D&D (2024) What Should D&D 2024 Have Been +

[Distracted DM]

Havent seen it mentioned yet, but the modularity discussed during NEXT. I still dream of it.

Could you elaborate on that?

 

[Meech17]

I have to run out so I don't have time for a full dissertation but I will start with this: I wish they would have re-thought the whole idea of subclasses and made them much more fluid, working between multiple classes. An example is something like the Assassin: that is something that many characters can be and different classes could benefit from in different ways.

I do like this idea. Subclasses that can be taken by any, or at least more than one class. An duelist based on a fighter vs one based on a rogue. It would allow for different flavors of similar concepts. The Rogue could be your typical dexterous fencer. Perhaps even allow for the adoption of multiple sub-classes. The fighter early on chose between unarmored, brawler type fighting, or heavily armored knightly fighting. Then when they take on the duelist subclass, the former is a wrestler/grappler, while the latter is a mounted lancer/jouster. They're all very different, but all excel in their particular style of single combat.

Honestly? 6E. I don't have a comprehensive list of what I'd like to see, but a few things to throw out there as possibilities:

1. More precise language used in the rules. "Rulings, not rules" is a nice idea, but where you have rules, they should be easily spotted and understood. A tag system wouldn't go amiss.
2. 10 level standard. It's the range most people play in, so it should be the range the main design of the game revolves around. 11-20 should still exist, but it shouldn't take until level 5 or higher for classes to start feeling like they are coming into their own.
3. Deemphasize ability score bonuses. Bring back B/X ability score scaling. As much as I prefer rolling, I'd say keep the standard array with Tasha's style bonus points separated from race. No ASIs for leveling.
4. Reemphasize ability scores. Bring back ability scores checks as the base mechanic for getting things outside of combat done. It lets ability scores matter without having to be a primary factor in combat rolls like 3E+ inflated ability score bonus do.
5. Races as feats. More specifically, you choose race as normal, but they have no mechanical weight on their own. Instead, you get racial abilities bundled up into feats with, say, 1 major and 1 minor ability each. Multiple feats for each race, so not every dwarf has to be exactly the same. Each feat can be designated as [innate] or [cultural]. Taking the former means you are at least part descended from that race, while taking the latter means you were raised among them. Suggestion that 2 races can be taken from at most to avoid people trying to powergame a "fairy/orc/dwarf/demon that was raised among elves" hybrid. More feats that can be gained later for those that want to be the elfiest elf that ever elfed.
6. Multiclass as feats. Basically, my stance is that the more open your progression system, the more likely you'll run into winners and losers of progression. Combinations that don't synergize at all, and those that synergize so well, they become nearly ubiquitous. With open multiclassing, the benefit is often immediate while the cost is deferred (often to a level you were never going to get to anyway). Making multiclass a feat means that the class you start with is your class, and taking on abilities from other classes comes at the expense of other abilities you could have right now. Personally, I think this is a better system.

There's other ideas I have, but that's more or less the core of what I'd like to see in a new edition (which I'd rather have seen than a lukewarm refresh).

I've only been kind of following it, but the Dungeon Coach's DC20 looks interesting and might intrigue you. I also want a lot of these things.

Number 2 for certain. I feel like we get a lot of dead levels in the current 1-20 scale. If we trim that to 10, or 12 with better fleshed out levels, you could emphasize that leveling should perhaps be a little slower and the progression would feel better for it. Make a supplemental high level play book later covering character options from 10/12+

For 3 and 4 I'm more in the camp of just do away with ability scores and use only the bonus.

5 and 6 are where I think you might like what DC20 is working towards. It looks pretty promising (Though I should say I haven't seen any of the updates in the last 2 months or so)

Thing is, at this point I'd love a 6e.

But I'm 100% sure that they would make every single part of the game, without fail, something I hate. They've already stated they want less classes, while I want more.

So for now at least, I'm going to keep clinging onto 5e as long as possible.

I'm also in the camp that I'd prefer a whole new edition. The nice thing is that if I did hate 6e, I could always go back to playing 5e.

I'm kind of on board with the less classes thing. I scoffed at it initially, but I like the idea of the class just kind of being your core characteristics. The Strong Martial, the Dexterous Specialist, the Intelligent Mage, or the Wise Sage hitting on the four major archetypes (Fighter, Thief, Magic User, Priest) and then have an abundance of subclasses for each of these to latch onto.

A few people have touched on changing the way resting works, but I'd really like to see the whole combat/rest/recovery loop re-worked. It's become seemingly apparent that most tables don't engage in 4-8 combat encounters per session/adventuring day. It seems 1-3 is much more common. I'd like to see a rebalance with that in mind.

 

[mamba]

Hey it’s another wishlist thread where people share their personal preferences!

so? It’s not like the playtest feedback you give is not your personal preference…

 

[payn]

Could you elaborate on that?

There was talk of modules you could add to 5E that would dial it up. Like a tactical combat module that would make the game play more like 4E/PF2. Or perhaps an alignment module that brings mechanical effects back into the game. The social mechanics that have been talked so much on EN World? Could be a module for 5E.

What we ended up with is you can take an ASI or you can have a feat. Thats it.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I'm kind of on board with the less classes thing. I scoffed at it initially, but I like the idea of the class just kind of being your core characteristics. The Strong Martial, the Dexterous Specialist, the Intelligent Mage, or the Wise Sage hitting on the four major archetypes (Fighter, Thief, Magic User, Priest) and then have an abundance of subclasses for each of these to latch onto.

In theory I don't mind 3-4 classes. As long as subclasses massively change the entire playstyle, and the builds are really customisable.

