In another of D&D Beyond's frequent data shares, here is a look at the most popular fighter subclasses currently in use. The Champion leads the pack, followed by Battlemaster, Eldritch Knight, Gunslinger, and Samurai.
I think low-key at will mods to shots would be fine. That said, a lot of classes have finite resources when it comes to powering special abilities, so something like that is also probably appropriate. Not for really basic stuff like "you arrows count as magical" or whatever, but when it comes to effects, conditions, or added damage you need a spendable and finite resource to fit the 5e model for classes.When I hear 'Arcane Archer' I'm thinking I'd look like Hank from the old DnD cartoon, or Link and his elemental arrow. I'm not thinking of managing stuff like spell slots or Arcane Shots. At least not normally. A few special attacks? Sure! But I'm not a fan of subclasses where the character concept gets turned off most of the time. If I want to be an Arcane Archer, I want to ALWAYS be an Arcane Archer, not just twice in one fight when I can attack twice in one round.
I think low-key at will mods to shots would be fine. That said, a lot of classes have finite resources when it comes to powering special abilities, so something like that is also probably appropriate. Not for really basic stuff like "you arrows count as magical" or whatever, but when it comes to effects, conditions, or added damage you need a spendable and finite resource to fit the 5e model for classes.
When I hear 'Arcane Archer' I'm thinking I'd look like Hank from the old DnD cartoon, or Link and his elemental arrow. I'm not thinking of managing stuff like spell slots or Arcane Shots. At least not normally. A few special attacks? Sure! But I'm not a fan of subclasses where the character concept gets turned off most of the time. If I want to be an Arcane Archer, I want to ALWAYS be an Arcane Archer, not just twice in one fight when I can attack twice in one round.
Interestingly, there are some optimization builds for the Assassin/Ranger/Fighter build that make best use of the Arcane Archer. As the third class added, the benefits of it on the first turn assassination surpass the benefits of the Battlemaster for high level play. Gloomstalker 5, Assassin 4, Arcane Archer 4, Sorcerer (Favored Soul/Shadow Magic) 7 is a deadly assassination build.Apparently 6% of players don't know that the Arcane Archer is a bag of Tarrasque droppings. I suspect they are playing it for concept and feel reasons, and not optimization. Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everyone white room's the ever-living crap out of the game.![]()
Not, you see, it's very clearly not broken and inoffensive.But, clearly, we still need to fix the champion...
oh christ don't start the edition warring already, at least wait a few pages.That sounds dangerously like 4E talk, citizen!
I think it's just a product of early 5E design - a lot of the subclasses were clearly trying to be "very traditional" and only use sort of well-established D&D mechanics lest they scare off people who didn't like 4E-type design.
It's clear WotC are no longer afraid of this (as you'd hope, six years in!), given for example the Psi subclasses taking an entirely new design tack which doesn't tie in to any existing class, and that several other subclasses use serious magic without managing spell slots or the like (Rune Knight, for example - hell the Echo Knight as well), so I think if the AA had just come out, we'd see a very different design.
Gloomstalker 5, Assassin 4, Arcane Archer 4, Sorcerer (Favored Soul/Shadow Magic) 7 is a deadly assassination build.
oh christ don't start the edition warring already, at least wait a few pages.
they say, knowing full well what happens as a result of doing so.Acknowledging differences in design principles isn't edition warring, dude. Neither is "better". But they're clearly different approaches.
gunslinger always reminds me of steven kings masterpiece, the dark tower seriesA lot of people playing Samurai are likely not playing actual "Japanese-style warrior" wearing O-Yoroi, carrying a katana and so on, but rather want to play a cultured Fighter who is still mechanically effective. Samurai works well for all sorts of cultured Fighters, despite the very specific name.
Gunslinger is interesting, because I wouldn't even let that into my game, yet clearly a lot of people would.
You say the EK and AA are "non-traditional", but I think they're actually extremely traditional, and just the result of 5E having a multiclassing system that isn't very compatible with a lot of traditional D&D ideas, like the Fighter/Mage. Since D&D was fairly young, loads of people have wanted to play "gishes" and so on - characters who combine arcane magic and fighting. Some pre-AD&D versions had all Elves be that way, as a class, 1E and 2E had multi-classing (which worked really surprisingly well, looking back I'm shocked at how few balance problems it caused), 3E's MC system meant that it ended up having to develop specific classes and PrCs to allow this (because just stacking levels of Fighter and Wizard was pretty rubbish, mechanically). 4E had multiple specific classes which allowed it, including the totally wonderful Swordmage, perhaps the best incarnation of the "Fighter/Mage" in many ways. 5E saw the problem coming, and presumably after deciding to use a 3E-style MC system (booo! pretty sure there was a better one in one of the playtests), put in EK and AA to cover that issue.
So I think yes, they don't want to play a single-class Fighter, I dunno about your group, but in my many 2E groups, I'd say single-class Fighters were significantly outnumbered by MC Fighters (not that single-class ones were bad - they were good, particularly after Combat & Tactics), so I feel like that's pretty traditional.
The most interesting thing I see, personally, is that the Rune Knight, a UA class which is still playtest content, is about as popular as the Cavalier (a subclass that's been out much longer and is official) and way more popular than the Purple Dragon Knight, which has been out far, far longer and is official.
I wonder what proportion Brute was before they removed it. Higher than PDK I daresay.
gunslinger always reminds me of steven kings masterpiece, the dark tower series
Yeah honestly I'd just add all the ranged weapon spells to the EK spell list, and maybe come up with a simple ranged weapon cantrip to give them as well.I really like the idea of an arcane archer. Just not the reality. I think you'd need to homebrew to get something that matches the concept that I (and I suspect you) are thinking about. I'd probably base it on Eldritch Knight and add something like the Paladin's smite to allow the archer to burn spell slots to gussy up his ranged attacks.
I doubt it. People like playing the Champion.Seeing the top 3 be the ones that are in the PHB is hardly surprising. The Champion being most popular is possibly in part down to it being the only one in the Basic Rules.
Apparently 6% of players don't know that the Arcane Archer is a bag of Tarrasque droppings. I suspect they are playing it for concept and feel reasons, and not optimization. Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everyone white room's the ever-living crap out of the game.![]()
I know that a lot of people enjoy the character creation "mini-game" where they needle and nitpick every tiniest detail in order to get the absolute maximum bonus to Whatever, and that's fine. (I think they are why the Warlock even exists.) But I always preferred the creative builds, deliberately sub-optimal with visible and important flaws. Heroes who are awesome at everything are dull to me.I suspect they are playing it for concept and feel reasons, and not optimization. Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everyone white room's the ever-living crap out of the game.![]()
That is probably no small factor in it; I'm sure if the AA, EK, BM, Echo, PDK, samurai and cavalier were also free, the demos might change.It does seem to be a ranking heavily influenced by date of release and how long the archetype is free on DNDBeyond.
That could explain the Gunslinger beating all the XGTE subclasses.
But the EK, Gunslinger,Samurai, AA block may suggest there is a huge block of people who want to play nontradional fighters.
It's telling how sub-par the Purple Dragon Knight is when a class that JUST CAME OUT is already on the verge of overcoming it and probably does past the first decimal.
The whole SCAG feels outdated.
Apparently 6% of players don't know that the Arcane Archer is a bag of Tarrasque droppings. I suspect they are playing it for concept and feel reasons, and not optimization. Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everyone white room's the ever-living crap out of the game.![]()
...a huge number of real-world distributions of things follow a pattern where the second most common thing is about twice as common as the first...
Considering the crazy popularity of the Wildemount book, the Rune Night being more popular than the Echo Knight is quite surprising.