What are your DND hot takes?

[Albert]

What are your most controversial DND hot takes guaranteed to elicit eye-rolls and outrage? Mine are as follows:

1. Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon are overrated
2. GWM is overrated
3. Wizards are overrated
4. Paladin/Warlock is overdone
5. Sentinel is overrated
6. Emo rogues and horny bards are actually fun to have in a party
7. Sorcerers should be CON based not CHA based
8. Shopping, making plans, and gathering information are all extremely boring
9. Barbarians should be the noob class, not Fighters
10. Short rests take way too long

[Tanarii]

The best way to play 5e is without the variant Feats rules. Or if you use them, carefully curate them and remove some of the options.

3e/5e style Multiclassing is inherently busted. There's no way to fix it, because the concept is flawed at the root level.

Arcane full casters should have less hit points, and casting in melee should be more difficult.

Using a ranged weapon in melee or firing into melee should be more difficult.

Side initiative, especially with declaration then resolution, promotes player engagement more than individual initiative.
Individual initiative does prevent piling it on, but only when the DM doesn't roll one initiative for all monsters or a few large groups of them. (Otherwise it's still UGOWEGO.)

[MrStabby]

1) Monk is underrated. Its a bit niche and needs things like a featless game without magic weapons... but its really good in the right campaign.
2) Damage is really effective. It seems to be something of a shoboleth to say casters should focus on non damage effects - a view of serious people who appreciate the subtlety and range of what a caster has to offer and want everyone else to know they appreciate this. On the other hand fireball to the face of a bunch of enemies can still end a fight more quickly and with fewer resources expended than a lot of other spells faffing about with illusions or wall etc.. Not that there is no truth to the other view - just that brutal, raw damage realy still has its place.
3) Most games tha go bad have the fun sucked out of them by players seeking an advantage rather than by a bad DM.
4) Divine Inervention is one of the best designed abilities in the game, but wish is one of the worst
5) Spell lists are way too broad - casters should have much tighter themes and there should be no generalist caster class.

[loki_ragnarock]

1 Morale should return as a monster statistic.

[KorvinStarmast]

6. Emo rogues and horny bards are actually fun to have in a party
Emo rogues are not. Emo anything is not.

7. Sorcerers should be CON based not CHA based
No. sorcs do not have a place in the game, remove any Cha based caster; convert bards and warlocks to INT and paladins to wisdom.

8. Shopping, making plans, and gathering information are all extremely boring
Nope.

The best way to play 5e is without the variant Feats rules. Or if you use them, carefully curate them and remove some of the options. Disagree.


3e/5e style Multiclassing is inherently busted. There's no way to fix it, because the concept is flawed at the root level. Playing without MC is a good idea.


Arcane full casters should have less hit points, and casting in melee should be more difficult. Be careful. I agree with the first, but there are a lot of melee spells (like shocking grasp) so your second needs a lot of caveats.


Using a ranged weapon in melee or firing into melee should be more difficult. Learn how to use the partial cover rules. :smallwink:


Side initiative, especially with declaration then resolution, promotes player engagement more than individual initiative. It also creates snowballing. And it really depends on the group.

1) Monk is underrated. Yes.

3) Most games tha go bad have the fun sucked out of them by players seeking an advantage rather than by a bad DM. It's not either / or.

4) Divine Inervention is one of the best designed abilities in the game, but wish is one of the worst Hmm, DI is a neat ability, but wish has a lot going for it. ,

5) Spell lists are way too broad - casters should have much tighter themes and there should be no generalist caster class. Won't disagree, since I'll not play a wizard in this edition.


1 Morale should return as a monster statistic. +elevnty :smallsmile:

[TyGuy]

Races should have varying ability score caps.

WotC and D&D are going to follow the trajectory of Blizzard Activision and WoW.

[Dienekes]

-Races in 5e have never been actually interesting from a roleplay perspective. And the homogenization has not really improved that. All that said, creating more interesting mechanical effects to use in combat is not a bad thing.

-It took WotC about 10 years longer than it should to realize if you want an optional feature like a race or feat or something to be good at a specific archetype or class, it is counterproductive to just give it a feature from that class. What you’ve actually done is make that race or feature worse at being tied to the desired class. As now a portion of the power budget is wasted. I should have had to spell that out to them in UA less than a year ago. This is common sense.

-Bonus Action attacks were a terrible idea.

-Tying mechanical complexity on a direct line with magic was a mistake. We have 2 mundane frontline classes: Fighter and Barbarian. Pick one. Make it simple as dirt. Pick the other, go hog wild with complex mechanics. We have two Arcane full casters: Sorcerer and Wizard. Pick one, find a way to make it about as simple as playing a Barbarian. Let the other be as weird and difficult to master as you want.

-Every class that doesn’t have spells should have some out of combat role and have actual features to improve themselves at that role. Designating some classes as being “the skill classes” was a terrible idea. Even more baffling that one of them was also a full caster.

-Ranger isn’t really a good foundation for a class. All Aragorn is, was a Fighter with some forest flavor that maybe knew one healing spell. And it’s ambiguous if he was actually casting spells or if he just knew more about healing because he was trained by elves. Knows the wild, is not really the foundation of a class. That’s at best added flavor for a subclass. It actually would be pretty fine having Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue having various wild themed subclasses.

-Even if we keep Rangers, I’m not really certain why they’re the “has a pet” class. I can think of a lot of characters in fiction with warrior-pets, most weren’t what I’d consider Rangers. It’s really just Drizzt and Jon Snow. And if we add Snow, we gotta add all the others with warrior-pets in that book series. Which, last I checked included the clearly Druid Bran, Robb the Fighter, didn’t last long but Arya the Rogue, and, oh yeah, the Mother of Dragons whose what? Some kind of expert/aristocrat? She has magic because of her bloodline. So maybe we can make the case for very low level Sorcerer.

-If the Shield spell was released today, it would be derided as ridiculous power creep that deserves to be banned. And they'd be right.

[Jophiel]

Alignment as a game system is fine and most complaints about it feel more like bad playing/refereeing than a reason to discard the mechanic.

[Pex]

There needs to be DC tables for skill use.

[Notafish]

Weapon damage should be based on class, not equipment choice.
It should be easier for characters to share actions to do cool things.
5e Warlocks need their own game, away from the other classes.
Players knowing a monster's stat block and acting on that knowledge in-character is fine and doesn't need to be justified.
The GM making a custom monster that isn't fully-statted is also fine.
Hit points are not meat.



Shopping, making plans, and gathering information are all extremely boring Hard agree on shopping. The other two are fun for me, but only in 3rd-person/out-of-character.

[Jerrykhor]

Stacking AC is fine, DM should not be worried of players having very high AC.

High level features should not be ribbons.

High level features should give more damage for martial classes.

Barbarian capstone is overrated.

[clash]

All full casters should use the warlock casting system with their own invocations.

[animorte]

Spell levels should stop at 5th (see Sidekick Spellcaster). Remove anything above that or balance it to 5th level spells.

There should be fewer/simpler base classes, allowing for more distinct subclasses.

Monks are the only balanced class.

[Cheesegear]

What are your most controversial DND hot takes guaranteed to elicit eye-rolls and outrage? Mine are as follows:

1. Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon are overrated
2. GWM is overrated
3. Wizards are overrated
4. Paladin/Warlock is overdone
5. Sentinel is overrated
7. Sorcerers should be CON based not CHA based
8. Shopping, making plans, and gathering information are all extremely boring
9. Barbarians should be the noob class, not Fighters
10. Short rests take way too long

Weird. I didn't eye-roll or feel angry at all. These takes are freezing cold.

1. D&D isn't hard, you're just bad at it.
2. Your character is fictional and not real, so you shouldn't care if it dies. Just make a new one.
3. Power-gaming is a complete waste of time because the DM should move the goal posts,
4. Quantum Ogre'ing your party is totally fine (not Teleporting Ogre, that's dumb),
5. Your players having agency isn't important, only that they think they do
6. Tracking rations and water is a good thing and spells that negate the need for food and/or water should be removed from the game.
7. There is no such thing as Rule 0 if the players are willing to leave to the table.
8. DND Beyond is the worst thing to happen to D&D in a long time.
9. Tasha's Cauldron should never have been printed. No. I don't mean 'Some of it's good, some of it's objectionable.' I mean throw the whole book out.
10. Any spell with a description longer than two paragraphs, should be removed from the game.

11. Ranged attacks should have the potential to hit friendly creatures within 5 ft. of the target if they miss ('Crit miss' or 'miss by 5/10' or 'miss by more than half the creature's AC', I dunno the actual mechanics of it. I'm just annoyed when ranged characters say that combat is too easy...Meanwhile the Fighter is dead and the Paladin is bleeding out)

[Herbert_W]

1) Far too many people engage in motivated arguments against the RAW validity of certain exploits because they think that admitting that something works by RAW means admitting that it’s part of the game. This is fundamentally misguided. Calling something RAW-legal is not an endorsement of it as balanced, intended, sensible, fun, or in any way appropriate to use at an actual table. RAW means precisely rules as written - nothing less and nothing more. RAW can be crazy, stupid, and crazy stupid - and it’s still RAW.

2) 5e’s “natural language” rules writing is astoundingly bad. It’s not clear at all how many class features work. Just to pick one of many examples: can a wizard use arcane recovery if they’ve lost their spellbook? The issue here is that it’s possible for two people to read different interpretations of the same rule, not realize that the other interpretation exists, and then try to use the rule as they think it should work . . . where one of them is a player and the other a DM, leading to an unexpected and game-derailing discussion (or argument!) over what the rules really are. (In this example: by RAW, a wizard can recover “arcane energy”, whatever that is, by studying their spellbook. They also have a mechanically separate ability that lets them recover spell slots on a short rest once per day with no requirement for a spellbook. By RAI, it’s obvious that “arcane energy” is synonymous with spell slots and these two abilities are the same thing described in different words, but it also seems like the “by studying your spellbook” bit might be just fluff, so it’s not clear whether a spellbook is needed or not.)

3) The “guy at the gym” fallacy is entirely WOTC’s fault. Martial classes really do start as guys at the gym before they slowly morph into murderhobo Beowulf. At no point does the game clearly communicate to players that realistic human limits should no longer be expected to apply to martial characters.

4) There’s two ways to handle fictional races that may be interpreted as stand-ins for real-world ethnic groups. One is to acknowledge the analogy and depict the fictional race in a way that’s respectful towards their real-world counterpart. The other is to make the fictional race so monstrous or bizarre that nobody would ever mistake them for ersatz humans. The first way is what WOTC is being incrementally pushed towards, and it’s boring. The second is what should be done, and WOTC either doesn’t have the creativity or doesn’t have the guts.

5) Putting classes/feats/options into supplementary source books that are significantly more powerful than what’s in core is pay-to-win. We might be very charitable and say that this could be an accidental consequence of power creep, but I’m inclined to suspect that it’s deliberate.

6) If a player knows something that their character doesn’t, then that player can’t not metagame. They can only chose what sort of metagaming they perform. The only real solution to metagaming is to use enough homebrew (or procedurally generated) material that players won’t know things that their characters don’t. We’re all familiar with the classical abusive power metagaming, and the opposite-day anti-power metagaming that players sometimes engage in as a reaction to avoid power metagaming. You might also have seen a middle-path form of metagaming where players try to to figure out if and how, given what their character knows, they could reasonably arrive at the conclusion which the player knows to be correct - and these are all metagaming!

7) There is only one way to handle alignment that doesn't lead to misunderstandings and real-world moral arguments, and that's what LotFP does. In that game, alignment is an explicitly magical phenomena. Every real-world human who ever lived has been neutral under that game's definition of the term. A person may have an alignment even if they only acquired it by accident and desperately wish that they had not. (LotFP also ditches good/evil in favor of an exclusively lawful/chaotic system, but that's unnecessary. Explicitly severing in-game alignment from real-world morality is enough.)

8) Class-based game systems have inherent limitations that make them unsuitable for representing realistically complex people with realistically diverse skill sets. That doesn’t make them bad systems, just bad for certain types of game. We expect too much of our favourite class-based game and of our homebrew extensions of it.

[animorte]

-snip-
All of that was far too descriptive and well thought out to be considered hot takes, not that I didn’t love every second of reading it.

[Corran]

1. Increase the number of skills to, I dunno, 40-50. Then give me points to place in them instead of proficiencies.
2. Break down feats to become smaller benefits and hand them out every 2 or 3 character levels. More of them too.
3. Minimize spell overlap between casters. We need less spells in common, not more. Also on that point, get rid of subclasses that cover pretty much the same theme but for some reason exist under different classes.
4. Spell versatility is an awful feature. Might be good as the base of a some class's identity, or if it was one of multiple balanced options, but as is, it's simly awful.

[Dork_Forge]

A random list and I'll probably add more in another post later:

1) Wizards are slightly overturned and devoid of having an actual role or theme outside of 'I cast spellz'
2) Wizards, and casters in general but people normally say caster and then talk about Wizards, are not ZOMG powerful as some make them out to be
3) Martials are pretty much just fine
4) The Monk is a fun class that remains competitive
5) Warlock EB+AB+Hex is a stupid baseline for damage
6) Damage does matter and is an effective way to play the game, the numbers also don't need to be as high as some proclaim
7) The Bladesinger reprint is an abomination of Design
8) Switching over to prof bonus as a substitute for scaling things is stupid and bad way of doing things
9) Hit points matter, hit die size matters, and hit points are the ultimate, and final, defense.
10) So much of Tasha's was a mistake, but putting the race crap in the playerfacing side of things was just plain stupid. That is the realm of the DM, put it in the right section.
11) Aura of Vitality should have never gotten out of the hands of the Paladin and Battle Smith.
12) Races were clearly designed to be balanced a certain way. Abandoning all of that robs the game of flavour and what semblance of balance they established.
13) Putting stuff in book we are paying for to play test for the future is not okay. We are paying for finished products, not glorified UA because you got too money hungry and book happy. Respect the edition that made D&D a respectable household name.
14) Goodberry is a stupid spell. Using Goodberries for healing is incredibly annoying and usually ignores that each berry is meant to be a day's worth of food.
15) No, not every familiar can just pop a healing potion down your throat because the rules doesn't single out they need hands to do so. Owls feeding people potions in combat is moronic abuse of the rules and out of scope for the spell's purpose.
16) No, familiars are not always going to survive. No you won't easily have enough money to always cast it again. No you won't always have the actual component to cast it.
17) Saying spellcasters are so superior whilst also saying they should use a crossbow in Tier 1 is hilariously hypocritical.
18) Similar to above, claiming spellcasters are so superior and then bending over to use them as offmartials is hilariously hypocritical. Just use a martial.
19) The Mystic was fine, just polish the out of line Disciplines, restrict choice a little, and ship it. Who cares if they can cover so many bases when they're not particularly good at all of it? It's fun a fun, working class darn it.
20) Putting feats in backgrounds is a terrible idea. Just make a rule for everyone to get a feat at first level. Stop butchering existing design.
21) Stop handing spells out like candy through backgrounds and races. It defeats the point of spell lists.

[Xihirli]

I think the new 5e direction is good, it just doesn't actually work with the game that's been in place so far.
It's two different design philosophies running into each other and kinda meeting, partially because the PHB / DMG / MM trio of core rulebooks got published when the game was only half finished.

[Mastikator]

I think the game would be better without short rests. Having powers regenerate by encounter is fine, just have it regen when initiative is rolled.

[JackPhoenix]

90% of everything is crap. That includes stuff printed in the books and stuff suggested on the internet.

[Jerrykhor]

90% of everything is crap. That includes stuff printed in the books and stuff suggested on the internet.

Hottest take so far.

[Hytheter]

For all the gripes, the game overall is actually pretty good.

[rel]

5e works best without the optional rules for feats, multiclassing, and any content released after 2014. I already have 3.x if I want an extensive character creation minigame and universe simulator.

[Zhorn]

A hot take I have? To elicit outrage?

Mike Mearls' unfortunate involvement with serious drama of other people should not have impacted his involvement with 5e as it did, and if he was kept around on this edition it overall would be headed in a much more favourable direction.

[Millstone85]

A hot take I have? To elicit outrage?Wow, you sure picked a strong one!


if [Mike Mearls] was kept around on this edition it overall would be headed in a much more favourable direction.Probably so, yes. On this, I agree.


Mike Mearls' unfortunate involvement with serious drama of other people should not have impacted his involvement with 5e as it didHa ha, no. He was the boss, he received complaints about an employee harassing other employees, and he handled the situation completely backward. It is on him.

[Zhorn]

Ha ha, no. He was the boss, he received complaints about an employee harassing other employees, and he handled the situation completely backward. It is on him.
How he handled it was bad. But it also was not a d&d problem, it was a people problem.
The nature of the dispute should have never gone to a GAME DESIGNER to be resolved in the first place.

Should how he handled the situation disqualifying him from managing people for people related problems? yes.
But that's an entirely different take to;

One of the core designers who's approach and insight into game design led to the design of one of the most successful editions of d&d should be kept on and valued for what they were good at.

[LudicSavant]

Hottest take so far.

Ah, Sturgeon's Law. :smalltongue:

[SociopathFriend]

1. Choosing to play a jerk character makes you a jerk.
2. Doubly so if you make it a Rogue and proceed to steal from party members.
3. Triply so if you act affronted that they immediately decide the sneakiest git in the party is probably the one who stole their stuff.

Huh- it censored the word once despite me using it twice.

[Corran]

1. Choosing to play a jerk character makes you a jerk.
Oof!

2. Doubly so if you make it a Rogue and proceed to steal from party members.

Hey now, dont make it personal...
I've heard of some old golden days where there was a good excuse named kender.

[Cheesegear]

1. Choosing to play a jerk character makes you a jerk.

Tentatively agree.
There's a place for it in D&D...But that place isn't at my table.

[Trafalgar]

1) 5e is most fun at levels 5 and 6. Play at levels 8 and above become bogged down and slow.
2) D&D is not a video game. Don't DM it like it is.
3) D&D is not an 8 part epic high fantasy novel series. Don't DM it like it is.
4) Most people suck at roleplaying. No matter what the character race, alignment, background, etc, players are usually just playing themselves.
5) The free .pdf of the 5e basic rules is all you need. All other books and publications are optional and contribute to rules bloat.

[loki_ragnarock]

A hot take I have? To elicit outrage?

Mike Mearls' unfortunate involvement with serious drama of other people should not have impacted his involvement with 5e as it did, and if he was kept around on this edition it overall would be headed in a much more favourable direction.
That take is so hot I'm going to need some aloe vera after being exposed to it from nearly 93 million miles away.

Yowzahs.

[DarknessEternal]

Fighters, rogues, and monks are just as powerful as wizards.

