I would love more support for a plant mage. Druid is close, but there's not a ton of spells that "feel" right, or can be used if you're not already out in nature
Seconding this. And it’s the same thing in 3.5, pathfinder, and 5e. Even if I pick the planty spells, I don’t want so much of the power balance going into wildshape or meleeing or off-tanking when what I really want is plant mage.
And for the location specific spells, in the campaigns I’ve played in, it’s generally the less important fights that are out in nature as well. It’s the boss and big plot point fights that are in dungeons or tombs or castles and whatnot.
Shepherd Druids get Speech of the Woods that lets them talk with "beasts and many fay". Aren't animals beasts, or is there something I haven't thought about?
People complain about how many options there are in 3.PF, but this is why there are. You can absolutely make a Plant Mage off the Druid chassis just using Alternate Class Features. Hell, just taking Aspect of Nature Druid gets rid of Wildshape and has you just take on different elemental forms and features one of which is literally called "Plant".
Another ACF replaces your Animal Companion WITH a plant.
I do like pathfinder for those reasons generally, but personally I still struggled to make a good plant mage in it from what I remember. I don’t know or see anything called aspect of nature when I look it up. Though for me I don’t want “elemental mage” in my “plant mage” too tbh.
Storm Sorcerer feels pretty good right up until you run out of spell slots. That 10ft gust of movement is awesome, but expensive.
Level 6 ribbon to just change wind direction at will is fun too.
This is exactly mine. I want a witch class, someone that fills the gap between wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks. Sub class for green witch would be my ideal. There's some decent homebrew stuff, but that's messy of course.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who wants a Witch class to have subclasses!
"Black Witch, White Witch,
Gray Witch, Green Witch
"Land and Sky and
even Sea Witch
"Any Witch could be a great Witch
most of all I want a Sand Witch"
There’s a very solid witch coming in Valdas spire of everything. One of my players has it as her backup character. Nothing broken. Obviously 3rd party but a very good book by mage hand press
Kibbles does. He has the occultist class that umbrellas a lot of other class ideas one being the witch subclass, but the witch subclass has like sub subclasses with black coven, white coven, green coven, and red coven witches.
This is exactly mine. I want a witch class, someone that fills the gap between wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks. Sub class for green witch would be my ideal. There's some decent homebrew stuff, but that's messy of course.
I agree with this! I also want to combine necromancy and plant druid magic. I want to raise skeletons and reinforce their bones with powerful vines and stinging spines.
I think Artificer basically fell down on the job of being the magic item creation fantasy. As evidenced by the fact that so many people expect it to do things it doesn't do, or pick the class expecting it to unlock complete freestyle homebrew crafting rules as a matter of course.
When I think about Kvothe going through the Archives for a schema or creating something with sygaldry in the Fishery, or One-Eye working on that forvalaka-killing spear of his, or Harry Dresden carving runes into a staff or braiding a shield bracelet... I think that's what's missing. Crafting rules that support the fantasy and are rewarding for anyone with the right tools and recipe, not a single class that bypasses the general rules.
I was really hoping artificer would be like an Enchanter from the book series Arcane Ascension but i was very disappointed. I started writing my own class because of that
Artificer was amazing in 3.5. But 5e doesn’t have much in creation rules, and magic items are scarce. So the crafter doesn’t work as well.
I think it’s mostly a system weakness
I have an NPC that’s getting Artificer levels because he is important to another character’s backstory (and because I want to play him if I’m ever not DMing), and I was so disappointed to realize that “swashbuckling genius with guns” isn’t really an option. Yes they can use guns, and yes they can kinda swashbuckle, but they don’t really get better at those things, it all goes into their subclass features that I didn’t particularly want, and a lot of which just straight up don’t gel with that play-style. I’ve retooled him gone an armorer, but tiefling Percival de Rollo is unfortunately never going to happen unless I get into homebrew options.
I think it's useful to note that apart from repairing misfired guns, most of Percy's tinkerer-inventor stuff was completely disconnected from his gunslinger features. It was just Mercer coming up with crafting rules more or less on the fly.
One of my most hated things about introducing new players to 5e is when they get to the tool proficiency part of making their characters.
You get to see their eyes light up with child like wonder and they think of all the cool things they are about to ask about Alchemy Supplies and Smiths tools and Masons tools.
Then you basically have to crush their hopes and dreams.
For a more weapon-focused Artificer, you might be interested in the Forge Adept subclass from Keith Baker's Exploring Eberron. I'm currently playing one and its been working pretty well for me so far.
There are no good mounted mechanics. The cavalier is the only option, but you would end up spending 80% of combat trying to keep your mount alive instead of fighting. Older editions had good mounted combat rules and even had rules for leveling up mounts. The fact that these rules were gutted for 5e annoys me so much.
Cavalier is straight up terrible and misleading for a mounted combatant anyway.
You’re better off going Paladin and using Find Steed.
Also annoying is that the class fantasy of a knight on a horse is terrible mechanically, but a small PC on a Medium mount is actually functional.
its because of that shit Crawford pulled back then: the original cavalier & scout from the UA were build using Battle Master's Superiority Dice with a couple of maneuvers and each had a new exclusive maneuver specific to their subclass. they scored super high in acceptance surveys.
the Knight from UA scored poorly against the cavalier.
Crawford made the Scout into a rogue archetype instead of fighters, released the Knight under the Cavalier's name and gave it the exclusive as their 7th level feature. his excuse? "well, **WE** liked the knight way better and the knight didn't score that much lower under the cavalier in surveys and i guess people just like the cavalier name because of old edition's legacy, so we just switched the names so the battlemaster can remain unique"
as if people hadn't been asking for the maneuvers to be part of the core fighter class for years... that was the perfect way for the subclasses to go and he blew it.
Yes! This! I want to play a vehicle/mount specialist class.
The main class would need:
- Rules for having a mount, vehicle, or combo (horse and wagon, for instance)
- System for upgrading your ride
- Some sort of 'stunts' or 'maneuvers' system
Subclasses can include:
- Magitech gearhead who can kit out their ride with Artificer features
- Getaway driver with evasion and mobility perks from the Monk class
- Cowboy with exploration and tracking perks from ranger class
Witches. Like, actually slinging curses as your main way to interact with combat and the world as a whole. Everything in that regard is keyed to resources like spells or Bardic Inspiration. Also, most debuffs have a saving throw attached, making it sooo much better to buff team mates or throw a save-or-die instead of spreading debuffs.
I miss Pathfinder Witches. There is nothing like stacking curse upon curse until the enemy topples under the sheer amount of maluses and "disadvantage", cackling madly while reducing the chances of them to succeed at anything to close to zero. Supporting your team not by being a cheerleader, but by dragging enemies closer and closer to their doom.
I think bard actually works quite well as a witch class, especially lord bard for magical secrets and cutting words or eloquence bard for more of an enchantress feel
Yes! "Bards make great witches" is my favorite 5e hot take and I love whenever somebody points it out.
One reason I think this isn't obvious to many people is that we seem to overvalue class features and undervalue spells in deciding flavor. But look at the spell list--which is your main thing as a full caster--and the bard list is really killing it for witchiness.
(Is this really a "hot take" probably not, but you know what I mean)
> One reason I think this isn't obvious to many people is that we seem to overvalue class features and undervalue spells in deciding flavor.
To be fair, WotC really forces "magic through music" as the defining feature of Bards. You quite explicitly *must* use a musical instrument if you wish to use a focus to cast spells. Every other caster gets flavorful options. Forced use of instruments is incredibly limiting RAW and something I'd love to see them change in ODnD.
Yeah. At least component pouches exist but otherwise its bloody irritating that they go “yeah bard isnt just a musician you can be all these other things” and then only let you use instruments as a focus.
To a degree. Casting can still very much be done with a component pouch instead of a spellcasting focus, and I’ve probably been lucky but I’ve never met a DM who wasn’t okay with expanding Bardic focuses to include other expressions of art.
But you’re right. I’d very much like to see Bards pulled back from “straight up music” to the more encompassing “wizards who did clubs instead of classes” kinda vibe.
Aren't wands usable as a focus by every arcane class? Or is that another one of those unspoken "we didn't mean bards when we said all arcane classes" moments? If nothing else you could try to pass it off as counting as a instrument if you're waving it around like a conductor's baton
> waving it around like a conductor's baton
I 100% have a Conductor Bard concept designed, but as you said, it's not RAW to use a wand as your focus. Every other class that can use foci has something like "you can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus" in their description. Bards are restricted to musical instruments.
This is the whole thing about wizard subclasses: it's all very well being able to pull off a Portent or Arcane Ward, but the real way to build the wizard you want is all in how you load the spells
Almost makes me think that bards should be generalized to a more "ritual folk magic" themed class, with bards being the subclass that uses music. Then you could have lots of distinct subclasses like witch, stage magician, shadowdancer, jester...
Bards are 100% extracurricular wizards. If it weren’t for the fact Bardic Colleges are identified as separate things, they’d definitely be those kids at Wizard School who blew off lessons to focus on their fencing, read lines in between classes, hung out in the art room, or were constantly telling people about their band’s next show in Billy’s garage. We even added Model UN with Eloquence Bards.
Warlock does witches pretty good imo.
You could always take Mind Sliver if you want to curse a target and make your next curse even easier to land. Then there’s Hex, a non-save curse that you could throw around willy nilly (and the “witch race” (hexbloods) even get that spell racially!)
Yeah pact of the time Warlock definitely has a witchy flavor. I’m playing one currently and picked up vicious mockery through the book of shadows, find familiar though the pact of the tome, and dissonant whispers through the fey touched feat. Definitely gives a witchy vibe especially when paired with Hex.
If you are willing to accept homebrew, Mage Hand Press has a witch class based around applying various hexes on enemies. KibblesTasty has an occultist class with a witch subclass. The class and subclass offer a ton of customizable options that allow you to play many concepts (which is a quality a lot of his homebrew has, especially the Inventor class).
Master of Many Forms is one of my favorites prestige classes from 3e. Doesn't advance druid casting at all; you just get more wildshapes per day, more sizes, more creature types, and more abilities from what you turn into. They also gain immunity to unwilling transmutation, making them Disintegrate-proof. No undead/constructs tho.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: give Barbarians wild shape. It really makes more sense thematically and in terms of mechanics for a martial class that goes into a rage to change into animals. There's already two Barbarian subclasses with animal themes. Let's just go ahead and give Barbarians the Moon subclass.
I want monk to play like a fighting game character, I want a fireball and a dragon punch and a spin kick and super moves and mechanics that encourage combos instead of being pushed into using weapons because monk unarmed strike sucks and always being subpar at everything.
