There's the Wildemount book, there's the officially published Blood Hunter stat block, there's Arkhan the Cruel in the Baldur's Gate book; I mean, when characters from your campaign are making it into FR lore, I think that's a pretty strong recognition from WotC that your content is legit.
Also, I can't say I'm a CR fan, but I would absolutely *love* it if they did another book with Mercer and made more of his homebrew official...
Not necessarily. The Elemental Evil Player's Companion is free content. Given that many folks have already bought the BLunter from DM's Guild, it would be shitty of Wizards to make them pay for it twice. Not that this level of shittiness is remotely beyond Wizards, but still. They'd get called on it.
Nevertheless. @Third: I actually recommend checking out the Blood Hunter more closely. The Order of the Profane Soul is probably the closest we'll ever get to a real, properly designed Magus/Arcane Paladin/non-divine gish. It's not perfect by any means, but in my own off-time experimentations with the subclass, it's proven surprisingly adept. It makes use of the 'War Magic' thing Eldritch Knights have going on much better than Eldritch Knights do, and between Rites augmenting your damage directly and Brands enabling you to scourge enemies with magic just by hitting them, it feels pretty Spellblade-y.
For 6e would really like them to give us basically 6 'flavorless' base classes (magic guy, skills guy, fighty guy, gish, skirmisher, and whatever the half skills guy and half magic guy equivalent is. These would contain some core mechanics.
From there archtypes can provide the theme and more in depth mechanics. e.g. pick fighty guy and barbarian archtype for a barbarian. After that more exact features can be picked to make variants of that. e.g. berserker or storm herald. Or pick the 'gish' class, choose divine archtype for paladin, then narrow down to oath of devotion subclass.
This would be a very interesting take on the classes. I want it.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm on board, but it would be an interesting exercise.
For 6e would really like them to give us basically 6 'flavorless' base classes (magic guy, skills guy, fighty guy, gish, skirmisher, and whatever the half skills guy and half magic guy equivalent is. These would contain some core mechanics.
From there archtypes can provide the theme and more in depth mechanics. e.g. pick fighty guy and barbarian archtype for a barbarian. After that more exact features can be picked to make variants of that. e.g. berserker or storm herald. Or pick the 'gish' class, choose divine archtype for paladin, then narrow down to oath of devotion subclass.
This would be a very interesting take on the classes. I want it.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm on board, but it would be an interesting exercise.
I agree that it might be an interesting experiment but would not be a good fit for the standard.
I suspect some of what causes certain people to be unhappy with the current classes is how they design characters. It may not apply to everyone, but it correlates with several people I've talked to.
The people who almost consider the class as the character are happier with it. Pick a class and build a character within that framework, and it all works smoothly.
The people like myself, who build a character 100% without thinking about dnd and then try to force it into the class system, where it inevitably doesn't fit perfectly, are unhappier with things and want more classes to try to fit a wider variety of characters.
I suspect some of what causes certain people to be unhappy with the current classes is how they design characters. It may not apply to everyone, but it correlates with several people I've talked to.
The people who almost consider the class as the character are happier with it. Pick a class and build a character within that framework, and it all works smoothly.
The people like myself, who build a character 100% without thinking about dnd and then try to force it into the class system, where it inevitably doesn't fit perfectly, are unhappier with things and want more classes to try to fit a wider variety of characters.
Fundamentally speaking its because modern D&D makes too big of a hard-line between what you can do mechanically and who you are narratively, something that has grown worse and worse with each new edition of the game, until its gotten to such a point where players no longer create characters, they pick characters. Its also become progressively worse in D&D culture where "official" content and official rules are the only thing that is acceptable at the table, so unless Wizards of the Coast puts it in a book, it doesn't exist. The very existence of Unearthed Arcana is a good example of that playing itself out, such a bizarre concept where Wizards of the Coast employees survey and discuss the rules to figure out "what will be official". Why do players need or want that? You can make anything you want official at your table, how does getting the stamp from Wizards of the Coast matter in any way shape or form to players?
