I noticed running & playing 5e, comparing it to the combat roles of 4e, that the non-casters tend to split into squishy high damage 'strikers' and (one) very tough 'defender' class. In contrast to 4e, IME the strikers are the Fighter (Action Surge) & Paladin (Smite), the defender is the Barbarian, definitely my favourite 5e class, with its Rage damage resistance. I'm not sure how Rogue & Monk fit in though - Rogue seems like a Striker with its sneak attack, I guess Monk is a bit like a 4e Controller, it seems their main ability is to lockdown targets with stunning fists.

If you play 5e do you have a preferred class? What's cool about it?

Valor Bard.  You can do all the things!

Rogues and Monks are strikers.  Rogues are very good single target strikers whereas Monks are great at single or multi target and can have large splashes of controller mixed in.  One buddy plays a Way of Shadow Monk and he isn't so hot at control but he is basically a ninja.  I had another buddy play Way of the Open Hand and he was more controller-ish.

I've liked the Warlock Class, which for me was kinda introduced with the 5E (I ignored 4E for the most part). I like that I can play Elric or an Occultist, although I sometimes wish the spell casting was based on Intelligence rather than Charisma.

The first character I played in 5E was inspired by Blackadder (the TV series) as a Warlock Noble, with sneaky ambitions. It worked well in the Warlock class, although I could have done similar stuff with a straight Rogue in retrospect.

I'm not really that fussed about classifying Classes into combat types, really, as long as my character can cope in combat.

In the games I've GM'd, I have seen all but the monk and warlock thus far, and a fair smattering of the paths.  The ones that I like the most are fighter, rogue, wizard, bard, druid, and paladin.  The barbarian is very close, though.  I think I'd like the cleric more if I were playing it.  (I'm not sure the players in my campaigns that have clerics have fully understood the possibilities of support spells.)  

If I had to pick one favorite in 5E, it would be the bard.  I think the 5E bard is the first one that really, truly works both in concept and mechanically, without a lot of handholding from the GM for a subset of campaigns.  Making it a full caster (with an abbreviated spell list), and then doing the Jack of all trades thing through the features and paths--that finally got it over the hump.  The 5E bard--not just a pretty "face".

I was surprised how much I enjoyed playing a Champion. On paper it looks pretty boring. But it turned into one of my favorite characters due to the backstory. I guess you could do that with any class, but the lack of mechanical bits to keep track of made me focus more on the character's motivations and background. Backgrounds are my favorite part of 5E.

Now, if you are playing without feats or without multiclassing or without rolled stats, various races and classes come to the fore. without feats or multiclass, some favorites have been valor bard, mountain dwarf wizard, and warlock.

Overall, though, my favorite has been champion. If you do play with feats, you can pick up feats like ritual caster, healer, skilled, inspiring leaders, and so on (or even 1-3 dips into rogue, wizard, or cleric, to pick up skills and 1st level ritual spells plus some cool cantrips) which allow you to do more than just hit things in combat. Maybe the optimal thing to do is pick battlemaster and pick up the PAM, Sentinel, GWM or Sharpshooter cheese, but if you select some nice flavorfull options, the basic fighter core really supports you taking those fun little dips (and without making your whole builds about them).

Had a lot of fun with a warlock and if I ever play 5e again I plan on trying out a bard. The warlock just has some really fun tricks, especially with darkness, and Eldritch Blast offers so many possibilities. There's nothing quite like blasting enemies with a cantrip that does pretty solid damage and tosses them over cliffs.

My first character was a monk and I found it one of the most frustrating characters I've ever had to deal with. Open Palm Monks do horrible damage and aren't nearly fast and maneuverable enough to make up for the fact they're so squishy. The thing that usually kept me alive was that I was typically the least dangerous character on the battlefield. It doesn't help that their ability to act as a controller is terrible because enemies save way too often and monks don't have nearly enough ki points to actually do their special abilities that much. At the very least, the ki cost for their Dodge ability should be removed to increase survivability and save points for their other abilities.

5E has pretty good classes, but I feel like they couldn't quite let go of the design 'feature' introduced in 4E, where every class is provided with a mechanism for delivering a similarly damaging attack most rounds, and for reaching pretty comparable AC scores. I'm sure the idea sounded great in principle, 'this way, every player at the table gets to feel like they are part of the action!'. But the result is a collapsing of the classes into similar functions, over-focus onto combat, and slower play. It really sucked a lot of the life out of the game, from my point of view. 5E is less extreme in this respect, but it's still part of the picture.

Quote from: Brand55;1006222My first character was a monk and I found it one of the most frustrating characters I've ever had to deal with. Open Palm Monks do horrible damage and aren't nearly fast and maneuverable enough to make up for the fact they're so squishy. The thing that usually kept me alive was that I was typically the least dangerous character on the battlefield. It doesn't help that their ability to act as a controller is terrible because enemies save way too often and monks don't have nearly enough ki points to actually do their special abilities that much. At the very least, the ki cost for their Dodge ability should be removed to increase survivability and save points for their other abilities.

