As to the original topic ... I have a hard time thinking about a class I wouldn't want to play. I think there's something fun about all of them. The closest thing would probably be Wild Magic Sorcerer and Barbarian, because I really don't like the silly comedic results on the Wild Magic table, it detracts from my fun if something like that is enforced on me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I mean what do you want? The mechanics of the game were always only loosely diegetic. Look at Hit Points! I can understand wanting a system that is deeply tied into the lore of a world and hews very closely to "how things work" within the narrative, but that has never been D&D. I'm afraid if that's what you want from D&D you're always going to be disappointed.
The difference is that Hit Points (or mechanically similar replacement) are necessary as a simplified abstraction of health to some degree. You can't have a combat-heavy game without having a way to track when some Character or Unit goes out of commission. However, the power level and thematic inconsistencies in 5E are not necessary. Other RPG systems can and have made more consistent magic systems without those systems being overly complicated. When people are being paid to write lore that we the players and DMs are supposed to be able to hang game mechanics on and tell stories with some through line of logic with, they should care about establishing some level of consistency.
It's freaking magic, it doesn't need to make sense so long as it's internally consistent, which it is. We don't need any more explanation for how an Artificer's infusions work than we need for how a Warlock's invocations work. Wizards and Artificers both use magic, just in different ways from each other. Wouldn't really be much point to having Artificers if they were exactly the same as Wizards. Not really much more to it than that.
It's not internally consistent when you have robots that do WAY more stuff than most low-tier and mid-tier concentration spells, that you are here claiming are run entirely on magic, but running these robots don't cost concentration of the Artificer when SOOO much magic stuff in 5E does cost concentration. That is NOT consistency.
If the devs bothered to create a explanation for how robots run without technology, then I'd take a second look at the Artificer. Until then, it's just wacky how it's supposed to just work because magic.
Who can cast more spells, a 10th level wizard or a 10th level artificer? That's the trade-off for how the artificer gets to have a magitech minion.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
It's freaking magic, it doesn't need to make sense so long as it's internally consistent, which it is. We don't need any more explanation for how an Artificer's infusions work than we need for how a Warlock's invocations work. Wizards and Artificers both use magic, just in different ways from each other. Wouldn't really be much point to having Artificers if they were exactly the same as Wizards. Not really much more to it than that.
It's not internally consistent when you have robots that do WAY more stuff than most low-tier and mid-tier concentration spells, that you are here claiming are run entirely on magic, but running these robots don't cost concentration of the Artificer when SOOO much magic stuff in 5E does cost concentration. That is NOT consistency.
If the devs bothered to create a explanation for how robots run without technology, then I'd take a second look at the Artificer. Until then, it's just wacky how it's supposed to just work because magic.
When you see a mighty stone golem guarding a yuan-ti temple, does that require concentration? Does the animated armor guarding an npc wizard's tower years after the wizard passed away require concentration? What about the animated dead controlled by a cleric who cast animate dead? Does the +1 longsword your fighter found in a dusty tomb require concentration? Of course not! There is such a thing as permanent magic, the process for casting a spell with a 1-action cast time temporarily altering reality is extremely different from the permanent magical creations that take days or weeks to make.
Further, nothing the artificer does make sense if they are not deploying magic. Look at the humonculus infusion. How do you make one of those? You don't apply electronics, you litterally take a gemstone worth 100 gp or more and somehow turn that into a heart, and the rest of it grows from there. When an artillerist casts fireball, the spell can pass harmlessly through a glass window yet scorch people on the other side, when an alchemist casts revivify they must expend rare gemstones to do so, when an battle smith dies their steel defender dies too, nothing an artificer does can ever be explained by tech, no matter how fancy
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
It's freaking magic, it doesn't need to make sense so long as it's internally consistent, which it is. We don't need any more explanation for how an Artificer's infusions work than we need for how a Warlock's invocations work. Wizards and Artificers both use magic, just in different ways from each other. Wouldn't really be much point to having Artificers if they were exactly the same as Wizards. Not really much more to it than that.
It's not internally consistent when you have robots that do WAY more stuff than most low-tier and mid-tier concentration spells, that you are here claiming are run entirely on magic, but running these robots don't cost concentration of the Artificer when SOOO much magic stuff in 5E does cost concentration. That is NOT consistency.
If the devs bothered to create a explanation for how robots run without technology, then I'd take a second look at the Artificer. Until then, it's just wacky how it's supposed to just work because magic.