[Cheesegear]

Fighters, rogues, and monks are just as powerful as wizards.

To add;

Fighters are better Rangers, Rogues, Barbarians and Monks, than Rangers, Rogues, Barbarians and Monks.

[Asmotherion]

-D&D 5e is too simple.
-Paladins should be Melee Clerics.
-Sorcerers are better than Wizards for their multiclass value.
-Damaging Cantrips should add their Spellcasting modifier to damage by default.
-Characters should gain feats every second or 3rd level, and feats should be a different resource, rather than the same as ASI. More customisation makes for a better game.
-Dead levels when you gain nothing should be eliminated.
-Every caster should get cantrips.
-Polymorph should give you access to the entire MM rather than just beasts.
-Summoning should give you access to the entire MM.
-Planar Binding should not be that expensive, or default to a year and a day duration.
-Spell Resistance should be a thing again.
-Fortitude/Reflex/Will saves should be a thing again.
-The resting mechanics need reworking. Why would you be at full HP after a long rest?
-Monks suffer from several balance issues, and are way too OP.

[Amechra]

D&D makes me sick.

Not in the sense of making me feel disgusted (though the mechanical focus on combat in conjunction with the Monster Manual isn't something I feel very comfortable with, especially in conjunction with their attempts to resolve complaints about bad optics piecemeal), but in the sense that it draws me back into unhealthy play patterns, bad game design paradigms, and general dark thoughts. I keep engaging with this literally toxic environment because I remember when it didn't make me sick, and so I keep trying for old time's sake.

I very much wish I could stop.

[Zhorn]

That take is so hot I'm going to need some aloe vera after being exposed to it from nearly 93 million miles away.

Yowzahs.
... yeah, but the OP wasn't asking for sunshine and rainbows :smalleek:

The whole thing was a throwing the baby out with the bathwater scenario.
The incident that it all spun out from should have been sent way up the chain to either HR with the necessary training to tackle the issue, or my personal stance; reported immediately to the police.
But instead it first landed on Mearls' desk, and he dun goofed big time.
He's good at game design, not at people, and he never seemed like he would have been equipped to handle such a situation in the first place.
Not going to defend how he handled the situation. It was a mess.


D&D makes me sick.
... in the sense that it draws me back into unhealthy play patterns, bad game design paradigms, and general dark thoughts. I keep engaging with this literally toxic environment because I remember when it didn't make me sick, and so I keep trying for old time's sake.

I very much wish I could stop.
I hear that. A few times I've forced myself into the "no d&d is better than bad d&d", but usually too late and I've already passed a heap of red flags, getting a decent way into rpg horror story territory.
I don't touch LFGS for games or players at all any more, and the tabletop club I interact with I've distanced myself to only using the discord and not interfacing with it in person anymore.
For players I've become hyper picky on who I let sit at my table (preferring either new players with no learned toxic behaviours, or older players mature enough to know what to not bring to the table), and have taken to a zero tolerance approach to behaviour I don't want intertwined with my hobby of choice

[Hal]

Effects that nullify a turn (Counterspell, Banishment, Paralysis, etc.) are not fun and the game would benefit from their absence.

[Jophiel]

Love Domain Cleric was fine for what it was trying to emulate (divinely smitten by the likes of Aphrodite). The spell list didn't even really allow you to "do that" which is ironic since it came in a UA with a bard and sorcerer who both have spells much more capable of "doing that" and no one complains about. If the issue was just the word "love", they should have changed it to Enchantment Domain or something instead of gutting the spell list.

[Luccan]

You should probably do Feats or Multiclassing, not both

[Selion]

Considering an average degree of optimization, fighters destroy combat encounters more than spellcasters (even at level 10+)
Spellcasters destroy out of combat encounters

Dipping that couple of levels in hexblade is usually not a great addiction to your character if you are in a balanced party composition

[Skrum]

Sounds like a bunch of people just want to play 3e

Anyway, I don't think this is a particularly hot take, but I think DND is far too bogged down with legacy concepts, particularly classes (and what each class does), vancian casting, and expansive spell lists.

[sethdmichaels]

- class is something players know about but characters don't need to. you can use the class mechanics and alter the lore or flavor as it's fun for you and fits in at your table. secular clerics, nonmusical bards, chaotic-neutral paladins and honest rogues are all fair game. multiclassing is totally fine because from the characters' perspective they *aren't* two "different classes."
- expanding on the above, reflavoring is affirmatively good, and *explicitly encouraged* by the game; all the provided lore in the books is optional and as flexible as your table wants. there's no need to stress yourself out figuring out the exact right class, race, god, patron, weapon to fulfill the picture you have in your head - take the mechanics of what exists and *make up your own story about it*.
- all full casters should get their "flavor" cantrip - specifically Prestidigitation, Druidcraft, or Thaumaturgy - for free. if you're capable of powerful magic you can do trivial (or occasionally useful) things with it.
- high level spells are too powerful and high level class features too trivial, but it's a problem that doesn't actually matter much because 98% of the game is played at low-to-mid levels.
- it's totally fine that there aren't robust mechanics for social encounters. lots of parts of the game don't need mechanics or even dice, and you're still playing D&D.

[Herbert_W]

. . . continuing with too-descriptive-to-be-hot takes:

9) Constitution is just an ability-score tax that we pay in order to have our characters stay playable. It fails to be an interesting way to differentiate characters. Basically nobody dumps or pumps it, unlike other ability scores. Eliminating constitution and just giving everyone a tad more HP and making con saves depend on remaining HP would actually improve the game - and I’m not suggesting that we should do that, just that the fact that this is true means that the constitution score isn’t doing what it should.

10) The basic, default, obvious way to build a warrior should be a balance of strength and dexterity. DnD warriors tend to be either very strong or dexterous, not both, and sometimes neither because they’ve found a way to use a different ability score entirely. This flies in the face of realism, verisimilitude, and the core fantasy of being a physically capable character. It’s actively difficult to build a warrior who respects those things, who benefits from both strength and dexterity, without them being underpowered.

11) Intelligence is a bad name for what that ability score is supposed to represent. A character’s intelligence score does not actually represent how well that character thinks and reasons, and indeed cannot because it is the player who does all of those things! Calling this score “intelligence” makes an implicit promise to a player, that they can experience playing an intelligent character without being required to play intelligently, which no game can fulfill. Calling this score “memory” would more closely represent what it actually does and avoid making this unfulfillable promise.

12) Wisdom has the same problem as intelligence, where the name is misleading and makes a false promise, plus a problem where it’s a conflation of two different traits. So-called wisdom represents both determination and perception. If you want to play a character who is extremely stubborn and a bit oblivious, or very perceptive but weak-willed . . . nope! That’s outside of the scope of the archetypes for which this game provides mechanical support.

13) ASIs are badly designed. After character creation, it costs exactly as much to raise an 18 to 20 as it does to raise an 8 to a 10 - and since the former is far more useful, it’s what players who care even a lick for optimization are basically forced to do. This is the exact opposite of realism, as a person’s weakest points are where they have the most low-hanging fruit in opportunity for personal improvement. You should expect adventurers to become more well-rounded as they mature, not more specialized. Here’s a better idea, just off the cuff (and not necessarily the best idea, just a better one): if your character uses point-buy, increase the point-value of their array by some fixed amount. If your character uses rolled scores, roll 2d20k1 and improve a score by one up to that maximum, or improve your lowest score by one if all of your scores are already at least what you rolled.

14) Having feats as an optional system which competes with ASIs was, in theory, a good idea. WoTC screwed this up with poor balancing. Some feats are clearly better than an ASI and many feats provide a way to ‘sneak’ past ability score caps by continuing to put ASI resources into getting better at your character’s primary thing.

15) Hit points only work on a conceptual level if you don’t think too hard about what they are. Regardless of whether you interpret hit points as meat or not, you’ll get weird consequences - each interpretation just has its own different set of weird consequences.

16) Requiring players to choose one and only one subclass per class is dumb. There should be an option for multiclassing between subclasses.

17) Capstones are a bit underwhelming, and that’s a good thing. Multiclassing dramatically expands the possibility space of character builds and allows for far more player choice, including player choice in how their characters develop that’s made after character creation. (Some multiclass combos have multiple good options for how to proceed after the build comes online.) Multiclassing means giving up capstones, and it’s a good thing that giving up capstones won’t cripple your character compared to their buddies who stayed single-class.

[Eldariel]

- Conventional wisdom is on the point almost across the board. This includes...
- Wizards are the strongest class 1-20.
- Druids, Bards, Clerics & Sorcerers are in close competition for second.
- Warlocks are also really strong.
- Paladins are the strongest non-caster if Bag of Holding bombs aren't on the table.
- Fighters are largely the best martials.
- Minionmancy is ridiculously overpowered.
- Optimization-wise, there's no mechanical reason to have a martial in the party.
- PHB has the most broken content.
- Variant Human and Custom Lineage are the strongest races. Yes, even then.
- Martials have little reason to build outside the GWM/SS paradigm (mostly SS) if they want to be optimal (aside from Rogues). GWM is far worse of the two.
- Melee is worse than ranged almost categorically (because ranged essentially has no drawbacks).
- Multiclassing a high power class (i.e. a full caster) generally makes your character weaker (including armor dips).
- Multiclassing a low power class (i.e. a martial) generally makes your character stronger (if you get something useful like spells).

[jaappleton]

Here is my hot take:

5e gets in its own way. As an example:

Over the last few years the player option design shifted from "do X" to "do one of these three options once per turn", and that freedom has rendered older subclasses to be fairly unappealing. As a result you don't actually have 10 subclasses to choose from, you have the OP one from initial release and the latest four.

Also, their published adventures are largely godawful. Seriously. Insanely terrible encounter balance design with Tyranny on its initial release, Strahd can be good but also can have half of the possible locations rendered useless, Yawning Portal and Saltmarsh are boring and unmotivated, and the pacing.... MY GOD THE PACING. Rime has "But wait there's more!" totally out of nowhere and Tomb has "QUICK A DEATH CURSE AND OBLIVION AWAIT, but first have fun with DINO RACES!"

And we don't talk about Princes. We don't talk about that one.

[Notafish]

Oh, I got another one:

Character levels should stop at Level 12.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

The perceived caster / martial imbalance is nonsense. It's largely a result of (like many other gripes with 5e) a short adventuring day.

[Millstone85]

There should have been only three fullcasting classes, with as many spell lists: cleric, druid and wizard.

Paladins cast cleric spells, rangers cast druid spells and artificers cast wizard spells, from cantrips to 5th-level slots.

Bards and sorcerers cast all spells, but only from cantrips to 3rd-level slots. Bards get fighting styles and maneuvers to become true jacks of all trades, masters of none, while sorcerers eat the warlock class for its sweet invocations.

[Dienekes]

Sorcerers are weird on a fundamental mechanical level.

Their fluff is that they are individuals that have an innate connection to magic. They do not study it like a scholar, nor do they memorize it like a priest and their prayers. It’s just something about them.

So why the hell do they have a full day of spell slots to work with. If the magic is internal why are they learning spells at all? Wouldn’t it make more sense that they just have magic abilities. Or if you want to give them spells why would there’s work the same way as a wizard who supposedly needs to prepare the spells beforehand. If it’s internal, wouldn’t it make more narrative sense to be something they can do, but tires them out as their limiting factor?

The Warlock mechanics make way more sense for a Sorcerer.

The dedication to making every feature either at-will, per day, or per short-rest is needlessly limiting the game.

I would say, the period of highest creativity of WotC came at the tail end of 3.5 when we saw them make SWSE, ToB, MoA and more. I’ve been waiting to see half that originality in mechanics since then. I thought of course they’re getting the simple stuff done early. Get their feet under them with the edition before doing interesting things. But it’s been 10 years. I don’t think we’ll ever see it.

[jaappleton]

I would say, the period of highest creativity of WotC came at the tail end of 3.5 when we saw them make SWSE, ToB, MoA and more. I’ve been waiting to see half that originality in mechanics since then. I thought of course they’re getting the simple stuff done early. Get their feet under them with the edition before doing interesting things. But it’s been 10 years. I don’t think we’ll ever see it.

WOTC are afraid to get this creative with 5e.
This is an informed opinion.

[Ionathus]

Having your players roll for stats instead of using fixed systems like point buy is the single worst balancing decision you can make as a new DM.

Every other "balance" concern that people gripe about on the internet, like paladins' burst damage capability or Long-Rest classes being OP or banning whatever multiclass dip into whatever flavor of Warlock...every single one of them is going to barely make a dent in gameplay at the table. By far the most likely thing to ruin your players' experience is having one player roll 13, 13, 10, 10, 9, 8 and another player roll 17, 16, 15, 15, 12, 12.

[Chaos Jackal]

The length of the adventuring day is so low on the list of reasons casters wipe the floor with martials as to be a non-issue.

[Luccan]

1. So many people would be happier playing something that isn't D&D. This includes several people running Actual Play shows

2. Crossover between class spells/abilities is fine, but homogenization should be avoided as much as possible. This is a class based game, archetypes are your friend

3. 5e lacks a setting to define its place in D&D history and I think that is a real weakness.

[Millstone85]

The Warlock mechanics make way more sense for a Sorcerer.Yes and a pact fits nicely among possible explanations for your sorcery. It is even already there.

These didn't need to be two classes.

[Luccan]

Yes and a pact fits nicely among possible explanations for your sorcery. It is even already there.

These didn't need to be two classes.

Warlock is my first choice in any "drop a class" conversation. Any spellcasting class could be in a Warlock situation

[KorvinStarmast]

There should be fewer/simpler base classes, allowing for more distinct subclasses.
Monks are the only balanced class. I can get on board this wagon.

8. DND Beyond is the worst thing to happen to D&D in a long time.
Yes.

10. Any spell with a description longer than two paragraphs, should be removed from the game. Yes.

4) There’s two ways to handle fictional races that may be interpreted as stand-ins for real-world ethnic groups. One is to acknowledge the analogy and depict the fictional race in a way that’s respectful towards their real-world counterpart. The other is to make the fictional race so monstrous or bizarre that nobody would ever mistake them for ersatz humans. The first way is what WOTC is being incrementally pushed towards, and it’s boring. The second is what should be done, and WOTC either doesn’t have the creativity or doesn’t have the guts. He shoots, he scores!

5) Putting classes/feats/options into supplementary source books that are significantly more powerful than what’s in core is pay-to-win. We might be very charitable and say that this could be an accidental consequence of power creep, but I’m inclined to suspect that it’s deliberate. Nailed it. (It's a problem with D&D that goes back to TSR days)

7) LotFP also ditches good/evil in favor of an exclusively lawful/chaotic system It's a good idea that was abandoned.

4) The Monk is a fun class that remains competitive
5) Warlock EB+AB+Hex is a stupid baseline for damage
7) The Bladesinger reprint is an abomination of Design
11) Aura of Vitality should have never gotten out of the hands of the Paladin and Battle Smith.
12) Races were clearly designed to be balanced a certain way. Abandoning all of that robs the game of flavour and what semblance of balance they established.
13) Putting stuff in book we are paying for to play test for the future is not okay. We are paying for finished products, not glorified UA because you got too money hungry and book happy. Respect the edition that made D&D a respectable household name.
16) No, familiars are not always going to survive. Concur.

19) The Mystic was fine, just polish the out of line Disciplines, restrict choice a little, and ship it.
Who cares if they can cover so many bases when they're not particularly good at all of it?
It's fun a fun, working class darn it. And better than the published battlerager.

20) Putting feats in backgrounds is a terrible idea. Just make a rule for everyone to get a feat at first level. Stop butchering existing design.
21) Stop handing spells out like candy through backgrounds and races. It defeats the point of spell lists. Yep.

1. Choosing to play a jerk character makes you a jerk.
2. Doubly so if you make it a Rogue and proceed to steal from party members.
3. Triply so if you act affronted that they immediately decide the sneakiest git in the party is probably the one who stole their stuff.
Been true since Men and Magic + Greyhawk.

've heard of some old golden days where there was a good excuse named kender. We hates it forever, Precious! :smallfurious:


1) 5e is most fun at levels 5 and 6. Play at levels 8 and above become bogged down and slow.
2) D&D is not a video game. Don't DM it like it is.
3) D&D is not an 8 part epic high fantasy novel series. Don't DM it like it is.
4) Most people suck at roleplaying. No matter what the character race, alignment, background, etc, players are usually just playing themselves.
5) The free .pdf of the 5e basic rules is all you need. All other books and publications are optional and contribute to rules bloat. A lot of truth, although adding the free SRD is probably needed.

Sorcerers are weird on a fundamental mechanical level. Their fluff is that they are individuals that have an innate connection to magic. They do not study it like a scholar, nor do they memorize it like a priest and their prayers. It’s just something about them.
The Warlock mechanics make way more sense for a Sorcerer. Yes. Better yet, get rid of the sorcerer.

[Dienekes]

WOTC are afraid to get this creative with 5e.
This is an informed opinion.

Nice hearing from you, jaappleton. Though, this statement has me more pessimistic about what you said tomorrows announcement would be. Can’t be helped, I suppose.

[HidesHisEyes]

I don’t think D&D needs or should have rules for falling damage or jump distance/height.

EDIT: Almost forgot my favourite hot take: lean into the archetype of your class, at least somewhat. Don’t feel like you need to reskin or reflavour everything, or come to the first session with a fully fleshed out and psychologically complex character. Be a noble paladin, hard-drinking dwarf fighter or brooding ranger, and discover the nuances through play.

Caveat: but don’t be a horny bard. You’re better than that.

SECOND EDIT: I hate warlocks.

[Tanarii]

11) Intelligence is a bad name for what that ability score is supposed to represent. A character’s intelligence score does not actually represent how well that character thinks and reasons, and indeed cannot because it is the player who does all of those things! Calling this score “intelligence” makes an implicit promise to a player, that they can experience playing an intelligent character without being required to play intelligently, which no game can fulfill. Calling this score “memory” would more closely represent what it actually does and avoid making this unfulfillable promise.

12) Wisdom has the same problem as intelligence, where the name is misleading and makes a false promise, plus a problem where it’s a conflation of two different traits. So-called wisdom represents both determination and perception. If you want to play a character who is extremely stubborn and a bit oblivious, or very perceptive but weak-willed . . . nope! That’s outside of the scope of the archetypes for which this game provides mechanical support.
They could get away calling them "learning" and "awareness".

But ability scores in general need a complete revamp. Either they should be a classes Prime Requisite and bolster class features, or they should affect physical combat and skills only.

------

Hot Take: charisma should no longer impact social interaction checks, and should go back to being a Leadership score.

[Millstone85]

They could get away calling them "learning" and "awareness".I would call them Knowledge and Perception.