Monks do lots of damage when you take account of multiple attacks. If you are adding their Dex bonus for damage on every hit, it doesn't matter that they are just doing D6 damage each time - the bonuses accumulate. I had a 5th level Halfling Monk that could smack the crap out of lots of opponents. Monks also have the appeal of not carrying needing to carry much equipment with them - which can be advantageous in some situations where they've had their weapons taken away. They can make very good assassins.

Hmm. I'll take S'mon's challenge of talking about 5e without the Hulk Smash!

The 5e class I have an itch to play the most is a Tharizdun Warlock in a Greyhawk campaign.
Maybe a Weejas worshipping Cleric/Wizard, also in Greyhawk.
For Realms, maybe a Tempus Cleric/Battlemaster.
Barbarian would be good too.  Any of the Greyhawk tribes, or Uthgardt if the Realms.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1006181I've liked the Warlock Class, which for me was kinda introduced with the 5E (I ignored 4E for the most part). I like that I can play Elric or an Occultist, although I sometimes wish the spell casting was based on Intelligence rather than Charisma.

I like the Warlock, but he seems to spend most of his time with only 2 spells per short rest which tends to feel a bit underwhelming when the Druid gets  2 wildshapes per SR with full casting on top.

One 5e class I've not seen much of at all is the Sorcerer - it seems like Bard just does the same thing better, not even counting Wizard?

Quote from: CRKrueger;1006245Barbarian would be good too.  Any of the Greyhawk tribes, or Uthgardt if the Realms.

I've been playing an Uthgardt Barbarian; before that I played a Primeval Thule Slayer Barbarian. I find Barb is incredibly powerful with Polearm Master + Greatweapon Master + Reckless Attack. As GM I love Barbarian PCs and how they don't fall over like the other classes (Moon Druids very hard to kill too, but less damage at higher level).

Quote from: Larsdangly;10062285E has pretty good classes, but I feel like they couldn't quite let go of the design 'feature' introduced in 4E, where every class is provided with a mechanism for delivering a similarly damaging attack most rounds, and for reaching pretty comparable AC scores. I'm sure the idea sounded great in principle, 'this way, every player at the table gets to feel like they are part of the action!'. But the result is a collapsing of the classes into similar functions, over-focus onto combat, and slower play. It really sucked a lot of the life out of the game, from my point of view. 5E is less extreme in this respect, but it's still part of the picture.

This reflects how I feel. It strikes me that the intent is that every class can contribute in combat since they get mechanical access to a decent attack and decent AC (or other defenses). But not every class has mechanical options outside of combat. The skillmonkeys get skills and the casters often get utility spells, but not everybody has that. Feels like an imbalance to me.
I'd much rather you divided the spotlight up more. Fighters (and other combatty classes like warlocks and monks and stuff) do best at combat. Bards do good social stuff. Rogues and druids are good at exploration. Wizards are good at weird-ass problem solving. So then each PC gets their moment to shine, rather than all pitching in equally. YMMV though.

I haven't seen a problem with any classes not having power out of combat - it feels very different from 3e to me. For one thing the warrior types get Athletics, a powerful skill. For another, the way Proficiency & DCs work in 5e it's ok for the non-Bard PCs to talk with NPCs, unlike 3e. So I see diplomacy, leadership, rulership etc from the warriors - most regular NPCs tend to be warrior types and at least IMCs are more inclined to follow a warrior type, with casters and Rogues in more secondary roles.

Edit: I wouldn't mind if the warrior classes were explicitly the best at combat. They do tend to be strong in combat anyway. I understand why they went for a rough balance, since they stuck with a fairly 3e style combat system where fights take a long time especially at high level.

Quote from: S'mon;1006255Edit: I wouldn't mind if the warrior classes were explicitly the best at combat. They do tend to be strong in combat anyway. I understand why they went for a rough balance, since they stuck with a fairly 3e style combat system where fights take a long time especially at high level.

If you include warlocks as partial warriors just like paladins and rangers (which is thematically weird, but mechanically it just is since the warlocks main thing is for all intents and purposes archery by another name), and are playing with feats, I think they are explicitly the best at combat. A fighter, for instance, needs 2 stats to pull off his gig, has extra ASIs comparatively, and can afford to hold off on getting that Str (or Dex) and Con to 20 to instead take those tasty, vaguely overpowered feats like Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Sentinel, Sharpshooter, and Shield Master. In comparison, a valor bard gets to fight in the front ranks if they want, but needs to max Dex (presumably), Cha, and needs plenty of Con just to reach the hp level that a fighter or barbarian has, plus really needs resilient:Con and War Caster if they want to be able to do any bard spellcasting while also front lining-- all just to get to the point where a fighter is with their core.

I won't discount that spellcasters might dominate at the highest levels (although less than many of the other editions), not that some of the best cheesy builds aren't based on fighters or barbarians (sorcerer-paladin being the in-vogue one right now, AFAICT), but I think that they are pretty much best at combat.