D&D 5E What Classes do you really want to see in D&D Next?

[Yora]

What about classes that we want to see, but not really?

(Seriously, thread titles like this make me agitated every single time I see them. Did I lie every other time I said I want to play something?)

 

[Tony Vargas]

ISo what Classes should exist, and what specifications, if any would you have for them?

I think 5e should try to keep some sort of higher-level grouping of classes. Like 2e groups or 3e iconics or 4e role (or source). It clarifies presentation and can make it easier for players to create a complete party with a full range of capabilities, or for the DM to customize his campaign.

The 2e groups, for instance, were Warrior, Priest, Rogue & Wizard. The 3e iconics were Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard. The 4e roles were Defender, Leader, Striker & Controller. See the pattern? The hardest part would be coming up with names that don't freak anyone out.

Having groups that help define how the character contributes to the party are helpful to players in building a good party. All the above do that to some extent. Having groups that define the what/how/why of the class is handy for the DM, letting him customize his setting in a sweeping way (there are no Gods, so the Priest group is just gone, for instance). The 3e iconics and 4e roles don't do that, but the 2e groups do (and so do 4e sources, though they're separate from role).

Based on the above, I'll use the 2e groups as a place-holder. 2 classes per group would give a very workable 8 classes:

Fighter
- Fighter
- Warlord
Priest
- Cleric
- Druid
Rogue
- Thief
- Ranger
Wizard
- Wizard
- Bard

 

[gyor]

For those interested in "roles" they will be embodied by,particular specialties like Guardian, with certain classes leaning in a particular direction, but not boxed into a role.

Long shot classes I'd like to see is Binder, the,creepy Tome of Magic verison, not the wannabe warlock 4e verison, one that retains the dark, creepy, unnatural, voyueristic flavour..

I also would like to see the return of the Shadowcaster and the Archivist.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I think 5e should try to keep some sort of higher-level grouping of classes. Like 2e groups or 3e iconics or 4e role (or source). It clarifies presentation and can make it easier for players to create a complete party with a full range of capabilities, or for the DM to customize his campaign.

The 2e groups, for instance, were Warrior, Priest, Rogue & Wizard. The 3e iconics were Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard. The 4e roles were Defender, Leader, Striker & Controller. See the pattern? The hardest part would be coming up with names that don't freak anyone out.

Having groups that help define how the character contributes to the party are helpful to players in building a good party. All the above do that to some extent. Having groups that define the what/how/why of the class is handy for the DM, letting him customize his setting in a sweeping way (there are no Gods, so the Priest group is just gone, for instance). The 3e iconics and 4e roles don't do that, but the 2e groups do (and so do 4e sources, though they're separate from role).

Based on the above, I'll use the 2e groups as a place-holder. 2 classes per group would give a very workable 8 classes:

Fighter
- Fighter
- Warlord
Priest
- Cleric
- Druid
Rogue
- Thief
- Ranger
Wizard
- Wizard
- Bard

Where do you get some idea that 3.x had some grouping of classes into 4 categories or that iconics, the name for example characters used to represent those classes in art and fiction were in some way the name for these categories.

In the early days of this site I played Vadania in an all Iconics game ran by PirateCat and trust me, there were more than 4 of us there.


However that said I really wish we had the roles from 4e retained, the idea of knowning what jobs in the party are filled and what are not, always there before but unspoken, will really be missed when deciding what class to play. The 2e groups did not fufill this need as While Ranger and Fighter were in the same group and could be exchanged, A bard could not replace a rouge and you were better off having a ranger.

3e had nothing to even suggest you shouldn't play 4 fighters and a wizard... and unfortunately neither does Next

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Psion, Monk and Sorcerer are the three I want to see.

Monk for the mystic unarmed combatant (Oriental or no)
Paladin because I just love the class.
Psion because psionics need more love. Although the published Sorcerer uses his mechanic to an extent so I am interested in seeing what happens.

 

[Ichneumon]

Apart from the Big Four, I expect to see Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Druid, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Warlock and Monk. I'd really like to see Psion, and I could live without Assassin and Warlord. But if they're in, that's OK.

I believe they'll define Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard as being always present, barring unusual settings like Dark Sun, and the other classes' presence as dependent on the DM's ruling. Those classes could include tips on how to emulate them in Big Four only campaigns via backgrounds, specialities and multiclassing.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Having seen ZERO 5Ed material, having been thoroughly unimpressed by 4Ed multiclassing and finding the Hybrid rules almost OK, I have to ask, what kind of multiclassing- if any- do you prefer?

That's actually a rather difficult question. To be honest, I'm not sure. Multi-classing is something that is very hard to do properly, and I'm not sure it is really feasible within the typical assumptions of D&D.

