I agree that an intelligent item class sounds really cool, although I kind of feel like that would be more of a "race" and not a class. Even if you disagree, you must admit that a "paladin deskchair" or "rogue water bottle" (or something ridiculous like that) would definitely be pretty funny to play with XD.
A true "Summoner" archtype is still missing from 5e imo. Someone who's pet is the class focus rather than an accessory of their class that they use with a bonus action.
The sort of playstyle I imagine is "Action: Command Summon" is always the preferred optimal damage option, with your character personally focusing more on minor buff bonus action abilities. Maybe with you and the summon sharing a HP count or something and getting to add features to it on level up.
I think pathfinder has something like this, but Im more going off Final Fantasy or Pokemon style archtypes.
I agree that an intelligent item class sounds really cool, although I kind of feel like that would be more of a "race" and not a class. Even if you disagree, you must admit that a "paladin deskchair" or "rogue water bottle" (or something ridiculous like that) would definitely be pretty funny to play with XD.
Definitely!
Once a year I run a ridiculous game. This is going into the next one.
It makes me think of playing a mimic as a playable race. LOL
On a more serious note, I was thinking more of a class. It gets better bonuses to take over the owner and for how long. It can cast spells such as Charm Person and Mage Hand on its own. Maybe something where its power adapts to the one holding it. I don't know, it sounds like a fun roleplaying character to me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
THAC0 means "To-Hit Armor Class 0", and depending on who you ask, it was either pronounced "thack-oh" or "thay-ko". When a -5 was amazing and an insult was asking, "What alignment are you again?"
A true "Summoner" archtype is still missing from 5e imo. Someone who's pet is the class focus rather than an accessory of their class that they use with a bonus action.
The sort of playstyle I imagine is "Action: Command Summon" is always the preferred optimal damage option, with your character personally focusing more on minor buff bonus action abilities. Maybe with you and the summon sharing a HP count or something and getting to add features to it on level up.
I think pathfinder has something like this, but Im more going off Final Fantasy or Pokemon style archtypes.
Absolutely. I'd love to see a summoner class. I'd have it be a little different though. Give the summoner buff and debuff spells while the summon, which would probably act either independently or attack on a bonus action. I'd have it be a subclass you pick on level 1 and that picks the type of summon you take and the abilities the character and summon have. I think that would be all sorts of fun.
So I was planning an upcoming encounter for my table in which they'll be running into some werewolves. I started looking into what happens if a character contracts the lycanthrope curse and thought that might actually be pretty fun. There are already systems in place to handle contracting curses like this but it still might be fun if there were a class like this. Race: human or whatever. Class: cursed. Level 1 options include werewolf, wererat, werebear, were____, maybe even vampire. It might be kinda cool.
I agree that an intelligent item class sounds really cool, although I kind of feel like that would be more of a "race" and not a class. Even if you disagree, you must admit that a "paladin deskchair" or "rogue water bottle" (or something ridiculous like that) would definitely be pretty funny to play with XD.
You mean like this?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
A true "Summoner" archtype is still missing from 5e imo. Someone who's pet is the class focus rather than an accessory of their class that they use with a bonus action.
The sort of playstyle I imagine is "Action: Command Summon" is always the preferred optimal damage option, with your character personally focusing more on minor buff bonus action abilities. Maybe with you and the summon sharing a HP count or something and getting to add features to it on level up.
I think pathfinder has something like this, but Im more going off Final Fantasy or Pokemon style archtypes.
Yes the Summoner Class in PF is a Caster with an Eidolon-a spiritual creature that can take any forms you want, and can evolve, you acquire evolution points when leveling and you can then use those points to gain new abilities and attributes for your Eidolon.
At higher lvls depending on the Archetype, you can Fuse with your Eidolon, its pretty awesome, shame that this class isn't in the PF 2 Classes for now...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Like the idea of the strategy class from a few days ago. Sounds like it can be done with some of the current classes, but a dedicated class could bring in some interesting and new ways to play the part.
the summoner idea also has some potential, the mechanics of the summoning ability would need to be sufficient to handle most typical adventuring forays between short or long rests.
