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

[CleverNickName]

Yes, though “sneak” is a terrible name for that class group.

Yeah, agreed. I've seen several options over the years: Expert, Thief, Sneak, Jack-of-all-Trades, etc. None of them are great.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Only if the Sneak class takes the Bard subclass. It would be a good way to build the archetypical "rogue, but moreso" D&D character.

What if the Mage takes the Bard subclass? What would that look like? I'm imagining something along the lines of the Wishsong in the Shannara novels, or Sabriel in the Garth Nix novels.

Or what about a Warrior that takes the Bard subclass? That gives off some strong "skald" vibes, maybe even the Shout feature in Skyrim.

I feel like the 'classes' in this case would have to be basically nothing and the subclasses be way more robust for any of this to be satisfying.

Just as an example, I play a bard was WAY different reasons than the 'Core Four'. Mostly because the Core Four aren't actually a good or inclusive range of fantasy archetypes for modern fantasy.

 

[Horwath]

Barbarian resistences expanded in the base class to include acid, cold, fire, poison, at level 6, and then again to include lightning, radiant, necrotic, and again at level 11 with lightning, necrotic, radiant, thunder, and then finally all damage at level 17.
Bear Barbarians can have Con Mod DR, rather than expanded resistence.

this seems to fiddly.
there is a reason that Bear totem is most popular. it's simple,
I would even combine reckless attack and rage in same ability

Rage:
you can rage on your turn. No action.
you have advantages on all attacks, saves and checks with STR and CON
all attacks have advantages on you
you have resistance to all damage.
gain bonus damage per barbarian table
duration 1 min
"insert normal requirement for sustaining rage"

 

[delericho]

4e-style monster and encounter design.
A serious reduction in caster power level (especially cantrips).
A corresponding boost to martial power levels, especially at high levels.
Eliminate 1st level ASIs - as soon as they became floating, they became redundant.

And my most radical suggestion: a character's class become the determinant of how they interact with the combat pillar; everything else (skills, feats, heritage, even subclass) is about how they interact with the social and exploration pillars, with no interface to the combat pillar.

 

[mellored]

Removing all base classes except the Core Four, and rolling them all into subclasses.

Mage: Artificer, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Priest: Cleric, Druid, Paladin
Sneak: Bard, maybe Ranger, Rogue
Warrior: Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, maybe Ranger

Squire: knight, slayer, archer, flurry
Apprentice: holy, Arcane, primal, pact
Craftsmanship: entertainer, scout, leadership, alchemist.

Then have a bunch of prestige classes.
Paladin: require Holy and Knight
Beastmaster: requires Slayer and Leadership.
Warlord: require Knight and Leadership.
Horizon Walker: requires Scout and Arcane.
Assassin: require Scout and Pact.
Sklad: Knight and Entertainer
Ect...

 

[Yaarel]

I use arrays. So the Background Ability Improvements dont really matter to me, with regard to character concept.

But for players who choose to roll Abilities, the Improvements can mitigate a poor roll. I imagine the Improvements will remain for the 4d6 rollers.

 

[Yaarel]

Removing ability scores. Having 14 mean +2 is unnecessarily confusing.

I am all for deleting the Scores and just using the Ability Bonuses. That Score Cow is quite sacred, tho.

Changing the attack and damage into one roll. 1d20+2d6+Str - 20 AC or something like that would speed up the game.

Love it.

We won't see them because backwards compatibility.

Heh, is so incompatible tho?

 

[Stalker0]

Concentration.

I think the spell redesigns might remove concentration from some spells but there is still a lot of mechanical burden with that mechanic.

The biggest one to me is that Concentration is actually two mechanics in one:

1) preventing of spell stacking
2) providing a “disruption” of spellcasting

Both are useful vhf they should be separate. Shield of faith not stacking with other buffs…sure no problem. A defensive spell that can get dropped after every hit…not great

 

[Yaarel]

I’m still planting my flag firmly in the “Sorcerers should use CON rather than CHA” hill and I’m not backing down. After all, their magic comes from within them; it’s a part of their life essence. That screams Constitution to me.

Making the Sorcerer use Constitution as the Casting Ability would be highly unusual, put the finger on why they arent Wizards, and give them a weird supernatural "witchy" toughness in combat.

 

[tetrasodium]

In no particular order.

• An option to revert to something closer to pre 3.x attribute bonuses where+/-1 started at Luke 15 &6 instead of 8 &12. That would reduce the pressure to have a perfect minmaxed array and go back to allowing more freedom to where players arrange their attributes
• A return to expected magic item progression in monster math. I'm tired of being expected to just make it work as a GM whgile eating the blame for choosing to either give out magic items & overload the uncorrected math or not give them out & have nothing to incentivize players
• Sorcerer going from charisma to con would be a good thing.
• Get rid of one standard array & shift to two of them, one for SAD builds with a very high value a very low value or twoplus an ok & a poor value or two... plus a second that's more middle of the road MAD with no especially great values & no especially bad ones.
• an option to shift (all) cantrips from innate race/class based auto scaling things to equipment based things that require new equipment to upgrade
• an end to short rest nova classes that this one guy probably preserved
• nonlinear carrying capacity Going from 3 to 4 strength should not give the same increase as going from 19 to 20. Having this a linear thing causes any attempteduse of encumbrance to limit excess at the table to simply collapse in all but the smallest of groups
• Death of OAs & return to AoOs
• the return of (Su) (Sp) & (Ex) tags on class abilities