Most Over/Underrated Class?

[Wizard_Lizard]

most overrated is ranger. Speciically in tht lot of new players really like it's flavour and then realide it... underperforms...
most underrated is bard. Seriously. Even if you love bard it is h best class. In everyway
Class I love evnthough it suks.... hmmmm.... probably warlock. I loe warlock. Soe say it sucks, I can agreesometimes, other times I jus- ELDRITCH BLAST!!!!

[MrStabby]

Ah these are always fun. I wonder if anyone has done a study to see how opinion drifts in the years following release. Focusing my answers one levels 4 to 10:

So most underrated...

Monk.

I have had someone want to play a monk type character but to mechanically be a fighter because of power. As a DM I thought this was hilarious. As I know I have said a few times, I think monks are underrated as the players dont see what would have happened if the monk hadn't stunned someone. If you counterspell a fireball you know you stopped a fireball. If you cast shield to block attacks then you know how many attacks missed you. If you stun someone you don't see the reverse gravity that they didn't cast. The ability to chew through legendary saves is also impressive - but the monk players don't feel responsible for that hold monster working once their saves have gone.

I also think that players underestimate mobility and tend to look at the things that are easier to quantify like damage. Being able to close with enemies a turn earlier, being able to take more attack actions in combat due to higher initiative and greater speed actually put monk damage dealt on par with other martial classes. Being better able to pick your targets than other classes means that your attacks have more impact.

I would rate the monk as second only to paladin for the martial classes and possibly best in a game without feats.



Most overrated:

Druid.

Druids have a lot of good spells and some decent abilities but in practice I think they have some problems. Too much of their power comes from concentration spells - once you are concentrating on something what do you do then? Furthermore it feels like resilient (constitution) is almost mandatory for them with the modest AC, no natural con proficiency and such reliance on concentration spells. If your game doesn't use feats then I think this can be an issue. Some of the "best" druid spells don't scale that well to higher levels where they seem to be emulating a wizard in capability, just less well. Efficient spells for binding foes in place like entangle or plant growth don't do so well when you have flying enemies. They also suffer from a lot of their spells targeting strong saves - if you want to hold an enemy in place then this is best when they don't have good ranged attacks, which is probably those enemies who have strength as an attack stat. Not a bad class, just to my eyes not as powerful as people think.


And for the hate? Well this can be for different reasons for different classes and there is a different list for myself and for others...

Classes I would never play:

Fighter.

Level 1, hit stuff with a sword
Level 5, hit stuff with a sword more
Level 10, hit stuff with a magic sword

Fighter just feels like it stagnates.


Classes I don't like others playing...

Wizard - pretty much a recipe for stepping on the toes of other characters. The spell list is so broad that you can be pretty much a specialist in anything you want. At least one player at the table is likely to find that the wizard has taken a spell that matches their specialism.

Bard - I want to play my character. I don't want others at the table saying "I do X Y Z to inspire them". No. I will decide what, if anything inspires my characters. Added to this bards are the class I have found that is most likely to want to polymorph me into something. I didn't build a character to not play it. Go away. Most ergegiously I find bards are the most likely to cause problems by actively stopping other classes using their abilities - your fighter in the party with pole arm mastery, sentinel and who has just picked up great weapon mastery is really excited to be smashing up the local warriors guild... until the bard decides that the fighter shouldnt get to use any of their abilities because the bard wants to use diplomacy to avoid the encounter the fighter has been looking forward to for weeks.

[diplomancer]

Most ergegiously I find bards are the most likely to cause problems by actively stopping other classes using their abilities - your fighter in the party with pole arm mastery, sentinel and who has just picked up great weapon mastery is really excited to be smashing up the local warriors guild... until the bard decides that the fighter shouldnt get to use any of their abilities because the bard wants to use diplomacy to avoid the encounter the fighter has been looking forward to for weeks.

Well, the Bard could easily argue that he has built HIS character to use diplomacy, and that the fighter insisting on smashing his enemies instead is preventing HIM to deal with obstacles his preferred way. And unless the Bard actively prevents the Fighter from smashing his enemies by casting spells on him (and then we have bigger PvP problems), the Bard trying to use diplomacy does not prevent the Fighter from smashing his enemies (while the same does not work in reverse, unless you are talking about Gunboat Diplomacy).

Edit: Just the sort of argument one might expect from someone whose user's name is diplomancer, I know. I see the irony.

[MrStabby]

Well, the Bard could easily argue that he has built HIS character to use diplomacy, and that the fighter insisting on smashing his enemies instead is preventing HIM to deal with obstacles his preferred way. And unless the Bard actively prevents the Fighter from starting to smash his enemies by casting spells on him (and then we have bigger PvP problems), the bard trying to use diplomacy does not prevent the Fighter from smashing his enemies (while the same does not work in reverse, unless you are talking about Gunboat Diplomacy).

Yeah, to be fair the issue isn't about a single character but about the party as a whole - just with the fighter as an example. Does the party want to go and kick some ass or sit about whilst the bard talks?

I would also suggest that from the bard standpoint they may be good at talking, may have somewhat invested in it but they can do a lot more besides talking. A fighter can fight but they have a lot less flexibility outside their one thing than the bard does outside of talking.

[diplomancer]

Yeah, to be fair the issue isn't about a single character but about the party as a whole - just with the fighter as an example. Does the party want to go and kick some ass or sit about whilst the bard talks?

I would also suggest that from the bard standpoint they may be good at talking, may have somewhat invested in it but they can do a lot more besides talking. A fighter can fight but they have a lot less flexibility outside their one thing than the bard does outside of talking.

