What would you want to change about 5e?

[Greywander]

If someone were to make a mod of 5e (I'm kind of thinking of like what Pathfinder was to 3.5 as an example), what kinds of changes would you like to see? I don't mean like specific tweaks to the classes, but more general things, like ability scores, the core d20 system, or how actions and turns are handled in combat.

[Yakmala]

Either do away with XP in it's current format or modify it in a way that treats success via cleverness or roleplay with equal measure if the end results are the same.

I personally haven't kept track of XP in years, maybe decades. The campaign has goals. As those goals are accomplished and bigger challenges present themselves, the players are told they've leveled up.

How to standardize this in a set of rules that works for every type of game session/campaign is a question that can have a number of worthy answers.

[Greywander]

Well, the DMG does have milestone XP as an option.

What I've done in the past is assess the difficulty of each encounter and hand out XP based on that. The DMG has a table for that, too. I also do this for completing quests (with major story arcs being equivalent to a deadly encounter, while a minor sidequest is an easy encounter), plus some auto XP for each session (IIRC it was a medium encounter's worth, but I don't remember).

But, I could see codifying this.
A small amount of XP for each session, just to make sure there's some progress even if nothing of consequence happens during the session.
XP rewards for finishing quests or story arcs. Advancing the plot or completing a mission now has a tangible reward pushing the players forward.
Ignore monster XP, and implement per encounter XP (including for non-combat encounters). Assess the encounter's difficulty, and award an appropriate amount of XP.

[FabulousFizban]

abandon the alignment system and let players behave how they want to behave. Ethics are more complicated than nine boxes.

[Yakmala]

abandon the alignment system and let players behave how they want to behave. Ethics are more complicated than nine boxes.

Perhaps replace the alignment system with a reputation system.

Players behave how they want to behave, but actions have consequences.

The DM decides if various player actions fall under good or evil, law or chaos.

Those actions, if they are witnessed and especially if word of them spreads, affect NPC's expectations and interactions with that character.

On a small scale, this could mean favorable or unfavorable responses from merchants or city guards.

On a higher level, this could mean a response, positively or negatively from the character's god, patron, order or commander.

The higher the character's level and the more people that know of them and track their exploits, the greater the impact of their actions on their reputation.

As a DM, you have the option of keeping this reputation score to yourself or sharing it with the player when you feel appropriate.

[Greywander]

The problem with alignment is that it's so heavily tied up with D&D, and especially in the Great Wheel cosmology. It simply isn't possible to get rid of it entirely, the best you can do is ignore its existence.

Something I might replace it with is a four (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourTemperamentEnsemble) temperament (https://web.archive.org/web/20150324140648/http://archive.fighunter.com/?page=temperaments) personality system. In order to encourage playing by that specific temperament, I've even devised specific bonuses each one would give. You could choose a primary and a secondary, making for a total of 12 combinations. Mechanically, the primary would be reusable after a short rest, while the secondary would require a long rest. The bonuses were something like:

Choleric. Before rolling an ability check, you may choose to add +5 to that roll.
Sanguine. After you fail an ability check, you may choose to reroll it. You must use the new result.
Phlegmatic. When another creature you can see makes an ability check, you may add +2 to their roll. You may use this once per creature.
Melancholic. Before rolling an ability check, you may replace the die roll with a 15.

This would help push players toward RPing those temperaments. Melancholics plan ahead for the perfect time to use that guarantied 15, while sanguines are more impulsive and use the reroll to get themselves out of trouble. Cholerics are the very best (like no one ever was), while phlegmatics just like to help out. It's subtle and doesn't get too much in the way, while still nudging players in the right direction.

[8wGremlin]

Universal magic system:
all magic is available to all spell casters, but how you access it and how you use it is dependant upon you class.
so
Power Source + Method of obtaining = class bonus (wizards don't wear armour, but can empower their spells, by taking time to cast and have to have their spells decided on the day. )

examples:
Arcane + Fealty = Would be Fae pact magic type
Divine + Fealty = Cleric type magic
Arcane + Study = Wizard
Arcane + Innate = Sorcerer
extend this to Infernal, Far Realm, Physical and Psychic etc.
needs work..

Universal Fighting style
all fighting styles are available to all classes that get fighting styles.

Universal Manoeuvres
all pure martial characters gain manoeuvres and superiority dice, (such as free manoeuvres feat )
all those classes that have manoeuvres already, just get more dice and more manoeuvres.

[Sception]

Actually Short short rests. Short rests take only 10 or even 5 minutes, short enough to be reasonably assumed between every encounter. In fact, define encounters by everything that happens between short rests. Re-balance short rest recharging resources as appropriate. The current system, that balances with the assumption that short rests happen every other encounter, but then give a time duration for short rests that neither prevent parties from resting after every encounter nor ensure they're able to take a short rest at all make encounter and adventure design awkward and unbalanced.

Every class gets a mix of at will, short rest, and long rest resources. It doesn't need to be the same mix, some can lean more in one or another direction, and those abilities don't all need to look like 'spells' or 'powers'. For an example, look at the executioner assassin from late in 5e's development. The character had a strong basic attack, at will martial arts techniques with some utility to them, instead of the same set of encounter powers as every other class they had one big hit per encounter for massive damage on a single target, and instead of the same set of daily powers as every other class they had an increasing selection of magical poisons they could brew during long rests which expired if not used within a day. So not a rigid set of X powers at Y levels, but still a commitment to ensuring the class had the same kinds of resources as other classes. Making sure all classes have decent things to do all the time, plus some stuff to use on a per encounter basis, plus some stuff to use on a per day basis means that if a given adventuring day is particularly long or short it at least affects all classes similarly, if not equally, making it easier for the DM to adjust the balance of individual encounters accordingly.

More healing abilities that scale on hit die size, or let the target spend hit dice, or refresh hit dice spent, improving the efficiency of healing when used on characters with higher max HP, which in turn rewards such characters for tanking damage.

More healing abilities efficient enough to be worth using in combat before a party member drops unconscious, coupled with some disincentive to let party members drop before healing them. Don't just do one or the other, has to be both at once.

Make sure classes / subclasses meant for tanking have some built in ability to discourage enemies from attacking their allies apart from just opportunity attacks. These abilities don't have too all look the same, some can be punishments, some can be debuffs, etc, but something.



Mostly, just bring back the handful of things 4e did well, minus the baggage.

[MrStabby]

A different set of classes.

The current set seem to exist because they are traditional and keeping some abilities as class features stops them being more widely available.

No fighter, no sorcerer, no wizard would be my preference: fighter is a bit bland and too narrow in its scope (and gives rise to damaging comparisons - X can't be better because then it would be as good at fighting as a fighter and a fighter can't do much else). Sorcerer gobbles up metamagic, a fun ability that would make for interesting feats - replacing the class would open this up. Wizard is too broad in what it can do and steps on too many toes. Replace with a more specialist caster.

Generally, reduce power of generalist casters and promote thematic specialisation.


I would like a bit more harmonisation between classes so there is less gap between them in terms of ability in different campaign types. 1 encounter per day, social campaign, investigation in the library, grinding dungeon crawl... ideally players should have pretty much as viable characters as each other irrespective of class choice (though obviously allowing differences in build).


Having a more coherent approach to what should be the realm of spells and what should be skills. Remove spells that obviate the need for skills or make them higher level.


More weapons and weapon choice be more impactful and just a little more complex.


Helping to promote a more even distribution of value between skills. I would like initiative to be based of int rather than dex for example.


Enable warrior characters to, if they chose, have more versatility and the ability to force saves, apply conditions etc.. Personally I find them dull in combat and less well equipped with abilities that work well out of combat. Barbarians have a small toolbox, in that toolbox there is only a club... and that club isn't always the sharpest tool in the shed either.

[ZRN]

1. Make ability scores just bonuses (e.g. +4 instead of 18). Even experienced players sometimes stumble on this and forget whether, say, a 19 is a +4 or +5. It's not hard to deal with, but it's a tiny added complication that confuses people for absolutely no benefit.

2. Make saving throws static defenses (like 4e). It's not only easier to remember (attacker always rolls the d20), it makes a lot of conditions and effects easier to deal with and more consistent. (No more wizards who are just as effective while blind because disadvantage doesn't impact their spellcasting.)

3. Re-implement something like the 4e ritual system, where powerful non-combat spell effects are (a) separated out from normal caster spell slots and (b) tied to the skill system. Spells like Raise Dead and Teleportation Circle are essential to mid-to-high-level campaigns and it's silly that you need fairly specific party compositions to access them.

4. Make at least one "simple" mage class that requires less than 6 pages of rules to play, including all their magic. WOTC bent over backwards to make sure in 5e you could play a "simple" fighter (relative to the complexity of most other classes and builds in the game), but for some reason they assume everyone who wants to blast enemies with fireballs also wants to deal with a complex spell-slot system and also read through 100+ pages of spells. Something like the UA Mystic class (preferably more cohesive with fewer options).

5. More generally, simplify the spellcasting system overall. Spell slots are complex to deal with, and while that's fine for wizards and maybe clerics, there's no reason every magically-inclined class and subclass, from arcane tricksters to paladins to bards, needs to worry about it. Elements like verbal, somatic, and material components also feel very "wizard-y" and it would be nice if my ranger didn't have to wiggle his fingers and chant fake Latin every time he wanted to, like, shoot someone with a magic arrow. It would be good if the default spell system had as much complexity stripped out as possible, and certain classes could add it back in where appropriate.

[MoiMagnus]

abandon the alignment system and let players behave how they want to behave. Ethics are more complicated than nine boxes.

I mean, 5e already made the main step by removing alignment restrictions and almost all of its mechanical interaction. It's only tradition and DMs that keep it prescriptive on some tables rather than purely descriptive and inspiring.
(because one of the main pro of alignment is that it communicates 9 template of personality, saying to the player "you can do something else than a self-insert with your personality and moral views")

As for what I would like:
Better DMG advices and houserules. Specifically, one of the most common "balance problem" tables have are nova-style vs gritty resource management. For example a houserule that starts by "if you want to allow spellcasters to blast through their spell slots without counting resources, here are some buffs and nerfs we'd advise you to implement to maintain balance". [NB: a lot of the UAs actually do a reasonably good job at adding houserules that should have been options in the DMG or a DMG2]

[stoutstien]

Redistribute ability checks and saves so they're all relevant

increase the amount of health you get it level 1 but decrease the amount you get on levels thereafter. Maybe scale back HP and damage bloat but that's more of a system overhaul than a simple change.

Reformat the material.

Clean up unnecessarily convoluted rules like action/bonus action leveled spells interaction.

[Darc_Vader]

2. Make saving throws static defenses (like 4e). It's not only easier to remember (attacker always rolls the d20), it makes a lot of conditions and effects easier to deal with and more consistent. (No more wizards who are just as effective while blind because disadvantage doesn't impact their spellcasting.)

To be fair, a large number of spells have a ‘that you can see’ clause in their targeting; not having disadvantage on the few that don’t is fine, since blindness (or heck, even a Fog Cloud) straight up stops them from casting a lot of their spells at all.

[ZRN]

To be fair, a large number of spells have a ‘that you can see’ clause in their targeting; not having disadvantage on the few that don’t is fine, since blindness (or heck, even a Fog Cloud) straight up stops them from casting a lot of their spells at all.

I'm not so worried about balance issues; it's more that lots of effects that affect attack rolls and/or saving throws have to either deal with awkward wording ("You get disadvantage on attack rolls and enemies get advantage on saves against your spells and other effects") or just not impact spellcasting. When you DO want to differentiate between martial and magical effects, it's easy enough to do so ("You get advantage on magic attack rolls").

On the flipside, it makes bonuses and penalties to your defenses more consistent: for example, Circle of Power right now protects you really well from most spells but arbitrarily not from cantrips, and it's clearly just because they didn't want to write out "... and also attacks get disadvantage on magical attack rolls against allies who are impacted by this spell".

[JellyPooga]

1) Get rid of HP.

Hit Points cause all sorts of narrative problems, as well as dragging out combats beyond reasonable expectations. Retain Hit Dice and implement a contested Wound system, where weapon damage opposes Hit Die and success means inflicting a Wound (a much more limited resource than HP, that could also impose negative effects, much like Exhaustion levels). Armour could either replace or enhance Hit Die type (either instead of boosting AC or in addition to it), or give either a static bonus to Hit Die rolls or additional dice and likewise, features like Sneak Attack and Ability Score bonuses could do the same for damage rolls.

Pro's:
- Less, or eliminates, daft "You can't possibly kill me, I have too many HP" or "I jump off the cliff, I can take it" scenarios.
- Gives combat greater consequences than just depleting resources (if Wounds persist and give penalties), including greater incentive to surrender (because there's a difference between "Full-effectiveness to Zero-effectiveness" and a sliding scale).
- Combats that resolve quicker (less HP-grinding)
- More flexibility in how bonuses and penalties can apply
- Gives Hit Dice, Constitution and Armour a more active role in combat
- Opens more options to healing (in general) and healing spells, because status effects from common wounds are more frequent and (potentially) varied.

Con's
- Potential Death Spiral (if negative effects for Wounds implemented)
- Changes some expectations of what combat is in D&D (only a problem for veteran players)
- Kills a Sacred Cow (only a problem for really veteran players)

2) Class Flexibility.

I brought this up in another thread, but there are some classes that still have needless/weird hangovers from previous editions; all Rogues being proficient in Thieves Tools and Thieves Cant being a prominent one for me, but this extends to things like all and only Druids having Wild Shape and all Clerics having Armour proficiency, for example. I would see greater flexibility within the Class structure and less Classes. Why, for instance, do we really need to distinguish between a Warlock, a Wizard and a Sorcerer when they could easily all be Arcanists with mix'n'match options under that banner?

Pro's
- Less incentive, possibly even no requirement, to include multiclass rules
- Wider variety of character concepts more easily implemented (if the hoops have been removed for you, you don't need to jump them).

Con's
- Less Classes means less archetypes to present to Players; this largely means a steeper learning curve to get to some concepts because they're not on a platter for you (it gives rise to questions like "How do I build a Paladin?" if the Paladins features are buried somewhere in the Cleric or Fighter Class, for example)

[Willie the Duck]

There are quibble-like bits and bobs (rebuild ranger, no one-handed quarterstaves, put some real time and effort into making clear and intuitive vision, stealth, and surprise rules), but overall I think I'd like to see 3 things:

1. Give some real support for the exploration pillar of the game, and resource-management more long-term than hp and spells per long rest. I think the simplification of much of this from previous editions was done with good intentions -- lots of people didn't like tracking every pound of weight or rations or lantern oil, so they made trivializing these things incredibly easy. Likewise, the removal of all the little +1s and -2s and the like for various terrains or weather/light conditions and such for simple disadvantage/advantage was done for all the right reasons. Same with getting rid of energy drain or having to take days to heal up from low hp. However, that makes it really hard to make simple wilderness travel, getting lost (unless you have some kind of doom clock in effect), or any kind of combat that isn't either a TPK risk or draining resources for another combat you will have in quick succession any real kind of threat. Obviously a good DM can do any or all of this with the right scenario or RP incentives, but the need to do so is pretty glaring.

2. 4E experimented with the notion that some spells shouldn't be gated behind getting specific classes to specific levels (most notably the plane shift-like ones, raise dead, etc.). This meant that you didn't need to have a high-level caster class to do interplanar travel, nor needed a cleric in the party (or routine access to an NPC one) once enemies started having curses and inflict-able diseases, etc. This should not have been abandoned. First and foremost of all because with over a dozen base classes (and going to great efforts to make sure that parties didn't need clerics to heal HP), there should not still be many 'your party must have a _____ to ______' requirements. Secondly because inter-class (or 'martial'-'caster') balance is really hard to accomplish if some abilities are exclusive to the 'caster' classes (yes, this solution does make all classes casters, but for these spells only).

3. A more robust skill system. A little surprising, since I'm usually not on board with the usual proponents of this (usually because they hold up systems like 3e or GURPS, both of which I consider genuinely bad, as examples of a system doing it right), but honestly, yes, 5e's skill system is anemic at best. If you want a rigorous skill system (or general universal resolution system, as I'm not against D&D PCs being omnicompetent at adventure-like activities), they could have devoted a good 5-10 more pages to the effort.

[Porcupinata]

I'm not expecting my changes to be popular, but they're what I think would make the game better for me, rather than what I think would make the game sell more.

Get the Forgotten Realms stuff out of the core books, leaving them with a simple default setting (e.g. the Dawn War pantheon and cosmology) that isn't full of meta-plot, associated history, and iconic characters.
Make the "proficiency dice" option the default, and make advantage/disadvange: (a) reroll that die instead of the d20, and (b) stack. So for example if you have two sources of advantage and your proficiency die is a d6 then you roll 1d20 + 3d6 (one for proficiency and one for each level of advantage) and keep the d20 and the highest of the d6s.
Make milestone experience the default, and drop experience points altogether.
Drop raw ability scores and just keep the bonuses.
Make multiclassing work 4e-style. Basically you don't add different classes at different levels. Instead, each class has fixed series of feat-like packages that can be bought by people of other classes using ASIs to let them add carefully balanced subsets of the chosen class's abilities to their character.
Drop alignment completely.

[JackPhoenix]

I'm so glad most of you won't be in charge of theoretical 5.5e or 6e. Some of those suggestions sounds terrible.

But then, so would be mine for other people's games. Just because some specific ideas work for me doesn't mean they would work for most other people (which is certainly the goal of anyone who wants to sell the game to a wide audience), or make the game still feel like D&D (I'm looking at you, 4e).

[diplomancer]

More shield options; be it a buckler for archers or a 2-handed tower shield, it would be fun to have more character builds open up with new shields

[Galaxander]

I was impressed with how the Backgrounds rules make it easy for a new player to better flesh out a character and be inspired, even if they're not the kind of person to typically think about such things.

I think a great addition to 5e would be something similar to establish the relationships between party members. I don't know how it would work exactly, and you'd probably need to fill out that part of the character sheet with your group (you can't be someone's sibling if they aren't also yours, for example). Something like a list of "best friend, life-debt, rival, protective" and so on. Not as restrictions, but just as a starting point.

[Pex]

A Point Buy system that allows an 18 at first level without gimping you such that you wish you didn't have the 18.

Go back to three saving throws, fortitude, reflex, will, using 4E's approach of modifier is player's choice of two scores.

Example DCs for skill use.

Separate feats from ASI.

Don't be ornery about terms like melee weapon attack and attack with a melee weapon. Be clear and concise on how things work in all things.

Buff spells specifically meant to be used in melee combat are not Concentration.

[stoutstien]

I was impressed with how the Backgrounds rules make it easy for a new player to better flesh out a character and be inspired, even if they're not the kind of person to typically think about such things.

I think a great addition to 5e would be something similar to establish the relationships between party members. I don't know how it would work exactly, and you'd probably need to fill out that part of the character sheet with your group (you can't be someone's sibling if they aren't also yours, for example). Something like a list of "best friend, life-debt, rival, protective" and so on. Not as restrictions, but just as a starting point.
Decent into avernus has something like this.

[Dienekes]

I am personally of the opinion that classes should only really exist if they give distinct mechanical differentiation from each other.

So my issue with 5e is that a lot of the classes play the same, depending on one signature (often fairly passive) ability or which spell lists they have to make them feel different. A Fighter and a Barbarian for example play largely the same, only the Barbarian spends a Bonus Action to go in a rage.

I’d put in a lot more work to make the classes play wildly different on a round per round level.

It is weird to me that the class most likely to be using a light weapon (the rogue) is rewarded for making one massive hit. While the characters most likely to be swinging around great two-handed weapons as big as they are (Fighter, Berserker Barbarian) get their biggest damage boost from having multiple attacks.

On that mechanical level, I actually think the spell mechanics of the Warlock best fits the fluff of the Sorcerer. Where they’re learning this all by instinct and they don’t really have the fine control of more learned casters to differentiate between going “half power” for one spell or not. They just release the energy within them at the highest they can with each spell.

Put more work into the equipment section. Weapons and armor can do some cool things that aren’t just how big their damage dice is and base AC.

Fighter subclasses are designed around fitting fluff rather than mechanics. This has been getting better recently, but the original 3 subclasses were just: Simple Fighter, Slightly Less Simple Fighter, and Magic Fighter. I think they should have been things like: Knight, Soldier, Gladiator, Elite Guardsman, etc. and then are given in and out of combat abilities to reflect what these types of fighter would behave.

And on that note all classes should have a good mix of in combat and out of combat abilities. None of that “this class is defined by being a good in combat” every class is good in combat. Lets get them all cool stuff to do out of combat.

In combat skill use. Allow the skills to do some neat things in combat. Intimidate vs Wisdom saving throw to Frighten an opponent. Deception to Confuse the target and Charm them for a round. I’m aware that Expertise may need to be reworked for this to function.

And just to help me as a GM. I kinda wish that the game has player focused rolling. I don’t roll to attack, my players roll to parry or dodge. I don’t roll my monsters saving throw, my players roll a spell cast check and I compare it to my monsters static save score.

I just think that saves time, and lets the players have more fun throwing dice around.

[JellyPooga]

And just to help me as a GM. I kinda wish that the game has player focused rolling. I don’t roll to attack, my players roll to parry or dodge. I don’t roll my monsters saving throw, my players roll a spell cast check and I compare it to my monsters static save score.

I just think that saves time, and lets the players have more fun throwing dice around.

I can heartily agree with this; the GM should not be relying on luck to dictate the narrative. The more active you make the PC's abilities, including their defence, the better.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Actually Short short rests. Short rests take only 10 or even 5 minutes, short enough to be reasonably assumed between every encounter. In fact, define encounters by everything that happens between short rests. Re-balance short rest recharging resources as appropriate. The current system, that balances with the assumption that short rests happen every other encounter, but then give a time duration for short rests that neither prevent parties from resting after every encounter nor ensure they're able to take a short rest at all make encounter and adventure design awkward and unbalanced.
Very much agreed.


1. Make ability scores just bonuses (e.g. +4 instead of 18). Even experienced players sometimes stumble on this and forget whether, say, a 19 is a +4 or +5. It's not hard to deal with, but it's a tiny added complication that confuses people for absolutely no benefit.

2. Make saving throws static defenses (like 4e). It's not only easier to remember (attacker always rolls the d20), it makes a lot of conditions and effects easier to deal with and more consistent. (No more wizards who are just as effective while blind because disadvantage doesn't impact their spellcasting.)
I'm on board for both these things.


3. Re-implement something like the 4e ritual system, where powerful non-combat spell effects are (a) separated out from normal caster spell slots and (b) tied to the skill system. Spells like Raise Dead and Teleportation Circle are essential to mid-to-high-level campaigns and it's silly that you need fairly specific party compositions to access them.

5e's version of rituals was better than 4e's, I think-- my memory is that those were expensive and underwhelming, both of which made you hesitate before bothering with them. (Also, 4e stuffed everything that wasn't directly zapping someone into rituals, which was a bad idea). But having more rituals in general, with access via the Ritual Caster feat and the occasional subclass, would be a fun step.

To those, I'd add...

Replace "long rest" with "rest in safety," so characters only regain their full resources when they return to town at the end of an adventure, rather than at the end of a day. By divorcing long rests from in-game time, you get rid of a long of issues and make prolonged wilderness travel actually work.
Skill challenges, or some other sort of framework for building non-combat encounters around. Ideally something robust enough that you can write class features to interact with it.
More optional rules for things like sailing, crafting, leadership, "gritty adventuring" (ie, worrying about supplies and encumbrance), that sort of thing.
Embrace backgrounds more heavily, while downplaying race. Make race more of a fluffy choice, with no more than mild ribbons, and move the bulk of your non-class features to background. (Actually, it might be fun to have two backgrounds per character, to let them be a little more complicated. And maybe to include some scaling, "at 5th level you can X" type utility abilities).
Add a hero point mechanic. As a player it's nice to have a small buffer against the winds of fate; as a GM, it's nice to be able to compensate players when you're being extra mean.
Keep the Barbarian and Paladin as simple martials, and make the Fighter and Ranger more complex-- something more like 3.5's Tome of Battle, with a wide selection of at-will or per-encounter abilities.
At the same time, make the Sorcerer a simple spellcaster, leaning mostly on a small number of versatile at-will abilities. That'll help new players who just want to shoot fireballs, and experienced players who want a greater contrast with the Wizard.
Demote the Warlock to a Sorcerer or Wizard subclass. I don't think it really has enough thematic range to stand as its own class, and it doesn't have the tradition of things like Paladin.

[JNAProductions]

Add a feat to let people gain Expertise, or modify Skilled so it grants two proficiencies, and then can either upgrade one proficiency to Expertise, or just gain a third proficiency.

[KorvinStarmast]

If someone were to make a mod of 5e (I'm kind of thinking of like what Pathfinder was to 3.5 as an example), what kinds of changes would you like to see? I don't mean like specific tweaks to the classes, but more general things, like ability scores, the core d20 system, or how actions and turns are handled in combat.
We've done this before, but ...
1. Saving Throw System. I still don't like how you can be a level 20 PC and be unable to make a save in a non proficient ability score that is a 10 or an 11.

2. Rangers: prepared spells, like paladins and clerics and druids; they are divine casters. Also, for each Ranger arehctype - as with cleric domains and paladin oaths - spells (one per spell level as in XGtE) that fit their archetype that are always prepared. Back fit this to Hunter and Beastmaster; see Gloom Stalker and Void (Horizon?) Walker for examples.

3. Warlock: Int caster, not Charisma. They way they originally intended before the fans whined.

4. Exhaustion: overhaul this mechanic in the following manner.
Lesser Restoration cleans up one level of exhaustion. Greater Restoration cleanrs up all levels.
Long rest cleans up Con Mod (or 1/2 con mod?) levels of exhaustion. Short rest on a DC 15 (or pick a number) clears up a level of ehxaustion if one spends a hit die.
I was in a campaign where exhaustion figured significantly (IMO the DM called for checks far too often; just walking around made you exhausted, hot jungle) and the problems with that mechanic became very apparent. Also, the Beserker archetype would finally be fixed. This mechanic is a good idea with a crap implementation.

5. Let's give mounted combat another try. A Martial Character with Animal Handling proficiency needs to be able to use a war horse somewhat more effectively than "any character on a mount" without having to burn a feat; also, feats are optional.
Proposal: Fighters, Rangers, Barbarians, Pact of the Blade Warlocks, Valor Bards, Sword Bards, and Paladins mod the current mounted combat rule to include the mount being able to attack as well as all else.

Yeah.
It can be a significant advantage, but steeds still take damage easily due to low AC so use with care.

6. Give the scimitar 1d6+1 damage; give someone an incentive to use it. Do something interesting with Trident also. (Possible special property that medium or small opponent can't withdraw after a hit without a strength save, or something like that ... still not sure what I'd like to see with this).

7. Four Elements Monk. Either increase ki points, or ki point regeneration for this particular path, or rescrub ki costs for the elemental abilities(cost reduction). Also, or at the very least, make ALL elemental abilities available.

That's all I can come up with at the moment. Ran out of coffee.

Oh, yeah:
Barbarian: Damage bonus for rage needs to equal proficiency bonus.

[Dork_Forge]

The main thing comes to mind is an overhaul of the feat system into major and minor feats, major feats (like SS, GWM, PAM etc.) still need a tradeoff of an ASI (or V. Human) and minor feats are gained at certain character (not class) levels (fun things like Keen Mind and Actor minus the half stat bump). Greatly increase the number of each feat type and suddenly character customisation skyrockets not just in powergaming but in more niche roleplay scenarios too.

[JNAProductions]

The main thing comes to mind is an overhaul of the feat system into major and minor feats, major feats (like SS, GWM, PAM etc.) still need a tradeoff of an ASI (or V. Human) and minor feats are gained at certain character (not class) levels (fun things like Keen Mind and Actor minus the half stat bump). Greatly increase the number of each feat type and suddenly character customisation skyrockets not just in powergaming but in more niche roleplay scenarios too.

Also a good idea. It'd require MORE feats, so that way not everyone has the same few, but it'd be cool.

Granting stuff like Powerful Build, for instance, could be added as one of those minor feats.

[stoutstien]

Also a good idea. It'd require MORE feats, so that way not everyone has the same few, but it'd be cool.

Granting stuff like Powerful Build, for instance, could be added as one of those minor feats.

Adding more minor feats could also help rogues have a more flexible array of features that don't revolve around skills. It's not a bad idea at all

[KorvinStarmast]

The main thing comes to mind is an overhaul of the feat system into major and minor feats, major feats (like SS, GWM, PAM etc.) still need a tradeoff of an ASI (or V. Human) and minor feats are gained at certain character (not class) levels (fun things like Keen Mind and Actor minus the half stat bump). Greatly increase the number of each feat type and suddenly character customisation skyrockets not just in powergaming but in more niche roleplay scenarios too. While I see where you are going with this, I disagree with changing feats much at all. Particularly this:
Greatly increase the number of each feat type
I don't think we need more feats.

I'd like to see "Weapon Master" overhauled to make it more appealing.
I'd like to see "skilled" include one feat gaining expertise as an option.
Example: I am a Warlock. I have a persuasion skill proficiency.
If I take the Skilled feat, I get three new skill proficiencies, or, one new skill proficiencies, and an expertise in one skill (could be one that I already have?) (This would be a bit like Prodigy)

[kbob]

Get rid of the short rest mechanic. I have heard the arguments for and how some think it’s the best thing ever. I fail to see the point. It’s silly to suggest that you should have X amount of 1 hour rests for your players to not be a disservice to them. No. It’s a disservice to them by giving the warlock such an asinine way to get his spells back just to justify giving him crap for spell slots (something else I would change) and it’s a disservice to the DM to pressure him into making it more mechanical in how he runs his encounters (something 5e was supposed to get away from).
And one more for fun. Proficiency bonus for attack bonus. I get why and have accepted it it now. It makes things easier. But the concept that a level 10 Wizard is just as proficient in wielding a dagger as a level 10 fighter is absurd. Getting rid of base attack bonus was a mistake in my opinion. I get why. It’s easier and it assists with the 5e sacred bounded accuracy cow. And like it said I have accepted it. But I don’t think it’s all that easier. Yes on paper it looks a lot easier. I mean it certainly isn’t hard to figure it out. But neither was BAB.

[JNAProductions]

Get rid of the short rest mechanic. I have heard the arguments for and how some think it’s the best thing ever. I fail to see the point. It’s silly to suggest that you should have X amount of 1 hour rests for your players to not be a disservice to them. No. It’s a disservice to them by giving the warlock such an asinine way to get his spells back just to justify giving him crap for spell slots (something else I would change) and it’s a disservice to the DM to pressure him into making it more mechanical in how he runs his encounters (something 5e was supposed to get away from).
And one more for fun. Proficiency bonus for attack bonus. I get why and have accepted it it now. It makes things easier. But the concept that a level 10 Wizard is just as proficient in wielding a dagger as a level 10 fighter is absurd. Getting rid of base attack bonus was a mistake in my opinion. I get why. It’s easier and it assists with the 5e sacred bounded accuracy cow. And like it said I have accepted it. But I don’t think it’s all that easier. Yes on paper it looks a lot easier. I mean it certainly isn’t hard to figure it out. But neither was BAB.

How is a Wizard just as good at using a dagger as a Fighter at level 10?

Off class features, assuming they both have 20 Dex (for... Some reason), let's compare!

Fighter does 3 attacks at +9 to-hit for 1d4+5 damage, for an average of 22.5 damage if all attacks hit. Once per short rest, he can go to 5 attacks in a round.
He also has (assuming 18 Con) 104 HP at AC 17.

A Wizard does 2 attacks at +9 to-hit for 1d4+5 and 1d4 damage, for an average of 10 damage if all attacks hit.
He also has (assuming 16 Con) 72 HP at AC 18 (Mage Armor).

So, the Fighter does more than twice the damage of a Wizard, with slightly less AC but almost half again the HP. And the Fighter could easily be using Short Swords, for 1d6+5 damage or 25.5 damage if all attacks hit. And, this is a TWF Fighter-the worst kind of Fighter.

[Pex]

And just to help me as a GM. I kinda wish that the game has player focused rolling. I don’t roll to attack, my players roll to parry or dodge. I don’t roll my monsters saving throw, my players roll a spell cast check and I compare it to my monsters static save score.

I just think that saves time, and lets the players have more fun throwing dice around.

That was 4E's way, and I didn't like it because it contributed to making everything feel the same. A warrior attacking an opponent's AC and a spellcaster attacking an opponent's reflex had different labels but in essence were the same thing because both players are rolling to hit for everything. Someone has to roll the die, but making who rolls dependent on the Thing brings variety. The different mechanics itself helps to differentiate how characters do their Thing.

