Quote from: S'mon;1108481Maybe it's just my game, but I find that front line fighters who dump STR for DEX are really regretting it when they're rolling -1 on Athletics checks vs being grappled, shoved, knocked prone et al.

One word. Pack of Wolves.

Quote from: tenbones;1108562Another thing I'd do to help "even things out" - Make Magic a skill-check to roll. This is balanced by splitting the derived stat bonuses across more stats in Magic. FC's idea is Int bonus determines the bonus to your spellcasting check which has a skill associated with it (DC based on the level of the spell), Wisdom bonus determines the number of spells you can know and what you start with initially, Charisma bonus is the penalty to any saving throws vs. your spells. This makes casters have more skin in the game like non-casters.

I know this is getting into the "tinkering gone too far" part for a D&D clone, but that's why I can't bring myself to do that work.  I just don't like Int/Wis/Cha as the basis for that kind of system.  I'd rather have Int/Wis combined (call it Wisdom, leaving Intelligence to what the player brings, but vice versa works too).  Then add "Perception" as the 6th stat, analogous to Con in that everyone needs some.  

Using your set of things then, Cha affects your saving throws as you said, but also provides the amount of magic (whether slots, spell points, or whatever).  Then Wisdom affects your skill roll and the spells known to some extent, though part of the latter will always be supplemented by classes or whatever replaces them.  Make magic take longer than 1 action to cast for the standard, but let good skill rolls bump up the speed.  Thus Cha is raw power--in individual spells and numbers, while Wis is efficiency, scope of effects, etc.

Quote from: Chris24601;1108549One interesting system took Hit Points as both physical (muscle mass, fatigue) and non-physical (skill, luck) to the logical extreme and just made the starting value the sum of the PC's ability modifiers (it wasn't a d20-based system though so taking this directly to 5e with its modifier is (stat-10)/2 rounded down wouldn't be the cleanest fit though unless you counted the half modifiers somehow... say HP = (sum of all ability scores - 60) / 2).

I've been thinking of HP = sum of physical attributes (the 3 to 18 range) somewhat  like in a Mongoose Traveller:

Once Dex = 0, you are -2 to physical rolls. Additional damage rolls over to Str.
Once Str = 0, you must make Con checks to stay unconscious. Additional damage rolls over to Con.
Once Con = 0, dead.

That makes total HP range from 9 / 31.5 / 54 (min/avg/max) but "operational" HP is really just Dex + Str, which makes it 6 / 21 / 36. I like that range, since it evokes a low fantasy feel. One possible criticism is that it ditches a classic D&D concept, which is fighters have more HP than mages. You can allow fighters buy some fighter-only feats to compensate:

Tough: You do not suffer the -2 penalty.
Pain Tolerance: You do not need to make Con rolls to stay conscious.
Diehard: You die at -Con rather than Con.

More HP is the last thing 5e needs.

From playtest to print the Bard and Rogue went from d6s to d8s. And during playtest Wizards went from d4s to d6s and Warlocks from a d6 to a d8.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1108567I know this is getting into the "tinkering gone too far" part for a D&D clone, but that's why I can't bring myself to do that work.  I just don't like Int/Wis/Cha as the basis for that kind of system.  I'd rather have Int/Wis combined (call it Wisdom, leaving Intelligence to what the player brings, but vice versa works too).  Then add "Perception" as the 6th stat, analogous to Con in that everyone needs some.  

Using your set of things then, Cha affects your saving throws as you said, but also provides the amount of magic (whether slots, spell points, or whatever).  Then Wisdom affects your skill roll and the spells known to some extent, though part of the latter will always be supplemented by classes or whatever replaces them.  Make magic take longer than 1 action to cast for the standard, but let good skill rolls bump up the speed.  Thus Cha is raw power--in individual spells and numbers, while Wis is efficiency, scope of effects, etc.

Yeah that's the rub. It's largely why I haven't just sat down and ground it all out. It's a lot of work.

With your system - yeah it can be done that way, for sure. It would be simpler on the surface, but a lot of other questions would need to be answered - the magic system itself and what precisely it is (Vancian?).

The point of my division is I didn't wanna divert too far from the established stat norms, *while* spreading out the significance of stats required to customize your caster from a foundational level, with the assumed caveats:

1- Let's just admit Casters are powerful and more complex than non-casters
2- This gap has varied widely in the previous editions.

So with this method I'm suggesting is kind of a holistic one that 5e, I feel sort of half-assed. I'm taking established things that already exist in D&D (in one edition or another) "Number of Spells Known", "Spell power", and you're only adding a Skill check to cast a spell. Which mirrors what non-casters have to do, in mechanical parallel to do their "non-caster things". It further mirrors the stat-spread that traditionally non-casters have *always* had to wrestle with. These few changes immediately shrink the gap - not totally, but it brings the classes much closer by mechanical weight.

Then you establish your Magic System and Spells. Be it spellpoints, Vancian, effects-based, or all of the above. You can backwards engineer it to get the power-level right.

Then you establish what "exceptions" and rules modifications that classes will allow. These are all well established items that appear in one or more editions of D&D. My suggestion is that by addressing it at a mechanical level from the core - and keeping the primary elements separate but connected in a taxonomy of Stat>Class>Magic System, the points where you can make corollary sub-systems that impact one or more of those three (Feats, Items, Specialization, School etc) will neatly fit into an obvious space.