Of all the things I find sucks the joy out of the hobby its conversations about classes, class builds and the mechanical gibberish modern D&D culture has emulated after the World of Warcrafts of the world which has driven the continued design of the game into a more and more narrow view fantasy. Its why the OSR is constantly growing in popularity, creating kind of a weird de-evolution which comes with its own set of drawbacks and problems. Even just having a conversation about what D&D is, what its supposed to be is politically incorrect because "How dare you tell me how I should play the game", which I find even stranger given that the 5e Players Handbook does exactly that, a system that defines in very certain and very narrow terms what D&D is and what it is not and we debate on Unearthed Arcana what should or should not be allowed in the game.
I read discussions like this and it makes me mostly shake my head in disbelief that the game has reached such shallow point and that its popularity is driven by exactly this mentality towards the game.
Every single game in the world has rules. If there are no common set of rules, even if those rules are unique for that table, there is no game. It is chaos. And I am not talking just about D&D.
I want a rigid set of rules, especially as a DM. I want to focus my time on building an environment players can lose themselves in, not waste valuable game time, or my prep time, adjudicating whether "yes, this player can do this in-game", or work out if some player's concept of a homebrew class/ species/ feature combo is balanced against the other players and against the stuff I throw at them.
Honestly? I want new classes. I think the reason Artificer is my favourite class is because I have no idea how to play it properly.
If I play a wizard, I know exactly what spells to pick: Sleep, shield, mage armour, magic missile, disguise self and charm person. My cantrips are firebolt, mage hand and minor illusion. I know I can pick other spells, but these IMO are the best, and the ones that give me the most enjoyment. But they dont. Because every wizard I build plays the same.
My most recent (And favourite) character is an unconventional artificer, and although he is probably terrible and not at all min-maxed I am loving it, because for all I know, it could be.
However, I DONT want basic classes, like the psion and the magus and the spellblade. I want classes that haven't been done before. I really want a chef, and a mounted combatant class. I REALLY want a class that is just an extremely lucky guy. I know they usually are not very popular, but I want them none the less.
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I suspect some of what causes certain people to be unhappy with the current classes is how they design characters. It may not apply to everyone, but it correlates with several people I've talked to.
The people who almost consider the class as the character are happier with it. Pick a class and build a character within that framework, and it all works smoothly.
The people like myself, who build a character 100% without thinking about dnd and then try to force it into the class system, where it inevitably doesn't fit perfectly, are unhappier with things and want more classes to try to fit a wider variety of characters.
Fundamentally speaking its because modern D&D makes too big of a hard-line between what you can do mechanically and who you are narratively, something that has grown worse and worse with each new edition of the game, until its gotten to such a point where players no longer create characters, they pick characters. Its also become progressively worse in D&D culture where "official" content and official rules are the only thing that is acceptable at the table, so unless Wizards of the Coast puts it in a book, it doesn't exist. The very existence of Unearthed Arcana is a good example of that playing itself out, such a bizarre concept where Wizards of the Coast employees survey and discuss the rules to figure out "what will be official". Why do players need or want that? You can make anything you want official at your table, how does getting the stamp from Wizards of the Coast matter in any way shape or form to players?
Of all the things I find sucks the joy out of the hobby its conversations about classes, class builds and the mechanical gibberish modern D&D culture has emulated after the World of Warcrafts of the world which has driven the continued design of the game into a more and more narrow view fantasy. Its why the OSR is constantly growing in popularity, creating kind of a weird de-evolution which comes with its own set of drawbacks and problems. Even just having a conversation about what D&D is, what its supposed to be is politically incorrect because "How dare you tell me how I should play the game", which I find even stranger given that the 5e Players Handbook does exactly that, a system that defines in very certain and very narrow terms what D&D is and what it is not and we debate on Unearthed Arcana what should or should not be allowed in the game.
I read discussions like this and it makes me mostly shake my head in disbelief that the game has reached such shallow point and that its popularity is driven by exactly this mentality towards the game.
