You’re allowed one errata, what is it?

[xroads]

Downtime can be used to learn any skill, not just languages & tool proficiencies.

[LtPowers]

Make Warlocks into INT casters. That's my favorite suggestion so far.

everybody being made out of ever increasingly amounts of meat

HP is not meat.

The point isn't that an orc's axe to your face shouldn't kill you when you're level 20; it's that the orc shouldn't be able to get anywhere near your face. A level 20 character should be able to easily parry it or dodge it or deflect the blow. The reason why high-level combat is about HP attrition is because it takes a LONG TIME to wear down an epic hero to the point that you can actually do damage to him. Not because he can take sixteen axes to the face without bleeding.


Powers &8^]

[Deathtongue]

The reason why high-level combat is about HP attrition is because it takes a LONG TIME to wear down an epic hero to the point that you can actually do damage to him. Not because he can take sixteen axes to the face without bleeding.

No offense, but I never cared much for this explanation. It sounds arbitrary because D&D has several health trackers and layers of defenses, so why are hit points the 'could've been messy' stat? Why does a level 10 Fighter with 20 CON / 12 DEX 'dodge' more attacks than a 14 CON / 14 DEX fighter?

And for the people who categorically object to the idea of high-level martials taking dozens of orc axes to the side and keeping-on keeping-on, the attempt to explain the disconnect in that way is always going to come across as disingenuous. It does to me at least, and I'm inclined to say 'you don't like the idea of a rogue taking a dozen axes to the face and kicking butt? Maybe Warhams or Torchbearer is more your speed'.

[Dienekes]

No offense, but I never cared much for this explanation. It sounds arbitrary because D&D has several health trackers and layers of defenses, so why are hit points the 'could've been messy' stat? Why does a level 10 Fighter with 20 CON / 12 DEX 'dodge' more attacks than a 14 CON / 14 DEX fighter?

And for the people who categorically object to the idea of high-level martials taking dozens of orc axes to the side and keeping-on keeping-on, the attempt to explain the disconnect in that way is always going to come across as disingenuous. It does to me at least, and I'm inclined to say 'you don't like the idea of a rogue taking a dozen axes to the face and kicking butt? Maybe Warhams or Torchbearer is more your speed'.

It is not a good 1 to 1 model of fighting or even consistent really. But there is a rationale for it. Dex is skill at dodging, parrying, whatever. Con has always been linked to endurance. You might not be dodging as well as the Dex guy (in that Dex guys AC is higher so there’s a chance they can void blows with the minimal possible effort), while the Con guy can just keep moving and dodging for longer. Until the point they can’t anymore and get killed.

But you’re right there’s problems in that model. Most infamously the “swim through lava” issue.

[Deathtongue]

@Dienekes: More to the point, why should we even adopt that model? The consistency holds up gameplay-wise or narratively if you just use AC/DEX for dodging and CON/hp for toughness. You just have to accept the idea that high-level fighters can take dozens of axes to the face from jacked orc barbarians and laugh at their pitiful attempts. And for people who can't accept it, well, no one's forcing you to play past level 3. E3/E6 is a thing.

[Grod_The_Giant]

But you’re right there’s problems in that model. Most infamously the “swim through lava” issue.

Also healing. If hit points are luck/endurance/plot armor/whatever, why are they only healed by magic? Why are morale based effects always TEMPORARY hp? Virtual hp is a fine mechanic, but d&d (apart from 4e) has never really paid the idea more than lip service.

It's also frankly unnecessary. D&D is a power fantasy; it's about characters growing from everyday schmucks to epic heroes capable of casting down gods. "20th level characters can swim in lava and take a battleaxe to the face without blinking" is part of that package.

[Warlush]

I'd remove hexblade and plug the +Cha attack / damage stat into blade lock.

This is such a good one. A 3 level dip is much more costly, and EVERY PATRON, could be viable for Pact of the blade.

But if I could only make one change for the whole system I'd have to go with the charmed condition. It's far too weak and only works if you have high CHA and the associated skills, plus other spells can give you advantage on skill checks without anyone failing a save.
I guess I would cause the charmed target to auto fail any WIS checks against the charmer. This way you don't take away from dominate spells while still being able to make use of charms.

[Dienekes]

@Dienekes: More to the point, why should we even adopt that model? The consistency holds up gameplay-wise or narratively if you just use AC/DEX for dodging and CON/hp for toughness. You just have to accept the idea that high-level fighters can take dozens of axes to the face from jacked orc barbarians and laugh at their pitiful attempts. And for people who can't accept it, well, no one's forcing you to play past level 3. E3/E6 is a thing.

The two reasons I mostly see is as you say the inability to visualize getting stabbed in the face 15 times and not having it be ridiculous.

