5.5 PHB: What would you do?

[Nagog]

I've been bandying around the idea ever since the OGL fiasco of writing a slightly adjusted Player Hand Book, with suggested tweaks and adjustments to various things to enhance play. AS an example:

Fighters:

At 4th level, you gain the ability to use a skill check in combat as a bonus action. This check can be used in a variety of ways, such as an Intimidation check to inflict the Frightened condition on an enemy, or a Deception check to feint, or even a performance check to goad enemies into attacking you!

At 9th and 16th levels, you gain a second and third reaction each round. This allows Fighters to further capitalize on feats like Defensive Duelist, Sentinel, Magic Initiative: Shield, and fighting styles/Maneuvers.

And so on. If you had the opportunity to add a clause or two into the PHB, what would you add? What might you remove?

[Kane0]

You mean something like this?

Sorcerer: Add Spell Points, remove spell slots and sorcery points.

[LudicSavant]

Rewrite every single summoning/minion ability from the ground up (seriously, while Conjure Animals may be among the worst offenders, pretty much all of them are uniquely badly designed; this has only become even more overwhelmingly clear to me after playing a much wider variety of systems following the OGL fiasco).

[Cheesegear]

I've been bandying around the idea ever since the OGL fiasco of writing a slightly adjusted Player Hand Book, with suggested tweaks and adjustments to various things to enhance play.

I'm not sure what is and isn't OGL...So here we go.

Species and Races
Dwarf. Redesign...I dunno. The whole Species?
Human. "Variant" Human is the default. Not the variant.
[Rock] Gnome. Get rid of the mechanical toy. It does nothing. Replace with non-combat Cantrips (e.g; Mending - Rock Gnomes walk around with magnets in their pockets).
Dragonborn. Something, something...Fizban's? Also I want to do something with Unarmed Strikes and Claws/Teeth.
Half-Orc. Replace Menacing and Savage Attacks with...Something. Also Half-Orcs treat Unarmed Strikes as weapon attacks.
Tiefling. Roll in some of the Volo's variant races.

Classes
Barbarians. Clean up when Rage ends. Make the damage reduction from Bear Totem a class ability (Level 6?)...In fact just redo Totem Barbarian. But when it comes to Subclasses I have a whole different idea that I still haven't fully formed.

Bards. Bardic Inspiration is a Reaction, not a Bonus Action. Players who receive it never seem to remember that they have it, and it's probably best to activate it only when you actually need it. Instead of constantly asking the DM if it's been 10 minutes yet, or the Bard constantly having to remind other players that they have an extra dice.

Clerics. No significant ideas other than for Subclasses.

Druids. Druids know a number of Beast Forms equal to their [Druid Level + Wis]. When you gain a level in Druid, you can replace one Form you know for another you could know. All other restrictions remain the same. This prevents Wild Shape from being basically broken at lower levels and allowing a (clever) Druid to basically do anything they want. At higher levels when you know 15 Forms...You'll be Level 10. So okay...Being able to turn into practically anything you want at Level 10 is basically just a spell-less Polymorph. Fine.

Fighters. A lot of the Battle Master features - especially Maneuvers - should simply be Class Features. Eldritch Knight should be a Wizard subclass.
At Levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 19...In addition to the standard ASI that everyone gets, Fighters may select a Weapon Feat .
Taking the Unarmed Fighting Style (Tasha's), treats Unarmed Strikes as weapon attacks.

[I]Monks. Treat Unarmed Strikes as weapon attacks with the Light and Finesse properties. Roll the Four Elements into Class Features.

Paladins. You may only Divine Smite once per turn.

Rangers. Basically insert all of the Tasha's changes as default.

Rogues. No significant changes.

Sorcerer. Wild Magic should be for NPCs only. D&D is a cooperative game is Wild Magic seems designed to hurt your own party. But that's a Subclass thing. Sorcerers generally, are great.

Warlock. Warlock spell slots can't fuel other classes' abilities. Just...No. I wish Invocations were listed by level requirement - not alphabetically.

Wizard. ...Bring back Opposition Schools? ...Nah that'll never work. Players don't like not having access to something...Even if they gain something in kind.

Gear.
Maybe roll some of the Weapon Feats into, well, simply Weapon Properties (e.g; Cleave. When you Critical Hit or reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points, using a Greatsword or Greataxe, you may make a Bonus Action attack against another creature within 5 ft. of you...). Not all of them. But certainly some.

Healer's Kit. You may use a Healer's Kit to stabilise a creature. If you do, make a Medicine check (DC 10). If you succeed, you may choose one of the following:
- Restore the creature to 1 Hit Point, or
- Remove the Poisoned condition from the creature.
Pass or fail, the creature is stabilised. However, if the creature is still Poisoned, they may still take damage again.

