My list;
1) Less classes, more *options*;
I'd love to see the Barbarian's Rage ability and the Paladins 'holy powers' reduced to a set of Feats that would allow a standard Fighter to be able to be a Barbarian, or a Paladin, or a Monk, or a Ranger. If my bare-knuckled brawler is a beer-swilling berserker, then so be it, hand to hand damage like a Monk and Rage like a Barbarian, and that whole 'can't be lawful' vs. 'can't be chaotic' thing can go hang itself, 'cause he's *not* a Barbarian and he's *not* a Monk, he's a drunken Irishman with a chip on his shoulder!
Similarly, I don't see the need for Sorcerer's and Wizards to be entirely different classes, when there is really only one difference, the manner in which they prepare and cast their spells. Combining them into one 'arcanist' class, able to choose at first level if he's going to be a prepared spell caster, a spontaneous spell caster or use a mana point system, but having the same BAB, saves, hit points, skills, armor, weapons and class abilities (which means, yes, 'sorcerers' would get those Wizard bonus feats as well) would save a bit of space in the book that is, IMO, wasted on writing out the same class twice.
But core classes is only the tip of the iceberg. What I really would love to see dead and gone forever is the notion of Prestige Classes. Turn every worthwhile PrC ability into a feat that has whatever level of prerequisites make sense for it, and be done with it. No more of the Ranger 2 / Fighter 4 / Barbarian 4 / Frenzied Berserker 10 builds, because if I want all of that crap, I can just buy it seperately as feats, with a straight Fighter 20 build.
2) Alignments. Die, die, die!
As long as they are getting rid of 'Lawful' and 'Chaotic,' could they perhaps complete the thought and get rid of 'Good' and 'Evil?' 'Cause I've never seen them used right anyway. They're either ignored, or a straightjacket that inhibits roleplay, and leads to arguments between players because one of them did something stupid or counter-intuitive or disruptive and whipped out the old, "I'm a Paladin! I didn't have a choice but to be an obnoxious BBEG-baiting antisocial jerk who got us TPK'd!" or "I was in-character when my Rogue slit your throats and stole the McGufffin of Saving the World to sell for shiny platinum, condemning the world to Tharizdun's cold embrace!"
3) You don't know Jack;
Vancian spellcasting; I hated when it was the only game in town, since I've enjoyed a couple hundred fantasy novels, movies and / or game settings that *didn't* limit themselves to Jack Vance's unique mnemonic paradigm, and I always hated that D&D simply couldn't adequately represent any of the rest of the 99% of established magical fantasy archetypes because of Gygax's fascination with 'The Magic Goes Away.' *But,* to be completely contrary, it is what it is, and the tactical / strategic nature of selecting spells for the day is indeed an interesting challenge. After 20-odd years of Vancian spellcasting, I'd rather it not be abandoned at the crossroads, but simply be *an option* which I can choose not to use, while others, who like it, are free to use it as they always have.
4) One system to Rule them all!
Since 1st edition, starting with Unearthed Arcana (Drow and Duergar and Svirfneblin PCs!), to 2nd Editions Complete Book of Humanoids and 3rd Editions Savage Species, players have always loved to go that step beyond 'elf, dwarf, human, hobbit' and play something memorable, like the 1st edition Rogue's Gallery that included a Lizard Man and a Centaur as PCs. 3rd edition did a wonderful thing in giving 'monsters' attributes, and a consistent design philosophy, so that a DM could flip open the Monster Manual and say, 'I want an Ogre, whose actually an Aberration, because of some Far Realms taint.' and look up the attributes for an Aberration by Hit Die and work up the conversion. Easy as pie and so, so convenient for those of us who love to 'play under the hood' of the system and create our own stuff, since we have guidelines for what an Aberration or Dragon or Giant or Humanoid should have for BAB, saves, skills, etc. based on it's Hit Die and size. Wonderful stuff. I would love for 4th Edition to go that one step further down this glorious road, and make more and more 'monsters' playable, and further make the d20 system used by characters into the same d20 system used by NPCs, instead of the old-school 'two-games-in-one' approach, where a Magic User could cast a spell that reduced an enemies Strength score, but, OOPSY, not all monsters *had* Strength scores! Instead of two-games-in-one, 3.X fixed that, and the spells and abilities of monsters and PCs had the same effects, since the PCs and monsters used the same set of rules, for the first time ever. The first steps in this turning d20 into a single system, and not two occasionally incompatible systems, would be to get rid of LA (which was, IMO, a terrible kludge), and come up with some meaningful system of racial levels, that won't result in the strangeness of the current system, where a 1st level Paladin Wyrmling Gold Dragon is treated as a 13th level character, despite being 6 HD and a bit of a pushover even as a 6th level encounter, let along a 13th level one!
