D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XV: The FINAL ROUND)

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, you didn't miss much, it was just another few pages of "magic is ruining the game," "magic is teh broken," "magic makes my fighter sad" stuff. It was bound to happen once the Abjurer was eliminated.

It's what the Thief was planning all along.

Wizard, not magic in general.

 

[Ancalagon]

There's a few spots where they basically go "your DM decides if X applies/is useable/happens" instead of saying "X applies/is usable/happens when Y, but your DM can also decide on other circumstances.". For exemple, the Wild Magic Sorcerer's Wild Surge is one of the DUMBEST class design in the game. It only ever activates if your DM thinks about it. The main feature of your subclass is completly depending on that? It already has a really low chance of doing anything!

I 100% agree with you that the wild magic sorcerer surge was completely flubbed. But just because there are (more than one!) instances where "rulings not rules" clearly failed, it doesn't mean that the philosophy as a whole is wrong. It is very difficult to have a "complete" ruleset, and attempts at it are often complex and not user friendly.

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah, you didn't miss much, it was just another few pages of "magic is ruining the game," "magic is teh broken," "magic makes my fighter sad" stuff. It was bound to happen once the Abjurer was eliminated.

It's what the Thief was planning all along.

It's as if there was never a chance for people to make this solely about the quality of the subclasses rather than the class itself.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Philosophically, is it possible to measure the quality of a subclass without considering the base class except for outliers that are so far beyond the base that the base stops mattering, like the Battlemaster being an excellent base for a fighter class?

In most cases, either a class if good or it's not and subclasses generally won't do a lot to help that

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I 100% agree with you that the wild magic sorcerer surge was completely flubbed. But just because there are (more than one!) instances where "rulings not rules" clearly failed, it doesn't mean that the philosophy as a whole is wrong. It is very difficult to have a "complete" ruleset, and attempts at it are often complex and not user friendly.

Which is why you should take the alternative that is neither (a) "rulings not rules," where no game exists at all unless the DM permits it and literally every line of text can be line-item veto'd (or un-veto'd) at a moment's notice, nor (b) "absolutely perfect coverage," where the game has a single, discrete rule for literally every possible interaction and factor and complication, no matter how baroque.

Instead, you go for extensible framework rules. Rules that treat classes of things (in the philosophical sense--"types" or "varieties," if you want a term without the D&D baggage) collectively, so that you can cover nigh-infinite variety with finite rules. Rules that range over all members of a not-necessarily-finite set. The necessary sacrifice, then, is that these extensible frameworks must be, to one extent or another, abstract. But that "sacrifice" is already true of all games ever, full stop, so you really don't pay that much for it.

4e's Skill Challenges (coupled with Page 42 and the DM's Best Friend) are an excellent example of extensible framework rules, albeit ones that needed some more refinement time before first publication (and desperately, horribly needed better explanations and MUCH, MUCH better examples in published adventures.) Likewise, most of Dungeon World is built on extensible framework rules and specific pre-built applications thereof (e.g. the "Undertake a Perilous Journey" move.) You can do this, and it can be an extremely functional, sometimes shockingly light structure that still manages to cover almost everything one might want to do.

 

[CleverNickName]

Any idea if it's possible to do a ranked choice poll? Almost all the full casters are gone but I feel like they'd handily beat out the martials in a non-survivor model.

Someone definitely should set that up, I'd be interested in seeing how it turns out. Make a poll, add all 12 core classes, one of those "Choose one and tell us why you chose it in the comments" deals? I'm already the Survivor Thread Guy around here, so maybe that poll would be better received coming from someone else.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Someone definitely should set that up, I'd be interested in seeing how it turns out. Make a poll, add all 12 core classes, one of those "Choose one and tell us why you chose it in the comments" deals? I'm already the Survivor Thread Guy around here, so maybe that poll would be better received coming from someone else.

I think what they're looking for is something where you actually rank all of the classes. So if 90% of people rank Fighter as their second-favorite chioce, Fighter would almost certainly win even though it wouldn't be most people's top-favorite. Or something that can correctly do proper ranked-choice-voting stuff, e.g. you vote your stuff, and if your top choice gets eliminated, your single vote goes to your 2nd choice; if that gets eliminated it goes to your 3rd choice; etc. until evetually SOMETHING wins. With proper ranked-choice voting, you don't actually have to vote for every candidate if you don't want to, but not ranking all options means your vote gets ignored if all your candidates get eliminated.

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As of my post (#649): Finally, we're down to the numbers for a normal survivor run. And lo, how the mighty are fallen. It's anybody's game at this point. By my count, no more than 4 votes is all it would take for anything on this list to go from last to first, or first to last. I expect things to get particularly brutal from here on out; we're past the slow-walk phase. Dogpiles can destroy a contender overnight again.

 

[Undrave]

As of my post (#649): Finally, we're down to the numbers for a normal survivor run. And lo, how the mighty are fallen. It's anybody's game at this point. By my count, no more than 4 votes is all it would take for anything on this list to go from last to first, or first to last. I expect things to get particularly brutal from here on out; we're past the slow-walk phase. Dogpiles can destroy a contender overnight again.

I'm personally quite satisfied with the remaining picks. I like the Ranger the least out of the lot, but the other five are just all around good subclasses.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I can't agree with Battle Master being good. Frankly, I've been playing one for a bit now and I've yet to use a single maneuver. I just don't need them and forget about them more often than not.

I'm more than happy with any of the others, though.

 

[Xamnam]

Thief is the only one left that I'm not fond of. It's a classic, it's straightforward, but on a subclass to subclass level, it's just not as interesting to me as the others.