D&D 5E Should 5e have more classes (Poll and Discussion)?

[DND_Reborn]

I'm kind of confused, now. What do you mean by "fighting?" Do you mean martial combat, or combat in general?

Sorry. Earlier you mentioned a gish should be roughly equal in fighting and casting (maybe I misinterpreted your statement?). So, thus my point that paladins and rangers are better at fighting than casting, and really not equal in the two. An arcane gish would likely be better at fighting (via magic) than casting--similar to paladins and rangers as you pointed out in your last response.

Paladins and Rangers have morphed into gishes really as the editions progressed and are full-on in 5E.

Anyway, I am happy with using MCing to represent such a gish concept, seeing a Fighter/Wizard as a good enough base to build the concept without the need for another class. But, as you said, a true gish in the sense of a paladin/ranger would of this sort would have to have something "extra" to qualify as needing its own class.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Is one of the problems with the Gish that they really want to be an elite Githyanki fighting group that is simply better? Like someone who wants to play an elf because they read about Ecthelion and Fingolfin in Tolkien. But for game balance their combined battlefield prowess + off field utility can't be higher than any of the other classes So if they're just as good on the battle field as the fighter (using both martial skills and magic), then they can't be particularly great off the battlefield because a fighter isn't. And if they have vast utility, then they can't be out there taking the front-line punishment a fighter does.

The one I designed has practically no utility spells.

 

[Cadence]

The one I designed has practically no utility spells.

Is that one you posted earlier? (If so, I'm not finding it now).

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Is that one you posted earlier? (If so, I'm not finding it now).

Yeah, I posted my first draft earlier. Here's my post containing it:

D&D 5E - Should 5e have more classes (Poll and Discussion)?

A couple of people have made suggestions, but in essence, the BM fighter only has a few dice to perform maneuvers each short rest, and those maneuvers are relatively minor and don't scale well at all. The "lazy lord" was an edge case only really made possible by a splatbook, and isn't indicative...

www.enworld.org

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sorry. Earlier you mentioned a gish should be roughly equal in fighting and casting (maybe I misinterpreted your statement?). So, thus my point that paladins and rangers are better at fighting than casting, and really not equal in the two. An arcane gish would likely be better at fighting (via magic) than casting--similar to paladins and rangers as you pointed out in your last response.

Paladins and Rangers have morphed into gishes really as the editions progressed and are full-on in 5E.

Anyway, I am happy with using MCing to represent such a gish concept, seeing a Fighter/Wizard as a good enough base to build the concept without the need for another class. But, as you said, a true gish in the sense of a paladin/ranger would of this sort would have to have something "extra" to qualify as needing its own class.

Yes, a gish should be equal in being half-fighter half-caster, but also capable of using their spells for "fighting" in the strictest sense.

Paladins and Rangers are gishes, divine and primal versions.

That's why I made the Spell Strikes feature, to set them apart from an Eldritch Knight or Fighter-Wizard multiclass.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Paladin and ranger are warriors with some spells, but not true hybrid spellcaster-fighter.

Today lots of players are used to "duskblade" class in lots of MMOs.

Magic Knight - TV Tropes

Most mages are of the Squishy Wizard variety, able to work eldritch wonders but not take a punch. And most warriors are Magically Inept Fighters, able to deal and take devastating damage, but their range is limited to the length of their weapon …

tvtropes.org

I guess we will not new spellcaster classes for a long time, at least not ones with with its own list of spells, because it's a crunch what gives lot of work of game designers, and to sell sourcebooks with crunch for no-core classes are harder.

I say again some new class will arrive before in some future videogame adaptation because it's a easier way to update and fix if munchkins find some weak point to abuse.

Maybe the next class with the psionic mystic will be the blood-hunter, in some sourcebook of "gothic horror" for Ravenloft or Innistrad. After it will be the warlord, as an extra for the return of Birthright, the right setting for RTS videogames and maybe also skirmishes miniature wargames. Beyond not even WotC stuff know really how it will be the next titles. I guess in the last years of this decade will dare to publish some risky ideas, for example a rehash of the incarnum.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You know what, I think my problem with this gish thing is that I find their thematically meh. Halfway between wizard and fighter is a logical thing, but not compelling one. But I realised that there is technically a very similar trope that I do like; I loved Death Knights in WoW and Dark Knights in Final Fantasy XIV. They are both sorcerous knights, but they have strong imagery beyond that. And they're goth as hell, so that's a massive bonus. Now In D&D terms they could easily be just paladin subclasses, but if we emphasises the angle of definitely not being divine perhaps having some sort of necromancy related origin then that might make them distinct enough.

 

[Minigiant]

But that is because the legacy of Paladin and Ranger changed over editions. The original Paladin in AD&D didn't get cleric spells until level 9. The original Ranger got Druid spells starting at 8th level and Magic-User spells at level 9. They were Fighter subclasses--primarily fighters with some spell and/or magical abilities.

So, like the original Paladin and Ranger, the EK is a fighter who can cast some spells...

The Paladin and Ranger changed a lot in mechanics and lore from it's first occurences.

Basically,the fighter became more of a weaponmaster master from 0e to 1e to 2e to 3e to 4e to 5e. Conversely the weapon skill of the Paladin and Ranger went down and the magic skill went up.

in 5e, the Fighter would be insulted from comparing those to to him.

Fighter: Subclasses of me? These amateurs. Look at Paladin's stance? Pathetic. He just swings wild ad prays to a god that his sword hits. And the Ranger. All that sneaking and perception has ruined his footwork. Tiger style has dominant leg back., greenhood. There's no such thing as a Wolf-Tiger and you won't be the one to invent it. Stabbing giants in the groin is not a proper fencing technique!

Even if you look at them now, they (Paladins and Rangers) are not even mostly on equal terms in how well they fight and how well they cast spells. They fight more or less as good as the fighter, but are NO WHERE near as good at casting as the Cleric or Druid.

Fighter: WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? More or less as good? Those two scrubs. Why I oughta.
Barbarian: Calm down bro.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I really like the Wild Soul, Storm Herald, and Ancestral Guardian as a magic-wielding warrior. So much more interesting than just another spellcaster. The Moon druid is another cool wizard-warrior variant.

 

[Minigiant]

You know what, I think my problem with this gish thing is that I find their thematically meh. Halfway between wizard and fighter is a logical thing, but not compelling one. But I realised that there is technically a very similar trope that I do like; I loved Death Knights in WoW and Dark Knights in Final Fantasy XIV. They are both sorcerous knights, but they have strong imagery beyond that. And they're goth as hell, so that's a massive bonus. Now In D&D terms they could easily be just paladin subclasses, but if we emphasises the angle of definitely not being divine perhaps having some sort of necromancy related origin then that might make them distinct enough.

I think too many make the magic part of the gish too generic and kill the flavor.

The Ranger isn't ahalf druid. It isn't the druid'sson. The ranger onlytakes the combat buffs and plant and animal magiic from the druid and snags some divination and transmutation from the wizard. The ranger had it's own spell list since 3e. It has the spells it has to do its role based on its flavor: hunting down foes and surviving the trip.

Same with the Paladin. It isn't a half cleric. The Paladin has smites. Only some clerics do. Clerics and Paldins are trained at different monasteries. Paladins don't cast form the cleric spell list. It's list focuses on defending the weak and punishing the enemy of his oath or god.

So any gish would need to get flavor. Itshouldn't be just casting wizard spells. That's what EKs do, they went to wiard school for 2 classes. Gishes, duskblades, staffmasters, and swordmages would have a spell list that represent their flavor.