[SunderedWorldDM]

I'm working on a crazy hack of 5e, and here are a short list of the things I'm changing/working with:
-Race and background are now one thing. "Culture", which gives you 3 stat points to allot where you want, 3 skills, a special ability (replaces both racial features and background features, you have to choose what's more important to your character), about 15g of appropriate equipment. Detailing your race is technically optional now.
-Level 0. Your first adventure, you aren't part of a class yet- you're only defined by your Culture. Only after one of your level 0 PCs survives the opening gauntlet do you get a class level.
-Cap at level 10. 10th level has always felt like a good place to me: you can tell a really nice, complete, epic story in 10 levels (and it's easy to avoid burnout in trying to get to 20), and the math/power balance is very solid around then, but the PCs are still vulnerable, more Tony Stark than Superman. It just felt like a really good place to stop for me.
-Roll HD at every level, including 0, for HP. Make every hit point count!
-Use HD for more things. Currently I'm working on a called shot mechanic for my 5e game that uses HD, and coupled with my next point, I plan on making HD a really vital resource for marital characters to conserve.
-Incentivize only short rests during an adventure. PCs shouldn't be spending an overnight in a dungeon, and long rests should be reserved for between adventures. I think I'll change the terminology: a short rest is a "rally", something to get you through the adventuring day, and only upon getting back to town and flopping into a nice warm bed can you truly get a "rest" (long rest).
-Freeform spellcasting. Spell lists and spell slots are just too clumsy- spells should be concise, fitting into a sentence. I've pretty much finished a new point-based freeform spell system, and are just about to playtest it with my current table.
-Retool the skill list. Some skills have felt odd to me from the start, like Stealth and Sleight of Hand being two skills, and tool proficiencies not being covered by a skill list. I want to make a skill list that's clearer and encompasses more than the 5e skill list.
-Decouple skills and stats. No longer will Strength be the default stat for Athletics: now skills are fully decoupled from stats, so a Wisdom Athletics check to inspect a wall to see if you can climb it easily is just as often as a Charisma Endurance roll to hold your own in a fierce debate.
-No derivative stats. The only reason this was a difficult choice to make is that I wanted to experiment with roll-unders and that rolling stats is fin, but I'm sure I'll figure something out instead. Probably a custom occupation roll table for each campaign's 0th levels.
-Strongly considering axing feats. They're optional and take up a lot of mechanical space: not many feats encourage roleplay, they're mostly mechanical bonuses, and that doesn't sit right with me.
-Generally increase player flexibility and choice, especially in combat. This may be more of an encounter design thing, but players should have options other than "attack" and "talk it out" in every combat. Be it terrain, lore to learn, a mechanical device to start up, or a ritual to stop, a character should be able to engage in combat without even taking out a weapon.

That's the short list! Some of the things in this thread are inspiring me, thanks so much for all these great ideas for me to steal use!

[kbob]

How is a Wizard just as good at using a dagger as a Fighter at level 10?

Off class features, assuming they both have 20 Dex (for... Some reason), let's compare!

Fighter does 3 attacks at +9 to-hit for 1d4+5 damage, for an average of 22.5 damage if all attacks hit. Once per short rest, he can go to 5 attacks in a round.
He also has (assuming 18 Con) 104 HP at AC 17.

A Wizard does 2 attacks at +9 to-hit for 1d4+5 and 1d4 damage, for an average of 10 damage if all attacks hit.
He also has (assuming 16 Con) 72 HP at AC 18 (Mage Armor).

So, the Fighter does more than twice the damage of a Wizard, with slightly less AC but almost half again the HP. And the Fighter could easily be using Short Swords, for 1d6+5 damage or 25.5 damage if all attacks hit. And, this is a TWF Fighter-the worst kind of Fighter.

I didn’t say as good. I said as proficient. In 3e there was no all encompassing proficiency bonus (PB). The PB replaced base attack bonus (BAB), skill ranks, and base saves (basic saving throw modifiers). It streamlined all of it for simplicity. That said the BAB was how “proficient” you were at attacking something. Fighter went up +1 per level for BAB so he was +10 for his first attack. (The Wizard +5.) You add that to your D20 plus your strength mod plus your enhancement mods plus any other ridiculous addition n you could get back then. And for the fighter it was ridiculous. You got MANY attacks, tons of feats, and could do ridiculous damage if you knew how to build it. I had a charger build (mounted combat) that did over 100 damage per attack on average without crits and before buffing himself. After buffs he was exponentially busted as the way 3.5 multiplied static damage instead of dice. All that to say, fighters have always had all of things you mentioned. So no the Wizard is not as good. But he is as proficient. Without other modifiers, he has just the same chance of hitting on a single attack that the fighter does. And for what it’s worth, if you got lucky on rolling up stats and got 2 18s (it does happen) and you wanted to be a sword wielding wizard (maybe a blade singer) you are just as proficient (just as trained) in fighting per attack as the fighter is and you could feasibly have the same strength mod. So the fighter then has number of attacks, feats, and class abilities. None of which are minor. But the fact doesn’t change, he is still no more “proficient” than the Wizard.
The fighter is still all around way better at melee and it does all work from a game play perspective. But it’s the theory or thought behind the proficiency being the same. It just doesn’t make sense.

[JNAProductions]

I didn’t say as good. I said as proficient. In 3e there was no all encompassing proficiency bonus (PB). The PB replaced base attack bonus (BAB), skill ranks, and base saves (basic saving throw modifiers). It streamlined all of it for simplicity. That said the BAB was how “proficient” you were at attacking something. Fighter went up +1 per level for BAB so he was +10 for his first attack. (The Wizard +5.) You add that to your D20 plus your strength mod plus your enhancement mods plus any other ridiculous addition n you could get back then. And for the fighter it was ridiculous. You got MANY attacks, tons of feats, and could do ridiculous damage if you knew how to build it. I had a charger build (mounted combat) that did over 100 damage per attack on average without crits and before buffing himself. After buffs he was exponentially busted as the way 3.5 multiplied static damage instead of dice. All that to say, fighters have always had all of things you mentioned. So no the Wizard is not as good. But he is as proficient. Without other modifiers, he has just the same chance of hitting on a single attack that the fighter does. And for what it’s worth, if you got lucky on rolling up stats and got 2 18s (it does happen) and you wanted to be a sword wielding wizard (maybe a blade singer) you are just as proficient (just as trained) in fighting per attack as the fighter is and you could feasibly have the same strength mod. So the fighter then has number of attacks, feats, and class abilities. None of which are minor. But the fact doesn’t change, he is still no more “proficient” than the Wizard.
The fighter is still all around way better at melee and it does all work from a game play perspective. But it’s the theory or thought behind the proficiency being the same. It just doesn’t make sense.

Why does it bother you that a battlemage (because, let's be real here-D&D Wizards are not ivory tower mages) has proficiency in a few basic weapons?

[Dork_Forge]

While I see where you are going with this, I disagree with changing feats much at all. Particularly this:
Greatly increase the number of each feat type
I don't think we need more feats.

I'd like to see "Weapon Master" overhauled to make it more appealing.
I'd like to see "skilled" include one feat gaining expertise as an option.
Example: I am a Warlock. I have a persuasion skill proficiency.
If I take the Skilled feat, I get three new skill proficiencies, or, one new skill proficiencies, and an expertise in one skill (could be one that I already have?) (This would be a bit like Prodigy)

Under the current system you could get away without more feats (personally I'd like an addition just because the edition is 6 years old now and the feat selection in the phb is hardly exhaustive or even particularly large.)

If you actually went through and divided the existing feats into the proposed major and minor categories you'd NEED more feats for each side to avoid the same things just coming up all of the time (remember, everyone would get a certain number of minor feats with no investment at all and more powerful/combat relevant feats will remain popular but 6 years of GWM/PAM gets a bit stale). Weapon Master is a terrible feat in exchange for an ASI, but if you moved it to a minor feat, then it starts to look a bit better.

[kbob]

It’s not that they are proficient in weapons. It’s that the proficiency should not be as high as the guy who spent his life training for such. The have the same proficiency bonus at each level. The proficiency represents their training (their proficiency) with said weapon. The PB of 5e replaces everything that requires training. So I am just as proficient in athletics and swinging a sword and resisting certain damage (con save) and religion (cuz I decided to take that skill) with no variation. And you are just as proficient with your spell attack, your skills, your saves with no variation and just as proficient in wielding a dagger cuz why not. It’s a simplification of the previous editions for the sake of being new player friendly. None of which I have a problem with. I just think they went to the extent that it just doesn’t make sense. Level 10 fighter has a +4 proficiency with his dagger and has spent his life devoted to the art of combat. The Wizard? The same. Though he spent his life devoted to studying arcane magic. The reverse is true though. The fighter who decides to level dip into Wizard is just as proficient in his spell saves as the Wizard. Not class level dependent. If he had a lucky ability roll and put his higher tank in Int, then the spell save is the same even though the Wizard has more time spent devoted to his craft.
Like I said before. I accept it and it works. Most people don’t give it a second thought but it just doesn’t make sense. 🤷*♂️

[JackPhoenix]

It’s not that they are proficient in weapons. It’s that the proficiency should not be as high as the guy who spent his life training for such. The have the same proficiency bonus at each level. The proficiency represents their training (their proficiency) with said weapon. The PB of 5e replaces everything that requires training. So I am just as proficient in athletics and swinging a sword and resisting certain damage (con save) and religion (cuz I decided to take that skill) with no variation. And you are just as proficient with your spell attack, your skills, your saves with no variation and just as proficient in wielding a dagger cuz why not. It’s a simplification of the previous editions for the sake of being new player friendly. None of which I have a problem with. I just think they went to the extent that it just doesn’t make sense. Level 10 fighter has a +4 proficiency with his dagger and has spent his life devoted to the art of combat. The Wizard? The same. Though he spent his life devoted to studying arcane magic. The reverse is true though. The fighter who decides to level dip into Wizard is just as proficient in his spell saves as the Wizard. Not class level dependent. If he had a lucky ability roll and put his higher tank in Int, then the spell save is the same even though the Wizard has more time spent devoted to his craft.
Like I said before. I accept it and it works. Most people don’t give it a second thought but it just doesn’t make sense. 🤷*♂️

See, problem is that you think all training is just proficiency. Training is also the ability score, fighting style, and whatever other class abilities that improve weapon combat fighter gets over wizard. That level 10 fighter that spent his life devoted to the art of combat *is* better at combat, and that wizard is better at magic.

Proficiency bonus doesn't mean anything.

[Dienekes]

That was 4E's way, and I didn't like it because it contributed to making everything feel the same. A warrior attacking an opponent's AC and a spellcaster attacking an opponent's reflex had different labels but in essence were the same thing because both players are rolling to hit for everything. Someone has to roll the die, but making who rolls dependent on the Thing brings variety. The different mechanics itself helps to differentiate how characters do their Thing.

Not quite the same thing. 4E switched everything to defenses. Which, honestly I do consider an improvement over 5es way. But what I'm referring is closer to what's going on in Apocalypse World.

In 4e, the GM still rolled all the attacks/spells made against the players and compared it to their defenses. I don't really even want to do that.
The enemy casts their spell, it has a save DC and the player rolls their saves like they do in 5e.
But what I also want is the player to also roll their AC and their spellcasting then compare it to the static defenses of their target.

The game mechanics themselves warp to put the emphasis on the player making the roll.

Which will probably still make you feel the same way you feel about 4e defenses. But, again since I preferred 4es method to 5es anyway, I don't think I'm really going to convince you there.

[kbob]

See, problem is that you think all training is just proficiency. Training is also the ability score, fighting style, and whatever other class abilities that improve weapon combat fighter gets over wizard. That level 10 fighter that spent his life devoted to the art of combat *is* better at combat, and that wizard is better at magic.

Proficiency bonus doesn't mean anything.

I mean that is what the proficiency bonus is. A level of how provident you are. Your ability score (strength for fighters usually) is just how strong you are. I’ve taken jiujitsu. I love it. I can hold my own against some guys bigger than me. But take a guy that has the same level of training or as proficient in his training as I am and give him more strength and he will win due to his strength mod. Since DnDs inception (and I’ve been playing since ADnD) they TRY to use some mechanic to represent some form of logical realism. The ability bonus from strength represents that you are so freaking strong that when you hit that guy wearing armor that you are more apt to penetrate it compared to someone with the same blow (angle of attack and whatnot) that wasn’t as strong. His may have bounced off. But because you’re green and people don’t like you when you get angry you can just muscle your way from what otherwise may have been a not-so-optimal or proficient attack. Fighting styles and feats (though you did not mention those) have been around for a while in some form or another. Those certainly affect the outcome greatly. All of which I conceded to. But the proficiency bonus is your level of just that, your proficiently (which is why rogues and bards get expertise in certain skills, they are more proficient in those then others with their level of experience). You may get bonuses from certain fighting stances or techniques when conditions are met but your overall skill level or proficiency (not strength mod) is measured by your “proficiency” bonus. The same goes for the Wizard and his skill sets. And the same for each class. The proficiency bonus is exactly that: a bonus to reflect your level of proficiency. Proficiency bonus DOES mean something. It means... proficiency.

[Willie the Duck]

I mean that is what the proficiency bonus is. A level of how provident you are. Your ability score (strength for fighters usually) is just how strong you are. I’ve taken jiujitsu. I love it. I can hold my own against some guys bigger than me. But take a guy that has the same level of training or as proficient in his training as I am and give him more strength and he will win due to his strength mod. Since DnDs inception (and I’ve been playing since ADnD) they TRY to use some mechanic to represent some form of logical realism.

Honestly, only if you want to see it that way. First and foremost of all, D&D strength really genuinely did not start (as in oD&D, not AD&D) out as measuring strength. As in you literally could not carry any more weight by having a higher strength. It just made members of the Fighting Man class get an XP bonus. D&D did start out with some attempts to model realism, but in terms of things like a warhammer was better against plate armor while an axe was better against mail and shield, not in what specific numbers in the game mechanics meant. The entire combination of to-hit plus damage rolled plus number of attacks was always just an abstraction towards an overall combat output (all of which is measured against Hit Points, the biggest abstraction of them all, one which makes any allusion to realism something of a nebulous proposition). The designers determined that the game would work well by minimizing to-hit differences amongst proficient weapon-users, while having the martials increase their combat potential by having more attacks, more ASIs to devote to Str or Dex, fewer stats to manage in general, the ability to wield different (more powerful, particularly when combined with feats and fighting styles) weapons, and specific class abilities like action surge, rage, paladin smite, or battlemaster maneuvers. Is it arbitrary and gamist? Yes, but not moreso than before.


The proficiency bonus is exactly that: a bonus to reflect your level of proficiency. Proficiency bonus DOES mean something. It means... proficiency.

It can mean actual word proficiency, but only if you want to look at it that way. Otherwise, it means 1+roundup(level/4), applied to various dice mechanics.

[KorvinStarmast]

Under the current system you could get away without more feats
yes. There are enough.

If you actually went through and divided the existing feats into the proposed major and minor categories you'd NEED more feats Which is a part of why I am against this.

TBH, don't care for the racial feats in Xanathar's at all, but would rather see Prodigy and Skilled fused or blended or somehow combined into one that can be used by any PC.

I will say this: the Prodigy feat (or the modified skilled as I suggested back there) does something neat for a human barbarian. He can have Expertise in the Athletics Skill from level 1. (So could a Fighter or a Rogue). I think that would support a bunch of different kinds of grappler builds.

[Dork_Forge]

yes. There are enough.

Personal preference, I'd personally like more variety and to shake up the system more than just adding to the already ridiculous race bloat (which shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon with more races being released pretty much every non adventure book). There's 42 non racial feats I think, which sounds like a lot before you consider that many of them are rarely used (armor prof feats, weapon master etc.)




Which is a part of why I am against this.

TBH, don't care for the racial feats in Xanathar's at all, but would rather see Prodigy and Skilled fused or blended or somehow combined into one that can be used by any PC.

I will say this: the Prodigy feat (or the modified skilled as I suggested back there) does something neat for a human barbarian. He can have Expertise in the Athletics Skill from level 1. (So could a Fighter or a Rogue). I think that would support a bunch of different kinds of grappler builds.

Can I ask why you're against it? It sounds like you just have a bias against introducing more feats but as long as they're balanced (which shouldn't really be an issue with minor feats anyway seeing as they're non combat) I'm not seeing an issue really.

I mean that is neat but a Barbarian didn't really need any help grappling to begin with (Str based, Athletics prof and advantage on the check) and the benefits of grappling are probably something that should be tweaked in this overhaul thread too :p

[JackPhoenix]

You may get bonuses from certain fighting stances or techniques when conditions are met but your overall skill level or proficiency (not strength mod) is measured by your “proficiency” bonus.

No, your "overall skill level" is measured by your class (or character, if you're multiclassed) level (and your proficiency bonus is pretty much arbitrary number derived from that) and your ability score (which includes both natural talent and training, just like proficiency bonus does).

Anyone watching level 1 fighter dueling level 4 fighter will conclude the level 4 fighter is more skilled warrior, even though their proficiency bonus is the same.... if nothing else, the fact the higher level wins 95% of the time thanks to more HP proves that. Same if the level 10 fighter faces level 10 wizard who doesn't use what he's good at... his magic.... and tries to stab the fighter with a dagger. Same if level 9 fighter who took 1 level of wizard tries to measure his magic powers with level 10 wizard. And so on, and so on.

[kbob]

Honestly, only if you want to see it that way. First and foremost of all, D&D strength really genuinely did not start (as in oD&D, not AD&D) out as measuring strength. As in you literally could not carry any more weight by having a higher strength. It just made members of the Fighting Man class get an XP bonus. D&D did start out with some attempts to model realism, but in terms of things like a warhammer was better against plate armor while an axe was better against mail and shield, not in what specific numbers in the game mechanics meant. The entire combination of to-hit plus damage rolled plus number of attacks was always just an abstraction towards an overall combat output (all of which is measured against Hit Points, the biggest abstraction of them all, one which makes any allusion to realism something of a nebulous proposition). The designers determined that the game would work well by minimizing to-hit differences amongst proficient weapon-users, while having the martials increase their combat potential by having more attacks, more ASIs to devote to Str or Dex, fewer stats to manage in general, the ability to wield different (more powerful, particularly when combined with feats and fighting styles) weapons, and specific class abilities like action surge, rage, paladin smite, or battlemaster maneuvers. Is it arbitrary and gamist? Yes, but not moreso than before.



It can mean actual word proficiency, but only if you want to look at it that way. Otherwise, it means 1+roundup(level/4), applied to various dice mechanics.

So I never said strength mod started with ADnD and not the OG (original gangster). I said I started playing at ADnD. I mean yes the OG did do those things and yes you have all of those other features for the martial classes but I don’t see how that negates or (honestly) has anything to do with what I was saying.
As for the word “proficiency”, I do look at it that way. Words have meaning. They chose it because of what it means. That is your level of proficiency. As per the PHB, proficiency bonus is “how much better a character is at some things (attacks, saving throws, spell effects) due to the level of experience, and also how much better a character is at certain skills either due to choice, experience, background, class, and/or race.” Sounds like it reflects the word “proficient” to me. But honestly, you can choose not to agree with me (it sounds like I wouldn’t be able to say anything to change your mind anyway). It’s a free country and you’re entitled to your opinion as much as I am mine. You asked me “why” in your original reply so I tried to answer. I believe I have made a pretty good case too. You very well may disagree with that and that’s fine. It’s actually cool. It means you have your own beliefs and thoughts and that’s great. But the OP asked what I would change and that is one. More tongue in cheek now as, like mentioned more than once, I have accepted. However it still seems wonky to me but I just chock it up to “one of silly little fantasy game mechanics” that ultimately cannot be completely avoided. You are free to have to the last word if you would like.

[Pex]

Which will probably still make you feel the same way you feel about 4e defenses. But, again since I preferred 4es method to 5es anyway, I don't think I'm really going to convince you there.

We agree on that. :smallyuk:

[LibraryOgre]

increase the amount of health you get it level 1 but decrease the amount you get on levels thereafter. Maybe scale back HP and damage bloat but that's more of a system overhaul than a simple change.


A simple solution to this, used in 4e and some other games, is give folks their full Con at 1st level, and no per-level increase. May add Con bonuses to HD rolls for healing.

[paladinn]

A simple solution to this, used in 4e and some other games, is give folks their full Con at 1st level, and no per-level increase. May add Con bonuses to HD rolls for healing.

"No per-level increase"? As in, you don't gain hp as you level up?

That sounds like a non-starter..

[paladinn]

I'm coming into this late, but I would like to see some sort of advancement in saves, even ones in which you're Not proficient, as you level up. Maybe 1/2 your proficiency bonus?

I also think martial characters ("basic" rogues and fighters) should be able to increase their proficiency with a couple of signature weapons as they level up. The current "fighting styles" aren't quite sufficient to make a "weapon master" character.

[LibraryOgre]

"No per-level increase"? As in, you don't gain hp as you level up?

That sounds like a non-starter..

No, rather you don't get a bonus to your per-level HP from Con... so, level 1, you'd have Con+HD, level 2 you'd have another HD, etc.

[MrStabby]

Remove the pictures of the halflings from the PHB.

[Dienekes]

No, rather you don't get a bonus to your per-level HP from Con... so, level 1, you'd have Con+HD, level 2 you'd have another HD, etc.

That’s one way to make Con go from the most universally required ability score in the game to everyone’s dump stat (except oddly melee Mages with concentration spells)

It might be a little more complicated. But where my goal to make the HP bloat less, I’d just straight halve everyone’s value after level 1.

[Luccan]

Remove the pictures of the halflings from the PHB.

An objective improvement. I think I've been pulled over to the "improving non-proficient saves" side. I haven't experienced it as a full issue myself, but I'm at least familiar with that sort of dread and I think it might at least encourage a little investment in tertiary stats if some didn't feel they needed the big three as high as possible.

[EggKookoo]

abandon the alignment system and let players behave how they want to behave. Ethics are more complicated than nine boxes.

I think alignment should have been rolled into background in 5e. Your alignment -- which can include the evil ones -- represents how you were, up to now. That's the past, and it's written. Now, starting at 1st level, you no longer have an active alignment. You act as you will. But the consequences of your past may catch up to you...

[Petrocorus]

The obvious ones for me are:

- Make the wording clear and consistent for Odin's sake! And better presented.
All the arguments about stealth/hiding and surprise or the recurrent question about melee weapon attack, attack with a melee weapon and other stuffs like this speak volumes about how they went way to far with "ruling not rules" mindset.
And sentences like: "You prepare the list of paladin spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the paladin spell list. " Seriously?

- Fix what needs to be fixed! The berserker, the 4E monk, two weapon fighting, pact of the blade, the core ranger, etc. And not by publishing something else, like they made the Hexblade to fix the Pact of the Blade, but by actually publishing real fixes, like the UA's CFV for the ranger.

- Make an item creation mechanic that's sound. I understand the will to limit that, but it's not normal than a Cleric need to spend his whole wealth to scribe a scroll of Revivify or that all the rules about this are contradictory.

The less obvious and more controversial ones.
- Make bounded accuracy a little less bounded.
- Expand the maneuver system, give maneuver subclasses to the Ranger, the Paladin, the Monk and maybe the Barbarian.
- Make familiar intelligent again.
- I miss some utility spells like Phase Door. Some have been nerfed beyond what was necessary like Phantom Steed.
- Allow the EK to chose between Evocation, Illusion, Transmutation as his second school.
- Revise Resistance, True Strike and Blade Ward.

Some other proposals
- The background were a good idea, but it's possible to go forward. The Scarred Lands uses a system of half-backgounds, with one regional/cultural half-background and one activity/job half-background, i like that.
- The Sorcerer need some reworking. I'm working on a sorcerer class inspired by Magicka in which the Sorcerer cast spells by combining Essence and Effects.


A Point Buy system that allows an 18 at first level without gimping you such that you wish you didn't have the 18.

Go back to three saving throws, fortitude, reflex, will, using 4E's approach of modifier is player's choice of two scores.

Example DCs for skill use.

Separate feats from ASI.

Don't be ornery about terms like melee weapon attack and attack with a melee weapon. Be clear and concise on how things work in all things.

Buff spells specifically meant to be used in melee combat are not Concentration.
I could get behind all of this, to some degree.


We've done this before, but ...
1. Saving Throw System. I still don't like how you can be a level 20 PC and be unable to make a save in a non proficient ability score that is a 10 or an 11.

Half-proficiency for non-proficient saves, maybe?



2. Rangers: prepared spells, like paladins and clerics and druids; they are divine casters. Also, for each Ranger arehctype - as with cleric domains and paladin oaths - spells (one per spell level as in XGtE) that fit their archetype that are always prepared. Back fit this to Hunter and Beastmaster; see Gloom Stalker and Void (Horizon?) Walker for examples.
Hail yeah!
I've been advocating for this. I use this when i DM.
I still don't understand what could have been the reasoning behind this limitation of spells known. A lower limit than the EK and the AT, at that.



6. Give the scimitar 1d6+1 damage; give someone an incentive to use it. Do something interesting with Trident also. (Possible special property that medium or small opponent can't withdraw after a hit without a strength save, or something like that ... still not sure what I'd like to see with this).

A little more difference between weapons, yes.


The main thing comes to mind is an overhaul of the feat system into major and minor feats, major feats (like SS, GWM, PAM etc.) still need a tradeoff of an ASI (or V. Human) and minor feats are gained at certain character (not class) levels (fun things like Keen Mind and Actor minus the half stat bump). Greatly increase the number of each feat type and suddenly character customisation skyrockets not just in powergaming but in more niche roleplay scenarios too.
That could be a great idea.
I don't think it needs more feat for this to work.
Some feats would be difficult to classify.

[stoutstien]

That’s one way to make Con go from the most universally required ability score in the game to everyone’s dump stat (except oddly melee Mages with concentration spells)

It might be a little more complicated. But where my goal to make the HP bloat less, I’d just straight halve everyone’s value after level 1.

Aye don't want to lose the Con/HP relationship. I'd rather ditch HD providing HP increase per level and offer a fixed value. First lv could be something like max HD x 3 + Con. Then they could handle a full adventuring day at lv 1-2.

[FabulousFizban]

Perhaps replace the alignment system with a reputation system.

Players behave how they want to behave, but actions have consequences.

The DM decides if various player actions fall under good or evil, law or chaos.

Those actions, if they are witnessed and especially if word of them spreads, affect NPC's expectations and interactions with that character.

On a small scale, this could mean favorable or unfavorable responses from merchants or city guards.

On a higher level, this could mean a response, positively or negatively from the character's god, patron, order or commander.

The higher the character's level and the more people that know of them and track their exploits, the greater the impact of their actions on their reputation.

As a DM, you have the option of keeping this reputation score to yourself or sharing it with the player when you feel appropriate.

A reputation stat is what i do. The better your reputation the more friendly NPCs are, and vice versa.

[Knaight]

If it's a Pathfinder analog, basically nothing - for all that it had the 3.75 nickname it was more 3.51, with a few tiny tweaks. I guess the few tiny tweaks I'd go with would be altering saves (you're proficient in all of them, some you get Expertise), adding a skill equivalent to multiple attacks, doing another pass over equipment weights and costs to catch things like the 10 lb maul and the 200 gp elephant, and other more minor things.

If we're allowing bigger changes, the big one is to drop a design constraint. D&D has served two conflicting design goals for two long - in one, it's a specific game to do specific things in a specific setting (or at least a specific family of settings with a lot of shared elements), where archetypal adventurers have dungeon and wilderness adventures in an incredibly gonzo setting that somehow manages to pass itself off as ordinary. In the other it's a generic fantasy game.

I'm done with D&D as a generic fantasy game. Basically everything worth noting about D&D is in the other design camp, and I'm fluent in several generic systems which do generic fantasy setting. Time to just go full into the D&Disms.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Bunch of stuff in the thread; I agree with a lot, I disagree with a lot, but here's one point I'd like to expand on.


Embrace backgrounds more heavily, while downplaying race. Make race more of a fluffy choice, with no more than mild ribbons, and move the bulk of your non-class features to background. (Actually, it might be fun to have two backgrounds per character, to let them be a little more complicated. And maybe to include some scaling, "at 5th level you can X" type utility abilities).

I am definitely for any race being able to play any class/archetype without feeling like they've made an actively suboptimal choice. However, I'd also like to see a return to how in 4E your race made a difference in active play. And I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

Get rid (or de-emphasize) of racial ability score modifiers and all that. They're passive, and only serve to make the race objectively better at a given thing (and thus any race that doesn't have that ability score objectively worse).

Instead, give every race a unique, 1/encounter (Side Note, I'm also 100% for the 1 short rest = 1 encounter change) active power that's pretty much universally useful, that is, good on almost any character. For example, in 4E wood elves could reroll an attack 1/encounter, dragonborn could use a breath weapon 1/encounter, shifters could draw on their monstrous heritage and start rapidly healing 1/encounter. It won't be character defining, it won't be a must-have for any class, sub-class, or archetype, but it will make your character feel distinct based on their race in most encounters.

[JNAProductions]

Reading this makes me want to homebrew a system. :P

[SunderedWorldDM]

Reading this makes me want to homebrew a system. :P

I'm with ya, man!

[Petrocorus]

Reading this makes me want to homebrew a system. :P

There are already so many out there, and yet we all would want another one.
I was personally thinking about adapting the oWoD system into heroic-fantasy with the Shadowrun magic system.

[jas61292]

Generally, reduce power of generalist casters and promote thematic specialisation.

This. So much this. I know a lot of other classes are generally the ones to get the hate, but Wizard is, in my opinion, the worst designed class in the game because its core design principle seems to be "the class should be able to do anything it wants, and never be restricted in what abilities it has."

Whether this is replaced with a class that actually just forces specialization by limiting the spread of spells you can pick, or actually by making multiple classes each with more thematic lists, I don't really care. But it should be done. The game would be so much better for it.



Rangers: prepared spells, like paladins and clerics and druids; they are divine casters.

On the other hand, I disagree here. There should be a change, but not to Rangers. Paladins should not get to prepare spells. They should be a known spell caster. The lore of Paladin's in this edition is not that from the past where they are granted spells by their god, like Clerics. Rather, they get their powers more through force of will and conviction towards a goal. That could be religious, but does not have to be. If anything, their casting is most like a Sorcerer, in my opinion, and knowing spells fits that much better.

Also, Paladins are one of the strongest classes in the game. I think they could stand to be tuned down, even a tiny bit.

[SunderedWorldDM]

There are already so many out there, and yet we all would want another one.

This is my homebrew fantasy game system. There are many like it, but this one is mine. :smallwink:

[Spriteless]

Rangers. The PHB can have 3 sub classes, 1 with spells, 1 with a big pet, 1 with nature stealth boy.

Also, make Clerics and Wizards more limited. AD&D had spheres for clerics, you only got spells in your spheres. Wizards would not be allowed to learn every type of spell, if they had bonus spells from specialization.

[Luccan]

Rangers. The PHB can have 3 sub classes, 1 with spells, 1 with a big pet, 1 with nature stealth boy.

Also, make Clerics and Wizards more limited. AD&D had spheres for clerics, you only got spells in your spheres. Wizards would not be allowed to learn every type of spell, if they had bonus spells from specialization.

2e had spheres for clerics. AD&D 1e clerics got the whole list, restricted only by alignment.

I'm not deeply offended by Wizards getting to be generalists, but I wouldn't object to bringing back the old system of Wizard specialization, so long as it didn't result in clearly superior picks (like it did in previous editions).

[Warwick]

Rework/expand the martial side of combat so that martial characters get a decent variety of maneuvers and special abilities. Performing a basic attack every turn is not the way to go. These can be flavored however is suitable for class and subclass. The Expertise dice from playtest were a good idea that should've been retained and applied to all martial classes.
Either axe short rest abilities completely or make it explicit that 'short rest' is meant to be basically a 'per encounter schedule'. I hate the present implementation of short rest pretty much everywhere they arise, especially with how people tend to play (IME 1 session = 1 long rest, often with 0-1 short rests in between).
Diversify wizards. Kill the sacred cow of the do-everything spell caster that makes everyone else feel bad. This has the added benefit of opening up more thematic specialist abilities since you're no longer dealing with a class that already does everything you care about better than everyone else. A conjurer wizard can actually summon stuff and have that be their thing. A necromancer can be more than a standard wizard that wears eyeliner and black clothes.
Diversify fighters. A common point of discussion when talking about how to simulate $Fantasy_Action_Hero is that if they're not almost explicitly a rogue, they're probably best handled mechanically by the fighter, whatever their aesthetic, and that's unfortunate. It ends up edging in on Ranger and Barbarian turf. Alternatively, roll with it, and condense most of the martial classes into the fighter. This leaves us with way less mechanical distinctiveness, but it is parsimonious (I don't favor this option, but I note).
Figure out what to do with Sorcerers and Rangers. At present they're the awkward cousins of the the wizard and fighter, respectively.
Epic 10 structure. The base classes go to 10 (and are reworked to accommodate), at which point the group decides whether or not to shift into epic play. If you don't, further progression takes the form of epic boons, minor feats, and the like. If you do, at 11th level you start picking levels from Epic/Legendary/Prestige Classes, which have suitably extraordinary theme and abilities. This both resolves the issue of full casters running away with qualitative shifts in capability while martials try to extend a level 5 character concept to level 20 and structures the base classes in a way that is most relevant to how D&D is typically played (which is to say, campaigns tend to peter out in the low teens, if not earlier).
Fix up the huge amounts of mechanical ambiguity, especially regarding how skills work. Players should be able to pick skills with a concrete idea of what they can do with them, and the game should not rely on you interpreting natural language statements to figure out what happens when you try a typical adventurerish action.
Develop an exploration subsystem for both wilderness and dungeons. We were teased with exploration being a major gameplay pillar, but the actual rules mostly boil down to the GM winging it
Expand upon Adv/Disadv. I know some people thing it's elegant, but it's not. It leads to a bunch of counterintuitive outcomes where a single source of one can cancel out a myriad factors to the contrary and makes calculating probabilities off-hand harder. The real remedy to too many fiddly bonuses is design discipline, not amputating the entire concept.

[Spriteless]

OK, look, I was a kid, and my family didn't care about what edition it was, we used AD&D, AD&D2E, photocopied pages of Dragon Magazine (anyone else remember the 'He's got a lot to kick about' Monk?), hey can I have a flying mount? She-Ra has a flying mount. Ooooo! There's elves that fly in this book I wouldn't have to worry about being separated from my mount!

So game balance was not on my mind. But I had the idea that things have costs. That stuck with me.

Wizards no longer have costs, but don't get the extra spells either. It's like the old school specialists are gone, but passed on special abilties to their mage heirs. Specialists are now divided into the flavorful ones designed for fun moments in the PHB, and the statistically superior Bladesinger and War Wizard. I only ever understood optimizing the fun out of video games.

But if the system is about giving presents, then the Rangers have a lot to kick about. Funny how this Unearthed Arcana (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/class-feature-variants) includes an overhaul for Rangers, more than any other class.

Also, I would give the Ravnica backgrounds costs associated with adding spells to your list. If you add Rakdos list to your spells, you can never learn healing spells, besides necromancy.