Who can cast more spells, a 10th level wizard or a 10th level artificer? That's the trade-off for how the artificer gets to have a magitech minion.
See, you're arguing this based on a game balance perspective. I'm not doing that. I'm arguing this based on logic and causation. Nobody has answered how the magic of the Artificer works to create what are effectively robots that can do very complex things. My concern here is not with game balance, but with world-building. We're not going to agree about this issue because your answer reveals that you care a lot less about world-building than I do. Whereas, for me, the mechanics are cool only if they can be attached to substantial world-building in some way.
It's freaking magic, it doesn't need to make sense so long as it's internally consistent, which it is. We don't need any more explanation for how an Artificer's infusions work than we need for how a Warlock's invocations work. Wizards and Artificers both use magic, just in different ways from each other. Wouldn't really be much point to having Artificers if they were exactly the same as Wizards. Not really much more to it than that.
It's not internally consistent when you have robots that do WAY more stuff than most low-tier and mid-tier concentration spells, that you are here claiming are run entirely on magic, but running these robots don't cost concentration of the Artificer when SOOO much magic stuff in 5E does cost concentration. That is NOT consistency.
If the devs bothered to create a explanation for how robots run without technology, then I'd take a second look at the Artificer. Until then, it's just wacky how it's supposed to just work because magic.
When you see a mighty stone golem guarding a yuan-ti temple, does that require concentration? Does the animated armor guarding an npc wizard's tower years after the wizard passed away require concentration? What about the animated dead controlled by a cleric who cast animate dead? Does the +1 longsword your fighter found in a dusty tomb require concentration? Of course not! There is such a thing as permanent magic, the process for casting a spell with a 1-action cast time temporarily altering reality is extremely different from the permanent magical creations that take days or weeks to make.
You do realize that Golems and Shield Guardians take several high level spells (in previous editions) to make right? At least 50,000 gp in materials and equipment just for a Flesh Golem (which might go insane and kill you). Heck, there aren't even instructions on how to make Shield Guardians in 5E. Does the Steel Defender cost even 1/20th of the 50,000 gp cost of the Flesh Golem? And yet the Steel Defender is100% reliable compared to the Flesh Golem (and the slightly more expensive Clay Golem). How is the cost//benefit analysis of making a Golem proportional to that of the Steel Defender? If Steel Defenders are so darned cheap, why bother making 1 Golem when you can make 2 dozen Steel Defenders. Surely the action economy of that many Steel Defenders would be more valuable in most fights compared to the limited action economy of 1 Golem, correct? Long story short, the lore does not back-up the mechanics from a world-building perspective. And while you might not care about that, some of us do.
It's freaking magic, it doesn't need to make sense so long as it's internally consistent, which it is. We don't need any more explanation for how an Artificer's infusions work than we need for how a Warlock's invocations work. Wizards and Artificers both use magic, just in different ways from each other. Wouldn't really be much point to having Artificers if they were exactly the same as Wizards. Not really much more to it than that.
It's not internally consistent when you have robots that do WAY more stuff than most low-tier and mid-tier concentration spells, that you are here claiming are run entirely on magic, but running these robots don't cost concentration of the Artificer when SOOO much magic stuff in 5E does cost concentration. That is NOT consistency.
If the devs bothered to create a explanation for how robots run without technology, then I'd take a second look at the Artificer. Until then, it's just wacky how it's supposed to just work because magic.
Who can cast more spells, a 10th level wizard or a 10th level artificer? That's the trade-off for how the artificer gets to have a magitech minion.
See, you're arguing this based on a game balance perspective. I'm not doing that. I'm arguing this based on logic and causation. Nobody has answered how the magic of the Artificer works to create what are effectively robots that can do very complex things. My concern here is not with game balance, but with world-building. We're not going to agree about this issue because your answer reveals that you care a lot less about world-building than I do. Whereas, for me, the mechanics are cool only if they can be attached to substantial world-building in some way.
I don't think that it is wholly a mechanics angle. I won't blame you for disagreeing, but part of the trade off for doing some of the imbuing of their connection to the weave is that they can't cast some of the higher level spells or as many spells. They've imparted some of their connection to the weave and that means that they can't go full bore like a wizard. Additionally, they've split their focus while studying and practicing, which hampers their ability to learn newer and more powerful magic. It makes sense that someone that grows their knowledge horizontally won't have the ability to grow themselves vertically as well due to limited resources. Being able to imbue that magic into a magitech creature that is more reliable has taken a fair amount of time to study and the they've imbued part of their connection to the weave into the steel defender (or whatever) to maintain that more fully.
