D&D 5E Really concerned about class design

[Einlanzer0]

See, and the brawler doesn't seem conceptually unique at all to me. It's a guy who fights unarmed- either a monk or a fighter or a multiclass of the two.

I think that's probably because you haven't seen what all can be done with it yet. And that's at the heart of my issue with the "no (or very few) new classes" mantra - it leaves a lot of really neat concepts totally under-explored.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

I think that's probably because you haven't seen what all can be done with it yet. And that's at the heart of my issue with the "no (or very few) new classes" mantra - it leaves a lot of really neat concepts totally under-explored.

You could literally just do a brawler with a Fighting Style, which they have.

 

[the Jester]

I think that's probably because you haven't seen what all can be done with it yet. And that's at the heart of my issue with the "no (or very few) new classes" mantra - it leaves a lot of really neat concepts totally under-explored.

Okay, I'll bite. Can you elaborate?

 

[NaturalZero]

Yes, but so would a 4e fighter. This isn't a really fair comparison.

A huge amount of the 4e fighter's powers were ground up into bite-sized bits and presented as battlemaster maneuvers though. A lot of the specific "you can move, attack, and then move again!" found in 4e powers is already baked into the system or the fighter class. There is boatload, on the other hand, of fancy psionic melee combatant stuff that would be completely thrown out if we make the psywar a fighter subclass.

Imagine a psionic fighter subclass built like the battlemaster, with maneuvers replaced by psionic abilities that you could choose from.

The problem is that there's no meat there to work with. The fighter is already pushing, pulling, and tripping, etc with maneuvers and most of the battlemind stuff would be more powerful. That would be fine and dandy if you could drop stuff like second wind, action surge, etc, on the base fighter chassis in order to include more potent psionic abilities, but that simply isn't an option for a 5e fighter with a subclass.

Many of the issues involving mechanics not following re-fluffing could have been solved if all subclass choices happen at level 1.

This is pretty much the crux of the issue with 5e class subclasses. You're limited with how flexible your design is because you can't mess with the base of the class's features at level 1 or 2.

 

[Einlanzer0]

You could literally just do a brawler with a Fighting Style, which they have.

Well, yes, you could, but you could also develop it as a full class that feels at least as unique and justified as the monk does.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Well, yes, you could, but you could also develop it as a full class that feels at least as unique and justified as the monk does.

But why?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well, yes, you could, but you could also develop it as a full class that feels at least as unique and justified as the monk does.

This goes to what I was saying in the class vs. subclass thread. How much a new class is warranted depends entirely on the amount of design you want to put into it.

Three players could be equally happy if:

• one had a devoted "Brawler" class
• one played a fighter/monk or some combination
• one played any class, but chooses to use unarmed strikes to flavor their character, maybe even taking the Tavern Brawler feat.

Again, it just depends on the players' involvement IMO.

 

[generic]

But why?

But why do we have a Monk when you could easily play a Fighter and have your DM say that the weapons are actually your fists and feet?

The argument is not why; it's why not? I understand the concern that class bloat will accomplish the negative things that it did in other editions (yes, I know they just introduced the Artificer), but is WotC really so afraid of introducing a new class?

And furthermore, what is your argument against the introduction of a Psion? Saying we "don't need one" is meaningless, because that can be said of any class. Do you need a Sorcerer? No, why don't you just play an Evoker Wizard and user your imagination to pretend that it's a Sorcerer?

This is why I view these arguments with such skepticism. Sure, there's no cabal against the Psion, but there are people whose only argument against it is that it's unnecessary. In that case, then why do we make new subclasses, like the Samurai, when you could just play a Samurai using the Battlemaster subclass?

What is even the argument of people saying this? It's so meaningless as a contention.

 

[Garthanos]

It absolutely was a wizard build. From Heroes of the Feywild

Oh I agree mechanically.
The flavor was derived from the Warlock almost entirely but mechanically very much the Wizard. This may be a case where people wanted the Witch to be what it advertised. The powers they added to the wizard for the witch really could have been added to the Warlock enabling the Warlock more controller function. They could have focused more on the Witches curse angle too even made it a controller style curse and that would have been really interesting.

They did get augury, I guess. But that is literally the only thing that they got that other wizards didn't. If you can't fit a single feature into a subclass, I don't even know what a subclass is for.

Yeh while the witch as Seer is interesting too... it almost needs more and there was a Theme for that too a variant with Prophecy as central could be cool (Bene Gesserit inserted here for their lets confuse psionics and witchery fun)

 

[the Jester]

Well, yes, you could, but you could also develop it as a full class that feels at least as unique and justified as the monk does.

I can't see the justification. I asked previously, I'll ask again; what makes a brawler unique and distinct? What justifies making it a base class when we already have the monk and fighter? What does this hypothetical brawler offer that is so iconic?