Make a Knowledge (Arcana) check to identify the runes on the item.
Make a Knowledge (History) check to recognize the guy in the painting.

Make a Perception (Posture) check to tell if the NPC is lying to the party.
Make a Perception (Vigilance) check to look for enemies along the path.


But ability scores in general need a complete revamp.Like your spellcasting ability being literally an ability called Spellcasting.

Even martials would have it, if only for the purpose of saving against spells. Maybe for using scrolls too.

But of course is it really D&D if you don't get to write Str / Dex / Con / Int / Wis / Cha ?

[NichG]

- D&D campaigns with little or no combat work just fine.
- D&D is actually more moddable in practice than systems that try to be universal, because stuff being generic and using universal systems means there are very few mechanical hooks that actually feel different to hang things on or create new effects with.
- D&D should intentionally be designed to be at least somewhat 'broken' and 'unbalanced', but in a purposeful (rather than an absurdist) fashion of making everyone at the table feel like they're getting away with something.
- The thing that makes D&D D&D is the associations bring to the table when they think they're playing D&D and how those interact with the layers of history behind the game, not any particular mechanical conceits. Even if you had a completely freeform game it could be D&D if people treated it like they were playing D&D and imported all of that unspoken stuff.

[Hael]

Wow a lot of takes i'm 180 on.

1) Playing an evil character does not make you evil. Does this really have to be argued 40 years on? I would say the best campaigns i've ever been on have been on the 'tyranny rpg' side of things.

2) 5e has a core system that's well built. Bounded accuracy, the action system. The problem is that the core works, but the implementation of the core is a complete disaster and the rules that implement the core are poorly written, requiring significant DM intervention and inspiration and generally include a lot of mutually contradictory things.

3) The fact that 2 exists, makes homebrewing almost completely universal, which is a *bad* thing not a good thing. It hurts portability of characters, and changing tables is often like playing a completely different rpg. Worse, the lack of testing of the homebrewing itself usually leads to problems down the line, which makes 5e one of those games where if your DM is a good designer, thats great, but usually they aren't so that sucks.

3) The part of the core system that doesn't work is the magic system. Concentration as a mechanic is designed to balance casters. But it doesn't. Worse it just removes interesting combat depth.

4) Caster balance is fundamentally warped b/c they are the opposite of glass cannons. They are broadly speaking, the most durable classes in the game. That shouldn't be a thing. Moreover, previous versions had overall better ways of reigning in their powers, that could be combined in 6.0. Like you could imagine a d4 hit die, the removal of the shield/Silvery barb/Absorb Element meta, the non automatic gifting of spells, stronger opportunity attacks, less easy access to movement spells, more gold or xp costs, fewer attunement slots etc.

5) Related to the above. 5e has a nonlinear scaling problem in many different things. Hitpoints are important at first, then not at all (then become semi important lvl 17++). AC scaling is incredibly powerful at first (particularly in Tier2), then decreases throughout the game. Saving throws are not important at all at first, then gradually become the most important aspect of defense in the game. Damage and time to kill also aren't consistent as the lvls go on, and this leads to various problems down the line. Further martial/caster scaling is an abomination. Simply compare sneak attack progression (linear) vs conjure animals (geometric). Also subclass and class feature scaling is generally wonky. They will proudly put out a capstone feature that is like the equivalent of a lvl 2 spell.. Meanwhile others are truly game shattering. This of course leads to the multiclassing meta as a lot of t3/t4 stuff (given to martials) are flat out not applicable upgrades.

6) The current design direction is not great. While there has always been a dirth of interesting mechanical ideas in 5e on the altar of balance, the current regime has taken this to a new dimension. Crappy half feats, with mediocre pre existing 'safe' powers prof times per day is uninspired and not worthy of making fun stories about.

[Herbert_W]

18) No edition of DnD was designed with multiclassing in mind. Multiclassing was always an add-on, crudely wedged into a game that had been designed and balanced without it. Class features aren’t designed to respect the action economy of characters who have other classes, some class combinations have strong antisynergies with equipment and ability score use, and some unintended combinations can break the game (coffelock, anyone?). This is a pity because a DnD-like game designed with multiclassing in mind from the start could be a very very cool game.

19) 5e solved a problem that 3e spellcasting classes had, where multiclass characters couldn’t combine caster levels from their different casting classes. 5e also, in a phenomenal bout of idiocy, went and gave that same problem to classes with extra attack. Why? They knew how to avoid this problem, so why didn’t they?

20) Most class concepts don’t need 20 levels of class features. Any class that’s intended to be simple to play would benefit from not having core features delayed and filler added to span 20 levels. Any class with spell progression is already gaining interesting new options every time they can learn a new spell, which could be every level, and even more so when a spell level opens up. 3e was brave enough to let spell progression be a class’ features after 1st level. 5e is not so brave. (That’s not to say that e.g. wizards should have no class features after 2nd level - see #22 - but they could stand to have a lot less.)

21) Most spellcasting subclass features should have been spells.

22) Many spells are so good that having access to them is basically a class feature. They should have been class features.

23) The three pillars of play - combat, exploration, and social - should each have their own customization options that can’t be spent on the other pillars. If players choose between an option that’ll help them in combat or an option which will help in the other two pillars, they’ll feel compelled to choose combat. Options that help in combat will help. Options that help in the other pillars only might help as the rules are vague, roleplaying can displace roll-playing, and there’s a lot of mother-may-I.


. . . and now for some “I agree with your hot take so much that I’m going to make another based on it.” For a thread full of hot takes, we’re really not annoying each other much at all, are we?


But ability scores in general need a complete revamp.

24) The current six-fold ability score array came from an era when DnD had fundamentally different design goals, and however well it served those roles, it’s failing us now.


Hot Take: charisma should no longer impact social interaction checks, and should go back to being a Leadership score.

25) The fact that charisma is such a god-stat in the context of the social pillar is a side-effect of that pillar being neglected to the point where it can be reduced to the application of a single ability score to almost every roll. Reworking the social pillar would require reducing the impact of charisma, possibly splitting it into several stats such as leadership/persuasiveness/expressiveness.


1. Choosing to play a jerk character makes you a jerk.

26) “It’s what my character would do” is never ever an excuse. If it’s true, then the player is a jerk for making that character. If it’s false, then the player is arguing in bad faith.

[Tanarii]

I would call them Knowledge and Perception.

Make a Knowledge (Arcana) check to identify the runes on the item.
Make a Knowledge (History) check to recognize the guy in the painting.I wouldn't, because I can't stand Knowledge checks, and I'm glad 5e got rid of them.


Make a Perception (Posture) check to tell if the NPC is lying to the party.
Make a Perception (Vigilance) check to look for enemies along the path.That leaves personal intuition and worldly attunement by the wayside. Not that my word was much better for explaining why Animal Handling, Survival and Medicine. :smallamused:


Like your spellcasting ability being literally an ability called Spellcasting.Or it could just be based off class level and/or proficiency bonus, if we're referring to attack rolls and DCs.


But of course is it really D&D if you don't get to write Str / Dex / Con / Int / Wis / Cha ?Agreed, the revamping was more about decoupling ability scores from skills than renaming.


26) “It’s what my character would do” is never ever an excuse. If it’s true, then the player is a jerk for making that character. If it’s false, then the player is arguing in bad faith.
All party charters should include a vote to eject members from the party.

All evil party charters should include a vote to stab them until they're dead. Possibly with a raise dead clause for a first offense.

[Dienekes]

I wouldn't, because I can't stand Knowledge checks, and I'm glad 5e got rid of them.



Is it just the name you dislike? Because knowledge checks are still totally a thing. They just call them arcana, history, nature, and religion now.

[Cheesegear]

Critical Role (and other commercial D&D streams/VoDs) are good for the D&D brand, but are terrible for the D&D game.

[olskool]

5e is now a game of medieval superheroes instead of the original D&D where you were ordinary mortals who worked to become all-powerful.

[Telwar]

Delete wizard. Make more focused casting classes with more curated spell lists.

Hell, start out with an overclass, like AD&D warrior, priest, mage, or rogue, which address basics (weapons and armor proficiency, skills, hit dice, etc). Then classes go under that, and maybe have further subclasses if you really feel the need.

A la carte multiclassing is a terrible idea and is responsible for most of the problems that aren't caused by people not reading the rules.

If the WotC D&D team had a work ethic, the game would be in a far better place.


Critical Role (and other commercial D&D streams/VoDs) are good for the D&D brand, but are terrible for the D&D game.

To be honest, if Matt Mercer hadn't decided to switch from Pathfinder, 5e would not be nearly the force that it is. And I'm not entirely sure that WotC realized this.

[jaappleton]

Delete wizard. Make more focused casting classes with more curated spell lists.

Oh boy should you prepare for disappointment. >_>

[Brookshw]

To be honest, if Matt Mercer hadn't decided to switch from Pathfinder, 5e would not be nearly the force that it is. And I'm not entirely sure that WotC realized this.

Alternatively, as D&D 5e sales kicked Pathfinder off the top of the charts within one quarter of its release (before CR was being released), if he hadn't switched his show wouldn't have garnered nearly the attention it did.

[Mastikator]

1) Tasha's is a great book, disconnecting ability score bonus from race was the right choice. Having ASB as a part of race was always a bad idea IMO for 5e's design philosophy.

2) MotM is a better book than Volo's and MtoF. It's a good thing to remove cultural racial effects from races. The culture of races is setting dependent and the text should be found in campaign setting books.

3) Giving backgrounds more oomph is a good direction, I hope 5.5e will have a balanced selection of powers from backgrounds. However I doubt it. But it's better than nothing.

4) They should not make forgotten realms the default setting and all future adventures should either be setting agnostic, or use other settings.

[Telwar]

Oh boy should you prepare for disappointment. >_>

That's my secret, I'm always disappointed with WotC. :)

[Cheesegear]

Critical Role (and other commercial D&D streams/VoDs) are good for the D&D brand, but are terrible for the D&D game.


To be honest, if Matt Mercer hadn't decided to switch from Pathfinder, 5e would not be nearly the force that it is. And I'm not entirely sure that WotC realized this.

I can't tell if you're disagreeing with me or not.

[Easy e]

TTRPGs only work because the players make them work

GM Fiat is the core rule of TT RPGs with a GM in the first place

D&D is focused on characters failing instead of succeeding

Balance is a unicorn

There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions, and I am one of them

[JackPhoenix]

Wisdom is a stupid core attribute to have (especially as they can't decide what exactly does it represent), and Perception should be an attribute, not a skill. Somehow, I feel both problems could be solved at once...

[Luccan]

Refluffing can be fun... When it's what you want to do. But generally it's more fun to have an actual mechanical package dedicated to the thing you want to do. Fluff and crunch should work together

[PoeticallyPsyco]

4E powers are better than the 5E blend of spells and class features. They're more interesting, better balanced, more fun in combat, give separate build resources for combat and utility so every class has access to both*, and you get them more frequently so levelling up is more interesting. I don't care if it's mechanically similar to what a wizard is doing if my level 1 ranger can shoot a dude through the knee, doing ongoing damage and slowing him, without DM fiat or insane build resources being devoted to it.

*Big ol' asterisk for this bold claim. In practice, Utility powers came too infrequently, and there were still combat options like healing you could spend them on. The idea was good, though.

[jaappleton]

4E powers are better than the 5E blend of spells and class features. They're more interesting, better balanced, more fun in combat, give separate build resources for combat and utility so every class has access to both*, and you get them more frequently so levelling up is more interesting. I don't care if it's mechanically similar to what a wizard is doing if my level 1 ranger can shoot a dude through the knee, doing ongoing damage and slowing him, without DM fiat or insane build resources being devoted to it.

*Big ol' asterisk for this bold claim. In practice, Utility powers came too infrequently, and there were still combat options like healing you could spend them on. The idea was good, though.

Oh my gosh yes.
4e's AEDU power system did a spectacular job at making the player character FEEL heroic. At every stage you have cool stuff to do.

I will forever be of the opinion that 4e was ahead of its time.

Release that today, with the tech we have now as far as virtual tabletops and character builders (one not made in Silverlight, WTH was that?), call it D&D Tactics so peoole dint scream "WAAAAHHHHH THIS IS THE NEXT EDITION WHY WAAAAHHHHHH" and watch that get injected into people's eyeballs. They'd eat it up.

[Snowbluff]

Having played a lot of 4e lately, 5e's power structure is better. It sucked in 4e being limited to 1 roll/turn most of the time. 5e special attacks (Smites, battlemaster maneuver, swords bard inspirations, smite spells, stunning strike, etc) are usually attached to an attack, so it doesn't interfere with you making more attacks and you aren't "1 and done." Dailies sucked too, spell slots are better. Nothing sucks more than being limited to a lengthy effect a couple of encounters per day, and if you're knocked out of the effect or its otherwise killed, you're not able to put up another one. It would be better to give more special attacks rather than to regress to AEDU.

4e is alright otherwise.

[Bohandas]

I think they should be making the different species of playable creatures more different rather than more samey


There’s two ways to handle fictional races that may be interpreted as stand-ins for real-world ethnic groups. One is to acknowledge the analogy and depict the fictional race in a way that’s respectful towards their real-world counterpart. The other is to make the fictional race so monstrous or bizarre that nobody would ever mistake them for ersatz humans. The first way is what WOTC is being incrementally pushed towards, and it’s boring. The second is what should be done, and WOTC either doesn’t have the creativity or doesn’t have the guts.

Exactly!

Except that also they need to completely stop using the word "race"; the way they're using it is egregiously incorrect and I think it's the cause of a lot of these weird incorrect perceptions that people are having that orcs or whatever are a stand-in for something

[HidesHisEyes]

Refluffing can be fun... When it's what you want to do. But generally it's more fun to have an actual mechanical package dedicated to the thing you want to do. Fluff and crunch should work together

Very much agree with this one. My heart sinks when someone starts describing their character by saying “well I’m a sorcerer/paladin, but I’m not really a sorcerer, that just represents…” And then usually talks for about ten minutes.

[rel]

Refluffing works well if the GM and player cooperate so that no mention is ever made of what the mechanics under the hood actually are.

[Waazraath]

Oh boy should you prepare for disappointment. >_>

Hope your wrong here =/

[animorte]

Hope your wrong here =/
It is in fact called Wizards of the Coast.


Delete wizard. Make more focused casting classes with more curated spell lists.
But then they did make the new spell lists, which I actually think is moving in the right direction. Though I’m sure the typical viewer feels that is in the opposite direction of curating.

[Lucas Yew]

3. CON casting Sorcerers, emphasizing their genetic lottery (+ free subclass spells just like Tasha's new ones, should have been like that from the very beginning).

2. Prepared casters only preparing FLOOR(LV/2)+MOD spells per day (like the current Paladin, if I remember correctly), as to limiting their insane levels of free daily build replacement.

And... (crazily prepares nuclear bunker defense mechanisms)

1. Rules over Rulings!

[Bohandas]

They should remove humans entirely and just have fantasy creatures as playable characters

They should also remove halflings, since (outside of Dark Sun and Eberron) they don;t really fit into anything anywhere

[diplomancer]

They should remove humans entirely and just have fantasy creatures as playable characters

They should also remove halflings, since (outside of Dark Sun and Eberron) they don;t really fit into anything anywhere

They're so small! Obviously they fit just about anywhere 😜

[Illven]

There should be certain high level monsters completely immune to slashing, piercing, bludgeoning damage including that from magical weapons. Tell martials to play support.

[Trafalgar]

3) Most games tha go bad have the fun sucked out of them by players seeking an advantage rather than by a bad DM.


I totally agree with this, especially when the player is doing so in a way that takes away from other players.

[JNAProductions]

There should be certain high level monsters completely immune to slashing, piercing, bludgeoning damage including that from magical weapons. Tell martials to play support.

Counterpoint-martials should get more abilities so they can contribute in encounters where "Hit it with a stick" isn't the solution.

[Witty Username]

Unformed thoughts, still mulling them over:
ASis are bad for the game. They create a chase towards bigger numbers, a
Create a false sense of choice and lead to the homogeneousnes of races that people complain about. This may be a consequence of ability scores being to important, often being more play defining than class.

Actual hot takes:
Rapier shouldn't exist in the PHB, it should be in the DMG with the Renaissance weapons at best.
Healing is underpowered and healing spirit is fine pre errata, rest mechanics make the archetype irrelevant.

[Tanarii]

Counterpoint-martials should get more abilities so they can contribute in encounters where "Hit it with a stick" isn't the solution.
Definitely one of the things 4e did right and 5e borked up again.

[Bohandas]

There should be certain high level monsters completely immune to slashing, piercing, bludgeoning damage including that from magical weapons. Tell martials to play support.

And from magical spells as well; ie. blade barrier, spiritual weapon etc.

[noob]

Is it possible to do a sneak attack with an acid vial and in this case would it not mean that the rogue would deal full damage to that tough monster?

[Illven]

And from magical spells as well; ie. blade barrier, spiritual weapon etc.

Blade barrier yes.
Spiritual weapon however is force damage.

[Xihirli]

Counterpoint-martials should get more abilities so they can contribute in encounters where "Hit it with a stick" isn't the solution.

Well if you have an Arcane Trickster with Shadow Blade the Battlemaster could do a Commander’s Strike.
Aaand then all that’s left is grappling.

[SociopathFriend]

Another one hot from the presses- failing to complete a Ritual-cast spell should consume the spell slot.

It's ridiculously common in fantasy for someone to stuff up a ritual and lose their power or be weakened from doing so. I'm extremely sure 5e outright has villains with this exact mechanic.

If a PC does it? Just try again later.



And yeah, I see you hiding back, Ritual Caster; you get the long rest treatment.

"If you fail to successfully complete the ritual- you cannot attempt to cast the same spell again until you have successfully completed a long rest."

[animorte]

And yeah, I see you hiding back, Ritual Caster; you get the long rest treatment.

"If you fail to successfully complete the ritual- you cannot attempt to cast the same spell as a ritual again until you have successfully completed a long rest."

Mind if I add the bolded part? They should still be able to expend resources, you know a spell slot, if they want/need it that badly.

[SociopathFriend]

Mind if I add the bolded part? They should still be able to expend resources, you know a spell slot, if they want/need it that badly.

I've admittedly never taken Ritual Caster so I don't know the full scope of how it works.

[Lord Raziere]

DnD, as the gateway ttrpg should be more cognizant of people who do not fit its mold, its own limitations, and help people find ttrpgs that they can have more fun with, rather than constantly making itself more generic to try and grab up more people under one umbrella.

[animorte]

I've admittedly never taken Ritual Caster so I don't know the full scope of how it works.

Usually the spell is on your spell list, a known spell, or one of your prepared spells so you can cast it with a spell slot OR as a ritual spell only if it has the ritual tag, which doesn't use any spell slot, just takes 10 extra minutes.

