Quote from: Brooding Paladin on January 08, 2022, 09:36:21 PM
Hey WOTC, you're doing it wrong.  Get back to a fighter being skilled at armor and weapons.  Rogues skilled at sneaking and stabbing.  It's just utterly regrettable what they they've done.  It's all just mush.  Start over.

I think your theory is spot on. D&D has become a class-based game with no archetypes. A hollow banana.

Quote from: FF_Ninja on December 29, 2021, 02:49:05 PM
What changes do you make, and why?

Like others here, I'm in the "replace it whole cloth" camp, but I'll call out advantage/disadvantage as 5e's biggest disappointment for me. That is: the widget with the most potential and the worst implementation. 5e developers were so giddy about this new tool they went around smashing everything in sight with it.

If I were to redo it in 5e, I'd use advantage/disadvantage for most-or-all situational, ad-hoc modifiers only, and never, ever, not once as a permanent building block of any kind.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 08, 2022, 12:41:39 AM

Quote from: Zelen on January 08, 2022, 12:30:40 AMStorygamers from making bad decisions, but that doesn't mean everyone should be stuck with a system that's neutered.

Is any type of gamer you dislike a storygamer? Storygamers generally just eshew most numbers and hate randomness getting in the way of the story. Numbers inflation is more a munchkin thing anyway!

No, and the point I'm making is specifically that numbers shouldn't increase unless the character has advanced in some meaningful way besides level up. It's just number inflation for the sake of number inflation. There's a lot more flavorful and/or mechanically interesting ways to do this, it's just kind of exemplifies an aspect of 5e's laziness.

Quote from: Brooding Paladin on January 08, 2022, 09:36:21 PM
Hey WOTC, you're doing it wrong.  Get back to a fighter being skilled at armor and weapons.  Rogues skilled at sneaking and stabbing.  It's just utterly regrettable what they they've done.  It's all just mush.  Start over.

This brings up a good point. In the last 5E game I played, I rolled up a variant human fighter, and then gave him 'skilled' as his feat. With that feat, I went on to select proficiency in thieves' tools, sleight of hand, and stealth. I had essentially created a dual-classed fighter/rogue, really missing only the ability to sneak attack. Since I joined this game about halfway through tier-2, he started as a 6th level character. This was the moment of revelation for me, when I finally realized how broken 5E is. Working with just the PHB, I created a character that basically negated the need for a rogue in the party.

Quote from: jmarso on January 09, 2022, 11:54:30 AM
This brings up a good point. In the last 5E game I played, I rolled up a variant human fighter, and then gave him 'skilled' as his feat. With that feat, I went on to select proficiency in thieves' tools, sleight of hand, and stealth. I had essentially created a dual-classed fighter/rogue, really missing only the ability to sneak attack. Since I joined this game about halfway through tier-2, he started as a 6th level character. This was the moment of revelation for me, when I finally realized how broken 5E is. Working with just the PHB, I created a character that basically negated the need for a rogue in the party.

5e is not intended to require any particular class in the party. I'm not sure why your ability to spend a Feat (& Feats are an optional rule) to somewhat emulate a Rogue is 'broken'. You could make a Fighter/Thief PC in pre-3e. You've made a character who can fight, is sneaky and can pick locks (though not as well as a Rogue with Expertise). That doesn't break anything afaics. You could have made a Cleric who can fight well, or a Rogue or Fighter who can cast wizard spells. You could have made a Rogue who is good in combat and also much better at Rogue stuff than your Fighter.

It's possible in 5e to fill the various roles by a variety of methods. The roles do still exist though, of my two Saturday groups one lacks a Rogue type and last night really struggled with a barred door. The other group is weak on healing (their Cleric doesn't like using healing magic!) and likewise suffers.

QuoteMy problem with 5e is that WOTC seems to have abandoned the necessary quest to make each class fun and interesting to play through all levels.  The challenge has always been to make sure the rogue, the fighter, the cleric, etc. remain as fun to play as the wizard at all levels.