But for my own part I prefer it, despite the problems because a warrior who negates their enemies attacks because they’re actually skilled at fighting instead of just a slab of meat is so much cooler. Having warrior guy be so skilled they can take on a D&D dragon is great. I just wish the mechanics better reflected skill at arms rather than the HP sink D&D is.

Also healing. If hit points are luck/endurance/plot armor/whatever, why are they only healed by magic? Why are morale based effects always TEMPORARY hp? Virtual hp is a fine mechanic, but d&d (apart from 4e) has never really paid the idea more than lip service.

It's also frankly unnecessary. D&D is a power fantasy; it's about characters growing from everyday schmucks to epic heroes capable of casting down gods. "20th level characters can swim in lava and take a battleaxe to the face without blinking" is part of that package.

Speaking personally, this one doesn’t bother me too much. Healing magic already smashes together a lot of stuff that is honesty pretty unrelated from the setting of bones to the scabbing and healing of flesh. Having it also remove lactic acid from muscle is as good an explanation as any.

[Deathtongue]

I'm not a fan of pushing off Hexblade's CHA replacement until level 3. A lot of campaigns don't get past level 2, which is way too long for a lot of players to feel like they're able to fight competently in melee just to stop cheesy dips. And I'm also not a fan of restricting it to Pact of the Blade. It's an unnecessary roleplaying restriction.

I'd rather just have it so that Hexblades get a class feature that allows them to make one attack with a fixed damage expression. And then at level 5/6 they get +CHA to damage and hit. The expectation is that single-classed Hexblades stop using that feature once they get Thirsting Blade and make real attacks. But until then, they have a CHA-only attack that's competitive with what the STR and DEX martials are using.

That said, I don't even really think of the +CHA dip as a problem. Even for builds that can make use of it (Sorceradins, melee bards, and Oath of Conquest paladins) it's only slightly better than just bumping up your STR or DEX stat. And if the STR-replacement items show up, it becomes a retroactively dead level for a lot of builds.

[heavyfuel]

This is such a good one. A 3 level dip is much more costly, and EVERY PATRON, could be viable for Pact of the blade.

But if I could only make one change for the whole system I'd have to go with the charmed condition. It's far too weak and only works if you have high CHA and the associated skills, plus other spells can give you advantage on skill checks without anyone failing a save.
I guess I would cause the charmed target to auto fail any WIS checks against the charmer. This way you don't take away from dominate spells while still being able to make use of charms.

Agreed that Charmed is too weak, but I don't think Charmed creatures should be blind and deaf to your every action (perception is a Wisdom check)

[Deathtongue]

But for my own part I prefer it, despite the problems because a warrior who negates their enemies attacks because they’re actually skilled at fighting instead of just a slab of meat is so much cooler. Having warrior guy be so skilled they can take on a D&D dragon is great. I just wish the mechanics better reflected skill at arms rather than the HP sink D&D is.

In action-adventure fiction, becoming supernaturally healthy and tough is part of the package of being a great warrior unless you have some sort of other superpower or mitigating factor like telekinesis or magical spells.

A melee fighter without some outside source of power that's capable of going toe-to-toe with giants and demons but can't actually take a hit so has to dodge everything or get one-shot is a genre violation. Mostly because it's extremely lame for the audience never to get a sense of an opponent's relative strength and toughness because the protagonist never gets a clean hit. People want to see and feel a difference between the eye beams of Cyclops, Devastator, and Darkseid and if a non-supernatural Batman is forced to dodge/counter all of them because they're equally lethal then we never get a sense of progression or threat. By contrast, Superman being able to ignore Cyclops's beams, take a few (but not endless) hits from Devastator, and avoid Darkseid's beams at all costs not just tells us more about Superman's power but also his opponents.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also healing. If hit points are luck/endurance/plot armor/whatever, why are they only healed by magic? .

They aren't _only healed by magic_. THey are also healed by Hit Dice during a short rest. Or an Second Wind during combat by a Fighter. (A few other class abilities also restore HP). Heck, with the Healer feat you can use a mundane healer's kit to restore HP during a short rest.

[Dienekes]

In action-adventure fiction, becoming supernaturally healthy and tough is part of the package of being a great warrior unless you have some sort of other superpower or mitigating factor like telekinesis or magical spells.

A melee fighter without some outside source of power that's capable of going toe-to-toe with giants and demons but can't actually take a hit so has to dodge everything or get one-shot is a genre violation. Mostly because it's extremely lame for the audience never to get a sense of an opponent's relative strength and toughness because the protagonist never gets a clean hit. People want to see and feel a difference between the eye beams of Cyclops, Devastator, and Darkseid and if a non-supernatural Batman is forced to dodge/counter all of them because they're equally lethal then we never get a sense of progression or threat. By contrast, Superman being able to ignore Cyclops's beams, take a few (but not endless) hits from Devastator, and avoid Darkseid's beams at all costs not just tells us more about Superman's power but also his opponents.