The thing about picking characters feels so true in this edition. It's like those old fighting games where you scroll side to side to pick which character you want to play. Yeah maybe they have some unlockable skins, but it's still the same character.
The thing is a lot of players like that. I've talked to people who disallow reflavoring or multiclassing as it 'dilutes the real flavor of the classes'. A lot of people see dnd as picking a pre set character, which naturally puts them into conflict with those wanting a ton of classes and fully custom characters with any flavor.
The big deal with the Official Wizards of the Coast Stamp of No-Break-Gameness is exactly that - Wizards is promising a prospective DM that any content they release won't break their game if they run it the way Wizards tells them. One must remember that many DMs are new, not people with thirty-plus years of experience wrangling everything in sight. They feel barely able to keep ahead of their players with a strictly-run module and all the rules and calculations in the DMG backing them up, let alone when everything flies out into the unknown with homebrew. Not to mention the fact that at many tables, once one player gets some bit of homebrew weirdness, everybody else at that table wants their own cool homebrew thing. Now the DM is stuck curating four to twenty peoples' personal favorite, and if they say no to any piece of it, or say "Yes, but only if you change...", then the people who've just had their baby rejected will raise hell.
Homebrew is something I absolutely wish more people would embrace. But a great many players do not have the ability to design bits of this game that are well tuned and within the acceptable power bounds. All it takes is one look at the Sea of Infinite Decay that is the DDB Public Homebrew Library to know why many DMs just flat disallow anything without Wizards' stamp on it. It's why I consider it a special treat when my DM in any game I'm playing lets me get away with an option I built myself rather than taking one of the game defaults, rather than My Goddess-Given Right As A Player.
But because the system is so rigid and so dispermissive of player-created content, and because it's such a giant hassle for many DMs to curate homebrew, people who don't want to play a Lord of the Rings character and want to do something at least mildly original are often logjammed. If you're not playing to a fifty year old fantasy trope and doing your damnedest to play it faithfully, correctly, and thus exactly the same way many thousands of players have already played it for fifty years? The game doesn't fit. People want more 'Official' content because every time Wizards releases 'Official' content, we get an infinitesimally small chance of Wizards producing something that aligns with the character we ACTUALLY want to play, and thus getting the Official Green Light to play just that.
I suspect some of what causes certain people to be unhappy with the current classes is how they design characters. It may not apply to everyone, but it correlates with several people I've talked to.
The people who almost consider the class as the character are happier with it. Pick a class and build a character within that framework, and it all works smoothly.
The people like myself, who build a character 100% without thinking about dnd and then try to force it into the class system, where it inevitably doesn't fit perfectly, are unhappier with things and want more classes to try to fit a wider variety of characters.
See I'm the first one, and I still want more classes. There's just a load of basic archetypal characters I want to make but can't because none of the sub-classes cover them. I come from a Pathfinder background but that game is just too rules dense to run at the best of times (there are a lot of rules I just ignore because they're half a book long, let alone the extent of the maths you have to do every time you build a monster as the GM, it's like you have to build and run a new character for every monster you make), so the mechanical simplistic of 5e is something of a draw for me. On the flip side though, despite its simplicity, there's just so much design space ignored by Wizards, in classes, conditions, abilities, monsters. All are really shallow compared to previous editions. If you simplify the rules, you should add depth somewhere else, or else you're just draining a pool and expecting me to play in a puddle.
Oathbreaker is a Paladin subclass, hidden in the DMG, which many DMs use as a stand-in for a Death Knight.
'Bladelock' is a nickname/shorthand term for a Pact of the Blade warlock, which is also sometimes used as a stand-in for a Death Knight.
Death Knights are an extremely popular character archetype/class from World of Warcraft. They are effectively negative paladins - heavily armored warriors who wield dark power the way a paladin wields light power. They typically have some degree of mastery over undeath, and are often undead themselves. Rather than bolstering allies with heroic auras, Death Knights tend to curse enemies with eldritch hexes. Played well, a Death Knight is haunting, maudlin, and rife for quiet character moments. Played poorly (which is unfortunately much more common), they are unbearably edgy and unfortunately prone to PvP and Party Betrayal.