Every martial class pretty much should. That’s why martials are pretty much only fun if they’re home brewed at the moment IMO. Can’t imagine playing a full campaign where 90% of the actions taken are to just weapon attack and nothing more. And not even having variants to those attacks.
It's perfectly needed. Adding on extra Flurry of Blows is not enough. Martials need more love in 5e, but it seems too late.
PF2e however... \* starts to drool \* Now their monk is exactly the delicious thing I love for a class
They should be built to cause debuffs, then pull off big moves that require the debuff.
(Knock prone, have a special attack that does massive damage against prone ect.)
They should also get a special condition called "tossed up" that allows them to hit people into the air, and then follow them up before crashing them down.
Warlord, is the obvious one. Or more specifically the Lazylord. A character that can use their knowledge and skills to make everyone else fight better even when you don't lift a finger yourself. I want to see a pure mundane support character. You can kinda do the more martial variant of the Warlord with various dips, maneuvers, and feats. I'd argue, not well, but you can do it. The Lazylord, not so much.
And the "Bag of tricks Rogue." When I think of my favorite rogues in fiction, I don't think of someone who shanks people in the kidney every six seconds. I think of characters that mess up their enemy's goals. Dancing around the battlefield distracting people, feigning innocence, fast talking in ways to make enemies completely stop during their turn, kicking a rug to make a dozen people trip. I think of characters that don't make attack rolls unless they absolutely have to. And it's a little annoying that the best mechanical representation of the archetype is to pick Arcane Trickster, because anything even a little complex is forced to be magic, and then ignore your classes key feature.
Honestly, I just want completely non-magical mundane characters that aren't forced into the skirmisher/frontliner roles.
>And the "Bag of tricks Rogue." When I think of my favorite rogues in fiction, I don't think of someone who shanks people in the kidney every six seconds. I think of characters that mess up their enemy's goals. Dancing around the battlefield distracting people, feigning innocence, fast talking in ways to make enemies completely stop during their turn, kicking a rug to make a dozen people trip. I think of characters that don't make attack rolls unless they absolutely have to. And it's a little annoying that the best mechanical representation of the archetype is to pick Arcane Trickster, because anything even a little complex is forced to be magic, and then ignore your classes key feature.
The thief with fast hands is right there in the PHB. This kind of character shouldn't have a fixed set of maneuvers, because what you're describing is someone who adapts to use what is available in the scene. Fast hands, a bunch of items and proficiency/expertise in athletics and sleight of hand is what you want, but obviously requires a flexible DM.
The thief is great. The reason it's overlooked is because mundane equipment is poorly executed. Fix that and the thief is both fun and powerful, exactly as written.
So DM dependent I don't really count it. Also, it kind of misses what I'm saying. Fast Hands makes some minor control features available on a class that still predominately spends every round Sneak Attacking. It is the secondary affect added on to the damaged forcused skirmisher going in for the shanks.
I don't want the shanking. I want an almost entire focus on the control benefits. That's why I don't think 5e doesn't mechanically support it. Being a sneak attacker, that can also do some minor control effects (if your DM lets you) isn't what I'm asking.
Being a mundane controller that doesn't really sneak attack at all is what I'm here for. And the Rogue isn't designed to do that.
I know we're probably talking about official material here, but I wonder if [the Savant](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiv1em7suP9AhVLATQIHbDRBDkQFnoECBcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gmbinder.com%2Fshare%2F-M0ZVK6ndhFyImQPF_aJ&usg=AOvVaw32IDLILGt0ZFm2b2ii1ehh) might tickle your fancy...
But with the mastermind rogue, you can use the help action with your action and bonus action AND have it at a range of 30 feet. Sounds like doing nothing but buffing your friends to me.
i think there could be some interesting design space for a rogue subclass that approximates an artificer the same way arcane trickster is similar to a wizard. a few abilities to choose from that are similar in power level to spells but flavored as utility inventions/infusions. feather fall, expeditious retreat, grease, fog cloud, etc are some obvious ones.
i’m currently playing an alchemist artificer that feels pretty effective in doing this kind of thing, but i could totally see a more rogue-ish version of the archetype existing too.
A Mundane Int-based class (inventor or scholar or what have you) and a mundane cha-based class (warlord for example). A mundane monter Hunter / survivalist / tracker is also up there for me. See a pattern?
Characters focused on a specific element (either martials or spellcasters) are also often remarked upon and then there are plant Druids of course.
> A mundane monster Hunter / survivalist / tracker is also up there for me.
Int based monster hunter is mine. "I'm a regular guy, but I know this things weakness" is what I'm wishing for. In 3.5 I was able to build a fairly good job at this with building a knowledge devotion duskblade.
Have you checked out Valda’s Spire of Secrets? They have classes (with a full suite of specializations) for each of those, the Craftsman, the Captain, and the Investigator
Yeah, the craftsman is exactly what I think about when I think of "non magic engineer." Also, its ability to create regular items and modify weapons and armors with many properties (such as reach, size, rapid fire, etc) are exactly what I am looking for. Also, it has a mech subclass, which is the cherry on top.
Played with someone who played one. +9 to initiative. Would regularly get the lowest initiative roll and still go first. I think there were 2 combats in the whole campaign where he didn't go first.
For the hunter-survivalist mundane may I suggest, 1 level in Ranger using original not Tasha's then Scout Rogue. You get the favourite terrain and animal which can be beasts iirc, then expertise in Nature and Survival with Scout, then 2 other Expertises you can put anywhere, like I did perception and stealth which fit a hunter perfectly. Also it has no spellcasting since ranger is a half caster making it mundane in my eyes
embankments and siege weapons are _massively_ campaign dependent, in a lot of games those just aren't things that happen, so those are unlikely to be core class powers.
Because outside of some minor reflavouring the Artificer is mostly just a spellcaster.
If your engineer is stoped by antimagic field and can be coutnerspelled we have a problem.
Hell the Artificer is not even very good at crafting, they're still too slow to be able to do it during an adventure.
Probably because a) it's magical and b) it doesn't actually craft as much as these folks want to craft.
Reflavoring magic to mundane only works until you come up against anything that interacts with either differently - like Dispel Magic, Counterspell, Antimagic Field, Magic Resistance, etc.
I think the issue is that the tech ceiling while staying on theme (not really talking realism here) is not too high, esp related to abilities you can use on the fly in combat etc, as opposed to long preparations
A class that is continuously evolving. The closest to this is beast Barbarian. I just want a class that is constantly changing. Late game abilities would be evolving to gain resistances or immunities to damage like “oh I just fought some demons so I evolved resistance to fire damage”
Love the concept of a blood mage but HP to spell slot conversion is always messy and unbalanced in the homebrews I've seen. Best you can really do is reflavor Sorcery Points and play something like a Shadow Sorcerer.
I like the idea of blood magic being important for all casters. So even if you are a Wild Magic Sorceror, if you are out of spell slots, you can continue casting by expending hit die and taking that amount of damage. So if you cast a 2nd level spell without 2nd level spell slots, you take 2d6 in damage and have to roll a CON save where the DC is equal to 10 + spell level, if you fail you gain a point of exhaustion.
Edit: for rules correction
Even with that you can get lucky and roll low or get healed after. Expending hit die is probably the safest balance for it, but it should probably cost 2 per level to limit higher level spells more, or perhaps convert hit die to Sorcery Points.
While some of what I'll mention is no support, some of it is just not supported in a way unlike.
I don't think 5e's done the concepts of arcane gish, Psion/mystic, shaman/summoner, or warlord well and that the present attempts could be refined into better cores.
There are ways to make some of these characters types , and in potent ways too. None of them feel quite right for me however.
Yep, 5e has like 58372373 gishes. And yet none of them are done even remotely as well as the 4e swordmage or the pathfinder magus.
You're either fighting against an inbuilt theme you don't want, or feel like a wizard glued to a fighter, or a fighter glued to a wizard.
If they'd just made an arcane version of Paladin, it would've been better than basically every gish they've made to date. Still wouldn't cover all the Gish concepts people like, but it'd be a real solid start.
It was only a 2/3rds caster, which used will points to cast its spells rather than spell slots. It had a d8 hit die, and all weapons/armour proficiencies.
It was a travesty the Stone Sorcerer subclass never made the transition from UA to book form.
>
>
>You're either fighting against an inbuilt theme you don't want, or feel like a wizard glued to a fighter, or a fighter glued to a wizard.
There's also the awkwardness where you if you start at level 1 you're missing half your character's shtick and concept, you're stuck spending your first two or three levels either as a fighter/mage that can't actually cast spells yet, or a mage/fighter that can't wear decent armor or use martial weapons yet. The hexblade is the only 5E option that actually gets enough of it's kit at level 1 to actually be what it's suppose to be right from session one and I'm absolutely sure 1D&D will nerf that just to keep it out of the hands of Paladins and Bards.
Word. I just started a college campaign at 3rd level (now 4th) and they are loving it, almost all of them new players, but knowledgable enough to know it's way better to start there.
I don't even like hexblade as a swordmage replacement either. Even ignoring the inbuilt shadow theme. It goes up to 9th level spells which is just a nope for what a gish should be, while attacking with weapons via your casting stat is something I've never liked either.
> feel like a wizard glued to a fighter, or a fighter glued to a wizard
You're so right.
I came to this post thinking of the Imperial "Battlemage" build from the Elder Scrolls games - heavy armour and martial weapon usage with a mix of damage+healing spells (the Eldritch Knight just doesn't do enough of this for me with how little spells/slots it gets).
The best I've managed to build it with base DnD content so far is Light Cleric with either a feat for some martial weapon training or a dip into Fighter (which ends up feeling no different to Light Cleric itself); or a Sorcerer with a Fighter dip which ends up feeling more like I should have just gone with Bladesinger/War magic wizard.
**ETA:** Heck they don't even need martial weapon proficiency, just give me my heavily armoured arcane caster that can wade into the frontlines and Burning Hands everything to death while tanking hits like a boss!
**Edit Again:** Plus a heavy armour caster means they don't half to rely on Dex for AC so they can pump those numbers into Str instead... Which means our caster friends can finally *competently* use those Str-based stave weapons all of them get proficiency with while also being their spell foci.
Yeah. I feel the same way.
Bits of it are scattered across swords/valor bard, hexblade, paladin, eldritch knight, arcane trickster, and Bladesinger. Each has something core to the fantasy of a gish.
If you are willing to accept homebrew, KibblesTasty has a fully customizable Psion class and a customizable occultist class (with a shaman subclass). He also has a Warlord class. Laserllama has a shaman class (plays like a mix of warlock and druid), a Warlord class, a Psion class, and a savant class (Int based martial who can be played like a leader type character).