It's freaking magic, it doesn't need to make sense so long as it's internally consistent, which it is. We don't need any more explanation for how an Artificer's infusions work than we need for how a Warlock's invocations work. Wizards and Artificers both use magic, just in different ways from each other. Wouldn't really be much point to having Artificers if they were exactly the same as Wizards. Not really much more to it than that.
It's not internally consistent when you have robots that do WAY more stuff than most low-tier and mid-tier concentration spells, that you are here claiming are run entirely on magic, but running these robots don't cost concentration of the Artificer when SOOO much magic stuff in 5E does cost concentration. That is NOT consistency.
If the devs bothered to create a explanation for how robots run without technology, then I'd take a second look at the Artificer. Until then, it's just wacky how it's supposed to just work because magic.
When you see a mighty stone golem guarding a yuan-ti temple, does that require concentration? Does the animated armor guarding an npc wizard's tower years after the wizard passed away require concentration? What about the animated dead controlled by a cleric who cast animate dead? Does the +1 longsword your fighter found in a dusty tomb require concentration? Of course not! There is such a thing as permanent magic, the process for casting a spell with a 1-action cast time temporarily altering reality is extremely different from the permanent magical creations that take days or weeks to make.
You do realize that Golems and Shield Guardians take several high level spells (in previous editions) to make right? At least 50,000 gp in materials and equipment just for a Flesh Golem (which might go insane and kill you). Heck, there aren't even instructions on how to make Shield Guardians in 5E. Does the Steel Defender cost even 1/20th of the 50,000 gp cost of the Flesh Golem? And yet the Steel Defender is100% reliable compared to the Flesh Golem (and the slightly more expensive Clay Golem). How is the cost//benefit analysis of making a Golem proportional to that of the Steel Defender? If Steel Defenders are so darned cheap, why bother making 1 Golem when you can make 2 dozen Steel Defenders. Surely the action economy of that many Steel Defenders would be more valuable in most fights compared to the limited action economy of 1 Golem, correct? Long story short, the lore does not back-up the mechanics from a world-building perspective. And while you might not care about that, some of us do.
It is not possible to make two dozen steel defenders instead of one golem. An artificer can only ever have one steel defender at any time; if an artificer creates a new steel defender, the existing one immediately perishes. When discussing how nonsensical the rules may or may not be, it is pretty vital to ensure the discussion is based on an interpretation reflecting their actuality.
Maybe not what the OP is meaning, and I haven’t read the whole thread to see if others have said this, but the role I don’t want to play in D&D is a love interest. If someone else wants PC romance at the table I’m fine with that but leave my PC’s out of it.
As far as classes, I have limited experience with most 5E classes but I don’t think there is one that I wouldn’t try.
When you see a mighty stone golem guarding a yuan-ti temple, does that require concentration? Does the animated armor guarding an npc wizard's tower years after the wizard passed away require concentration? What about the animated dead controlled by a cleric who cast animate dead? Does the +1 longsword your fighter found in a dusty tomb require concentration? Of course not! There is such a thing as permanent magic, the process for casting a spell with a 1-action cast time temporarily altering reality is extremely different from the permanent magical creations that take days or weeks to make.
You do realize that Golems and Shield Guardians take several high level spells (in previous editions) to make right? At least 50,000 gp in materials and equipment just for a Flesh Golem (which might go insane and kill you). Heck, there aren't even instructions on how to make Shield Guardians in 5E. Does the Steel Defender cost even 1/20th of the 50,000 gp cost of the Flesh Golem? And yet the Steel Defender is100% reliable compared to the Flesh Golem (and the slightly more expensive Clay Golem). How is the cost//benefit analysis of making a Golem proportional to that of the Steel Defender? If Steel Defenders are so darned cheap, why bother making 1 Golem when you can make 2 dozen Steel Defenders. Surely the action economy of that many Steel Defenders would be more valuable in most fights compared to the limited action economy of 1 Golem, correct? Long story short, the lore does not back-up the mechanics from a world-building perspective. And while you might not care about that, some of us do.
It is not possible to make two dozen steel defenders instead of one golem. An artificer can only ever have one steel defender at any time; if an artificer creates a new steel defender, the existing one immediately perishes. When discussing how nonsensical the rules may or may not be, it is pretty vital to ensure the discussion is based on an interpretation reflecting their actuality.
