Celebrim
Legend
No. On two grounds.
1) Unearthed Arcana introduced Comliness as a stat, and for probably 10 years I played with seven stats using official published rules. I've seen house rules that broke Dexterity into Dexterity and Agility to get fine motor skill broken off from atheletic ability. So are you saying that those that used seven or eight abilities weren't playing D&D? If 5e added a seventh stat and had good reason for it, I wouldn't be that upset. If 5e combined Intelligence and Wisdom into Mind, and had a good reason for it, it would still be D&D (not that I would think this a good idea). In my opinion, 4e tried to reduce down to 3 stats, which was pushing it but would have possibly been a cleaner game with three stats of Body, Wits, and Soul. Not my cup of tea, but still D&D abliet in a somewhat simplified more basic game.
2) Ability scores weren't the measure of a character's abilities nearly as much as level was. Even in 3e when they started having a bigger impact, skills (which were usually a function of level) were a measurement of a character's abilities. D&D is recognizable as a system where ability scores are almost always merely modifiers of a character's abilities, and not the measure of them.
Well, one of them at least. 4e itself shows how overly simplified this comment is. In a broader sense, I agree that D&D is a game system which focuses on passive rather than active defence.
Agreed. Though 4e tried to move away from this defining trope too its loss IMO. Others disagree, and have house ruled versions of D&D that don't use alignment. It's still D&D.
This was one of the central recognitions of the D20 system/3e - that D&D actually did have a core mechanic and that it was as robust as dice pools or d% based systems.
Agreed.
Or more precisely, ablative hit points as a measure of your ability to withstand attacks and generally speaking no wound conditions resulting from ordinary damage alone (so as to avoid death spirals).
No. Dragonlance used steel coins as currency. My own game uses silver as standard currency. You might as well say, "Has coins for currency.", which is almost redundant.
Agreed, though in practice in every edition, the unique features of a monster have been the true determinate of how dangerous it is. Hense, if you look at the XP tables of early basic editions they add modifiers for special abilities that indicate a creature being more dangerous than its base power would indicate. 3e tried to categorize everything by a 'challenge rating' that was focused on the net effect of these abilities as well as its basic powers, but that just demonstrated how hard it is to ball park these things.
As I said, redundant with the above. If we move to a new system in 5e where you stopped rolling damage dice and instead had a multiple based on your margin of success in the attack roll, it would be innovate, but on the whole I think even old school types like me would agree that the mechanism for generating damage is less important than the fact hit points provide a barrier between damage and death.
Agreed.
Or, loot. D&D has always been about taking stuff.
Sure. Allow the mechanism here has involved lots of evolution, and you are getting pretty picky here. You might as well also list 'surprise rounds'.
Again, its better to just note that D&D has several different passive defences depending on the sort of attack you are facing. When 4e switched around who made the roll on the passive defence vs. a spell (for example), it wasn't that big of a change (although it might feel wierd to a grognard). If 4e had made everything opposed rolls and required declaring your defensive modes as well as your offensive actions, that would have been moving into an area that D&D doesn't usually go.
More generally, strategic decisions that carry over from encounter to encounter. If you do this now, it might not be available later. If you are sloppy and waste resources in one encounter, it will put you in danger later.
