What I hope they do for 6e DnD

[Rhedyn]

If they make a version of 3.5 based on later 3.5 content (more detailed/fixed/flavourful spellcaster classes, fantastical ToB-style martials, unusual powers classes, etc), then yeah, I'd be all over it.

However, I don't think that would ever happen. The main playerbase is too attached to Wizards being a catch-all spellcaster, Monks being the only one with "weird martial powers", etc.They did, it is called D&D 4th edition.

[Willie the Duck]

They did, it is called D&D 4th edition.

There are differences. I think he's thinking of the 4th edition that people thought was coming, when ToB was released and people assumed that it was test-fodder for 4e.

[MoiMagnus]

They did, it is called D&D 4th edition.

I personally liked a lot of stuff of 4e. The fact that martial classes had "superpowers" was part of it. (And the sbire system, with some characters being given the role of killing sbires, was my favorite part of it).

But I also didn't like a lot of it. The fact that the few fight I've made were long and boring was the main one.
(I mean, when you have a system which is very similar to a video game, but has a human DM, I would rather have powers that are more ambitious and game-changing than what you have in video games, where you're restricted to what the devs though about, not less ambitious and minimalist.)
The fact that you'd had half a level everywhere was just a lazy way of making number grow. Sure, big numbers are cool, but when you use smoke and mirrors to make the players feel powerful, don't put a giant arrow pointing toward the trick you use.

[Morty]

However, I don't think that would ever happen. The main playerbase is too attached to Wizards being a catch-all spellcaster, Monks being the only one with "weird martial powers", etc.

Pretty much. Any substantial change to the way classes work, in any direction, will split the playerbase as many players jump ship to whoever promises them not to change too much.

[Quertus]

Given the game's current state, I can't picture what WotC's next move would be. Thus, my preference for a 6e is one that is brave enough to buck the trends of familiar "D&Disms." To wit:

1.) No Alignment. Its function was subtle at the beginning, but when it expanded it became needless boxes to hedge personalities in. Removing this would necessitate the loss of alignment-focused abilities (no love lost in my book).

2.) Smaller, but more customizable class pool. I'm of the opinion that Wizard/Sorceror/Warlock are largely redundant variations on a theme. Same goes for Fighter/Barbarian, Cleric/Druid, etc. I would prefer something slightly closer to 2e, with four base "archetypes."
The 'path' system of 5e can be fairly easily reworked--alongside Feats--to create largely similar ideas in a more compact and straightforward way. This would ideally go hand-in-hand with no multiclassing requirements, to encourage dipping into other class 'baskets' for appropriate tools.

3.) Reduced emphasis on combat. There are plenty of things characters--especially spellcasters--could do as useful in-game concepts (perhaps as class abilities/feats, etc.), but almost all of it currently centers on what is exclusively effective for fighting or circumventing a fight. What harm is there in trimming it down and expanding a little on things like Morale, parlaying, etc.?

4.) An axe should be taken to the d20 skill system. Especially with Bounded Accuracy as-is, it would simply be easier to treat Skills as something more archetypical as well (I would say 2e's "Nonweapon Proficiency," though I consider Barbarians of Lemuria and its Careers most apt). The system at it exists now promotes constant rolling for things that really don't warrant it, and blatantly prioritizes certain attributes/skills over another (Perception).

5.) On that note: no attributes whatsoever. Their function of helping crystallize a character has now turned into an easily-optimized engine, woven heavily into the skill and combat systems. I believe that attributes--and racial modifiers--stifle creativity by promoting a "right/wrong" way to play a class, and encourage races/characters to fall into stereotypes (like the Half-Orc Barbarian, Tiefling Warlock, etc.). Inversely, it also enables characters to exist whose only claim to fame is being interesting for being unexpected, rather than characterful through player effort (like, what, a Gnome Barbarian?). Essentially, I believe removing them would not adversely affect gameplay in any way because it's a non-discriminatory top-to-bottom system change, and would encourage roleplay that doesn't use numbers as a crutch.

6.) A wholesale change to the magic system. I think it's safe to say the Vancian slots weren't a perfect system to start with, and with every edition it's become more apparent that it's insufficient to a balanced game. It's not the sole contributor to the martial/magic divide, but it's obviously part of the furniture. Changing it would cause greater scrutiny on the balance of spells in general (a good move in any event).

1) woot! Go for it! Slaughter the sacred cow of alignment.

2) if by "customizable", you mean highly customizable, where you can turn a Wizard into a Warlock, a Physical Adept, a Truenamer, an Aies Sedai, a Spell Thief, a Magus of the Arcane Order, an Illithid Savant, and anything else "wizardry" you desire, then I strongly agree. So long as you keep all that cool variety (and more!), then I'm down with calling them all "Wizard".

3) eh, sort of, but I disagree from 2 directions. First, you should *increase* emphasis on combats in testing - make sure that a skilled group can easily get through 3-4 fights an hour. Second, you should *increase* emphasis on / attention paid to noncombat details. Oh, and you should have videos of "combat done right" on or linked from the website, showing people proper ways to play.

4) this could probably be its own thread. 2e skills values (talent and) vertical growth, while 3e skills (looked good in theory, but) put you on a "bad GM" skill treadmill. And bounded accuracy is just dumb for skills. As was 4e's "cooperation makes you fail more" failure of skill challenges. I agree that 2e was the best of that set. So, tell me more about Barbarians of Lemuria and its Careers.

5) that… let's discuss that sacred cow for 7th edition, eh? Just like being a "Ranger" or "Dread Necromancer" is evocative, there's something to having a Strength score. And it's nice for adjudicating things like, "can the characters drag the unconscious Storm Giant off the battlefield?".

6) that would be nice. Perhaps hide Vancian casting away in some obscure splat of especially unbalanced class options. Make it a particularly bad option for an old order of stodgy Wizards who do not share spells, and can only cast whatever spells they happen to find on their adventures.


Yeah, somehow getting attribute parity is a goal of mine with my own system. It’s surprisingly easy to get the martial characters to have paths by which they can play off of Int, Wis, or Cha (or at least my variants). But it’s been kinda troublesome to think of a way to get your wizards to want Str without adding unfun restrictions to them.

This one is easy. Explain to the idiot Wizard that they a) are not guaranteed a rest after X encounters, and that b) they can conserve spell slots by supplementing Detect Invisibility with a bag of flour (it has other uses), Knock with a skeleton key (or keys that they pick up off beings living there), etc. Also, that eating is a thing. And that loot is important. Maybe they'll get the memo. Strength was the most important stat back in 2e.

[Rhedyn]

I personally liked a lot of stuff of 4e. The fact that martial classes had "superpowers" was part of it. (And the sbire system, with some characters being given the role of killing sbires, was my favorite part of it).

But I also didn't like a lot of it. The fact that the few fight I've made were long and boring was the main one.
(I mean, when you have a system which is very similar to a video game, but has a human DM, I would rather have powers that are more ambitious and game-changing than what you have in video games, where you're restricted to what the devs though about, not less ambitious and minimalist.)
The fact that you'd had half a level everywhere was just a lazy way of making number grow. Sure, big numbers are cool, but when you use smoke and mirrors to make the players feel powerful, don't put a giant arrow pointing toward the trick you use.
One problem is that the Monster Manual is useless and that really didn't get fixed until the Monster Vault.

In fact that's a big problem I have with 5e is that the Monster Manual is kind of garbage and full of boring sacks of HP. New versions of the DMG with better magic items, and a more interesting Monster Manual that is at least as good as Kobold Press's Tome of Beast would go a long way to improve D&D 5e. Then if we can get a PH with reworked feats (nothing like Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter), cleared up language (poorly written spells), and a useful skill system, then I may actually want to play that edition. I imagine of the changes I want, the skill system would be most controversial. Because although many people have problems with it, it's defenders are equally adamant.

[MoiMagnus]

Also, that eating is a thing. And that loot is important. Maybe they'll get the memo. Strength was the most important stat back in 2e.

I would prefer that the balance do not rely too much on the "survival" part of the game, which I don't find necessary to the exploration pillar of D&D. Even though having well-working survival modules would be great for peoples who care about that part.

(I know I'm a little extreme on that point, but I hate anything which essentially is "counting resources". This include XP, gold, arrows & amunitions, food supply, weight, ... Unfortunately, removing gold kind of remove one of the most efficient reward system, which would be sad, so I reluctantly keep it when I DM. That also mean that I don't really like the spell slot system, but that one is fine when it refreshes to full often enough.)

[Max_Killjoy]

I wonder how much truth there is to this. I agree that for mundanes to be balanced with casters past level 10 they need superpowers. I'm one of those who don't care for the superhero genre though, so I tend to stop playing D&D at about level 10. Not sure if seeing Fighters getting superpowers at level 11 will be a turn off for me or not, since I'm not going to play that anyways. But I guess it will be for many people, since 5e is designed without it to cater to that group.


If they gain superpowers, are they actually "mundane"?

[Rhedyn]

If they gain superpowers, are they actually "mundane"?
That is a trappings/flavor decision.

The idea that D&D can have both casters at their current can-build-towers-on-the-sun power and platemail wearing 80s action heroes at the same power and level is ridiculous. The closest we have gotten to that was RC D&D where a level 36 lord and a level 36 magister could exist in the same kingdom reasonably, but the traveling fighters like Paladin and Avenger had spells (with only Knight being kind of useless). But that kind of D&D abandoned the idea that high level characters routinely went into dungeons.

[Pelle]

If they gain superpowers, are they actually "mundane"?

My intention was not to start up that debate. I just used the word in the post I quoted, insert your favorite version of the term instead...

[Max_Killjoy]

My intention was not to start up that debate. I just used the word in the post I quoted, insert your favorite version of the term instead...


Fair enough.




That is a trappings/flavor decision.


Is it? Pick your terms, as Pelle notes above, but one of the major points of contention seems to be exactly as you lay out below, and that's a fundamental setting/fiction question for the campaigns being run, not just throwaway fluff, IMO.




The idea that D&D can have both casters at their current can-build-towers-on-the-sun power and platemail wearing 80s action heroes at the same power and level is ridiculous.


I think it's ridiculous too, but others are willing to dismiss the dissonance in favor of other things.

[KorvinStarmast]

What I hope they do for 6e DnD

Publish it after I'm dead.

There is ample room for WoTC to roll out some more settings, more published adventures, and to fix about six boo boos in their basic system.


Four Elements Monk-it has great potential that was not realized
Rangers not being prepared casters and lack of "domain" spells for Rangers (PHB) like Rangers (Xanathars')
Mounted Combat needs a bit more love. It's clunky and non intuitive.
Take a page from Pathfinder 2e and refer to "ancestry" or "culture" rather than "race" - though maybe that's all a fig leaf.
Given what they are actualy publishing, they need to admit that their base assumption of the game is a selected party of "the good people" is up against a wide variety of "the bad people" (some of whom can be bargained with, and some of whom cannot) since that is the theme of every published adventure put out for this edition.
If they are going to use alignment, go back to Law, Neutrality and Chaos. Let Gary G's matrix die.


None of that needs a new edition.


I think it's ridiculous too, but others are willing to dismiss the dissonance in favor of other things.

I'd have written that like this: Others are willing to dismiss the dissonance in favor of having fun with that juxtaposition.

Genre overlap has been with D&D since TSR first got the 1974 rule books published. It's a feature, not a bug. Having Mind Flayers (SF horror) and Dragons in the same game is genre overlap.

[gooddragon1]

What I hope they do for 6e DnD

Publish it after I'm dead.

There is ample room for WoTC to roll out some more settings, more published adventures, and to fix about six boo boos in their basic system.


Four Elements Monk-it has great potential that was not realized
Rangers not being prepared casters and lack of "domain" spells for Rangers (PHB) like Rangers (Xanathars')
Mounted Combat needs a bit more love. It's clunky and non intuitive.
Take a page from Pathfinder 2e and refer to "ancestry" or "culture" rather than "race" - though maybe that's all a fig leaf.
Given what they are actualy publishing, they need to admit that their base assumption of the game is a selected party of "the good people" is up against a wide variety of "the bad people" (some of whom can be bargained with, and some of whom cannot) since that is the theme of every published adventure put out for this edition.
If they are going to use alignment, go back to Law, Neutrality and Chaos. Let Gary G's matrix die.


None of that needs a new edition.



I'd have written that like this: Others are willing to dismiss the dissonance in favor of having fun with that juxtaposition.

Genre overlap has been with D&D since TSR first got the 1974 rule books published. It's a feature, not a bug. Having Mind Flayers (SF horror) and Dragons in the same game is genre overlap.

5e sacrificed too much to bring people into the hobby. It wants to appeal to people who don't want to invest time when setting up an expansive campaign alone should take time for D&D (as evidence I submit the following link: Link to Evidence (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html)). There were other systems already for people to jump in, but I suppose they wanted a piece of the market. Well, they have it now, but it should not last. I admit, I shouldn't say what D&D is and can't actually define it, but the feeling I got from before is that it was a deliberate effort crafted over time. Not a rushed experience. Cultures change admittedly, but as I said earlier (I think, and maybe not clearly): If we keep going in this direction we may as well make dnd a computer game. D&D can't compete with computer games. It should be accessible (no pointlessly complicated rules/they don't provide a benefit), but go in the other direction towards a more carefully plotted game rather than streamlined efficiency. Sure, some streamlining, no thac0, but not at the expense of versatility and a robust system. Will d&d do this? I doubt it. I think it's more likely that they run up until they see that they can't compete with computer games. I'm grateful that 3.5 still exists. I'm saddened that they chose not to take it further with a new edition (though doing more than balance fixes would have required more creativity than I'd expect from corporations to produce when concerned about profits these days). I think that I wish they'd made a ToB school exclusively for twf and in particular for ranged. At this point I just probably have to look away. Seeing 4e and 5e is like seeing the rise of microtransactions. They're justified in one way or another, and I'm glad my older games are still there, but it's like watching the hobby die. This is all my opinion and it's quite a bit unvarnished. Though I hope it's civil.