Solution: Start a training academy for Artificers. Get them all heavily indebted to you. Each Artificer only gets one Steel Defender? Okay, but it's still probably cheaper to get a dozen desperate people to sign contracts of indentured servitude to you and train them up to become Artificers than to pay 50,000 gp for a Flesh Golem that has a chance of going completely ballistic and murdering you and/or destroying all lab stuff.
Also, isn't it pretty arbitrary that one Artificer gets one Steel Defender? What is this, a modern marriage contract? Where would Remington be today, if every gunsmith could only manufacture 1 gun?
When you see a mighty stone golem guarding a yuan-ti temple, does that require concentration? Does the animated armor guarding an npc wizard's tower years after the wizard passed away require concentration? What about the animated dead controlled by a cleric who cast animate dead? Does the +1 longsword your fighter found in a dusty tomb require concentration? Of course not! There is such a thing as permanent magic, the process for casting a spell with a 1-action cast time temporarily altering reality is extremely different from the permanent magical creations that take days or weeks to make.
You do realize that Golems and Shield Guardians take several high level spells (in previous editions) to make right? At least 50,000 gp in materials and equipment just for a Flesh Golem (which might go insane and kill you). Heck, there aren't even instructions on how to make Shield Guardians in 5E. Does the Steel Defender cost even 1/20th of the 50,000 gp cost of the Flesh Golem? And yet the Steel Defender is100% reliable compared to the Flesh Golem (and the slightly more expensive Clay Golem). How is the cost//benefit analysis of making a Golem proportional to that of the Steel Defender? If Steel Defenders are so darned cheap, why bother making 1 Golem when you can make 2 dozen Steel Defenders. Surely the action economy of that many Steel Defenders would be more valuable in most fights compared to the limited action economy of 1 Golem, correct? Long story short, the lore does not back-up the mechanics from a world-building perspective. And while you might not care about that, some of us do.
It is not possible to make two dozen steel defenders instead of one golem. An artificer can only ever have one steel defender at any time; if an artificer creates a new steel defender, the existing one immediately perishes. When discussing how nonsensical the rules may or may not be, it is pretty vital to ensure the discussion is based on an interpretation reflecting their actuality.
Solution: Start a training academy for Artificers. Get them all heavily indebted to you. Each Artificer only gets one Steel Defender? Okay, but it's still probably cheaper to get a dozen desperate people to sign contracts of indentured servitude to you and train them up to become Artificers than to pay 50,000 gp for a Flesh Golem that has a chance of going completely ballistic and murdering you and/or destroying all lab stuff.
Also, isn't it pretty arbitrary that one Artificer gets one Steel Defender? What is this, a modern marriage contract? Where would Remington be today, if every gunsmith could only manufacture 1 gun?
Everything about Dungeons and Dragons is arbitrary and nonsensical; it is fundamentally a game of make believe. Why is a fireball 8d6 damage? Why do druid prepare spells instead of knowing them? Why do rangers get light and medium armour proficiency? Why is base speed 30’? Why is an artificer limited to one steel defender? Because, that’s why. That is literally the reason.
You don’t have to like or agree with them but the notion that there is any reason for the rules aside from some developer deciding that’s the way they are is utter folly. As 6thLyranGuard mentioned, all that is needed is internal consistency. Your protestations indicate a flawed understanding of the system rather than a flaw in the system itself.
I loathe the Bard class. There is nothing about it that I like. The idea that people start singing or playing musical instruments in the midst of a small scale skirmish against a huge blob of eyes/a dragon etc. is so absolutely absurd that it has no place in a fantasy combat game.
That said, if it works for you and you have fun with it then knock yourself out. One of my players is running a bard and seems to be enjoying himself, so at some point I'll be throwing in a drumming competition and some percussion instrument puzzles.
I will and have played characters that fill any of the traditional roles in an adventuring party. However it turns out there's a fair list of classes I really despise and won't give house-room to. I thought I was a lot more tolerant than it turns out I am!
So things I won't play:
- Wild Magic Sorcerer. While DMing I got continually prodded by a player wanting to roll his D20 to try and get a 1 so he could roll d100 on an effing table and then maybe something interesting would happen. I was so irritated by this I vowed I'd never put another sentient being through such arse rending irritation. They are truly the haemorrhoids of D&D subclasses.
- Ranger of any subclass. When trying to convert an archery ranger from D&D 4e to 5e the entire thing was so completely screwed up, It took until Xanathars came out for the player and I to get a 5e character that felt the same way (combo of champion fighter and scout rogue) as the 4e character. I still have no idea what Rangers are good for in 5e and get hives just thinking about them.
