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

[S'mon]

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.

I did the Unarmoured Defence thing with the NPC Paladin Malenn of Mitra for my
Frazetta-influenced Wilderlands campaign. DEX & CHA based with rapier (currently
shortsword), shield and loincloth.
This wouldn't work with a 2-handed sword in 5e though since you can't use DEX for
greatsword attacks.
Here she is - she's the same NPC Paladin I gave Smites without spells as such.
________________

Malenn, Paladin of Mitra
Cohort (wife) of Hakeem Greywolf.
Human
Armor Class 18 (+2 DEX +2 shield +4 CHA)
Hit Points 56 (9d8 + 18)
Healing Dice 4 (d8+2)
Speed 30 ft.
Proficiency +3
STR 8 (-1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 14 (+2) INT 11 (+0) WIS 13 (+1) CHA 18 (+4)
Good saves WIS, CHA.
Senses passive Perception 14
Challenge 3 (700 XP)

Divine Sense: 4/day she can focus - as an Action - & detect supernatural celestial, fiend or undead within 60', but not mortal alignment. Can detect consecrated or desecrated ground.


Brave. Malenn has advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Unarmoured Grace. Malenn adds her CHA bonus to AC when unarmoured.
Duelist fighting style. +2 damage with single one-handed weapon.


Actions
Multiattack. Malenn can make two melee attacks.
Blessing of Mitra 6/day: Recharges after Long Rest - requires prayer to the rising sun to recharge. Action, requires a sprinkling of holy water, affects up to 3 willing allied creatures within 30'. In the next 10 rounds whenever the Blessed allies make an attack roll or a saving throw they add +2 to the roll. A creature can benefit from only one Bless die at a time. Requires Concentration - this effect ends if Malenn is incapacitated.
Alternately she can use the same energy to Divine Smite on a hit for +2d8 radiant damage, +3d8 vs undead or fiend, this does not require holy water.
Lay on Hands: She can touch someone and restore up to 30 hp per day (or spend 5 hp to cure disease/poison). Recharges after long rest.


Weapons (2 attacks/action)
Bronze Shortsword ATT +5 dam 1d6+4 (+2d8 smite)
Unarmed ATT +2 dam 0 (+2d8 smite!)

Equipment: Altanian loincloth, sandals, steel-rimmed round shield, bronze shortsword with scabbard and weapon belt. Backpack.
Treasure: 688gp (188gp in backpack, remainder at Vex Villa vault for safekeeping).

 

[Minigiant]

I did the Unarmoured Defence thing with the NPC Paladin Malenn of Mitra for my
Frazetta-influenced Wilderlands campaign. DEX & CHA based with rapier (currently
shortsword), shield and loincloth.
This wouldn't work with a 2-handed sword in 5e though since you can't use DEX for
greatsword attacks.
Here she is - she's the same NPC Paladin I gave Smites without spells as such.

Well that's the point. You aren't using great weapons. Deulist and two weapon Dex paladins works. But that's not how 4th edition avengers worked.
It's fine for me however.

 

[Andor]

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.

Oh words which are also class names exist withing the game world, they may or may not be associated with class of the same name. Instead people refer to themselves by their profession, or the social/political/economic order they belong to. Some who goes by the title of "Wizard" is probably a Wizard. But he could also be an Eldritch Knight fighter or even a champion with the magic initiate and ritual caster feats. A ranger, IE someone employed as a scout/warden/skirmisher might be a member of the Ranger class, or almost any other class with the outlander background. A paladin may be a member of a chivalric order, or not. A member of that chivalric order may be a paladin, or not. The paladin who is not a member of an order is probably not entitles to use the social title of paladin. The rogue who is in the order is.

There are some classes which tie very tightly in the in world role, Druid, probably the most so. There are others where hiding the in world status might be illegal and/or dangerous. The wizards guild might be happy to accept dues from a noble dabbler (the champion with a feat), but they will be very upset to discover a Necromancer has been passing himself off as a wandering potion merchant.

But even in earlier editions, especially 3e, the in world identification/role was not necessarily connected to the class levels the character possessed. If my character introduced himself as a knight, or merchant, or sailor, or tinker, what was his class? Yes there was eventually a Knight class, but just because you have Sir in front of your name didn't mean you had levels in it. You could be a fighter, or crusader, or any build you please really. Social and combat roles are not tied to a single class, with a few exceptions like the Druid.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I dunno. I never quite understood who the Avenger was supposed to be. Light armour and weapons, but killing with a divine vengence? I could never come up with an exemplar, unless maybe it's this guy, in which case monk does seem to fit....

Basically divine assassins and inquisitors. The left hand of their God, as it were.

