Eh. I kinda get it - the complaint more seemed to center on "why does my man of the cloth feel indistinguishable from an armored wizard with bad spells?"
And the answer is... Clerics have more than just armor and spellcasting, each subclass provides unique features and archetypes to build around. Some clerics are more spellcasting focused, while some can even fight in the melee.
Clerics have channel divinity, divine intervention, unique subclass features, cool (optional) flavor in having a god, and more. Spellcasting is not their only way to solve problems or defeat enemies.
Clerics aren't just armored wizards with weaker spells. They're a whole nother class that can be built and played in a whole nother dozen different unique and cool ways.
Eh. I kinda get it - the complaint more seemed to center on "why does my man of the cloth feel indistinguishable from an armored wizard with bad spells?" It's the same argument Sposta and I keep making about proper psychic classes - if you use the basic spellcasting rules then your abilities will feel like basic spellcasting, and there is nothing you can really do to make basic spellcasting not feel like basic spellcasting. And any class that uses basic spellcasting is going to feel largely the same in play to anything else using basic spellcasting. Yeah, a really good player can sell different trappings on Basic Spellcasting, but that's one of the big complaints I've seen leveled at games like Genesys which provide an extremely small number of mechanical options and encourage players to simply put their preferred skin/flavor/wrapper/trappings on it - two things that work the exact same way feel like they're the same thing no matter what trappings you put on it.
Once Flavor has been established and players aren't trying to wow each other with unnecessarily soliloquent descriptions anymore, all the game's spellcasters announce the same action: "I cast Solve Problem." They're all more or less interchangeable, and that just doesn't feel right to some folks. They want their druids to feel meaningfully different than their clerics than their wizards than their bards, and as it stands they just, simply...don't. And without more diversified 'Magic' rules, they never, ever will.
While I understand the desire for more diverse rules for "magic" abilities, 5E's design philosophy runs contrary to that in some ways. More complex magic systems would imply more detailed world-building and definitely means making the mechanics more complex. The strength of 5E is that it allows for PCs to fit into a wide range of sword-and-sorcery-related fantasy settings. The ease of multi-classing is relatively simple in 5e precisely to enable people to build a variety of adventurers from the pre-created templates while also keeping the barrier to entry to the game relatively low. If you start having a totally different magic system for each class, you will definitely make the game both harder to learn for players and harder to run for the DMs. Also, as you've surely noticed, 5e's design philosophy is made to go against the idea that a party needs to a have a dedicated healer, a dedicated tank, a dedicated sneaky person, and a dedicated long-distance striker. This is why there are tankier healers and Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcs with healing spells, Moon Druids, Valor and Sword Bards. These examples of intentional blurring of the lines between classes makes it easier for people to play something adjacent to what they want to play in a cooperative, combat-heavy game without jinxing the party's survivability by much. All of these design decisions make what you are asking in terms of very distinct spellcaster classes very unlikely.
Eh. I kinda get it - the complaint more seemed to center on "why does my man of the cloth feel indistinguishable from an armored wizard with bad spells?" It's the same argument Sposta and I keep making about proper psychic classes - if you use the basic spellcasting rules then your abilities will feel like basic spellcasting, and there is nothing you can really do to make basic spellcasting not feel like basic spellcasting. And any class that uses basic spellcasting is going to feel largely the same in play to anything else using basic spellcasting. Yeah, a really good player can sell different trappings on Basic Spellcasting, but that's one of the big complaints I've seen leveled at games like Genesys which provide an extremely small number of mechanical options and encourage players to simply put their preferred skin/flavor/wrapper/trappings on it - two things that work the exact same way feel like they're the same thing no matter what trappings you put on it.
Once Flavor has been established and players aren't trying to wow each other with unnecessarily soliloquent descriptions anymore, all the game's spellcasters announce the same action: "I cast Solve Problem." They're all more or less interchangeable, and that just doesn't feel right to some folks. They want their druids to feel meaningfully different than their clerics than their wizards than their bards, and as it stands they just, simply...don't. And without more diversified 'Magic' rules, they never, ever will.
The way magic works between spell saves verses spell attack, spell slots, cantrips verses leveled spells, spells known verses spell prepared, pact magic, various AOE size and shapes, components, components consumed, verbal/somatic, your spell ability score, concentration, type of action, rules for casting two spells on a turn, line of sight, etc. is already complex as it is. For me it was the last thing I finally got down when I was learning the game.
There's already minor differences in spell mechanics between most casters, and a dramatic difference for Warlocks. With all of that, I would think for most players just having different flavors of spells between classes would be enough to immerse themselves into the class. When I'm casting a spell I try to be mindful to describe the act and the effects, as I opposed to just "I cast X." But sometimes I forget.