And yet my third favorite part of Justice League Unlimited was when Batman fought Kalibak and just dodged, parried, and taunted everything the new god threw at him. A little scene that demonstrated why skill was better than force. And of course the dodging of the Omega Beam.

The sob of meat is one of many methods used to demonstrate prowess. For me it’s the single most boring one. And it is not nearly as universal as you say.

[Keravath]

But a ranged attacker attacking through fog will have disadvantage by default: he can't see the target so he has two disadvantages, compared to the one advantage granted by attacking a creature that can't see him, but if he gets one more advantage he can cancel them out and attack normally.

Where is the second disadvantage in the ranged attacker case? Doesn't the disadvantage from not seeing his target also cancel the advantage because the target can't see him leaving it a straight roll as in melee?

I agree this modification would give a ranged attack against a prone target in fog disadvantage or an attack against an adjacent target in fog would also have disadvantage but a regular attack would still be a straight roll.

---

I might actually use something like this in a home game I am starting ... I like the simplicity of advantage/disadvantage cancelling in 5e but it does cause some suspension of disbelief issues :).

---

However, one thing to keep in mind with this change - all it will essentially do is block spells that require you to see your target. Since obscuring vision automatically provides both advantage and disadvantage, any one additional instance of either will satisfy the 2:1 rule resulting in the advantage/disadvantage being applied. This means that all the fog cloud is effectively doing in most cases is just preventing casting spells requiring sight since all other reasons for advantage/disadvantage remain effective.

[Deathtongue]

And yet my third favorite part of Justice League Unlimited was when Batman fought Kalibak and just dodged, parried, and taunted everything the new god threw at him. A little scene that demonstrated why skill was better than force. And of course the dodging of the Omega Beam.

Yeah, it was cool that one time. But that wasn't a one-time thing. Batman not only has to dodge the Omega Beam, he has to literally dodge any kind of eye beam or face instant death, even much less powerful ones like Cyclops's. As far as Batman and thus the audience is concerned, Batman has to react the same way to an eye beam from Dio Brando, Shiva, Medea, and of course Superman: dodge or die, even though Dio Brando's eye beams are laughable to most major comic heroes.

Now repeat that dynamic for literally every kind of attack, whether we're talking about swords the size of sedans, giant thrown boulders, clouds of acid, machine-gun fire, WHATEVER and you can see why it's a genre violation for warriors not to get super-toughness as part of the package. The only consistent exception I can think of are super-speedsters, and that's more to balance how strong their powers are than any real dramatic weight.

[Amechra]

As much as I dislike HP bloat the reduction of NPC HP wouldn't make combat any quicker. The majority of combat time is eating up by action resolution.

Yes, but NPCs having less HP means that it'll take fewer turns to kill them, leading to less time being taken up by action resolution.

This is also helpful if you're like me and have a party with three support casters and a single damage dealer.

[Aett_Thorn]

If we can just wish for things:

Battlemaster Maneuvers become a base fighter feature instead of the extra ASIs/Feats that fighters get. You get a few maneuver selections at second level (starting at a d6 die), your subclass gives you another subclass-specific maneuver, and both the die increase and you get another maneuver selection at 6 and 14.

This would allow them to expand the pool of maneuvers with each book that comes out as well, if they wanted to. Replace Battlemaster with a Tactician subclass or something else that can help teammates move around or do their things better, and we're off!

[Dienekes]

Now repeat that dynamic for literally every kind of attack, whether we're talking about swords the size of sedans, giant thrown boulders, clouds of acid, machine-gun fire, WHATEVER and you can see why it's a genre violation for warriors not to get super-toughness as part of the package. The only consistent exception I can think of are super-speedsters, and that's more to balance how strong their powers are than any real dramatic weight.

I believe those are just called batman comics. And they're quite popular, I'm told. Or Daredevil. Captain America. Punisher. The Question. James Bond. Indiana Jones. Logan Ninefingers. Conan. Ajax (best character in the Iliad by the way). The concept that the hero is fragile but demonstrating rising stakes to show how much danger they're in as a fairly trivial bit of writing. At it's easiest, just show what happens when someone else got hit. The giant's club creates craters in the ground. The laser ray turned the sidekick into a pile of goo.

But beyond this. I think we're dramatically confusing comics or whatever other medium you want to talk about. And the game. What is cool or interesting in one medium does not necessarily equate to being cool or interesting in another.

