D&D 5E What needs to be fixed in 5E?

[Crazy Jerome]

Second, a small number of classes (artificer, beast-druid and monk come to mind) have very distinct powers because they are a highly flavored variation on their power source. That kind of design may require some specialized power lists, but I tend to think that that's OK as an exception.

And this brings us to why if the game is to be exception-based design, it should be exception-based design done properly. Right up front is that things that are alike are classed alike, and things that are not alike, are not.

This is why I said that even if most powers and features are done in common lists, there should be room for the exceptions. Classes can have their own powers and features. Classes can have more or less access to the common lists.

Assume for a moment that all powers of a given level and purpose are close enough to equal to be tolerable. Then it matters not if the paladin has, say, 8 common powers and features and only 2 special paladin ones, while the monk reverses this ratio. That just says that the monk class is more of an exception than the paladin, and the writers have chosen neither to clutter the common lists with powers only the monk will have, nor make the paladin, fighter, etc. have highly redundant list simply to meet the arbitrary demand of each list being separate.

There is a small argument to be made that each class having a separate list would lead to some ease of use by the players, and this would be worth whatever redundancy crept in. At launch, it wasn't completely off-base, especially for people not familiar with some of the common pitfalls of misapplied exception-based design. However, I think 4E has proven that argument false.

It is rather surprising that this misapplication of the design persisted when they had the good sense to realize that "filling out the grid" simply to have it filled out, was not good. Thus the relunctance to do the martial controller.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

double post

 

[KarinsDad]

I agree that, at first, /most/ at-wills were 'basic attack+' but not all of them. The Warlord's Furious Smash, for instance, targeted FORt & did attack-stat-mod damage, only, and granted a buff. Hitting better than a basic attack (against many opponents) and doing less damage. I'm sure there must have been a few others that weren't exactly 'basic attack+'

Of course not. Twin Strike is the most obvious and well known example.

But, even something like Piercing Strike is the equivalent of a melee basic attack with the extra benefit of targeting Reflex instead of AC.

Over 90% of the PHB At Will weapon attack powers (if one includes the errata-ed Sure Strike and Careful Attack) were the equivalent of a basic attack+. 20 of them are, 2 are not.

Furious Smash and Twin Strike are effectively basic attacks plus major advantage minus damage. WotC took away some damage because the benefit above a basic attack was so substantial.

It should be possible to have more than a single basic attack model though, it just requires a bit more wording in the description.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To be fair, I don't really know the difference between a paladin and a melee cleric in the gameworld fiction either.

A Paladin is the sword-arm of his god, and generally has little or no ability to authority to perform the sacred rituals of the faith: marriages, investments, excommunications, etc.

A Cleric (of any kind) is primarily a minister to his deity's flock, performing as the conduit of divine boons to the believers...and woe to the outsiders. Any martial ability is a secondary benefit to the faith.

 

[Jack99]

5. use 3.5 multi-classing

Is that because you want fighter3/barbarian5/ranger1/rogue1/paragonpath/epicdestiny-characters or fighter5/wizard5/pp/ed-characters?

Either way, I really hope they keep the class-pp-ed system.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

Extremes +/- study every detail about DnD and over prepare for the session or find another game.

Do the normal and play it a couple times to see if you'll like it more one day.

 

[Tymophil]

For me there are only a few problems with D&D4, and they all revolve around duration of a player's turn. There are not that many rounds in a fight, but each player's turn is way too long. So players get bored because they have to wait too long for their turn to play.
In my humble opinion, the turns are too long because...

• Too many conditions and induced book-keeping.
• Too many information to track during a fight : regeneration, temporary hp, vulnerabilities, altered AC and other defenses, etc. and induced book-keeping.
• Too many phases to a player's turn (beginning of turn, three actions, end of turn phase, and intervention of other players in one's turn).

I don't know how to solve the problem without restricting players choices though.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

How do we know if that's strong or weak? Good or bad? Fact or fiction? There is a topic for it.

 

[Oldtimer]

Wow, there's some seriously good discussion going on here. It really got my brain working.

A few rough ideas that surfaced from the depths of my grey matter:

Regarding organization of powers; I think it's a good idea to have most of the powers organized by power source and a smaller number by class. When you get to a particular level you can choose from either your source list or your class list. Say that the source gives you four powers to choose between and your class one extra.

I think overlaying power lists is a very useful design. What if every encounter attack and daily attack scaled automatically into a level+10 version and a level+20 version? That would prune the power lists down to just listing E1, E3, E7, D1, D5, and D9 (E=encounter attack, D=daily attack). Then let the paragon path overlay your current lists with one each of E11, E13, E17, D11, D15, and D19 powers that scale into level+10 versions. That way each PC would have a maximum of three encounter attacks and three daily attacks without mysteriously forgetting how to do things.

I'm not sure about utility powers, though. Maybe they shouldn't scale and let you accumulate them all the way up to level 30. Perhaps they should primarily be given through your class.

I'm seeing a very compact and easy power progression scheme here. I need to think more about this and maybe work it into my 4e clone that we play.

Great posts everyone!

 

[ForeverSlayer]

How about having less conditions but have them either last longer or everything ends with a successful save.

Also there are way too many floating, short termed bonuses out there that people have trouble keeping track of which leads to some people just ignoring them.

Having 5 or 6 "till the end of your next turn" bonuses or when "X condition or Y condition is met" starts to make the game a bit sloppy and hard to keep track of. I am fully aware that there are people that have no trouble but I know a lot of people who do.

I'm working on a way to maybe cut down on that and i will post them just as soon as I have them down solid.

Edit: I will say that all those floating bonuses and such would be much easier if all that was being tracked electronically.