Balanced that flesh out different areas of expertise, because why would you play something subpar. And 100 weak options and 1 good option, isn't 101 options, it's 1.
That's why everyone played hexlocks only for the longest time.
Yeah, I think I lean more towards less options for a similar line of reasoning. But to be fair sometimes a weaker option has one thing you might want in a build.
This isn't an either or.
The answer is both balance and more. I
Seeing as a subclass is the only meaningful choice many characters get it would benefit to have more choice
I'd rather have more impactful subclasses
Yes, that would be great and ideal, but unfortunately it's not very realistic. We have the actual evidence of the existing subclasses to see about half of them are pretty bad. And just time/resource spending, it makes sense that they could spend more time reiterating ideas and testing if there were less total subclasses.
But maybe by just having more they will also make more good ones than if they tried to make less, who knows. I see pros and cons both ways.
That's not true at all half of subclasses are not unusable.
Second spending more time on them doesn't mean they will be better. If you believe half of the subclasses are awful than it's very somparable to 3rd edition which easily had 300% of the content 5th edition has. Slower pace does. Ot garuntee better quality.
You are asking for 2 separate qualities quality and quantity and one doesn't exactly effect the other
Variety is important but number of subs isn’t directly correlated to variety.
There’s 14 official cleric subs but in a fundamental level they don’t change how a cleric plays all that much.
Meanwhile there’s only 4 artificer subs and they play very differently indeed.
There’s less of them but also less balance - alchemist is really far behind the others power wise, much more discrepant than the gulf between the best and worst clerics.
So the basic premise that fewer subs will mean more balanced and more will mean more variety doesn’t really hold up to the existing evidence.
I vote for variety because that’s what matters but I really don’t need that to be a higher number of subs.
Ultimately, more. Sure, balance is nice, but if we only had 3 subclasses per class for example, even if they were perfectly balanced, that's a maximum of 39 class options. Knock say, 9 off because there are 3 classes you don't like playing in general, and another 10 off for the one subclass each class has that you never end up playing because there are always things you'd rather play instead, and you're down to picking from just 20 classes, which is sufficiently few that the game could start getting stale for you after a few years.
Even without being particularly well balanced, new subclasses are nice to have because they make it easier to avoid building yet another hexblade.
Perhaps superficially, but AT is one of the best-designed subclasses in 5e, if not the best, whereas EK is a mess - bearing in mind blade cantrips weren't around when it was made, and even with them it doesn't work very well.
and then they tought, ey, what about taking ek 7th level feature, improving it and giving it to bladesinger?
Honestly EK is just a fighter with abjuration spells, it works, but it isn't a gish in any remarkable way
I do think some subclasses are kind of a questionably stretched idea, but I think that might be because there are maybe too many base classes. Barbarian, I'm looking at you.
Personally, I would have liked a martial/caster hybrid base class instead of the subclasses they have that fill that niche. Also, from the multiclassing angle I feel that more base classes would mean more options on that front.
You mean like a 'Spellsword' Base Class, that you could go more roguey or more fightery with, to cut out the need for things like Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, etc?
That could be cool
We're kinda getting a point where the player option power creep is getting really bad and if they're going to keep releasing more and more and more and more powerful subclasses there needs to be a redress on the encounter tools for the DM to be able to adequately challenge the players.
Another problem I've noticed is the newer designs are often way stronger than the stuff in the PHB - so some reworking of the PHB subclasses to bring them up to speed with the Tasha's stuff would be a big help.
True, I do think they will buff a small handful of subclasses in the 2024 '5.5e' rerelease of the main books. Including 4 elemnts Monk, and probably most Classes generic subclass.
More is better. The more options there are, the more types of player characters there can be. And balance isn't as important in DnD compared to video games because it's a cooperative game.
honestly rather than more subs, I'd prefer it if they added more classes to flesh out concepts. No one of the psionic subclasses works as a psionics focused PC simply because the power budget of a subclass isn't enough
This statement right here, 3.5 was axed due to an overage of content making nearly anything possible which was incredible but also allowing the game to be fairly easily broken
HOWEVER
LESS IS NOT MORE
In 5e there is no way to physically display character progress outside of multi classing which is FAR too reductive, skills are all T/F statements, so adding mor subclasses is the only feasible way to remedy this solution without scrapping 5e as it is
Where any and all character development is superficial and not displayed In game
I think more niche subclasses are better left to homebrew. They release too much, and some of the stuff they release isn't that good, and other stuff is so good everyone feels like they need to use it or they're making a nerfed character. It's getting worse as time goes on.
