D&D 3E/3.5 What D&D 3e/3.5e classes do you wish had become core in later editions?

[Neonchameleon]

The Skill systems of 4e and 5e don't allow it.
Why?

Because the Fighter is made like an uncultured unintelligent weaponmaster and the rogue is a super-sneaky, master acrobat, criminal mastermind.

4e fighter: Athletics, Endurance, Heal, Intimidate, and Streetwise
5e fighter: Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival
And backgrounds only give you 2 skills.
And that is before you realize that fighters are weaponmasters and martial experts above the skill of all warriors. Tossing every "not a wizard" into fighter just dillutes the archetype. Suddenlyevery noble, prince, and scholar can outduel every orc and anti-paladin.

This critique is extremely dubious once you take backgrounds into account if you are in any way praising the 3.5 noble class. This is due to how narrow and rigid the 3.5 skill system is.

The noble class gives you 4+Int trained skills per level out of 33 skills + 3 families of skill of which (importantly for this concept) knowledge is one of the families.

By comparison the 4e fighter was short-changed by giving you 3 skills out of 17 (it should have been 4) - and you can easily get more via multiclass feats. Almost all 5e starting characters have 4 trained skills out, again, of 17.

Essentially by giving you two trained skills in a skill list that's half the size of the 3.5 one, the noble background is giving you close to the equivalent of four in 3.5. And a fighter ceases to be uncultured when the background provides the culturing. Funny how that works...

And yes fighters are expert combatants, as are at least some nobles. Are you saying Jaime Lannister or Richard the Lionheart shouldn't be considered an expert? Or does the one-size-fits-all noble class once more break down this time by crippling what nobles, historical and fictional alike, can be?

Now there is room (as I have said repeatedly) for the warlord or marshall class - indeed that's a glaring gap (with the warlord being the better implementation). And a lot of nobles are going to be warlords if you make it a class. But this doesn't mean that a one-size-fits-all "noble" class works.

 

[Aldarc]

Given that bards can't have lawful alignments, which most nobles probably have, no, it isn't.

Neutral alignments exist. In fact, I hear that most humans, if not mortals, gravitate towards Neutral alignments. So if one were to suggest that nobles would not be Chaotic or that Bards can't be Lawful that still leaves Neutral, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, which are all great alignment choices for nobles.

 

[Minigiant]

This critique is extremely dubious once you take backgrounds into account if you are in any way praising the 3.5 noble class. This is due to how narrow and rigid the 3.5 skill system is.

The noble class gives you 4+Int trained skills per level out of 33 skills + 3 families of skill of which (importantly for this concept) knowledge is one of the families.

By comparison the 4e fighter was short-changed by giving you 3 skills out of 17 (it should have been 4) - and you can easily get more via multiclass feats. Almost all 5e starting characters have 4 trained skills out, again, of 17.

Essentially by giving you two trained skills in a skill list that's half the size of the 3.5 one, the noble background is giving you close to the equivalent of four in 3.5. And a fighter ceases to be uncultured when the background provides the culturing. Funny how that works...

And yes fighters are expert combatants, as are at least some nobles. Are you saying Jaime Lannister or Richard the Lionheart shouldn't be considered an expert? Or does the one-size-fits-all noble class once more break down this time by crippling what nobles, historical and fictional alike, can be?

Now there is room (as I have said repeatedly) for the warlord or marshall class - indeed that's a glaring gap (with the warlord being the better implementation). And a lot of nobles are going to be warlords if you make it a class. But this doesn't mean that a one-size-fits-all "noble" class works.

3.5 was very rigid. 5e is better but it isn't a compete fix. Backgrounds are nice but they only go so farenough to make some nobles. The 3,5 fighter had 0 knowledge skills and 1social skill. The 4e and 5e ones have 1 and 1 respectively. They don't go far enough for some nobles and royals and middleclass folk.

Some nobles. Some nobles.