I totally understand that, Blues. Heh, but just because the trade-offs bought certain advantages doesn't mean they aren't trade-offs. Genesys is a game engine that, aside from its bizarre and super unintuitive Weirdo Dice System (I will never understand why people like that stupid 'Story Dice' nonsense so much), takes the idea of super simple core mechanics wrapped in different candy coatings kind of to the limit, and the result is a game where everything feels exactly the same. There's not really any practical difference between my supposed Nimble Savannah Huntress and another player's Highly Educated Sorceress except which skills the team wants me handling and which ones they want her handling. There's no mechanical differentiation whatsoever to anything we do, which means Genesys can handle any setting you want. Mostly because it doesn't play into any of them and "setting" doesn't matter in the slightest unless you go out of your way to make it matter.
Some people love that sort of thing, love having an absolute bare minimum of mechanical skeleton 'getting in their way' when all they want to do is tell cool stories with their friends. Others feel a bit like they're wrapping an Epic Tale around a game of tic tac toe. Without mechanical depth there's also no tactical or strategic depth, in combat or out of it, and the game starts feeling shallow and unsatisfying because the solution to every last single problem is always exactly the same.
Eh. I kinda get it - the complaint more seemed to center on "why does my man of the cloth feel indistinguishable from an armored wizard with bad spells?" It's the same argument Sposta and I keep making about proper psychic classes - if you use the basic spellcasting rules then your abilities will feel like basic spellcasting, and there is nothing you can really do to make basic spellcasting not feel like basic spellcasting. And any class that uses basic spellcasting is going to feel largely the same in play to anything else using basic spellcasting. Yeah, a really good player can sell different trappings on Basic Spellcasting, but that's one of the big complaints I've seen leveled at games like Genesys which provide an extremely small number of mechanical options and encourage players to simply put their preferred skin/flavor/wrapper/trappings on it - two things that work the exact same way feel like they're the same thing no matter what trappings you put on it.
Once Flavor has been established and players aren't trying to wow each other with unnecessarily soliloquent descriptions anymore, all the game's spellcasters announce the same action: "I cast Solve Problem." They're all more or less interchangeable, and that just doesn't feel right to some folks. They want their druids to feel meaningfully different than their clerics than their wizards than their bards, and as it stands they just, simply...don't. And without more diversified 'Magic' rules, they never, ever will.
While I understand the desire for more diverse rules for "magic" abilities, 5E's design philosophy runs contrary to that in some ways. More complex magic systems would imply more detailed world-building and definitely means making the mechanics more complex. The strength of 5E is that it allows for PCs to fit into a wide range of sword-and-sorcery-related fantasy settings. The ease of multi-classing is relatively simple in 5e precisely to enable people to build a variety of adventurers from the pre-created templates while also keeping the barrier to entry to the game relatively low. If you start having a totally different magic system for each class, you will definitely make the game both harder to learn for players and harder to run for the DMs. Also, as you've surely noticed, 5e's design philosophy is made to go against the idea that a party needs to a have a dedicated healer, a dedicated tank, a dedicated sneaky person, and a dedicated long-distance striker. This is why there are tankier healers and Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcs with healing spells, Moon Druids, Valor and Sword Bards. These examples of intentional blurring of the lines between classes makes it easier for people to play something adjacent to what they want to play in a cooperative, combat-heavy game without jinxing the party's survivability by much. All of these design decisions make what you are asking in terms of very distinct spellcaster classes very unlikely.
I have to agree with Yurei1453 on this one.... and would suggest that your entire post supports, rather than disproves, her point. As she stated, the issue with clerics from a flavour perspective is that they do not feel like a "man of the cloth" so the "yeah, but look at all the things clerics can do!"" then listing things that are decidedly not being a man of the cloth is really not the counterpoint you seemed to think it is.
A man of the cloth in heavy armour? That's a Paladin, not a Cleric. Man of the cloth spell slinging? That's a Wizard. Man of the cloth moving allies around to maximize defenses (Peace Domain)? That's a Battlemaster Fighter. Man of the cloth healing in robes? That's a Cleric.... but is a pretty darn suboptimal way to play the class.
Great class, powerful, has lots of fun things to do.... but from a flavour perspective? You don't feel like you are playing a member of the clergy--you feel like you're just playing a better version of what another class should be.
I have to agree with Yurei1453 on this one.... and would suggest that your entire post supports, rather than disproves, her point. As she stated, the issue with clerics from a flavour perspective is that they do not feel like a "man of the cloth" so the "yeah, but look at all the things clerics can do!"" then listing things that are decidedly not being a man of the cloth is really not the counterpoint you seemed to think it is.
A man of the cloth in heavy armour? That's a Paladin, not a Cleric. Man of the cloth spell slinging? That's a Wizard. Man of the cloth moving allies around to maximize defenses (Peace Domain)? That's a Battlemaster Fighter. Man of the cloth healing in robes? That's a Cleric.... but is a pretty darn suboptimal way to play the class.
Great class, powerful, has lots of fun things to do.... but from a flavour perspective? You don't feel like you are playing a member of the clergy--you feel like you're just playing a better version of what another class should be.