[Theoboldi]

The way that WotC releases playtests and reacts to feedback has lead to a rift between factions in the playerbase.

Some people now perceive any playtest as almost entirely unchangeable previews, and an indication that they need to persistently update their playstyle if they want to keep benefitting from new releases.

Others now worry that any negative feedback will result in options that they've liked being completely scrapped. As a result, they'll fight back heavily against any criticism, and dismiss any dislike of new changes as the grumblings of old men and grognards.

Overall, WotC has given the impression that players and GMs need to actively fight for their hobby to develop in the direction they want, and that it's reasonable to resent people who want something different out of the game.

The announcement of OneD&D as a customizeable, final version of the game, as much as I believe is only marketing talk, will only further increase this issue. It sets up this state of competition around what gets released as a new standard that can always change at any moment, depending on feedback.

Sadly, I'm not so sure that anything can be actively done about this now. Hobbyists like roleplayers splinter into factions at the best of times, and the only way to prevent this split being as heavy as it is now would have been to be scrap fewer UAs at the beginning, and to let people know that more than one viewpoint was being heard.

That would have prevented the worst of it, I think, even if the overall direction of development stayed the same.

[Warder]

The way that WotC releases playtests and reacts to feedback has lead to a rift between factions in the playerbase.

Some people now perceive any playtest as almost entirely unchangeable previews, and an indication that they need to persistently update their playstyle if they want to keep benefitting from new releases.

Others now worry that any negative feedback will result in options that they've liked being completely scrapped. As a result, they'll fight back heavily against any criticism, and dismiss any dislike of new changes as the grumblings of old men and grognards.

Overall, WotC has given the impression that players and GMs need to actively fight for their hobby to develop in the direction they want, and that it's reasonable to resent people who want something different out of the game.

The announcement of OneD&D as a customizeable, final version of the game, as much as I believe is only marketing talk, will only further increase this issue. It sets up this state of competition around what gets released as a new standard that can always change at any moment, depending on feedback.

Sadly, I'm not so sure that anything can be actively done about this now. Hobbyists like roleplayers splinter into factions at the best of times, and the only way to prevent this split being as heavy as it is now would have been to be scrap fewer UAs at the beginning, and to let people know that more than one viewpoint was being heard.

That would have prevented the worst of it, I think, even if the overall direction of development stayed the same.

This thread is for hot takes, not well-reasoned and sober analysis of the issues facing D&D! :smallwink:

My take is that the D&D writing team should stay away from anything involving humor. They're bad at it and don't seem to realize that the wacky zaniness in D&D has always come from players, not the source material.

[Hytheter]

Another one hot from the presses- failing to complete a Ritual-cast spell should consume the spell slot.

Seems a bit bizarre considering rituals don't consume slots when they're successful.

[Ignimortis]

WOTC are afraid to get this creative with 5e.
This is an informed opinion.

Considering your impeccable track record with WotC info, I am not happy to hear that, but I have also had this sentiment since 2018 or so, so thanks for the confirmation.


Oh boy should you prepare for disappointment. >_>
Augh.


Oh my gosh yes.
4e's AEDU power system did a spectacular job at making the player character FEEL heroic. At every stage you have cool stuff to do.

I will forever be of the opinion that 4e was ahead of its time.

Release that today, with the tech we have now as far as virtual tabletops and character builders (one not made in Silverlight, WTH was that?), call it D&D Tactics so peoole dint scream "WAAAAHHHHH THIS IS THE NEXT EDITION WHY WAAAAHHHHHH" and watch that get injected into people's eyeballs. They'd eat it up.
4e was far from perfect, but it was an honest attempt to fix a lot of issues that were built up in the previous 30 years as eventual sacred cows. If 5e were an intelligent iteration of 4e instead of the barebones mish-mash of early 3e-style class design (aka the worst it's ever been) and 2e sensibilities with some small nods to 4e in certain parts, well...

It almost certainly wouldn't be as popular (still maddeningly ahead of everything else, mind). But it would almost certainly be a better game.


Now, for my personal hot take:
All classes should have specific mechanics to play around with. There should be one simple non-caster (I nominate Barbarian) and one simple caster (I nominate Warlock in its' 3.5 form, maybe a bit more free in how they get their powers), and everything else should be more or less complex - as in, impossible to play even remotely well without actually reading the class and whatever subsystems it's dependent on. I have been in parties with several players who basically didn't know the rules and got by with "I guess I move up to the guy and attack" and not doing anything at all out of combat (including a Rogue who didn't know he had either Thieves' Tools or proficiency with them). Everyone at the table should know at least how their attacks and attack properties (Smite, Sneak Attack, etc) work, how AC and saves work, how skills work, and so on. You don't have to learn every condition and spell by heart, but surely having awareness of your own general capabilities should be required to succeed?

Yes, that might sound a bit elitist - but I also do believe that there should be some minimal effort put into the game you have deliberately chosen to play and spend your time on and that other players have also chosen to interact with you through.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Personal take: "humans as the generic bland race" is bad for the game and creates the races of hats issue because everything is "start with humans (ie the average) and add X".

Humans should have traits. There should be no "generic bland" race. The center of all the concept space should be empty.

[Theoboldi]

This thread is for hot takes, not well-reasoned and sober analysis of the issues facing D&D! :smallwink:


Who told you I'm sober? :smallwink:

Well, for something that is more of a hot take......

It's a good thing that Fighters are a very generic class, and they should remain one! In fact, they should get more support to be highly customizeable and even gain some support for skills and other mundane abilities, so they can be the best possible expression of the heroic everyman.

Ideally, the Fighter should be as customizeable as the 5e Warlock, but remain as fundamentally easy to play as he is now.

[KorvinStarmast]

DnD, as the gateway ttrpg should be more cognizant of people who do not fit its mold, its own limitations, and help people find ttrpgs that they can have more fun with, rather than constantly making itself more generic to try and grab up more people under one umbrella. But our sales would plummet! ~ a WoTC rep

Overall, WotC has given the impression that players and GMs need to actively fight for their hobby to develop in the direction they want, and that it's reasonable to resent people who want something different out of the game. Suggest you read Peterson's second book, The Elusive Shift. That's been with the game since its beginning.


The announcement of OneD&D as a customizeable, final version of the game, as much as I believe is only marketing talk, will only further increase this issue. It sets up this state of competition around what gets released as a new standard that can always change at any moment, depending on feedback. Let the feedback wars begin.

Personal take: "humans as the generic bland race" is bad for the game and creates the races of hats issue because everything is "start with humans (ie the average) and add X".

Humans should have traits. There should be no "generic bland" race. The center of all the concept space should be empty. vHuman covered that perfectly. two floating +1's, one feat, one added proficiency, customize to your heart's content. And now they are discarding that.

[Dienekes]

vHuman covered that perfectly. two floating +1's, one feat, one added proficiency, customize to your heart's content. And now they are discarding that.

Eh? ODD UA did some things I dislike, but the new humans still get a bonus feat, bonus skill, and a unique feature.

Anyway, here's my minor take.

If you grapple someone that cast spells, it should be noticeably harder for them to cast spells.

[KorvinStarmast]

Eh? ODD UA did some things I dislike, but the new humans still get a bonus feat, bonus skill, and a unique feature. Everyone gets a feat, vHuman is no longer unique in that regard.


If you grapple someone that cast spells, it should be noticeably harder for them to cast spells.
Agree but only if you restrain them, not if you just grab a hold of them. I'd like to see a standard "If I already have them grappled, now I can try to restrain" and keep the feat out of it.

[SociopathFriend]

Seems a bit bizarre considering rituals don't consume slots when they're successful.

Being successful should be the REASON they don't consume the slot.

[Xihirli]

Being successful should be the REASON they don't consume the slot.

So can you even attempt a ritual when you have no slots?

[HidesHisEyes]

DnD, as the gateway ttrpg should be more cognizant of people who do not fit its mold, its own limitations, and help people find ttrpgs that they can have more fun with, rather than constantly making itself more generic to try and grab up more people under one umbrella.

Definitely true, although of course WotC are heavily incentivised not to do this.

The worst thing is when someone asks for advice for, like, running a D&D game about a crew of scoundrels doing heists in a haunted industrial city, and I suggest they check out Blades in the Dark, and they get angry because they have some deep aversion to playing a TRPG other than D&D. I’m actually halfway convinced WotC are up to some creepy mind control business.

[HidesHisEyes]

Now, for my personal hot take:
All classes should have specific mechanics to play around with. There should be one simple non-caster (I nominate Barbarian) and one simple caster (I nominate Warlock in its' 3.5 form, maybe a bit more free in how they get their powers), and everything else should be more or less complex - as in, impossible to play even remotely well without actually reading the class and whatever subsystems it's dependent on. I have been in parties with several players who basically didn't know the rules and got by with "I guess I move up to the guy and attack" and not doing anything at all out of combat (including a Rogue who didn't know he had either Thieves' Tools or proficiency with them). Everyone at the table should know at least how their attacks and attack properties (Smite, Sneak Attack, etc) work, how AC and saves work, how skills work, and so on. You don't have to learn every condition and spell by heart, but surely having awareness of your own general capabilities should be required to succeed?

Yes, that might sound a bit elitist - but I also do believe that there should be some minimal effort put into the game you have deliberately chosen to play and spend your time on and that other players have also chosen to interact with you through.

If people are already not understanding their characters’ abilities I don’t think making them more complex is the solution. I think this is an issue of table culture.

I agree with you, if I’m playing a game like D&D then I want to be invested in the mechanical side of it, learning my character’s mechanics and trying to be tactical, and I like everyone else at the table to be doing the same. I suspect a lot of people play D&D and ignore all that, engaging with it more as a free form roleplaying exercise, and I know we’re supposed to say “and good for them if that’s how they like to play”, but also I can think of ten others RPGs that they could be playing that they would have more fun with.

But as I said, WotC marketing mind control magic.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If people are already not understanding their characters’ abilities I don’t think making them more complex is the solution. I think this is an issue of table culture.

I agree with you, if I’m playing a game like D&D then I want to be invested in the mechanical side of it, learning my character’s mechanics and trying to be tactical, and I like everyone else at the table to be doing the same. I suspect a lot of people play D&D and ignore all that, engaging with it more as a free form roleplaying exercise, and I know we’re supposed to say “and good for them if that’s how they like to play”, but also I can think of ten others RPGs that they could be playing that they would have more fun with.

But as I said, WotC marketing mind control magic.

There's a lot of gap between "as complex as a full caster" and "free form roleplaying exercise". There are a lot of people who
* like some mechanics--rolling dice is fun, as are unexpected things
* but don't want to play a game like they're a raid guild in an MMO and have to practice their rotation.
* want rules and mechanics that serve as scaffolding[1], helping them play in various ways.

And there are groups for which the whole "tactical combat" thing is less important but not completely unimportant. And for whom "buttons to press" isn't what makes a character interesting. As evidenced by...well...all of D&D before 3e. For many people, the mechanics aren't the important part. That doesn't mean they're without value, just less important than any of
* the in-character decisions
* the OOC social aspect[2]
* the fiction and "story" that the mechanics serve to evoke.

Personally, mechanics that are complex just to be complex are bad. Mechanics should be as simple as possible, but just complex enough to evoke the appropriate fiction. That's their entire purpose--to help set the fictional stage and help us resolve actions that would be burdensome or unfair to resolve via fiat. Most of the time, the mechanics should just fade into the background and be basically ignorable. I don't want my cordless drill or other power tools demanding that I pick them up and use them. Like the rules, they're tools to be used when I (as a player or DM) deem appropriate. They don't make demands, they don't control anything. Their job is to assist me when I call on them.

When I want engaging mechanics for mechanics sake or tactical combat, I pick up a video game or a war game. Not a TTRPG. Which by definition won't do either of those well due to its other constraints. This is not to say that people shouldn't learn their class's mechanics--it annoys me when people don't know (or have ready access to) their modifiers, for instance. But making things more complex won't help there at all, and pigeonholing all of the people for whom mechanics aren't the most important thing into two classes is a very bad idea IMO.

[1] assistance in doing things. Meaning that the DM and the players can offload some of the resolution difficulty for less-familiar or more common actions onto the system, as well as have pre-built, supposedly coherent content.
[2] which is greatly affected by network effects. You can't have a fun OOC social aspect sitting alone dreaming of playing a game no one else wants to play.


---------------------------

@KorvinStarmast--that wasn't what I meant. I was very much including V.Human in the "bland generic" category. Personally, the biggest mistake a class/level system can make is not having each element chosen for evocative fiction. If classes (and races) are just pre-defined point-buy packages without a strong internal fiction, you're just reinventing point buy...badly. "Pick something of your choice" isn't any kind of evocative fiction. And the same goes for things like Fighters and Wizards who have no built in class fiction (or only the weakest of such). They're badly designed IMO because there's nothing that says "this is who I am". They're just placeholders. And that breaks the class/level paradigm. All classes should be as intertwined with teh fiction (both benefits and drawbacks) as the druid is.

Hot take--mechanical customization is very much overrated in a class/level game. It works best if most of your fundamental choices are locked in when you make the character and most of the "customization" that differentiates characters of the same class/level/race should be personality, backstory, and decisions about what actions to take. Build-a-bear works well in point-buy games, but doing it in a class-level game just ends up being bad. Because the options pretend to all be the same value (especially feats, but also spells, fighting styles, etc), but can't be (definitionally). The way to have more mechanical options in a class/level game is to make more classes. Which requires classes to be narrow and focused. Which also allows them to be detailed and interesting, rather than "pick the most OP things from this list, ignore the rest."

[Tanarii]

As evidenced by...well...all of D&D before 3e.
2e has 15 "The Complete" soft covers and cumulated with Players Options: Skills and Power & Combat and Tactics.

But, and this is a key point, they were splat. Not core.

3e was as complicated to run combat as all-in rules AD&D, if easier to parse. 4e was actually a bit easier on the combat rules adjudication side IMO, but much much harder in terms of player mental overhead. 5e is somewhere between AD&D/3e and BECMI.

But BECMI had game structures. Those are what I'd like to see if they're going to be looking for more complexity. At the minimum, exploration game structures. Then they can start adding class features that interact with various game structures other than just combat.

[Hytheter]

In fact, they should get more support to be highly customizeable and even gain some support for skills and other mundane abilities, so they can be the best possible expression of the heroic everyman.

Hear me out guys... What if Fighter and Rogue were combined?

[Makorel]

Now that we have orcs we don't really need dwarves.

[Lucas Yew]

Hear me out guys... What if Fighter and Rogue were combined?

Terrific, really. And actually, have classes start with more skills the slower your spell slot progression (if any at all). And expertise only for the new least-casting class.

BTW for expertise to have real meaning "against non-opposed rolls", a sample DC chart will be very helpful... ;)


Now that we have orcs we don't really need dwarves.

I'd personally merge all "Tolkienesque" species into a single one (elven grace, dwarvish toughness, halfling luck, gnomish attitude, all in one package), and put more D&D originals to fill he starting roster; Aasimar, Dragonborn, Githzerai, Tiefling, etc.

[Kvess]

1. The thing about houserules is, at a certain point, you might be better off playing a different system.

2. Elves and other long-lived people make it difficult for history to be mysterious. “Oh, that civilization that was around 2000 years ago? Let me ask my grandfather about it. His dad grew up there.”

3. Never over-explain your process as a DM. I find it kills the suspension of disbelief when, immediately after the session, you go over what was in the module and what you improvised.

4. Include references to characters from other adventures that your players might be familiar with. Seeing a player recognize an NPC from an adventure they’re learning to DM is gold. I get a lot of mileage out of Vincent Trench.

5. I don’t care about balance if my players don’t.

[Bohandas]

I'd personally merge all "Tolkienesque" species into a single one (elven grace, dwarvish toughness, halfling luck, gnomish attitude, all in one package)

Halflings were the only ones he actually created though, and he didn't really have gnomes at all, with the excepti9n of a single throwaway line in the Silmarillion equating the concept with the Noldor


and put more D&D originals to fill he starting roster; Aasimar, Dragonborn, Githzerai, Tiefling, etc.

Speaking of throwaway lines, D&D stole the name Dragonborn from a couple of lines in Morrowind

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Generic_Dialogue_T#Talos_Cult

[Ignimortis]

If people are already not understanding their characters’ abilities I don’t think making them more complex is the solution. I think this is an issue of table culture.

I agree with you, if I’m playing a game like D&D then I want to be invested in the mechanical side of it, learning my character’s mechanics and trying to be tactical, and I like everyone else at the table to be doing the same. I suspect a lot of people play D&D and ignore all that, engaging with it more as a free form roleplaying exercise, and I know we’re supposed to say “and good for them if that’s how they like to play”, but also I can think of ten others RPGs that they could be playing that they would have more fun with.

But as I said, WotC marketing mind control magic.

It's less about "not understanding" and far more about "not even trying to understand". They put the bare minimum amount of effort in - they tended to know their movement distance and what VTT button to press to make an attack roll. And several of them said something along the lines of "it works anyway, why should I bother to do more reading?".

[diplomancer]

Everyone gets a feat, vHuman is no longer unique in that regard.

Yeah, but they still get two feats. And +2,+1 instead of +1,+1. And Inspiration after a Long Rest. I'd say they're doing fine


Halflings were the only ones he actually created though, and he didn't really have gnomes at all, with the excepti9n of a single throwaway line in the Silmarillion equating the concept with the Noldor

He actually called Noldor "gnomes" for a long time, only giving it up because it was too far away from what people think of when they think gnomes... which brings us to my second point: though Tolkien did not invent Elves and Dwarves, he practically did create our current understanding of them. Who knows, maybe if he'd insisted with Gnomes he'd have changed that too?

[HidesHisEyes]

@PheonixPhyre: I agree with everything you said for the most part. I didn’t want to sound reductive, I was talking about a certain kind of player who I think exists, who has absolutely zero interest in mechanics, to the point where they don’t even try to learn their own abilities. Absolutely there are many other kinds of player besides that kind and the ones who treat it like WoW (I mean, I’m neither of those.)


Most of the time, the mechanics should just fade into the background and be basically ignorable. I don't want my cordless drill or other power tools demanding that I pick them up and use them. Like the rules, they're tools to be used when I (as a player or DM) deem appropriate. They don't make demands, they don't control anything. Their job is to assist me when I call on them.

When I want engaging mechanics for mechanics sake or tactical combat, I pick up a video game or a war game. Not a TTRPG. Which by definition won't do either of those well due to its other constraints

I do have a couple of things to say about this, though.