But in practice, we'd be more likely to get 3-4 classes, with even less build choice and subclass impact than 5e on top of that.

Leaving a huge chunk of fantasy archetypes either impossible to build, or missing everything which makes them iconic.

 

[Undrave]

I'm bowing out of the fireside chat thread, for the reasons you mentioned in the OP, so I'll post my general idea here.

For the new core PHB, you keep 5e as 5e. You emphasize in the marketing and the text that everything you used before is still playable. If any rules element has the same name and identity as something already in print, assume that this is the version WotC prefers, but nothing old is actually deprecated. (AL and other "official" organizations can chose to allow/disallow as they see fit.)

Merge the Tasha's class features into the core class text, make some minor changes, but leave core class definition pretty much intact.

4 subclasses for each class: The SRD subclass, a previously existing subclass that needs major revisions (if one exists), and every other subclass is new.

2 new classes. Don't care what they are.

Make whatever race/species changes they feel are necessary. Keep human/elf/dwarf/halfling, swap out everything else for new and interesting stuff.

Reprint the absolute core feats, reprint/revise the worst offenders (like Sharpshooter), and then a bunch of new feats. Revisit classic concepts, just use new feat names and mechanics.

Do the same thing for spells. Keep about half the spells, revise a few others, and make up a bunch of new ones. Emphasize again that old spells from previous material are still totally viable.

See, this is also what I expected: A new entry point that cleans up the rough edges and clears up confusion, while ALSO being something of a supplement for old players. Like, instead of repeating the same subclass for the Fighter they give you the Champion, the updated Battlemaster and then two new subclasses, with one that can fill in the gap of 'Magic Using Fighter' without being a clone of the Eldritch Knight (Would be cool to see a Fighter+Artificer subclass that has a steampunk sword he constantly upgrades!).

Also the Artificer in the PHB.

 

[Greenwheat]

It depends heavily on what I'm pitching.

If I want to maintain compatibility with Fifth Edition, I'm sacrificing the sacred cow of the 'Three Core Books'. Rebuild the whole lot - mostly the PHB, DMG, Xanathar's and Tashas, plus some bits from Volo's and Mordekainen's - into five volumes.

1. Core Rules - the bits from the PHB, DMG, Xanathar's and Tasha's about how the game mechanics actually work, organised in a useful way. There's probably going to be a 'Dungeon Master's Appendix' in here.
2. Heroic Fantasy Rules - Broadly speaking, everything else you need to run a game of 2014 D&D: race, class, background, feats, skills, equipment, encumbrance, XP charts etc. Possibly including the 'monstrous races' from Volo's. Probably put the spell lists in here for the caster classes.
3. Spellbook - one big book with all the spells from the PHB, XGtE, and TCoE, usefully indexed.
4. Treasure Book - actually useful treasure charts, and all magic items from the DMG, XGtE and TCoE usefully indexed.
5. Monster Manual - the core monsters, tidied up a little. Keep spellcasting, but do rebalance some of the oddities. Ideally we'd not have launched MMotM, and a version of that can be Volume 6. Not sure how we divide up the monsters, but we don't want a 600 page hardback tome.

Probably tidy up the wording and cut away some of the dead wood based on how game design has evolved in the last decade. Do the layout with usability as a priority. Give the classes a tune-up, but don't make any big changes unless absolutely necessary; there should be no need for a 2014 D&D player to buy new books unless they want the convenience. This isn't a new edition, this is a remaster of the existing one.

Get someone who's better at marketing than me to come up with names, and someone better at design than me to figure out what needs to go into Volume 1 to make a complete ruleset, and what goes into genre-specific Volume 2. You may notice some similarity to the OSE Classic Fantasy Box Set...

Then, you can offer alternative genres by replacing Volume 2 with 'Sword and Sorcery Rules', or 'Superhero Rules', or 'Cosmic Horror Rules', whatever Marketing thinks will sell. There should be enough design space in the 'Volume 2' to allow different genres to feel different, but still allow everyone to feel comfortable shifting genres without having to learn a new game. Lore can go in the adventures and setting guides.

I looked at the page counts to do this a while ago, it does actually come in about right for the four rulebooks.

 

[grimmgoose]

I've said it before, but if D&D 2024 was always going to be built on 5.5, there's nothing WOTC could do to save it in my eyes. I was mildly interested with some of the more dramatic changes they were talking about, but since they've walked almost all of those back, I just can't see myself paying them $150+ for a sidegrade.

I wanted a 6E. An honest to goodness "new" thing; a swing for the fences. Right now, it feels like WOTC is operating out of fear; they don't want to rock the boat. They're scared they'll lose their audience. It doesn't feel like there is any passion - and how could you be passionate about making adjustments to 10-year-old design?

 

[payn]

I've said it before, but if D&D 2024 was always going to be built on 5.5, there's nothing WOTC could do to save it in my eyes. I was mildly interested with some of the more dramatic changes they were talking about, but since they've walked almost all of those back, I just can't see myself paying them $150+ for a sidegrade.

I wanted a 6E. An honest to goodness "new" thing; a swing for the fences. Right now, it feels like WOTC is operating out of fear; they don't want to rock the boat. They're scared they'll lose their audience. It doesn't feel like there is any passion - and how could you be passionate about making adjustments to 10-year-old design?

To be fair, I think there are also folks exhausted by the wholesale overhaul of editions. WotC wants to break the wheel.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Also the Artificer in the PHB.

I wonder if we'll ever get an artificer update. Or if it will be abandoned for good post 2024 edition.