D&D 5E Loss of genericity

[Sunseeker]

While I don't like the built-in Greyhawk, I have to say this edition feels the most "generic" without being a simple rules dictionary IMO.

 

[MoonSong]

Thinking more on your 3E build, it occurs to me that it feels more like Warlock, flavor wise, if anything. Maybe take a Warlock, remove the Patron flavor, and you seem to be mostly there...

It is not a build, it is the baseline practically all of my sorcerers have shared, and all of it was part of the class by default. That is what it was, a class with limitless possibilities and without the rigid limits of the wizard. All I want is a gishy option for the sorcerer without limits on longterm utility magic and without the overpowering flavor of "monster or timebomb".

 

[Parmandur]

It is not a build, it is the baseline practically all of my sorcerers have shared, and all of it was part of the class by default. That is what it was, a class with limitless possibilities and without the rigid limits of the wizard. All I want is a gishy option for the sorcerer without limits on longterm utility magic and without the overpowering flavor of "monster or timebomb".

Ultimately, all character write-ups are builds to support a concept. It seems the Warlock class, as far as crunch goes, would your character concept more readily, and the fluff is a minor change.

 

[Kurzon]

...And the designers came to the conclusion that just adding different game mechanics to a class did not warrant making it a new class. A Wizard with a different casting mechanic did not warrant calling it a Sorcerer (a la 3E). If they were going to have a Sorcerer, it had to have something substantially different in the world of the game-- in the story of the world-- because within the game world, the mechanics don't actually exist. A Wizard with metamagic is still just a Wizard in the game world. But to have a Sorcerer... the story of them in the world has to be distinguishable. Otherwise, there's no point for them to exist.

I disagree. I think a worldly, book-less spellcaster who was born with magic in their blood is distinguishable enough without being too specific about the source of that power.

An yes, the story of them in the world does have to be distinguishable. But I'd like it to be my story. And I'd like to be able to have many different versions of that story, depending on the world I want to play in. With 5E, I only have two.

 

[Parmandur]

I disagree. I think a worldly, book-less spellcaster who was born with magic in their blood is distinguishable enough without being too specific about the source of that power.



An yes, the story of them in the world does have to be distinguishable. But I'd like it to be my story. And I'd like to be able to have many different versions of that story, depending on the world I want to play in. With 5E, I only have two.

Largely this is cosmetic. Changing the fluff is trivial, and changing the crunch is a cinch. The DMG addresses this very topic, and how to go about making the game your own at great length...

 

[Bupp]

There are many different sub classes available on blogs, or even in the homebrew section here.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I disagree. I think a worldly, book-less spellcaster who was born with magic in their blood is distinguishable enough without being too specific about the source of that power.

An yes, the story of them in the world does have to be distinguishable. But I'd like it to be my story. And I'd like to be able to have many different versions of that story, depending on the world I want to play in. With 5E, I only have two.

Until you follow the points in the DMG on how to design your own sub-classes... then you have as many sorcerers as you need. Including one whose fluff matches your world.

 

[Mistwell]

It is not a build, it is the baseline practically all of my sorcerers have shared, and all of it was part of the class by default. That is what it was, a class with limitless possibilities and without the rigid limits of the wizard. All I want is a gishy option for the sorcerer without limits on longterm utility magic and without the overpowering flavor of "monster or timebomb".

So re-write the flavor. My example of the Rune sorcerer above took 5-7 minutes total. It's not like we're talking about a lot of powers to be re-skinning. Heck writing your own sub-class wouldn't be too hard. It's a solid skeleton you're building on here - very adaptable.

 

[Mallus]

[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION]'s got this.

If you want to impart your own flavor to baseline D&D, you have to be willing to override the existing/published fluff. I did this extensively in our old homebrew 3e campaign, and am doing it again in our 5e-converted-from-4e game. The setting fiction is whatever you say it is.

 

[Remathilis]

I think the OP indeed has a very good point about this. Some classes could have definitely benefitted from a more 'generic' subclass.

