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

[Bacon Bits]

I've yet to see any kind of reason why we should not have a Psion, Gish, and Warlord.

Psions are difficult. Most of the time we see that people say they should have a system separate from magic, but the balance of the magic system (such as it is) is actually pretty difficult. It's going to be very difficult to retain the existing magic system and add another system on top of it. The proof here is that there's barely a mechanical system for martial classes at all, and it's just outclassed by magic. Magic has a bunch of artificial drawbacks (concentration, spell slots, costly components, spell level requirements) to try to keep it in line with martials, and it doesn't entirely work successfully. The martial systems (extra attack, sneak attack, feats, class-specific damage bonuses) are simply designed to not scale as well as magic. Adding a third system to that is going to be quite difficult, because you probably can't make it more restrictive than magic or more freeform than martials, and threading the needle between the two risks eclipsing one or both systems. Which is exactly what happened with 1e AD&D psionics (they were either irrelevant or busted) and the solution for 3e was that psionics were just magic but with more math. Further, you have the problem that Basic D&D, AD&D, Dark Sun, 3e, and 4e all have completely incompatible ideas of what psionics are or how they work, so there is nothing to draw from for a psionics class that will satisfy everyone. WotC will have to pick something and go with it, and the current development teams are built around not doing that. They're built around accepting nearly infinite feedback before publishing. That design model is incompatible with such a diverse mechanical history as D&D's psionics. It can't be done by WotC until they set that aside.

Warlords are probably not workable at all. Or, rather, it you made one it would probably work more like Miniatures Handbook's Marshall from 3e. Warlord works well in a high tactical system like 4e, and in a system where the Basic attack is a relatively fixed constant independent of class. It means the class has a lot to do, and the tight balance of 4e means you have an interesting choice each round. In 5e, movement, positioning, and tactics are markedly less potent. Whole classes exclusively rely on the standard attack roll, too. This means not only is it going to be less interesting or beneficial to grant bonus movement, it means that granting an additional attack allows you to deal damage is even better. In other words, your action makes you deal as or more much damage as the Rogue or Paladin does on their normal turn, only you also get to do everything else that a Warlord can which presumably has to be more interesting than just clone Sneak Attack or clone Smite. That makes the class incredibly difficult to balance, since it also has to function in parties that don't have one of those two classes. The obvious solution to have the Warlord's Commander's Strike use it's own fixed damage and have no benefits from the PC would be balanced... and also so incredibly boring and disappointing that nobody would be happy.

Gish could exist, but is unlikely to do so in a significantly different form than what currently exists. Ranger But Arcane, Paladin But Arcane, Bard But Vanilla, Cleric But Arcane, Bladesinger But Fighter, Bladelock But Different, Artificer But Different, Echo Knight But Better, or Eldritch Knight But Better are not really character class design concepts. That's really all I see when people ask for a gish: Explanations for why X isn't a gish. Well, it's rather tough to define something by what it isn't. The trouble is that "gish" is a different concept not just in every setting, but for every player. There is no such thing as a generic universal gish that will satisfy every player. Even if they literally publish a class named "Gish" and people will still say, "We don't really have a good Gish." It's a broader concept than Ranger is, and just like ranger the Gish always has unique trappings in every portrayal. It's one of the reasons Rangers kind of fail in 5e; they're too complex to lack a single vision because the concept is too broad now. Simply put, the game already supplies multiple classes and subclasses to support a mixed martial-spellcaster. It's overwhelmingly the most common example of a D&D character type in 5e to the extent that nearly every party will consist of characters capable of using weapons and spells in tandem.

 

[Scribe]

Psions are difficult. Most of the time we see that people say they should have a system separate from magic, but the balance of the magic system (such as it is) is actually pretty difficult. It's going to be very difficult to retain the existing magic system and add another system on top of it. The proof here is that there's barely a mechanical system for martial classes at all, and it's just outclassed by magic. Magic has a bunch of artificial drawbacks (concentration, spell slots, costly components, spell level requirements) to try to keep it in line with martials, and it doesn't entirely work successfully. The martial systems (extra attack, sneak attack, feats, class-specific damage bonuses) are simply designed to not scale as well as magic. Adding a third system to that is going to be quite difficult, because you probably can't make it more restrictive than magic or more freeform than martials, and threading the needle between the two risks eclipsing one or both systems. Which is exactly what happened with 1e AD&D psionics (they were either irrelevant or busted) and the solution for 3e was that psionics were just magic but with more math. Further, you have the problem that Basic D&D, AD&D, Dark Sun, 3e, and 4e all have completely incompatible ideas of what psionics are or how they work, so there is nothing to draw from for a psionics class that will satisfy everyone. WotC will have to pick something and go with it, and the current development teams are built around not doing that. They're built around accepting nearly infinite feedback before publishing. That design model is incompatible with such a diverse mechanical history as D&D's psionics. It can't be done by WotC until they set that aside.

