I want to finally “learn” a class. I have never 👎 payed a character past level 5 and although I know something about all classes, I am not super “proficient “ with one. I want to change that! I am making two characters for two different campaigns. I want to make them the same class. Which one do you recommend?
Maybe I just have a different school of thought, but I don't think of D&D as being competitive, so I don't really see the need to work on being proficient with a class. It's not like Halo where the fun derives from being competitive, it's more about exploring characters.
Coming from such a mindset, my response is the same as when someone asked which is the best class - there is no best class to choose. Choose the one that you'll have the most fun with for that campaign. If you're having fun with it, you'll naturally be curious how it works and explore what you can do with it - and proficiency will come naturally with that.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If you know something about all of them, then you must have favorites. Choose one of those. Our answers will just boil down to what our favorite classes are, which is irrelevant to your decision.
I'll give you the rundown on each class' playstyle to help you out on what to chose!
- Artificer: Very customizable so it's hard to get a defined playstyle. Battlesmith and Armorer overall fit the "tank" role pretty well, meanwhile Artillerist is the big damage dealer, and Alchemist is utility/support. The infusions add another layer of support. You could make utility items, buff the party, buff yourself, there's a lot. I would say the class as a whole though all has great utility.
- Barbarian: This class is absurdly tanky. If you want to optimize one, you need abilities which encourages enemies to go for you. Your hit die and resistances will carry you through fights. There's basically no tactics in combat with this class which is it's massive weakness. You basically need to attack, attack, attack to keep rage going.
- Bard: Basically the ultimate support/utility class. It's skills are great for out of combat, it's spells are focused on support/healing/enchanting enemies. Bardic inspiration is another great support ability. In terms of subclasses, there's the ones which boost your martial power (Swords, Valor), some with more utility (Basically every other not listed bard subclass), others focused on learning more spells (lore).
- Cleric: Depends on the playstyle but you'll end up with strong magics. A lot of clerics are played as healers/supports but if you don't want to you can play differently. It really depends on the subclass. Most commonly I've seen support clerics or tank clerics. There's the supports like Life, utility like Knowledge and Nature, some all rounders like arcana, some damage dealers like Tempest and Light, some martial clerics like War and Arcana (Only if you choose booming/green flame blade).
- Druid: A battlefield control class overall. Spells like spike growth and your later summoning spells (Lots of DMs have homebrew rules on summoning like me due to how unbalanced some of the summoning subclasses are) are bread and butter. Wild Shape is typically utility but you can play a martial druid with circle of the moon.
- Fighter: You have a good amount health and a good amount of damage, so fighters are typically tanks or damage dealers. The subclasses change what you want out of a fighter. Ultimate accuracy, Samurai. Magic, Eldritch Knight. You want tactics, Battlemaster. Basic and simple, Champion.
- Monk: You're focused on mobility and making sure your enemies don't escape. You'll have to manage your Ki wisely to play a monk. You get cool abilities depending on your subclass to use ki on as well as some basic ki abilities (Flurry of Blows, Step of the wind, Stunning Strinke, Patient Dodge).
- Paladin: The overall all rounder class. You get a bit of everything. Strong martial power, decent spells, inconsistent but high damage with smite, and healing. This class although balanced, feels incredibly powerful to play.
- Ranger: Another all rounder similar to paladin. It's damage is much more consistent, rather than having burst damage rounds. It's a bit more focused on utility than paladin with a combat focus. It doesn't excel at anything though which results in a lot of complaining about it, but from my experience, it's great!
- Rogue: A mobility based martial class with great utility. It's the only martial class which can at least rival spellcasters in utility. It's simple, yet very fun to play. It's consistently a pretty solid class.
- Sorcerer: An arcane caster class. Unlike Wizard, it has a small spell selection, but with it's metamagic it can alter those spells. This class requires a lot of number tracking with not only spell slots, but sorcery points. Typically with sorcerer, you try to focus on one role a lot, typically damage but with subclasses like divine soul, you could go into support or other roles. You typically will have low hit points with this class.
