Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - Now your playing with Playtests!

[DeltaEmil]

I don't see any problems with being very harsh towards those first drafts. After all, critic is what is expected from the playtesters.

[Loki_42]

Well, I got my group together for some actual playtesting. It went well, the system seems to work together, and all the parts that are released right now seem to be good. We only had a group of four, and we had both clerics, a wizard, and a rogue.

I felt the 15 minute workday was still a problem. As much as spells seem decently powerful, I think being able to cast more of them at first level wouldn't be a problem. When our casters ran out of spells, the whole party was hurting, especially when the clerics ran out of cure light wounds and Healing words. Maybe if we had more non spell-based healing options, but the Pelor cleric never really had enough gold to use his herbalism at the start. We also had a pretty squishy party, with only the Moradin cleric really able to tank. When we have a fighter, which we hopefully will next session, things might be a bit better. As it is, we were squishy with our last fight knocking three of us out and the Wizard dying. The Pelor cleric was able to avoid the enemies enough to end up killing them and stabilizing the rest of us, but it was intense for a while before that happened.

On advantage/disadvantage: I felt that disadvantage was to easy to get, given some of the features of the dungeon, while advantage really did not have many consistent ways of being gained. I allowed flanking to grant advantage, but even that didn't help but so much. The rogue was particularly hurt, with him only rarely being able to consistently deal damage.

All in all, the system worked great, with some of the parts that I was primarily worried about, such as the apparent difficulty of some of the monsters, not being a problem at all. We should hopefully be meeting up next weekend if we can manage it, and travel further into the dungeon to continue testing the rules. On the whole, I enjoyed it, and I think they nailed the "feel". There are certainly problems that need to be worked out, but that's what the point of a playtest is, anyway.

[MukkTB]

My impression of the rules in the playtest is that they're fine. Not really better than something that could have been homebrewed, but OK. Not really refined and the presentation isn't wonderful but this is a playtest. Its about us kicking the wheels. Its not about them wowing us with presentation. Its not about them selling us on 5e because the playtest looks pretty.

That said, I wish we had a chance to look at character creation. That's really where the wheels are.

The only thing that really sticks out to me on the first read through is HP. 0 HP is when you first take a serious wound. After that you're pretty much unconscious. So HP is now mostly a measure of avoiding serious damage as opposed to the ambiguity of before. Maybe getting away with only a small cut at 1/2 HP. Of course the problem with that is now 'dodging' a dagger is somehow much less taxing to your HP than 'dodging' a great axe. And there is the problem with the new ambiguity of 'dodging' an attack because it missed your AC and 'dodging' an attack because it didn't reduce your HP below half. Also what about getting hit squarely in the breastplate with a hammer. Surely that is going to take some wind out of you? The game seems to be saying that its worse to 'dodge' out of the way of the hammer (when it hits you but doesn't reduce you HP below half) than to take a solid whack (when it misses you because of the AC from your armor.)

Ah well the abstraction of HP has always been a problem. My personal preference has always been that a hit physically connects with the victim. Its just that a hit that may skewer a lvl 1 only scratches a lvl 10 because the level 10 is better at rolling with it and/or partially avoiding it. Whatever, not really important.

And on the tier subject, the wizard does not seem to seriously overshadow the fighter or even present much more utility. I think that may be a result of there not being much material more than having achieved balance. Fighter seeming tier 4 ish, wizard at maybe 3.

[noparlpf]

My impression of the rules in the playtest is that they're fine. Not really better than something that could have been homebrewed, but OK. Not really refined and the presentation isn't wonderful but this is a playtest. Its about us kicking the wheels. Its not about them wowing us with presentation. Its not about them selling us on 5e because the playtest looks pretty.

Still, they're supposedly professionals. It ought to be better done than something I could whip up in a few hours.

That said, I wish we had a chance to look at character creation. That's really where the wheels are.

The only thing that really sticks out to me on the first read through is HP. 0 HP is when you first take a serious wound. After that you're pretty much unconscious. So HP is now mostly a measure of avoiding serious damage as opposed to the ambiguity of before. Maybe getting away with only a small cut at 1/2 HP. Of course the problem with that is now 'dodging' a dagger is somehow much less taxing to your HP than 'dodging' a great axe. And there is the problem with the new ambiguity of 'dodging' an attack because it missed your AC and 'dodging' an attack because it didn't reduce your HP below half. Also what about getting hit squarely in the breastplate with a hammer. Surely that is going to take some wind out of you? The game seems to be saying that its worse to 'dodge' out of the way of the hammer (when it hits you but doesn't reduce you HP below half) than to take a solid whack (when it misses you because of the AC from your armor.)