[Petrocorus]

Fix up the huge amounts of mechanical ambiguity, especially regarding how skills work. Players should be able to pick skills with a concrete idea of what they can do with them, and the game should not rely on you interpreting natural language statements to figure out what happens when you try a typical adventurerish action.
I believe they should look at other games like the WoD games and put not only a full chapter on skills and other proficiencies, but also a chapter on how to perform common actions (like jumping, negotiating, using a rope). In 3.5 both where integrated together in the skills chapter.
In 5E, we supposedly have everything in the "Using ability scores" chapter, but so summarized, you have to make up for almost everything. Xanathar expanded on this, yet we're still lacking.



Expand upon Adv/Disadv. I know some people thing it's elegant, but it's not. It leads to a bunch of counterintuitive outcomes where a single source of one can cancel out a myriad factors to the contrary and makes calculating probabilities off-hand harder. The real remedy to too many fiddly bonuses is design discipline, not amputating the entire concept.

I'm all for a system for stacking advantage and disavantage. One disadvantage should not cancel 3 or 4 source of advantages.


Specialists are now divided into the flavorful ones designed for fun moments in the PHB, and the statistically superior Bladesinger and War Wizard. I only ever understood optimizing the fun out of video games.
I really don't think they are the best wizards. At low level maybe, but their upper level feature are quite underwhelming compared to other schools.



But if the system is about giving presents, then the Rangers have a lot to kick about. Funny how this Unearthed Arcana (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/class-feature-variants) includes an overhaul for Rangers, more than any other class.

Come on, it's only the 4th or 5th time they tried to fix the Ranger.
Or maybe the 6th, IDK i lost count.



Also, I would give the Ravnica backgrounds costs associated with adding spells to your list. If you add Rakdos list to your spells, you can never learn healing spells, besides necromancy.
Yeah, some guild spell list are clearly too good when added to Cleric or Druid. Some allow arcane caster to heal.

[Greywander]

I'm so glad most of you won't be in charge of theoretical 5.5e or 6e. Some of those suggestions sounds terrible.

But then, so would be mine for other people's games. Just because some specific ideas work for me doesn't mean they would work for most other people (which is certainly the goal of anyone who wants to sell the game to a wide audience), or make the game still feel like D&D (I'm looking at you, 4e).
Ain't that the truth. It's especially amusing to see two posts fairly close to each other asking for mutually exclusive things.

Since there's been so many posts since I was last on, I'll just try to comment on a few of the topics mentioned.

Ability scores and mods
Getting rid of ability scores and just using the modifiers was something I had thought about. That said, there are some things that ability scores could be used for. Someone mentioned something like starting with HP equal to your CON score. I guess you'd want to first figure out if you wanted to use any such system, and if not, then there's no real reason to keep ability scores around.

It would be kind of interesting to replace the ability score system with a trait ladder like in Fudge/Fate. So a character might have Poor Strength (-2) but Superb Dexterity (+3).

Maneuvers
What if, instead of Extra Attack, martial character got at-will maneuvers? Nix the Battle Master entirely and just give maneuvers to all martials. And yeah, at-will might be kind of strong, and could lead to spamming your favorite maneuvers over and over, so that might need some addressing.

If martials no longer get Extra Attack, then they'd probably need something at higher levels (something more than just "more maneuvers"). Maybe we'd still want to give them Extra Attack, just later. Or maybe give them something unique to each class.

Saving throws
It can be kind of frustrating when your high level character falls for a simple spell, but I kind of thought that was a feature, not a bug. Any creature, whether PC or NPC, has certain defenses that just aren't covered. Find them, and exploit them. It's part of the concept of bounded accuracy that some defenses just don't improve, and remain a reliable way to target a particular creature. There's a certain onus on the DM not to metagame and to have his NPCs not be sure about which of the PCs' defenses to target unless they actually do the research.

That said, I think we could create more ways for PCs to shore up their defenses, perhaps at the expense of other features. The Resilient feat is a good start, but would work better if everyone got it automatically. Like, at 10th level or so everyone chooses a save to gain proficiency in. Certain classes, especially defensive ones, might add half proficiency to some of their non-proficient saves.

Short rests
I was actually playing with the idea of a "quick rest". It only takes "a few minutes" (mechanically, could be 1 minute or 10, not sure), and always happens automatically at the end of an encounter, as long as you are "safe". If you're flung into a consecutive encounter, then you don't get a quick rest. Or, let's say you kill the boss and the temple starts to collapse. That could be treated as a dangerous encounter (albeit not strictly combat), so no quick rest until you get safely out of the temple.

Of course, this leads to the question of if we even still need short rests? And I think the answer is... maybe. A short rest is still downtime that allows monsters to move around or erect defenses. You could get ambushed. The villain might escape. So the question then is, are there resources we want to come back easily but not automatically? Do we ever want players to ask if they really have time to short rest? And of course there are non-combat resources to consider. Some of these might only come back on a long rest, but we might want them to come back sooner (e.g. pact magic slots).

Magic and wizards
I understand that people think the wizard is too strong, but I'm curious how many of these people have actually played a wizard, or with a wizard in the party. Wizards get more spells than sorcerers or bards, but clerics and druids get access to their whole spell list. I think what might be throwing people off is that wizards in theory get access to their whole spell list eventually. In practice, it depends entirely on your DM and how much they make scrolls and spellbooks available for you to copy. Just going off of your spells learned as you level up, you get a lot less spells than a cleric does.

As far as specialization and restricted schools, that doesn't really make much sense to me. Sure, I can see breaking the wizard up into multiple classes. But let's say I'm a magic boi who study good. I've got an excellent spell scroll right in front of me, but for some reason it just... it don't make no sense. It just strikes me as odd that a wizard can look at a scroll of Cure Wounds and say, "Nope, I can't copy that into my spellbook for some reason." I suppose restricted schools makes a bit of sense, if we assume that the magical theory behind each school is completely different and therefore competence in one spell school doesn't transfer to others.

Anyway, I could see doing one of two things here. The first is to make all spells available to all casters. Then, each class can offer bonuses for using specific types of spells (see the Life cleric and healing spells, for example). This does make each casting class feel similar, though. The second option is to separate each type of magic user. Only wizards can cast spells, while clerics instead perform wonders. There is a separate list of spells and wonders. However, this instead leads to redundancy as surely some spells will end up very similar to some wonders such that they might as well be identical, in which case it's not actually mechanically different from having two separate spell lists with overlapping spells.

The magic system in general is really tricky. It is, honesty, probably the most complex part of 5e (and D&D in general), moreso even than combat. (Combat is a much tighter subsystem running off general rules that apply broadly. Magic is an expansive list of minute exceptions to the rules that only apply to that specific spell and no where else.) If someone were to try to make 5.5e, the magic system might be the hardest thing to redesign.

Honestly, though, maybe it would be a good idea to redesign some caster classes to be non-casters. Bard, paladin, ranger, maybe even warlock. Possibly sorcerer. Sure, they might get magical powers, but they're no longer spellcasters, strictly speaking.

Races vs. Backgrounds
It's an interesting idea to downplay races and emphasize backgrounds. However, I do think that, from a design perspective, these are separate for a reason. Backgrounds give one thing, races give another. They're nicely separate and distinct. Transferring some of the racial traits over to backgrounds breaks that distinction. That said, the distinction is already fuzzy since races sometimes give you things that backgrounds are supposed to give you (skills, languages, tools).

Just spitballing, what might make sense would be to strip some of the mechanical benefits of races away and give a feat instead. So at 1st level, you have a race, background, feat, and class. The feat fills in what was taken away from the race, making a lot more races viable for different builds, or even any build.

I'd also like to see the ritual system expanded upon. Personally, I'd play a class built around using rituals instead of spell slots (yes I know tomelock is a thing, problem is there are so few ritual spells in 5e). In fact, I might want to see rituals as the primary way of casting spells, with spell slots being a secondary and less used way (mostly just in combat).

Weapon variety
Needed, but at the same time it's also nice to be able to just use whatever fits thematically. I think it would be possible to give different weapons some character without making some of them clearly better than others and without punishing those who just want a thematic weapon.

Crafting
And by extension, a solid economic system. Yes, I want to be able to own property and run a shop, if I so choose. But a big part of crafting is how easy it is to break the economy if you don't reign it in. Problem is, they reigned it in too much in the PHB. XGtE is a bit better, but still has issues. I get that the PCs should be out adventuring, not sitting in town cranking out and selling spell scrolls. I just don't believe it can take longer to scribe a scroll than it does most people to write a book.


Remove the pictures of the halflings from the PHB.
Good news, all halflings will now be replaced with kender.

But serious, why are the body proportions so off? Why are their feet so small?


Reading this makes me want to homebrew a system. :P
So, I have a confession. The whole reason I posted this thread was because I was thinking of doing exactly this. But I know myself too well, and that it would be too great an undertaking. But you never know, maybe I'll actually get something finished. And if not, I'm sure I'll learn a lot of neat things along the way.

[JellyPooga]

Ability scores and mods
Getting rid of ability scores and just using the modifiers was something I had thought about.

Interestingly enough, for D&D specifically, I'd be more inclined to do the opposite; get rid of Ability Score modifiers and retain Ability Scores, shifting the mechanic away from "roll high" to "roll low". Functionally, it doesn't really make a difference whether you're rolling high or low. Make the basic mechanic "roll under your Ability Score" and modify things from there rather than "roll a d20 to roll over a (largely) arbitrary target number" and modifying that. It seems more intuitive to me, saves that additional step of deriving modifiers from Ability Scores, makes every point count (increasing the granularity of the system) and preserves the Sacred Cow of D&D stats being in that 3-18 (3d6) range.

The other benefit of this is in contested rolls. To borrow a mechanic from the tabletop skirmish game Infinity, rolling high can still be good in a "roll under" system; whoever rolls the highest while still "succeeding" (i.e. rolling under their required score) wins the contest.
- E.g. Two strongmen are arm-wrestling; each rolls against Strength. Big Bob has Str 16 and rolls a 14. Strong Steve has Str 18 and rolls 15. Though they both succeeded at their check, Steve wins because he rolled higher.
Here's the satisfying bit; a "Critical" is not whether you roll a 1 or 20, but whether you roll your target number (which would be your Ability Score modified by whatever specifics for the scenario) on the nose.
- E.g. Big Bob and Strong Steve go at it again. "Best of three!" Bob declares. This time Steve rolls 17, which is both a success and higher than Bobs Ability Score. It looks like Bob's in trouble; he can't possibly beat Steve because Steves roll of 17 would be a failure against Bobs Strength of 16, but he rolls...a 16; Crit! Bob wins the contest.
This preserves that "heroic" element to contests and rolls, where even the plucky young hero that shouldn't be able to contest someone of much greater skill or ability, can beat the odds, whilst also maintaining the intuitive notion that rolling high is good and that "pluses" are better than "minuses" (which is one of the complaints about the old THAC0 system; i.e. that it was unintuitive that a low AC was good).

[Morty]

The class list needs to be burnt down and started from scratch, regardless. Whatever one's vision of 5E might be, the classes don't really serve it, because they're a mashup of ill-fitting elements hanging on by tradition. A list that treats fighters, paladins and druids as equally valuable labels is flawed. First you need to decide what a class even is and what it's supposed to give a player, then work your way up from there.

[Tanarii]

Something something old school.

Basically O5R Into The Unknown. But without 5 pages of hackneyed TRPG elitist cliches in the How to Run the Game and Role of the GM sections. ("Fail forward", "play the scene not the dice", "sat yes", etc.)

Despite that I'd still recommend it to people to check out.

In terms of mechanics, things to change, in order of importance
- make short rests 5 minutes after every encounter. Rebalance everything accordingly.
- give Martials something more than "I attack" for an at-will. Barbarians have it worst, but all six martial classes could use some love.
- make it take longer to gain levels in the 5-10 range
- name the Tiers again: Noob, Heroic, Paragon, Epic.
- (maybe) remove level 17+ from the game, re-introduce them in a splatbook called the "Epic Level Handbook".

Things to keep the way they are, because they exist for a damn good reason. Tweak, sure. Remove, heck no.
- Experience points.
- personality system.
- No sample DC tables. At least not detailed ones.

[stoutstien]

Something something old school.

Basically O5R Into The Unknown. But without 5 pages of hackneyed TRPG elitist cliches in the How to Run the Game and Role of the GM sections. ("Fail forward", "play the scene not the dice", "sat yes", etc.)

Despite that I'd still recommend it to people to check out.

In terms of mechanics, things to change, in order of importance
- make short rests 5 minutes after every encounter. Rebalance everything accordingly.
- give Martials something more than "I attack" for an at-will. Barbarians have it worst, but all six martial classes could use some love.
- make it take longer to gain levels in the 5-10 range
- name the Tiers again: Noob, Heroic, Paragon, Epic.
- (maybe) remove level 17+ from the game, re-introduce them in a splatbook called the "Epic Level Handbook".

Things to keep the way they are, because they exist for a damn good reason. Tweak, sure. Remove, heck no.
- Experience points.
- personality system.
- No sample DC tables. At least not detailed ones.

Why the dislike of fail forward? I'm not saying it should always be an option but can be vary useful to keep the game rolling. Example being the party attempts to kick down a door to get the jump on the NPCs on the other side. The DC is moderate due do whatever factors and the player fails the roll. Instead of having them roll again you just say it takes more than one Kick so no possibility of getting surprise. the net results probably the same just without needlessly rolling more dice.

Or are we using the same term for two different things?

The rest of it I wholeheartedly agree with.

one thing I would really like is a section that helps DM design their own DC charts with a breakdown of the math involved.

[EggKookoo]

The class list needs to be burnt down and started from scratch, regardless. Whatever one's vision of 5E might be, the classes don't really serve it, because they're a mashup of ill-fitting elements hanging on by tradition. A list that treats fighters, paladins and druids as equally valuable labels is flawed. First you need to decide what a class even is and what it's supposed to give a player, then work your way up from there.

I don't dislike 5e's classes, but I do have an affection for how 2e handled it. There were four groups: Warrior, Wizard, Priest, and Rogue. Each had a standard class: Fighter, Mage, Cleric, and Thief. You could just go with that, or pick one of the optional classes. Paladin and Ranger were under Warrior, for example. Each group shared certain things such as hit dice and exp progression. Optional classes often had ability score minimums. It was a nice way to organize things and keep elements more or less balanced. Third edition did away with that.

I think a revised 5e could benefit from some grouping for things like hit dice, proficiencies, and maybe saving throws? Not sure if there'd be much value without a 6e-level overhaul of the entire class system, though.

[Tanarii]

Why the dislike of fail forward? I'm not saying it should always be an option but can be vary useful to keep the game rolling. Example being the party attempts to kick down a door to get the jump on the NPCs on the other side. The DC is moderate due do whatever factors and the player fails the roll. Instead of having them roll again you just say it takes more than one Kick so no possibility of getting surprise. the net results probably the same just without needlessly rolling more dice.

Or are we using the same term for two different things?

Degrees of success is reasonable.

But "fail forward" is a solution to a problem that doesn't address the actual problem: linear (often plot-based) adventures that can't afford a block preventing the party from moving forward.


one thing I would really like is a section that helps DM design their own DC charts with a breakdown of the math involved.
That'd be very useful. Especially since the designers, or more specifically Mike Mearls, can't do basic math. As such his mechanical constructs, while innovative, are often hugely problematic. For example, no one sat down and thought "Based on a non proficient character failing a Easy task 50% of the time, is it reasonable to call it Easy?"

[Morty]

I don't dislike 5e's classes, but I do have an affection for how 2e handled it. There were four groups: Warrior, Wizard, Priest, and Rogue. Each had a standard class: Fighter, Mage, Cleric, and Thief. You could just go with that, or pick one of the optional classes. Paladin and Ranger were under Warrior, for example. Each group shared certain things such as hit dice and exp progression. Optional classes often had ability score minimums. It was a nice way to organize things and keep elements more or less balanced. Third edition did away with that.

I think a revised 5e could benefit from some grouping for things like hit dice, proficiencies, and maybe saving throws? Not sure if there'd be much value without a 6e-level overhaul of the entire class system, though.

I'm not a big fan of those categories. Sure, they work better as groupings than they do as classes, but it's still pretty surface-level. The problem is that the distinction between "warrior" and "rogue" is pretty arbitrary and indirectly leads to the problem of fighters who can only fight. The wizard/priest distinction is likewise arbitrary - it's "caster who hurts" and "caster who heals", only the latter needs to involve gods in some way.

[Pex]

Interestingly enough, for D&D specifically, I'd be more inclined to do the opposite; get rid of Ability Score modifiers and retain Ability Scores, shifting the mechanic away from "roll high" to "roll low". Functionally, it doesn't really make a difference whether you're rolling high or low. Make the basic mechanic "roll under your Ability Score" and modify things from there rather than "roll a d20 to roll over a (largely) arbitrary target number" and modifying that. It seems more intuitive to me, saves that additional step of deriving modifiers from Ability Scores, makes every point count (increasing the granularity of the system) and preserves the Sacred Cow of D&D stats being in that 3-18 (3d6) range.

The other benefit of this is in contested rolls. To borrow a mechanic from the tabletop skirmish game Infinity, rolling high can still be good in a "roll under" system; whoever rolls the highest while still "succeeding" (i.e. rolling under their required score) wins the contest.
- E.g. Two strongmen are arm-wrestling; each rolls against Strength. Big Bob has Str 16 and rolls a 14. Strong Steve has Str 18 and rolls 15. Though they both succeeded at their check, Steve wins because he rolled higher.
Here's the satisfying bit; a "Critical" is not whether you roll a 1 or 20, but whether you roll your target number (which would be your Ability Score modified by whatever specifics for the scenario) on the nose.
- E.g. Big Bob and Strong Steve go at it again. "Best of three!" Bob declares. This time Steve rolls 17, which is both a success and higher than Bobs Ability Score. It looks like Bob's in trouble; he can't possibly beat Steve because Steves roll of 17 would be a failure against Bobs Strength of 16, but he rolls...a 16; Crit! Bob wins the contest.
This preserves that "heroic" element to contests and rolls, where even the plucky young hero that shouldn't be able to contest someone of much greater skill or ability, can beat the odds, whilst also maintaining the intuitive notion that rolling high is good and that "pluses" are better than "minuses" (which is one of the complaints about the old THAC0 system; i.e. that it was unintuitive that a low AC was good).

Doesn't work aesthetically because players will not like rolling a Natural 20 is a failure when their ability score is 16 or even 18. Your system is how 2E Psionics worked. You're making things confusing, You want to roll low to succeed but still high to be better. You're asking for more rolls to succeed at a task looking for more roll low but high. How are PCs supposed to improve as they level? Ability scores aren't increasingly rapidly. Some scores will never change. How do you calculate attacking a monster? How does one improve their attacks?

D&D had it right when it switched to d20 high is always better. It's a simple system intuitively grasped. The critics of 3E didn't care for fiddly bits of lots of plus and minus numbers everywhere. The critics of 5E don't care for Bounded Accuracy giving too much weight to the d20 roll in determining success or failure. Those are the details to be worked out. Roll high on a d20 is not the problem to be fixed. Roll high is what makes Advantage/Disadvantage work. The criticism of that is not its existence but the dislike that one instance of Advantage or Disadvantage negates all instances of the other. They're fine for one instance to cancel one other to roll normally, but if there are a majority of instances they want that rolled. Still, it remains roll high on the d20 to succeed.

[stoutstien]

Degrees of success is reasonable.

But "fail forward" is a solution to a problem that doesn't address the actual problem: linear (often plot-based) adventures that can't afford a block preventing the party from moving forward.


Got ya. I agree Linear design games should not have gates like that unless the table is on board with failure as a legit possibility. On the subject, in no shape or form should that gate be rolled up in a single dice roll. If they fail because they burned the proverbial or the literal bridge that's one thing but unavoidable gambling for progression is cringy.

As far as DCs go I started handing out laminated cards that have examples of each ablity for the given game. I have four different ones made up and sometimes I switch them out on plane jumping campaigns.

[Knaight]

Degrees of success is reasonable.

But "fail forward" is a solution to a problem that doesn't address the actual problem: linear (often plot-based) adventures that can't afford a block preventing the party from moving forward.
Fail forward generally just means you don't use "nothing happens" as an outcome - the specific example of a delay is just cutting down on rolls needed in a roll-until-success paradigm. Other examples of fail forward absolutely involve a dramatic fork in events, where there's no linear path to follow.

[EggKookoo]

I'm not a big fan of those categories. Sure, they work better as groupings than they do as classes, but it's still pretty surface-level. The problem is that the distinction between "warrior" and "rogue" is pretty arbitrary and indirectly leads to the problem of fighters who can only fight. The wizard/priest distinction is likewise arbitrary - it's "caster who hurts" and "caster who heals", only the latter needs to involve gods in some way.

It sounds like you're wanting D&D to effectively go classless. That will never happen, I think. D&D will go level-less before it goes classless.

[JellyPooga]

Doesn't work aesthetically because players will not like rolling a Natural 20 is a failure when their ability score is 16 or even 18.Why? Rolling a crit is rolling a crit, regardless of whether it's a 20, a 1 or anything in between. Arbitrary (dis)satisfaction is arbitrary. Result counts, not the number you roll on an RNG.
You're asking for more rolls to succeed at a taskAm I? Not sure where you get this from.
How are PCs supposed to improve as they level? Ability scores aren't increasingly rapidly. Some scores will never change.I'm talking about a modification to the fundamentals of the entire system, which would obviously have many many knock on effects. Do you really want me to redesign and outlay every detail? I could, but it might take me a while and it would be a long post...:smallwink:
How do you calculate attacking a monster?This is an easy answer; Attack roll (e.g. Str) vs. Defence roll (e.g. Dex). Obvious benefit here is making Defence an active ability, rather than passive (assuming you subscribe to active abilities being generally better than passive ones). OR you could give Monsters a Defence rating that modifies the attack roll if you wanted to make the gameplay both simpler and asymmetric for Players and GMs (which is not necessarily a bad thing and could easily incorporate the notion of Players doing most of and/or all the dice rolling).


D&D had it right when it switched to d20 high is always better. It's a simple system intuitively grasped. The critics of 3E didn't care for fiddly bits of lots of plus and minus numbers everywhere. The critics of 5E don't care for Bounded Accuracy giving too much weight to the d20 roll in determining success or failure. Those are the details to be worked out. Roll high on a d20 is not the problem to be fixed. Roll high is what makes Advantage/Disadvantage work. The criticism of that is not its existence but the dislike that one instance of Advantage or Disadvantage negates all instances of the other. They're fine for one instance to cancel one other to roll normally, but if there are a majority of instances they want that rolled. Still, it remains roll high on the d20 to succeed.

I'd argue that "roll under stat" is much simpler that "derive modifier from stat, then roll and add that derived number to try and equal or exceed an externally derived target number that is also derived from other scores". Of course, I've simplified "roll under" to bias my argument, but there is little to nothing more inherently simple or intuitive about the current system. The system I'm proposing comes from a tabletop wargame and is designed to be easy to eyeball and quick to resolve. From personal experience, it is intuitive and satisfying on a number of levels. My proposed change was not suggested in response to the advantage/disadvantage argument, but rather as an alternative to removing Ability Scores in favour of just their modifier. I think removing Ability Scores is a disservice to the roots of the game and rather than kill the sacred cow, I'd see the game redesigned to accommodate a more streamlined system.

That aside, "roll high" is not what makes (dis)advantage work at all; probability is. Whether I'm rolling high, low or trying to get a specific number, the (dis)advantage system could work in functionally the same way; you just choose the best/worst result. Nothing about my proposed system means reintroducing the myriad small bonuses and penalties we saw in 3ed.

[JNAProductions]

Active does not mean rolling a die, it means making a decision.

There's no real difference between rolling "d20+stat vs. d20+stat" or "d20+stat vs. static defese", if you have no decision-making to do.

Note: This post is very much a "To me" post. My opinion, my words.

[JellyPooga]

Active does not mean rolling a die, it means making a decision.

There's no real difference between rolling "d20+stat vs. d20+stat" or "d20+stat vs. static defese", if you have no decision-making to do.

Note: This post is very much a "To me" post. My opinion, my words.

Indeed. But if defences are resolved in much the same way as any other action, then it opens the gate for different approaches. i.e. if "defence" means more than just "AC", it can be resolved in more varied ways; e.g. choosing between a Dexterity check (or a Con check for Barbarians, or Wis check for Monks, perhaps) or an Armour check, both of which could functionally be the same dice mechanic (roll under, but roll high if contested).

[Morty]

It sounds like you're wanting D&D to effectively go classless. That will never happen, I think. D&D will go level-less before it goes classless.

:smallconfused: No, I don't want D&D to go classless. I just think the current batch of classes isn't helpful and that fighter/rogue/mage/priest aren't helpful either.

[Tanarii]

:smallconfused: No, I don't want D&D to go classless. I just don'think the current batch of classes isn't helpful and that fighter/rogue/mage/priest aren't helpful either.
Samurai / Ninja / Shujen / Wujen ?

Berserker / Witch / Warlock ?

Pikeman / Musketeer / Courtier / Clergyman ?

Brave / Shaman ?

Street Samurai / Ganger / Decker / Mage ?

[Galaxander]

:smallconfused: No, I don't want D&D to go classless. I just think the current batch of classes isn't helpful and that fighter/rogue/mage/priest aren't helpful either.

I think this is interesting, but I'm having a hard time imagining what would define classes that you would consider good. You said earlier, I think, that wizard and cleric are basically the same because they both cast spells while acknowledging that the spells do different things and derive from different thematic sources. So, could you give an example of one or a few basic classes that you would think are good, just in broad strokes?

[Petrocorus]

Magic and wizards
Anyway, I could see doing one of two things here. The first is to make all spells available to all casters. Then, each class can offer bonuses for using specific types of spells (see the Life cleric and healing spells, for example). This does make each casting class feel similar, though. The second option is to separate each type of magic user. And way too more powerful than it already is.


Only wizards can cast spells, while clerics instead perform wonders. There is a separate list of spells and wonders. However, this instead leads to redundancy as surely some spells will end up very similar to some wonders such that they might as well be identical, in which case it's not actually mechanically different from having two separate spell lists with overlapping spells.

This is basically what we had in first editions, even is everything was called "spells".
And for the sake of simplicity, similar spells were merge together, and then all spells were presented together and "separate list of spells and wonders" are actually the classes' spells lists. So what you propose is exactly what we have, with different names for spells depending on your class.



The magic system in general is really tricky. It is, honesty, probably the most complex part of 5e (and D&D in general), moreso even than combat. (Combat is a much tighter subsystem running off general rules that apply broadly. Magic is an expansive list of minute exceptions to the rules that only apply to that specific spell and no where else.) If someone were to try to make 5.5e, the magic system might be the hardest thing to redesign.

I think the magic system is has good as it can be while remaining D&D. It would be difficult to redesign the system into a less exception-based system without departing from what people are expected from D&D.

One magic system i like is the Shadowrun's one. It's one of the best systems i've ever seen. The Mournblade RPG has a similar system, but use mana points instead of Drain check. They both also are quite balanced, notably compared to "martial" characters.
In SR, a street samurai can "cast a fireball" better and more easily than a mage thanks to his assault rifle with a combined grenade launcher.
But they couldn't be applied to D&D without having tons of people complaining "this is not D&D". And they would have a point.
It would also be difficult to have this systems works both at low levels and epic levels.



Honestly, though, maybe it would be a good idea to redesign some caster classes to be non-casters. Bard, paladin, ranger, maybe even warlock. Possibly sorcerer. Sure, they might get magical powers, but they're no longer spellcasters, strictly speaking.

I did like what they did with the Warlock in 3.5. It was underpowered but that was a tuning problem, the concepts were good.



Crafting
And by extension, a solid economic system. Yes, I want to be able to own property and run a shop, if I so choose. But a big part of crafting is how easy it is to break the economy if you don't reign it in. Problem is, they reigned it in too much in the PHB. XGtE is a bit better, but still has issues. I get that the PCs should be out adventuring, not sitting in town cranking out and selling spell scrolls. I just don't believe it can take longer to scribe a scroll than it does most people to write a book.

My contention is that the PC need items for adventuring.
Martials do need their +1 weapon for monster with damage resistances. And with enough variety to cover all combat styles.
Caster do need to scribe some scrolls. I often use Revivify as an example, this is typically the kind of spell that you don't want to use a prepare slot on, and that you don't want to need, but that you do want to have available if you ever need it. I.E that you want to have on a scroll.
There are also a few utility items that would make sense and would not break the game if they were more common. Haversack, flying carpet, goggle of night, etc. They should not be that difficult to get.
I believe they were right to put an end to the magic mart mentality of 3.5, but like with other things, they went too far.



The other benefit of this is in contested rolls. To borrow a mechanic from the tabletop skirmish game Infinity, rolling high can still be good in a "roll under" system; whoever rolls the highest while still "succeeding" (i.e. rolling under their required score) wins the contest.
whilst also maintaining the intuitive notion that rolling high is good and that "pluses" are better than "minuses" (which is one of the complaints about the old THAC0 system; i.e. that it was unintuitive that a low AC was good).
I'm with Pex on that one.
Asking the player to roll below a value while rolling the highest below the value is counter-intuitive and leads to nonsensical results.
The guy with 18 Str who roll 2 fail against the guy who has 14 Str and roll 13. So the firs one rolled well beyond what he needed but fail against the guy who barely passed? What about the if the first one roll 19 and the second roll 15? The first one win?

If you ask to roll below a score, then rolling lowest should be the best. So you should use the margin.
And in this case, this is just like the THAC0 of old. And this system was changed because it was counter-intuitive to non-math-oriented people. To be fair, the human mind has more difficulties with subtractions that with additions.



Basically O5R Into The Unknown. But without 5 pages of hackneyed TRPG elitist cliches in the How to Run the Game and Role of the GM sections. ("Fail forward", "play the scene not the dice", "sat yes", etc.)

What are "Fail forward" and "sat yes"?



That'd be very useful. Especially since the designers, or more specifically Mike Mearls, can't do basic math. As such his mechanical constructs, while innovative, are often hugely problematic. For example, no one sat down and thought "Based on a non proficient character failing a Easy task 50% of the time, is it reasonable to call it Easy?"
Oh gosh yes.
This is something i feel is more and more common.
Back in the 90s, i had the feeling that many writers were math-oriented peoples.
But now? When i read recent RPG (heck, notably French ones) it seems no one actually looks into probabilities or even tries to make mathematical sense with their system.


:smallconfused: No, I don't want D&D to go classless. I just think the current batch of classes isn't helpful and that fighter/rogue/mage/priest aren't helpful either.
Would you like to give us some example of what you mean?

[Mith]

In no particular order for ideas:

Assuming straight roll systems (the above posts have reminded me about some of the confusion with roll under), I think an interesting system to consider is to make stat modifiers stat-10 and add as needed. Critical success/failures are beating/failing a check by 10 or more respectively. Critical success give you minor bonuses depending on the roll being attempted with a potential setback for a critical failure. For skills, I think that works better to roll 2d10 for a curve effect. I would probably allow an "auto success threshold" for skills (like passive perception) so that you only roll in rapidly changing situations (either the players are moving quickly, or there is combat). Otherwise, Exploration and Investigation is more the DM describing the scene and actions to the players. Anything that might require a reaction (ex looking through a keyhole right before the dart trap springs), the DM asks for a roll, with adjusted DCs based on previous actions (+/-5).

While I like static proficiency for combat and saves just to keep confusion down, I like the idea of proficiency dice for skills and saying that Expertise "maximises" the dice. This means that proficient and experts have the same range, but different probabilities.

As far as proficiency bonuses and saves, I like the idea that you have 6 saves: Two of them you are proficient with, two you are half proficient with, and two you have a third proficiency with. So at highest level currently (+6) You will have a save array of +6, +6, +3, +3, +2,+2 plus relevant stats. Which is better than +6,+6,0,0,0,0 +stats.

[bc56]

I'm actually fine with what's mechanically there, but I'd love it if their writing and organization was cleaned up. One of the biggest problems with the system is that the rulebooks and adventures are a mess, hard to read, and hard to find relevant information in.

[47Ace]

From most important to though of later:
-Organize the spell section by level and list the classes that get the spells in the spell text block
-Clearly state in the PHB that it is assumed the characters are competent.
-state in the DMG that yes there are simplifications and abstractions in what can be done without magic but they also exist with magic. As a result if you find yourself saying you cant do that non magical thing, with magic and the same opportunity cost fine because magic, stop and ask are you just unfairly nerfing non magical characters because you understand them well letting magical characters get away with the same or similar thing because you don't understand magic.
-no difference between magical and non magical B/P/S more between B/P/S.
-spell less ways to magic magic items so the world feels less like one where there are two classes. The upper class spellcasters and magic monsters that can interact with and possibly defeat everyone and the lower class that can only effectively interact with the upper class if helped by the upper class of given items that only the upper-class can make.
-DMG that actually guided DMs. After it finishes saying you can do whatever you want it then explains what works really well (dungeon crawl probably with a bit more) what is easy to change from that template and what requires more care to change from that template. Oh and in particular explains how to run a magical world and what effects magic can halve on the world.
-Bigger page numbers and chapter title on every page.
-reorganized skills so being good at sports or finding things are not overly expensive in build resources (currently they both need two high ability scores before you can have delusions of being competent in them)
-Half the effect of ability scores on skill and increase modifiers to allow competence. Empower DM to give out +5,10,15 for relevant background character trait things in particular knowledge related skills.
-example DC's with add +/- 5s for complications.
-Systemically go over spells decide what components require ie VM means can cast with sword and shield in hand, VSM means no shield or two handed sword for things like fireball. Balance out the different schools so that taking primary necromancy of primarily illusion spells etc is viable same with different elemental types
-stuff besides I attack again for martials in combat.
- things like minor illusion for martials let them have some rules written on their character sheet (so they are not forgot like most DC x to do this things like the Xanathar's tool abilities) that let them guaranty influence the world.
-some ability bonuses from race some from background so thematic things like drow cleric are not inherently bad.
-Flatten out the differences between ability to take advantage of equipment and number/type of rests. Probably move balance towards less short rest per long rest at higher levels.
-short rest shorter with expected effects for taking suggested in DMG.
-Build on the tier system idea remove free food (good berry) from tier 1 provide frame work for stopping level advancement at levels lower then 20 and then give non-spell casters high level abilities comparable to what Hercules and Samson and other such figures can do.
-borrow PF 2e's spell rarity idea
-less XP for killing monsters more for overcoming challenges.

