Psionic classes felt really tacked on. The only settings they've felt part of is Dark Sun and Eberron.

Quote from: Itachi;998189What's the problem with Monks? D&D, from 2e forward is clearly a combat-focused game, so an eastern warrior seems to fit. Or is it a matter of balance/numbers?

Quote from: Headless;998256At least in a couple versions of d&d monks were the class that didn't need the rest of the party.  They could fight, sneek, heal and magic.  Why did they need any one else?

In both cases, the answer is balance/numbers. Pre-3e monks could do all the roles (except maybe tracking). But they weren't really as good. They had crummy hp and AC, no real spells (only use magic items), and insufficient healing even for themselves. 3e monks looked great on paper, but needed 18s in 4-5 stats before they could even keep pace with any other class. Post 3e they seem to have become equal to rogues as a mid-combat skirmish class with less durability but special tricks and immunities.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;998201Specifically, I don't care for how "class" has an elastic meaning depending upon which classes we see.  ...  Except that rationale is all over the place, too, with frequent gaps unaccounted for.  It's a mess.  It's a glorious mess, which is why I can enjoy it.

This is why I always say that you'll be disappointed if you're looking to find a "there" there. D&D is a 'first' something, and like most of them, is a mongrel thing that resists attempts at base principles. Classes are just classes. There isn't a consistent rationale, there are gaps. It's a glorious mess and for some people that's bad, some people that's good, some people wouldn't have it any other way, and some people (like me) simply recognize that when you do try to fit an organically derived thing like this into a consistent, principled form, you'll probably damage the thing or change it into something else entirely.

Quote from: DavetheLost;998244What I find a hard fit is Pure Strain Humans in many post apocalyptic games. The mutants, human and otherwise, get all sorts of cool powers, there may be robots and psyborgs, and psykers, and even aliens, why play a plain vanilla human? They just seem scrawny and weak and bland.

Well, GW and MA had it where they were the ones that could use all the pre-apocalypse technology. Otherwise, you are right. But it's just like D&D races-- you either have to artificially construct some benefit for the vanilla choice, or you have to give the other choices some clear disadvantage such that the vanilla choice is also the 'nothing good, but nothing bad' choice.

Quote from: TJS;998355Did no one play 3E? Or even 2E with alternate methods of character creation.

I'm sure both. What is the actual question?

One thing I never quite get about paladins being a problem.  Are your evil characters really that bad at lying or sneaking around?  For some reason a lot of people play evil characters as sociopaths.  The way to handle a paladin is to make sure they see you doing good deeds and back them up on moral decisions.  That way they'll act as a character witness when you get accused of those things you did.  "Bob's a paladin, you'll take his word won't you?"  Sure if your DM is really generous on the whole detect evil thing or it's widely known in the setting, but even then, where's the evidence.  Turning on people with no more basis than a hunch pretty unreasonable.

The reason you play a pure strain human is powered armor and death machines.

Quote from: TJS;998356I don't mind them for their own sake.  It's just when the rest of the party consists of rogues and scoundrels out for as much loot as they can grub up, Sir Galahad doesn't really fit in very well.

"I need to go relieve myself again. When I get back, there had better not be a scene of slaughter with my share of the loot waiting for me in a neat pile. Wink wink."

Quote from: TJS;998378Why Druid out of curiosity?

I ask because I pretty much agree about the other 5E classes.

This one took some thought and consideration. Basically - I don't like the Druid because to me it should be a speciality class for the Cleric. I don't like generic "Clerics", I think the Specialty Priest from 2e was the best iteration of the concept of the Cleric ever. When I ran 2e - you *had* to be a Specialty Priest. I think the concept of the Druid should fall into something like that in 5e. It would require much re-work but I simply believe they occupy the same game-concept space. It's one of the things I don't like about 5e, which is a holdover from 4e in design: the creation of classes to justify silly mechanics, instead of the other way around. I think the Druid conceptually absolutely belongs in the D&D gamespace. I think it should be folded under the Cleric class.

Quote from: Johnnii;998381Psionic classes felt really tacked on. The only settings they've felt part of is Dark Sun and Eberron.

That's because they are tacked on, heh.

Quote from: tenbones;998439This one took some thought and consideration. Basically - I don't like the Druid because to me it should be a speciality class for the Cleric. I don't like generic "Clerics", I think the Specialty Priest from 2e was the best iteration of the concept of the Cleric ever. When I ran 2e - you *had* to be a Specialty Priest. I think the concept of the Druid should fall into something like that in 5e. It would require much re-work but I simply believe they occupy the same game-concept space. It's one of the things I don't like about 5e, which is a holdover from 4e in design: the creation of classes to justify silly mechanics, instead of the other way around. I think the Druid conceptually absolutely belongs in the D&D gamespace. I think it should be folded under the Cleric class.

I agree with the criticism, but think you get the cause wrong.  Such stuff is retained in 5E because of the rabid pushback they got from 4E that made them promise to have all the traditional classes in, as primary classes, come hell or high water.

Though the whole "shape changer" shtick of the druid will always be a problem until they figure out a better way to handle that concept, whether with druid or something else.

