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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 8300023" data-attributes="member: 6803643">I'm sorry; I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I disagree with the assessment about the D&D Wizard (I think it models many of them really well, though the functionality of Vancian spellcasting does not). Again from a mechanical standpoint I can see the issues you're making about Warlock and Sorcerer but I'm talking about intended thematics here.Yes, mechanics underline the intended themes, and if the mechanics fail to do the theme justice, then they should be revised or replaced. I'd argue that 5th Edition is the first time that D&D actually finally got the mechanics of the Bard mostly aligned with the thematics it's trying to represent in from myth and fiction (4e was close, but suffered from class-based abilities being almost wholly focused on combat functionality).As a non-professional student of Celtic culture (I've read through John T. Koch's 5 book encyclopedia, Oxford's dictionary of Celtic Mythology, Bromwich's translation and editor's notes on the Welsh Triads, and several different translations of the Mabinogion, and read hundreds of research articles because I find the area personally fascinating), I'd argue that Bards do NOT differ greatly from their inspirations finally, nor do Druids (though certainly not all Druids were shapeshifters, and certainly there were and are factual real world Bards and Druids who were clearly not the same as the legends they lent themselves too, just as there are real world clerics who are not warriors with maces who can call for divine intervention). And I do recognise that the classes are broadened so as to represent similar concepts from other cultures and periods and stories.But I'd argue on the whole that this is the closest they've ever come to giving you the abilities to create a character right out of the Mabinogion or the Irish Cycles. But I digress.It's not the mechanics that I'm chiefly concerned with here. The creation of a new canonical class cannot be solely to fill a mechanic need. It has to be because the archetype fits a need not already fulfilled by any other class. It must exist and persist in popular culture independent of the other classes in the game, with minimal overlap in the core class concept. The Witch doesn't fit this bill. Its base theme is one shared by all or most of the other caster classes. If I was designing the game from the ground up, then MAYBE I'd create a witch class and move concepts around to file under the witch. But as it stands, grafting a Witch class onto 5e would be stepping all over the toes of every all the arcane casters, as well as some of the divine ones.Blood Hunter is a great point of comparison. I'd argue that WotC chose not to canonize it in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount as a full player option write up because it steps all over the Ranger (and a bit of the Warlock, and a few other subclasses of various classes like Bard and Barbarian). The class fulfilled a mechanical desire at Mercer's table, so he made it work for them. People love Critical Role, so he released it for sale on DMs Guild and for free on D&D Beyond. But WotC didn't make it canon to the game, not even as a setting-specific option, because it's not independent enough of a concept to exist in a game that already has the Ranger and the Warlock. Are the Blood Hunter abilities cool? Yes! Are they a more robust development of the concept than the Monster Slayer conclave for Rangers could ever be? Of course - and that's a very acceptable approach to why someone might want it in their game. Coming into 5e, I was disappointed that the best I had to emulate my Warden character was the Oath of the Ancients Paladin. I had grown used to having "this precise set of primal evocations" rather than thinking about the broad set of storytelling ideas that say "Green Knight." The 5e game is way stripped down. But there are tools to dial it up. It may not all be available for you at 1st or even 5th level, but between feats and skill choice and background and archetype choice and supernatural/dark gifts and guild spells and patron bonuses etc, there are so many ways to complexify the character's "moveset." But more to the point, thinking about characters in terms of moveset rather than in terms of character is missing the point of a roleplaying game. The "moves" only serve to highlight the narrative function and development of the character and how they take on obstacles. If the moves exist and can be added relatively easily within this pared down system, then by all means, add them (like adding divination to the Wizard's spell list at last). But I can't be picky about my Warden not having her precise moves, as it is immaterial to the fact that I can still create a story about a Green Knight character, who can still go through the challenges she did previously. The exact nature of the "fight scenes" might play out different, but the story is the same one, just told from a different certain point of view.Likewise with the Witch, the mechanical features of what exactly how they cast (at-will invocations and cantrips versus per 10 minute rest respawning powers versus spell point magic manipulation vs spells per day) is immaterial to the story being told about the witch. Does the witch have a pact with an ancient demon that gave her her powers? That's a story in folklore about witches, and that's the Warlock class. Is the witch a part of a coven of fey enchantresses? That could be a Druid or might be an Archfey-Patronage Warlock. Might even be a Wild Magic Sorcerer. Is the Witch named Hermione Granger and has the best grades in the school and really should be in the dorm for smart people but is in the dorm for brave people because the plot said so? That story is really more up the Wizard class's ally than anything else. Other tropes like a flying broom stick and brewing potions are in the game, they're just not class features. If your witch makes her own broomstick and potions though, she might be an Artificer. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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