D&D (2024) Classes: What changes do you predict?

[Ruin Explorer]

monk just need some minor improvement in few areas:

HD: raised to d10, maybe even d12

Armor: proficiency in light armor, can use wis instead of dex in light armor.
then it's 3 options for AC: armor+dex, armor+wis or dex+wis

wis bonus to amount of ki points

whenever you crit or enemy crits you with an attack you regain 1 ki point

martial arts damage form d4->10 increased to d6->d12

+1 skill point at 1st level

That is a bold definition of "minor improvements".

 

[Mind of tempest]

monk just need some minor improvement in few areas:

HD: raised to d10, maybe even d12

Armor: proficiency in light armor, can use wis instead of dex in light armor.
then it's 3 options for AC: armor+dex, armor+wis or dex+wis

wis bonus to amount of ki points

whenever you crit or enemy crits you with an attack you regain 1 ki point

martial arts damage form d4->10 increased to d6->d12

+1 skill point at 1st level

that would bring them to functional I want good which would build a whole lot more than this.

 

[Parmandur]

I dunno if that's true.

Remember lineage? And how it went back to being race?

Pathfinder 2E is kind of the "mine canary" here. People who like D&D-ish games but are more "right-on" are often PF2 fans/boosters, because, frankly, PF2 has done a better job with diversity/modernity etc. Part of this is having a specific setting - Golarion - which they were able to update timeline-wise to get rid of stuff they didn't like. Part of it is that their core team is I believe more diverse and certainly has better instincts than WotC on this kind of thing. I don't think WotC are less committed to be clear, but they're not doing as well (even with this playtest they misstepped on half-races and by assigning languages to jobs - even I, only mildly "woke" (due to my 44-year-old decrepitude) when "UH OH" when I saw the languages assigned to jobs thing).

Anyway, whatever, point is they're basically a couple of years ahead, minimum, of where WotC is (at least for the last few years).

And they still have Barbarians and Monks (even still called that). I also don't see much discussion on left-RPG-Twitter of Barbarian anymore. A few years ago people were like "Omg so problematic!". Now it seems almost like it's been accepted as a class-name not connected to real-world stuff (not sure that's quite right...). I dunno if that'll stick but...

Worth noting PF2 Monks aren't forced-Shaolin Monks like 5E though - that's one option among many due to the way PF2 uses Feats (which ends up being more like Warlock Eldritch Invocations than D&D's Feats).

Fair, but PF2E is fairly old now, and WotC design staff has taken a quantum leap in diversity when they started growing.

 

[payn]

Fair, but PF2E is fairly old now, and WotC design staff has taken a quantum leap in diversity when they started growing.

PF2 is 3 years old...

 

[Undrave]

Would Wizard players mutiny? Probably. But I do think that WotC could be opening the way for that.

Augh... we should not be constantly shackled to the whims of Wizard players!

That is a bold definition of "minor improvements".

It's mostly just Bigger Numbers so it's pretty easy.

 

[Undrave]

Wizard - pretty sure there are people who won't be satisfied if it doesn't get a significant power increase, whether that's needed or not. While they're not explicitly saying, "Wizards need to have more stuff they can do," there are already people arguing for extra skills to be awarded for high intelligence and with the Wizard likely being the only PHB class using Int... It probably doesn't need too much but will get some extras anyway

Wizard players are NEVER satisfied unless their pet class is the GOD KING of the edition and is way better than anybody else.

 

[Parmandur]

PF2 is 3 years old...

Yes, 3 years is a long time. American culture has gone through major changes since 2019.

 

[Branduil]

The ship has sailed on dethroning Wizards from their #1 spot, barring a 4e-style change to the entire game's structure it can't happen. What can be done is narrowing the scope of their power, so that they're not also the best utility class. It's one thing to best the most powerful member of your party, it's another thing to also step on the niches of every character out of combat as well. Limiting spells to mostly their school would do a lot for that.

 

[TwoSix]

That is a bold definition of "minor improvements".

I probably wouldn't call that "minor improvements", as they're just straight-up buffs, but they work in the sense they cause no issue with backwards compatibility for previously existing monk subclasses.

To my mind, you can't really "fix" monk until you get rid of Stunning Strike and spread its power budget out among other class features. SS is simultaneously too powerful to ignore but really annoying in play.

 

[TwoSix]

The ship has sailed on dethroning Wizards from their #1 spot, barring a 4e-style change to the entire game's structure it can't happen. What can be done is narrowing the scope of their power, so that they're not also the best utility class. It's one thing to best the most powerful member of your party, it's another thing to also step on the niches of every character out of combat as well. Limiting spells to mostly their school would do a lot for that.

They can do it, they just have to be ballsy enough to narrow down the scope of the arcane spell list to around "2014 sorcerer" levels, and then give the wizard a limited feature (like Bard secrets) to expand beyond it. That mostly preserves backwards compatibility (individual wizard characters might need adjustment, but the subclasses and feats still work) but puts more strict limits on the wizard's main source of power.