This goes all the way back to their legacy in D&D 1E. They wore armor and carried weapons, but had rules against bladed weapons, and could also do all of the healing things. They could also turn undead. I picked up the hobby again with 5E, and the only thing that felt "not Cleric" to me was that they could carry bladed weapons. Armor and shield just seems normal to me, and their spell list seems very "man of the cloth." Keep in mind, religions have a long history of engaging in religious wars. Of course, you could argue that's what Paladins are, and in the game Paladins can play that role, but their oaths are much more broad.
Man of the cloth healing in robes? That's a Cleric.... but is a pretty darn suboptimal way to play the class.
For whatever reason, this led me to a Grave cleric/Mercy monk multiclass that's basically the "I kick ass for the Lord!" guy from Peter Jackson's Dead-Alive
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I have to agree with Yurei1453 on this one.... and would suggest that your entire post supports, rather than disproves, her point. As she stated, the issue with clerics from a flavour perspective is that they do not feel like a "man of the cloth" so the "yeah, but look at all the things clerics can do!"" then listing things that are decidedly not being a man of the cloth is really not the counterpoint you seemed to think it is.
A man of the cloth in heavy armour? That's a Paladin, not a Cleric. Man of the cloth spell slinging? That's a Wizard. Man of the cloth moving allies around to maximize defenses (Peace Domain)? That's a Battlemaster Fighter. Man of the cloth healing in robes? That's a Cleric.... but is a pretty darn suboptimal way to play the class.
Great class, powerful, has lots of fun things to do.... but from a flavour perspective? You don't feel like you are playing a member of the clergy--you feel like you're just playing a better version of what another class should be.
This goes all the way back to their legacy in D&D 1E. They wore armor and carried weapons, but had rules against bladed weapons, and could also do all of the healing things. They could also turn undead. I picked up the hobby again with 5E, and the only thing that felt "not Cleric" to me was that they could carry bladed weapons. Armor and shield just seems normal to me, and their spell list seems very "man of the cloth." Keep in mind, religions have a long history of engaging in religious wars. Of course, you could argue that's what Paladins are, and in the game Paladins can play that role, but their oaths are much more broad.
I suppose I don't buy "Gygax did it, so it must be right" as an argument. Neither, really, did Wizards, which really leaned into making Clerics more "Men of the Cloth-y" in 4th edition. Sure, they still had a more battle cleric option, but they also took a number of steps so folks playing as a "man of the cloth" were playing a viable, worthwhile, and not suboptimal version of the class. Flash forward to 5e and Wizards deciding to abandon everything about 4e, even the things that worked, and you once again have "holy warrior that runs into battle in heavy armor and commands troops from the very front lines. It's our Paladin Cleric class!"
Again, nothing against the class--it's a good one... but it's just much more optimized for Crusader/Paladin than actual cleric. It's a bit of a flavour failure and I can see why that would frustrate folks who want to play an actual cleric.
I have to agree with Yurei1453 on this one.... and would suggest that your entire post supports, rather than disproves, her point. As she stated, the issue with clerics from a flavour perspective is that they do not feel like a "man of the cloth" so the "yeah, but look at all the things clerics can do!"" then listing things that are decidedly not being a man of the cloth is really not the counterpoint you seemed to think it is.
A man of the cloth in heavy armour? That's a Paladin, not a Cleric. Man of the cloth spell slinging? That's a Wizard. Man of the cloth moving allies around to maximize defenses (Peace Domain)? That's a Battlemaster Fighter. Man of the cloth healing in robes? That's a Cleric.... but is a pretty darn suboptimal way to play the class.
Great class, powerful, has lots of fun things to do.... but from a flavour perspective? You don't feel like you are playing a member of the clergy--you feel like you're just playing a better version of what another class should be.
This goes all the way back to their legacy in D&D 1E. They wore armor and carried weapons, but had rules against bladed weapons, and could also do all of the healing things. They could also turn undead. I picked up the hobby again with 5E, and the only thing that felt "not Cleric" to me was that they could carry bladed weapons. Armor and shield just seems normal to me, and their spell list seems very "man of the cloth." Keep in mind, religions have a long history of engaging in religious wars. Of course, you could argue that's what Paladins are, and in the game Paladins can play that role, but their oaths are much more broad.
I suppose I don't buy "Gygax did it, so it must be right" as an argument. Neither, really, did Wizards, which really leaned into making Clerics more "Men of the Cloth-y" in 4th edition. Sure, they still had a more battle cleric option, but they also took a number of steps so folks playing as a "man of the cloth" were playing a viable, worthwhile, and not suboptimal version of the class. Flash forward to 5e and Wizards deciding to abandon everything about 4e, even the things that worked, and you once again have "holy warrior that runs into battle in heavy armor and commands troops from the very front lines. It's our Paladin Cleric class!"
Again, nothing against the class--it's a good one... but it's just much more optimized for Crusader/Paladin than actual cleric. It's a bit of a flavour failure and I can see why that would frustrate folks who want to play an actual cleric.
Did Clerics not wear armor in 4E? I just assumed that since they did in 1E and still do in 5E, that it has always been that way. I will say healing has been seriously Nerfed. But that's offset because now "dying" isn't actually dying (at first). You just need to heal them by 1 hit point to get them back up.