- Warlocks with Great Old One Pacts. I personally think the Cthulhu mythos is great in it's place. That place just is not anywhere near me. I might be willing to play one if I ever manage to get Marty Feldman's eyes and have a pact with Pikachu.
- With a few exceptions (scout rogue, kensei monk, bladesinger wizard) just about any subclass from Xanathars or Tashas. There's enough archetypes in the PHB I haven't played in the PHB to keep me going for a few years without needing to find some niche subclass. Life's too short.
- Anything that has firearms in it. Just no. Take your gun nuttery and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
- Anything that should be a subclass of another class. Artificer should be a subclass of Wizard or maybe sorcerer. They don't need their own class.
[...]And as a lifelong atheist, Clerics hold no appeal for me. [I] have the most fun when I'm playing someone who is very different from my RL self.
This sounds a bit contradictory - what could be more different from your atheist world view than to play someone with faith in something? Or is it because in D&D there's a lot of evidence that gods do exist then being a theist would be evidence based compared to the "real" world?
When you see a mighty stone golem guarding a yuan-ti temple, does that require concentration? Does the animated armor guarding an npc wizard's tower years after the wizard passed away require concentration? What about the animated dead controlled by a cleric who cast animate dead? Does the +1 longsword your fighter found in a dusty tomb require concentration? Of course not! There is such a thing as permanent magic, the process for casting a spell with a 1-action cast time temporarily altering reality is extremely different from the permanent magical creations that take days or weeks to make.
You do realize that Golems and Shield Guardians take several high level spells (in previous editions) to make right? At least 50,000 gp in materials and equipment just for a Flesh Golem (which might go insane and kill you). Heck, there aren't even instructions on how to make Shield Guardians in 5E. Does the Steel Defender cost even 1/20th of the 50,000 gp cost of the Flesh Golem? And yet the Steel Defender is100% reliable compared to the Flesh Golem (and the slightly more expensive Clay Golem). How is the cost//benefit analysis of making a Golem proportional to that of the Steel Defender? If Steel Defenders are so darned cheap, why bother making 1 Golem when you can make 2 dozen Steel Defenders. Surely the action economy of that many Steel Defenders would be more valuable in most fights compared to the limited action economy of 1 Golem, correct? Long story short, the lore does not back-up the mechanics from a world-building perspective. And while you might not care about that, some of us do.
It is not possible to make two dozen steel defenders instead of one golem. An artificer can only ever have one steel defender at any time; if an artificer creates a new steel defender, the existing one immediately perishes. When discussing how nonsensical the rules may or may not be, it is pretty vital to ensure the discussion is based on an interpretation reflecting their actuality.
Solution: Start a training academy for Artificers. Get them all heavily indebted to you. Each Artificer only gets one Steel Defender? Okay, but it's still probably cheaper to get a dozen desperate people to sign contracts of indentured servitude to you and train them up to become Artificers than to pay 50,000 gp for a Flesh Golem that has a chance of going completely ballistic and murdering you and/or destroying all lab stuff.
Also, isn't it pretty arbitrary that one Artificer gets one Steel Defender? What is this, a modern marriage contract? Where would Remington be today, if every gunsmith could only manufacture 1 gun?
1) an 1st level member of any class is a quite exceptional person, as least as the fluff for most classes goes. What makes you think that you can simply train up several people to be 3rd level battle smiths? Even in ebberon, where artificers are relatively common and battle smiths served in the great war, you don't exactly get the sense that they were common, you see Magewrights run around all over the place, but you will not see a overly large population of artificers
2) the steel defender "immedeately perishes" if you die, so clearly it is intrinsically tied to your life spirit or something along those lines.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
In general playing any class in a silly game for long.
Beast master type classes due to the fact they are friendly to me but not anyone else (often by rules as written) and that can prevent me from going places and having to pick up my pet(s).
Pokemon type PC's or summoners who summon one or more creatures then hide.
Playing a class that does not fit the adventure/game or setting in any way. ie playing a underwater race when the entire adventure is in the sky sea (clouds) not a sea named sky.
Classes that require you to ignore the logic of the game to play.
