Obscure elements of D&D you would love to rescue

[Wednesday Boy]

Hey, I loved wild mages.

Yes, yes, yes!!! I LOVED wild mages. (That's 2nd Ed. wild mages with their d100 worth of glorious randomness.) Back then my GM let me create a 1st level spell that simply let me roll on the wild surge table and apply the effect. I was happy as a pig... whose feet enlarged, reducing movement to half normal and adding +4 to initiative rolls for 1d3 turns.

I'd also like to see the Binder return. (Apparently I prefer obscure D&D elements from anything titled Tome of Magic.) It was the most flavorful class both in how you obtained your powers and the suite of powers that you got. And while I love 4E, the vestige Warlock didn't capture the feeling of the ToM Binder at all.

Who knows, based on Mearls' comments in the chat on Wednesday, maybe Binders are a possibility...

We have some potentially interesting ideas for the warlock vs. sorcerer vs. the wizard. I can't say much, but when you have two or three classes using arcane magic, you have room to maneuver. In 3e the warlock was sort of 4e-like, as was the binder. I think we can make room for both in a way that makes those classes unique and fun.

Although the "both" that he thinks they can make room for might be warlocks, sorcerers, and wizards. But a boy can dream...

 

[Hussar]

Eberron, Forgotten Realms?

I wouldn't really call Eberron vanilla fantasy although FR certainly is. But, FR is a thing unto itself really. I'd prefer if baseline D&D5 doesn't tie itself too much to any large scale setting.

 

[GreyICE]

This is so random

And never going to happen

But god I'd love to see the Factotem in some form or another.

Also holding out for kits, but they're not that obscure.

 

[erleni]

1) cynnabril/red steel items

2) the swordsage

3) the jabberwock

 

[Walker N. Waistz]

The entirety of GAZ3: The Principalities of Glantri for basic D&D, including:
- Schools of magic as actual schools/secret societies, with initiations and ranks
- Rival noble houses of magic-users, secretly infiltrated by families of werewolves, vampires, traitorous elves, and at least one radioactive lich(!)
- Settings built to generate crazy numbers of adventures, like a school of magic filled with intrigue and peril (detailed when JK Rowling was still a starving college student) or a capital city built over the power-source of an ancient craft, which has become a path to godhood for wizards powerful enough to master it
- Crazy magic items like a tiny alchemical laboratory in a battle, from which you remove your homunculous with a pair of tweezers to enlarge the magic potions he's made for you
- Princedoms of magic-user supremacists who kill clerics on sight - one of which is ruled by magical colonists from Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne setting (aka the medieval French wizard family from the classic module Castle Amber)
- Glorious Stephen Fabian artwork - it is crazy to me that the guy who created the look of Ravenloft no longer draws for D&D

None of that is system stuff, but it is all part of a design philosophy where anything was possible and nothing was too outlandish to fit within the rules.

 

[Steely_Dan]

-Incarnum
-The Algoid
-Wild Mage
-Bards under druidical tutelage
-Gelatinous Cubes as mounts

 

[Gold Roger]

The weird, crazy and absurd in the game acknowledged and encouraged by the designers and not swept under the rug. I'm talking flumph, flail snail, sheep in wolfs clothing, wild surge, wizards with names like Bargle and Bigby and so much other stuff like that.

Yes, it's silly. It's also a nice breather break from grim and dramatic gameplay stretches, reminds Players, GMs and Designers not to take everything super serious and makes the gameworld feel more magical to me.

Years I read on the wotc site that they don't think humor belongs in the gamebooks, which to me is a very sad statement.

I'd love to see some comedic drawings like those found on the art direction blog in the gamebooks for example.

They don't need to go overboard, they just should stop ignoring something that is a part of D&D's legacy.

Apart from that:

-The disease track. Such an elegant and adaptable little system. Luckily it's very system portable as well, so I'll be able to just keep using it.

-Old school Cambions and planescape style Tieflings

-Kuo-Toa cleric lightning bolts and Vrock dance of ruin

-Extremely reselient Rakshasa that are outright slain by blessed amunition. Gives the buggers a reason to hide and deceive.

 

[FireLance]

A thread by Jack Daniel reminded me:

Aasimar! 4e Deva are nice and have neat flavor and all, but if you're going to have tieflings, you should also give me the option to play a specially-blessed descendant of a celestial bloodline!

 

[eamon]

There seems to be a trend: bring back the crazy & unbalanced!

I love it .

 

[eamon]

Yeah I do. Or more precise, I have a very changed set of houserules (a game of its on, really), and I allow my players to participate in creating the world if they want. Steeldragon has a thread regarding that, and it seems most DMs do it in one way or the other.

Do you have a link for that? I'm curious...