It's sorta the issue many are getting at, BL. Many old heads in D&D are accustomed to the Tolkienite Fantasy; they're comfortable with Legally Distinct Not-Middle Earth , they know what to expect, and they know how to handle it. But Tolkien isn't the only place modern players are drawing their fantasy from. D&D old heads love to complain about video games, but one must remember that back when Tolkien was new, people hated the absolute hell out of him, too. You can't denigrate someone else's cherished fantasy without denigrating your own. For many newer players, Death Knights are as integral and non-negotiable in their fantasy zeitgeist as paladins are, and D&D's odd lack of anything that makes for a proper Death Knight is jarring and makes their game feel incomplete.
It's excellent that your game feels complete. But recall that no one can homebrew an entire base class in DDB, and the subclass homebrew tools are an awful nightmare of "Nope, can't do that, it doesn't work and we don't support it". So telling people to just shut up and make it themselves is often disingenuous.
This is kind of my point. I know what a fighter is, I know what a cleric is, I know what a Ranger is, everyone does, you will never meet anyone who plays D&D who doesn't.
I have been playing and running D&D for 30+ years and I honestly don't have the feintess clue what a Death Knight, Oathbreak or Bladelock is. Its literally meaningless. Yes I fully understand the idea of creating something like that for your home game. If you want a Death Knight Class... create one or ask your GM to create one, but stop asking Wizards of the Coast to liter the game with nonsense and GM the game for your GM.
...you've been playing and DMing in DnD for 30+ years and you don't know what an Oathbreaker Paladin is?
Further objection. What does it matter if you, personally, have no idea what a Death Knight is, when other people do? How is you not knowing what one is a reason for WotC to not make one?
I honestly kinda feel bad for people who see the game like that. Who never want anything new, never want anything inventive or creative, and whose fondest hope for the game is that it remains unchanging and stagnant for many years.
I honestly kinda feel bad for people who see the game like that. Who never want anything new, never want anything inventive or creative, and whose fondest hope for the game is that it remains unchanging and stagnant for many years.
What a dreary way to live.
I feel the same. Luckily no-one on this website is one of them! They are probably all fantastic dudes/gals, who have an opinion that should be listened to!
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
...you've been playing and DMing in DnD for 30+ years and you don't know what an Oathbreaker Paladin is?
Further objection. What does it matter if you, personally, have no idea what a Death Knight is, when other people do? How is you not knowing what one is a reason for WotC to not make one?
Yet another name for what previous editions called an antipaladin or a blackguard? Which would be accomplished just fine by adding "Divine smite damage is changed from radiant to necrotic" in the Oathbreaker. In any case, the point is mostly that using technical terms from previous editions makes the discussion unnecessarily opaque. Don't say "I want an X", say "I want a character that plays like X, Y, and Z" (in broad strokes, don't create mechanics). Because the second way of phrasing it actually makes it clear what you're talking about, and what features of the old class you find the lack of most disturbing.
...you've been playing and DMing in DnD for 30+ years and you don't know what an Oathbreaker Paladin is?
Further objection. What does it matter if you, personally, have no idea what a Death Knight is, when other people do? How is you not knowing what one is a reason for WotC to not make one?
I assume an Oathbreaker is one of the man sub-versions of a normal Paladin, my point was I don't care to know what an Oathbreak Paladin is.
My objection is that a Death Knight is a very specific setting thing. I object it being part of the core rules in the same way I object to having a Jedi Class. If you want to create a separate book where D&D characters can become Jedi's and swing around lightsabres, by all means do so, but don't try to squeeze that BS into the Forgotten Realms or the core rulebook. Its the bloody Dragonborn all over again.
I want Wizards of the Coast to give me a basic, standard version of D&D and if they want to make other setting specific stuff, create special rules or whatever, by god do it, just do it somewhere else.