Personally, I’m the least likely to play Paladin and wizard. Paladin because the religious crusader converting aspect is not fun for me. I get that there are other ways to play them, and I have had fun with vengeance Paladins before, but I prefer other classes. Wizard because the spell system is complicated and a little confusing. Also, I prefer that the magic has more of a meaning then just ‘I studied it’ - bard with music, cleric with deity, warlock with pact, artificer with tech, sorcerer with bloodline or transferred magic, Druid with nature- it all just seems so much more interesting.
the more i think about the cleric's mechanics, the more i am outraged, here are some of my many gripes with the class:
you gain a dead level at 14 level, or at least you get a feature that is only useful if you find a mummy or wight specifically, forcing the DM to deliberately write such an encounter or homebrew a CR 3 undead monster
at 8th level when other classes get nothing but an ASI (except rangers and druids but they sort of get away with it), you gain one of your major features
the subs that get Divine Strike are kind of in a weird spot when it comes to damage and viabillity. They are the only time (except rogues) where a class or subclass specializes in weapon use without having extra attack, their damage scales awkwardly compared to a cantrip-casting cleric with potent cantrips, to the point where you kinda ought to go out of your way to pick up feats and use spells that synnergize with your weapon in order to have it keep up, also if you just-so-happen to somehow gain green-flame-blade or booming blade your damage is now going to be using both the Divine Strike damage progression and the cantrip damage progression.
at 1st level specifically, you just get more stuff and better stuff compared to other 1st level casters (this does not per se hold true at later levels, but it holds true at 1st level specifically)
"divine intervention" is conceptually a cool feature, but the fact that you use d% with only a small chance to do anything, the fact that it does not neatly slot into the normal adventuring day on the event that it does work kind of makes this a strange feature that you could very well end up only having the chance to use once or twice in a campaign depending on pace and if "gritty realism" is used or not
at 17th level you get a subclass feature, which they seem to only get because the offering of 9th level spells for clerics is complete garbage, which leads to an very strange situations where you gain your primary unique subclass features at 1st, 6th and 17th level, with the 2nd and 8th level features being more homogeneous, which makes the pacing for the cleric's subclass features kinda weird. Does not help that you do not get unique domain spells past 9th level. Not very evenly spread out.
then at the very next level your third use of channel divinity per short rest is considered a better feature than your second use of channel divinity per short rest plus a cool 6th level feature, which just does not add up
in terms of flavour, your are the only class in the game who never did anything to deserve their own magical power. For a paladin, you got your spells from your unyielding devotion to an sacred oath, becoming an warlock requires an incredeble lust for knowledge and power, with forbidden knowledge being as important to becoming a warlock as having a patron, with sorcerers you were gifted magical power and then you had to learn to control it, but with a cleric? There is no particular reason why a god should be giving spells to a cleric, other than the cleric being more devoted and loyal to them. Crawford has stated that warlocks do not loose their powers for going against their patron, but what about clerics? It is the one place where you might loose class features due to game narrative, because your god died or because you started acting against the wishes of your god.
sometimes a cleric sublclass will give you a new channel divinity option at 6th level rather than a new feature, something that i consider to be ungood, like yay for getting more ways to use a feature that is supposed to take a central role in the class, but i'd personally much rather have a nifty passive feature instead
very personal gripe but i don't quite like how like esoteric and non-flashy the spell list is, even if i can find it charming at times, and i don't quite like how you cannot really express any personality in terms of the cleric spells you choose to prepare since any cleric can prepare any cleric spell, especially when combined with how the spell list is.
it just has too many little "sore spots" and weird things. That said there are still times where i am tempted to play a cleric, especially for dips of levels 1 to 6 (tempest cleric's push feature at 6th level is glorious and the type of thing we should see on more classes), but like as a rule i do not like how the class is put together.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
As to the original topic ... I have a hard time thinking about a class I wouldn't want to play. I think there's something fun about all of them. The closest thing would probably be Wild Magic Sorcerer and Barbarian, because I really don't like the silly comedic results on the Wild Magic table, it detracts from my fun if something like that is enforced on me.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The difference is that Hit Points (or mechanically similar replacement) are necessary as a simplified abstraction of health to some degree. You can't have a combat-heavy game without having a way to track when some Character or Unit goes out of commission. However, the power level and thematic inconsistencies in 5E are not necessary. Other RPG systems can and have made more consistent magic systems without those systems being overly complicated. When people are being paid to write lore that we the players and DMs are supposed to be able to hang game mechanics on and tell stories with some through line of logic with, they should care about establishing some level of consistency.
Who can cast more spells, a 10th level wizard or a 10th level artificer? That's the trade-off for how the artificer gets to have a magitech minion.
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.
