D&D 5E Classes you're hoping WotC will create

[The Crimson Binome]

The stakes are just different. Worst-case, messing with fluff will make your campaign come off as a little silly or internally inconsistent. Screwing up mechanics can render the game unplayable.

The stakes are the same: If you mess up, the game might be less fun.

You're probably not a professional game designer. You're probably not a professional fantasy writer, either. You're probably going to make a mistake at some point. The difference is, it's easier to fix a broken mechanic than a broken piece of fluff. If you don't like how a mechanic is working, you can just change it, no questions asked. If you don't like how a piece of fluff is working, then you need to ret-con it, which is way harder to do while maintaining continuity.

 

[mordaken]

Right, but all are quite distinct in play experience, in narrative, in ways that a lot of suggested new classes struggle with.



And I'd challenge those fans to point out the mechanical distinction and -- the kicker for mechanically indistinct classes -- see if that distinction is enough to build a defining mechanic around. Presume the psion is essentially a full-caster a la wizards and sorcerers and bards and clerics, and give me what would define it as much as a spell book or sorcery points or bardic inspiration or domains define those other classes. Definitely not impossible, but if you can't do that, then, IMO, you're not earning your place in among the other classes. (Artificer, for what it's worth, suffers a similar problem with "using a magic item" and "casting a spell")
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That is easy. I have always been a proponent against Psionics as another form of spellcasting. While Psionics to outsiders will look magic they are not. I suggest looking up Second Edition Psionics and see how that different is vastly different from the spell systems at the time. The old Psionic System does not even have a analogue in an edition since second edition. While I liked Psionics in 3rd, they were treated like magic and I did not like that. The third edition augment system can be appended to the current spell system in my opinion. The second edition psionic system is the way it should go and psionics should not be considered magic, which means detect magic, dispel magic etc. should have no effect on them.

All of that being said, the way they created the sub-class system in 5 edition does limit some classes from having certain previous classes as sub-classes due to the over riding theme of the classes, so some legacy classes will never have homes in the current list of classes as sub-class.

 

[bogmad]

Right, but all are quite distinct in play experience, in narrative, in ways that a lot of suggested new classes struggle with.



And I'd challenge those fans to point out the mechanical distinction and -- the kicker for mechanically indistinct classes -- see if that distinction is enough to build a defining mechanic around. Presume the psion is essentially a full-caster a la wizards and sorcerers and bards and clerics, and give me what would define it as much as a spell book or sorcery points or bardic inspiration or domains define those other classes. Definitely not impossible, but if you can't do that, then, IMO, you're not earning your place in among the other classes. (Artificer, for what it's worth, suffers a similar problem with "using a magic item" and "casting a spell")

Well, in the case of the example that he used above there's the V/S/M components, which in most games are relegated to fluff, but are still technically mechanical differences to the point it takes metamagic to cast silently. Also, there's the Spell List which he brings up with Fireballs/Lightning, etc. Sure you can "self medicate" the spell list to keep those out, but that's still a mechanical difference to the Psion.
The psion class description given above doesn't sound as similar to me as it does to you. Sounds like you could fluff the mechanics to be the same, but that's not the same thing as them having to be the same thing.

The bigger difference is the one you bring up yourself, which is the Story behind the class. Which at least affects the spell list.
It's arguable that's why the Druid is a different class than the Cleric (though legacy also plays a big part, as it would with the psion).

You say to bring up new mechanics, but once other than spell points have been brought up, more than once. Not everyone thinks a spell point system like the sorcerer is the way to go; it's just what gets brought up the most by people saying it should be magic.
I think a better mechanic for psionics would include augmentable cantrips and a few slots. Similar to Warlocks, but with an entirely different "Story." Even if you were to go with warlock mechanics it's hard to cram a pure psion into the Warlock fluff and call it the same class. So tweak existing mechanics to make a psion as different to Warlock as Cleric is to Wizard. Or go off the sorcerer and create an analogue that way, but there's enough story and legacy to make it distinct.

 

[MechaPilot]

I think we probably have all the classes that we need. I know that I do.