D&D is a very specific thing, its not "everything", its a very specific "that thing". I want 6th edition to be a normal version of D&D, one that adheres to the classic sensibilities on which the franchise was built. I don't want any bloody Dragonborn or Tyfling or Paladins who reject the idea of being a Paladin, or ones that cast Arcane spells or are undead ones or whatever the hell. Just make a normal version of D&D and if you want to create all of the other nonsense, do so in a setting book. Setting books are great, they expand the game without infiltrating upon its core. Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, Ranger, Druid... those are D&D classes. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling.. those are D&D classes. If you want to make a Half-Dragonborn, Half-Giant, Undead, Athiest Paladin who shoots fireballs out of his ass... do it by all means.. just do in some splat book that I can ignore.
The issue with this edition is it hasn't come in the setting books. It's not come at all.
Where in previous editions you could go and find your arcane paladin gish class in some later released book if the DM allowed that content, in 5e it just doesn't exist. It's the base classes or nothing. And the thing is it's not some other modern setting trying to force its way into DnD. These things have existed in DnD in the past, and it's only this edition which has seen them taken away.
If you want an arcane gish like magnus or duskblade who can put enchant their weapon as a bonus action to smack things with it.... tough. Doesn't exist. You have to play with the divne and holier than thou paladin or make use of one of the sub par subclass gishes who are just overpowered by being a fighter with a party trick or two.
...you've been playing and DMing in DnD for 30+ years and you don't know what an Oathbreaker Paladin is?
Further objection. What does it matter if you, personally, have no idea what a Death Knight is, when other people do? How is you not knowing what one is a reason for WotC to not make one?
I assume an Oathbreaker is one of the man sub-versions of a normal Paladin, my point was I don't care to know what an Oathbreak Paladin is.
My objection is that a Death Knight is a very specific setting thing. I object it being part of the core rules in the same way I object to having a Jedi Class. If you want to create a separate book where D&D characters can become Jedi's and swing around lightsabres, by all means do so, but don't try to squeeze that BS into the Forgotten Realms or the core rulebook. Its the bloody Dragonborn all over again.
I want Wizards of the Coast to give me a basic, standard version of D&D and if they want to make other setting specific stuff, create special rules or whatever, by god do it, just do it somewhere else.
D&D is a very specific thing, its not "everything", its a very specific "that thing". I want 6th edition to be a normal version of D&D, one that adheres to the classic sensibilities on which the franchise was built. I don't want any bloody Dragonborn or Tyfling or Paladins who reject the idea of being a Paladin, or ones that cast Arcane spells or are undead ones or whatever the hell. Just make a normal version of D&D and if you want to create all of the other nonsense, do so in a setting book. Setting books are great, they expand the game without infiltrating upon its core. Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, Ranger, Druid... those are D&D classes. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling.. those are D&D classes. If you want to make a Half-Dragonborn, Half-Giant, Undead, Athiest Paladin who shoots fireballs out of his ass... do it by all means.. just do in some splat book that I can ignore.
they WERE classes, and some of them still are. If you haven't noticed, the classes now are artificer, barbarian, bard, Cleric, druid, fighter, monk, ranger, paladin,Rogue, Sorcerer, warlock and wizard. I have no clue what a tyfling is, but tieflings are in the PHB if that is what you are looking for! 'Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling.. those are D&D classes'......no thwy are races. there are lots of others as well, WotC is coming out with more in nearly every book. Half dragonborn and half giant have never existed in 5e to my knowledge, but maybe someday soon! Paladins cannot cast fireball as of now.
...you've been playing and DMing in DnD for 30+ years and you don't know what an Oathbreaker Paladin is?
Further objection. What does it matter if you, personally, have no idea what a Death Knight is, when other people do? How is you not knowing what one is a reason for WotC to not make one?