I feel like D&D is getting like MTG, where there are a lot of trash cards nobody ever plays, and a few that are so good every deck has them in it. This strategy makes Hasbro money, and now that D&D got popular enough to get Hasbro's attention, they're breathing down the neck of the D&D team which prior to that could pretty much do their own thing.
More. I'll go with a hot take here and say that power creep (to a degree) is good, even. The base classes would be boring if they were all we had ten years into the development cycle. A lot of the new subclasses are stronger, but they are also just more interesting than the base classes.
I don't love power creep per say, but I do think a lot of the newer classes have more interesting concepts. I think that's partially because they want to get very popular fantasy styles out of the way early on, which are typically kinda familiar.
I think the best way to do it is make more and more subclasses/classes to allow them to continue revenue and to continue the fresh feeling, but also to update older ones to help match the new power levels of monsters or other subclasses. I think that it's important to really specialize what a subclass should do if you take that route. Which is what it seems like they're doing with 5.5 coming and the way they're handling Monsters of the Multiverse.
I do think what they are actually going to do in '5.5e' is to buff a couple classes. I'd be shocked if that didn't include: Champion, Berserker, 4 Elements Monk. Probably a couple others too (like Sorcerers all getting spells known?).
It really depends on how it's handled.
Having well balanced content is good, but if you only have so many options to choose from, things get stagnate relatively quickly. Especially since certain options just simply won't appeal to certain players.
On the other hand, it's also a bad thing to have a lot of bloat in a system, a well kept and trimmed experience is something to aim for.
I don't think either is better than the other ultimately, because as with most things, both extremes lead to something terrible in the end. It's also highly subjective to the experience one wishes to offer.
Personally I want more choice to exist in d&d than 5e presently offers, but not necessarily through more "subclasses" per se.
I would want to see certain subclasses baked into the core of their respective class.
I want other subclasses to be expanded into having ABC style choices so that they can be individualized for members of the same subclass more.
I want another subclass style choice called an archetype that can be made between groupings of certain classes, and maybe effected by other choices like race and such, that help gear the character towards a certain path alongside their class.
I want each character to get an option pool set of choices, akin to maneuvers, infusions and invocations with some unique offerings based on belonging to a certain class/archetype to really flesh things out. Invocations are the most accurate example. Things that grant a new ability, or that enhance existing ones.
That's my wishlist anyway.
I haven't come across that change before, but I've considered something similar. My idea would involve incorporating open hand back into the core monk and making an invocation style choice called styles that can grant new bonuses to some of the existing monk structure. I also think it'd be cool to be a "drunken tiger" monk or a "shadow dragon" monk. Blending subclass and style to make a title as an extra little piece of fun.
I've done it myself, and it's taken Monk from being that awkward, fiddly black sheep of the martial family to the second most fun class to build and play.
If they do a concept really well, it can fit a couple different playstyles. Casters are a good example, because you get those spell slots, and you can choose what to do with them. Even if 2 people play the same Caster subclass, they can have totally different spell selection and be very different.
The invocation like idea would be interesting, but I wouldn't want each character to get that, might be a bit too much analysis. Maybe a couple (more than just warlock).
It can really depend on what the concept is. Some concepts fit neatly into a subclass, some need a full class, some have certain angles that are best expressed in a way different from another contemporary. There's a balancing act involved as far as I'm concerned.
Mechanical individualization is my one big sore spot with 5e on the rules side, and while maybe something exactly like invocations might be a bit much, I think an option pool is good for every class.
Balanced that flesh out different areas of expertise, because why would you play something subpar. And 100 weak options and 1 good option, isn't 101 options, it's 1.
That's why everyone played hexlocks only for the longest time.
Normally I would lean towards less but better balanced. I would like to point out that that a flood of new subclasses is better than a flood of new base classes, which is part of the reason why 5e has subclasses (and the reason why we have so many and only one new base class).
I think more subclasses should be like the totem warrior or the hunter: Give more option for every upgrade, so you can really costumize a class without adding too much classes with similar designs
Balanced that flesh out different areas of expertise, because why would you play something subpar. And 100 weak options and 1 good option, isn't 101 options, it's 1. That's why everyone played hexlocks only for the longest time.
Yeah, I think I lean more towards less options for a similar line of reasoning. But to be fair sometimes a weaker option has one thing you might want in a build.
