Robin hood was an assassin, I read it in White Dwarf years ago...
Well, I agree about the human part, but the fighter part? Not so much.
Aaragorn is totally a paladin. Or a ranger, depending on your view. Gimli, Sam and Merry might be fighters, but Frodo and Sam are not. Bilbo is a rogue.
Conan the Barbarian. Its right in the name.
Robin Hood is totally a Ranger.
Wu Xia stories default to the monk class.
You've got Eragon with the mix of magic and swordmanship, but the magic comes from the oath to the dragon, so paladin to me once again over Eldritch Knight.
King Arthur is pretty much an iconic paladin as well.
D&D novels tend to have wizards and rangers and rogues and clerics as main characters. Kelemvor is about the only actual fighter that I'm aware of, and there were a ton of characters in that story arc.
Heracles is totally a barbarian.
I know of a few stories with tactician / warlord types, and that's supposed to be part of the fighter chasis in 5e... but that's not the intent I think you're going with here.
So, who are these legendary Fighter types? Most of the ones I can think of actually fit other classes better than Fighters. The only real exception I can think of is the main character stories of some MMOs seems to default to a fighter/warlord mix type.
Yes and no. A lot of the spells used by either class are actually in tune with what could be defined in mundane abilities. If a Ranger uses Cure Light Wounds, you could interpret as magical or just simply as a nature-based healing ability ("here - put this herb on the wound to heal better). Same with other 'spells'.D&D's version of the Ranger and Paladin rely greatly on their sorcery/supernatural abilities.
Fine as an average, but experience tells me some classes are multi-ed way more than others - and that's what I want to know about.Not sure if someone else mentioned this, but at a rough estimate (if my off the top of my head math is right), there is about a 9% increase in the numbers due to multiclassing. There's about 109,000 per 100,000 characters. So at least [-]81[/-] 91% of characters are not multiclass.
Yes and no. A lot of the spells used by either class are actually in tune with what could be defined in mundane abilities. If a Ranger uses Cure Light Wounds, you could interpret as magical or just simply as a nature-based healing ability ("here - put this herb on the wound to heal better). Same with other 'spells'.
When D&D was busy converting 4E to 5E, they integrated a lot of the various abilities and 'powers' for each Class into the collective spell lists. Pretty much every Class, baring the Barbarian (who still get some spirit-based abilities as options), can access 'spells' at some point. I choose to interpret them in different ways depending on Class.
Aragorn is a Ranger - in fact, he's the archetypal Ranger on whom the (only true version of the) class is based. Gimli and Legolas are both Fighters, though very different within the class. Pippin and Merry work their way into becoming Fighters as the story goes along. Boromir is a Fighter. Faramir, Eowyn, and a bunch of others are all Fighters.Well, I agree about the human part, but the fighter part? Not so much.
Aaragorn is totally a paladin. Or a ranger, depending on your view. Gimli, Sam and Merry might be fighters, but Frodo and Sam are not. Bilbo is a rogue.
Except Barbarian should not be a class, but a race. Conan is a Barbarian Fighter.Conan the Barbarian. Its right in the name.
Yes, as are most of his Merry Men; though Little John is a Fighter.Robin Hood is totally a Ranger.
Can't speak to Wu Xia or Eregon but King Arthur's knights are the archetypal Paladins.Wu Xia stories default to the monk class.
You've got Eragon with the mix of magic and swordmanship, but the magic comes from the oath to the dragon, so paladin to me once again over Eldritch Knight.
King Arthur is pretty much an iconic paladin as well.
D&D novels gave us Drizz't and for that alone should be ignored for all time.D&D novels tend to have wizards and rangers and rogues and clerics as main characters. Kelemvor is about the only actual fighter that I'm aware of, and there were a ton of characters in that story arc.
No, a Fighter...and a very high level one at that. He's not even Barbarian as a race - he's half-Human, half-deity.Heracles is totally a barbarian.
Well, according to statistics 'vanilla' is the most popular ice cream flavour, and the 'Forgotten Realms' the most popular D&D setting...EDIT- And, of course, the boring, bland Fighter is by far the most popular. Because of course it is. Which just goes to show that the internet is not always representative of actual play.![]()
Well, according to statistics 'vanilla' is the most popular ice cream flavour, and the 'Forgotten Realms' the most popular D&D setting...