1 - When I want engaging mechanics and tactical combat (while also wanting an RPG) I pick up D&D in particular because I actually regard its combat system [i]as[i/] a wargame in its own right nested inside an RPG. I don’t think that kind of combat system supports a roleplaying experience very much, it tends to slow you down and limit you in certain ways, but it adds this other type of fun which is appealing in its own right. (Very similar to classic Final Fantasy).

2 - I agree in D&D the mechanics ought to be unobtrusive. There are other games where they very much do demand to be used in certain situations, and you find things happening because of the rules that you wouldn’t necessarily have chosen or expected, and that can be really fun and lead the narrative in interesting directions. It can also help to solidify a designer’s vision and make the game definitely about something if the mechanics have a bit more to say about how things go. (But that’s just a side observation I couldn’t help making - I agree with you when it comes to D&D).

[Dienekes]

Everyone gets a feat, vHuman is no longer unique in that regard.

They're the only ones that get two, and now they also have another new ability.



Agree but only if you restrain them, not if you just grab a hold of them. I'd like to see a standard "If I already have them grappled, now I can try to restrain" and keep the feat out of it.

Eh. I'd rather just have it work off grappling. Most everything else is a failed save away from taking effect. Losing one hand is already a penalty for most martial builds. Let their benefit for it be good. And as a bonus, it lets Monks be very anti-caster indeed.


Now that we have orcs we don't really need dwarves.

It is odd to me, that the race known for being strong and wildly aggressive due to their bless/curse from Gruumsh has no offensive abilities and are tankier than dwarves. Doesn't feel right.




I'd personally merge all "Tolkienesque" species into a single one (elven grace, dwarvish toughness, halfling luck, gnomish attitude, all in one package), and put more D&D originals to fill he starting roster; Aasimar, Dragonborn, Githzerai, Tiefling, etc.

I would absolutely hate this. So, good hot take.

[Amnestic]

"Halfling" is a dumb name for a race since they wouldn't call themselves that, and I think of the official 5e settings only FR has given them an alternative name ('Hin', but that's from older pre-5e content). They should retire the name with the next 'edition' in favour of something else, legacy+tradition be damned.

Imagine if instead of playing a "human" the game insisted that you call your character a "Bigling", but were otherwise indistinguishable from a human. Ridiculous.

[Dork_Forge]

"Halfling" is a dumb name for a race since they wouldn't call themselves that, and I think of the official 5e settings only FR has given them an alternative name ('Hin', but that's from older pre-5e content). They should retire the name with the next 'edition' in favour of something else, legacy+tradition be damned.

Imagine if instead of playing a "human" the game insisted that you call your character a "Bigling", but were otherwise indistinguishable from a human. Ridiculous.

Isn't this just an artifact of not being allowed to use the name hobbit?

Like I understand your point, but if you named them anything else I think people would struggle with name recognition in a way that other races don't have that issue.

[PhoenixPhyre]

"Halfling" is a dumb name for a race since they wouldn't call themselves that, and I think of the official 5e settings only FR has given them an alternative name ('Hin', but that's from older pre-5e content). They should retire the name with the next 'edition' in favour of something else, legacy+tradition be damned.

Imagine if instead of playing a "human" the game insisted that you call your character a "Bigling", but were otherwise indistinguishable from a human. Ridiculous.

One thing I'm slowly doing is giving the races of my setting new names. For play purposes, I accept the "traditional" ones, but in-universe there's the real name and then the name they're called in the popular culture. For example, high elves are gwerin; wood elves are ihmisi. And they're separate races that don't like each other much (traditionally). Goliaths are jazuu. The "5e traditional" names are what humans in the "main" culture call them, kinda slang-ish names. And they're not always considered polite. Githyanki are formally sena'ka, but the players call them "voldemorts" (no nose).

Halflings still need to be done. But for me, halflings are a really recent race that's never really lived or had their own culture--they've always been a minor part of a more human-dominated culture. They're basically mutated goblins--magical "nuclear" war causes all sorts of weird things.

[Amnestic]

Isn't this just an artifact of not being allowed to use the name hobbit?

Like I understand your point, but if you named them anything else I think people would struggle with name recognition in a way that other races don't have that issue.

That's why I said legacy+tradition be damned. If people can learn what a tiefling and aasimar and eladrin are, then they can hopefully manage "We renamed halflings to something else" (whether that be Hin or something else) without dying from information overload. Yes, it's easier if they didn't rename it, and ultimately it's a minor thing, perhaps. But they still should.

And if they're not going to, at the very least every published setting should have a name they use for themselves.

[Easy e]

D&D is a terrible tactical wargame, and if people want a tactical wargame they should play advanced squad leader instead.

D&D should streamline the rules instead of always adding more. The rules are too bloated for a game who's core mechanic is "The DM decides", then why so many fething rules?

[KorvinStarmast]

The rules are too bloated for a game who's core mechanic is "The DM decides", then why so many fething rules? Hi. The d20 just called, they are the core mechanic, hence the d20 system's name. But I agree that the rules could use some liposuction.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hi. The d20 just called, they are the core mechanic, hence the d20 system's name. But I agree that the rules could use some liposuction.

Pedantic note: the d20 System was the 3e attempt to universalize the rules. 5e is not part of the d20 System. Thankfully.

But I mostly agree that trying to do tactical wargaming in 5e is sub-optimal and that more rules isn't the way to go for most cases. It's mostly different rules or (especially) different explanations that are needed.

[Tanarii]

edgelord and/or Team Evil races like Drow and Tieflings and Dragonborn and Humanoids (Orcs, Goblins, etc) don't belong in the PHB. Make them splat content.

Humans should be the best race pick. Other races should be noticeably worse, have limited choices of class, or have level limits.

[Brookshw]

edgelord and/or Team Evil races like Drow and Tieflings and Dragonborn and Humanoids (Orcs, Goblins, etc) don't belong in the PHB. Make them splat content.


Why are dragonborn edgelord/team evil?:smallconfused:

[Amnestic]

Humans should be the best race pick.

Counter hot take: humans should be the worst race pick.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Counter hot take: humans should be the worst race pick.
Counter to both of you:

All races should be the best pick for some themes and ok picks for any theme. Every race should have a clear "this is who I am" statement that is unique to them. But no race should be best or worst at everything.

[Dork_Forge]

Counter to both of you:

All races should be the best pick for some themes and ok picks for any theme. Every race should have a clear "this is who I am" statement that is unique to them. But no race should be best or worst at everything.

Common sense wandered into the hot takes thread again.

[KorvinStarmast]

edgelord and/or Team Evil races like Drow and Tieflings and Dragonborn and Humanoids (Orcs, Goblins, etc) don't belong in the PHB. Make them splat content. I can live with that, but I think we may be a small voice in a large crowd.

Humans should be the best race pick. Other races should be noticeably worse, have limited choices of class, or have level limits. While I agree on the basis of Old School sensibility, doesn't that lead to the mad rush to find the next Pun Pun?

[Tanarii]

Why are dragonborn edgelord/team evil?:smallconfused:
Because I grew up on Draconians.

But fair point. I think my objection to Dragonborn is "wildly non-humanform", which would also cover Tabaxi, Aarocokra, Thri-kreen, etc.


Counter to both of you:

All races should be the best pick for some themes and ok picks for any theme. Every race should have a clear "this is who I am" statement that is unique to them. But no race should be best or worst at everything.
Unfortunately that doesn't result in Humans with some Demihuman support in a fantasy world. It results in fantasy menagerie. There's a pretty clear demarcation of when that line was crossed, and it's all on WotC.

[Theoboldi]

[I]
Suggest you read Peterson's second book, The Elusive Shift. That's been with the game since its beginning.

That is pretty much true. I just think something could have been done to keep the fighting to a minimum.


Hear me out guys... What if Fighter and Rogue were combined?

Oh, I'll do you one better. The Rogue should be kept separate from the fighter.......but it should lose its privileges as the "skill" class. :smallamused:

Right now, Rogue does way too much double duty as the thief class and a catch-all for any concept that is supposed to be exceedingly competent in a mundane area. It's the thief, and the assassin, but also the investigating detective, and the athletic pugilist, and the noble social dilettante, and the adventuring archeologist, all of which for some reason are equally well-versed in Thief's Cant and using lockpicks, and mainly attack from ambush!

By allowing the Fighter to pick up some expertises, and more importantly, class abilities that led him just do stuff without rolling or improve the way he uses his skills, it enables him to do those concepts equally as well as the Rogue did, without any of the janky, weird baggage you get otherwise.

The Rogue, meanwhile, could become a class truly focused on being a sneaky trickster and charlatan, just like how the barbarian is hyper-focused on being a raging, wild warrior. It doesn't need to lose the ability to be good at skills, it should just no longer make this its main stick.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Unfortunately that doesn't result in Humans with some Demihuman support in a fantasy world. It results in fantasy menagerie. There's a pretty clear demarcation of when that line was crossed, and it's all on WotC.

And? I don't see a problem with that as long as individual settings pick and choose what races they allow. The idea that humans >> all doesn't fit with much of the supporting fantasy archetypes. It's basically a Sword and Sorcery conceit...something D&D hasn't been since the old OD&D ended. And even then it was only paying lip service to that. "Demi-humans" have played equal roles since then.

[Brookshw]

Because I grew up on Draconians.


Heh, I still have a handful of those old pewter models.

Did Draconians actually get replaced by Dragonborn in DL? I actually don't know but am curious now.

[KorvinStarmast]

That is pretty much true. I just think something could have been done to keep the fighting to a minimum. Would be nice, yes.


It's basically a Sword and Sorcery conceit...something D&D hasn't been since the old OD&D ended. And even then it was only paying lip service to that. "Demi-humans" have played equal roles since then. Since 3e, yes, but IIRC AD&D 2e had level caps for demi humans. I need to go back and check, my 1e and 2e memories often cross over each other. I think one of the 2e books (Book of Elves?) lifted level limits as an option for the DM.

[Lord Raziere]

Right now, Rogue does way too much double duty as the thief class and a catch-all for any concept that is supposed to be exceedingly competent in a mundane area. It's the thief, and the assassin, but also the investigating detective, and the athletic pugilist, and the noble social dilettante, and the adventuring archeologist, all of which for some reason are equally well-versed in Thief's Cant and using lockpicks, and mainly attack from ambush!


Jank like this is EXACTLY why DnD is not and never will be, a universal system. I don't care about how cold or hot a take it is. People don't get the right to say it is until they deal with things like this.

[Brookshw]

Since 3e, yes, but IIRC AD&D 2e had level caps for demi humans. I need to go back and check, my 1e and 2e memories often cross over each other.

2e did. Iirc, half-elf might have been spared caps on a few classes.

[Tanarii]

And? I don't see a problem with that as long as individual settings pick and choose what races they allow. The idea that humans >> all doesn't fit with much of the supporting fantasy archetypes. It's basically a Sword and Sorcery conceit...something D&D hasn't been since the old OD&D ended. And even then it was only paying lip service to that. "Demi-humans" have played equal roles since then.No. it didn't change until 3e.

Clearly the solution is for the PHB to not have any races in it, and for setting specific books to have them.

[Makorel]

Unfortunately that doesn't result in Humans with some Demihuman support in a fantasy world. It results in fantasy menagerie. There's a pretty clear demarcation of when that line was crossed, and it's all on WotC.

You say that like it's a problem. nevermind should've finished reading the thread. All I'll say is that I want fantasy menagerie.

[Amechra]

D&D's interpretation of "Vancian" spellcasting is garbage, has always been garbage, and will always be garbage.

The spell list needs to be trimmed with a flamethrower, and the number of distinct spell levels should be cut down to 3 or so.

[noob]

The spell list needs to be trimmed with a flamethrower, and the number of distinct spell levels should be cut down to 3 or so.

That is what happens when you play E6.

[Dork_Forge]

That is what happens when you play E6.

That doesn't address spell list bloat though.

[Tanarii]

You say that like it's a problem. nevermind should've finished reading the thread. All I'll say is that I want fantasy menagerie.Indeed. Each of us wanting what we want and others be damned is both of our prerogatives in a hot take thread. :smallamused:


D&D's interpretation of "Vancian" spellcasting is garbage, has always been garbage, and will always be garbage.
It worked fine from a perspective of single session war game dungeon delving, where artillery and other special powers get x/uses per session.

If they'd avoided "per day" and stuck with "per session" and made it clear the expectation is you'll end the session in a safe place or else be considered lost on the battlefield in the dungeon, it'd have stayed working fine. Of course, that would have limited the ability of the game to adapt. Even to things similar, like wilderness hex crawling.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It worked fine from a perspective of single session war game dungeon delving, where artillery and other special powers get x/uses per session.

If they'd avoided "per day" and stuck with "per session" and made it clear the expectation is you'll end the session in a safe place or else be considered lost on the battlefield in the dungeon, it'd have stayed working fine. Of course, that would have limited the ability of the game to adapt. Even to things similar, like wilderness hex crawling.

That would have killed the game entirely. Because in reality, the whole "featureless dungeon crawl" game was limited to one person's table and even then didn't really last very long there before they branched out into other styles.

[noob]

That doesn't address spell list bloat though.

It removes 50% of the spells due to removing all the spells above the third level.

[Dork_Forge]

It removes 50% of the spells due to removing all the spells above the third level.

The spells per level are still large:

It looks like there's about 44 1st level spells available for a Wizard to choose from. Even if you restrict it to PHB only that's still 30 spells.

[pwykersotz]

Haven't read everything, so I don't know if this is unique.

The whole magic system is garbage. Rip it out, replace it with something better. Something light, flexible, and most importantly, something that doesn't require hours of reading from both players and GM and also interrupt game with more reading.

[Tanarii]

That would have killed the game entirely. Because in reality, the whole "featureless dungeon crawl" game was limited to one person's table and even then didn't really last very long there before they branched out into other styles.maybe two tables? I don't know enough about Blackmoor to know if it included wilderness jaunts or just a mega dungeon.

But yes. As soon as you step out of a 1 session battlefield or 1 session dungeon expedition, it starts to break down.


Haven't read everything, so I don't know if this is unique.

The whole magic system is garbage. Rip it out, replace it with something better. Something light, flexible, and most importantly, something that doesn't require hours of reading from both players and GM and also interrupt game with more reading.
Describe what you want to do, and make an ability check vs a DC set by the DM? :smallamused:

[pwykersotz]

Describe what you want to do, and make an ability check vs a DC set by the DM? :smallamused:


:smallbiggrin: Heh, kind of. Except within a scope. So like if you had a single type of power that was the length and detail of a single spell description, but then within that scope you could roll for it.

Basically, throw out spells, bring in types of magic, but don't force me to spend time calculating things at the table. I don't want a point system where I determine how big my AOE can be. I just want it to be easy to make an ice bridge if I have cold magic, shorter at low level, bigger at high level. And also make it snow, and also shoot a blast of frost. Without having to rely on WOTC having made precisely the spells I want.

[Bohandas]

Counter hot take: humans should be the worst race pick.

Or removed entirely.

Or replaced with sci-fi/fantasy humans like morlocks, eloi, toclafane, futurekind, asteromorphs, and so forth. (edit: and supermutants)

If they're gonna rip off hobbits they might as well rip off some other stuff too

[Theodoxus]

My hot take: Races are dumb and don't work. Take elves. They were supposedly the first hominid race in most stories. And, they're generally depicted as pretty much perfected and unchanged since 'elf creator god' made them. Sometimes another god steals a few and makes a new race out of them (orcs) or other times another god makes a new race all on their own. But no way, once those two races meet, do they co-mingle and live life all hunky-dory. They might co-mingle and interbreed, if possible, but rather quickly, one or the other will die out from competition and lack of resources.

The gods might keep coming up with better and better concepts, but ultimately, they'll get bored and move on, and one species will reign supreme. They might take lesser species as slaves for a while, but that tends to end in slave revolts when the slaves realize they outnumber their masters, and like the Kaylon, find themselves ruling over the corpses of their former masters.

In space-faring sci-fi, its easier for disparate species to co-exist in the vast expanses of space (despite how small those vast expanses end up being thanks to FTL travel). But on a singular world, where most D&D campaigns take place; unless you're playing within a thousand years (perhaps) of a newly created race, you might explore dead civilizations of humans or gnomes or elves, but your dwarf or orc or halfling won't ever encounter a living one...

It's for that reason that my own homebrew world is based on changelings. I get to cheat a little, by having changelings take on "racial" traits that emphasize a specific aspect (dwarf-sized/shaped mining changelings; tall, thin tree-dwelling changelings, etc.). But as they were all one species, that differentiation might create divisions that mirror our own real-life ethnic divisions, but not outright genocide a actual distinctly different species would engender.

As the history of my world progressed, the changelings slowly lost their ability to completely alter their makeup. They've slowly evolved into human-esque shades of their former selves. But they retain some of that "old world magic", possessing two or three traits from 5E races; a hodge-podge of potential. Either rolled (3 random traits) or pick two specific ones. I've found it lets me treat truly different humanoid non-player species as the truly monstrous beings we want to roll dice against, instead of being conflicted: 'Wait, I'm a bugbear... am *I* the bad guy?" that I've had to deal with at more than one table.

[animorte]

Remove all races and classes. Acquire features/skills/spells through a level-up point buy system.

[Amnestic]

"Halfling" is a dumb name for a race since they wouldn't call themselves that, and I think of the official 5e settings only FR has given them an alternative name ('Hin', but that's from older pre-5e content). They should retire the name with the next 'edition' in favour of something else, legacy+tradition be damned.

Imagine if instead of playing a "human" the game insisted that you call your character a "Bigling", but were otherwise indistinguishable from a human. Ridiculous.

Addendum to this: I asked Keith Baker, and the 'internal' halfling name for their race in Eberron is "Talenta", hence the Talenta Plains. So we're at 2 settings with alt. names now.

Mildly lukewarm take: I don't like the charisma skills and I would kinda prefer it if they didn't exist. Since DMs set their own DCs anyway (:D) it's really just cutting out the middleman to "DM decides if it works or not". Just think it'd be nice if there was more incentive for players to think of how they're going to charisma someone instead of rolling. Yes, yes, "DM decides to call for rolls and you can just not call for rolls" - I know, but the existence of the skill implies that rolls should be made for it, and I'd prefer that not be the case.

The alternative would be a much more robust and dedicated social system but they don't have that either so we're stuck in a middleground I don't like.

[Goobahfish]

#1: If you are going to name a race halflings, they should just be a pair of legs that walk around or legless torsos. As it stands, they are minilings.
#2: If races are just fancy hats, there should be a hat race or at least some non-bipedal human knock-off.
#3: Classes are economic discrimination dressed up as roleplaying. We await the Gnomish uprising!
#4: Most of the core mechanics of D&D are poorly designed (D20 is mostly fine). HP, AC, Actions, Spellcasting, Alignment, 6-stats, Rests...
#5: High level play is just like low level play with higher numbers and it takes longer...
#6: If the only real difference between two classes is the mechanics (i.e. Sorcerer/Warlock) rather than the capabilities you have messed up.

