D&D 5E December Survey is Up

[TwoSix]

Yeah, I'm 100% on board with 4-5 level "class sprints" that cover one tier that then end and if you want to get the next level, you've gotta seek out some world element to get it.

The challenge is in the fiction abilities / flags. Being a champion fighter is character-defining. Champion fighters are a certain sort of character and, in addition to their combat prowess, have elements spread out over 20 levels that enhance that "personality." Being a squire-knight-dragonslayer-war king is less one narrative and more four different narratives, and each one has less room to breathe in terms of class abilities. They also don't necessarily play nice together mechanically - one price might be that you'd have to limit novel class mechanics so that they could fit together (no "one class has spellcasting / one class has pact magic" stuff).

I don't think these are insurmountable challenges, but I do think the class system will look very different than the existing 5e class system, and I'm not totally sure they'd play well together (ie, if someone played a Champion Fighter in the same campaign as a squire-knight-dragonslayer-war king, I dunno that would work....), so it might be a situation where you replace the class system in 5e (which is a big part of the game!) with this system (and maybe another system or two)...which makes it a bridge too far for a lot of folks to absorb.

But I'd love to hear about any experiments you do in this avenue.

Player buy-in is definitely my chief concern, since I do plan on making the 5-level classes the only option in the campaign. I'm hoping that by the time my turn as DM comes up, my players will be willing to try something relatively novel, as we'll have 4 years of standard 5e under our belt at that point. I'll show them some base design concepts in a few months, and see if there are any strong negative feelings then.

I'm hoping the fact that the base classes are setting specific, and not merely a redux of the standard classes will help with buy-in. In the past, I've found small mechanical changes almost cause an uncanny valley effect ("It's like a bard, but not quite!") , whereas introducing something completely novel opens up people to rethink their assumptions. Obviously, that's very group dependent, and I'm making some judgments based on my group's own idiosyncrasies.

Also, since the bulk of the progression is based around mastering magical items, rather than joining a particular group and assuming that identity, I'm hoping the character feel won't be so disparate. More of a "Muthin bin Targel is a corsair, a raider of the sea. In his journeys, he has mastered the Sabre of a Thousand Cuts (a sword of sharpness), trained in the techniques of the legendary hermit Ravel al-Nasr, and become a boon companion of the djinn lord Zephylious, and granted mastery over the air (through his ring of elemental command)."

Mechanically, it might work out that he's a corsair 5, a warrior type class with some extra movement abilities, a small pool of superiority dice, some methods of spending them, and Extra Attack as the 5th level capstone. He spends 3 levels mastering the sword of sharpness, increasing the + of the sword by 1, granting himself the Champion Fighter ability to crit on a 19, removing the attunement requirement of the weapon, and gaining the ability to always summon the sword to his side if it is out of his grasp. He completes a test for a hidden hermit who's also a swordmaster, and spends three levels honing the techniques he's been taught, gaining the Mobile feat, a +2 to his Dexterity, and the ability to make a third attack. The ring of elemental command is a powerful item, so he could easily spend 6 or 7 levels learning to use the ring, gaining the ability to use some of the ring's powers more often, and gaining the ability to innately cast some of the spells of the ring.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Anyone else notice they didn't do the usual writeup of last month's survey results this time? That's usually the best part of the new survey going up.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Anyone else notice they didn't do the usual writeup of last month's survey results this time? That's usually the best part of the new survey going up.

I did notice that, but being December, they may not have finished going through those results, or they simply might not have had anyone in the office to write up the post.

 

[devincutler]

Well, the core PrCs were in the DMG. I think 3E design philosophy just lost sight of that distinction along the way, or perhaps it's simply that splatbooks combined player and DM material and so when the players saw PrCs in their splats they just assumed they were for them. Either way, a cautionary tale.

Exactly! In the DMG in 3.0 PrC were SPECIFICALLY reserved for the DM to use for NPCs to build interesting villains and the like. They were not intended for players. But players started using them and WOTC saw dollar signs and unleashed the hounds.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Exactly! In the DMG in 3.0 PrC were SPECIFICALLY reserved for the DM to use for NPCs to build interesting villains and the like. They were not intended for players. But players started using them and WOTC saw dollar signs and unleashed the hounds.

Eh. They always struck me as being at least in part player-facing material (material segregation in 3e was not very well-implemented).

The problems with 3e's PrCs were the problems with 3e as a general system.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

In the DMG in 3.0 PrC were SPECIFICALLY reserved for the DM to use for NPCs to build interesting villains and the like. They were not intended for players.

Although the assassin and the blackguard were pretty obviously intended for NPCs, the arcane archer and the dwarven defender were perfectly PC-friendly concepts. There was nothing in the rules to indicate they were for NPCs only, and in fact the rules discussed how PCs took levels in them. (Very seldom does NPC-only material need "prerequisites".) Like magic items, the DM was supposed to control access to them, but that doesn't mean they weren't meant for PCs to have. In fact, the name "prestige class" itself is a hint that they're intended for the heroes of the tale.

 

[devincutler]

Although the assassin and the blackguard were pretty obviously intended for NPCs, the arcane archer and the dwarven defender were perfectly PC-friendly concepts. There was nothing in the rules to indicate they were for NPCs only, and in fact the rules discussed how PCs took levels in them. (Very seldom does NPC-only material need "prerequisites".) Like magic items, the DM was supposed to control access to them, but that doesn't mean they weren't meant for PCs to have. In fact, the name "prestige class" itself is a hint that they're intended for the heroes of the tale.

They may have been player friendly, but check out the wording in the 3.0 (not 3.5) DMG. They were all specifically meant for DM use only.

 

[CapnZapp]

The important point is that they no longer are in the DMG, or any of the core books.

That is what we can rely on to make them truly optional.

 

[delericho]

Exactly! In the DMG in 3.0 PrC were SPECIFICALLY reserved for the DM to use for NPCs to build interesting villains and the like. They were not intended for players. But players started using them and WOTC saw dollar signs and unleashed the hounds.

They may have been player friendly, but check out the wording in the 3.0 (not 3.5) DMG. They were all specifically meant for DM use only.

I'm not sure where you're getting that. The 3.0e DMG, p.27 says that the use of PrCs is optional, and it says also that the DM "may choose not to allow them or to use them only for NPCs" (emphasis mine). That's a world away from the book reserving them, even by default, for NPC use only. Indeed, it talks specifically about PCs taking them, with no indication that this would be a particularly unusual choice.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I really like the fighting styles. that is the high point of the article, for me. The fluff of the sorc is more warlock-y than sorcerery to me, but mechanically I like it, and it's easy to reshape it as having a shadow being as a grandparent or whatever, or growing up in the shadowfel and being filled with shadow magic as a result.

I would have liked to see an undying light sorc and a shadow warlock, but they were still cool.

Presige classes...work, I guess? The one the presented was too complicated, though. Mostly in the sense that too much of the crunch of the class exists outside the class.