D&D 5E Spellcasters and Balance in 5e: A Poll

[Fanaelialae]

It's the scholar class.

One shouldn't beforced to be a complex wizard or a backstabbing rogue to be a scholar. They aren't in the really world, they should be that way in D&D.

People should be able to play fantasy Da Vinci or Holmes.

It's a completely reasonable concept IMO. IIRC, AiME actually has a scholar class (though the classes in AiME are tuned a little weaker than 5e, so one wouldn't necessarily want to port it over directly).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I would like to note that we are in the middle of a much larger conversation where several people here have said that there is no mechanical and/or conceptual room for the warlord in 5e, and others elsewhere in this forum have made similar comments about other classes people have wanted added to the game (e.g., shaman, psion, arcane gish, summoner, etc.) or debating why we need sorcerer, wizard, and warlock classes in the game when one could suffice, and yet 5e is a game that eschews roles.

These argument usually have very little to do with mechanical roles, they have more to do with themes and archetypes, at least on the side of those who don't want the class bloat (granted, there are exceptions.) And I feel that a lot of desire from new classes is informed by people bringing previous edition baggage into 5e. 'This was a class in previous edition, it must be in 5e too.' But in 4e there were rigidly defined mechanical roles that required creating multiple conceptually similar classes that filled different mechanical roles. And of course in previous editions class customisation was much more limited. I think 5e's class/subclass structure is brilliant (albeit execution is sometimes flawed) and I feel that at least conceptually most of the things people seem to want should be subclasses in 5e paradigm, not full classes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's the scholar class.

Scholar is a background.

One shouldn't beforced to be a complex wizard or a backstabbing rogue to be a scholar. They aren't in the really world, they should be that way in D&D.

Most scholars are not adventurers. If they were, they would need to have some sort of other skills, be it fighting or magic. Adventuring scholar is a character of any class with appropriate skills.

People should be able to play fantasy Da Vinci or Holmes.

Leonardo was not an adventurer and a fantasy Leonardo would have absolutely been an artificer. The guy was one of the greatest geniuses who have ever lived and dabbled in everything. If he had lived in a world where magic was learnable by studying, he would have absolutely done so. And same with Holmes, fantasy Holmes might be a divination wizard. Though if you wanted to do a non-magical version, there literally is a rogue subclass called 'inquisitive' for that.

Again, the things you want are not classes, and are already doable in the game. And were they classes it would limit what the other classes can be, Now you can be a scholarly fighter or a rogue, but were scholar a separate class this wouldn't really be the case any more.

 

[Aldarc]

These argument usually have very little to do with mechanical roles, they have more to do with themes and archetypes, at least on the side of those who don't want the class bloat (granted, there are exceptions.) And I feel that a lot of desire from new classes is informed by people bringing previous edition baggage into 5e. 'This was a class in previous edition, it must be in 5e too.'

There is a lot of cognitive bias and selectivity of data going on here.

But in 4e there were rigidly defined mechanical roles that required creating multiple conceptually similar classes that filled different mechanical roles. And of course in previous editions class customisation was much more limited. I think 5e's class/subclass structure is brilliant (albeit execution is sometimes flawed) and I feel that at least conceptually most of the things people seem to want should be subclasses in 5e paradigm, not full classes.

Do you have some examples of "fluff-thin grid-filler classes"?

 

[Neonchameleon]

These argument usually have very little to do with mechanical roles, they have more to do with themes and archetypes, at least on the side of those who don't want the class bloat (granted, there are exceptions.) And I feel that a lot of desire from new classes is informed by people bringing previous edition baggage into 5e. 'This was a class in previous edition, it must be in 5e too.' But in 4e there were rigidly defined mechanical roles that required creating multiple conceptually similar classes that filled different mechanical roles. And of course in previous editions class customisation was much more limited. I think 5e's class/subclass structure is brilliant (albeit execution is sometimes flawed) and I feel that at least conceptually most of the things people seem to want should be subclasses in 5e paradigm, not full classes.

Correction:

• In 4e there were actual defined class roles that encouraged all classes to be good at something without being good at everything, normally backed up by a class specific mechanic.
  • Not having the name striker hasn't changed the barbarian from a raging monstrosity that hits people hard or the rogue to be a sneaky trickster that can't tank and can't heal and not having the name leader hasn't changed the expectations of the cleric to be a healbot.
  • In many cases the roles inspired a worthy new class. You can play Invoker-style bringer of divine wrath with a cleric in 5e but they are nowhere near so good at doing it and on any given day you could get up and decide to be a healer that day
  • In still other cases the structure inspired a relatively worthy focus that when the classes were winnowed down could fold into another class but probably wouldn't have been invented if there was no encouragement to push the boundaries. The warden is a good example of this - if you don't consider class bloat to be an issue (or don't until it hits 3.X levels) then it's a worthy enough class, but if you value keeping class bloat down then the Paladin of the Ancients covers much of it.
• 4e class customisation was much greater than in 5e for pretty much anything except the Sorcerer and the Warlock (where two Sorcerers can have entirely non-overlapping spell lists and two Warlocks can share no spells and no invocations). Subclasses were there in 4e. And it's entirely possible for two monks or even two fighters to move completely differently and only share the basic class feature that makes the class, almost never even making the same attack.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Do you have some examples of "fluff-thin grid-filler classes"?

Hunter. Fills in the role of martial controller that otherwise was a blank. Possibly the Avenger, and I'm not sure that thematically the warden couldn't have been mostly folded into the barbarian.

 

[Minigiant]

It's a completely reasonable concept IMO. IIRC, AiME actually has a scholar class (though the classes in AiME are tuned a little weaker than 5e, so one wouldn't necessarily want to port it over directly).

Tasha'sCOE has the Expert class as a Sidekick class. All you have to do is power that up to PC class

Level	Proficiency	Feature
1	+2	Expertise, Helpful
2	+2	Cunning Action, Brains over Brawn
3	+2	Subclass
4	+2	ASI
5	+3	Coordinated Strike
6	+3	Inspiring Help (1d6)
7	+3	Evasion
8	+3	ASI
9	+4	?????
10	+4	Inspiring Help (2d6)

 

[Aldarc]

Hunter. Fills in the role of martial controller that otherwise was a blank. Possibly the Avenger, and I'm not sure that thematically the warden couldn't have been mostly folded into the barbarian.

Was that Essentials?

 

[Fanaelialae]

Tasha'sCOE has the Expert class as a Sidekick class. All you have to do is power that up to PC class

Level	Proficiency	Feature
1	+2	Expertise, Helpful
2	+2	Cunning Action, Brains over Brawn
3	+2	Subclass
4	+2	ASI
5	+3	Coordinated Strike
6	+3	Inspiring Help (1d6)
7	+3	Evasion
8	+3	ASI
9	+4	?????
10	+4	Inspiring Help (2d6)

I don't think that's the direction I would personally prefer to take it in, but yeah, nothing wrong with going that direction.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Was that Essentials?

Yes. It was the irritating Essentials archer that because it was a "controller" didn't do enough damage and because controller was the least defined role was probably worse at being a controller than a classic rogue.