D&D 5E D&D 5.5e; Your wish for 5.5e update.

[Lidgar]

Out of curiosity, how much more basic do you want? What do you want from a B-series-compatible basic game than the current basic doesn't deliver?

Sure. Really it is just three rather minor things:

1. Races (dwarves, elves, halflings, and gnomes, because, gnomes) as classes. Humans get to choose from the basic four.

2. A more generic Wizard class. The evoker arcane tradition is a little too fiddly/specific for me.

3. A "B" series of adventure modules, not unlike what is included in the Starter Set.

You might be interested in Rogue Comet's Dungeonesque. In the opinion of many, it's a better 5e Basic than 5e Basic is. Though as @Mouseferatu's question touched upon, a lot will depend on what, exactly, you're looking for.

I looked at that and the reviews I have seen are less than complimentary for the price. Would be interested to hear from others who have tried it.

Again, I have home-brewed this well enough for now. Although I continue to tweak. Eventually will post here and DMG.

 

[Parmandur]

I want this to be the last version. Keep it evergreen.

Posted by C4-D4RS on the MetroLiberal HoloNet

Yeah, have 6E just be a backwards compatible representation.

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[mrpopstar]

Interesting. With that concept I might take it further and have races be a separate supplement and maybe classes could be a separate supplement too.

Take it as far as you wish!

 

[76512390ag12]

Yeah, have 6E just be a backwards compatible representation.

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5.01
5.02
5.03
5.04
5.05
5.06
5.07
5.08
5.09
5.10

This can go on for longer than I will



Posted by C4-D4RS on the MetroLiberal HoloNet

 

[Cyvris]

And, really, you can add features from last editions pretty easily. The system is robust enough to handle that level of hacking. It's just not in the books.

I have; Barbarians, Fighters, Rangers, Rogues, Monks, and Paladins at my table all pick powers from their respective 4e classes. Math was tweaked a bit to fit 5e, but other than that it works "well" enough.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I don't want to see a 5.x or 6.0 or whatever for quite some time. I'm not saying 5e is perfect, but any issues I have with it are far too minor for a wholesale new half-edition and are either (a) things I can easily fix at a table when I DM, or (b) just one class (out of 12) that is currently being worked on for a revision (Ranger).

 

[77IM]

We're all burnt out from edition churn, but let's ask the reverse question: When will 5.0 have worn out its welcome? For how long did the popular editions maintain their popularity?

Here is my fuzzy recollection:

• I think AD&D was, like, '77 or so, and AD&D 2nd Edition was '89, so that's around 12 years (I may be off by a couple of years here). That's a pretty good run, but I also think 2E was well overdue when it appeared. I was pretty young during this time period and mainly screwed around with BECMI. (Well, BEC; I never got to MI.)
• BECMI started in, I think, '83, and sold well for a good number of years. The Rules Cyclopedia came out in the early '90s, and was, in my mind, the "last hurrah" of that edition. Like, I had stopped playing BECMI long before that; my impression is that its popularity was waning, and Rules Cyclopedia was a nice attempt to wrap up the product into a more economical, evergreen format, so that people could keep playing without much more support from TSR. So that feels like around 10ish years, maybe 12.
• 2E came out in '89 and did pretty well -- the novel lines were going incredibly strong at that time, and this fed the setting explosion. But the 2E rules, despite being an overhaul of 1E, still felt pretty dated to me. By the time 3E came along, most people I knew had stopped playing 2E. (Part of this was demographic, since most people I knew were in college, and college students tend not to play nearly as much D&D.) So we can call that 10ish years.
• 3.0 and 3.5 are similar enough that if we're looking for examples of longevity we can consider 3.5 a minor revision trying to fix 3.0 and keep people playing some sort of 3E. But then 4E came out about 8 years after 3E. Can we consider 3E, as a whole, to have an 8-year run? Pathfinder's success may be an argument that 3E deserves credit for a 15-year run (since 5E didn't start to overtake PF in many statistics until 2015). However, the release of 4E, and its drastic differences from 3E, means that Wizards felt that 3E's run was over after only 8 years. And I've honestly got no idea how PF sales and player figures compares to that of 3E in the early 2000s. If 3E's appeal lasted somewhere between 8 and 15 years, that's somewhat consistent with the earlier editions, which lasted 10-12 years.

Conclusion: Let's predict that 5E is going to last 13 years -- longer than the average edition, because of the new marketing strategy, the demographic shift (I think older people don't tire of editions as quickly), and a slight slowdown in the development and adoption of new RPG mechanics (5E does not feel as "dated" as earlier editions despite its relatively conservative game mechanics). That would put the end of its life about 10 years from now. That feels about right to me. Think about all the things that have changed in the past 10 years, and about where your favorite RPGs were 10 years ago. So I think it's entirely reasonable to expect 6E in around 2027. My hope is that it more closely resembles a 5.5 than a true 6.0 -- more like the 3.5 transition or PF transition, than the 4E transition.

It should be clear by now that I haven't researched any of this very deeply, so if anybody has a better theory let's hear it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

We're all burnt out from edition churn

Thank you for saying it!

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

We're all burnt out from edition churn, but let's ask the reverse question: When will 5.0 have worn out its welcome? For how long did the popular editions maintain their popularity?

Eventually, any game will get stale and warty. Interest will decline as people move on to new things. I'd say ten or so years is the average lifespan of a well-regarded game.

But, it may not require a new edition to reinvigorate 5E when that time comes. Just a change of setting, which alters the flavor of the game.

That said, I'm sure we'll get a revised PHB someday. Mearls has already mentioned on a couple occasions what that process would look like. They take the survey data that they keep gathering, and find weak parts of the game, like the Ranger. They iterate on an alternate version, and release it in a new product. Someday, if the new version becomes dominant in actual play, they might revise the PHB to include it instead.

 

[Raith5]

Make the Battlemaster class either baseline for or have a straight equivalent of it for ALL non-casters. 5e would be a great edition if the non-casters weren't melee basic attack spammers again. Something to spice up the monotony would be nice. I houserule it easily enough (fighting styles are now "stances" and each class gets several of them to swap between), but some sort of official set up for it would be very appreciated.

Still miffed WotC seems to have pulled back on their "you 'll be able to add features you liked from other editions with modules we'll release" marketing pitch.

Yeah 100% agree with this. I do not want a new edition but some extra modules that spice monsters and melee classes up a bit. These are the only critical problems with 5e for me. But I dont want to inflict my tastes on the whole game.