Eh. I kinda get it - the complaint more seemed to center on "why does my man of the cloth feel indistinguishable from an armored wizard with bad spells?" It's the same argument Sposta and I keep making about proper psychic classes - if you use the basic spellcasting rules then your abilities will feel like basic spellcasting, and there is nothing you can really do to make basic spellcasting not feel like basic spellcasting. And any class that uses basic spellcasting is going to feel largely the same in play to anything else using basic spellcasting. Yeah, a really good player can sell different trappings on Basic Spellcasting, but that's one of the big complaints I've seen leveled at games like Genesys which provide an extremely small number of mechanical options and encourage players to simply put their preferred skin/flavor/wrapper/trappings on it - two things that work the exact same way feel like they're the same thing no matter what trappings you put on it.
Once Flavor has been established and players aren't trying to wow each other with unnecessarily soliloquent descriptions anymore, all the game's spellcasters announce the same action: "I cast Solve Problem." They're all more or less interchangeable, and that just doesn't feel right to some folks. They want their druids to feel meaningfully different than their clerics than their wizards than their bards, and as it stands they just, simply...don't. And without more diversified 'Magic' rules, they never, ever will.
While I understand the desire for more diverse rules for "magic" abilities, 5E's design philosophy runs contrary to that in some ways. More complex magic systems would imply more detailed world-building and definitely means making the mechanics more complex. The strength of 5E is that it allows for PCs to fit into a wide range of sword-and-sorcery-related fantasy settings. The ease of multi-classing is relatively simple in 5e precisely to enable people to build a variety of adventurers from the pre-created templates while also keeping the barrier to entry to the game relatively low. If you start having a totally different magic system for each class, you will definitely make the game both harder to learn for players and harder to run for the DMs. Also, as you've surely noticed, 5e's design philosophy is made to go against the idea that a party needs to a have a dedicated healer, a dedicated tank, a dedicated sneaky person, and a dedicated long-distance striker. This is why there are tankier healers and Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcs with healing spells, Moon Druids, Valor and Sword Bards. These examples of intentional blurring of the lines between classes makes it easier for people to play something adjacent to what they want to play in a cooperative, combat-heavy game without jinxing the party's survivability by much. All of these design decisions make what you are asking in terms of very distinct spellcaster classes very unlikely.
I have to agree with Yurei1453 on this one.... and would suggest that your entire post supports, rather than disproves, her point. As she stated, the issue with clerics from a flavour perspective is that they do not feel like a "man of the cloth" so the "yeah, but look at all the things clerics can do that are NOT just being a man of a cloth!" is really not the counterpoint you seemed to think it is.
A man of the cloth in heavy armour? That's a Paladin, not a Cleric. Man of the cloth spell slinging? That's a Wizard. Man of the cloth moving allies around to maximize defenses (Peace Domain)? That's a Battlemaster Fighter. Man of the cloth healing in robes? That's a Cleric.... but is a pretty darn suboptimal way to play the class.
Great class, powerful, has lots of fun things to do.... but from a flavour perspective? You don't feel like you are playing a member of the clergy--you feel like you're just playing a better version of what another class should be.
I was NOT saying that Clerics in 5E have better flavor than in previous editions of D&D. If you think that was my intention, then you were mistaken. I was saying, in fact, that the classes inevitably bleed into each other, mechanically, because of the core design philosophies of 5E. Does that hurt the game in certain ways for people who really want the mechanics to match the flavor AND want very distinct flavor for each class? Absolutely. I agree with that. (See my complaints about the Artificer on this very thread.) However, my larger point is that the more you distinguish one spellcaster from another mechanically, the more difficult it becomes to run multi-class characters without complex charts and rule interactions, which consequently slows the game down and makes it harder to DM. Of course, you could just get rid of multi-classing of different spellcasters altogether, but that goes against 5E design philosophy even more, doesn't it?
One thing I really dislike about Clerics in 5e, and in fairness this is how Clerics in 4e and 3.5 and PF1 and PF2 and 2e tend to feel too.
Is that the Cleric rarely feels like a divine agent of a specific god or belief even though that's core to their identity. Clerics feel remarkably generic and while I'm not saying there's no build variety in them, a lot of that build variety feels too nuanced for me. Just conceptually, if I'm playing Forgotten Realms, a Cleric of Lathander, a Priest of Tempus and devoute Banite should look and feel radically different. In practice they might have slightly different channel skills but they're all casting pretty much the same spells and fighting in really similar ways. The biggest difference I see between most clerics come down to whether you have an armor/weapon domain or not.
Wizards kind of have the same problem, where your so-called specialization is often an afterthought and the best way to play the class is generally to be as generically wizardly as possible.
One thing I really dislike about Clerics in 5e, and in fairness this is how Clerics in 4e and 3.5 and PF1 and PF2 and 2e tend to feel too.
