D&D (2024) What New Classes Should Be Added One D&D PHB?

[MonsterEnvy]

I will request the revival of the Warlord come the class survey.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm also certain that the classes will have subclasses features at the same levels that they do now, so that XGtE, TCoE, FToD, and the upcoming Bigsby Giant Book and Book of Many Things are completely compatible with One D&D.

They're already putting out stuff with a sidebar for compatibility, that tre d may continue.

 

[delericho]

Given that Tasha's is going to remain current with the new version, I'd actually be surprised to see Artificer move to the PHB. Though I certainly wouldn't object.

IMO, they should try their absolute best to include all the classes that have appeared in the PHB for each edition (PHB1 for 3.5e and 4e). So add an Assassin class, the Warlord, and a Mageblade class (the old 'elf' class from BECMI). I'd also drop multiclassing from the game - it's better represented by allowing limited access to some features from other classes and/or using feats, IMO.

And, incidentally, I think there's about a 0% chance of any of that happening.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Martial characters choose their subclass, combat-enhancing feats/ASIs, and fighting styles (except barbarians). Battle Masters get to choose maneuvers, too. There are "trap" fighting styles (Great Weapon Fighting and Protection come to mind), trap feats (Savage Attacker, for example), and trap subclasses (Battlerager and Berserker Barbarian, Purple Dragon Knight, Arcane Archer, and Champion Fighters, Way of the Four Elements Monks, PHB Ranger subclasses)

None of which are traps remotely on the same level as the traps an Artificer can get into.

And I don't agree re: "trap sublcasses", especially as you just listed two actually-good Fighter subclasses as "traps" lol. Champions are an anti-trap. They're basically designed (reasonably well) to prevent you being trapped so listing them as a trap is bizarre. And you're kind of illustrating my point. A Barbarian who picks Berserker, at worst, basically only gets to use Frenzy 1/day, which makes it one of the worse Barbarian subclasses.

But that's it. He's still a Barbarian with all the other good Barbarian abilities, and the other subclass abilities are still really strong. It's not like an Artificer where you can make many times as many choices, and where a vastly higher proportion of them are bad.

That's only if you know how good Agonizing Blast is. Which requires familiarity with the system.

No, it doesn't require any meaningful level of familiarity. No system mastery. Just basic "+damage = good". It's obvious even more than +AC or to hit (esp. as the value is higher - new people often think of +3 damage as the same as +3 to hit - hell I've seen experienced people think that way). I've seen people who've never played D&D before pick it immediately IRL for goodness sake.

Pact of the Blade is a trap without Hexblade I agree, but it's a fairly meaningless (if annoying) trap, because it doesn't impair your performance significantly because the baseline is so strong, which is different to Artificers. I'm not saying Warlocks have no trap options - I'm saying they're vastly easier to avoid, and more importantly, the good options don't require much system mastery to pick out. Whereas the best infusions do.

The optimal option for different Artificer subclasses is just as simple as "Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast". Battle Smiths need one of the Magic Weapon infusions, and they're good. Armorers need armor-increasing ones and eventually a magic weapon one, and they're good. Alchemists and Artillerists need an Enhanced Arcane Focus, and they're good. 1-2 infusions required to be as optimal in your role as the Warlock is in the Eldritch Blast spamming.

I don't really agree that one is enough, and it's nowhere near as obvious. If you only pick the 1-2 you're suggesting, no you won't be that good, because you don't have anywhere near as well-defined of a role nor as strong a base (unless you pick Armorer, which does have a very strong base, but unfortunately is the worst fit for most settings).

I do agree that Warlocks can screw up with the spell selection, but it's harder to do, and requires less in the way of counter-intuitive spell selection.

Overall I think it's a pretty pointless argument, because even you aren't really disagreeing, just trying to nuance the points and looking for the next-worst offenders

I mean, on the flip-side, if they include a class like Artificer, which is:

A) A bad fit for countless settings, particularly with certain subclasses (of which it only had four).

and

B) The most system-mastery dependent and messily-designed class in 5E by some margin.

Then it certainly means they'd have zero excuse not to include stuff like Psion/Mystic and Swordmage, which fit far more setting thematically and would be almost impossible to make as messy.

 

[Bluenose]

I know things will be thrown at meIf having to , but I honestly think they should get rid of Artificer, not make it a base class. It doesn't fit a lot of settings

If having to fit every setting is the criteria, we're getting a PHB with the Fighter, Rogue and Ranger. None of the others with the way they work in D&D work in the way they need to for a great many settings. Pretty thin class list in the next PHB.