The biggest issue I have for D&D is the numbers health pool drain where you just check if my numbers go to 0 before your numbers go to 0, which is the predominant way in which the martial interact with the combat system is dull. Pretending the number loss is your character actually moving about and interacting with the world beyond just being a brick is the most basic means to make this less boring.

It's not great. It's all in the head, but I wish that martial combat was as intricate and detailed as magic to make the crossing of swords more inherently interesting. But without a lot of homebrew far more than we can get from one allowed errata.

[Callak_Remier]

Stoneskin: in addition you have advantage on concentration checks and can only be forced to make one such check per round.

[Foxhound438]

Gelatinous cube is a playable race.

More seriously though, since the ranger's companion was pretty heaftily overhauled, one errata can in fact be a lot. Ideally, we would just errata in the entirety of the "optional features" UA pertaining to ranger.

Barring that, I hate that Tidal Wave only does 4d8, bring it up to 5d8.

Clerics get the Sunbeam spell.

this forum lacks a button to heart react, so i'll do it the old fashioned way. <3

Tough choice. Really. But I'll go with, to no one's surprise, . . .

Provide example DC tables for skill use.

Can we get a button for this? <3

[Lucas Yew]

Monster proficiency bonuses now scale based on their maximum HD, just like the players. Typically the differences will rarely be more than a +2 increase so no CR changes will be made, probably.

Just in case a second errata is allowed, all CR based hard mechanics (like Destroy Undead or all Conjure XXX spells) will be adjusted to follow targets' max HD.

[JNAProductions]

Monster proficiency bonuses now scale based on their maximum HD, just like the players. Typically the differences will rarely be more than a +2 increase so no CR changes will be made, probably.

Just in case a second errata is allowed, all CR based hard mechanics (like Destroy Undead or all Conjure XXX spells) will be adjusted to follow targets' max HD.

Why? Why is that a positive change?

HD, for monsters, is associated with one thing-HP. Why should a big blob monster with gobs of HP but not much else have a great proficiency bonus?

[Pleh]

Long rests can only be taken in secure and secure locations-- not a campfire in the woods or a barricaded room in a dungeon. That makes adventure pacing a LOT more flexible, since the GM has a lot more control over when the party can long rest; it helps with the verisimilitude of full healing from long rests; and as a bonus, it's particularly good for classic dungeoncrawling and wilderness exploration type games.

As a softer step in this direction, maybe long rests in unsecure environments just have a risk of giving less benefits. Roll a die and see if you're Exhausted from defending the camp all night.

[Evaar]

"If a creature cannot see its target, it cannot have advantage against that target."

"See" in this rule includes perceiving a target via blindsight or other similar effects.

The net effect of this would be to make Fog Cloud and similar opaque obscuring effects impose disadvantage on everyone trying to attack through the effect, rather than equal out to "no effect" because you cannot see the target and cannot be seen by the target.

It would also mean that if you are Blinded, you don't get to balance that out by attacking a prone target. That's a bit more debatable as to whether it's desirable, but it's a trade I'd be willing to make for an elegant correction to the Fog Cloud problem.

[micahaphone]

I'm not a fan of pushing off Hexblade's CHA replacement until level 3. A lot of campaigns don't get past level 2

Your campaigns don't get past level 2? Does your DM just not hand out xp/levels, or do you stop playing after a session?

[Garfunion]

I would make Constitution the spellcasting ability for Sorcerers. If you want to be a “charismatic“ Sorcerer the friends cantrip is there for you.

[stoutstien]

Yes, but NPCs having less HP means that it'll take fewer turns to kill them, leading to less time being taken up by action resolution.

This is also helpful if you're like me and have a party with three support casters and a single damage dealer.

But having last rounds means you emphasize even more rocket tag style of game play. You don't want Less rounds nearly as much as you want the rounds to cycle faster.

*Your particular case the party in question is not built to go through combat quickly but with 3 support PCs they probably have a pretty solid command of them. It's the same concept if you have a party full of rogues who are constantly hiding and moving around and not necessarily attacking every turn.
I am curious what 3 support casters don't have enough built-in damage to handle 90% of encounter.*

[Warlush]

Agreed that Charmed is too weak, but I don't think Charmed creatures should be blind and deaf to your every action (perception is a Wisdom check)

Totally, yeah that's just me being lazy. I would love if somebody smarter than me came up with a more powerful charmed condition that was still notable weaker than dominate. It also makes the Suggestion spell way better than charm anything.

[Warlush]

Your campaigns don't get past level 2? Does your DM just not hand out xp/levels, or do you stop playing after a session?

I'm thinking they meant tier 2.

[Skylivedk]

Rebuilt ASIs to be more frequent and in different trees (close to PF2's model)