D&D 5E What I Don't Like About Subclasses, and Potential Solutions.

Subclasses fall into three distinct varieties:

A. Specific variants of a class (wizard specialists, cleric domain)
B. Specific build type (valor bard, beast master ranger)
C. Former real classes and archetypes crammed into other classes (Eldritch Knight, assassin)

A could be solved by either lessening or eliminating the impact of those variants, either with internal customization or removal. B is fixed by again internally customized classes or feats. C. Just requires new base classes to fill those roles.

deadman1204 said:

I think people staying with the dnd product vs something else is ALOT more complicated than dnd is the best one.
There is the money buy in part, you play the game you own the material for.
Then this is the game other people play, so you play it cause its what other people do. There is almost certainly a vastly better system out there that would appeal any everyone's wishes, but it doesn't get traction because:
1. It doesn't have a gigantic wotc marketing budget
2. Everyone plays this game, so thats what we are stuck with.

Thats not to say dnd is "bad", just that people don't idly switch systems as much as is sometimes suggested. Some talbes do play alot of systems, but the majority do not.

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I never said DnD was the best, nor have I stated it’s market dominance proves that it’s good.

I agree that subclass seems rigid. But with multiclassing, you can do so much customization.

In a game without multiclassing, the subclasses would have to be way mlre flexible.
4e in a way worked lile this. You had a subclass for every tier of play and the option to dip into another class by taking a feat, which felt a bit like some subclasses. It was sadly a bit too costly featwise.

I wonder how popular multiclassing is in 5e? 50% of players? 80% of players?

I was thinking on this thread last night, and I've got 3 paths to think about today.

1. 5e Subclasses stays. Its rigid, and I dont particularly like it either.
2. Class Feats system. This is overwhelming potentially to new players, too many choices, people get lost. PF2 had me going 'wait what' for a bit as I looked it over.
3. Talent Trees. I dont lie, I love talent trees and if done well could be very cool.
4. Just go wild with Classes. Tons of them. I'm not a fan of this either.

I'm leaning towards a combo of 2 and 3. Very limited class feats, and a talent tree system to give a visual aid to a more 'flowing' subclass structure. If this was implemented though, I would drop multiclassing anyway, I dont like it in 5e.