Oh, I forgot

#7: Any fantasy game that encourages you to play a human has failed to be what it purports to be...

[KorvinStarmast]

D&D's interpretation of "Vancian" spellcasting is garbage, has always been garbage, and will always be garbage. It was workable in a game, but it was badly explained early on.

The spell list needs to be trimmed with a flamethrower No disagreement there.

The whole magic system is garbage. Rip it out, replace it with something better. Something light, flexible, and most importantly, something that doesn't require hours of reading from both players and GM and also interrupt game with more reading. Easy to say, hard to do.

Or removed entirely. No. The players are human. The entirety of the SF&F genre is an overlap of the mundane and the fantastic, or the primary world (things we connect to) with the secondary world (stuff that isn't what we recognize as real).

Or replaced with sci-fi/fantasy humans like morlocks, eloi, toclafane, futurekind, asteromorphs, and so forth. Barrier to entry for casual players is noted, and rejected. You don't make the game for purists.

#5: High level play is just like low level play with higher numbers and it takes longer.. I noticed that.

#7: Any fantasy game that encourages you to play a human has failed to be what it purports to be... False. See the point I made earlier on primary/secondary world.

[Amechra]

It worked fine from a perspective of single session war game dungeon delving, where artillery and other special powers get x/uses per session.

If they'd avoided "per day" and stuck with "per session" and made it clear the expectation is you'll end the session in a safe place or else be considered lost on the battlefield in the dungeon, it'd have stayed working fine. Of course, that would have limited the ability of the game to adapt. Even to things similar, like wilderness hex crawling.

I'd argue that it was still a kludge-y mess to satisfy people who wanted to take artillery units somewhere where artillery units don't belong. And it sucks because it took something reasonably simple and kludged it into a set of rules that demands a list of dozens of spells broken into discreet levels.

It'd actually be kinda interesting to see what a 5e class based off of the Chainmail Wizard would look like — I can almost guarantee you that it wouldn't look anything like the actual Wizard we got for 5e.



There were four "tiers" of Wizard — from weakest to strongest, you had Magicians, Warlocks, Sorcerers, and Wizards. (Hey, those names look familiar, right?) To avoid confusion, I'll refer to the group as "spellcasters"
Spellcasters of all tiers fight in normal combat like two units and can use magic weapons.
Spellcasters can turn invisible at-will, see perfectly in the dark, and are immune to non-magical ranged attacks.
Spellcasters bolster and break morale just like Super-Heroes (allies get a bonus to morale, while enemies have to check morale).
Spellcasters can throw around Fireballs and Lightning Bolts at will. They're devastatingly powerful, but stronger units either get a save or only have to worry about being pushed back, not instantly deleted.
Spellcasters can cast a number of battlefield-warping spells, like summoning up elementals or huge clouds of darkness. Conspicuously, counterspelling only affects these spells, but spellcasters can do it at-will.


The main difference in power level between, say, a Magician and a Wizard is that the Wizard has more uses of their big spells, has better range for those big spells, is better at surviving magical attacks from other spellcasters, and is better at counterspells. Notably, a Wizard's Fireball isn't noticeably stronger than a Magicians.

---

For comparison, the Super-Hero (which is the rough equivalent of the Fighter) is way cheaper, fights like eight units, never checks for morale, and has a chance of one-shotting passing dragons if you give them a bow. No, seriously:


A Super-hero, armed with a bow, shoots a dragon passing within range overhead out of the air and kills it on a two die roll of 8 or better (7 or better with an enchanted arrow).

For reference, a spellcaster's Fireball or Lightning Bolt shoves dragons instead of potentially killing them.

[Tanarii]

Addendum to this: I asked Keith Baker, and the 'internal' halfling name for their race in Eberron is "Talenta", hence the Talenta Plains. So we're at 2 settings with alt. names now.The "Hin" you referenced before was the alternate TSR name for halflings. It was used in several products, including Mystara and Forgotten Realms. So it wasn't just a setting name for them, it was the official alternate name of the D&D company.


I'd argue that it was still a kludge-y mess to satisfy people who wanted to take artillery units somewhere where artillery units don't belong. And I'd argue that's a masterful summary. Well said sir! :smallamused:

[Yakmala]

Haven't read every post, but will give my hot takes below:

1: 5e is the best version of D&D ever published. I say this having started with the original white box edition and every edition since. It is not the most complex version, but complex does not always equal good. 5e strikes a great balance. The barrier of entry has been lowered to the point where it's easy to onboard new players and get them hooked but retained enough variation to keep things interesting all the way to level 20.

2: Alignment still matters and players should use it as a guideline to their character's reactions.

3: I'll take a Lawful Evil character over a Chaotic Neutral character every day. Not all players that make CN characters are trying to be disruptive, but enough of them are to make me suspicious of anyone who shows up to my table with a CN. I've met more jerks playing CN characters than any other allignment.

4: As long as Kender continue to exist, I have no interest in joining or running games set in Dragonlance, nor will I purchase any Dragonlance materials.

5: Eldritch Blast should always have been a Warlock only ability.

6: There are too many Charisma casters. Sorcerer should be Con based.

7: There is nothing wrong with Monks that can't be fixed by getting rid of Ki entirely and just letting them do what they do. A Monk with unlimited access to their core fighting abilities is still balanced.

8: If you are going to allow characters to freely change around their starting attributes and skills, then let DM's, by RAW, freely change the weapon type on any magic weapon.

9: Distinctive player races were fine. You can make some of them less stereotypical without having to make them all homogeneous.

10: Most people that say martial characters can't compete with casters have never played 5e at a high level. While casters are getting shut down by high level bosses casting counter spell or putting up anti-magic fields or just being flat out immune to any spell below 6th level, the martial characters are still happily burying axe blades and arrows in the big bad's guts.

Bonus 11th hot take: Play what you like, but at the end of the day, Paladin is the best overall class in 5e. They can tank, they can heal, they can buff, they can party face, they can do huge burst damage and most important of all, they make everyone's saving throws better. No 5e party has ever said "Why did we bring a Paladin?" But plenty of parties without one wish they had.

[Amnestic]

7: There is nothing wrong with Monks that can't be fixed by getting rid of Ki entirely and just letting them do what they do. A Monk with unlimited access to their core fighting abilities is still balanced.


Okay I kinda vibe with this as long as you do something to Stunning Strike, 'cos stunning strike on every attack plus costless flurry of blows every turn feels like a bit much. Making it 1/turn or something would probably be enough, maybe 2/turn at 13th (because TotSaM is otherwise a pretty 'meh' ability for 13th level). They'd need a new capstone too, but I already gave them one of those (+2 to all stats, max 22) for my table.

I dunno how a ki-less monk looks dip-wise either but honestly it's probably fine.

Edit: You'd also need to look at some of the subclass features - Long Death especially for its 11th+ features.

[Bohandas]

No. The players are human. The entirety of the SF&F genre is an overlap of the mundane and the fantastic, or the primary world (things we connect to) with the secondary world (stuff that isn't what we recognize as real).

Dark Crystal, Alien Planet, Nightmare Before Christmas, Raptor Red, Endless Legend, Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, Unikitty!, Redwall, Fobots, Ratchet & Clank, Metal Arms: Glitch in the System....

as well as plenty quite long stretches within larger works such as the entire Hivebent sequence from Homestuck. (edit: also, from a strict cladistic standpoint even the human protagonists of that comic weren't human)

I'm also about 99% sure that there was at least one Adventure time epsiode without Finn, Betty, Simon, or Marcy in it

EDIT: and the first quarter of Journey to the West, which is basically a standalone story in its own right and is the part that everyone knows

[Yakmala]

Okay I kinda vibe with this as long as you do something to Stunning Strike, 'cos stunning strike on every attack plus costless flurry of blows every turn feels like a bit much. Making it 1/turn or something would probably be enough, maybe 2/turn at 13th (because TotSaM is otherwise a pretty 'meh' ability for 13th level). They'd need a new capstone too, but I already gave them one of those (+2 to all stats, max 22) for my table.

I dunno how a ki-less monk looks dip-wise either but honestly it's probably fine.

Edit: You'd also need to look at some of the subclass features - Long Death especially for its 11th+ features.

This is fair. Some abilities like Stunning Strike or Dropping to 1 HP instead of 0 or Death Touches might need to be Proficiency Bonus per rest, or at the very least once per turn, but most core DPS and mobility abilities would be fine without Ki investment. For example, Being able to choose every turn between Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind or Patient Defense with no Ki limits would be just fine.

[Tanarii]

6: There are too many Charisma casters. Sorcerer should be Con based.
and Warlocks should have been Int casters. But that's hardly a hot take.

[animorte]

and Warlocks should have been Int casters. But that's hardly a hot take.

Warlocks are neither intelligent nor wise enough to not strike a deal with a supreme being with likely very little interest in the Warlock’s well-being. Though I don’t believe Charisma necessarily aligns with dim-witted.

[Tanarii]

Warlocks are neither intelligent nor wise enough to not strike a deal with a supreme being with likely very little interest in the Warlock’s well-being. Though I don’t believe Charisma necessarily aligns with dim-witted.
Warlocks are studiers of forbidden and eldritch knowledge which eventually leads to a bargain for power. They're Faust.

[noob]

Warlocks are neither intelligent nor wise enough to not strike a deal with a supreme being with likely very little interest in the Warlock’s well-being. Though I don’t believe Charisma necessarily aligns with dim-witted.
Who knows, there is so many patrons there is probably a patron that loves their warlocks.
basically anybody can be a patron, there is so much variety in terms of warlock patrons, you died and came back to life a bit rotten? Guess what? It is time to be an undying patron, you are a celestial on top of mount celestia? You could too recruit warlocks, you are a fey? you could be a warlock patron too, everybody can be a warlock patron, be one now.

[Bohandas]

Clerics should be charisma casters

[PhoenixPhyre]

8: If you are going to allow characters to freely change around their starting attributes and skills, then let DM's, by RAW, freely change the weapon type on any magic weapon.


This is already RAW. Magic items are explicitly just examples. Not binding rules.

[NovenFromTheSun]

Archons and devils, while not going full robotic like modrons, should still look quasi-mechanical rather than fully organic.

[Amechra]

I think an issue that people are running into here is that there are basically two broad approaches to presenting a fantastical world (in the context of an adventure story, mind you):


The viewpoint character(s) are outsiders to the weird world, and we learn about it through them.
The viewpoint character(s) are a part of the weird world, and we learn about it by watching them.


D&D's published settings have traditionally assumed the first one, while WotC itself has gradually drifted towards the second one.

---

Hot take that I expect no one to agree with me on: races shouldn't actually have mechanics attached to them. The "rules" for playing a Tiefling (for example) should just be a list of descriptive flourishes, cultural notes, and suggested backgrounds/subclasses.


Archons and devils, while not going full robotic like modrons, should still look quasi-mechanical rather than fully organic.

To quote a review (http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2018/06/some-thoughts-about-mordenkainens-tome.html) of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes:


None of the archdevils are wearing business suits, though

This is a silly way of saying that I don't feel that there's enough stylistic differentiation in how devils and demons are presented. The archdevils do not say "this is a being of terrible law" to me. The demon designs are okay, though. They get the point across.

[pwykersotz]

Easy to say, hard to do.

Very much so, yes. And while I call it garbage, that's hyperbole. It's a system that works very well for a lot of people, and which I haven't yet found a suitable replacement for, even after sampling many dozens of TTRPG's and various homebrew alternatives. It's a tough nut to crack.

[Luccan]

Hot take that I expect no one to agree with me on: races shouldn't actually have mechanics attached to them. The "rules" for playing a Tiefling (for example) should just be a list of descriptive flourishes, cultural notes, and suggested backgrounds/subclasses.


Unless there's a significant loss that WotC interprets as due to getting too generic or if D&D loses enough market share that being niche is more profitable for them than trying to swallow the whole TTRPG market, I am currently expecting this in the next edition. Or at least that something like the Tasha's custom lineage will be the default, with traditional races used as examples for building unique ones. Like they're doing with backgrounds now, basically.

I had been considering a setting which was "Use the custom lineage rules; you're either human or another creature from far away/mutated/made by a wizard" so I'm not against it on an individual game basis, I just don't want D&D in general to be that

[Bohandas]

To quote a review of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes:

None of the archdevils are wearing business suits, though

This is a silly way of saying that I don't feel that there's enough stylistic differentiation in how devils and demons are presented. The archdevils do not say "this is a being of terrible law" to me. The demon designs are okay, though. They get the point across.

It's not just the devils, it's baator in general. Baator is entirely too free. It should be closer to a fantasy version of the setting from Paranoia

[Lord Raziere]

Fighters getting stuff isn't them getting spells or becoming wizards, its them getting things abilities can use and becoming good.

the concept of a beginner class should spread out across all archetypes instead of being focused on fighter.

[Bohandas]

Kender are better than halflings because at least they're original and play a coherent role in their setting

[animorte]

the concept of a beginner class should spread out across all archetypes instead of being focused on fighter.

So much this. I've accomplished various in-house ways to conduct this.

[Elderand]

The game only need 3 classes:
Fighter, Rogue, Mage
Everything else can be a subclass of one of the 3.
Paladin, and ranger are fighter subclasses.
Monk and bard are rogue subclasses.
Cleric druid, wizard, and sorcerer-are mage subclasses

Warlock isn't a class or subclass, it's a backstory element to justify access to magic.

[Yael]

My scorching takes:

D&D, as a roleplaying game, should be enforcing rules so when you enter play, you can play by those rules, as it is a game. When DMs (or players) enforce a rules-free experience, it turns more into a play-pretend game, and as much as some people would like to do that, some others prefer to be bound by rules so stakes can matter.

On a related note, the Golden Rule should be always enforced, but that's what a session 0 should be, and changing rules on-the-go is of pretty bad taste.

Also, Tasha's+ was a mistake.

[Amnestic]

The game only need 3 classes:
Fighter, Rogue, Mage
Everything else can be a subclass of one of the 3.
Paladin, and ranger are fighter subclasses.
Monk and bard are rogue subclasses.
Cleric druid, wizard, and sorcerer-are mage subclasses

Warlock isn't a class or subclass, it's a backstory element to justify access to magic.

We would lose so much mechanical variety if we did that.

Try to turn Paladin into a fighter subclass while still keeping its bells+whistles, then try to do so while also keeping paladin subclass features.

[Waazraath]

Ok, let's try some:


- Different classes should have different mechanics. Some should be easy, some should be difficult, but they should be different.

- The design where 2/3rd of the classes use 'spells' in exactly the same way is lazy and makes the game less interesting, especially with the passing of time and after having played a bunch of characters with essentially the same mechanism.

- Even within the choice of "most classes share the same resource" as was made for spells, it's a bloody shame there's no variation in /how/ the casting is done, in relation to the fluff. The game would be more interesting if, for instance, the wizard would need his spell book at hand and the chanting and finger wobbling and components, while clerics would need their holy symbol and loudly prayers, the bard would need singing and playing, the warlock would need a few drops of its own blood as sacrifice to its patron, the sorcerer needs nothing because 'power from within'. Just spitballin here but something like this would work.

- Peak design D&D was late 3.x. The way classes like binders, martial adepts, duskblades and warlocks are all in balance to each other and capable of dealing with appropriate threats from the MM and covering different roles ('pillars') without breaking the game while using vast different resource systems is glorious to behold (and great fun to play).

- 5e needs more simulationism. Too much has been sacrificed in the name of 'simplifying the game'.

- it's absolutely silly that the weapon tables are simplified up to it being a single table with hardly any meaningful differences while there are 82 bloody pages of spells. This is inexcusable.

- to expand on the two points above: an (optional) arms and equipment book, with loads of extra weapons and equipment, which can be used to do cool martial tricks, preferably also some in combination with class features like extra attack and sneak attack, is long overdue.

- the fact that we do have nothing like this (and only a handful of new weapons spread out over the 20+ books) while every other book has new spells which we already had said 82 pages in the PHB shows the designers don't have their priorities straight

- having said that, most of the 'casters are better than martials' is forum talk and white room wisdom, and not grounded in actual play (or grounded in actual play where players don't follow the rules and guidelines in the books). 5e has done a great job in balancing the classes against each other.

- having said that, 'new player options' should be spread out more evenly over all these classes. The game needs more infusions, invocations, maneuvers, runes, totems, 4 element powers, and the like.

- 'one dnd' I mean 5.5 is gonna split the player base cause a lot of folks are not gonna buy the new books and will continue playing old style 5e, since the improvments won't justify buying all books again while the differences will be big enough to lead to compatibility problems

- the one handed wielding of a quarterstaff (while holding a shield no less) is 5e's Spiked Chain (see 3.x) and an abomination for which a formal apology from the designers would be in place. And it is a very good example of why a little bit of extra simulationism and attention for arms/equipment would make the game better.

[animorte]

We would lose so much mechanical variety if we did that.

Try to turn Paladin into a fighter subclass while still keeping its bells+whistles, then try to do so while also keeping paladin subclass features.

I disagree about the mechanical variety very much. It doesn’t really need all those bells+whistles. A fair amount, certainly not overwhelming, of those bells+whistles are copy+paste. I’ve said before that there is a clear trade-off though. Fewer overall classes would provide greater balance while more allows for greater theme (not mechanical) variety.

[Bohandas]

My scorching takes:

D&D, as a roleplaying game, should be enforcing rules so when you enter play, you can play by those rules, as it is a game. When DMs (or players) enforce a rules-free experience, it turns more into a play-pretend game, and as much as some people would like to do that, some others prefer to be bound by rules so stakes can matter.

Plus, if you're gonna just play pretend, you can do that for free, you don't need 200 dollars worth of books and equipment, so if that's what someone winds up doing then they've kind of wasted their money

[Ulsan Krow]

Monk shouldn't be in the game and it's vaguely racist to have a dedicated oriental class at all

[Amechra]

Monk shouldn't be in the game and it's vaguely racist to have a dedicated oriental class at all

The Monk originally showed up in a game with Persian assassins, Celtic priests, psychic powers, and people throwing around Biblical miracles, at a time where poorly-dubbed Hong Kong cinema (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeB4G_gQSK0) was flooding the international market. The Monk has been in D&D basically forever, and has a stronger claim to being in D&D than most classes.