Ah well the abstraction of HP has always been a problem. My personal preference has always been that a hit physically connects with the victim. Its just that a hit that may skewer a lvl 1 only scratches a lvl 10 because the level 10 is better at rolling with it and/or partially avoiding it. Whatever, not really important.

I doubt I'll ever see a hit point system I like. Realistic would make fighting dragons and other higher-level creatures near-impossible, and would put a much bigger focus on magic armor/wards, quests to find magic items, whatever. I.e., magic would completely overshadow mundane, as opposed to only mostly the way it did in 3.X. (I'm not familiar with 4e.)
I'm in the process of drafting a system that involves lower and more realistic hit points. My favorite example of how wrong hit point scaling is, is the caltrop. A commoner steps on a few, and dies. A fifth-level Fighter steps on a few, and he's fine except for a bit of a limp. And this is one where your explanation (which is also mine) fails--the experienced Fighter can't have used his better reflexes to shift his weight off that foot when he noticed the caltrop, because he still gets the same penalty to movement the commoner did, i.e., the foot wound was equally severe. (Oh, and nonmagical healing--a fifth-level character heals five times faster than a first-level character, despite the same wound and the same Con score. In my opinion, natural healing should be dependent on Con score and mundane treatments, not character level.)

And on the tier subject, the wizard does not seem to seriously overshadow the fighter or even present much more utility. I think that may be a result of there not being much material more than having achieved balance. Fighter seeming tier 4 ish, wizard at maybe 3.

At low levels, especially first level, casters are vastly overshadowed by meleers and other mundanes, in my experience. You get like, three spells for the day, throw off Magic Missile and Ray of Frost a couple of times, take down or injure two or three (maybe five if you rolled well!) goblins or kobolds or whatever, and the Fighter finishes off the other eight.

[russdm]

I have played 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition, 3.5 Edition, and 4th Edition. I happen to like all of them as well, though i wouldn't play 3rd when i can play 3.5 instead. Getting ready for the mass of yelling at this fact.

I like everything i see so far. I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet, and i don't even know if the group i am with is even interested in doing so. Their loss, not mine.

I think that it states in the wizard's stuff that he/she gets a bonus to attack rolls for spells. I also think the 500 deadlift thing is off. The documents say that a character's carrying capacity is "10 times your strength score" so with a strength of 18 that would mean 180 pounds.

I have always wanted for magic items to be more rare and more unique. I can see a reason for having +1 stuff or +3 or whatever, but why can't magic items be more unique in flavor? Magic items ought to be more like Narsil/Anduril(i think thats the name of the reforged sword), or Sting rather than the usual +3 sword thing. Magic Items should have history to them, be less cookie cutter.

A note: For a story i was writing set in the future (But not finished, i may or may not), I was going to have the characters playing D&D. The Edition they were going to be playing? 5th Edition. Even more oddly, how i imagined things went from 3.5 to 5th seems to have happened very similiar to what happened with it so far actually. Thats really funny. my idea of 4th edition for the story was close to how 4th edition was received (it wasn't D&D and it was out of place compared to 3.5; An odd-ball edition really was how i thought it would be like), while so far the stuff i have seen for 5th seems to include some of my ideas for the story's 5th edition i was going to use. The story version was a mix of 3.5 plus 4th, taking what was best from each. What makes this so funny, is that i had wrote the first parts of this story before they (Wizards) had announced 4th edition. I did the early writing and planning in 2006-2007 since the main character was named after a manager i had in a job. How Bizarre is that?

[Treblain]

The problem with estimating a magic-user's power level is that they become more powerful with every new spell existing in the system.

It looks like the system incentivizes wizards to have high CON. Back in 3.5, you had the phenomenon of inexperienced wizard players dumping CON because they thought they were supposed to be fragile, squishy wizards, while experienced players invested in it heavily. It basically undermines the classic archetype they're going for if the average wizard is going to have higher HP than the rogue, and it also means that players can't try to subvert the squishy wizard archetype by making a tough wizard. I don't really see a simple way around it, and the HP system is okay otherwise.