Yet another name for what previous editions called an antipaladin or a blackguard? Which would be accomplished just fine by adding "Divine smite damage is changed from radiant to necrotic" in the Oathbreaker. In any case, the point is mostly that using technical terms from previous editions makes the discussion unnecessarily opaque. Don't say "I want an X", say "I want a character that plays like X, Y, and Z" (in broad strokes, don't create mechanics). Because the second way of phrasing it actually makes it clear what you're talking about, and what features of the old class you find the lack of most disturbing.
A Deathknight is a specific thing that has existed in fantasy for quite some time. Yureil explained it pretty nicely a few posts back. I'd also argue that saying "just play an Oathbreaker" doesn't do it, either. The entire inclusion of the Oathbreaker subclass in the DMG is more of a framework for a DM to give a thematic, lore backed "punishment" for a Paladin that violates their Oath. Strictly speaking, the Oathbreaker subclass only works in that capacity as a negative version of the Oath of Devotion. It's too focused on holy/unholy to map over to the other Oaths well.
I'm also not suggesting that the Deathknight be a new class all itself. A Deathknight should be a subclass of the proposed Arcane half caster martial character.
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There's the Wildemount book, there's the officially published Blood Hunter stat block, there's Arkhan the Cruel in the Baldur's Gate book; I mean, when characters from your campaign are making it into FR lore, I think that's a pretty strong recognition from WotC that your content is legit.
Also, I can't say I'm a CR fan, but I would absolutely *love* it if they did another book with Mercer and made more of his homebrew official...
If they did that, you'd have to pay to use the bloodhunter, as it would become official content
Not necessarily. The Elemental Evil Player's Companion is free content. Given that many folks have already bought the BLunter from DM's Guild, it would be shitty of Wizards to make them pay for it twice. Not that this level of shittiness is remotely beyond Wizards, but still. They'd get called on it.
Nevertheless. @Third: I actually recommend checking out the Blood Hunter more closely. The Order of the Profane Soul is probably the closest we'll ever get to a real, properly designed Magus/Arcane Paladin/non-divine gish. It's not perfect by any means, but in my own off-time experimentations with the subclass, it's proven surprisingly adept. It makes use of the 'War Magic' thing Eldritch Knights have going on much better than Eldritch Knights do, and between Rites augmenting your damage directly and Brands enabling you to scourge enemies with magic just by hitting them, it feels pretty Spellblade-y.
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I agree that it might be an interesting experiment but would not be a good fit for the standard.
I suspect some of what causes certain people to be unhappy with the current classes is how they design characters. It may not apply to everyone, but it correlates with several people I've talked to.
The people who almost consider the class as the character are happier with it. Pick a class and build a character within that framework, and it all works smoothly.
The people like myself, who build a character 100% without thinking about dnd and then try to force it into the class system, where it inevitably doesn't fit perfectly, are unhappier with things and want more classes to try to fit a wider variety of characters.
Every single game in the world has rules. If there are no common set of rules, even if those rules are unique for that table, there is no game. It is chaos. And I am not talking just about D&D.
I want a rigid set of rules, especially as a DM. I want to focus my time on building an environment players can lose themselves in, not waste valuable game time, or my prep time, adjudicating whether "yes, this player can do this in-game", or work out if some player's concept of a homebrew class/ species/ feature combo is balanced against the other players and against the stuff I throw at them.
Honestly? I want new classes. I think the reason Artificer is my favourite class is because I have no idea how to play it properly.
If I play a wizard, I know exactly what spells to pick: Sleep, shield, mage armour, magic missile, disguise self and charm person. My cantrips are firebolt, mage hand and minor illusion. I know I can pick other spells, but these IMO are the best, and the ones that give me the most enjoyment. But they dont. Because every wizard I build plays the same.
My most recent (And favourite) character is an unconventional artificer, and although he is probably terrible and not at all min-maxed I am loving it, because for all I know, it could be.
However, I DONT want basic classes, like the psion and the magus and the spellblade. I want classes that haven't been done before. I really want a chef, and a mounted combatant class. I REALLY want a class that is just an extremely lucky guy. I know they usually are not very popular, but I want them none the less.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
The thing about picking characters feels so true in this edition. It's like those old fighting games where you scroll side to side to pick which character you want to play. Yeah maybe they have some unlockable skins, but it's still the same character.