I probably have more but that's enough text.

Also, I will admit that some of the higher ones are mostly influenced by my desire to stop seeing certainty posts/opinions on forms.

Edit:
I meant to add something to my list but forgot what
Re-Edit:
Bolded keywords and better clarity on what is an intended interaction.
Bolded keywords would easily allow differentiation between for example the "attack action" and an "attack with a fireball".

[PurplyPhoenix]

Asking the player to roll below a value while rolling the highest below the value is counter-intuitive and leads to nonsensical results.
The guy with 18 Str who roll 2 fail against the guy who has 14 Str and roll 13. So the firs one rolled well beyond what he needed but fail against the guy who barely passed? What about the if the first one roll 19 and the second roll 15? The first one win?

If you ask to roll below a score, then rolling lowest should be the best. So you should use the margin.
And in this case, this is just like the THAC0 of old. And this system was changed because it was counter-intuitive to non-math-oriented people. To be fair, the human mind has more difficulties with subtractions that with additions.


...Have you ever played Blackjack? (Please don't take this as condescending... I understand that it could be taken that way but as an autistic person I don't feel like finding the "correct" way to say what I mean. Please don't think of my neutral question as a veiled insult. I am so tired of that.)

[LibraryOgre]

Asking the player to roll below a value while rolling the highest below the value is counter-intuitive and leads to nonsensical results.
The guy with 18 Str who roll 2 fail against the guy who has 14 Str and roll 13. So the firs one rolled well beyond what he needed but fail against the guy who barely passed? What about the if the first one roll 19 and the second roll 15? The first one win?

If you ask to roll below a score, then rolling lowest should be the best. So you should use the margin.
And in this case, this is just like the THAC0 of old. And this system was changed because it was counter-intuitive to non-math-oriented people. To be fair, the human mind has more difficulties with subtractions that with additions.


I disagree. Rolling highest, but under your score, is simple and clear. It provides a margin of success that the other person is simply not capable of.

So, let's go with your example. 14 Strength v. 18 Strength. Both roll a 2. Who did better? They both rolled the same. You might say "Oh, the 18 Strength person has the bigger margin", but that's the same problem of descending ACs and ThAC0; you're introducing an unncessary operation into the calculation.

However, if you go with "Higher is better", then the 18 Strength has a margin of success that the 14 simply cannot match. If the 14 rolls a 5 and the 18 rolls a 2, the 14 did better... you can tell it simply by a glance. But if the 18 rolls a 15, the 14 simply cannot match them... that level of success cannot be matched by the 14.

I call it the "Price is Right" method... as close as you can to the price, without going over. Go over the price, and you fail. Go If you're under the price, and the highest person, you win. It was my prefered method for opposed checks in Palladium's %-based skill system (where the difference is not as easy to tell), but Hack5 introduced a different method... highest total. A simple, unopposed, test can roll under the %, but opposed is d%+skill. Both of you roll d%, and add your full skill mastery.

[JellyPooga]

If you ask to roll below a score, then rolling lowest should be the best. So you should use the margin.

Why should a margin of success system be used? D&D doesn't use one any more or less than the system I propose does. 5ed currently uses a binary system of pass or fail and I don't propose to change that.

Think of it this way; the system I propose is a "roll high" system, to roll equal to or lower than a target threshold (typically set by the value of one of your own ability scores), modified by bonuses (which are positive) and penalties (which are negative).

How is this any more or less intuitive than a system that is "roll high" to equal or exceed a target number (which is typically either arbitrary or set by external factors, many of which might be derived e.g. AC), modified by bonuses (which are positive) and penalties (which are negative)?

The difference is between "roll over" and "roll under" (pro tip: not a significant difference), except one removes the necessity to derive a modifer or TN from ability scores, rather than using the ability score directly.

edit: also, what Mark Hall said above^

[Galaxander]

Would you like to give us some example of what you mean?

So, I asked the same thing and Morty hasn't responded yet, but I've been thinking about it. Maybe they mean for different classes to have completely different mechanics for using their abilities. In the example they gave, wizard and cleric both prepare spells and then cast them based on a number of spell-slots.

Maybe an example, and I'm in no way pitching this as a good idea, but maybe an example would be for clerics to not have a spell list. Instead praying to their deity and being granted a boon, but not having exact control over what it would be. Like praying "please protect us from our enemies" might grant a temporary AC bonus, or it might be temporary hit points, or resistance to a damage type.

Again, I'm not saying this is a well thought-out idea, but just an example of a class that would be mechanically different from having a list of abilities that can be used X times per rest.

I would still like to hear what Morty had in mind though.

[Composer99]

Leaving aside the fact that a change to the fundamental resolution mechanic of the game is well outside the scope of a hypothetical 5.5e or 5."PF", despite the resemblance to blackjack or "The Price is Right", I would firmly be against using a "roll under your ability score" mechanic in D&D 5e. Blackjack doesn't include advantage/disadvantage, Bardic Inspiration, rerolls (redraws?), which all complicate the mechanics of die rolls in a way that would IMO be far too fiddly in a roll-under system.

For single rolls, roll-under is, I would assert, less intuitive than "just roll high enough" in and of itself as a game mechanic. It is also less intuitive in terms of the action in the game world/narrative, because the difficulty of doing The Thing is no longer a characteristic of The Thing itself, becoming instead a characteristic of you, the character doing The Thing - unless you start either including die roll modifiers or adding DCs back in (or both).

It gets even worse for opposed rolls, because you're replacing a single-step process (did you roll better than the creature rolling against you?) with a more complicated one. Now, not only do you have to roll better than the other creature, but you also have to roll under your ability score. If this is happening in combat, this is on top of all the things you have to keep track of in D&D combat that you don't have to keep track of to play blackjack or participate in "The Price is Right".

[Morty]

My point is that dividing casters into "wizards" and "priests" just isn't helpful. "Wizard" is going to be a grab-bag of all traditional magic users. "Priest" as a category of magician was made up whole-cloth for D&D only exists elsewhere because D&D did it first.

Second of all, it mixes up the source of magic and the function of magic. For some reason, you can't heal (not very well anyway) if you learn your magic from books or awaken to it through mysterious circumstances. But if you draw it from a deity, you'll always focus on support and healing, even if your god is a flaming skull that eats people. And you'll always be proficient with plate armor and turn undead for whatever reason.

Now, of course, the split between arcane and divine magic is an important distinctive feature of D&D, but it doesn't need to work this way. You can either categorize magic users based on how they acquire their power or how they use it, but without mixing them up. I think having three classes for learned magic, granted magic or innate magic might work. It's part of a larger model I came up with:


Soldier, a tough and resilient martial class.
Vanguard, a mobile and aggressive martial class.
Warlord, a tactical and versatile martial class.
Rogue, a physical and precise skill specialist.
Investigator, a cerebral and social skill specialist.
Sage, drawing magic power from study.
Prodigy, drawing magic from innate talent.
Channeller, drawing magic from a pact with an outside source.

As you can see, I'm sort of starting from scratch here. But that's eight classes, leaving me with four more to work with. Instead of forcing symmetry where it doesn't do much good, I think the rest could be spent on "oddball" classes that don't quite fit elsewhere:

Loremaster, using ancient secrets and rituals to inspire and curse (bards would go here as a sublcass/variant/etc.).
Wilder, a shape-shifter commanding primal forces.
Paladin, a martial zealot powered by oaths.


To explain my reasoning a little more:

The three martial classes are an attempt to throw off the "fighter" class that I grew to strongly dislike. Instead, I'm trying to focus on the three broad concepts that warrior-types fall into frequently - first the durable, reliable and strong fighter who can take everything the world throws at them and throw it right back. A soldier on lower levels, Kratos or the Hulk on higher ones. Then we have fast, aggressive fighters whose purpose is to deal a lot of damage or harm quickly. Focused martial artists, raging berserkers, maybe quick skirmishers. Then there's the smart, tactical warriors. I'm not sure if I'd like to lean more on the warlord archetype or make it a more generic "smart" warrior archetype that can rely on commanding others but can also rely on preparation, resources and tricks. Since right now, this trio is very melee-heavy and archers need to have their place.

The "skill specialist" classes are tricky, as I said, because I don't know if this concept should exist to begin with. D&D has always had a very awkward and undecided relationship with non-combat, non-magical skills. Do we even need classes specializing in those, or should we assume every character will have combat and non-combat skills in equal measure? I don't know, but this idea assumes we do have such classes.

Rogues should finally throw off having to cover every character that's neither a magician nor a warrior. And instead of the thief archetype being an albatross around their neck, it ought to be their actual identity. Then we introduce investigators to shoulder some of the burden, as the smart and social skill experts who rely on tricks, helping their allies or careful observation rather than stealth and precise attacks in combat. I can't think of a third such class that wouldn't be there only for symmetry's sake. I might still change the name from "rogue" to something else.

The casting classes are an attempt to organize them along the power source, rather than the arcane/divine split. Or rather, every one of those classes can be arcane or divine. Of course, magic needs a thorough rework. The casting classes were never the problem, really.

The "oddball" classes are, well, odd. I'm not sure about them. It's obvious that they're much more focused than the first eight. But maybe that's not a bad thing? Loremasters are an attempt to take the bard concept and make it a bit less specific while removing spellcasting, really. It's meant for sages and ritualists in addition to bards. They do use magic, but not spells. Maybe I could hack it as one of the "skill specialist" ones? Since Investigator, or however I call it, can't become too watered down. Of course, this shows how arbitrary the distinction is.

Wilders are an amalgamation of druids and the more supernatural elements of rangers and barbarians. No spells - I'm thinking maybe a binder-like systems of devoting themselves to spirits of the wild in exchange for boons. One of them can be shapeshifting, another can be command over animals, et cetera. Then paladins. They're a big part of D&D, but they're not quite just warriors with divine magic.

Well, there it is, It's not terribly coherent but I like it.


Spoilered because it's pretty long. I'm not married to this one, of course. Another idea I had was that if we're going to use a few broad classes, a strong hero/quick hero/smart hero/social hero setup would probably be a lot more helpful than fighter/rogue/mage/priest. It's the one thing I'm wiling to give d20 Modern credit for. Perhaps you'd start with this base archetype and then have a number of specializations that work with any of those.

[Tanarii]

-spell less ways to magic magic items so the world feels less like one where there are two classes. The upper class spellcasters and magic monsters that can interact with and possibly defeat everyone and the lower class that can only effectively interact with the upper class if helped by the upper class of given items that only the upper-class can make.

IMO 5e is the best edition to date for "martials don't require magic items to compete with full casters". Even though some of the 6 martial classes get spells (Ranger, Paladin, etc), having magic items isn't generally critical for them. Just really, really nice. That's a fine line, and 5e did a fairly good job of threading it.

And AFAIK no other edition of D&D really tried that. I mean, 4e probably should count as best balancing between 'power sources' ... but magic items were assumed for everyone, so it's kinda hard to tell.

[Man_Over_Game]

If someone were to make a mod of 5e (I'm kind of thinking of like what Pathfinder was to 3.5 as an example), what kinds of changes would you like to see? I don't mean like specific tweaks to the classes, but more general things, like ability scores, the core d20 system, or how actions and turns are handled in combat.

Gosh, uh, pretty big list for me:


Readied Actions can prevent someone from doing something rather than only reacting to the event (such as how the Shield Spell does it).
Multiclassing to be used to combine class identities, while subclasses are to refine a core class's mechanics to suit your specific needs. For example, the Eldritch Knight should be made by multiclassing Fighter/Wizard, not a specialized Fighter subclass.
Better fluidity overall with multiclassing. Mixing Wizard and Sorcerer, or Paladin and Cleric, or Rogue with any spellcaster, shouldn't be as bad of a choice as the system demands. Otherwise, we end up with bonkers combinations like Paladin/Warlock that have no thematic basis but are mechanically compatible.
Skills regularly having more value than spells. Currently, I find it hard to imagine many DC 25 skill checks that would surpass the value of a level 2-3 spell.
Better scaling overall with skills. They use the same scaling as the attack rules for the sake of simplicity, but that makes it a problem when a Barbarian is expected to get about a total of +6 to his Athletics checks from level 1 to 20 (as this makes your level 20's feel like civilians when using skills).
More complexity with martial combat. Not as a standard, but as a regular option.
Better streamlined stealth rules, one that allows degrees of failure instead of a Yes/No that causes stealth missions to end prematurely.
Better exploration rules. Pretty much a no-brainer.
An option of play that doesn't roll Initiative at the start of an encounter. The current system isolates tension to only be existent during "combat scenarios", giving off a similar feeling to the oldschool JRPGs.
More usage of Exhaustion.
A full comparison of each class at every teir, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. There should be a reason a Barbarian is circumstantially better than a Fighter, or a Druid is better than a Cleric. Is an Arcane Trickster better than a Wizard that took 1-2 levels into Rogue? This line may sound silly, but it's how you notice glaring issues like how Fighters do the exact same thing for the last 15 levels.


Or, in a nutshell:
Fix skills
Fix martials
Fix multiclassing
Use resources that are already there (like Hit Dice or Exhaustion).

[Telok]

1) There needs to be a discussion of probability in the DMG. It needs to not be stuck somewhere weird like an appendix or in random encounter tables. It needs to be referenced by the sections were it's relevant.

It needs to cover how the d20 flat distribution affects game play, especially "skills" and opposed rolls. It needs to address iterative probability. I've met too many new DMs who think that three 30% chances at success equal one 90% chance, or that requiring three successes at a 75% chance is still like a 2/3 chance of success.

It needs to cover the success rate that the game expects from the characters. Explicitly and in some depth. Should first level pcs really risk drowning if they fall in a lake? A river? How about 20th level pcs? How likely should it be for priests to know about common undead? Are 20th level archmages supposed to automatically recognize low level spells? Are commoners supposed to occasionally and randomly know more about obscure arcane lore than archmages? Make the base assumptions of the system explicit so that people know when they're not following them.

2) More resources and explicit guidelines for new DMs in the DMG and the PH. Yes, people who have been playing & running games for 7+ years can cope with gaps and vagueness in the rules. Mostly because we've either already made the mistakes or tend to haunt forums and talk about this stuff. But lots of the newer DMs seem to miss important sentences or miss the importance of particular sentences in the DMG.

New DMs can use training wheels just as much as new players. They need things spelled out and explained that experienced DMs don't.

3) Difficulty guides on the adventures & modules. I've met the DMs who think that a module that starts at level 1 is a module that starts out basic, that it's a module they can start with, that it's a module they can learn as they go. Mark the adventures with a difficulty level so people don't keep showing up on the boards asking if Out of the Abyss or Curse of Strahd is a good starter module.

[Petrocorus]

Why should a margin of success system be used? D&D doesn't use one any more or less than the system I propose does. 5ed currently uses a binary system of pass or fail and I don't propose to change that.

Think of it this way; the system I propose is a "roll high" system, to roll equal to or lower than a target threshold (typically set by the value of one of your own ability scores), modified by bonuses (which are positive) and penalties (which are negative).

How is this any more or less intuitive than a system that is "roll high" to equal or exceed a target number (which is typically either arbitrary or set by external factors, many of which might be derived e.g. AC), modified by bonuses (which are positive) and penalties (which are negative)?

The difference is between "roll over" and "roll under" (pro tip: not a significant difference), except one removes the necessity to derive a modifer or TN from ability scores, rather than using the ability score directly.

edit: also, what Mark Hall said above^

1- On one side you have "Roll high and the higher the better".
On the other side "Roll low and the lower the better".
You propose "Roll low but high at the same time".
How is this is not counter-intuitive.

2- D&D doesn't use margin, because it uses the total. The higher total between the two contestant win, and it count the roll, and the ability and proficiency.

3- Your system OTOH is not a "roll high" system. It actually uses a margin, but it calculate the margin from 0 instead of doing it from the target number.
In other words, the closest you are to fail, the best is you success.
Like in a javelin throwing contest where there is a minimum distance and the gold medal goes to the one who reach just above the limit and not to the one who throw the furthest.

4- Are the parts i highlighted not contradictory? On one part you say you need to extract a TN from your ability and the difficulty, on the other one you say you don't need to do this.

5- Making a calculation to extract a TN from you score and the difficulty and then trying to roll below it is not less complex than making a calculation from the ability and the roll and seeing if it's above te TN.

6- Deriving a modifier from the score is not an issue because you do it once when you create the character and once in a while when you take an ASI. And the modifier is what you indicate
The problem with it comes from the granularity, and the fact that odd numbers are useless. And solving this without breaking bounded accuracy is difficult.

7- Thank you from the pro-tip about maths, i did not know it.

[KorvinStarmast]

If this is happening in combat, this is on top of all the things you have to keep track of in D&D combat that you don't have to keep track of to play blackjack or participate in "The Price is Right". speaking of games, what game is your avatar from? Jutland?

Can I ask why you're against it? Adding more feats when they did such a poor job with their first attempt (your point on minor versus major feats being somewhat valid) seems to me a matter of throwing good money after bad.
I also intensely dislike gating feats behind race. Racial differences are already (IMO) problematic; gating feats behind race is to me making things worse, not better, on that score.

Feats need to stand on their own in one category: they cost an ASI. They need to provide a good value.

Someone mentioned "half proficiency for non proficient saves" and I'll say
"that's a good start"

[SpawnOfMorbo]

If someone were to make a mod of 5e (I'm kind of thinking of like what Pathfinder was to 3.5 as an example), what kinds of changes would you like to see? I don't mean like specific tweaks to the classes, but more general things, like ability scores, the core d20 system, or how actions and turns are handled in combat.

Less classes, more subclasses for one.

See my Homebrew for example.

I love the core of 5e, but I would go to a proficiency based system (+2, +0, -2 sort of deal for ability scores.

With the ability scores being...

Physical Attack
Physical Defense
Mental Attack
Mental Defense
Luck
Hit Points

Then have more skills and make each skill useful and tell you exactly what you can do with it.

[Sindeloke]

More complexity with martial combat. Not as a standard, but as a regular option.


This touches on my biggest desire: modularity. We were promised a simple system that could serve as a satisfying baseline for anyone, with a number of optional, more complicated subsystems that could be plugged in if a group was willing. Not one single such plug-in ever materialized, either at launch or since. There has been no "martial module" that turns battlemaster maneuvers into a system that can compare with the richness, complexity, and versatility of spells and provides subclasses or feature swaps to let other martial classes use them. There has been no "social module" that adds rules to set an antagonist's resolve to perform an action and the party's ability to wear it down through codified actions beyond the guy with expertise rolling one d20. There has been no "psionics module" that expands ki into a type of fully-realized mind-themed casting totally divorced from spell slots instead of jamming everything into "you cast mage hand for free and your wizard does extra psychic damage". No "wilderness module" with rules for exploration XP or ship combat. I was never up on the vestige or truename stuff but obviously they've done nothing even close to that either. They just release a tiny little subclass with the same old maneuvers here, a bunch of "you use this totally normal spell but with different ~flavor~" there, using entirely and only the currently existing mechanics, like "simplicity (except for one specific implementation of magic) and Combat Always" is the Inviolable Law of the entire game rather than a useful foundation to either sit satisfied with or build from. Highly disappointing.

Also on my wishlist for this imaginary 5.5, in no particular order:

A thematically consistent and coherent Ranger rewrite. My vote is to make the beast companion baseline and make it "the companion class," a much easier niche to protect, balance, and play with than scouting/very specific foe killing/archer/Nature Man/whatever, but I do like the "3e Horizon walker" thing that folks keep coming back to as well, where you pick terrains and they give you thematic always-on bonuses. Either way, as long as it actually feels like the class knows what it's supposed to be doing with itself (and doesn't offer wildly insulting "features" like Hide in Plain Sight).
An actual skill and tool system, with working skill challenges as an ideal and actual DC guidance as a bare minimum (by which I don't even mean tables, sadly, but just the so-low-it's-underground bar of "does a challenge have a single DC or is it different for different characters based on their capabilities" and similar clarifications)
Relatedly, less mealy-mouthed "natural language" and more care to consistently describe important system architecture like types of attacks
Related to that, absolute pipe dream, but a change from "unarmed attack" and all its bizarre attendant special rules to "slam: a 1d2 natural weapon, which is unusual because it's a martial weapon (and monk special weapon) rather than an automatic proficiency, but which is otherwise exactly like every other natural weapon" like wasn't this supposed to be the "simple" edition of 5e?
A careful revision of feats, and to a lesser degree, class features, to make sure that they always enable players rather than accidentally restricting them. (IE, "you can try that, we'll do an ability check" should be the baseline assumption for anything reasonable a player ever wants to do, meaning feats like Linguist should add a bonus to that check or give automatic success. Simply allowing the check doesn't enable the player who takes the feat, it restricts everyone else.)
Every wizard subclass has as one of its properties that when you level up, one of your two free spells must be from your school of specialization. This may require expanding the spell list or allowing specialist wizards to poach spells of their school from other classes' lists, but it seems like the best effort to result ratio in terms of making wizards less uniform and stronger in identity.
Some kind of sorceror tweak. Built in eschew materials, bonus spells by subclass, more metamagic known, more (& more flexible) metamagics in general, spell points by default and spell points = sorcery points, I'm not sure, but something so they feel more like their own thing and less like a slightly less effective wizard.
More reasonably affordable combat items with more potent DCs. They're essentially a rogue class feature hiding in a different chapter, and Fast Hands caltrops just aren't that impressive anymore at level 15.

[Warwick]

A thematically consistent and coherent Ranger rewrite.

I find it kind of funny that while almost everyone (that participates in RPG forum discussions about 5e) wants this (myself among them), there are wide-ranging opinions on what that consistent theme should be. I see people who say they want the Ranger to lean into the druidic gish aspect; others that they want the Ranger to be a Witcher-style monster hunter that is also good at killing people; others want an archery specialist or a beast master or Aragorn: the class or or or...

Which, of course, speaks to the incoherency of the Ranger but also to the difficulty of revamping it in a way people find satisfy, because they don't just want the mechanical execution, they want the name. You probably have to split the Ranger into two or even three classes, but then you have assuage the irritation of people who wanted their preferred class to be called the Ranger.


This may require expanding the spell list or allowing specialist wizards to poach spells of their school from other classes' lists, but it seems like the best effort to result ratio in terms of making wizards less uniform and stronger in identity.

The Wizard already has the best spell list by a country mile. Even with pre-allocated spell slots, I think expanding that list is a mistake. I don't want to crack down on Wizards too hard, since the remedy to malapportionment of Cool isn't enforcing lameness, but the power and versatility of Wizards needs to be toned down a bit to allow other classes to flourish more at higher levels.

As a bonus, a more restricted spell selection allows you to get away with more potent subclass/school features (not that some of the existing ones aren't hilariously busted due to being poorly written and/or conceived, but a lot of them are really tepid,).

[Sindeloke]

The Wizard already has the best spell list by a country mile. Even with pre-allocated spell slots, I think expanding that list is a mistake. I don't want to crack down on Wizards too hard, since the remedy to malapportionment of Cool isn't enforcing lameness, but the power and versatility of Wizards needs to be toned down a bit to allow other classes to flourish more at higher levels.

Well, the point is that you don't actually expand the wizard spell list. You expand the transmuter spell list, specifically to other transmutation spells which may not be particularly good, at the cost of halving the number of non-transmutation spells that said transmuter can practically expect to learn, toning down the versatility of wizards in general by selectively enforcing a different, smaller spell list on each subclass. But I'd be happy adding more spells to the game in general instead. You need to do one or the other, though, because if you say "half your spells have to be from your specialty" in the current splat-free game, you can run out of spells to learn.

[Petrocorus]

I find it kind of funny that while almost everyone (that participates in RPG forum discussions about 5e) wants this (myself among them), there are wide-ranging opinions on what that consistent theme should be. I see people who say they want the Ranger to lean into the druidic gish aspect; others that they want the Ranger to be a Witcher-style monster hunter that is also good at killing people; others want an archery specialist or a beast master or Aragorn: the class or or or...

This is true but...



Which, of course, speaks to the incoherency of the Ranger but also to the difficulty of revamping it in a way people find satisfy, because they don't just want the mechanical execution, they want the name. You probably have to split the Ranger into two or even three classes, but then you have assuage the irritation of people who wanted their preferred class to be called the Ranger.

... I don't think this is.
The Ranger in 5E could have encompassed most of it to some degree.
It is basically a build-in druidic gish, it can be a monster-hunter Witcher style, it can be an archery specialist (this is even the most common ranger), it has a beast master subclass, and Aragorn? Aragorn is basically a warrior good at both melee and range and as an outdoorman. And that's axactly what the Ranger is supposed to be.
The Ranger has features that support all this play-style. The problem is that each feature individually is badly made, they don't synergize, and they ends up supporting no play style beside archery.

But now take a 5E Ranger with the alternative class feature from the recent UA, lift off the limit of spell known to make it a prepared caster, and you get something that pretty close to fit all this archetype. Maybe not the Beastmaster, which still need significant tweaking.
There's still room for improvement, clearly, but my point is that you don't need 2 or 3 classes.

[Dienekes]

I find it kind of funny that while almost everyone (that participates in RPG forum discussions about 5e) wants this (myself among them), there are wide-ranging opinions on what that consistent theme should be. I see people who say they want the Ranger to lean into the druidic gish aspect; others that they want the Ranger to be a Witcher-style monster hunter that is also good at killing people; others want an archery specialist or a beast master or Aragorn: the class or or or...

Which, of course, speaks to the incoherency of the Ranger but also to the difficulty of revamping it in a way people find satisfy, because they don't just want the mechanical execution, they want the name. You probably have to split the Ranger into two or even three classes, but then you have assuage the irritation of people who wanted their preferred class to be called the Ranger.

I’m not sure I agree. In actual fact I think that there being so many types of Ranger people want to see, indicates to me that there is enough meat there to develop a full class with multiple subclasses.

The trick is finding a way to satisfy all of them in an elegant way. Which I admit, is fairly hard.

[47Ace]

IMO 5e is the best edition to date for "martials don't require magic items to compete with full casters". Even though some of the 6 martial classes get spells (Ranger, Paladin, etc), having magic items isn't generally critical for them. Just really, really nice. That's a fine line, and 5e did a fairly good job of threading it.

And AFAIK no other edition of D&D really tried that. I mean, 4e probably should count as best balancing between 'power sources' ... but magic items were assumed for everyone, so it's kinda hard to tell.

Its more a feel thing then a mechanical thing. Though the number of resistant/immune to non magical damage monsters is an mechanical factor and those magical weapons can only be made by those with spell slots. It just bugs me that no non arcane tricksters rouge can overcome a door with and arcane lock on it no matter their level a second level spell defeats then at their most stereotypical activity. Or that a Dwarven Champion Fighter can't go on an epic quest to forge a flame tonged* in the heart of a fire elemental because you need spell slots to make magic items. One thing I noticed when looking through Pathfinder was that rogues could disarm exploding glyphs. That and some other things gave me the impression that they tried to balance magical and nonmagical classes ability to interact with the world and failed. While in contrast 5e didn't at all try and stumbled into mostly doing that.

On a related note less related to the picture of the world the mechanics paint and more related to how stuff potentially plays out at the table is how spell casters get cantrips like minor illusion, prestidigitation, thamagery, and druidcraft. That are neat little bundles of rules that sit on their character sheet that let them interact with the world out of combat with out fear of DC 15 skill check on their dump stats or similar skill changes that the DM doesn't realize are effectively say don't bother trying. For example making a sound to distract someone in a stealth situation. Normal find rock, possible skill check or shut down right there as there are no rocks around or maybe throw a coin, then through rock for another possible skill check. With one of those mentioned spells, automatic. Making a fire in the rain possible skill check probably at least DC 15 if called for. Might be nature, survival, or possible even slight of hand three different possible skills three different ability scores you better hope whatever on you DM choses matches at least your class ability score(s) and ideally also one of the skills you chose way back at level one before you really knew what the campaign would be like of the skills the DM likes. Or with most of those cantrips automatic. Or look at the popularity of subtle sorcerer with ethically dubious Enchantment spells for social focused characters. I think that has a lot more to do with such spells being one of the few ways to reliably influence social situations then the morally dubious enchantments being so popular. This is less of a mechanics problem and more of a presentation one.

*The weapon he benefits more from then anyone else and heavily evens the damage gap with battle masters

[Telok]

On the ranger thing: back when it was objious a 5e was soon to be announced I was working on a d&d variant that had 4 "base" classes, warrior-expert-mage-priest. Each class had 4+ "paths" each of which had 11 powers/abilities/whatevers. Example had warrior having paths like tough, fast, tactical, and leader and mage having paths like knows more spells, casts more spells, change spells/metamagic, and smart hero stuff.

At first level you had 1d4 hp, no good saves, no armor proficency, and prof with the 4 simplest and worst weapons. Then at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd levels you picked paths. Each path added (or didn't add) to the base hit dice, saves, proficencies, etc. First path got powers 2 to 11 ar even levels, second at levels divisible by three, third path was evenly spaced but slightly off from every 4th level. First and second level were explicitly training wheels levels. So first path got all 11 abilities, second got up to the 7th ability, third got to the 5th ability.

In that setup ranger was one or two of the warrior paths and one or each of expert and priest paths. It could reasonably build pretty much all the classes and was simple to expand by just adding more paths. It let you build something like 4 different 'rangery' concepts.

Now I think it's sitting around on an old harddrive somewhere.

[Warwick]

The Ranger in 5E could have encompassed most of it to some degree.
It is basically a build-in druidic gish, it can be a monster-hunter Witcher style, it can be an archery specialist (this is even the most common ranger), it has a beast master subclass, and Aragorn? Aragorn is basically a warrior good at both melee and range and as an outdoorman. And that's axactly what the Ranger is supposed to be.
The Ranger has features that support all this play-style. The problem is that each feature individually is badly made, they don't synergize, and they ends up supporting no play style beside archery.

But now take a 5E Ranger with the alternative class feature from the recent UA, lift off the limit of spell known to make it a prepared caster, and you get something that pretty close to fit all this archetype. Maybe not the Beastmaster, which still need significant tweaking.
There's still room for improvement, clearly, but my point is that you don't need 2 or 3 classes.

The 'to some degree' is important - the 5e Ranger does (or tries to do) a lot of things, is forced to do them in a mediocre fashion because of the competing demands on class power, and the result is that a lot of people find it mechanically unsatisfying. I agree that some of the problems of the 5e Ranger stem from it being just sort of bad, but it goes beyond that. By picking one or two of these things and focusing on them, the Ranger can afford a stronger mechanical identify to go along with tighter thematics.

The fact that the 5e Ranger has built-in spellcasting is a problem for a subset of players - hence early clamoring for a spell less variant. You can tell them to suck it up, but that gets back to my original point - people have competing visions for what the Ranger should do, and satisfying them all dilutes the mechanical identity of the class. Similarly, a few posts up, someone mentioned that they thought the Ranger should have a animal companion baseline and this should be a major focus of the class. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to want, and it probably should be a class, but it's hard to reconcile with the other things people want the Ranger to be, because by doing so you're committing a large share of the class power budget into the pet.

Another issue: while a lot of the aforementioned things can be done by a Ranger, many can be done as well or better by a fighter (or a rogue) with survival and stealth proficiency. I think this speaks to the weak identity of the class. You don't really feel compelled to play a Ranger to play a ranger in the same way someone who wants to play a paladin or barbarian does with those classes.

[KOLE]

-Someone else mentioned this, but spells in the PHB should have been sorted by alphabetically by level. Cantrips in one section, then 1st level, etc. It's a heck of a lot easier to find stuff that way. Adding class list to the description would have increased the book by several pages but I feel like it could be useful. Just base classes, mind you, no need to include edge cases like Warlock patrons and the like.
-I would have liked better subclass balance. I feel like every class is fairly well balanced, but man there's some real stinkers for subclasses. Biggest culprit is Barbarian IMO. Everything gets balanced against Bear Totem. Total resistance to almost everything is REALLY hard to turn down. Zealot is the only one that comes close, and Battlerager, Berserker, and Storm Herald are just objectively so much worse, whereas Ancestral Guardian at least has a control niche going for it. Thanks to the strength of their base class they're not useless or unplayable, but man it doesn't take much of an optimizing eye to see the disparity. It's a shame too, because they all have great flavor that I'd love to play. In my humble opinion, this is the only thing that 5e really dropped the ball on.

[Greywander]

I was thinking more about classes, and had this thought: What if there were only three "classes", warrior, expert, and mage, and then everything else was subclasses? So a cleric is a subclass of mage, for example. Each base class would fill in the core features of that style of character. The warrior would get Extra Attack and/or combat maneuvers, maybe some other combat-related stuff. Expert would get Expertise and other features related to skills, maybe features related to items as well (Fast Hands, Use Magic Device). Mage obviously gets magic and nothing else.

Maybe instead of calling these classes, we might call them "cores" or "foundations" or something. Maybe have a three layer system, with a core, class, and subclass. It might get even more interesting if subclasses weren't tied to specific classes, and classes weren't tied to a specific core. So you could be a mage who was a cleric, but you might be an expert who is a cleric (the cleric class itself might give spells, but if not then you can build a spell-less cleric by not using the mage core). This does get tricky with subclasses that enhance existing class features, such as with Moon druids. A Moon rogue doesn't make sense, since rogues don't get Wild Shape, but maybe the Circle of the Moon subclass would give Wild Shape if you didn't already have it, or maybe non-Moon druids don't get Wild Shape.

What I would be afraid of with a system like this is that it would make a lot of characters feel too similar. That said, there's already a lot of similarity due to spellcasting working very similarly for most classes, and most martial classes all getting Extra Attack. And it might make sense to start with a solid foundation for each of the three archetypes and then build on that foundation with more detailed classes/subclasses.