[noparlpf]

I have played 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition, 3.5 Edition, and 4th Edition. I happen to like all of them as well, though i wouldn't play 3rd when i can play 3.5 instead. Getting ready for the mass of yelling at this fact.

I prefer 3.5 to 3e. It fixes or polishes some of the things wrong with 3e. It still isn't excellent.
I just got the old AD&D manuals (PHB, DMG, MMII, Deities and Demigods, Unearthed Arcana; my uncle's old MMI is around here somewhere but we can't find it) and I'm going to be perusing them sometime soon. See what I think of it.

I also think the 500 deadlift thing is off. The documents say that a character's carrying capacity is "10 times your strength score" so with a strength of 18 that would mean 180 pounds.

Your unencumbered carrying capacity is 10x[Strength score].
You can push, drag, or dead lift 5x[unencumbered carrying capacity].
The average human has a Strength of 10 or 11. That means 100-110 lb carrying capacity, which is reasonable for a fit adult with well-distributed weight. My Strength is a bit above average, and I had no problem carrying a 110-lb girl piggyback for a few miles. However, a dead lift of 500 lbs is wayyy above my ability. I'm not sure what I can manage, but I only got up to around 180 the first time I did squats not long ago, and that uses a similar muscle set.

I have always wanted for magic items to be more rare and more unique. I can see a reason for having +1 stuff or +3 or whatever, but why can't magic items be more unique in flavor? Magic items ought to be more like Narsil/Anduril(i think thats the name of the reforged sword), or Sting rather than the usual +3 sword thing. Magic Items should have history to them, be less cookie cutter.

A note: For a story i was writing set in the future (But not finished, i may or may not), I was going to have the characters playing D&D. The Edition they were going to be playing? 5th Edition. Even more oddly, how i imagined things went from 3.5 to 5th seems to have happened very similiar to what happened with it so far actually. Thats really funny. my idea of 4th edition for the story was close to how 4th edition was received (it wasn't D&D and it was out of place compared to 3.5; An odd-ball edition really was how i thought it would be like), while so far the stuff i have seen for 5th seems to include some of my ideas for the story's 5th edition i was going to use. The story version was a mix of 3.5 plus 4th, taking what was best from each. What makes this so funny, is that i had wrote the first parts of this story before they (Wizards) had announced 4th edition. I did the early writing and planning in 2006-2007 since the main character was named after a manager i had in a job. How Bizarre is that?

Sting is probably a +1 Keen Goblinbane shortsword. The cookie-cutter of D&D is just players being too lazy to come up with interesting backstories for their weapons, combined with every town's MagicMart where you can just buy whatever you want.
Also, quite bizarre. Possibly the weirdest thing I've read today.

[russdm]

Sting is probably a +1 Keen Goblinbane shortsword. The cookie-cutter of D&D is just players being too lazy to come up with interesting backstories for their weapons, combined with every town's MagicMart where you can just buy whatever you want.

Thats another thing that has always bugged me. Making items, especially Magic items is expansive and XP costly; so what mage spends their time doing that? Given the costs in resources (gold/XP) how would the Magic Walmarts have so much stock? Adventuring wizards may be able to afford the xp and gold, but most wizards just hang out in towers or libraries or what not and just spend their time slowly learning how to cast spells.

Then add in the list of magic items that are considered "Unmentionables", items that almost all parties never buy or acquire if they can help it. Those items end up getting sold off to the Magic Walmart and not kept. Some items are just better than others simply and so they get picked up most. Since you can sell magic items for half price anyway, then a character can quickly afford more expansive stuff. Oh well. Thats just the craziness.

[noparlpf]

Thats another thing that has always bugged me. Making items, especially Magic items is expansive and XP costly; so what mage spends their time doing that? Given the costs in resources (gold/XP) how would the Magic Walmarts have so much stock? Adventuring wizards may be able to afford the xp and gold, but most wizards just hang out in towers or libraries or what not and just spend their time slowly learning how to cast spells.

Then add in the list of magic items that are considered "Unmentionables", items that almost all parties never buy or acquire if they can help it. Those items end up getting sold off to the Magic Walmart and not kept. Some items are just better than others simply and so they get picked up most. Since you can sell magic items for half price anyway, then a character can quickly afford more expansive stuff. Oh well. Thats just the craziness.