Instead of doing this, to me it feels like they capitulated all creativity in favor of making everyone a wizard.  Now we have fighters (even barbarians!) that can cast a spell or carve runes that effectively is the same thing, rogues that have psychic daggers they can summon, etc.  As a matter of fact, in a recent Reddit poll wizards ranked quite high on "classes that are not fun to play."  Reason:  because they have no differentiator now that everything else is a flavored wizard.

Hey WOTC, you're doing it wrong.  Get back to a fighter being skilled at armor and weapons.  Rogues skilled at sneaking and stabbing.  It's just utterly regrettable what they they've done.  It's all just mush.  Start over.

I think Pathfinder did fine job in making 3,5 classess without spells more filled with options, and of course 4E equalized classes.

QuoteI think your theory is spot on. D&D has become a class-based game with no archetypes. A hollow banana.

On purpose. Because it's biggest most kitchen sinkey game on market, that's natural choice to carve classes in a way when you can fill them with chosen archetype from fantasy and they are still playable and you are not forced to any specific dunno social-role, building citadels and what not.

QuoteIf I were to redo it in 5e, I'd use advantage/disadvantage for most-or-all situational, ad-hoc modifiers only, and never, ever, not once as a permanent building block of any kind.

Why not?

QuoteNo, and the point I'm making is specifically that numbers shouldn't increase unless the character has advanced in some meaningful way besides level up. It's just number inflation for the sake of number inflation. There's a lot more flavorful and/or mechanically interesting ways to do this, it's just kind of exemplifies an aspect of 5e's laziness.

But whole point of level up was that some numbers are increasing. That's whole shtick of abstracted mechanism of class/level instead of gradual raising numbers we know from point buy games.

QuoteThis brings up a good point. In the last 5E game I played, I rolled up a variant human fighter, and then gave him 'skilled' as his feat. With that feat, I went on to select proficiency in thieves' tools, sleight of hand, and stealth. I had essentially created a dual-classed fighter/rogue, really missing only the ability to sneak attack. Since I joined this game about halfway through tier-2, he started as a 6th level character. This was the moment of revelation for me, when I finally realized how broken 5E is. Working with just the PHB, I created a character that basically negated the need for a rogue in the party.

The whole point of D&D since 3.0 or maybe even 2 is - no class is indispensable.
That's not being broken - that's whole shtick and purposeful design.

You need specific roles in team for it to be efficient in battlefield and exploration but you can carve them in many ways from existing list of classes and class options.
And if you wanna play most archetypical options from D&D 1e? Just pick such options.

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 09, 2022, 04:29:21 PM

QuoteNo, and the point I'm making is specifically that numbers shouldn't increase unless the character has advanced in some meaningful way besides level up. It's just number inflation for the sake of number inflation. There's a lot more flavorful and/or mechanically interesting ways to do this, it's just kind of exemplifies an aspect of 5e's laziness.

But whole point of level up was that some numbers are increasing. That's whole shtick of abstracted mechanism of class/level instead of gradual raising numbers we know from point buy games.

Point buy has its own slew of social / mechanical / fiction problems.

D&D's traditionally been class and level based but at least the idea of advancing as a wizard, fighter, or whatever has some justification for bigger numbers. Bigger numbers as a consequence of bigger numbers is a little too loose for my taste, though.

I'm not even strictly opposed to this particular conceit, since I think it works overall fairly well. But you'd need a more competent & engaged staff to carve out design space such that this could be one of many possible ways to advance character skills within the 5E framework. WOTC doesn't seem to have any interest in that, because it's not easy, requires playtesting, errata, etc.

I think the issue is that people are thinking of 5E in a 'class necessity' paradigm instead of a 'ROLE necessity' paradigm.

A rogue is a class but it might fulfill very different roles including skill monkey for being a team face, dungeoneer, etc...and combat-wise it might be support, harassment or damage output.

Similarly, a Paladin might be front line damage output, tank, healer, etc.

5E looks to be built on the idea of having the classes able to fulfill the different roles for a party via different builds/archetypes rather than "You are rogue, you do X".

