And yet you know that when he's calling the monk a martial character, he means it's not a spellcaster
He did start with:
some of the classes are, to me from what ive played, staight up inferior to anything that can use magic. i dont feel like im getting stronger when i level up given that, as a monk
Which is clearly contrasting the monk to classes that use magic - which is off, because 5e Monks /explicitly/ use magic, in the form of Ki. 5e Monks can also actually cast spells, fueled by Ki, but still spells.
considering im the only martial class in our group of five, two playing clerics with domains that allow heavy armor, and two wild magic sorcerers, i do feel as though i just dont do much, and considering im coming from pathfinder that has like ki powers and cool stuff like that, i am willing to admit i might be a bit biased.
'Martial' is typically used to describe classes that use weapons, or classes that don't use magic, and, given he's already classed his monk as not using magic... - again, something off. The Monk does use magic in 5e. It's schtick still emphasizes fighting unarmed. It's a bizarre irony of D&D, one that perhaps doesn't get much play because it has so much competition with other bizarre and ironic things, that the D&D Monk, the closest thing to a 'martial artist' isn't very martial, at all.
, and when he talks about missing Pathfinder's ki powers it's actually the diverse plethora of powes that he misses.
PF has a larger body of material out than any single edition of D&D, including the 3.5 it cloned. It's hardly surprising that an ed that puts out maybe one supplement containing some 'crunch' in a given year has fewer options than that. But it's not that the Monk lacks 'cool ki powers,' it's that he doesn't have as many choices.
Really, nobody does. There's fewer spells, fewer feats, fewer options for every class down the line.
[MENTION=6952435]Sleepy Mage[/MENTION], 5e characters are indeed built simpler than Pathfinder characters. I find they play exceptionally well though when I don't look to what's on my character sheet. I just do what a monk would do, and force the DM to adjudicate the results.
That's how the game is designed to be played!
Yea I get that, but what I was saying is that they should have just improved the 3.5 formula, but for reals this time (PF tried but it was really just D&D 3.75).
I guess they did, a lot of people love it. Is it better? I personally think its a rigid system, with very little character customization, specially post creation. But hey thats just me.
In a sense, 4e improved the 3.5 formula - the sense that they were both player-focused games & that 4e improved mechanical qualities like balance. 5e is not improving on 3e or 4e, even though it lifts many bits from each, it's mainly improving upon the classic game, which was far more DM-focused.
As such, 5e is arguably comparable to and better than TSR stuff, even as it trades heavily on evoking the 'feel' of that era. But, 5e's much harder to compare to 3e, and, since I appreciate the qualities that go into both DM- and Player- focus, contrasting as they may be, I find it very hard to label one meaningfully better than the other. 3e provides far more customization and much deeper play on the player side of the screen, while 5e gives the DM tremendous latitude to customize the rules maintain control of the play experience from his side of the screen. They're like two halves of a hypothetical great game.
If it appeals to new players and people who were scared of 3.5 "complicated" system, I'm all for it.
What appeals to new players is a community that doesn't present as hostile and divided as an active warzone. 5e - with some smoke, some mirrors, the odd platitude, and some otherwise highly questionable design decisions - delivered that, and it would be sheer folly to mess with that success by in any way trying to 'improve' or 'expand' it to appeal to the hard-core fans of 3.x/PF or 0/1/2e/Arduin/OSR that still resist it's siren call.