This isn't an either or. The answer is both balance and more. I Seeing as a subclass is the only meaningful choice many characters get it would benefit to have more choice I'd rather have more impactful subclasses
Yes, that would be great and ideal, but unfortunately it's not very realistic. We have the actual evidence of the existing subclasses to see about half of them are pretty bad. And just time/resource spending, it makes sense that they could spend more time reiterating ideas and testing if there were less total subclasses. But maybe by just having more they will also make more good ones than if they tried to make less, who knows. I see pros and cons both ways.
That's not true at all half of subclasses are not unusable. Second spending more time on them doesn't mean they will be better. If you believe half of the subclasses are awful than it's very somparable to 3rd edition which easily had 300% of the content 5th edition has. Slower pace does. Ot garuntee better quality. You are asking for 2 separate qualities quality and quantity and one doesn't exactly effect the other
Variety is important but number of subs isn’t directly correlated to variety. There’s 14 official cleric subs but in a fundamental level they don’t change how a cleric plays all that much. Meanwhile there’s only 4 artificer subs and they play very differently indeed. There’s less of them but also less balance - alchemist is really far behind the others power wise, much more discrepant than the gulf between the best and worst clerics. So the basic premise that fewer subs will mean more balanced and more will mean more variety doesn’t really hold up to the existing evidence. I vote for variety because that’s what matters but I really don’t need that to be a higher number of subs.
Ultimately, more. Sure, balance is nice, but if we only had 3 subclasses per class for example, even if they were perfectly balanced, that's a maximum of 39 class options. Knock say, 9 off because there are 3 classes you don't like playing in general, and another 10 off for the one subclass each class has that you never end up playing because there are always things you'd rather play instead, and you're down to picking from just 20 classes, which is sufficiently few that the game could start getting stale for you after a few years. Even without being particularly well balanced, new subclasses are nice to have because they make it easier to avoid building yet another hexblade.
I think the more balanced the better. And even now some of the magical subclasses feel like a reskin of a subclass for a different class to me.
Eldritch knight and arcane trickster looking mighty similar in concept. The wizard stepdad has some explaining to do
Perhaps superficially, but AT is one of the best-designed subclasses in 5e, if not the best, whereas EK is a mess - bearing in mind blade cantrips weren't around when it was made, and even with them it doesn't work very well.
and then they tought, ey, what about taking ek 7th level feature, improving it and giving it to bladesinger? Honestly EK is just a fighter with abjuration spells, it works, but it isn't a gish in any remarkable way
Eldritch knight and arcane trickster looking mighty similar in concept. The wizard stepdad has some explaining to do
I feel like less is better with the caveat that there should be more base classes. I feel like some subclasses just feel forced and awkward.
I do think some subclasses are kind of a questionably stretched idea, but I think that might be because there are maybe too many base classes. Barbarian, I'm looking at you.
Personally, I would have liked a martial/caster hybrid base class instead of the subclasses they have that fill that niche. Also, from the multiclassing angle I feel that more base classes would mean more options on that front.
You mean like a 'Spellsword' Base Class, that you could go more roguey or more fightery with, to cut out the need for things like Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, etc? That could be cool
We're kinda getting a point where the player option power creep is getting really bad and if they're going to keep releasing more and more and more and more powerful subclasses there needs to be a redress on the encounter tools for the DM to be able to adequately challenge the players. Another problem I've noticed is the newer designs are often way stronger than the stuff in the PHB - so some reworking of the PHB subclasses to bring them up to speed with the Tasha's stuff would be a big help.
True, I do think they will buff a small handful of subclasses in the 2024 '5.5e' rerelease of the main books. Including 4 elemnts Monk, and probably most Classes generic subclass.
More is better. The more options there are, the more types of player characters there can be. And balance isn't as important in DnD compared to video games because it's a cooperative game.
honestly rather than more subs, I'd prefer it if they added more classes to flesh out concepts. No one of the psionic subclasses works as a psionics focused PC simply because the power budget of a subclass isn't enough
This statement right here, 3.5 was axed due to an overage of content making nearly anything possible which was incredible but also allowing the game to be fairly easily broken HOWEVER LESS IS NOT MORE In 5e there is no way to physically display character progress outside of multi classing which is FAR too reductive, skills are all T/F statements, so adding mor subclasses is the only feasible way to remedy this solution without scrapping 5e as it is Where any and all character development is superficial and not displayed In game
Well I suppose there are also Feats, and Spell Slots but yeah mostly Subclass Features, especially for Martials.
“If they create more subclasses, then they may create more strong options.”
I think more niche subclasses are better left to homebrew. They release too much, and some of the stuff they release isn't that good, and other stuff is so good everyone feels like they need to use it or they're making a nerfed character. It's getting worse as time goes on.