The thing is a lot of players like that. I've talked to people who disallow reflavoring or multiclassing as it 'dilutes the real flavor of the classes'. A lot of people see dnd as picking a pre set character, which naturally puts them into conflict with those wanting a ton of classes and fully custom characters with any flavor.
The big deal with the Official Wizards of the Coast Stamp of No-Break-Gameness is exactly that - Wizards is promising a prospective DM that any content they release won't break their game if they run it the way Wizards tells them. One must remember that many DMs are new, not people with thirty-plus years of experience wrangling everything in sight. They feel barely able to keep ahead of their players with a strictly-run module and all the rules and calculations in the DMG backing them up, let alone when everything flies out into the unknown with homebrew. Not to mention the fact that at many tables, once one player gets some bit of homebrew weirdness, everybody else at that table wants their own cool homebrew thing. Now the DM is stuck curating four to twenty peoples' personal favorite, and if they say no to any piece of it, or say "Yes, but only if you change...", then the people who've just had their baby rejected will raise hell.
Homebrew is something I absolutely wish more people would embrace. But a great many players do not have the ability to design bits of this game that are well tuned and within the acceptable power bounds. All it takes is one look at the Sea of Infinite Decay that is the DDB Public Homebrew Library to know why many DMs just flat disallow anything without Wizards' stamp on it. It's why I consider it a special treat when my DM in any game I'm playing lets me get away with an option I built myself rather than taking one of the game defaults, rather than My Goddess-Given Right As A Player.
But because the system is so rigid and so dispermissive of player-created content, and because it's such a giant hassle for many DMs to curate homebrew, people who don't want to play a Lord of the Rings character and want to do something at least mildly original are often logjammed. If you're not playing to a fifty year old fantasy trope and doing your damnedest to play it faithfully, correctly, and thus exactly the same way many thousands of players have already played it for fifty years? The game doesn't fit. People want more 'Official' content because every time Wizards releases 'Official' content, we get an infinitesimally small chance of Wizards producing something that aligns with the character we ACTUALLY want to play, and thus getting the Official Green Light to play just that.
Gotta throw those dice, man.
Please do not contact or message me.
See I'm the first one, and I still want more classes. There's just a load of basic archetypal characters I want to make but can't because none of the sub-classes cover them. I come from a Pathfinder background but that game is just too rules dense to run at the best of times (there are a lot of rules I just ignore because they're half a book long, let alone the extent of the maths you have to do every time you build a monster as the GM, it's like you have to build and run a new character for every monster you make), so the mechanical simplistic of 5e is something of a draw for me. On the flip side though, despite its simplicity, there's just so much design space ignored by Wizards, in classes, conditions, abilities, monsters. All are really shallow compared to previous editions. If you simplify the rules, you should add depth somewhere else, or else you're just draining a pool and expecting me to play in a puddle.
I want a full Death Knight Class
Not Oathbreaker, not Bladelock
Its like an Anti-Paladin class
Why can someone who likes Artificers play them? Me liking Death Knights is harder because I cannot play one without playing homebrew.
Homebrew is always at risk of your DM, whereas published items you are pretty much guaranteed to play
More options are always good
Oathbreaker is a Paladin subclass, hidden in the DMG, which many DMs use as a stand-in for a Death Knight.
'Bladelock' is a nickname/shorthand term for a Pact of the Blade warlock, which is also sometimes used as a stand-in for a Death Knight.
Death Knights are an extremely popular character archetype/class from World of Warcraft. They are effectively negative paladins - heavily armored warriors who wield dark power the way a paladin wields light power. They typically have some degree of mastery over undeath, and are often undead themselves. Rather than bolstering allies with heroic auras, Death Knights tend to curse enemies with eldritch hexes. Played well, a Death Knight is haunting, maudlin, and rife for quiet character moments. Played poorly (which is unfortunately much more common), they are unbearably edgy and unfortunately prone to PvP and Party Betrayal.
