In 5e, when it comes to making your character class, there is essentially one choice you make for most classes: what subclass do I take. Even if you're a preparation caster, you have a "typical load" that you carry, although you can change that, and you probably change it a bit as you level up and might change it a bit in response to specific situations.
One of the original classes stands out from this: the Warlock. In cast you haven't played one you choose a pact (subclass) at first level, an oath at third, and Eldritch Invocations all the way from second to eighteenth. You make active choices about your character at just about every level. With your pacts, oaths and invocations you can tweak your warlock to be anything from a front-rank fighter, piling out good damage, to a fey illusion-based magic to a heavy blaster, to the party face. While your core class limits your spell-casting (rising to at most four fifth spells per short rest plus one each of sixth to ninth per long rest), your invocations can give you access to a host of spell-like abilities at will if you want to go down the caster route, or even if you want to be a melée specialist.
What I would like to bring into 6e is this kind of flexibility of choice and builds to all the classes. If you turn up at the table and say "I'm an 11th level paladin" in 5e, you have a pretty solid idea of what's coming to the table. If they say "I'm an 11th level wizard" likewise. If they say "I'm an 11th level warlock...| no idea until they say more. Even if they say "I'm an 11th level Celestial Warlock, they can still surprise you with their other choices.
Invocations have prerequisites, which are mostly level based, but can also be oath or pact based or similar. So there is Agonising Blast which requires you to know the Eldritch Blast cantrip. Aspect of the Moon (required for Coffeelocks) which requires Pact of the Tome, Bond of the Talisman (UA) requires twelfth level and Pact of the Talisman.
How exactly would this work? The warlock is, in essence a pretty stripped down character class. You get your subclass features, your pact, your weird spell casting, and your ASIs. Everything else is moved to your oath and your invocations. That is, in essence what I would do for 6e.
Lets imagine how that might work for a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard, although not in that order.
A fighter essentially loses everything from their current class features, except ASIs, which probably fall back to normal for other classes. Pacts/Subclasses remain as normal. The fighting styles most simply become the oath equivalents. Invocations, which get rebranded as Advanced Fighter Training (AFT) or something snappier, replace a lot of the core features. You don't automatically get second wind, action surge, extra attacks and so on, and you do roll in some fighter-type feats; something like Blade Mastery (+1 attack bonus, you can use your reaction to parry, +1 AC OR if you make an opportunity attack you get advantage on the attack roll) for every weapon type, and improved critical range too. And it's set up so you have to make choices. Do you want that 4th attack or an improved critical range and so on? Things to help the fighter soak, tank and so on need to be in there as well.
Casters generally get a weak core casting ability in terms of their spell slots. Mostly they add to this using invocations to bolster their abilities, although Clerics bend this rule a little, as they'll get a bunch of slots from their domain. To balance this, they'll get fewer spell invocation slots, and possibly if you want to be a martial cleric you have to pick those skills up through invocations - they can be gated to your domain after all. Wizards could run down a "librarian" route, with a load of lore skills boosted by their invocations, or a caster route, taking lots extra spell abilities. While this has to be fully fleshed out and is untested, I imagine a system where there are inner and outer schools. So, if we strip back to four core elemental school: earth, air, fire and water, they're available to everyone. If we add mixtures to get steam, mud, lava, acid, cold etc. they'd only be available to evokers. Everyone gets some basic summons, only conjurers get all the fun extra varieties and so on. Probably the schools would divide into three tiers, so you'd get a tier that gave you a bunch of first to fifth level spell slots and spells, a tier that gave you sixth and seventh level spell slots and spells, and a tier that gave you eighth and ninth level spell slots and spells. Why this structure? It gives you choices about more, less powerful spells or fewer, higher powered spells too for more variety. Or, of course, super skill enhancements.
The cleric gets invocations that give them spell structures like the wizard, but different spells obviously, but a martial clerics can get something similar to a fighter. Clerics are a bit of a pain, because, although a cleric is kind of predictable, they are actually quite variable depending on their domain. A trickster domain cleric is really different to a war domain cleric - rightly so. One option would be to give them some core abilities and then say "these domains can pick "invocations" from this class as if half their level." So a war-domain cleric could pick from Fighter AFTs as if a fighter of half their level and a trickster-domain cleric could pick from rogue "invocations" as if a rogue of half their level.
Finally rogues. Rogues in 5e all fill multiple roles. They are all scouts, lock-pickers, mostly trap finders and disarmers, but they're also burst damage dealers. My proposal would be to split that up and make you choose. Your oath starts leaning you one way or another, your invocations help you build on, and tweak that. You can choose to keep that sneak attack, sure, but you become less good at some other things. Or you can become the party skill monkey, and still function in a fight, but you're not piling out the damage in the same way. Or you can choose a more balanced way. Choices, choices. One benefit from this? You can build a Cha-rogue, an Int-rogue, a Str-rogue and make them all work well.