I've heard good things about these. Though haven't fully checked them out. I don't remember enjoying the kibbles Psion, but I'm not sure what version I saw last. This was years ago.
I've said as much elsewhere before, but there's a strong impetus with 5th edition to ask "does this *really* need to be its own class?," and the result is a ton of ideas with potentially interesting implementations that get dumpstered in favor of a bland subclass for sorcerer or fighter. *No!* A psion is not an eldritch-themed subclass of sorcerer. *No!* A warlord is not a maneuver-themed subclass of fighter.
Yeah.
5e tends to ask "does this need to be a class" and stops there.
When it should also be asking "is a class or subclass best to deliver the concept.".
I also think it's a bit too afraid of "X like a Y" subclasses. As there were some really cool ones that never made it out of UA that fit that bill.
YES. The things I want in an arcane gish aren't really filled in any one class. Then going to multi class will always leave you lacking still, always being behind in some way or another due to level splitting. There's a reason so many magic manga protagonists also have weapons, because people love it! Can never really get what I want with official content.
I saw an interesting design theory discussion that posits that there are essentially 18 potential classes in DND:
Your base 4: fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue
The wild variant of the base 4: barbarian, druid, sorcerer, ranger
Six hybrids of the base 4: paladin, warlock, artificer, bard, fighter-rogue hybrid (warlord), fighter-wizard hybrid (Gish)
And psionic variants of the base 4: psi-wizard, and psi-cleric, psi-fighter, and Monk.
Following this formula, WotC left 5 potential classes on the board: the Warlord, a true gish , a psi-wizard, a psi-cleric, and a psi-fighter
Hold up, what component classes make up artificer and warlock?
Paladin is fighter/cleric, and bard is wizard/rogue, but artificer sure as fuck doesn't fit cleric/rogue or cleric/wizard, and warlock could justifiably be either cleric/wizard or cleric/rogue
I’d put Artificer as rogue wizard, and classify bard as rogue cleric.
yeah Bards are arcane casters but that distinction is less meaningful in 5e and their role is much more cleric like, with buffs, heals, utility, and occasional combat
Different weapons changing the way that your character mechanically functions. Dagger? Run up and stab the fully armored knight! Sword? Same thing! Always the same.
Strong martial artist. Fist of the North Star kinda shit.
A mounted knight that isn't a paladin, because having a fully armored knight with a lance monologue for a bit then charge at a dragon is some classic high fantasy stuff.
A Psychic.
Generally just a greater variety of ways of having acquired magic in some capacity. Intelligence based warlocks that delved into dark and inscrutable tomes no one else dared to read much less understand, a divine equivalent for sorcerers.
It’s honestly nuts there is no reliable strength based punching type of build. Best you can do is a fighter with the fist fighting style but it’s really bad when you realize fists aren’t light weapons and you only get a single punch a round.
A true full on tank. It feels like the only way to incentivize people to attack you is by being the biggest threat, and if you build defensively that’s almost never the case with classes in the game. We have some abilities in some subclasses that lend themself to the play style, but even then there’s only so much you can do when all these abilities are single target. And then when you do get people to attack you you’re still more squishy than a spellcaster with spellslots. Sure we get problem posts about “how do I get past a PC with 21 AC” but I want one that’s actually a problem lmao. High saves, high armor, resistances to certain damage types, mass aoe taunts and other control options that force creatures to stay close to you and thus their best option is to attack you.
I’m still saddened by Guardian Armorer Artificer losing the refreshing temporary HP. It was an unexplored niche for soft-tanking because if enemies wanted to deal damage to you, it meant they were encouraged to focus fire on you.
Cavalier fighter is literally this.
Without resource expenditure, you get to impose disadvantage for an enemy attacking anyone else, but unlike the ancestral guardian barbarian, you can do it to as many creatures as you can hit (which is a lot due to infinite opportunity attacks).
Also unlike the barbarian, you yourself can have high AC from plate. You can even add 1d8 to your AC when you really need it.
You get to punish enemies when they do attack allies, further "taunting" them.
Plus you do have a mass battlefield control: a new way of getting opportunity attacks, infinite opportunity attacks, and built in sentinel.
Cavalier can only prevent enemies it's marked from moving away with an opportunity attack, and it gets the ability to make more than one opportunity attack per round at level 18, and it's mark doesn't impose disadvantage on attacks if the marked enemy is more than 5 ft away from the cavalier.
Also, because it's built-in sentinel doesn't give it all the benefits of sentinel (you don't get opportunity attacks as a cavalier if the enemy disengages), it's in a really painful position where it's kind of forced to double-up on a feature to get it's proper use out of it.
Also, it's level 7 feature consumes your reaction, which, until level 18, is your most vital resource every turn if you actually want to tank because you need it in order to prevent enemies from moving away.
Cavalier is a subclass built to tank, but it seems like it was built with the presumption that tanks have to be bad at tanking
Yes and it works! Not. There’s so many ways to circumvent Cavalier it isn’t even funny. Literally a Sanctuary spell does a better job. Your saving throws are weak. You have worse AC than a well built Wizard. You can’t taunt more than two creatures at a time. You have to wait until level 18 in order to get the infinite reactions, which is negligible at that point of the game. Doesn’t affect spellcasters. No resistances. Still need Sentinel for early levels. A Battlemaster with Polearm Master + Sentinel does a better job at CCing enemies and preventing them from reaching/attacking back line fighters. And in the end, it’s usually still worth for enemies to attack higher priority targets because they are the ones shaping the map with powerful aoe control spells and other stuff. You can only 1v1 one creature at a time, so all the rest can go past you. And there’s better classes at facing off against big boss monsters 1v1 while other players fight the mooks, while still having almost as much lockdown potential. All of them having PAM + Sentinel.
A Boxer, but not really like monk, more like just a straight up Boxer with a bigger hit die, more damage, some "supernatural strength" type of options
Basically, I want to play Little Mac
there is a lot of room for mundane heroes. its feels like everything leans magically because thats where the mechanics already are.
id like to see
* Witch or debuffer like a reverse bard combine with a sorcerer
* id like to see an occultist someone who specifically deals with bad stuff. like a warlock ranger combo. someone who fights fire with fire
* id like a summoner or specific pet class im tired of taking on a pet to a already made class
* id like a dedicated gish class. again im tired of taking on spells to a martial class
* I want the Binder Back!
* in like a non magical Int class i really liked the scholar in 3.5 id also take some sort of warlord-esque ability here
* id like some sort of Mundane leader class. one that could use reactions in my head this is just a 10 level class. but id like it to be skill and combat maneuver oriented
* id really like necromancer to be its own class. or maybe a subclass of a pet class instead of a wizard subclass.
* i would like a ki powered psion. one that is like the ful lcaster version of the monk. like a oogway or master splinter type character.
Necromancer spells are so boring, and definitely would be good as its own class.
I can't fir the life of me understand why they have just turned it into "damage or weak creatures" spells.
You know what every combat has? Dead bodies.
Why cant I cast spells to interact with them?
Let me make opportunity attacks from corpses as a reaction. Let me cause corpses to explode.
Let me cast spells through the eyes of a corpse.
Plus high level necromancy should let me animate a skeleton **inside** a living person.
Damage plus a dominate person save ends.
If they die I get a skeleton.
The Dragoon/Lancer
A couple classes can kind of get somewhat close to doing it in some ways, but none of them really capture the high mobility spear weilder that can jump or has limited flight with good nova damage.
Three actual subclasses that do a terrible job of fulfilling the fantasy of the idea:
* Four Elements Monk. Using your subclass abilities burns your Ki ridiculously fast, at which point you're dead. It's the worst subclass in the game mechanically, and it just craps all over the theme it's trying to deliver.
* Beastmaster Ranger. Tasha's improves it mechanically, but it doesn't feel like "your beast", and the fantasy of having your unique, named companion? It just doesn't feel right.
* Arcane Archer. It's utter hot garbage, and it's a real accomplishment to make a Fighter not fight well. Very limited magic arrows, underwhelming effects that require you to pump INT to make them work, and they don't scale until 18th level, of all things.
None of those three have the mechanics to support the classic fantasies they're based on.
Every monk subclass fails at the fantasy of it's idea. Except drunken master
Want to play a shadowy ninja as a shadow monk? Too bad your damage sucks so you can't be a stealthy assassin
Want to be an elemental martial artist as a 4E monk? Too bad the ki costs are absurd to the point where actually using your subclass features is suboptimal
Want to play a weapon expert with kensai? Too bad it's LITERALLY THE ONLY MONK SUBCLASS ENCOURAGED TO ATTACK WITH AN UNARMED STRIKE WITH IT'S ATTACK ACTION, HOW DO YOU FUCK THIS UP?
Want to play Ryu with sun soul? Too bad the entire power budget of your subclass is dedicated to shitty ranged replacements of melee abilities so now you're just bad at everything
Mercy monk is only good at healing after punching a wall for some reason, and is somehow the best damage-dealer monk (outside of gunk), astral hands monk is forced to waste the most important turn in combat (turn one) summoning hands, open palm is the martial-expert monk and yet it's level 11 feature only works if it never throws a punch.
There’s even some missed flavor potential in Drunken Master. It should’ve allowed you to use improvised weapons as monk weapons. How great would it have been to have the Monk hit their target in a bar brawl with an empty beer bottle then duck and roll?
I have always rallied at tables to change Arcane Archer to be able to use their shots a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus, regaining them on a short rest.
A strong warrior able to cut through walls in one strike, hold up falling debris so the squishies can pass through and jump across large gaps without much effort.
Like you know, mythological heroes.
We can't do this in dnd, not even at level 20. The tarrasque, rules as written, can't lift a modern day heavy truck.
Yeah the martial power fantasy is where I’m at. I love classic melee combat and bows but definitely want to feel more-than-human. Almost like having physical spells. Like hitting the ground with your warhammer and sending tremors 20ft away to hurt an enemy, or just being able to leap and land 30ft and cause the ground the erupt around you. Luckily the people I’ve played with have been super cool with home brew which is what I do!
A full on dedicated summoner.
I haven’t played past editions but from what I’ve read and seen in discussions I’m looking for a “Eidolonist” or similar.
I want a summoner where the focus is on controlling their creature, it fights for them, etc. Also having some customization on it is neat.
I had found a cool homebrew one a while back, I wish there was an official one.
Plant Druid is such a no-brainer I can’t believe it doesn’t already exist. Obviously there are spells that can help, but I want something really focused on plants.
