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

[Ancalagon]

3.5e as what else would it be?

could have been 4e, pathfinder...

 

[Mind of tempest]

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.

no, I mean core like it is warlock's evocations just not the same as the subclass so the mystical bit gets to really flow better.

 

[Aldarc]

Fighter, for multiple reasons.

1) Doubles down on one of the worst design flaws of 5e, scaling number of attacks. 5e is much more robust, design-wise, with one attack per action and scaling damage dice.
2) Puts its best feature (maneuvers and superiority dice) into a subclass. Its 2nd best feature (bonus feats) comes too late and is siloed into an optional system.
3) The class is too broad and eats up too much of the "non-magical" concept space. A heavily armored warrior, a skirmishing ranged fighter, and a commander type are broad enough archetypes to support their own classes, but get swallowed up by the history of the "fighter" class.

Let the rogue wear medium armor and use sneak attack with all weapons, and it does what a want a fighter to do much better than the actual fighter class.

It would have been great if the Rogue* also had Superiority Dice and Combat Maneuvers that it could use too.

* Not to mention the Monk, Ranger, Paladin, Barbarian, etc.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sorcerer. Because I feel its story cheapens every other magic-using class.

Magic is supposed to be special. And that's why the avenues to be able to use magic are very specific. Your first option is you need to be one of the special people who gets blessed by a god and given a part of their divinity, and then have to work hard as a devotee of that god (Cleric). If that doesn't happen, then to get magic you have to work for it in other ways. You either study for a long time the science behind magic's existence and unlock its use via verbal, physical, and object means (Wizard, Artificer and Bard)... you spend a long time out in nature and sense and experience its essence to the point where you can open up to its secrets (Druid)... or you cheat at the hard work and make a deal with some magical entity to shortcut your way to it (Warlock)-- but usually with a pretty bad catch in the pact for doing so.

But the Sorcerer has no work at all... you just "get magic". Which to me is a crap story if the Sorcerer can be just as powerful as any other magic user without there being some sort of catch like the Warlock has. If you can get magic so easily, there should always be a price for that ease. Because otherwise I think it makes every other caster class look like a fool. Other people have to spend their entire lives killing themselves for their abilities, but the Sorcerer just shrugs their shoulders, smiles, and does the exact same things.

Story-wise, I believe the Sorcerer NEEDS a price to offset the ease of getting magic. And this is exactly why I believe the Wild Mage IS the default Sorcerer, because THAT'S the catch-- you can gain magical power through absolutely no effort on your part (while all the others are slaving over studying spellbooks or mastering magical instruments or equipment, or devoting themselves to promoting a god, or meditating in the wild), but if you use the magic... there's a pretty good chance something could go horribly wrong. That to me is at least some cost for getting that magic "for free".

But most of the other origins have no cost. You just had some magical creature in your ancestry hundreds of years ago and voila! You get magic! But if that's the case, that leads me to wonder just why there aren't thousands upon thousands of more people who also don't have sorcerous magic? A dragon in your ancestry 10 generations ago should have triggered dozens of different people in your family getting free magic. A genie in your ancestry same thing. A celestial... a Shadowfell creature... some inane clockwork creature?!?... just the freaking WEATHER? They just all randomly select a person here or there and say "Here you go! You now get to be just as magically powerful as someone who spends their entire life studying how magic works. Boy, they must feel real stupid, huh?" So yeah... Sorcerer is my least favorite class.

Now in case you are wondering... yes, I am greatly exaggerating all of this for effect. While I do think all the Sorcerer origins except for Wild Mage are yuck... it really doesn't bother me all that much that the class exists for those who love it (like MoonSong). But I figure if we have to read Snarf Zagyg grumble about Bards every third response they post... you can hear me rant about Sorcerers on occasion.

 

[Stalker0]

But most of the other origins have no cost. You just had some magical creature in your ancestry hundreds of years ago and voila! You get magic! But if that's the case, that leads me to wonder just why there aren't thousands upon thousands of more people who also don't have sorcerous magic? A dragon in your ancestry 10 generations ago should have triggered dozens of different people in your family getting free magic. A genie in your ancestry same thing. A celestial... a Shadowfell creature... some inane clockwork creature?!?... just the freaking WEATHER? They just all randomly select a person here or there and say "Here you go! You now get to be just as magically powerful as someone who spends their entire life studying how magic works. Boy, they must feel real stupid, huh?" So yeah... Sorcerer is my least favorite class.

I always like the concept of sorceror as "magic battery". Aka you hold magic power, spend it, and can reabsorb it through things in the world.

Now mechanically you don't have to do anything with it (long rest = spell recover, nothing fancy), but you can flavor the notion of "you wake up in a field of dead flowers".... "as you drink from the well the world turns dull and sluggish".... "you have never felt the touch of wind, as the air simply dies on your cheek".