In campaigns I've played in, mages and crafters don't just randomly make useless stuff and burn their XP wantonly. You might go into a blacksmith's shop and find a couple of +1 swords pre-made, but generally, nontrivial magic items and weapons have to be commissioned, and you have to wait for them to be made.

[Starbuck_II]

The Pelor cleric was able to avoid the enemies enough to end up killing them and stabilizing the rest of us, but it was intense for a while before that happened.

Wait, but the Moradin Cleric had the stabilizing casntrip (death ward), how does the Pelor cleric do it?

On advantage/disadvantage: I felt that disadvantage was to easy to get, given some of the features of the dungeon, while advantage really did not have many consistent ways of being gained. I allowed flanking to grant advantage, but even that didn't help but so much. The rogue was particularly hurt, with him only rarely being able to consistently deal damage.

Aid another adds advatange.

[Thanatos 51-50]

RE: Weapon Chart Weirdness:
It's entirely possible that there's a class feature which boosts the damage die one size on a chosen weapon on some of the Martial classes/war domains and we just don't see those nuts and bolts.

[Loki_42]

Wait, but the Moradin Cleric had the stabilizing casntrip (death ward), how does the Pelor cleric do it?

Burning a use from a healer's kit auto-stabilizes.

[Seerow]

RE: Weapon Chart Weirdness:
It's entirely possible that there's a class feature which boosts the damage die one size on a chosen weapon on some of the Martial classes/war domains and we just don't see those nuts and bolts.

I thought something similar. If that's the case the sheets make more sense, the only real problem is that the Fighter gets kind of screwed on the deal. 2d6 from 1d12 is not the same upgrade as 1d8 from 1d6.

[Yora]

The greatsword sits in the list right next to two 1d12 weapons. I assume it's a typo.

[Shadow Lord]

I thought something similar. If that's the case the sheets make more sense, the only real problem is that the Fighter gets kind of screwed on the deal. 2d6 from 1d12 is not the same upgrade as 1d8 from 1d6.

Well, that's not quite true. Although, going purely by a numerical upgrade, it might appear that the difference between 1d12 and 2d6 is inferior to 1d6 to 1d8, you must also look at percentage chance for higher numbers. For any dice roll that uses only a single dice to determine the result, you have an identical chance for each result on the dice roll; on the other hand, by using two dice in a roll, you create a bell curve, and make it more likely to get higher numbers than you would otherwise be likely to get if you were to utilize a single dice.

Dice probabilities and similar can be found here: Click.

[Saph]

Well, our group's going to be running the playtest next weekend. Will post up results then.

[Seerow]

Well, that's not quite true. Although, going purely by a numerical upgrade, it might appear that the difference between 1d12 and 2d6 is inferior to 1d6 to 1d8, you must also look at percentage chance for higher numbers. For any dice roll that uses only a single dice to determine the result, you have an identical chance for each result on the dice roll; on the other hand, by using two dice in a roll, you create a bell curve, and make it more likely to get higher numbers than you would otherwise be likely to get if you were to utilize a single dice.

Dice probabilities and similar can be found here: Click.

I'm well aware of how probability curves work. However while the 2d6 does eliminate the chance for a lower roll, it also eliminates the chance for a higher roll. The d12 will get a 12 about 3x more often than the 2d6. The average value of the rolls is what you need to compare, and looking at that 2d6 is only .5 higher than 1d12, as opposed to a full point higher for the others.

A more comparable upgrade would be 1d6+1d8, or 2d8 if two different dice are unacceptable. In this I would tend to lean more towards bigger upgrades than smaller.

[Flickerdart]

Thats another thing that has always bugged me. Making items, especially Magic items is expansive and XP costly; so what mage spends their time doing that? Given the costs in resources (gold/XP) how would the Magic Walmarts have so much stock? Adventuring wizards may be able to afford the xp and gold, but most wizards just hang out in towers or libraries or what not and just spend their time slowly learning how to cast spells.

Then add in the list of magic items that are considered "Unmentionables", items that almost all parties never buy or acquire if they can help it. Those items end up getting sold off to the Magic Walmart and not kept. Some items are just better than others simply and so they get picked up most. Since you can sell magic items for half price anyway, then a character can quickly afford more expansive stuff. Oh well. Thats just the craziness.