Done right - you literally can replicate OSR magic, 1e/2e Vancian, 2e Unearthed Arcana Spellpoint, Effects-based scalable magic like FC, and it can be done *all* in one system without missing a beat. AND it will give more value and play better than any of them individually as represented in mainline D&D to date, imo.

But it's a big undertaking. heh.

10 + 1d6 hp at first level is very reasonable.

No chance of having less than 11, or more than 16 at 1st level.  Add 1d4 hp at each level thereafter.

Quote from: Omega;1108571More HP is the last thing 5e needs.

From playtest to print the Bard and Rogue went from d6s to d8s. And during playtest Wizards went from d4s to d6s and Warlocks from a d6 to a d8.

Was that the 5E playtest?

Quote from: Aglondir;1108583Was that the 5E playtest?

At various points. I kept as much of my playtest material as I could, but unfortunately lost a chunk to a computer crash. The system changed alot over the course. Early iterations had a much more variable proficiency system, like a mix of AD&D's to hit progression with 3es rapidly escalating one. Also several classes were outputting huge amounts of bonus melee damage.

Quote from: Omega;1108571More HP is the last thing 5e needs.

From playtest to print the Bard and Rogue went from d6s to d8s. And during playtest Wizards went from d4s to d6s and Warlocks from a d6 to a d8.

You do realize we are discussing more hit points early with the idea of far less hit points later, right?

I think the main problems with 5e are:

1. No danger. No escape rules.
2. Too much magic everywhere. Magic is too reliable and doesnt feel like magic.
3. At level 11+ game breaks down quick

It's an ok game - fun enough with a good group and GM. But it's not as good as say, 2e, even with thaco etc.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1108595I think the main problems with 5e are:

1. No danger. No escape rules.
2. Too much magic everywhere. Magic is too reliable and doesnt feel like magic.
3. At level 11+ game breaks down quick

It's an ok game - fun enough with a good group and GM. But it's not as good as say, 2e, even with thaco etc.

I think we can talk good point here, bad point there with just about any system, but most of that gets dwarfed by what happens when that good group and/or good GM get annoyed as hell by something in the system.  After that, we are headed for the exits.  Might be a slow exit, but it is coming.  

I can intellectually talk about pros and cons of all versions of D&D, but when I'm going to pick the thing that I'll put the effort into running, I'm forced to admit that there are raw edges to 2E, 3E, and 4E that just rub me the wrong way, even out of proportion to what it takes to run them.  Though I've never been a perfect for for any version of D&D--merely close enough to bend them to a game I'll run.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1108601I think we can talk good point here, bad point there with just about any system, but most of that gets dwarfed by what happens when that good group and/or good GM get annoyed as hell by something in the system.  After that, we are headed for the exits.  Might be a slow exit, but it is coming.  

I can intellectually talk about pros and cons of all versions of D&D, but when I'm going to pick the thing that I'll put the effort into running, I'm forced to admit that there are raw edges to 2E, 3E, and 4E that just rub me the wrong way, even out of proportion to what it takes to run them.  Though I've never been a perfect for for any version of D&D--merely close enough to bend them to a game I'll run.

I completely agree with this.

The problem I have REALLY... is there are other systems that for me, and my group - all of whom are *DIE-HARD* D&D players, simply do D&D-style fantasy better for us with way less overhead.

5e - I'd play it. I have no intention of ever running it again.

Quote from: Razor 007;110857710 + 1d6 hp at first level is very reasonable.

No chance of having less than 11, or more than 16 at 1st level.  Add 1d4 hp at each level thereafter.

Thus, your average HP at 10th level would be about half way between a Lion and a Hell Hound.

Or, you could bump HP 1d6 per level, from level 2 to level 10; and at level 10 you would average the HP of a hell hound.  The PCs would become heroes, but not super heroes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1108590You do realize we are discussing more hit points early with the idea of far less hit points later, right?

At what point. And why more HP at the start when in 5e the PCs allready start out with more? I mean the recurring bitching across fora has been that there is too much HP. Adding another bonus early on is just going to throw it off kilter. Even more hilariously pathetic is that the PCs have more HP because you the players bitched that they did not have enough HP!

People keep forgetting the system is, more or less, balanced to this higher HP count. Everything does more damage and it scales upwards to a point. Adding more HP to the PCs just makes them even harder to threaten than they allready are. And if you cut it off at a point then at higher levels the PCs may not have enough HP to actually handle some of the threats they can face due to how the system plays out.

Looks good on paper, potentially fails in practice. I say potentially because I havent sat down and looked at the logistics yet.

*cough*
Because the game is based on Bounded Accuracy, and favors a greater than 65% hit rate, the combat mitigation game is about HP Bloat.

Because the Ability Modifier is a tightly consistent progression of + & - , and all Abilities (Stats) are weighed equally, each even value matters.

*cough* There is only two major universal RAW ways to adjust HP: CON mod and (optional) Feats. *cough*

If you want to change HP Bloat why add a new discreet subsystem? Why not just go to the root of cascading mechanics?

More whiff and less HP? Alter the Ability Modifier Progression, unequally even!, with larger gaps of no bonus.