D&D 5E Heroic Archetypes and Gaps in Class coverage

[Ilbranteloth]

I mind, for one. Combat Superiority dice should have been given to all martials, and probably some others, hands down. There's a huge wealth of untapped potential there for power design and resource management for the other classes, and it still would have been very distinct from spellcasters so as to belay people claiming everyone has spells.

That's what I've done with my fighter. All fighters get Combat Superiority, and each Fighting Style has some maneuvers. But Combat Superiority is not used to power maneuvers.

Combat superiority replaces Second Wind, and works similar to a Bard's inspiration, but for the fighter themselves. The Champion focuses on the Combat Superiority dice and is really good with a more focused and specialized approach. The Battle Master gets more maneuvers and is more of a master of many fighting styles, but isn't as good as the Champion in their chosen style.

Fighting Styles are beefed up a bit and are full feats now. The fighter classes get one or more over time.

 

[Hillsy7]

Hrmmm....

BD Wong, as Dr Huang, in Law & Order?

I don't really watch Law & Order, but looking him up, I'd say if you're a psychological profiler, you'd probably fall into the character archetype of using Knowledge and study to overcome the world, like a Gil Grissolm or Hermione Granger.....I don't know the character at all though.

Well lets boil down your 3 statements further:

a person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, foretell the future, control spiritual forces, etc.

OK - So healing & foretelling are effects, so they can go. Natural spiritual worlds are genre specific, so get rid of those. Control of some kind can stay.....so we have
"A person who acts as an intermediary and exerts control"....

a tribal healer who can act as a medium between the visible world and the spirit world.

Most of this is genre fluff, but Tribal can probably stay - this archetype isn't a "lone wolf" type character, and is linked to place or culture (Hence the bleed over with Druid)

a person who is thought to have special powers to control or influence good and evil spirits, making it possible for them to discover the cause of illness, bad luck,

Pretty similar to the first statement once you pull genre and affect, but reinforces control and adds "Influence" to the mix, and also identifies that there is a specific problem that needs solving. "A Goal"

Soooo....that leaves us with an archetype of "A person who acts as an intermediary for a place or culture, and exerts control or influence over others to achieve a specific Goal."

OK, as we are doing this in reverse (ideally you'd be looking at characters archetypes first, not retrofitting an existing D&D class concept), the first question is: Does this wash as a heroic character archetype we see in fiction? In this instance, I'd say yes. There's a little bleed over with the archetype of a defender or avatar of a Place or Culture, but they tend to be resisters and inward looking.

So secondly then, how would you fit that into the Legal Thriller genre.....Well, if your 'place or culture' was the Judiciary system, then the character would be someone who inherently uses other peoples resources, via internal structure or external contacts, to solve legal problems - You see a lot of "fixer" characters who 'know a guy' in various departments who 'knows about this stuff' - Or Lawyers with a team of researchers who are standing at the apex of a network of expertise, bringing it to bear on a single case.

Et voila! There's your Legal Shamanic Character Archetype....

And of course, now you've got that baseline archetype, you can start applying it to other genres, and flexing the definitions. So a Vampire doesn't just 'control or influence', but consumes as well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

OK, as we are doing this in reverse (ideally you'd be looking at characters archetypes first, not retrofitting an existing D&D class concept)

Again, not what we're doing. 'Shaman' is a real thing outside of D&D, it's a term used in anthropology to embrace a wide range of tribal religious practices, and has an common-usage English-language meaning.
It is an archetype.

the first question is: Does this wash as a heroic character archetype we see in fiction?

There are examples of characters in fiction that could be seen as representative of the archetype. They're more often helpers/facilitators to the hero, rather than the hero, himself, but in folklore, the hero of a story may well be a shaman, in that he is using those practices to interact with an unseen 'spirit' world.



(This conversation is making me realize that maybe the D&D sorcerer being 'wrong' isn't such a bad thing.
Oh, and tangent: I was watching the new MST3k, and at the beginning of "Wizards of the Lost Kingdom" the narrator mentions "sorcery & magic" as if they were two different things, a bot asks about the difference and the Joel stand-in replies "Sorcery is an inborn power, magic comes from books" - the difference between sorcerers and wizards in D&D, which was hilarious, of course. But is wrong as far as the RL meanings of the words go.)

 

[Luiz Falcão]

I was listening to Matt Mercer talking about his design process behind the Blood hunter homebrew class, and I was interested how little he touched on the mechanical aspect of where the class fitted (Glass Cannon), and focused much more on the archetype the character fits into – namely the hero that poisons part of himself for a greater good.

I sort of sat down, and came the conclusion I could (very very) loosely attribute classes to general heroic archetypes (So the rogue is the criminal antihero, the wise intellectual is the wizard, the young person with power but low control is a sorcerer, the quiet self-sufficient capable type is the ranger, the girl with the secret curse/boss is the warlock…..as I said, they are quite loose). Previously when looking at gaps where it might be fun to homebrew I was taking a bit of a 4e approach and looking at combat roles….but what Mercer said about the Blood Hunter got me thinking.

What general heroic archetypes do you think are missing from the current class suite (narratively, not mechanically), specifically ones you think are distinct enough to warrant a class. Specifics and theories would be nice too.

I’d be interested in people’s general thoughts on missing heroic tropes, so if you can refrain from slanging off other people’s choices, that’d be greatly appreciated. This isn’t an argument about whether John McClane is a Barbarian or a Fighter, Batman a Rogue or an artificer, or Walt Kowalski a Druid or a Cleric. It’s a conversation about the overlap of heroic archetypes represented in the class structure (as opposed to how their mechanics define them), and the gaps available for homebrewing distinctive classes.

Fire away!!!

(Also - Correct answer: Barbarian, Paladin, Druid)

The Genius - A character who's brain is his greatest weapon, but that doesn't use magic. Maybe he is a detective, maybe an artisan or scholar, maybe all of the above. I saw a homebrew once that fitted this description, they named the class "The Savant" and it had a lot of mechanics around being able to study their enemy and know stuff.

The Warlord/Tactician - A fighter who was more of a strategical genious than anything else. You could say that the Banneret/Knight or the Battle Master fit this description, but I don't think so. They are more of a charismatic leader than a clever commander.

The Brawler - An unarmed fighter that used brute strenght and techniques instead of mystical forces in order to fight. If the fighte can face a dragon with a sword, why should I need magic in order to face a fighter with my fists? The monk is cool, but you can only use Dex and not that good at grappling. Where would a character like Baki fit into the DnD classes?