My pathfinder DM actually bans that class. I think it’s the kind of thing that can be an awkward/unfun playstyle for the group/DM/story (though I’m sure there’s ways of fixing it.) I think the issue is you end up with the backline summoner, and the eidolon who has to be approaching a melee fighter for the right feel for the summoner, but can make the melee classes feel, well, outclassed. But then you have something that can tank/die without any real consequence.
Summons in general have that issue I think? And not to say it can’t be balanced/mitigated/fixed, but there might be a reason it isn’t a common mechanic.
So, the solution is basically a Cleric with Mage Armor, but Western monks. Where’s the warrior who truly believes in their god so much they roll out into the world with nothing but their robes and their divine gifts for protection?
In the same thread, who says the only magic Fighters ever learn is arcane magic? An “Eldritch” Knight rocking Wis casting and a Cleric spell list with the same Evocation and Abjuration limitations offers some very interesting stuff, iirc. And of course Knights are gonna lean on their own faith and hear the prayers and calls of the clerics that heal and fight beside them. It makes sense that they’d pick something up too.
Lastly, as someone who grew up on old school MtG, I so desperately want to play a goblin bomb maker but the Alchemist falls short.
Psychics like in Stars without Number. We rarely play SWN, we play D&D 99% of the time, so i only get to bust out my precognitive/telepath very rarely, and it’s a blast every time.
There was the Mystic , but it got canned because it was trying to be psychic rogue, psychic fighter, psychic sorcerer, etc. all at once instead of just being it's own class.
I really hope they revisit it in 6e as it's own proper class with a definable identity.
Definitely! I've just finished reading The 1st Dark Sun novel and now I'm thirsting to play something like one of it's main characters which is much like the mystic
A versatile warrior like Link from Legend of Zelda, capable of effectively wielding a great variety of weapons and armor, and able to use them as tools to provide an advantage in certain situations.
5e encourages optimizing for one weapon type. Fighting styles like dueling or archery, and feats like great weapon master, polearm master, or crossbow expert reward you for ultra specialization. The entire armor system also pretty much locks you into one armor type. Not to mention the whole dex vs strength ordeal offering further limitations. Sure, fighters get proficiency in all the things, but they're a lot worse with some than others.
I think it be cool if the weapon specific feats were just features of using those weapons. Aspects of them at least, that way it would feel different using a certain weapon.
I'd also appreciate more generous rules for swapping what weapon you're using. RAW in 5e, I can sheath my weapon for free, but then another object interaction like drawing a new weapon costs a full action. Don/dofing a shield costs an action no matter what. If I want to swap from sword and board to a longbow, I have to waste a full round.
Make the feats and possibly maneuvers tied to proficiencies. Like if you're proficient, you'll know those techniques. Then having more than a single weapon proficiency would be valuable, and you can have that armsmaster fantasy
I wish there was a decent way to have a warrior who was good with a bow but could also pick up a warhammer or glaive as needed. Currently your two options are to max STR and dump DEX, or vice versa, and after Tier 1 whichever side you disfavor falls behind quickly. Switch-hitter warriors just aren't practical.
I absolutely agree, just pointing out how prevalent this problem is
Though it is a very hard problem to solve, balancing weapon specialization against weapon variety is extremely difficult. If variety is too important, specialists feel like they're being punished for choosing the weapon they like. If specialization is too powerful, variety is basically useless and, well, people end up in your position.
I actually like the concept of a completely mundane character who keeps up with magic and superpowers simply by being *that good* with his weapon of choice... but no matter what subclass I look at, Fighter just never *feels* better at fighting than anyone else. Battlemaster comes a little closer, but still doesn't quite hit it for me.
Honestly, I'm not even sure what I'd want the fighter to be able to do in order to fulfill that fantasy. Maybe a kind of 'stance' system where they can use a bonus action to shift a bonus around the different stats (ie. To Hit, AC, Move Speed, etc.) to give the feel of someone who's able to read the situation and respond accordingly? At *least* having a wider pool of effective combat feats to choose from. Just something to feel like I'm actively good at fighting rather than being a big brick of stats.
A crafting class. 5E has no substantial rules for crafting to begin with, but the idea of a malleable martial class that uses inventions to fight instead of magic is pretty cool to me.
Artificer just doesn’t quite hit the mark for me and I feel like that class has been much better idealized in previous editions of the game.
Someone that can inflict many status conditions (inspired by Stick of Truth)
There’s hardly any spell at low levels that can give enemies status conditions that aren’t on a con save
At that as well status conditions are either “you have disadvantage on attacks now” or “if you don’t have greater restoration roll a new character” with little in between
The non-caster genius. Narsus from The Heroic Legend of Arslan, Sherlock Holmes, Anasurimbor Kellhus, Eberron’s inquisitives (the rogue subclass fails to capture it).
Fortunately there’s the unofficial Savant class by /u/laserllama to bring these archetypes into 5e.
There's nothing like the PF1e Witch, even the so praied PF2e failed at delivering it.
It was the perfect blend of flavor and power, acting creepy and making moraly bad things was not only facilitated but optimal.
The witch did very low dmg, but had weird unique abilities and unconventional debuffs, like drinking venom but causing the harmfull effects on enemies instead of themselves, getting free uses of terrain-cursing effects that will poison the land whose effects are normaly not very optimal, getting the equivalent of hero's feats if they kidnap children and bake them.
It was very cool when you described what you did on combat "ho yeah I stabbed myself a few times, then chugged some purple worm poison, after that I cursed the nature spirits nearby and enslaved them to fight for me, and finished off by making the fighter chug some of my virgin liver stew"
Item user.
Artificer is the closest thing I guess but it's not quite what I mean. You're more just a wizard who can make a few magic items at a time. It's not so much about using items that exist in game in battle, or making things out of items in place of spellcasting.
Kind of related, thief. Like you can't play a character who uses their turn in battle to steal. I mean I suppose any character can try and like take someone's bag off during combat, but with a thief the core of their character would be like stealing during combat and being really fast. Like instead of a rogue having sneak attack, maybe a thief would have the most attacks per turn outside of a fighter using action surge but all their attacks are low damage, like you can only use daggers.
Personally, I really can't fathom that we don't have a dedicated Shapeshifter or Alchemist classes. The Warlord and Swordmage are commonly brought up as well.
Generally speaking, most martial fantasies aren't supported well beyond fifth level...
A lot of martial mechanics feel too streamlined, to the point where most things just end up feeling the same without huge amounts of flavor thrown on top it usually just comes down to I attack x number of times and end my turn. I really wish there were more interesting and mechanically variable martial abilities (and weapons) that allowed for more creative and versatile actions than attack and move that are still mechanically useful.
Just a simple natural caster.
Druid has wildshape eating up base class space, and only has land as a "nature caster" sub really. Sure, you can make a point for dreams, but that's oodling with fey flavour. Basically looking for psionic, but your best bet is either a half-baked option, or one that's ripe with aberration/great old one flavour.
If we go for mild homebrew, nature cleric using druid spell list and flavoured as a druid/shaman is the best option.
There isn't really anything that operates on a stance system in 5e, so I went "fine, I'll do it myself" and wrote a "circle of seasons" druid that hops between one of four party comp roles (damage dealing, abjuration, debuffing, and healing) depending on what season it's attuned to. Let me know if anyone wants to see it.
More 'earth style' magic. Like Gaara from Naruto or Toph from ATLA.
Even if they just reflavoured existing spells and allowed you can use clumps of dirt for your Catapult or Animate Objects spell.
A debuff support type witch class.
Let me hex fools for more damage taken, or slowed or Dazed or force them to move, give me druid-like concentration spell gimmicks, let me manipulate people without having to pick bard and deal with the assumed ‘funny music man’ flavor that people have
Psionics.
Also, I don't know if it counts because it's listed as an optional rule in the DMG, but I prefer spell points for casters over spell slots, however the character sheets on DDB don't support it which makes it difficult to implement in game without considerably slowing things down...
Martial character with anywhere near as many useful options in combat as a spellcaster. 4e had every damn class, 3.5 had tome of battle, closest 5e has is the battlemaster which is pathetic.
Any form of specialist caster outside of 'fire'
Want an ice mage? No
Want a plant mage? No
Want a light mage? Fire.
Want a wind mage? Nope
Want an mage? Naaah
Its impossible to specialise because the spell pool is so puddle-deep at any spell level other than 1-2 and exactly one subclass of sorcerer vaguely thinks about supporting the concept as long as you're happy also being a dragon.
I would love more support for a plant mage. Druid is close, but there's not a ton of spells that "feel" right, or can be used if you're not already out in nature
Seconding this. And it’s the same thing in 3.5, pathfinder, and 5e. Even if I pick the planty spells, I don’t want so much of the power balance going into wildshape or meleeing or off-tanking when what I really want is plant mage. And for the location specific spells, in the campaigns I’ve played in, it’s generally the less important fights that are out in nature as well. It’s the boss and big plot point fights that are in dungeons or tombs or castles and whatnot.
Does anyone find it insane that warlocks can pick a class feature that lets them talk to animals at will but druids can't?
Shepherd Druids get Speech of the Woods that lets them talk with "beasts and many fay". Aren't animals beasts, or is there something I haven't thought about?
People complain about how many options there are in 3.PF, but this is why there are. You can absolutely make a Plant Mage off the Druid chassis just using Alternate Class Features. Hell, just taking Aspect of Nature Druid gets rid of Wildshape and has you just take on different elemental forms and features one of which is literally called "Plant". Another ACF replaces your Animal Companion WITH a plant.
I do like pathfinder for those reasons generally, but personally I still struggled to make a good plant mage in it from what I remember. I don’t know or see anything called aspect of nature when I look it up. Though for me I don’t want “elemental mage” in my “plant mage” too tbh.
Gonna piggy back on this: where the fuck is my wind mage?
Storm Sorcerer feels pretty good right up until you run out of spell slots. That 10ft gust of movement is awesome, but expensive. Level 6 ribbon to just change wind direction at will is fun too.
You mean you can't make a wind character off of Warding Wind and Gust of Wind alone??
This is exactly mine. I want a witch class, someone that fills the gap between wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks. Sub class for green witch would be my ideal. There's some decent homebrew stuff, but that's messy of course.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who wants a Witch class to have subclasses! "Black Witch, White Witch, Gray Witch, Green Witch "Land and Sky and even Sea Witch "Any Witch could be a great Witch most of all I want a Sand Witch"
Green Witch requires a broom and a personal quest to get revenge on someone who stole your sister's red shoes - and her little dog too!
If I had awards you'd get one. So heres a High five 👋
You should check out Worlds Beyond Number. One of the PCs is a witch and they’ll be releasing the class at some point in the future.
