D&D 5E Fivethirtyeight Article About D&D Race and Class Combos

[TrippyHippy]

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.

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.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Except Barbarian should not be a class, but a race. Conan is a Barbarian Fighter.

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?

 

[Mephista]

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.

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.

You're pretty much just revising any warrior type into Fighter, by creating unrealistic definitions of other classes and leaving Fighter without its own, and not bothering to give an explanation why anyone should be one, just assuming they are by default. That's BS. I mean, hells, your defense of Wu Xia is "they use weapons!" So can monks!

Your argument is nothing more than confirmation bias.

D&D's version of the Ranger and Paladin rely greatly on their sorcery/supernatural abilities.

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.

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.

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.


This argument is basically boiling down to just "any warrior defaults to Fighter if it doesn't fit a narrow definition." And that's something I call BS on.

 

[clearstream]

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."

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Image from Curse via FiveThirtyEight​

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...

By which irony, I mean to point out that the data is interesting but the conclusion seems facile. Flipping through a book doesn't prevent you contributing fully at the table: chances are you know your abilities better and spend less time trying to do stuff that doesn't work.

 

[Imaro]

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.

Lol... or more people could just genuinely like vanilla. Same with D&D...

 

[ro]

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.

 

[Imaro]

Vanilla is actually a valuable spice and not a plain/nothing flavor. Vanilla gets a bad rap.

It's a version of the "New Coke argument" of 4e that gets bandied about by those who aren't so keen on 5e. I want to say it's almost trying to shame the game and those who play it because it's popular. Kind of silly actually.

 

[Ancalagon]

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.

Excellent point... now is true for the races?

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[Ancalagon]

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?

I will point out that the barbarian class can be excellent for certain character concept that aren't barbarians culturally speaking...

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[lowkey13]

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