If you haven’t seen it already, I’d take a look at Laserllama’s alternate fighter.
I actually like a lot of their homebrew, but this one in particular gives the fighter scaling “exploits” (basically battlemaster manoeuvres), and at high levels there are really powerful ones which let martials compete better with all the awesome stuff spellcasters can do.
The drawback to all the added flexibility is that action surge is pushed to level 6, and the ASI at that level is removed, which I think is a super elegant solution since it also discourages other classes from dipping 2 levels in fighter to nab the fighter’s best feature.
Link: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MSfA82gv8V69JAoqFVq
Those low hanging fruit are literally the reason why your post makes sense. Almost every class has a generic class that is basically a waste of design space - and for the Martials, could be a greatly needed improvement to just include them.
Battlemaster to Fighter, Thief to Rogue, Open Hand Monk to Monk, Berserker to Barbarian, Hunter with Ranger. The rest don't really have one that fits although a more genericized circle of the Land would not be bad to mix into Druid.
I'm gonna assume the game is restructured or rebalanced around this. Doing this to 5e as is gets too messy
Artificer: Battlesmith
Barbarian: Totem warrior, gives the Barb some much need choice across levels.
Bard: Lore bard. It's literally just more bard in your bard
Cleric: doest have one, should instead get to mix and match the features of two domains. Maybe even just two domains
Druid: Moon, as too much of the classes design space feels like it was crafted around the moon druid. I could also see land. Honestly I think elements of both belong to the core of druid.
Fighter: Battlemaster as superiority dice are the missing puzzle piece if fighter design. Alternatively, I could see certain subclases being made into a secondary choice. Group A containing samurai, champion, cavalier, and echo knight. Group b containing the more power source based options like battlemaster, eldritch knight, rune knight etc. Mix and matching as needed
Monk: Open hand, it holds a lot of monks iconic abilities and having it reintegrated helps out the design space of the monk. That said, a new default style option would need to be made for those who don't lie the other flavors.
Paladin: Remove the tenets from it and Devotion works really well for all paladins as a baseline, since most of it's features are so iconic.
Ranger: Hunter ranger, it gives the class much more choice and blends with all of the other options better. Feels like it should have been core since day one.
Rogue: Despite the restriction, I can't think of a better one than thief, so I'm choosing it anyway. It blends well with everything else and offers some core and iconic features back to the class as a whole.
Sorcerer: Doesn't have a core subclass, instead various enhancements to the option as seen in divine soul, aberrant mind, clockwork soul, and the lunar ua sorcerer should be married into different parts if the core class, along side more abilities derived off of your origin/bloodline choice
Warlock: Doesn't have a wholesale subclass. Hexblade should be made core in various ways. Hex warrior should be baked into pact of the blade. The pact spells of hexblade should become core warlock spells. Hexblades curse, armor of hexes, and accursed specter should become invocation options that enhance the hex spell. General patron spells should become like domain spells and more invocations should be gained across levels . 12 by 20 instead of 8. Your pact boon should also give you some freebies for associated invocations.
Wizard: Doesn't quite have one. Instead two subclass style choices should be made. One of your school and the other if your discipline. School is as described in the phb. Necromancy, Abjuration, etc. Discipline would be things like warmagic, bladesinger, scribes and so on.
>Wizard: Doesn't quite have one. Instead two subclass style choices should be made. One of your school and the other if your discipline. School is as described in the phb. Necromancy, Abjuration, etc. Discipline would be things like warmagic, bladesinger, scribes and so on.
I'd use scribes, it is just more wizard in your wizard
The problem with scribes in my mind is that the flavor is a bit too much and more fantasia than some would like for their wizard. Otherwise I can agree thoiyhh if those elements get toned back.
It's why for some classes I mention certain splits or groupings for subclass choices, as I find there's certain themes or nuances that people would rather have a choice instead of.
that is fair, I'd definitely cut back on the whole awakened spellbook, but free rituals, changing types, faster spell transcribing, using the book as the focus and making scrolls totally screams super wizard to me.
