D&D 5E Blow it up! What class need to be completely re-worked in 5e?

[BookBarbarian]

Dunno. What would your special ability be? Where would your power come from?

But there can be a simple oath-of-war paladin, with easy abilities, like hit something or take damage.

From all sort's of places. Grit and Determination, Martial Training, luck. A character could totally be good at adventuring without having to swear an oath to some aspect of it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Those work too.

I was just attempting to keep the old names, and "Paladin" is better than "Fighter", but that might be different enough to warrant a new one. Keeping the "power from your beliefs" trope.

Yeah, I can't say a I really care - not as much or as negatively as Lowkey, anyway...

Paladin is too specific, Fighter too generic.

 

[Gadget]

All full-casters in 3E who prepared spells were Top Tier levels of OP. And a lot of that "OPness" in 3E for the druid, in addition to the aforementioned Tier 1 status imparted by the prepared nature of their spells, had more to do with the sheer power level of Wild Shape, particularly when coupled with the Natural Spell feat at 6th level, which resulted in the druid not having to choose between Wild Shape's exploration/combat utility or spells. (Compare that with the 5E druid who does not get the equivalent of Natural Spell until 18th level.) If you took Natural Spell out of 3E, or at least increased the level requirements, and nerfed some of the Wild Shape forms, the 3E Druid would be in a lot less OP state.

Very true, but there was also the ability to buff up your Animal companion and/or Summons into a not-so-second-rate fighter was something that 3e Druids were notorious for as well. It was bad enough when your fighter was reduced to side kick/mop-up-dude for the wizard, now he was basically reduced to feeding shoveling @*$% for the Druid's animal companions.

Needless to say, despite the paladin hate expressed herein, I think it is one of the better designed classes in 5e. In a complete re-design, I could see the Paladin, Ranger, & Barbarian being done as fighter sub-classes, but that would probably ruffle a lot of feathers. I think the Sorcerer could use a re-design as well, along with the Wo4E monk. And while I love the Warlock design and flavor, I think the blade'lock has pretensions of gishy-ness that it doesn't quite deliver on.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I agree with most of your post, and still agree with some of these things. Here is my 2 cp.

I consider "Fighter" just as Anomalous as Ranger. I actually like this part of ranger, as it feels to me like it should be a little vague. just IMO though.

Hm, I can see the point about the Fighter, but I think the Fighter's offensive capabilities come from Extra Attack (2) and all the ASIs/feats that they get. Any Fighter can get to 20 Str/20 Dex/20 Con if you put your 15, 14, and 13 there and take a race with a +2 or more to physical stats. Battlemaster and EK give you a lot more to do and a lot more decisions to make, but if you run the base class without any subclass, you're not missing all that much. Ranger, on the other hand, loses almost all their offense without a subclass. You have Extra Attack, Fighting Style, and spells, and that's it. The only other offensive ability in the base class is the capstone: Foe Slayer at 20th that lets you add Wis mod to damage once per turn when attacking a Favored Enemy. (Why is this capstone so terrible?!)

Beyond that, I'd never nuke the Fighter. Or, rather, I'd nuke every other class before Fighter. D&D and the Fighter are synonymous for me. The game started with the Fighting Man.

As for abilities that are useless, I hate Turn undead way more than Indomitable. So much class space, dedicated to forcing Cleric into an Anti-Undead bomb. one or two times a day. And only against undead, these abilities are wasted if you are fighting anything other than undead. Also, your other Channel divinity Options might be better than Turn Undead anyway, so it might not even be used in fights against undead...

Turn undead doesn't bother me only because nobody gets just turn undead. The other channel divinity option is essentially the actual ability that you get, and that's how I've looked at it since the game came out because, yeah, turn undead is a waste of an action. I certainly wouldn't call it a huge amount of class space, though.

Now Destroy Undead is a terrible ability. I'll agree with you there. That should not count as your class ability at the levels that increases. However, it only actually does that once: At level 14. Every other time you get the ability, you are either getting a new spell level or getting another ability at the same time. Cleric 14 is actually a totally dead level, however, which is pretty rare overall.

Generally speaking, though, getting extra uses or increasing the power of an existing ability really shouldn't count as the named ability for a given class level unless it's a major upgrade like a new spell level. I always think, "Hey, Rogue doesn't have levels that say, 'Sneak Attack +1d6' at every odd level and that's a major ability. Why does this class basically do that for incremental upgrades to this minor ability?"