On the intelligent item idea, I once played a sentient sword online, playing Neverwinter Nights in a DM'd session. Was probably one of the most fun games I played there, I got to be snarky and a speaker of truth to power since I could say just about anything and no one could curse me to hell and demand "off with his head" :-)
Like the idea of the strategy class from a few days ago. Sounds like it can be done with some of the current classes, but a dedicated class could bring in some interesting and new ways to play the part.
On the intelligent item idea, I once played a sentient sword online, playing Neverwinter Nights in a DM'd session. Was probably one of the most fun games I played there, I got to be snarky and a speaker of truth to power since I could say just about anything and no one could curse me to hell and demand "off with his head" :-)
It sounds like a game with some out of the box thinking. My type of game.
THAC0 means "To-Hit Armor Class 0", and depending on who you ask, it was either pronounced "thack-oh" or "thay-ko". When a -5 was amazing and an insult was asking, "What alignment are you again?"
The Commoner class is one that’s the most lacking in D&D imho, it’s an archetype that’s absolutely everywhere in fiction and could really add a lot to any given campaign. Proficiency with improvised weapons (like the ever-iconic pot) and letting them pick skills and feats from other classes to specialize into as they level up would represent the archetype well and make it unique from anything in the game so far
Sub-classes would fill a lot of the niches for sure, tho a unique class that I’m honestly surprised hasn’t been made yet is the Commoner class. They’re everywhere in fiction (Repunzel, Gendry from GoT, half of the Fellowship of the Ring, an entire classification in Fire Emblem, etc.) and have a lot of potential to be unique. Just give them proficiency with improvised weapons (like a pot or a rake) and the ability to gain skills or feats from other classes as they level up and the possibilities are endless. There’s even room to give them a magic-based sub-class (Apprentice?) where they learn skills and spells from from the other magic classes instead of stuff from martial classes.
The NPC Classes were meant to fill an odd hole in the game. Skills. Player Characters could have all sorts of professions and trades. They could be quite good at them. So the question was, what about Non Player Characters? What about the Blacksmith you want to hire to make that Masterwork Longsword you want so much? How do they get their skill level up? It's one of those things that doesn't matter in the slightest. DM Whim ought to be fine, but it makes people itch when they are worldbuilding.
The other problem presented was what to do about Very Important People who were not player characters. What would the scores and stats of the King Of All The Lands be? It makes no sense at all for the King, who has been trained pretty much from birth to be a diplomat and statesman, to have levels in a Player Character class. So how many hit points does this dude have? It won't do if the characters can wade into the throne room and take the dude out in a few swings.
The problems remain really. How do NPCs get higher level skills? Who trains them? If you really want a puzzle, why aren't most NPCs from the long lived races masters of everything? 500 years isn't terribly long for a Dwarf or Elf.
The local King would be a Noble in 5th Edition; 9 whole hit points typically, and 16 at most. Sure, they can have a whole cadre of guards, and spell casters of all types standing by. They can have a huge pile of buffs cast on them every morning. Such things don't slow down high level player characters much. Or dragons.
More on topic, I don't see anything missing in the current crop of Player Character Classes. If anything we have too many. I'm not at all thrilled with the Artificer and think they should be Eberron only, to be adopted in other settings only as homebrew with all that implies.
Others are free to disagree. I see no good option for Summoners. The super-duper Pet class is a touch more than twice the work, takes twice as long to complete their turn, and generates about 6 times the amount of arguments without bringing anything to the table but a nightmare to have to balance against normal classes. Other assorted ideas seem to have been sorted out with subclasses and I don't accept "but I want a pure class that does the same thing, in the same way, but is cooler because it's a full scale class."
Classes/levels exist as a way of providing balanced player characters. That's not a concern with non-player characters; NPCs don't have to be equal to other NPCs of the same level, they don't even need levels in the first place. The concern with NPCs is that they need to be able to do stuff so the PCs can interact with them in a way that furthers the game. All they need is a handful of stats and abilities, an attitude and a motivation. Monster stat blocks are perfect for this.
