D&D 5E Archetypes to add to 5e

[Garthanos]

You say that, but if you look at old DnD we had things like followers, noble titles and the Leadership feat. Seems to me like the 'Mundane Leader of Man' is an archetype that was always THERE.

The Warlord simply gave you mechanics that, instead of making you deal with a bunch of random NPCs, made you interact with the other players instead. It gave you actual mechanics to support the concept.

Battlemasters, and to an extant the Mastermind, are vaillant efforts but feel more like one of the MC-like Archetype we've mentionned befoe. Like the Battlemaster and Mastermind are to the Warlord what the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster are to the Wizard... except they didn't print the Warlord

I am sure you will find places where Tony or Myself argue the same thing some disagreement about how valiant the effort was in 5e but generally yup this.

I even have been working on ways to enable the NPCs angle back in via Martial Practices (it rather works like a charm)

 

[Garthanos]

Uh. All Vampires (Kindred) in V:tM are the descendants of Cain, son of Adam and Eve, brother to Abel and Seth (which they spell as Caine with an e for some reason). He created the playable Vampire clans after the Deluge (Noah's flood) wiped out most of the earlier generations of Vampires. He's still alive but in hiding in the modern day - people joke that he's currently a cab driver in Los Angeles - and Noddists believe that one day he will reveal himself and cast judgment on all his descendants. Kind of casts some assumptions on the setting, doesn't it?

The World of Darkness isn't setting neutral in the slightest. Most RPGs aren't, and most make no pretense at trying to be. This isn't a bad thing; being tied to one specific setting can help designers give thematic grounding to mechanics. Only GURPS and Savage Worlds can really make the claim of being setting neutral with any credence. D&D is in a grey area due to how many settings were built for it, but all of those settings follow the same mechanical, if not thematic trappings.

Past Fantasy Hero, FATE and others really are setting neutral too it's not entirely rare but far from universal I would say that the spells of D&D drip with setting flavor too

 

[Undrave]

I am sure you will find places where Tony or Myself argue the same thing some disagreement about how valiant the effort was in 5e but generally yup this.

I even have been working on ways to enable the NPCs angle back in via Martial Practices (it rather works like a charm)

Not sure I'm a fan of the NPC angle... I'm not a fan of Beast Companions either... it just seems like a lot of fiddly bits.

 

[Shardstone]

So were a lot of legendary figures, most of which had little in common with the classes they were being called out as representative of.
'cept CHA's not s'posed t'be looks - thus briefly having the 7th COM stat.

But, yes, the archetype is there for female-appearing monsters. And does draw some criticism: it's evidence that D&D is a heteronormative, male-gaze, bastion of abhorrent old-school sexism (as if the reported behavior of D&Ders weren't enough proof).
A PC option would be even more problematic.

OK, you do remember COM.

Glamour Bard can become magically beautiful at 14th level.

 

[Undrave]

Glamour Bard can become magically beautiful at 14th level.

There we go then...

 

[Yaarel]

Glamour Bard can become magically beautiful at 14th level.

Yeah, ok.

The Glamor Bard description mentions ‘unearthly beauty’ and ‘otherworldly lovely and fierce’ appearance, and links it with Charisma magic and charm effects − even associates it with the Eladrin by name.

The description needs to be more explicit about the sexually seductive aspect of the magical beauty to portray the archetype. But it hints at it, and a player can make a point to play it that way.

For the sake of the archetype, the ‘unearthly beauty’ appears at level 6 in Majestic Mantle.

I want the level 3 ‘seductive’ Enthralling Performance to mention magical beauty.

Plus have something at level 1 to express magical beauty such as a choice of cantrip.

(Also have a feat called Comeliness, for how nonmagical beauty can enhance Persuasion checks and Charm effects for those in line-of-sight. Oppositely, also have a feat called Hideousness that can enhance Intimidation and Frighten effects for those in line-of-sight.)

(Even game designers seem to forget that high Charisma can mean terrifying.)



