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

[ECMO3]

because while bladesinger might be powerful as a fullcaster wizard with additional martial capabilities on top it's actually pretty ass at actually capturing the desired fantasy of the swordmage, of someone who seamlessly synergizes martial technique and magical effects into a single fighting style.

I find, for me, a Bladesinger captures that fantasy a lot better than the 4E Swordmage did when 4E was still being made and I fail to see how a class using 5E rules is going to fare better.

Although you can make a Bladesinger that is a powerful caster, you can also make one that is an extremely powerful martial with the right spell selection. The class mechanics afford a rather large design space and this is even more true with how spells like Truestrike, Mirror Image and Conjure Minor Elementals were improved.

I think an attempt to do this with a half caster using 5E rules is going to result in a character that is substantially weaker both as a martial and as a caster. The only reason the 2024 EK can stay close as a martial is because of how much they buffed the fighter and and at most levels an EK would still lose a swordfight with an Bladesinger optimized for combat with weapons.

 

[Lanefan]

I think an attempt to do this with a half caster using 5E rules is going to result in a character that is substantially weaker both as a martial and as a caster.

It would sort of have to be, wouldn't it?

If a single-class martial or a single-class caster has a power level of 1 then the martial power plus the caster power of a half-caster should in the name of balance also add up to about 1.

Otherwise, why would anyone play just a martial or just a caster at power level 1 when this gives them power level 1+1?

 

[Zardnaar]

Assassin key feature options:

Shadow Strike: once per round, When you are hidden or the target is incapacitated, or the target has not acted yet in this combat, your successful attack deals d10 instead of d6 sneak attack damage (if using this as an alt subclass feature. If using it for a base class, just make it a handful of damage dice)

Death Mark: Bonus action to study a target and mark them. You crit on a 19 against the target and have advantage on checks to find them or hide from them.

Hidden Blade: When you hit and deal sneak attack damage, you can reduce the damage by 2d6 and immediately move up to your half your speed and make a stealth check with advantage. (Pair with shadow strike)

All just extra damage. 1E assassin instant death no save. Just make that % roll.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My suggestion for an assasin class is to update the "avenger" class like a stealth+divine hybrid, like mixing Solid Snake and Van Helsing, or mixing "Castlevania" with "Assasin's Creed". Blade the vampire-hunter from marvel comics could be a good example of this "avenger". Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden videogames) could be other example of stealth+magic monster-terminator.

I miss the martial adepts from ToB:Bo9S but if WotC chooses the martial maneuvers to be reintroduced with a format like spells this could change radically.

I like the concept of dragonknight like an martial+arcane hybrid and adding a touch of frienemy of paladins. This allows enough space for a great variety of subclasses.

I guess we will have to await the redesign of martial maneuvers to enjoy an arcane-martial hybrid.

The possible update of the incarnum game system should start with a simple test, for example "soulspark familiar". Some players may love this to test their own version of a monster-trainer class.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Assassin key feature options:

Shadow Strike: once per round, When you are hidden or the target is incapacitated, or the target has not acted yet in this combat, your successful attack deals d10 instead of d6 sneak attack damage (if using this as an alt subclass feature. If using it for a base class, just make it a handful of damage dice)

Death Mark: Bonus action to study a target and mark them. You crit on a 19 against the target and have advantage on checks to find them or hide from them.

Hidden Blade: When you hit and deal sneak attack damage, you can reduce the damage by 2d6 and immediately move up to your half your speed and make a stealth check with advantage. (Pair with shadow strike)

I liked the idea from 4e of "Shrouds" you could apply to targets, and think that could be expanded into a more diverse set of options, including skill check effects and movement or location stuff.

Like, say you have a Ninja subclass of Assassin. They could mark a location with their Shroud effect, or an enemy or ally, and then be able to instantly teleport to any location they have Shrouded, what the Japanese call shukuchi, literally "shrinking the earth" (shrinking the distance between their current location and their destination to the size of a single step). Higher level could grant you more options, more simultaneous Shrouds, and more potency with the options you do have (e.g. you can shukuchi teleport from further away).

Would be a genuinely distinct approach to gameplay, non-spellcasting, but still supernatural.

 

[Azzy]

It would sort of have to be, wouldn't it?

No. As a class, it should not be weaker that either a dedicated martial or a dedicated spellcaster. It should be just as powerful, in and of itself, as either.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My suggestion for an assasin class is to update the "avenger" class like a stealth+divine hybrid, like mixing Solid Snake and Van Helsing, or mixing "Castlevania" with "Assasin's Creed". Blade the vampire-hunter from marvel comics could be a good example of this "avenger". Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden videogames) could be other example of stealth+magic monster-terminator.

I miss the martial adepts from ToB:Bo9S but if WotC chooses the martial maneuvers to be reintroduced with a format like spells this could change radically.

I like the concept of dragonknight like an martial+arcane hybrid and adding a touch of frienemy of paladins. This allows enough space for a great variety of subclasses.

I guess we will have to await the redesign of martial maneuvers to enjoy an arcane-martial hybrid.

The possible update of the incarnum game system should start with a simple test, for example "soulspark familiar". Some players may love this to test their own version of a monster-trainer class.

While I do love the Avenger, I personally think it merits its own, separate class, if it's going to be included at all. Its focus is different, because of the Divine angle. I do, however, think that both the Avenger and the Assassin are good examples of classes which should be supernatural, but should not be spellcasters.