I oppose you completely on the idea of short rests. I wish all classes had more stuff that recharged on a short rest, so that there was actually a reason for short rests to happen. Either that, or all classes recharge on short rests, and the only reason to long rest is to recharge hit dice. It would require some tweaking, but I am working on a few ideas. For example, Wizards could get 1-2 of each spell slot up to 5th level on a short rest, and 6-9th levels recharge on a long rest.

Yeah, I've no interest in the game being like that. It certainly would work mechanically, and might even be more balanced, but it starts to lose the feel of D&D to me. I'd be more of a fan of doubling or tripling the number of uses of most short rest abilities and making them long rest. Exceptions should be made for abilities that characters should essentially have every combat (Action Surge, I'm looking at you) and those should be on a 5 or 10 minute cooldown. If we can track spell duration, we can track a 5 to 10 minute cooldown.

The core issue either way is that the tension between short and long rest doesn't actually make an interesting or hard decisions for the game. It just makes the players argue and disagree about what to do. That's not interesting; it's just disruptive and time consuming and leaves players unhappy.

I agree on the six saving throws, and think it should be down to 4, with Dex and Str being interchangeable. Fireball? Dex or Str, Players choice. Necrotic/Paralysis? Con save. Something that requires will? Cha save. Wis and Int should not factor in, IMO. Wis is purely a perception skill at this point, and I think all Casters should be Cha or Int. Int should only be used for skills, not saving throws.

That could work, if Cha weren't already used for an absurd number of skills. Cha doesn't need help.

 

[mellored]

From all sort's of places. Grit and Determination, Martial Training, luck. A character could totally be good at adventuring without having to swear an oath to some aspect of it.

Same idea. Hmm...

Vengeful Determination.
Devoted Determinition.
Courageous Determination. Get's your bonuses when charging in without looking.

OK, I like "Determination" better than "Oath".


Still, my basic point that mechanics should encourage (though not force) a character/playstyle/story/trope/personality.
For instance, an Honor Knight would not lose their class levels if they snuck around and stabbed someone in the back, but they might get +1d4 to hit when facing an enemy one on one, and they might take 1 psycic damage each time they make a bluff check.

 

[Lanliss]

Hm, I can see the point about the Fighter, but I think the Fighter's offensive capabilities come from Extra Attack (2) and all the ASIs/feats that they get. Any Fighter can get to 20 Str/20 Dex/20 Con if you put your 15, 14, and 13 there and take a race with a +2 or more to physical stats. Battlemaster and EK give you a lot more to do and a lot more decisions to make, but if you run the base class without any subclass, you're not missing all that much. Ranger, on the other hand, loses almost all their offense without a subclass. You have Extra Attack, Fighting Style, and spells, and that's it. The only other offensive ability in the base class is the capstone: Foe Slayer at 20th that lets you add Wis mod to damage once per turn when attacking a Favored Enemy. (Why is this capstone so terrible?!)

Beyond that, I'd never nuke the Fighter. Or, rather, I'd nuke every other class before Fighter. D&D and the Fighter are synonymous for me. The game started with the Fighting Man.

Now Destroy Undead is a terrible ability. I'll agree with you there.


The core issue either way is that the tension between short and long rest doesn't actually make an interesting or hard decisions for the game. It just makes the players argue and disagree about what to do. That's not interesting; it's just disruptive and time consuming and leaves players unhappy.



That could work, if Cha weren't already used for an absurd number of skills. Cha doesn't need help.

I don't know how to split quotes, oh well.

I speccifically like how the ranger gets most of his stuff from subclasses. Rangers are probably one of the most different feeling characters depending on subclass, and that is how it should be, IMO.

When you see a wizard throwing a spell, you should be able to tell what kind of wizard that is based on what kind/how powerful the spell is. Sure, any wizard can throw a Fireball, but when that Evocation wizard throws his Fireball, it should blow all the others out of the water.

When you see a ranger fighting, you see hard deadly hits, or an animal companion, and know exactly what subclass it is. That is how such a powerful divide as a Subclass should look. Not like when you see a Battle master next to a champion and can't tell which subclasses they are.


Aye, I meant Destroy Undead.


I agree, and am working on a thread to make that a relevant choice. Basically, I think there is too little of a difference between a long and short rest, as far as resources regained, and that is what causes short rests to get left to the side in favor of Long rests in all but the most time-crunchy situations.