The Glamor Bard hints at different kinds of archetypes:
• Sexually seductive (beauty)
• Artistically stunning (art)
• Majestically regal (power)

I actually like each of these possibilities. I wish each of them was spelled out more explicitly as a possible option, for a character concept.



Also, I like the fact that the ‘seductive’ charm-related mechanics are all gender-neutral.



The bottom line is. The Glamor Bard satisfies my earlier call for a sexually seductive archetype, but the player needs to make a special effort to make it work.



Note: as a race archetype, I want the Eladrin to be a +2 Charisma race. The 4e Eladrin that can be +2 Charisma and +2 Intelligence, conveying a magical race of enchanting beauty and eloquent logic, who masters both Bard and Wizard and Psion, with rational and hedonistic eldritch courts, is a character concept that is important to me, that remains poignantly lacking from 5e.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I would imagine that the Journeyman is a little like a Factotum from 3.5 meets the Lucky Feat expanded to a class. The Journeyman has a pool of ... let's call them Luck Points. They can always expend a point to grant advantage on a save, or disadvantage on an attack targeting them. As they level, they can expend Luck points to briefly simulate/replicate abilities of other classes; casting spells, but also gaining Sneak Attack, Channel Divinity, and so on.

I've been working off and on with a similar class concept for a while now (I call it the Fool instead of the Journeyman). And yeah, the core class feature is literally just the Lucky feat, but with a level-based pool of luck points. I mean, why reinvent the wheel?

I don't see them picking up the factotum's ability to imitate other classes, though. It sounds to me more like the "everyman" archetype: the Sam Gamgee, the Sancho Panza, the Xander Harris. Less the jack-of-all-trades and more the ordinary guy whose very ordinariness provides a unique unquantifiable something. Writing this unquantifiable something into a highly quantified game has proven challenging, but luck points are a good start, I think.

 

[Quartz]

Barbarian: "tooth and claw" physically transformed when raging. Goes back to the original Norse ber-serkir who where believed to literally transform into bears. In literature, Beorn in The Hobbit.

You can just make this the SFX of their totems.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You can just make this the SFX of their totems.

Not really, since you still need to attack with your weapon, even if you look like a bear.

 

[Undrave]

I've been working off and on with a similar class concept for a while now (I call it the Fool instead of the Journeyman). And yeah, the core class feature is literally just the Lucky feat, but with a level-based pool of luck points. I mean, why reinvent the wheel?

I don't see them picking up the factotum's ability to imitate other classes, though. It sounds to me more like the "everyman" archetype: the Sam Gamgee, the Sancho Panza, the Xander Harris. Less the jack-of-all-trades and more the ordinary guy whose very ordinariness provides a unique unquantifiable something. Writing this unquantifiable something into a highly quantified game has proven challenging, but luck points are a good start, I think.

You ever seen the Canadian cartoon ‘Class of the Titans’ ? It was a show about a team of seven teenagers descendant of Greek Heroes that were chosen by the Olympian gods to stop Cronus who had escaped from Tartarus (Cronus being played by the magnificent David Kaye, btw).

You had Herry, descendant of Heracles who had great strength ; Atlanta descendant of Atalanta who was super fast ; Odie, descendant of Odysseus who was essentially a gadgeteer genius ; Archie, descendant of Achilles who was a courageous warrior and immune to illnesses ; Thessa, descendant of Theseus who was also a good fighter and also possessed barely justified psychic power…

Then you had Jay, descendant of Jason who was billed as The Leader (with no super powers, thus making him an example of my previously mentionned Mundane Leader archetype) and the seventh member, who was picked by Aphrodite : Neil, descendant of Narcissus. Neil was, of course, a professional model, but, more importantly, he was granted incredible luck !

It seems dumb but whenever Jay, or Neil, or, gods forbid, both, were absent from the team they would ROUNDLY get their butt kicked by the bad guys.

The heroes were stronger together, obviously, but even without one of their warrior type they could pull out a victory… but no Neil or Jay ? Failure was basically innevitable. Leadership and Luck were just as important as Brawn, Speed, Smarts, Courage and Instinct in the grand scheme of things, and they could even compensate for a missing component. They also had trouble getting along without Jay and even Neil.