D&D 5E Hypothetical Revised PHB: What Subclasses Makes the Cut?

[Sithlord]

What is this assassin hate. I have so many players that play that. Same with Oath of the
Ancients

 

[OB1]

I think a revised PHB would keep everything in the original and expand by 80 pages or so. Artificer and all 4 subclasses is added, along with the optional class rules from Tasha's into each class. Then they add 2-3 subclasses for each existing class. So an Expanded PHB rather than a revised. Because of that, the additions to subclass will be based partially on popularity but also partially on broadening the play style and story range that each class represents.

My list of adds:
Barbarian - Beast, Zealot
Bard - Glamor, Creation
Cleric - Forge, Twilight
Druid - Shepherd, Stars
Fighter - Samurai, Echo Knight
Monk - Sun, Cobalt
Paladin - Crown, Glory
Ranger - Gloom, Fey
Rogue - Mastermind, Soulknife
Sorcerer - Devine, Clockwork
Warlock - Celestial, Genie
Wizard - Bladesinging, Scribes

And just for fun, hope WotC adds three new optional class features that I use in my campaigns

Fighter - Indomitable acts like legendary resistance. You don't re-roll when you use it, you just succeed.
Sorcerer - Gain access to all Metamagic options, the options they pick get their sorcery points reduced by 1 when used
Wizard - Drop the long rest requirement for changing out spells. Just need to use the minutes per level.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

What is this assassin hate. I have so many players that play that. Same with Oath of the
Ancients

Its not hate, its just that for the purpose of the exercise, some need to be cut. The fantasy assassin as we see it in different media are better represented as shadow monk or stalker ranger, IMHO.

The assassin sounds cool on paper, but in practice most of the features dont happen often.
The OotA is cool, but maybe a little far from what people imagine as ''Paladin'' to be in a PHB. But its an incredible archetype, I agree.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What is this assassin hate. I have so many players that play that. Same with Oath of the
Ancients

I see a lot of Oath of the Ancients and it's mechanically strong too. I strongly suspect it's vastly more popular than Vengeance, even, let alone the other Paladins except Devotion - anyone adding Crown and Glory isn't looking at what archetypes are missing, what's popular with players, or anything of the sort, because they're basically just mechanically rubbish, less-flexible versions of Devotion, thematically. It's basically what you add if you only want 1E-style Paladins to be available, which would be a confusing starting point to say the least.

However Assassin is just straight-up badly-designed, and plays badly. It's terrible at its own job and essentially a "trap" for players who think it's the most dangerous Rogue (it's actually one of the less-dangerous kinds). Hence it getting the boot.

The OotA is cool, but maybe a little far from what people imagine as ''Paladin'' to be in a PHB. But its an incredible archetype, I agree.

So the answer is to have three nearly-thematically-identical archetypes instead? Don't you feel that's going too far in the other direction? Crown and Glory are very close to Devotion in theme, associated imagery, and so on (all "shining" Paladins), and both have weaker mechanical designs than Devotion (Glory just bad). If anything they should be deleted and folded into Devotion or the Paladin base class as options. At least your suggestion of Conquest is one doing something different - it's a terrible design but conceptually it's cool.

And if we follow the same logic for other classes, EK and AT would have to go, but you have AT in, and Psychic Warrior and Rune Knight which are a good deal further from the Fighter archetype than OotA is from Paladin.

 

[Stalker0]

Sorcerer - Gain access to all Metamagic options, the options they pick get their sorcery points reduced by 1 when used
Wizard - Drop the long rest requirement for changing out spells. Just need to use the minutes per level.

I like that sorc rule!

For the wizard, if nothing else you can bring back the old rule that if you don't prepare a spell (aka leave one open), you could then spend a few minutes to fill it.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I see a lot of Oath of the Ancients and it's mechanically strong too. I strongly suspect it's vastly more popular than Vengeance, even, let alone the other Paladins except Devotion - anyone adding Crown and Glory isn't looking at what archetypes are missing, what's popular with players, or anything of the sort, because they're basically just mechanically rubbish, less-flexible versions of Devotion, thematically. It's basically what you add if you only want 1E-style Paladins to be available, which would be a confusing starting point to say the least.

However Assassin is just straight-up badly-designed, and plays badly. It's terrible at its own job and essentially a "trap" for players who think it's the most dangerous Rogue (it's actually one of the less-dangerous kinds). Hence it getting the boot.

So the answer is to have three nearly-thematically-identical archetypes instead? Don't you feel that's going too far in the other direction? Crown and Glory are very close to Devotion in theme, associated imagery, and so on (all "shining" Paladins), and both have weaker mechanical designs than Devotion (Glory just bad). If anything they should be deleted and folded into Devotion or the Paladin base class as options. At least your suggestion of Conquest is one doing something different - it's a terrible design but conceptually it's cool.

And if we follow the same logic for other classes, EK and AT would have to go, but you have AT in, and Psychic Warrior and Rune Knight which are a good deal further from the Fighter archetype than OotA is from Paladin.