Quote from: David Johansen;998423One thing I never quite get about paladins being a problem.  Are your evil characters really that bad at lying or sneaking around?  For some reason a lot of people play evil characters as sociopaths.  The way to handle a paladin is to make sure they see you doing good deeds and back them up on moral decisions.  That way they'll act as a character witness when you get accused of those things you did.  "Bob's a paladin, you'll take his word won't you?"  Sure if your DM is really generous on the whole detect evil thing or it's widely known in the setting, but even then, where's the evidence.  Turning on people with no more basis than a hunch pretty unreasonable.

That's because many people play "evil" as "Chaotic Psychopathic Hyperactive Moronic."

Really, I need to kill those off more often.  Consequences and such.  The problem is that when I'm running games at the store, it's not worth my time or energy to put up with some little shit pitching a tantrum and rolling around on the floor and wetting his pants.  I think I'm hitting the point of having store owner ptsd.

One thing I do make clear to the players of paladins is that the alignment grid has gradiations.  Most people don't get far enough out of the self interested / neutral zone to register on a detect alignment spell.  Also, supernatural evil is more likely to do so because it emanates magically.  In my neo-clone Dark Passages I went as far as to state in the detect evil spell's text that attacking people based on the spell's results destroys its ability to function as the user is now evil enough to interfere with any signal others might give off.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;998449I agree with the criticism, but think you get the cause wrong.  Such stuff is retained in 5E because of the rabid pushback they got from 4E that made them promise to have all the traditional classes in, as primary classes, come hell or high water.

No, I do understand that. 5e is a big appeasement to everyone that fought in the Nerdzerker Edition Wars. I understand *why*, I'm just saying it's not good design. It's designing for the surface instead of going for depth. Creating a set of classes around bad mechanics is not how it one should design an RPG. See your shape-changer schtick comment below as an obvious example.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;998449Though the whole "shape changer" shtick of the druid will always be a problem until they figure out a better way to handle that concept, whether with druid or something else.

Precisamundo. This is not to say it can't be done via spells (you know, create a set of scalable spells for each "tier" of power with a set of forms a Druid could take? Or have it tied to a specific form based on the Druidic order where the form scales with level. Blah blah blah. Plenty of ways to skin this beast. Ideally I'd have made the Druid an archetype of the Cleric class and worked it out that way based on Nature God orders.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;998452That's because many people play "evil" as "Chaotic Psychopathic Hyperactive Moronic."

Yep. Likely because they don't understand philosophically what "evil" is vs. their cartoonish assumptions of what it is. It's also partly why alignment beyond good/evil or law/chaos axis's are usually silly.

They should have just gone with creeds for Paladins and Clerics coming from their respective orders/religions/Gods/whatever - and let the players play accordingly. D&D shouldn't be a game where you have to explain the depths of ethics and morality in order to play a paladin or cleric... yet dumbasses always want to make it that way to justify usually stupid things.

"evil" as "Chaotic Psychopathic Hyperactive Moronic."<--- which is a great descriptor of such things.

Quote from: Krimson;998352In my very first AD&D group I saw this happen with a legit 18/00 STR to boot. It's rare but it does happen.

Of course it's possible that a 1 in 4.6 million occurrence will occur. But it is really unlikely that for any given play group it will occur.

Quote from: David Johansen;998423One thing I never quite get about paladins being a problem.  Are your evil characters really that bad at lying or sneaking around?  For some reason a lot of people play evil characters as sociopaths.  The way to handle a paladin is to make sure they see you doing good deeds and back them up on moral decisions.  That way they'll act as a character witness when you get accused of those things you did.  "Bob's a paladin, you'll take his word won't you?"  Sure if your DM is really generous on the whole detect evil thing or it's widely known in the setting, but even then, where's the evidence.  Turning on people with no more basis than a hunch pretty unreasonable.

How long would an evil character be able or willing to keep up the charade and to what end? Lifetime criminals don't tend to bond and spend loads of time with cops.

The obvious real answer is to not create groups with idiotic dynamics that require you to either abandon RPing or lead to PvP.

Quote from: TJS;998356I don't mind them for their own sake.  It's just when the rest of the party consists of rogues and scoundrels out for as much loot as they can grub up, Sir Galahad doesn't really fit in very well.

My immediate reaction is that's more a problem with the rest of the game than with the paladin, but I admit a strong bias on this point.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;998449I agree with the criticism, but think you get the cause wrong.  Such stuff is retained in 5E because of the rabid pushback they got from 4E that made them promise to have all the traditional classes in, as primary classes, come hell or high water.

Though the whole "shape changer" shtick of the druid will always be a problem until they figure out a better way to handle that concept, whether with druid or something else.

The funny thing is it's actually has A fairly obvious fix.
You see where the problem comes from is that they want to more or less say use the stats from the monster Manuel so it tends to cause problems for fairly obvious reasons YOU ARE LITERALLY GIVING PLAYERS THE MONSTER MANUAL AS A TOOL.
All they need to do to is change forms over to being an actual power like A spell with listed bonuses and penalty's for that form making the druid keeps his phys scores with what ever bonuses are appropriate and choose there forms as they level in A fashion similar to spells to stop the Swiss army transformations which also has the added benefit of more closely being able to control how powerful the transformations the druid can use at A given level are.