One word that will fix what's wrong with DNDN

[UngeheuerLich]

Did noone read, that the quick fix for the fighter would be giving him two themes.

The rogue has more or less two backgrounds, the fighter two themes. This could make the fighter interesting enough. Without making him overpowered.

 

[Yora]

Modularity is a great thing, but right now we don't have any official rules modules to take into consideration. When it comes to evaluating what we currently have to review, saying "Modularity" is like saying "It's not broken because you can houserule it."
They want our oppinion on the default rules in the playtest document? Then they will get feedback on that.

However, I do have to say that the few things I really don't like are all part of the game in a way, that makes it extremely easy to change them without affecting anything else.
- I don't like rolling multiple dice. So instead Advantage in my game means a +3 bonus to the roll. Since it always just says Advantage, I can have advantage mean whatever I want it to mean.
- Back from -18 hp to full hp in 2d6+8 hours without any medical attention seems too simple to me. But I can just say "When you fall under 0 hp, you get one serious injury that causes penalties until it gets major medical attention and extended rest". Doesn't interfer or conflict with any other rule we know about now.

 

[eamon]

What's sad about this is that people have to be told it.

To be fair, modularity isn't just the notion that you're allowed to house-rule. Of course you're allowed to house rule. But the way the game and its ecosystem is set up really impacts how hard it is to do.

For example, houseruling 4e character creation is made more difficult because of the character builder. So even where changing the rules is conceptually easy, if you then suddenly can't use the character builder, this can make players unhappy. In particular, people aren't used to doing the creation by hand, so many players don't even know what to do on level up - not precisely. So not only are you forcing them to slog through a potentially vast number of choices without the tool they're used to, they also need to look up and apply rules they haven't used in a long time - if ever.

And of course, this speed bump has nothing to do with the rules themselves; its just the way the whole game ecosystem was set up - it's sort of OK to have millions of choices since there's a CB, and it's hard to house-rule because the CB is complex and closed.

Then you've got interactions within the rules. For a very simple example which affects pretty much any edition you've the monster manuals. If you house rule anything that might affect expected damage output, you're going to need to be willing to house rule hit points of monsters and PC's, and that might be a daunting task. Unless the game changes radically, you'll need hitpoints, but the point is that which problems you encounter depends on the rules too.

So, I don't think it's sad people have to be told they can make a "module" aka change the rules; people often don't even consider it because its a hard thing to do now (in 4e, and to a lesser extent in 3e too).

I don't think this is an easy problem to solve, and while it's looking good now, the hard stuff is still to come. 5e isn't out of the woods yet.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This post appeared while I typed my last post....it makes my point.

The fighter is fine... in combat he does what fighters do...deal out crazy damage and absorb attacks. The cleric heals him to keep him in the fight.

Uh-uh.

The Cleric of Moradin is the one absorbing the attacks. 3 points higher AC and a defender theme as opposed to a striker one.

The fighter only does more damage than the cleric of Moradin because he has prioritised strength over wisdom (which given his wis is 14 doesn't mean much) and because he's wielding a two handed axe rather than carrying a large shield. Oh, and because of his theme.

If he had a warhammer and shield, and the knight theme, the cleric would do more damage with Crusader's Strike - and that's one long lasting buff.

This isn't about choice. It's about baseline competence. The fighter fakes it by putting everything into offence.

 

[delericho]

True enough, though most of the discussions I've seen since the playtest docs were released have centered not around bad mechanics, but personal preferences, such as healing and opportunity attacks.

Arguably, if a person feels compelled to change a mechanic, then for them it is a bad mechanic. Whether that's because it turns everyone else into the Wizard's sidekicks or just that they don't like it is largely irrelevant.

Conversely, the designers at WotC are good enough that very few objectively bad mechanics are ever likely to make it to the game, even at this stage.

In other words, pretty much all we have is personal preferences.

The playtest rules appear to be much easier to houserule than the more recent systems, which were much more tightly integrated.

It's really far too early to tell that (as indeed you noted in your post). But also: if 3e does 95% of what I want, but I can't readily fix the rest, while 5e does 50% but is easier to (mostly) fix, then I'm likely to look at it and decide against - I already have 3e plus years of experience with it; it's not really worth another $100 and dealing with the learning curve to have the chance to fix things.

Ultimately, on the issue of healing as-written, I'm with the OP - if that's all that I don't like with the system then I'll live with it, or fix it. My deal-breakers lie elsewhere. And, indeed, that particular argument is so well-worn that there's little need for discussion - a simple poll of preferences would probably suffice.

But it's very likely that one of my deal-breakers will come up at some point, and it's equally quite likely that my issue won't be that the mechanics are objectively bad, but rather that I will have a strong preference for the alternative. I'd rather not have that discussion pre-emptively shot down by the "if you don't like it; change it" mantra.

 

[fba827]

I agree with this but want to look at it from the opposite side -- modularity is there, but what is the base mechanic core that will stick with the system?

* scaling hit points and damage but other stuff is flatter math
* ability scores being the baseline for basically everything
* the given DC thresholds
* to some extent the given conditions (as they will undoubtedly get referenced in all sorts of spells and monster abilities)
*the advantage/disadvantage system (while in it self i would call it a modular rule, it's listed in so many things that i don't think it could be taken out without rewriting a whole lot of abilities and spells)

anything else i'm missing?

 

[IronWolf]

I thought 'Modularity' was their great solution to the supplement bloat - that they'd sell us books of rules modules instead of endless splatbooks?

And this would be my concern over modularity. I may have missed it and it certainly way early in the process to even know, but have they hinted at whether modules are going to be included in the core rulebook as chapters or is it supplements I need to buy after getting the core rules? Or perhaps something like a second book like Unearthed Arcana where I buy just one book full of different modules for fitting in?

 

[Sunsword]

I thought 'Modularity' was their great solution to the supplement bloat - that they'd sell us books of rules modules instead of endless splatbooks?

As has been noted before, the fact that you can house rule a bad mechanic any number of ways doesn't mean it's not a bad mechanic. And the more people have to change to remake the game into their own image, the more likely they are to decide it's not worth the effort and just stick with what they have.

I think Modularity is that if you remove or insert a rules subsystem, the whole thing doesn't collapse, unlike prior editions.

And one person's bug in the rules is another person's feature. Things people posting in threads need to keep in mind is that don't forget to use that energy to explain your thoughts to WotC with feedback.

 

[Croesus]

It's really far too early to tell that (as indeed you noted in your post). But also: if 3e does 95% of what I want, but I can't readily fix the rest, while 5e does 50% but is easier to (mostly) fix, then I'm likely to look at it and decide against - I already have 3e plus years of experience with it; it's not really worth another $100 and dealing with the learning curve to have the chance to fix things.

To be fair, if you already have a version of D&D that does 95% of what you want, it's unlikely DDN will give you reason to switch - that's just too high a bar. I've known very few folks who play multiple versions of the game at the same time, and even then it's usually due to playing in different groups that have very definite preferences, not because they like both versions equally.

DDN shouldn't target anyone 95% satisfied with their current version. For those of us who are only 50% satisfied, however, they have a real shot - especially if they create a system that's relatively easy to customize to each group's individual preferences. And if enough "50 percenters" pick up the new system, some of the "95 percenters" will join, if only because they're outvoted by their group.

 

[Incenjucar]

Modularity won't help with the huge amounts of fluff text in the monster and spell descriptions - the closest fix there is is to provide more readable tables, wasting space both for anyone who fits on the far end of the fluff/crunch preferences.