D&D 5E Really concerned about class design

[the Jester]

Post-Essentials Sub-class.
They were closer to 1e sub-classes than 4e builds or 5e traditions.

You really think so? I didn't find that to be the case in my 4e game. In fact, we had a PH wizard and a HotFL wizard side by side in the same party. They played similarly, although with a different selection of powers and different styles (the PH wizard was more of a blaster, while the other was an enchanter). But that said, I didn't see too many Essentials pcs; by the time Essentials dropped, the characters in my game were well-established and mostly lasted the rest of the campaign until we switched to 5e.

 

[the Jester]

I think that's actually a big part of my irritation with this thread. Everyone is acting like it's either subclass everything or we have class bloat, which is a massive false dichotomy.

I think there's a middle ground, but I think my middle ground allows for a much stricter rein on new full classes than yours does. That's okay; differences in opinion are fine!

5e is already set up to avoid class bloat due to the existence of subclasses, so it's an irrational concern.

Not really. The more base classes you have, the more bloat you have, regardless of the subclasses available to other classes. I get what you're saying- as long as they favor subclass over base class is design, we'll see fewer base classes. But if we end up with 20 more base classes in spite of this, it's still a tremendous amount of bloat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I didn't actually see it in play, but the thing is, if D&D has had a witch, and you say it wasn't enough of a witch, it's hard to tell what you want out of a witch. It's like if you wanted a warlord that wasn't focused on aiding your allies, or a sha'ir that didn't use genies to fetch spells.

I’m having trouble making sense of this.

The witch didn’t originate in DnD, and isn’t one of the classic classes.

How it’s been done in dnd before is only relevant if that previous version did a good job of modeling the mythological/folk-lore/popular media witch.

 

[Eric V]

Game's really not going to break if it gets more than 11 classes. That's a lotta hand-wringing for nothing.

 

[the Jester]

I think what was meant by this is that instead of taking the time to try to get it right they just kinda discarded it and simplified their approach by converting it into some subclasses, which I think is something worth criticizing.

As one of the guys who responded to their mystic survey with "A lot of this would be better as a subclass," I think it was more of a response to feedback from us.

But again, I do agree that the psionicist is one of the only concepts I can come up with deserving of the class treatment.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You really think so? I didn't find that to be the case in my 4e game. In fact, we had a PH wizard and a HotFL wizard side by side in the same party. They played similarly, although with a different selection of powers and different styles (the PH wizard was more of a blaster, while the other was an enchanter).

Yeah, really. Post-essentials sub-classes would change up the base class quite radically, not just add a few things at certain levels.
And, it's not like illusionist and MUs played that differently in 1e, either.

 

[the Jester]

I’m having trouble making sense of this.

The witch didn’t originate in DnD, and isn’t one of the classic classes.

How it’s been done in dnd before is only relevant if that previous version did a good job of modeling the mythological/folk-lore/popular media witch.

Well, if the current system can model the folkloric witch (e.g. fiend pact warlock for the medieval devil-worshiping trope, druid for the neopagan version, etc)- and I think it pretty well can- what are we after from a witch, if not the stuff that they've had from earlier editions of D&D?

As an aside, it seems like the witch is a great example of a concept that we can disagree over whether it should be a base class or not. I really don't see it, and obviously, some other folks really don't see it as possible to model with the current material.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, if the current system can model the folkloric witch (e.g. fiend pact warlock for the medieval devil-worshiping trope, druid for the neopagan version, etc)- and I think it pretty well can- what are we after from a witch, if not the stuff that they've had from earlier editions of D&D?

As an aside, it seems like the witch is a great example of a concept that we can disagree over whether it should be a base class or not. I really don't see it, and obviously, some other folks really don't see it as possible to model with the current material.

I mean I can probably come up with a Patron, Pact Boon, invocations, and spells, that would make the Witch totally doable as a Warlock, tbf.

 

[NaturalZero]

IDK about the witch, but I was thinking about what characters with psionic classes USED to be capable of and decided to dig out the last psionic character i ran in, which was a battlemind in 4e. For the sake of comparison, I'm looking at what she could do at level 12, which would be the equivalent of a level 8 character in 5e.

The psychic warrior in 5e is a fighter and consists mostly of fighter features, with a little bit of damage or defense at level 3 in the form of psychic armament along with mage hand, and strength of mind, which gives a ranged force attack with CC that you can use a few times a day.

My 4e psionic warrior at a similar point in character progress has around 17 powers just from class or paragon path. She can invade an enemy's mind, penalizing them for attacking allies with battlemind's demand, at-will. If they attack an ally, she can damage them mentally with mindspike or shadow their movement with blurred step. Concussive spike, lodestone lure, and psionic speed are all at-will attacks (cantrips in 5e) that can push groups of enemies 20 ft (!), pull an enemy 10 away closer with a hit, or lash out with a flurry. She can create a nightmare zone that essentially generates a telekinetic whirlpool around her, split time to move an attack enemies on their turn, and break time with an accelerating strike as she moves through enemies. She's got a short rest teleport that surprise a target, plus there's a little bit of flight and psychometabolic defense in there too.

I don't expect a 5e psionic class or subclass to have 17 features at level 8, and I'm not really looking to go back to that level of complexity. But, I really really would like to capture some of that flavor and a fighter subclass just doesn't have close to enough room to fit super powers in there.

 

[Sadras]

Note that not all schools of magic have spells at every level in 5e. So I think this would be a bit trickier than it might at first appear.

That it a good point! I haven't actually done a comparison of spell quantity between the various schools.