- Warlock: A class focused overall on damage and battlefield control. You have low number, high powered spell slots. Your cantrips/weaponry if you're blade pact are bread and butter. It's a very customizable class so each warlock will differ.
- Wizard: The ultimate arcane utility class. With your spellbook, you can learn even more spells than usual. You're the supreme caster with the best spell list in the game, only excluding some healing spells. Battlefield control and damage are bread and butter typically. Despite all the power, you have very low hit points.
I want to finally “learn” a class. I have never 👎 payed a character past level 5 and although I know something about all classes, I am not super “proficient “ with one. I want to change that! I am making two characters for two different campaigns. I want to make them the same class. Which one do you recommend?
I think you need to explain what you mean by "proficient" here. Each class has so many different permutations based on subclass, race, feats, and even just how you flavor their abilities that two characters isn't going to be enough to get a full sense of what the class can do
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
So if you're playing 2 different characters of the same class for different campaigns, I'd recommend playing a class that can be drastically different depending on what subclasses you play. Pretty much all barbarians play similarly, for example, so I'd maybe avoid that. It'd get pretty redundant I'd think.
What comes to mind for me first is Druid. Play a Circle of the Moon druid for one campaign and a Circle of Stars druid for the other. They'll both be casting spells, but you'll likely be choosing different spells. The moon druid will focus heavily on the wild shape and spells to augment that while The Stars druid will focus more on battlefield control, damage, and healing spells. The Stars druid will rarely even use their wild shape to transform into an animal while that's most of what you'd do for the Moon druid. I've played the moon druid and had a blast. Stars druid looks like a ton of fun too!
Another option would be a Bladesinger wizard and a literally any other wizard. Bladesingers will focus more on melee combat and spells to augment that, while the other wizards will focus on normal wizard stuff. Hexblade warlock and a _________ warlock can also play very different. Warlocks in general are very customizable so it'd be easy to make two Warlocks that play very differently. Artificers can also be very customizable and the subclasses really change things a lot. Maybe a Battle Smith and an Artillerist?
If you want to go more martial class, maybe have a ranged character and a melee character. Like if you went with two rogues, a ranged Scout rogue and a melee Arcane trickster would both be a ton of fun. Or an Arcane Archer fighter and a Rune Knight Fighter.
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I want to finally “learn” a class. I have never 👎 payed a character past level 5 and although I know something about all classes, I am not super “proficient “ with one. I want to change that! I am making two characters for two different campaigns. I want to make them the same class. Which one do you recommend?
Maybe I just have a different school of thought, but I don't think of D&D as being competitive, so I don't really see the need to work on being proficient with a class. It's not like Halo where the fun derives from being competitive, it's more about exploring characters.
Coming from such a mindset, my response is the same as when someone asked which is the best class - there is no best class to choose. Choose the one that you'll have the most fun with for that campaign. If you're having fun with it, you'll naturally be curious how it works and explore what you can do with it - and proficiency will come naturally with that.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If you know something about all of them, then you must have favorites. Choose one of those. Our answers will just boil down to what our favorite classes are, which is irrelevant to your decision.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I'll give you the rundown on each class' playstyle to help you out on what to chose!
- Artificer: Very customizable so it's hard to get a defined playstyle. Battlesmith and Armorer overall fit the "tank" role pretty well, meanwhile Artillerist is the big damage dealer, and Alchemist is utility/support. The infusions add another layer of support. You could make utility items, buff the party, buff yourself, there's a lot. I would say the class as a whole though all has great utility.
- Barbarian: This class is absurdly tanky. If you want to optimize one, you need abilities which encourages enemies to go for you. Your hit die and resistances will carry you through fights. There's basically no tactics in combat with this class which is it's massive weakness. You basically need to attack, attack, attack to keep rage going.
- Bard: Basically the ultimate support/utility class. It's skills are great for out of combat, it's spells are focused on support/healing/enchanting enemies. Bardic inspiration is another great support ability. In terms of subclasses, there's the ones which boost your martial power (Swords, Valor), some with more utility (Basically every other not listed bard subclass), others focused on learning more spells (lore).