The problem is that it wasn't a core class in 2e, so it never got the same "oh, that's just generic D&D" treatment that stuff like, say, the Bard or the Druid did (by being shoe-horned into every setting). Like, no one complains about how weird it is that the Druid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid) is a core class.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

Hmmm

1. Cantrips shouldn't scale in damage, except maybe for EB since that's the whole shtick for warlocks.
2. Rogues need more magic items just for them
3. Cut down the number of skills a bard knows by half, and also reduce the rogues skills and move some of those proficiencies to martial classes. However, boost Jack Of All trades slightly.
4. Strength and Con should be a single stat.
5. Bards are a bit overtuned with multiclassing and magical secrets etc. I would be open to eliminating magical secrets, but giving them all extra attack and maybe some sort of concentration save buff. They are supposed to be sort of a hybrid class and not as powerful magically as other arcane casters in terms of damage, which they easily can be with magic secrets.
6. Mounted combat rules need clarification and slight buffs. Drop the whole controlled mount thing, the rider should have access to all options in the creatures stat block. That alone would do a lot. A fighter with lance who can make 2 trample attacks in addition to his regular swings due to the warhorse is not bad at all. I would also buff lance damage, a couched lance far exceeds the damage of other weapons shown in the table irl.
7. More magic like effects from mundane armor to help out the martials. Full plate should give partial damage resistance even without heavy armor master and I would give a plate+shield wearing PC evasion also, to reflect how all encompassing the protection is.
8. Walking/running speed should be determined by the athletics score.
9. More detailed rules for gambling and cheating at gambling.

[truemane]

I have only one. It's the same one I've had since 1989 when I heard someone complain that "2E is just a cash grab that dumbs down D&D so more stupid kids will buy it."

1. Everything in D&D (and every RPG, and to some degree, all of existence) is an infinite fractally nested series of IF/THEN statements. IF you like games more like [X], THEN you should [Y]. IF you have fun doing [A], then you should avoid tables that [B]. IF you think it's important that [race, class, HP, short rests, multiclassing, realism, storytelling, the oxford comma, etc, etc] [are, are not, should be, should not be] [more, less, better, worse, different, same, etc] THEN you should just say so, and avoid games that you won't like OR just accept a game's IF/THEN statements as is, and play it on its own terms.

If everyone learned to see even their strongest opinions as essentially arbitrary value judgements based on (mostly emotional and irrational) assumptions and expectations, learned to replace "that sucks" with "that doesn't work for me" and learn to have better Session 0's where they can better communicate the intricacies of their specific social contract, the hobby would be much improved.

[Bohandas]

The monk should at least have a different name. There's plenty of monks that aren't martial artists and plenty of martial artist characters from kung-fu movies that aren't monks. The vast majority of both I'd argue.

EDIT:
and I don't think I've ever seen Jackie Chan play a monk.

[NichG]

The monk should at least have a different name. There's plenty of monks that aren't martial artists and plenty of martial artist characters from kung-fu movies that aren't monks. The vast majority of both I'd argue.

EDIT:
and I don't think I've ever seen Jackie Chan play a monk.

Could go with sohei. Or just call them Cultivators and make a whole cultivation fantasy extension to D&D with a bunch of associated subsystems that would make the existing spellcasting stuff look simple in comparison. It's even already conveniently sorted into levels and class abilities.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have only one. It's the same one I've had since 1989 when I heard someone complain that "2E is just a cash grab that dumbs down D&D so more stupid kids will buy it."

1. Everything in D&D (and every RPG, and to some degree, all of existence) is an infinite fractally nested series of IF/THEN statements. IF you like games more like [X], THEN you should [Y]. IF you have fun doing [A], then you should avoid tables that [B]. IF you think it's important that [race, class, HP, short rests, multiclassing, realism, storytelling, the oxford comma, etc, etc] [are, are not, should be, should not be] [more, less, better, worse, different, same, etc] THEN you should just say so, and avoid games that you won't like OR just accept a game's IF/THEN statements as is, and play it on its own terms.

If everyone learned to see even their strongest opinions as essentially arbitrary value judgements based on (mostly emotional and irrational) assumptions and expectations, learned to replace "that sucks" with "that doesn't work for me" and learn to have better Session 0's where they can better communicate the intricacies of their specific social contract, the hobby would be much improved.

Ok, who let common sense and actually useful ideas into the hot takes thread? Seriously, I agree with this. Even adding IMO or "I think that" or "I prefer that" helps somewhat.

[Easy e]

D&D is popular, because of the strategic elements of the game more than the tactical. Strategic value being the value a game brings away from the table, while tactical is the value it brings on the table.

You can talk about D&D for hours and days, and never actually PLAY D&D.

The same is true of other "popular" games such as Bridge, chess, sportsball, and other "popular" games. The more strategic value a game brings, the more "popular" it will be,

[Bohandas]

Could go with sohei. Or just call them Cultivators and make a whole cultivation fantasy extension to D&D with a bunch of associated subsystems that would make the existing spellcasting stuff look simple in comparison. It's even already conveniently sorted into levels and class abilities.

How about just "martial artist"

[NichG]

How about just "martial artist"

The mystical/quasi-supernatural aspect of the Monk is a relevant part of the section of fiction it spans.

[Rafaelfras]

You can run a balanced, fun and challenging game with an oversized party (6+), of level 15+ characters, with no banned spells, feats, multiclass, magic items, no houserules and the game will not fall apart

[Bohandas]

The mystical/quasi-supernatural aspect of the Monk is a relevant part of the section of fiction it spans.

"Wuxia Martial Artist" then

[Lord Raziere]

"Wuxia Martial Artist" then

the proper term is just "wu" which means "martial/military" and "xia" which means "vigilante/hero", so "wuxia" on its own expresses the full concept. the martial artist part is technically redundant.

[NichG]

the proper term is just "wu" which means "martial/military" and "xia" which means "vigilante/hero", so "wuxia" on its own expresses the full concept. the martial artist part is technically redundant.

And by 10th level, they're stepping into the realm of xianxia anyhow...

[Dienekes]

the proper term is just "wu" which means "martial/military" and "xia" which means "vigilante/hero", so "wuxia" on its own expresses the full concept. the martial artist part is technically redundant.

I kinda feel this would translate pretty easily to just "martial artist' then. Since Martial Hero would just mean any martial.

[NichG]

I kinda feel this would translate pretty easily to just "martial artist' then. Since Martial Hero would just mean any martial.

I mean, back in OD&D the class granted the ability to speak with plants and heal wounds. At one point the idea was to call the class 'mystic' and treat it as a variant of cleric. In 2ed it was a kit for the Priest class for awhile, then printed as an independent class in a later splat.

[Bohandas]

the proper term is just "wu" which means "martial/military" and "xia" which means "vigilante/hero", so "wuxia" on its own expresses the full concept. the martial artist part is technically redundant.

"Wuxia" by itself might be a little too esoteric as a name. And besides, people say things like "ATM machine" "PIN number" and "DC comics"

EDIT:
Plus, I was using it in the sense of "kung-fu movies" or "pertaining to kung-fu movies"

[Thrudd]

In Rules Cyclopedia, they are just called "Mystic". Could be "Mystic Adept", if just "Mystic" is not descriptive enough. Gain mystical combat powers through intense training that involves ascetic practices and meditation.

[Amechra]

A related hot take:

Monks and Sorcerers should run off the same resource(s).

[CapnWildefyr]

OK here are a few more:

Alignment is a good thing (pun intended) -- at least for the MM and DMs (and as a "default setting" idea of how to roleplay stuff). CE and CN are terribly written alignments, though, and that leads to the Jerk Effect.
Magic resistance needs to come back.
No automatic ASIs, or at least fewer or them. You should work for it, or pay XP for it -- something. Maybe a 1 pt limit. And how do you get smarter? The other stats I can understand...
Smaller HD for wizards.
A default LR should let you roll 1/2 your HD for HP, not full recovery. Let full recovery be the option.
Most players who play evil characters don't play them correctly. When played correctly, evil characters cannot help but try to kill off (or betray) the rest of their party at some point. Evils only hang around those they can manipulate, or those under whom they hope to rise to power and then assassinate and replace. There's a difference between doing Bad Things sometimes, and actually liking it, and evil alignment should be on the liking side. I would call 'neutral' what many players say is 'evil.'
Lighting and obscurement should be separate rules, and unrelated, instead of intertwined like they are now.
Darkvision should split into "low light vision" and "darkvision," and fewer playable races should have one of them.

And yes, as truemane said, this is opinion, but I do think it would help a lot of tables.

[Draconi Redfir]

the whole "I don't think alignment should be a thing in D&D" argument is annoying and pointless.


Nobody is out there going "Oh no! i can't do the thing i want to do because it goes against my alignment!" because that's not how it works.


You don't act in certain ways because of limits enforced by your alignment, your alignment is just a representation of how you act!

I'm not burning down Orphanages just because I'm Chaotic Evil, I'm Chaotic Evil because I'm burning down orphanages!


Alignment is a guidelines, a general idea of how your character reacts to any given situation. you can, will, and have acted outside of your alignment at any given time. it's a concept, a loose summery, nothing more.

Your character makes choices, and their alignment is a reflection of that, not the other way around.

[animorte]

Your character makes choices, and their alignment is a reflection of that, not the other way around.

I’ve been saying that every time the opportunity presents itself. Thank you.

[PhoenixPhyre]

the whole "I don't think alignment should be a thing in D&D" argument is annoying and pointless.


Nobody is out there going "Oh no! i can't do the thing i want to do because it goes against my alignment!" because that's not how it works.


You don't act in certain ways because of limits enforced by your alignment, your alignment is just a representation of how you act!

I'm not burning down Orphanages just because I'm Chaotic Evil, I'm Chaotic Evil because I'm burning down orphanages!


Alignment is a guidelines, a general idea of how your character reacts to any given situation. you can, will, and have acted outside of your alignment at any given time. it's a concept, a loose summery, nothing more.

Your character makes choices, and their alignment is a reflection of that, not the other way around.

Except when it's encoded into reality itself and you can have creatures literally made from solidified Chaotic Evil. And if you die with too much Chaotic Evil in you, you go somewhere different than someone with less Chaotic Evil and more <something else>. I don't object to alignment as a character role-play help, but I dislike it as a cosmological parameter.

[Yael]

the whole "I don't think alignment should be a thing in D&D" argument is annoying and pointless.

This, oh very much this, please.

Alignment being pushed to the sides is an awful thing to do to D&D (at least that game), as alignment is an actual thing you can interact with (depending on the edition, with higher or lesser tools). Removing it causes problems on the very world (at least on established settings where there are actual representations of X or Y alignment), though I'm fine with having certain creatures behave differently (i.e. Always X for Usually X), such as the 3e's ever present and popular LG Succubus Paladin.

On a related note, here's another one.

The Sublime Way should make its comeback, and stay as options for martials so they can compete with magic. Maybe not a 1:1 conversion, but adding combat maneuvers to all martials one way or another (in a better way than the feat that grants like 2). I'm aware martials have a better time than in past editions (AFAIK), but it still feels boring that, if you're not in a specific niche you can actually fulfill, you're just holding the Auto-Attack button.

[Draconi Redfir]

Except when it's encoded into reality itself and you can have creatures literally made from solidified Chaotic Evil. And if you die with too much Chaotic Evil in you, you go somewhere different than someone with less Chaotic Evil and more <something else>. I don't object to alignment as a character role-play help, but I dislike it as a cosmological parameter.

a lot of fictional worlds even outside of D&D have a concept of "if you're this way in life, you go here. if you're that way in life, you go there." This isn't exactly something new. The Shadowlands from World of Warcraft come to mind for example.

[Goobahfish]

Except when it's encoded into reality itself and you can have creatures literally made from solidified Chaotic Evil. And if you die with too much Chaotic Evil in you, you go somewhere different than someone with less Chaotic Evil and more <something else>. I don't object to alignment as a character role-play help, but I dislike it as a cosmological parameter.

The fact that 'detect evil' exists is just... the worst.

[PhoenixPhyre]

a lot of fictional worlds even outside of D&D have a concept of "if you're this way in life, you go here. if you're that way in life, you go there." This isn't exactly something new. The Shadowlands from World of Warcraft come to mind for example.

Sure. But it doesn't exactly jibe with "it's just something that helps you roleplay". Which was what was stated.

My dislike for cosmological alignment is that it creates these nice boxes to be filled, checklist style. There's the LG creature+plane, the NG creature+plane...etc. It forces the cosmology into the pattern of the alignment rather than growing the alignment out of the nature of the universe. It also doesn't play nicely with moral agency, something I consider important and interesting.

I'm much more interested in a world where anyone you meet can be good or evil, lawful or chaotic as they see fit. And where people can disagree on what it means to be good--one of the more interesting mini-arcs of a campaign came when the players faced off against an opponent who was doing things he believed to be good (with what most people would call good results) and where the opposition came because the party (who were also very much in the heroic mode) couldn't accept that the opponent's good should become the dominant idea (by cosmological rearrangement). I'm interested in things where there aren't Good Gods and Evil Gods...there are just gods. Where even demon princes can be doing what they're doing for reasons that kinda make sense (although the means are abhorrent) and be really nice, friendly individuals. Just who have chosen paths that the universe cannot accept.

That's all aesthetic choice, and others can differ. But I don't see any substantial value in cosmological alignment. Role-playing alignment--sure. It's handy at the UI layer. But it's not a property of a person in-universe, it's a property of a character at the roleplay level.


The fact that 'detect evil' exists is just... the worst.

The worst part is that it doesn't even really detect evil. The name is just one of those legacy sacred cows.

[Hytheter]

How about just "martial artist"

So, a Fighter? :smallamused:


A related hot take:

Monks and Sorcerers should run off the same resource(s).

*raises finger*

*hesitates*

*strokes chin*

You know what, I like it. Actually, it would work very well with my radical Sorcerer/Warlock combo idea...

[Lord Raziere]

So, a Fighter? :smallamused:


This comment is why I'd go for the esoteric Wuxia term instead. :smallsigh:

[Ulsan Krow]

The Monk originally showed up in a game with Persian assassins, Celtic priests, psychic powers, and people throwing around Biblical miracles, at a time where poorly-dubbed Hong Kong cinema (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeB4G_gQSK0) was flooding the international market. The Monk has been in D&D basically forever, and has a stronger claim to being in D&D than most classes.

The problem is that it wasn't a core class in 2e, so it never got the same "oh, that's just generic D&D" treatment that stuff like, say, the Bard or the Druid did (by being shoe-horned into every setting). Like, no one complains about how weird it is that the Druid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid) is a core class.

The Monk is treated as the outsider, the Druid is not. Simple as that, nothing to do with having a history centred in D&D's own. If it were stripped of its Eastern alterity, right down to the dissonance of its name as Monk in a setting where very differently natured Monks already exist it wouldn't be an issue.

[Zhorn]

The Monk is treated as the outsider, the Druid is not. Simple as that, nothing to do with having a history centred in D&D's own. If it were stripped of its Eastern alterity, right down to the dissonance of its name as Monk in a setting where very differently natured Monks already exist it wouldn't be an issue.
That's a settings issue, not a systems issue

[Ulsan Krow]

That's a settings issue, not a systems issue


Not a separate issue when the system is the setting. The class is called Monk yet its a magical fistfighter with a very culturally specific approach to its brand of ascetism. From 1985 onwards (Oriental Adventures the mechanics and flavor both become overtly and intentionally Eastern (or rather, Gygax's interpretation of it). Ki powers. Supernatural wuxia martial arts. Mystical pseudo philosophical naming conventions like 'Tongue of the Sun and Moon' and 'Step of the Wind'.

Not to mention some of the other concepts contained within are outright racist and tone deaf - 'Kenseis' are a Japanese term referring to exceptionally high level practitioners of swordsmanship. It has absolutely 0 connection to monkhood and the requisite asceticism of monkhood.

It just makes the Monk look less and less like an actual class a fist fighter that harnesses magical enhancement and a coagulation of whatever the writers perceive to be an Eastern character trope. It's defined as anything Eastern (that doesn't slot into what we already got). It's like Smurfette syndrome in media - other classes are an actual identity surrounding what they do, Smurfette and Monk their identity is, 'they are female/they are Asian'. Characters with Eastern origins - the addendum of 'Eastern' should begin and end there - in name, it's not and should not be a class.

'You can just entirely reflavor everything about the class to get rid of its otherness!' is not a reasonable solution as not only is said otherness encoded into the mechanics of the class and subclasses, the flavor being there at all (so heavy handedly at that) to begin with is problematic.

[Zhorn]

Cool story bro; I sure hope that attitude allows your table to have fun.

[Ulsan Krow]

Cool story bro; I sure hope that attitude allows your table to have fun.

We have a good time without the Monk, yes. Thank you for your well meaning concern.

[Lord Raziere]

I mean......

Hot Take: DnD is the worst system to use for eastern fantasy in general, not much fun of that flavor can be had with it.

[NichG]

I'd say if anything, having the core classes be culturally homogeneous is worse. Developed settings have lots of different cultures on them, and practices and ways to power and social roles should all vary.

There should be space for things that are definitely not like other things.

[Frogreaver]

6e D&D will be viewed as a failure and 5 years later they will actually iterate on 5e and be successful again.

[Ulsan Krow]

I'd say if anything, having the core classes be culturally homogeneous is worse. Developed settings have lots of different cultures on them, and practices and ways to power and social roles should all vary.

There should be space for things that are definitely not like other things.


That's not the point. when the core classes are culturally homogenous it makes them blank slates. Because the relation between the classes is entirely detached from cultural context. You can have a rogue and a fighter in a party and you can make their cultural (un)alignments whatever you want, do they both hail from Joseon period Korea? Is one a wandering merchant from a Mesopotamian-like region, another a French chevalier? Because they are blank cultural canvasses they have the freedom to be what they want.

The issue is when you have 1 specifically Eastern class, not only is that relation of otherness enforced, it's also just an insensitive way to designate a class. So first off its the perpetual outsider/foreigner problem that no other class has. And as explained above having the specifically differentiated 'Eastern character' from everyone else exacerbates the problem you are speaking of, the inability to facilitate different settings. Secondly it's insensitive because the way it is utilised is, as given with the example of the Kensei, just utilised too often to represent 'Eastern' as a class in itself. It's treating Easternness as a collective, a monolith.

For example, take a film with an ensemble cast of unnamed male protagonists, 1 guy is an engineer, 1 guy is a varsity athlete, another an accountant, another a nanny, and there's also a woman in the group, a computer programmer. And the credits as they scroll past these names, you see the credits for an engineer, a varsity athlete, an accountant, a nanny, and a woman. Not as a computer programmer but the simply being a woman is her definitive trait and lens she is perceived first and foremost with rather than with the same metric as the other cast. That's Smurfette syndrome. In this case it's the same deal, but substitute being a woman with being Eastern. That's what I really dislike and why I do not accept Monk as it is handled in D&D.

