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

[Tales and Chronicles]

To anyone who has issues with the setting for monks...

Boxing existed as one of the first martial arts from over 3000 BCE and is typical in MMA today.

Pankration was created over 4000 years ago. It is attributed to Theseus and Greek in nature. Greek mythology stressed superhuman an supernatural abilities in it's heroes.

The roots of parkour stem from a martial art developed prior to WWII based on the observations of a French naval officer observing African tribes and his position was strengthening the body, the energy, and the morality of the practitioners. The origins of parkour (African and European) fit the monk extremely well.

The class was based on a fictional Korean martial art using Remo Williams from The Destroyer so there was clearly some pop-culture reference but that doesn't mean the class doesn't apply to a typical European setting, especially in a fictional world anyway. I would point to Western martial arts and parkour as the basis here.

Its not the martial art part that makes it a little out of place in a pseudo-Europe with magic, its the built-in stuff like Astral Projection, Running on water, Jump-flight etc

Martial arts are pretty universals, but martial artist that run up walls, fly in the air and project themselves in the spirit world is pretty much inspired by one single trope: the kung-fu stuff. Not even the anime characters from modern medias, which could be a good inspiration for WotC as to what people want of an unarmored martial artist, including weapon masters.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Thematically the sorcerer. It's just awesome. However I find sorcerers as fun to play as filing taxes.

Warlock is my favourite mechanically (and what I picked for the poll). Invocations provide so much customisation, while the pacts basically give you an entire second subclass. And the themes overlap with sorcerer a lot.

Favourite class not in 5e, which I grumble about not being in 5e endlessly, is the swordmage. Teleporting round the battlefield while wreathing your sword in flame, encasing it in ice, or setting it crackling with lightning was a level of awesome which 5e just doesn't come close to.

Edit: Ignore me, I read the title wrong.

I may do a poll on favorite classes in 5E after this thread has run its course.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Sure .... hence the smile ......

Having fun is the most important part and 5E made it pretty easy to do, even with the "bad" classes.

I'm happy too.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I may do a poll on favorite classes in 5E after this thread has run its course.

Wasn't there one last week? I assumed this one was a follow-up to that one.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Wasn't there one last week? I assumed this one was a follow-up to that one.

Was there? If so it was done by someone else.

edit -- I found that thread. Maybe I won't do one then. Although that thread was not a poll so it might be interesting to have numbers.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Yes, exactly one week ago. By Slit digits, but they didn't have a fancy poll to interact with.

 

[Greg K]

Not even the anime characters from modern medias, which could be a good inspiration for WotC as to what people want of an unarmored martial artist, including weapon masters.

I am sure many people might want that. I am sure many people also want Street Fighter or similar video games. However, these are, for the most part, definitely not what I and most people whom I know would want.

 

[squibbles]

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.

That's a good point. The cleric jank in this edition is somewhat reduced.

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).

/facepalm... of course that's why

Fixing the jank wasn't popular enough.

----

Yes. Some of that can be worked on in subclasses, but I think a list of alternative abilities at given levels would do wonders for the class.

Yeah, maybe monks could have something like the eldritch invocations list but for martial arts stuff, and get a choice from it instead of the current locked-in features like deflect arrows, slow fall, and stillness of mind.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Martial arts could stay.

There just should be 3-5 options for it

I should be able to be Orc Zangief and Final Atomic Buster an ogre by now. Or Goliath Abigail. Or Dwarf Alex. Or Bugbear Hugo.

Goblin Dhalsim would be fine to.

Great Now Imma spend the next hour converting Street Fighters characters into D&D PCs and NPCs... again.

so we are in agreement to split the martial art off the subclasses for greater freedom of designing?

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.)

it at least has so real words inspiration rather than say how arcane magic works mostly.

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.

the problem is mystical martial artist includes way more magic than the monk does right now a pure spell casting would not solve it.

What edition was that?

I'm playing a "sword sage" - a psi warrior fighter with the sage background

3.5e as what else would it be?

 

[Minigiant]

so we are in agreement to split the martial art off the subclasses for greater freedom of designing?

No, the opposite.
Martial Arts should be core class but have more options than the Dex/Wis Speed Martial Art. Same with Flurry of Blow

Shoving things into subclasses is part of the reason why monk is least liked. The base class doesn't meet expectations. Subclasses are minor tweaks and should not be used for major alterations. Not the way 5e does subclasses anyway.