D&D (2024) UA Groups: Expert, Mage, Priest, Warrior

[Gorck]

Maybe something like "Devout" would fit better? They all seem to have a "devotion" to a something - Cleric to a god, Druid to nature, and Paladin to a cause.

Some one suggested "Devoted" which I think it good.

I like your "Devoted" better than my "Devout" suggestion. Devout is an adjective, while Expert, Mage, and Warrior are all nouns.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Priest is highly problematic. Like saying "White".

Religion is the most important, most sacred, aspect of any reallife culture.

To violate the religions of other cultures is highly offensive. Nothing is more offensive to a reallife culture.

Priest is wrong.

WTF?!?! I don't even know where to begin in responding to this. Priests exist in all races and many world religion none of which have EVER objected to D&D using the term Priest, not one religion, domination, sect, etc...

Christians, Wiccans, Hindus, Recreationists, Jews (they used to have Priests, don't anymore), etc..., all have Priests, it's an extreme common religious term that is exclusive to no religion. Show me the outrage over it, besides yourself.

Edited: I'm done with this part of this discussion, I'm starting to get angry so it's time to bow out before I say something I regret.

 

[Blue Orange]

WTF?!?! I don't even know where to begin in responding to this. Priests exist in all races and many world religion none of which have EVER objected to D&D using the term Priest, not one religion, domination, sect, etc...

Christians, Wiccans, Hindus, Recreationists, Jews (they used to have Priests, don't anymore), etc..., all have Priests, it's an extreme common religious term that is exclusive to no religion. Show me the outrage over it, besides yourself.

Technically they're still around; the Kohanim (that's most commonly 'Cohen' these days in Anglophone countries--it passes by patrilineal descent so, yeah, the 'Hallelujah' singer and Borat are technically priests) had duties in the temple, but it got destroyed. There are a few remaining special rules--if you're Orthodox and you're a Cohen you can't marry a divorced woman, for example, and you're supposed to deliver the 'priestly blessing' where you make the 'shin' letter with your hands (looks just like the Vulcan 'live long and prosper' sign, and in fact that's where Leonard Nimoy, who's Jewish, got it from).

Kohen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But...eh, 'Devoted' does kind of make more sense. I don't know if anyone else is upset, but the character classes do indeed include nontheistic divine spellcasters like the Druid, and if they make shaman equivalents that mostly work with spirits that wouldn't fit either.

And I like 'Martial Artist' for 'Monk' too. A completely secular capoierista is best modeled by a monk in D&D terms.

 

[Maxperson]

*Will count as Mage as well
**Will count as Warrior as well
&Will have subclasses that counts as Warrior
^Will have subclasses that count as Mage
%Will have subclasses that count as Priest

Are those all confirmed officially as having those keywords? Or are you just saying that the paladin is very warriorlike and you would consider him to be both a warrior and a priest?

 

[Maxperson]

I am not a massive fan of ‘priest’ - for me, it’s like calling them rabbis or vicars, because the word is the word for an ordained member in a specific real world religion. I’d prefer a term that relates to faith or devotion that doesn’t invoke either Father Ted or a need to be part of an organised religion. Trouble is, I can’t think of anything I like - devotee? Bit naff. Zealot? Utterly perjorative. Hmmm.

Priest is used for a whole lot of religions current and past, so it does fit as a general term for a religious class category.

 

[Maxperson]

According to the playtest document, paladins are priests, and monks are warriors.

I really wish that had been reversed. Paladins are warriors with some divine ability. Monks are literally part of monasteries, temples and cloisters.

 

[Marandahir]

Except in BECMI D&D, where 'mystic' meant 'monk'. Or the Dragonlance version of it that was some kind of cleric-spell-casting sorcerer. And druids might not be healers primarily. You can't win.

Seems like there were a lot of fun 4e classes like the warlord and swordmage that fell by the wayside.

Mystic meant psionics in a UA that didn't go anywhere. It means nothing now.

Only in a failed psionic UA did the Mystic mean Psionics. Usually in D&D, the Psion means Psionics.


The Starfinder Mystic (and its subtypes) covers the same thematic ground as psionics, druids, clerics, shamans, and more. It's basically the intuitive, deeper truths of the universe caster that is the counterpart to the intellectual, magic as a form of science caster represented by the Technomancer.

I doubt that they would drop the term "priest" either. But I did offer the term as something that could work for the discussion at hand.

Mandela effect, I guess. I could have sworn there was an old edition of D&D where the Psionicist was called the Mystic - beyond the UA.

I propose Leader, Striker, Defender, and Controller.

