

Especially if their Righteous Causes is Supernatural Patron which basically gives them the Green Flame Blade spell but with multiple attacks.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think that a gish has ever had a chance to gain an identity in DnD, as every edition the old version is deleted and a completely new attempt brought in from scratch. Eldritch Knight, Bladesinger, Duskblade, Hexblade, Swordmage. The class concept can't even keep a name, let alone an identity.

I think it's worth querying why this has happened.

Bladesinger has actually appeared in all subsequent editions from its appearance in 2E, but it in 2E it was Elf-only, in 3.5E, it was Elf or Half-Elf only (and also kind of sucked), in 4E they dropped the race restrictions but because it was a Wizard subclass, it was kind of outcompeted by Swordmage conceptually for people who wanted to play "magic warrior" and in 5E it is once more a Wizard subclass and not great as a Gish. So being initially race-specific, then wizard-specific is what stopped this becoming the "Gish class".

Duskblade and Hexblade essentially competed against each other and both had other problems. Duskblade once more tried to make it All About Them Elves (!?!!??! WHYYYYYYYY??!?!?!?), and whilst it was a true Gish, the really dumb name + elf-centrism + not appearing until PHB2 really limited it. Hexblade, from the Complete Warrior in early 3.5E, is extremely weak, because 3.5E was godawful at balance (possibly the worst of any edition, even the ones which barely tried!), has a weird-ass theme (cursing people and swordplay is not a gish, frankly), and the similarity in name between the two caused further problems. Both deserved to be forgotten, to be clear.

Swordmage, on the other hand, was an excellently-designed, strong, original class that was a true "magic warrior" that actually fit well with a lot of fiction (both fantasy fiction and fantasy manga/anime), but would have required it's own class and some supporting spells to make it to 5E. As 5E was mortally terrified of adding any classes beyond the initial ones (which were mostly a callback to 3E), and sort to reduce 4E classes to subclasses at most, there was no chance of that happening, even though, at this point, it would be highly possible to do.

Eldritch Knight was a very half-arsed attempt to make a gish people could play without multiclassing, but in reality is just a Fighter with some limited spell support, and mostly you just want to be casting Shield a lot, and a handful of other spells that don't actually need any INT. It's only a good subclass because these spells are so inherently strong, particularly Shield, without which it would be considered pretty bad.

5E did have a much more gish-like gish in the form of the DNDNext Sorcerer, but abandoned that for unclear reasons (it didn't seem to be unpopular, and I don't think WotC claimed it was, but who knows?).

So this isn't just some random tale of woe - there have been specific reasons this happened. Specific, frankly bad design choices that lead to this situation. Had 3E not been so absolutely terrified of allowing anyone to cast and wear armour/fight until very late in the edition, it could easily have turned out a lasting gish class, which 4E and 5E would likely have maintained, but it was not to be. Had 5E not been so terrified of offending people by including any 4E-specific classes Swordmage could also have worked out. Really the issue here is that fear or letting people play a gish, or disapproval of the concept for anyone but elves, lead D&D designers into making bad decisions.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Had 5E not been so terrified of offending people by including any 4E-specific classes

I think that this is a huge part of it. The 4e swordmage did manage to carve out a decent fanbase and its own identity, but due to 5e intentionally scrubbing everything from 4e, the class got axed. It's also why the warlord never got through to 5e as well.

And I'm glad you mentioned the DnDNext sorcerer. That thing was 100x more interesting than anything we've got since. But as a certain subset of players just wanted 'hot wizard' rather than a class with its own identity, the thing got scrapped.

The playtest sorcerer had a huge amount of potential as a 'become the monster' class, but due to that WotC has shied away from that entire concept. Now they're doubling down in that in 5.5e by making draconic sorcerer the dragon summoner class, rather than the become a dragon class.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Does anyone use new classes in their 5E games from third-party sources? Anyone have any Warlords or Psions or Shaman or Magi or Occultists that were made by companies other than Wizards of the Coast at their tables?

My players and I do. All the time. Every campaign I've been involved in in the last several years has included at least one non-WotC class (except the PH only game I play in with my kids).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think a lot of 5e players have a mechanical focus in their play. I think that is a disconnect between this forum and the player base as a whole - speaking strictly D&D here. We have some evidence of this. Player character data on DnD beyond doesn't match with power level or mechanical depth expectations.

If we look at actual plays like Critical Role and Dimension 20, these aren't mechanically focused but are huge parts of the 5e culture. If you look at the /r/lfg subreddit, and look at postings for 5e games, you see an awful lot about "roleplay" and "story" with very few with a more combat or mechanical focus in their advertisment.

And this is anecdotal, but in games I've run for strangers off that same subreddit, they come with character concepts. These concepts are never mechanically based. They are always flavor based. Many don't even have a class picked for the concept, just a short story about a person. This is reiterated by the fact that I can restrict classes without meaningfully impacting my response rate. And that on session 1, if I shut up, they just roleplay in character as the norm.

I feel like newcomers to the hobby view it differently than many of the players from older editions. And I think this is reflected in WotC's choice to not indulge with such content to the level they have in prior editions. I also think it's why there is such a stark divide even on this forum, where some times it feels like you play an entirely different game than the one being discussed, even if you dont.

I know it's a hot take, but I honestly feel that neither Critical Role nor Dimension 20 have done the game of Dungeons & Dragons any favors.

 

[pablomaz]

MORE? Jebus.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Does anyone use new classes in their 5E games from third-party sources? Anyone have any Warlords or Psions or Shaman or Magi or Occultists that were made by companies other than Wizards of the Coast at their tables?

