D&D 5E What direction should 5th edition take?

[interwyrm]

It would eat HERO games for lunch though...
You have to have flavor built in... Hero while mechanically nice always lacked real flavor keeping classes and going with skinnable power lists in 4e they avoided that problem. How would you suggest maintaining all that flavorlishousness that makes it newbie friendly... and going classless.

Derailing a bit, but...

IMO the best thing about HERO is the freedom to define flavor however you want. The worst thing was the lack of balance.

 

[babinro]

I really like the idea that all classes inherently gain abilities geared towards their class from 4e. All clerics can heal to a degree while performing other things in combat.

I would like to see that remain, but a more free form or point based system to help determine ones powers. Along with skills playing a much greater role in everything.

Examples: Spells/abilities that push would push distances based on attributes of your character such as strength.

Your acrobatics skill could help determine your movement over difficult terrain

Your knowledge Religion would allow you to be more effective in combat vs Undead aside from simply knowing more about the creature.

Perception in rogues could attribute to sneak attacks by finding weaknesses.

Prolonged damage to add flavor. For example, armor that weakens over time. The ability to have your limbs broken but yet still be effective in combat until X days/weeks pass for it to heal.

How to add stuff like this into a game system that is both balanced and not overly complex is another story.

 

[CapnZapp]

So 5E threads are allowed again.

 

[Tai]

One of the big things about D&D has always been the separation of combat and non-combat system, which I think is a good idea in a game that is essentially a tactical skirmish game with RP elements. If Hitting People were a skill, then everyone would just buy a skill focus in it. The class/level system serves to level the playing field - to say that here is your character, he is (hopefully) roughly as powerful as the other characters in the party, but how would you like him to be powerful? Oh, and you can have some non-combat stuff too, but it doesn't cost you combat utility to do it (unless you want to spend a feat or two to do it really, really well).

 

[silverwhisper]

invokethehojo queried:
should it build upon 4e, or go in a different direction? would you like to see things going back to the "old school" way of doing things, or continue to emulate "video game" inspired mechanics? should gold, items, powers, tactical combat and other mainstays continue to be core elements, or should they try something different?

great questions, and something i've been mulling myself for months ever since seeing this.

i agree with your underlying assumptions. to my way of thinking, i think the video game-inspired approach is the genie that's been loosed from the bottle, and am approaching this conversation with that additional assumption.

there are a few things i would love to see in 5e, whenever it's released.

1. the full-blown unification of the combat engine with the task resolution engine. 3.x laid the framework for this idea and 4e has gotten us very, very close indeed with the skill challenge mechanic.

2. a "degree of success" mechanic. the skill DCs seem to suggest a 5 point increment between levels of difficulty. here, the skill challenge model might serve as a useful bridge. i'm conceiving of something like: for each increment of 5 by which a roll succeeds, the better the result. conversely, by each increment of 5 by which a roll fails, the worse the result.

something like this might not be suitable to all games, so perhaps it needs to be optional rather than part of the core ruleset--but ultimately, i think that this will help streamline die rolling in both combat and task resolution.

in combat, i'm thinking increasing/decreasing damage. maybe you add/subtract the relevant attribute modifier for the attack to/from the damage roll--or a more radical idea: dispose of the damage roll wholesale. maybe implements/weapons/spells do a base [x] damage, modified by the degree of success.

in task resolution, perhaps it facilitates/hampers future successes in skill challenges--or perhaps grants successes/failures? by the RAW, the impact of failure in a skill challenge carries little tactical impact. from where i sit, that strikes me as undesirable.

3. the stunt mechanics have brought us nearer than ever to encouraging players to use something other than an attack to accomplish something useful in a fight other than "i hit him again". i think that as a general concept, even more of this empowering of players to be more creative and support for unorthodox tactics is a step the game should continue to explore. in 3.0, we were all excited by the MM details for swallowed PCs cutting their way out of monsters. more rules supporting things like dropping a large blanket over a beholder, putting a tiny floating creature (e.g., a flameskull) in a backpack and rattling it around (would it be dazed until it destroys the backpack?), that sort of thing, would be really useful in that regard.

this could have the impact of significantly increasing the length of MM entries, and therefore, pagecount, with material that isn't germaine to all campaigns. not every game needs that level of detail and of course, that might make the books too expensive. to address this, WOTC could exclude them from the books but add them to the site as free PDFs. that way, DMs who want/need that info could get it, but not get beyond the product's price point.

ed

 

[Nifft]

• Only 5 classes (Red, Green, Blue, Black and White)
• Sensible multiclassing from level 1 (so you could be Red and Black from the get-go)
• Collectible, randomized Encounter power packs

(But seriously: fewer classes, more customization. I don't think we'll get classless, because D&D is so class-oriented, but I think we could do very well with fewer, more customizable classes.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[-Avalon-]

My biggest complaint is that the mystery and magic is gone.