Clean up how Containers work. Also the 'Packs' have too many rations and torches.

Feats
Mainly it's the Weapon Feats that need to get rolled up into...Something. Part of me wants Fighters to just...Pick up all of them. But another part of me says that it shouldn't just be limited to Fighters. I dunno. It's complicated. Like I said...Some Weapon Feats should be Weapon Properties. But also Fighters should also get more Weapon Feats. It's complicated.

Tavern Brawler. You treat Unarmed Strikes as weapon attacks.

Summoning
Make it like Tasha's, and FFS don't let players summon more than one creature at a time.

Spells
Just remove all spells with descriptions longer than two paragraphs from the game. Joking not joking.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Rewrite every single summoning/minion ability from the ground up (seriously, while Conjure Animals may be among the worst offenders, pretty much all of them are uniquely badly designed; this has only become even more overwhelmingly clear to me after playing a much wider variety of systems following the OGL fiasco).

This isn’t top on my personal list, but it’s fairly high up. But I think we’d end up in very different places if we each did so on our own.

Which brings a meta point to mind:
1) a lot of the time there are serious disagreements about whether any given thing is feature or defect.
2) and even in cases where we (the nebulous broad meaning, not the narrow you and me meaning) agree that something is wrong, there’s still not agreement on why it’s wrong or especially what the right fix is.

Which makes universal fixes…an issue. Your (generic) fix might be my “making it more broken”. And vice versa.

[Theodoxus]

This is going to be my very personal, probably singular take, and I totally get PhoenixPhyre's point about probably breaking things other people are quite happy with. However, if I had the power to create the 5.5 PHB, it would follow lines of what my personal homebrew is already doing.

1) There's too many classes. I'd cut them down to the evergreen Expert, Mage, and Warrior. But I'd take a beat from Worlds without Number and toss in what they call Adventurer and what I'm calling Gestalt. It just takes 1 aspect from two different classes and mashes them together - so, you might get the Expertise of an Expert and the Fighting Style from the Warrior. Then, every currently known subclass would be revamped like WotC is currently doing to balance across levels, and then be universally available to each of the four classes. This would allow things like Warrior to grab Circle of Moon and be a spell-less Wildshaper, or a Mage to grab Path of the Zealot and be nigh unkillable.

2) There's too many races. I'll beat this drum until I die, but there's no way so many disparate hominid species would co-exist on the same dirtball without one or two coming out on top. So, I would propose that only Custom Lineage exists, and create a template (a build-a-bear if you will). But most importantly, everyone on a specific world is the same species. They might be highly morphic, and exhibit wildly different recessive traits, so you could have dwarfly looking stocky men and elven looking thin men with pointy ears if you want to - but they're fully the same species and capable of interbreeding, and any specific trait doesn't necessarily get passed to the children. Yes, this would also create tendencies for racism and cultural appropriation, probably even slavery and genocide. You know, background issues that can and should drive a story forward.

3) There's too many spells, and more importantly, too much overlap, especially around damage. Unfortunately, I don't have anything that wouldn't require an entire rebuild of the system. My preferred method is to have the Mage have a number of spellcasting archetypes to choose from at 1st level; basically Sorcery Points (using Spell Points, ala Kane0), Pact Magic (Witchcraft; short rest recharging, and stealing Alchemy from Artificer), Wizardry (true Vancian casting putting memorized spells into spell slots), and Bardic Arts, using a performance check in lieu of a spellcasting action. The Mage would choose their spellcasting style, and then their power source (Arcane, Divine, Primal), granting access to that spell list. (Yes, Divine casters can be wizards too, Harry!)

4) Massively update the combat process. Warriors can add their level to their attack and/or damage on a round by round basis. So, at 1st level, a Warrior making an attack would roll a d20 + Str or Dex + PB, and then decide if they want to add +1 to their To Hit or to their Damage. At 2nd level, they could add +2 to Hit; +2 to Damage, or +1 to both. This would allow them to really hurt easy to hit, but generally tougher HP opponents (like bears) or allow them to hit harder to hit targets who typically have fewer HP in relation; or however the player prefers.

Experts gain Precision Dice, that can be rolled to add to their To Hit, but also allow for additional attacks, or swapped out for Sneak Attack Dice on a 1:1 basis.

Mages can add their level to an attack, or subtract their level from a saving throw of an opponent.
Alternately, they can instead concentrate on 1 spell level per Mage level. So, a 1st level Mage might Concentrate on Bless. A 5th level Mage might Concentrate on a 2nd level Bless and Guardian Spirits. A 10th level Mage might Concentrate on Hypnotic Pattern, Stoneskin, and a Suggestion spell.
The choice to be more combat or support focused is chosen at 1st level and can't be changed.
Gestalt gets one of the other three classes options.

