Quote Originally Posted by T.G. Oskar View Post
*snip*
Well, to be honest I just wanted to answer the question in the OP, and state what I miss - I wasn't planning to design the homebrew for the options I mention.

Having said that:
For the shapeshifter:
- I meant the CC variant (free feat at 4, much more useful)
- I don't get what the specifics of the 3.5 base class (animal companion) has to do with it (though if you really want to make a thing out of that: there were plenty of alternate class features for that as well). A shapeshifter is a fantasy staple, you mentioned several yourself (Hulk, Jeckly and Hyde), but there's Beorn from LotR, the archetypical wherewolf, etc etc. It's a character concept. There's no support. It doen't need to be exactly as MoMF, WarShaper or Bearwarrior (though they definitely could be used as base, or for inspiration) these are examples.
- there is nothing 'forced' about it in this way. We can hypothise endlessly about possible balance problems, but it doesn't make too much sense to me without the class actullly existing. I don't see any reason why a balanced version couldn't be made.

For the Binder:
- of course the class would be adjusted to 5e in a 5e version. So yes, the more complicated abilities would be dropped, there might be less vestiges, etc. But the core concept wouldn't need to be more complicated than the complicated classes that we already have. If you make the level 1 vestiges without trap options, the floor aint that low (and less low I'd argue than a Sorcerer or Bard that picked the wrong spells at level 1).
- Take Amon for example: remake it for 5e into a 3d6 15 ft breath weapon 1/short rest, a bonus action horn attack for 1d6+str, and darkvision. Maybe raise breathweapon damage at certain levels (5, 10, 15).
- And again, "some options will be far better than others; far, far better." --> you are arguing a non-existing class is inbalanced. That is a bit weird, cause it doesn't exist, and arguing this system is impossible to balance seems a bit big claim to me - especially since it was a decently balanced class in 3.x, which was a helluvalot more difficult to balance than 5e.