I am slowly working on a homebrew for making the skills more balanced. To start, Perception will only be PP, and any skill checks to look at your surroundings will be Investigation. That will immediately make Int less of a dump stat. Not sure what to do with Cha just yet

 

[BookBarbarian]

Same idea. Hmm...

Vengeful Determination.
Devoted Determinition.
Courageous Determination. Get's your bonuses when charging in without looking.

OK, I like "Determination" better than "Oath".


Still, my basic point that mechanics should encourage (though not force) a character/playstyle/story/trope/personality.
For instance, an Honor Knight would not lose their class levels if they snuck around and stabbed someone in the back, but they might get +1d4 to hit when facing an enemy one on one, and they might take 1 psycic damage each time they make a bluff check.

That could work for me. it was really the "oath" part I wasn't keen on.

I feel that in 5e Oaths are what actually separate a Paladin from a Fighter/Cleric. It made them distinct. By applying Oaths to non-Paladins it felt like trying to make all those classes into Paladins.

 

[Krachek]

For what I have learn from the ranger redesign, all classes could be redone.
We have a core rule set.
The classes are not perfect and totally balanced, but they are all good enough to have fun.

They wont scrap the sorcerer, or the barbarian. They will add ones aside.

A new sorcerer could have a point buy system, to be really aside of wizard.
A new Warlock could be all at will and invocation.
I would like a paladin and ranger 1/3 caster rather than the half caster.

Someday a good designer will offer a new phb we all new design of the actual classes.
I would prefer that to endless splat book of prestige classes.

 

[Wulffolk]

Dude, WTH is up with this hostile response?.

I am sorry that my post came off as hostile. That was not my intent. That is why I included myself in my comment instead of singling you out. No ridicule was intended, just some light-hearted sarcastic humor that failed to translate over the internet. I did not expect my comment to be taken so seriously.

My apologies for upsetting you.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I don't know how to split quotes, oh well.

It's easy. The beginning of a quoted block of text starts with {QUOTE}, and the end of a quoted block of text ends with {/QUOTE}. Just use square brackets [] instead of the curly braces {}.

I speccifically like how the ranger gets most of his stuff from subclasses. Rangers are probably one of the most different feeling characters depending on subclass, and that is how it should be, IMO.

I'm not opposed to more transformative subclasses, but my problem with ranger is that all the offense is in the subclass. That really limits design space for future subclasses, because any new subclass has to spend all it's time granting the Ranger offense. If it doesn't, then you'll be about as good a fighter as a Valor Bard but with half the spells.

Let's say I want to make a Horizon Walker subclass for Ranger. Can I use the subclass abilities expanding and enhancing Natural Explorer better? Well, I can, but I also have to make sure that those abilities grant the offense that players lose by not selecting Hunter. So I'll end up with abilities that need to add at least 1d8 damage each round in addition to needing to do something cool to make the subclass stand out. It might make sense for the 11th level ability to be casting plane shift once per long rest, but that means you don't get a combat ability like Volley or Whirlwind Attack, and the rest of the class doesn't make up that deficit.

That's the real problem with Beastmaster: the class needs offense from the subclass, but it spends time doing other things. It even allows you to pick non-offensive companions! Furthermore, the offense that you do get must be used in lieu of attacks from the main character. And that's why it's so terrible. Instead of gaining better offense, you just gain different offense that doesn't stack because the new offense eats your actions. Instead of doing d8 + d8, you do d8 or d8. And because Ranger puts all the combat abilities into the subclass, you can't fall back on your regular class abilities to compensate for the loss.

When you see a wizard throwing a spell, you should be able to tell what kind of wizard that is based on what kind/how powerful the spell is. Sure, any wizard can throw a Fireball, but when that Evocation wizard throws his Fireball, it should blow all the others out of the water.

When you see a ranger fighting, you see hard deadly hits, or an animal companion, and know exactly what subclass it is. That is how such a powerful divide as a Subclass should look. Not like when you see a Battle master next to a champion and can't tell which subclasses they are.

Eh, for the most part I feel like this already happens. The thing about the Champion and Battlemaster is that they're supposed to look and feel identical. One is the 1e Fighter, and the other is the 4e Fighter. It's the same class tweaked two ways to support the different play styles from different rules sets.