Is that the Cleric rarely feels like a divine agent of a specific god or belief even though that's core to their identity. Clerics feel remarkably generic and while I'm not saying there's no build variety in them, a lot of that build variety feels too nuanced for me. Just conceptually, if I'm playing Forgotten Realms, a Cleric of Lathander, a Priest of Tempus and devoute Banite should look and feel radically different. In practice they might have slightly different channel skills but they're all casting pretty much the same spells and fighting in really similar ways. The biggest difference I see between most clerics come down to whether you have an armor/weapon domain or not.
Wizards kind of have the same problem, where your so-called specialization is often an afterthought and the best way to play the class is generally to be as generically wizardly as possible.
Re: Wizard subclasses. If I remember right, Wizards in 2E and 3E had certain barred schools of arcane magic that they could Not gain spells from. That's an idea that could easily be incorporated into your home games if the DM was on board.
That said, I do think that the PHB subclasses were fairly distinct from one another, if somewhat unbalanced. An Abjurer definitely will play different from an Evoker, who will definitely play differently from a Conjurer. And Wizards have the widest variety of spells of any class. So I think the main issue with Wizard subclasses isn't that different subclasses are too similar so much as that D&D is A) tends to be a combat-centric game, which tilts player choices towards more obvious combat-centric spells; B) Adventurer's League, which discourages players from getting invested in certain builds; and C) all the build guides out there are easily searchable with the Internet and many of them recommend similar lists of spells. Few build guides would recommend an Illusionist or a Necromancer, for instance, because they are seen as "very DM/party-dependent" in terms of their power level and impact, even though both are very distinct from most other Wizards and, with a flexible DM and friendly party, can be very capable, even to the point of being sort of OP.
One thing I really dislike about Clerics in 5e, and in fairness this is how Clerics in 4e and 3.5 and PF1 and PF2 and 2e tend to feel too.
Is that the Cleric rarely feels like a divine agent of a specific god or belief even though that's core to their identity. Clerics feel remarkably generic and while I'm not saying there's no build variety in them, a lot of that build variety feels too nuanced for me. Just conceptually, if I'm playing Forgotten Realms, a Cleric of Lathander, a Priest of Tempus and devoute Banite should look and feel radically different. In practice they might have slightly different channel skills but they're all casting pretty much the same spells and fighting in really similar ways. The biggest difference I see between most clerics come down to whether you have an armor/weapon domain or not.
Wizards kind of have the same problem, where your so-called specialization is often an afterthought and the best way to play the class is generally to be as generically wizardly as possible.
I think what you said is generally true, especially for Clerics. A minor exception for Clerics is if you're regularly taking advantage of their subclass spells and channel divinity. But overall I can see your point with them. If you're a Life Domain the subclass spells don't even help flavor wise, because they're all Cleric spells anyway.
As for Wizards, if you play a Bladesinger you are really going to feel separate and apart from other Wizards types. But then you're not really going to play an Abjuration Wizard any differently, you'll just be much more survivable. Others are kind of in-between. An Enchantment Wizard regularly using Hypnotic Gaze and Instinctive Charm can play into "look into my eyezzzz" vibe. Then there is the Evocation Wizard. It's going to encourage the player to take all of the AOE Evocation spells and use them with reckless abandon, since they won't affect your allies.
Aside from the types of things I mentioned, much of the distinctiveness between Wizards is dependent on the player. Wizards have access to such a huge variety of spells that they can pick them based on the themes that fit their subclass.
One thing I really dislike about Clerics in 5e, and in fairness this is how Clerics in 4e and 3.5 and PF1 and PF2 and 2e tend to feel too.
Is that the Cleric rarely feels like a divine agent of a specific god or belief even though that's core to their identity. Clerics feel remarkably generic and while I'm not saying there's no build variety in them, a lot of that build variety feels too nuanced for me. Just conceptually, if I'm playing Forgotten Realms, a Cleric of Lathander, a Priest of Tempus and devoute Banite should look and feel radically different. In practice they might have slightly different channel skills but they're all casting pretty much the same spells and fighting in really similar ways. The biggest difference I see between most clerics come down to whether you have an armor/weapon domain or not.
I try and write down lore about how my god effects my characters life in different ways when I'm playing a cleric or paladin. For example, I was playing a shifter paladin of Malar, and my character had learned to embrace their shifting based off the teachings of their god. I think this can help you get a better sense of how you relate/worship your god, and also, with the DM's help you could even get your god involved in the storyline.
I understand the feeling that different cleric subclasses are too similar, but I feel like a lot of them can actually really be different. One war cleric and one light cleric will almost always be played in different ways, and if you want it to play differently than cleric, you can often just be a paladin of the same god.
Wizards kind of have the same problem, where your so-called specialization is often an afterthought and the best way to play the class is generally to be as generically wizardly as possible.
The main problem I find with wizards is people's inability/unwillingness to move away from the archetypical, backline, ranged spell throwing, wizard, regardless of subclass. I do get what you're saying, but each subclass will be played differently, and the main thing that changes how a wizard is played is the spells they go for, not the subclass they chose.