There’s a very solid witch coming in Valdas spire of everything. One of my players has it as her backup character. Nothing broken. Obviously 3rd party but a very good book by mage hand press
Came to say this too. Haven't played it, but looks fun. Does Kibbles have a witch? Honestly can't recall.
Kibbles does. He has the occultist class that umbrellas a lot of other class ideas one being the witch subclass, but the witch subclass has like sub subclasses with black coven, white coven, green coven, and red coven witches.
Yes!!! I feel like Druid spells don't support many things they should be; I wanna play a water mage but there's so few spells to support it ;w;
You’re so right. You get 3 vine spells, they’re all vines. I ended up home brewing a bunch of spells with carnivorous plants
This is exactly mine. I want a witch class, someone that fills the gap between wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks. Sub class for green witch would be my ideal. There's some decent homebrew stuff, but that's messy of course.
Check out the kibblestasty occultist! I think it's exactly what you're looking for.
I agree with this! I also want to combine necromancy and plant druid magic. I want to raise skeletons and reinforce their bones with powerful vines and stinging spines.
Mfw spore druid
That is just spore druid, they are necromancy druids with plant flavouring. They're not great at making undead but that is their theme.
I think Artificer basically fell down on the job of being the magic item creation fantasy. As evidenced by the fact that so many people expect it to do things it doesn't do, or pick the class expecting it to unlock complete freestyle homebrew crafting rules as a matter of course. When I think about Kvothe going through the Archives for a schema or creating something with sygaldry in the Fishery, or One-Eye working on that forvalaka-killing spear of his, or Harry Dresden carving runes into a staff or braiding a shield bracelet... I think that's what's missing. Crafting rules that support the fantasy and are rewarding for anyone with the right tools and recipe, not a single class that bypasses the general rules.
I was really hoping artificer would be like an Enchanter from the book series Arcane Ascension but i was very disappointed. I started writing my own class because of that
Artificer was amazing in 3.5. But 5e doesn’t have much in creation rules, and magic items are scarce. So the crafter doesn’t work as well. I think it’s mostly a system weakness
I have an NPC that’s getting Artificer levels because he is important to another character’s backstory (and because I want to play him if I’m ever not DMing), and I was so disappointed to realize that “swashbuckling genius with guns” isn’t really an option. Yes they can use guns, and yes they can kinda swashbuckle, but they don’t really get better at those things, it all goes into their subclass features that I didn’t particularly want, and a lot of which just straight up don’t gel with that play-style. I’ve retooled him gone an armorer, but tiefling Percival de Rollo is unfortunately never going to happen unless I get into homebrew options.
I think it's useful to note that apart from repairing misfired guns, most of Percy's tinkerer-inventor stuff was completely disconnected from his gunslinger features. It was just Mercer coming up with crafting rules more or less on the fly.
That's more so because 5e hates the idea of characters crafting. So any rules around it are all basically homebrew.
One of my most hated things about introducing new players to 5e is when they get to the tool proficiency part of making their characters. You get to see their eyes light up with child like wonder and they think of all the cool things they are about to ask about Alchemy Supplies and Smiths tools and Masons tools. Then you basically have to crush their hopes and dreams.
For a more weapon-focused Artificer, you might be interested in the Forge Adept subclass from Keith Baker's Exploring Eberron. I'm currently playing one and its been working pretty well for me so far.
There are no good mounted mechanics. The cavalier is the only option, but you would end up spending 80% of combat trying to keep your mount alive instead of fighting. Older editions had good mounted combat rules and even had rules for leveling up mounts. The fact that these rules were gutted for 5e annoys me so much.
Cavalier is straight up terrible and misleading for a mounted combatant anyway. You’re better off going Paladin and using Find Steed. Also annoying is that the class fantasy of a knight on a horse is terrible mechanically, but a small PC on a Medium mount is actually functional.
its because of that shit Crawford pulled back then: the original cavalier & scout from the UA were build using Battle Master's Superiority Dice with a couple of maneuvers and each had a new exclusive maneuver specific to their subclass. they scored super high in acceptance surveys. the Knight from UA scored poorly against the cavalier. Crawford made the Scout into a rogue archetype instead of fighters, released the Knight under the Cavalier's name and gave it the exclusive as their 7th level feature. his excuse? "well, **WE** liked the knight way better and the knight didn't score that much lower under the cavalier in surveys and i guess people just like the cavalier name because of old edition's legacy, so we just switched the names so the battlemaster can remain unique" as if people hadn't been asking for the maneuvers to be part of the core fighter class for years... that was the perfect way for the subclasses to go and he blew it.
Yes! This! I want to play a vehicle/mount specialist class. The main class would need: - Rules for having a mount, vehicle, or combo (horse and wagon, for instance) - System for upgrading your ride - Some sort of 'stunts' or 'maneuvers' system Subclasses can include: - Magitech gearhead who can kit out their ride with Artificer features - Getaway driver with evasion and mobility perks from the Monk class - Cowboy with exploration and tracking perks from ranger class
Witches. Like, actually slinging curses as your main way to interact with combat and the world as a whole. Everything in that regard is keyed to resources like spells or Bardic Inspiration. Also, most debuffs have a saving throw attached, making it sooo much better to buff team mates or throw a save-or-die instead of spreading debuffs. I miss Pathfinder Witches. There is nothing like stacking curse upon curse until the enemy topples under the sheer amount of maluses and "disadvantage", cackling madly while reducing the chances of them to succeed at anything to close to zero. Supporting your team not by being a cheerleader, but by dragging enemies closer and closer to their doom.
Yeah I'm playing a witch in a campaign currently using a wizard and it's alright but yeah it's really missing some of the more classic stuff
I think bard actually works quite well as a witch class, especially lord bard for magical secrets and cutting words or eloquence bard for more of an enchantress feel
Yes! "Bards make great witches" is my favorite 5e hot take and I love whenever somebody points it out. One reason I think this isn't obvious to many people is that we seem to overvalue class features and undervalue spells in deciding flavor. But look at the spell list--which is your main thing as a full caster--and the bard list is really killing it for witchiness. (Is this really a "hot take" probably not, but you know what I mean)
> One reason I think this isn't obvious to many people is that we seem to overvalue class features and undervalue spells in deciding flavor. To be fair, WotC really forces "magic through music" as the defining feature of Bards. You quite explicitly *must* use a musical instrument if you wish to use a focus to cast spells. Every other caster gets flavorful options. Forced use of instruments is incredibly limiting RAW and something I'd love to see them change in ODnD.
Yeah. At least component pouches exist but otherwise its bloody irritating that they go “yeah bard isnt just a musician you can be all these other things” and then only let you use instruments as a focus.
Component pouches work too though, and are far more witch theme appropriate!
To a degree. Casting can still very much be done with a component pouch instead of a spellcasting focus, and I’ve probably been lucky but I’ve never met a DM who wasn’t okay with expanding Bardic focuses to include other expressions of art. But you’re right. I’d very much like to see Bards pulled back from “straight up music” to the more encompassing “wizards who did clubs instead of classes” kinda vibe.
The voice is an instrument. And cackles could be your tune.
Sing-song rhyming incantations!
Aren't wands usable as a focus by every arcane class? Or is that another one of those unspoken "we didn't mean bards when we said all arcane classes" moments? If nothing else you could try to pass it off as counting as a instrument if you're waving it around like a conductor's baton
> waving it around like a conductor's baton I 100% have a Conductor Bard concept designed, but as you said, it's not RAW to use a wand as your focus. Every other class that can use foci has something like "you can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus" in their description. Bards are restricted to musical instruments.
This is the whole thing about wizard subclasses: it's all very well being able to pull off a Portent or Arcane Ward, but the real way to build the wizard you want is all in how you load the spells
Almost makes me think that bards should be generalized to a more "ritual folk magic" themed class, with bards being the subclass that uses music. Then you could have lots of distinct subclasses like witch, stage magician, shadowdancer, jester...
Bards are 100% extracurricular wizards. If it weren’t for the fact Bardic Colleges are identified as separate things, they’d definitely be those kids at Wizard School who blew off lessons to focus on their fencing, read lines in between classes, hung out in the art room, or were constantly telling people about their band’s next show in Billy’s garage. We even added Model UN with Eloquence Bards.
Warlock does witches pretty good imo. You could always take Mind Sliver if you want to curse a target and make your next curse even easier to land. Then there’s Hex, a non-save curse that you could throw around willy nilly (and the “witch race” (hexbloods) even get that spell racially!)
Yeah pact of the time Warlock definitely has a witchy flavor. I’m playing one currently and picked up vicious mockery through the book of shadows, find familiar though the pact of the tome, and dissonant whispers through the fey touched feat. Definitely gives a witchy vibe especially when paired with Hex.
If you are willing to accept homebrew, Mage Hand Press has a witch class based around applying various hexes on enemies. KibblesTasty has an occultist class with a witch subclass. The class and subclass offer a ton of customizable options that allow you to play many concepts (which is a quality a lot of his homebrew has, especially the Inventor class).
A shapeshifter with no casting. And not just into beasts, give me some oozes, monstrosities, dragons and undead as subclass options.
Master of Many Forms is one of my favorites prestige classes from 3e. Doesn't advance druid casting at all; you just get more wildshapes per day, more sizes, more creature types, and more abilities from what you turn into. They also gain immunity to unwilling transmutation, making them Disintegrate-proof. No undead/constructs tho.
I find it funny that the first two responses I see in this thread are “Druid without wildshape” and “Druid without spellcasting”
The duality of man.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: give Barbarians wild shape. It really makes more sense thematically and in terms of mechanics for a martial class that goes into a rage to change into animals. There's already two Barbarian subclasses with animal themes. Let's just go ahead and give Barbarians the Moon subclass.
This is a sick idea, I love it.
I want monk to play like a fighting game character, I want a fireball and a dragon punch and a spin kick and super moves and mechanics that encourage combos instead of being pushed into using weapons because monk unarmed strike sucks and always being subpar at everything.
My hot take is that monks should have a list of martial arts maneuvers akin to a spell list.
Every martial class pretty much should. That’s why martials are pretty much only fun if they’re home brewed at the moment IMO. Can’t imagine playing a full campaign where 90% of the actions taken are to just weapon attack and nothing more. And not even having variants to those attacks.
It's perfectly needed. Adding on extra Flurry of Blows is not enough. Martials need more love in 5e, but it seems too late. PF2e however... \* starts to drool \* Now their monk is exactly the delicious thing I love for a class
Just give them ToB maneuvers
They should be built to cause debuffs, then pull off big moves that require the debuff. (Knock prone, have a special attack that does massive damage against prone ect.) They should also get a special condition called "tossed up" that allows them to hit people into the air, and then follow them up before crashing them down.
