D&D 5E What is your least favorite class in 5E?

[THEMNGMNT]

I went with Monk. It is a somewhat underpowered class that makes up for much of its underpoweredness with the stunning strike feature, which is powerful but in a fun-breaking sort of way by trivializing solo enemy fights while also not being a very exciting way to use your ki. So underwhelming, but with one overpowered feature that gives the DM a headache without really being that much fun.

It's also just not my jam on a core thematic level. I'm not a hardliner against it by any means, but making it a core class such that every setting has to accommodate both a bunch of fantasy pseudo-medieval stuff AND this one random kung-fu interloper or else put the DM in the position of having to say no is just not something I've liked in any version of D&D that makes it a core class.

I might argue for the Ranger or Sorcerer having graver design missteps, but I enjoy those classes more overall, I just think they have frustrating progression and some obvious design blunders.

But, lets not overstate this. Even my least favorite class is not one I consider bad.

100% agreement on this and I came here to say the same thing.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Voted ranger. I don't have a problem with the theme of a ranger and would like to play one in a general sense, but the actual class was just so boring in practice. No meaningful combat choices (because one choice is always clearly the best, and it's the same one) and you're cool wilderness stuff is just a 'skip this scene' button, which isn't fun.

My 13th Age ranger had almost too many cool, flavorful, effective options, and there's not reason the 5e one couldn't - but what we have is just dishwater.

 

[Greg K]

I'm also very surprised that a lot of people are saying Artificer

Artificer is on the list? Went back to include that among my votes. If the artificer was divided into artificer and alchemist much like Mage Hand Press has the Alchemist and Craftsman, it would be a better start for my preferences.

 

[delericho]

Druid for me. There's nothing wrong with it mechanically; I'm just not a fan. Plus, with so many of my campaigns being very heavily urban-based, they don't get many chances to shine.

 

[Vael]

Cleric. It's not my thing, if I were to put all 13 classes in the order of most to least want to play, the Cleric is the easy last place pick. I love and prefer to play Spellcasters, and I'd sooner be a Fighter than a Cleric.

 

[Scribe]

I'm also very surprised that a lot of people are saying Artificer, especially by giving the "they don't fit into most settings" complaint. I mean, Alchemists have a thematic place in pretty much every setting.

I think you're right, but how it is presented is simply not going to mesh with me.

It could be salvaged, and I feel should be core in 5.5, but it's how it's pitched.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I always thought of the sorcerer as an experimental wizard class, and I expected it to replace the wizard. I saw it as an attempt to make the wizard easier and more fun to play because it was always so annoying to decide each 'morning' on what spells to prepare for the day. It was so annoying that when I played a wizard I always prepared a generic list of spells and never returned to the question. In that way, I was playing a de facto sorcerer.

I'm wrong of course, which I'm sure will quickly be pointed out in a slightly degrading and subtly devastating fashion.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I voted Bard, Monk, and Sorcerer.

I've noted in this thread how I would prefer for Bards to be Half-Casters, similar to the Artificer class. I just feel that they don't fulfill their thematic role as well as they should, and are just a huge mess class-wise that can't decide if it wants to be a Swashbuckling Sword-Dancer or Poem-Chanting Skald.

Monk is just the most thematically-restrictive class in the game, and is so tied to its source material that it feels very out of place in 5e, where other classes have largely dumped their cultural baggage and expanded from their restrictive traditional niches. The Monk has failed to evolved, even as basically every other class in D&D 5e has.

Sorcerer because of its thematic and mechanical overlap with the Warlock, the PHB and XGtE subclasses not getting automatically known spell lists, their use of Spell Slots instead of Spell Points, and their restrictive metamagics (them only having 1 unique spell on their spell list doesn't help, either).

I'm also very surprised that a lot of people are saying Artificer, especially by giving the "they don't fit into most settings" complaint. I mean, Alchemists have a thematic place in pretty much every setting. The class is pretty setting specific, but there are a ton of settings that have lore-justifications for having the class (Church of Gond and Lantan in FR, Tinker Gnomes in Dragonlance and Spelljammer, Fleshmancy in Ravenloft, Sigil and Mechanus in Planescape, Izzet and Simic Guilds in Ravnica, Purphoros followers in Theros, Gunmakers in Exandria, etc). I can see why they wouldn't necessarily fit in Dark Sun and maybe Greyhawk, but they do certainly fit into the vast majority of popular D&D worlds.

monk has the problem of if you go with less inbuilt flavour than say mystical martial artist people will just try to make it a fighter subclass or something insane like that plus it is inherently from different cultures as the idea never really worked in Europe if you want more make a thread on monks and see how it goes.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Another uninformed opinion I hold is about the cleric. I always saw it as a unit on the wargaming table that could bolster and heal other units. Pretty cool stuff. It got carried over to Dungeons and Dragons and now I play them like I play a wizard.

 

[Campbell]

Monks carry a lot of conceptual space in one class. Like Druids they would benefit from a more modular approach to character design. 5e works better with classes that have a tighter focus.