5) Less 'repeats;'
Just as I don't see the need for two nearly identical arcane casters, one preparing from a book and one casting spontaneously, I don't really care for the overuse of a single system. Currently, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers and Wizards all use the spellcasting system (although Bards, with music, Clerics, with channeling, and Druids, with wild shape, have alternate systems that they also use). That's almost *half* the classes in the darn Players Handbook, and I'm not even counting Rangers and Paladins, who, inexplicably, *also* sit down at the beginning of each day and pray for specific spells that they may or may not actually need!
Clerics, in particular, should use a system other than spellcasting to achieve their effects. Base it on channeling, and use the precedent of Divine Feats. Any nice-nice Cleric will probably start out with a Feat that lets him burn 'turn' attempts into healing his allies (Lay on Hands). He might also pick up Divine Feats that let him burn 'turn' attempts to; Turn Undead, Cower the Infidel (fear), Call Down Holy Fire (flame strike), Smite the Wicked (smite), Bolster the Strong-Hearted (buff Strength / Constition?), etc, etc. He'll get bonus Feats like a Fighter, but only usable to purchase Divine 'channeling' Feats, and he'll be able to channel a number of times per day equal to his level plus his Cha modifier (and Extra 'Turning' will still be available, if he finds he needs more 'turn' attempts per day). He can retain his second-best status with armor, weapons, BAB and Hit Points, being a sub-par fighter who channels holy power into various effects. No spells. He prays as he channels his energy to smite, or heal, or rebuke the unclean, or whatever. The Cleric might also know some 'Rites,' long-casting effects such as exorcism or purging disease or feeding the hungry, the sorts of things that a Priest would know, but not be invoking during combat.
Druids could work similarly, able to use their own connection to nature to summon up natural forces (call lightning) or creatures (nature's ally) or even to summon the forces of nature within themselves (wild shape). Instead of just 'casting spells,' like a second-rate Sorcerer (with twice the hit points, lots of cool class powers, a kickbutt animal companion, better BAB and saves and an unlimited spell list), the Druid would actually be a discrete class of it's own, with it's own system of effects, relevant to it's specific role. Like the Cleric, 'Rites' would fill in the blanks for less combat-centric effects like purifying food or calling for rain or blessing the harvest.
Also in the vein of 'less repeats,' I don't need 10 different types of dragon, each with 12 age categories, in the Monster Manual. The twelve age categories can stay, but the energy type and shape of the breath weapon is a *detail,* not some momentous thing worthy of an entirely new writeup. By relegating such trivia to footnotes, the much shorter writeup would have more room to explain how this is a template, and that you can make dozens of different dragon types. I also don't see the need for forty-seven different types of elf, or book full of different flavors of 'scaly lizard dude,' or an endless parade of 'savage warlike humanoids.' Blackscale Lizardfolk? Coolness. Poison Dusk Lizardfolk, also, tres cool. And yet, these aren't 'generic' monsters, these are specific tweaks of a basic 'lizardfolk' archetype. The Monster Manual, IMO, should be setting-generic, filled with basic monster types, and bits of flavor text like, 'In the Realms, the Lizardfolk have purple eyes and black scales and call themselves the Wixiblifin and are all 30th level Wizards, descended from an ancient progenitor race that slipped on a bananna peel and fell into obscurity.'
