D&D 5E Does your concern about adding more classes to 5e D&D stem from multiclassing?

[doctorbadwolf]

Yea, that's why I find the arguments about "needing more classes" so tedious. There's hundreds of well-done homebrew classes out there; what some really seem to "need" is for them to be official. People need to stop being so precious about only using WotC material, which isn't any better than good third-party stuff.

I mean hot take I guess, but I’ve mostly been disappointed by kibbles’ classes. And Kobold Press, while I’m at it. The deep magic book really made me sad. Half of it is basically unusable without heavy revision, at which point I could have just made it myself in the first place.

 

[cbwjm]

why not both?

Both a class and supernatural gift/piety (renamed of course) or both supernatural gift and piety?

I could see both, supernatural gifts would be perfect for giving everyone a wild talent, and linking it some sort of psionic discovery or something which uses the piety rules could see even a fighter with a wild talent improve their psychic powers. Combine this with a psion class and you'd have a real master of mind. I'm hopeful that wotc will create a full on psion but after their attempts with the mystic, I'm just not sure if they will.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean hot take I guess, but I’ve mostly been disappointed by kibbles’ classes. And Kobold Press, while I’m at it. The deep magic book really made me sad. Half of it is basically unusable without heavy revision, at which point I could have just made it myself in the first place.

Ooh, that is a hot take! I didn't read the Kobold Press book, so can't offer an opinion there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ooh, that is a hot take! I didn't read the Kobold Press book, so can't offer an opinion there.

Most of the worst offenders are just weaker and less versatile variants of existing spells.

as for classes, Kibbles’ does alright, but the vast majority that I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a lot bc even the bad ones have some gem ideas sometimes) are very poorly balanced, to the point of being dramatically outside the power curve of 5e. It’s a robust system, but there are limits to what will run well in the system.

Mostly I have been disappointed every time I’ve heard “this is better designed than the official stuff!” And then gone and read something that is fine. The ratio of good to bad is much better, IME, in the official material, and the problem stuff is easier to fix because it’s more likely to still be fully written in the style and format of other official 5e options.

I know how to fix the 4 Elements Monk, without a full redesign. I’ve explored a few more out there approaches (like giving them the Mystic’s Wu Jen elemental stance thingies), but all it actually needs is to be able to “nova” by throwing a burning hands and flurry of blows in the same turn, to know more disciplines, and to make the disciplines cost on the same scale as other Monk subclasses, ie 1 ki/spell level.

An extra way to regain some ki a few times a day wouldn’t hurt, but isn’t necessary.

To make it shine, only requires the above, and something like being able to make thier attacks deal extra elemental damage.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I know how to fix the 4 Elements Monk, without a full redesign. I’ve explored a few more out there approaches (like giving them the Mystic’s Wu Jen elemental stance thingies), but all it actually needs is to be able to “nova” by throwing a burning hands and flurry of blows in the same turn, to know more disciplines, and to make the disciplines cost on the same scale as other Monk subclasses, ie 1 ki/spell level.

IMO the ki reduction is not enough or the Sun Soul monk wouldn't be competing with it for worst subclass. The Shadow Monk works not just because it's 2 ki points for a second level spell (not that that hurts) but because the four spells it gets (pass without trace, darkvision, silence, darkness) are things that supplement the monk's abilities and don't actually compete with its core ability to hit things.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

IMO the ki reduction is not enough or the Sun Soul monk wouldn't be competing with it for worst subclass. The Shadow Monk works not just because it's 2 ki points for a second level spell (not that that hurts) but because the four spells it gets (pass without trace, darkvision, silence, darkness) are things that supplement the monk's abilities and don't actually compete with its core ability to hit things.

If I had said that the ki cost reduction was enough, you’d have an excellent point.

I listed 3 necessary things, and one that would help but wasn’t required to fix the class.

Also the Sun Soul works fine, especially with Tasha’s, it just doesn’t have any hooks for optimization.

 

[Leatherhead]

Best solution there is to just get rid of the fighter, which is the single blandest player option in D&D, and most just serves as a black whole that good ideas can’t escape from.

I don't disagree with the first half, necessarily. My fix for this would be to merge the Fighter and the Rogue to make a new "Hero" class as a start.

But I have to disagree with the second part, the reason why the Fighter is so bland is because every other warrior and martial character managed to escape it's orbit and become their own class.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't disagree with the first half, necessarily. My fix for this would be to merge the Fighter and the Rogue to make a new "Hero" class as a start.

For me, that would make the resulting class even more bland. Barring a complete redesign of the entire system from the ground up.

But I have to disagree with the second part, the reason why the Fighter is so bland is because every other warrior and martial character managed to escape it's orbit and become their own class.

To me, the “warrior classes” as a whole, so the conceptual space that would be covered by the fighter of those classes weren’t independent, are vastly more interesting and satisfying to play than they would be as fighters with a bit of divine knight for spice.

Further splitting off classes like Archer, Knight, Captain, and maybe one more, would make each of those concepts much more distinct and fun to play.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't disagree with the first half, necessarily. My fix for this would be to merge the Fighter and the Rogue to make a new "Hero" class as a start.

But I have to disagree with the second part, the reason why the Fighter is so bland is because every other warrior and martial character managed to escape it's orbit and become their own class.

To me, the “warrior classes” as a whole, so the conceptual space that would be covered by the fighter of those classes weren’t independent, are vastly more interesting and satisfying to play than they would be as fighters with a bit of divine knight for spice.

Further splitting off classes like Archer, Knight, Captain, and maybe one more, would make each of those concepts much more distinct and fun to play.

To me the best solution is to not attempt to merge the simple athletic fighter and the the complex mental fighter.

The Champion would be the simple fighter with action surge. It would have the Samurai, Cavalier, Brawler, Brute, subclasses.

The Fighter would be the complex fighterwho has maneuvers as base. Al the magicky and warlordy subclasses go here: Battlemaster, Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight, Psi Warrior, Rune Knight, Warlord

 

[Zardnaar]

Nope more class bloat and I don't have much faith in the execution eg artificer.