2017 D&D 5E Class Satisfaction Survey Results

Thank you for doing this. This is actually really good feedback.

 

[Wrathamon]

all the wizards players voted they hate the fighter cause he can deal too much damage.

 

[TerraDave]

It's been clear for a while that bard and paladin where where well served by this edition, they tended to do badly on these polls per 5e.

Ranger has fallen the farthest, very popular before.

Monk and sorcerer have had some issues for a while.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Of the three stinkers per the poll (Sorcerer, Fighter, Ranger), the only one I'm dissatisfied with is the Sorcerer, for reasons well stated above. Their "natural magical power" idea is cool enough as a reason for the class to exist, but the execution is lacking. There need to be more bloodlines (Storm sorcerers are great, but we could also use Feyborn or any number of other bloodlines) and the spellcasting should (IMO) be less like.

I wouldn't know how to answer the poll regarding Warlock. I'm playing one now, and enjoying it, but I'm also frequently annoyed by the limitations of the class, the dominance Eldritch Blast, and the uneven choices amongst Invocations. I also re-wrote half of my spell descriptions just so the spells match the idea that my powers come from the Great Old One. If I ever made an Archfey Warlock I'd have to petition the DM to swap some of the spells out entirely.

 

[Quickleaf]

I disagree, for those two reasons I gave. All of those other classes are much more specific in archetypes they are trying to cover. The fighter has the widest umbrella by far, from the foot soldier, to the mercenary, to the gladiator, to knight, to pretty much every warrior archetype in literature and history. By the very nature of the class, it has to be more generic, and being more generic is what has caused a lot of dissatisfaction among people. It's also the ONLY class in which has to cater to those people who want a very basic vanilla typical adventurer warrior, like in B/X or AD&D.

Because there are two additional requirements that must come into play for the class design, I don't think you can hold it up to the same basic bar as every other class.

When you start doing that – establishing different "standards of success" for each class – you get into very grey ambiguous territory. After all, what use is your survey if you're then going to establish these standards of, for example, 85% overall satisfaction is where we should aim for these classes but the ones that have very broad concepts, we should be happy with 70% overall satisfaction. It just seems a totally skewed way to analyze data to me.

 

[Sacrosanct]

When you start doing that – establishing different "standards of success" for each class – you get into very grey ambiguous territory. After all, what use is your survey if you're then going to establish these standards of, for example, 85% overall satisfaction is where we should aim for these classes but the ones that have very broad concepts, we should be happy with 70% overall satisfaction. It just seems a totally skewed way to analyze data to me.

I get what you're saying. I just happen to think context is important as well. And in context, the fighter is the only class to have extra requirements into it's design phase. Much like the strike shortened season San Antonio Spurs, there will be an * there.

 

[Mistwell]

Monk and sorcerer have had some issues for a while.

Yeah. I still don't really know what the monk and sorcerer are supposed to be. They really just seem like minor variants on fighter and wizard. They needed to do a lot more with Ki for the monk to make it more distinct I think. As for sorcerer I still don't really feel the difference between spontaneous casting and metamagic and books with specialties is meaningful enough. I think I could fix the power level of the sorcerer (give them more spells known or one-time-per-day spontaneous spells), but I don't think that would solve for "why is this really different than wizard".

 

[rgoodbb]

Yeah. I still don't really know what the monk and sorcerer are supposed to be. They really just seem like minor variants on fighter and wizard. They needed to do a lot more with Ki for the monk to make it more distinct I think. As for sorcerer I still don't really feel the difference between spontaneous casting and metamagic and books with specialties is meaningful enough. I think I could fix the power level of the sorcerer (give them more spells known or one-time-per-day spontaneous spells), but I don't think that would solve for "why is this really different than wizard".

I would have liked the Sorcerers to have more blaster type Arcane Ranger powers ala Warlocks, and the Warlocks to have an even bigger pool of debilitating powers then they already have.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Yeah. I still don't really know what the monk and sorcerer are supposed to be. They really just seem like minor variants on fighter and wizard. They needed to do a lot more with Ki for the monk to make it more distinct I think. As for sorcerer I still don't really feel the difference between spontaneous casting and metamagic and books with specialties is meaningful enough. I think I could fix the power level of the sorcerer (give them more spells known or one-time-per-day spontaneous spells), but I don't think that would solve for "why is this really different than wizard".

Hmmm, the monk to me, at least what I've seen in play, certainly isn't the fighter. The monk is kind of a melee controller who needs to get in, do things, and get out. He doesn't have the staying power or raw damage of a fighter but has some really interesting control abilities, such as Stunning Strike, and mystical movement abilities such as Shadow Step.

The sorcerer needs some more work, definitely.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You know what I would have liked to see with the sorcerer? A true channeler of magic that is unique from a wizard. Either one of two ways:

1. Runes. Years ago I wrote a game where rune magic was one where each magical affect had a rune associated with it, and you as the caster would "draw" these runes as you cast in a combination that you wanted. for example, you could combine a gust, fire, and explosion rune to replicate something like a fireball. Each rune had a power level to it, and you were limited to a max potential power level depending on skill (level). So a novice rune caster couldn't go around blowing everything up.

2. Naming. This would be something similar to the King Killer chronicles.


Either way, I think the sorcerer really needed to be unique.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I would have liked the Sorcerers to have more blaster type Arcane Ranger powers ala Warlocks, and the Warlocks to have an even bigger pool of debilitating powers then they already have.

Those are interesting ideas, though in some senses the two classes might not be distinct enough, whcih could be part of the problem.

WotC really, really hates buffs and debuffs (much as they hate pets), though, and went way out of their way to make them hard to cast. I think they did it in a seriously uninteresting way and were too aggressive. For instance, the warlock invocation "Thief of Five Fates" is incredibly evocative but all it does is let the warlock cast Bane, something they should be able to cast anyway. A cool potential Thief of Five Fates might be something like this: As an action, you affect the fortune of the target, who needs to make a Charisma save vs your spell save DC. The next five D20 rolls it makes are at disadvantage. It's easy and actually fits the name! Imagine that. Another would be to have warlocks really play up the binder aspect, where they summon spirits, or something like that, to do their work.