I feel this is more of a player problem than a class problem, and can be easily circumvented either by the party or by the DM if it's creating issues at the table. All it requires to stop talk-talk and start war-war is "I swing my glaive at their leader".

I admit it's a bigger problem if the party is always trying to be stealthy and the Bard insists on negotiating, losing surprise (though that can as easily happen with a Paladin insisting that "it is not honorable to start an ambush", or a Cleric insisting that the tenets of his faith require him to not strike first, or even a Fighter refusing to "fight dirty", i.e, it's a player problem, not a class one).

[MrStabby]

I feel this is more of a player problem than a class problem, and can be easily circumvented either by the party or by the DM if it's creating issues at the table. All it requires to stop talk-talk and start war-war is "I swing my glaive at their leader". I admit it's a bigger problem if the party is always trying to be stealthy and the Bard insists on negotiating, losing surprise (though that can as easily happen with a Paladin insisting that "it is not honorable to start an ambush", or a Cleric insisting that the tenets of his faith require him to not strike first, or even a Fighter refusing to "fight dirty", i.e, it's a player problem, not a class one).

I am not saying that the player isn't part of it. It is just a problem behaviour that I see more often in bards than other classes.

[TheUser]

Of course you don't; it's one that disagrees with your assertion.

Nope! X has remained constant, it's just that the divine credit card floating some extra HP has gone away.

The reason I don't like the credit card analogy is because increasing Max HP with a spell is nothing like a credit card. There's no interest, no monthly payments, and credit card purchases are treated differently than regular purchases. Credit doesn't function the same as money; you can't do a charge-back on a debit card (real money) but you can on a credit card for instance.

Moreover, max HP isn't this resource that you spend the way you would money. It's an overall bad analogy for lots of reasons, which is probably why I don't think it holds up.

If you wanted to use the "temporary max hp = borrowed money" analogy then I'd say you could equate Max HP to "assets" and spells are an interest free loan to expand your assets, the loan must be repaid by a certain time.

You've got your preexisting assets (X) and you use a loan to purchase more assets (Y) which increase your total assets at the time. Your asset value is no longer X, but now it's X+Y for 8 hours. If you have a feature that says your "total assets cannot be reduced" then guess what happens? Even if the loan comes due and you default on the loan...they cannot reposess those assets because there's this funny little clause that prevents that.
Your credit with that loan agency is definitely shot, so you can't do the same loan twice but ehh who cares?

Yes, as its 6th level feature. You've espoused the Necromancer 6th level feature benefits, each have their uses and DM-imposed limitations, like the fact that weight does not do damage by RAW. I'm comparing 10th level features only in whether or not Inured to Undeath reaches par.

Nope! It's sitting at about a 7/10, while an Illusionist is at about a 10/10, so it does feel behind par. Which is why, despite the interpretation you're espousing being clearly against designer intent and common sense (see further: no posters chiming in with assenting opinions to yours), I might allow it anyways. It's a unique take on it, and brings it in line with other Wizard variants. If it's not intended and against the spirit of the rules, but does make the game more fun for everyone, why not try it out?

Well if the level 6 feature is so strong that you think there will be DM-imposed limitations....
Like what are you really saying here? That the class, when left to be used as it is designed (we have no quibbles about the design intent here right? Like using a boosted animate dead spell to create stat boosted undead is the design intent) is so strong that a DM must step in to gate their power...
Doesn't sound like a 7/10 to me....it sounds like an 11/10 that the DM must step in to make a 10/10.

Btw, you don't have to kill a creature with the crushing damage of the granite cube; if a medium creature is pinned under 21,000lbs of rock they can just be forced to suffocate to death.

Also the DMG has examples like 1d6 for a falling rock, 1d10 for a bookcase or 4d10 for a collapsing roof...
Giants throw Rocks for 4d12+9 damage.
I mean I certainly could go out of my way to do some math...
At 29 strength and Huge size that's a maximum carry capacity of 1740lbs....so I mean it's essentially the Granite Rock we're throwing is over 10x the weight of the one the Storm Giant's maximum carrying capacty. A low-ball number of 40d12+90 damage....?

Most DM's would look at what the impact of a 70mph pitch + 21,000 lbs of rock and assume it's just dead unless it's a BBEG.

[Warlush]

Overrated: Any overly optimized character (Sorcadin, Sorlock/Coffeelock, Padlock, Bear Totem Moon Druid, etc.). As much as I have many issues with 5e, this edition is so balanced, building a character like this for reasons beyond roleplaying is so dull. If you're new to 5e, give one of em a good run and get it out of your system. Beyond that, there's plenty of ability in just about any other build.

Underrated: Undying Warlock. So much that I wrote a guide in defense of it here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post23535972 I'm still peeved that Nerdarchy made a video about an entire party of Warlocks and still openly crapped on and left out the Undying.

Irrational Love: Any necromancy/dark themed class/subclass. Sorry, I have to channel my inner goth somehow.

Irrational Hate: Paladins. I didn't mind them until I played with a tyrannically Lawful Good Paladin player who insisted on immediatley killing any undead I created even when I tried to be as accommodating as possible (won't clog the board, will destroy after mission accomplished, etc.). From now on, I dread anyone in my group playing a Paladin when I plan on playing a necromancer, which is more often than not.

Yes, Yes, yes, annnnd yes. As a DM I very rarely allow multiclassing at my table anymore.