[Clistenes]

That is a trappings/flavor decision.

The idea that D&D can have both casters at their current can-build-towers-on-the-sun power and platemail wearing 80s action heroes at the same power and level is ridiculous. The closest we have gotten to that was RC D&D where a level 36 lord and a level 36 magister could exist in the same kingdom reasonably, but the traveling fighters like Paladin and Avenger had spells (with only Knight being kind of useless). But that kind of D&D abandoned the idea that high level characters routinely went into dungeons.

Just give everybody superpowers past certain level, and acknowledge that they are no longer normal people... Like, let fighters to choose between learning magic (or higher level magic, in Eldritch Knight's case...), ki powers or receiving divine gifts...

It makes sense from a fluff point of view too... if you live in a world were supernatural powers exist and can be learned, and you are routinely risking your life fighting horrible superhuman stuff... why would you NOT try to learn something that will help you survive...? It's not as if a high level adventurer is lazy, anyways, so why would you not want to train in order to get those goodies...?


5e sacrificed too much to bring people into the hobby. It wants to appeal to people who don't want to invest time when setting up an expansive campaign alone should take time for D&D (as evidence I submit the following link: Link to Evidence (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html). There were other systems already for people to jump in, but I suppose they wanted a piece of the market. Well, they have it now, but it should not last. I admit, I shouldn't say what D&D is and can't actually define it, but the feeling I got from before is that it was a deliberate effort crafted over time. Not a rushed experience. Cultures change admittedly, but as I said earlier (I think, and maybe not clearly): If we keep going in this direction we may as well make dnd a computer game. D&D can't compete with computer games. It should be accessible (no pointlessly complicated rules/they don't provide a benefit), but go in the other direction towards a more carefully plotted game rather than streamlined efficiency. Sure, some streamlining, no thac0, but not at the expense of versatility and a robust system. Will d&d do this? I doubt it. I think it's more likely that they run up until they see that they can't compete with computer games. I'm grateful that 3.5 still exists. I'm saddened that they chose not to take it further with a new edition (though doing more than balance fixes would have required more creativity than I'd expect from corporations to produce when concerned about profits these days). I think that I wish they'd made a ToB school exclusively for twf and in particular for ranged. At this point I just probably have to look away. Seeing 4e and 5e is like seeing the rise of microtransactions. They're justified in one way or another, and I'm glad my older games are still there, but it's like watching the hobby die. This is all my opinion and it's quite a bit unvarnished. Though I hope it's civil.

They could add more versatility and more complex stuff as optional rules on top of 5e. Like, you could have 5e Basic and 5e Advanced...?

[gooddragon1]

They could add more versatility and more complex stuff as optional rules on top of 5e. Like, you could have 5e Basic and 5e Advanced...?

Those are just 2 more balance points. 3.5 has many more than that. People often make the mistake of calling certain things trap options. That's like ignoring that in magic the gathering people can play with jank decks against one another.

[Anonymouswizard]

Just give everybody superpowers past certain level, and acknowledge that they are no longer normal people... Like, let fighters to choose between learning magic (or higher level magic, in Eldritch Knight's case...), ki powers or receiving divine gifts...

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they got rid of the Monk and gave qi powers top every 'mundane' class. So Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues get qi points, a bunch of class and subclass specific abilities, and maybe the ability to pick some from a 'core' list. Then maybe separate magic so that 'arcane' magic works as normal and 'divine' magic uses a more Warlock-style system...

Excuse me, I need to open a Word document and begin working on this.

[gooddragon1]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they got rid of the Monk and gave qi powers top every 'mundane' class. So Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues get qi points, a bunch of class and subclass specific abilities, and maybe the ability to pick some from a 'core' list. Then maybe separate magic so that 'arcane' magic works as normal and 'divine' magic uses a more Warlock-style system...

Excuse me, I need to open a Word document and begin working on this.

Radical notion that you could have those classes forgo some of their Base Attack Bonus for the day to tap into that energy. So no feat required, but like a pseudo variant for playing the class that you can choose or not each day.

Investing more or less bab to tap into energy systems to a greater or lesser degree. Perhaps somewhat class dependent. It's a new path, requires a bit of effort, but interesting. I'll have to think of something.

Perhaps modeled very lightly after bloodline levels in a semblance way pertaining to bab invested.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'd have written that like this: Others are willing to dismiss the dissonance in favor of having fun with that juxtaposition.

Genre overlap has been with D&D since TSR first got the 1974 rule books published. It's a feature, not a bug. Having Mind Flayers (SF horror) and Dragons in the same game is genre overlap.


The issue I'm talking about isn't genre overlap.

It's fiction-layer/game-layer dissonance, or concept/power dissonance, or both.

[Cluedrew]

5e sacrificed too much to bring people into the hobby. It wants to appeal to people who don't want to invest time when setting up an expansive campaign alone should take time for D&D [...] This is all my opinion and it's quite a bit unvarnished. Though I hope it's civil.I think it is. Any I hope I manage to civilly disagree because I think that D&D is making the right choice there. It is the most iconic role-playing game right now and so probably the most likely one for someone new to the hobbit to try. In that sense it should be as approachable as possible.

I thought it would be better if D&D split into multiple systems so it could stop trying to stretch itself so thin. Maybe a simple core with an "AD&D" layer that can be optionally applied on top.

Also I like your signature quote: There is no emotion more useless in life than hate.

On "Qi" Reworks: If you give at least of them the abilities to drop their weapons and start punching I'm on board.

[gooddragon1]

I think it is. Any I hope I manage to civilly disagree because I think that D&D is making the right choice there. It is the most iconic role-playing game right now and so probably the most likely one for someone new to the hobbit to try. In that sense it should be as approachable as possible.

I thought it would be better if D&D split into multiple systems so it could stop trying to stretch itself so thin. Maybe a simple core with an "AD&D" layer that can be optionally applied on top.

Also I like your signature quote: There is no emotion more useless in life than hate.

On "Qi" Reworks: If you give at least of them the abilities to drop their weapons and start punching I'm on board.

Yeah, that's why I've just got to let it go. I used to get worked up over it, but it's not my place to tell people how to have fun.

[Mechalich]

I thought it would be better if D&D split into multiple systems so it could stop trying to stretch itself so thin. Maybe a simple core with an "AD&D" layer that can be optionally applied on top.


Arguably, D&D makes a great deal of money and has long retained a considerable amount of market share specifically by stretching itself thin in ways that hurt the gameplay and to a considerable extent involve deceiving the player base.

D&D has, at it's core, a system for dungeon crawls. That's what it's class/level/resource management system works best for and everything that D&D has ever done outside of the dungeon-crawling core experience has suffered to a greater or lesser extent by having to fudge the system into shape for whatever else they're trying to do (this is also why some of the most successful D&D experiences of all time, such as Baldur's Gate, are almost pure dungeon crawls). TTRPGs, in general, work better the more narrowly focused the are, simply because fewer inputs and outputs to manage means less opportunities for the designers to accidently write some sort of unanticipated breakpoint into the system. Case in point: 3e's Diplomacy Skill problems don't exist in a system that doesn't have such a sub-system.

However, while simple and more narrowly focused RPGs (and to some extent simply smaller systems with fewer late-publishing-cycle power creep options) tend to work better, you have to publish stuff to make money. Thus there's a continual impulse to expand and to produce material that is only tangentially related to the core gameplay experience in order to maintain the bottom line. Traditionally, in tabletop, to make money you have to put out books that people buy and systems that don't do this struggle to stay afloat and in fact much of the impulse to produce new editions is part of a deliberate attempt to restart the purchase cycle. This leads to the publication of so-called 'shovelware,' material churned out quickly for the lowest possible production cost with tons of words added simply to make page counts in the hopes of continuing to squeeze out a profit. So any system has a natural incentive to produce as much material as it possibly can to maximize profitability.

D&D 5e bucks this trend, which is really kind of weird. This seems to represent a reaction by its various corporate owners (WotC and ultimately Hasbro) that TTRPGs will never be big money makers. This is borne out by actually economic experience. Even at the height of 3e's publication schedule it could never even come close to competing with MtG as a profit generator, and even the most recognizable and popular brand in Tabletop was vulnerable to a 4e style catastrophe. Hasbro appears to be willing to allow 5e to limp along as a hobby production (there are Onyx Path product lines that have 5e levels of publication output) simply as a means to retain control of the IP and to maintain a position where they can capitalize on any windfalls that come there way (ex. Stranger Things). They aren't trying to maximize profitability because they don't have too - the total budget for 5e is a rounding error on the overall balance sheet.

A more focused and condensed 6e would potentially be a much better game than any other edition, in the same way that condensing 3.X D&D down to the first 6 levels via E6 streamlines that edition and writes out numerous problems by removing high-level stuff from the game world, but it would be working against the economic incentives of the publication cycle.

[Zakhara]

By changing all those elements you no longer have a dnd system.
It is possible to take one of many other rpg and play in an dnd universe(all you have to do is pick a dnd setting and play it within another system).

I must reiterate that this is not true unless you consider older editions to be "not D&D." The game began (in Dave Arneson's "Blackmoor" game, and for years thereafter) without skills, (most) attributes, the majority of classes as we know them, complex combat, Vancian spellcasting, and only the barest vestiges of Alignment and the Level system. If it survived without them then, why could it not do so now?



3) eh, sort of, but I disagree from 2 directions. First, you should *increase* emphasis on combats in testing - make sure that a skilled group can easily get through 3-4 fights an hour. Second, you should *increase* emphasis on / attention paid to noncombat details. Oh, and you should have videos of "combat done right" on or linked from the website, showing people proper ways to play.
[snip]
4) this could probably be its own thread. 2e skills values (talent and) vertical growth, while 3e skills (looked good in theory, but) put you on a "bad GM" skill treadmill. And bounded accuracy is just dumb for skills. As was 4e's "cooperation makes you fail more" failure of skill challenges. I agree that 2e was the best of that set. So, tell me more about Barbarians of Lemuria and its Careers.

3.) I technically would agree with that--combat became a priority due to challenges adjudicating it otherwise--and the policy of demonstration. In my perfect 6e it wouldn't need so much of that, but I can understand how greater priority can be similarly effective at achieving the same end.

4.) BoL has characters begin with 4 of them. They're things like "Gladiator," "Merchant," "Sailor," etc. They do two things: represent a character's history (effectively being a progenitor to Backgrounds), and place Skills into categorical baskets rather than specific pursuits. This is very streamlined; there are hypothetically infinite "skills," so long as a player/GM can agree on a ruling surrounding certain professions.

There are limits to this; it doesn't synergize well with a "level" system, scales slowly, and is highly intended for Swords & Sorcery games (ergo, the Career selection reflects it). But I think it would be a very effective way of compressing the Backgrounds and Skills further.

[Ignimortis]

I must reiterate that this is not true unless you consider older editions to be "not D&D." The game began (in Dave Arneson's "Blackmoor" game, and for years thereafter) without skills, (most) attributes, the majority of classes as we know them, complex combat, Vancian spellcasting, and only the barest vestiges of Alignment and the Level system. If it survived without them then, why could it not do so now?


Because roleplaying games were in their infancy back then, and D&D didn't have any identity attached to it. Right now D&D is the biggest name on the TTRPG market and has been for a longer time than most of us have been alive. It has certain traits that have, over the course of 40+ years, come to be associated with D&D primarily. Those would be, IMO:

D20 as the base die
Class-and-level system
Six attributes, STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA, and their basic ranges of 1 to 20 (-1 to +5)
Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User (Wizard)/Thief (Rogue) base classes
Vancian spellcasting
Alignment

Skills have also been in D&D at least since 2e in one form or another.

So you're basically proposing for D&D to ditch everything that ostensibly made it somewhat unique and allows it to retain that uniqueness until now.

[Zakhara]

Because roleplaying games were in their infancy back then, and D&D didn't have any identity attached to it. Right now D&D is the biggest name on the TTRPG market and has been for a longer time than most of us have been alive. It has certain traits that have, over the course of 40+ years, come to be associated with D&D primarily. Those would be, IMO:

D20 as the base die
Class-and-level system
Six attributes, STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA, and their basic ranges of 1 to 20 (-1 to +5)
Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User (Wizard)/Thief (Rogue) base classes
Vancian spellcasting
Alignment

Skills have also been in D&D at least since 2e in one form or another.

So you're basically proposing for D&D to ditch everything that ostensibly made it somewhat unique and allows it to retain that uniqueness until now.
Were I in charge of 6e--which mercifully I am not--I would basically propose it ditch everything that creates more problems than solves.

I have no issue with the d20 as a core die.
I have no issue with the Level system.
I have no issue with the archetypical class-based system.
I have no issue with Skill systems on principle.

There are plenty of things which can probably be left in and perfected without any severe effect (Vancian casting is certainly an example), but I'm not interested in 'safe.' D&D shouldn't be afraid to take risks. It's not married to old expectations; introducing something new is practically the point of a fantasy game.

