D&D 5E (2024) What should the 15th Class be?

[Mistwell]

Warlord. Instant no brainer. It would be an inarguable olive branch to a community that has, more than once, felt pretty damn snubbed by 5e, and would have various other benefits as well.

I agree with @Mistwell that Swordmage is also a reasonable choice, given the game has tried so many times to do it by half-measures with other classes, but knowing 5e it would just be another half- to full-caster, and I'm pretty against that. A Warlord would be a rare instance of adding a class that isn't a spellcaster (absent the perfectly valid possibility of a spell-focused subclass), when 5e is suffused with classes that use spells. Even with a broad definition of "not a spellcaster", 5e only has four classes that don't cast spells (Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue)--it'd be nice to at least try to keep that to "around a third of classes aren't spellcasters".

Fair point. Really I'd be happy with either or both.

 

[Stalker0]

whats the different between heres "+1d4 guidance" and here "use My reaction to make another attack"

Other than guidance is so freakin spammable it makes me want to pull my hair out.... no much

 

[Lanefan]

one ability is a bit naff even if it is "I can turn into a CR 1 baby dragon" so what else would you have a shapeshifter do at early levels?

its also going to be really unbalanced theres really no way for a Level 5 Dire Wolf shifter to compete with a Level 5 Manticore shifter who has flight and ranged tail spikes.

There would have to be a curated and hard-coded list of what creatures these guys could turn into at what level, in order to avoid this problem.

 

[Lanefan]

Warlords are specifically non-magical. That's the entire point. It's only "magical" if you take the presumption that HP=meat. Otherwise, it works perfectly fine.

Well, it's also "magical" if you take the presumption - as I do - that any form of healing other than by simple resting and-or actual medical care is and must be in some way magical, regardless whether the hit points being healed are meat or not.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Some times I imagine warlord subclasses like different factions of a (skirmish) miniature wargame. Other times I imagine warlord "healing" allies thanks special martial maneuver. Something like the (devoted spirit school) martial maneuvers "crusader's strike" and "martial spirit" (stance), "revitalizing strike", "aura of triunph"(stance), "rallying strike" and "strike of righterous vitality".

There is space for a "primal defender" but this would be like the nahual, a spellcaster who uses witchcraft to shapeshift into beasts. Do you remember the "yokai-host" characters from Dandadan? A "monster-touched" fighter could be wellcome. A subclass could be a simbiontic gray-gloo (construct ooze by nanotech).

 

[Mind of tempest]

not trying to hate but, what does a shaman even do except be druid but spirits? warlord and swordmage i understand as picks but shaman feels like the odd suggestion out, i don't see what niche it fills.

the druid and shaman are both supposed to sub classes of a different class.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Do we really need another one of these when we have Bladelocks, Bladesingers, Valor Bards, Eldritch Knights and Multiple Artificer subclasses?

those exist becuse no one has done it right, do it well and those all die off replaced by a stranger class

 

[Paul Farquhar]

those exist becuse no one has done it right

Maybe that should tell you something?

 

[CreamCloud0]

Maybe that should tell you something?

that wizards needs to stop taking design half measures and actually put the effort in to actually make a swordmage properly already?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

that wizards needs to stop taking design half measures and actually put the effort in to actually make a swordmage properly already?

If it was as easy as that they could just use a 3PP version with the numbers filed off.

WotC aren’t taking “half measures”, they are sticking to the KISS philosophy that was responsible for 5e’s success. They know if the game gets more complex they will loose a lot of players, whereas the (much smaller number of) players who enjoy more complexity can use 3PP.