D&D 5E How Can D&D Next Win You Over?

[Neonchameleon]

Many of the posters who want fighters to to have spellcaster-esque limited resources and 4e powers.


Other than keywords, exploits are identical to spells.

As long as you entirely ignore what is going on in the world exploits are identical to some spells. Which is like saying that as long as you entirely ignore the order of the letters, Finnegan's Wake is identical to Twilight is identical to Lord of the Rings is identical to the 1e DMG. Because they are both made up of letters and spaces.

For that matter, fighters should have limited and short-rest recoverable resources. I don't know if you've ever wielded a sword. But it's hard work. The D&D idea that you can keep swinging the same sword in exactly the same way for hours on end at maximum effectiveness without a breather is a hell of a lot more magical than encounter powers. And catching your breath for a few seconds, and a short breather should help.

But I do enjoy how you defend the fighter as non magical at all and then bring up the two examples of magical powers. Which I have seen stridently defended with posteres insisting on their inclusion and non-removal.

Really? Show me the people stridenlty defending the Eladrin Knight. It's a cool concept - but not really essential to anything. But a niche one. CAGI isn't magic - I just don't want the argument derailed there.

But if they can only use it once a fight or per day for no reason other than "because spell can only be used 1/day too" then it's a spell, just not a magical one.

How about as a pacing mechanic?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

GenCon cheered when it was announced that Vancian Magic was being ditched.

GenCon attendance, like participation on boards like ENWorld, is a self-selected minority of the gaming community, and is therefore not necessarily statistically representative of the hobby as a whole.* (FWIW, had I been in attendance at GenCon, I would have been booing...loudly.)

As for AD&D multiclassing, for me, it was the norm. Even a big chunk of my humans were Dual classed, and in my core group of the last 27 years, only one guy hadn't played more than 1/3 multiclassed PCs in AD&D.



* to illustrate, in 35 years in the hobby- covering 3 states, 5 cities, and groups without number- I've personally met zero GenCon attendees. And until 2007, only 2 other gaming site surfers...fellow ENWorlders.

 

[Jester David]

Seriously? You are literally out because other people might get something they enjoy? You are out because they split elves into high and wood elves, and make the High Elves (Eladrin) actually fey? You are out because people can play a humanoid dragon? And you are out because people don't have to be magic to get leadership abilities?

I hate eladrin and dragonborn. But not for the reasons you'd think.

I just hate the name dragonborn. They're dragonmen or draconians. "Dragonborn" sounds invented, something made-up to secure a trademark.
Other than that... they're cool.

Eladrin. The idea if a more faerie elf living in the Feywild. Okay, that's neat.
But splitting high/wood elves off from grey elves and making the later their own race? Lame. Subraces add something cool to the game, this impression of culture. Eladrin were created solely because WotC thought players were too dumb to understand subraces and didn't want someone getting confused and playing a ranger grey elf or wizard wood elf.
I hope to see eladrin return in 5e as something cooler and more uniquely fey than elves that teleport.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Many of the posters who want fighters to to have spellcaster-esque limited resources and 4e powers.

That doesn't make them spells - hit points aren't spells either, and they also follow a daily limitation model similar to D&D spellcasters.

And likewise, some magic systems don't have such limits - in Shadowrun you can cast all day, and conjure as many spirits as you want.

 

[Jester David]

As long as you entirely ignore what is going on in the world exploits are identical to some spells. Which is like saying that as long as you entirely ignore the order of the letters, Finnegan's Wake is identical to Twilight is identical to Lord of the Rings is identical to the 1e DMG. Because they are both made up of letters and spaces.

If the flavour doesn't, match the mechanics and execution then yes.

For that matter, fighters should have limited and short-rest recoverable resources. I don't know if you've ever wielded a sword. But it's hard work. The D&D idea that you can keep swinging the same sword in exactly the same way for hours on end at maximum effectiveness without a breather is a hell of a lot more magical than encounter powers. And catching your breath for a few seconds, and a short breather should help.

But isn't that an At-will? There's no penalty for that.
And the justification for Encounter powers is seldom fatigue (that's Dailies). Most of the time, Encounters are justified by saying it's a trick you use once but can't use again because your opponents have seen it.

But there's all the other oddities, such as fighters forgetting old moves or being unable to reuse a move by straining themselves. Or regain an Encounter power when a second wave of enemies arrives.

There are many ways to add options to the fighter. I hope to see them. A fatigue idea is one way and would be cool.
But I don't want to work identically to the magic system.

 

[Jester David]

That doesn't make them spells - hit points aren't spells either, and they also follow a daily limitation model similar to D&D spellcasters.

And likewise, some magic systems don't have such limits - in Shadowrun you can cast all day, and conjure as many spirits as you want.

If you removed the names, keywords, and flavour from 4e powers, there would be a lot of overlap and it would be hard to tell a spell from a prayer from an exploit.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The main justifications/purpose of Encounter powers are gamist. They make combat dynamic by essentially forcing you to do something different every turn, and they institute tactical resource management where the power being expended for the duration is the cost and the management comes from using it now or saving it in the hopes of it being more effective on a later turn(do I color spray and hit two creatures now, or wait and try to get more in the blast).

 

[Ahnehnois]

There are many ways to add options to the fighter. I hope to see them. A fatigue idea is one way and would be cool.
But I don't want to work identically to the magic system.

Right.

The reason that fighter powers are spells is not because fighters have a use-limiting mechanic, but because they have the same one as spells. There's nothing wrong with fatigue/vitality/etc., even though D&D has never really had a mechanic for it, but it can't be anything like the magic mechanic.

 

[Jester David]

They've already struck out with me - the lesson from removing gnomes and finding people who were gnome fans encouraged their groups to leave the game was not an excuse to leave in their dragonborn, eladrin, warlords etc as core for another edition. Anecdotally, that guff has driven more people away than removing gnomes ever did.

Make no mistake: Ain't no dragonborn warlords walking into Homlett or Shadowdale in any game I run, so another edition of D&D incompatible with D&D worlds is in the offing. Could ban them, yes, but I can't be bothered correcting WOTC's mistakes, and they'll pop up everywhere because they're core again. And they'll screw up the worlds again by doing this wacky core races thing again, because FR 4E wasn't enough of a hint. Gah. Oh well.

Funny, I remember lots of things very simmiar to Dragonborn running around Krynn (aka Dragonlance) back in 1st edition.

And two wrongs don't make a right. The solution is to have gnomes (yay!) and dragonborn in the PHB.

 

[Mallus]

They're dragonmen or draconians. "Dragonborn" sounds invented, something made-up to secure a trademark.

Unlike the words "dragonmen" and "draconian", which both evolved naturally from random, ambient sounds.

Eladrin were created solely because WotC thought players were too dumb to understand subraces and didn't want someone getting confused and playing a ranger grey elf or wizard wood elf.

Or they thought clunky terms like 'subrace' and 'subclass' made the rule books sound like dry technical manuals instead of gateways to high adventure.