D&D 5E I'm feeling really good about 5E, but where to from here?

[Greg K]

Personally, I have no use for adventures, but I understand others do. As a DM, my one major dislike of 5e is most of the classes themselves. I like that spell casters are more balanced, but the classes themselves just irk me with too many hard coded abilities that don't fit my vision of my setting, a particular class I like as presented in an earlier version, or a particular take from fantasy and cultures that influence my tastes. Therefore, I want tools to aid the DM in modifying classes

1. I want tools for making subclasses matter at level one for all classes.
2. I want options for bringing back 2e specialty priests including unarmored clerics, more limited spell lists based on deity's spheres/domains but allows for multiple domains.
3. I want a class for a fighter/mage focused equally on both and another for a 3e Oriental Adventures shaman (monk/cleric hybrid) so as not to rely on multi-classing rules or archetype.
4. I want guidelines for swapping out things like the Rogue's Expertise (and thief's Use Magic Device), Bard's Jack of All trades and spell secrets, as well as several monk abilities.
5. I want a sorcerer that is about metamagic and not about weird bloodline abilities or wild magic.
6. I want classes for Divine bards, Nature casting bards rather than jack of all trades. I also want monks enhanced by casting nature, divine, or arcane magic rather than ki,

 

[Ranes]

Just read the recent interview to Mike Mearls when he explained that main problem of 4e was that the designers assumed everybody had in fact been following the whole evolution of 3e via splatbooks, 3.5 revision, and big modular books such as Bo9S and Complete Arcane/Mage. Mearls explains that 4e wasn't a huge step forward if you take into account all the evolution of 3e through splatbooks, but then WotC discovered that a large number of gamers did not in fact follow (at least not everything), and were not able to recognize 4e as a natural step but rather as an oddball coming out of nowhere.

Indeed, although in that interview Mearls seemed to be of the mind that if you were familiar with the direction the game was going in, you were also happy with that. I bought most of the 3e WotC stuff, because I had the disposable income and I was curious. But I only found maybe 10% of it to my taste and actually useful. I had no problem saying no to the rest.

My problem with DIY is simple. When I was a teen, money was more valuable than time. Now it's the other way round. I want ready-made good material so I can use what little DIY time I have to best effect.

Imaginative, new and unfamiliar settings (I don't need a 5e Greyhawk, Planescape or FR) would be very welcome. I also appreciate well-crafted adventures. Support for online or digital play assistance (Roll20, Dungeonscape, et al) would be good but, given past experience, I'm not holding my breath.

One or two optional rulebooks a year is fine with me, if they're well-considered.

 

[Li Shenron]

My problem with DIY is simple. When I was a teen, money was more valuable than time. Now it's the other way round. I want ready-made good material so I can use what little DIY time I have to best effect.

It's also important to keep in mind that some people enjoy reading and designing material more than actually playing the game.

 

[Ranes]

It's also important to keep in mind that some people enjoy reading and designing material more than actually playing the game.

Quite. I enjoy that as much as playing.