D&D 5E [Poll] Are any of the subclasses underpowered?

[Fenris-77]

The other thing that really makes a difference for Assassins is the build. They aren't bad built as straight rogues, but they also aren't great. They work a lot better, solo or not, when they have more than one attack per round. That allows them to really make the best of their auto-crits when they've managed to set that up. I usually start an assassin build with two levels of fighter for the weapons and armour, saves, action surge, and fighting style, then go three levels of rogue for assassin, and then back to fighter for 3 for thesubclass, ASI and second attack. That same pattern also works well with Ranger 5 if you go Gloomstalker, the Gloomstalker and Assassin abilities stack really well together.

That won't help the larger problems of a Leroy Jenkins party, sadly.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I usually start an assassin build with two levels of fighter for the weapons and armour, saves, action surge, and fighting style, then go three levels of rogue for assassin, and then back to fighter for 3 for thesubclass, ASI and second attack. That same pattern also works well with Ranger 5 if you go Gloomstalker, the Gloomstalker and Assassin abilities stack really well together.

Hey, a slightly complex, reasonably optimized, fighter-based Build that matures at 8th level.

Who says there's nothing in 5e for 3.x fans?

 

[Todd Roybark]

Can I see your numbers?

Healing Word + Int Modifier, is top notch combat healing....raw healing.....not Healing Spirit or cleric of the Arcane etc type tactics. This is what I meant by raw healing.

In their niche of spells, harmful or healing, the Alchemist is a top performer.

 

[Zardnaar]

Healing Word + Int Modifier, is top notch combat healing....raw healing.....not Healing Spirit or cleric of the Arcane etc type tactics. This is what I meant by raw healing.

In their niche of spells, harmful or healing, the Alchemist is a top performer.

Lol sweet summer child. You don't use healing word to heal it's to stop people dying.

 

[Todd Roybark]

and you do not need Healing Spirit to heal, it is called Short Resting and spending Hit Dice.
Stopping people from dying is, IMHO, The Best type of Healing ✌

 

[Zardnaar]

and you do not need Healing Spirit to heal, it is called Short Resting and spending Hit Dice.
Stopping people from dying is, IMHO, The Best type of Healing ✌

Then it's bonus action healing that's good, the amount after that is irrelevant.

That healing Druid for example gets done weak healing word type effects that are better. They heal less but they get a lot of them and it doesn't count as casting a spell.

A thief with healer feat gets unlimited 1hp touch bonus action healing for example.

The Artificer is meh at healing. It's ok as a backup espicially as a rogue replacement.

 

[Salthorae]

Stopping people from dying is, IMHO, The Best type of Healing

Temp HP shines at this...

 

[Seramus]

In their niche of spells, harmful or healing, the Alchemist is a top performer.

Here's the problem. Artillerist does it better. 1d8+Int Temporary Hit Points every single round for an hour is orders of magnitude better than the +Int bonus to healing that Alchemist gets. And while Chemical Mastery is a really good class feature, the Artillerist gets a second turret and hands out +2 AC to at least two people.

So right out of the gate, the Artillerist is so far ahead of the Alchemist in healing that it's a tortise and the hare competition. The Alchemist has to wait until Level 15 to get a really good healing feature. Restorative Agents is nice, but it's giving way less temporary hit points than the Artillerist was handing out six levels earlier.

Even worse, most of the elixers are just 1st level spells. The only really unique one is 10' Flight. The Alchemist +Int to damage bonus is to commonly resisted types (even Acid is resisted twice as much as just hitting things with a weapon) while the Artillerist gets their bonus to all damage types.

That's it. The whole Archetype comes down to having some extra 1st level spells prepared, 10' flight, and waiting until Level 15 to be good at what you do.

 

[Quickleaf]

I agree on Remarkable Athlete...what Champion wont have Athletics?
I house ruled it as a bonus to all ability checks mentioned in the ability, even with a skill the character is already proficient with.

The subclass plays fine, Fighter is a solid chassis, and frankly going MAX Defense with a Champion is super effective. Sword & Board, Fighting Style Armor and either Ranged or Duelist to round out your ranged attacks or more damage, plus Heavy Armor Master makes you rather tough at 21 AC with non magical plate and limited damage resistance. Causing Critical hits more often is never a bad thing, even if the sub-class does not use the ability to the max.

Sure, it plays fine, and also in play it's very noticeable where it's deficient. Both are true.

Part of the problem is that Champion's flavor doesn't necessarily describe it as a defensively themed subclass, but the most effective Champion builds are absolutely defensive, while offensively it always falls short of a Battlemaster and certainly any Paladin.

 

[Immoralkickass]

IMO the weakest of them all is Undying Warlock.

Lets see, if you're not facing undead or disease, Among the dead is useless. Depending on campaign, undead might be common, or might not see a single one at all. Diseases are quite rare in my experience. Poor design overall.

Defy death - Once per day Cure Wounds that rely on you passing death save or using Spare the Dying on ally = Underwhelming. Basically, you dont have a level 6 feature when nobody go down. (And why is it a LR recharge when every other Patron get this tier as SR recharge? Its simply not good enough).

Undying Nature - Ribbon

Indestructible Life - A Second Wind that can reattach limbs. It's something, but at level 14 it looks like trash if you look at what the other Patrons get. Reattach limbs sounds cool but is super rare, take that away and its just a Second Wind.

Its one thing to be good against specific type of monsters, but to literally have NO useable features when not fighting undead, not having downed allies or yourself, not having broken limbs, is just rubbish design.