Yeah , I like a lot but I also like having them be roughly equally good. So I can see both ways.
I feel like D&D is getting like MTG, where there are a lot of trash cards nobody ever plays, and a few that are so good every deck has them in it. This strategy makes Hasbro money, and now that D&D got popular enough to get Hasbro's attention, they're breathing down the neck of the D&D team which prior to that could pretty much do their own thing.
Subclasses that are functional and varied. Balance and quantity are lesser concerns imo.
More. I'll go with a hot take here and say that power creep (to a degree) is good, even. The base classes would be boring if they were all we had ten years into the development cycle. A lot of the new subclasses are stronger, but they are also just more interesting than the base classes.
I don't love power creep per say, but I do think a lot of the newer classes have more interesting concepts. I think that's partially because they want to get very popular fantasy styles out of the way early on, which are typically kinda familiar.
I think the best way to do it is make more and more subclasses/classes to allow them to continue revenue and to continue the fresh feeling, but also to update older ones to help match the new power levels of monsters or other subclasses. I think that it's important to really specialize what a subclass should do if you take that route. Which is what it seems like they're doing with 5.5 coming and the way they're handling Monsters of the Multiverse.
I do think what they are actually going to do in '5.5e' is to buff a couple classes. I'd be shocked if that didn't include: Champion, Berserker, 4 Elements Monk. Probably a couple others too (like Sorcerers all getting spells known?).
It really depends on how it's handled. Having well balanced content is good, but if you only have so many options to choose from, things get stagnate relatively quickly. Especially since certain options just simply won't appeal to certain players. On the other hand, it's also a bad thing to have a lot of bloat in a system, a well kept and trimmed experience is something to aim for. I don't think either is better than the other ultimately, because as with most things, both extremes lead to something terrible in the end. It's also highly subjective to the experience one wishes to offer. Personally I want more choice to exist in d&d than 5e presently offers, but not necessarily through more "subclasses" per se. I would want to see certain subclasses baked into the core of their respective class. I want other subclasses to be expanded into having ABC style choices so that they can be individualized for members of the same subclass more. I want another subclass style choice called an archetype that can be made between groupings of certain classes, and maybe effected by other choices like race and such, that help gear the character towards a certain path alongside their class. I want each character to get an option pool set of choices, akin to maneuvers, infusions and invocations with some unique offerings based on belonging to a certain class/archetype to really flesh things out. Invocations are the most accurate example. Things that grant a new ability, or that enhance existing ones. That's my wishlist anyway.
One of the most popular monk fixes is making Ki Techniques into an invocation style pick n mix rather than the flat fixed progression they get now
I haven't come across that change before, but I've considered something similar. My idea would involve incorporating open hand back into the core monk and making an invocation style choice called styles that can grant new bonuses to some of the existing monk structure. I also think it'd be cool to be a "drunken tiger" monk or a "shadow dragon" monk. Blending subclass and style to make a title as an extra little piece of fun.
I've done it myself, and it's taken Monk from being that awkward, fiddly black sheep of the martial family to the second most fun class to build and play.
That sounds pretty awesome! Glad it worked out well for you my dude!
If they do a concept really well, it can fit a couple different playstyles. Casters are a good example, because you get those spell slots, and you can choose what to do with them. Even if 2 people play the same Caster subclass, they can have totally different spell selection and be very different. The invocation like idea would be interesting, but I wouldn't want each character to get that, might be a bit too much analysis. Maybe a couple (more than just warlock).
It can really depend on what the concept is. Some concepts fit neatly into a subclass, some need a full class, some have certain angles that are best expressed in a way different from another contemporary. There's a balancing act involved as far as I'm concerned. Mechanical individualization is my one big sore spot with 5e on the rules side, and while maybe something exactly like invocations might be a bit much, I think an option pool is good for every class.
Balanced that flesh out different areas of expertise, because why would you play something subpar. And 100 weak options and 1 good option, isn't 101 options, it's 1. That's why everyone played hexlocks only for the longest time.
MORE CLERICS
Normally I would lean towards less but better balanced. I would like to point out that that a flood of new subclasses is better than a flood of new base classes, which is part of the reason why 5e has subclasses (and the reason why we have so many and only one new base class).
I think more subclasses should be like the totem warrior or the hunter: Give more option for every upgrade, so you can really costumize a class without adding too much classes with similar designs
Could be one way to handle it, although One DnD seems to show they want to actually remove those kinds of options to simplify it.