D&D 5E Archetypes to add to 5e

[Tony Vargas]

Your particular odd obsession has sucked a lot of the oxygen out of the conversation.

I have two very different issues with what @Yaarel has been saying:
1) Yeah, D&D presents polytheism - the existence of multiple deities, anyway - as a fact, and, no, that's not conducive to introducing respectful representations of monotheistic, non-theistic, nor even realistic polytheistic beliefs into a campaign. I also feel that doing so is fraught, in the first place, and that an entirely fictionalized take on religion isn't the worst possible alternative, but I acknowledge it's a real issue, either way.
2) What is this 1e & 3e, only, delivered on the above assertion, while 5e somehow doesn't? When 1e had polytheism baked in at all levels with no alternative more than vaguely hinted at, and 3e only off-handedly presented an alternative while providing no mechanical support to differentiate it from the patron-deity-polytheistic/Domain default? Conversely, 2e, especially in the CPH, actually had alternatives to deities with full support for designing such priesthoods. 4e gave players license to re-fluff their characters to, and well past the point of defining a divine class as gaining power from something other than a deity. And, 5e, of course, gives the DM unlimited latitude in changing anything/everything about the game, rules or setting, the same kind of latitude 1e DMs took, 5e practically forces on you!
(For that matter, the Great Wheel, itself, unchallenged multiversal canon for virtually all of D&D, establishes alignments, deities, and eternal afterlives as objective fact.)

 

[Parmandur]

I have two very different issues with what @Yaarel has been saying:
1) Yeah, D&D presents polytheism - the existence of multiple deities, anyway - as a fact, and, no, that's not conducive to introducing respectful representations of monotheistic, non-theistic, nor even realistic polytheistic beliefs into a campaign. I also feel that doing so is fraught, in the first place, and that an entirely fictionalized take on religion isn't the worst possible alternative.
2) What is this 1e & 3e, only, delivered on the above assertion, while 5e somehow doesn't? When 1e had polytheism baked in at all levels with no alternative more than vaguely hinted at, and 3e only off-handedly presented an alternative while providing no mechanical support to differentiate it from the patron-deity-polytheistic/Domain default? Conversely, 2e, especially in the CPH, actually had alternatives to deities with full support for designing such priesthoods. 4e gave players license to re-fluff their characters to, and well past the point of defining a divine class as gaining power from something other than a deity. And, 5e, of course, gives the DM unlimited latitude in changing anything/everything about the game, rules or setting, the same kind of latitude 1e DMs took, 5e practically forces on you!
(For that matter, the Great Wheel, itself, unchallenged multiversal canon for virtually all of D&D, establishes alignments, deities, and eternal afterlives as objective fact.)

You make reasonable points.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now I like seeing clever mechanics created for new classes or archetypes that don’t step on the toes of other classes.

Hey, the PH isn't /that/ bad.

Reading the awesome Sword & Sorcery thread about the Xoth setting, reminds me, one of the missing archetypes is a class that focuses on dazzling sexual beauty, the Seducer. None of the official character classes really do the archetype well. The concept is an important trope for the sword & sorcery genre

I suspect that one would run afoul of RL concerns more precipitously and dramatically than the presentation of religion has. (Good luck presenting it as gender-neutral, too.)

but it is also important for high fantasy, including the stunning and charming supernatural beauty of eladrin elves and so on. It is a concept that projects the force of Charisma magically in a form of larger-than-life beauty.

Supernatural, OTOH, NP, there's the charmed condition, spells that impose it, etc...

 

[Mister-Kent]

I do think there's a space in 5E for a spirit-channeling shaman type, but not sure where it'd fit best. Circle of Spirits Druid? Domain of Ancestors Cleric? Perhaps even a Sorcerer bloodline or Warlock pact? It's often hard to make real world mystic traditions fit D&D to a T.

 

[Shardstone]

I want more "esoteric" and "oddball" archetypes. I think the tropes have been tread pretty well, and that the archetype system has a lot of potential to explore emergent and new fantasy ideas.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I do think there's a space in 5E for a spirit-channeling shaman type, but not sure where it'd fit best. Circle of Spirits Druid? Domain of Ancestors Cleric? Perhaps even a Sorcerer bloodline or Warlock pact? It's often hard to make real world mystic traditions fit D&D to a T.

Thematically, a Shaman would fit the Druid class well (they're both 'old religions,' the druid at least arguably touches on the animism of the shaman), but you'd be swapping out more class features to make a druid into one than the extant circles have done.
RL definitions, Sorcerer & Shaman not that far apart in what they're supposed to do, just more a matter of connotation and place in society. But, D&D Sorcerer, nothing like a Shaman.
Warlock... the powers the warlock deals with are more other-worldly than those of a Shaman, who is also more religious than pragmatic. But, mechanically, it could be a good fit.
Cleric (not to get too much into the other discussion), is pretty strongly tied to the divine.

So. Shaman could well deserve it's own class, again. Of course, there's no reason you can't have both a class & one or more sub-classes of other classes doing takes on the same sorts of concepts.

 

[Parmandur]

I do think there's a space in 5E for a spirit-channeling shaman type, but not sure where it'd fit best. Circle of Spirits Druid? Domain of Ancestors Cleric? Perhaps even a Sorcerer bloodline or Warlock pact? It's often hard to make real world mystic traditions fit D&D to a T.

How about an Artificer who uses Herbalism and Healing Kits to work their mojo? Or all of the above?

 

[Remathilis]

I do think there's a space in 5E for a spirit-channeling shaman type, but not sure where it'd fit best. Circle of Spirits Druid? Domain of Ancestors Cleric? Perhaps even a Sorcerer bloodline or Warlock pact? It's often hard to make real world mystic traditions fit D&D to a T.

It really depends on what you're trying to do with it. Channeling spirits can fill many functions, from having a spirit pet to summoning spirits to having spirits be the source of spells for a class. Further, are you thinking about spirits of nature, spirits of the land, spirits of the dead, Great Spirits or common ones, in partnership or coercion with the Shaman, etc. All that could change what base class you use and what the sub actually does.

I'd say it's too big an archetype for just one class or subclass. It might work as a series of them for a couple different classes, tbh.

 

[Undrave]

I want more "esoteric" and "oddball" archetypes. I think the tropes have been tread pretty well, and that the archetype system has a lot of potential to explore emergent and new fantasy ideas.

I wouldn't mind something completely new!

 

[Blue]

So I think a little D&D-ism is fine, as long as their some D&D related fiction attached to it.

Except that the purpose of this thread was to find missing archetypes, based on Jeremy "The Sage" Crawford saying that D&D already had all of them covered. It was not a wish list of what to add to D&D. That's a great topic - but not the one under discussion. With the recent derailment about religion I'm trying trying to pull it back on topic.