What I do want and need though are more and better tools for customizing what we have. The artificer could just be a kit or theme that modifies the existing wizard, and many other potential classes could do the same thing with other existing classes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The stakes are the same: If you mess up, the game might be less fun.

There's a difference between 'less fun' and grind to a halt.

You're probably going to make a mistake at some point. The difference is, it's easier to fix a broken mechanic than a broken piece of fluff. If you don't like how a mechanic is working, you can just change it, no questions asked. If you don't like how a piece of fluff is working, then you need to ret-con it, which is way harder to do while maintaining continuity.

You're stuck retconning what the effdup mechanic did, too, so really, mechanics are still the riskier thing to change.

While, after doing this for so long, it's not like changing either fluff nor mechanics seems that hard anymore, I will venture to say that fluff is the more readily manipulable. It's also a lot easier to tell at a glance whether a fluff change is going to mesh with your campaign - while the consequences of mechanical changes can sneak up on you.

Old-school D&D memorization of spells, for instance. It doesn't fit any caster in genre outside of the Dying Earth and doesn't even do them that well. You could adopt a mana-point system - every one of them I've ever seen was wildly overpowered. Or, you could come up with an alternative to memorization, like 'preparation.'

 

[jgsugden]

The 4E class I'd like to see return is Invoker - because I think it just missed out on a lot of potential. The concept hits a sweet spot in the role/power source matrix that deserves to be addressed with a fun class. I'd love to see an Invoker in robes that calls down wrath with a spell list that is a bit more 'Heaven's Wrath' than the cleric's - and with mechanics that support the idea that while the cleric may be the hands of their Gods, the Invoker's are the head.

 

[Salthorae]

I'm sure we'll see Psionics in the next year or so because there have been numerous hints at a Dark Sun setting release which should mean Psionics at a minimum! Super excited for that.

 

[bogmad]

I think a lot of the new class discussion depends on whether Wotc wants to release new class mechanics and story in a splatbook, or if they're ok releasing modules and "kits" to convert existing classes to contain new classes and subclasses.

Right now you can refluff existing classes to a variety of different stories if you're just going by mechanics and ignoring the fluff (and you're encouraged to do so ​in the dmg). But also, right now the official fluff in the phb fits pretty well with the official class mechanics; no written subclass description counts on one bit of fluff meaning two different things.

We have no clear idea how they'll approach new subclasses since they haven't released any "finished" ones yet. Maybe they'll start diverting fluff from mechanics in their product releases, but right now I don't see that as the direction they want to go in.

I'll buy a psionics splatbook. I won't buy a "tips to convert this old class to one of our new ones with the same mechanics!" Maybe I'll download a free pdf. I guess that'd be something. But I'd be disappointed.

 

[Matau99]

I'm amazed at how many posts there are! I expected 2 or 3 max!

The main topic of this thread seems to have become "5e psionics", and I'll say this: the roots are there. Look at MM page 10. There's a whole block for "psionics." Currently, they're being treated as spells, but I think it'd be amazing for psionics to work more like "I manifest my cantrip with 40 power points to control the army!", because that way you can directly scale up and scale down your powers while basically doing what you do at level 1--just way better.

I also saw an interesting suggestion for "psionics as an ability check." What if you had to make a Int/Wis/Cha check to manifest a power? I think that could be really cool.

 

[mordaken]

I also saw an interesting suggestion for "psionics as an ability check." What if you had to make a Int/Wis/Cha check to manifest a power? I think that could be really cool.

Check out Second Edition Psionics, they had attribute checks as part of the manifestation.

We have no clear idea how they'll approach new subclasses since they haven't released any "finished" ones yet. Maybe they'll start diverting fluff from mechanics in their product releases, but right now I don't see that as the direction they want to go in.

I am not confident on them adding sub-classes anymore. In the Elemental Evil Compendium they added Deep Gnomes, and they are not a gnome sub-race they are a separate race. This does not give me the confidence that the systems they put in place for sub-class and sub-races will be used in the future.