I mean, some of my favorite forms of multi-classing come from videogames like the Final Fantasy series (5, 11, and Tactics in particular) or Dragon Quest IX. In such games, you level up in one class and can keep your skills from older classes when you change to a new one. You only ever have a single main class, but can ready and use certain skills you learned from previous classes. The problem with that, though, is that those games achieve that by allowing characters to freely change classes, and use very different concepts of levels and class growth than how they function in D&D.

The only form of multi-classing in a D&D product that I rather like is 3E's gestalt rules, because it was elegant and avoided almost all of the pitfalls of other forms of multi-classing. It was, however, impossible to reconcile with normal characters, so you could never have a gestalt Bard/Druid in the same party as a normal Bard or Druid without issues. 4E's hybrid rules attempt to fix this, but their implementation is rather cumbersome and rather ineffective, I think. An interesting related approach I recently heard about is going to appear in the upcoming Iron Kingdoms RPG, where each character picks two classes by default, so everyone always plays a gestalt character.

Of course, 3E multi-classing is one of the worst systems, for all kinds of reasons. Taken to its logical conclusion, like it was with d20 Modern, it becomes a strange equivalent to a point-buy character creation system, and loses almost all of the strengths of a proper class system (ease of use, strong flavor, consistent mechanics, and so on). Such a system becomes a trap for game mastery which leads to countless situations where using the multi-classing rules is extremely likely to lead to a mechanically worthless character who fails to even embody the desired concept. Thus, it leads to both prestige classes built explicitly to patch the flaws in the system (like the Mystic Theurge) and classes whose existence prove the flaws of the system (like how the Duskblade exists because Fighter/Wizards aren't viable).

Overall, I think pursuing multi-classing too extensively is both unnecessary, and leads to problems. Multi-classing works if the system assumes every character will multi-class and is thus the rules are built to accommodate that, but that is not D&D's approach. The heart of D&D is the single-class character, and it plays much more to the game's strengths to just assume everyone has a single class, and to instead build new classes to fill the roles that might otherwise be filled with multi-classing. Thus, we should see Duskblades and Swordmages rather than a multi-class Fighter/Wizard. The end result is more fun that way.

 

[Tony Vargas]

...double-post...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Where do you get some idea that 3.x had some grouping of classes into 4 categories ...
3e had nothing to even suggest you shouldn't play 4 fighters and a wizard... and unfortunately neither does Next

IIRC, 3.0 recommended a basic iconic party of four: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue, and pointed out that you could substitute classes into that schema - a Barbarian instead of a fighter, sorcerer instead of wizard, etc. Two classes, the Bard and Monk, as time went by, got identified as '5th wheel' classes that didn't sub for any of the classic 4, but made a fine edition to an already-'complete' party.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The Classes I am not particularly enamoured by are the Assassin, Barbarian and Warlord, essentially because I think they could be handled better by Speciality and Background. Persuade me otherwise....

I'll try...

An Assassin is ultimately someone who kills with an agenda. For money, or for political purposes or whatever. In theory, you could kill for money with a Death Spell, or for political purposes with a crossbow, or whatever. All PC classes tend to be pretty good at the killing. Doesn't sound so much like a specialty, theme, background, kit or anything of that nature, so much as a motivation or even a mission. And, the fighter is already 'best at combat' (thus killing in the mundane sense), evokers/necromancers/whatever are probably going to be best at killing with spells, and the Rogue can probably claim best at stealthy killing - not that 'stealthy killing,' makes much of an heroic 'best' to hang a class on.

A Barbarian is someone from an 'uncivilized' culture. A blood-crazed berserker, a tribal shaman, and nomadic horseman might all be barbarians. Berserker might make a good class or theme or kit or whatever. Barbarian, makes sense as a background. And, again, the barbarian lacks a 'best at,' to justify it's class-ness. The fighter's already best at fighting, the Ranger, presumably, at wilderness stuff. I don't think 'best at frothing at the mouth and attacking without regard for friend or foe' would cut it.

A Warlord is warrior who leads others in battle, which can be pretty broad, from a mustachioed barbaric Brennus, to a Napoleonic cavalry officer, to a Sun Tzu. But, it's a martial class by implication, not a caster (a 'General' might be of any class, for instance, in the same sense as the Assassin, above). Mechanically, the fighter has never done that well, and, given the 5e mandate to be 'best at fighting,' letting the fighter bolt-on any sort of meaningful leadership portfolio (from gaining followers, to inspiring resolve or ferocity, to modeling tactical brilliance) might be over the top. I guess the Warlord has an arguable 'best' to be best at - 'best at leadership.'