[Ignimortis]

Were I in charge of 6e--which mercifully I am not--I would basically propose it ditch everything that creates more problems than solves.

I have no issue with the d20 as a core die.
I have no issue with the Level system.
I have no issue with the archetypical class-based system.
I have no issue with Skill systems on principle.

There are plenty of things which can probably be left in and perfected without any severe effect (Vancian casting is certainly an example), but I'm not interested in 'safe.' D&D shouldn't be afraid to take risks. It's not married to old expectations; introducing something new is practically the point of a fantasy game.

And I take issue with a d20 as a base die (and single-die systems in general due to how probability works), but I recognize that it's core to D&D's identity and it might not "feel" like D&D to the main audience if it was gone.

When you're taking risks, the first and the most important question should be "what would that achieve?". Where's the benefit? For instance:

Dropping d20 for 3d6 or 4d6 would introduce a more suitably "heroic" probability curve.
Dropping the class/level system would allow for greater customization and more playable concepts.
Dropping attributes would....I don't know, really, it would probably block strong spellcasters and wily warriors, because those things would have to be class features?
Dropping the base four classes would allow to introduce new ones, more focused and probably more balanced.
Dropping alignment would finish the alignment debates once and for all, which is probably a good thing.
Dropping skills would bring us back to class features and raw attributes as a base to do something. Doesn't sound good, TBH.

[Zakhara]

And I take issue with a d20 as a base die (and single-die systems in general due to how probability works), but I recognize that it's core to D&D's identity and it might not "feel" like D&D to the main audience if it was gone.

When you're taking risks, the first and the most important question should be "what would that achieve?". Where's the benefit? For instance:

Dropping d20 for 3d6 or 4d6 would introduce a more suitably "heroic" probability curve.
Dropping the class/level system would allow for greater customization and more playable concepts.
Dropping attributes would....I don't know, really, it would probably block strong spellcasters and wily warriors, because those things would have to be class features?
Dropping the base four classes would allow to introduce new ones, more focused and probably more balanced.
Dropping alignment would finish the alignment debates once and for all, which is probably a good thing.
Dropping skills would bring us back to class features and raw attributes as a base to do something. Doesn't sound good, TBH.


Dropping the d20 would be interesting and potentially beneficial, I agree. I suppose I just draw the line there because I have a harder time envisioning the dropping of the ostensibly "simpler" single-die setup.

Similarly, while I don't have an issue with the class system, I do agree removing it could be effective too (a "Feat/Skill-only" method could provide interesting results). But I do, again, have a tougher time imagining the removal of what is generally seen as the more accessible system.

I disagree on the matter of attributes. I wish to stress that the game as designed does not reward players for making strong spellcasters and wily warriors. Removing gameplay attachments to things like attributes, in my opinion, would be liberating rather than stifling.

Dropping the four base classes isn't what I would do, but I can't argue the potentially interesting results. I could dig it.

I don't advocate dropping skills entirely, I advocate dropping the 3e+ derived d20 skill system. I don't consider it a great enough achievement to keep, but am totally happy with a universal system for diversifying characters on both a gameplay and roleplay level.

[Mordaedil]

I think d20 works fairly well for skills and things you actually have points invested towards, but I will agree that I've never seen a satisfying ability check on a d20. Someone I used to help run an NWN server with, remade the mechanics for how ability checks work into a 2d6 system, making each point of modifier you had in that ability score matter a lot more. I can see using 3d6 and 4d6 as well, it just kinda makes sense for it to fall closer to the median and still resemble D&D rules fairly.

That, or just have each ability score point actually count when rolling ability checks. Makes those "half points" actually matter.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think d20 works fairly well for skills and things you actually have points invested towards, but I will agree that I've never seen a satisfying ability check on a d20. Someone I used to help run an NWN server with, remade the mechanics for how ability checks work into a 2d6 system, making each point of modifier you had in that ability score matter a lot more. I can see using 3d6 and 4d6 as well, it just kinda makes sense for it to fall closer to the median and still resemble D&D rules fairly.

That, or just have each ability score point actually count when rolling ability checks. Makes those "half points" actually matter.

It's to do with modifier size versus die size, of course. It's hard to solve without slashing the die size or basing Ability Checks directly on the stat.

The general reason is that at least in 3.X the default roll is a skill check, attack, or saving throw, where past the early levels bonuses start getting to be twice the die size, reducing the impact of randomness (sort of). But when you roll a straight Ability check your bonus is roughly half of what the system was designed to use.

Although I also just like systems with more reliable means, whether they be Xd6 or dice pools. It means that even when rolling an untrained check you still have a relatively good idea of if you're going to make it, I think my current favourite is 2d6 roll under roll high (because once people grab the idea it tends to be faster to play).

[oxybe]

D20 as the base die
Class-and-level system
Six attributes, STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA, and their basic ranges of 1 to 20 (-1 to +5)
Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User (Wizard)/Thief (Rogue) base classes
Vancian spellcasting
Alignment


I would say dropping the d20 to a 3d6 is doable and can keep the feel. Heck, we could turn most of the game into a d6-based one if we felt like it and it could still keep a D&D like feel. Shadow of the Demon Lord is basically just d20 and D6s and maintains it's stong D&D roots.

Class and level is fine. We just need to figure out what we want to do with it. Do we have 3.5/PF's free multiclassing, 5e's less front-loaded multiclassing, 4e's dabbling through skills, gonzo it ip a bit and follow Gamma world 7th ed where you have 2 classes as primary/secondary and gain abilities from them both at different times etc...

Heck, do we have anything like 4e/SotDL's heroic/paragon/epic paths that add to your base class? 3.5 style prestige classes that drop your class but even further specialize you?

do we have 20 levels like in 3rd/PF and 5th? 30 like in 4th? racial limitations and stunted hp growth paast a certain point like 2e? 10 levels like SotDL/GW 7e?

Attributes and their range has only really been set in stone since 3e. note how we no longer have a bend bars/lift gates as a STR substat.Here I think SotDL had the right idea: 10 is the baseline at +0, every point above or below it is your modifier. so a 12 is a +2, a 15 is a +5 and a 7 is a -3. cleaner and generally more user friendly.

Base classes... Honestly I think some can die in a fire. I am perfectly happy with merging warrior and thief into one class and doing the same to mage/priest dichotomy, with further specialization in tasks either being a choice of class features, like a healing or evocation magic school for your "mage/priest" or a choice between weapon/skill expertise for the warrior/thief, and further specialization through prestige classes/paths.

Vancian casting. I have nothing positive to say about this. You could club it unconscious and push it into the Thames for all I care. And do the same to it's buddy alignment too.

[Rhedyn]

The d20 is terrible for skills. If we can't replace it with something that has a bell curve, then my recommendation is to remove skills altogether as a "bonus system". Instead have skills be abilities like "can pick locks", "can track in Forest", etc. When skills are used in a situation beyond normal with a chance if failure, then call for a d20 roll where the PC rolls below the linked attribute to succeed.

For general abilities like "can move silently" or "hide from notice" classes could be given advantage when they try to roll under their ability score, or advantage could be treated like expertise in a skill. Opposed skills would be resolved by whoever rolls lower than their stat by the most.

[Morty]

Aside from alignment and the d20 die, none of those things need to be dropped. Alignment needs to die in a reasonably large fire and the d20 issue is somewhat binary - you use it or you don't. The rest can be substantially altered without being removed. Then again, the players wouldn't accept even that.

The two problems with attributes is that they're unbalanced and vestigial. Some are just a lot more useful to more characters than others. Assigning them is also largely a formality - as much as you can in your key attribute, then at least medium Dexterity, Wisdom and Constitution. The rest is going to largely line up with your skill proficiencies. A "wily warrior" is not going to actually do anything with a high intelligence score without class features or skill proficiencies that use it. Likewise a "strong wizard", though I'm not sure what such a wizard would do with strength.

In the end, I'm not sure if attributes are even needed in a game that already has classes, levels, skill proficiencies and various other bits and bobs. If one or more of those were to disappear, attributes would have a stronger place. But as it is, they're just another source of maths. And it's difficult to make them matter to all characters in a game with such strongly-defined archetypes.

I mean, I can't think of a system that has attributes matter universally. The difference is that in a more point-buy system, picking intelligence over strength is part of how you make a "brainy" character. In D&D, that choice is made when you pick your class. To be fair, though, D&D is by far not the only system where attributes are just sort of there.

If we keep attributes instead of ditching them, merging strength and constitution into one, dropping wisdom like a hot potato and maybe splitting dexterity are good places to start from. The score/modifier split has to go too; it feels like it's an artifact of trying to introduce consistent modifiers while keeping the 3-18 range... so D&D's fine tradition of trying to innovate while keeping the superficial trappings. But, again, that's kind of moot, as no edition of D&D will ever do it, or it would split the base more than 4E ever did.

[KorvinStarmast]

by stretching itself thin in ways that hurt the gameplay Whose game play is hurt? I've been with the game since 1975, and I miss the campaign (build tower, get tithes/taxes, etc) and large combats aspects. But trying to cater to a lot of tasted does not hurt game play.

D&D has, at it's core, a system for dungeon crawls. Yes, it still does that pretty well. It also does urban adventures well enough.

Do I think that the 5e rules could be less complicated and better written?
Yes.

This seems to represent a reaction by its various corporate owners (WotC and ultimately Hasbro) that TTRPGs will never be big money makers. This is borne out by actually economic experience. Bingo, though I tip my cap to them for (1) getting some new blood into the hobby and (2) the D&D books are still on the "top sellers" lists five years in.

As an aside: I bought and played with friends the CRPG based on the Rage of Demons story line (Sword Coast Legends IIRC) that we all played over Steam. It died in late 2017, I think. But I got enough value and game play for the money that I don't think it was a bad buy. I am considering getting the next offering if we can get a group together to play that. I do not want to play that solo: the GUI for running a team took me a while to grok.

[oxybe]

After sleeping on it, I think we could actually take a page from 2e regarding skills.

2e "skills" (well, non-weapon proficiencies) are a roll under system.

as you level, you get points you can assign into your general or class group skills. General skills are things like cooking, setting up camp, blacksmithing(in the traditional sense making horseshoes/nails/tools), etc... while the class groupings (fighter group was warrior/ranger/paladin for example)were things like weaponsmithing, armoursmithing, arcane lore, etc...

A +2 to weaponsmithing would be added to your stat total and you would need to roll under the combined value with your d20.

Another option would be to tie attributes to skills and only skills. Agility would no longer affect your Armour class, initiative or ability to dodge a fireball: it would only serve to give a baseline competency in the skills.

In a way we could largely section off parts of the game entirely instead of having them be deeply interconnected. Is there really a reason why your base ability to open locks need to heavily influence your ability to not get stabbed when unarmoured?

have your class give you your combat stats like hp, armour/weapon proficiencies, hit and damage bonuses, etc.

Have your stats govern what skills you're good at. everyone gets X skill proficiencies or skill points and distributes them however, be it an open or somewhat curated list.

[HeraldOfExius]

I'm not sure if the reduced importance of alignment in 4e and 5e is a step towards getting rid of it completely or just towards making it so irrelevant that the game functions identically with or without it, because it feels like that might be something WotC is actually doing.

[Max_Killjoy]

After sleeping on it, I think we could actually take a page from 2e regarding skills.

2e "skills" (well, non-weapon proficiencies) are a roll under system.

as you level, you get points you can assign into your general or class group skills. General skills are things like cooking, setting up camp, blacksmithing(in the traditional sense making horseshoes/nails/tools), etc... while the class groupings (fighter group was warrior/ranger/paladin for example)were things like weaponsmithing, armoursmithing, arcane lore, etc...

A +2 to weaponsmithing would be added to your stat total and you would need to roll under the combined value with your d20.

Another option would be to tie attributes to skills and only skills. Agility would no longer affect your Armour class, initiative or ability to dodge a fireball: it would only serve to give a baseline competency in the skills.

In a way we could largely section off parts of the game entirely instead of having them be deeply interconnected. Is there really a reason why your base ability to open locks need to heavily influence your ability to not get stabbed when unarmoured?

have your class give you your combat stats like hp, armour/weapon proficiencies, hit and damage bonuses, etc.

Have your stats govern what skills you're good at. everyone gets X skill proficiencies or skill points and distributes them however, be it an open or somewhat curated list.

The issue with opening locks and avoiding stabs being linked is one of an oddly split up set of Attributes, combined with having each Class and its "stuff" associated with one Attribute specifically to a greater or lesser degree across the editions.

Thieves had a set of Stuff they could do. Dexterity was the Thief Attribute. Having a better Thief Attribute made you better at doing Thief Stuff.

Thief Stuff was a combination of avoiding damage through evasion and agility, and doing nifty hand-eye coordination things.


Anyway, here's what I'd do with the Attributes, for starters.

1) Split Dexterity into agility/reflexes, and manual dexterity.
2) Do not combine Strength and Constitution, a look at the variety of athletes in the world will quickly demonstrate that the two can be quite separate.
3) Ditch "Wisdom", at least in name, and make a specific split between willpower and charm, instead of having this odd "well sometimes willpower is Wisdom, and sometimes willpower is Charisma, because 'force of personality blah blah blah'" split.


But, I see no reason to have Attributes gone, or to have Attributes do nothing in combat.

[Rhedyn]

The issue with opening locks and avoiding stabs being linked is one of an oddly split up set of Attributes, combined with having each Class and its "stuff" associated with one Attribute specifically to a greater or lesser degree across the editions.

