D&D 5E Which classes would you like to see added to D&D 5e, if any? (check all that apply)

[Guest 6801328]

Is this official copy from 4e, or made up by the web site? I found it here, whereas this one didn't have any fluff.

Warlords are accomplished and competent battle leaders. Warlords stand on the front line issuing commands and bolstering their allies while leading the battle with weapon in hand. Warlords know how to rally a team to win a fight.

Your ability to lead others to victory is a direct result of your history. You could be a minor warchief looking to make a name for yourself, a pious knight-commander on leave from your militant order, a youthful noble eager to apply years of training to life outside the castle walls, a calculating mercenary captain, or a courageous marshal of the borderlands who fights to protect the frontier. Regardless of your background, you are a skillful warrior with an uncanny gift for leadership.

 

[Aldarc]

Is this official copy from 4e, or made up by the web site? I found it here, whereas this one didn't have any fluff.

Yes, but again, I would recommend reading the fluff for all "leader" classes in 4E. This was not unique to Warlord. For example, the cleric:

Clerics are battle leaders who are invested with divine power. They blast foes with magical prayers, bolster and heal companions, and lead the way to victory with a mace in one hand and a holy symbol in the other. Clerics run the gamut from humble servants of the common folk to ruthless enforcers of evil gods.

As a cleric, the deity (or deities) you choose to revere goes a long way toward defining you, or at least how other people in the world see you. You could be a platinum-garbed envoy of Bahamut seeking justice throughout the land, a shadowy follower of Sehanine with a roguish streak, a burly disciple of Kord who believes the virtue of strength is sufficient for all chal-
lenges, or a dwarf cleric of Moradin bringing honor to the denizens of your mountain home. Will you protect what is sacred to your god, quest for legendary holy artifacts, pursue a life of evangelical adventuring, or attempt all these deeds and more?

Following PHB 1, perhaps because of feedback concerning the language around "roles," the class descriptions tended to be less role-focused and more flavor-focused.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It occurs to me that the conflict here comes down to two mutually exclusive preferences in "narrative aesthetics" (for lack of a better term).

The Warlord proponents want a class whose mechanics don't rely on magic.

I don't want anybody to tell me what my character thinks, feels, and does.

The problem is that in order to explain how some of these non-magical mechanics work requires a narrative in which my character thinks/feels/does something in response to somebody else's character. And sure while I could say, "Yeah...that doesn't work on my character, sorry. Give somebody else an extra attack." that's just kinda being a dick and I don't want to have to do that.

Personally...although I try to suppress this opinion...I think the non-magical requirement is asking too much in a game based on magic. But, they, that's their/your preference. So although I've probed at this preference (and @TonyVargas in particular has an elaborate justification for it) I avoid persuading others that they should just get over it magic and play a Bard or Paladin or Bard/Paladin or whatever gives them the mechanics they want. Because we are each entitled to our own aesthetic biases.

Where I wish these conversations would end up is some of the Warlord proponents saying, "Yeah...if that's important to you then I can see how a Warlord would be a wet blanket in your game. Nothing personal, but I hope Mike Mearles eventually sees it our way, not yours." (@Bawylie is one who has somewhat acknowledged the validity of my concerns.)

Instead it's this unrelenting insistence that I'm simply wrong. And that I want to impose my preferences on others, but not vice-versa. That the Warlord is not an inspiring leader issuing orders, despite bountiful evidence to the contrary.

Why do I care? Because I actually like the idea of a Fighter who trades some brute force for cleverness. I really do like the idea of building an Odysseus-like character. And I'd love to brainstorm how to make that happen in a way that avoids this "officer" stuff. But it feels like the Warlord proponents have entrenched themselves with a list of demands, and anything less than full capitulation by WotC is unacceptable.

By the way, the one name I really like for the concept is "Warden", but apparently the name has baggage from 3.5/4.0 and therefore can't be used.

 

[77IM]

Don't get so hung up on granting extra attacks. First, it's easy to design the warlord so that the ally gets to select their benefit (either an extra attack now OR a bonus on their next regular attack, or similar). Second, any warlord proponent who claims that extra-attack-granting is essential to the class doesn't understand good class design and also probably forgot that in 4E taking commander's strike was optional, so you can just ignore them.

 

[ClaytonCross]

Summoner-type classes have a fundamental problem when it comes to action economy. I would be way more likely to get behind them if they weren't also, invariably, pure spellcasters.

If you made the Summoner into a kind of rider that sits on the summoned creature's shoulder, you could have this class essentially fill the same role that a Shapeshifter class would normally fill, except you solve the whole "shapeshifter baggage" issue.

Allow them to only summon one at a time like "Final Fantasy X" or the Warlock in WOW, then they don't break action economy any more than Rangers / Necromancer school Wizards / Shadow Sorcerers / Warlocks of the Chain or any other class I am missing with familiar/companion creature. Where you can make them cool is give them an array of creatures with different abilities, tactics, and weaknesses then let them change their summoned creature as an action to adapt to the situation. Similar to Druids Wild shape but since attacking the summoned creature doesn't hurt the summoner you can make the majority low health and high skill and the summoner more of a stealthy caster hiding in the shadows while turn after turn sending new creatures at enemies. A defeated summoned creature can't be summoned again until then summoner finishes a short rest so that its a diminishing resource and you give them all a telepathic link to the summoner when they are their or not so you can have interesting PC minion squad roll play. Do it similar to the Barbarian Totem warrior where you pick your summon creature roaster when you get skill levels so no too summoners are alike and you have combat/non-combat options. You can have minions that act as stealthy assassin, sneaking thief, tanking giants, ground/water/flying mounts, a decoy like a doppelganger, minor spell casters, archers, swordsmen, charming succubus/enchantress spirits that convince or distract as the summoner slides by, a out of combat healer, a messenger, a pack mule, a scout, a night time camp sentry, an anti magic fighter, a tracking dog with "see invisible", a smith, a servant and I am sure other could come up with so much more. Then every class skill level up is a selection of which menions you what access too. You could divide minion selections into subclasses and add enhancing abilities or make this class more open and the only class that has so much variation that the subclass system is not nessicary. That is my take on it anyway.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Allow them to only summon one at a time like "Final Fantasy X" or the Warlock in WOW, then they don't break action economy any more than Rangers / Necromancer school Wizards / Shadow Sorcerers / Warlocks of the Chain or any other class I am missing with familiar/companion creature

