D&D (2024) So Class Complexity...

[Maxperson]

The complexity slot should not cover entire classes. The fact that you can't have a good fighter at all because the ENTIRE class needs to be 'simple' is the problem.

It has to cover entire classes. You can't start with a complex class and then add a subclass to reduce complexity. Subclasses can only add complexity, so it has to be the base class that is simple.

 

[Maxperson]

Our barbarian in my D&D club always rages too late in the fight and also does not use reckless attack too often, while the wizard/evoker player has no problems to decide that burning hands/fireball is always a good option.

So it seems as if the barbarian is not that easy, as you need to constantly make decisions.

Spells like that are not always a good option. Often they are wasted if you just use them whenever you get into a fight. In 5e cantrips are often what you should use over something like fireball or burning hands, saving the better spells for a more important/dangerous fight.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It has to cover entire classes. You can't start with a complex class and then add a subclass to reduce complexity. Subclasses can only add complexity, so it has to be the base class that is simple.

And if you're not going to make more classes, then they all need to be average. There's no good reason to take entire classes away from people on either side. If you can't do it with the current design, the current design should have been discarded with the new edition or quietly replaced in supplemental material.

 

[Charlaquin]

I've ruminated on this off and on today.

I think it comes down to a mixture of build, choice points, and rules knowledge.

A low complexity character doesn't really need much info beyond the basics. They don't cast magic, their abilities are active or reactive. Action surge is a use ability (you use it and then it's done). Everything else is basic rules 101 (attack, skills, etc). You can make a fighter or a rogue and have everything explained on their character sheet.

Barbarians require a little more tracking. Rage changes your combat stats and must be tracked to make sure it doesn't end. Further, rage fuels a lot of their secondary abilities now so a player needs to track rage far more than a fighter tracks action surge or second wind. I think they are low end average, but definitely more than a fighter.

Casters automatically bring in more complexity. The paladin and ranger add a little magic to the warrior chassis and the cleric and wizard are mostly spells with nothing else to track. Playing them well requires a lot of skill, but playing a blaster, healer, or smite/HM spammer is still effective.

Druid, bard and sorcerer are caster+. They not only are full casters, but have additional resources to track (wild shape, sorcery points and bardic inspiration) plus they have complex elements to their builds and interactions. While cleric and wizard both have abilities outside of spells, they are secondary to their magic. Wild shape, metamagic and bard dice are integral to their identity.

Warlocks have two things a new player needs to know: their magic doesn't work like ANY other caster in the game and it interacts with invocations in different ways. While it is possible to play a warlock as an eb spammer, you still have to be aware of the right abilities (agonizing blast) to take. Lastly, monks have a variety of things they can do, some cost focus and others don't, and they are always weighing various options.

Maybe a better way to think of it is: how much homework does a player need to do to understand what their character does. Low characters don't require much more than simple system understanding and their class features. Average has more complex features or spells, and high has very complicated features, spells or both. If you handed a player a pregen and the PHB, how easy it would be for the player to figure out how to play that pregen is what we're looking at.

This is all a reasonable analysis, but I still think even under this lens, Barbarian is low complexity. I can see the argument for why it’s more complex than fighter under this lens (I would argue that’s good evidence the lens not a very useful one, but I digress,) but it’s still closer to the fighter and rogue in terms of this form of complexity than it is to cleric and wizard.

Warlock, as always, is a weird case. Yes, its magic works differently than every other casting class’ magic does, which in a way makes it “more complex.” But, it works in a way that is much more intuitive if you haven’t already learned how other casting class’ magic works. If your first caster is a wizard, yeah, you’re going to have to unlearn some things to wrap your head around the warlock. But if you’ve never played a caster before, the warlock is going to be easier to learn than the wizard.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think warlock and fighter should both have a complexity rating of “variable.” You can build a fighter or a warlock that just presses the attack or Eldritch Blast button every turn and occasionally uses a short rest recovery ability. You can also build a fighter or warlock with several different resources to track and many options to consider every single turn. But for some reason fighter gets ranked “low” and warlock “high.”

 

[Clint_L]

I appreciate the point about being a class that is more complex to build than to play. I've come to really dislike it for new players, because my philosophy is to let players do their thing with minimal guidance - it's not a competition, after all, and if they make less than optimal choices that appeal to them, that's cool.

However, you can't really do that with warlock, because there are a lot of trap options that could result in an extremely unfun character. Like building a warlock without taking Eldritch Blast, or the right evocations. So then I wind up explaining why certain choices are almost necessary, and it starts to feel like it's my character, not theirs. And to a student with no prior D&D context, it is definitely not obvious why Eldritch Blast is so important, etc.

It's odd that the class was designed so that you could NOT take Eldritch Blast.

Other classes that are hard for beginners are those that rely on bonus actions. 5e's action economy is weirdly expressed, and the action/bonus action/reaction/free action distinction is confusing. Nu monk is probably going to be a pain in the butt for this reason, as it is heavily reliant on bonus actions, reactions, and free actions.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

A Warlock without EB is like bread without bread.

 

[Maxperson]

And if you're not going to make more classes, then they all need to be average. There's no good reason to take entire classes away from people on either side. If you can't do it with the current design, the current design should have been discarded with the new edition or quietly replaced in supplemental material.

I get what you are saying, but it's really not feasible. You have a lot of people who like simple, a lot who like average, and a lot who like complex. Making all classes average takes more classes away from many more people. There's no good choice here, but by making some of the classes simple and some complex, they take classes away from fewer people.

Even if they did make more classes, we would end up in exactly the same spot we are in now. If they made the Warrior as a simple fighting class, you'd end up with a good chunk of people who like the Warrior, but want it to be more complex.

What they are currently doing is the lesser of all the evils.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Spells like that are not always a good option. Often they are wasted if you just use them whenever you get into a fight. In 5e cantrips are often what you should use over something like fireball or burning hands, saving the better spells for a more important/dangerous fight.

Depends

 

[Maxperson]

Depends

In other words...

"Spells like that are not always a good option."