D&D 5E Class power and Subclass design space: a discussion

[Ashrym]

The moon Druid isn’t overpowered at any level.

The hit point pool is nice at low levels though. I'd rather have better AC, IME, and tend to prefer land druids for more available spells and renewal.

In fact if I could change something retrospectively, it would be only the Bard: its subclasses only get 3 levels worth of abilities and it feels kinda thin...

I find the class has so much customization potential more subclass options aren't needed.

Shape changing on the base druid chassis is little more than a ribbon ability that doesn't take up much design room at all. It's like non-combat cantrips - it's something you can do frequently, has situational and/or RP implications, but not a large impact on the power of the class.

Its more or less a ribbon for non-moon druids, but the high level features of the druid are all connected to it in someway or another.

There is a lot of utility in wild-shaping, regardless. It"s not something I would call a ribbon ability.

I don't know what Primeeval Awareness is and how it made it to the PHB.

It's odd but has situational use. That's one of the common complaints of the class -- too many niche abilities instead of general ability.

If you took Favored Enemy Giant, you should get Colossus Slayer. If you choose Favored Terrain Desert, you should get +1 AC in light armor

I would go with a similar approach if we had a do-over or new edition. Possibly similar to warlocks where the class picks a terrain and enemy instead of patron and pact. Then each level-gates relevant abilities as the class levels to keep it simple.

Uh-huh, and in all previous editions Bard as was a half-caster or thereabouts.

I disagree.

1e bards had 5th, 6th, or 7th level spells depending on which optional version was used. The related jester class consumed as a bard archetype in later editions had 8th level spells. Clerics, druids, and illusionists had 7th level spells so Ty he spell casting wasn't far off but bards had the charm / suggestion magical ability to support it.

2e bards always cast up the 6th level spells while priests (clerics and druids) cast 5th, 6th, or 7th level spells depending on WIS score but still hit 7th vs 6th. The songs were less prominent, here.

The only class to get 9th level spells in either edition was magic-user/mage/wizard so if that's your criteria most casters were "half-casters". ;-)

It wasn't until 3.x that clerics and druids gained 9th level spells, and bards accomplished a similar benefit through more spells and supernatural abilities through songs than they had in the previous editions. 3e also gave the same spells at different spell levels so a bard would gain the same spell at similar levels if it was considered iconic to bards.

On top of that 3e bard PrC's gave the spell benefits we see in 5e's magical secrets and could advance them too 9th level spells as well as songs (sublime chord as a typical example).

Calling 3e bards half-casters is about as valid as calling 5e warlocks half-casters just because of a mixed mechanic.

All three editions used the caster level mechanic. Partial casters like paladins and rangers had restricted caster levels. Bards cast spells at full caster level along with other full casters.

4e bards cast spells using the arcane power source and was the same as other "spell-casters".

There were editions bards were weaker casters but they were never something I would consider a half-casters. It's not like they cast spells at lower level like paladins and rangers did.

Fighters are really clearly described, and very specific, and there is no "Ranger" Fighter in the subclasses. They want to be good at archery and stealth, they're not interested in clanking around in plate,

I make DEX fighters all the time. DEX is too useful not to consider it.

They did precisely this in at least one of the playtest Sorcerers (which, by all reports here, was pretty popular, so not sure what changed there).

Yeah, but what we see on forums isn't much better than anecdotal evidence. We don't know all the survey information.

 

[Minigiant]

I still don't get why the 5E Next Sorcerer was changed. The stuff for it was damn good.

if it is like the rest of 5e, it is likely that the departure from the 3e and 4e sorcerer was too much for many playtesters

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There were editions bards were weaker casters but they were never something I would consider a half-casters. It's not like they cast spells at lower level like paladins and rangers did.

This is semantics of the most pointless kind. I don't even mean that in a mean way, it's just really like the only possible reaction is a shrug. You know what I mean. They certainly couldn't cast as many or as powerful spells as Wizards, Clerics, etc. (esp. as Cleric spells were often lower level to make up for them only having 7 levels of spells).

I make DEX fighters all the time. DEX is too useful not to consider it.

Uh-huh, and a DEX Fighter isn't what these people want. They want something that is much closer to a Ranger. The issue is with Ranger that the design in virtually every edition of D&D has failed to match up with player expectations. It's a class with inherently broad appeal that is inexplicably designed on a very grog-y basis (or simply a weird basis back in 2E), massively narrowing the appeal. Sorcerer in 5E has a similar issue.