Jaime Lannister would be a fighter. His brother would be a scholar class. His father would be a noble class.

You know just how every priest isn't cleric. Every adventuring musician isn't a bard. You can take a wizard and the priest background or entertainer background.

 

[Neonchameleon]

3.5 was very rigid. 5e is better but it isn't a compete fix. Backgrounds are nice but they only go so farenough to make some nobles. The 3,5 fighter had 0 knowledge skills and 1social skill. The 4e and 5e ones have 1 and 1 respectively. They don't go far enough for some nobles and royals and middleclass folk.

Some nobles. Some nobles.

Jaime Lannister would be a fighter. His brother would be a scholar class. His father would be a noble class.

You know just how every priest isn't cleric. Every adventuring musician isn't a bard. You can take a wizard and the priest background or entertainer background.

OK. You have a class that only a fraction of nobles fit. You also have a class which (I assume) can be people that aren't nobles.

Then why in the name of the little black pig do you want it to be called the Noble? Why do you want to hard-code nobility to something that merely loosely correlates with it?

If you want a Warlord class I'm with you. If you want a scholar class and a social manipulator class I may raise an eyebrow at both due to the nature of D&D but I can sympathise.

But the second you call it a Noble and imply that it is largely connected to rather than lightly correlated with a specific social background I'm going to point out that it does horrible things regarding both hardcoding worldbuilding and character inspiration.

At most you can just about have a noble class specific to one single setting (like Dragonlance) but if you see a gap there (and there is a bit of one) do not call it a noble. That, not the idea that there isn't a character concept that it fits is my sticking point. Keep noble as a background and keep social class separate from adventuring class.

 

[Minigiant]

OK. You have a class that only a fraction of nobles fit. You also have a class which (I assume) can be people that aren't nobles.

Then why in the name of the little black pig do you want it to be called the Noble? Why do you want to hard-code nobility to something that merely loosely correlates with it?

If you want a Warlord class I'm with you. If you want a scholar class and a social manipulator class I may raise an eyebrow at both due to the nature of D&D but I can sympathise.

But the second you call it a Noble and imply that it is largely connected to rather than lightly correlated with a specific social background I'm going to point out that it does horrible things regarding both hardcoding worldbuilding and character inspiration.

At most you can just about have a noble class specific to one single setting (like Dragonlance) but if you see a gap there (and there is a bit of one) do not call it a noble. That, not the idea that there isn't a character concept that it fits is my sticking point. Keep noble as a background and keep social class separate from adventuring class.

D&D has the the berserker class named "barbarian" with the subclass "berserker".
And it has a "cleric" class but religious organization based adventurers can be any class.
D&D is a bit stupid with its names.

No need to make a class named "privileged socialite". Easier to name it noble or aristocrat and chalk it up to a D&Dism.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Skill systems of 4e and 5e don't allow it.
Why?

Because the Fighter is made like an uncultured unintelligent weaponmaster and the rogue is a super-sneaky, master acrobat, criminal mastermind.

4e fighter: Athletics, Endurance, Heal, Intimidate, and Streetwise
5e fighter: Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival
And backgrounds only give you 2 skills.
And that is before you realize that fighters are weaponmasters and martial experts above the skill of all warriors. Tossing every "not a wizard" into fighter just dillutes the archetype. Suddenlyevery noble, prince, and scholar can outduel every orc and anti-paladin.

Nonsense. 5E Fighters can absolutely have the skills they need, from a combination of backgrounds, class skills, and subclass skills and bonuses. Or Rogues, if you prefer. It feels to me that you don't understand how 5E works, because it's hard to understand what you're otherwise claiming. There's nothing about 5E Fighters that makes them any less "cultured" or "intelligent" than any other class. I have a noble fighter using the Samurai subclass in one of the groups I run RIGHT NOW, and because we rolled stats, his INT and CHA are pretty high. He has History, Persuasion, etc. and the Noble background (with the Position of Privilege feature). He's not from a Japanese-style culture, it's just that Samurai works quite well for this.