Those still sort of exist - the Bard gets healing spells here because they don't want to totally gut it's ability to function that way. But those roles were limited to the combat pillar, and 5e roles are trying to address the other two pillars of the game, too. Experts deal with the social and skillful and exploration pillars. Mages do too, but less from a skill check angle and more from a spell angle (Bards and Rangers enhance their innate skillfulness with spells; the three Mage classes mostly lack the skillfulness but get around it with smart spell use). Priests sometimes have skillful functions, but they're more focused on Defender and Leader combat roles than their out-of-combat social pillar and exploration pillar functions. They are indeed a hybrid sitting in the middle, much like the Cleric was back in 1e as the original half-caster that combined martial talent with magical ability.

Warriors are Defenders, Strikers, and presumably with the right specializations, Healers and even Controllers. That is to say, they're entirely focused on the Combat pillar. They MIGHT have some social or exploration or skillful challenges they are equipped to deal with, and some subclasses may dabble in magical abilities, but these classes are about combat, front and center.

4e characters dealt with the exploration pillar and the social pillar mostly via non-class features - Ritual Caster, Martial Talents, Skills Challenges, some rare Feats, and during Essentials, some class features that were seen as very out of place and considered by some to be ribbons given that they had no combat function. Utility Powers SOMETIMES were useful out of combat but they were almost entirely written to be combat focused because the game highlighted the combat vs everything else divide of D&D.

5e still has that divide, but various classes are better at combat versus better at other pillars. Heck, the whole reason the Ranger has been so broken in different directions over the edition was because they set out in D&D Next to make the Ranger the best at the Exploration Pillar - leading them to underperform in combat, while just not achieving fun in exploration since they either struggled or rendered the challenge moot to the point of the DMs skipping over travel entirely. This UA reels them back from TCOE in some major ways, though the changes to Hunter's Quarry are welcome; it does the same genie-back-in-the-bottle attempt with Bards, and to a much lesser extent with Rogues.

So while I appreciate the deep cut to 4e's roles, and find them of some use, this thema is almost like taking those, semi-combining it with the Power Sources that they formed a chassis with (Primal still sits in a weird place cutting across 3/4 of the class groups), and expanding them to the other pillars that 4e didn't lock to specific classes.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Are those all confirmed officially as having those keywords? Or are you just saying that the paladin is very warriorlike and you would consider him to be both a warrior and a priest?

None of this is confirmed. @Minigiant was just speculating.

I really wish that had been reversed. Paladins are warriors with some divine ability. Monks are literally part of monasteries, temples and cloisters.

But they're not like religious monks in the slightest. Paladins are religious. Monks are just Orientalist Martial Artists.

 

[Maxperson]

None of this is confirmed. @Minigiant was just speculating.

That's what I thought. I mean as a DM those added categories make a lot of sense. I certainly won't stop a paladin from getting great weapon fighting just because it's for warriors.

But they're not like religious monks in the slightest. Paladins are religious. Monks are just Orientalist Martial Artists.

Religious doesn't equal priest, though. Paladins are plate wearing, greatsword using, smiting warriors from heck(hell doesn't feel right).

And monks are not just martial artists.

"Monks make careful study of a magical energy that most monastic traditions call ki."

"Small walled cloisters dot the landscapes of the worlds of D&D, tiny refuges from the flow of ordinary life, where time seems to stand still."

"Some monks live entirely apart from the surrounding population, secluded from anything that might impede their spiritual progress."

Monks may not be priests in the spellcasting sense, but they are far closer to priests than they are warriors.

 

[Marandahir]

None of this is confirmed. @Minigiant was just speculating.

But they're not like religious monks in the slightest. Paladins are religious. Monks are just Orientalist Martial Artists.

Classwise, yes. But in terms of outside of D&D-inspired Fantasy, while a Druid is just a Celtic Cleric, a Paladin is a Knight of Charlemagne and a Monk is a religious ascetic. As you can see, while Paladins would be associated with religion because the Matter of France is very much a religious warrior saga, it's really about Knights, i.e., Warriors, while the term Monk has been misappropriated onto Martial Artists due to the Shaolin Temple.

I agree that Paladin should be a Priest and Monk should be a Warrior, fyi, just stating that that's where the issues arise. I have no qualms with the idea that Paladins are Priests with access to a handful of Warrior-group features, and Rangers are Experts with the same. I'd almost advocate for a Swordmage or Hexblade type Mage class with the same too, but I don't need grid-filling, and a handful of Artificer subclasses already meet my needs for an Arcane gish (as does the Hexblade, the Eldritch Knight, the College of Valour, the College of Swords, the Bladesinger, etc). I feel like some of those subclasses would have a feature that says "you can take Fighting Style feats, even though you are not in the Warrior group."

I do think Fighting Style feats are trap option, as written, since they're only really worth taking as a first level feat or else as part of the Fighting Style class feature. To that end, I'd rather that class feature be opened up to ANY Fighting Style regardless of your class, rather than just the most obvious and recommended ones (heck, as with spell selection, recommend Archery, Defense, or TWF, but don't prevent us from starting our Ranger with Sword-and-Board, etc).