Thieves had a set of Stuff they could do. Dexterity was the Thief Attribute. Having a better Thief Attribute made you better at doing Thief Stuff.

Thief Stuff was a combination of avoiding damage through evasion and agility, and doing nifty hand-eye coordination things.


Anyway, here's what I'd do with the Attributes, for starters.

1) Split Dexterity into agility/reflexes, and manual dexterity.
2) Do not combine Strength and Constitution, a look at the variety of athletes in the world will quickly demonstrate that the two can be quite separate.
3) Ditch "Wisdom", at least in name, and make a specific split between willpower and charm, instead of having this odd "well sometimes willpower is Wisdom, and sometimes willpower is Charisma, because 'force of personality blah blah blah'" split.


But, I see no reason to have Attributes gone, or to have Attributes do nothing in combat. Congrats, you are now playing The Dark Eye.

[Morty]

2) Do not combine Strength and Constitution, a look at the variety of athletes in the world will quickly demonstrate that the two can be quite separate.


They can be, but that doesn't mean they need to be in the context of a role-playing game. Trying to realistically model anything is a rabbit hole and attributes will never manage that anyway.

There's a very clear problem of Strength being useful only for a small subset of characters and Constitution being everyone's second/third choice. It's not restricted to D&D, either, plenty of other systems grapple with it. So if this isn't done, another solution is in order.

[Ignimortis]

They can be, but that doesn't mean they need to be in the context of a role-playing game. Trying to realistically model anything is a rabbit hole and attributes will never manage that anyway.

There's a very clear problem of Strength being useful only for a small subset of characters and Constitution being everyone's second/third choice. It's not restricted to D&D, either, plenty of other systems grapple with it. So if this isn't done, another solution is in order.

There is also a clear problem with everyone having above average strength if those two stats are combined. You'll end up with everyone who wants to be hearty or durable also having enough strength to punch out people with a single fist strike, and that would create a lot of dissonance.

[Max_Killjoy]

They can be, but that doesn't mean they need to be in the context of a role-playing game. Trying to realistically model anything is a rabbit hole and attributes will never manage that anyway.

There's a very clear problem of Strength being useful only for a small subset of characters and Constitution being everyone's second/third choice. It's not restricted to D&D, either, plenty of other systems grapple with it. So if this isn't done, another solution is in order.

To me that goes back to the whole "deep archetype" class structure, and having characters for whom their ability to use a weapon, carry their gear, hold a door shut, etc, is effectively meaningless.

So I don't know how to fix it, without either creating other dissonances, or stripping out some things that are near and dear to many D&D fans.

[Morty]

There is also a clear problem with everyone having above average strength if those two stats are combined. You'll end up with everyone who wants to be hearty or durable also having enough strength to punch out people with a single fist strike, and that would create a lot of dissonance.

The typical "don't want to drop dead" constitution level for D&D characters is 12-14, if they're not frotnline combatants, who want 16 if rolls/points permit. This is hardly strong enough to knock someone out in one punch, particularly if their class doesn't support punching things.


To me that goes back to the whole "deep archetype" class structure, and having characters for whom their ability to use a weapon, carry their gear, hold a door shut, etc, is effectively meaningless.

So I don't know how to fix it, without either creating other dissonances, or stripping out some things that are near and dear to many D&D fans.

Those are both true. It's probably impossible to fix this in a way that wouldn't either make D&D fans cry foul or run into some other problems. Though, again, it's hardly a D&D-specific problem. Strength as most systems define it is just very narrow.

In a more general sense, there's no magical solution that will fix all possible problems and satisfy everyone. We just need to decide what tradeoffs are acceptable.

[Ignimortis]

The typical "don't want to drop dead" constitution level for D&D characters is 12-14, if they're not frotnline combatants, who want 16 if rolls/points permit. This is hardly strong enough to knock someone out in one punch, particularly if their class doesn't support punching things.

Depends on how commoners are treated. If they actually are 1d4+0 hp, then a 3 damage punch can very well drop them. Besides, a lot of concepts go with 8/10 STR but 14-16 CON.

[Morty]

Depends on how commoners are treated. If they actually are 1d4+0 hp, then a 3 damage punch can very well drop them.

If commoners are this flimsy, their exact number of hit points and the number of punches don't matter - a strength 10 character might still be able to knock them out in one blow, they just need to get lucky. And in a real combat situation, their HP might as well be "they die".


Besides, a lot of concepts go with 8/10 STR but 14-16 CON.

And it doesn't strike you as a problem that people do it this way, but not the other way around?

On the whole, yes. If strength and constitution are merged, then characters who previously had high CON but low STR will also receive a bonus to thing STR helps with. I just don't particularly see it as a problem, certainly not a big enough one to discourage me from the idea. If a character would have high CON and low STR, chances are they're a caster or ranged attacker, so the exact bonus they have to strength-based melee attacks isn't that important.

[Ignimortis]

And it doesn't strike you as a problem that people do it this way, but not the other way around?

On the whole, yes. If strength and constitution are merged, then characters who previously had high CON but low STR will also receive a bonus to thing STR helps with. I just don't particularly see it as a problem, certainly not a big enough one to discourage me from the idea. If a character would have high CON and low STR, chances are they're a caster or ranged attacker, so the exact bonus they have to strength-based melee attacks isn't that important.

It's not a problem. The fact that most people, especially in dangerous situations, don't necessarily need strength but need to be hardy is fine. The fact that STR is usually a dump stat is also fine, if it's still tied into mechanics you can use for all characters, like carry weight, knockdowns, STR-type saves, etc. If you sometimes regret not having high STR, then it's fine that STR is not as commonly used as DEX or CON or WIS. I'd say that 5e has STR be more valuable than INT, for instance, and INT actually feels like a problem, because there's too little bound to it outside of Wizards.

And the same things turns against merging CON and STR. If everyone wants to have high CON, then those factors basically disappear, because you always have that stat positive and thus the comparison isn't "you're bad at this" and "you're good at this", it's "how good are you at this, +2 or +4?".

[olskool]

Why did you play dnd at all?
Dnd after 3e is quite based on having superheroes that can fight giant monsters.
If you remove the giant monster fighting superheroes part of dnd then maybe you should have played another rpg that was not dnd: there is a lot of rpgs that are not about superheroes that fights giant monsters and works in ways that leaves more freedom while not being ambiguous or rule heavy(each edition of dnd is full of rules that are ambiguous although the earlier editions(basic and maybe dnd 2) had a bit less rules).
And if you like rule heavy stuff I did hear gurps was very modular and can allow to manage non superheroic people in a medieval era.

Well, the majority of D&D editions after 2e are complex trash in my opinion. The reason for this IS the power creep that occurs in them. They are also "math heavy" which slows up gameplay greatly. I own over 60 games (including GURPS) as well as ALL previous to 3e D&D game editions including the rare "Holmes Edition" which I started gaming on. I also wouldn't choose 5e as my first Fantasy RPG, but for the kids I'm playing with now, who desperately wanted to play it.

So why play 5e? Because I have Millenials in my group, one of which is a "min-maxer" who were TOO CLOSE-MINDED to try anything else. My nephew (the "min-maxer") actually had to buy 5e for me to get me to play it. I was soured on D&D when 3e came out and left this type of game and NEVER looked back. For being the most educated generation, Millenials seem to be the most "rigid" in thoughts or beliefs I have ever gamed with. I think it is because they are coming over from video games where there's "limited choice" and cannot fathom a game where they can basically do whatever they can imagine. I will ask a simple question "so how are you examining the chest?" their response is a blank stare. then, after a long pause, "like my character would." My response, "what is your character doing to examine the chest? Are they peering in the lock? Are they gently running their hands over it to detect and hidden catches or openings? What are you doing to examine that chest?" Finally, I'll get them to tell me how they search the chest. To me how you do something is important because I will give a bonus for an original approach to a problem. This "rigid thinking" is not just present in my group though. I went to play as a character (not DM) in an Adventure League game, I wanted to hit a guy with my copper beer stein in a bar fight but was told by the DM that I had to have the Tavern Brawler FEAT in order to do something like that! In good old AD&D, you would assess a -2 To Hit penalty (for non-proficiency) and let the character "have at it!"

There is hope though, I got my players to play a MYTHRAS game and they all agreed that it was a more interesting game than 5e's combat and skills system.

[olskool]

I have to agree with Ignimortis, and practically everything there makes very little sense, olskool. Like, 5e already has variable DCs for saves? I'm not sure where you got the idea that it doesn't. And Paladins have pretty lackluster progression in Tier 1 compared to say, Fighters or Rogues or the stronger Clerics (Tempest and War come to mind, though War trails off severely after Tier 1). Just about the only thing that even seems to have bearing on 5e is the desire for variable success/failure, which is indeed a good idea. There's even something like it with some poisons and other hazards, where failing by 5 or more causes a worse effect, so there's precedent for incorporating it further.

When I was referring to saves, I wasn't clear enough. I would like to see the SAVES incorporated into a universal PROFICIENCY system. Right now the Mage forces a spell to be saved at 8 + THE CASTER'S PROFICIENCY BONUS + INT BONUS. I think THIS IS WHAT SHOULD BE CHANGED!
In the case of that Mage, the Spell Save should be the DC 10 of the Proficiency Test modified by the Mages Proficiency Bonus BUT the Characteristic should VARY by the spell type. Charms should use the Caster's CHA. Protections should use WIS. Detections would use INT, and so on. This would prevent the "min-maxing" that occurs now.

The great bane of old AD&D used to be the Monty Haul DM, but now the game itself is doing the exact same thing with class abilities, scaling and infinitely castable Cantrips, and FEATS.

[Scripten]

I think it is because they are coming over from video games where there's "limited choice" and cannot fathom a game where they can basically do whatever they can imagine. I will ask a simple question "so how are you examining the chest?" their response is a blank stare. then, after a long pause, "like my character would." My response, "what is your character doing to examine the chest? Are they peering in the lock? Are they gently running their hands over it to detect and hidden catches or openings? What are you doing to examine that chest?" Finally, I'll get them to tell me how they search the chest. To me how you do something is important because I will give a bonus for an original approach to a problem.


This kind of incremental, minutiae-focused gaming is fine if that's what everyone in the group wants, but it leads to a ponderous gaming session for the benefit of... well, not very much. There are mechanics in place for dealing with traps, locks, and other elements of searching a chest (for example) and playing a game of "Guess how the DM is going to try to screw you over" is not a lot of fun for plenty of people.


This "rigid thinking" is not just present in my group though. I went to play as a character (not DM) in an Adventure League game, I wanted to hit a guy with my copper beer stein in a bar fight but was told by the DM that I had to have the Tavern Brawler FEAT in order to do something like that! In good old AD&D, you would assess a -2 To Hit penalty (for non-proficiency) and let the character "have at it!"

Improvised weapons in 5e can be used just as well as in older editions. Your DM didn't know what they were doing. Generally, improvised weapon attacks are made without proficiency and do 1d4 damage. Some items can be used like actual weapons and carry similar stats. This is all in the player's handbook under the equipment section.


In the case of that Mage, the Spell Save should be the DC 10 of the Proficiency Test modified by the Mages Proficiency Bonus BUT the Characteristic should VARY by the spell type. Charms should use the Caster's CHA. Protections should use WIS. Detections would use INT, and so on. This would prevent the "min-maxing" that occurs now.

Different spell types target different saves already, which was mentioned. Having to recalculate DCs based on the spellcaster's attributes would be abysmally tedious. Plus, that hits spellcasters twice. Once by making them reliant on way too many stats at once for offense, and then again for defense when saving against spells.

And it would do nothing in the greater scheme of things because DEX is the most common save anyway.

[Morty]

It's not a problem. The fact that most people, especially in dangerous situations, don't necessarily need strength but need to be hardy is fine. The fact that STR is usually a dump stat is also fine, if it's still tied into mechanics you can use for all characters, like carry weight, knockdowns, STR-type saves, etc. If you sometimes regret not having high STR, then it's fine that STR is not as commonly used as DEX or CON or WIS. I'd say that 5e has STR be more valuable than INT, for instance, and INT actually feels like a problem, because there's too little bound to it outside of Wizards.

Who said Intelligence being an even worse dump stat isn't a problem? One thing at a time. It's impossible to make all attributes equally valuable to everyone, especially in D&D, unless maybe if we make them purely abstract/narrative. But it is possible to make such choices less of a no-brainer.

Strength doesn't really exist without Constitution, because if you have high Strength, it means you want to fight in melee, which means you want high Constitution, otherwise you'll be fragile. It's an illusion of choice. On the flipside, Constitution is everyone's second or third choice. You don't want it to be low, but you won't focus on it, because you can't do much with it - it's mostly reactive.


And the same things turns against merging CON and STR. If everyone wants to have high CON, then those factors basically disappear, because you always have that stat positive and thus the comparison isn't "you're bad at this" and "you're good at this", it's "how good are you at this, +2 or +4?".

Now it's my turn to say I'm not seeing a problem. Yes, people are going to want to have high CON, but they're going to also want other high attributes, so they'll need to decide what their priorities are. Except now they've got one less attribute they can safely ignore. Furthermore, once again, attributes aren't the only thing that decides what you can or cannot do.

[Anonymouswizard]

There is also a clear problem with everyone having above average strength if those two stats are combined. You'll end up with everyone who wants to be hearty or durable also having enough strength to punch out people with a single fist strike, and that would create a lot of dissonance.

Okay, we have two choices: split stats until everything is equal, and combine stats until everything is equal. I personally would prefer four stats with subdivisions beings skills (so you'd have Feat of Strength (Physique) and Endurance (Physique) as skills), but the other way is equally valid, especially if you get rid of skills.