- Cleric: Depends on the playstyle but you'll end up with strong magics. A lot of clerics are played as healers/supports but if you don't want to you can play differently. It really depends on the subclass. Most commonly I've seen support clerics or tank clerics. There's the supports like Life, utility like Knowledge and Nature, some all rounders like arcana, some damage dealers like Tempest and Light, some martial clerics like War and Arcana (Only if you choose booming/green flame blade).
- Druid: A battlefield control class overall. Spells like spike growth and your later summoning spells (Lots of DMs have homebrew rules on summoning like me due to how unbalanced some of the summoning subclasses are) are bread and butter. Wild Shape is typically utility but you can play a martial druid with circle of the moon.
- Fighter: You have a good amount health and a good amount of damage, so fighters are typically tanks or damage dealers. The subclasses change what you want out of a fighter. Ultimate accuracy, Samurai. Magic, Eldritch Knight. You want tactics, Battlemaster. Basic and simple, Champion.
- Monk: You're focused on mobility and making sure your enemies don't escape. You'll have to manage your Ki wisely to play a monk. You get cool abilities depending on your subclass to use ki on as well as some basic ki abilities (Flurry of Blows, Step of the wind, Stunning Strinke, Patient Dodge).
- Paladin: The overall all rounder class. You get a bit of everything. Strong martial power, decent spells, inconsistent but high damage with smite, and healing. This class although balanced, feels incredibly powerful to play.
- Ranger: Another all rounder similar to paladin. It's damage is much more consistent, rather than having burst damage rounds. It's a bit more focused on utility than paladin with a combat focus. It doesn't excel at anything though which results in a lot of complaining about it, but from my experience, it's great!
- Rogue: A mobility based martial class with great utility. It's the only martial class which can at least rival spellcasters in utility. It's simple, yet very fun to play. It's consistently a pretty solid class.
- Sorcerer: An arcane caster class. Unlike Wizard, it has a small spell selection, but with it's metamagic it can alter those spells. This class requires a lot of number tracking with not only spell slots, but sorcery points. Typically with sorcerer, you try to focus on one role a lot, typically damage but with subclasses like divine soul, you could go into support or other roles. You typically will have low hit points with this class.
- Warlock: A class focused overall on damage and battlefield control. You have low number, high powered spell slots. Your cantrips/weaponry if you're blade pact are bread and butter. It's a very customizable class so each warlock will differ.
- Wizard: The ultimate arcane utility class. With your spellbook, you can learn even more spells than usual. You're the supreme caster with the best spell list in the game, only excluding some healing spells. Battlefield control and damage are bread and butter typically. Despite all the power, you have very low hit points.
I think you need to explain what you mean by "proficient" here. Each class has so many different permutations based on subclass, race, feats, and even just how you flavor their abilities that two characters isn't going to be enough to get a full sense of what the class can do
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
So if you're playing 2 different characters of the same class for different campaigns, I'd recommend playing a class that can be drastically different depending on what subclasses you play. Pretty much all barbarians play similarly, for example, so I'd maybe avoid that. It'd get pretty redundant I'd think.
What comes to mind for me first is Druid. Play a Circle of the Moon druid for one campaign and a Circle of Stars druid for the other. They'll both be casting spells, but you'll likely be choosing different spells. The moon druid will focus heavily on the wild shape and spells to augment that while The Stars druid will focus more on battlefield control, damage, and healing spells. The Stars druid will rarely even use their wild shape to transform into an animal while that's most of what you'd do for the Moon druid. I've played the moon druid and had a blast. Stars druid looks like a ton of fun too!
Another option would be a Bladesinger wizard and a literally any other wizard. Bladesingers will focus more on melee combat and spells to augment that, while the other wizards will focus on normal wizard stuff. Hexblade warlock and a _________ warlock can also play very different. Warlocks in general are very customizable so it'd be easy to make two Warlocks that play very differently. Artificers can also be very customizable and the subclasses really change things a lot. Maybe a Battle Smith and an Artillerist?
If you want to go more martial class, maybe have a ranged character and a melee character. Like if you went with two rogues, a ranged Scout rogue and a melee Arcane trickster would both be a ton of fun. Or an Arcane Archer fighter and a Rune Knight Fighter.