I'm not familiar with Shadow Sorcerers or Warlocks of the Chain, but Rangers and Necromancers already break the action economy to an unacceptable level. Rangers give up their action to let their beast attack, which is flatly underpowered in terms of action economy, and Necromancers are noted for trivializing entire encounters with their skeleton armies. Fixing the action economy would mean something like Final Fantasy X, where the Summoner spends their action to command the eidolon, but those actions are comparable with the Fighter attacking or the Wizard casting a fireball.

Essentially, the Summoner would be a jack-of-many-trades, capable of substituting for a tank or striker or controller or healer depending on which eidolon they choose to summon. But they would be more like a shapeshifter, who could choose to take a form of a bear or an eagle or a panther, rather than a warlord commanding an army of minions.

 

[ClaytonCross]

I'm not familiar with Shadow Sorcerers or Warlocks of the Chain, but Rangers and Necromancers already break the action economy to an unacceptable level. Rangers give up their action to let their beast attack, which is flatly underpowered in terms of action economy, and Necromancers are noted for trivializing entire encounters with their skeleton armies. Fixing the action economy would mean something like Final Fantasy X, where the Summoner spends their action to command the eidolon, but those actions are comparable with the Fighter attacking or the Wizard casting a fireball.

Essentially, the Summoner would be a jack-of-many-trades, capable of substituting for a tank or striker or controller or healer depending on which eidolon they choose to summon. But they would be more like a shapeshifter, who could choose to take a form of a bear or an eagle or a panther, rather than a warlord commanding an army of minions.

Right, But I would also likely want them to have the ability to use a bonus action to hide and/or give a chance to subtle spell the summons so that they deviate from shape shifters and druids because attacking the summoned creature does not allow you to defeat the summoner and if the summoner is cleaver it could be possible for people to not even realize they are fighting a summoner making them really powerful with weaker minions until noticed. I would also make them an Intelect, 1/3 caster like an eldritch knight for if/when they run out of summons in a battle.

... Sounds fun to me, any way.

 

[Guest 6801328]

... Sounds fun to me, any way.

But it also sounds very, very specialized & niche-y. It would be unlike any other class, to an unprecedented degree within 5e.

 

[ClaytonCross]

But it also sounds very, very specialized & niche-y. It would be unlike any other class, to an unprecedented degree within 5e.

That sounds like exactly the right argument for wanting the class. I mine mind "specialized and niche-y" is the foundation of why you would want to add a new class. If its not then your not really adding anything to the game and what is the point? The same thing can be said about all the base classes if you consider them with out the others. After all a sneak character designed to attack from the shadows and that only does good damage when attacking from stealth or adding another fighter is pretty niche but I have a few of friends who enjoy the niche of the rogue. I could make a similar argument about any of the base classes, it when I can't make that argument that I look at a class and think why do I need this? I could just play a ____ and do the same thing, meh. This niche, is new so there it makes me excited to try something new.

Edit, An example of what I don't have interest in is the new Brute fighter sub-class which is just a cross between a monk and barbarian. If I was planning to cross class those already sure but if you have already played those the brute is not different enough to really excite me.

 

[gyor]

I chose "Other". I can't possibly determine just from a list of names. What matters is the design space, not the title. So maybe you're assuming they would be similar to classes from previous editions, but I think that's a bad way to go about it.

The "design space" I could see exploring:
- A more animistic/primitive caster class. Something that encapsulates shaman and witches and witch-doctors. -INT-based, but whereas Wizards are "book learned" these would be more informally schooled, or self-taught. Mechanically I would like to see spell lists that exclude most direct damage spells, especially the flashy nukes, and maybe even make it a half-caster, then make up for it with interesting, subtle support features. The druid could have served this role if they had put the shapeshifting into sub-classes.
- Although I detest Warlords, I have been persuaded by [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] and some others that there's room for a more flexible "martial support class". So I could picture something that is like a fighter but less so (if that makes sense) with more room in the sub-classes to tack on interesting and flavorful abilities.
- I've also always wanted a divine magical support class that more resembles a priest from WoW than a cleric from D&D. While you can build such a thing, it's always a bad tradeoff. But this could also be solved with a cleric sub-class that had an ability or abilities that only function when no armor is worn.

And that's about it. Looking through the list in the poll I could see almost all of them (if we are envisioning the same thing because, again, the OP just provided titles, not concepts) fitting in as subclasses of existing classes.

The Divine Soul fills the function of a Priest Class, I mean seriously, the Sorcerer class really only provides a spell list, sorcery points and the metamagic/flexible magic to use it, it's a very bare bones base class, it has very few features, compared to the Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Warlock, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, and so on with almost all it's meat coming from the subclass, so with the different origins it's almost like playing different classes, especially the Divine Soul.

If they did the Warlord, I wouldn't call it a Warlord, maybe Commander.