To illustrate this refer to the example I give of the Kensei as a Monk tradition at all. Invert the scenario, D&D as a game created in 1974 China onwards. All the classes are the same still - Fighter is the one who fights, Wizard magic user, cleric a wielder of religion so on and so forth. And we still come to the Monk - except, the Monk this time is the only one conceptually inverted, because the Monk is the only one defined culturally to begin with. Now the Monk is rooted into tales of Gaelic monasteries and missionary work across Scotland and England and Wales. And then this new WOTC adds a Kensei equivalent to this Monk banner - the Cavalier, inspired by those flamboyant royalist fighters of Restorationist monarchy ruled France. And hey, it fits, because it's just another Western trope that can and should totally fall under the Monk umbrella.

That's because Monk isn't really defined in D&D as that magical fistfighting class, not exclusively anyhow. It's that Eastern magical fistfighting class, or at times like this one just magical Easterner, period. Nevermind whether it reaaaally fits into what a Monk is supposed to be from the getgo or what names really imply because that's not what the class is only about, it's a whole grouped together culture of peoples alongside it. It's a ridiculous and perniciously racist concept space for a class to inhabit.

[NichG]

That's not the point. when the core classes are culturally homogenous it makes them blank slates. Because the relation between the classes is entirely detached from cultural context. You can have a rogue and a fighter in a party and you can make their cultural (un)alignments whatever you want, do they both hail from Joseon period Korea? Is one a wandering merchant from a Mesopotamian-like region, another a French chevalier? Because they are blank cultural canvasses they have the freedom to be what they want.

The issue is when you have 1 specifically Eastern class, not only is that relation of otherness enforced, it's also just an insensitive way to designate a class. So first off its the perpetual outsider/foreigner problem that no other class has. And as explained above having the specifically differentiated 'Eastern character' from everyone else exacerbates the problem you are speaking of, the inability to facilitate different settings. Secondly it's insensitive because the way it is utilised is, as given with the example of the Kensei, just utilised too often to represent 'Eastern' as a class in itself. It's treating Easternness as a collective, a monolith.

So expand things rather than homogenize. 3.5ed had more than just the monk inspired by eastern mythologies and stories. You've got Monk, Samurai, Ninja, Shugenja, Wu Jen among base classes as being obviously intended to capture that feel. Pretty much the whole Tome of Battle flavor is from that kind of thing as well. Paladins and the D&D interpretation of clerics have particular western mythos inspirations behind them. Druids have already been mentioned.

I find trying to erase culture more worrisome than attempting to include it but doing it poorly.

[Ulsan Krow]

So expand things rather than homogenize. 3.5ed had more than just the monk inspired by eastern mythologies and stories. You've got Monk, Samurai, Ninja, Shugenja, Wu Jen among base classes as being obviously intended to capture that feel. Pretty much the whole Tome of Battle flavor is from that kind of thing as well. Paladins and the D&D interpretation of clerics have particular western mythos inspirations behind them. Druids have already been mentioned.

I find trying to erase culture more worrisome than attempting to include it but doing it poorly.


Culture isn't being erased, this is the operative idea. Because it doesn't need to be there to begin with. Fighting Man, Magic User, Thief, Cleric, Sorcerer, Bard, Barbarian, Paladin and Druid (as characterised by D&D, not the specific esoteric namesakes), Warlock, Ranger are either broadly cross cultural ideas or not culturally specific ideas to begin with and thus don't need specific cultural attachment. That and/or they are treated as native to the D&D landscape that they aren't perceived chiefly as a conglomerate of their cultural markers.

In fact, magical fistfighter is also a cross cultural concept. Plenty of Western mythos and legend involve supernatural and magically empowered feats of bare knuckled violence. It does NOT require Eastern flavoring as a default.

We have Samurai in D&D 5e. We had Samurai before it was added as a named Martial Archetype. It's called a Fighter.

[NichG]

Culture isn't being erased, this is the operative idea. Because it doesn't need to be there to begin with. Fighting Man, Magic User, Thief, Cleric, Sorcerer, Bard, Barbarian, Paladin and Druid (as characterised by D&D, not the specific esoteric namesakes), Warlock, Ranger are either broadly cross cultural ideas or not culturally specific ideas to begin with and thus don't need specific cultural attachment. That and/or they are treated as native to the D&D landscape that they aren't perceived chiefly as a conglomerate of their cultural markers.

In fact, magical fistfighter is also a cross cultural concept. Plenty of Western mythos and legend involve supernatural and magically empowered feats of bare knuckled violence. It does NOT require Eastern flavoring as a default.

We have Samurai in D&D 5e. We had Samurai before it was added as a named Martial Archetype. It's called a Fighter.

Those other classes are really not all that culturally neutral though. A large part of D&D comes from this sort of rehashed faux medieval Europe fantasy cobbling together either direct influences like Arthurian myth with stuff that had been processed through other fiction that itself cribbed off of bits and pieces of western mythologies. It might be less obvious but only because its been rehashed so many times you can say 'it takes it from Tolkien' rather than e.g. 'it takes it from Norse myth via Wagner via Tolkien' or whatever.

I'd rather go full melting pot and say 'yes, be inspired by the myths of the world and blend them together and interpret them in new ways' rather than making everything as generic as possible or hide those sources of inspiration. Process things and refine them and make them good representations that people can be happy about. The first iteration risks being offensive sure, but give the people who are offended the opportunity to refine it into something they're happy with rather than just trying to cut out anything that shows where its from.

[Ulsan Krow]

Those other classes are really not all that culturally neutral though. A large part of D&D comes from this sort of rehashed faux medieval Europe fantasy cobbling together either direct influences like Arthurian myth with stuff that had been processed through other fiction that itself cribbed off of bits and pieces of western mythologies. It might be less obvious but only because its been rehashed so many times you can say 'it takes it from Tolkien' rather than e.g. 'it takes it from Norse myth via Wagner via Tolkien' or whatever.

I'd rather go full melting pot and say 'yes, be inspired by the myths of the world and blend them together and interpret them in new ways' rather than making everything as generic as possible or hide those sources of inspiration. Process things and refine them and make them good representations that people can be happy about. The first iteration risks being offensive sure, but give the people who are offended the opportunity to refine it into something they're happy with rather than just trying to cut out anything that shows where its from.



That and/or they are treated as native to the D&D landscape that they aren't perceived chiefly as a conglomerate of their cultural markers.


Therein lies much of why Paladin or Druid or Warlock works for me and why Monk collapses. As you aptly put it D&D is this 'sort of rehashed faux medieval Europe fantasy cobbling together either direct influences like Arthurian myth with stuff that had been processed through other fiction that itself cribbed off of bits and pieces of western mythologies'. Since those classes are native to the core mythos of D&D they get to be culturally neutral blank slates.

When you have a Paladin (originating from French literature) and a Druid (with nomenclature of Celtic origin) there is not any inherent ethnocultural separation implied to them. There's 0 codified of Paladin at all as French to Druid's Celtic. This relation is irrelevant because they are both subsumed under the umbrella of Western, or more specifically that pastiche of Western mythos that you described, the default is that they are individual characters first and foremost, cultural otherness is not set on the cards. Eastern and Western are that adequate number of degrees separate, such that Monk ends up suffering from Smurfette syndrome and all those others issues I've delved into. And it's not necessary or well intentioned to retain this default separation.

[NichG]

Therein lies much of why Paladin or Druid or Warlock works for me and why Monk collapses. As you aptly put it D&D is this 'sort of rehashed faux medieval Europe fantasy cobbling together either direct influences like Arthurian myth with stuff that had been processed through other fiction that itself cribbed off of bits and pieces of western mythologies'. Since those classes are native to the core mythos of D&D they get to be culturally neutral blank slates.

When you have a Paladin (originating from French literature) and a Druid (with nomenclature of Celtic origin) there is not any inherent ethnocultural separation implied to them. There's 0 codified of Paladin at all as French to Druid's Celtic. This relation is irrelevant because they are both subsumed under the umbrella of Western, or more specifically that pastiche of Western mythos that you described, the default is that they are individual characters first and foremost, cultural otherness is not set on the cards. Eastern and Western are that adequate number of degrees separate, such that Monk ends up suffering from Smurfette syndrome and all those others issues I've delved into. And it's not necessary or well intentioned to retain this default separation.

Whereas I guess I'd say I'd rather situate D&D in a setting that does have a dozen cultures, such that nothing is a 'culturally neutral blank slate', and that even propagates to the level of the mechanics. Those shouldn't be 1-to-1 equivalent to real world cultures, but I think its fine to take real world contrasts - specific philosophical questions to which different real-world cultures have historically preferred different answers - and use that to inform contrasts between those cultures within the setting. Then adapt classes and other things such that nothing is purely generic anymore. That idea of a 'culturally neutral blank slate' is a bad thing to me, basically. There should simultaneously be good integration with the cultures of the setting, which again don't have to be 1-to-1 with real world cultures, but things should also have good 'resonance' with recognizable mythological traditions or real world philosophies, especially ones that players might not be fully familiar with or have experienced before.

Like, the idea behind the monk vs other martial classes when framed as one of these questions could be something like 'when society breaks down and violence becomes necessary, how do we square that with our own humanity?'. So a mercenary or soldier (basically the Fighter) uses professionalism to distance themselves from violence. A crusader or paladin uses a higher cause to ground themselves and approach violence without losing themselves. A barbarian associates their violence with emotional states which they can enter or avoid to control the boundary. A chevalier or knight retains themselves through violence via binding themselves and their actions with oaths and virtues - so long as the rules are followed, they know their violence is just and can separate it from themselves. A duelist approaches violence by binding it with ritual. And a monk maintains the separation by approaching its mastery as a meditative tool to search for inner peace. There's also room for, say, an approach through fatalism ('I am already dead, so I need not fear'), an approach through need and responsibility 'if I do not do this, my brothers in arms will die, so it is not me but need that is doing it', etc.

The 'I am already dead' class doesn't need to e.g. be explicitly a Japanese samurai expy. But those things that resonate together from philosophies that make contact with that kind of fatalism should also not be separated just for sake of avoiding reference to a real world culture.

[diplomancer]

Paladins, Monks, Bards and Druids are specific world-culture based. A good case can be made for Rangers as well. And let's not talk about how problematic the very concept of a "Barbarian" is. You just don't see it for these other cases but see it for Monks because the other cases are European-based.

That said, Paladins and Monks are the two classes I've played the most. I've never played Monks as "Eastern" or "exotic", though I have played a Devotion Paladin as a Don Quixote spoof (he was a Halfling with strong ideas on Raptory- my invented spoof word for Chivalry on Raptors).

[Amnestic]

When you have a Paladin (originating from French literature) and a Druid (with nomenclature of Celtic origin) there is not any inherent ethnocultural separation implied to them.

As a Brit...yeah there is.

Along with like 1000 years of history.

[HidesHisEyes]

the whole "I don't think alignment should be a thing in D&D" argument is annoying and pointless.


Nobody is out there going "Oh no! i can't do the thing i want to do because it goes against my alignment!" because that's not how it works.


You don't act in certain ways because of limits enforced by your alignment, your alignment is just a representation of how you act!

I'm not burning down Orphanages just because I'm Chaotic Evil, I'm Chaotic Evil because I'm burning down orphanages!


Alignment is a guidelines, a general idea of how your character reacts to any given situation. you can, will, and have acted outside of your alignment at any given time. it's a concept, a loose summery, nothing more.

Your character makes choices, and their alignment is a reflection of that, not the other way around.

Agree 100%. Kind of mad that we’ve reached a point where the hot take is to not have a problem with alignment.

[animorte]

6e D&D will be viewed as a failure and 5 years later they will actually iterate on 5e and be successful again.

Oh, you mean like 3,5e, jump to 4e + (wow, how not correct, let’s take a step back) = oh, hello, Next! I mean, 5e.

I don't quite agree. I think a lot of things in the UA are a step in the right direction, not everything. And certainly not without more information (you know, the rest of the PHB/DMG).

[Frogreaver]

Oh, you mean like 3,5e, jump to 4e + (wow, how not correct, let’s take a step back) = oh, hello, Next! I mean, 5e.

I don't quite agree. I think a lot of things in the UA are a step in the right direction, not everything. And certainly not without more information (you know, the rest of the PHB/DMG).

Time will tell but IMO for every person that feels those rules are the right direction there’s another that feels they are the wrong direction. I think 6e sees a contraction in players for that and other reasons.

[truemane]

[snip]

And yes, as truemane said, this is opinion, but I do think it would help a lot of tables.
It's funny you added this at the bottom of your post, because it's the perfect illustration of the point I was making. You have a perspective on the game that feels real and objective to you. So much so that you feel your list of fixes wouldn't just improve your experience, but would actually 'help a lot of tables.' The whole "Sure, sure, this is just opinion.... BUT..." is such a fascinating expression of how hard it is for us to see our individual perspectives as the results of fairly arbitrary starting conditions.

Because I disagree with you. Wholeheartedly. Both for myself, and for the large and diverse rotating cast of players for whom I've DM'ed in the last few years (I mostly run drop-in tables for strangers in RL). I think each of those list items actually makes the game worse in some way. I would never adopt any of them at my table and I would resist playing at a table where any of them were true.

And the interesting part is that we could argue all day about them and not get anywhere, because we're not starting with the same set of IF's. And so therefore any debate over THEN's is bound to end in frustration.

My point is that that, I think the better we can learn to see our IF's as essentially irrational, and better learn to communicate our IF's (rather than passively assume everyone's IF's are the same which means everyone with a different THEN must be an idiot) the better everything gets.

[OptimizedAC]

Cool story bro; I sure hope that attitude allows your table to have fun.What a kind sentiment - I hope so too! Especially as based on reading this thread, Krow is one participant I'd most like on my table.
A player able to read the que being set for them and engage with that - to the point of being disgraceful enough to be sincerely opinionated in a thread begging for hot takes - is the dream to DM for, and gives other players better leverage to play with.
A DM that critically and thoughtfully engages with the assumptions of the game, forming well-developed opinions on how it could be improved, is the dream to play with. Even with the audacity to have opinions too complicated to be conveyed in a three sentences, and even if I don't agree with those opinions.

So Ulsan Krow, I wish for you to create endless fun at countless table - and for none of them contain players that begrudge other's for engaging with their hobby sincerely!

[Waazraath]

Time will tell but IMO for every person that feels those rules are the right direction there’s another that feels they are the wrong direction. I think 6e sees a contraction in players for that and other reasons.

In my (very small sample) of players, it's not just that some things are liked and some are less liked, but at least as importantly that so far it does not seem that different, so why bother to invest in it, after spending a lot of money on the current edition? This switch to a highly similar system can imo only work if the points where it differs are widely recognized as substantially better.

[Amechra]

"These classes designed to be faux-medieval are actually culturally neutral" is certainly a hot take.

Also, I find it hilarious that the Monk is being singled out here, when there's literally a class whose name is straight-up an insult for foreigners which encourages you to be stupid, ruled by your emotions, and incredibly violent.

(I say this as someone whose favorite take on a "Barbarian class" is this thing (https://whosemeasure.blogspot.com/2020/08/glog-class-barbarian.html))


EDIT: and I don't think I've ever seen Jackie Chan play a monk.

I take it you've never heard of the Shaolin Monastery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Monastery)?

Seriously, that's why they're called Monks.

[animorte]

This switch to a highly similar system can imo only work if the points where it differs are widely recognized as substantially better.

I agree with this, but I also see improvements in a few areas. Yet again I say, we need more information to figure out just how different. But for those that don’t like it, just wait a few more years and explore all the TTRPG that’s out there and get creative until something reveals itself that you do quite enjoy.

[Ionathus]

This, oh very much this, please.

Alignment being pushed to the sides is an awful thing to do to D&D (at least that game), as alignment is an actual thing you can interact with (depending on the edition, with higher or lesser tools). Removing it causes problems on the very world (at least on established settings where there are actual representations of X or Y alignment), though I'm fine with having certain creatures behave differently (i.e. Always X for Usually X), such as the 3e's ever present and popular LG Succubus Paladin.

Not sure how much 5e you've played, but 5e almost entirely removed alignment as a game mechanic for mortals. All of the spells & abilities that used to detect/protect against/summon/banish/damage creatures of different alignments are now specifically revamped to affect non-mortal, extraplanar creatures like undead, fiends, and celestials (plus elementals, fey, and aberrations occasionally). I haven't played a lot of 3.5 so I don't know how it would go in that edition, but from what I read of alignment arguments online, it always seemed like tying game mechanics to alignment would lead to more nitpicky arguments about why certain actions make you a certain alignment, because everybody at the table could feasibly have a vested interest in whether or not you become immune or vulnerable to XYZ spell or ability.

I far prefer the 5e version, where alignment is purely descriptive and allowed to be so. Tying game mechanics to that element of roleplay just makes it seem like you're supposed to pick an alignment first and then behave according to those two measly letters.

[Easy e]

Bounded accuracy is not a great mechanic. Improvement should be incremental and not exponential.

It causes a comedy of errors at low levels, and never-fails at higher levels. If the sweet spot is mid-level, than just structure the game to be "mid-level" in the first place with no low- or high-level settings.

[Tanarii]

Your character makes choices, and their alignment is a reflection of that, not the other way around.
Hot take: going from actions -> alignment is exactly how you cause table arguments. It's back to front and the least useful version of alignment.

[JNAProductions]

Hot take: going from actions -> alignment is exactly how you cause table arguments. It's back to front and the least useful version of alignment.

Why?

If alignment is a description of your PC, and not something that affects mechanics, such as in 5E, why does it matter if I say "My PC is Neutral Good," and someone else thinks I'm Lawful Good, or Lawful Neutral, or anything else?

[NichG]

Trying to find a 'hot take' way in particular of saying a counter-position, but maybe something like:

Roleplaying is not about correctly acting out the traits of a character different from yourself, its about stepping into a role whose context is different than yours and experiencing what it is like to make decisions from that context. Trying to 'act out your character's stats' or 'act your character's alignment' or otherwise focusing on how your character is seen by others at the table ('my character should be the smart one here', 'my character should be respected') is backwards. Player skill is not counter to roleplaying, its central to it.

[Tanarii]

Why?

If alignment is a description of your PC, and not something that affects mechanics, such as in 5E, why does it matter if I say "My PC is Neutral Good," and someone else thinks I'm Lawful Good, or Lawful Neutral, or anything else?
Who gets to decide how an action or behavior affects alignment? The player? The other players? The DM?

Alignment being a "behavior score" is how you get arguments about if something is evil or good or lawful or chaotic, and how big an impact a single action has on alignment, and if it's in character or not.

Alignment being one part of the roleplaying tools to character motivations that's considered, but not required, makes it a player only thing and removes any need for arguments.