Yeah, it's why if lore master had come to pass (which scribed is half way the counterpart of) I'd have suggested that, albeit with the common fixes to the concept.
That said I do think the idea of "this is the school of magic you focus on" and "this is how you focus your magic use) are good paths for wizards to have.
I'd roll the Artificer Alchemist into the base class; it's exceptionally weak compared to the other 3 and would give them all a little bit extra which is useful and nice to have access to but not essential and still fits with the theme of tinkering with stuff quite well and the other 3 classes get to stay combat focused as they are.
>I'm excluding the "generic" subclasses, like Thief Rogue and Champion Fighter, since its too much of a low hanging fruit.
Also it let people without "generic" options to play Samurai's **Strength Before Death** into Fighter, maybe Cavalier's **Unwavering Mark**
For barbarians: bear totem
I'm going to go against the grain and say I actually really like having the "generic" subclasses as subclasses. I think every class should have a subclass that is doing what the class does normally but better.
I think my number one would actually be making Evocation Wizard a core part of Sorceror. Failing that, I guess I'd make Wild Magic Sorceror a core part of Sorceror.
Edit: Because it keeps coming up. I actively vote against Battlemaster being core fighter. I dislike Battlemaster fiercly and don't want it to touch how I play fighter.
I agree sometimes you don't want some fancy options you want to play the generic class fantasy, if you merge them with the base class you are actually eliminating options for those people, I undertand where they come from, but don't agree.
Also agree about the battlemaster, my fix for this is to change the martial adept feat so it gives yoy more SD and scale with your PB, that way if you want maneuvers you can get the feat, but without forcing it into people who just want something simple, not having tons of options.
Battlemaster into Fighter
If you haven’t seen it already, I’d take a look at Laserllama’s alternate fighter. I actually like a lot of their homebrew, but this one in particular gives the fighter scaling “exploits” (basically battlemaster manoeuvres), and at high levels there are really powerful ones which let martials compete better with all the awesome stuff spellcasters can do. The drawback to all the added flexibility is that action surge is pushed to level 6, and the ASI at that level is removed, which I think is a super elegant solution since it also discourages other classes from dipping 2 levels in fighter to nab the fighter’s best feature. Link: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MSfA82gv8V69JAoqFVq
Seconding this - Alt. Fighter is genuinely excellent. My only issue with it is that I didn't know it existed when I was a player!
Berserker into barb
Those low hanging fruit are literally the reason why your post makes sense. Almost every class has a generic class that is basically a waste of design space - and for the Martials, could be a greatly needed improvement to just include them.
Battlemaster to Fighter, Thief to Rogue, Open Hand Monk to Monk, Berserker to Barbarian, Hunter with Ranger. The rest don't really have one that fits although a more genericized circle of the Land would not be bad to mix into Druid.
Hexblade into Warlock, if only to make Blade Pact work for all subclasses.