Not because sorcadins, sorlocks, and rage bears are too powerful, but because they are so focused on combat (and only one aspect of combat) that the player hasn't given any though to backstory, role play, narrative etc. You know the parts that make it different from playing a video game.

I'm perfectly content to let everyone think that Undying warlocks suck. Yep everyone they suck. Don't play them. That way when I play one very effectively in combat, social interaction, and exploration, all the smite donkeys can just be green with envy.

I love dark anti-hero PCs. Yeah even at my table when I DM. It's called playing for your audience. You might be the DM, but It's the player's game. Not every adventure has to be GOOD vs EVIL

So obviously yeah I hate over the top do gooders. And I think lots of Dawn Forge cast fans play do gooder Paladins. But I've also seen a lot of people play edgier less stereotypical versions. So I can't hate too much.

[JNAProductions]

You mean the Useless High Tier spell thats duration is a measured in seconds because nobody lets you use Divine Metamagic? Its a perfectly themed Evil Spell. One Vampire uses it to drain a large number of low level NPCs and then trash the party.

The game isn't broken if you can fix it!

[Petrocorus]

Draining more Life then there to drain is a violation of the Conservation of Mass and Energy.
That chicken aint a Blood Fountain. Youve violated reality! Just thinking about that makes me laugh some more.

Come on, this is D&D!

Everything you do breaks the Conservation of Mass and Energy, the Law of Entropy, the Laws of Motion and/or probably some other stuffs.
The 50 kg Druid that wildshape into a 50 g spider and then a 500 kg bear, the Warlock shooting eldritch blast, etc.
Even pure martial at some point, the level 11 fighter that make 7 power attacks in a turn for 150+ damages is not that much less reality-breaking than a fireball.
Not to mention that half of the PC races should not work as they do by scientific laws..

[Jophiel]

I feel this is more of a player problem than a class problem, and can be easily circumvented either by the party or by the DM if it's creating issues at the table. All it requires to stop talk-talk and start war-war is "I swing my glaive at their leader".

I'd almost argue it's a DM problem. If some people want to chat their way out of problems and some want to smash their way out, then have some encounters that can be solved socially and some encounters with beasts/abominations/etc where chatter isn't a viable option.

[MaxWilson]

"Bag of chickens" is the strategy now? Chickens arent even in every setting, and if you go around killing them all to Heal Up there wont be any more. You know you totally Heal on Long Rests anyway? You would be murdering chickens using Level 1-9 spells and gaining 1 HP per chicken(nobody should allow Healing for more HP than the "donor" has).

You gain 9 HP per chicken from Grim Harvest, or 15 HP if you use Vampiric Touch V instead of III. Technically you don't have to kill them with Vampiric Touch at all to heal, but it's necromancy so you get extra HP per chicken that you wouldn't get from e.g. Flaming Sphere.

If killing ten chickens were enough to wipe out the chicken species, they would already be gone. You know broiler chickens grow to maturity in only eight weeks? (Sexual maturity in five to six months, but you're not planning on breeding them so you don't need sexually mature birds.) Killing birds for healing is not going to break the ecology--and having a necromancer with a small flock of chickens is quite amusing if you play up the eccentricity. The DM may threaten your chickens sometimes and send them squawking in all directions, but eh, they're cheap and you can always buy more. And you can use dead chickens for all kinds of things after you drain the life out of them, not the least of which is eating them. Yummmm.

[Willie the Duck]

Honestly, I think it is about time for an olive branch or two.

Sigh, remember when this was talking about classes instead of spells.

The Fighter is surprisingly good as a class. Of course its overshadowed in Skills and Magic, but its actually good at combat because 5e is so radically different.

The Samurai is quite good. Fighting Spirit is just great for single or Multiclassing. Bonus Wisdom Saving Throw is great.

Totem Barbarian is great as a tank because its resistant against almost everything.

Look, declaring yourself the facts and numbers guy and literally typing 'Sigh' into your posts isn't endearing you to people, but you do have something of a point here that I think plenty of people can agree with, at least conditionally. A lot of what people have been discussing does fall into the 'exploit' category* and/or stuff that is more pertinent in online discussions than many game tables because they are going to be gated by DM allowance or fellow player buy-in.
*although that is an inherently subjective category, so mileage will vary

However, in what way does that disqualify any of this as relevant to the thread at hand? The topic is the various classes and peoples' perception thereof. That can include how things look in the rules, or as they tend to hit actual play tables, or any other configuration imaginable. Thus these classes, the spells they have, and how they might (or might not) get put to use are germane to the topic at hand. It seems like you think people are doing something vaguely wrong in what they are discussing or how, but it's not clear why.

As to fighters, yes. They tend to do very well in play at tables where the DM has a good handle on encounter and rest frequency, and where their fortes (or universal abilities) tend to be able to resolve situations (rather than skills or spells). A Samurai is a great example of a well-built fighter archetype. As to Totem Barbarian, it depends on what kind of tank people are looking for (if defending the backline is the primary purpose, then 'stickiness' is a higher priority than resistance).

[Chaosticket]

No class is really bad, but its whether it has a strategy requires the GM to follow your script. In 5e the MONK is quite good. Okay, but what happens when Stunning Strike doesnt work?

What I am seeing most people base their "Underrated" characters on, that point in the Golden Zone where they arent being countered by anything. I try to make sure that when I mention a character I point out the Flaws and not just the strengths.

Every character class has flaws, but not all flaws are the same quality.

Bear Totem Barbarian works in most situations so even if you arent a Tank you still basically have double hit points. The Bearbarian is both very tough and very strong.

