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D&D (2024) New Classes for 5e. Is anything missing?
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
The playtest sorcerer was excellent, and when the designers got scared off by initial feedback...yeah that pretty much told me all I needed to know about what 5e was going to become.
Seriously though the whole "born with two souls" and "constant internal struggle for dominance" thing was rad as hell and a clear archetypal difference between Warlock and Sorcerer for those that want one (not that I even remotely buy the idea that Faust and old-school Merlin, back when he was a cambion, are remotely the same character archetype).
It's true.
During the playtest, anytime WOTC offered a new idea it got downvoted. With the sorcerer it was
WOTC: Here's a cool new idea for the sorcerer.
Community: Ew. That's too different. Can't you like just make a variant of the wizard?
WOTC: If that's what you want
(Spongebob 2 years later)
Some of the Community: Does anyone else think the sorcerer is boring? It is just a wizard variant. It shoulda been a wizard subclass.
Others of the Community: Well then you guys shouldn't have downvoted the playtest sorcerer andd asked for the 3e sorcerer if you thought 3e sorcerer is boring!
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
If you have a better explanation for why the two most-flavorful and honestly best-constructed playtest classes apparently got such negative feedback that the designers felt they had to completely abandon them and start over, never to be seen again until official release, I'm listening.
That's more or less what 4e did.
- Fighter (heavy infantry)
- Ranger (light infantry)
- Rogue (covert and irregulars)
- Hunter (missile)
- Warlord (command)
- Skald (flagbearer and horns)
- Berserker (shock infantry)
Yaarel
He Mage
Regarding gaming archetypes.
I feel the 5e Forgotten Realms concept of the "Weave" is adequate.
The multiverse is inherently capable of magical phenomena, and this capacity is called the "Weave".
There are different methods to manipulate the Weave.
• Arcane manipulates the Weave by means of magical properties inherent in natural objects.
• Divine manipulates the Weave by means of archetypal symbols, language, and meaning.
• Psionic manipulates the Weave directly by means of the mind: intentions, thoughts and emotions, as well as ethereal souls and force.
• Primal is a kind of psionic, but focuses less on human souls and more on the inherent personality of elements: earth, air, fire, water, and plants.
• Healing might deserve to be its own power source, focusing on anatomy and shapeshifting.
The Wizard is clearly arcane, wielding magic inherent in material objects, whether special ingredients or a special tool.
The Sorcerer pilots a magically modified body, transformed according to a bloodline. This more like arcane, but ones own body is a kind of magic item that has inherent magical properties. (Probably, the Sorcerer should lack material components, at least when thematically appropriate according the bloodline.)
The Warlock has an identity crisis − sometimes like Wizard who must study magic and sometimes like Sorcerer being transformed by the patron. The Warlock pretty much never has the patron doing the magical effects directly.
The Cleric is clearly divine, wielding symbols, belonging to an ideological community, and emphasizing ethical affinity.
The Paladin is clearly divine, where the language of oaths and ethics have inherent power.
The Druid is mainly Primal − forming relationships with plants and elemental creatures. But animals relate to the emotions and instincts of humans, thus kinda sorta psionic.
And so on.
I feel the 5e Forgotten Realms concept of the "Weave" is adequate.
The multiverse is inherently capable of magical phenomena, and this capacity is called the "Weave".
There are different methods to manipulate the Weave.
• Arcane manipulates the Weave by means of magical properties inherent in natural objects.
• Divine manipulates the Weave by means of archetypal symbols, language, and meaning.
• Psionic manipulates the Weave directly by means of the mind: intentions, thoughts and emotions, as well as ethereal souls and force.
• Primal is a kind of psionic, but focuses less on human souls and more on the inherent personality of elements: earth, air, fire, water, and plants.
• Healing might deserve to be its own power source, focusing on anatomy and shapeshifting.
The Wizard is clearly arcane, wielding magic inherent in material objects, whether special ingredients or a special tool.
The Sorcerer pilots a magically modified body, transformed according to a bloodline. This more like arcane, but ones own body is a kind of magic item that has inherent magical properties. (Probably, the Sorcerer should lack material components, at least when thematically appropriate according the bloodline.)
The Warlock has an identity crisis − sometimes like Wizard who must study magic and sometimes like Sorcerer being transformed by the patron. The Warlock pretty much never has the patron doing the magical effects directly.
The Cleric is clearly divine, wielding symbols, belonging to an ideological community, and emphasizing ethical affinity.
The Paladin is clearly divine, where the language of oaths and ethics have inherent power.
The Druid is mainly Primal − forming relationships with plants and elemental creatures. But animals relate to the emotions and instincts of humans, thus kinda sorta psionic.
And so on.
Okay, you’re right.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Your sarcasm is not productive. I was genuinely hoping you had an answer besides "you're dumb for thinking that people voted against something because it was new." Because yeah, that sort of thing happened a lot during the playtest. It wasn't just confined to things I liked, e.g. Mearls tried very hard to get the community to go for proficiency dice instead of proficiency bonus but eventually relented. (AIUI, he loves rolling fistfuls of dice, so he overruled the normal response to anything that wasn't polling supermajority positive, but it stayed unpopular over time.) Nor to things I had any real feelings about at all, as that's what killed Specialties (and thus the Warlord-style Fighter, which had originally had explicit support...but then was turned into a Specialty, and when Specialties got dropped it had nowhere else to manifest so they quietly stopped talking about it.)
Yaarel
He Mage
1 to 5 are great.
Heh, as a Norwegian, I object to 6 and 7.
Horns? It seems the Viking Period lacks musical instruments. They know about the Saami shamanic drums, but dont use these themselves. Mostly, the Norse of this time sing vocally. In England, York has musical instruments, but that is Roman town.
The skald is a recent import from the Celtic tradition of the bard, under Christian influence, and functions similarly as court historians and legal experts. Unlike the Celts whose bards speak in verse, the skald probably sing musically.
Berserkar are a kind of shamanic warrior, with a reputation for being crazy, animalistic, and antisocial. They can function as bodyguards, but to employ them is somewhat scandalous.
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I retracted my statement.
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