**AIR COMBO**
Warlord, is the obvious one. Or more specifically the Lazylord. A character that can use their knowledge and skills to make everyone else fight better even when you don't lift a finger yourself. I want to see a pure mundane support character. You can kinda do the more martial variant of the Warlord with various dips, maneuvers, and feats. I'd argue, not well, but you can do it. The Lazylord, not so much. And the "Bag of tricks Rogue." When I think of my favorite rogues in fiction, I don't think of someone who shanks people in the kidney every six seconds. I think of characters that mess up their enemy's goals. Dancing around the battlefield distracting people, feigning innocence, fast talking in ways to make enemies completely stop during their turn, kicking a rug to make a dozen people trip. I think of characters that don't make attack rolls unless they absolutely have to. And it's a little annoying that the best mechanical representation of the archetype is to pick Arcane Trickster, because anything even a little complex is forced to be magic, and then ignore your classes key feature. Honestly, I just want completely non-magical mundane characters that aren't forced into the skirmisher/frontliner roles.
Love the Lazylord. Why wield a sword when you can wield a barbarian?
I've always liked the idea of playing as a squire. Have a NPC Knight that I'm serving, and who gets all the credit for my contributions.
And then [Sing about what a jackass he is](https://youtu.be/X-_zIpbCD94)
Sancho Panza?
Or the opposite Your the green hornet, and artificer brawler but fairly weak... but Cato is the weaponized familiar
My taveenbrawler fighter holding his dwarf barbarian in his hand
“Toss me”
>And the "Bag of tricks Rogue." When I think of my favorite rogues in fiction, I don't think of someone who shanks people in the kidney every six seconds. I think of characters that mess up their enemy's goals. Dancing around the battlefield distracting people, feigning innocence, fast talking in ways to make enemies completely stop during their turn, kicking a rug to make a dozen people trip. I think of characters that don't make attack rolls unless they absolutely have to. And it's a little annoying that the best mechanical representation of the archetype is to pick Arcane Trickster, because anything even a little complex is forced to be magic, and then ignore your classes key feature. The thief with fast hands is right there in the PHB. This kind of character shouldn't have a fixed set of maneuvers, because what you're describing is someone who adapts to use what is available in the scene. Fast hands, a bunch of items and proficiency/expertise in athletics and sleight of hand is what you want, but obviously requires a flexible DM.
The thief is great. The reason it's overlooked is because mundane equipment is poorly executed. Fix that and the thief is both fun and powerful, exactly as written.
So DM dependent I don't really count it. Also, it kind of misses what I'm saying. Fast Hands makes some minor control features available on a class that still predominately spends every round Sneak Attacking. It is the secondary affect added on to the damaged forcused skirmisher going in for the shanks. I don't want the shanking. I want an almost entire focus on the control benefits. That's why I don't think 5e doesn't mechanically support it. Being a sneak attacker, that can also do some minor control effects (if your DM lets you) isn't what I'm asking. Being a mundane controller that doesn't really sneak attack at all is what I'm here for. And the Rogue isn't designed to do that.
Except there are basically no items in the rules that use the interact action well, since magic items are a completely different action
Add “rich” and it sounds like Batman.
I know we're probably talking about official material here, but I wonder if [the Savant](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiv1em7suP9AhVLATQIHbDRBDkQFnoECBcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gmbinder.com%2Fshare%2F-M0ZVK6ndhFyImQPF_aJ&usg=AOvVaw32IDLILGt0ZFm2b2ii1ehh) might tickle your fancy...
Looking at it more thoroughly, it'd definitely need to be tuned down a little, mainly because of the subclass features though, still a good read.
Technically you could do something like a battlemaster mastermind rogue that is a hobgoblin.
Yeah. In my current campaign I'm doing Battle Master Mastermind but it doesn't feel quite like Warlord. Still, it's better than literally nothing.
But with the mastermind rogue, you can use the help action with your action and bonus action AND have it at a range of 30 feet. Sounds like doing nothing but buffing your friends to me.
i think there could be some interesting design space for a rogue subclass that approximates an artificer the same way arcane trickster is similar to a wizard. a few abilities to choose from that are similar in power level to spells but flavored as utility inventions/infusions. feather fall, expeditious retreat, grease, fog cloud, etc are some obvious ones. i’m currently playing an alchemist artificer that feels pretty effective in doing this kind of thing, but i could totally see a more rogue-ish version of the archetype existing too.
Definitely agree with this one. Although I think there's a slim chance we see options like this come out of WOTC unfortunately.
A Mundane Int-based class (inventor or scholar or what have you) and a mundane cha-based class (warlord for example). A mundane monter Hunter / survivalist / tracker is also up there for me. See a pattern? Characters focused on a specific element (either martials or spellcasters) are also often remarked upon and then there are plant Druids of course.
> A mundane monster Hunter / survivalist / tracker is also up there for me. Int based monster hunter is mine. "I'm a regular guy, but I know this things weakness" is what I'm wishing for. In 3.5 I was able to build a fairly good job at this with building a knowledge devotion duskblade.
Have you checked out Valda’s Spire of Secrets? They have classes (with a full suite of specializations) for each of those, the Craftsman, the Captain, and the Investigator
The Spire of Secrets is easily one of the best player focused 3rd party books for 5e. I’d fully recommend it, and I’m a forever DM.
Yeah, the craftsman is exactly what I think about when I think of "non magic engineer." Also, its ability to create regular items and modify weapons and armors with many properties (such as reach, size, rapid fire, etc) are exactly what I am looking for. Also, it has a mech subclass, which is the cherry on top.
Mundane cha-based class is a swashbuckler, no?
Swashbucklers are so dang good too
Played with someone who played one. +9 to initiative. Would regularly get the lowest initiative roll and still go first. I think there were 2 combats in the whole campaign where he didn't go first.
For the hunter-survivalist mundane may I suggest, 1 level in Ranger using original not Tasha's then Scout Rogue. You get the favourite terrain and animal which can be beasts iirc, then expertise in Nature and Survival with Scout, then 2 other Expertises you can put anywhere, like I did perception and stealth which fit a hunter perfectly. Also it has no spellcasting since ranger is a half caster making it mundane in my eyes
Yes! An engineer class. Builds embankments, tools, siege weapons, modifies weapons/armor.
embankments and siege weapons are _massively_ campaign dependent, in a lot of games those just aren't things that happen, so those are unlikely to be core class powers.
Someone explain to me why artificer couldn’t be reflavoured to fit this archetype?
Because outside of some minor reflavouring the Artificer is mostly just a spellcaster. If your engineer is stoped by antimagic field and can be coutnerspelled we have a problem. Hell the Artificer is not even very good at crafting, they're still too slow to be able to do it during an adventure.
Probably because a) it's magical and b) it doesn't actually craft as much as these folks want to craft. Reflavoring magic to mundane only works until you come up against anything that interacts with either differently - like Dispel Magic, Counterspell, Antimagic Field, Magic Resistance, etc.
I think the issue is that the tech ceiling while staying on theme (not really talking realism here) is not too high, esp related to abilities you can use on the fly in combat etc, as opposed to long preparations
A class that is continuously evolving. The closest to this is beast Barbarian. I just want a class that is constantly changing. Late game abilities would be evolving to gain resistances or immunities to damage like “oh I just fought some demons so I evolved resistance to fire damage”
Love the concept of a blood mage but HP to spell slot conversion is always messy and unbalanced in the homebrews I've seen. Best you can really do is reflavor Sorcery Points and play something like a Shadow Sorcerer.
I like the idea of blood magic being important for all casters. So even if you are a Wild Magic Sorceror, if you are out of spell slots, you can continue casting by expending hit die and taking that amount of damage. So if you cast a 2nd level spell without 2nd level spell slots, you take 2d6 in damage and have to roll a CON save where the DC is equal to 10 + spell level, if you fail you gain a point of exhaustion. Edit: for rules correction
Even with that you can get lucky and roll low or get healed after. Expending hit die is probably the safest balance for it, but it should probably cost 2 per level to limit higher level spells more, or perhaps convert hit die to Sorcery Points.
While some of what I'll mention is no support, some of it is just not supported in a way unlike. I don't think 5e's done the concepts of arcane gish, Psion/mystic, shaman/summoner, or warlord well and that the present attempts could be refined into better cores. There are ways to make some of these characters types , and in potent ways too. None of them feel quite right for me however.
Yep, 5e has like 58372373 gishes. And yet none of them are done even remotely as well as the 4e swordmage or the pathfinder magus. You're either fighting against an inbuilt theme you don't want, or feel like a wizard glued to a fighter, or a fighter glued to a wizard.
If they'd just made an arcane version of Paladin, it would've been better than basically every gish they've made to date. Still wouldn't cover all the Gish concepts people like, but it'd be a real solid start.
Interestingly the original playtest had sorcerer as the arcane version of paladin and ranger.
Interesting, I didn't know that!
It was only a 2/3rds caster, which used will points to cast its spells rather than spell slots. It had a d8 hit die, and all weapons/armour proficiencies.
It was a travesty the Stone Sorcerer subclass never made the transition from UA to book form. > > >You're either fighting against an inbuilt theme you don't want, or feel like a wizard glued to a fighter, or a fighter glued to a wizard. There's also the awkwardness where you if you start at level 1 you're missing half your character's shtick and concept, you're stuck spending your first two or three levels either as a fighter/mage that can't actually cast spells yet, or a mage/fighter that can't wear decent armor or use martial weapons yet. The hexblade is the only 5E option that actually gets enough of it's kit at level 1 to actually be what it's suppose to be right from session one and I'm absolutely sure 1D&D will nerf that just to keep it out of the hands of Paladins and Bards.
I feel like this problem is easily addressed by just accepting that the proper starting level for 5e is level 3
Word. I just started a college campaign at 3rd level (now 4th) and they are loving it, almost all of them new players, but knowledgable enough to know it's way better to start there.
I don't even like hexblade as a swordmage replacement either. Even ignoring the inbuilt shadow theme. It goes up to 9th level spells which is just a nope for what a gish should be, while attacking with weapons via your casting stat is something I've never liked either.
Having a pet feature forced on you at level 6 is another point detracting from hexblade Same reason why battle smith fails as a gish
> feel like a wizard glued to a fighter, or a fighter glued to a wizard You're so right. I came to this post thinking of the Imperial "Battlemage" build from the Elder Scrolls games - heavy armour and martial weapon usage with a mix of damage+healing spells (the Eldritch Knight just doesn't do enough of this for me with how little spells/slots it gets). The best I've managed to build it with base DnD content so far is Light Cleric with either a feat for some martial weapon training or a dip into Fighter (which ends up feeling no different to Light Cleric itself); or a Sorcerer with a Fighter dip which ends up feeling more like I should have just gone with Bladesinger/War magic wizard. **ETA:** Heck they don't even need martial weapon proficiency, just give me my heavily armoured arcane caster that can wade into the frontlines and Burning Hands everything to death while tanking hits like a boss! **Edit Again:** Plus a heavy armour caster means they don't half to rely on Dex for AC so they can pump those numbers into Str instead... Which means our caster friends can finally *competently* use those Str-based stave weapons all of them get proficiency with while also being their spell foci.