[Man_Over_Game]

I was thinking more about classes, and had this thought: What if there were only three "classes", warrior, expert, and mage, and then everything else was subclasses? So a cleric is a subclass of mage, for example. Each base class would fill in the core features of that style of character. The warrior would get Extra Attack and/or combat maneuvers, maybe some other combat-related stuff. Expert would get Expertise and other features related to skills, maybe features related to items as well (Fast Hands, Use Magic Device). Mage obviously gets magic and nothing else.

Maybe instead of calling these classes, we might call them "cores" or "foundations" or something. Maybe have a three layer system, with a core, class, and subclass. It might get even more interesting if subclasses weren't tied to specific classes, and classes weren't tied to a specific core. So you could be a mage who was a cleric, but you might be an expert who is a cleric (the cleric class itself might give spells, but if not then you can build a spell-less cleric by not using the mage core). This does get tricky with subclasses that enhance existing class features, such as with Moon druids. A Moon rogue doesn't make sense, since rogues don't get Wild Shape, but maybe the Circle of the Moon subclass would give Wild Shape if you didn't already have it, or maybe non-Moon druids don't get Wild Shape.

What I would be afraid of with a system like this is that it would make a lot of characters feel too similar. That said, there's already a lot of similarity due to spellcasting working very similarly for most classes, and most martial classes all getting Extra Attack. And it might make sense to start with a solid foundation for each of the three archetypes and then build on that foundation with more detailed classes/subclasses.

I thought of the same thing, tried to come up with a working schematic of how something like that could be made while making characters very unique.

Came up with the idea that you use levels as currency to buy features. For example, Invisibility requires one level of Rogue and one level of Mage. Minor passive powers, like shrouding a weapon in an element, are given for free when you spent the required amount of levels (like Warrior 1/Mage 1).

Never got anywhere, but it seemed like a good foundation for what you're describing.

[Petrocorus]

The 'to some degree' is important - the 5e Ranger does (or tries to do) a lot of things, is forced to do them in a mediocre fashion because of the competing demands on class power, and the result is that a lot of people find it mechanically unsatisfying.

This is where i disagree. For me the problem was not the competing demands, just that the writer had absolutely no idea how to fill any of this demands.
- They wanted the Ranger to be a good survivalist. So they gave him Natural Explorer which is an auto-win when it applies, but useless when it doesn't. It doesn't make him really better at tracking. They also gave him Primeval Awareness that his useless as written. Instead of simply giving him expertise in Survival and Nature, which they later gave to the Rogue.

- They wanted him to be able to have a pet. So they made a whole subclass about it, so badly written that the pet is useless and the subclass doesn't make the Beastmaster good with any other beast. Instead of giving a pet to all rangers (with a pact of the Chain-like feature) and having the subclass improving on it in a way that make the pet(s) really useful in combat, and giving him an expertise in animal handling.

- They wanted the Ranger to cast, because it always have been, but apparently were afraid it would make him too good, so put the worst limit on it.

- They wanted him to be a good warrior, but all the damage boost (except Extra Attack, mind you) comes from the subclasses, or the (very limited) spells.

- They wanted him to be good at stealth and skirmish but his only stealth feature is Pass Without Trace. And Vanish that he gets at level 14.
All this points were working toward him filling all the archetype you mentioned and have almost always been a part of the class (i'm not sure for the pet). They failed because of the implementation of each point. It is mechanically unsatisfying, because it is mechanically weak.



The fact that the 5e Ranger has built-in spellcasting is a problem for a subset of players - hence early clamoring for a spell less variant. You can tell them to suck it up, but that gets back to my original point - people have competing visions for what the Ranger should do, and satisfying them all dilutes the mechanical identity of the class.

Well, the Ranger in D&D have always had spellcasting. So the spell-less variant will always be a variant.
It does exist though.



Similarly, a few posts up, someone mentioned that they thought the Ranger should have a animal companion baseline and this should be a major focus of the class. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to want, and it probably should be a class, but it's hard to reconcile with the other things people want the Ranger to be, because by doing so you're committing a large share of the class power budget into the pet.

For those who wants the pet to be a core focus of the class, this is going to be competing with other stuffs.
OTOH, if the Beastmaster subclass had been made well, that could satisfy a good proportion of them IMHO.



Another issue: while a lot of the aforementioned things can be done by a Ranger, many can be done as well or better by a fighter (or a rogue) with survival and stealth proficiency. I think this speaks to the weak identity of the class. You don't really feel compelled to play a Ranger to play a ranger in the same way someone who wants to play a paladin or barbarian does with those classes.
This is so sadly true.
Before Xanathar, you could easily make a better ranger than the Ranger with the Fighter, the Rogue, the Bard, the Druid and even the Warlock and the Monk had things that could be used to this effect. It is glaring that the Ranger was maybe the 5th or maybe 6th best class at tracking.
And then in Xana, they published a Rogue subclass that basically was there to do the Ranger's job that the Ranger was not able to do.

[FaerieGodfather]

I feel like too much of what I don't like about 5e is too fundamental to 5e to be changed without turning it into something else entirely; likewise, a number of things I want D&D to do are TSRisms whose ship has sailed. Reading over this thread, and seeing how many posters are arguing for the exact opposite of what I want... yeah, that's just the direction D&D is going now,

Ancestries
I want "race" to be more important to a character's development, not less. Sadly, race-as-class and even racial class restrictions aren't coming back. I would go ahead and nix racial ability score modifiers-- everyone's just going to end up at 20 in their main abilities anyway, and for the most part, these modifiers encourage the wrong classes-- but I would give every ancestry (including humans) a set of optional abilities that progress with level. This would destroy the concept of "subraces" entirely, once and for all!... except for the Drow.

The Drow always ruin everything.

Skill Unlocks
Bounded Accuracy isn't going away, and maybe that's not even a bad thing-- I don't need numbers go up. But there isn't enough difference between nonproficient and proficient at 1st level, between proficient at 1st level and 10th/20th level, or between proficient and expert at 20th level.

Instead of making numbers go up, make having proficiency and/or expertise in skills at different levels grant meaningful special abilities-- like skill feat special abilities-- for each increase in proficiency bonus. Make getting proficiency and/or expertise in skills easier, give some skills an "effort floor" for different proficiency levels.

Subclasses
More in the Core. Classes get more of them, both at 1st-3rd and at each tier. Some of these will look suspiciously like Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies. Some of these will look suspiciously like a multiclassing system.

Saving Throws
Fix them. I don't care how, and I'm not familiar enough with the system to really have any suggestions, but start with the fact that for the first 25 years of the game's life, characters grew more likely to succeed at every saving throw they made and for the last 20 years-- since WotC took over-- they have gotten less likely to succeed at saving throws from level-appropriate enemies, culminating in an edition where most saving throws for most classes do not improve at all.

[JellyPooga]

1- On one side you have "Roll high and the higher the better".
On the other side "Roll low and the lower the better".
You propose "Roll low but high at the same time".
How is this is not counter-intuitive.

I fail to see why "roll high, up to a threshold" is any less intuitive than your binary assessment of "high or higher" and "low or lower". As has been pointed out, one the easiest cards games to learn; blackjack, uses the exact same method of "high w.threshold" as its metric for success and it's not alone.


2- D&D doesn't use margin, because it uses the total. The higher total between the two contestant win, and it count the roll, and the ability and proficiency.

You could literally be describing the system I'm proposing. The high roller wins and factors that affect it include the roll, the ability score and proficiency. Those factors are just used in a different fashion.


3- Your system OTOH is not a "roll high" system. It actually uses a margin, but it calculate the margin from 0 instead of doing it from the target number.
In other words, the closest you are to fail, the best is you success.
Like in a javelin throwing contest where there is a minimum distance and the gold medal goes to the one who reach just above the limit and not to the one who throw the furthest.

Assuming you're right in your assessment here (which I disagree with, but let's roll with it)...You mean like Darts? Or Bowles? Highest, lowest, biggest, furthest...these are not the only metrics of success. Aiming for a specific target, rather than just getting the highest score or largest margin is a common feature in a lot of games, both of chance, skill and ability. I even know board games, for example, that score based on "who has the most of the least", making focusing on a particular victory condition pointless if your other victory conditions are neglected.

Now, here's why I disagree with your above statement. The system I propose is a roll high system. I don't know what makes you think it's based on a margin or why you think that a 15, when the target is to roll lower than 14, is any more a "near miss" than a 20 is. The core system is binary with two results; Pass or Fail.
- Roll under? Pass. Roll over? Fail. On the nose? Crit!
The margin of success is irrelevant. This is the same as the current system.
- Roll over? Pass. Roll under? Fail. Roll 20? Crit!
Very little has actually changed, except how you use the factors involved. In an opposed roll, then the highest roller wins; which is no different from the current system, except my system also includes the possibility of both parties failing, resulting in a stalemate; a state unachievable under the current system.


4- Are the parts i highlighted not contradictory? On one part you say you need to extract a TN from your ability and the difficulty, on the other one you say you don't need to do this.

No. You have misunderstood what I have written. You're looking at two statements and assuming that because they address a similar subject, that they can be conflated. "Rainbows appear to be curved" and "Light travels in a straight line" are no more contradictory.

Let me explain. In the current system, you have Ability Scores and Ability Score Modifiers. The latter is a derived factor calculated as a function of the former i.e. (Ability Score-10)/2. To make a roll, you roll and add that derived factor (possibly also adding other factors, such as Proficiency) and attempt to equal or exceed a target number. This target number can be arbitrary (e.g. a DC set by the GM) or commonly a number that is also derived from another parties Ability Score(s) (e.g. AC, which usually incorporates Dexterity modifier, or Save DC). In essence, the current system includes that (Ability Score-10)/2 calculation in almost every single roll and many target numbers. In practice, what happens is you ignore the Ability Score altogether and just use the Modifier, adjusting the Modifier when leveling up or as otherwise necessary.

In my system, you skip the calculation. You just use the Ability Score. You can still add bonuses (proficiency, spell buffs, etc.) or penalties, but instead of deriving a modifier from the Ability Score, you just use the base score directly.

Now, if the Ability Score Modifier is all that's being used in practice, then there's an argument for eliminating the original Ability Score altogether. However, if you generate the Modifier in the same way as generating an Ability Score in the first place (i.e. rolling 3d6), then my argument is "Why don't you just use the roll?"


5- Making a calculation to extract a TN from you score and the difficulty and then trying to roll below it is not less complex than making a calculation from the ability and the roll and seeing if it's above te TN.

Correct. Nor is it more complex, though it appears you'd have me believe it is.


6- Deriving a modifier from the score is not an issue because you do it once when you create the character and once in a while when you take an ASI. And the modifier is what you indicate
The problem with it comes from the granularity, and the fact that odd numbers are useless. And solving this without breaking bounded accuracy is difficult.

If you eliminate the necessity to do it even once, you've still eliminated a step. This is steamlining. My system increases granularity and eliminates the problem of odd numbers, both of which are "issues" cause by that calculation to derive the Ability Score Modifier, without ever approaching the concept of Bounded Accuracy, let alone "breaking" it.

[Morty]

I was thinking more about classes, and had this thought: What if there were only three "classes", warrior, expert, and mage, and then everything else was subclasses? So a cleric is a subclass of mage, for example. Each base class would fill in the core features of that style of character. The warrior would get Extra Attack and/or combat maneuvers, maybe some other combat-related stuff. Expert would get Expertise and other features related to skills, maybe features related to items as well (Fast Hands, Use Magic Device). Mage obviously gets magic and nothing else.

Maybe instead of calling these classes, we might call them "cores" or "foundations" or something. Maybe have a three layer system, with a core, class, and subclass. It might get even more interesting if subclasses weren't tied to specific classes, and classes weren't tied to a specific core. So you could be a mage who was a cleric, but you might be an expert who is a cleric (the cleric class itself might give spells, but if not then you can build a spell-less cleric by not using the mage core). This does get tricky with subclasses that enhance existing class features, such as with Moon druids. A Moon rogue doesn't make sense, since rogues don't get Wild Shape, but maybe the Circle of the Moon subclass would give Wild Shape if you didn't already have it, or maybe non-Moon druids don't get Wild Shape.

What I would be afraid of with a system like this is that it would make a lot of characters feel too similar. That said, there's already a lot of similarity due to spellcasting working very similarly for most classes, and most martial classes all getting Extra Attack. And it might make sense to start with a solid foundation for each of the three archetypes and then build on that foundation with more detailed classes/subclasses.

People keep coming back to using warrior/rogue/mage as some kind of baseline, but I really do think it becomes an extraneous step in either a classless system or a class-based one where the subclasses do all the actual work. "Warrior" and "rogue" labels are, as I've said, pretty arbitrary. "Mage" is based on something more concrete, since it represents using magic. But is it all that helpful to shove all the myriad ways to use magic under one umbrella? And to sequester using magic under one, in a system where magic is so omni-present and valuable. Even presuming for the sake of the exercise that we actually give non-casters some impactful abilities for a change.

As far as rangers go, all the discussions about fixing it are based on the assumption that there needs to be a ranger class. I don't think there does.

[Sindeloke]

Similarly, a few posts up, someone mentioned that they thought the Ranger should have a animal companion baseline and this should be a major focus of the class. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to want, and it probably should be a class, but it's hard to reconcile with the other things people want the Ranger to be, because by doing so you're committing a large share of the class power budget into the pet.

I'm not saying that's what a ranger has to be or even what a ranger should be, I'm saying it's a niche that actually exists and is not properly filled already in a clean and effective way, unlike "scouty guy" (rogue), "nature guy" (barbarian and druid), "stabby two-knife guy" (rogue again), "bow guy" (rogue, fighter), "agile fighty guy" (monk), or "guy with spells, skills and stabbing" (bard). It is the only remaining place to easily give ranger a Thing that is entirely its own, with enough development space to build out several different subclasses and which can be balanced appropriately through multiple pillars of play; which fits the history of the ranger as a class and its nature/tracking themes; which also has the benefit of enabling a playstyle that is clearly desired but not otherwise available. It's not because I want it, specifically, or even because I think that's what a ranger "is" more than it's anything else (in fact, of the major themes you could give the ranger, it'd be quite possibly the least popular with the grognards of various editions); it's because I think that's the best solution to multiple connected problems.

or tl;dr I'm saying you're not going to reconcile everything that everyone wants "a ranger" to be. It's not possible, there isn't enough design space in a single class. You're not going to make everyone happy. It doesn't matter. If you want to make anyone happy, you have to just look at the mess that is possible ranger themes, Pick One, build around it, and accept that the rest will get left behind. And if you're going to Pick One, "pet class" is probably the one that will give the most general benefit and be the easiest to make unique and internally consistent mechanics around.


People keep coming back to using warrior/rogue/mage as some kind of baseline, but I really do think it becomes an extraneous step in either a classless system or a class-based one where the subclasses do all the actual work. "Warrior" and "rogue" labels are, as I've said, pretty arbitrary. "Mage" is based on something more concrete, since it represents using magic. But is it all that helpful to shove all the myriad ways to use magic under one umbrella? And to sequester using magic under one, in a system where magic is so omni-present and valuable. Even presuming for the sake of the exercise that we actually give non-casters some impactful abilities for a change.


Eh, warrior/rogue/mage is arbitrary, but tbh all class labels are arbitrary, beyond the vague "this exists in some form" weight they've accumulated through multiple editions of existing. Look at the poor warlock, who started as "literally a rogue doing caster cosplay for people who want Magic but not Resources, with a rogue main attack and kind of a sorceror flavor" in 3.path and is now "the single most convoluted and complicated class in the game with three completely different Resources to track, with a fighter main attack and kind of a cleric flavor" two editions later. Despite the pretense of names carrying through, "warlock" doesn't actually mean anything. And what's a "bard"? They don't use music anymore, they're not druids anymore, they're full casters now. Wizards are supposed to be "arcane" but that just means "they don't heal" and bards are arcane but they do heal so the distinction between types of magic isn't real either. And "warrior" can't even mean "not magic" because it encompasses things like paladins and eldritch knights, so that distinction also falls apart under examination.

If you want class labels that mean something I think you gotta go to d20 modern. Fast, Strong, Tough, Smart. Tells you what they do and what ability score they favor and what archetype they play into right there on the box, and actually conveys accurate information to someone who doesn't have any history with the game. I could actually get behind a version of D&D that stripped classes down to those six concepts and built up from there, using subclasses or tiers or modular class paths to explore how you could achieve each archetype through either "mundane" means or spell use. But it seems a little outside the scope of the thread, since you certainly couldn't call it 5.5.

[47Ace]

I feel like too much of what I don't like about 5e is too fundamental to 5e to be changed without turning it into something else entirely; likewise, a number of things I want D&D to do are TSRisms whose ship has sailed. Reading over this thread, and seeing how many posters are arguing for the exact opposite of what I want... yeah, that's just the direction D&D is going now,

Ancestries
I want "race" to be more important to a character's development, not less. Sadly, race-as-class and even racial class restrictions aren't coming back. I would go ahead and nix racial ability score modifiers-- everyone's just going to end up at 20 in their main abilities anyway, and for the most part, these modifiers encourage the wrong classes-- but I would give every ancestry (including humans) a set of optional abilities that progress with level. This would destroy the concept of "subraces" entirely, once and for all!... except for the Drow.

The Drow always ruin everything.

Skill Unlocks
Bounded Accuracy isn't going away, and maybe that's not even a bad thing-- I don't need numbers go up. But there isn't enough difference between nonproficient and proficient at 1st level, between proficient at 1st level and 10th/20th level, or between proficient and expert at 20th level.

Instead of making numbers go up, make having proficiency and/or expertise in skills at different levels grant meaningful special abilities-- like skill feat special abilities-- for each increase in proficiency bonus. Make getting proficiency and/or expertise in skills easier, give some skills an "effort floor" for different proficiency levels.

Subclasses
More in the Core. Classes get more of them, both at 1st-3rd and at each tier. Some of these will look suspiciously like Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies. Some of these will look suspiciously like a multiclassing system.

Saving Throws
Fix them. I don't care how, and I'm not familiar enough with the system to really have any suggestions, but start with the fact that for the first 25 years of the game's life, characters grew more likely to succeed at every saving throw they made and for the last 20 years-- since WotC took over-- they have gotten less likely to succeed at saving throws from level-appropriate enemies, culminating in an edition where most saving throws for most classes do not improve at all.


I might have been one of the people who has suggested things that seem opposite to what you are suggesting but I like everything you suggested. With regards to the race thing I think you are in agreement most people. People want to be able choose race that they want not the one with the right stat bonus.

[Luccan]

.

As far as rangers go, all the discussions about fixing it are based on the assumption that there needs to be a ranger class. I don't think there does.

I honestly think people would care less about what ranger "feels" like if more people felt it was a good class mechanically.

That said, I don't think removing any classes going forward is a good idea. One concrete thing I didn't like when I first read the 4e PHB was the things they left out. While I know they added them back in in future books, I was put off by an edition without Bards, Sorcerers, and Monks (not to mention Gnomes and Half-Orcs). People like to say D&D has a lot of sacred cows, but a fair amount of what makes D&D feel like D&D are the classes and races that have existed for decades. So even if the current ranger is kinda subpar, I don't like removing it as a solution.

[Morty]

Eh, warrior/rogue/mage is arbitrary, but tbh all class labels are arbitrary, beyond the vague "this exists in some form" weight they've accumulated through multiple editions of existing. Look at the poor warlock, who started as "literally a rogue doing caster cosplay for people who want Magic but not Resources, with a rogue main attack and kind of a sorceror flavor" in 3.path and is now "the single most convoluted and complicated class in the game with three completely different Resources to track, with a fighter main attack and kind of a cleric flavor" two editions later. Despite the pretense of names carrying through, "warlock" doesn't actually mean anything. And what's a "bard"? They don't use music anymore, they're not druids anymore, they're full casters now. Wizards are supposed to be "arcane" but that just means "they don't heal" and bards are arcane but they do heal so the distinction between types of magic isn't real either. And "warrior" can't even mean "not magic" because it encompasses things like paladins and eldritch knights, so that distinction also falls apart under examination.

This is all true. While I'm not fond of warrior/mage/rogue, the current crop of D&D classes is hardly any better. So I think something new is in order. Either by looking to other systems that use some kind of class/archetype system, or cooking something up from scratch. Of course, many systems that use classes and archetypes tie them to more than just mechanics - like various Warhammer systems, for instance. Or World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness.


If you want class labels that mean something I think you gotta go to d20 modern. Fast, Strong, Tough, Smart. Tells you what they do and what ability score they favor and what archetype they play into right there on the box, and actually conveys accurate information to someone who doesn't have any history with the game. I could actually get behind a version of D&D that stripped classes down to those six concepts and built up from there, using subclasses or tiers or modular class paths to explore how you could achieve each archetype through either "mundane" means or spell use. But it seems a little outside the scope of the thread, since you certainly couldn't call it 5.5.

Yes, I have brought it up before as the one good idea of d20 Modern:



Another idea I had was that if we're going to use a few broad classes, a strong hero/quick hero/smart hero/social hero setup would probably be a lot more helpful than fighter/rogue/mage/priest. It's the one thing I'm wiling to give d20 Modern credit for. Perhaps you'd start with this base archetype and then have a number of specializations that work with any of those.

I would rather not use that set of six classes because I'm not terribly fond of D&D attributes, but I think it has potential.


I honestly think people would care less about what ranger "feels" like if more people felt it was a good class mechanically.

That said, I don't think removing any classes going forward is a good idea. One concrete thing I didn't like when I first read the 4e PHB was the things they left out. While I know they added them back in in future books, I was put off by an edition without Bards, Sorcerers, and Monks (not to mention Gnomes and Half-Orcs). People like to say D&D has a lot of sacred cows, but a fair amount of what makes D&D feel like D&D are the classes and races that have existed for decades. So even if the current ranger is kinda subpar, I don't like removing it as a solution.

Then the ranger is doomed to unfocused mediocrity and endlessly frustrating people who try to play it. I would rather be able to properly realize the concepts it tries to represent, even if it means I won't write "ranger" on my character sheet.

[Dienekes]

I honestly think people would care less about what ranger "feels" like if more people felt it was a good class mechanically.

I think this really depends on the type of players.

There are those who just want to make certain that what they're playing is as effective as everyone else. They picked the Warblade/Paladin because that Hexblade gives them that boost to their damage and their effectiveness to be the best they can be.

And then there are those who truly want to feel like the roll they picked up. When they play they want to feel like the wrathful barbarian, or the mage with a trick up their sleeve for every situation.

Neither of these are the wrong way to play. But I would say the pinnacle of design caters to both. The mechanics are designed in such a way that the abilities are both effective and accurately represent the fantasy of the players. And I'm not entirely certain that 5e is there yet. Which is admittedly, because doing that is hard.

[Luccan]

Then the ranger is doomed to unfocused mediocrity and endlessly frustrating people who try to play it. I would rather be able to properly realize the concepts it tries to represent, even if it means I won't write "ranger" on my character sheet.

Honestly, while ranger hasn't been the best of options in several editions, 5e is the first I've seen people complain that the ranger will always be unfocused and bad. As far as I can tell, the insistence that it has issues because it isn't specifically this or that is a new trend.

[Greywander]

People keep coming back to using warrior/rogue/mage as some kind of baseline, but I really do think it becomes an extraneous step in either a classless system or a class-based one where the subclasses do all the actual work. "Warrior" and "rogue" labels are, as I've said, pretty arbitrary. "Mage" is based on something more concrete, since it represents using magic. But is it all that helpful to shove all the myriad ways to use magic under one umbrella? And to sequester using magic under one, in a system where magic is so omni-present and valuable. Even presuming for the sake of the exercise that we actually give non-casters some impactful abilities for a change.

Eh, warrior/rogue/mage is arbitrary, but tbh all class labels are arbitrary, beyond the vague "this exists in some form" weight they've accumulated through multiple editions of existing. Look at the poor warlock, who started as "literally a rogue doing caster cosplay for people who want Magic but not Resources, with a rogue main attack and kind of a sorceror flavor" in 3.path and is now "the single most convoluted and complicated class in the game with three completely different Resources to track, with a fighter main attack and kind of a cleric flavor" two editions later. Despite the pretense of names carrying through, "warlock" doesn't actually mean anything. And what's a "bard"? They don't use music anymore, they're not druids anymore, they're full casters now. Wizards are supposed to be "arcane" but that just means "they don't heal" and bards are arcane but they do heal so the distinction between types of magic isn't real either. And "warrior" can't even mean "not magic" because it encompasses things like paladins and eldritch knights, so that distinction also falls apart under examination.

If you want class labels that mean something I think you gotta go to d20 modern. Fast, Strong, Tough, Smart. Tells you what they do and what ability score they favor and what archetype they play into right there on the box, and actually conveys accurate information to someone who doesn't have any history with the game. I could actually get behind a version of D&D that stripped classes down to those six concepts and built up from there, using subclasses or tiers or modular class paths to explore how you could achieve each archetype through either "mundane" means or spell use. But it seems a little outside the scope of the thread, since you certainly couldn't call it 5.5.
I mean, "what is a rogue?" is a good question. I know it's something of a sacred cow, but I do kind of wonder if all rogues should be getting Sneak Attack, or if it should just be the assassin.

However, what I was proposing wasn't quite a warrior/rogue/mage split, but rather a warrior/expert/mage split. This might seem like a minor distinction, but the difference is that these aren't arbitrary. The warrior is a martial specialist, the expert is a skill specialist, and the mage is a magic specialist. These are, more or less, the three major subsystems of D&D. So it's a matter of which subsystem you're looking to engage with the most.

You could also do combat/exploration/social as your split, but the problem is how these are expressed mechanically. The barbarian and war mage are both combat specialists, but use radically different mechanics to achieve that. And would a war mage not get utility or social spells? Maybe they shouldn't, but then that means they don't have anything to do 2/3rds of the time. Ideally, all characters can engage with each pillar to a greater or lesser degree.

A fast/strong/tough/smart split has the same issue. Okay, my character is "smart", so they have a high INT. What do they do with that? Are they a magic user? A knowledge expert? An inventor? A criminal mastermind? There are just so many ways each of these concepts could be expressed mechanically, the only thing this is doing is telling you which ability score needs to be the highest.

The reason I chose a warrior/expert/mage split is because these each have a cohesive set of mechanics. Warriors are all about the weapon and armor rules, combat maneuvers, grappling and shoving, attacks, etc. Experts are all about skills, tools, item use, etc. Mages are all about magic.

One thing I do agree might be an issue is that we might not want all mages or warriors to operate off the exact same mechanics. Maybe we want different kinds of mages that use different mechanics for their spellcasting. Some might not get spells at all, but use other magical or supernatural powers. Maybe we want paladins and barbarians to feel different on a fundamental level, instead of running off the same warrior core mechanics. Even experts might feel same-y. What we might do is build a basic warrior, expert, and mage class, and then use that as a baseline for building more flavorful classes that use unique mechanics (e.g. "how does the barbarian compare to the basic warrior?"). Or, we might simply add a fourth wildcard category that doesn't have a core set of mechanics, instead being unique for each class in that category.

[JackPhoenix]

However, what I was proposing wasn't quite a warrior/rogue/mage split, but rather a warrior/expert/mage split. This might seem like a minor distinction, but the difference is that these aren't arbitrary. The warrior is a martial specialist, the expert is a skill specialist, and the mage is a magic specialist. These are, more or less, the three major subsystems of D&D. So it's a matter of which subsystem you're looking to engage with the most.

The main problem with that kind of thinking is that implication that while everyone.... including the expert.... will have their use in combat, warriors are only good at fighting. Or the alternative that you have one category that's useless outside combat, another that's more-or-less useless during combat.... and the mage can still do both, combat or not, as long as he uses magic.

[Petrocorus]

Ancestries
I want "race" to be more important to a character's development, not less. Sadly, race-as-class and even racial class restrictions aren't coming back.

Gosh i hated those.
I still don't understand why an elf couln't be as good a wizard as a human, or why a dwarf couldn't be as good a Fighter as a human



I would go ahead and nix racial ability score modifiers-- everyone's just going to end up at 20 in their main abilities anyway, and for the most part, these modifiers encourage the wrong classes-- but I would give every ancestry (including humans) a set of optional abilities that progress with level. This would destroy the concept of "subraces" entirely, once and for all!... except for the Drow.

I would be for the race impacting the cap.
For instance, if your race gives you a fixed bonus to an ability, your cap in this ability should be 22.
I say "fixed" i don't think the half-elf and the human should have a cap of 22 in every ability.



these modifiers encourage the wrong classes-

Like the hobgoblin being good for Wizard, the goblin being better for Monk than for Rogue, and the bugbear being rather good for Rogue?



but I would give every ancestry (including humans) a set of optional abilities that progress with level. This would destroy the concept of "subraces" entirely, once and for all!... except for the Drow.

Ability progressing with levels, why not.
But i fail to see the difference in game between subrace and ancestry.

[Sindeloke]

Honestly, while ranger hasn't been the best of options in several editions, 5e is the first I've seen people complain that the ranger will always be unfocused and bad. As far as I can tell, the insistence that it has issues because it isn't specifically this or that is a new trend.

No one is saying that the ranger will always be unfocused and bad. What we are saying is that the ranger will always be bad if it is unfocused. You haven't seen people make that complaint before because the ranger has not been this wildly unfocused prior to this edition.


However, what I was proposing wasn't quite a warrior/rogue/mage split, but rather a warrior/expert/mage split. This might seem like a minor distinction, but the difference is that these aren't arbitrary. The warrior is a martial specialist, the expert is a skill specialist, and the mage is a magic specialist. These are, more or less, the three major subsystems of D&D. So it's a matter of which subsystem you're looking to engage with the most.

Those aren't three comparable major subsystems, though. That's two universal gameplay systems that govern Specific Things To Do and one flavor subsystem that governs The Aesthetics Of Getting Anything Done. You can't divide the game like that, it's like saying "this is the guy who can run really well but can barely swim, and this is the guy who can swim fast but can't bike without falling, and this is the guy who can do any sport competitively but only if he wears a jersey" and then having them all do a triathlon. Those three restrictions aren't in any way comparable with respect to the main goal. You can't cram the How subsystem of magic into the same category as the What main system that contains it.

And yes, I realize the game tries to do that anyway, but if it actually worked, would there be a "martial/caster disparity: fight!" thread on these forums every two months?

The only functional way to divide mechanics is either have everybody engage with a different type of What (undesirable, as it forces players to sit out moments that don't play to their capabilities) or to have everybody engage with a different type of How (labor-intensive, as it requires designing subsystems other than "lol spell slots," but ToB, superiority dice, expertise, wild shape, Star Wars d20 Force skills, and psionics, just to name a few, prove it's perfectly possible on a d20 chassis). "Warriorcombat/expertskills/mage" is two Whats and a How; "smart/strong/fast" is three Hows, and you can design or import whatever subsystems you want from there.

Alternately, of course, you can do "maneuvers/psionics/magic" or "at will/short rest/long rest" or whatever else. The important thing isn't really which subsystems you use; it's that they all are actually subsystems that interact with the whole game, and not basic system participation masquerading as unique play.

Edit: Or what JackPhoenix said, but, y'know, with substantially less brevity.

[Greywander]

The main problem with that kind of thinking is that implication that while everyone.... including the expert.... will have their use in combat, warriors are only good at fighting. Or the alternative that you have one category that's useless outside combat, another that's more-or-less useless during combat.... and the mage can still do both, combat or not, as long as he uses magic.
I think this would get a lot better if the exploration and social pillars were given better support. When there's more to do than just combat, you can afford to have classes that are weaker in combat because they help out in the other pillars. Experts, in particular, are likely to be weaker in combat but better out of it. Warriors are better in combat and weaker out of it. But everyone always has something they can do. Even without any weapon proficiencies, nothing is stopping you from plinking with a crossbow or tossing down some caltrops, and everyone gets a few skill proficiencies and languages for out of combat. (And I understand D&D is a combat focused game, so even experts would still got combat abilities, just not as strong ones as warriors or battle mages.)

As for mages, I can think of two things that might help out there. As much as I love wizards, and can see value in focusing mages into a specific magic specialization. Imagine, for example, being the teleport mage. It's all you do, but you're really good at it. You do it all day long. You deliver the warrior to the front line, move the healer back, even move monsters around. Focused and specialized. The other thing would be to emphasize out of combat casting, perhaps by making all spells rituals while reducing the number of spell slots the mage gets. Their combat casting is severely limited by spell slots, but out of combat they can pop rituals left and right. These two methods allow us to sort combat mages from utility mages (which suggests perhaps the mage should be split into two archetypes, the ritual caster and the specialist caster).

[Morty]

Honestly, while ranger hasn't been the best of options in several editions, 5e is the first I've seen people complain that the ranger will always be unfocused and bad. As far as I can tell, the insistence that it has issues because it isn't specifically this or that is a new trend.

It's possible that the overall better quality of classes in 5E - not a high bar to clear, given that 3E/Pathfinder are the usual point of reference - makes the ranger's issues stand out. Whether or not it's true, a problem doesn't become less legitimate because it took a while for people to notice it.


I mean, "what is a rogue?" is a good question. I know it's something of a sacred cow, but I do kind of wonder if all rogues should be getting Sneak Attack, or if it should just be the assassin.

Sneak Attack is a terrible feature, to start with. It eclipses other sources of damage and it turns the rogue's combat contribution into a flowchart.


However, what I was proposing wasn't quite a warrior/rogue/mage split, but rather a warrior/expert/mage split. This might seem like a minor distinction, but the difference is that these aren't arbitrary. The warrior is a martial specialist, the expert is a skill specialist, and the mage is a magic specialist. These are, more or less, the three major subsystems of D&D. So it's a matter of which subsystem you're looking to engage with the most.