Commoner, Aristocrat and Expert do exist in 5E: they're various backgrounds.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I agree that we have too many classes, but I think Sorcerers are the big culprit for extra wheel, as they don't do enough to feel like a genuinely unique class. Their *subclasses* are very different, but that's a distinct question. I think more than a new class added on, Sorcerers need a revamp to feel less samey. But that's lower priority than addressing balance issues - I'm glad TCOE gave Rangers the most love.
A true "Summoner" archtype is still missing from 5e imo. Someone who's pet is the class focus rather than an accessory of their class that they use with a bonus action.
Came here to say this! Could do with a decent Summoner class or even one that potentially comes with a henchman - Cyberpunk has a class that comes with a bodyguard... Now that henchmen are part and parcel of 5e I think it could work.
That said, Summoner classes seem to be pretty unpopular with DMs (another thing to keep track of!). I think you could have some amazing RP interplay with players playing a henchman or pet as well as their PC. As you mention it would possibly require an improvement / separate action pool for the pet, and it might be completely broken from a balance perspective, but would be cool.
That said, Summoner classes seem to be pretty unpopular with DMs (another thing to keep track of!).
Summoners with a single, more or less specific pet are fine; same as Beastmasters and Battlesmiths. In fact, those you can do some seriously cool and creative stuff with without making it harder for the DM to run a good game. It's Summoners that triple the number of turns in a round and/or get to pick gamebreaking monsters to summon from the entire monster menagerie the DM likes to use that are annoying.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I agree that we have too many classes, but I think Sorcerers are the big culprit for extra wheel, as they don't do enough to feel like a genuinely unique class. Their *subclasses* are very different, but that's a distinct question. I think more than a new class added on, Sorcerers need a revamp to feel less samey. But that's lower priority than addressing balance issues - I'm glad TCOE gave Rangers the most love.
If you look at it closely, WOTC is actually going in the opposite direction, with the bleeding of multiple spells into being eligible for more classes to cast. That of course is a horrible decision, but one made under the assumption that making the game easier will make it more appealing to potential new customers.
But yes, you are quite correct, the Sorcerer class needs love. There are 8 subclasses there, but 18 Cleric subclasses. Sorcerers need more features unique to them, besides Metamagic, more sub-classes, and ALL casting classes need more spells unique to that class.
Otherwise, if a player wants a more versatile and powerful class, that player will choose Wizard.
I'm still looking for recognizable versions of both the 4th Ed Warlord and the Shaman.
For the Warlord, I want a class (either Fighter or Bard subclass) that concentrates on utilizing allies and buffing actions. I want to be able to view the battlefield and treat my allies as my pokemon.
For the Shaman, I prefer the spirit summoning aspect and think it would be a good base to start from when developing a true "summoner" class/subclass. I guess it could be a sort of Druid subclass that converts Wild Shapes into summons and concentrates on using those to act in combat.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
One thing I'm curious about would be the equivalent of the "mastermind" from the city of villains MMORPG, where your abilities are to summon a small army of minions to do your bidding. I know some classes let you summon a pet or minion, I might just be missing if there's a way to build around having an army of creatures or constructs to command.
I agree that an intelligent item class sounds really cool, although I kind of feel like that would be more of a "race" and not a class. Even if you disagree, you must admit that a "paladin deskchair" or "rogue water bottle" (or something ridiculous like that) would definitely be pretty funny to play with XD.
A true "Summoner" archtype is still missing from 5e imo. Someone who's pet is the class focus rather than an accessory of their class that they use with a bonus action.
The sort of playstyle I imagine is "Action: Command Summon" is always the preferred optimal damage option, with your character personally focusing more on minor buff bonus action abilities. Maybe with you and the summon sharing a HP count or something and getting to add features to it on level up.
I think pathfinder has something like this, but Im more going off Final Fantasy or Pokemon style archtypes.
Definitely!
Once a year I run a ridiculous game. This is going into the next one.
It makes me think of playing a mimic as a playable race. LOL
On a more serious note, I was thinking more of a class. It gets better bonuses to take over the owner and for how long. It can cast spells such as Charm Person and Mage Hand on its own. Maybe something where its power adapts to the one holding it. I don't know, it sounds like a fun roleplaying character to me.