Worried about "stickiness"? Anyone can use the Sentinel Feat to lock enemies down.
Oh the enemy tries to Disengage? Sentinel also prevents that.
Reach Weapons make it even more likely to occur.
Oh and you can Grapple too.
a Barbarian with a Heavy Reach Weapon is very "sticky".

So instead of looking for a specific situation, youve forced the enemy into into a narrow field of options. You control the battlefield.

I look at EVERY class people have mentioned and Ive examined them, even looking at guides, handbooks, and talking with other Players. They arent over or underrated. Theyre rated fairly based on their Strengths and Flaws .

Im tired of being fair. Someone else be the Devil's Advocate on this.

[MaxWilson]

No class is really bad, but its whether it has a strategy requires the GM to follow your script. In 5e the MONK is quite good. Okay, but what happens when Stunning Strike doesnt work?

What I am seeing most people base their "Underrated" characters on, that point in the Golden Zone where they arent being countered by anything. I try to make sure that when I mention a character I point out the Flaws and not just the strengths.

Every character class has flaws, but not all flaws are the same quality.

Bear Totem Barbarian works in most situations so even if you arent a Tank you still basically have double hit points. The Bearbarian is both very tough and very strong.

What happens if the DM doesn't follow your Bear Totem script and sends you up against psychic damage (Star Spawn, Githyanki, Dust Hags, etc.) or mobs of weak creatures?

(Edit: also, creatures with fear or paralysis who make you lose Rage by not attacking for a round.)

Every PC has weaknesses. The trick is making one who's as good as possible at the things you're likely to see under this particular DM, where "good" doesn't necessarily = "maximal effectiveness" but does = "enjoyable for you."

Worried about "stickiness"? Anyone can use the Sentinel Feat to lock enemies down.
Oh the enemy tries to Disengage? Sentinel also prevents that.
Reach Weapons make it even more likely to occur.
Oh and you can Grapple too.
a Barbarian with a Heavy Reach Weapon is very "sticky".

So instead of looking for a specific situation, youve forced the enemy into into a narrow field of options. You control the battlefield.

You still only work in specific situations: small numbers of melee attackers. None of that works against mobs or ranged attackers or spellcasters. (Fortunately for you, the MM is predominantly melee brutes so there's a good chance the DM will be following your script.)

[JNAProductions]

What happens if the DM doesn't follow your Bear Totem script and sends you up against psychic damage (Star Spawn, Githyanki, Dust Hags, etc.) or mobs of weak creatures?

Every PC has weaknesses. The trick is making one who's as good as possible at the things you're likely to see under this particular DM, where "good" doesn't necessarily = "maximal effectiveness" but does = "enjoyable for you."

None of that works against mobs.

Or ranged attackers-least until you close with them, which may not always be possible.

And what about... MOBS OF RANGED ATTACKERS! :P

[HiveStriker]

Overrated: Warlocks. And by this I mean single class Warlocks. Don't get me wrong, the Invocations are a lot of fun, and Eldritch Blast is a fantastic cantrip, but too much of your capability depends on how each individual DM incorporates short rests into the play sessions. Then there's the "feast and famine" aspect of the class. The first two levels of Warlock are responsible for 90% of the popularity of this class. After that though, you are in for a long, painful ride.

Underrated: Monks. I hear and read a lot about how Monks are weak. I'm guessing these people played them for a few levels and quit. Monks start off slow, but they get something cool nearly every level. Players that are smart enough to boost a Monk's Wisdom as high as possible will find Stunning Strike to be a game changer. And then there's Long Death Monks. I have a Level 13 Long Death Monk. He's more unkillable than my level 20 Battlemaster.

Irrational Hatred: Hexblade Dips. I was once in a high level [16-20] game at a convention where there were four "Warlocks" out of six characters in the party. Not one of them had more than three levels in Warlock. They were just "dipping" to boost the power of their Sorlocks and Hexadins. When I asked if any of them had considered going single-class Warlock all the way to 20, they just laughed.

Irrational Love: Barbarians. Why do I, someone who always used to play "skill monkeys" in most RPGs, keep making and playing new Barbarians? A class that usually dumps the stats I like the most? I think it's because, without being able to magic or expertise your way through everything, you are forced to be clever in your roleplay. I like upending other players expectations for the class.

On Warlocks, I'd say the short rest problem (or its absence) does not rest solely on DM's shoulders. Why wouldn't party take the matters in its own hand? DM sometimes has a say on how party acts because of how the world evolves, but he is not supposed to decide in their place.
So it's first a player/party problem imo, unless DM has overly restrictive view on how you can spend time that would qualify as a short rest.

I strongly disagree too with the " After that though, you are in for a long, painful ride." Yeah, having only two slots requiring short rest to recharge is annoying from times to times, but overall it's perfectly fine unless you built your Warlock all around direct fighting *yet* expected to play like a regular fullcaster.
As for people who would laugh at the idea of single-classing Warlock, too bad for them, they are missing heaps of fun and are completely underrating its efficiency (I find extremely funny that people who usually shunt Warlock because of small number of spells per short rest in first half of leveling wouldn't enjoy trying the half where you get many more of them).

Animate Dead isn't very useful when you're not a necromancer what with skeletons having only 13 hp and dealing only 1d6 +2 damage. A sixth level necromancer gets an extra skeleton animated per cast, +6 maximum hp for each (~46% more) and +3 damage (55% more). By level 9 they have 22 HP and deal 1d6 + 6 damage (~70% more hp and damage). If animate dead were expressed as a function of hp times damage then the necromancer gets 9x the effective value out of animate dead at level 6 or more specifically, ~3x the hp and damage of the normal spell.