But this is why my D&D derivatives end up looking so weird. 4 Attributes (Physique, Agility, Intelligence, Presence), 30-40 skills (including saves and proficiency in weapon groups and spell categories), and classes handing out a handful of abilities. But that's also not ebay your average player wants to see.

[olskool]

Superheroes? What? 5e is the least superhero-adjacent edition of D&D in 20 years. 3e and 4e both had a lot more superhero dynamics going on, especially in the later levels. 4e even had a dedicated "mook" mechanic that had severely outclassed old enemies (so goblins at level 10) die in one hit (even if it did 1 damage) because they were there to serve as fodder. 3e had level 15 characters be basically untouchable for level 5 characters or monsters. All of that doesn't work in 5e.

The only thing even remotely superheroic about 5e is that characters don't die easily if the DM isn't actually trying to kill them.

And people don't want to play Bard or Paladin because there are other good classes for those levels. Rogue or Wizard or Sorcerer are all viable alternatives for Bard (depending on what you want to do), and Barbarian with some effort might blow the Paladin out of the water for the first 5-8 levels. And most people don't roll for stats these days anyway, so stat requirements would just shoehorn how point buy should go for these classes.

Yes, 3e and 4e were even worse than 5e but that doesn't excuse those mechanics from carrying over to 5e. All THREE editions were garbage as far as balance is concerned.

I was using the Bard and Paladin as EXAMPLES of the "Superhero" even starting out. The Paladin has ALWAYS been "problematic" but was "balanced" in AD&D (such as that was balanced) by the fact that one needed extremely high Characteristic scores to play one and by their slower progression to higher levels (they needed more EXP to gain levels). The Paladin is a superhero because they have all of the advantages of a spellcaster but none of the weaknesses. Just look at their "smites" as an example. The Bard is the same way. The Bardic Inspiration can give up to a +6 bonus on ANY TASK AT 1st LEVEL. The bonus continues to climb in power as the Bard advances. This is very unbalancing in a game with "Bounded Accuracy." It could be balanced IF the Bard were required to make a Proficiency/Skill check to succeed at this and the bonus was limited to... say... half the Bard's current Proficiency Bonus. Let's not forget the magical abilities of the Bard. Vicious Mockery NOT ONLY does 1D4 damage (scaling to 4D4 at higher levels), it gives DISADVANTAGE on rolls until the following round. So a FIRST LEVEL BARD can give a +6 bonus to an ally an average of 3 times a day and DISADVANTAGE to a foe ALL DAY LONG. We haven't even talked about the Song of Rest ability if the Short Rest is abused (like it frequently is).
The monk is another example of the "superhero effect." The Purity of Body ability makes them IMMUNE to poison or disease. This is not a bonus or resistance (unless you count Legendary Resistances), they are now immune to EVERY disease and poison. The Timeless Body ability makes them gods as Age, Water and Food are NO LONGER REQUIRED! How much more "superhero-like" can one get?

I think there should be "reasonable limits" on Class Abilities and Spells, especially at the lower levels. Cantrips (which are FREE to cast) should NOT scale and I could see implementing a Proficiency Check for a lot of Class Abilities where the character had to roll against a starting DC of around 15 - Proficiency Bonus and an appropriate Characteristic Bonus to succeed at that ability. This would scale gradually with the increases in both Proficiency Bonus and Characteristic Scores.

[Ignimortis]

Yes, 3e and 4e were even worse than 5e but that doesn't excuse those mechanics from carrying over to 5e. All THREE editions were garbage as far as balance is concerned.

I was using the Bard and Paladin as EXAMPLES of the "Superhero" even starting out. The Paladin has ALWAYS been "problematic" but was "balanced" in AD&D (such as that was balanced) by the fact that one needed extremely high Characteristic scores to play one and by their slower progression to higher levels (they needed more EXP to gain levels). The Paladin is a superhero because they have all of the advantages of a spellcaster but none of the weaknesses. Just look at their "smites" as an example. The Bard is the same way. The Bardic Inspiration can give up to a +6 bonus on ANY TASK AT 1st LEVEL. The bonus continues to climb in power as the Bard advances. This is very unbalancing in a game with "Bounded Accuracy." It could be balanced IF the Bard were required to make a Proficiency/Skill check to succeed at this and the bonus was limited to... say... half the Bard's current Proficiency Bonus. Let's not forget the magical abilities of the Bard. Vicious Mockery NOT ONLY does 1D4 damage (scaling to 4D4 at higher levels), it gives DISADVANTAGE on rolls until the following round. So a FIRST LEVEL BARD can give a +6 bonus to an ally an average of 3 times a day and DISADVANTAGE to a foe ALL DAY LONG. We haven't even talked about the Song of Rest ability if the Short Rest is abused (like it frequently is).
The monk is another example of the "superhero effect." The Purity of Body ability makes them IMMUNE to poison or disease. This is not a bonus or resistance (unless you count Legendary Resistances), they are now immune to EVERY disease and poison. The Timeless Body ability makes them gods as Age, Water and Food are NO LONGER REQUIRED! How much more "superhero-like" can one get?

I think there should be "reasonable limits" on Class Abilities and Spells, especially at the lower levels. Cantrips (which are FREE to cast) should NOT scale and I could see implementing a Proficiency Check for a lot of Class Abilities where the character had to roll against a starting DC of around 15 - Proficiency Bonus and an appropriate Characteristic Bonus to succeed at that ability. This would scale gradually with the increases in both Proficiency Bonus and Characteristic Scores.

You seem to mistake heroic fantasy for superheroes. Superheroes destroy cities, fight each other on the Moon, fall from orbit and survive without significant damage, fly so fast their movement creates aftershocks, etc. Have you ever seen Exalted? That's fantasy superheroes. Guys who scale mountains in a leap or two, cut down an army of ten thousand men by themselves, summon artifact magic weapons and armor made out of their souls, can survive in vacuum without any need for assistance or sustenance, and can insult someone so hard they disintegrate and everyone else thinks it was well-deserved even if they loved the recently deceased dearly.

Heroic fantasy is kinda less like that. Sure, you get fantastical abilities, like immunity to poison or not taking penalties for age (note that you still wisen up and become one of those old master monks), or inspiring people well enough that they do better than they could by themselves, or smiting people with divine wrath. But those abilities do not break the game in any way. They're accounted for and at best can "break" the current encounter, which is fine, because there might be another one around the corner and you just spent resources dealing with this one.

In what world is giving a +1 to a d20 check after a skill test "heroic"? Guidance, which is a cantrip, gives 1d4. Why should a class ability, limited in use, be less useful? And Vicious Mockery only gives disadvantage on one attack roll, so it doesn't affect 70% of the rolls an enemy might make, and the usefulness of that shrinks with level as enemies get more attacks. And doing 1d4 damage or even 4d4 damage is laughable when anyone does more damage with anything, really.

And paladins get less spells, slower spell access, and worse spells than magic users. What you could argue is that Paladins are pretty much better Fighters, and I won't argue against that, but that's because Fighters SUCK, both as a concept and as a 5e class. Their budget is incredibly skewed because someone thought that having 4 attacks at level 20 (which never gets played) is so nifty it warrants making Fighters the worst class in the game levels 1 to 10, or at least the worst martial, damage and survivability-wise.

What you seem to be arguing for is "realistic medieval-ish low power low fantasy low magic simulator", not heroic fantasy. Having to make rolls to use your most basic abilities and gaining a 5% bonus from them is laughable.


Okay, we have two choices: split stats until everything is equal, and combine stats until everything is equal. I personally would prefer four stats with subdivisions beings skills (so you'd have Feat of Strength (Physique) and Endurance (Physique) as skills), but the other way is equally valid, especially if you get rid of skills.

But this is why my D&D derivatives end up looking so weird. 4 Attributes (Physique, Agility, Intelligence, Presence), 30-40 skills (including saves and proficiency in weapon groups and spell categories), and classes handing out a handful of abilities. But that's also not ebay your average player wants to see.

I kinda like the Shadowrun split. Strength, Body, Agility, Reaction, Logic, Intuition, Charisma, Willpower. All of them have their uses in the system, and while Agility and Intuition are VERY useful and can probably be called "god stats" if you really want to stretch the definition, there are significant advantages and disadvantages to having any of those stats high or low.

[olskool]

This kind of incremental, minutiae-focused gaming is fine if that's what everyone in the group wants, but it leads to a ponderous gaming session for the benefit of... well, not very much. There are mechanics in place for dealing with traps, locks, and other elements of searching a chest (for example) and playing a game of "Guess how the DM is going to try to screw you over" is not a lot of fun for plenty of people.

The whole idea of RPGs is to ROLEPLAY. You don't have to get super specific if you don't want to but it does defeat the purpose of the game if you CANNOT give at least a general description of HOW you are performing an action. Would you accept the statement "we sneak into the castle" as a complete action without asking for more clarification? For instance, "how are you going to sneak into the castle?" Are you going to use a rope and grappling hook to climb the walls? Are you going to disguise yourself and sneak in among the crowd moving through the gates? are you going to follow the sewers into the keep itself?" There is a fine balance between "Roleplaying and "Roll Playing" and I lean towards the former.




Improvised weapons in 5e can be used just as well as in older editions. Your DM didn't know what they were doing. Generally, improvised weapon attacks are made without proficiency and do 1d4 damage. Some items can be used like actual weapons and carry similar stats. This is all in the player's handbook under the equipment section.

Yes, I know. I attempted to bring this to his attention but he had RULED and there was no arguing it. This is why I use this as an example of "rigid thinking" where the rules are there to constrain, not as "guidelines."


Different spell types target different saves already, which was mentioned. Having to recalculate DCs based on the spellcaster's attributes would be abysmally tedious. Plus, that hits spellcasters twice. Once by making them reliant on way too many stats at once for offense, and then again for defense when saving against spells.

And it would do nothing in the greater scheme of things because DEX is the most common save anyway.

It would help reduce "min-maxing" a great deal. You already calculate the DC of a Save on the Spellcaster's Attributes as that DC is 8 + SPELLCASTER'S PROFICIENCY BONUS + SPELLCASTER'S INT BONUS (for Wizards), or CHA BONUS (for Bards, Warlocks) or WIS BONUS (for Clerics) and so on. I'm just suggesting that it be done BY SPELL to force the players to either concentrate on a given type of spell or accept that they will have to spread out their Characteristic Points over a larger number of stats. Since the Players are recording the spells they know, this wouldn't be any more difficult than calculating all the bonuses from Class Abilities and FEATS.

[olskool]

You seem to mistake heroic fantasy for superheroes. Superheroes destroy cities, fight each other on the Moon, fall from orbit and survive without significant damage, fly so fast their movement creates aftershocks, etc. Have you ever seen Exalted? That's fantasy superheroes. Guys who scale mountains in a leap or two, cut down an army of ten thousand men by themselves, summon artifact magic weapons and armor made out of their souls, can survive in vacuum without any need for assistance or sustenance, and can insult someone so hard they disintegrate and everyone else thinks it was well-deserved even if they loved the recently deceased dearly.

Heroic fantasy is kinda less like that. Sure, you get fantastical abilities, like immunity to poison or not taking penalties for age (note that you still wisen up and become one of those old master monks), or inspiring people well enough that they do better than they could by themselves, or smiting people with divine wrath. But those abilities do not break the game in any way. They're accounted for and at best can "break" the current encounter, which is fine, because there might be another one around the corner and you just spent resources dealing with this one.

In what world is giving a +1 to a d20 check after a skill test "heroic"? Guidance, which is a cantrip, gives 1d4. Why should a class ability, limited in use, be less useful? And Vicious Mockery only gives disadvantage on one attack roll, so it doesn't affect 70% of the rolls an enemy might make, and the usefulness of that shrinks with level as enemies get more attacks. And doing 1d4 damage or even 4d4 damage is laughable when anyone does more damage with anything, really.

And paladins get less spells, slower spell access, and worse spells than magic users. What you could argue is that Paladins are pretty much better Fighters, and I won't argue against that, but that's because Fighters SUCK, both as a concept and as a 5e class. Their budget is incredibly skewed because someone thought that having 4 attacks at level 20 (which never gets played) is so nifty it warrants making Fighters the worst class in the game levels 1 to 10, or at least the worst martial, damage and survivability-wise.

What you seem to be arguing for is "realistic medieval-ish low power low fantasy low magic simulator", not heroic fantasy. Having to make rolls to use your most basic abilities and gaining a 5% bonus from them is laughable.



I kinda like the Shadowrun split. Strength, Body, Agility, Reaction, Logic, Intuition, Charisma, Willpower. All of them have their uses in the system, and while Agility and Intuition are VERY useful and can probably be called "god stats" if you really want to stretch the definition, there are significant advantages and disadvantages to having any of those stats high or low.

It's funny you should mention "fall from orbit" as most high-level 5e characters can do that and survive. Then they take a Long Rest and are 100%. The fact that you sneer at a +1 bonus at First Level in a game which touts it's "Bounded Accuracy" reveals you to be a "min-maxer," so we both know we will NEVER meet in the middle. The fact is that posts about "balance" and "how to make Martials stronger" are rife in the forums because people know the game is "off" in some way. Therefore, WoTC is eventually going to have to address this issue. If you want to see a fairly good example of good high fantasy, just look at the old RPG Adventures in High Fantasy. They did Leveling right.