There are a lot of different ways to play a wizard, and I do wish more were based off subclass, but it is what it is, and there are still various different ways to play a wizard.
Cleric - Having a healer is essential, but who would ever want to *be* the healer. And as far as them being a holy warrior, the Paladin better fulfills that fantasy. If they were stripped of spellcasting and martial prowess, and given a unique ability to preform miracles (mechanically distinct from magic), I think that could fix the class
Wizard - Merely having a lot of spells and spell slots is less mechanically interesting than Sorcerers' metamagic or Warlocks' Invocations. Wizards need their own mechanical hook
LOL @ putting the two most powerful classes in the game on a list of the worst classes in the game.
It's not a list of most powerful, it's a list of least liked. Maybe those are the same for you but that's not going to be true for everyone.
The problem is that his list is titled The WORST classes. And, of course, you can't take that list seriously when it contains two of the arguably strongest classes in the game. It looks like a joke.
"Best" is not a synonym for "strongest," nor is "worst" a synonym for "weakest." A class whose only features were to let you roll D100 damage against every enemy in sight on every turn and have advantage on all rolls in all situations would be a terrible class to actually play as, totally devoid of flavor, immersion, strategy, balance, and numerous other factors which weigh as or more heavily than damage output.
"Strongest" is also not a synonym for "is the best at everything and does the most damage." Most often in these conversations it regards cohesion and synergy between features that both sells the flavor and enables a satisfying play experience.
"Best" is not a synonym for "strongest," nor is "worst" a synonym for "weakest." A class whose only features were to let you roll D100 damage against every enemy in sight on every turn and have advantage on all rolls in all situations would be a terrible class to actually play as, totally devoid of flavor, immersion, strategy, balance, and numerous other factors which weigh as or more heavily than damage output.
And the cleric and the wizard have those problems for you? Aren't they two tactically fun classes, with flavor, and the rest of the things you've said?
Let's not try to twist the words to avoid recognizing a mistake. Everyone has the right to error, nothing happens for that. But sticking with it stubbornly makes no sense.
It would be completely different if that list were your least favorite classes. There is no possible discussion there, taste is subjective.
In any case, Clerics and Wizard are by no means two of the worst classes in the game any way you look at it.
Why is the artificer so unpopular? I love artificers. Least favorite are monks because a) boring flavor-wise. So they're just an orientalist martial artist? Bawring and out of place in the generic western fantasy of D&D and b) mechanics-wise unexceptional. Martial arts die could be better spent on fighters or rogues and I don't really like the whole Ki thing.
Why is the artificer so unpopular? I love artificers. Least favorite are monks because a) boring flavor-wise. So they're just an orientalist martial artist? Bawring and out of place in the generic western fantasy of D&D and b) mechanics-wise unexceptional. Martial arts die could be better spent on fighters or rogues and I don't really like the whole Ki thing.
I think it's combination of several attempts to make the class, low amount of support for the class (including not being in the SRD), and analysis paralysis with the infusion choices.
I enjoy them as well but I've been disappointed by Armorer and the lack of class specific spells.
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And the answer is... Clerics have more than just armor and spellcasting, each subclass provides unique features and archetypes to build around. Some clerics are more spellcasting focused, while some can even fight in the melee.
Clerics have channel divinity, divine intervention, unique subclass features, cool (optional) flavor in having a god, and more. Spellcasting is not their only way to solve problems or defeat enemies.
Clerics aren't just armored wizards with weaker spells. They're a whole nother class that can be built and played in a whole nother dozen different unique and cool ways.
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HERE.While I understand the desire for more diverse rules for "magic" abilities, 5E's design philosophy runs contrary to that in some ways. More complex magic systems would imply more detailed world-building and definitely means making the mechanics more complex. The strength of 5E is that it allows for PCs to fit into a wide range of sword-and-sorcery-related fantasy settings. The ease of multi-classing is relatively simple in 5e precisely to enable people to build a variety of adventurers from the pre-created templates while also keeping the barrier to entry to the game relatively low. If you start having a totally different magic system for each class, you will definitely make the game both harder to learn for players and harder to run for the DMs. Also, as you've surely noticed, 5e's design philosophy is made to go against the idea that a party needs to a have a dedicated healer, a dedicated tank, a dedicated sneaky person, and a dedicated long-distance striker. This is why there are tankier healers and Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcs with healing spells, Moon Druids, Valor and Sword Bards. These examples of intentional blurring of the lines between classes makes it easier for people to play something adjacent to what they want to play in a cooperative, combat-heavy game without jinxing the party's survivability by much. All of these design decisions make what you are asking in terms of very distinct spellcaster classes very unlikely.
The way magic works between spell saves verses spell attack, spell slots, cantrips verses leveled spells, spells known verses spell prepared, pact magic, various AOE size and shapes, components, components consumed, verbal/somatic, your spell ability score, concentration, type of action, rules for casting two spells on a turn, line of sight, etc. is already complex as it is. For me it was the last thing I finally got down when I was learning the game.