1) Less classes, more *options*;
I'd love to see the Barbarian's Rage ability and the Paladins 'holy powers' reduced to a set of Feats that would allow a standard Fighter to be able to be a Barbarian, or a Paladin, or a Monk, or a Ranger. If my bare-knuckled brawler is a beer-swilling berserker, then so be it, hand to hand damage like a Monk and Rage like a Barbarian, and that whole 'can't be lawful' vs. 'can't be chaotic' thing can go hang itself, 'cause he's *not* a Barbarian and he's *not* a Monk, he's a drunken Irishman with a chip on his shoulder!
Similarly, I don't see the need for Sorcerer's and Wizards to be entirely different classes, when there is really only one difference, the manner in which they prepare and cast their spells. Combining them into one 'arcanist' class, able to choose at first level if he's going to be a prepared spell caster, a spontaneous spell caster or use a mana point system, but having the same BAB, saves, hit points, skills, armor, weapons and class abilities (which means, yes, 'sorcerers' would get those Wizard bonus feats as well) would save a bit of space in the book that is, IMO, wasted on writing out the same class twice.
But core classes is only the tip of the iceberg. What I really would love to see dead and gone forever is the notion of Prestige Classes. Turn every worthwhile PrC ability into a feat that has whatever level of prerequisites make sense for it, and be done with it. No more of the Ranger 2 / Fighter 4 / Barbarian 4 / Frenzied Berserker 10 builds, because if I want all of that crap, I can just buy it seperately as feats, with a straight Fighter 20 build.
2) Alignments. Die, die, die!
As long as they are getting rid of 'Lawful' and 'Chaotic,' could they perhaps complete the thought and get rid of 'Good' and 'Evil?' 'Cause I've never seen them used right anyway. They're either ignored, or a straightjacket that inhibits roleplay, and leads to arguments between players because one of them did something stupid or counter-intuitive or disruptive and whipped out the old, "I'm a Paladin! I didn't have a choice but to be an obnoxious BBEG-baiting antisocial jerk who got us TPK'd!" or "I was in-character when my Rogue slit your throats and stole the McGufffin of Saving the World to sell for shiny platinum, condemning the world to Tharizdun's cold embrace!"
3) You don't know Jack;
Vancian spellcasting; I hated when it was the only game in town, since I've enjoyed a couple hundred fantasy novels, movies and / or game settings that *didn't* limit themselves to Jack Vance's unique mnemonic paradigm, and I always hated that D&D simply couldn't adequately represent any of the rest of the 99% of established magical fantasy archetypes because of Gygax's fascination with 'The Magic Goes Away.' *But,* to be completely contrary, it is what it is, and the tactical / strategic nature of selecting spells for the day is indeed an interesting challenge. After 20-odd years of Vancian spellcasting, I'd rather it not be abandoned at the crossroads, but simply be *an option* which I can choose not to use, while others, who like it, are free to use it as they always have.
4) One system to Rule them all!
Since 1st edition, starting with Unearthed Arcana (Drow and Duergar and Svirfneblin PCs!), to 2nd Editions Complete Book of Humanoids and 3rd Editions Savage Species, players have always loved to go that step beyond 'elf, dwarf, human, hobbit' and play something memorable, like the 1st edition Rogue's Gallery that included a Lizard Man and a Centaur as PCs. 3rd edition did a wonderful thing in giving 'monsters' attributes, and a consistent design philosophy, so that a DM could flip open the Monster Manual and say, 'I want an Ogre, whose actually an Aberration, because of some Far Realms taint.' and look up the attributes for an Aberration by Hit Die and work up the conversion. Easy as pie and so, so convenient for those of us who love to 'play under the hood' of the system and create our own stuff, since we have guidelines for what an Aberration or Dragon or Giant or Humanoid should have for BAB, saves, skills, etc. based on it's Hit Die and size. Wonderful stuff. I would love for 4th Edition to go that one step further down this glorious road, and make more and more 'monsters' playable, and further make the d20 system used by characters into the same d20 system used by NPCs, instead of the old-school 'two-games-in-one' approach, where a Magic User could cast a spell that reduced an enemies Strength score, but, OOPSY, not all monsters *had* Strength scores! Instead of two-games-in-one, 3.X fixed that, and the spells and abilities of monsters and PCs had the same effects, since the PCs and monsters used the same set of rules, for the first time ever. The first steps in this turning d20 into a single system, and not two occasionally incompatible systems, would be to get rid of LA (which was, IMO, a terrible kludge), and come up with some meaningful system of racial levels, that won't result in the strangeness of the current system, where a 1st level Paladin Wyrmling Gold Dragon is treated as a 13th level character, despite being 6 HD and a bit of a pushover even as a 6th level encounter, let along a 13th level one!