The real disparity in 5e comes from giving too many abilities that scale unrealistically like Cantrips and Class Abilities. This is why you frequently see the dreaded "disconnect" (where people are playing with their phones or talking about last night's football game during play) in high-level games. The fights become "boring" because there's NO RISK to the party. They have sufficient Abilities or Spells to deal with any threat and sufficient hitpoints that even Demons, Devils, and Gods don't threaten them now. This results in that slow creeping death you will also see in most Monty Haul campaigns.

I get that your that person who wants "an App for that." All "min-maxers" are like that. But the game needs to start more simply for two main reasons;

To avoid intimidating new players with both too high a complexity and through "analysis paralysis" with too much choice... which is demonstrated in this very forum by all of the "help me build..." posts presented here.

To cater to players that want to play through to higher levels WITHOUT having to introduce demigods at level 11 to challenge the players... which is demonstrated by all the "how do I balance..." posts presented here.

Then they can add OPTIONAL layers like FEATS and OPTIONAL Class Abilities for players who like to "min-max" like yourself. The base game, however, should be simple to draw in the newer player base. 5e HAS done that, but it could do that better.

[Anonymouswizard]

I kinda like the Shadowrun split. Strength, Body, Agility, Reaction, Logic, Intuition, Charisma, Willpower. All of them have their uses in the system, and while Agility and Intuition are VERY useful and can probably be called "god stats" if you really want to stretch the definition, there are significant advantages and disadvantages to having any of those stats high or low.

Eh, I tend to find that, especially in more historical fantasy, Logic begins to suffer from the 'INT problem' of not doing enough to be worthwhile for most characters (not to be confused with the 'IQ problem' where a stat governs so many things players begin pumping it to obscene levels). I've gone everywhere from about twelve to three and settled on four as the amount I like the best (after I decided to drop the 'physical/mental/social' split in favour of 'physical/mental').

[Max_Killjoy]

Part of it comes down to whether the player is approaching the Attributes as representing the character in a fundamental way, or just as a game-mechanics contrivance to pumped up as high as they can get away with.

[Ignimortis]

It's funny you should mention "fall from orbit" as most high-level 5e characters can do that and survive. Then they take a Long Rest and are 100%. The fact that you sneer at a +1 bonus at First Level in a game which touts it's "Bounded Accuracy" reveals you to be a "min-maxer," so we both know we will NEVER meet in the middle. The fact is that posts about "balance" and "how to make Martials stronger" are rife in the forums because people know the game is "off" in some way. Therefore, WoTC is eventually going to have to address this issue. If you want to see a fairly good example of good high fantasy, just look at the old RPG Adventures in High Fantasy. They did Leveling right.

The real disparity in 5e comes from giving too many abilities that scale unrealistically like Cantrips and Class Abilities. This is why you frequently see the dreaded "disconnect" (where people are playing with their phones or talking about last night's football game during play) in high-level games. The fights become "boring" because there's NO RISK to the party. They have sufficient Abilities or Spells to deal with any threat and sufficient hitpoints that even Demons, Devils, and Gods don't threaten them now. This results in that slow creeping death you will also see in most Monty Haul campaigns.

I get that your that person who wants "an App for that." All "min-maxers" are like that. But the game needs to start more simply for two main reasons;

To avoid intimidating new players with both too high a complexity and through "analysis paralysis" with too much choice... which is demonstrated in this very forum by all of the "help me build..." posts presented here.

To cater to players that want to play through to higher levels WITHOUT having to introduce demigods at level 11 to challenge the players... which is demonstrated by all the "how do I balance..." posts presented here.

Then they can add OPTIONAL layers like FEATS and OPTIONAL Class Abilities for players who like to "min-max" like yourself. The base game, however, should be simple to draw in the newer player base. 5e HAS done that, but it could do that better.

I like crunch and I like high power. I have never been a straight min-maxer, though, because I always try to build for style first and effectiveness second.

And you know what? 5e doesn't have neither high power or crunchyness. 5e, to me, feels like someone wants to play Lord of the Rings throughout 20 levels, and have Gimli be useful for the whole game somehow, even though he's just a Fighter. 5e Aragorn might beat a Nazgul in single combat, but a thousand orcs will swarm him all the same. Or twenty trolls. Or ten giants.

A +1 bonus even in 5e usually matters only if you have it always-on (because of the base d20), like a +1 sword or a +1 armor or a +1 proficiency bonus. Giving an extra +1 after a check which might not even succeed due to, again, Bounded Accuracy, three times per day at best - is lame. Would you really spend actions doing that? Why not just do damage instead?

And the fights in 5e are boring because enemies lack enough special abilities to make the party sweat. Most of the time they just do damage and soak it themselves. It's not because the players are too powerful, it's because the monsters are too weak. Throw a 3e-era balor at a 5e party, oof, that's gonna be an epic battle. Lots of tricks up his sleeves, and some of them are absolutely demonically wicked. Pit fiends, those are diabolic as well. And ancient dragons? They're like your wizard and your fighter scrunched together and squared afterwards.

I have no idea why you talk about "an app for that". The only system I ever needed an app for was Shadowrun. D&D is easy to parse in any edition (at least 2e onwards, I hear earlier ones has weird tables for weapon-armor interactions), and 5e is probably the easiest to get into. I have never met a person who couldn't grasp 5e rules after reading the book, and most can even get what's going on just by watching other people play. Sure, you can optimize to an extent, and that's how "help me build" threads work, but even the baseline is playable.

The threads about balance are almost always less about combat and more about Fighters not being able to do anything out of it, while Wizards can do anything a Fighter can and a whole wagon of things on top of that. I wonder if you're going to say "that's logical and fine, because magic".

[Morty]

Part of it comes down to whether the player is approaching the Attributes as representing the character in a fundamental way, or just as a game-mechanics contrivance to pumped up as high as they can get away with.

I really don't think those are our only two options.

[olskool]

I have no idea why you talk about "an app for that". The only system I ever needed an app for was Shadowrun. D&D is easy to parse in any edition (at least 2e onwards, I hear earlier ones has weird tables for weapon-armor interactions), and 5e is probably the easiest to get into. I have never met a person who couldn't grasp 5e rules after reading the book, and most can even get what's going on just by watching other people play. Sure, you can optimize to an extent, and that's how "help me build" threads work, but even the baseline is playable.

"An APP for that" is a descriptive term for someone who considers a Class incomplete unless it has 20 Class abilities and 20 FEATS to cover every known situation that could occur when you're adventuring so you can say... "Fire breathing Dragon, I have an APP for that!" It is a hallmark of "roll players" (who desire mechanics over story) and most "min-maxers" fit into this category. Once again, there's nothing wrong with this style of play if that's what you desire, but most RPGs today are trying to simplify in order to support the more "rules loose" "Role players." The big issue with the current "roll-play" mechanics -heavy games is the imbalances that occur as power level increases. By keeping bonuses SMALL at the lower levels, power creep is minimized. You can then add OPTIONAL power boosts for the "min-maxers."


The threads about balance are almost always less about combat and more about Fighters not being able to do anything out of it, while Wizards can do anything a Fighter can and a whole wagon of things on top of that. I wonder if you're going to say "that's logical and fine, because magic".

The issue is that everyone thinks that a 5th level fighter and a 5th level magic-user SHOULD BE EQUAL. NOTHING could be farther from the truth. AD&D KNEW this and balanced the classes by requiring Magic-Users to collect 25% more EXP to advance a level than a fighter. This left the classes advancing almost equally at lower levels while the mage would fall behind at higher levels. Still, from a "balance perspective," that 8th level mage was as powerful as that 10th level fighter in general ability. The fighter had double the HP of the Mage, better saving throws, and could have several useful Proficiencies once those were introduced. He also had a small army of acquired followers to assist him.

I fix a number of issues with the Casters by just requiring a Proficiency Check for Spell Casting. There is a chance of failure for hitting a target with a sword but no such mechanic for calling on a power that can shape the very fabric of reality. Seriously? Just by adding in the skill check, I reduce the power of casters incrementally. It is designed to "advance" with a caster's power too.

Using a DC of [10 + Spell Level Being Cast] to arrive at the total DC gives a DC of 10 for cantrips (0 Level) through to 19 for 9th level spells. The caster gets to add his Proficiency Bonus and any Characteristic Bonus to this test.

[Kane0]

I'd like for the next edition to tear the wizard into multiple separate classes and remove the fighter unless it's given something specific fluff and mechanic wise. Probably the same for some other classes too.

[Morty]

"An APP for that" is a descriptive term for someone who considers a Class incomplete unless it has 20 Class abilities and 20 FEATS to cover every known situation that could occur when you're adventuring so you can say... "Fire breathing Dragon, I have an APP for that!" It is a hallmark of "roll players" (who desire mechanics over story) and most "min-maxers" fit into this category. Once again, there's nothing wrong with this style of play if that's what you desire, but most RPGs today are trying to simplify in order to support the more "rules loose" "Role players." The big issue with the current "roll-play" mechanics -heavy games is the imbalances that occur as power level increases. By keeping bonuses SMALL at the lower levels, power creep is minimized. You can then add OPTIONAL power boosts for the "min-maxers."


Is it 2007 again, that I see "role-players versus roll-players" used as an argument?

[Tectorman]

The issue is that everyone thinks that a 5th level fighter and a 5th level magic-user SHOULD BE EQUAL. NOTHING could be farther from the truth. AD&D KNEW this and balanced the classes by requiring Magic-Users to collect 25% more EXP to advance a level than a fighter. This left the classes advancing almost equally at lower levels while the mage would fall behind at higher levels. Still, from a "balance perspective," that 8th level mage was as powerful as that 10th level fighter in general ability.

As long as a 5th level Fighter and a 5th level Wizard (or Cleric or whichever) cost the same amount of XP, it IS true that they should be equal (at least in terms of overall worthwhile-ness; superiority or inferiority in specific circumstances is another thing). The issue is that 3.X made all class levels progress at the same rate while not toning down the superiority of casting at higher levels (which, as you note, was accounted for by the higher XP costs). Later or alternative editions (a la PF), have since been trying to fix that wrinkle.

But "equivalent worthwhileness per equivalent XP total regardless of class" most certainly should be true. Otherwise, what, pray tell, did I buy with all that wasted XP?

[Anonymouswizard]

Is it 2007 again, that I see "role-players versus roll-players" used as an argument?

Look, we're living in the age of "Intelligence has nothing to do with intelligence", nothing surprises me. Yes, people are using that along with 'don't tell me how to roleplay my character' to justify dumping INT and then acting like their character is a genius. I have also seen roleplayers versus rollplayers used when I dare pick spells for my INT 14+ wizard based on what I think will be useful rather than strict adherence to concept.

To be fair, I'm a fan of both GURPS and The Fantasy Trip, which have to explain 'the IQ stat had nothing to do with real world IQ, it's just a convenient two letter shorthand'. Also you declared that you wanted to roleplay your characer that way when you took Compulsive Gambling with a Self Control Number of seven, you're going to be lucky not to blow (3d20-20)% of your on hand cash at every settlement.

[Kane0]

- Retain and refine bounded accuracy (codify what 5e calls expertise plus some other bits and pieces into the unifying mechanic)
- Retain and refine the advantage mechanic (perhaps even change the d20 to something like 3d6 or 2d10 to improve this)
- Retain and refine downtime both mechanically and thematically
- Retain and refine self-healing mechanic (eg 4e Healing Surges and 5e short rest with Hit Die)
- Rework resting and recovery mechanics to avoid 10-minute workdays
- Unifying rolled attack vs static defense mechanic (like 4e handled it)
- Remove Alignment
- Update ability scores (having both a score and bonus isn't really necessary, even if the attributes themselves don't change)
- Take out some skills like Perception and maybe Insight and incorporate them as base traits like Initiative
- Remove generic classes or make them specific (The core 12 being something like Barbarian, Beguiler, Cleric, Druid, Mage, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Warlord would be interesting)
- Flatten the power progression, potentially reduce the number of levels and spell levels (lets try 12 and 5 maybe if we want to stay in the hero region rather than going from shmuck to demigod)
- Streamline combat just a little bit more, place more emphasis on non-combat aspects of play especially as characters level up
- Incorporate alternate magic systems from the start (slot based, point based, plus something else)
- Just one corebook please

[Lord Raziere]

Look, we're living in the age of "Intelligence has nothing to do with intelligence", nothing surprises me. Yes, people are using that along with 'don't tell me how to roleplay my character' to justify dumping INT and then acting like their character is a genius.


Depends on what they're being a genius about.

Int is great for wrote learning, memorization and such. But I wouldn't give it to a social genius, or someone who is incredibly observant and insightful but not book smart, or a druid or ranger despite them having a form of intelligence about the wilderness that have nothing to do with book learning, or athlete who knows how their body works and what they can handle.

[Max_Killjoy]

I really don't think those are our only two options.

Maybe, I don't know.

My point was simply that the concern that a stat will just get pumped up more and more ties into whether gamers are restricting their stats to who and what the character is supposed to be, or are simply looking at the stat as a way to get a more mechanically effective character.

[Ignimortis]

"An APP for that" is a descriptive term for someone who considers a Class incomplete unless it has 20 Class abilities and 20 FEATS to cover every known situation that could occur when you're adventuring so you can say... "Fire breathing Dragon, I have an APP for that!" It is a hallmark of "roll players" (who desire mechanics over story) and most "min-maxers" fit into this category. Once again, there's nothing wrong with this style of play if that's what you desire, but most RPGs today are trying to simplify in order to support the more "rules loose" "Role players." The big issue with the current "roll-play" mechanics -heavy games is the imbalances that occur as power level increases. By keeping bonuses SMALL at the lower levels, power creep is minimized. You can then add OPTIONAL power boosts for the "min-maxers."

