D&D 5E Basic Thoughts on All the PHB Classes

[Zardnaar]

See, I read something like that and hear "They are decent damage dealers if they are Warlocks instead of Bards"

Which seems pretty indicative that Bards are bad at damage until they hit 3rd level and higher spells.

They can aquire the key warlock spells via a feat and magical secrets by level 6. Eldritch blast, hex, fireball,.

They can also pick up destructive wave at lvl 10.

 

[Zardnaar]

I guess this is an improvement over the typical Zard post where everything is broken/OP....

The classes? Any of them can make for an awesome (or bleh) character. Depends upon the imagination you invest & the types of games you play in.
Ex: Warlocks
Some see a spell caster with super limited options....
Zard sees an EB fueled archer where damage is the paramount concern.....
I see so many character concepts (with/without EB) that even if I JUST played warlocks I'll never have time to play them all!

Not really. You may not get two short rests so I would rather be decent all of the time. Warlocks a bit poo if you only get 2 or 3 spells per day.

 

[Immoralkickass]

knowing more spellsis great in theory, the concentration mechanic though tones it down a bit IMHO. 5E also has a handful of spells which are really really good and if you can twin them for example you domore OP things than say a wizard and you have better saves and skills usually.

Disagree, its great in practice too. Of all the full casters, Sorcs are the most limited, being stuck with a incredibly small 'spells known' list, and being restricted to that for most of their adventuring career. Wizards can learn more spells, and prepare a different set of spells each day. Clerics and druids know all their spells and can prepare any of them each day. All of them, even warlock with the right options, have ritual casting, that alone beat the Sorc in terms of utility. The Wizard is a master at ritual casting as he never need to prepare them and can cast them at will. The only saving grace for the Sorc is Twin Haste. It will make the Wizard jealous for a while, but then he remembers he have Leo's Tiny Hut and can rest whenever and wherever he wants, Find Familiar for scouting and Assist cheese, free walkie-talkies for his team with Telepathic Bond, all without using spell slots. And Haste too if he wants. Meanwhile, Sorcs are stuck with 15 spells max. You name a spell the Wizard don't have, he can learn it up in a few days.

Metamagic is overrated, because most spells can usually do 1 or 2 things, and metamagic doesn't change that. You have 15 spells, you can do 15 things. Wizard have 50 spells, they can do 50 different things. They literally have a spell for each problem. Also, you only get 2 Metamagic options before 10th level, and a very small pool of Sorcery points. Most of the time, you will wish you had the Metamagic that you didnt take, but Twinned is too good to pass up. That leaves room for one more between Quickened, Empowered, Subtle, Heightened. They are all good, but you can't have them all at the same time.

In fact, people have already tried to figure out the OP things they can do with Twinned abuse, and its usually involves spending massive amounts of SP, like Twinned Disintegrate or something. I'd like to hear what other OP things you can do with Twinned that others haven't figured out yet. But if you're still not convinced, look up the Simulacrum spell.

 

[Zardnaar]

Disagree, its great in practice too. Of all the full casters, Sorcs are the most limited, being stuck with a incredibly small 'spells known' list, and being restricted to that for most of their adventuring career. Wizards can learn more spells, and prepare a different set of spells each day. Clerics and druids know all their spells and can prepare any of them each day. All of them, even warlock with the right options, have ritual casting, that alone beat the Sorc in terms of utility. The Wizard is a master at ritual casting as he never need to prepare them and can cast them at will. The only saving grace for the Sorc is Twin Haste. It will make the Wizard jealous for a while, but then he remembers he have Leo's Tiny Hut and can rest whenever and wherever he wants, Find Familiar for scouting and Assist cheese, free walkie-talkies for his team with Telepathic Bond, all without using spell slots. And Haste too if he wants. Meanwhile, Sorcs are stuck with 15 spells max. You name a spell the Wizard don't have, he can learn it up in a few days.

