D&D General Lamest D&D classes all time

[MichaelSomething]

No mention of the Commoner from the 3E DMG?

 

[Weiley31]

[QUOTE="CleverNickName, post: 7930810, member: 50987 And a dude with a lute can only be a bard.
[/QUOTE]
Bold words for somebody in Violining range.

 

[the Jester]

You left the commoner off the list, which was more 'core' than the vast majority of these.

If you include Dragon Magazine classes, then the hopeless character wins hands down, even over the commoner.

 

[Ashrym]

You gotta admit though, fantasy art is kinda weird. You see a shirtless guy with an axe, clearly they're a barbarian. You see a nearly naked lady with a holy symbol, she's obviously a cleric. And a dude with a lute can only be a bard.

People do make that assumption even though there are a lot of sources for music instrument proficiency in 5e. Funny thing is that it's easy access to a wealthy lifestyle and makes for a good cover as a wandering minstrel while trying to be incognito.

TANGENT:

Since field musician is a military rank and the uses for martial music include...

...music has been employed in battle for centuries, sometimes to intimidate the enemy and other times to encourage combatants, or to assist in organization and timing of actions in warfare.

...this could just as easily be a manifestion of the warlord. Some of what warlords were attributed falls in line with how military music was used. It's the same aspect expected of bards in earlier history. This falls in line with the battle cry as well. For the some of the criticism classes that use inspiration (which originally meant "possessed in spirit" and goes back to the supernatural / magical bards) received in the past it's amazing that this is what fighting has included for many centuries and people miss the connection.

END TANGENT

People jump to conclusions and miss things; however, there kind of needs to be something to demonstrate a character is meant to be a bard and the lute is symbolic enough.

 

[Tonguez]

Väinämöinen, the Finnish Hero (Demigod) who was renown for his singing which is magical in nature. In one story he creates the first Kantele harp from the bones of a pike fish and the music he plays is so beautiful that even the denizens of the air, the land and sea gather to listen.

He’s the legendary epic level Bard of history

TANGENT:

Since field musician is a military rank and the uses for martial music include...

...this could just as easily be a manifestion of the warlord. Some of what warlords were attributed falls in line with how military music was used. It's the same aspect expected of bards in earlier history.

I once played a Goliath Crusader who was a Cleric/Bard whose shtick was to march into battle singing Battle Hymns to inspire the ‘troops’.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Dimension 20's Unsleeping City campaign features a sewer-dwelling rat druid in New York City. He does not lack for things to do.

 

[JeffB]

5th edition ranger

Ain't that the truth- I had a adventure I wanted to run for my group and let them know for a change of pace we'd use 5E. One of the players really wanted to play a Ranger. They had played a Ranger in 13th Age previously and loved it. I showed them the 5E Ranger, and it went over like a lead balloon. I told the player not to worry, I would run the adventure using 13A instead.

 

[toucanbuzz]

You left the commoner off the list, which was more 'core' than the vast majority of these....

You left the commoner off the list, which was more 'core' than the vast majority of these.

If you include Dragon Magazine classes, then the hopeless character wins hands down, even over the commoner.

Alas, the jester and commoner, as examples, were NPC classes, and I also didn't include April Fool edition character classes like the Hopeless (which is still ).

 

[Ashrym]

Väinämöinen, the Finnish Hero (Demigod) who was renown for his singing which is magical in nature.

And that was one of the inspirations for Tolkien's Gandalf. ;-)

Also if everyone is laughing about the boils or other malady the bard described you has having it may not matter if you actually had them... when it became part of common culture that you did.

I think that's similar to how I ended up applying the bard's satire power in 5e. I think WotC left the spell/ability out because they were planning on working it into a college at the time, but it's also a bit redundant when vicious mockery and bestow curse cover the concepts already. A character can use the perform skill in the more modern sense of satire while performing for a crowd as a way of influencing NPC attitude and reactions.

XGtE calls for a DC 20 check to compose a catchy tune that might spread vicious rumors, for example.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I once created a 2e class called "The Ascetic", holy men who grew stronger if they renounced wealth, food or even water and had it been official, it would have been pretty high on that list.