D&D 5E How well does 5e capture the archetype (poll)

Which edition best captured the archetype

  • Fighter, AD&D

    Votes: 3 9.4%
  • Fighter, 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Fighter, 4e

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • Fighter, 5e

    Votes: 4 12.5%
  • Barbarian AD&D

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Barbarian 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Barbarian 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Barbarian 5e

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Bard AD&D

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Bard 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bard 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bard 5e

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Cleric AD&D

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Cleric 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Cleric 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Cleric 5e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Druid AD&D

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • Druid 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Druid 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Druid 5e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Monk AD&D

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Monk 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Monk 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Monk 5e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Paladin AD&D

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Paladin 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Paladin 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Paladin 5e

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • Ranger AD&D

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Ranger 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ranger 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ranger 5e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rogue AD&D

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rogue 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rogue 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rogue 5e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Sorcerer AD&D

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Sorcerer 3e

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Sorcerer 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Sorcerer 5e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Warlock AD&D

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Warlock 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Warlock 4e

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Warlock 5e

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • Wizard AD&D

    Votes: 6 18.8%
  • Wizard 3e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Wizard 4e

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Wizard 5e

    Votes: 3 9.4%

Kinda wish there was a way to vote for each class, because while I picked 4e fighter, I also thought 5e paladin was pretty great, among others.

As I said above, with the revised question in mind the 4e fighter is definitely my favorite of the options available. While I kind of wish there had been a feature orienting them for ranged combat for those that wanted it, the fighter was an exemplary frontliner in 4e and it's the only edition in my opinion where fighters got hard-coded "cool stuff", contentious as some of it was to the playerbase at large.
 

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For the Warlock, I'm actually going to have to say "maybe?"

Now, the modern 5e warlock is supposed to include the hexblade and the binder as well in the core chasis. Pre-3e warlocks were just wizards with some infernal issues. 3e warlocks really were the first time they stood on their own as a distinct entity, as well as introducing the idea of the Binder and the Hexblade. In 4e, we got the warlock back, going strong in the AEDU system, but also introduced some new ideas - fey and star pacts really got a chance to shine (no pun intended) instead of just the fiendish. We had a number of abilities that relied on making trades and bargains. The hex-blade's Curse made its way into core class. 4e actually established the warlock as a mix of oWarlock, Binder and Hexblade as the same root class.

Then along comes 5e. While the fluff for the warlock is going strong, there's not a lot of mechanics to back it up, which is a shame. So, in terms of the raw "make a deal for power" bits, I'm actually going to say that 5e isn't that great. 4e "warlock" handled that particular archetype better. That said, 3e's binder does the whole warlock pact-for-power archetype better than any other class before or since.


Likewise, I'm going to have to go with 4e for the sorcerer archetype as well. In 3e and 5e, "dragon" is really just a fancy background for justifying an alternate wizard spell progression. You don't actually feel like a dragon in any way. In 4e, you actually had abilities that mimic breath weapons, claws, and more. Things that actually felt like they lived up to "dragon magic." Same with the chaos magic.

5e bards don't feel like actual bards to me. Their magic and their abiltiies don't really mesh with the idea of magic-music as I understand it. Too disconnected. A strong class, but not a musical one, imho. Same for 4e. I don't like the part-druid aspects, again because that's nature-animist magic, not music-magic. I'm actually going to have to go with 2e's bard, I think, where it branched off the rogue.

Fighter doesn't have an archetype beyond being very good in weapon combat. So, "none." Barbarian... honestly, I think the barbarian archetype is kind of problematic, and is in dire need of revision.

Monk... I do prefer 5e's version. It feels like a good step in the right directions.

Wizard and Cleric in 5e I do like the best so far. Druid and Ranger have kind of flexible, non-firm archetypes, so they're kind of odd in a lot of cases. No one's sure exactly what they are.

I think 5e's paladin is a huge improvement over previous editions. Its evolved into a kind of holy warrior fully distinct from the fighter and cleric, or a fighter/cleric even.

Not sure how I feel about the rogue. The base rogue archetype is still the acrobat-thief. Always has been, always will be. Assassin, arcane trickster, swashbuckler, etc are all branches off this core idea. I think that earlier editions handled the focus on acrobatics and thief skills better than later editions, but that's because I think the later editions had an increasingly stronger focus on combat / war game style. That could just be in my head, and its not really the classes' fault, because it was reflective of the game as a whole at any given time - thief is hard to play when the game revolves around everything being a fight. 5e does better than 4e and 3e, but I don't know if its better than anything else.
 