That, to me, makes an amount of sense though this obviously requires consistent, coherent design with those archetypes and, honestly, 3rd party homebrew has done a better job with taking that in imaginative directions than recent attempts by WoTC

QuoteD&D's traditionally been class and level based but at least the idea of advancing as a wizard, fighter, or whatever has some justification for bigger numbers. Bigger numbers as a consequence of bigger numbers is a little too loose for my taste, though.

I mean - you point out to old rules about advances being done only in downtime, when you had time to train, and so for?
Or to this whole weird idea about level names and building Mage's Tower at lvl 10?

QuoteI think the issue is that people are thinking of 5E in a 'class necessity' paradigm instead of a 'ROLE necessity' paradigm.

A rogue is a class but it might fulfill very different roles including skill monkey for being a team face, dungeoneer, etc...and combat-wise it might be support, harassment or damage output.

Similarly, a Paladin might be front line damage output, tank, healer, etc.

5E looks to be built on the idea of having the classes able to fulfill the different roles for a party via different builds/archetypes rather than "You are rogue, you do X".

That, to me, makes an amount of sense though this obviously requires consistent, coherent design with those archetypes and, honestly, 3rd party homebrew has done a better job with taking that in imaginative directions than recent attempts by WoTC

Indeed. I'd even say that each character should be concepted with 3 different roles in mind: combat one, social one and exploration one. So at least class as combat engine + background as skill engine as separate things is IMHO cool thing. But I agree that demnads game to be more coherent.

Quote from: Zelen on January 09, 2022, 08:47:50 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 09, 2022, 04:29:21 PM

QuoteNo, and the point I'm making is specifically that numbers shouldn't increase unless the character has advanced in some meaningful way besides level up. It's just number inflation for the sake of number inflation. There's a lot more flavorful and/or mechanically interesting ways to do this, it's just kind of exemplifies an aspect of 5e's laziness.

But whole point of level up was that some numbers are increasing. That's whole shtick of abstracted mechanism of class/level instead of gradual raising numbers we know from point buy games.

Point buy has its own slew of social / mechanical / fiction problems.

D&D's traditionally been class and level based but at least the idea of advancing as a wizard, fighter, or whatever has some justification for bigger numbers. Bigger numbers as a consequence of bigger numbers is a little too loose for my taste, though.

I'm not even strictly opposed to this particular conceit, since I think it works overall fairly well. But you'd need a more competent & engaged staff to carve out design space such that this could be one of many possible ways to advance character skills within the 5E framework. WOTC doesn't seem to have any interest in that, because it's not easy, requires playtesting, errata, etc.

I really can't understand the point you're making here. It's ok to advance in a class (when you level up), which has always involved getting bigger numbers in every edition of D&D, but it's not ok to get bigger numbers when you level up?

Can you try to re-explain? ELI5?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 06, 2022, 12:44:49 PM
I like most of those suggestions.  I'd play a game built this way.  For the quoted part, I've got an alternate route to the same goal:  Give new hit points every odd level instead of every level. Adjust the monster/spell math to fit, as stated.

Sure, if necessary, toss a bone to fighter types by giving them a flat bonus on even levels.  Done right, the flat bonus can even take the place of different hit dice, so that everyone gets d6 all the time.  Certain classes just get a bonus (or more of a bonus), making it 1d6+N every two levels.  Wizards get a d6!  Every other level like everyone else, but no bonuses! It looks nice at first, but they still need to stay out of melee. ...

Quote from: jmarso on January 06, 2022, 04:15:59 PM
Another option would be to reduce the Fighter's HD but give them an increase every level, while other classes only get the increase on odd levels. ...

Quote from: Wiseblood on January 06, 2022, 04:47:04 PM
Steven Mitchell,
I like that. HP every other level. It is elegant.

So, as someone who has spent the overwhelming majority of my RPG gaming playing skill based systems where hit points (or the equivalent) are essentially flat at character creation; It did not even enter consideration to spread HP gain out, even if the total HP amount will still be low overall compared to current 5e.

This is all just white-board elf-game theory crafting, so I am curious why spreading HP out over more levels seems to be preferred over just going to the hard stop as soon as possible?