Well, those 3 are very close to the associated imagery of the shining knight, which is what the Paladin class is all about, IMHO. A warden swearing an oath to protect nature is closer to the idea of a Ranger (and I think a Dex-Based OotA or Vengeance is a better ''ranger'' than the real ranger, but that is another thing).

Again, this is just for that exercise. If we could add all the archetypes we want, I'd let the OotA in, obviously. But for this one I had to cut some: I replaced Vengeance with Conquest and replaced Ancient with Crown. Glory is bad, I agree. I could see Ancient being there insted of it as the ''chaotic-X paladin''.

If I could redesign the archetypes, I'd mix Crown and Devotion as some kind of holy warlord, mix Glory and Vengeance as some kind of ''challenger, one-on-one, Beowulf'' type and mix Ancient and Watcher as the protector against the unnatural.

 

[Aldarc]

People aren't particularly good at following the rules or caveats of the OP, but maybe I wasn't clear, in which case the blame lays entirely on me.

So is the premise that each class gets the 2-3 subclasses, and so everything else is on the cutting room floor? Or can in theory all subclasses remain if desired?

The premise is that in a revised PHB classes get at most X* + 1 number of their subclasses and what those subclasses are can be reshuffled from all the available subclasses in the PHB + Tasha's + Volo's + etc.

* X = their current number of subclasses in the PHB

So, yes, all subclasses could remain if desired.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I agree that they shouldn't remove any options - just add in major missing ones (ones that open up playstyles). It's still the Player's Handbook - you shouldn't need to buy the old PHB to have all the options.

Artificer needs inclusion
Barbarian might add Beast
Bard needs a smooth-talker option
Cleric doesn't really need any extra Domains, though some options for switching up between weapon- and casting-based clerics would be nice.
Fighters are technically fine, though I could argue for both Samurai (to show what a good thematic option looks like) and Rune Knight (which captures a big chunk of the EK fantasy but does it a lot better.)
Monks could use a less-magical variant.
Paladins should add Crown.
Rangers... I don't even know, man.
Rogues should add Mastermind
Sorcerers should add at least divine soul.
Warlocks need to add Hexblades - those play like a whole new class, rather than a new theme. I would also definitely add Pact of the Talisman.
Wizards should therefore add Bladesinger.

Of these, the only must-adds, IMO, are Artificer and Hexblade, (RK comes in third) as the rest are more-or-less doable with the existing PHB options, even if the supplements do it a lot better. This is especially true if the Tasha's options are added. (If the Tasha's options are expanded upon, everything but Artificer might be un-needed.)

 

[Laurefindel]

I'm gonna be boring here, but I would expect all the present sublcass to remain in the new PHB, reworked and readjusted to whatever new standards they adopt, with little additions of new subclasses. Perhaps a third option for classes that present only two in the PHB, like the barbarian, bard, druid, ranger, and sorcerer.

I'd imagine a more magic-y barbarian option (like ancestral), a selfish bard that uses inspiration dice for themselves (like sword), a druid that uses wild shape for other things than animals (like spores or wildfire), a more magic-y ranger (like fey), and a sorcerer that draws from something else than chaos or ancestral heritage (like storm).

I could see some features of popular subclasses merging into PHB sublcasses, or basic classes making room for significant choices throughout the character's career (like the warlock that chooses a patron at 1st level, a boon at 3rd level, and the possibility to improve on it at 5th level) that include some of the additional subclasses' abilities.

 

[Undrave]

Clerics are tricky. I hope they reassess the current approach and move to away from god type = cleric type. It's lore-dumb and limiting. Having say melee, healet/buffer and invoker(nuker/CC) subclasses would make sense with maybe only 1-2 powers from god choice.

Wizards I think need a similar treatment to Clerics. School specialist could become one subclass not a ton.

I agree. Clerics should really have been like the Warlock where you choose your play style and then choose your domain. With the possibility of adding a Divine Archer later on or something.

And Wizards didn't need friggin' 8 classes in the PHB. They needed a 'School Specialist" who gets more spells in their books for cheaper of a specific school and extra prepping slots, Illusionist and Diviner (as they feel like the most solid in term of theme and mechanics) with new features that let them not step on the School Specialist's toe, and a 'War Mage' or something that takes inspiration from the 4e Implement User (i.e. gets to apply special effects depending on implement they wield.) The Abjurer's shield is neat but has very little thematic juice to it (could easily be a Feat IMO) and the Necromancer would need more than the PHB spells to really pop so might as well keep it for later.

The Wizard is just so hard to design for now because they just don't have much of a common skeleton.

Heck, maybe 'school specialty' could just be a thing all Wizard do where you pick a magic school and that one is cheaper to copy into your book and you get to prep extra spells of that school every day. There, it's done. Now we can just give all the subclass more personality! Yeah let's do that, and instead have a Ritualist as the 'Generic Wizard' option that emphasizes their incredible out of combat flexibility. Let the Implement guy be the generic magic blaster.