Metamagic is overrated, because most spells can usually do 1 or 2 things, and metamagic doesn't change that. You have 15 spells, you can do 15 things. Wizard have 50 spells, they can do 50 different things. They literally have a spell for each problem. Also, you only get 2 Metamagic options before 10th level, and a very small pool of Sorcery points. Most of the time, you will wish you had the Metamagic that you didnt take, but Twinned is too good to pass up. That leaves room for one more between Quickened, Empowered, Subtle, Heightened. They are all good, but you can't have them all at the same time.

In fact, people have already tried to figure out the OP things they can do with Twinned abuse, and its usually involves spending massive amounts of SP, like Twinned Disintegrate or something. I'd like to hear what other OP things you can do with Twinned that others haven't figured out yet. But if you're still not convinced, look up the Simulacrum spell.

We usually twin buff spells with concentration (Sorcerers are proficient). . Haste, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph etc.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Warlock is way better than archer. At will spells through invocations make a big difference.
Mask of many faces alone made our warlock one of the most efficient characters by not fighting and confusing instead.
Actor feat and charlatan increased that utility even more.

 

[happyhermit]

...
I'm also curious what people think of Bards as damage dealers. I've never seen that as their role, but I've had more than one player upset that bards can't throw down very well in the early levels.

Don't take this the wrong way but I just had to say that this made me laugh out loud. I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for the assumption but the idea of someone thumbing through the PHB and thinking "This class looks TOUGH" is funny to me. Don't get me wrong I agree that the 5e Bard can do some decent damage, but even the Valour option is presented more as helping others in battle than doing damage themselves.

I am glad they didn't give Bards ANY more power than they did, I like them a lot and they haven't caused problems for me due to the nature of their role and the players who have chosen them, but they are certainly not lacking as a class IME.

 

[cbwjm]

I guess this is an improvement over the typical Zard post where everything is broken/OP....

The classes? Any of them can make for an awesome (or bleh) character. Depends upon the imagination you invest & the types of games you play in.
Ex: Warlocks
Some see a spell caster with super limited options....
Zard sees an EB fueled archer where damage is the paramount concern.....
I see so many character concepts (with/without EB) that even if I JUST played warlocks I'll never have time to play them all!

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, I create far more characters than I ever get to play. Many are the same class with different backgrounds and styles that completely change the way the class is played.

 

[Chaosmancer]

We usually twin buff spells with concentration (Sorcerers are proficient). . Haste, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph etc.

Just to throw my 2 cents in here (I’ve got a bug about Sorcerers)

Let us say you Twin Haste, earliest you can do that is 5th level. This is wonderful if you have two melee character to benefit from it, so it is dependent on the party. You only have one big tough melee dude, then a single haste is just as good generally.

It costs you 3 of your 5 sorcerery points. Meaning that without doing anything else you can’t do this twice. You could burn a lv 1 slot to get another point, allowing you to do this twice

So, you’ve burnt all of your points and three spell slots. It is a powerful combo, But two fights and you are nearly tapped out. Now, unless you burn more spell slots, you can only cast spells normally and you’ve only got 5 other spells to choose, levels 1 and 2.

Is casting Haste twice on your off-tank worth ritual casting, arcane recovery, and an additional 8 known spells at 5th level?

I find it to be a tough sell.

Don't take this the wrong way but I just had to say that this made me laugh out loud. I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for the assumption but the idea of someone thumbing through the PHB and thinking "This class looks TOUGH" is funny to me. Don't get me wrong I agree that the 5e Bard can do some decent damage, but even the Valour option is presented more as helping others in battle than doing damage themselves.

I am glad they didn't give Bards ANY more power than they did, I like them a lot and they haven't caused problems for me due to the nature of their role and the players who have chosen them, but they are certainly not lacking as a class IME.

I agree, I’ve always seen them as support casters, and frankly as a support class I see them as one of the most powerful in the game. But, since we were discussing classes and I was recently reminded that some people are upset that bard levels 1-4 are lacking in offensive options I’d just toss it out and see if there was something obvious I was missing that I could tell future players to look into.