If the answer is primarily 'No'... that's probably a good indication why WotC hasn't bothered either. If no one can be bothered using new classes that have already been designed, playtested, and published... why would WotC possibly think folks would really want to use ones that they'd have to get around to making? To go through all that effort only to discover it's only a select handful of players who actually want more classes?

As far as the Arcane Half-Caster is concerned... my stance has always been to tell me what the flavor and narrative of this class is in the world that isn't just name-checking game mechanics. The Ranger and the Paladin have narrative placement and a story of who they are in the world, so the gish needs to have one too if there's ever hope to see one get made by WotC. The current game only has three "generic" classes whose flavor and narrative place in the world is defined by the subclasses-- the Fighter, the Rogue, and the Sorcerer-- and I don't believe WotC has any intention of making a fourth any time soon. We already have the Eldritch Knight-- as "generic" and story-less a warrior/arcanist there is-- so making a "full class" to match is unnecessary.

I think it is more integration into the setting and DMs having veto on that sort of thing or hell simply not finding an option you like.

my extrapolation is the arcane half-casters in other fiction seem to get imbued with magic and it is thus a set of a question of, how, why and what the character feels about this and how the world responds to it.

I don't think a lot of 5e players have a mechanical focus in their play. I think that is a disconnect between this forum and the player base as a whole - speaking strictly D&D here. We have some evidence of this. Player character data on DnD beyond doesn't match with power level or mechanical depth expectations.

If we look at actual plays like Critical Role and Dimension 20, these aren't mechanically focused but are huge parts of the 5e culture. If you look at the /r/lfg subreddit, and look at postings for 5e games, you see an awful lot about "roleplay" and "story" with very few with a more combat or mechanical focus in their advertisment.

And this is anecdotal, but in games I've run for strangers off that same subreddit, they come with character concepts. These concepts are never mechanically based. They are always flavor based. Many don't even have a class picked for the concept, just a short story about a person. This is reiterated by the fact that I can restrict classes without meaningfully impacting my response rate. And that on session 1, if I shut up, they just roleplay in character as the norm.

I feel like newcomers to the hobby view it differently than many of the players from older editions. And I think this is reflected in WotC's choice to not indulge with such content to the level they have in prior editions. I also think it's why there is such a stark divide even on this forum, where some times it feels like you play an entirely different game than the one being discussed, even if you dont.

I know they appreciate it when they can make an idea without having to hyper multi-class so it is easer to work with

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think it's worth querying why this has happened.

Bladesinger has actually appeared in all subsequent editions from its appearance in 2E, but it in 2E it was Elf-only, in 3.5E, it was Elf or Half-Elf only (and also kind of sucked), in 4E they dropped the race restrictions but because it was a Wizard subclass, it was kind of outcompeted by Swordmage conceptually for people who wanted to play "magic warrior" and in 5E it is once more a Wizard subclass and not great as a Gish. So being initially race-specific, then wizard-specific is what stopped this becoming the "Gish class".

Duskblade and Hexblade essentially competed against each other and both had other problems. Duskblade once more tried to make it All About Them Elves (!?!!??! WHYYYYYYYY??!?!?!?), and whilst it was a true Gish, the really dumb name + elf-centrism + not appearing until PHB2 really limited it. Hexblade, from the Complete Warrior in early 3.5E, is extremely weak, because 3.5E was godawful at balance (possibly the worst of any edition, even the ones which barely tried!), has a weird-ass theme (cursing people and swordplay is not a gish, frankly), and the similarity in name between the two caused further problems. Both deserved to be forgotten, to be clear.

Swordmage, on the other hand, was an excellently-designed, strong, original class that was a true "magic warrior" that actually fit well with a lot of fiction (both fantasy fiction and fantasy manga/anime), but would have required it's own class and some supporting spells to make it to 5E. As 5E was mortally terrified of adding any classes beyond the initial ones (which were mostly a callback to 3E), and sort to reduce 4E classes to subclasses at most, there was no chance of that happening, even though, at this point, it would be highly possible to do.

Eldritch Knight was a very half-arsed attempt to make a gish people could play without multiclassing, but in reality is just a Fighter with some limited spell support, and mostly you just want to be casting Shield a lot, and a handful of other spells that don't actually need any INT. It's only a good subclass because these spells are so inherently strong, particularly Shield, without which it would be considered pretty bad.

5E did have a much more gish-like gish in the form of the DNDNext Sorcerer, but abandoned that for unclear reasons (it didn't seem to be unpopular, and I don't think WotC claimed it was, but who knows?).

So this isn't just some random tale of woe - there have been specific reasons this happened. Specific, frankly bad design choices that lead to this situation. Had 3E not been so absolutely terrified of allowing anyone to cast and wear armour/fight until very late in the edition, it could easily have turned out a lasting gish class, which 4E and 5E would likely have maintained, but it was not to be. Had 5E not been so terrified of offending people by including any 4E-specific classes Swordmage could also have worked out. Really the issue here is that fear or letting people play a gish, or disapproval of the concept for anyone but elves, lead D&D designers into making bad decisions.

elves since basic mixed magic and sword play it is a thing they do.
so I can see the logic of associating it with elves but a more the elves have lots of them and will train more of them seems far more logical that making it all about elves.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

I know it's a hot take, but I honestly feel that neither Critical Role nor Dimension 20 have done the game of Dungeons & Dragons any favors.

I think the pros and cons of having those is an interesting discussion. I don't know that there is any debate that they have both brought in new players and changed expectations of their fans. Whether it was a net positive or not, I don't know.