5) Less 'repeats;'
Just as I don't see the need for two nearly identical arcane casters, one preparing from a book and one casting spontaneously, I don't really care for the overuse of a single system. Currently, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers and Wizards all use the spellcasting system (although Bards, with music, Clerics, with channeling, and Druids, with wild shape, have alternate systems that they also use). That's almost *half* the classes in the darn Players Handbook, and I'm not even counting Rangers and Paladins, who, inexplicably, *also* sit down at the beginning of each day and pray for specific spells that they may or may not actually need!
Clerics, in particular, should use a system other than spellcasting to achieve their effects. Base it on channeling, and use the precedent of Divine Feats. Any nice-nice Cleric will probably start out with a Feat that lets him burn 'turn' attempts into healing his allies (Lay on Hands). He might also pick up Divine Feats that let him burn 'turn' attempts to; Turn Undead, Cower the Infidel (fear), Call Down Holy Fire (flame strike), Smite the Wicked (smite), Bolster the Strong-Hearted (buff Strength / Constition?), etc, etc. He'll get bonus Feats like a Fighter, but only usable to purchase Divine 'channeling' Feats, and he'll be able to channel a number of times per day equal to his level plus his Cha modifier (and Extra 'Turning' will still be available, if he finds he needs more 'turn' attempts per day). He can retain his second-best status with armor, weapons, BAB and Hit Points, being a sub-par fighter who channels holy power into various effects. No spells. He prays as he channels his energy to smite, or heal, or rebuke the unclean, or whatever. The Cleric might also know some 'Rites,' long-casting effects such as exorcism or purging disease or feeding the hungry, the sorts of things that a Priest would know, but not be invoking during combat.
Druids could work similarly, able to use their own connection to nature to summon up natural forces (call lightning) or creatures (nature's ally) or even to summon the forces of nature within themselves (wild shape). Instead of just 'casting spells,' like a second-rate Sorcerer (with twice the hit points, lots of cool class powers, a kickbutt animal companion, better BAB and saves and an unlimited spell list), the Druid would actually be a discrete class of it's own, with it's own system of effects, relevant to it's specific role. Like the Cleric, 'Rites' would fill in the blanks for less combat-centric effects like purifying food or calling for rain or blessing the harvest.
Also in the vein of 'less repeats,' I don't need 10 different types of dragon, each with 12 age categories, in the Monster Manual. The twelve age categories can stay, but the energy type and shape of the breath weapon is a *detail,* not some momentous thing worthy of an entirely new writeup. By relegating such trivia to footnotes, the much shorter writeup would have more room to explain how this is a template, and that you can make dozens of different dragon types. I also don't see the need for forty-seven different types of elf, or book full of different flavors of 'scaly lizard dude,' or an endless parade of 'savage warlike humanoids.' Blackscale Lizardfolk? Coolness. Poison Dusk Lizardfolk, also, tres cool. And yet, these aren't 'generic' monsters, these are specific tweaks of a basic 'lizardfolk' archetype. The Monster Manual, IMO, should be setting-generic, filled with basic monster types, and bits of flavor text like, 'In the Realms, the Lizardfolk have purple eyes and black scales and call themselves the Wixiblifin and are all 30th level Wizards, descended from an ancient progenitor race that slipped on a bananna peel and fell into obscurity.'
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