Warlords are probably not workable at all. Or, rather, it you made one it would probably work more like Miniatures Handbook's Marshall from 3e. Warlord works well in a high tactical system like 4e, and in a system where the Basic attack is a relatively fixed constant independent of class. It means the class has a lot to do, and the tight balance of 4e means you have an interesting choice each round. In 5e, movement, positioning, and tactics are markedly less potent. Whole classes exclusively rely on the standard attack roll, too. This means not only is it going to be less interesting or beneficial to grant bonus movement, it means that granting an additional attack allows you to deal damage is even better. In other words, your action makes you deal as or more much damage as the Rogue or Paladin does on their normal turn, only you also get to do everything else that a Warlord can which presumably has to be more interesting than just clone Sneak Attack or clone Smite. That makes the class incredibly difficult to balance, since it also has to function in parties that don't have one of those two classes. The obvious solution to have the Warlord's Commander's Strike use it's own fixed damage and have no benefits from the PC would be balanced... and also so incredibly boring and disappointing that nobody would be happy.

Gish could exist, but is unlikely to do so in a significantly different form than what currently exists. Ranger But Arcane, Paladin But Arcane, Bard But Vanilla, Cleric But Arcane, Bladesinger But Fighter, Bladelock But Different, Artificer But Different, Echo Knight But Better, or Eldritch Knight But Better are not really character class design concepts. That's really all I see when people ask for a gish: Explanations for why X isn't a gish. Well, it's rather tough to define something by what it isn't. The trouble is that "gish" is a different concept not just in every setting, but for every player. There is no such thing as a generic universal gish that will satisfy every player. Even if they literally publish a class named "Gish" and people will still say, "We don't really have a good Gish." It's a broader concept than Ranger is, and just like ranger the Gish always has unique trappings in every portrayal. It's one of the reasons Rangers kind of fail in 5e; they're too complex to lack a single vision because the concept is too broad now. Simply put, the game already supplies multiple classes and subclasses to support a mixed martial-spellcaster. It's overwhelmingly the most common example of a D&D character type in 5e to the extent that nearly every party will consist of characters capable of using weapons and spells in tandem.

These are great points, but they just cry out to me '5e is flawed!' either in mechanics, or as with the Psion as you describe, Development will to make a choice and stand behind it.

Good post though.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Gish could exist, but is unlikely to do so in a significantly different form than what currently exists. Ranger But Arcane, Paladin But Arcane, Bard But Vanilla, Cleric But Arcane, Bladesinger But Fighter, Bladelock But Different, Artificer But Different, Echo Knight But Better, or Eldritch Knight But Better are not really character class design concepts. That's really all I see when people ask for a gish: Explanations for why X isn't a gish. Well, it's rather tough to define something by what it isn't. The trouble is that "gish" is a different concept not just in every setting, but for every player. There is no such thing as a generic universal gish that will satisfy every player. Even if they literally publish a class named "Gish" and people will still say, "We don't really have a good Gish." It's a broader concept than Ranger is, and just like ranger the Gish always has unique trappings in every portrayal. It's one of the reasons Rangers kind of fail in 5e; they're too complex to lack a single vision because the concept is too broad now. Simply put, the game already supplies multiple classes and subclasses to support a mixed martial-spellcaster. It's overwhelmingly the most common example of a D&D character type in 5e to the extent that nearly every party will consist of characters capable of using weapons and spells in tandem.

The thing is you could easy reverse that logic and use it on the paladin or ranger too. Say it was the paladin which hadn't got in, but the spellstriking swordmage had got in.