THAC0 means "To-Hit Armor Class 0", and depending on who you ask, it was either pronounced "thack-oh" or "thay-ko". When a -5 was amazing and an insult was asking, "What alignment are you again?"
Absolutely. I'd love to see a summoner class. I'd have it be a little different though. Give the summoner buff and debuff spells while the summon, which would probably act either independently or attack on a bonus action. I'd have it be a subclass you pick on level 1 and that picks the type of summon you take and the abilities the character and summon have. I think that would be all sorts of fun.
So I was planning an upcoming encounter for my table in which they'll be running into some werewolves. I started looking into what happens if a character contracts the lycanthrope curse and thought that might actually be pretty fun. There are already systems in place to handle contracting curses like this but it still might be fun if there were a class like this. Race: human or whatever. Class: cursed. Level 1 options include werewolf, wererat, werebear, were____, maybe even vampire. It might be kinda cool.
You mean like this?
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Yes the Summoner Class in PF is a Caster with an Eidolon-a spiritual creature that can take any forms you want, and can evolve, you acquire evolution points when leveling and you can then use those points to gain new abilities and attributes for your Eidolon.
At higher lvls depending on the Archetype, you can Fuse with your Eidolon, its pretty awesome, shame that this class isn't in the PF 2 Classes for now...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Like the idea of the strategy class from a few days ago. Sounds like it can be done with some of the current classes, but a dedicated class could bring in some interesting and new ways to play the part.
the summoner idea also has some potential, the mechanics of the summoning ability would need to be sufficient to handle most typical adventuring forays between short or long rests.
On the intelligent item idea, I once played a sentient sword online, playing Neverwinter Nights in a DM'd session. Was probably one of the most fun games I played there, I got to be snarky and a speaker of truth to power since I could say just about anything and no one could curse me to hell and demand "off with his head" :-)
It sounds like a game with some out of the box thinking. My type of game.
THAC0 means "To-Hit Armor Class 0", and depending on who you ask, it was either pronounced "thack-oh" or "thay-ko". When a -5 was amazing and an insult was asking, "What alignment are you again?"
The Commoner class is one that’s the most lacking in D&D imho, it’s an archetype that’s absolutely everywhere in fiction and could really add a lot to any given campaign. Proficiency with improvised weapons (like the ever-iconic pot) and letting them pick skills and feats from other classes to specialize into as they level up would represent the archetype well and make it unique from anything in the game so far
Sub-classes would fill a lot of the niches for sure, tho a unique class that I’m honestly surprised hasn’t been made yet is the Commoner class. They’re everywhere in fiction (Repunzel, Gendry from GoT, half of the Fellowship of the Ring, an entire classification in Fire Emblem, etc.) and have a lot of potential to be unique. Just give them proficiency with improvised weapons (like a pot or a rake) and the ability to gain skills or feats from other classes as they level up and the possibilities are endless. There’s even room to give them a magic-based sub-class (Apprentice?) where they learn skills and spells from from the other magic classes instead of stuff from martial classes.
There is absolutely no need to make NPC-only classes the way 3rd Edition did.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The NPC Classes were meant to fill an odd hole in the game. Skills. Player Characters could have all sorts of professions and trades. They could be quite good at them. So the question was, what about Non Player Characters? What about the Blacksmith you want to hire to make that Masterwork Longsword you want so much? How do they get their skill level up? It's one of those things that doesn't matter in the slightest. DM Whim ought to be fine, but it makes people itch when they are worldbuilding.
The other problem presented was what to do about Very Important People who were not player characters. What would the scores and stats of the King Of All The Lands be? It makes no sense at all for the King, who has been trained pretty much from birth to be a diplomat and statesman, to have levels in a Player Character class. So how many hit points does this dude have? It won't do if the characters can wade into the throne room and take the dude out in a few swings.
The problems remain really. How do NPCs get higher level skills? Who trains them? If you really want a puzzle, why aren't most NPCs from the long lived races masters of everything? 500 years isn't terribly long for a Dwarf or Elf.
