D&D General There can be only ONE: Bard v. Warlock

[CleverNickName]

 

[DarkCrisis]

Bard's actually the class us teifling fans gravitate toward. Warlock is for people who want to play spellcasters that work like pop culture spellcasters.

I was thinking more like “edge lords”. Like Drow where back in time he day.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I was thinking more like “edge lords”. Like Drow where back in time he day.

Modern teiflings aren't really the edgelord species. Too colorful, too associated with fun and cupcakes and funny voices.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Modern teiflings aren't really the edgelord species. Too colorful, too associated with fun and cupcakes and funny voices.

Yeah, that's true.

Thanks, Laura.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Cleric is a (the default) Mystic class. Channeler of Divine power/magic. Certain armor wearing. Certain weapon wielding. Divine magic spell-casting on top of their channeled divine powers.
Druid is a Mystic class. Channeler of the forces/power of Nature. Certain armor wearing. Certian weapon wielding. Nature magic spell-casting on top of their channeled nature powers.

Easy. Dump the cleric. It has no significant thematic or mechanical identity. It's not the divinely empowered armoured warrior; that's the paladin. It's not the prophet chosen directly by their god; that's the warlock. It's not even the powerful channeler of divine power; that's the Divine Soul Sorcerer. And then if you want clerical mechanicsBasically all that's left for the cleric is the cookie cutter interchangeable seminary graduate, and those are not really enough to carry a class. Especially when your summary of druid and cleric changed a single word.

Meanwhile warlock, focusing on powerful beings and interpersonal relationships, druid, focusing on the natural and solitude, and bard, focusing on the musical and social.

I would however change the bard's type of magic to be something other than "sorcerer default". Without it they can't come close to standing up to the warlock mechanically. (And by dumping the cleric the druid's magic being chosen each day from the entire list means something because it's now unique among full casters).

If you absolutely must force this threefold pattern and can't bear to dump the cleric thanks to tradition then make the druid a cleric subclass. There's less thematic symmetry between how the three classes relate to people and the cleric is much blander.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Nah. The warlock should just replace the sorcerer.

Nah. The wizard should become the bookish sorcerer subclass.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No

The D&D Bard is defined by

1. A basic song buff
2. Copying other classes

Every other class has some aspect that is upscaled to be a class.

The Bard is just a bad druid with skills.

What does the cleric have? It's defined by

1. Full casting off a custom list
2. Turning undead

And the latter isn't much more than a ribbon.

The wizard is defined by

1. A spellbook
2. Breadth of arcane spells
3. Ritual mastery

And it's subclasses work against its breadth. It would be better as a sorcerer subclass.

The ranger is the champion of copying other classes (but this is a 5e problem)

 

[Minigiant]

What does the cleric have? It's defined by

1. Full casting off a custom list
2. Turning undead

And the latter isn't much more than a ribbon.

The wizard is defined by

1. A spellbook
2. Breadth of arcane spells
3. Ritual mastery

And it's subclasses work against its breadth. It would be better as a sorcerer subclass.

The ranger is the champion of copying other classes (but this is a 5e problem)

The cleric and wizard at least has well known exclusive magic.
Even the ranger has unique stuff.

The Bard past Tier 1, is just stealing other people's stuff.

The entire Bard trope is being a copy. Bardic magic isn't and hasn't ever really been a thing.
Even ranger's have more defined unique magic across 20 levels. it's just that half of them are bad.