Obviously there are a load more classes, but this post is already pretty long and it's laid out the framework for how I'd see 6e classes working, if I was in charge of the redesign.
One of the original classes stands out from this: the Warlock. In cast you haven't played one you choose a pact (subclass) at first level, an oath at third, and Eldritch Invocations all the way from second to eighteenth. You make active choices about your character at just about every level. With your pacts, oaths and invocations you can tweak your warlock to be anything from a front-rank fighter, piling out good damage, to a fey illusion-based magic to a heavy blaster, to the party face. While your core class limits your spell-casting (rising to at most four fifth spells per short rest plus one each of sixth to ninth per long rest), your invocations can give you access to a host of spell-like abilities at will if you want to go down the caster route, or even if you want to be a melée specialist.
What I would like to bring into 6e is this kind of flexibility of choice and builds to all the classes. If you turn up at the table and say "I'm an 11th level paladin" in 5e, you have a pretty solid idea of what's coming to the table. If they say "I'm an 11th level wizard" likewise. If they say "I'm an 11th level warlock...| no idea until they say more. Even if they say "I'm an 11th level Celestial Warlock, they can still surprise you with their other choices.
Invocations have prerequisites, which are mostly level based, but can also be oath or pact based or similar. So there is Agonising Blast which requires you to know the Eldritch Blast cantrip. Aspect of the Moon (required for Coffeelocks) which requires Pact of the Tome, Bond of the Talisman (UA) requires twelfth level and Pact of the Talisman.
How exactly would this work? The warlock is, in essence a pretty stripped down character class. You get your subclass features, your pact, your weird spell casting, and your ASIs. Everything else is moved to your oath and your invocations. That is, in essence what I would do for 6e.
Lets imagine how that might work for a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard, although not in that order.
A fighter essentially loses everything from their current class features, except ASIs, which probably fall back to normal for other classes. Pacts/Subclasses remain as normal. The fighting styles most simply become the oath equivalents. Invocations, which get rebranded as Advanced Fighter Training (AFT) or something snappier, replace a lot of the core features. You don't automatically get second wind, action surge, extra attacks and so on, and you do roll in some fighter-type feats; something like Blade Mastery (+1 attack bonus, you can use your reaction to parry, +1 AC OR if you make an opportunity attack you get advantage on the attack roll) for every weapon type, and improved critical range too. And it's set up so you have to make choices. Do you want that 4th attack or an improved critical range and so on? Things to help the fighter soak, tank and so on need to be in there as well.
Casters generally get a weak core casting ability in terms of their spell slots. Mostly they add to this using invocations to bolster their abilities, although Clerics bend this rule a little, as they'll get a bunch of slots from their domain. To balance this, they'll get fewer spell invocation slots, and possibly if you want to be a martial cleric you have to pick those skills up through invocations - they can be gated to your domain after all. Wizards could run down a "librarian" route, with a load of lore skills boosted by their invocations, or a caster route, taking lots extra spell abilities. While this has to be fully fleshed out and is untested, I imagine a system where there are inner and outer schools. So, if we strip back to four core elemental school: earth, air, fire and water, they're available to everyone. If we add mixtures to get steam, mud, lava, acid, cold etc. they'd only be available to evokers. Everyone gets some basic summons, only conjurers get all the fun extra varieties and so on. Probably the schools would divide into three tiers, so you'd get a tier that gave you a bunch of first to fifth level spell slots and spells, a tier that gave you sixth and seventh level spell slots and spells, and a tier that gave you eighth and ninth level spell slots and spells. Why this structure? It gives you choices about more, less powerful spells or fewer, higher powered spells too for more variety. Or, of course, super skill enhancements.
The cleric gets invocations that give them spell structures like the wizard, but different spells obviously, but a martial clerics can get something similar to a fighter. Clerics are a bit of a pain, because, although a cleric is kind of predictable, they are actually quite variable depending on their domain. A trickster domain cleric is really different to a war domain cleric - rightly so. One option would be to give them some core abilities and then say "these domains can pick "invocations" from this class as if half their level." So a war-domain cleric could pick from Fighter AFTs as if a fighter of half their level and a trickster-domain cleric could pick from rogue "invocations" as if a rogue of half their level.
Finally rogues. Rogues in 5e all fill multiple roles. They are all scouts, lock-pickers, mostly trap finders and disarmers, but they're also burst damage dealers. My proposal would be to split that up and make you choose. Your oath starts leaning you one way or another, your invocations help you build on, and tweak that. You can choose to keep that sneak attack, sure, but you become less good at some other things. Or you can become the party skill monkey, and still function in a fight, but you're not piling out the damage in the same way. Or you can choose a more balanced way. Choices, choices. One benefit from this? You can build a Cha-rogue, an Int-rogue, a Str-rogue and make them all work well.
Obviously there are a load more classes, but this post is already pretty long and it's laid out the framework for how I'd see 6e classes working, if I was in charge of the redesign.
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