Kinda wish there was a way to vote for each class, because while I picked 4e fighter, I also thought 5e paladin was pretty great, among others..

That was my intent. On the option for answers, I selected 12, so everyone could choose 12 answers. But when the poll was created, it obviously only allowed one. Which makes it way more unwieldy than I intended. Grrr...
 


So I guess the question now becomes, "What edition did the best job emulating your favorite class?"
My grognard answer: Why's there no option for Dwarf?
My alternate answer: Why's there no option for Warlord?
 

Which edition best reflects the archetype, as opposed to which one does the mechanical class best? Well, in general it'd be the very early editions - OD&D, B/X, 1e - mostly because since then archetype reflection has been in many cases somewhat sacrificed on the twin altars of balance and playability. Further, some classes have yet to get it right at all despite repeated attempts. My list, including some classes not in the original poll:

Cleric (Normal) - 1e maybe, as the best of a rather poor lot. A properly-designed archetypal Cleric should (unfortunately) be every bit as annoying and hard to play as a Paladin, only from different points of view: righteousness has 9 alignments.
Cleric (War) - we homebrewed this many years ago but official D&D has never given us a true Battle Cleric archetype beyond some 2e specialty kits. Still waiting, as there's a fantasy archetype there to be filled.
Druid or Nature Cleric - hasn't been done, as the archetype would likely not be an adventurer as required by the game.
Fighter - very dependent on what one sees the archetype as; there are many. 3e could build a good swashbuckler archetype, 0-1-2-3-5e a good simple front-line soldier, 4e had the front-line stalwart defender, and so on. Pretty much any Fighter one can build in any edition is going to more or less replicate some archetype or other - hard to go wrong.
Paladin - 1e set the standard, but - like it or not - almost any edition gets close enough.
Cavalier or Knight - a very important archetype, distinct from a foot-soldier Fighter. 1e's Cavalier - meh. 3e's Knight had potential. Difficult to do with an ordinary Fighter.
Ranger - Aragorn's the archetype, so 1e, except for some silly restrictions e.g. alignment. Anything post-Drizz't is garbage.
Barbarian - shouldn't even be a class IMO but if it must be, 3e is probably the closest I've seen to an archetypal Barbarian
Wizard (Magic-User) - 1e or early 2e. After that they become the poster child for sacrificing archetype for game play.
[Wizard subclasses or specialists] - the only ones worth the effort are Necromancer (could easily be its own class) and Illusionist. Neither archetype has really been done well yet.
Sorcerer - 3e.
Warlock - not even sure what archetype this is going for, so...whatever. :)
Psionicist - hasn't been done well yet and maybe never will be, but if someone could design a class that can work like Kurtz's Deryni I'd be very interested...
Rogue (Thief) - 1e for the archetype of a sneaky but daring (yet somewhat fragile) Thief e.g. Locke Lamora. 5e is getting there. The archetype of the dashing swashbuckling "rogue" e.g. Jack Sparrow is otherwise best served by building a light-armour high-dex Fighter.
Assassin - another one where the archetype has always to give way to balance and game play. An archetypal Assassin works (mostly) alone and either shoots from range or sets up something deadly (poison, trap, bomb) and leaves; none of which works well in a party/group-based game. So the game tried to make them more like Ninjas...which would be fine except for the existence of the Monk class, which does it better...or dangerous sneaks; but we have Rogues/Thieves for that.
Bard - has never been done well and at this point I'm prepared to say never will be. Would likely work better as a non-adventuring class similar to Sage; sure the archetype is a wanderer but not one who gets into dangerous situations - instead they tell tales about other people getting into dangerous situations - and an information source.
Monk - though we can argue forever as to how well they fit in to the quasi-Eurpoean fantasy milieu, there's no question the sort-of-Ninja archetype has been reasonably well-served by the class in all the editions.

Lan-"a disciple of the bad-ass might-is-right Fighter archetype"-efan
 

You shouldn't have lumped 1e & 2e together—several of the classes changed significantly. Also, you should have included OD&D and BD&D. Tsk. ;)
 

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