Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Too many cooks (a DnDN retrospective)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6051930" data-attributes="member: 7635"><p>While I remain optimisitc, I am starting to get worried about the direction NEXT is taking. </p><p></p><p>I'm noticing some trends are appearing as the playtests are progressing, and these trends are starting to bother me. In no particular order:</p><p></p><p>1.) The return of Power Sources</p><p></p><p>Martial Classes use expertise dice. Magic Users are classes that cast arcane spells (more on that later). It appears martial classes, arcane classes, divine classes, will share the same mechanics, rather than different classes doing things different ways, which further weakens the need for multiple classes and gives more credit to the "make ranger a X and not a class" argument. </p><p></p><p>2.) Spellcasting: Pick your type</p><p></p><p>Rather than having three (or more) different casters with unique casting mechanics, the trend is aiming toward three classes with different lists and possible casting tweaks and then choosing your spellcasting resource type (slots, points, ADE) which also further weakens each archetype. This is especially true if your DM limits/chooses one type for his campaign (we all use spellpoints) and then makes wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks all point casters. Rather than making all casters unique, they fall back to "one size fits all, but now you can choose S, M, or L". </p><p></p><p>3.) Expertise Dice: The Cure All for Martials</p><p></p><p>In the beginning, fighters got combat superiority to show off maneuvers and increase damage. It was new and innovative. It gave fighters a new toy without getting stuck on the "longsword or die" feat specialization chain. Then rogues got it to fix the "sneak attack/skill mastery' duality issue. Then monks got it to represent chopy-socky. Now rangers, paladins, barbarians, warlords, and anyone else proficient with swords is going to get them. Its overused already. Monks have ki points to show off martial arts. Rangers have favored enemies to increase damage. Paladins have smites, barbarians rage. We don't need to give them all expertise dice. We need unique mechanics to keep the feel of paladins, rangers, barbarians and fighters unique. </p><p></p><p>4.) Moving toward a unified mechanic(s)</p><p></p><p>When Essentials came out, I commented on how Martial, Divine, Primal, Arcane, etc power sources should have unique mechanics to tell them apart. Martials lacked dailies but had multiple at-wills. Arcane lacked encounter-powers and were either at-will or Daily. Divine didn't have at wills, but had encounter and daily prayers. </p><p></p><p>I fear Next is going to take me up on such an idea. Each class will end up with a "power source" that determines its mechanics rather than letting each class have unique mechanics (and hybrids) to make the class stand out. Its going to homogenize the classes again. </p><p></p><p>Next has a chance to do something unique with its classes, I hope they don't fall into the trap of forcing everyone into the same boxes again.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Remathilis, post: 6051930, member: 7635"] While I remain optimisitc, I am starting to get worried about the direction NEXT is taking. I'm noticing some trends are appearing as the playtests are progressing, and these trends are starting to bother me. In no particular order: 1.) The return of Power Sources Martial Classes use expertise dice. Magic Users are classes that cast arcane spells (more on that later). It appears martial classes, arcane classes, divine classes, will share the same mechanics, rather than different classes doing things different ways, which further weakens the need for multiple classes and gives more credit to the "make ranger a X and not a class" argument. 2.) Spellcasting: Pick your type Rather than having three (or more) different casters with unique casting mechanics, the trend is aiming toward three classes with different lists and possible casting tweaks and then choosing your spellcasting resource type (slots, points, ADE) which also further weakens each archetype. This is especially true if your DM limits/chooses one type for his campaign (we all use spellpoints) and then makes wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks all point casters. Rather than making all casters unique, they fall back to "one size fits all, but now you can choose S, M, or L". 3.) Expertise Dice: The Cure All for Martials In the beginning, fighters got combat superiority to show off maneuvers and increase damage. It was new and innovative. It gave fighters a new toy without getting stuck on the "longsword or die" feat specialization chain. Then rogues got it to fix the "sneak attack/skill mastery' duality issue. Then monks got it to represent chopy-socky. Now rangers, paladins, barbarians, warlords, and anyone else proficient with swords is going to get them. Its overused already. Monks have ki points to show off martial arts. Rangers have favored enemies to increase damage. Paladins have smites, barbarians rage. We don't need to give them all expertise dice. We need unique mechanics to keep the feel of paladins, rangers, barbarians and fighters unique. 4.) Moving toward a unified mechanic(s) When Essentials came out, I commented on how Martial, Divine, Primal, Arcane, etc power sources should have unique mechanics to tell them apart. Martials lacked dailies but had multiple at-wills. Arcane lacked encounter-powers and were either at-will or Daily. Divine didn't have at wills, but had encounter and daily prayers. I fear Next is going to take me up on such an idea. Each class will end up with a "power source" that determines its mechanics rather than letting each class have unique mechanics (and hybrids) to make the class stand out. Its going to homogenize the classes again. Next has a chance to do something unique with its classes, I hope they don't fall into the trap of forcing everyone into the same boxes again. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Too many cooks (a DnDN retrospective)
Top