So you dislike people being able to break the general rules of the game for specific situations? Evasion as a class ability does that, you can ignore damage that targets Reflex/Dexterity saves outright if you roll high enough, everyone else takes damage. Is that bad? Characters actually being special and different because they have abilities that differentiate them in gameplay, rather than being different only through roleplay? Keep in mind, we're talking about a game here, and the better the mechanics are, the better the connection between roleplay and mechanics is.



The issue is that everyone thinks that a 5th level fighter and a 5th level magic-user SHOULD BE EQUAL. NOTHING could be farther from the truth. AD&D KNEW this and balanced the classes by requiring Magic-Users to collect 25% more EXP to advance a level than a fighter. This left the classes advancing almost equally at lower levels while the mage would fall behind at higher levels. Still, from a "balance perspective," that 8th level mage was as powerful as that 10th level fighter in general ability. The fighter had double the HP of the Mage, better saving throws, and could have several useful Proficiencies once those were introduced. He also had a small army of acquired followers to assist him.

I fix a number of issues with the Casters by just requiring a Proficiency Check for Spell Casting. There is a chance of failure for hitting a target with a sword but no such mechanic for calling on a power that can shape the very fabric of reality. Seriously? Just by adding in the skill check, I reduce the power of casters incrementally. It is designed to "advance" with a caster's power too.

Using a DC of [10 + Spell Level Being Cast] to arrive at the total DC gives a DC of 10 for cantrips (0 Level) through to 19 for 9th level spells. The caster gets to add his Proficiency Bonus and any Characteristic Bonus to this test.

The issue here is that they're presented as two equal concepts, which take the same amount of EXP to level up. Sure, you can try and reintroduce different XP costs and disclaimers that say "hey, Fighters suck compared to Wizards of the same level after level 5, but they get levels faster". Except people who want Fighters to be good won't find that interesting to play. For instance, I want Fighters to be good, because in every edition but 4th, they sucked. 3e had a proper Fighter in Warblade (which isn't a Fighter, so my point still stands), 4e had a proper Fighter in, gasp, Fighter.

And your solution is also bad, because you don't run out of sword when you fail an attack. You can just try again, usually on the same turn, and with better chances than 50% (because that's what your formula does for a level appropriate spell).

[Zakhara]

So you dislike people being able to break the general rules of the game for specific situations? ...Characters actually being special and different because they have abilities that differentiate them in gameplay, rather than being different only through roleplay? Keep in mind, we're talking about a game here, and the better the mechanics are, the better the connection between roleplay and mechanics is.

I think the argument is that there's a line which D&D has crossed, one which represents a difference in priorities. One extreme is the "character as product of imagination," and the other is "character as remote control." I don't think I lean so far to the former as olskool does, but am also not a fan of the "cookies" of later D&D editions in practice.

Personally, I consider such additions to be well-meaning (and certainly functional, if worth another attempt), but too inward-looking. I feel the lack of such things promotes examination (and a more exploratory attitude) towards other characters and of the game world itself. It's a nearly insignificant difference on paper, but one that may still matter.

[Cluedrew]

Is it 2007 again, that I see "role-players versus roll-players" used as an argument?Or Darth Ultron is back.

Anyways, I consider myself a fiction first character-story-focused type of person. And I am VERY concerned with mechanical details, you could say I want to optimize for minimum distance between my concept and the mechanical implementation. I've played plenty of board games and some war games. I have written stories and written stories cooperatively with different people focusing on different characters. Role-playing games are worse at both of these things than just doing them on their own. At least to me, but the interaction between these two things creates a different experience that is neither of those two things. Which is to say doing both is the point.

So I would love to play Jac the sand fist, professional mage hunter in your next D&D 3.5 game. However that is probably not going to work. And I don't see why I should blindly peruse it.

[jjordan]

I hope they print the line about the rules being guidelines you are encouraged to modify/embellish in the largest type that will fit on a single sheet of paper and stick it in the middle of the PHB and DMG. With sparkles. :)

[Rhedyn]

Or Darth Ultron is back.

Anyways, I consider myself a fiction first character-story-focused type of person. And I am VERY concerned with mechanical details, you could say I want to optimize for minimum distance between my concept and the mechanical implementation. I've played plenty of board games and some war games. I have written stories and written stories cooperatively with different people focusing on different characters. Role-playing games are worse at both of these things than just doing them on their own. At least to me, but the interaction between these two things creates a different experience that is neither of those two things. Which is to say doing both is the point.

So I would love to play Jac the sand fist, professional mage hunter in your next D&D 3.5 game. However that is probably not going to work. And I don't see why I should blindly peruse it.D&D isn't fiction first.

You should be playing story games like Fate and PbtA (or Forged in the Dark) if that's what you want.

[Max_Killjoy]

D&D isn't fiction first.

You should be playing story games like Fate and PbtA (or Forged in the Dark) if that's what you want.


As far as I know, that's not what fiction-first means -- it's not about "story".

Fiction-first is about setting, character, consistency/continuity/coherence, etc, coming first, and mechanics following from that. If someone wants to claim that those elements are the property of "story", they can start another thread for that debate. Story-first is about deliberately crafting a story, making decisions for story's sake, giving players the ability to affect the story outside of their character, etc.

I lean well into fiction-first territory, and I'd rather not game than play a story-focused system. I could play fiction-first narrative-focused Fate, but story-focused PbtA is everything I loathed about The Forge made into a game. Another example of a system I won't play would be FFG's Star Wars system, with its player-level powers that give the player license to retcon setting events and NPC actions outside of and completely divorced from their own character's ability to affect the "world".


Now, as for D&D, it seems mechanics-first, but not so stringently that it can't be run fiction-first, especially if you're willing to put in the setting work to get some coherence.

[Rhedyn]

As far as I know, that's not what fiction-first means -- it's not about "story".

Fiction-first is about setting, character, consistency/continuity/coherence, etc, coming first, and mechanics following from that. If someone wants to claim that those elements are the property of "story", they can start another thread for that debate. Story-first is about deliberately crafting a story, making decisions for story's sake, giving players the ability to affect the story outside of their character, etc.

I lean well into fiction-first territory, and I'd rather not game than play a story-focused system. I could play fiction-first narrative-focused Fate, but story-focused PbtA is everything I loathed about The Forge made into a game. Another example of a system I won't play would be FFG's Star Wars system, with its player-level powers that give the player license to retcon setting events and NPC actions outside of and completely divorced from their own character's ability to affect the "world".


Now, as for D&D, it seems mechanics-first, but not so stringently that it can't be run fiction-first, especially if you're willing to put in theSure I guess 5e allows you to believe whatever you want about the rules because it was written vaguely on purpose.

It's not a fiction-first game though. It has mechanics and characters/settings/etc is expected to bend towards those mechanics. You could run traditional RPGs like GURPS or Fudge with a "fiction first" mindset because you can craft the rules to represent your fiction, for Fudge, you are expected to do that on-the-fly. I guess you could have a fiction, then find a system that matches and house-rule what doesn't, but if you then live by those mechanics your game is not "fiction-first" your set up was.

Fiction-first gaming prevents things like a legendary archer missing an easy shot just because the dice rolled a 1 or the bounded accuracy of the system prevents assured bow shots. You as a DM can implement spot-house-rules like "given your background and the narrative about your character, he would not miss that shot". Storygames facilitate that kind of playing. I hate it, you hate it, but you still want fiction-first which I consider a fault of using poor mechanics. The mechanics inform the narrative and character, and if they are not then you are using the wrong system. But hey, lots of people get stuck into playing only D&D and can't/won't play anything else so they just dump a bunch of house-rules on things, never write them down, and hope it just works out. I personally consider that hella lame, but whatever floats your boat that should float because of the fiction around that boat, but mechanically sinks because maintenance cost weren't paid this month and the Captain rolled a 1.

[Max_Killjoy]

Fiction-first gaming prevents things like a legendary archer missing an easy shot just because the dice rolled a 1 or the bounded accuracy of the system prevents assured bow shots. You as a DM can implement spot-house-rules like "given your background and the narrative about your character, he would not miss that shot". Storygames facilitate that kind of playing. I hate it, you hate it, but you still want fiction-first which I consider a fault of using poor mechanics. The mechanics inform the narrative and character, and if they are not then you are using the wrong system. But hey, lots of people get stuck into playing only D&D and can't/won't play anything else so they just dump a bunch of house-rules on things, never write them down, and hope it just works out. I personally consider that hella lame, but whatever floats your boat that should float because of the fiction around that boat, but mechanically sinks because maintenance cost weren't paid this month and the Captain rolled a 1.


The GM using D&D is always free to say "this shot is so easy you can't miss, just roll for how well you hit" etc.

Now, some players hate that, because it's not black-and-white, and they think they're getting screwed when the GM makes judgement calls -- but I think that sort of player will often hate other games that are actually set up that way.

[Rhedyn]

The GM using D&D is always free to say "this shot is so easy you can't miss, just roll for how well you hit" etc.

Now, some players hate that, because it's not black-and-white, and they think they're getting screwed when the GM makes judgement calls -- but I think that sort of player will often hate other games that are actually set up that way. The D&D 5e skill system is set up like that (sort'of).

The D&D 5e combat system is not. Yes a player can feel right miffed if you spontaneously change a game with houserules and add GM judgement calls where none were invited by the system. Would I personally be annoyed at the table? No, but I would be confused enough to remind the DM what the rules normally are and let him do whatever with that information.

But I don't play D&D 5e, so I don't have to deal with that. A Stars Without Number Warrior can auto hit one attack per encounter/15-minutes. A Savage Worlds Bowman can spend bennies on the shot and only fail on freak accidents that I as a GM love to narrate. In The Black Hack 2e, I might rule an easy shot has advantage and said archer with a decent dex, and a magic bow may miss 1% of the time. In the games I like this isn't an issue.

[Morty]

Maybe, I don't know.

My point was simply that the concern that a stat will just get pumped up more and more ties into whether gamers are restricting their stats to who and what the character is supposed to be, or are simply looking at the stat as a way to get a more mechanically effective character.

I see attributes as just a tool, one of several or many in any given system. They can serve different purposes but I wouldn't attribute too much importance to them.

[Quertus]

Arguably, D&D makes a great deal of money and has long retained a considerable amount of market share specifically by stretching itself thin in ways that hurt the gameplay and to a considerable extent involve deceiving the player base.

D&D has, at it's core, a system for dungeon crawls. That's what it's class/level/resource management system works best for and everything that D&D has ever done outside of the dungeon-crawling core experience has suffered to a greater or lesser extent by having to fudge the system into shape for whatever else they're trying to do (this is also why some of the most successful D&D experiences of all time, such as Baldur's Gate, are almost pure dungeon crawls). TTRPGs, in general, work better the more narrowly focused the are, simply because fewer inputs and outputs to manage means less opportunities for the designers to accidently write some sort of unanticipated breakpoint into the system. Case in point: 3e's Diplomacy Skill problems don't exist in a system that doesn't have such a sub-system.

However, while simple and more narrowly focused RPGs (and to some extent simply smaller systems with fewer late-publishing-cycle power creep options) tend to work better, you have to publish stuff to make money. Thus there's a continual impulse to expand and to produce material that is only tangentially related to the core gameplay experience in order to maintain the bottom line. Traditionally, in tabletop, to make money you have to put out books that people buy and systems that don't do this struggle to stay afloat and in fact much of the impulse to produce new editions is part of a deliberate attempt to restart the purchase cycle. This leads to the publication of so-called 'shovelware,' material churned out quickly for the lowest possible production cost with tons of words added simply to make page counts in the hopes of continuing to squeeze out a profit. So any system has a natural incentive to produce as much material as it possibly can to maximize profitability.

D&D 5e bucks this trend, which is really kind of weird. This seems to represent a reaction by its various corporate owners (WotC and ultimately Hasbro) that TTRPGs will never be big money makers. This is borne out by actually economic experience. Even at the height of 3e's publication schedule it could never even come close to competing with MtG as a profit generator, and even the most recognizable and popular brand in Tabletop was vulnerable to a 4e style catastrophe. Hasbro appears to be willing to allow 5e to limp along as a hobby production (there are Onyx Path product lines that have 5e levels of publication output) simply as a means to retain control of the IP and to maintain a position where they can capitalize on any windfalls that come there way (ex. Stranger Things). They aren't trying to maximize profitability because they don't have too - the total budget for 5e is a rounding error on the overall balance sheet.

A more focused and condensed 6e would potentially be a much better game than any other edition, in the same way that condensing 3.X D&D down to the first 6 levels via E6 streamlines that edition and writes out numerous problems by removing high-level stuff from the game world, but it would be working against the economic incentives of the publication cycle.

Well, since I consider level 1-6 of 3e to be garbage (both because I'd rather play a characters development through 20-40 levels, and because, if I'm limited to just 6 levels, I'll take… 17-22, maybe?). So, clearly, I'm not going to be in complete agreement here. That in mind,

Suppose we built 6e based on economic principles. It seems that the cheapest overhead might be achieved through unpaid interns editing crowd-sourced material.

Historically, the problem with spats/bloat is that not enough people want them for it to be economical. So, we take a page from other systems, and use… uh… what do you call those fundraiser launches where people preorder unpublished works again? Kickstarters! 6e should have kickstarters for all its spats.