If something is slightly tolerable for everyone, there's a good chance it will end up the most popular choice overall compared to more polarizing options.
Well, I've found it does and have used it with groups before as a rationale. The Cure Wounds spell being a prime example, but so too things like Goodberry and Hunter's Mark, etc. The actual game mechanics operate the same, but you can imagine the rest however you want really - it's all pretty abstract.Telling the person who wants to be Aragon/Gimli/Legolas that the spells they're using are not really spells doesn't help a whole lot when they use pretty much all the same mechanics as spells. Not any more than telling someone that throwing around alchemist fires, healing potions, and using the Arcana skills makes them Gandalf.
A Barbarian isn't a Race. It's a culture, and so it could arguably be a Background (the Outlander), but unfortunately D&D doesn't recognise a 'culture' as a thing. They use Race and Class combos - and you couldn't deny the opportunity to play a Half-Orc Barbarian could you?Except Barbarian should not be a class, but a race. Conan is a Barbarian Fighter.
The dude had a holy sword, and "The hands of a king are the hands of as healer." That's totally paladin with healing magic, sorry, I'm going to flat out disagree with you here.Did he cast spells? Heal with a touch? Have an animal companion? No. He was the inspiration for the ranger, but since then there've been skills added to cover what spells did so haphazardly for the early ranger, and the ranger has 'evolved' to use all sorts of actual spells much earlier. He might have been a 4e ranger or UA spell-less ranger, but not a PH ranger. Paladin is right out. In 5e, Outlander Fighter. Bilbo was at least mistaken for a Rogue.![]()
Aragorn is defined by his healing hands, you know. Supernatural abilities innate to the heirs of Numoir is actually a whole thing. That's actually very central to his identity. He also got spirits on his side, and used magical scrying orbs in a direct challenge against the Dark Lord. He's pretty darn magical for Middle Earth's standards.D&D's version of the Ranger and Paladin rely greatly on their sorcery/supernatural abilities.
Hercules is renowned for his excessive strength and training in the wilderness by wrestling animals. Fighters in 5e are known for their weaponry training and specializations and techniques. Hercules has more in common with the barbarian than the fighter class. None of the legends of Hercules fit with how a Fighter acts. Trying to call Hercules a fighter is very strained.I'm also challenging the idea of modeling Hercules as a Barbarian as his going crazy and murdering his family was very out of character for him. He spent the entire rest of his story trying to atone for it. I'd hardly use a class that reliably flies into a murderous rage nearly every day to represent him.
I wonder how many of those human fighters are variant humans? Which would represent players flipping through the rulebooks to find the best optimisation, rather than creating a good story...An article by Gus Wezerek on FiveThirtyEight looks at race and class combination in D&D, using data from D&D Beyond. Wezerek suggests a reason for the popularity of human fighters: "It lets you focus on creating a good story rather than spending time flipping through rulebooks to look up spells."
Well, according to statistics 'vanilla' is the most popular ice cream flavour, and the 'Forgotten Realms' the most popular D&D setting...
If something is slightly tolerable for everyone, there's a good chance it will end up the most popular choice overall compared to more polarizing options.
Well, according to statistics 'vanilla' is the most popular ice cream flavour, and the 'Forgotten Realms' the most popular D&D setting...
If something is slightly tolerable for everyone, there's a good chance it will end up the most popular choice overall compared to more polarizing options.
Vanilla is actually a valuable spice and not a plain/nothing flavor. Vanilla gets a bad rap.
Excellent point... now is true for the races?My favourite aspect of this statistics is that the MOST popular class is ONLY TWICE as popular as the LEAST popular class. It might sound like a huge difference, but it is not. This tells me that all 5e classes are good solid design.
I will point out that the barbarian class can be excellent for certain character concept that aren't barbarians culturally speaking...A Barbarian isn't a Race. It's a culture, and so it could arguably be a Background (the Outlander), but unfortunately D&D doesn't recognise a 'culture' as a thing. They use Race and Class combos - and you couldn't deny the opportunity to play a Half-Orc Barbarian could you?