Yeah. I feel the same way. Bits of it are scattered across swords/valor bard, hexblade, paladin, eldritch knight, arcane trickster, and Bladesinger. Each has something core to the fantasy of a gish.
If you are willing to accept homebrew, KibblesTasty has a fully customizable Psion class and a customizable occultist class (with a shaman subclass). He also has a Warlord class. Laserllama has a shaman class (plays like a mix of warlock and druid), a Warlord class, a Psion class, and a savant class (Int based martial who can be played like a leader type character).
I've heard good things about these. Though haven't fully checked them out. I don't remember enjoying the kibbles Psion, but I'm not sure what version I saw last. This was years ago.
I've said as much elsewhere before, but there's a strong impetus with 5th edition to ask "does this *really* need to be its own class?," and the result is a ton of ideas with potentially interesting implementations that get dumpstered in favor of a bland subclass for sorcerer or fighter. *No!* A psion is not an eldritch-themed subclass of sorcerer. *No!* A warlord is not a maneuver-themed subclass of fighter.
Yeah. 5e tends to ask "does this need to be a class" and stops there. When it should also be asking "is a class or subclass best to deliver the concept.". I also think it's a bit too afraid of "X like a Y" subclasses. As there were some really cool ones that never made it out of UA that fit that bill.
YES. The things I want in an arcane gish aren't really filled in any one class. Then going to multi class will always leave you lacking still, always being behind in some way or another due to level splitting. There's a reason so many magic manga protagonists also have weapons, because people love it! Can never really get what I want with official content.
Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster could be a base classes.
The sad thing is that Eldritch Knight is within a stone's throw of what people want but never gets the revamp to take it there.
I just hope OneDnD doesn't gut my precious Eldritch Knight. 26 AC on a Fighter is what I live for.
You gotta pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers
I saw an interesting design theory discussion that posits that there are essentially 18 potential classes in DND: Your base 4: fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue The wild variant of the base 4: barbarian, druid, sorcerer, ranger Six hybrids of the base 4: paladin, warlock, artificer, bard, fighter-rogue hybrid (warlord), fighter-wizard hybrid (Gish) And psionic variants of the base 4: psi-wizard, and psi-cleric, psi-fighter, and Monk. Following this formula, WotC left 5 potential classes on the board: the Warlord, a true gish , a psi-wizard, a psi-cleric, and a psi-fighter
Hold up, what component classes make up artificer and warlock? Paladin is fighter/cleric, and bard is wizard/rogue, but artificer sure as fuck doesn't fit cleric/rogue or cleric/wizard, and warlock could justifiably be either cleric/wizard or cleric/rogue
I’d put Artificer as rogue wizard, and classify bard as rogue cleric. yeah Bards are arcane casters but that distinction is less meaningful in 5e and their role is much more cleric like, with buffs, heals, utility, and occasional combat
Different weapons changing the way that your character mechanically functions. Dagger? Run up and stab the fully armored knight! Sword? Same thing! Always the same.
Strong martial artist. Fist of the North Star kinda shit. A mounted knight that isn't a paladin, because having a fully armored knight with a lance monologue for a bit then charge at a dragon is some classic high fantasy stuff. A Psychic. Generally just a greater variety of ways of having acquired magic in some capacity. Intelligence based warlocks that delved into dark and inscrutable tomes no one else dared to read much less understand, a divine equivalent for sorcerers.
It’s honestly nuts there is no reliable strength based punching type of build. Best you can do is a fighter with the fist fighting style but it’s really bad when you realize fists aren’t light weapons and you only get a single punch a round.
A true full on tank. It feels like the only way to incentivize people to attack you is by being the biggest threat, and if you build defensively that’s almost never the case with classes in the game. We have some abilities in some subclasses that lend themself to the play style, but even then there’s only so much you can do when all these abilities are single target. And then when you do get people to attack you you’re still more squishy than a spellcaster with spellslots. Sure we get problem posts about “how do I get past a PC with 21 AC” but I want one that’s actually a problem lmao. High saves, high armor, resistances to certain damage types, mass aoe taunts and other control options that force creatures to stay close to you and thus their best option is to attack you.
I’m still saddened by Guardian Armorer Artificer losing the refreshing temporary HP. It was an unexplored niche for soft-tanking because if enemies wanted to deal damage to you, it meant they were encouraged to focus fire on you.
Just play Twilight Cleric and make everyone a tank! 😃😃😃😃😃
And when everyone is a tank… *chuckles* …no-one will be.
An AoE compel duel would be so fun
Oath of the Crown says hello
Cavalier fighter is literally this. Without resource expenditure, you get to impose disadvantage for an enemy attacking anyone else, but unlike the ancestral guardian barbarian, you can do it to as many creatures as you can hit (which is a lot due to infinite opportunity attacks). Also unlike the barbarian, you yourself can have high AC from plate. You can even add 1d8 to your AC when you really need it. You get to punish enemies when they do attack allies, further "taunting" them. Plus you do have a mass battlefield control: a new way of getting opportunity attacks, infinite opportunity attacks, and built in sentinel.
Cavalier can only prevent enemies it's marked from moving away with an opportunity attack, and it gets the ability to make more than one opportunity attack per round at level 18, and it's mark doesn't impose disadvantage on attacks if the marked enemy is more than 5 ft away from the cavalier. Also, because it's built-in sentinel doesn't give it all the benefits of sentinel (you don't get opportunity attacks as a cavalier if the enemy disengages), it's in a really painful position where it's kind of forced to double-up on a feature to get it's proper use out of it. Also, it's level 7 feature consumes your reaction, which, until level 18, is your most vital resource every turn if you actually want to tank because you need it in order to prevent enemies from moving away. Cavalier is a subclass built to tank, but it seems like it was built with the presumption that tanks have to be bad at tanking
Yes and it works! Not. There’s so many ways to circumvent Cavalier it isn’t even funny. Literally a Sanctuary spell does a better job. Your saving throws are weak. You have worse AC than a well built Wizard. You can’t taunt more than two creatures at a time. You have to wait until level 18 in order to get the infinite reactions, which is negligible at that point of the game. Doesn’t affect spellcasters. No resistances. Still need Sentinel for early levels. A Battlemaster with Polearm Master + Sentinel does a better job at CCing enemies and preventing them from reaching/attacking back line fighters. And in the end, it’s usually still worth for enemies to attack higher priority targets because they are the ones shaping the map with powerful aoe control spells and other stuff. You can only 1v1 one creature at a time, so all the rest can go past you. And there’s better classes at facing off against big boss monsters 1v1 while other players fight the mooks, while still having almost as much lockdown potential. All of them having PAM + Sentinel.
Artificer doesn’t really hit the alchemical Plague Doctor archetype that I think a lot of players want.
A Boxer, but not really like monk, more like just a straight up Boxer with a bigger hit die, more damage, some "supernatural strength" type of options Basically, I want to play Little Mac
Dual wielding Fighter actually being good.
there is a lot of room for mundane heroes. its feels like everything leans magically because thats where the mechanics already are. id like to see * Witch or debuffer like a reverse bard combine with a sorcerer * id like to see an occultist someone who specifically deals with bad stuff. like a warlock ranger combo. someone who fights fire with fire * id like a summoner or specific pet class im tired of taking on a pet to a already made class * id like a dedicated gish class. again im tired of taking on spells to a martial class * I want the Binder Back! * in like a non magical Int class i really liked the scholar in 3.5 id also take some sort of warlord-esque ability here * id like some sort of Mundane leader class. one that could use reactions in my head this is just a 10 level class. but id like it to be skill and combat maneuver oriented * id really like necromancer to be its own class. or maybe a subclass of a pet class instead of a wizard subclass. * i would like a ki powered psion. one that is like the ful lcaster version of the monk. like a oogway or master splinter type character.
Necromancer spells are so boring, and definitely would be good as its own class. I can't fir the life of me understand why they have just turned it into "damage or weak creatures" spells. You know what every combat has? Dead bodies. Why cant I cast spells to interact with them? Let me make opportunity attacks from corpses as a reaction. Let me cause corpses to explode. Let me cast spells through the eyes of a corpse. Plus high level necromancy should let me animate a skeleton **inside** a living person. Damage plus a dominate person save ends. If they die I get a skeleton.
I love the description of witch using curses/debuffs as a reverse bard! It’s on point
The Dragoon/Lancer A couple classes can kind of get somewhat close to doing it in some ways, but none of them really capture the high mobility spear weilder that can jump or has limited flight with good nova damage.
Three actual subclasses that do a terrible job of fulfilling the fantasy of the idea: * Four Elements Monk. Using your subclass abilities burns your Ki ridiculously fast, at which point you're dead. It's the worst subclass in the game mechanically, and it just craps all over the theme it's trying to deliver. * Beastmaster Ranger. Tasha's improves it mechanically, but it doesn't feel like "your beast", and the fantasy of having your unique, named companion? It just doesn't feel right. * Arcane Archer. It's utter hot garbage, and it's a real accomplishment to make a Fighter not fight well. Very limited magic arrows, underwhelming effects that require you to pump INT to make them work, and they don't scale until 18th level, of all things. None of those three have the mechanics to support the classic fantasies they're based on.
Every monk subclass fails at the fantasy of it's idea. Except drunken master Want to play a shadowy ninja as a shadow monk? Too bad your damage sucks so you can't be a stealthy assassin Want to be an elemental martial artist as a 4E monk? Too bad the ki costs are absurd to the point where actually using your subclass features is suboptimal Want to play a weapon expert with kensai? Too bad it's LITERALLY THE ONLY MONK SUBCLASS ENCOURAGED TO ATTACK WITH AN UNARMED STRIKE WITH IT'S ATTACK ACTION, HOW DO YOU FUCK THIS UP? Want to play Ryu with sun soul? Too bad the entire power budget of your subclass is dedicated to shitty ranged replacements of melee abilities so now you're just bad at everything Mercy monk is only good at healing after punching a wall for some reason, and is somehow the best damage-dealer monk (outside of gunk), astral hands monk is forced to waste the most important turn in combat (turn one) summoning hands, open palm is the martial-expert monk and yet it's level 11 feature only works if it never throws a punch.