As for "weaponmasters" and similar nonsense, explain to me exactly what combat traits a 5E Noble class would have the a Swashbuckler subclass Rogue would not? Or equally a Fighter with a new specially created subclass. All classes, no exceptions, are good at combat in 5E. Hate on 5E for that if you want. Don't try and tell me it makes this the "wrong solution" though.

Making Noble a class, not a background, is as utterly misguided as making "Peasant" or "Merchant" or "Guildsman" (in the sense of a craftsman) a class.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If noble was a class rather than a background it would mean all wizards where plebs.

 

[Minigiant]

Nonsense. 5E Fighters can absolutely have the skills they need, from a combination of backgrounds, class skills, and subclass skills and bonuses. Or Rogues, if you prefer. It feels to me that you don't understand how 5E works, because it's hard to understand what you're otherwise claiming. There's nothing about 5E Fighters that makes them any less "cultured" or "intelligent" than any other class. I have a noble fighter using the Samurai subclass in one of the groups I run RIGHT NOW, and because we rolled stats, his INT and CHA are pretty high. He has History, Persuasion, etc. and the Noble background (with the Position of Privilege feature). He's not from a Japanese-style culture, it's just that Samurai works quite well for this.

As for "weaponmasters" and similar nonsense, explain to me exactly what combat traits a 5E Noble class would have the a Swashbuckler subclass Rogue would not? Or equally a Fighter with a new specially created subclass. All classes, no exceptions, are good at combat in 5E. Hate on 5E for that if you want. Don't try and tell me it makes this the "wrong solution" though.

Making Noble a class, not a background, is as utterly misguided as making "Peasant" or "Merchant" or "Guildsman" (in the sense of a craftsman) a class.

Having a subclass just throw proficiencies at a class because it was built as a narrow uncultured weapon master just shows how narrow and restrictive the game is.

And again, the noble would have the combat traits that the nobles of their culture.

Some would be light armored duelists.
Some would be heavy armored cavaliers
Some would be skilled miiltary commanders
Some would be elite magic school graduates
Some would be divinely imbued specasters
Some would be marksmen who use the newly invented and very expensive firearms

But all would be trained in various knowledge, conversation, and economic skills.

Of course some nobles won't take the noble class and eschew the skills of nobilty and focus on combat.

But I'd like the option. Not all "skillmonkeys" are masters of sneak attack.

If noble was a class rather than a background it would mean all wizards where plebs.

In D&D they are. Well most are.

 

[jmucchiello]

But I'd like the option. Not all "skillmonkeys" are masters of sneak attack.

Those who can't sneak attack, can sing really well.

 

[wingsandsword]

And that is before you realize that fighters are weaponmasters and martial experts above the skill of all warriors. Tossing every "not a wizard" into fighter just dillutes the archetype. Suddenlyevery noble, prince, and scholar can outduel every orc and anti-paladin.

That is part of why I support the existence of a Noble character class so much.

I absolutely hate looking at campaign setting materials and seeing Kings, Emperor's and Princes written up as Fighters (or similar classes like Samurai or Knight), and that while some martial training would be expected of a historic or fantasy nobleman, the idea that someone's a supreme high-level weaponmaster just because someone's a powerful noble or aristocrat seems absurd. I always hated that there aren't more skill-based, non-spellcasting/non-supernatural character class options in D&D.

A Noble class that gives better fighting options than a random commoner, but not as good as a fighter, but instead has social skills (both through the skill system, and leadership-themed buffing abilities similar to bardic magic) seems a pretty obvious choice for a character class.

If D&D didn't exist and was being made from scratch now, and we had to define a dozen archetypes from fantasy fiction and history to be the core classes, we would be more likely to end up with a charismatic aristocratic "Noble" class than a heavily armored, mace-swinging warpriest "Cleric" class.