 

[TwoSix]

Just to throw my 2 cents in here (I’ve got a bug about Sorcerers)

Let us say you Twin Haste, earliest you can do that is 5th level. This is wonderful if you have two melee character to benefit from it, so it is dependent on the party. You only have one big tough melee dude, then a single haste is just as good generally.

Why only melee? Haste works just fine for a Sharpshooter, as well. I've had success Hasting any combination of the Paladin, Ranger archer, Monk, and Druid.

It costs you 3 of your 5 sorcerery points. Meaning that without doing anything else you can’t do this twice. You could burn a lv 1 slot to get another point, allowing you to do this twice

Spending one 1st level spell to get a Twin of both of your 3rd level spells seems worthwhile. And at 6th level, you have it baseline.

So, you’ve burnt all of your points and three spell slots. It is a powerful combo, But two fights and you are nearly tapped out. Now, unless you burn more spell slots, you can only cast spells normally and you’ve only got 5 other spells to choose, levels 1 and 2.

Probably only 4, because you've probably traded out a lower level spell to have 2 3rd level spells. I tend to go defense and utility, relying on cantrips to supplement fireballs (I have a dragon sorcerer). Firebolt at level 6 is doing 2d10+Cha, and I can spend one spell point to twin it. Solid offense, I have shield and mirror image for defense. I don't have quite the versatility of a wizard, sure, but being able to haste two people at once is worth the trade off, to me. If you're not using twinned concentration spells to their fullest effect, you're not playing sorcerer right, to my mind.

 

[dco]

I don't like those classes:

- Berserker is problematic, their basic class feature works differently to all class features, instead of a limited number of uses it gets exhaustion and you need a high level spell or a long rest to recover 1 level of exhaustion. It's absurd when you think it's only an extra attack using a bonus action when you rage which is also a limited resource per long rest, all classes can have an extra attack using 2 weapons without exhaustion, fighters can have more attacks than the berserker without exhaustion. Intimidating presence at level 10 is useless if the DM uses the intimidate skill with the same effect.
At least it can be easily fixed, I don't use exhaustion and at lvl 10 it gets 2x proficiency to Intimidate.

- Bard college of valor is in no mans's land, you get some armor and weapon proficiencies, an extra attack and lastly you can cast a spell and make one attack. This is a very limited dip for warrior features that ends practically inconsequential at higher levels.

- Ranger sucks. Favored enemy and natural explorer have a very limited utility. Primeval awareness wastes your spells slots (compare it with divine sense). TWF has a bad mechanic but it has the worst synergies for a ranger which is the class more associated with that fighting style. Foe slayer is completely underwhelming.
Hide in plain sight is a bit absurd when other classes get invisible, hide in shadows, etc. What's the purpose of a class with spells if you have to dedicate 10min to hide?
The beast master has horrible mechanics and instead of the beast being a follower of the ranger it ends the other way in combat.
Multiattack for hunters doesn't work well comparatively speaking with other class features at lvl 11. You need hordes, whirlwind attack is the worst case, you need at least 3 enemies at the same time to be comparable to an extra attack, but 1 attack to each is far worse that 3 attacks to one, and being surrounded by enemies is dangerous.

Contrary to some people I really like Warlocks and Sorcerers:
- The warlock as a man with a lasgun can be a bit boring in combat but it works very well, outside of combat with CHA and DEX skills and some invocations he is very interesting. The melee warlock also works very well, I've been playing one and he tanks good without a shield thanks to armor of agathys, darkness and killing enemies, damage is good thanks to armor of agathys and hellish rebuke. He can also stay back and shoot the lasgun or a bow.
- The sorcerer has less spells than the wizard, yes, on the other hand thanks to twinned spell they are more efficient damage dealers with cantrips and the best with buffs, they can also cast charms and other things without being noticed, etc.