D&D (2024) Things You Think Would Improve the Game That We WON'T See

Yaarel said:

The DM has total control over the magic items.

If some of these magic items are not actually "items" but instead the emergence of an innate ability, that is fine with me.

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Wheras that's pretty much just "ad hoc GM decision once removed" to me, so...

Thomas Shey said:

Wheras that's pretty much just "ad hoc GM decision once removed" to me, so...

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If the magic items were specifically (and accurately) assigned to character levels, the DM would have a better sense of which items are genuinely disruptive that the DM would have to account for during combat encounters, and which items are low enough of a level to not need to worry about.

Even assigning items to a Tier would be helpful to the DM: Common Background 0, 1-4, 5-8, 9-12 (!), 13-16, 17-20, Epic 21-24.

While understanding the magic items better, the DM would likewise understand what granting an innate benefit means.

Common skill task DC examples right in the PHB so players can plan their builds better.

More proficiency (and expertise) choices the less you cast class based spells as a base principle. Which also links to Rogues letting go of their monopoly on the "skill class" position.

What i hope for is re-balancing the bad spells and a few outlier overpowered spells, to make more spells viable alternatives. I think they will actually try to do this. They may even succeed.

Gettig rid of ASIs. I would like to keep feats but your ability scores should be whatever you roll (plus racial modifiers) and they should stay that way the whole game.

ECMO3 said:

Gettig rid of ASIs. I would like to keep feats but your ability scores should be whatever you roll (plus racial modifiers) and they should stay that way the whole game.

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I actually agree somewhat.

ASI should not be assumed for all PCs.

Ability scores really should only increase

• Magic items (Controlled by DM)
• Downtime training (Controlled by DM)
• Curses and Transformation
  • Dragonblod
  • Fey Boons
  • Lichdom
  • Lycantropy
  • Vampirism
• Age (Controlled by DM)
• Class features (Controlled by Player)
  • Barbarians get more STR and CON as they level
  • Monks get more DEX and WIS as they Level
• Species features (Controlled by Player)
  • Orcs get more STR as they level
  • Dwarves get more CON as they level
  • Gnomes get more INT as they level

This goes to another thing that would improvee game.

There should be another classification of class: the "Adventurer" classes, that embodies the everyman. They don't have special training in weapons skill or magic and thus are the only classes that get freely chosen ASIs as they level up and get a lot of them.

These are your nobles, merchants, craftsmen, and streetrats thrown into the fire of adventure who survive but never get spectacular powers despite facing incredible challenges and monsters. Your level 10 STR 23 Blacksmith.

the Jester said:

What are some changes to the game that you think would improve it that we WON'T see in the new 2024 releases?

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Two tracks of subclass of nine levels each, one that starts at, say, level 3 and takes you through level 11; the other going from level 12 through 20.

Every subclass should at least given token consideration to the idea that anyone takes it regardless of class. Especially the "upper" ones.

The new decision point (in my example at level 12) brings welcome focus to the high levels: since the "upper" subclasses focuses exclusively on high level abilities it makes considerably harder for WotC to get away with the kind of weaksauce high-level content we've had so far.

Consolidate the saving throws (back to Fortitude Reflex Wisdom) or at least make it less stupidly expensive to choose to play a character with no truly dire saving bonuses: nothing says "I'm a level twenty hero" like realizing you have literally zero chance of making that DC 21 save... /s

And thanks for mentioning how metamagic should obviously be something wizards can do. The unique schtick för Sorcerers should be something else.

CapnZapp said:

nothing says "I'm a level twenty hero" like realizing you have literally zero chance of making that DC 21 save... /s

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Nothing says "I've been adventuring with a bunch of exceedingly bad fellow adventurers for 20 levels" than realizing not a single member of the party ever took the Resistance cantrip so that everyone actually could make DC 21 saves.

I tease! I tease!

CapnZapp said:

Consolidate the saving throws (back to Fortitude Reflex Wisdom) or at least make it less stupidly expensive to choose to play a character with no truly dire saving bonuses: nothing says "I'm a level twenty hero" like realizing you have literally zero chance of making that DC 21 save... /s

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DEFCON 1 said:

Nothing says "I've been adventuring with a bunch of exceedingly bad fellow adventures for 20 levels" than realizing not a single member of the party ever took the Resistance cantrip so that everyone actually could make DC 21 saves.

I tease! I tease!

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Going back to FRW isn't a solution as 3e had it and screw it up to.

Saving Throws in D&D require a community discussion

• Should mid to high level PCs have very bad saving throws by default?
  • If YES, how many? 1, 2, or possibility multiple?
    • If 1, should you be able to fix it?
      • If YES, go with 3e FRW and make good save just a feat
      • If NO, go with 3e FRW, no save feats, every one gets 2 good saves, 1 bad save
    • If 2, how many resources should it cost to fix it?
      • If A LOT, go with 3e FRW, make good save cost 2 feats, every one gets 1 good saves
      • If A LITTLE, go with 3e FRW, make good save just a feat, every one gets 1 good saves
    • If multiple, how many should you be allowed to fix normally?
      • If NONE, go with 3e FRW, no save feats.
      • If SOME, go with 5e ability, good save feats, every one gets 2-4 good saves
      • IF ALL, go with 5e ability, save feats raise 2 saves each.
  • IF NO, how far apart are good and bad saves
    • If CLOSE, go with 4e saves
    • If FAR, go with pre-3e saves

ECMO3 said:

Gettig rid of ASIs. I would like to keep feats but your ability scores should be whatever you roll (plus racial modifiers) and they should stay that way the whole game.

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I don't mind prime-stat ability scores slowly increasing as you level up, as a side effect of lots of practice and training at doing what you do, but this advancement IMO shouldn't be nearly as predictable as the WotC editions have it.

1e's Unearthed Arcana introduced the Cavalier class. Unremarkable in itself, it brought with it a wonderful mechanic for unpredictable but reasonably consistent ability score advancement by level called "percentile increments". This system can easily be tacked on to all classes in any edition.

How it works, in short:

--- At 1st level your prime stat gets a d% roll attached; thus a Mage with starting Int of 15 who rolls 87% has that Int become 15.87.
--- Each time that class levels up, some dice* are rolled and added to the percent number. If, say, the dice roll is 9 then that 15.87 becomes 15.96. If the dice roll, however, is 16 then that 15.87 becomes 15.103, which becomes 16.03: the stat advances.
--- Repeat each level. Next level that 16.03 might add 12 and become 16.15. That's it. Simple as pie.

The huge benefit of this in my eyes is the unpredictability of it - one character might advance a stat right away while another might wait several levels or more to advance a stat; but the law of averages pretty much dictates everyone will advance a point over a certain amount of levels. You can (and we have) expand this to a player-chosen secondary stat as well, which advances more slowly by rolling a smaller set of increment dice per level.

* - the incremental dice can vary from campaign to campaign depending how often the DM wants the characters, on average, to advance their prime stats. I used to use 2d10 per level but found it a bit too slow, now I use 3d8 per level which seems to work OK. To match WotC's advance speeds (a point per four levels), it would probably have to be more like 6d6 per level, or 4d6+8, or something similar.

For secondary stats I use 2d6 per level and they tend not to advance very often.