The local King would be a Noble in 5th Edition; 9 whole hit points typically, and 16 at most. Sure, they can have a whole cadre of guards, and spell casters of all types standing by. They can have a huge pile of buffs cast on them every morning. Such things don't slow down high level player characters much. Or dragons.
More on topic, I don't see anything missing in the current crop of Player Character Classes. If anything we have too many. I'm not at all thrilled with the Artificer and think they should be Eberron only, to be adopted in other settings only as homebrew with all that implies.
Others are free to disagree. I see no good option for Summoners. The super-duper Pet class is a touch more than twice the work, takes twice as long to complete their turn, and generates about 6 times the amount of arguments without bringing anything to the table but a nightmare to have to balance against normal classes. Other assorted ideas seem to have been sorted out with subclasses and I don't accept "but I want a pure class that does the same thing, in the same way, but is cooler because it's a full scale class."
<Insert clever signature here>
Classes/levels exist as a way of providing balanced player characters. That's not a concern with non-player characters; NPCs don't have to be equal to other NPCs of the same level, they don't even need levels in the first place. The concern with NPCs is that they need to be able to do stuff so the PCs can interact with them in a way that furthers the game. All they need is a handful of stats and abilities, an attitude and a motivation. Monster stat blocks are perfect for this.
Commoner, Aristocrat and Expert do exist in 5E: they're various backgrounds.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I agree that we have too many classes, but I think Sorcerers are the big culprit for extra wheel, as they don't do enough to feel like a genuinely unique class. Their *subclasses* are very different, but that's a distinct question. I think more than a new class added on, Sorcerers need a revamp to feel less samey. But that's lower priority than addressing balance issues - I'm glad TCOE gave Rangers the most love.
Came here to say this! Could do with a decent Summoner class or even one that potentially comes with a henchman - Cyberpunk has a class that comes with a bodyguard... Now that henchmen are part and parcel of 5e I think it could work.
That said, Summoner classes seem to be pretty unpopular with DMs (another thing to keep track of!). I think you could have some amazing RP interplay with players playing a henchman or pet as well as their PC. As you mention it would possibly require an improvement / separate action pool for the pet, and it might be completely broken from a balance perspective, but would be cool.
DM - The Call of Strahd (CoS); Feyrealm Campaign, Chapter 0 - Bleak Prospect (BP), Chapter 1 - Destination Unknown (DU)
Summoners with a single, more or less specific pet are fine; same as Beastmasters and Battlesmiths. In fact, those you can do some seriously cool and creative stuff with without making it harder for the DM to run a good game. It's Summoners that triple the number of turns in a round and/or get to pick gamebreaking monsters to summon from the entire monster menagerie the DM likes to use that are annoying.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If you look at it closely, WOTC is actually going in the opposite direction, with the bleeding of multiple spells into being eligible for more classes to cast. That of course is a horrible decision, but one made under the assumption that making the game easier will make it more appealing to potential new customers.
But yes, you are quite correct, the Sorcerer class needs love. There are 8 subclasses there, but 18 Cleric subclasses. Sorcerers need more features unique to them, besides Metamagic, more sub-classes, and ALL casting classes need more spells unique to that class.
Otherwise, if a player wants a more versatile and powerful class, that player will choose Wizard.
I'm still looking for recognizable versions of both the 4th Ed Warlord and the Shaman.
For the Warlord, I want a class (either Fighter or Bard subclass) that concentrates on utilizing allies and buffing actions. I want to be able to view the battlefield and treat my allies as my pokemon.
For the Shaman, I prefer the spirit summoning aspect and think it would be a good base to start from when developing a true "summoner" class/subclass. I guess it could be a sort of Druid subclass that converts Wild Shapes into summons and concentrates on using those to act in combat.
One thing I'm curious about would be the equivalent of the "mastermind" from the city of villains MMORPG, where your abilities are to summon a small army of minions to do your bidding. I know some classes let you summon a pet or minion, I might just be missing if there's a way to build around having an army of creatures or constructs to command.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!