When you see a mighty stone golem guarding a yuan-ti temple, does that require concentration? Does the animated armor guarding an npc wizard's tower years after the wizard passed away require concentration? What about the animated dead controlled by a cleric who cast animate dead? Does the +1 longsword your fighter found in a dusty tomb require concentration? Of course not! There is such a thing as permanent magic, the process for casting a spell with a 1-action cast time temporarily altering reality is extremely different from the permanent magical creations that take days or weeks to make.
Further, nothing the artificer does make sense if they are not deploying magic. Look at the humonculus infusion. How do you make one of those? You don't apply electronics, you litterally take a gemstone worth 100 gp or more and somehow turn that into a heart, and the rest of it grows from there. When an artillerist casts fireball, the spell can pass harmlessly through a glass window yet scorch people on the other side, when an alchemist casts revivify they must expend rare gemstones to do so, when an battle smith dies their steel defender dies too, nothing an artificer does can ever be explained by tech, no matter how fancy
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
See, you're arguing this based on a game balance perspective. I'm not doing that. I'm arguing this based on logic and causation. Nobody has answered how the magic of the Artificer works to create what are effectively robots that can do very complex things. My concern here is not with game balance, but with world-building. We're not going to agree about this issue because your answer reveals that you care a lot less about world-building than I do. Whereas, for me, the mechanics are cool only if they can be attached to substantial world-building in some way.
You do realize that Golems and Shield Guardians take several high level spells (in previous editions) to make right? At least 50,000 gp in materials and equipment just for a Flesh Golem (which might go insane and kill you). Heck, there aren't even instructions on how to make Shield Guardians in 5E. Does the Steel Defender cost even 1/20th of the 50,000 gp cost of the Flesh Golem? And yet the Steel Defender is100% reliable compared to the Flesh Golem (and the slightly more expensive Clay Golem). How is the cost//benefit analysis of making a Golem proportional to that of the Steel Defender? If Steel Defenders are so darned cheap, why bother making 1 Golem when you can make 2 dozen Steel Defenders. Surely the action economy of that many Steel Defenders would be more valuable in most fights compared to the limited action economy of 1 Golem, correct? Long story short, the lore does not back-up the mechanics from a world-building perspective. And while you might not care about that, some of us do.
I don't think that it is wholly a mechanics angle. I won't blame you for disagreeing, but part of the trade off for doing some of the imbuing of their connection to the weave is that they can't cast some of the higher level spells or as many spells. They've imparted some of their connection to the weave and that means that they can't go full bore like a wizard. Additionally, they've split their focus while studying and practicing, which hampers their ability to learn newer and more powerful magic. It makes sense that someone that grows their knowledge horizontally won't have the ability to grow themselves vertically as well due to limited resources. Being able to imbue that magic into a magitech creature that is more reliable has taken a fair amount of time to study and the they've imbued part of their connection to the weave into the steel defender (or whatever) to maintain that more fully.
It is not possible to make two dozen steel defenders instead of one golem. An artificer can only ever have one steel defender at any time; if an artificer creates a new steel defender, the existing one immediately perishes. When discussing how nonsensical the rules may or may not be, it is pretty vital to ensure the discussion is based on an interpretation reflecting their actuality.
Maybe not what the OP is meaning, and I haven’t read the whole thread to see if others have said this, but the role I don’t want to play in D&D is a love interest. If someone else wants PC romance at the table I’m fine with that but leave my PC’s out of it.
As far as classes, I have limited experience with most 5E classes but I don’t think there is one that I wouldn’t try.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Solution: Start a training academy for Artificers. Get them all heavily indebted to you. Each Artificer only gets one Steel Defender? Okay, but it's still probably cheaper to get a dozen desperate people to sign contracts of indentured servitude to you and train them up to become Artificers than to pay 50,000 gp for a Flesh Golem that has a chance of going completely ballistic and murdering you and/or destroying all lab stuff.
Also, isn't it pretty arbitrary that one Artificer gets one Steel Defender? What is this, a modern marriage contract? Where would Remington be today, if every gunsmith could only manufacture 1 gun?
Everything about Dungeons and Dragons is arbitrary and nonsensical; it is fundamentally a game of make believe. Why is a fireball 8d6 damage? Why do druid prepare spells instead of knowing them? Why do rangers get light and medium armour proficiency? Why is base speed 30’? Why is an artificer limited to one steel defender? Because, that’s why. That is literally the reason.
