D&D Class Analysis

 In 2024, we're going to get new versions of D&D's core three rulebooks. At that point, 5th Edition will be ten years old, but WotC has also been a bit cagey on whether they're officially calling it 6th Edition, 5.5 Edition, or what. What they have said is that the books will be backwards-compatible with all the pre-existing 5th Edition content. That makes sense: 5E has been D&D's most successful edition ever, and has brought in a whole new generation of players. Likewise, a lot of veteran players have generally been positive on the edition (which feels super rare in this era of elitist gatekeeping - not to say that D&D doesn't have such elements in its community).

So, to a large extent, there's an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude that WotC appears to be taking with the game.

And I think you could apply that logic to 5th Edition in general - the basic premises and even the modular elements. The classes cover a lot of bases in terms of fantasy archetypes, and I think that building subclasses for the existing classes instead of going back to the drawing board to make an "Avenger" that's "like a Paladin, but its own whole new thing" has made it easier to add new stuff to the game without breaking the successful, functional rhythms that allowed 5th Edition to work in the first place. We've only gotten one full new class, the Artificer, which fills a niche that other classes couldn't, really.

There is, of course, a lot more to the PHB than just classes. The PHB is really the main rulebook of D&D, though the Monster Manual and DMG are both very useful. But classes are the biggest defining element of your character.

I did a massive review of subclasses a few months ago, and I don't really just want to retread the same territory (something I think I'm guilty of on this blog sometimes). Subclasses have been used to empower classes that needed help - the Ranger, as found in the PHB, leaves a lot to be desired (the Beast Master gets a lot of flak, but I think the Hunter is also underwhelming). The problem, though, of making more powerful subclasses (like the Gloomstalker, for example) to make a class more attractive is that issue of power creep.

To be fair, in this style of game, it's very hard to keep everything finely tuned to be perfectly balanced. And beyond that, "balance" might mean very different things depending on the style of campaign you run. Most of my friends are actors, and so we generally get really into the RP elements of the game. But there are players who really think of D&D as more of a strategy game. They don't want to delve into a complex relationship with that one shopkeeper, but instead just want to roll their good Persuasion check to try to get a discount.

What I want to try doing, over the next several posts (that aren't about Elden Ring,) is to go through the classes in the PHB and look at them without their subclasses (I'd been thinking of going in-depth on the PHB subclasses, but I think that's redundant with my earlier posts) and see what they could use.

We aren't going to be fully ignoring subclasses, to be clear. Some classes really get transformed by their subclass choices (the newest one, the Artificer, being perhaps the most transformed by them) and that needs to be addressed. But I want to look at the overall structure, the flavor of the class, and what I think the class needs to deliver the fantasy it's meant to fulfill.

I'm going to try to go alphabetical here, which does mean we're starting with the class I've played the least: the Barbarian. (I might visit the Artificer once I see the ones from the PHB, but my general thoughts at the moment are that the Artificer needs the least revision at this point.)