I love the Avenger in particular because it fills a niche that was genuinely empty before, unconsidered, but which both video games and TTRPGs can now look at and say, "Oh, of course a thing could fit there!" The enduring popularity of Ezio Auditore is testament to that.

 

[CreamCloud0]

No. As a class, it should not be weaker that either a dedicated martial or a dedicated spellcaster. It should be just as powerful, in and of itself, as either.

that is to say, because i know your comment will get nitpicked, it is not as powerful a martial as a dedicated martial, nor as potent a spellcaster as a dedicated fullcaster, but the synergy of its martial and caster components make it individually as strong at swordmage things as either of those two classes at doing their respective martial and caster things.

edit: it's like asking 'what's the more important half of the paladin's smite, the attack modifier to hit or the spell slot to power it?' well the answer is both, if you can't hit for toffee all the spells slots in the world won't do you any good but if you don't have any slots you won't be able to add that extra oomph even when you are hitting consistently.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It would sort of have to be, wouldn't it?

If a single-class martial or a single-class caster has a power level of 1 then the martial power plus the caster power of a half-caster should in the name of balance also add up to about 1.

Otherwise, why would anyone play just a martial or just a caster at power level 1 when this gives them power level 1+1?

Not necessarily, or at least, the problem is that you have boiled a multifaceted thing down to only one dimension, which destroys the important details where the differences can add up.

Consider, for example, a Wizard class, designed to break the unfortunate 3E-derived "spellcasters rule, martials drool" pattern. It heavily restricts direct offensive damage, to focus on control, manipulation, buffing, debuffing, area-denial, and diverse utility effects. In this paradigm, fireball isn't just a really good damaging offensive spell, it's one of the only damaging offensive spells at 3rd level.

Then we have a Fighter, geared for being great at three things: Physical demonstrations of skill, making things exceptionally dead, and surviving against ever-more-ridiculous threats. That first thing includes skillful use of equipment, meaning adventuring equipment rather than arms or armor, something I think D&D has unfortunately rather neglected, even my preferred edition.

Under this paradigm, it's quite possible to have a Swordmage that is still "100% magic" and still "100% martial", but it's doing those things differently and in concert. The overall power is still "1" as you put it....but the martial and the magic are things which overlap and intersect, so that it would be erroneous to count it as "2"--because some of the things that are "magic" are also things that are "martial".

For instance, perhaps the swordmages' art evolved out of ancient smithing techniques, so it includes some amount of equipment-usage skill....but specifically through a magical lens, such as "you can bind Runes to your equipment" (again, with "equipment" including non-arms, non-armor items), allowing you to do things with otherwise "mundane" items that others couldn't. Perhaps a rune of Air, applied to a rope, could make a rope that will rise upward as you uncoil it, allowing you to easily climb surfaces. Perhaps a rune of Fire could be applied while setting up tents, allowing all of the benefits of an actual campfire without wood, smoke, or light, making for perfect stealth while still eating cooked food.

Then, when we turn to the actual fighting side of things, runes bound to your weapons or armor could have similar utility in a variety of ways. An Air rune bound to boots could give bursts of speed or even flight. A rune of Earth could be bound to a weapon, allowing it to crush with the force of an avalanche. A rune of Water could be bound to a suit of armor, perhaps cleansing the wearer of negative effects. Etc.

Now, I'm absolutely 100% spitballing here, and an actual design might look completely different from this. But the point is to show how you could have a thing that is a synthesis of the concept of being a Fighter and the concept of being a Wizard, where most-to-all of the "magic" actions they take (not actual spellcasting) are one and the same as the "martial" actions they take and vice-versa. Meaning, as I said above, you cannot separate it into two bins, the "magic" bin and the "martial" bin--every action is, in some way, both things at the same time. Then, this "well 1+1 > 1, therefore this is inherently busted" logic cannot hold, because mathematically it isn't 1+1, it's comparing {A,B,C,D} to {M,N,O,P} to {(A+M)/2,(B+N)/2,(C+O)/2,(D+P)/2}, or whatever. It's not a simple sum anymore, and we aren't working with ordinary arithmetic.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

that is to say, because i know your comment will get nitpicked, it is not as powerful a martial as a dedicated martial, nor as potent a spellcaster as a dedicated fullcaster, but the synergy of its martial and caster components make it individually as strong at swordmage things as either of those two classes at doing their respective martial and caster things.

edit: it's like asking 'what's the more important half of the paladin's smite, the attack modifier to hit or the spell slot to power it?' well the answer is both, if you can't hit for toffee all the spells slots in the world won't do you any good but if you don't have any slots you won't be able to add that extra oomph even when you are hitting consistently.

As noted above: It would be like asking a flautist to separate right hand movements and breathing, and practice only those skills, and then, separately and five minutes delayed, practice left hand movements and embouchure. Like...that's theoretically a thing they could physically do...but it would be completely pointless to do so. You cannot do the action of playing a flute without doing all four things at once.

Does that somehow make playing the flute more powerful as an instrument than playing the xylophone, where breathing is irrelevant? Does it make the flute somehow worse than the oboe, where (if you want to get anywhere with it, anyway) you have to add the skill of carving your own reeds?

The answer is of course "No, absolutely not!" Each instrument brings different characteristics, and the timbre and overtone series for each matters a great deal. (Oboe, for example, is often used for tuning the rest of the orchestra, due to coincidental characteristics and the fact that, mathematically speaking, it is a different kind of structure compared to most wind instruments, being equivalent to a tube closed at one end, rather than a tube open at both ends.)