Yes, I didn't notice my mistake until I had already sent the post. That being said, I still object to the warrior/expert split, because "combat skills" and "non-combat skills" are an utterly artificial distinction. Why is stealth, for instance, closer to diplomacy or crafting, than it is to combat? What about acrobatics? Is performing improbable acrobatic stunts a "combat" thing or an "expert" thing? There exist acrobatic fighters, despite D&D's long-standing insistence to the contrary, but you can also be a daring acrobat who will fold like wet paper in any violent situation.

To use the example that comes up often, is a ranger a "warrior" or an "expert"? They can fight, but they're also defined for their skill in navigation, hunting and animal handling. What about a high-born duellist whose wit is as sharp as their blade? Are they a warrior for their skill with a sword, or an expert for their skill in diplomacy, deception and courtly intrigue? Or a priest of a war-god. Are they a warrior because they break things with weapons, or a mage because they use magic to help themselves and their allies do it?


A fast/strong/tough/smart split has the same issue. Okay, my character is "smart", so they have a high INT. What do they do with that? Are they a magic user? A knowledge expert? An inventor? A criminal mastermind? There are just so many ways each of these concepts could be expressed mechanically, the only thing this is doing is telling you which ability score needs to be the highest.


I'm obviously not going to die on this hill, since it's effectively an untested hypothesis and the fact that it appeared in d20 Modern doesn't exactly help its case. But I don't think that it's any weaker than the fighter/expert/mage split. If I'm playing a "smart" character, it tells me that my character approaches problems cerebrally. Then whatever other mechanics determine if it means being an investigator, tactical warrior, a wizard or something else. Both of those rely on having multiple layers of definition.

Of course, it's entirely possible that fighter/mage/rogue or smart/strong/quick/social are both pretty useless and we're better off just focusing on the more specific archetypes.


The reason I chose a warrior/expert/mage split is because these each have a cohesive set of mechanics. Warriors are all about the weapon and armor rules, combat maneuvers, grappling and shoving, attacks, etc. Experts are all about skills, tools, item use, etc. Mages are all about magic.

I don't see how it's particularly cohesive, to be honest. It's traditional and familiar, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.


The main problem with that kind of thinking is that implication that while everyone.... including the expert.... will have their use in combat, warriors are only good at fighting. Or the alternative that you have one category that's useless outside combat, another that's more-or-less useless during combat.... and the mage can still do both, combat or not, as long as he uses magic.

There is also that.

[Dienekes]

Like the hobgoblin being good for Wizard, the goblin being better for Monk than for Rogue, and the bugbear being rather good for Rogue?


That is a nitpick to go over. Except for Bugbears which are always supposed to be as tricksy and cunning as they are brutish. But Hobgoblins and Goblins and to a lesser extent a lot of the races that get proficiency I'd like to see them switched.

It's been weird to me that if they want to show a class is particularly skillful, they are granted a bonus to a skill or even proficiency. You know who wants proficiency in a bonus skill? Everyone.

If they want to show a race is particularly good at casting a certain type of magic, they give them a cantrip or a once a day at-will spell. You know who wants bonus spells? Everyone.

But when they want to show a race is particularly martial, they give them proficiency is some type of weapon or armor. You know who wants more weapon/armor proficiency? Everyone except martials. They get nothing from the races that are supposed to be pushed into the martial classes.

Personally I "fixed" this by saying that any race that grants a weapon proficiency that is already given again by their chosen class gets a +2 to damage. Which is noticeable but not really overpowering. And I still haven't quite figured out what to do with races that grant armor proficiency. Just giving a flat +1 to AC when wearing armor they've gotten double proficiency from seems too good, considering how tightly controlled AC scores are.

[stoutstien]

That is a nitpick to go over. Except for Bugbears which are always supposed to be as tricksy and cunning as they are brutish. But Hobgoblins and Goblins and to a lesser extent a lot of the races that get proficiency I'd like to see them switched.

It's been weird to me that if they want to show a class is particularly skillful, they are granted a bonus to a skill or even proficiency. You know who wants proficiency in a bonus skill? Everyone.

If they want to show a race is particularly good at casting a certain type of magic, they give them a cantrip or a once a day at-will spell. You know who wants bonus spells? Everyone.

But when they want to show a race is particularly martial, they give them proficiency is some type of weapon or armor. You know who wants more weapon/armor proficiency? Everyone except martials. They get nothing from the races that are supposed to be pushed into the martial classes.

Personally I "fixed" this by saying that any race that grants a weapon proficiency that is already given again by their chosen class gets a +2 to damage. Which is noticeable but not really overpowering. And I still haven't quite figured out what to do with races that grant armor proficiency. Just giving a flat +1 to AC when wearing armor they've gotten double proficiency from seems too good, considering how tightly controlled AC scores are.

It's one of the fumble points of 5e. Martial weapons and different armor proficiencies are underwhelming and without feats involved they're borderline worthless.

Martials really need something that show cases them more than armor and weapons like races granting maneuvers the same way that some races get limit spell casting.

[Greywander]

But when they want to show a race is particularly martial, they give them proficiency is some type of weapon or armor. You know who wants more weapon/armor proficiency? Everyone except martials. They get nothing from the races that are supposed to be pushed into the martial classes.
Yeah, this is kind of strange. As you say, everyone wants skills and cantrips, but martials already get weapon and armor proficiencies.

Something like a free fighting style would work better, as martials want those. Non martials could use it to get something like Defense, but it wouldn't be quite as universally useful as a skill or cantrip.

Or you could give them other benefits that can't be gotten elsewhere. Things like rerolling damage dice, dropping to 1 HP instead of 0, reducing the damage of one attack against them, giving temp HP when they reduce someone to 0 HP, and so on. A lot of these actually already exist, and yet they still give weapon and armor proficiencies. Maybe it's just hard to come up with new and different abilities that are geared toward martials but still generally helpful.

If combat maneuvers became a standard thing for martials, a martially oriented race might just give you an extra maneuver (comparable to a skill for skill monkeys or a cantrip for mages). Non-martials might like it because they don't normally get combat maneuvers, even if they're something like a mage that isn't necessarily doing weapon attacks that much. Martials like it because it expands their toolbox a bit (obviously they'll learn the best maneuvers from their class, but getting an extra one helps them grab something for more niche uses).

Alternatively, if we trim down the races, we might remove things like skills and cantrips. Someone recommended something like choosing a "race" and a "culture" separately, in addition to your normal background. So an elf might only get Darkvision and Fey Ancestry, but then they get to pick a culture that might give them a cantrip or train them in certain weapons. Of course, that's just moving the problem from the race to the culture.

[Petrocorus]

I fail to see why "roll high, up to a threshold" is any less intuitive than your binary assessment of "high or higher" and "low or lower". As has been pointed out, one the easiest cards games to learn; blackjack, uses the exact same method of "high w.threshold" as its metric for success and it's not alone.

This is your failure. Asking to roll low and high at the same time i.e to roll low but not too low is not intuitive.
And this has nothing to do with Blackjack.
In blackjack, you don't roll your score. And the threshold doesn't depends on your ability. And you do use a margin, against the threshold, to see who wins between the player and the bank.



You could literally be describing the system I'm proposing. The high roller wins and factors that affect it include the roll, the ability score and proficiency. Those factors are just used in a different fashion.

No it's not. You proposed initially to roll against a TN base on your ability and if both contestant succeed, to compare the raw rolls and to do it in a way contrary to the way you rolled. You compare only the random part of the check and the closest to failure wins.



Assuming you're right in your assessment here (which I disagree with, but let's roll with it)...You mean like Darts? Or Bowles? Highest, lowest, biggest, furthest...these are not the only metrics of success. Aiming for a specific target, rather than just getting the highest score or largest margin is a common feature in a lot of games, both of chance, skill and ability.

Comparing your system to darts means that the player whose darts are the closest to the edge of the board wins over the one whose darts are at the center. And that the higher ability only gives a bigger board.



Now, here's why I disagree with your above statement. The system I propose is a roll high system. I don't know what makes you think it's based on a margin or why you think that a 15, when the target is to roll lower than 14, is any more a "near miss" than a 20 is.

You don't know what make me think that 15 is closer to 14 than 20 is?
And the point is not to roll below 14 because...



The core system is binary with two results; Pass or Fail.
- Roll under? Pass. Roll over? Fail. On the nose? Crit!
The margin of success is irrelevant. This is the same as the current system.
- Roll over? Pass. Roll under? Fail. Roll 20? Crit!

... because there you failed to remember that you proposed this in a contested check.
The point in what you propose is not to roll below 14, the point is to roll the highest below 14, i.e the closest to fail.




No. You have misunderstood what I have written. You're looking at two statements and assuming that because they address a similar subject, that they can be conflated. "Rainbows appear to be curved" and "Light travels in a straight line" are no more contradictory.
This i don't understand.
Are you saying that two statements are not contradictory because one is an exception to the other?



In my system, you skip the calculation. You just use the Ability Score. You can still add bonuses (proficiency, spell buffs, etc.) or penalties, but instead of deriving a modifier from the Ability Score, you just use the base score directly.

I did not misunderstand.
In one sentence you say you can derived the TN from abilities, penalties, bonuses and in another you said you don't need to derive the TN but use the ability directly.
So in one sentence you say you do need a calculation because of the penalties and bonuses, and in one sentence you say you don't need a calculation.

Maybe you were not speaking of the same calculation, but you did speak of the TN in both cases.
And the fact that you need one more calculation to get the modifier from the raw ability is something else, that i also replied to.



Now, if the Ability Score Modifier is all that's being used in practice, then there's an argument for eliminating the original Ability Score altogether. However, if you generate the Modifier in the same way as generating an Ability Score in the first place (i.e. rolling 3d6), then my argument is "Why don't you just use the roll?"

If you eliminate the necessity to do it even once, you've still eliminated a step. This is steamlining. My system increases granularity and eliminates the problem of odd numbers, both of which are "issues" cause by that calculation to derive the Ability Score Modifier, without ever approaching the concept of Bounded Accuracy, let alone "breaking" it.
In effect, your modifier is your score. You make this calculation once.
The raw ability only serves to calculate the modifier and for a few things like carrying capacity and jump distance.
If you want to remove the raw ability altogether to only have the mod, fine. But this is not the core issue of your proposal.

[Nifft]

1e Ranger had some neat features, many of which would be appropriate to port into 5e.

Surprise Expert - Having a Ranger in the party meant the party was surprised less often, and their opponents were surprised more often. This could be ported to 5e pretty easily, and it could have a nicely visible party-wide impact.

By Any Means Necessary - The Ranger had access to both Arcane and Divine spells, albeit only low-level, and access to all weapon proficiencies. In 5e, this could be represented by cherry-picking some Bard or Wizard spells, which is only fair since Lore Bards get such good use out of certain Ranger spells.

Falcon on a Cloudy Day - They had tracking as an exclusive class feature, rather than access to a skill which anyone could use to track foes. I don't want to bring that exclusivity back, but it'd be nice if a Ranger had some exclusive tracking perks -- like tracking over unfamiliar or unforgiving terrain (like in the Underdark), or identifying a specific creature by its muddled footprints (like Aragorn reconstructing the hobbits' escape from their orc captors).

Palantir Proficiency - Rangers could use more magic items than Fighters. Balancing improved gear access might be laborious, but it's got precedent, and it was useful at times (especially when the DM rolled for loot).

"Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters -- but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy, for they are found in many places, not in Mordor only." - Well gosh that's a long ability name. Anyway, in 1e all Rangers inflicted extra damage on "giant type" enemies, which included Orcs, Gnolls, and of course Giants. This was vaguely balanced against certain campaign expectations -- like that you're going to see many (but not only) Orc, Gnoll, and Giant enemies. This eventually turned into Favored Enemy, but that's kind of a bad feature, because the player choosing a Favored Enemy demands that the player guess what kind of enemy the DM will tend to favor. Some DMs are willing & able to take the hint and insert the Favored Enemy, but others run modules, or have a preconception of their world which doesn't favor the prevalence of that enemy. Ideally, the DM would trim down the Favored Enemy palette to only those enemies which are going to be consistently available to face-stab.

As a side-note, Favored Terrain is another similarly flawed feature, since it demands that the player guess where they're going to spend the most time adventuring.

[Warwick]

I'm not saying that's what a ranger has to be or even what a ranger should be

I'm not trying to call you out; I'm just noting it as an example of how the different things people want out of the Ranger class crowd each other out. But it seems like we're mostly in agreement that the Ranger needs to pick something and do it. I'm not as worried about the prospect of overlapping magisteria, since we already have that to a significant degree, but martial dude who wears green and has a kickass pet dog is certainly a viable option.


--

Whether you're using warrior/expert/mage or smart/strong/quick/social, a low granularity class system is going to struggle to cover all the options you want in a satisfying way. When a wizard, a warlord, a detective, and an artificer are all getting loaded onto the same chassis, you have to wonder if you're doing it right. At a certain point you're probably just better off going fully modular and letting players pick whatever level-appropriate skills and abilities they want. Which is a fine way of doing things (if you can execute it properly) but it is not D&D. A high granularity class system enables high specificity in terms of mechanical support, but it means you need a lot of classes/subclasses to cover the characters people are likely to want to play.


I think this would get a lot better if the exploration and social pillars were given better support. When there's more to do than just combat, you can afford to have classes that are weaker in combat because they help out in the other pillars.

I also strongly concur with Sindeloke and JackPhoenix: at least as far as D&D goes, everyone fights, so it's not okay to have classes that trade off combat power for non-combat utility, or vice versa. When you have divided pillars, you wind up in scenarios where players are sitting scenes out because their characters just aren't equipped to interact with that part of the game. If the three parts of D&D are going to be combat, social, and exploration, every class needs to be able to participate in each of those things in level appropriate ways.

You can still maintain martial vs skill vs magic to some degree, but that means those things all have to be useful in our three major scene types, e.g. if I am playing a skill-based character, it's fine if my martial abilities are fairly tepid if my skills give me interesting/useful things to do in combat.

[Pex]

I think this would get a lot better if the exploration and social pillars were given better support. When there's more to do than just combat, you can afford to have classes that are weaker in combat because they help out in the other pillars. Experts, in particular, are likely to be weaker in combat but better out of it. Warriors are better in combat and weaker out of it. But everyone always has something they can do. Even without any weapon proficiencies, nothing is stopping you from plinking with a crossbow or tossing down some caltrops, and everyone gets a few skill proficiencies and languages for out of combat. (And I understand D&D is a combat focused game, so even experts would still got combat abilities, just not as strong ones as warriors or battle mages.)

As for mages, I can think of two things that might help out there. As much as I love wizards, and can see value in focusing mages into a specific magic specialization. Imagine, for example, being the teleport mage. It's all you do, but you're really good at it. You do it all day long. You deliver the warrior to the front line, move the healer back, even move monsters around. Focused and specialized. The other thing would be to emphasize out of combat casting, perhaps by making all spells rituals while reducing the number of spell slots the mage gets. Their combat casting is severely limited by spell slots, but out of combat they can pop rituals left and right. These two methods allow us to sort combat mages from utility mages (which suggests perhaps the mage should be split into two archetypes, the ritual caster and the specialist caster).

You have to be careful with "weaker". Not me, but many people complained 3E warriors couldn't do anything out of combat. They could but at such a weaker way than others they shouldn't bother. Likewise if anyone cannot handle themselves in combat it won't be played and will be yelled about. A class shouldn't be good at everything, but you will get complaints if there's something it cannot do.



Personally I "fixed" this by saying that any race that grants a weapon proficiency that is already given again by their chosen class gets a +2 to damage. Which is noticeable but not really overpowering. And I still haven't quite figured out what to do with races that grant armor proficiency. Just giving a flat +1 to AC when wearing armor they've gotten double proficiency from seems too good, considering how tightly controlled AC scores are.

Upgrade proficiency? Double proficiency in medium armor grants heavy armor proficiency.

Double proficiency in heavy armor grants no stealth disadvantage. Perhaps the same with medium armor if you don't want to grant heavy armor proficiency.

[Petrocorus]

That is a nitpick to go over. Except for Bugbears which are always supposed to be as tricksy and cunning as they are brutish. But Hobgoblins and Goblins and to a lesser extent a lot of the races that get proficiency I'd like to see them switched.

It's been weird to me that if they want to show a class is particularly skillful, they are granted a bonus to a skill or even proficiency. You know who wants proficiency in a bonus skill? Everyone.

If they want to show a race is particularly good at casting a certain type of magic, they give them a cantrip or a once a day at-will spell. You know who wants bonus spells? Everyone.

But when they want to show a race is particularly martial, they give them proficiency is some type of weapon or armor. You know who wants more weapon/armor proficiency? Everyone except martials. They get nothing from the races that are supposed to be pushed into the martial classes.
Good way to explain the problem. Well said.
The mountain dwarf is the first example.



Personally I "fixed" this by saying that any race that grants a weapon proficiency that is already given again by their chosen class gets a +2 to damage. Which is noticeable but not really overpowering. And I still haven't quite figured out what to do with races that grant armor proficiency. Just giving a flat +1 to AC when wearing armor they've gotten double proficiency from seems too good, considering how tightly controlled AC scores are.
This is basically giving a free FS. If this is explicitly and FS for people with double proficiency, and so cannot be cumulate with FS from class feature, it could be useful without being too unbalanced.
Though the mountain dwarf Forge Cleric with free Defence FS, for instance, may become more common.
And the dark elf Bladesinger with double rapier proficiency.
Oh gosh, we already have issues with this.


It's one of the fumble points of 5e. Martial weapons and different armor proficiencies are underwhelming and without feats involved they're borderline worthless.

Martials really need something that show cases them more than armor and weapons like races granting maneuvers the same way that some races get limit spell casting.
I could agree for a free maneuver.
I'm an advocate for an expansion of the maneuver system anyway.


You have to be careful with "weaker". Not me, but many people complained 3E warriors couldn't do anything out of combat. They could but at such a weaker way than others they shouldn't bother. Likewise if anyone cannot handle themselves in combat it won't be played and will be yelled about. A class shouldn't be good at everything, but you will get complaints if there's something it cannot do.
To be and to feel useful IMHO, a character needs to fil one role in-combat and one role out-of-combat.
Maybe we could find way to make the martials be more useful ooc, without stepping on the "expert's" toes.

[Greywander]

I also strongly concur with Sindeloke and JackPhoenix: at least as far as D&D goes, everyone fights, so it's not okay to have classes that trade off combat power for non-combat utility, or vice versa. When you have divided pillars, you wind up in scenarios where players are sitting scenes out because their characters just aren't equipped to interact with that part of the game. If the three parts of D&D are going to be combat, social, and exploration, every class needs to be able to participate in each of those things in level appropriate ways.

You can still maintain martial vs skill vs magic to some degree, but that means those things all have to be useful in our three major scene types, e.g. if I am playing a skill-based character, it's fine if my martial abilities are fairly tepid if my skills give me interesting/useful things to do in combat.
Yes, it is important that everyone is able to contribute during all pillars. "Weaker" shouldn't mean useless, just perhaps that they have a narrower set of abilities, or have to play a bit more creatively to get the job done. Warriors might focus on their physical ability; running, jumping, climbing, swimming, etc. Or their leadership skills for social situations. Everyone gets a couple of skill proficiencies, which is actually enough to make the viable out of combat, though it would also be nice to see specific classes and subclasses handing out an extra ribbon or two for noncombat situations. For something like an expert, crossbow plinking can be boring, which might be why Sneak Attack is universal for all rogues. Makes it a lot more exciting. But also abilities like Cunning Action and Fast Hands allow for a lot of interesting things to do during combat.

5e is actually pretty good about this. Everyone gets a certain baseline of combat and utility ability in the form of weapon, armor, skill, tool, and language proficiencies. These are all you really need to have a "functional" character. Fighters, monks, barbarians, and such get more martially oriented abilities because they're not just competent at combat, they are experts at it. Likewise, bards and rogues get Expertise, Reliable Talent, and/or Jack of all Trades, because they excel on the skill side of things. Wizards don't get anything extra in either department, but make up for it with spells.

You can, for example, have an entire party of wizards. One wizard picks the locks, one is the party face, another holds the front line. Or an entire party of paladins. Or really any other class. And even if you do have a rogue, they can't have Expertise in every skill, so the other party members still have to step up and exercise their skill proficiencies to fill in the gaps. The fighter still needs support in combat, the wizard's magic can't solve everything (especially things that need to be solved right now).

5e is designed so that every player has something they can do, both in and out of combat. I'm not suggesting that be changed, although I can see how it might have sounded like that. Even if experts are "weaker" in combat, they still get that baseline, and they would still build on that, just in a different way from warriors. Throwing down caltrops or chucking a vial of acid are both valuable contributions to combat, and rogues also make good grapplers (a consequence of using the Athletics skill for grappling; perhaps grappling should be a special "weapon" proficiency instead?).

[FaerieGodfather]

Gosh i hated those.
I still don't understand why an elf couln't be as good a wizard as a human, or why a dwarf couldn't be as good a Fighter as a human

Well.. leaving aside the fact this is more about racial level limits than class restrictions-- and if I'm already in a small minority, people who want those back are even smaller still-- the argument is that they're not as good as human beings in those particular things because they're not human, so why should they be as good as a human at everything humans can do? They have special powers that humans don't get, so they don't get access to the same range of powers that humans do.

Personally, I prefer the Adventurer Conqueror King approach, where you still have your race and your class... but every race has different classes to choose from.


Ability progressing with levels, why not.
But i fail to see the difference in game between subrace and ancestry.

Subraces imply-- in previous editions, this was explicit-- that they are separate populations of near-identical species and cultures with small variants in their racial abilities... that mostly serve to make those subraces better-suited to different class combinations. It's gross.

Making them into optional abilities for each race means they are one people with natural variation amongst them.

[Talionis]

1. Add very small bonuses to different kinds of weapons to allow for minor niches in characters.
2. Support Master Thrower in some way probably by feat. Find some way to make it better than arrows but also worse.
3. Add more non spell casting abilities past level 10. That way leveling up will feel special and the martial characters will have more options.
4. Add a support book that enables more classes. Incarnum, Factotem, Chameleon, Tome of Battle.
5. A crafting system this would be helpful for down time rules and suggestions.
6. Change Adventure League Rules to allow more books.
7. Instead of not stacking Extra Attack for multiclassing I would grant an extra ASI instead so that you still get a bonus for the level in its place.

[Mjolnirbear]

This is where i disagree. For me the problem was not the competing demands, just that the writer had absolutely no idea how to fill any of this demands.
- They wanted the Ranger to be a good survivalist. So they gave him Natural Explorer which is an auto-win when it applies, but useless when it doesn't. It doesn't make him really better at tracking. They also gave him Primeval Awareness that his useless as written. Instead of simply giving him expertise in Survival and Nature, which they later gave to the Rogue.

- They wanted him to be able to have a pet. So they made a whole subclass about it, so badly written that the pet is useless and the subclass doesn't make the Beastmaster good with any other beast. Instead of giving a pet to all rangers (with a pact of the Chain-like feature) and having the subclass improving on it in a way that make the pet(s) really useful in combat, and giving him an expertise in animal handling.

- They wanted the Ranger to cast, because it always have been, but apparently were afraid it would make him too good, so put the worst limit on it.

- They wanted him to be a good warrior, but all the damage boost (except Extra Attack, mind you) comes from the subclasses, or the (very limited) spells.

- They wanted him to be good at stealth and skirmish but his only stealth feature is Pass Without Trace. And Vanish that he gets at level 14.
All this points were working toward him filling all the archetype you mentioned and have almost always been a part of the class (i'm not sure for the pet). They failed because of the implementation of each point. It is mechanically unsatisfying, because it is mechanically weak.


Well, the Ranger in D&D have always had spellcasting. So the spell-less variant will always be a variant.
It does exist though.


For those who wants the pet to be a core focus of the class, this is going to be competing with other stuffs.
OTOH, if the Beastmaster subclass had been made well, that could satisfy a good proportion of them IMHO.


This is so sadly true.
Before Xanathar, you could easily make a better ranger than the Ranger with the Fighter, the Rogue, the Bard, the Druid and even the Warlock and the Monk had things that could be used to this effect. It is glaring that the Ranger was maybe the 5th or maybe 6th best class at tracking.
And then in Xana, they published a Rogue subclass that basically was there to do the Ranger's job that the Ranger was not able to do.

If I were building the ranger based on your post, here's what I'd do:

Base class: fighting. Because all rangers, whether witcher, archer, beastmaster, scout...they can all fight. And Survival expertise, because all rangers are good at survival.

Subclass: by "Specialty" instead of by "enemy type". So if you wanted an archer, you picked the Archer specialty. If you wanted to be the guy with a wolf buddy, your specialty is bonding with creatures. If you wanted to be the monster hunter, maybe an invocation-style progression allowing you to pick abilities based on the kind of creatures you fight. If you wanted to be an apothecary, use artificer-like elixirs. If you wanted to a magic dabbler, get spellcasting (or, alternatively, base class is 1/3 casting, the dabbler gets 1/2 casting. The tactical ranger gets maneuvers, and the scout gets ambush abilities or information-gathering abilities, and the warrior ranger gets to buff his fighting abilities with, say, stances designed for combat against certain enemies (small ones, fliers, giants, casters, etc).

High-tier: you can choose a second specialty. You get low-level options, so not so OP, but it gives you narrative options you didn't have before.

Result, everyone gets the ranger they want. You don't have to let them fill all types and making each ability weak so it's not the "better at everything" class.

[KOLE]

If I were building the ranger based on your post, here's what I'd do:

Base class: fighting. Because all rangers, whether witcher, archer, beastmaster, scout...they can all fight. And Survival expertise, because all rangers are good at survival.

Subclass: by "Specialty" instead of by "enemy type". So if you wanted an archer, you picked the Archer specialty. If you wanted to be the guy with a wolf buddy, your specialty is bonding with creatures. If you wanted to be the monster hunter, maybe an invocation-style progression allowing you to pick abilities based on the kind of creatures you fight. If you wanted to be an apothecary, use artificer-like elixirs. If you wanted to a magic dabbler, get spellcasting (or, alternatively, base class is 1/3 casting, the dabbler gets 1/2 casting. The tactical ranger gets maneuvers, and the scout gets ambush abilities or information-gathering abilities, and the warrior ranger gets to buff his fighting abilities with, say, stances designed for combat against certain enemies (small ones, fliers, giants, casters, etc).

High-tier: you can choose a second specialty. You get low-level options, so not so OP, but it gives you narrative options you didn't have before.

Result, everyone gets the ranger they want. You don't have to let them fill all types and making each ability weak so it's not the "better at everything" class.

Not to sound condescending, but if that's what you're looking for, you almost literally just described the Blood Hunter.

[JackPhoenix]

That is a nitpick to go over. Except for Bugbears which are always supposed to be as tricksy and cunning as they are brutish. But Hobgoblins and Goblins and to a lesser extent a lot of the races that get proficiency I'd like to see them switched.

It's been weird to me that if they want to show a class is particularly skillful, they are granted a bonus to a skill or even proficiency. You know who wants proficiency in a bonus skill? Everyone.

If they want to show a race is particularly good at casting a certain type of magic, they give them a cantrip or a once a day at-will spell. You know who wants bonus spells? Everyone.

But when they want to show a race is particularly martial, they give them proficiency is some type of weapon or armor. You know who wants more weapon/armor proficiency? Everyone except martials. They get nothing from the races that are supposed to be pushed into the martial classes.

Personally I "fixed" this by saying that any race that grants a weapon proficiency that is already given again by their chosen class gets a +2 to damage. Which is noticeable but not really overpowering. And I still haven't quite figured out what to do with races that grant armor proficiency. Just giving a flat +1 to AC when wearing armor they've gotten double proficiency from seems too good, considering how tightly controlled AC scores are.

It's not that weird. That weapon/armor proficiency is there to show up that any dwarf (or hobgoblin) is bit of a fighter and can handle armor and weapon, the pseudo-cunning action shows that every goblin is bit of a rogue, racial magic shows that any member of that race is bit of a spellcaster....

Hobgoblin, in particular, has more different issues: it only grants light armor proficiency (every other race that grants armor... i.e. dwarf and githyanki... has medium), which everyone except wizard and sorcerer (and monk, but those won't be wearing armor anyway) already has, and it has +1 Int. Int is a dump stat in this edition unless you're a wizard (or some EK/AT, and more recently artificer). And it lacks the iconic ability of NPC hobgoblins, pseudo-sneak attack when you have allies in melee with the target, instead having weird save reroll. In comparison, dwarves have more to offer to martials, even if they already have the proficiencies... better racial stat bonuses, poison resist, fluffy stonecunning and tool proficiencies, not being slowed down by armor you don't have Str for or extra HP. Giving hobgoblins medium armor, making the +1 floating and replacing Saving Face with Martial Advantage (at 1d6, increase it to 2d6 at level 5) would make the race both more versatile and better suited for martial characters.

[ftafp]

If I could make one change to 5e right now it would be to scrap the old and current psionics stuff and replace it with a Psion class that uses the spell point system from the dungeon master's guide with a much more flavorful custom spell list that borrows from 3.5. The current mess is honestly kind of embarrassing to look at when they had everything they needed from the beginning

[LordCdrMilitant]

If someone were to make a mod of 5e (I'm kind of thinking of like what Pathfinder was to 3.5 as an example), what kinds of changes would you like to see? I don't mean like specific tweaks to the classes, but more general things, like ability scores, the core d20 system, or how actions and turns are handled in combat.

I would drastically reduce or outright remove HP gain by level. Maybe cut HP gain to only 5/10/15/20, or maybe limit it to the first five levels and then drop to just +1HP/level after that. HP scaling is something I've always felt was seriously messed up in D&D in general.

I would also return the ability to trade actions for lesser actions. Standard can be used for a move or a bonus, Move can be used for a bonus, etc.

I would also change the way saves are handled, either returning to ref/fort/will saves, or having all saves add BAB and proficient saves add ability scores [that way, all saves improve as you level]

I might also make BAB go up twice as fast. I consistently feel like Ability Modifiers matter way too much compared to Proficiency in things, but then making BAB go up to 12 would make a mess of DC's and balance.

I would restore spell slots for high ability scores, and possibly restore spell damage scaling with caster level.

Finally, I would change the way AC is set up. At the very least maybe eliminating DEX's contribution to AC so that heavy armor is valuable and superior to light armor.


For smaller tweaks, I'd probably increase the AC bonus from shields so shield+weapon is a valid option. Maybe AC4 from shields?
Maybe change 2-weapon to a defensive style instead of an extra attack, because 2-weapon fighting is silly outside of a few edge-case fencing styles which usually used a defensive dagger.. Maybe have a feat for simultaneous attacking. [How about: When wielding 2 weapons, increase AC by 1 [maybe 2, if shields also go up in AC], and you can divide your attacks between the weapons. FEAT: Cut and Thrust: when attacking while wielding 2 weapons, you may give yourself -5 to hit to add the damage of the off hand weapon to the damage if you hit.]
Also make it so that attacking with the action from haste permits the full allowed attack complement.

[Petrocorus]

If I were building the ranger based on your post, here's what I'd do:

*snip*

Result, everyone gets the ranger they want. You don't have to let them fill all types and making each ability weak so it's not the "better at everything" class.

I believe that if you take the PHB Ranger, make it a prepared spells caster like the Paladin, use the CFV from the UA (with 2 Expertises for Canny, maybe with shorter list), forgo Spell Versatiliy and Primal Awareness which are now redundant, and make the subclass spells always prepared, you end up with a functioning core class able to fill its roles.
It will still lack a real nova, but it seems to be part of the design intent, or rather the nova is made by spells apparently.

For the sublasses, the Xanathar ones are fine, the Hunter just need a subclass spells list. They can already fill most of ranger archetypes, Aragorn, Witcher, etc.

The Beast Master? This guy probably needs a full rewrite. He needs to have a pet that remains relevant below Tier 1, and that can act on its own. Probably with access to bigger beasts with levelling, and having access to secondary beasts for utility, or maybe two main beasts. Add a Speak With Animals permanent effect at some point.
You need to be careful about not breaking too much the action economy. So it needs balancing and refining, but i think this is the way to go.

You can also make a maneuvers subclass, or make it a spell-less variant. I think that's what WotC on its website.

[JellyPooga]

This is your failure. Asking to roll low and high at the same time i.e to roll low but not too low is not intuitive.
Saying that something isn't intuitive doesn't make it so. I'm asking you to explain why, not say it over again.

And this has nothing to do with Blackjack.
In blackjack, you don't roll your score. And the threshold doesn't depends on your ability. And you do use a margin, against the threshold, to see who wins between the player and the bank.
You're not playing a roleplaying game when playing Blackjack, no, but that's entirely beside the point and you know it. The particular random number generator being used, whether it's cards or dice, is also beside the point. The fact that it's a very easy game of chance that uses a "highest under the threshold" method of success resolution is the point.

To make it simpler;
1) Blackjack is easy to learn and understand. Put another way; Blackjack is an intuitive game.
2) Blackjack uses "highest under a threshold" as its metric for success. It's basically the entire game.
3) Therefore "highest under a threshold" is an intuitive metric.

Everything else is irrelevant details and semantics.


In one sentence you say you can derived the TN from abilities, penalties, bonuses and in another you said you don't need to derive the TN but use the ability directly.
So in one sentence you say you do need a calculation because of the penalties and bonuses, and in one sentence you say you don't need a calculation.

Like I said. You are misunderstanding the point I'm making. I'll try to make it easier to understand.
Method A:
1) Generate Ability Score.
2) Derive Modifier
3) Add additional bonuses/penalties.
4) Roll

Method B:
1) Generate Ability Score
2) Add additional bonuses/penalties
3) Roll

Whether either method is roll high, roll low, or whatever is irrelevant. One of these has less steps. That's what I'm saying.


In effect, your modifier is your score. You make this calculation once.
The raw ability only serves to calculate the modifier and for a few things like carrying capacity and jump distance.
If you want to remove the raw ability altogether to only have the mod, fine. But this is not the core issue of your proposal.

