D&D 5E What does 5E NEED
Jeff Carlsen
Adventurer
What common archetypes are these? I'm genuinely curious, because I feel the PHB provides more and broader support for character concepts than any previous edition. But I could be missing something.
There are a bunch of cleric domains I would add. Elements being a big one, either as one domain or four. Guardianship is another - War is highly offensive, but one that's more about preventing damage than bringing it. Something along the lines of Love/Charm would be good, and Artifice/Crafting as well.
I would also want some more sorcerer origins, even though the warlock ate the most obvious ones (fiend, aberrant, fey). But elemental or celestial origins would still be viable sorcerers, and the sorcerer could provide an alternate take on the warlock pact-givers as well.
But other than those, the major bases are fairly well covered.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
As it has been said, clerics and sorcerers. Clerics need a little more variety, they have historically been the most diverse class -by counting all specialty priests as clerics- so just the few domains we have now aren't enough. And sorcerers have become less diverse as editions go on, the original sorcerer was a blank state in origin, dragons were offered as the "default", but the lack of active mechanical support for that origin meant passive support for any origin under the heavens -or to sweep that under the rug and not have it matter-, now with the more active support for dragons and the repurpossing of wild mages as sorcerers, the other origins are basically gone, one can always refluff, but the draconic and wild origins have too strong mechanics that get in the way, and if you enjoyed downplaying the origin, the mechanics keep bringing it to the spotlight.. The only way to get any other flavor of sorcerer by the rules is to go wild magic and talk to the DM into never rolling for wild surges ever, so in essence you have to give up class features to get any other origin. Actually all sorcerer archetype problems would be solved with an "Origin doesn't matter I'm just magical period" subclass.
For exemple, two of my favorite characters are a dwarven ranger that doesn't cast spells and a half-elf generalist wizard. To make my dwarf, I would go fighter and pick the right skills. For the wizard, I would pick any tradition and just roleplay the character like a generalist wizard. I also like leaderish characters. I could just make a fighter proficient in the Negotiate skill for that. I also like playing a Lord of the Rings hobbit. There aren't any classes that aren't monsters in combat. I'd like to trade my sneak attack damage for two attacks and more non-combat options. You know, playing a skill monkey that isn't an assassin.
It's not that I can't make the characters though. I just feel like my favorite archetype is fully supported when I have a class, a subclass, a background, and a couple of feats for it. Some concepts are just better supported than others. A 80% supported character concept is only 80% satisfying
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Sacrosanct
Legend
You mean any fighter with archery fighting style and the survival skill? That seems easy.
That seems really easy too.
Or any character and just role play taking charge. Or have a decent CHA. Or take the Inspiring leader feat.
I'm not sure I know what you're trying to say here.
Not seeing what's preventing you from doing this either. I have a halfling fighter with the street urchin background. He's basically exactly what you describe: no sneak attack, but multiple attacks and plenty of skills. I guess I'm not seeing by what you mean, because everything you mentioned is super easy to do in 5e. I can't think of any single common character concept that can't be done very easily in 5e as is. Maybe psionist, but I don't know if I would call that common. That's always been quite the outlier.
Doc_Klueless
Doors and Corners
[My inner Bender]What 5e NEEDS is blackjack. and hookers. As a matter of fact, forget the blackjack! [/bender]
You kind of missed the point. I'm not saying you can't make characters that sort of look like those character concepts, I'm saying that I don't have enough options to make them close enough to the character concept I have in mind. The game has classes, subclasses, and feats. This creates expectations. Right now, mine aren't met so I "need" more character options.
If a fighter with the survival skill is good enough for you, that's great. It just isn't good enough for me. There's nothing I can trade to be a better ranger that doesn't come with a bloat of character options I'm not interested in. I can't get expertise without becoming an assassin nor can I get the ranger goodies without casting spells.
I have no problem making up my own stuff so this really isn't going to be a limiting factor. I'd just rather pay WoTC to do it for me.
Magistus71
Explorer
The only thing I think 5e needs is some easy Naval Combat rules that are written for 5e.
You absolutely can make a spell-less ranger! Just build a ranger... And don't use the spell slots you're given. Sure, you could argue that that isn't "making" a spell-less ranger, but it works identically in play. You'd be slightly weaker than the average ranger, but the integrity of your character concept would be intact.
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