There's already minor differences in spell mechanics between most casters, and a dramatic difference for Warlocks. With all of that, I would think for most players just having different flavors of spells between classes would be enough to immerse themselves into the class. When I'm casting a spell I try to be mindful to describe the act and the effects, as I opposed to just "I cast X." But sometimes I forget.
I totally understand that, Blues. Heh, but just because the trade-offs bought certain advantages doesn't mean they aren't trade-offs. Genesys is a game engine that, aside from its bizarre and super unintuitive Weirdo Dice System (I will never understand why people like that stupid 'Story Dice' nonsense so much), takes the idea of super simple core mechanics wrapped in different candy coatings kind of to the limit, and the result is a game where everything feels exactly the same. There's not really any practical difference between my supposed Nimble Savannah Huntress and another player's Highly Educated Sorceress except which skills the team wants me handling and which ones they want her handling. There's no mechanical differentiation whatsoever to anything we do, which means Genesys can handle any setting you want. Mostly because it doesn't play into any of them and "setting" doesn't matter in the slightest unless you go out of your way to make it matter.
Some people love that sort of thing, love having an absolute bare minimum of mechanical skeleton 'getting in their way' when all they want to do is tell cool stories with their friends. Others feel a bit like they're wrapping an Epic Tale around a game of tic tac toe. Without mechanical depth there's also no tactical or strategic depth, in combat or out of it, and the game starts feeling shallow and unsatisfying because the solution to every last single problem is always exactly the same.
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I have to agree with Yurei1453 on this one.... and would suggest that your entire post supports, rather than disproves, her point. As she stated, the issue with clerics from a flavour perspective is that they do not feel like a "man of the cloth" so the "yeah, but look at all the things clerics can do!"" then listing things that are decidedly not being a man of the cloth is really not the counterpoint you seemed to think it is.
A man of the cloth in heavy armour? That's a Paladin, not a Cleric. Man of the cloth spell slinging? That's a Wizard. Man of the cloth moving allies around to maximize defenses (Peace Domain)? That's a Battlemaster Fighter. Man of the cloth healing in robes? That's a Cleric.... but is a pretty darn suboptimal way to play the class.
Great class, powerful, has lots of fun things to do.... but from a flavour perspective? You don't feel like you are playing a member of the clergy--you feel like you're just playing a better version of what another class should be.
This goes all the way back to their legacy in D&D 1E. They wore armor and carried weapons, but had rules against bladed weapons, and could also do all of the healing things. They could also turn undead. I picked up the hobby again with 5E, and the only thing that felt "not Cleric" to me was that they could carry bladed weapons. Armor and shield just seems normal to me, and their spell list seems very "man of the cloth." Keep in mind, religions have a long history of engaging in religious wars. Of course, you could argue that's what Paladins are, and in the game Paladins can play that role, but their oaths are much more broad.
For whatever reason, this led me to a Grave cleric/Mercy monk multiclass that's basically the "I kick ass for the Lord!" guy from Peter Jackson's Dead-Alive
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)
I suppose I don't buy "Gygax did it, so it must be right" as an argument. Neither, really, did Wizards, which really leaned into making Clerics more "Men of the Cloth-y" in 4th edition. Sure, they still had a more battle cleric option, but they also took a number of steps so folks playing as a "man of the cloth" were playing a viable, worthwhile, and not suboptimal version of the class. Flash forward to 5e and Wizards deciding to abandon everything about 4e, even the things that worked, and you once again have "holy warrior that runs into battle in heavy armor and commands troops from the very front lines. It's our
PaladinCleric class!"Again, nothing against the class--it's a good one... but it's just much more optimized for Crusader/Paladin than actual cleric. It's a bit of a flavour failure and I can see why that would frustrate folks who want to play an actual cleric.
Did Clerics not wear armor in 4E? I just assumed that since they did in 1E and still do in 5E, that it has always been that way. I will say healing has been seriously Nerfed. But that's offset because now "dying" isn't actually dying (at first). You just need to heal them by 1 hit point to get them back up.
I was NOT saying that Clerics in 5E have better flavor than in previous editions of D&D. If you think that was my intention, then you were mistaken. I was saying, in fact, that the classes inevitably bleed into each other, mechanically, because of the core design philosophies of 5E. Does that hurt the game in certain ways for people who really want the mechanics to match the flavor AND want very distinct flavor for each class? Absolutely. I agree with that. (See my complaints about the Artificer on this very thread.) However, my larger point is that the more you distinguish one spellcaster from another mechanically, the more difficult it becomes to run multi-class characters without complex charts and rule interactions, which consequently slows the game down and makes it harder to DM. Of course, you could just get rid of multi-classing of different spellcasters altogether, but that goes against 5E design philosophy even more, doesn't it?
One thing I really dislike about Clerics in 5e, and in fairness this is how Clerics in 4e and 3.5 and PF1 and PF2 and 2e tend to feel too.
