Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?

[anthon]

You seems to be touching a lot of different points:

(1) Gameplay asymmetry. I am personally very fan of asymmetry. I have to admit that symmetry is a very potent way to reach fairness (since everybody plays with the same rules), but that's not the only one, and symmetry also comes with a lot a restrictions to the rules, making harder to reach the intended balance point and player experience.
Note: On of the major gameplay asymmetry of 5e is the fact that NPCs then to have higher HP but lower AC than PCs. This is because missing attacks is much more frustrating for a player (which see his entire turn reduced to nothing) than for a GM (which is piloting multiple other creatures), and on the other hand PC needing to heal mean that having a mountain of HP would be impractical on the long run, while monsters don't have this issue.

(2) Permanent injuries on PCs vs NPCs. That's unavoidable in lethal systems like D&D. But in a setting where killing your enemies is a big NO-NO (you have to bring them alive, and if possible unharmed, to the justice), you can bring balance to this: since both PCs and NPCs will be recurrent in the game, a permanent injuries inflicted to a NPC is permanently reducing their power for the remaining of the campaign.

(3) Healing & permanent injuries. One of the goal of 5e design is to ensure that the gameplay is not significantly different whatever class is chosen by the players. In particular, a team with absolutely zero healers should not suffer from permanent injuries more than a team with one. This let 3 options:
(a) Nobody every have permanent injuries, which is the simplest choice, hence the choice of 5e.
(b) Nobody ever heal permanent injuries, including magical healers. This choice would go against power-fantasy.
(c) Access to healing permanent injuries is common enough in the universe (through NPCs) that not having a healer in the team is not that much a problem. This choice would constraint settings to be high-magic.
=> As a positive consequence of choice (a), the potential healer of the group is not forced onto the role of heal-bot. If you ever design a RPG in which healer classes are expected to have a significant healing role, please take inspiration on 5e paladin (healing is separated from other resources like spells) rather than on 5e cleric (healing compete with other spells as they use the same spell slots).

i greatly appreciate this breakdown of my thoughts (i work before sunrise so i was half asleep when i started writing it)

The healing vs. Permanent injuries really vexed me while i was looking over the 5e conditions and so forth, comparing durations, etc. Like, in ancient editions your cleric could be set up like a doctor (if you ever got a medical bill you know what i mean) during downtime. But in 5e some lifelong tragic conditions worth paying to fix, are super limited, and then i wonder whether a guy who had his eyes torn out, will cure blindness work on him? Maybe not. Maybe there's "two systems" at work, the "video game play style" spells, and then the NPC only/Artifact plot device spells which are off the table and assymetrical - like Zombie Minotaurs or whatever.

And the idea of permanent injury as a "higher level spell" that a high spell slot is spent for,

has a disproprotionately weak payout for players, while for villains/NPCs, like a curse of deafness or the plague etc., that sort of malady follows the player everywhere. So its weird to think we can justify stuff like liar actions and NPC only undead spells,

but not by the same measure, rebalance level/spell acquisition for PC vs. NPC abilities. After all, when you fight some random orc, your blindness spell is only useful for about 1 minute or less. So you should be spending 1 minute or less spell slots...

but what if the enemy is attacking you with the same blindness spell, and it defaults to permanent? Then making it level 1-2 or whatever is grossly potent for the monsters, but useless to you.

A scaling mechanism perhaps should be more frequent than it is. Not just damage dice, but more duration modifiers. 5e is heavy on concentration for 1 hour = permanent,

but not enough up-level duration modifiers. I could handle blindness being upcast to 5th-7th for permanence, maybe 8th-9th for some cruel version like "your eyeballs are burned out, requires a wish or high level regenerate spell to fix".

apologies if it seems im fixated on this example of Assymetry.


...

Playing Tarrasques would not be dissimilar from playing Hulk on Hulk mode, as long as you skip the bruce banner phase. Personality wise perhaps a lycanthrope on rampage.

Playing Ancient Red Dragons was possible in older editions like Council of Wyrms, and i think 3.5 had Encounter level modifiers for half dragons, but Council of Wyrms literally had lairs, levels, age categories, XP, treasure hoards, and cultures with offspring. Grim Harvest let you play a Lich or Vampire.

Makes me agree more readily with people who dislike Legendary Actions.