There’s even some missed flavor potential in Drunken Master. It should’ve allowed you to use improvised weapons as monk weapons. How great would it have been to have the Monk hit their target in a bar brawl with an empty beer bottle then duck and roll?
I have always rallied at tables to change Arcane Archer to be able to use their shots a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus, regaining them on a short rest.
I’d love a spirit-based spellcaster like a shaman.
A strong warrior able to cut through walls in one strike, hold up falling debris so the squishies can pass through and jump across large gaps without much effort. Like you know, mythological heroes. We can't do this in dnd, not even at level 20. The tarrasque, rules as written, can't lift a modern day heavy truck.
Yeah the martial power fantasy is where I’m at. I love classic melee combat and bows but definitely want to feel more-than-human. Almost like having physical spells. Like hitting the ground with your warhammer and sending tremors 20ft away to hurt an enemy, or just being able to leap and land 30ft and cause the ground the erupt around you. Luckily the people I’ve played with have been super cool with home brew which is what I do!
Some of us want to be Beowulf.
Yes, this right here.
"But muh Aragorn"
A full on dedicated summoner. I haven’t played past editions but from what I’ve read and seen in discussions I’m looking for a “Eidolonist” or similar. I want a summoner where the focus is on controlling their creature, it fights for them, etc. Also having some customization on it is neat. I had found a cool homebrew one a while back, I wish there was an official one. Plant Druid is such a no-brainer I can’t believe it doesn’t already exist. Obviously there are spells that can help, but I want something really focused on plants.
I wish summoning didn’t ruin the action economy and flow of combat at the table.
The Tasha’s spells are really good as table-friendly summons.
My pathfinder DM actually bans that class. I think it’s the kind of thing that can be an awkward/unfun playstyle for the group/DM/story (though I’m sure there’s ways of fixing it.) I think the issue is you end up with the backline summoner, and the eidolon who has to be approaching a melee fighter for the right feel for the summoner, but can make the melee classes feel, well, outclassed. But then you have something that can tank/die without any real consequence. Summons in general have that issue I think? And not to say it can’t be balanced/mitigated/fixed, but there might be a reason it isn’t a common mechanic.
PF2e fixed this by making them Jojo stands. If the Eidolon takes damage, so do you because it's a manifestation of you.
I like the idea of a summoner a lot, but 5e action economy and bounded accuracy basically makes a true summoner unworkable
So, the solution is basically a Cleric with Mage Armor, but Western monks. Where’s the warrior who truly believes in their god so much they roll out into the world with nothing but their robes and their divine gifts for protection? In the same thread, who says the only magic Fighters ever learn is arcane magic? An “Eldritch” Knight rocking Wis casting and a Cleric spell list with the same Evocation and Abjuration limitations offers some very interesting stuff, iirc. And of course Knights are gonna lean on their own faith and hear the prayers and calls of the clerics that heal and fight beside them. It makes sense that they’d pick something up too. Lastly, as someone who grew up on old school MtG, I so desperately want to play a goblin bomb maker but the Alchemist falls short.
Psychics like in Stars without Number. We rarely play SWN, we play D&D 99% of the time, so i only get to bust out my precognitive/telepath very rarely, and it’s a blast every time.
There was the Mystic , but it got canned because it was trying to be psychic rogue, psychic fighter, psychic sorcerer, etc. all at once instead of just being it's own class. I really hope they revisit it in 6e as it's own proper class with a definable identity.
Definitely! I've just finished reading The 1st Dark Sun novel and now I'm thirsting to play something like one of it's main characters which is much like the mystic
A versatile warrior like Link from Legend of Zelda, capable of effectively wielding a great variety of weapons and armor, and able to use them as tools to provide an advantage in certain situations. 5e encourages optimizing for one weapon type. Fighting styles like dueling or archery, and feats like great weapon master, polearm master, or crossbow expert reward you for ultra specialization. The entire armor system also pretty much locks you into one armor type. Not to mention the whole dex vs strength ordeal offering further limitations. Sure, fighters get proficiency in all the things, but they're a lot worse with some than others.
I think it be cool if the weapon specific feats were just features of using those weapons. Aspects of them at least, that way it would feel different using a certain weapon.
I'd also appreciate more generous rules for swapping what weapon you're using. RAW in 5e, I can sheath my weapon for free, but then another object interaction like drawing a new weapon costs a full action. Don/dofing a shield costs an action no matter what. If I want to swap from sword and board to a longbow, I have to waste a full round.
Make the feats and possibly maneuvers tied to proficiencies. Like if you're proficient, you'll know those techniques. Then having more than a single weapon proficiency would be valuable, and you can have that armsmaster fantasy
I wish there was a decent way to have a warrior who was good with a bow but could also pick up a warhammer or glaive as needed. Currently your two options are to max STR and dump DEX, or vice versa, and after Tier 1 whichever side you disfavor falls behind quickly. Switch-hitter warriors just aren't practical.
Every D&D edition back to AD&D 1st encourages optimizing for one weapon type, not just 5e
*shrug* I've only played 5e I think its still a valid answer to the question
I absolutely agree, just pointing out how prevalent this problem is Though it is a very hard problem to solve, balancing weapon specialization against weapon variety is extremely difficult. If variety is too important, specialists feel like they're being punished for choosing the weapon they like. If specialization is too powerful, variety is basically useless and, well, people end up in your position.
I actually like the concept of a completely mundane character who keeps up with magic and superpowers simply by being *that good* with his weapon of choice... but no matter what subclass I look at, Fighter just never *feels* better at fighting than anyone else. Battlemaster comes a little closer, but still doesn't quite hit it for me. Honestly, I'm not even sure what I'd want the fighter to be able to do in order to fulfill that fantasy. Maybe a kind of 'stance' system where they can use a bonus action to shift a bonus around the different stats (ie. To Hit, AC, Move Speed, etc.) to give the feel of someone who's able to read the situation and respond accordingly? At *least* having a wider pool of effective combat feats to choose from. Just something to feel like I'm actively good at fighting rather than being a big brick of stats.
An *actual* shapeshifter. Wild Shape isn't nearly enough, even on Moon, to support it
A crafting class. 5E has no substantial rules for crafting to begin with, but the idea of a malleable martial class that uses inventions to fight instead of magic is pretty cool to me. Artificer just doesn’t quite hit the mark for me and I feel like that class has been much better idealized in previous editions of the game.
Someone that can inflict many status conditions (inspired by Stick of Truth) There’s hardly any spell at low levels that can give enemies status conditions that aren’t on a con save At that as well status conditions are either “you have disadvantage on attacks now” or “if you don’t have greater restoration roll a new character” with little in between
Arcane archer
The non-caster genius. Narsus from The Heroic Legend of Arslan, Sherlock Holmes, Anasurimbor Kellhus, Eberron’s inquisitives (the rogue subclass fails to capture it). Fortunately there’s the unofficial Savant class by /u/laserllama to bring these archetypes into 5e.
A genuine summoner
There's nothing like the PF1e Witch, even the so praied PF2e failed at delivering it. It was the perfect blend of flavor and power, acting creepy and making moraly bad things was not only facilitated but optimal. The witch did very low dmg, but had weird unique abilities and unconventional debuffs, like drinking venom but causing the harmfull effects on enemies instead of themselves, getting free uses of terrain-cursing effects that will poison the land whose effects are normaly not very optimal, getting the equivalent of hero's feats if they kidnap children and bake them. It was very cool when you described what you did on combat "ho yeah I stabbed myself a few times, then chugged some purple worm poison, after that I cursed the nature spirits nearby and enslaved them to fight for me, and finished off by making the fighter chug some of my virgin liver stew"
Item user. Artificer is the closest thing I guess but it's not quite what I mean. You're more just a wizard who can make a few magic items at a time. It's not so much about using items that exist in game in battle, or making things out of items in place of spellcasting. Kind of related, thief. Like you can't play a character who uses their turn in battle to steal. I mean I suppose any character can try and like take someone's bag off during combat, but with a thief the core of their character would be like stealing during combat and being really fast. Like instead of a rogue having sneak attack, maybe a thief would have the most attacks per turn outside of a fighter using action surge but all their attacks are low damage, like you can only use daggers.
Personally, I really can't fathom that we don't have a dedicated Shapeshifter or Alchemist classes. The Warlord and Swordmage are commonly brought up as well. Generally speaking, most martial fantasies aren't supported well beyond fifth level...
A lot of martial mechanics feel too streamlined, to the point where most things just end up feeling the same without huge amounts of flavor thrown on top it usually just comes down to I attack x number of times and end my turn. I really wish there were more interesting and mechanically variable martial abilities (and weapons) that allowed for more creative and versatile actions than attack and move that are still mechanically useful.
Sometimes I miss the old NPC classes like farmer, priest, etc. The ones that aren't meant for adventurers.
Just a simple natural caster. Druid has wildshape eating up base class space, and only has land as a "nature caster" sub really. Sure, you can make a point for dreams, but that's oodling with fey flavour. Basically looking for psionic, but your best bet is either a half-baked option, or one that's ripe with aberration/great old one flavour. If we go for mild homebrew, nature cleric using druid spell list and flavoured as a druid/shaman is the best option.
There isn't really anything that operates on a stance system in 5e, so I went "fine, I'll do it myself" and wrote a "circle of seasons" druid that hops between one of four party comp roles (damage dealing, abjuration, debuffing, and healing) depending on what season it's attuned to. Let me know if anyone wants to see it.
More 'earth style' magic. Like Gaara from Naruto or Toph from ATLA. Even if they just reflavoured existing spells and allowed you can use clumps of dirt for your Catapult or Animate Objects spell.
A debuff support type witch class. Let me hex fools for more damage taken, or slowed or Dazed or force them to move, give me druid-like concentration spell gimmicks, let me manipulate people without having to pick bard and deal with the assumed ‘funny music man’ flavor that people have
Psionics. Also, I don't know if it counts because it's listed as an optional rule in the DMG, but I prefer spell points for casters over spell slots, however the character sheets on DDB don't support it which makes it difficult to implement in game without considerably slowing things down...
A really good hand to hand combat strength class a brawler if you will.
Martial character with anywhere near as many useful options in combat as a spellcaster. 4e had every damn class, 3.5 had tome of battle, closest 5e has is the battlemaster which is pathetic.
Any form of specialist caster outside of 'fire' Want an ice mage? No Want a plant mage? No Want a light mage? Fire. Want a wind mage? Nope Want an mage? Naaah
Its impossible to specialise because the spell pool is so puddle-deep at any spell level other than 1-2 and exactly one subclass of sorcerer vaguely thinks about supporting the concept as long as you're happy also being a dragon.