It's sorta the issue many are getting at, BL. Many old heads in D&D are accustomed to the Tolkienite Fantasy; they're comfortable with Legally Distinct Not-Middle Earth , they know what to expect, and they know how to handle it. But Tolkien isn't the only place modern players are drawing their fantasy from. D&D old heads love to complain about video games, but one must remember that back when Tolkien was new, people hated the absolute hell out of him, too. You can't denigrate someone else's cherished fantasy without denigrating your own. For many newer players, Death Knights are as integral and non-negotiable in their fantasy zeitgeist as paladins are, and D&D's odd lack of anything that makes for a proper Death Knight is jarring and makes their game feel incomplete.
It's excellent that your game feels complete. But recall that no one can homebrew an entire base class in DDB, and the subclass homebrew tools are an awful nightmare of "Nope, can't do that, it doesn't work and we don't support it". So telling people to just shut up and make it themselves is often disingenuous.
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...you've been playing and DMing in DnD for 30+ years and you don't know what an Oathbreaker Paladin is?
Further objection. What does it matter if you, personally, have no idea what a Death Knight is, when other people do? How is you not knowing what one is a reason for WotC to not make one?
I honestly kinda feel bad for people who see the game like that. Who never want anything new, never want anything inventive or creative, and whose fondest hope for the game is that it remains unchanging and stagnant for many years.
What a dreary way to live.
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I feel the same. Luckily no-one on this website is one of them! They are probably all fantastic dudes/gals, who have an opinion that should be listened to!
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Yet another name for what previous editions called an antipaladin or a blackguard? Which would be accomplished just fine by adding "Divine smite damage is changed from radiant to necrotic" in the Oathbreaker. In any case, the point is mostly that using technical terms from previous editions makes the discussion unnecessarily opaque. Don't say "I want an X", say "I want a character that plays like X, Y, and Z" (in broad strokes, don't create mechanics). Because the second way of phrasing it actually makes it clear what you're talking about, and what features of the old class you find the lack of most disturbing.
The issue with this edition is it hasn't come in the setting books. It's not come at all.
Where in previous editions you could go and find your arcane paladin gish class in some later released book if the DM allowed that content, in 5e it just doesn't exist. It's the base classes or nothing. And the thing is it's not some other modern setting trying to force its way into DnD. These things have existed in DnD in the past, and it's only this edition which has seen them taken away.
If you want an arcane gish like magnus or duskblade who can put enchant their weapon as a bonus action to smack things with it.... tough. Doesn't exist. You have to play with the divne and holier than thou paladin or make use of one of the sub par subclass gishes who are just overpowered by being a fighter with a party trick or two.
they WERE classes, and some of them still are. If you haven't noticed, the classes now are artificer, barbarian, bard, Cleric, druid, fighter, monk, ranger, paladin,Rogue, Sorcerer, warlock and wizard. I have no clue what a tyfling is, but tieflings are in the PHB if that is what you are looking for! 'Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling.. those are D&D classes'......no thwy are races. there are lots of others as well, WotC is coming out with more in nearly every book. Half dragonborn and half giant have never existed in 5e to my knowledge, but maybe someday soon! Paladins cannot cast fireball as of now.
I think you are looking for this source book......https://idiscepolidellamanticora.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/tsr2010-players-handbook.pdf
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
A Deathknight is a specific thing that has existed in fantasy for quite some time. Yureil explained it pretty nicely a few posts back. I'd also argue that saying "just play an Oathbreaker" doesn't do it, either. The entire inclusion of the Oathbreaker subclass in the DMG is more of a framework for a DM to give a thematic, lore backed "punishment" for a Paladin that violates their Oath. Strictly speaking, the Oathbreaker subclass only works in that capacity as a negative version of the Oath of Devotion. It's too focused on holy/unholy to map over to the other Oaths well.
I'm also not suggesting that the Deathknight be a new class all itself. A Deathknight should be a subclass of the proposed Arcane half caster martial character.