Is that the Cleric rarely feels like a divine agent of a specific god or belief even though that's core to their identity. Clerics feel remarkably generic and while I'm not saying there's no build variety in them, a lot of that build variety feels too nuanced for me. Just conceptually, if I'm playing Forgotten Realms, a Cleric of Lathander, a Priest of Tempus and devoute Banite should look and feel radically different. In practice they might have slightly different channel skills but they're all casting pretty much the same spells and fighting in really similar ways. The biggest difference I see between most clerics come down to whether you have an armor/weapon domain or not.
Wizards kind of have the same problem, where your so-called specialization is often an afterthought and the best way to play the class is generally to be as generically wizardly as possible.
Re: Wizard subclasses. If I remember right, Wizards in 2E and 3E had certain barred schools of arcane magic that they could Not gain spells from. That's an idea that could easily be incorporated into your home games if the DM was on board.
That said, I do think that the PHB subclasses were fairly distinct from one another, if somewhat unbalanced. An Abjurer definitely will play different from an Evoker, who will definitely play differently from a Conjurer. And Wizards have the widest variety of spells of any class. So I think the main issue with Wizard subclasses isn't that different subclasses are too similar so much as that D&D is A) tends to be a combat-centric game, which tilts player choices towards more obvious combat-centric spells; B) Adventurer's League, which discourages players from getting invested in certain builds; and C) all the build guides out there are easily searchable with the Internet and many of them recommend similar lists of spells. Few build guides would recommend an Illusionist or a Necromancer, for instance, because they are seen as "very DM/party-dependent" in terms of their power level and impact, even though both are very distinct from most other Wizards and, with a flexible DM and friendly party, can be very capable, even to the point of being sort of OP.
I think what you said is generally true, especially for Clerics. A minor exception for Clerics is if you're regularly taking advantage of their subclass spells and channel divinity. But overall I can see your point with them. If you're a Life Domain the subclass spells don't even help flavor wise, because they're all Cleric spells anyway.
As for Wizards, if you play a Bladesinger you are really going to feel separate and apart from other Wizards types. But then you're not really going to play an Abjuration Wizard any differently, you'll just be much more survivable. Others are kind of in-between. An Enchantment Wizard regularly using Hypnotic Gaze and Instinctive Charm can play into "look into my eyezzzz" vibe. Then there is the Evocation Wizard. It's going to encourage the player to take all of the AOE Evocation spells and use them with reckless abandon, since they won't affect your allies.
Aside from the types of things I mentioned, much of the distinctiveness between Wizards is dependent on the player. Wizards have access to such a huge variety of spells that they can pick them based on the themes that fit their subclass.
I try and write down lore about how my god effects my characters life in different ways when I'm playing a cleric or paladin. For example, I was playing a shifter paladin of Malar, and my character had learned to embrace their shifting based off the teachings of their god. I think this can help you get a better sense of how you relate/worship your god, and also, with the DM's help you could even get your god involved in the storyline.
I understand the feeling that different cleric subclasses are too similar, but I feel like a lot of them can actually really be different. One war cleric and one light cleric will almost always be played in different ways, and if you want it to play differently than cleric, you can often just be a paladin of the same god.
The main problem I find with wizards is people's inability/unwillingness to move away from the archetypical, backline, ranged spell throwing, wizard, regardless of subclass. I do get what you're saying, but each subclass will be played differently, and the main thing that changes how a wizard is played is the spells they go for, not the subclass they chose.
There are a lot of different ways to play a wizard, and I do wish more were based off subclass, but it is what it is, and there are still various different ways to play a wizard.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.The problem is that his list is titled The WORST classes. And, of course, you can't take that list seriously when it contains two of the arguably strongest classes in the game. It looks like a joke.
"Best" is not a synonym for "strongest," nor is "worst" a synonym for "weakest." A class whose only features were to let you roll D100 damage against every enemy in sight on every turn and have advantage on all rolls in all situations would be a terrible class to actually play as, totally devoid of flavor, immersion, strategy, balance, and numerous other factors which weigh as or more heavily than damage output.
"Strongest" is also not a synonym for "is the best at everything and does the most damage." Most often in these conversations it regards cohesion and synergy between features that both sells the flavor and enables a satisfying play experience.
And the cleric and the wizard have those problems for you? Aren't they two tactically fun classes, with flavor, and the rest of the things you've said?
Let's not try to twist the words to avoid recognizing a mistake. Everyone has the right to error, nothing happens for that. But sticking with it stubbornly makes no sense.
It would be completely different if that list were your least favorite classes. There is no possible discussion there, taste is subjective.
In any case, Clerics and Wizard are by no means two of the worst classes in the game any way you look at it.
Why is the artificer so unpopular? I love artificers. Least favorite are monks because a) boring flavor-wise. So they're just an orientalist martial artist? Bawring and out of place in the generic western fantasy of D&D and b) mechanics-wise unexceptional. Martial arts die could be better spent on fighters or rogues and I don't really like the whole Ki thing.
I think it's combination of several attempts to make the class, low amount of support for the class (including not being in the SRD), and analysis paralysis with the infusion choices.
I enjoy them as well but I've been disappointed by Armorer and the lack of class specific spells.