You could pick war cleric. Or you could go cleric/fighter. Or you could mix divine soul sorcerer and fighter. Or pick celestial bladelock. You could easily have a 'crusader' fighter subclass which can pick some cleric spells as a 1/3 caster. If you wanted a smite like experience, you could pick swordmage or ranger to cast spells through weapon strikes. Sun soul monk has a divine theme with healing, melee, and casting bolts of radiant damage. So does stars druid. Even the zealot barbarian is described as channelling divine power.

So why would you ever, possibly, need a paladin class?

Because people would enjoy it and want one. That's why you would have a paladin class. And without it you would see the same as with the swordmage in 5e. You would get threads on a regular basis asking for it, and you would get people saying we don't need a paladin as you can make divine martial caster person with xyz subclasses and multiclassing. And none of those combinations would offer the experience in the same quality that the actual paladin class does, as every one would carry thematic or mechanical baggage, or miss the things out which actually define a paladin.

 

[Faolyn]

Warlords are probably not workable at all. Or, rather, it you made one it would probably work more like Miniatures Handbook's Marshall from 3e. Warlord works well in a high tactical system like 4e, and in a system where the Basic attack is a relatively fixed constant independent of class. It means the class has a lot to do, and the tight balance of 4e means you have an interesting choice each round. In 5e, movement, positioning, and tactics are markedly less potent. Whole classes exclusively rely on the standard attack roll, too. This means not only is it going to be less interesting or beneficial to grant bonus movement, it means that granting an additional attack allows you to deal damage is even better. In other words, your action makes you deal as or more much damage as the Rogue or Paladin does on their normal turn, only you also get to do everything else that a Warlord can which presumably has to be more interesting than just clone Sneak Attack or clone Smite. That makes the class incredibly difficult to balance, since it also has to function in parties that don't have one of those two classes. The obvious solution to have the Warlord's Commander's Strike use it's own fixed damage and have no benefits from the PC would be balanced... and also so incredibly boring and disappointing that nobody would be happy.

Level Up did the Warlord, renamed the Martial, and it seems to work just fine. I haven't played one yet, but I haven't seen anyone say that it fails in some way. So I think that it's definitely workable.

 

[TwoSix]

Level Up did the Warlord, renamed the Martial, and it seems to work just fine. I haven't played one yet, but I haven't seen anyone say that it fails in some way. So I think that it's definitely workable.

Yea, I've seen multiple homebrew examples of the Warlord concept that work just fine. It's totally doable.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Level Up did the Warlord, renamed the Martial, and it seems to work just fine. I haven't played one yet, but I haven't seen anyone say that it fails in some way. So I think that it's definitely workable.

Likewise, Kibbles has a very popular homebrew Warlord.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I've yet to see any kind of reason why we should not have a Psion, Gish, and Warlord.

Psion: Last time I was a part of this conversation and asked people what they wanted at least 95% of it was covered by the aberrant mind sorcerer. The only coherent objections to that seemed to be a lack of the class name and that there were tentacles involved sometimes. The big thing is that one of the largest historical draws for the Psion is that it was a non-Vancian power point caster, and that's no longer as needed.

Gish: The Gish isn't just one thing. There are already at least half a dozen gish subclasses doing Gish things in different ways (Eldritch Knight, Valor/Swords bard, Bladesinger, Hexblade, Battlesmith, arguably Arcane Trickster, Armourer, Rune Knight, and Paladin). What the remaining people are asking for is too overlapping with these subclasses conceptually and seems to be centered round a couple of abilities that could come from polishing the EK or even as warlock invocations.

Warlord: The anti-4e lobby will rage? Seriously I do see a possibility of doing it through expanding the fighter - starting off by a couple of Warlord fighting styles that make the warlord better at supporting rather than increasing their combat potential. The warlordy subclass (PDK/Banneret) is terrible and needs a rewrite. And actual warlordy battlemaster maneuvers including ones that give the ability to spend hit dice in combat are wanted.

 

[TwoSix]

Likewise, Kibbles has a very popular homebrew Warlord.