Yeah, but what we see on forums isn't much better than anecdotal evidence. We don't know all the survey information.

There's a pretty good/reliable correlation between strong positive and strong negative reactions here and what WotC themselves report. When the responses here are more mixed then we often see WotC reporting something significantly different. Also, with the Next playtest, I don't think they were working on the same basis they are now (i.e. 70% approval etc.), and I don't think anyone from their team has ever suggested that they were. There has never been an explanation given as to why that changed, after such a confident and apparently well-received design (both the Next reddit, which has younger players, and us grogs seemed to broadly like it).

I don't think it's really arguable that the current design of Sorcerer is a good one, either (not that you said that, just making a general point). It's adequate, but every 4E and 5E class design is adequate.

if it is like the rest of 5e, it is likely that the departure from the 3e and 4e sorcerer was too much for many playtesters

Yeah, but which playtesters? The broad group, or the smaller hand-picked pool? And was it playtesters at all, or a decision from the development team? I strongly suspect the broad group, whether newer or older, were pretty positive towards that design, because I saw a huge amount of praise for it (like, an unusual amount), and very little criticism (most of which actually boiled down to "But what about other kinds of Sorcerer, what will THEY get?!" rather than actually disliking the design). The hand-picked pool did seem to have a lot more OSR types in it than the broader group would have (from what we know, but I am going on memory), so maybe they objected, but it's hard to see even them insisting on a 3E-style design. So my feeling here is that it's likely the decision to go "full retro" was one made at the top, and that removed stuff like the good Sorcerer. I've said it before but I think it's worth repeating that 5E wasn't designed to be a massive success or be totally awesome, but rather just to re-unify the market that the 4E/PF split had broken up. I suspect if they'd known how extremely popular 5E would get (due to entirely other factors), they'd have gone with less grog-y and more accessible designs for these classes. Fortunately most classes in 5E have inherently accessible designs.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, but which playtesters? The broad group, or the smaller hand-picked pool? And was it playtesters at all, or a decision from the development team? I strongly suspect the broad group, whether newer or older, were pretty positive towards that design, because I saw a huge amount of praise for it (like, an unusual amount), and very little criticism (most of which actually boiled down to "But what about other kinds of Sorcerer, what will THEY get?!" rather than actually disliking the design). The hand-picked pool did seem to have a lot more OSR types in it than the broader group would have (from what we know, but I am going on memory), so maybe they objected, but it's hard to see even them insisting on a 3E-style design. So my feeling here is that it's likely the decision to go "full retro" was one made at the top, and that removed stuff like the good Sorcerer. I've said it before but I think it's worth repeating that 5E wasn't designed to be a massive success or be totally awesome, but rather just to re-unify the market that the 4E/PF split had broken up. I suspect if they'd known how extremely popular 5E would get (due to entirely other factors), they'd have gone with less grog-y and more accessible designs for these classes. Fortunately most classes in 5E have inherently accessible designs.

I suspect there was a good 30-40% of the broad group of open playtesters that said they like the tough dragony sorcerer. And they used that as an excuse to retro back to a 3E baseline for class features.

The 5e ranger is the 3e ranger with a new spell progression and no companion. The 5e ranger has the same exact problems as the 3e one. Why weren't FE, FT, or spell swappable or learnable? What the heck happened to Primeval Awareness and HIPS? They coulda copied the 0e ranger with 1/2 spellcasting and been done. It was the only successfully designed ranger in D&D history.

I would not be surprised if the internal 5e playtest druid was a 3e Druidzilla with full casting, full animal companion, and full wildshape. However there was obviously not enough design space for it. Wildshape and Animal companion should have been both pure ribbon abilities. Then each subclass upgrades one of them or druidic spellcasting.

That is why I think that replicating the spirit of the class is more important that replicating the look of the classes. I dont think the problem was grogs as much as there was too much focus on getting the Core Four classes right. Not enough time was spent on the other classes. They needed another 6 months just like 4e.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I suspect there was a good 30-40% of the broad group of open playtesters that said they like the tough dragony sorcerer. And they used that as an excuse to retro back to a 3E baseline for class features.

