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

[jmartkdr2]

No.
You could use arcane, divine, psionic, or primal magic. Or use martial arts that uses magic weapons and armor.

However purely biological physical "real life" unarmed unarmored martial arts without some enhancement tops out at level 4, level 5 or so in D&D.

Okay, so the monk class, as written, doesn't do that, because martial arts = ki. You can only have divine ki, which works exactly like regular ki except it's yellow, and does not resemble other divine magic.

(And ki = martial arts, which is a whole other problem.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Druid.
I just don't like them.

 

[embee]

Brad is also an anagram. Never trust anyone named Brad.

What about Brad Pitt? Or Aerosmith rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford? Or retired journeyman QB Brad Johnson?

 

[FrozenNorth]

The Wizard, despite getting some nerfs relative to its 3.x incarnation, remains an incredibly powerful class that looms large over the game. Specializing in magic means specializing in "do an incredible variety of powerful things." Having the cost of that specialty be "you can only do a few things each day" is not a cost if the Wizard has any influence over the pace of days, and most groups still have an incentive to listen to a Wizard player who wants to rest more.

I also voted Wizard. It is by far the worst-designed class in the game. I am fine with a class whose specialty is versatility, but the wizard doesn’t really “give up” anything in exchange for that versatility.

It doesn’t help that later splatbooks tend to print spells that allow wizards to encroach even more on other characters’ territories. Vicious Mockery is a cool, Bard-exclusive cantrip…until Frostbite came along. Flame Arrows makes sense for Rangers, but let’s give it to Wizards as well at a much earlier level. Hey, let’s make Wizard gishes as well! ThankBladesinger subclass! Tasha’s contained tons of spells for wizards, and scraps for other spellcasters.

The flavour of the subclasses is pretty meaningless when wizards can cherrypick spells from any school. I’ve played with an abjurer that never cast abjuration spells and a diviner that never cast divination spells.

I honestly think that there would be fewer spellcaster vs. non-spellcaster threads if the typical spellcaster were a sorcerer rather than a wizard.

 

[Ashrym]

The flavour of the subclasses is pretty meaningless when wizards can cherrypick spells from any school. I’ve played with an abjurer that never cast abjuration spells and a diviner that never cast divination spells.

Seems off to me. Diviners cast divination spells almost free because of expert divination and arcane ward requires casting abjuration spells.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Cleric, though, is really weird and really specific, but built into D&D's traditions deeply enough that its indiosyncratic jank gets overlooked.

Yep. It is now about as core as core classes get, but try coming up with anything that really looks like a classic D&D Cleric in history, mythology, or any non-D&D derived fantasy literature and you mostly come up short. An early monopoly on healing, an absolute necessity, let something pretty weird and sui generis become deeply ingrained as "normal".

The weird specificity of them being a wielder of theurgical magic who also is a heavily armored melee combatant focused on bludgeoning weapons is not really enforced on the class overall in 5e (though it is still the presumed MO of too many of the subclasses), so for this edition I don't particularly dislike them, but in a pan-edition class hating contest they would be my go-to least favorite.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

So, for example, why would the earthly agents of a trickster god use turn undead as a core feature? No reason but path dependency.

Fun Fact (read here: WotC once again fumbled during the playtest)
The original cleric as presented in the playtest got to choose its CD from a few choices taken from a long list of possible channel divinity. No cleric were forced to take Turn Undead (IIRC, there was even a ''charm undead'' somewhere in there).

 

[jmartkdr2]

unarmed needs the magic to work in dnd as how are your fists supposed to break steel or dragon hide?

Same is true of fighters, but they don't have spellcasting as a core feature. Magic items is enough magic to make them workable anyways.

Sure, in a no-magic-at-all game, monks are out, but so are all but 5 subclasses in the PHB.

 

[Musing Mage]

I also voted Wizard. It is by far the worst-designed class in the game. I am fine with a class whose specialty is versatility, but the wizard doesn’t really “give up” anything in exchange for that versatility.

It doesn’t help that later splatbooks tend to print spells that allow wizards to encroach even more on other characters’ territories. Vicious Mockery is a cool, Bard-exclusive cantrip…until Frostbite came along. Flame Arrows makes sense for Rangers, but let’s give it to Wizards as well at a much earlier level. Hey, let’s make Wizard gishes as well! ThankBladesinger subclass! Tasha’s contained tons of spells for wizards, and scraps for other spellcasters.

The flavour of the subclasses is pretty meaningless when wizards can cherrypick spells from any school. I’ve played with an abjurer that never cast abjuration spells and a diviner that never cast divination spells.

I honestly think that there would be fewer spellcaster vs. non-spellcaster threads if the typical spellcaster were a sorcerer rather than a wizard.

When I was prepping my 5e 'Hardcore Old School' mode, I wanted to nerf this. The idea that Wizards have full control over what they choose without drawback is the main bone of contention. In old school games they had to roll to learn their magic, and failure meant you couldn't learn those spells. So I added a house rule along those lines - before you can learn a spell you had to make a DC 13+ spell level Intelligence check. Failure meaning that spell is barred to you until your proficiency modifier goes up and you can try again.

At level 2 when you choose your school, you can make rolls to learn spells from your school at advantage.

My player who loves the power-game mode of RAW 5e absolutely HATED this rule, so I knew it was the right way to go.

Oh, and regarding this thread... I loathe Artificers. They do not show up in my games, and players who suggest that I let them play one get flogged.

 

[Maxperson]

But what of those abilities scream 'Ranger'? I loved my ranger in 1E because he was a fighter, but better. The character type is iconic. The character mechanics are mushy at best. The community has more consensus on psionics than the ranger, but it sits in the PHB, taking of page space. What abilities are definitive to the ranger? The base class is rogue abilities with a fighting style. Natural explorer could be background ribbons, rather than class abilities. Ranger is better accomplished through multiclassing. The class is a mess and WotC agrees. The constant flow of subclasses and class tweaks in Tasha's are half measures at best. The class needs an overhaul and I do not see it happening before an edition change.

Most of them scream ranger to me.

Favored Enemy
Natural Explorer
Primeval Awareness
Land's Stride
Hide in Plain Sight(however bad)
Feral Senses
Foe Slayer
All the subclass abilities