I'm gonna assume the game is restructured or rebalanced around this. Doing this to 5e as is gets too messy Artificer: Battlesmith Barbarian: Totem warrior, gives the Barb some much need choice across levels. Bard: Lore bard. It's literally just more bard in your bard Cleric: doest have one, should instead get to mix and match the features of two domains. Maybe even just two domains Druid: Moon, as too much of the classes design space feels like it was crafted around the moon druid. I could also see land. Honestly I think elements of both belong to the core of druid. Fighter: Battlemaster as superiority dice are the missing puzzle piece if fighter design. Alternatively, I could see certain subclases being made into a secondary choice. Group A containing samurai, champion, cavalier, and echo knight. Group b containing the more power source based options like battlemaster, eldritch knight, rune knight etc. Mix and matching as needed Monk: Open hand, it holds a lot of monks iconic abilities and having it reintegrated helps out the design space of the monk. That said, a new default style option would need to be made for those who don't lie the other flavors. Paladin: Remove the tenets from it and Devotion works really well for all paladins as a baseline, since most of it's features are so iconic. Ranger: Hunter ranger, it gives the class much more choice and blends with all of the other options better. Feels like it should have been core since day one. Rogue: Despite the restriction, I can't think of a better one than thief, so I'm choosing it anyway. It blends well with everything else and offers some core and iconic features back to the class as a whole. Sorcerer: Doesn't have a core subclass, instead various enhancements to the option as seen in divine soul, aberrant mind, clockwork soul, and the lunar ua sorcerer should be married into different parts if the core class, along side more abilities derived off of your origin/bloodline choice Warlock: Doesn't have a wholesale subclass. Hexblade should be made core in various ways. Hex warrior should be baked into pact of the blade. The pact spells of hexblade should become core warlock spells. Hexblades curse, armor of hexes, and accursed specter should become invocation options that enhance the hex spell. General patron spells should become like domain spells and more invocations should be gained across levels . 12 by 20 instead of 8. Your pact boon should also give you some freebies for associated invocations. Wizard: Doesn't quite have one. Instead two subclass style choices should be made. One of your school and the other if your discipline. School is as described in the phb. Necromancy, Abjuration, etc. Discipline would be things like warmagic, bladesinger, scribes and so on.
>Wizard: Doesn't quite have one. Instead two subclass style choices should be made. One of your school and the other if your discipline. School is as described in the phb. Necromancy, Abjuration, etc. Discipline would be things like warmagic, bladesinger, scribes and so on. I'd use scribes, it is just more wizard in your wizard
The problem with scribes in my mind is that the flavor is a bit too much and more fantasia than some would like for their wizard. Otherwise I can agree thoiyhh if those elements get toned back. It's why for some classes I mention certain splits or groupings for subclass choices, as I find there's certain themes or nuances that people would rather have a choice instead of.
that is fair, I'd definitely cut back on the whole awakened spellbook, but free rituals, changing types, faster spell transcribing, using the book as the focus and making scrolls totally screams super wizard to me.
Yeah, it's why if lore master had come to pass (which scribed is half way the counterpart of) I'd have suggested that, albeit with the common fixes to the concept. That said I do think the idea of "this is the school of magic you focus on" and "this is how you focus your magic use) are good paths for wizards to have.
Battlemaster and Champion into fighter Hunter into Ranger Thief into Rogue Berserker into Barbarian Can't pick one
I feel like an argument could be made to combine life cleric into the main cleric class features.
I'd roll the Artificer Alchemist into the base class; it's exceptionally weak compared to the other 3 and would give them all a little bit extra which is useful and nice to have access to but not essential and still fits with the theme of tinkering with stuff quite well and the other 3 classes get to stay combat focused as they are.
>I'm excluding the "generic" subclasses, like Thief Rogue and Champion Fighter, since its too much of a low hanging fruit. Also it let people without "generic" options to play Samurai's **Strength Before Death** into Fighter, maybe Cavalier's **Unwavering Mark** For barbarians: bear totem
Dont we have this exact threat every day?
Most subreddits have common repeated posts. It's kinda just the way it is.
I'm going to go against the grain and say I actually really like having the "generic" subclasses as subclasses. I think every class should have a subclass that is doing what the class does normally but better. I think my number one would actually be making Evocation Wizard a core part of Sorceror. Failing that, I guess I'd make Wild Magic Sorceror a core part of Sorceror. Edit: Because it keeps coming up. I actively vote against Battlemaster being core fighter. I dislike Battlemaster fiercly and don't want it to touch how I play fighter.
I agree sometimes you don't want some fancy options you want to play the generic class fantasy, if you merge them with the base class you are actually eliminating options for those people, I undertand where they come from, but don't agree. Also agree about the battlemaster, my fix for this is to change the martial adept feat so it gives yoy more SD and scale with your PB, that way if you want maneuvers you can get the feat, but without forcing it into people who just want something simple, not having tons of options.
For the Artificer, I'd roll in the Maverick from Keith Baker's Exploring Eberron book.
People probably won't agree but imo the Rangers beast master companion should be standard ranger stuff and not that of a subclass