D&D General Which standard classes have you never (or very rarely) seen played? (Edited)

[Shiroiken]

Just basing it on the last two editions, I'd say the least two are monk and warlord. Even in 4E, we only had maybe 3 warlords ever, and I played 2 of them. We liked the concept, but it just wasn't people's cup of tea. The monk just never quite fit into the standard D&D setting, and is kinda the red-headed stepchild.

If you want to go back to all base game classes, I'd say assassin from 1E was probably the least played class. It had some cool options, but they seldom were useful in most games. After that I think Halfling from BECMI was also pretty uncommon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You weren't supposed to play 1st edition Assassin, it was presented as an NPC only class (Like Death cleric and Blackguard in 5e) hence it's always-evil alignment restriction in a game where evil PCs where discouraged.

Having said that, I did see them!

 

[Zardnaar]

Half orc fighter thief my ass.

 

[Tallifer]

I have seen them all played. Of course, Warlord the least often since it was only in one now defunct edition. But it was popular enough for a brief shining moment.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've been playing since '86 and I've never played with a Druid in the party. Weird, because while they aren't the most popular class they aren't bottom of the barrel either and they've been a class for ever. I also voted for Warlord, but I skipped 4th ed, so there's no mystery how that happened.

I have a similar experience re Druids, in that I am literally the only person I know IRL who has ever played a Druid. Loads of people consider it, loads of people say nice things about them, but they rarely play them. I've seen more 2E Mystics or 4E Invokers than Druids! Hell I've seen multiple 2E Speciality Priests of Torm, whereas only the three Druids I played. And in 5E they're genuinely a good class!

My votes were Barbarian, Monk, Druid and Ranger.

Druids - As noted.

Barbarians - Problematic in 1E, a terrible underpowered weird Nat Geo class in 2E (and problematic in a whole other sense!), low-tier in 3.XE, but we did see one, okay in 4E, and have yet to see one in 5E despite them being solid.

Monk - Despite entire OA campaigns and stuff and my main group being martial arts fans, we literally have our first ever Monk right now! Well, someone had some levels in it in 3E but only in a misguided attempt to cheese their AC (which got retcon'd so they were back to pure class wizard).

Ranger - in 2E we occasionally saw multi-class Rangers. Since then? Only people new to D&D seem to play them. And they often ask to change or create another character. Though I will always remember my little sister's 2E Ranger and her proud boasts about her Ranger's leopard companion!

Everything else we have seen a fair bit.

I think including Warlord is weird and unfair, by the way. It's not a 5E class and all the others are. If we include it we should include all the other "one edition" classes, many of which were far more rare. In 4E Warlords were pretty common. So that's a really misleading figure. And I say that not particularly liking Warlords.

Warlocks of course remain the stand out class for suddenly arriving and immediately being popular. We've had one in most groups since 4E. And Fighter is I think the only class I've seen, at least as a multiclass, in every group with at least five players in it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I find that in my groups druids are far more popular than clerics. I think down to a carried-over aversion to organised religion.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I find that in my groups druids are far more popular than clerics. I think down to a carried-over aversion to organised religion.

Yeah I'd expect the same in mine, with my bunch of atheists, agnostics and everyone environmentally-minded but instead we get a lot of wacky speciality priests, clerics with attitude (for example, the 4E cleric was an ex-pirate and of the goddess of luck) and so on. We do see a fair number of parties with a non-cleric healer though (usually a Bard in 5E).

 

[Fenris-77]

Something I've noticed in 5e is that I see people playing Clerics more for concept than because the party needs a heal bot. That's a good thing I think.

 

[Seramus]

I've seen them all played (except no Warlord in 5E) but the Fighter is the least common around here.

We've got casters coming out of the woodwork, and when someone wants to go no-casting it's usually either Rogue for the skills or Barbarian for the beef.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Warlord, because I skipped 4e.
Otherwise, the less chosen classes were monks, druids and bards.