D&D 5E Greyhawk Sub-Classes

[Quartz]

Going back to the OP, a Fist of Hextor is simply a Paladin of Conquest that is good with her fists. RSOP is a Life domain cleric. And so on.

As for Greyhawk, I would pay for a compendium of all the lore. A book where someone has gone through every sourcebook, manual, adventure, magazine, scrap of paper, Gygax's notes, and whatnot, compiled absolutely everything, and organised it and made sense of it all. And no, I don't want the timeline advanced and another Flanaess-changing disaster (Forgotten Realms, I'm looking at you).

 

[Helldritch]

And maybe instead of having "factions" we can just say, "Look, it's the Scarlet Brotherhood."

Your point can be made however people want; why do we need a Samurai subclass if you can just do it with a Champion fighter? If you enjoy a small bit of mechanical differentiation to help give additional flavor to the world (something Gary Gygax did in his home campaign) then this would be fun.

If not, you can have fun in your own way!

No the Scarlet Brotherhood is not just a nation. Read further about it. It is the prominent faction in this country and the country is named after it. Just like all Germans were not Nazi in WWII. And there are factions within the faction...

As for the subclass...
The new mechanics should add something new and fresh. If a subclass can be done without changing another class, then the subclass is just useless, cluttering fluff that only confuse new players (and sometimes old players). I take the artificer as a perfect example of a new class that could not have been achieved by any classes or subclasses. The arcane archer is a meh, subclass. The eldritch knight is a better arcane archer than the arcane archer itself. Without any modifications at that. Adding subclasses (and classes) just for the sake that some are too lazy to imagine their class in a new way is not sound game design. 3.xed was a clutter of useless prestige classes and 4ed was on its way to add more and more classes for nothing more than making books to sell. New subclasses are not needed in Greyhawk.

 

[Pauln6]

Agree. But factions are not stupid. It is a sound mechanic that does not rely on creating more classes and subclasses.


Great! So how many factions in Greyhawk should they bring?


Wrong, They are in the DMG. And in the ADL of course. Factions should be a DM thing that they will bring to their players. It gives the faction an air of mystery and that it is on invitation basis.



Wrong. Factions would be a good way. There are not that many. Churches are easily handled with domains. A few order of knighthoods, Iuz's agents, Circle of eight agents and a few others would be more than enough. And leave the "stupid" comments out of your vocabulary. It does not suit this forum. I admit that the example was not the best but you should see beyond and think about it further. There have been factions all along our history. From the templars to the Illuminatis and many others. Just do not throw a good idea because the basic example used does not suite your fancy.

I don't know enough about the mechanics of factions to comment but I'd be interested to see some examples. I always worry that the fan created Greyhawk subclasses might end up being unbalanced because they haven't been through the same level of playtesting.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

No the Scarlet Brotherhood is not just a nation. Read further about it. It is the prominent faction in this country and the country is named after it. Just like all Germans were not Nazi in WWII. And there are factions within the faction...

1. Please do not lecture people on the internet about things! You do not know if I am an OD&D Greyhawk Player, a Folio Player, a Boxed Set Player, a 2e Player, a 3e Player, some sort of hybridized Canonfire deep diver, or something else.

In other words- on the internet, no one knows you're a dog.

2. When someone says, "I do not wish to engage you in conversation, and I am certainly not going to argue with someone like you" please respect that.

 

[Helldritch]

Except they are.

No they're not. Do you have something useful and meaningful to say beside your own biased judgment? You claimed you have read the Ravnica book but did not really comment on the factions and the approach therein.

It's interesting that you said wrong, and then repeated what I just said. I just wrote that they are not in the PHB, and then I said that they are in the DMG and gave the five in the ADL.

And I requote what I have said and you ignored: "Factions should be a DM thing that they will bring to their players. It gives the faction an air of mystery and that it is on invitation basis." This is why that you don't find them in the PHB. It is a DM thing. Not a player's thing. I would not like to have player saying:" Ok, my new character is a member of the Emerald enclave and he is respected and has a high status in the organization." Nope, this is a DM thing. A player must earn his membership.

That's the second time you started that way! It's not silly anymore, is it? I do not wish to engage you in conversation, and I am certainly not going to argue with someone like you.

What can I say? You were wrong in your assumption. Beside saying the word stupid you bring nothing new. If you care to elaborate, I would be quite pleased.

 

[Helldritch]

I don't know enough about the mechanics of factions to comment but I'd be interested to see some examples. I always worry that the fan created Greyhawk subclasses might end up being unbalanced because they haven't been through the same level of playtesting.

The factions/guilds in Ravnica are a bit more than what you see in the DMG and in the ADL. They can reward the players with one use magical trinkets for their adventures. They give the players access to some resources (depending on the level at which they are in the faction). A free living expanse when not adventuring for doing faction/guild work. Some factions even gives casters additional spells to chose from. Some give the players NPC to work with either as retainers or additional muscle to do a mission.

You have, generally, five steps to work upward in a faction/guild. The higher you are, the more you have to do to rise in the faction.

All in all, it is a sound mechanic that is in the control of the DM.

 

[the Jester]

When someone says, "I do not wish to engage you in conversation, and I am certainly not going to argue with someone like you" please respect that.

That's not really how it works- if you don't want to engage with someone, you have to take it upon yourself to not engage with them. There's the option of the Ignore list, if you really want to avoid someone's posts entirely. You can stick your fingers in your ears when someone talks to you, but you can't cover their mouth with your hand.

Regardless, if you don't want to use factions in your game, then don't. But just asserting that they're stupid is only an assertion, and one that flies in the face of the experiences of many others. If you prefer a story based game over a sandbox, that's fine, but that doesn't mean sandboxes are stupid. It just means that they aren't to your taste.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That's not really how it works.

In real life and on the internet, I try to ask someone to be nice before ghosting them.

Thats how I do (to quote Ze Frank). Since that is not how you do, I will not.

 

[Voadam]

Only 11 gods originally had their clerics imbued with some additional powers. Celestian, Ehlonna, Erythnul, Heironeous, Hextor, Incabulos, Obad-hai, Olidammara, Pholtus, Triteron and Wastri.

And St. Cuthbert, Istus, Iuz, Nerull, Ralishaz, Ulaa, and Xan Yae.

Only Boccob, Fharlanghn, Raxivort, and Zagyg of the ones with a description had none. So 18 out of 22 had special stuff for their specific clerics.

 

[Shiroiken]

2. Greyhawk is kinda known for being mechanically genetic, isn't it? It doesn't stand out as having a lot of odd concepts not supported by the core rules of the given edition it is being played in.

Pretty much. Since it's the great granddad of D&D, most of the basic concepts in 5E have a basis in Greyhawk. In fact, there's a far greater issue of too much stuff that doesn't fit in Greyhawk than needing to add stuff to it (Dragonborn, Tiefling, Samurai, most Monk sub-classes, etc.).