I don't think there will be any new ones. Artificer, some sort of Warrior-Mage that functions at 1st level, a functional Warlord (and as for shouting hands back on, it restores hit points and last I checked losing hit points didn't lead to loss of body parts; and besides, Cure Wounds also won't put a lost hand back on), and they could probably do with a mystical rogue type. As I say I don't think there'll be any new full classes in the PHB.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If having to fit every setting is the criteria, we're getting a PHB with the Fighter, Rogue and Ranger. None of the others with the way they work in D&D work in the way they need to for a great many settings. Pretty thin class list in the next PHB.

I'm talking largely about D&D settings, not "all fantasy settings".

If you go broad with "absolutely all fantasy settings" Artificer's concept does better because outside of D&D-style fantasy, heavy magitech is more common. It's implementation is even worse in that context though - the whole "replicating specific magic items" thing and general "infusions and spells" deal is a total disaster. That's just not how characters like that work in most fantasy.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

This is simply not true in any meaningful fashion.

You're stretching ridiculously to find deep-lore enemy NPCs, often from far in history, to justify one of the party members being Iron Man. It doesn't work. I'm unable to even think of who you're referring to re: Dragon Age though.

The same is true for a lot of the D&D settings. I only argued re: Lantan because it's so obviously bollocks. You described what Lantan artificers actually do. What they don't do is run around with magical gun-turrets or dress up as Iron Man in super-duper magic armour.

And the Battle smith pet pretty much always requires reflavouring as well, to not a bloody robot to fit into most settings without changing the tone of the setting.

Except they absolutely DO NOT.

They find an existing suit of specific magical armour and make it More Magicker. Or existing suit of armour period. There's no design, no creation.

I didn't say it was "sci-fi", did I?

I said it didn't fit. It doesn't fit because it's ultra-heavy-duty magitech, not "sci-fi". It turns Dragon's Dogma into Final Fantasy 13. That's fine if you want to run Final Fantasy 13, but if you want to run Dragon's Dogma, it doesn't work.


This is just beneath you, dude.

Many classes in 5E have basically no options, or no real trap options. A mediocre subclass is not a trap option, so that's most classes in D&D already out as not having trap options. No Divine caster has any trap options because they get all spells. So they're out too. What does that leave us, Arcane casters? Except Wizards, Sorcerers, and Bards get enough spells and a good enough spell list it's almost impossible to trap yourself - and they don't have anything like Infusions or the magic-item-simulator stuff.

I would challenge you to actually argue that "arguable", because I don't think it is.

Warlocks are far more obvious - for starters all their choices are openly and obviously presented to them, which is flatly not the case for Artificers.

And to be a "good Warlock" you need two things - Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast. Boom, done, you're great. You don't need any system mastery. After that the differences are small. That is not true at all with Artificers. And certainly no other class is even arguable.

The Forgotten Realms is a setting where you have nimblewrights, the 3.5e Gondsman subclass with a fantasy robot companion, 2e's Clockwork Mages in Zakhara, the ironman armours Gond built for Cyric, the Steampunk Steam Engines built by Mulhorand, the magical constructs of Imaskar and Raumathar, the crystal magic cyborg like folks in Durpur, and so much more.

If your going to argue that artifcers don't make sense in D&D One PHB, don't use a setting with so much mixing of magic and tech, use like Darksun or Ghostwalk or Jandor or Council of Wyrms or something.

WotC over uses Lantan as an example for Artificers, there is a TON of examples all over the place in FR.

 

[Bluenose]

I'm talking largely about D&D settings, not "all fantasy settings".

I feel very confident in saying that people who craft magic 'stuff', whether alchemists or other things, have been around for a long time in D&D. Artificer just seems to codify that in an adventuring class.

 

[Parmandur]

I'd also drop multiclassing from the game - it's better represented by allowing limited access to some features from other classes and/or using feats, IMO.

And, incidentally, I think there's about a 0% chance of any of that happening.

I think we might see multiclassing get dropped, based on the Beyond statistics for how often that variant is used (not very), and what a design headache it causes for making new options. Also, Crawford was at great pains in the UA video when discussing higher Level Feats to emphasize that Feats are basically Class features by other means. I wouldn't be surprised if the Background 1st Level Feat is step one to soupijg up the Feat system to replace multiclassing entirely.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I think a problem with Artificers is that they've been overly flavored as the "guns and gears" class, instead of the "object oriented magic" class. If it were me I'd do this:

Artificer

• Alchemist
• Battlesmith
• Runescribe (Divine crossover subclass)
• Wokan (Primal crossover subclass)