Do you mean "dislike", not "like" here? Because the approval seemed broader than that, and indeed, I don't really think even 30% of the open group would have voted against it, because even though it was a modern design, it didn't seem to inspire much of the usual "CHANGE BAD! SMASH CHANGE!!!" feeling which is normally very clearly (to put it mildly) expressed (perhaps because to true grogs of that era, Sorcerers were still new and thus "subject to change"). I doubt we'll ever know, sadly.

The 5e ranger is the 3e ranger with a new spell progression and no companion. The 5e ranger has the same exact problems as the 3e one. Why weren't FE, FT, or spell swappable or learnable? What the heck happened to Primeval Awareness and HIPS? They coulda copied the 0e ranger with 1/2 spellcasting and been done. It was the only successfully designed ranger in D&D history.

Presumably you mean 3.5E by 3E, because the Ranger class massively changed from 3E to 3.5E. And the differences are larger than you suggest. The animal companion is a major thing (3E didn't overvalue such a thing as 5E initially did), and they don't have FT at all. Indeed no PHB Ranger, from 1E to 4E, has Favoured Terrain, as far as I can see. Which it makes it even more weird that you seem to be saying it should be core. Looking back in 1E it's absent (AFAICT), in 2E it becomes a thing for specialized Kits in the kit books. In 3.XE, it's a PrC thing, to the extent that it even exists. So that they added that as core certainly supports the analysis that they didn't really know what to do with Rangers.

What did the 0E Ranger do?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Also, with the Next playtest, I don't think they were working on the same basis they are now (i.e. 70% approval etc.), and I don't think anyone from their team has ever suggested that they were.

During the playtest the required approval number was closer to 90%. I'm not sure when it dropped down to 70%.

I strongly suspect the broad group, whether newer or older, were pretty positive towards that design, because I saw a huge amount of praise for it (like, an unusual amount), and very little criticism (most of which actually boiled down to "But what about other kinds of Sorcerer, what will THEY get?!" rather than actually disliking the design).

I didn't care for it myself. For me it was just odd that as you used up/ran out of your magic you started looking more supernatural. If anything, that seems backwards conceptually. Mechanically I also didn't like the trade off going on there. Using points was a great idea though. I would have been happy to see another take on it rather than entirely ditching it and going basically straight to what we have now (which had no public playtest).

The 5e ranger has the same exact problems as the 3e one. Why weren't FE, FT, or spell swappable or learnable? What the heck happened to Primeval Awareness and HIPS? They coulda copied the 0e ranger with 1/2 spellcasting and been done. It was the only successfully designed ranger in D&D history.

Tell me about this 0e ranger, I know nothing of it and now I want to.

 

[Minigiant]

Do you mean "dislike", not "like" here? Because the approval seemed broader than that, and indeed, I don't really think even 30% of the open group would have voted against it, because even though it was a modern design, it didn't seem to inspire much of the usual "CHANGE BAD! SMASH CHANGE!!!" feeling which is normally very clearly (to put it mildly) expressed (perhaps because to true grogs of that era, Sorcerers were still new and thus "subject to change"). I doubt we'll ever know, sadly.

yes dislike

Presumably you mean 3.5E by 3E, because the Ranger class massively changed from 3E to 3.5E. And the differences are larger than you suggest. The animal companion is a major thing (3E didn't overvalue such a thing as 5E initially did), and they don't have FT at all. Indeed no PHB Ranger, from 1E to 4E, has Favoured Terrain, as far as I can see. Which it makes it even more weird that you seem to be saying it should be core. Looking back in 1E it's absent (AFAICT), in 2E it becomes a thing for specialized Kits in the kit books. In 3.XE, it's a PrC thing, to the extent that it even exists. So that they added that as core certainly supports the analysis that they didn't really know what to do with Rangers.

The 3.5e ranger was bad too. It was better than the sewage that was the 3.0e ranger. The main fix that 3.5 did was the 2 extra skill point and the free feats. But it still was a PHB martial. the Companion was soft. And the main use of spellcasting was having access to scrolls and wands.

Favored Environment/Terrain was a variant in 2e and 3e.

What did the 0E Ranger do?

It's the ranger from the Strategic Review 1, 2. It was high tracking chance, hard to surprise, +1damage per level to Giant class enemies (kobolds, goblins, orcs, gnolls, trolls, and giants... basically all nonplayable humaniods) and access to magic spells and items.

Never plaed it but rumors state it was a beast.