D&D 5E D&D Next Design Goals (Article)

[thecasualoblivion]

The Divine Bard 4/Fighter 1/Battlesmith 1/Deepwarden 2/Hammer of Moradin 5 or what have you was a problem, I am not suggesting they repeat that mistake.

How do you allow a player to choose to take a level in any class when they attain a new level and avoid that mistake?

I'm of the philosophy that class should mean something, it should be who you are, not some package of abilities you can mix and match.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm confused because D&DNext is supposed to be the reunification edition. Unless I'm mistaken, the D&D community includes 4E. I could also ask the same question, if some earlier edition suits your needs, why do you care what 5E does?

It does include 4e but that is the edition most of the split centered on. So bringing in 4e mechanics as anything but an optional ad-on (at least the ones that people strongly disliked) will be difficult.

The issue here is 4e introduces a distinct style of play and balance philosophy (an approach most pathfinder and pre-4e edition fans) find off putting. The only way I can see them unifying is building a somewhat neutral, visibly D&D, core system and providing ad ons that would allow more specific styles of play like 3e or 4e.

 

[P1NBACK]

I'm confused because D&DNext is supposed to be the reunification edition. Unless I'm mistaken, the D&D community includes 4E. I could also ask the same question, if some earlier edition suits your needs, why do you care what 5E does?

Because I don't expect 5E to be exactly like any previous edition.

I don't want 1.5 Edition. Or, B/X revamped (actually I do, but it's already been published so I'm good on that front). If I wanted 3.x+ I'd play Pathfinder.

It seems like you want 4.5 edition.

I'm actually looking for a new game that invokes all the goodness from previous editions in ways 4E doesn't. In fact, I'd prefer it if the Devs went back to the roots of D&D and stripped away everything and recreated the game from the ground up, going for the same feel, but designing it as if they were designing D&D for the first time with all the knowledge and gaming tech of the past 30+ years as insight.

I like how Goodman Games have done something similar with the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. It's not D&D, but it certainly evokes that awesomeness of D&D.

 

[Bedrockgames]

On the other hand, I disliked 3E multiclassing primarily because it undermined D&D as a class based system.

I wasn't a huge fan of the end result of 3e multiclassing. That is something they should definitely scale back on. I like the idea of it, but there were just too many broken combinations and too many bizare combinations.

 

[Steely_Dan]

How do you allow a player to choose to take a level in any class when they attain a new level and avoid that mistake?

Well, like everything else, we'll have to wait and see how multi-classing is implemented in 5th Ed.

 

[DMKastmaria]

I wasn't a huge fan of the end result of 3e multiclassing. That is something they should definitely scale back on. I like the idea of it, but there were just too many broken combinations and too many bizare combinations.

3e multiclassing has some nice, symmetrical points. But, 1e's concurrent leveling worked better.

E.G. Fighter/Magic-User.

 

[billd91]

I'm of the philosophy that class should mean something, it should be who you are, not some package of abilities you can mix and match.

Interesting. That's one of the reasons I'm not fond of 4e, in fact.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Interesting. That's one of the reasons I'm not fond of 4e, in fact.

I don't see it in that light. All the pieces you can build a Fighter out of are Fighter pieces, or else generic pieces not specific to class. You build within the class framework.

 

[Imaro]

On the other hand, I disliked 3E multiclassing primarily because it undermined D&D as a class based system.

Huh? You lost me here. How does 4e support D&D as a class based system any better... when it contains hybrids, multiclass feats, themes, backgrounds, skill feats, feats for ritual casting, etc?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It's not just CharOp theorizing. I have seen the problem in action, in real campaigns. That said, it only becomes a noticeable issue when a) the party contains caster players who understand the superiority of save-or-lose over blasting spells, and b) the party is reasonably high level, at least 10th-12th. Neither of those two is a common situation, and I expect both together is quite rare.

Well, the more you experience it first hand, the more rare it gets thereafter. My understanding is that people hitting their thumbs with hammers has a similar dynamic.

We had three times where it could have happened. In the first one, the casters universally did some multiclassing or missed sessions (and we didn't keep levels the same) that delayed the problem until about 14th. It still showed up there, though. Fortunately, the campaign was naturally ending at 15th. The second time, we ended at 13th, after getting rather tired of it. The last campaign fizzled out in dread of its near arrival ...

At that point, we said if we played 3E again, we'd either stop at 10th level, or make all full casters multiclass every third level, minimum, effectively making them bards.