D&D 5E What classes do you want added to 5e?

[Minigiant]

Interesting. Perspective is a funny thing. From where I'm sitting, that appears to be what people are insisting they get/be allowed to do. Give me all of the optimization and powergaming abilities I want and "I shouldn't have to" pay anything for it.

And you absolutely can "do melee" with a low to mediocre AC and HP...druids, rangers, thieves and some clerics have been doing it for decades. It may be unwise to go charging in "blades blazing"...but then something like an avenger isn't for doing that. Something like an avenger -whether built off of a paladin or a monk or a rogue- using a little smarts and a bit of stealth, going after one "specific target" at a time, ought to be able to operate just fine in melee...with MAD/not getting the bonuses another "full-classed" archetype would have.

Druids have a HP buffer.
Melee great weapon rangers wear medium armor. Dual weapon ranger don't have MAD.
Rogue sucked at meleeing anything that wasn't weaker than them until 4th and 5th gave them "escape melee" features

Paladins were not given any features to make up for not wearing heavy or medium armor. You can make an avenger with them. However if you make a light armored warrior who uses two handed weapon and divine spells, you will be below the par for the table until you powergame over the table's standards.

 

[Andor]

For me "gifted with mojo" =/= "casts spells". I really dislike that my Paladin gets spells at 2nd level - name level as in 1e was ok. I can be a divine warrior without casting spells. C&C got it right, 5e did not.

But... You don't have to cast spells. I mean that not even in the sense of refluffing "Cure Wounds" fictionally as another use of lay on hands, but that the Paladin can completely ignore his spell slots as anything other than as fuel for his smites. Or if you wanted a delayed entry into spell casting you could start out as a fighter and multiclass into Paladin, or even cleric at a later level. Or if you don't want any supernatural powers at all then you are simply a fighter (or, heck a barbarian with a divinely inspired rage) who is a devout follower of Pelor/Zeus/Blipdoolopool.

I don't mean to be dense, but I genuinely don't see what you might want that couldn't be done within the existing options if only you don't get hung up on the class name, which is, after all a meta-game concept which does not exist within the game world.

 

[Andor]

Druids have a HP buffer.
Melee great weapon rangers wear medium armor. Dual weapon ranger don't have MAD.
Rogue sucked at meleeing anything that wasn't weaker than them until 4th and 5th gave them "escape melee" features

Paladins were not given any features to make up for not wearing heavy or medium armor. You can make an avenger with them. However if you make a light armored warrior who uses two handed weapon and divine spells, you will be below the par for the table until you powergame over the table's standards.

If I were running a game and someone wanted to play a paladin who traded in all his armour proficiencies for a monk or barbarians unarmoured defense, I would have no problem granting that. To be sure, that is a house rule, but is anything more required to satisfy avenger fans?

 

[Minigiant]

For me "gifted with mojo" =/= "casts spells". I really dislike that my Paladin gets spells at 2nd level - name level as in 1e was ok. I can be a divine warrior without casting spells. C&C got it right, 5e did not.

Flavor lost to balance.

Basically if you hold the paladin's magic back to middle level, the spell slots they' get would be useless due to 5th edition scaling spells with slot and and not level. Same with the ranger. Giving someone one 1st level slot at level 9 is a ribbon feature.

The only way it would work it to base the class off of something else (make smites per rest or give them a 2nd Extra attack). But then many would be upset on why they give paladin's useless magic.

 

[Minigiant]

If I were running a game and someone wanted to play a paladin who traded in all his armour proficiencies for a monk or barbarians unarmoured defense, I would have no problem granting that. To be sure, that is a house rule, but is anything more required to satisfy avenger fans?

I can't talk for them but...
Unarmored Defense is worse than Light armor statwise unless it's 10+DEX+CHA and you have 14+ in both Dex and Cha.
It actually make MAD a bigger issue.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Druids have a HP buffer.
Melee great weapon rangers wear medium armor. Dual weapon ranger don't have MAD.
Rogue sucked at meleeing anything that wasn't weaker than them until 4th and 5th gave them "escape melee" features

Paladins were not given any features to make up for not wearing heavy or medium armor. You can make an avenger with them. However if you make a light armored warrior who uses two handed weapon and divine spells, you will be below the par for the table until you powergame over the table's standards.

Paladins have a HP buffer too via Lay On Hands.

 

[steeldragons]

-snip-snip- However if you make a light armored warrior who uses two handed weapon and divine spells, you will be below the par for the table until you powergame over the table's standards.

Look, Minigiant, can we just agree that the tables you play at and the tables I play at are two very different tables/games, and leave it at that?

Your assertions/attitude of what players "must" do or characters are "forced" to do (or, conversely, should automatically be allowed to have/granted "or else...") are, to me, utter gibberish stemming from a fundamental difference in perspective/approach to the game.

My positions, obviously, sound quite the same antithetical to you.

Happy gaming. Cheers.

 

[Minigiant]

Look, Minigiant, can we just agree that the tables you play at and the tables I play at are two very different tables/games, and leave it at that?

Your assertions/attitude of what players "must" do or characters are "forced" to do (or, conversely, should automatically be allowed to have/granted "or else...") are, to me, utter gibberish stemming from a fundamental difference in perspective/approach to the game.

My positions, obviously, sound quite the same antithetical to you.

Happy gaming. Cheers.

Quite the opposite. My table is very low optimization.

Some table optimize hard. Others low. And others in the middle. And some roll for stats and have player power all over the place.

But you can only design for one of these groups.
You can make a light armor, GWF paladin. It's just lower power than the game's base design.

It's fine at my table. But that's my table.At my table Survival is the most important skill and language choice is very important.

That's all I'm saying. A light armor, GWF paladin is weaker than the base assumptions of the game. Fine at my table. Fine probably at another table. Too weaker at a heavy powergamer table. Doesn't matter at the "roll for stats" table. But noticeably weak at the "average" table the game was designed for.

 

[S'mon]

I admit I'm not familiar with the C&C paladin, but the thing about the 5E paladin is that he doesn't have to be a spellcaster at all. Just use your spell slots purely as smite fuel; flavor it so that it's not a choice your character's making, it's literally how his power works. He still has all the other supernatural/divine paladin abilities, and he's not mechanically any weaker than other paladins.

Heck, I designed an NPC for an upcoming Necromancer/Frog God adventure that does exactly that. He has paladin levels but doesn't prepare spells; he only uses his slots to smite.

Yeah, that is what I do for the Paladin I play (well I did cast a Bless spell last session - first time I've cast a spell). And when I made a Paladin NPC for the game I run I just gave her Smites (& Bless
which she never uses). It's viable but not ideal, I still feel I'm losing out on power/letting
the party down by not using the full spell panoply, but I never wanted to play a
Wizard/Cleric.

 

[S'mon]

I don't mean to be dense, but I genuinely don't see what you might want that couldn't be done within the existing options if only you don't get hung up on the class name, which is, after all a meta-game concept which does not exist within the game world.

You think the class name does not exist within the game world? Traditionally this was nnot the case at all, 0e-3e the class names represented in-world reality. 4e moved away from that, typically an NPC "Paladin" would not much resemble the PC class. But in most worlds the name 'paladin' still existed within the game world. 5e seems that way too.