What else would make economic sense for 6e?


4.) BoL has characters begin with 4 of them. They're things like "Gladiator," "Merchant," "Sailor," etc. They do two things: represent a character's history (effectively being a progenitor to Backgrounds), and place Skills into categorical baskets rather than specific pursuits. This is very streamlined; there are hypothetically infinite "skills," so long as a player/GM can agree on a ruling surrounding certain professions.

There are limits to this; it doesn't synergize well with a "level" system, scales slowly, and is highly intended for Swords & Sorcery games (ergo, the Career selection reflects it). But I think it would be a very effective way of compressing the Backgrounds and Skills further.

OK, let me take a few sample characters here, look at how they started their careers, and you tell me if this sounds reasonable…

1) Student, Pokémon Trainer, Martial Artist, Author
2) Student, Slave, Sailor, Scout
3) Student, Party Animal, Womanizer, Drunkard
4) Merchant, Spy, Diplomat, Explorer

And then I… trust that the GM will let me make corresponding skill rolls?


Dropping d20 for 3d6 or 4d6 would introduce a more suitably "heroic" probability curve.

There are lots of reasons to consider 3d6 over d20, but "heroic"? I think that a d20 makes things much more random, allowing for the potential for much more heroic successes.

If the only criteria were "heroic", I'd pick d20, hands down. So, what do you really mean?



D20 as the base die
Class-and-level system
Six attributes, STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA, and their basic ranges of 1 to 20 (-1 to +5)
Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User (Wizard)/Thief (Rogue) base classes
Vancian spellcasting
Alignment


Vancian casting. I have nothing positive to say about this. You could club it unconscious and push it into the Thames for all I care. And do the same to it's buddy alignment too.

Woot, woot!


The whole idea of RPGs is to ROLEPLAY. You don't have to get super specific if you don't want to but it does defeat the purpose of the game if you CANNOT give at least a general description of HOW you are performing an action. Would you accept the statement "we sneak into the castle" as a complete action without asking for more clarification? For instance, "how are you going to sneak into the castle?" Are you going to use a rope and grappling hook to climb the walls? Are you going to disguise yourself and sneak in among the crowd moving through the gates? are you going to follow the sewers into the keep itself?" There is a fine balance between "Roleplaying and "Roll Playing" and I lean towards the former.

That seems an odd place to draw the line for "role-playing". I mean, in general, being able to answer questions like, "how do you visualize your character accomplishing this task", or even just, "what do you mean (when you say X)" is important. But the level of detail you use to communicate is, IMO, independent of whether you are acting as the character or not.


- Update ability scores (having both a score and bonus isn't really necessary, even if the attributes themselves don't change)

Much like rolling physical dice vs using a die roller, there is an aesthetic to having more than just a bonus. So, while the attribute may not be "necessary" (does 5e have stat damage of any kind?), that doesn't mean that it is meaningless.


- Remove generic classes or make them specific (The core 12 being something like Barbarian, Beguiler, Cleric, Druid, Mage, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Warlord would be interesting)
- Incorporate alternate magic systems from the start (slot based, point based, plus something else)

Wouldn't "alternate magic systems" be easier if your core classes included users of those mechanics - Psions, True Namers, Binders, Crusaders, etc?


- Just one corebook please

Cool idea, but… monsters would live where?


For instance, I want Fighters to be good, because in every edition but 4th, they sucked.

Fighters rocked house in 2e, back before HP bloat.


I hope they print the line about the rules being guidelines you are encouraged to modify/embellish in the largest type that will fit on a single sheet of paper and stick it in the middle of the PHB and DMG. With sparkles. :)

While we're on opposite sides regarding what rules should represent, we are in agreement that the foundational attitude with which the game was built - the mission statement, if you will - should be very boldly and blatantly stated. Sparkles would get the job done.

[Cluedrew]

D&D isn't fiction first.

You should be playing story games like Fate and PbtA (or Forged in the Dark) if that's what you want.D&D is tradition first, mechanics and fiction second and third. So the most I could ask for is mechanics first but really that is close enough. If you do a good job you can play one game with either focus, because both are good quality.


I lean well into fiction-first territory, and I'd rather not game than play a story-focused system. I could play fiction-first narrative-focused Fate, but story-focused PbtA is everything I loathed about The Forge made into a game.This distinction still confuses me. I just looked up the definition of story and narrative is its first synonym, I've never seen anybody else make this distinction and from the comments you have made over the years I have gathered you don't like the word story because someone told you "it makes a better story" when it didn't and you don't like mechanics that allow players- to effect the game through anything that is not their PC. The former would explain your choice but the latter has nothing to with any difference between story & narrative I can find.


Cool idea, but… monsters would live where?Why not homebrew?

[Max_Killjoy]

This distinction still confuses me. I just looked up the definition of story and narrative is its first synonym, I've never seen anybody else make this distinction and from the comments you have made over the years I have gathered you don't like the word story because someone told you "it makes a better story" when it didn't and you don't like mechanics that allow players- to effect the game through anything that is not their PC. The former would explain your choice but the latter has nothing to with any difference between story & narrative I can find.


It's not my distinction.

There are participants on these forums who tell me that "narrative" games are not the same as "story" games, and I get a sense of the difference between the two when they discuss it, but I am not able to fairly articulate it myself -- so to avoid "conflict" that neither side actually wants, I honor that distinction.

My original use of "narrative" that caused confusion and unintended conflict was based on such things as "narrative causality", and derived from my disdain for that sort of element.

As best as I can discern and describe it, "narrative" is being used more to mean "fiction first" by those posters, while not actually having an inherent inclusion of plotting elements, deliberate adherence to tropes, or deliberate craft of story.

[Ignimortis]

There are lots of reasons to consider 3d6 over d20, but "heroic"? I think that a d20 makes things much more random, allowing for the potential for much more heroic successes.

If the only criteria were "heroic", I'd pick d20, hands down. So, what do you really mean?

Heroic means you aren't commonly failing things you try, which is likely to happen with a d20's distribution if you have less than +(4/5ths of the DC) on the roll. Adjusting so that heroic things happen more often is easy - crit successes are 17 and 18 or even 16-18, while crit failures are only 3, and the probability curve generates more middle-of-the-road results, which usually should result in success for things you're trained in.



Fighters rocked house in 2e, back before HP bloat.


I don't consider "can kill a guy really quickly" to be the end-all-be-all of Fighter class. Sure, it helps, but high-level Fighters were still...not really that fantastical.

[Cluedrew]

To Max_Killjoy: Unless one of them shows up and clarifies the difference can I recommend you stop using this distinction. Because you are using these words to describe something and apparently neither you nor the people (me at least, maybe Rhedyn knows exactly what this is about) know what the words mean. So that kind of muddies your point. I think your point would be much clearer if you used terms like "meta-narrative powers", "disassociated mechanics" or "formulaic stories" which are not conveyed at all by story vs. narrative but from other discussions I think are what you are actually talking about.

[Max_Killjoy]

To Max_Killjoy: Unless one of them shows up and clarifies the difference can I recommend you stop using this distinction. Because you are using these words to describe something and apparently neither you nor the people (me at least, maybe Rhedyn knows exactly what this is about) know what the words mean. So that kind of muddies your point. I think your point would be much clearer if you used terms like "meta-narrative powers", "disassociated mechanics" or "formulaic stories" which are not conveyed at all by story vs. narrative but from other discussions I think are what you are actually talking about.

That's reasonable -- in my defense, I was trying to be fair and not start unwanted "fights".

[Rhedyn]

I don't consider "can kill a guy really quickly" to be the end-all-be-all of Fighter class. Sure, it helps, but high-level Fighters were still...not really that fantastical.
I have to point out how much better it is to be a high level Fighter/Warrior in OSR games than in 5e or 3e D&D (the 4e fighter is great).

A lot of there abilities can boil down to "can kill a guy really quickly" it's not fantastical, the vast majority of those games end at level 10 and casters are still cool but way more limited.

Since casters don't have the spell slots to solve every problem with class abilities, something as simple as the Fighter being strong and sturdy goes a long way in the Utility department.

HP boat under cuts that, because damage goes up too. What was once a mythical Fighter that can wade through a burning castle to save the princess, now takes 20 HP a round as has to spend 20 rounds fighting the fire elemental, so you ask the Wizard to put out the fire instead.

For that cool 10+ Fighter experience, Superhero RPGs exists.

[Kane0]

Much like rolling physical dice vs using a die roller, there is an aesthetic to having more than just a bonus. So, while the attribute may not be "necessary" (does 5e have stat damage of any kind?), that doesn't mean that it is meaningless.

There might be one or two instances, but it's vestigial at best just like Alignment. We simply don't need to calculate our applied strength as roll + (score minus ten, then halved rounded down) these days.



Wouldn't "alternate magic systems" be easier if your core classes included users of those mechanics - Psions, True Namers, Binders, Crusaders, etc?

Psions are a kind of sorcerer (point based casting, innate/inherent magic flavor), truenamers and binders are a warlocks (at-will magic with some per-days thrown in, magic dependent on another entity that isn't a deity in flavor), Crusaders are just paladins (primarily martial with a divine influence, gain magic abilities from there).
I didn't say those classes I listed should all use the same casting system. In fact, I'd vastly prefer if they didn't.



Cool idea, but… monsters would live where?

Just like 5e, their own book which isn't necessary to run the game. The PHB has a handful of examples in the back and the DMG has monster creation rules, just merge those for the next corebook and make it clearer that the various monster manuals are extra examples rather than a requirement to play (especially since there are often more in adventures and splatbooks not to mention previous editions and the internet).

[Lucas Yew]

As long as a 5th level Fighter and a 5th level Wizard (or Cleric or whichever) cost the same amount of XP, it IS true that they should be equal (at least in terms of overall worthwhile-ness; superiority or inferiority in specific circumstances is another thing). The issue is that 3.X made all class levels progress at the same rate while not toning down the superiority of casting at higher levels (which, as you note, was accounted for by the higher XP costs). Later or alternative editions (a la PF), have since been trying to fix that wrinkle.

But "equivalent worthwhileness per equivalent XP total regardless of class" most certainly should be true. Otherwise, what, pray tell, did I buy with all that wasted XP?


The issue here is that they're presented as two equal concepts, which take the same amount of EXP to level up. Sure, you can try and reintroduce different XP costs and disclaimers that say "hey, Fighters suck compared to Wizards of the same level after level 5, but they get levels faster". Except people who want Fighters to be good won't find that interesting to play. For instance, I want Fighters to be good, because in every edition but 4th, they sucked. 3e had a proper Fighter in Warblade (which isn't a Fighter, so my point still stands), 4e had a proper Fighter in, gasp, Fighter.

The equal value of XP can never be be emphasized enough...

[Zakhara]

Cool idea, but… monsters would live where?

Same place as the Rules Cyclopedia: alongside everything else. I suppose that undermines the idea of monsters being "unknown" to some extent, but I don't know how often that's truly the case given how well-known the D&D bestiary has become.

[Quertus]

Why not homebrew?

I like this. But D&D needs to protect its IP, so it needs to publish them somewhere.

And see below.


Heroic means you aren't commonly failing things you try,

I'd argue "basic competence" (plus not overachieving) should cover that. To me, heroic adds "and you can try those things that a normal mortal would consider foolhardy".


Just like 5e, their own book which isn't necessary to run the game. The PHB has a handful of examples in the back and the DMG has monster creation rules, just merge those for the next corebook and make it clearer that the various monster manuals are extra examples rather than a requirement to play (especially since there are often more in adventures and splatbooks not to mention previous editions and the internet).

You've sold me - now, can I sell you?

So, what if you could run the game just fine with "core", but there was also a "content library" for "module builders"? So, divide the roles of "create content" and "run the game". Core gets "run the game", and can work just fine with modules (or homebrew content). Those who want to use standard monsters, lava with a standard effect/DC, etc, they purchase the "module builder's guidebook".

Then, every published module contains copies of every rule it used from the rules library. So that someone who only owns core can still run it.

What do you think?

[Kane0]

You've sold me - now, can I sell you?

So, what if you could run the game just fine with "core", but there was also a "content library" for "module builders"? So, divide the roles of "create content" and "run the game". Core gets "run the game", and can work just fine with modules (or homebrew content). Those who want to use standard monsters, lava with a standard effect/DC, etc, they purchase the "module builder's guidebook".

Then, every published module contains copies of every rule it used from the rules library. So that someone who only owns core can still run it.

What do you think?

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

6e Handbook: Basics of play, PC & NPC creation (with examples), equipment & treasure, spells & spell creation, settings & environments, downtime & training, encounters (combat & noncombat) and contextual/inspirational reading
6e Master's Guide: Optional rules, variant rules, homebrewing guide and other assorted 'expanded content'
6e Creature compendium: PC & NPC creation tools (features, templates, tables, etc) and a big bundle of examples already put together for your convenience

[Elves]

So, on the vague topic of desired changes for 6e, I'm convinced that odd ability scores being such a waste has got to go. I'd be way more fine with capping ability scores at 20 and having PC stats closer to the bell curve if 20 meant +10 and 1 meant -9. If a 14 meant what an 18 does now, if every point matters, you could finally have what WOTC clearly prefers which is starting stats closer to the mean.

[Kane0]

Have each stat measured as -5 to +8 or so, starting with a standard array of +3, +2, +2, +1, +0, -1. Races give ones or two +1s and a stat increase as you level could be a +2 or two +1s.

No need to keep the old way, we didn’t use it for proficiency bonus or any other new mechanics.