Someone posted a theory that Githyanki craft something, anything, just to burn off XP so they don't become notable enough for the Lich Queen to notice and kill them, which is what she's stated to do.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Someone posted a theory that Githyanki craft something, anything, just to burn off XP so they don't become notable enough for the Lich Queen to notice and kill them, which is what she's stated to do.

It would explain why they all have those Silver Swords

This is, BTW, why I prefer either the AD&D or the 4e approach.

Spoiler

Show

In AD&D creating a magical item was an adventure in itself: figuring out how to capture the essence of a sigh for a love potion, or the spirit of adventure for a Cloak +1 was most of the fun. The downside is that there was no reason for low-level magic items to exist aside from postulating high-powered mages with low ambitions. But that's a tradeoff you can work with.

In 4e magic was a commodity (albeit a high-powered one) so it made sense that there would be a lot of it around. You could easily write in lost or high-powered nations that had good access to Reagents much like RL nations with strategic resources. Of course, this made magic less "special" but it worked pretty well for Players who enjoy having magic items and "upgrading."

[Scowling Dragon]

Personally I prefer items to be an adventure itself and the extra loot goes towards BLING.

If a magic item is mandatory It may as well be hardwired.

[Corvus]

Saw an amusing (and not all together untrue) description of the 5E fighter. 'So, I play a greataxe with a +2 and a dwarf attached to it.'

[EatAtEmrakuls]

Saw an amusing (and not all together untrue) description of the 5E fighter. 'So, I play a greataxe with a +2 and a dwarf attached to it.'

Seems accurate. I don't see what a fighter has over a commoner really.

So the idea for this edition is that attack bonuses and AC will stay relatively static over the course of level progression, right? And the main differentiator between levels that makes a monster outclass a PC or vice versa is HP and damage? If that's the case, are the HP and damage numbers really scaling the way they should be? I'm mostly looking at PC damage numbers and it doesn't look like they're actually scaling very much. When they hit level 3, the Fighter gets +1 damage and the Wizard gets an extra Magic Missile to toss around, but all the Rogue gets is a bump to his Sneak Attack which can't be used in every situation, and the Moradin Cleric just gets the chance to add 1d10 to his attacks a couple times a day at the expense of using his Channel Divinity to do other stuff, while the Pelor Cleric doesn't seem to get anything.

It's a little hard to tell what monsters are what level since they don't really have levels, but if you need 2000 XP to get to level 2 and 4000 more to get to level 3, I'd say it's a good bet that you need either 6000 or 8000 more to get to level 4. So if a level 1 character can take on an Orc worth 125 XP, then a level 3 character might get a similar but slightly smaller chunk of their next-level XP from an Ogre worth 350 XP. But looking at their HP, the Orc only has 11 HP while the Ogre has 88. I don't see how the meager gains in damage can make up for such a huge gain in monster HP.

Then compare the damage of those two monsters. The Ogre's attacks deal roughly twice the damage of the Orc's, and they have twice the attack bonus so they'll be hitting more often too, so it's more like 2.5 times as much damage. But the PCs have only had a 25-60% HP gain. So despite getting a smaller portion of their next-level XP out of it, the Ogre is a significantly bigger threat to a group of level 3 PCs than an Orc is to a group of level 1 PCs.

So perhaps level 3 PCs shouldn't be fighting an equal number of monsters that each give three times as much XP, maybe they should be fighting the same monsters, but three times as many of them. That doesn't seem to work either, because even though the total HP is lower, three times as many monsters will be dealing three times as much damage on average, so they're arguably an even bigger threat than the larger monsters.

Maybe the answer is to fight monsters that give SOME more XP, and fight SOME more of them? Like instead of fighting four 125 XP guys, they could fight six 250 XP guys and get three times the XP that way. The Kobold Chieftain is the only guy who actually gives 250 XP and I'm pretty sure they don't expect you to fight a group of six Chieftains, but stat-wise there's nothing leader-y about the guy so let's go with it. His attacks individually deal 1 less damage on average than the Orc, and they're slightly less likely to hit, but they get to make twice as many so it comes out to more damage, but only like 35-50% more. This comes out pretty close to the PC's HP gain over those two levels, so it's probably the more "correct" way. But the fact that I had to bust out Excel spreadsheets to figure that out probably means they could use some more DM guidelines built into the monster statblocks. And as a group, they'd still have 6 times the HP, so when you take into account how much longer they'll survive they're still doing tons more damage over an encounter.