So what you're saying is that the Raw Ability (as you put it) is used for more than just modifying dice rolls and as such, still serves a purpose, yes? Therefore, if there was a way to remove any superfluous calculations that derive a modifier for the Raw Ability to make it applicable to dice rolls, that would be a good thing, right? Yeah. I agree. My entire point was as a counterpoint or alternative to the bolded text; I want to remove the necessity for the modifier, not the Raw Ability.

[MoiMagnus]

Saying that something isn't intuitive doesn't make it so. I'm asking you to explain why, not say it over again.

Because blackjack is not monotone (and that's the entire point of the game).
And non-monotone behaviour are highly unintuitive (including in blackjacks, but since that's one of the very few thing weird about blackjack, it remains a very simple game)

"More is always better" and "Less is always better" are more intuitive than "More is always better until it isn't".
In particular, any ability or effect of the kind "+2 to your roll" becomes "sometimes better, sometimes way worse".
Same for advantages in "roll two takes the highest" that you have to replace by something that depends on the DC (the player can't apply a "roll 2 takes the best" without knowing the limit to not cross).
[Which again, is the entire point of blackjack, increasing your value is often good, but can be very very bad if you're near the limit]

Edit: this also makes it more difficult the link between "result of the roll -> what happens", because you can't say "the highest/lowest your result is, the best is your performance, but sometimes it's not enough", and end up with something like "there is only a difference of one on your die between perfect success and failure".

Additionally, applying bonus/malus to the roll or to the DC becomes very different in term of final result, which breaks a symmetry.

However, even though I do find it unintuitive, contrarily to the person you were answering to, I'd rather play with it than with the alternative of "use the margin" if this metric become very frequent. Because margin are additional computations to do and I'm lazy, so the least computation is necessary for something use frequently, the better it is.

[JellyPooga]

Because blackjack is not monotone (and that's the entire point of the game).
And non-monotone behaviour are highly unintuitive (including in blackjacks, but since that's one of the very few thing weird about blackjack, it remains a very simple game)

"More is always better" and "Less is always better" are more intuitive than "More is always better until it isn't".

I'll concede that non-monotone is less intuitive than monotone, granted, but there are degrees of non-monotone and it's not so simple as "monotone = intuitive, non-monotone = unintuitive". Less intuitive is not the same an unintuitive, but I'll grant that this is largely a subjective consideration. I will say that if a dual-tone metric ( i.e. 1) roll high and 2) under a threshold) is unintuitive for you, however, then a system as granular and "tonal" as D&D is probably not for you and something more rules-lite may be more your style. After all, there are many conditions in D&D (abilities, spells, circumstantial modifiers, etc.) that make any given roll far more than monotone, even if the baseline is. Even deriving a modifier from Ability Scores is an additional "tone", in that regard.


In particular, any ability or effect of the kind "+2 to your roll" becomes "sometimes better, sometimes way worse".
[Which again, is the entire point of blackjack, increasing your value is often good, but can be very very bad if you're near the limit]

Which is why if you're implementing a threshold system, all modifiers are always to the threshold rather than the roll.


Edit: this also makes it more difficult the link between "result of the roll -> what happens", because you can't say "the highest/lowest your result is, the best is your performance, but sometimes it's not enough", and end up with something like "there is only a difference of one on your die between perfect success and failure".

The latter is the current system D&D operates; binary pass/fail. Outside of opposed rolls, there is no qualitative difference between rolling 1 above the DC or 10. I don't propose to change that.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm actually fine with what's mechanically there, but I'd love it if their writing and organization was cleaned up. One of the biggest problems with the system is that the rulebooks and adventures are a mess, hard to read, and hard to find relevant information in. Amen. The Index is terrible. Table of content? Not good. (Xanathar's table is a bit better)

Ancestries I want "race" to be more important to a character's development, not less. I would go ahead and nix racial ability score modifiers--
Agree.

The Drow always ruin everything. Get rid of Drow PCs. I am completely on board with edgelord prevention.


Saving Throws
Fix them.{snip} but start with the fact that for the first 25 years of the game's life, characters grew [i]more likely to succeed at every saving throw they made and for the last 20 years-- since WotC took over-- they have gotten less likely to succeed at saving throws from level-appropriate enemies, As I noted in my initial post, agree.


If I could make one change to 5e right now it would be to scrap the old and current psionics stuff and replace it with a Psion class that uses the spell point system from the dungeon master's guide That would be a good start.

[thereaper]

I honestly don't know why prepared casters are a thing. New players prepare the exact same spells every day to keep things simple, and advanced players end up with so many spells the DM can't keep track of what they can do, which is a recipe for exploits. So, why even have prepared casters?

Magic weapons not being assumed is a problem in an edition where golems, an enemy traditionally meant to counter spellcasters, are immune to nonmagical weapons. It's like Charmander being immune to water. Either magic weapons need to be an exception to the rule of magic items not being assumed, or there need to be a lot less enemies with resistance or immunity to nonmagical weapons.

Guidance should have had a level requirement. 1st level Clerics should not have the equivalent of proficiency in every skill.

PCs having different amounts of vision is a headache to DM.

5e's scaling in general is off. Nonproficient saves don't scale (nobody should ever be expected to roll a 19 before modifiers). Spellcasters start with too few slots and end up with too many (why do they gain slots on leveling up anyway? The number of daily encounters doesn't change, so neither should the number of daily resources). Martial damage relative to target durability starts dropping in the teens (why even bother leveling up?).

Illusions not entitling PCs to a save is an issue, because it makes it all but impossible for PCs to see through the products of any competent illusionist.

High level magic in general just doesn't fit into D&D. A world where True Polymorph or Forcecage exists is a world where 15th level Barbarians shouldn't exist, in the same way that scimitars don't see use on today's battlefields.

[Pex]

5e's scaling in general is off. Nonproficient saves don't scale (nobody should ever be expected to roll a 19 before modifiers). Spellcasters start with too few slots and end up with too many (why do they gain slots on leveling up anyway? The number of daily encounters doesn't change, so neither should the number of daily resources). Martial damage relative to target durability starts dropping in the teens (why even bother leveling up?).


The number of encounters changes every game day based on the circumstances of the campaign. The difficulty of the encounters increase as the levels progress, so spellcasters need the resources to handle them.

[Warwick]

High level magic in general just doesn't fit into D&D. A world where True Polymorph or Forcecage exists is a world where 15th level Barbarians shouldn't exist, in the same way that scimitars don't see use on today's battlefields.

It's a question of taste as to whether you think that's a problem with high level magic or high level barbarians.

[Luccan]

It's a question of taste as to whether you think that's a problem with high level magic or high level barbarians.

It also assumes high level magic is super common everywhere. Even with the settings saturated with high level mages, it's still 1 in 10,000 spellcasters that are that powerful at best.

[Doug Lampert]

Saving Throws
Fix them. I don't care how, and I'm not familiar enough with the system to really have any suggestions, but start with the fact that for the first 25 years of the game's life, characters grew more likely to succeed at every saving throw they made and for the last 20 years-- since WotC took over-- they have gotten less likely to succeed at saving throws from level-appropriate enemies, culminating in an edition where most saving throws for most classes do not improve at all.

TSR saves made more sense. The saving throw was something the defender did, he was just so tough or awesome that he avoided/negated/resisted the spell's effects.

Conan makes a mighty effort, and breaks the hold person spell. The Grey Mouser dodges nimbly, and avoids the fireball.

Why does high Int make a wizard's spells harder to resist? An int 20 caster's fireball does no more damage, it has no longer range or larger radius, what exactly about it makes it harder for the Rogue to dodge?!? It's the exact same fireball except harder to dodge because, stuff.

If you come up with some nonsense fluff about high int letting you understand the nature of magic and blah blah blah more powerful spell. Then why is the damage, range, area of effect and everything else not possible to change with that high int, it's ONLY effect is that the spell is harder to dodge. And then you need to somehow apply the exact same effect to Wisdom for a cleric and Charisma for a sorcerer, without allowing any of them to do anything other than the exact same "harder to resist" effect with none of them able to apply the methods used by the other, nope, not even if they multiclass, you only get one of these mysterious benefits.

Go back to bonus spells for high attributes or even just more spells known (with a known spell limit low enough that it hurts without the bonus), and let saves be something dependent on the defender.

If the caster matters for whether a spell "hits" then that's an attack roll for the spell.

Re: Roll as high as possible without going over. I've seen large groups playing Pendragon, which uses that method. I have NEVER seen it confuse anyone. It's far easier and faster than subtracting for margin of success.

[thereaper]

The difficulty of the encounters increase as the levels progress, so spellcasters need the resources to handle them.

I disagree, on the basis that a lot of the best spells scale more or less automatically, allowing low level slots to still be valuable at high levels. Suggestion is amazing at 3rd level and stays amazing all the way to 20th, for example.

[Pex]

I disagree, on the basis that a lot of the best spells scale more or less automatically, allowing low level slots to still be valuable at high levels. Suggestion is amazing at 3rd level and stays amazing all the way to 20th, for example.

Spells get better on spell slot used, so now you'll have to change how they work. Back to caster level? You also run the risk of making spells too powerful, and some people already have that complaint as it is now.

5E already lowered the number of spell slots spellcasters have from previous editions. To make it even lower risks making them boring to play. Before you say warlock, yes warlock is fun to play. It would be boring if that's the only way spellcasters ever are. Still, you answered the thread. You think spellcasters have too may spell slots and want that changed. I disagree with that idea.

[Luccan]

I'd like there to be more of a reason to use medium armor. Right now it doesn't really favor any particular play style: Dex characters get the same AC going light, Str characters do better with heavy armor. It might be good for Str character who wanted a decent Stealth, except the best medium armor still gives disadvantage and if you want a good stealth you're going to want to invest in Dex anyway. It basically only exists mechanically so there's a level between light and heavy, not because it provides for anything particularly unique or advantageous

[FaerieGodfather]

It's a question of taste as to whether you think that's a problem with high level magic or high level barbarians.

A thousand times this. Regardless of whether you think "high-level D&D" should be more like "high-level wizards" or "high-level barbarians", the point remains that high-level wizards and high-level barbarians are both sitting at the same table, so they should both be playing the same game.

And a lot of the problem is that WotC gutted high-level play from the beginning of Third Edition onward, replacing it with more low-level play but with higher numbers... with the exception of a growing number of Wizard and Cleric spells.

[Luccan]

A thousand times this. Regardless of whether you think "high-level D&D" should be more like "high-level wizards" or "high-level barbarians", the point remains that high-level wizards and high-level barbarians are both sitting at the same table, so they should both be playing the same game.

And a lot of the problem is that WotC gutted high-level play from the beginning of Third Edition onward, replacing it with more low-level play but with higher numbers... with the exception of a growing number of Wizard and Cleric spells.

Nothing I've read (including rulebooks) or experienced of any edition of D&D has me convinced high level play has ever been equitable between casters and mundanes. WotC may have exacerbated the issue, but they didn't invent it.

[Tanarii]

Nothing I've read (including rulebooks) or experienced of any edition of D&D has me convinced high level play has ever been equitable between casters and mundanes. WotC may have exacerbated the issue, but they didn't invent it.
Fighters led armies and ruled the world.

Except for those nations ruled, you know, by magic-users. :smallamused:


BECMI was one of the worst offenders for that. It gave Fighters armies and dominions at first. Then anyone could get them. Then the largest empire in the known world was ruled by 1000 lvl 36 magic-users, and only spell casters could even join the nobility. :smallyuk:

[Knaight]

You have to be careful with "weaker". Not me, but many people complained 3E warriors couldn't do anything out of combat. They could but at such a weaker way than others they shouldn't bother. Likewise if anyone cannot handle themselves in combat it won't be played and will be yelled about. A class shouldn't be good at everything, but you will get complaints if there's something it cannot do.
It also depends on which martial class you're talking about. The Fighter's sad and pathetic 2+Int, Int is a dump stat skills tended to produce characters who were pretty incompetent outside of a fight (or anywhere where they're not interfacing with the rules). The Rogue getting 8+Int, some useful class features outside of combat, and having at least a little incentive not to tank Int produced more broadly competent characters.



This is your failure. Asking to roll low and high at the same time i.e to roll low but not too low is not intuitive.
And this has nothing to do with Blackjack.
In blackjack, you don't roll your score. And the threshold doesn't depends on your ability. And you do use a margin, against the threshold, to see who wins between the player and the bank.


No it's not. You proposed initially to roll against a TN base on your ability and if both contestant succeed, to compare the raw rolls and to do it in a way contrary to the way you rolled. You compare only the random part of the check and the closest to failure wins.
Using a margin against the threshold is an added calculation - pure numerical comparison is standard in Blackjack, and I say that as someone who deals it (or did, before the whole pandemic thing).

As for intuitiveness, comparing numbers is easier than addition, and proximity to failure is just a distraction. The system puts forth a binary success/failure, exactly which numbers are which is largely besides the point.


In particular, any ability or effect of the kind "+2 to your roll" becomes "sometimes better, sometimes way worse".
Same for advantages in "roll two takes the highest" that you have to replace by something that depends on the DC (the player can't apply a "roll 2 takes the best" without knowing the limit to not cross).
You wouldn't use a +2 to your roll in a blackjack system. You'd use a +2 to the threshold rolled under, which is either useful (you landed in the 2 points where it makes a difference) or has no effect (you landed outside it) - which is exactly the same as a +2 in any other case. Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics are a particular case where blackjack makes things a bit more complicated, though it's no more complicated than proven mechanical combinations in a whole host of games (e.g. swapping between the 10 and 1s die when useful, which is a common dice trick in percentile systems).

[Wizard_Lizard]

Small thing but, Eberron rising from the last war has no index and it hurts me.

Also, if you think that drow pcs are edgy...... umm... Two words (One word?) Shadar-Kai.

[Luccan]

Fighters led armies and ruled the world.

Except for those nations ruled, you know, by magic-users. :smallamused:


BECMI was one of the worst offenders for that. It gave Fighters armies and dominions at first. Then anyone could get them. Then the largest empire in the known world was ruled by 1000 lvl 36 magic-users, and only spell casters could even join the nobility. :smallyuk:

Yeah, I forgot the "balance" was that not being a Fighter prevented you from gathering a lot of serfs. For some reason. And yet still somehow we ended up with them not mattering at high level.


Small thing but, Eberron rising from the last war has no index and it hurts me.

Also, if you think that drow pcs are edgy...... umm... Two words (One word?) Shadar-Kai.

Here's what I can think to ban that "causes" edginess: College of Whispers, Death and maybe a couple other domains, Circle of Spores, Long Death and Shadow Monks, every Evil Paladin oath and also Oath of Vengeance, I can't think of any Ranger subclasses but it's probably safest to ban Rangers outright, all Rogues, Sorcerers, and Warlocks. Also, the entire school of Necromancy (subclass and spells, except resurrection of course).

Then we need to ban , every Monstrous Race, Kenku, Warforged, Shifters, Changelings, Kalashtars, Simic Hybrids, Drow probably safest to ban Elves in general, Duergar, Svirfneblin, Ghostwise Halfling, Dragonborn. And someone can [I]still play a Human Fighter whose home was burned down by a lich and they swore vengeance, never stopping in their quest, no matter the cost, despite the stains to their soul bla bla bla bla.....

There's no stopping edgy PCs except by banning their players outright. And so long as it doesn't ruin the experience for anyone else, I don't think that's the right solution either.

[ftafp]

Adding more minor feats could also help rogues have a more flexible array of features that don't revolve around skills. It's not a bad idea at all

honestly, I'm thinking there need to be more major feats. Currently, 2/3 of the feats in the game are useless ribbons that are better replaced with a 1-level dip

[Wizard_Lizard]

Yeah, I forgot the "balance" was that not being a Fighter prevented you from gathering a lot of serfs. For some reason. And yet still somehow we ended up with them not mattering at high level.



Here's what I can think to ban that "causes" edginess: College of Whispers, Death and maybe a couple other domains, Circle of Spores, Long Death and Shadow Monks, every Evil Paladin oath and also Oath of Vengeance, I can't think of any Ranger subclasses but it's probably safest to ban Rangers outright, all Rogues, Sorcerers, and Warlocks. Also, the entire school of Necromancy (subclass and spells, except resurrection of course).

Then we need to ban , every Monstrous Race, Kenku, Warforged, Shifters, Changelings, Kalashtars, Simic Hybrids, Drow probably safest to ban Elves in general, Duergar, Svirfneblin, Ghostwise Halfling, Dragonborn. And someone can [I]still play a Human Fighter whose home was burned down by a lich and they swore vengeance, never stopping in their quest, no matter the cost, despite the stains to their soul bla bla bla bla.....

There's no stopping edgy PCs except by banning their players outright. And so long as it doesn't ruin the experience for anyone else, I don't think that's the right solution either.

Yeah the thing is... that cuts out a lot of options and stuff. I don't think you can solve edginess by chopping out stuff. Also, it just makes it less fun. What if I want to play my half orc, raised in a loving and supportive family. Or my drow that really just likes playing cards. Or my mildly insane goblin alchemist? None of these are edgy inherently. I would go so far as to say nothing is inherently edgy, but everything has the potential to be so. The problem therefore, with edgy characters is not with the class/race options, but with the players decisions as to how they utilize them.

[Pex]

I'd like there to be more of a reason to use medium armor. Right now it doesn't really favor any particular play style: Dex characters get the same AC going light, Str characters do better with heavy armor. It might be good for Str character who wanted a decent Stealth, except the best medium armor still gives disadvantage and if you want a good stealth you're going to want to invest in Dex anyway. It basically only exists mechanically so there's a level between light and heavy, not because it provides for anything particularly unique or advantageous

It's useful for characters who don't attack with ST or DX. Clerics can have AC 18 at first level with scale mail, DX 14, and a shield. That's a good AC to have while casting away with cantrips and spells.

[Luccan]

It's useful for characters who don't attack with ST or DX. Clerics can have AC 18 at first level with scale mail, DX 14, and a shield. That's a good AC to have while casting away with cantrips and spells.

But what cleric with heavy armor proficiency uses medium any longer than they have to? Str 15 gets them a far better AC. Even if they can't afford that at level 1, it's easily attainable with half an ASI. Meanwhile, Barbarians use medium armor because they have to (until they don't), Dex favors the ranger far more than Str so that's another case for light armor, and the only baseline medium armor Druids are allowed to use is equivalent to studded leather but with a Dex limit.

[Petrocorus]

I'd like there to be more of a reason to use medium armor. Right now it doesn't really favor any particular play style: Dex characters get the same AC going light, Str characters do better with heavy armor. It might be good for Str character who wanted a decent Stealth, except the best medium armor still gives disadvantage and if you want a good stealth you're going to want to invest in Dex anyway. It basically only exists mechanically so there's a level between light and heavy, not because it provides for anything particularly unique or advantageous
To add on what Pex said, Medium armor is the type of armor who doesn't need you to invest on Str or Dex. You can go to down with 14 Dex and 8 Str, what no other armor let you do.
This is the perfect armor for any caster that can get the proficiency.

Even on a Dex build, it is better or as good until you get 20 Dex.

And yes, a Cleric with the right Domain can use an heavy armor, but unless he's a dwarf, he needs 15 Str to do it without hindrance. That's a pretty investment.
Even the Barbarian is better off with a breasplate/half-plate for a big part of the game.

[Tanarii]

Yeah, I forgot the "balance" was that not being a Fighter prevented you from gathering a lot of serfs. For some reason. And yet still somehow we ended up with them not mattering at high level.
I noticed that with AD&D, which is why I specified BECMI. Armies mattered a lot in that edition, even at high level, mostly because War Machine was easy to run. I can't even remember if AD&D had mass combat rules. Maybe it expected you to go back and use Chainmail? :smallamused: In AD&D 2e you had to bust out miniatures and Battlesystem, which was a non-starter for me and my broke college age friends.

But like I said, the gazetteers and known world setting removed the domain rulers being fighters restriction.

[Mith]

Another idea is to give players things to spend money on.

Personally, I like the idea of bringing back Training days for level ups, with relevant money investment (wizard with spell research, Fighter with training, Rogue with a thieves guild, etc.) but this can be settled with Downtime activities. Allows skills to be acquired in a similar system where time and money spent to upgrade. Perhaps incorporate a trade off for living standards to time spent (living in squalor means your only expense is in levelling up, but you will need to take more time).

I am not saying challenges defeated, do not grant XP, but I think shifting the focus back to gold brought back to civilisation does change dynamics into s more interesting game.

[Tanarii]

I am not saying challenges defeated, do not grant XP, but I think shifting the focus back to gold brought back to civilisation does change dynamics into s more interesting game.
05R's Into the Unknown (using the 5e OGL) rewrote the XP tables then award XP for GP spent frivolously before the next adventure. Very old school revival indeed.

If I'd known about it (or it'd been around whichever) when I started my campaign, I definitely would have used it instead of default PHB. It even has decent Hex crawling and resting rules.

[Luccan]

To add on what Pex said, Medium armor is the type of armor who doesn't need you to invest on Str or Dex. You can go to down with 14 Dex and 8 Str, what no other armor let you do.
This is the perfect armor for any caster that can get the proficiency.

Even on a Dex build, it is better or as good until you get 20 Dex.

And yes, a Cleric with the right Domain can use an heavy armor, but unless he's a dwarf, he needs 15 Str to do it without hindrance. That's a pretty investment.
Even the Barbarian is better off with a breasplate/half-plate for a big part of the game.

These are fair, but I still have a problem with the fact that I'll only use it because I have to, not because it's ever really the best option*. There's a reason Fighters have a light or heavy armor option in their kit and not a medium one. I guess I'd just like it to have a use for actual warriors that wasn't "you aren't quite able to stop using this armor yet".

Though now that I'm looking at it, I really just don't like armor in this edition period. You basically always want the biggest bonus in the category ASAP. With maybe the exception of medium armor, where you could argue there's a trade off between AC and Stealth between Breastplate and Half Plate, the only penalty to getting the highest AC in your preferred category is gold. If there's somewhere I feel 5e could definitely use more nuance it's the combat equipment. This mean weapons too, the inexplicable existence of the War Pick and the inclusion of the Trident as its own weapon baffle me to this day.

*keep in mind that 15 Str is only for Plate and Splint. A 14 Str more than covers you for Chain Mail, which you can start with, and then you only need to spend half an ASI ever to make full use of heavy armor, but your AC before that still matches everything but half plate. So I'm only gonna use that on a cleric if I have to anyway.


Another idea is to give players things to spend money on.

Personally, I like the idea of bringing back Training days for level ups, with relevant money investment (wizard with spell research, Fighter with training, Rogue with a thieves guild, etc.) but this can be settled with Downtime activities. Allows skills to be acquired in a similar system where time and money spent to upgrade. Perhaps incorporate a trade off for living standards to time spent (living in squalor means your only expense is in levelling up, but you will need to take more time).

I am not saying challenges defeated, do not grant XP, but I think shifting the focus back to gold brought back to civilisation does change dynamics into s more interesting game.

Eh, I'd just use the straight gold for XP conceit rather than bothering with training costs. If you want them to worry more about extracting treasure, that should do it. If you want them to spend that treasure, you should give them something interesting to spend it on rather than hold their XP ransom.

[LibraryOgre]

I noticed that with AD&D, which is why I specified BECMI. Armies mattered a lot in that edition, even at high level, mostly because War Machine was easy to run. I can't even remember if AD&D had mass combat rules. Maybe it expected you to go back and use Chainmail? :smallamused: In AD&D 2e you had to bust out miniatures and Battlesystem, which was a non-starter for me and my broke college age friends.

But like I said, the gazetteers and known world setting removed the domain rulers being fighters restriction.

Birthright eventually came out with one that revolved around cards, and could be managed with 3*5 cards.

[Pex]

But what cleric with heavy armor proficiency uses medium any longer than they have to? Str 15 gets them a far better AC. Even if they can't afford that at level 1, it's easily attainable with half an ASI. Meanwhile, Barbarians use medium armor because they have to (until they don't), Dex favors the ranger far more than Str so that's another case for light armor, and the only baseline medium armor Druids are allowed to use is equivalent to studded leather but with a Dex limit.

Why would anyone who can wear heavy armor go medium instead? That doesn't take away those who are only medium level proficiency can have good AC themselves. Wearing medium armor means you don't care about Strength and only need 14 Dexterity for maximum AC. That's an affordable investment. As I said, it's for those who don't attack with ST or DX. They won't have nor need ST 15.

[Tanarii]

Lucian another possibly reason to wear lesser armor is found magic items.

[Willie the Duck]

I noticed that with AD&D, which is why I specified BECMI. Armies mattered a lot in that edition, even at high level, mostly because War Machine was easy to run. I can't even remember if AD&D had mass combat rules. Maybe it expected you to go back and use Chainmail? :smallamused: In AD&D 2e you had to bust out miniatures and Battlesystem, which was a non-starter for me and my broke college age friends.

There was a version of Battlesystem for 1e as well. It came out in '85, same year as Chainmail was supposedly discontinued (but lord help me if I ever saw it in stores, and I started in '83).


But like I said, the gazetteers and known world setting removed the domain rulers being fighters restriction.

I think one has to separate Mystara/The Known World/parts of the Gazetteers from overall B/X and BECMI. As much as I love the goofy charm of Mystara, it really is the ultimate example of 'nevermind the consequences.' I will say that, by the time they had opened up domain management to magic users, we were done with that part of the game and more excited about being able to play fish people and trolls and winged minotaurs and cleric-spell-casting owls and all the other madness that was coming out in that world.

The domain management part of oD&D-BECMI and AD&D is historically interesting. To the initial players playing with Gary and Dave, that was the primary goal. Dungeon delving and hexcrawling across the wilderness was nice and all while you were a fledgling PC, but running a kingdom, that was where it's at! I remember liking it once or twice, but honestly it always felt like a completely separate game (one that was nice and all if you wanted to do it, but exactly why was plunked down in the middle of this other game was a bit mystifying).


Yeah the thing is... that cuts out a lot of options and stuff. I don't think you can solve edginess by chopping out stuff. Also, it just makes it less fun. What if I want to play my half orc, raised in a loving and supportive family. Or my drow that really just likes playing cards. Or my mildly insane goblin alchemist? None of these are edgy inherently. I would go so far as to say nothing is inherently edgy, but everything has the potential to be so. The problem therefore, with edgy characters is not with the class/race options, but with the players decisions as to how they utilize them.

I have never understood the complaint against 'edginess.' We are all playing a game where we pretend (/take on the role of) we are elves and dwarves and wizards and knights, but there are some people who are doing it wrong by wanting to pretend to be something special?

[Dienekes]

Here’s one that I think some people may push back on. But I would like to remove just about all Bonus Action attacks.

With maybe the exception of the Berserker Barbarian, whose entire shtick is just about doing massive damage and attacks. I think Bonus Actions should be reserved for quick set up and utility abilities. As soon as Bonus Actions start becoming part of the characters standard round of damage it dominates the slot. And we see less dynamic play instead of more.

[KorvinStarmast]

Here’s one that I think some people may push back on. But I would like to remove just about all Bonus Action attacks.
Why do you hate monks? :smallbiggrin:

[stoutstien]

Here’s one that I think some people may push back on. But I would like to remove just about all Bonus Action attacks.

With maybe the exception of the Berserker Barbarian, whose entire shtick is just about doing massive damage and attacks. I think Bonus Actions should be reserved for quick set up and utility abilities. As soon as Bonus Actions start becoming part of the characters standard round of damage it dominates the slot. And we see less dynamic play instead of more.

Heck, remove it from the beserker as well and just reword it like the haste spell.

I personally have anything against bonus action attack but I don't think they should be something that's always available. So the PaM bunt stroke becomes an option when they miss with an attack action attack or xbow master extra shot only works within 5ft.

[KorvinStarmast]

I have never understood the complaint against 'edginess.' We are all playing a game where we pretend (/take on the roll of) we are elves and dwarves and wizards and knights, but there are some people who are doing it wrong by wanting to pretend to be something special? Were you around for the goth fad? That may inform some peoples' not caring for the edge-lord-cliche-character thing.

[Dienekes]

Why do you hate monks? :smallbiggrin:

They know what they did.

More seriously I kinda forgot about monks. But I don’t really see why Flurry couldn’t be just added to the Attack action, and let their Bonus Action get used for Patient Defense, Step of the Wind and other cool uses for Bonus Actions now freed up because the Monk isnt trying to Flurry most rounds.

Though Monk may be another exception. I don’t think they are, but I’ve never actually seen a monk played at my table.

[KorvinStarmast]

Though Monk may be another exception. I don’t think they are, but I’ve never actually seen a monk played at my table. My experience with Monks is that they are kind of a "bonus action management" class as long as they have ki points.
The follow up bonus action unarmed strike is nice to have for a variety of reasons, but it's particularly handy at lower levels.

[Willie the Duck]

Were you around for the goth fad? That may inform some peoples' not caring for the edge-lord-cliche-character thing.

That quote was actually mine, I was responding to L-W. Yes I was around for it. That popped up in force in gaming (along with drow elves and vampire PCs) right at the point where I was a young adult, and could look down on it as something that 'kids these days' (now that I was outside of the kid age range) were doing. I just didn't and don't. I mena, I get 'X is a fad, I've been subjected to too much of it, I'm sick of it.' That's completely reasonable. I mean the long term concept of edginess being a problem (outside of a given, oversaturating, fad). As if one person wanting to create a 'cool' (yes, in their own mind) character is somehow an issue when we are all pretending we are fantasy heroes wielding swords and magic. That's 1) a completely reasonable way to interact with the game, and 2) tapdancing on the term 'marginal' in terms of being different from what every TTRPG gamer is doing. The overall average level of self-inserting into a cooler-than-we-really-are personas for fantasy TTRPG players is at (on an arbitrary scale) 100, and some people tiptoe up to 110. Whoopdeedoo (okay, we really need a completely flat-mouthed smiley here). I actually really like playing rather dun-colored professionals -- magicless rangers in low-mid-level play where the day's adventure might be getting a wagon across a shallow river without getting the contents wet. But I recognize that as a preference, and the person who wants to play a tiefling paladin in winged plate with a flaming sword who does epic battles against the forces of evil (from whence they were conceived)? Rock solid, glad to have you in the hobby.


Here’s one that I think some people may push back on. But I would like to remove just about all Bonus Action attacks.

With maybe the exception of the Berserker Barbarian, whose entire shtick is just about doing massive damage and attacks. I think Bonus Actions should be reserved for quick set up and utility abilities. As soon as Bonus Actions start becoming part of the characters standard round of damage it dominates the slot. And we see less dynamic play instead of more.

Extra attacks should be a base ability, and bonus actions should be 'something else?' That seems like an entirely reasonable idea (so long as it is applied consistently). It certainly would allow for more opportunity to make more creative things to do with that action-economy spot if it wasn't competing with (ex.) a PAM+GWM attack which might be 1d10+15 damage or the like. Mind you, the overall martial combat balance might have to be adjusted to compensate, but we are talking about rebuilding the system, so that works.

[Pex]

I have never understood the complaint against 'edginess.' We are all playing a game where we pretend (/take on the roll of) we are elves and dwarves and wizards and knights, but there are some people who are doing it wrong by wanting to pretend to be something special?

I don't think edginess is the problem. What's really the bother are the Lone Wolf and Drama Queen players who want to make the game all about them. Being edgy might be more common for those players as motivation for their character, but the problem lies in how the player plays the game despite other players rather than the character's personality.

[Willie the Duck]

I don't think edginess is the problem. What's really the bother are the Lone Wolf and Drama Queen players who want to make the game all about them. Being edgy might be more common for those players as motivation for their character, but the problem lies in how the player plays the game despite other players rather than the character's personality.

Okay, so a playstyle preference has been associated with another problematic playstyle/behavior? I can see that.

[Mith]

05R's Into the Unknown (using the 5e OGL) rewrote the XP tables then award XP for GP spent frivolously before the next adventure. Very old school revival indeed.

If I'd known about it (or it'd been around whichever) when I started my campaign, I definitely would have used it instead of default PHB. It even has decent Hex crawling and resting rules.

I may look into this for more ideas, as I had the old PHB that had poor binding and fell to pieces. May have that replace my default baseline book.



Eh, I'd just use the straight gold for XP conceit rather than bothering with training costs. If you want them to worry more about extracting treasure, that should do it. If you want them to spend that treasure, you should give them something interesting to spend it on rather than hold their XP ransom.

Fair enough. I guess I like the idea of doing training days as it ties into the same process for skill learning and other downtime tasks. There are a lot of different means of spending money, but they are scattered and feel tacked into the system. However, that's very much a playstyle preference difference.

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

Looking at the discussion on use of actions, I like the idea that you have essentially two actions, but different weapon uses allow you to do different things. So Light weapons allow you to make an attacks with the secondary action, with regular sized weapons you can shove/trip with a secondary action, while heavy weapons you need to score a critical hit. There is talk about combat being fairly limited in D&D, but I like the idea that you have abilities that are tied into weapon properties that means that a specific weapon (collection of weapon properties) really plays differently.

I have discussed with other that a character's stats changes in how you interact with the weapons. So a very strong character can treat a regular heavy weapon as a light weapon (perhaps adding a portion of Dex to the attack roll) that instead of having a flat ban on say Small characters have Disadvantage with Heavy weapons, but that a beefy Goblin can use a Great Axe if they get their strength up high enough. But that's an extended write up that is basically me riffing off other people's ideas who are a lot better about these ideas than me.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Why do you hate monks? :smallbiggrin:

Oh yeah. I forgot. I'd also just eliminate monks.

People who can fistfight as good as a an armored sword guy with some arbitrary sense of "inner balance/peace" do not belong in any of my settings. Well, grappling or fistfighting an armored sword guy is an option, but inner peace is a crock of ****e.

{scrubbed}

[Luccan]

Oh yeah. I forgot. I'd also just eliminate monks.

People who can fistfight as good as a an armored sword guy with some arbitrary sense of "inner balance/peace" do not belong in any of my settings. Well, grappling or fistfighting an armored sword guy is an option, but inner balance is a crock of ****e.