So now we have a flavor reason why being a sorceror "sucks" and why so many settings seem to go after them with pitch forks. Yeah if I saw my neighbors kid turn the nearby rock to dust just by sleeping on it....I might want to boot them from teh village too!

 

[Scribe]

I must say, the numbers have helped convince me to just drop Artificer all together, which gives me (with some minor tweaks) a good 15 class baseline and a pleasing 5 x 3 grid.

 

[Aldarc]

Sorcerer. Because I feel its story cheapens every other magic-using class.

Magic is supposed to be special. And that's why the avenues to be able to use magic are very specific. Your first option is you need to be one of the special people who gets blessed by a god and given a part of their divinity, and then have to work hard as a devotee of that god (Cleric). If that doesn't happen, then to get magic you have to work for it in other ways. You either study for a long time the science behind magic's existence and unlock its use via verbal, physical, and object means (Wizard, Artificer and Bard)... you spend a long time out in nature and sense and experience its essence to the point where you can open up to its secrets (Druid)... or you cheat at the hard work and make a deal with some magical entity to shortcut your way to it (Warlock)-- but usually with a pretty bad catch in the pact for doing so.

But the Sorcerer has no work at all... you just "get magic". Which to me is a crap story if the Sorcerer can be just as powerful as any other magic user without there being some sort of catch like the Warlock has. If you can get magic so easily, there should always be a price for that ease. Because otherwise I think it makes every other caster class look like a fool. Other people have to spend their entire lives killing themselves for their abilities, but the Sorcerer just shrugs their shoulders, smiles, and does the exact same things.

Story-wise, I believe the Sorcerer NEEDS a price to offset the east of getting magic. And this is exactly why I believe the Wild Mage IS the default Sorcerer, because THAT'S the catch-- you can gain magical power through absolutely no effort on your part (while all the others are slaving over studying spellbooks or mastering magical instruments or equipment, or devoting themselves to promoting a god, or meditating in the wild), but if you use the magic... there's a pretty good chance something could go horribly wrong. That to me is at least some cost for getting that magic "for free".

But most of the other origins have no cost. You just had some magical creature in your ancestry hundreds of years ago and voila! You get magic! But if that's the case, that leads me to wonder just why there aren't thousands upon thousands of more people who also don't have sorcerous magic? A dragon in your ancestry 10 generations ago should have triggered dozens of different people in your family getting free magic. A genie in your ancestry same thing. A celestial... a Shadowfell creature... some inane clockwork creature?!?... just the freaking WEATHER? They just all randomly select a person here or there and say "Here you go! You now get to be just as magically powerful as someone who spends their entire life studying how magic works. Boy, they must feel real stupid, huh?" So yeah... Sorcerer is my least favorite class.

Now in case you are wondering... yes, I am greatly exaggerating all of this for effect. While I do think all the Sorcerer origins except for Wild Mage are yuck... it really doesn't bother me all that much that the class exists for those who love it (like MoonSong). But I figure if we have to read Snarf Zagyg grumble about Bards every third response they post... you can hear me rant about Sorcerers on occasion.

Sure, superpowers are supposed to be special in comic books with cool origin stories, but sometimes regular people are just born with them. And that's the narrative space in which mutants and the X-Men exist in Marvel.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I always like the concept of sorcerer as "magic battery". Aka you hold magic power, spend it, and can reabsorb it through things in the world.

Sure, if the Sorcerer had the Dark Sun-esque "Defiler" built into the class, it probably wouldn't rub me the wrong way as much. But it don't, so it does. Now granted... I also know full well that the supposed "cost" of being a Warlock (having made some deal with a powerful but potentially evil creature) usually gets handwaved away and is never actually a narrative issue for many a table and player. But at least the potential backfiring for the pact is written into the class itself, so it's meant to be seen as potential hardship. Without a similar hardship written into the Sorcerer, it just drops my interest completely.

And heck... the one thing I might be willing to see as the "hardship" or "cost" of the Sorcerer is the number of spells they know. Now that doesn't thrill me because it's purely a mechanical cost to a narrative problem, and if you know me you know I don't really care about the mechanics all that much... but at least it's something. But of course we've then gotten all the complaints over the years about how Sorcerers need to have more spells known... thereby trying to reduce the one cost the Sorcerer has to pay for free magic. So that ain't great either in my opinion.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sure, superpowers are supposed to be special in comic books with cool origin stories, but sometimes regular people are just born with them. And that's the narrative space in which mutants and the X-Men exist in Marvel.

Yep, which if this was a superhero game it'd probably be fine. But it ain't, so it isn't.

 

[Aldarc]

Yep, which if this was a superhero game it'd probably be fine. But it ain't, so it isn't.

Are you sure about that?