Ok, lets look at your examples.

Sorcerer: the draconic subclass is mostly the same concept as the original 3e sorcerer, but while the 3e class did not have any distintively 'dragon-flavored' features, the 5e has, which makes the concept more difficult to ignore. The wild mage as a concept could be generic enough, but the mechanic associated to it is definitely not.

Probably the more egregious: They REALLY needed an elementalist/arcanist bent sorcerer to go with Draconic and Wild. Something that is more "just here for the spellcasting" than for the wild surges or draconic power. I REALLY hope WotC puts one in Princes of the Apocalypse, but I'm not holding out hope....

Wizard: there is no generalist, but in this case IMO it's not a big deal since your choice of spells is what really makes you a specialist. You can choose several among the subclasses and still end up with a pretty generalist.

Evoker is pretty much the generalist now. Really, most generalist wizards 2e-3e era were just evokers who didn't want to give up access from X spell in Y school. They still learned magic missile, fireball, etc; but wanted to keep invisibility or dispel magic too. And generalist doesn't make much sense for powers: your either good at ALL spells (and thus OP to other schools) or you don't have anything special.

I thought like you, but the lack of opposition schools makes generalist a pointless redundancy.

Rogue: I suspect that most people will instinctively say that Thief is generic enough, but it isn't. For me the quintessential Rogue character is Indiana Jones, who definitely is not a Thief and neither an Assassin! The Rogue is missing a generic subclass more than any other class.

110% disagree. Before 2000 AD, THIEF was the name of the class and very much its niche. You could play a Thief like Indiana Jones, but he was never the iconic rogue. That said, in reverse, a treasure-hunter archetype (complete with whip proficiency) would be a nice addition, but THIEF IS THE GENERIC as it has for 30+ years.

Cleric: in this case perhaps the clerics of Life, Light and War could all be close enough to 'generic', particularly the Life Cleric which is in fact the one included in Basic.

Life is painfully generic, right down to the iconic healing spells on the list and the nonsensical heavy-armor proficiency as a nod to AD&D clerics.

Again, like wizard, a generic cleric is a cleric of... what? What is so generic that it can't be handled by another domain? Even if you wanted a monotheistic, Abrahamian-like religion, Life is generic enough to do that. I'd rather see specific entries (like elemental, darkness, or craft) over a generic "everything" cleric.

Barbarian: the Berserker is only built around maximizing the usability of Rage, which is anyway the defining feature of all D&D barbarians, so IMO this subclass is generic enough.

"Generic" isn't the right term here: Iconic is. Berserker is the ICONIC barbarian because it does what you think the 3e/4e barbarian should without bells, whistles, or spells. Iconics aren't always generic either. The Open-hand monk is clearly the iconic monk, but its not a generic subclass suitable for any type of martial artist.

While we're at it: Open Hand in iconic monk, Devotion is iconic paladin, Circle of the Land/Forest is iconic druid, Hunter is iconic ranger, Fiend-Pact is iconic warlock, and College of Lore is iconic bard. Each lines up with how they've traditionally been played or their classic lore, not now many types of archetypes it can catch.

Fighter: clearly the Champion is very generic.

Very.

IMO there is also a mechanical problem related to this: they have been saying all through the playtest that they wanted to use subclasses to also control complexity, so that every class would have at least one 'low-complexity' subclass. Then they designed the Warrior/Champion, and it worked great. Then it was all about pattin' each others' back about how good the idea was, and how well the implementation worked... and they totally forgot they had 11 more classes to do the same work about! I now expect than in a few years they will publish a '5e essentials' to fix this problem.

The problem is low complexity =/= generic. There is no sublcass that makes the warlock easier to play, for example. Some classes dial up-down with complexity by subclass, but most do not; they are balanced against each other. In fact, the only four subclasses I'd say are "easy" are Champion, Life domain, Evoker, and Thief (and for the obvious reasons).

I don't expect any sort of patch, other than a few new subclasses released (eventually) to add options (like an elementalist sorcerer). Its not needed.