Quote from: Jaeger on January 13, 2022, 02:05:41 PM
So, as someone who has spent the overwhelming majority of my RPG gaming playing skill based systems where hit points (or the equivalent) are essentially flat at character creation; It did not even enter consideration to spread HP gain out, even if the total HP amount will still be low overall compared to current 5e.

This is all just white-board elf-game theory crafting, so I am curious why spreading HP out over more levels seems to be preferred over just going to the hard stop as soon as possible?

Depends on what you want.  In my case, it isn't just theory crafting, though. 

Well, it was theory crafting that was then put into practice.  I specifically wanted a middle ground between "zero to hero" and "everyone is pretty much as tough as they are going to get at start or soon after".  Call it replacing "zero to hero" with "1 to still vulnerable hero".     I don't dislike notable power growth in the character, per typical D&D style.  I do dislike the edge case effects of starting so low and escalating so fast.  I also dislike arbitrarily large numbers to no game purpose.  Keeping the totals under a 100 hit points (per most AD&D and BEMCI/RC), but starting most characters in the 10+ range, with a fairly even growth--leads to every other level being an easy way to get that without convoluted mechanics.

A game that deliberately wants to go with an E6 dynamic, or even closer to RQ or the like, would not benefit from such a mechanic.

Someone here said this. I copied.it to my notes file but forgot to list the author.

Quotethree strains of HP (say hurt, wound, mortal) and each start w/full HP from hit dice (so say a warrior starts with 8 + Con mod) in each section and then you gain 1 per section per level. So a warrior w/+1 Con mod starts at 27 HP but would only have 57 HP at level 10.
This way you start w/good HP at level one but higher level HP doesn't get out of hand.

Ironically, I'm in the middle of a total conversion of 5e.  Some highlights:

• Attributes never increase after character creation.  Proficiency bonus goes up a bit more to compensate, but this lets magic items be special again.  What wizard wants a hadband of intellect (Int 19) when the first thing the wizard will do at 4th level is raise his Int to 20...
• Race now is a semi-class.  You get your racial modifiers and some abilities at first, then get additional ones every other level thereafter.  Splits the difference between race as class, and really make race important.
• Class now awards abilities every even level, so a lot of the chaff is discarded.  You pick your ability from a small list, and eventually get all of the features (you are really only choosing the order)
• No feats.  They've been rolled into racial and class abilities.  The abilities granted by combat feats have been opened to all characters.  For example, let's say you have an ability to hit a second target when hitting the first target (call it "Cleave," maybe).  This would be a feat in 5e.  In mine, any player can attempt it, they just suffer disadvantage on all of the attack rolls.  However, fighters get an ability which negates the disadvantage on the first target, and later on, an ability that negates the disadvantage on the second,
• Skills have been reworked so that the skill roll frequently doesn't determine pass/fail, but cost and time.  An electrician who is trying to repair a light socket isn't ever going to "fail."  At the most, they will just have the fix take a long time or require a complete rebuild.

This is just the major revisions.  Almost every part has been tweaked somewhat.  I hope to get my group playtesting it by March or so...

I like most of those maybe with exception of "choosing only order". I always liked idea you can learn everything possible.

Quote from: jmarso on December 29, 2021, 03:06:40 PM
When 5E first came out a few years ago, I was convinced that it was a pretty good system.

Less so now, not because of the latest nonsense going on, but because I've had more experience with the system and its mechanics with a few groups of players.

Ive been saying this since playtest.

The system works for the most part. It fails when you try to make it do things its not meant to. Or where some rule completely interferes. Easy enough to do what we've allways been doing. Fix it ourselves or jettison it as needed.

Idiot invincible sleeping rules? Ta ta!
Idiot falling damage because the writers are sneering buffons who apparently never fucking read the original rule? Fixed it for you. You hacks.
Nonsensical limits on Ranger companions? Simple tweak fixes that. Something that WOTC cant seem to grasp after multiple tries.
Healing too strong? Or revival too easy. Theres actually rules in the DMG to make things more sane. What do you know? They actually did something right!

And a few others.

Overall its playable just fine and runs really smoothly. Combats tend to not take forever and the players had alot of fun. Warts and all.