Yea, that was the first one that came to mind; it's my personal favorite take on the Warlord. The subclasses let it support multiple stats, and it has what I think is the best mechanism for attack granting.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Psions are difficult. Most of the time we see that people say they should have a system separate from magic, but the balance of the magic system (such as it is) is actually pretty difficult. It's going to be very difficult to retain the existing magic system and add another system on top of it. The proof here is that there's barely a mechanical system for martial classes at all, and it's just outclassed by magic. Magic has a bunch of artificial drawbacks (concentration, spell slots, costly components, spell level requirements) to try to keep it in line with martials, and it doesn't entirely work successfully. The martial systems (extra attack, sneak attack, feats, class-specific damage bonuses) are simply designed to not scale as well as magic. Adding a third system to that is going to be quite difficult, because you probably can't make it more restrictive than magic or more freeform than martials, and threading the needle between the two risks eclipsing one or both systems. Which is exactly what happened with 1e AD&D psionics (they were either irrelevant or busted) and the solution for 3e was that psionics were just magic but with more math. Further, you have the problem that Basic D&D, AD&D, Dark Sun, 3e, and 4e all have completely incompatible ideas of what psionics are or how they work, so there is nothing to draw from for a psionics class that will satisfy everyone. WotC will have to pick something and go with it, and the current development teams are built around not doing that. They're built around accepting nearly infinite feedback before publishing. That design model is incompatible with such a diverse mechanical history as D&D's psionics. It can't be done by WotC until they set that aside.

Warlords are probably not workable at all. Or, rather, it you made one it would probably work more like Miniatures Handbook's Marshall from 3e. Warlord works well in a high tactical system like 4e, and in a system where the Basic attack is a relatively fixed constant independent of class. It means the class has a lot to do, and the tight balance of 4e means you have an interesting choice each round. In 5e, movement, positioning, and tactics are markedly less potent. Whole classes exclusively rely on the standard attack roll, too. This means not only is it going to be less interesting or beneficial to grant bonus movement, it means that granting an additional attack allows you to deal damage is even better. In other words, your action makes you deal as or more much damage as the Rogue or Paladin does on their normal turn, only you also get to do everything else that a Warlord can which presumably has to be more interesting than just clone Sneak Attack or clone Smite. That makes the class incredibly difficult to balance, since it also has to function in parties that don't have one of those two classes. The obvious solution to have the Warlord's Commander's Strike use it's own fixed damage and have no benefits from the PC would be balanced... and also so incredibly boring and disappointing that nobody would be happy.

Gish could exist, but is unlikely to do so in a significantly different form than what currently exists. Ranger But Arcane, Paladin But Arcane, Bard But Vanilla, Cleric But Arcane, Bladesinger But Fighter, Bladelock But Different, Artificer But Different, Echo Knight But Better, or Eldritch Knight But Better are not really character class design concepts. That's really all I see when people ask for a gish: Explanations for why X isn't a gish. Well, it's rather tough to define something by what it isn't. The trouble is that "gish" is a different concept not just in every setting, but for every player. There is no such thing as a generic universal gish that will satisfy every player. Even if they literally publish a class named "Gish" and people will still say, "We don't really have a good Gish." It's a broader concept than Ranger is, and just like ranger the Gish always has unique trappings in every portrayal. It's one of the reasons Rangers kind of fail in 5e; they're too complex to lack a single vision because the concept is too broad now. Simply put, the game already supplies multiple classes and subclasses to support a mixed martial-spellcaster. It's overwhelmingly the most common example of a D&D character type in 5e to the extent that nearly every party will consist of characters capable of using weapons and spells in tandem.

the problem with the gish is all the subclasses are just not able to cut it so it is always going to be asked for.

I could live with a spell slot psion if I got to have the stranger subtypes of the spells as most types of magic I like come under psionic, not wizard schools, and I am not allowed to be a lawful good necromancer and have fun at the same time.

 

[Minigiant]

I used to be in favour of the fighter being a a class which covers all the variations of 'fighty person'. But the more I think about it the more that doesn't make sense.

It's like trying to condense every 'magic user' class into just a single caster. You could do it, but at the expense of what makes clerics, druids, bards, etc unique.

I'm saying they should. The fighter being overly broad and not a good chassis to build subclasses off of just makes every martial combatant that's not a skill monkey who sneak attacks a liability design-wise.

I've recently been a fan of splitting the fighter into 3 more parts.

The smart fighter
The athletic fighter
The lordly fighter

Each with different mechanics and foci. But that's a hard sell.