There are no surprises, no secrets, nothing...

Where are the days where the fighter found an arcane runed sword laying across the skeleton king's lap, and wondered, "Is this cursed? Is it better than what I have? It was wielded by a king... surely it is a decent weapon, or is it what led to his downfall..."

Gone are the days of, "What manner of beast is that?!?" As the players stare down a new monster from the new monsters manual....

Instead, we have the fighter say, "We take a 5 minute break and identify the sword..."

Instead, we have the party say, "Ok, what check is it, Arcana? Religion? Dungeoneering? Nature?" and identify the monster in no time, knowing all of its strengths and weaknesses...

We also have the players handing in lists of items they want, and the books tell the DM to make sure they become available... In 3rd it wasn't any better, we had "the store" where any item could be made or bought...

I just wanna see that mystery and magic come back... It has become just a waste of potential in my opinion... great mechanics for fights and skills, but nothing hidden or secret... even secret doors are too easy to find... No going on quests to find answers as to where this item came from and what it does.... Just the party looking at the DM waiting for them to just lay it out for them to soak up....

5th edition: Bring THAT back.

 

[Ceylin]

I would like to see a few changes in the combat / stat system.

- Get rid of dailies, or re-design their recharging situation. Forcing the players to try to 'sleep' in a dungeon to re-power is counter-intuitive. Worse yet, right now players can safely blow all of their dailies if they have an encounter while traveling between two towns (if it takes more than a day). I think the once-per encounter powers are great, but a different timed mechanic for dailies would be useful (maybe tie them to action points).

- The stat scaling per level. Is there any benefit in the players slowly inflating their + bonuses per level while monsters are also gaining? Can you develop a system where you are not adding on a giant modifier to the rolls?

- More armor differences. Other than saving the cost of a single feat, why would any wizard stick with cloth? There used to be more restrictions when upgrading the armor instead of a stat requirement and a feat slot.

- Loot randomizer tables in the DM book. Its fun to just roll the dice and see what they players get.

 

[Garthanos]

fewer classes, more customization. I don't think we'll get classless, because D&D is so class-oriented, but I think we could do very well with fewer, more customizable classes.)

Yes and yes and Increase the visibility of re-skinning within the rules.

Build your Class (Archetype)... choose from Battle roles and Non combat roles and Key Features or Talents associated with them. Picture hybrid and multiclassing from the get go. Various powers may require talents to use them. Choose Powers and each should show different skins on the various powers

or for newbie ease of use.
Choose from premade archetypes. (built from the same mechanics as above). Give several pre-skinning examples... that's one of the things this chapter is for...is

Heck in Class Creation and Power Creation areas show multiple interpretations of mechanically the same class and powers.

Enable Race Customizations (re-skinning is nice but lets step up to the mechanical plate)
and Backgrounds - I like backgrounds with bite...having them be 1/3 as intense as a feat is ok if you get three bits to put together - like background, and culture and upbringing? not sure.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think the most likely thing we will find when they release 5E is that *all* of the D&D Insider online tools will be active and usable from the get-go.

This online initiative looks to be a step-by-step beta test for the 5E rules when they get released in another 5 to 7 years. The monster tools (where the math is all set and you can create monsters out of whole cloth using the entire list of "monster powers")... the character builder (where you can create most any kind of character using the hybrid rules)... and eventually the encounter builder, trap builder, and (possible) map builder.

By getting all of their programming kinks out of the way during 4E... they'll be able to have a fully-functioning online game with all creation rules in order to be able to release it at the exact same time as the books. Of course... in another 5 to 7 years, who knows if they'll even bother to release hardcover books (especially if iPhones / Kindles et al. become as commonplace as the cellphone is now).

But for those who want modularity... they certainly seem to be heading in that direction, with online tools making it incredibly simple to put anything and everything together in a D&D form you might want to play with.