So yes, it's a bad spell.... for everybody else.

It's a level 3 spell slot that gets stronger and stronger the higher level you are when you use it, even when it's still a level 3 spell slot. It's so incredibly useful it hurts. They can even be used for non-damage for combat; barring doors, digging trenches, the help action, grappling other weakling wizards.

Inured to Undeath says your hit point maximum can't be reduced. That does, indeed, mean your hit point maximum can't be reduced.

This sounds like an interpretation from the Game's lead designer that declares, as an absolute -in the complete absence of any necrotic damage OR constitution drain- that your maximum hit points cannot be reduced.

It's not a "broken interpretation of words" it's a regular interpretation of words on an absurdly broken rule. If you have something that can never be reduced, it literally cannot ever be brought lower.
If it's 100 now and I cast the Aid spell for +20 maximum hitpoints, even after the spell has expired, you can't reduce that number. It's 120 while Inured to Undead remains a feature the necromancer has access to (you can't stack the aid spell because the spell's "effect" is still in play and thus can only be overwritten by a stronger effect).

This also includes taking a higher number and replacing it with a lower number. There's no "broken interpretation" it's what the words mean....

On lvl 6 feature, I love how you contradict yourself from one sentence to another.
So the spell is bad for non-Necromancer... Yet this is a great spell for terraforming / guarding / in general helping?
Care to explain what sensible difference HP boosts makes in digging trenches? Bonus roll on damage for grapples?

The sad truth is that it's still a gimmick overall. Because a big group of Zombies will be very easily dispatched with a Fireball until you're level 14 or so, or made useless with as little as a Plant Growth. Because Skeletons archers can be disabled with a simple Sleet Storm or Wind Wall.
Because all these creatures would require a hefty amount of resources to make them a group you can travel along with a minimum of discretion and without provoking hostile reactions from most normal people.
Because all of these creatures have non-scaling accuracy that makes it so that the higher number you can cast as you level up simply compensates the progressive loss of overall efficiency when facing increasing AC and HP of enemies.

It's a great tool in situations where you can set ambushes. It's a nice way to set terror on villages or ease into some challenges. But I don't see how it is that game-changing when you see the crazy things Wizards can do with level 6 and beyond spells.

As for the lvl 10 feature...
You can try all you want to distort meaning, the fact remains that Aid is a spell that *temporarily increases* maximum HP. Not a two-time effect "I increase then I try to reduce".
It would require a very, very lenient DM to houserule that Aid's HP increase doesn't disappear when duration ends.

Although, in practice, it wouldn't break anything, because if you want to stay coherent, it means, since the spell's effect "last for the duration", that it never ends because the Wizard features prevents it from ending. And since any given creature can only benefit from the same effect once, the maximum you can get is 45 HP when you are 17th level.

Ah these are always fun. I wonder if anyone has done a study to see how opinion drifts in the years following release. Focusing my answers one levels 4 to 10:

So most underrated...

Monk.

I also think that players underestimate mobility and tend to look at the things that are easier to quantify like damage. Being able to close with enemies a turn earlier, being able to take more attack actions in combat due to higher initiative and greater speed actually put monk damage dealt on par with other martial classes. Being better able to pick your targets than other classes means that your attacks have more impact.

I would rate the monk as second only to paladin for the martial classes and possibly best in a game without feats.



Most overrated:

Druid.

Druids have a lot of good spells and some decent abilities but in practice I think they have some problems. Too much of their power comes from concentration spells - once you are concentrating on something what do you do then? Furthermore it feels like resilient (constitution) is almost mandatory for them with the modest AC, no natural con proficiency and such reliance on concentration spells. If your game doesn't use feats then I think this can be an issue. Some of the "best" druid spells don't scale that well to higher levels where they seem to be emulating a wizard in capability, just less well. Efficient spells for binding foes in place like entangle or plant growth don't do so well when you have flying enemies. They also suffer from a lot of their spells targeting strong saves - if you want to hold an enemy in place then this is best when they don't have good ranged attacks, which is probably those enemies who have strength as an attack stat. Not a bad class, just to my eyes not as powerful as people think.

I agree so much with the bolded part it nearly hurts. XD

As for Druid problems.
1) Too many concentration spells: yeah, you are right, Moon Druid or not, you'll tend to cast one or two spells average in any encounter, and you may feel somewhat limited in comparison to others like Cleric or Wizards mainly because most your cantrips have a very limited range. In practice though, I don't think it's that much of a problem.
- A spell like Conjure Animals really takes concentration, as in real-life concentration, to make the most of it, unless you're really a mastermind: so having only limited field of action on your mundane turns lets your mind free to concentrate on how to macro or micro-manage all your conjurations.
- Spells like Moonbeam or Flaming Sphere also require a decent amount of focus on what happens, to decide where to put it for max efficiency.
Besides, Thorns Whip, also not great damage, also brings indirect value when you can use it to displace enemy positions.

Furthermore, each archetype brings a different way to reduce that: Land gives extra slots and the ability to pick some spells (including non-concentration ones) that are easier to work with, notably damaging spells. Moon gives you a decentish melee attack and later an actual strong and versatile form with Elementals. Shepherd gives you yet another movable effect.

2) Resilient Constitution helps a lot indeed. I'm not sure it should be seen as "mandatory" though. After all, Druid has nothing besides Shillelagh to support any melee attack, so he should spend as much time as possible in the backlines. Main threat will be ranged, for which some countermeasures can be taken (prone + Mold Earth cover as a classic), and ambushers for which Perception with high WIS will help. Worst case, Druid can use Wild Shape to take safety inside another pal's armor, or inside ground (burrowing), up a tree or ceiling (climbing / sticky), later flying inside clouds, or even more audacious things like on the back of that enemy that reached you (making it very hard for him to strike you, at least if he's humanoid).
Much like a (low-level) Monk, Druid has to stay on toes at everytime and make intense calculations to decide where best to move and stand round after round. In that, it's probably one of the hardest classes to play. Once you get it, it's fine. :)

So, yeah, AC is among the worst of all classes unless you get a workaround (like a racial unarmored, or decent starting WIS and Mage Armor from friend/scrolls/multiclass/feat), and there is no reason why you wouldn't get Resilient: Constitution if feats are allowed. But same could be said for Cleric (which has heavy armor, but also wants to stick into melee with Spirit Guardians), Valor/Swords Bards (well, melee ones at least ^^) and Warlocks (which have overall the same AC except Hexblades).

3) The best Druid spells (imo) actually scale extremely well, just not directly. Pick one of my all favorites, Plant Growth: it's a concentration-free, no-save-required slow on a massive scale. When enemies get speeds in the likes of 50 speed per turn and/or dangerously high multi-attack, it's a great tool to level the field.
Tidal Wave is a mid-level spell that prone creatures, giving advantage to melee allies: with any martial, especially Rogues/Fighters/Paladins, it scales because their damage scales and you spared them attempts at proning with Shove (provided it was possible in the first place). Spells like Ice Storm and Erupting Earth can also give them a breather.

In fact imo, the main difficulty of Druid on control aspect is to know which spell to use, and manage to use it without bothering your allies, especially melee ones. Because difficult terrain affects everyone equally.
Also, if you don't care about control part, then the raw damage you can dish out will feel indeed disappointing compared to a Sorcerer or Wizard unless you grab some great spells from other way.

4) I don't get why you would say that "many spells target strong saves". Yeah, a good amount of them target DEX and WIS saves, but you also have STR/CON spells for those strong in DEX, and WIS saves are not that high among creatures for a large part of the game. Of course you can't beat INT spells (for now at least) but it's not like you're bound to fail either. ^^
Conversely, half of all the offensive spells most used by players (or rather, quoted around here as great spells) target WIS. Must say something right? :)
Plus a good handful of them have interesting effects without any save involved, so there is that too. :)
AND Conjure Fey is to my knowledge the only (DM-dependant) way to invest a spell to get several in return. There is that also. :)

[MaxWilson]

Or ranged attackers-least until you close with them, which may not always be possible.

And what about... MOBS OF RANGED ATTACKERS! :P

Yeah, people like to talk about Fireballing kobolds but even Kobolds actually have decent ranged attacks. They don't have to assume Fireball formation. They just need a steady flow of just enough kobolds Dashing forward each round to grant the rest advantage on their ranged attacks.

29 kobolds is theoretically an Easy encounter for 4 7th level PCs on paper but it could potentially be a TPK in the right terrain if the kobolds spread out and adopt this tactic, and if the players don't know how to counter it. As a DM it's pretty easy to imagine a setup where a given Fireball only wipes out about 1/3 of the kobolds, and then next round the Fireball caster takes 18 sling attacks at advantage, which will probably kill a single-classed wizard.

Edit: BTW I'm not actually advocating that you do this very often. I don't actually plan adventures around DMG ratings. I'm just noting that the DMG formula radically underestimates the difficulty of this hypothetical encounter. If I have a clan of 100 kobolds in an adventure, those kobolds will be a major part of that adventure and there will probably be ways to avoid fighting them if the players are canny, because they really are quite a big deal.

[Fable Wright]

Well if the level 6 feature is so strong that you think there will be DM-imposed limitations....
Like what are you really saying here? That the class, when left to be used as it is designed (we have no quibbles about the design intent here right? Like using a boosted animate dead spell to create stat boosted undead is the design intent) is so strong that a DM must step in to gate their power...
Doesn't sound like a 7/10 to me....it sounds like an 11/10 that the DM must step in to make a 10/10.

It's both extremely powerful and completely worthless. "Well, that thing is immune to nonmagic attacks. Skeleton army, go home."

There's many times in e.g. corridors that you just can't use your undead army.

There's times when you're in an open field and you can mow down dragons dumb enough to come in range.

If they die to a stray AoE, the necromancer needs days to get back to fighting strength and a new supply of bodies.

And there's the softban of "yeah, I don't want to deal with 32 undead gumming up play, even if they aren't hitting hard."

No one ever looked at Necromancer and thought that their level 6 feature was weak, just one dimensional and thus easily negated. And that their 2nd and 10th level features didn't carry the weight the class needed.

On the whole, 7/10 in my eyes and those of many others. If you disagree, great! I'm glad there's people who appreciate it and do cool things with it within (extremely loose interpretations of) RAW. But this isn't a contest, it's a place to discuss what we like and why we like it, and delving into a Change My Mind thread is off topic and takes away from that.

[Chaosticket]

What happens if the DM doesn't follow your Bear Totem script and sends you up against psychic damage (Star Spawn, Githyanki, Dust Hags, etc.) or mobs of weak creatures?

Every PC has weaknesses. The trick is making one who's as good as possible at the things you're likely to see under this particular DM, where "good" doesn't necessarily = "maximal effectiveness" but does = "enjoyable for you."



You still only work in specific situations: small numbers of melee attackers. None of that works against mobs or ranged attackers or spellcasters. (Fortunately for you, the MM is predominantly melee brutes so there's a good chance the DM will be following your script.)

an "Achille's Heel" is specific weak point such non-resistance against 5% damage. As opposed to "Achille's Everything but the Heel" that people favor, called "Crippling Overspecialization" as a trope.

Single target focus is what every martial character in 5e is made for because Reaction and Bonus actions are capped at 1 per turn. There is no "Whirlwind" attack, through Green-Flame Blade cantrip hits 2 targets. Make a Hexblade Bladepact Warlock or Paladin/Warlock then.

And you didnt provide a solution to controlling groups. Even with spells that is trouble. Fireball is fairly good against weak enemies, but really nobody is good against groups. If you run into a horde then RUN.

So youre kind of missing the point of high probability of failure as opposed to a rare instances. Bearbarian is bad? Okay so is every other melee character, so you just said you dont like melee characters not specifically the Beabarian.

The ideal group something like a Bearbarian, a Lore Bard, and a Wizard. Boring, but very effective to cover combat, crowd control, skills, and just utility. Its the new "Holy Trinity" of Dungeons and Dragons.

[JNAProductions]

Chaos, have you even played much 5E? I remember you hating on it a while back, but I don't recall you ever saying you played it more than a handful a times.

[MaxWilson]

It's both extremely powerful and completely worthless. "Well, that thing is immune to nonmagic attacks. Skeleton army, go home."

There's many times in e.g. corridors that you just can't use your undead army.

No problem. If the corridors are narrow, you can use skeletons or zombies as tanks while the PCs fire off ranged attacks from behind them. Sure, you're only using a few members of your army at a time, but it's hard to claim that you're not getting value out of your undead army when they're acting as your front line.

Even if a thing is immune to nonmagical attacks (rare in 5E), there's a good chance you can have your skeletons throw nets or drop caltrops/ball bearings to hamper it, or grapple/prone it, or Help PCs attack, or swing torches for 1 HP of fire damage each. Against a ranged-capable monster that's immune to nonmagical weapons that won't work, but how many of those are there besides Tiamat and some of the demon lords? That's pretty niche and by the time you work your way up to those you should have better minions than skeletons with nonmagical bows. (And you may very well have equipped your skeletons with Uncommon magical bows by that point anyway, depending on how your DM runs magic item creation.)

There's times when you're in an open field and you can mow down dragons dumb enough to come in range.

If they die to a stray AoE, the necromancer needs days to get back to fighting strength and a new supply of bodies.

Er, most necromancers IME don't even bother raising their maximum complement of undead unless they're on a serious war footing, so they've usually got plenty of spell slots left for raising replacements.

And there's the softban of "yeah, I don't want to deal with 32 undead gumming up play, even if they aren't hitting hard."

Yeah, that's a thing. And even if the DM doesn't ban it, and the player runs the monsters quickly so they don't gum up play, and the other players don't object to the necromancer... there's still a good chance the necromancer player will get bored of large armies and willingly reduce the footprint, especially if they're not currently fighting things that require that kind of firepower.

No one ever looked at Necromancer and thought that their level 6 feature was weak, just one dimensional and thus easily negated. And that their 2nd and 10th level features didn't carry the weight the class needed.

It's also worth noting that a non-Necromancer can get approximately the same mileage out of Animate Dead as a Necromancer can, simply by spending twice the spell slots. Necros get something like double damage and double HP, and they get slightly more undead out of each casting of Animate Dead, but a Necromancer who only bothers raising 8 Skeletons (one 5th level spell, save the rest of your spell slots) for a typical adventure could almost just be an Enchanter raising 16 Skeletons (2 5th level spell slots) and still getting to play with Enchanter toys. (Also, if you have a source of temp HP in the party like a Shepherd Druid, the Necromancer's relative advantage is lessened even further.)

But it's still pretty cool to get double mileage out of what is arguably the game's best long-duration, no-concentration action economy multiplier spell.

On the whole, 7/10 in my eyes and those of many others. If you disagree, great! I'm glad there's people who appreciate it and do cool things with it within (extremely loose interpretations of) RAW. But this isn't a contest, it's a place to discuss what we like and why we like it, and delving into a Change My Mind thread is off topic and takes away from that.

Fair enough. Hope you don't mind me sharing my thoughts as a counterpoint though.

================================================== ==

an "Achille's Heel" is specific weak point such non-resistance against 5% damage. As opposed to "Achille's Everything but the Heel" that people favor, called "Crippling Overspecialization" as a trope.

Single target focus is what every martial character in 5e is made for because Reaction and Bonus actions are capped at 1 per turn. There is no "Whirlwind" attack, through Green-Flame Blade cantrip hits 2 targets. Make a Hexblade Bladepact Warlock or Paladin/Warlock then.

And you didnt provide a solution to controlling groups. Even with spells that is trouble. Fireball is fairly good against weak enemies, but really nobody is good against groups. If you run into a horde then RUN.

Spellcasters (Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, etc.) are good against groups in Fireball formation but not so good against dispersed formations. One counter to dispersed large groups is high AC and a way of imposing disadvantage combined with good at-will attacks. EKs tend to be pretty good at this role and monks are also surprisingly good at it. Stealth and high mobility plus ranged attacks can also be a good counter to large groups, e.g. an Alert Shadow Monk would have a pretty good chance of defeating those kobolds, either alone or as part of a plan to divide-and-conquer them or bait them into Fireball formation.

So youre kind of missing the point of high probability of failure as opposed to a rare instances. Bearbarian is bad? Okay so is every other melee character, so you just said you dont like melee characters not specifically the Beabarian.

I believe we're talking about scripts, are we not, and relying on the DM running games in a certain way. If you know your DM is going to give you lots of indoor fighting (dungeon crawls, etc.) against melee monsters, go ahead and make a barbearian! There's nothing actually wrong with playing the game you know your DM is going to be running.

That's the point: relying on certain DM scripts is only bad if the DM turns out to be using a different script.

[Zigludo]

Most underrated is probably Ranger, though for kind of a weird reason.

Now I'm not going against the grain here, Ranger has a lot of dead levels. But almost all of those are past 5th. I've witnessed the reputation that Ranger has as being the weakest class filter down into 3rd, 4th and 5th level games where the Ranger is doing just as much in combat as the Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin, but players are still going "Ranger is SO weak you guys" and so forth. "Give him the +2 sword it doesn't matter since he's the RANGER haha."

Other than that there's probably just the old "wizard who always has the right spell prepared" phenomenon. I think people have a pretty good feel for the classes nowadays

[Petrocorus]

Most underrated is probably Ranger, though for kind of a weird reason.

Now I'm not going against the grain here, Ranger has a lot of dead levels. But almost all of those are past 5th. I've witnessed the reputation that Ranger has as being the weakest class filter down into 3rd, 4th and 5th level games where the Ranger is doing just as much in combat as the Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin, but players are still going "Ranger is SO weak you guys" and so forth. "Give him the +2 sword it doesn't matter since he's the RANGER haha."

Other than that there's probably just the old "wizard who always has the right spell prepared" phenomenon. I think people have a pretty good feel for the classes nowadays

I don't remember the Ranger getting bashed in 3.5. It was consider as weaker in core than the Barbarian and maybe the Fighter, but certainly not the worst, or even the second worst class. Those positions were occupied by the Monk and the Paladin.

And out of core, it had much more support than the Fighter.

If you look at class tier list, the Ranger is always in the middle for 3.5.

Of course it was weak compared to the many gish and CoDzilla builds.

And for the 5E Ranger, most people among the "haters" admit it's rather good in damage output. It's his other stuffs we're bashing.
I always like the Ranger as a concept. Personally, i don't hate the Ranger, i hate what has been done to him.

[MaxWilson]

Other than that there's probably just the old "wizard who always has the right spell prepared" phenomenon. I think people have a pretty good feel for the classes nowadays

I'm not convinced it's even a real phenomenon. As far as I've seen, it's just a creation of Internet selection bias: someone says, "Wizards are bad at [XYZ] situation" and someone pipes up to say, "Hey! Wizards are great in that situation because of [spell]!" because in their experience, wizards really do always take that spell. All the people who see wizards taking different spells have no reason to pipe up. GITP's forum technology makes this bias even worse because there's no way to signal agreement without posting, so the silent majority (if any) is also invisible.

If one guy says Wizards are great because of Leomund's Tiny Hut, and another guy says they're great because of Haste, and another guy says they're great because of Counterspell and Fireball, and another says they're great because of Phantom Steed and Hypnotic Pattern and Tiny Servant and Fear... that might look to an outside observer like one guy who thinks wizards can do anything, but it's really a bunch of guys with different opinions.

[MrStabby]

I'm not convinced it's even a real phenomenon. As far as I've seen, it's just a creation of Internet selection bias: someone says, "Wizards are bad at [XYZ] situation" and someone pipes up to say, "Hey! Wizards are great in that situation because of [spell]!" because in their experience, wizards really do always take that spell. All the people who see wizards taking different spells have no reason to pipe up. GITP's forum technology makes this bias even worse because there's no way to signal agreement without posting, so the silent majority (if any) is also invisible.

If one guy says Wizards are great because of Leomund's Tiny Hut, and another guy says they're great because of Haste, and another guy says they're great because of Counterspell and Fireball, and another says they're great because of Phantom Steed and Hypnotic Pattern and Tiny Servant and Fear... that might look to an outside observer like one guy who thinks wizards can do anything, but it's really a bunch of guys with different opinions.

Just to note that a number of the spells you mention are rituals, so needn't be cutting into the spells per day prepared.

[MaxWilson]

Just to note that a number of the spells you mention are rituals, so needn't be cutting into the spells per day prepared.

But you can't learn them all on one wizard! You only get four third-level spells in your spellbook unless you're willing to give up fourth-level spells or higher or you get lucky finding spells "in the wild."

[MrStabby]

But you can't learn them all on one wizard! You only get four third-level spells in your spellbook unless you're willing to give up fourth-level spells or higher or you get lucky finding spells "in the wild."

Well that is the other side of what we see. How many extra spells does a wizard pick up along the way for the spellbook?

You can do a lot with the wizard if you can collect rituals for your book as you go along campaigning. If you never meet any other wizards to copy from/kill or any other sources of spells then you are a bit more limited.

[Azuresun]

More autonomy? Being able to split the party without crippling fear of getting in a brawl when you're more than 30' away from the other PCs?

It sounds to me like you're assuming a very adversarial game, one where you need to power up just to survive or get to do anything cool. Ideally, "talk to the DM" would be the solution instead of starting an arms race.

[MaxWilson]

It sounds to me like you're assuming a very adversarial game, one where you need to power up just to survive or get to do anything cool. Ideally, "talk to the DM" would be the solution instead of starting an arms race.

No such assumption, just answering the question. And who said anything about an arms race anyway?

"If ye are prepared ye shall not fear."