In my mind, also, Avengers make most sense wielding longs words/bastard swords, similar to The Witcher.
But I can also see archers, and avengers who use oddball weapons associated with their diety.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

That's actually exactly what the Avenger should be able to do. Go in weapons blazing. In fact, it ned s a class partly because it should support both a stealthy divine assassin and a wrathful hand of divine destruction. And as a class here is no real reason it can't have a feature that lets it challenge the BBEG and stand toe to toe with evil, protected by faith rather than armor.
Hell, no reason why t shouldn't use its casting stat for weapon use, make up formtheMAD, and make it feel more like its hand is literally guided by faith.
That could be a subclass, but thI n there sis little room for anythng else. As a class, the concept is better off.

 

[Eric V]

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.

That's why I added the "Shield of Faith while conscious" feature.

I don't know how it would look like as a monk, but if the Avenger would be a subclass of paladin, it should remain competitive with the other paladin subclasses. Addressing MAD would be part of it; switching their cast stat from CHA to WIS helps in that regard.

 

[Eric V]

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.

Yeah, when I look at it, I just look at how the math works out so that it's not an obviously suboptimal choice (which most MAD (sub)classes have been).

 

[Andor]

Well, at least within the fluff of 4e, the Avenger was typically cast as being the "inquisitor," "deity's secret police," or "Internal Affairs agent" archetype. That is, Avengers were relatively rare, and tended not to interact directly with the faithful very much. A simple ordained priest (a Theme in 4e) is one who can officiate the religion and carry out the sacrements, and a Cleric exhorts allies of the faithful more than "ministering" per se. The Avenger, on the other hand, likely does the "dirty work" of the church, or alternatively cleans up the messes caused by heretical or disobedient Invested characters.

If a Paladin of the Raven Queen started raising the dead for power, or if a Cleric of Ioun engaged in a program of disinformation or destroying libraries to keep knowledge "rare" and "valuable," the goddesses in question cannot do anything directly. The gift of power cannot simply be taken back once given, and the deities are unable to directly affect the mortal realm most of the time due to the Primal Spirits kicking them out. Individual heretics are too small a thing for a deity or even their major servants (Exarchs) to attend to, but someone is needed to deal with the rare times that an Invested character is no longer upholding the faith. So that necromancer-Paladin, and that Braniac-style Cleric, are gonna get a cordial visit from a squad of Avengers.

Interesting, but also violently contrary to about 30 years of D&D tradition. Classically loss of spell casting power is one of the first signs used by GMs who want to tell PCs that they have gone astray. If that's the way it was in 4e, that's fine, but I don't think it's a default assumption in 5e. In any event it seems to me that the fluff there is very campaign dependent, and therefore a class reliant on it, should not be a core book class.

As far as balance goes, 4e was the only edition with the explicit assumption that all class defences and armour types should have parity, and I'm okay with that assumption dying. However if someone at my table really wanted to play this type of character, and we developed some satisfactory fluff, I think I would offer the following options:

1.) Offer them them a choice of a rogue or monk sub-class with some appropriate powers.
2.) Allow them the option to have a Paladin trade in his Abjure Enemy channel for either the Barbarians version of Unarmoured defense or to add Mage armour to his spell list.
3.) Allow them to receive a blessing in exchange for a vow of faith to never wear armour. In which case they lose all armour proficiencies and get Unarmoured Defense based on Cha.
4.) Point out that at 4th level (or 1st as a Variant Human) they could take magical initiate and learn Mage Armour. (*But it's not divine magic you say? Well if you're not willing to get your hands dirty, maybe this isn't the job for you after all.*)

Note that with options 2 and 4, they always have the option to strap on full plate if the situation demands, which to my way of thinking reduces MAD complaints to wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

 

[Eric V]

It's not about cake; it's just about making sure different subclasses remain competitive with each other, that's all.

But, whatever, your table, blah, blah. Feature of 5e and all that.

 

[Jessica]

Interesting, but also violently contrary to about 30 years of D&D tradition. Classically loss of spell casting power is one of the first signs used by GMs who want to tell PCs that they have gone astray. If that's the way it was in 4e, that's fine, but I don't think it's a default assumption in 5e. In any event it seems to me that the fluff there is very campaign dependent, and therefore a class reliant on it, should not be a core book class.

IMO the whole instantly lose spellcasting for going a small bit astray just feels like it limits story telling. It makes D&D religion more boring than it already is when you have a very micro-manage-y deity who outright picks certain sects as the default and then depowers any rivals. That's why I loved the thought of the 4e style divine investiture where it was up to the religion and not the deity to deal with people who stray from a certain set of dogma. For all you know, maybe the one who is going against the established religion is actually doing it right. However in non-4e D&D you pretty much hamstring the ability to deal with sects within the same religion because the sect who is doing it right has actual spells to show for it.

Also as far as Avengers go, I think just letting them be OoV Paladins who can use two-handed weapons as finesse weapons(in exchange for losing armor proficiency) would go a long way towards making it work albeit it would be more support oriented then I remember 4e Avengers being.