Or maybe they just mean for some levels to take more encounters to get to? Not sure that's a very good idea.

This was interesting to me.

[DrBurr]

New Legends & Lore is up mostly reactions to playtest so far and explanations for certain things included is the reason why the damage die for the weapons are funky. Mountain Dwarves are flat out better with war hammers thus the die increased from 1d8 to 1d10 and the Hill Dwarf Fighter seems to be the same with his Great Axe 1d12 to 1d6. Likely similar reason for the Rogue

So then
Hill Dwarf is good with Great Axe (Maybe all Axes)
Mountain Dwarf is good with War Hammer (Maybe all Hammers)
Lightfoot Halfling (Maybe all Halflings) is good with Daggers (Maybe all Light Blades)

I would guess Elves probably have affinity with Longswords or Bows but theirs no evidence yet

[EatAtEmrakuls]

I remember hearing how in the old days, the biggest part of the D&D revenue stream was module sales, but that in more recent editions module sales have dropped off and it's been more about selling splatbooks. Do you think the fairly challenging encounter-building in Next is intended to spur renewed interest in modules, at least in part? The 4E officially published adventures were often criticized for just being a series of fights to run through, but since monster levels and XP budgets made encounter-building such a breeze, who needs to pay for an adventure that's little more than a series of encounters that you could have whipped up yourself with an hour on the Compendium? But if you're sitting there scratching your head trying to figure out how many of which monsters you can put into an encounter to make it be worth enough XP without being too hard while also making it interesting, and then you realize you need to do that like a dozen more times just for that level, maybe you would figure **** it, buy a module. Like they're trying to hit that sweet spot where it's not so frustrating you abandon the system over it, but it's definitely worth $15 or $20 or whatever they'll charge to not have to do it for a month.

A reaction to the prior comment.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Seems accurate. I don't see what a fighter has over a commoner really.



This was interesting to me.

And considering the module is little more than a bunch of rooms with monster counts and the advice of "Bull**** it, Bro!", we have no idea how they actually intend for encounter scaling to work.

[Totally Guy]

I'm not happy about the way the GM cannot use a hazard unless the player fails by at least 10. In most cases the player can just try again.

This means that the task resolution system fails to resolve a task about half the time you use it.

It talks about the task taking more time through multiple rolls but if I was designing it I'd specify "running out of time" as a hazard. That way when the players fail and I describe them running out of time it was by the mechanics and not by fiat. And the task would be resolved, either way.

[Starbuck_II]

Seems accurate. I don't see what a fighter has over a commoner really.

Proficiency (armor/weapons), hp (1d12), and weapon Focus.

Commoners have always had d4 in every edition, few proficiency (though 3rd was first to say one), and no armor.

[Doorhandle]

Of course the problem with that is now 'dodging' a dagger is somehow much less taxing to your HP than 'dodging' a great axe

Well, one's a bit more easy to dodge than the other, isn't it?

[Grac]

A few thoughts.

What I've seen is a pretty cute little game in itself, but kinda what you'd expect from a first draft. What I can say off the bat is that I dislike how many spells and how many hit points characters have at low levels. The problem is the lack of character creation options.

If we had, say, four classes up to and including level 4, four races, and a theme and a background option for each race/class combo, and the rules for putting it all together, then we would be able to see what the design intentions are in a meaningful way, see where what they've cooked up accords with that, and where it doesn't, and see, with those few options, what kind of things come out as broken.

Another thing that bothers me is the mundane characters. I can't really see much point having the fighter and thief... er, 'rogue' be separate. To give a fighter out of combat utility is to start treading on the rogue's toes, and since the wizard and cleric classes are such big tents, why not have the mundane class be similarly 'big tent'ish?

[Anecronwashere]

The playtest is basically to see if the game "feels" right
We will probably get chargen and a bigger list later.

Cleric is Healer or Holy man
Fighter is Soldier or Merc
Rogue is Thief or Swashbuckler
Wizard is Nerd or Merlin
why would we take the Merc and the Swashbuckler and put them together?

And we can have out-of-combat utility for both, it just means coming up with distinct features to give both of them.