You don’t have to like or agree with them but the notion that there is any reason for the rules aside from some developer deciding that’s the way they are is utter folly. As 6thLyranGuard mentioned, all that is needed is internal consistency. Your protestations indicate a flawed understanding of the system rather than a flaw in the system itself.
I loathe the Bard class. There is nothing about it that I like. The idea that people start singing or playing musical instruments in the midst of a small scale skirmish against a huge blob of eyes/a dragon etc. is so absolutely absurd that it has no place in a fantasy combat game.
That said, if it works for you and you have fun with it then knock yourself out. One of my players is running a bard and seems to be enjoying himself, so at some point I'll be throwing in a drumming competition and some percussion instrument puzzles.
Hexblades are front-loaded, over-powered, munchkin-bait with crappy almost non-existent lore.
I'd rather play a multiclass Four-Elements Berserker Kenku.
Behind every successful Warlock, there's an angry mob.
I will and have played characters that fill any of the traditional roles in an adventuring party. However it turns out there's a fair list of classes I really despise and won't give house-room to. I thought I was a lot more tolerant than it turns out I am!
So things I won't play:
- Wild Magic Sorcerer. While DMing I got continually prodded by a player wanting to roll his D20 to try and get a 1 so he could roll d100 on an effing table and then maybe something interesting would happen. I was so irritated by this I vowed I'd never put another sentient being through such arse rending irritation. They are truly the haemorrhoids of D&D subclasses.
- Ranger of any subclass. When trying to convert an archery ranger from D&D 4e to 5e the entire thing was so completely screwed up, It took until Xanathars came out for the player and I to get a 5e character that felt the same way (combo of champion fighter and scout rogue) as the 4e character. I still have no idea what Rangers are good for in 5e and get hives just thinking about them.
- Warlocks with Great Old One Pacts. I personally think the Cthulhu mythos is great in it's place. That place just is not anywhere near me. I might be willing to play one if I ever manage to get Marty Feldman's eyes and have a pact with Pikachu.
- With a few exceptions (scout rogue, kensei monk, bladesinger wizard) just about any subclass from Xanathars or Tashas. There's enough archetypes in the PHB I haven't played in the PHB to keep me going for a few years without needing to find some niche subclass. Life's too short.
- Anything that has firearms in it. Just no. Take your gun nuttery and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
- Anything that should be a subclass of another class. Artificer should be a subclass of Wizard or maybe sorcerer. They don't need their own class.
This sounds a bit contradictory - what could be more different from your atheist world view than to play someone with faith in something? Or is it because in D&D there's a lot of evidence that gods do exist then being a theist would be evidence based compared to the "real" world?
1) an 1st level member of any class is a quite exceptional person, as least as the fluff for most classes goes. What makes you think that you can simply train up several people to be 3rd level battle smiths? Even in ebberon, where artificers are relatively common and battle smiths served in the great war, you don't exactly get the sense that they were common, you see Magewrights run around all over the place, but you will not see a overly large population of artificers
2) the steel defender "immedeately perishes" if you die, so clearly it is intrinsically tied to your life spirit or something along those lines.
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
In general playing any class in a silly game for long.
Beast master type classes due to the fact they are friendly to me but not anyone else (often by rules as written) and that can prevent me from going places and having to pick up my pet(s).
Pokemon type PC's or summoners who summon one or more creatures then hide.
Playing a class that does not fit the adventure/game or setting in any way. ie playing a underwater race when the entire adventure is in the sky sea (clouds) not a sea named sky.
Classes that require you to ignore the logic of the game to play.
MDC
Any class/race/alignment/origin region/god combination the GM tells you HAVE to play before the campaign starts :)
Personally, I’m the least likely to play Paladin and wizard. Paladin because the religious crusader converting aspect is not fun for me. I get that there are other ways to play them, and I have had fun with vengeance Paladins before, but I prefer other classes. Wizard because the spell system is complicated and a little confusing. Also, I prefer that the magic has more of a meaning then just ‘I studied it’ - bard with music, cleric with deity, warlock with pact, artificer with tech, sorcerer with bloodline or transferred magic, Druid with nature- it all just seems so much more interesting.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
the more i think about the cleric's mechanics, the more i am outraged, here are some of my many gripes with the class:
it just has too many little "sore spots" and weird things. That said there are still times where i am tempted to play a cleric, especially for dips of levels 1 to 6 (tempest cleric's push feature at 6th level is glorious and the type of thing we should see on more classes), but like as a rule i do not like how the class is put together.
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes