Another month, another 6e playtest. This one covers the “Expert classes,” which is just a succinct term for “skill monkey” (which is, itself, a succinct term for a skill-focused adventurer). The term itself has a lot of currency in OSR games, especially when they inevitably try to tinker with the TSR-era thief, and was also used as an NPC class in 3e. There are three other categories of class, which will be familiar to anyone that played 2e: Mages, Priests, and Warriors. Unlike in that system, however, classes in those groups don’t necessarily have any rules in common.
In general WOTC’s doubling down on more unified spell lists, Arcane (Wizards), Divine (Clerics), and Primal (Druids). They’re also integrating feats into level progression. Those that played 3.x will be familiar with the concept.
The expert classes are Bard, Ranger, Rogue, and Artificer, though only the first three are covered. Unlike in 2e, rangers are no longer considered Warriors, and Artificers aren’t in because they’re an optional thing from a splatbook (though no longer setting exclusive, since they aren’t Eberron specific anymore).
First up is the Bard. The progression chart is totally different, but the main stuff is the same. They still buy into their subclass at level 3, and they get pretty similar abilities, albeit at different places on the chart. It doesn’t address any core issues with how post-3.x D&D treats leveling — you’re still constantly racing for the next power, but it might ameliorate the grind a bit because it worked feats in and added an extra dead level they didn’t have before.
I’m not going to go into the specific powers. After all, if you’re interested in CharOP, you already did before I even read the new rules. And if you’re not… Well, it doesn’t matter to you anyway. As of now they have one subclasss, but WotC has promised more later. Woo hoo.
Second up, the Ranger. They’ve got less dead levels, spellcasting at 1st level (not third as in 5e, and 8th as in 2e), and expertise spliced in throughout. People that thought the 5e ranger sucked will note that this is mechanically better. It only has one dead level and the whole concept of favored terrain is dead and gone. Sadly.
What’s also sad is that they don’t ever get an animal companion in their progression chart, which really makes me wonder why you’d ever want to be one anyway. It will likely be in future subclasses, but right now the only one is Hunter. And Hunters, you can probably guess, aren’t that interested in befriending animals.
Lastly, we’ve got Rogues. They’re almost exactly the same as before. The only difference is a reordering of their chart to accommodate feats getting worked in. They have no dead levels. The sneak attack chart is exactly the same, thieves cant is still a thing, and the Thief subclass (the one included) is exactly the same (though formatted in a “look at at a glance” style familiar to 4e players, which might cause some annoying rules-as-written problems if you play with redditors).
There are a whole bunch of feats added, most of which are modified versions of what 5e players are already familiar with. They replaced every class’s capstone with a super-feat called epic boons, which will matter to exactly nobody because barely anyone plays past tenth level anyway. Expert classes don’t qualify for all the feats/epic boons anyway, making them even more pointless until next month.
That is, if they do classes next month and not some other random part of the game. Races? Skill challenges? God knows. It’s already weird enough they started with the thieves and not with the fighters, but c’est la vie. You do you, D&D.