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I can't believe monk players think their fantasy of punching dragons is as valid as my fantasy of stabbing them with a sword they could use as a toothpick

[LordCdrMilitant]

I can't believe monk players think their fantasy of punching dragons is as valid as my fantasy of stabbing them with a sword they could use as a toothpick

I can't believe that solitary flying fire-lizards would be a valid threat to people who can use tools and have civilizations. A company of archers can solve the dragon problem nearly trivially. As technology marches onwards, natural threats are increasingly irrelevant as we develop the means to suppress or overcome them. All anti-aircraft batteries, fire at will!

I don't actually have much against the punching thing. I mostly dislike the inner peace and ki and whatever crap meditation thing. Whether my setting is eastern or western inspired, martial power comes from martial training, not understanding of perfection beyond the human body or something.

[NorthernPhoenix]

I can't believe that solitary flying fire-lizards would be a valid threat to people who can use tools and have civilizations. A company of archers can solve the dragon problem nearly trivially. As technology marches onwards, natural threats are increasingly irrelevant as we develop the means to suppress or overcome them. All anti-aircraft batteries, fire at will!

I don't actually have much against the punching thing. I mostly dislike the inner peace and ki and whatever crap meditation thing. Whether my setting is eastern or western inspired, martial power comes from martial training, not understanding of perfection beyond the human body or something.

I was going to write something much more rude, but i've instead settled on "surely you understand why the game or it's sequel will never be designed around assumptions like this".

[jas61292]

Here’s one that I think some people may push back on. But I would like to remove just about all Bonus Action attacks.

With maybe the exception of the Berserker Barbarian, whose entire shtick is just about doing massive damage and attacks. I think Bonus Actions should be reserved for quick set up and utility abilities. As soon as Bonus Actions start becoming part of the characters standard round of damage it dominates the slot. And we see less dynamic play instead of more.

Oh my god, yes this. In a game with relatively restricted access to bonus action attacks (no feats, for example), the Berserker is actually a decently powerful option, and it just feels right. But as is, getting bonus action attacks is just so easy. This both invalidates the weaker methods of getting bonus action attacks, and monopolizes the bonus action as a damage source. Bonus actions should be more for utility options, except for the the rare exception.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I was going to write something much more rude, but i've instead settled on "surely you understand why the game or it's sequel will never be designed around assumptions like this".

Are the assumptions in question the issue of dragons and technology, or the issue of me being dismissive of some things people take for having meaning in their way of life?


You have a right to be angry at me if I disparaged things that give meaning to your life. I was not unaware to the fact that I was being dismissive of things that are cornerstones of some people's belief systems, and using very charged and hostile language. You do you though, I aggressively reject the concept of power through harmony in my worldview so it's not going to be in my game.


As for the technology thing, if everybody was always like "things man makes are evil, Nature rocks" we'd be in the stone age still. Engineering overcomes problems.
Also, if the threat of a flying fire-lizard wandering by and erasing your kingdom on tuesday was actually like a serious concern, then there wouldn't be kingdoms or civilizations. Everything would collapse, because last tuesday the flying fire-lizard burned everything down and all the peasants starved. In a world where there are random wandering monsters every Tuesday, society has to learn how to handle it to remain remotely stable, so they're at least a regular concern to normal society. Or at least no worse than a tornado, hurricane, or earthquake. Maybe severe for less common monsters, but nothing government stimulus, disaster relief, and maybe a military intervention can't fix.

[Luccan]

I can't believe that solitary flying fire-lizards would be a valid threat to people who can use tools and have civilizations. A company of archers can solve the dragon problem nearly trivially. As technology marches onwards, natural threats are increasingly irrelevant as we develop the means to suppress or overcome them. All anti-aircraft batteries, fire at will!

I can't believe anyone thinks a bunch of squishy monkeys would develop bows and trained archery regiments in a world with giant, flying, fire breathing lizards that are smarter than they are. Ok I'm done with the bit now



I don't actually have much against the punching thing. I mostly dislike the inner peace and ki and whatever crap meditation thing. Whether my setting is eastern or western inspired, martial power comes from martial training, not understanding of perfection beyond the human body or something.

I mean, monks do train. I don't think I've seen many any players insist their monk got that way solely through meditation. It's literally supposed to be mind and body. And I'm not sure why that particular spiritual path granting mystical power should somehow be invalid. I mean, at least it's somewhat explained what exactly it is they do. I can't actually tell you if Druids get their powers from worship or "belief in nature" whatever that would mean or if nature itself somehow has a will to give them their powers. And Clerics seem to get their powers from believing in something super hard as often as they do from gods.

[Dienekes]

I can't believe that solitary flying fire-lizards would be a valid threat to people who can use tools and have civilizations. A company of archers can solve the dragon problem nearly trivially. As technology marches onwards, natural threats are increasingly irrelevant as we develop the means to suppress or overcome them. All anti-aircraft batteries, fire at will!

I don't actually have much against the punching thing. I mostly dislike the inner peace and ki and whatever crap meditation thing. Whether my setting is eastern or western inspired, martial power comes from martial training, not understanding of perfection beyond the human body or something.

I don't think so. English Longbows are just about the most powerful bows we know about, and they perform fairly poorly against plate armor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE

And in lore at least, dragon scales are supposed to be harder than that, with their breath weapon that is about equal to the longbow's kill range. That and longbowmen are pretty much terrible without some form of frontline to stop the enemy from reaching them. Which dragons, for obvious reasons, can kind of go around.

Maybe the company could be able to drop the dragon, but my money is more on the big lizard.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I can't believe anyone thinks a bunch of squishy monkeys would develop bows and trained archery regiments in a world with giant, flying, fire breathing lizards that are smarter than they are. Ok I'm done with the bit now


Well, good, play in that world. It's self consistent and logical, I see no problems. I'm not really interested in playing caveman simulator. I'm already questionably interested in play knight simulator.

That said, there's a lot of stuff that was dangerous to us in the real world where humans lived as humans evolved, and with the power of engineering we overcame that. I fully expect that humanity could overcome whatever other nasty in D&D world. Also, an average Adult Red Dragon is only Int16. It's not really smarter than humans. It's smarter than an average human, but it just takes one smart human to make the pointy and give it to everybody who isn't as smart. It also doesn't have useful manipulator appendages, so making instruments of supremacy is kind of hard.


I don't think so. English Longbows are just about the most powerful bows we know about, and they perform fairly poorly against plate armor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE

And in lore at least, dragon scales are supposed to be harder than that, with their breath weapon that is about equal to the longbow's kill range. That and longbowmen are pretty much terrible without some form of frontline to stop the enemy from reaching them. Which dragons, for obvious reasons, can kind of go around.

Maybe the company could be able to drop the dragon, but my money is more on the big lizard.

I was referencing 5e rules for them. Rules are the final lore for a setting.

With average dice, it takes about 150 human archers [about a company and a half] to shoot down a dragon in a single round of combat.

[Dienekes]

I was referencing 5e rules for them. Rules are the final lore.

I will just point out that is an odd statement to make in a discussion about how monks don't make sense, regardless of what the rules say. And leave it at that.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I will just point out that is an odd statement to make in a discussion about how monks don't make sense, regardless of what the rules say. And leave it at that.

The discussion is what we would change about the rules.

I don't like the lore implications of the monks' rules. Thus, I change them, so that it suits the way I like the game to be.



You are free to make dragons scarier if you don't think that 150 men shouldn't be able to kill a dragon.

I chose to present dragons as a sort of "the lizardmen are disguised as us and secretly controlling the world" kind of threat as opposed to a wandering murdermonster. To do this, I re-introduce their shapeshifting property from some edition past. I have changed the rules to suit the lore I wish to construct.



Almost all the discussion about why the change rules is either because the rules seem in-congruent with the way the GM in question wants the lore to be, or because it's really clunky.

[Luccan]

The discussion is what to change about the rules.

I don't like the lore implications of the monks' rules. Thus, I change them, so that it suits the way I like the game to be.

Are you going respond to the monk based point of my last post or are we done discussing? For my part, I'm sorry if the more flippant part of my response made you think you needed to defend your thoughts on the versimilitude of dragons vs medieval archery.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Are you going respond to the monk based point of my last post or are we done discussing? For my part, I'm sorry if the more flippant part of my response made you think you needed to defend your thoughts on the versimilitude of dragons vs medieval archery.

Sure!


I mean, monks do train. I don't think I've seen many any players insist their monk got that way solely through meditation. It's literally supposed to be mind and body. And I'm not sure why that particular spiritual path granting mystical power should somehow be invalid. I mean, at least it's somewhat explained what exactly it is they do. I can't actually tell you if Druids get their powers from worship or "belief in nature" whatever that would mean or if nature itself somehow has a will to give them their powers. And Clerics seem to get their powers from believing in something super hard as often as they do from gods.

There's already three, maybe four if you include psionics, different power sources, most of which are congruent with things I am willing to make true about the world I am drafting.

The monk gets special different power from a special different source that is unrelated to any of the other classes and established features of the world and doesn't interact with it. Monks are magical, but they're not divine or arcane [or psionic]. If they were physical, they'd be fighters. It's an extra source of power that's disjointed from the rest of the world and only used to do one thing by one class, that is constructed around a flavor that just doesn't belong in my setting.

Also, monk is a really weird name for it. Monks, both eastern and western, are for the most part dedicated to understanding their religious doctrine. if they get power from this understanding, they'd be Clerics. They may also be warriors because their religious doctrine has some clause about martial prowess, or because they're defenders of the faith, or something, but then they'd be Paladins. If they're faithful, but don't get power, then they'd be Fighters with a religion.

It is my opinion that I think "martial focused on fist-fighting" should be a Fighter subclass, "martial focused on religious enlightenment" already exists as Paladin, and "religious study and higher understanding gives power" already exists as Cleric. Thus, the class Monk just exists to place it's associated power source and ideology into the game as a separate and special class.



Honestly, a Cleric can worship harmony and balance, and I have no problem with it because it doesn't act likes it's special compared to a person worshiping the lightning that burned down his farm or a man on a cloud because a firebrand preacher said he's going to burn for an eternity if he doesn't. So can a Paladin. I really object to the monk because of it's implementation and what it says to me.


As a side note, as mentioned, I was kind of being sarcastic when I said that fists don't beat swords. Grappling was in fact a valid means of attacking armored targets, and I can definitely see fistfighting being a valid offense in small-team skirmish scenarios even against armored targets. A punch to the whatever still hurts even behind armor. I think it should be a fighter subclass.

[Nifft]

Here’s one that I think some people may push back on. But I would like to remove just about all Bonus Action attacks.

With maybe the exception of the Berserker Barbarian, whose entire shtick is just about doing massive damage and attacks. I think Bonus Actions should be reserved for quick set up and utility abilities. As soon as Bonus Actions start becoming part of the characters standard round of damage it dominates the slot. And we see less dynamic play instead of more.


Oh my god, yes this. In a game with relatively restricted access to bonus action attacks (no feats, for example), the Berserker is actually a decently powerful option, and it just feels right. But as is, getting bonus action attacks is just so easy. This both invalidates the weaker methods of getting bonus action attacks, and monopolizes the bonus action as a damage source. Bonus actions should be more for utility options, except for the the rare exception.

Yes, agreed.

If there were mechanics for Bonus Action attacks which were unreliable, those might be acceptable, because you'd want a variety of other options available for rounds when the unreliable attack doesn't trigger.

But the feat-granted Bonus Action attacks are dull in their dominance.

[Petrocorus]

These are fair, but I still have a problem with the fact that I'll only use it because I have to, not because it's ever really the best option*.
It is the best option for anyone who hasn't Dex or Str as a primary (or a dwarf). I.E anyone who's not a martial.



There's a reason Fighters have a light or heavy armor option in their kit and not a medium one.
I'm sorry, but i don't really understand what you mean here.


I guess I'd just like it to have a use for actual warriors that wasn't "you aren't quite able to stop using this armor yet".
I see your point.
But I think it just match common archetype. You've got the big guy who use a big heavy armor because he's not that fast to begin with and the agile speedster who only uses light armor not to hinder his movements.
Between them, medium armor is a compromise that just becomes useless at some point to anyone who is a specialist warrior.
It is not realistic historically, but it does fit common gaming and fictional archetype.




Though now that I'm looking at it, I really just don't like armor in this edition period. You basically always want the biggest bonus in the category ASAP. With maybe the exception of medium armor, where you could argue there's a trade off between AC and Stealth between Breastplate and Half Plate, the only penalty to getting the highest AC in your preferred category is gold. If there's somewhere I feel 5e could definitely use more nuance it's the combat equipment. This mean weapons too, the inexplicable existence of the War Pick and the inclusion of the Trident as its own weapon baffle me to this day.

Yeah, the money thing is probably just a way to prevent the Str builds to max up the AC way faster than the Dex build who usually need 2 ASI.
I stand with you on the need for more diversity in combat equipment.




*keep in mind that 15 Str is only for Plate and Splint. A 14 Str more than covers you for Chain Mail, which you can start with, and then you only need to spend half an ASI ever to make full use of heavy armor, but your AC before that still matches everything but half plate. So I'm only gonna use that on a cleric if I have to anyway.

As a Cleric, do you have an ASI to spare on 1 point of AC?

[JNAProductions]

As a Claric, do you have an ASI to spare on 1 point of AC?

I mean... Yeah?

Clerics are pretty dang SAD.

[Tanarii]

I mean... Yeah?

Clerics are pretty dang SAD.
Str for melee, Dex 14 for medium armor, Con to tank, Wis for spells.

[Luccan]

Str for melee, Dex 14 for medium armor, Con to tank, Wis for spells.

Except we're discussing a HA cleric vs an MA one, so Dex is a dump stat.

[Pleh]

Seeing many votes to remove or change how short rests work (particularly with classes like Monk and Warlock who are supposed to thrive with short rest mechanics), I'm reminded of Star Wars Saga Edition with Jedi getting their Force Suite back after 1 minute outside of combat.

How would you folks feel if that's more how short rests worked? Being able to use HD to heal in such a short time may seem strong, but you still only have so many HD per long rest and can't use it until combat is over anyway.

Playing this way would definitely lean further into the philosophy that HP is Luck or Grit rather than Meat. Short rests like this would mean losing HP in combat is more "wearing down your defenses" than directly wounding you. Giving you a minute to clear your mind resets your focus, but you can only keep going like that by so much before you have to long rest.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Rogues are like..' the definition of SAD. all you need is DEX if you go for theif.

[KorvinStarmast]

With average dice, it takes about 150 human archers [about a company and a half] to shoot down a dragon in a single round of combat.
First, ya gotta get organized. (Jokes about herding cats deleted for the sake of brevity)
Then, the archers may need to deal with that Frightful Presence thing.
What was that WIS DC save again?
And, they need to win initiative, and it not be night time.

[Dienekes]

Str for melee, Dex 14 for medium armor, Con to tank, Wis for spells.

Eh? If you’re planning to tank and do Str based melee you’re gonna be picking one of the subclasses that grant heavy armor and completely ignore Dex. Or, you’re planning on using cantrips and spells predominantly and you can pretty much ignore Str and Dex outside of your initial ability scores.

This is like saying Fighters need both Str and Dex for their great sword and their longbow. It’s not wrong, per se. I’ve just never seen anyone build their character that way.

[Petrocorus]

I have never understood the complaint against 'edginess.' We are all playing a game where we pretend (/take on the role of) we are elves and dwarves and wizards and knights, but there are some people who are doing it wrong by wanting to pretend to be something special?
I'm not really sure about the definition of "edginess".


I mean... Yeah?

Clerics are pretty dang SAD.
You need 2 ASI to max Wis, you need Warcaster or Res (Con) or maybe both. So, pumping Str to 15 is at best in 4th position on your list of priority.
And you may want also other things like MI, or to pump you Con or your Dex.
YMMV obviously, put if i'd play a Cleric, unless he's a dwarf or a + Str race, i probably won't bother with heavy armor.
Actually, that's rather the contrary, if i want to play a Cleric in HA, i will make him a dwarf or a race with a Str bonus, so not to use ASI on it.

[Tanarii]

Eh? If you’re planning to tank and do Str based melee you’re gonna be picking one of the subclasses that grant heavy armor and completely ignore Dex. Or, you’re planning on using cantrips and spells predominantly and you can pretty much ignore Str and Dex outside of your initial ability scores.

This is like saying Fighters need both Str and Dex for their great sword and their longbow. It’s not wrong, per se. I’ve just never seen anyone build their character that way.
Sorry I though we were talking about medium armor clerics. I mean I suppose if you wanna go all pansy-ass you can just go Dex 14 / Wis and sit in the back plinking things with your Sacred Lazer. Exactly what you should do if you wanna SAD a cleric. But clearly not a real cleric. (It's a real cleric I just have trouble understanding adjusting my grognardness to it. Still. After decades.)

[LordCdrMilitant]

First, ya gotta get organized. (Jokes about herding cats deleted for the sake of brevity)
Then, the archers may need to deal with that Frightful Presence thing.
What was that WIS DC save again?
And, they need to win initiative, and it not be night time.

Longbow 150/600 outrange Frightful Presence. Even assuming all disadvantage shots hit, the dragon's 80' move does not permit it to actually get into range of frightful presence and use it, because:

On the turn that a dragon moves to within 200 ft of the archers but outside of 150ft [technically outside of 180ft, since the archers can advance and fire], they can retreat 60 ft by moving and dashing, thus placing themselves between 210 and 260 feet away from the dragon. On the dragon's next turn, if it moves normally, it winds up beyond frightening presence range, and either in kill range or still in the range bracket where the archers can retreat another 60 ft and do this again next turn.

If the dragon dashes, it can't frightful presence.

If it uses it's legendary action to close the range after the first archer moves, it's still out of it's threat range, can't attack with anything, and the rest of the archers don't have to retreat and can pincushion it.

[Telwar]

Seeing many votes to remove or change how short rests work (particularly with classes like Monk and Warlock who are supposed to thrive with short rest mechanics), I'm reminded of Star Wars Saga Edition with Jedi getting their Force Suite back after 1 minute outside of combat.

How would you folks feel if that's more how short rests worked? Being able to use HD to heal in such a short time may seem strong, but you still only have so many HD per long rest and can't use it until combat is over anyway.

Playing this way would definitely lean further into the philosophy that HP is Luck or Grit rather than Meat. Short rests like this would mean losing HP in combat is more "wearing down your defenses" than directly wounding you. Giving you a minute to clear your mind resets your focus, but you can only keep going like that by so much before you have to long rest.

That's fine with me. It might upset people who think of HP as absolute meat, but I don't mind that at all.

An hour seems ridiculously long for a short rest, and that is absolutely a perception problem *to me*. To be absolutely fair, unless you're in an hours count sort of situation, it doesn't *really* matter, but it does really hurt when you are, say, chasing someone/something. Sure, the 5 minutes in 4e may have been a little short, but I'd rather go short rather than long on short rests. One of my games has a 30-minute short rest, which feels better, even though it's not like we have much time pressure, since we made it into the Tomb pretty quickly.

I'd also like everyone to have something useful that resets on short rests so you are encouraged to take them more often. Though to be fair, most classes have something natively that resets on a short rest, except barbarians (with their daily rages), rangers (with daily spells, and they have their own problems, as per other threads), rogues (who have no reset resources unless they're an Arcane Trickster), and the poor, poor sorcerer. But fighters, monks, and warlocks get waaaayyy more benefit out of a short rest than a cleric, wizard, or paladin.

[Pleh]

I'd also like everyone to have something useful that resets on short rests so you are encouraged to take them more often. Though to be fair, most classes have something natively that resets on a short rest, except barbarians (with their daily rages), rangers (with daily spells, and they have their own problems, as per other threads), rogues (who have no reset resources unless they're an Arcane Trickster), and the poor, poor sorcerer. But fighters, monks, and warlocks get waaaayyy more benefit out of a short rest than a cleric, wizard, or paladin.

On the point of Barbarians, I would like to see how differently they played if their "rages per day" were changed to "free rages per day," which is to say after they've used their free rages, each additional rage gives them a point of exhaustion when the rage ends.

[Agent-KI7KO]

Find the MAD classes like Barbarians, and Monks. Give them an extra ASI.

Release everything in UA Class Features Variants

Get Sorcerers more spells known.

Make Warlock Mystic Arcanum more flexible (allow switching once per week or day or whatever).

Give all fighters Maneuvers, but keep Battlemaster as the undisputed king of maneuvers (larger die, more dice, more maneuvers learned, etc).

[Petrocorus]

Longbow 150/600 outrange Frightful Presence. Even assuming all disadvantage shots hit, the dragon's 80' move does not permit it to actually get into range of frightful presence and use it, because:

On the turn that a dragon moves to within 200 ft of the archers but outside of 150ft [technically outside of 180ft, since the archers can advance and fire], they can retreat 60 ft by moving and dashing, thus placing themselves between 210 and 260 feet away from the dragon. On the dragon's next turn, if it moves normally, it winds up beyond frightening presence range, and either in kill range or still in the range bracket where the archers can retreat another 60 ft and do this again next turn.

If the dragon dashes, it can't frightful presence.

Saying in theory the average damage output of 150 basic archer is enough to kill an Adult Red Dragon in one round is one (true) thing in 5E.
But starting to argue this is how it is gonna play out is another thing.

You're making a lot of assumption on your archers, beside the fact they are apparently capable to dash and shoot in the same turn.
That they are perfectly organised and coordinated. That they have enough mobility. That they all have clear line of sight. That they were not surprised by the attack while in their encampment. That they have a perfect morale. That the dragon cannot use hit-and-run tactics between buildings. Etc.
Just like if the combat happens in clear open field in the light of day, and they knew the dragon was coming.
You're also assuming 5E rules, which was not the case at the beginning of the point. In 3.5, there would be no match.

With this kind of assumption, i could reply the dragon attacked the town at night and caught the archers in their bed. Or that he uses the spell casting option and can approach them invisibly to breath half of them to a quick but painful death. Or hide behind a building, get out, breath, then hide behind another building, and keep flying from cover to cover until his breath recharges.


I don't think so. English Longbows are just about the most powerful bows we know about, and they perform fairly poorly against plate armor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE
Thank you soooo much for this link.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Saying in theory the average damage output of 150 basic archer is enough to kill an Adult Red Dragon in one round is one (true) thing in 5E.
But starting to argue this is how it is gonna play out is another thing.

You're making a lot of assumption on your archers, beside the fact they are apparently capable to dash and shoot in the same turn.
That they are perfectly organised and coordinated. That they have enough mobility. That they all have clear line of sight. That they were not surprised by the attack while in their encampment. That they have a perfect morale. That the dragon cannot use hit-and-run tactics between buildings. Etc.
Just like if the combat happens in clear open field in the light of day, and they knew the dragon was coming.
You're also assuming 5E rules, which was not the case at the beginning of the point. In 3.5, there would be no match.

With this kind of assumption, i could reply the dragon attacked the town at night and caught the archers in their bed. Or that he uses the spell casting option and can approach them invisibly to breath half of them to a quick but painful death. Or hide behind a building, get out, breath, then hide behind another building, and keep flying from cover to cover until his breath recharges.


Uhh... they don't need to dash and shoot. They just need to dash. Next round, they shoot. Basically, they're forcing the dragon to end it's turn more than 120' away, and if it ends within 150', it gets shot to death.

Also, this is a 5e subforum about 5e rules. 3.5e matchups don't matter. And if it did, it'd probably warrant switching to mass combat. Really, it warrants switching to mass combat anyway, I just don't know about 5e mass combat rules.

And as for "attacks at night", that applies to anything. The party could attack at night and get away with it, and the party hides a lot better.




As for the effect on armor... I agree. As I said before, armor is way too weak in D&D. I would at least start by striking bonus AC from dex, as mentioned, so that heavy armor is comparatively valid, and then increase the AC bonus from armor or something. HA is okay at low levels, but when your AC never goes up but your to-hit goes up, it degrades really fast.

[KorvinStarmast]

Next round, they shoot. No, they don't. Most of them run. I think that you missed a somewhat important line that I typed.

And, they need to win initiative, and it not be night time. They either can't see at night, or they can see 60' if they are elves.
Dragons are not stupid. :smallwink:

And in the dark, the chances that Death from Above, aka dragon, may get surprise isn't trivial. Depends: moonless night? Overcast. Pick an unexpected direction?

Your "white board" response doesn't make a very good case.

On the other hand, if you go into Volo's and get a force made up of Archers (Who get two attacks), or the MM and get Scouts, who can shoot twice in a turn, you can cut your archer force to 75 and reduce its foot print. Better chance to conceal that body of troops, and their attack bonus helps. And the archers may get you some damage spikes.

Traits
Archer’s Eye (3/Day): As a Bonus Action, the archer can add 1d10 to its next Attack or damage roll with a Longbow or Shortbow.

Actions
Multiattack: The archer makes two attacks with its Longbow. But NPCs that capable might get a little pricey.

[LordCdrMilitant]

No, they don't. Most of them run. I think that you missed a somewhat important line that I typed.
They either can't see at night, or they can see 60' if they are elves.
Dragons are not stupid. :smallwink:

And in the dark, the chances that Death from Above, aka dragon, may get surprise isn't trivial. Depends: moonless night? Overcast. Pick an unexpected direction?

Your "white board" response doesn't make a very good case.

On the other hand, if you go into Volo's and get a force made up of Archers (Who get two attacks), or the MM and get Scouts, who can shoot twice in a turn, you can cut your archer force to 75 and reduce its foot print. Better chance to conceal that body of troops, and their attack bonus helps. And the archers may get you some damage spikes.
But NPCs that capable might get a little pricey.

Why would they run? The dragon can't activate the fear effect. They've not got reason to be afraid, if it comes into range, it dies. Real life humans have charged face first into far worse.


I mean, it's not like the counter makes a good case. You can rig a scenario however you want in actual play, and humans can be intelligent too.


Of course, there are greater questions about circumstance:
Why would an intelligent dragon attack a town filled with pointy in the first place? The pointy can kill it, and mathematically probably will. There's very little to be gained fro doing so anyway. It's not doing for for nationalism or because its lord said so [why most humans are willing to turn each others cities into craterfields], and it's not like it's going to be a strategic position for a war when the dragon is a lone actor. If it wants wealth, honor, and power it doesn't want to destroy the town: the town can pay it taxes at the very least if alive and reasonably in favor of the dragon, and can't give it anything it dead. Dragons are intelligent enough to know that and not live by themselves in a cave with their 16 INT.

[Petrocorus]

Uhh... they don't need to dash and shoot. They just need to dash. Next round, they shoot. Basically, they're forcing the dragon to end it's turn more than 120' away, and if it ends within 150', it gets shot to death.

Then i misunderstood a line in your previous post.



And as for "attacks at night", that applies to anything. The party could attack at night and get away with it, and the party hides a lot better.

A party of 150 archers?

Anyway, there is still a lot of assumption in all of this. And if it would be stupid for said dragon to charge in plain daylight a company of archers ready to shoot him, there are still many scenario where he could win, even easily in some case.



As for the effect on armor... I agree. As I said before, armor is way too weak in D&D. I would at least start by striking bonus AC from dex, as mentioned, so that heavy armor is comparatively valid, and then increase the AC bonus from armor or something.
I don't understand what you mean in the part i bolded.


HA is okay at low levels, but when your AC never goes up but your to-hit goes up, it degrades really fast.
To be fair, this is also the case for monsters.
Their AC do rise, but it start weaker than the PC's and reach 19 at CR 20 on average. I don't know if there are monster in the MM with an AC above 22, the ones of ancient dragons.

[JackPhoenix]

Of course, there are greater questions about circumstance:
Why would an intelligent dragon attack a town filled with pointy in the first place? The pointy can kill it, and mathematically probably will. There's very little to be gained fro doing so anyway. It's not doing for for nationalism or because its lord said so [why most humans are willing to turn each others cities into craterfields], and it's not like it's going to be a strategic position for a war when the dragon is a lone actor. If it wants wealth, honor, and power it doesn't want to destroy the town: the town can pay it taxes at the very least if alive and reasonably in favor of the dragon, and can't give it anything it dead. Dragons are intelligent enough to know that and not live by themselves in a cave with their 16 INT.

Terrorizing the town, burning their fields, stopping their trade and similar tactics create pretty good incentive for the town leaders to consider paying off the dragon, assuming the dragon is out for treasures and not just an anus who doesn't want to share its territory with a bunch of hairless monkeys. And the dragon doesn't necessarily need to get in the archer's range to deal with them... rocks, diseased corpses or burning junk works just as well when dropped by big flying monster as when launched by a siege weapon.

[Willie the Duck]

I'm not really sure about the definition of "edginess".

That certainly makes discussing it hard. Regardless, if edginess is this thing Pex mentioned about being a spotlight hog, it is a problem. If it is simply 'wanting to be special' in your roleplayed character, I contend that that is a universal state.

Regarding the other subtopics that have sprung up --

Monks: this is a 'What would you want to' thread, and as such there are no wrong answers. If one doesn't want monks in your game, fine (neither did Gary). On the other hand, the clerics in the game were based on Van Helsing (Hammer Horror Van Helsing, not literary Van Helsing), so having Kwai Chang Caine in the game is par for the course, and to my mind does not stand out as inconsistent to general theme.

Archers versus Dragon: If 5e makes it such that a dragon rushing hundreds of archers would be suicide, good! Bounded accuracy was implemented specifically such that high level PCs and Monsters could not ignore masses of low-level threats. Whether the specifics of this example are correct or not seems like picking nits (although, yes, most dragons should be smart enough not to do so).

[MrStabby]

Changing the proportion of character power that comes from the class, the subclass, the background and the race.

Too much comes from the class - too little from the others. Something like a free racial feat at 6th/15th level or something like that would help to tease out different identities a bit better. Background weakness is a well trodden path already. The balance between the class and the subclass doesn't give enough power to what I think is the most flavourful part of a character. A Samurai and a Champion feel like they play pretty similarly, likewise a totem barbarian and a storm herald or an enchanter and a conjuration wizard... sure there is some difference between them, I am not saying there isn't, but that I think that the game would benefit from more differentiation between them.

[Luccan]

Changing the proportion of character power that comes from the class, the subclass, the background and the race.

Too much comes from the class - too little from the others. Something like a free racial feat at 6th/15th level or something like that would help to tease out different identities a bit better. Background weakness is a well trodden path already. The balance between the class and the subclass doesn't give enough power to what I think is the most flavourful part of a character. A Samurai and a Champion feel like they play pretty similarly, likewise a totem barbarian and a storm herald or an enchanter and a conjuration wizard... sure there is some difference between them, I am not saying there isn't, but that I think that the game would benefit from more differentiation between them.

I think if you want subclasses to feel super distinct from each other, you're gonna need to separate them out into classes again.

[Theodoxus]

Some really interesting ideas in this thread. I already did an iteration of revamping 5E (I call it 4.75E since I used 4th Ed as a baseline and added in 5E concepts that I liked better).

I'm using Covid-Time to revamp the system. One pass was to go with the triumvirate class system, but I kinda fell into the trap Morty was talking about and backed off it. I still like the idea for magic users to basically pick casting stat (Cha, Con, Int or Wis), casting style (Vancian, Spontaneous, Prepared or Pact) and Source (book, god, innate or patron). Mix and match as you desire. I'm still trying to figure out spell lists... I also dig the old sphere/school dichotomy and my system is built around 12s, so I added the 4 essences from PF2 (Life, Matter, Mind, and Spirit) - which makes healing spells nice, moving them out of evocation into the Life school. I was having a hard time trying to keep evokers from getting healing spells on their native spell list...

I also really like the idea of moving spell casting subclasses out and replacing them with multiclass options. For instance, a fighter/mage could earn the eldritch knight abilities as it levels Probably at various class combinations. Fighter 1/Mage 2 for instance would unlock the 3rd level EK abilities. Fighter 5/Mage 2 or Fighter 3/Mage 4 the 7th level, etc. It'd be the same character level, but would allow the player more freedom to be more fighter-y or more mage-y as they level (but still have a minimum level in a class to make sure they still have the essence of the original subclass.

I already offer my players "Paragon" classes for each of the core races. Typically a subclass not available to other races. It lets them play a Dwarf or Elf, etc instead of cleric or paladin. It's pretty popular. I also tied level 1 attribute bonuses to the class and background rather than the race, as I felt that made a lot more sense. Dwarves are still pretty popular, but I haven't had a dwarf cleric since that change.

[CapnWildefyr]

Here are a few things that I think 5e can improve on, that I don't think were brought up yet. (I'll be honest, I didn't read every single one of the zillion entries in this thread but I did skim them.)
1. Move the wild mage to be a wizard subclass. I just think the fluff fits better there.
2. Give sorcerers a few more spells and make the optional spell point system standard for them -- and block it for everyone else. That way, because of the flexibility, you've got a real reason to give up breadth of spell selection to be a sorcerer. In my group we used to use arcs & winds back in 2e. It did make wizards powerful on short adventuring days but still you couldn't just cast all high-level spells -- both because of type of spells needed round to round and the fact that powering through all your points makes you irrelevant (or dead) in longer or more complex combats.
3. Allow PCs to pick up a skill every 5 or 6 levels (in addition to asi/feat, not instead).
4. I like the idea of increasing saves over time (as a general concept). Your non-proficient saves shouldn't stay flat. Maybe whenever you gain a proficiency bonus point, you can add a single point to two of your non-proficient saves.
5. Monster base ACs stink. So many of them seem terribly low. What good is having 200 hp if you get skewered because the average character at higher levels only needs to roll a 6? Yes monsters like hill giants dish out a lot of damage too but I just DM'd a combat with 2 hill giants, 4 PCs. Giants lasted 5 rounds, and that was only because 1 PC was fighting each of them.

[thestatusjoe]

abandon the alignment system and let players behave how they want to behave. Ethics are more complicated than nine boxes.

I've always thought (well, ever since 5th edition came about) that the "Ideals" in the character background charts and the DMG would serve better than alignment (except for cosmic beings like angels, devils, undead, etc who have alignment baked into them). Then when you use magic to determine alignment or whatever, it tells you the alignment associated with their Ideal. It gives players more to think about and makes the Ideals an even more important part of the game.