5) Arms and Armor
Arms, I'm still working on this. I'd prefer a 'build-a-bear' approach to weapons, starting with a specific damage value, say d6 for simple and d8 for martial, and then various properties increase or decrease the damage die as well as cost... but haven't nailed it down. But the advantage is instead of creating a list of hundreds of weapons from real life Earth, you can just build whatever you want, give it any name (real or imagined) you want and call it a day. Could even keep a generic list in the PHB, as long as it follows the exact build rules. Don't need any sneaky 'trident follows all the rules but 1, because we love us some Poseidon and don't want to make him made' shenanigans.

Armor, I'd completely revamp, kind of similar to the arms, in that it's a bit more generic. I'd have 6, stolen straight out of Fantasy AGE: Light and heavy Leather, light and heavy chain, light and heavy plate. The system requires more stats though, six in total if you include a Defense stat (10+Dex mod):
Armor Class (AC): The amount of protection the armor provides as a bonus to Defense.
Armor Hit Points (AHP): The amount of damage the armor can sustain before being destroyed. AHP can be restored by making a Smith's tool roll with a target number equal to the missing AHP value. Each roll takes 1 minute. AHP can also be restored using the mending cantrip. Each casting restores half the current missing value (round down). Mending can never restore the last point of damage, though Smiting can.
Defense Adjustment (DA): Each armor type has a penalty that represents its weight and bulk. The penalty applies to your Defense before any AC adjustment. If you’re not trained in the armor’s use, DA also reduces your proficiency bonus to any rolls made.
Damage Reduction (DR): Whenever an attack hits you or your armor, you can reduce the damage by the DR rating. If the hit is against your armor, there is no action required to reduce the damage. If the hit bypasses armor, then it requires a Reaction to reduce the damage. Doing either triggers a Usage Die roll (see below).
Usage Die (UD): Whenever you opt to reduce incoming damage via Damage Reduction, you need to roll a Usage Die to determine if the armor has been rent by the attack. Rolling a 1 or 2 on the die reduces the protection by 1 step (heavy plate ->... heavy chain ->... light armor) Rolling a 1 or 2 on a d4 marks the armor as irreparably destroyed. UD can never be restored outside of powerful magic, though some magical armors are able to regenerate it.

Armor AC AHP DA DR UD
Light Leather +3 30 0 3 d4
Heavy Leather +4 40 -1 6 d6
Light Chain +5 50 -2 7 d8
Heavy Chain +6 60 -3 9 d8
Light Plate +8 80 -4 12 d10
Heavy Plate +10 100 -5 15 d12

Defense: Your Defense is equal to 10 + Dex Mod and is the floor of your Armor Class. Rolling below your Defense is always a miss.
If your Dex is 18, your base Defense is 14. If you were wearing a light chain shirt, your final Defense would be 12 (14-2). Your Armor Class would be 14 (base Defense) + 5 (for light chain) for a total of 19.
An attack against you that rolls a total between 12 and 18 would hit your armor, dealing damage to the AHP (though you could reduce damage by 7). A roll of 19 or more bypasses armor, and hits you, but you could use a reaction to reduce the damage by 7. In both cases, using Damage Reduction would trigger a Usage Die roll, potentially reducing your DR and UD by 1 step.

Using the same Defense example, but wearing heavy plate instead, your final Defense would be 9, but your AC would be 24! Plate is more protective, but also a lot easier to hit.

Light Leather: The most common armor, it is cured and hardened for protection, but supple enough to be worn like regular clothing. This category also includes hide, and quilted cloth armor.
Heavy Leather: Boiling leather in water or wax hardens it, which is then fashioned into breast and back plates and shoulder guards. More flexible leather is used for leggings, gauntlets, etc. Some versions are sewn with metal rivets or studs.
Light Chain: Also known as ring mail, this armor is made of interlocking metal rings worn over heavy leather. The rings are bigger than those used to make chainmail, so it is not as effective.
Heavy Chain: Also called chainmail, this armor is made by interlocking small metal rings to form a mesh. Heavy chain is normally worn over a layer of quilted cloth to make it more comfortable.
Light Plate: Light plate, also known as half-plate, is a suit of heavy chain with select pieces of plate armor (typically breastplate and greaves) on top.
Heavy Plate: A full suit of armor composed of shaped steel plates fitted over most of the body. The plate is strapped and buckled on over a quilted doublet, evenly distributing the weight over the entire body.

Using generic names and descriptions allows players to come up with their own names and identities for their armor.