Level Up (A5E) Which Classes Need "The Most Help" in an Advanced 5E

[DND_Reborn]

Given the enormous amount of feedback on the Advanced "High Level Fighter" thread, I was curious as to what classes you feel need the most help in making them crunchy enough for an Advanced 5E?

For myself, obviously, I can see changes to them all, but the purpose of this poll is to try to determine which ones need the MOST help in getting to where you think they should be.

Please note: you are allowed 3 votes.

Thanks you for participating!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Given the enormous amount of feedback on the Advanced "High Level Fighter" thread, I was curious as to what classes you feel need the most help in making them crunchy enough for an Advanced 5E?

For myself, obviously, I can see changes to them all, but the purpose of this poll is to try to determine which ones need the MOST help in getting to where you think they should be.

Please note: you are allowed 3 votes.

Thanks you for participating!

I did not vote for fighter, because I think that once we are set on a idea of a high level fighter, it will resolves itself: fighters are not lacking in power or mechanically advantages, they are lacking in theme and in-setting reasons.

Instead I voted for:

Ranger: Contrary to the fighter, the Ranger is lacking in mostly everything. The theme isnt well defined: a half-caster? A mundane survivalist? Defends the wild from civilization or defends civilization from the wild? Furthermore, its spells are bad, they do not have damage boosting feature ala Paladin if you do not want to use your spells as spells. They override the entire pillars they are supposed to be good at instead of being really good at it. Its a mess. Oh and also: the weapon techniques from the Hunter should have been modular options for all martial instead.

Monk: Much like the Ranger. They need to spend a semi-restrictive resource just to keep up with the rest of the martial character. Their archetypes arent balanced in the slightest. Their theme is both Cliché and Passé: its belongs to my father's kung-fu movies. There's a definite place for martial artist, but kung-fu panda meet ninja turtles meets kill Bill is not it. Their martial features could be given to all martial as modular options. If you need a full class for ''unarmored/unarmed fighting'', you are doing unarmed fighting wrong, just like you dont need a grappler class.

Druid: not weak per se, but wildshape is over-valued for non-moon druid. Its design space, which occupy a large portion of the druid's progression could be used for something more generally beneficial.

 

[tetrasodium]

I voted for wizard & artificer because it's forced towards bland & uninteresting glass cannon DPR by the overuse of concentration & pretty much nonoption that the force multiplier that used to be a god wizard.

Artificer has the secondary problem as an actual half caster with tricks it's more impacted by the loss if those tricks aren't DPR because it doesn't bring enough force multiplier or save or suck/save or lose to the table where the player can bargain/telegraph intent in order to get cooperation from the party.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I did not vote for fighter, because I think that once we are set on a idea of a high level fighter, it will resolves itself: fighters are not lacking in power or mechanically advantages, they are lacking in theme and in-setting reasons.

Instead I voted for:

Ranger: Contrary to the fighter, the Ranger is lacking in mostly everything. The theme isnt well defined: a half-caster? A mundane survivalist? Defends the wild from civilization or defends civilization from the wild? Furthermore, its spells are bad, they do not have damage boosting feature ala Paladin if you do not want to use your spells as spells. They override the entire pillars they are supposed to be good at instead of being really good at it. Its a mess. Oh and also: the weapon techniques from the Hunter should have been modular options for all martial instead.

Monk: Much like the Ranger. They need to spend a semi-restrictive resource just to keep up with the rest of the martial character. Their archetypes arent balanced in the slightest. Their theme is both Cliché and Passé: its belongs to my father's kung-fu movies. There's a definite place for martial artist, but kung-fu panda meet ninja turtles meets kill Bill is not it. Their martial features could be given to all martial as modular options. If you need a full class for ''unarmored/unarmed fighting'', you are doing unarmed fighting wrong, just like you dont need a grappler class.

Druid: not weak per se, but wildshape is over-valued for non-moon druid. Its design space, which occupy a large portion of the druid's progression could be used for something more generally beneficial.

Well, I happen to like Kung Fu Panda, TMNT, and Kill Bill, but I agree that we are doing unarmed fighting wrong. I can't believe there's no fighting style supporting it, and no means to be an effective unarmed combatant that doesn't include the monk's baggage.

 

[Helldritch]

Druid, monk and ranger. These are the least played at any table that I know. I may have trouble finding players for sorcerers and warlocks, but this is more of a players' preference than a lack of power. The three above, however, are lacking a bit in a few areas.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I happen to like Kung Fu Panda, TMNT, and Kill Bill

So do I, so do I, but a full class for it? Nha.

I think unarmed/unarmored combat should be playstyle made available to a group of classes by the way of archetypes:
Fighter's martial artist (ala open hand)
Rogue's way of shadow (3.X Shadowdancers)
Barbarian brawler
Bard battle dancer OR jester (inspired by the drunken monk, perform-as-combat)
Paladin oath of asceticism (3.X Sacred fist)
Wizard Wu-jen tradition (spell-fist + elemental binding)
Ranger Wilder (beast-man, wolf-boy style combat)
Sorcerer giant origin (gish-y sorcerer that grows in size and smash stuff)
Artificer Armorer (from the UA, fight with its improved magical armor)
Druid circle of the oak (gain tree like features and punch stuff with you branches-fists)

I cant seem to find an idea for the Warlock, but I'm pretty sure there's at least one Magical Girl inspiration of a character that made a pact with thing and became able to do magical martial art stuff.

 

[Eltab]

Ranger, especially making pets effective -and- Favored Terrain / Favored Enemy features that are useful both for exploration and in combat. Possibly a way to Tarzan-like summon / communicate / command random small creatures in the vicinity.

Monk - magic items to help with to-hit and DPR. Can be as simple as Brass Knuckles +1 but should have flavor. Should the 4 Elements spellcaster be a big feature? replaced? expanded?

Druid - from the original thread, a simplified option where you keep your basic stats in wild shape (as in 4e) but gain attack / defense / movement options.

 

[ThatGuySteve]

Fighter - needs something beyond combat feature, combat feature, combat feature. Some of the subclasses handle this by giving the fighter a place in the world, like Samurai and Cavalier, but others are very bland.

Druid - wildshape seems to quickly become useless for non - moon druids. If rather see wildshape become exclusive to the subclass and have some new ones with an animal companion or familiar instead. A dedicated shape-shifting class would be nice too, but not necessarily nature themed, I'd like an unnatural shape-shifter powered by Great Old One magic, all tentacles and slime.

Warlock - let there be some variety in the cantrip you use evert round, don't make all the booster invocations only work on Eldrich Blast.

 

[Eltab]

On that last line of thought...
Warlock cantrips that gum up the enemy with conditions, so your friends (or Patron?) can deal with them more easily. Ex: target loses 'Resist non-magical weapons' or Ex: target speed is halved.

 

[tetrasodium]

Warlock needs to stop being a deck of barely related munchkinized abilities devouring the design space of other casters masquerading as a class and be pulled into some form of cohesive class or just get dumped