Witch Hunter. Sounds cool. Anticaster is anticaster, no matter the name.
So we have anti swarms and anti big guys.
Anti-evil, anti-trickery, anti-range. What other strategies does D&D use?
D&D 5E What are possible subclasses?
Witch Hunter. Sounds cool. Anticaster is anticaster, no matter the name.
So we have anti swarms and anti big guys.
Anti-evil, anti-trickery, anti-range. What other strategies does D&D use?
Li Shenron
Legend
Well, the subclass system doesn't really have a single purpose... on one hand, it's a framework to satisfy people with different expectations on a class, at least partially (e.g. not making wild shape a martial-oriented feature of all druids); on another hand, it's a way to cover character concepts, (e.g. Fighters focused on different styles) sometimes extending into something not generally covered by the class (e.g. Warlords); on yet another hand, it's a delivery system for optional mechanics; another is to create quasi-multiclassed concept; and yet another purpose is to dial on PC complexity...
With these in mind, really there are infinite possible subclasses to design.
Fighter: I'd be ok with ethnic subclasses such as Samurai, but they need to make sure they aren't picking features at random, and that instead the subclass feature are well representative of historical traits.
Barbarian: at least there is plenty of room for more animal totems, beyond that I don't know.
Paladin: I would stay away from designing paladins of each specific alignment, instead I would rather see different "good" ethos. There's already a lot of difference between a paladin whose main oath is to bring the guilty to justice, and another whose is to protect innocents or to free slaves and fight tyranny.
Ranger: technically the possible favored enemies are a lot, but the truth is that gamers have asked for a decade already to avoid monsters-oriented abilities because apparently they are afraid not to meet those monsters after all. Thus, instead of different monsters categories, we have to look at monsters types e.g.: big solo monsters, mob monsters, swarm monsters, flying monsters, swimming monsters, very fast monsters, monsters with lots of magical features...
Monks: some subclasses can be based on ideas from martial arts, but others can incorporate supernatural concepts and then there is a lot of room.
Clerics: domains are potentially infinite. I wish they made more difference however, domain spells should IMHO have more unique spells (or non-cleric spells at least) rather than just "always prepared".
Wizards: I don't really think all the 8 traditional schools need to be represented, but I do think that they should really feel different, not just a bunch of bonus spells. Summoner and necromancer (with small undead army) could be very interesting. Enchanter, abjurer and diviner could have non-spell abilities that are "always on".
Druids: I'd like to see an evil circle of druids which do e.g. some sacrificial rituals, a druid focused on having an army of animal companions, another with just a single powerful pet (but this may not need to be a subclass), and druids who gain permanent transformation into treants or other fey creatures. I don't like blighters tho... fallen Paladins make sense, fallen Druids not so much.
With these in mind, really there are infinite possible subclasses to design.
Fighter: I'd be ok with ethnic subclasses such as Samurai, but they need to make sure they aren't picking features at random, and that instead the subclass feature are well representative of historical traits.
Barbarian: at least there is plenty of room for more animal totems, beyond that I don't know.
Paladin: I would stay away from designing paladins of each specific alignment, instead I would rather see different "good" ethos. There's already a lot of difference between a paladin whose main oath is to bring the guilty to justice, and another whose is to protect innocents or to free slaves and fight tyranny.
Ranger: technically the possible favored enemies are a lot, but the truth is that gamers have asked for a decade already to avoid monsters-oriented abilities because apparently they are afraid not to meet those monsters after all. Thus, instead of different monsters categories, we have to look at monsters types e.g.: big solo monsters, mob monsters, swarm monsters, flying monsters, swimming monsters, very fast monsters, monsters with lots of magical features...
Monks: some subclasses can be based on ideas from martial arts, but others can incorporate supernatural concepts and then there is a lot of room.
Clerics: domains are potentially infinite. I wish they made more difference however, domain spells should IMHO have more unique spells (or non-cleric spells at least) rather than just "always prepared".
Wizards: I don't really think all the 8 traditional schools need to be represented, but I do think that they should really feel different, not just a bunch of bonus spells. Summoner and necromancer (with small undead army) could be very interesting. Enchanter, abjurer and diviner could have non-spell abilities that are "always on".
Druids: I'd like to see an evil circle of druids which do e.g. some sacrificial rituals, a druid focused on having an army of animal companions, another with just a single powerful pet (but this may not need to be a subclass), and druids who gain permanent transformation into treants or other fey creatures. I don't like blighters tho... fallen Paladins make sense, fallen Druids not so much.
Well I think they should put all of the specialist traditional school Wizard sub-classes into one sub-class. It would have universal features like -2 to spell DC for non-school spells and +2 to spell DC for school spells. Then have 1 perk for each specific school. That way we can have other new schools that represent different play styles that won't overfill the number of choices into the 10's and 100's. For instance the necromancer could have a feature that allows any spell that summons or creates undead to last twice as long as normal (Animate Dead would last 48 hours before a recast for instance).
In the playtests no wizard school got additonal spells. Usually certain spells are better for the "right" caster. By that method, a Necromancers zombies would be stronger.
Li Shenron
Legend
Just sayin' that having a default specialist rule like 3e core is probably a strong temptation for designers, because it needs to be designed only once for all schools, and all of them are immediately balanced. But it's also a boring solution... such "one size fits all" subclass might still be there in the game for those who like it, but IMO the best approach I've seen was 3e Unearthed Arcana, which gave something unique to each specialist (it also was presented in a flexible "modular" way in the sense that for each school they came up with 3 ideas, the first "costing" you the Familiar, the second costing your bonus feats, the third costing your bonus slots, and you could pick just one, two or all three for your PC).
Li Shenron
Legend
They are if you want to... In your campaign, you can link them together so that e.g. a Knight(Fighter) always has the Noble background, or a Thief(Rogue) always has the Thief background.
Merging backgrounds with subclasses would allow more freedom in background design (i.e. we wouldn't need each background to grant exactly 1 trait + 6 proficiencies) but then having them separate allows more freedom in player's design of their own characters (i.e. you can mix'n'match any background with any class).
TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
I'd like to see a lot of multi-class subclasses. Like, subclasses that explicitly give boosts to abilities that you would have to multiclass to take.
We already have a 3.X extension system that actively tries to discourage multiclassing (Pathfinder). If Next is going to use 3.X multiclassing, I'd like to see them embrace it as the backbone of the system.
We already have a 3.X extension system that actively tries to discourage multiclassing (Pathfinder). If Next is going to use 3.X multiclassing, I'd like to see them embrace it as the backbone of the system.
Boring it would be for sure, but I don't think it's balanced either. That would require the schools to be balanced in the first place. At least in 3.x that wasn't the case.
Kobold Avenger
Legend
When I think about it, there's probably a justification for almost every class to have elemental themed subclasses. But somehow I doubt they're going to release an elemental themed splatbook that early in the edition. In some ways having splatbooks based on themes would be preferable to releasing splatbooks based around groupings of classes, even though I feel they're going to go with the later first.
