D&D 5E New D&D WotC survey! On classes.

[Horwath]

Wow, one more chance do dump on Rangers and Monks, we cannot miss that, now can we?

 

[Leatherhead]

Well, if they weren't asking for feedback specifically on the PHB ranger, I'm sure more people would be kinder.

As for me, I went against the grain by ripping into half of the wizard schools. Yeah, they are wizards, but some of the level 2 powers are parlor tricks, and some of them are Portent.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Wow, that was long. I spend half an hour of preparation going through my notes trying to find every class and subclass I could honestly say I had "played" (turns out all classes except monk), but then the survey asked if I had played or DMed, so that made it a lot easier. And with the little box at the end of subclasses even if you hadn't played/DMed them, I felt like I was able to give all the feedback I wanted.

 

[John R Davis]

Did
Bards- I think they are very good
Clerics n Paladins- channels need a tweak
Druid- are awesome
Rangers- need some work

 

[DEFCON 1]

I got about a couple pages into the survey before I realized I just don't really care about trying to get WotC to "fix" anything. It's been seven years-- anything I have an issue with regarding the classes and subclasses I've already fixed myself. So I just 'X'd out of it.

 

[Mannahnin]

My beef with bard is that I simply don't have a name for an iconic "bard" in my fantasy. I can name a went-once-to-church paladin. I can name a wizard. I can even name an iconic artificer (though I must admit that Gilgamesh Wulfenbach or Agatha Heterodyne lack the classic feel of Roland, Merlin or even Cugel, they entered by mental space). Not a single bard. Unless you're willing to count Iluvatar, but that's a stretch.

I think it's a shame that Manly Wade Wellman's John the Balladeer AKA Silver John isn't better known. He's certainly in Appendix N for a reason.

Other examples include the aforementioned Taliesen from the Welsh, Amergin from the Irish (Morgan Llywelyn did a fun book about him in '84, Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish), Poul Anderson's Cappen Varra, and for the "incompetent but good-hearted" trope, Fflewddur Fflam from Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.

Here's a short Cappen Varra story from 1957. Though it reminds me that CV is possibly the original lothario bard (definitely better than the current stereotype, thankfully).

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Valor of Cappen Varra, by Poul Anderson

Here is a compilation of John the Balladeer stories, starting with an intro to the writer and the character. The first story is O Ugly Bird! (1951), and I recommend them all. They're quick reads, too.

John the Balladeer by Manly Wade Wellman - Baen Books

I like the contrast between Cappen and John, too. Cappen is almost the archetype of the D&D-style bard. Roguish, charming, carrying a light blade and decent with it, a romantic with a list of former loves as long as your arm. John's more humble and restrained; a touch devout, but still struck with wanderlust and curiosity, seeking out new songs and old legends and inevitably getting wrapped up in mysterious and magical events.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Because treating D&D as merely a miniatures board game was tried in the PHB of 4E and people came to realize they didn't like it treated that way.

Narrative matters.

And people hating the best narrative version of D&D ever is why we went back to hacked tabletop wargame rules - complete with pre-processed spells that get copied and pasted and that you need to wade through every single time to get to what's going on in the game world.

Narrative matters, and the more verbiage you have the less you can focus on what is going on in the world. For some reason people seem to not want to do that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Back in 1984, I got a Time-life book called "Wizards & Witches". A large chapter of the book covered Taliesin, a Welsh bard. That book forever shaped how I saw and wanted my bards to be. Taliesin was depicted as a wise scholar and suble wizard, who could spin his magic via song. He was not a rockstar like so many people try and portray bards.

In fact, that series [The Enchanted World] also left me enamored with fighters with it's rendition of Cuchulain).

I picked up that whole series back in the day! Still have all of them.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Druid- are awesome

Oh, I personally trashed that one!

The class has a main feature that only one archetype really uses. Yeah, we get it, moon druids are awesome. On the other hand, you have land druids which have those....feature:

• gain one more cantrip; sadly the PHB has only a few worthwhile druid cantrips.
• Do not receive any power boost to cantrips or melee attacks, like clerics do.
• Moon get stronger and stronger forms? Well you get to avoid being stuck in grass and brushes.
• Moon get to shape into elementals? Well you can resist being frightened and charmed...by 2 creature types.
• At 14th (!) level, those fearsome beast and plant creature need to pass a save once to be able to attack you. You know, those legendary beasts and plants DMs constantly throws at you when you are 14th level?!

At this point I just told them to make the moon shape progression into the main class chassis a have the Moon archetype be able to take more esoteric forms: Monstrosities, Plants or Elementals.

 

[darjr]

I would put ten squids on them not.

I know for a fact they do read these results.