D&D (2024) New Classes for 5e. Is anything missing?

[Minigiant]

As a Dragon Sorcerer, it was more of a gish-type, and as you spent your spell points for the day, you'd slowly transform, taking on characteristics of your second soul. It was mostly a fluff thing, but the text spoke of poor sods who had fully lost control and been consumed by their second soul, leaving them as twisted monsters that could only be put down because the person they used to be had literally been eaten from the inside. That was a ton of really evocative, interesting flavor, and I strongly suspect that the vocal minority that spoke out against these things is why we got relatively flavor-light classes in 5e. It very much came across as people thinking that, because this specific type of Sorcerer was more gish-like (gaining armor, resistances, and melee attacks as it burned through SP), that ALL types of Sorcerer would ALWAYS be gishes, and that erroneous conflation plus the newness of the concept led to a massive overreaction. It seemed perfectly obvious to me that this was just one flavor of Sorcerer and that they would provide additional options.

And at least for my part...I was there and active on various places at the time. I saw the responses. A lot of people--many of them not even Sorcerer fans in the first place--took one look at this new and different thing and said, "No, that's weird and bad, just make the Sorcerer like what it was before." That sentiment, phrased a dozen different ways, was the common refrain, that both the Sorcerer and Warlock were too "weird" and needed to be made simpler and more straightforward. So WotC listened...and that gave us a Sorcerer that looks a lot like a weaker Wizard. And now we have these calls to delete the Sorcerer (or Warlock, or both) entirely, because it doesn't do enough to justify its independent existence. It's a vicious cycle; classes that justify their independent existence are "too narrow" or "don't fit" or whatever; classes that pass that bar are "too generic" and "should just be an X."

In other words, class reductionism pushes a Morton's Fork: "if the class is generic, it should be merged with other, similar classes to save space, 'cause we don't need redundant generalists; if the class is specific, it doesn't allow people to play it as they like, so it should be deleted to save room for classes with broad appeal."

Another problem was that during the playtest, most classes only had one subclass. Except for the ranger and I think the cleric, there was only one displayed option for a class. So anytime a new idea was given, it was the only option shown.

Due to the fact that vocal community isn't that mechanically creative, this lead to a lot of "it's different. I don't want all the X to look like that. I don't like it."

If the playtest Sorcerer had a traditional Wild Mage along with the gishy Dragon Mage, the playtest sorcerer might have survive. I wrote speculative version of a healer/paladiny Celestial Sorcerer and a necrotic/vampiric Shadow Sorcerer on here or the WOTC forums and it was popular. But it was too late to prevent the "It's different. I don't like" survey responses.

 

[Minigiant]

Ironic that after the gish styled playtest sorcerer, the sorcerer is now the only caster with no melee options.

It's like they were so scared of the idea that they won't put a melee subclass on the sorcerer even years later.

And ironically the main classes missing from 5e are the Gish and the Warrior on Magic Steroids.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

And ironically the main classes missing from 5e are the Gish and the Warrior on Magic Steroids.

Entirely because of the playtest sorcerer. As that was meant to be the arcane half caster gish, they didn't make a separate gish class.

Then when playtest sorcerer got axed, nothing then filled that void.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Entirely because of the playtest sorcerer. As that was meant to be the arcane half caster gish, they didn't make a separate gish class.

Then when playtest sorcerer got axed, nothing then filled that void.

and that is a void that people have tried to fill before without real luck, plus video games have made such a thing common so it is more lack an archetype than roots to draw on.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

and that is a void that people have tried to fill before without real luck, plus video games have made such a thing common so it is more lack an archetype than roots to draw on.

I think the issue is that Paladin and Ranger had an identity, and then had the 'divine/primal magic warrior' mechanics placed on them later.

While the swordmages theme is just 'mixes arcane magic and combat', without having a strong identity beyond that.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think the issue is that Paladin and Ranger had an identity, and then had the 'divine/primal magic warrior' mechanics placed on them later.

While the swordmages theme is just 'mixes arcane magic and combat', without having a strong identity beyond that.

identity is its major problem as we could make mechanics for it right now.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thing is it suits both classes a lot.

So there is an argument that there is too much overlap for them to both be classes.

But then that opens up the argument that in that case the class should have been designed to be able to satisfy both the divine and arcane gish characters, rather than being super thematically and mechanically focused on the divine theme.

Though the arcane gish was never about damage and only damage from their magic attacks. There were tons of other possible effects.

Yeah I think the smite spells are more gish than the smite mechanic would be.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Yeah I think the smite spells are more gish than the smite mechanic would be.

And yet all the arcane swordmage type subclasses don't get them. You can't even get them through feats as magic initiate doesn't cover paladin and ranger.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think the issue is that Paladin and Ranger had an identity, and then had the 'divine/primal magic warrior' mechanics placed on them later.

While the swordmages theme is just 'mixes arcane magic and combat', without having a strong identity beyond that.

I think the swordmage/gish has a pretty strong identity, actually. It’s more like the fighter than like the paladin, in that each archetype is an archetype, whereas paladin is the archetype and the subclasses are variations of that archetype.

What I mean is, the identity is “warrior whose traditions are both martial and arcane”, with the single most important aspect being that the character doesn’t feel like a multiclass.

EK isn’t a good gish because it very strongly feels like a fighter who learned some spells in an exchange program. An actual gish should feel like a graduate from a school where you learn spells with sword in hand, and the sparring ring hums with magic, because the two elements are not separate in any way.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And yet all the arcane swordmage type subclasses don't get them. You can't even get them through feats as magic initiate doesn't cover paladin and ranger.

Okay?