D&D 5E good things, bad things and things you would change about 5e

[Hakon Blum]

thought of another hate:
weapons table in 5e, they dumbed down weapons so much they didn't even realise there is no difference between halberd and glaive
and although it makes it easier that one weapon size fits all, it ruins part of the roleplaying.

i think a chart which has the weapon type, such as piercing blade, slashing blade with flat edge, slashing blade with double edge.
as the type of weapon, and then lists, what tiny, small, medium large, massive does to the weapon

eg for slashing double edged blade, tiny is a pocket knife, small a punching dagger, medium a short sword, large a longsword, massive a great sword.

The chart would then say how it effects attack roles, parrying and damage.
The characters innate size would already effect damage further.

meaning a pixie could grab a nail and use it like a lance, or a giant could grab a tree and use it as a club.
you would just need to know what weapon it is similar too and how big it is in relation to the user.

does this seem appealing?

 

[Aldarc]

yes i agree completely which is why i have expanded the regular 6 stats in my system to 12
with 6 combined stat titles:

I'm still working on a lot of it. But i think its coming along.

Have you looked at Fantasy AGE and its stat divisions? There is a similar line of thinking about dividing stats up a bit more to prevent überstats.

My own simple idea for providing a minor boon to Intelligence is providing bonus languages/item proficiencies based upon Intelligence modifier. (This would also be a nice touch for artificers, at least based upon the most recent UA playtest version.)

 

[Cyvris]

i was thinking of making general spells to which you then add energy type, each energy would have a different effect
fire has higher base damage
electric has chance to paralyse
frost slows
acid burns
necrotic can't be healed through magic
radiant can't be healed naturally
sonic causes deafening
force can't be resisted
psychic does less damage, but also causes fatigue
and so on.

when you learn a spell, you choose a damage type to accompany it

so for example the spell fireball would be called energy ball, when you learn it you pick what energy it does

energy types might also effect range/radius, spell components, duration etc....
id put all that in a chart and when you pick up the spell and choose the energy yo apply the chart to the spell and right down how i works.


i think this would make spell casting far more interesting

I have been playing with making an "Arcanist" class that follows that sort of thinking. You start with a set of Burst/Blast/Line/Cone and then various class features let you modify it. Subclasses would be some flavor of Gish, a straight damage dealer, and a "lingering effects" style caster, where things like "Fire Line" turn into "Fire wall" etc.

 

[Belltent]

Aren't those still kinda basically the same thing? Generate a number, (on average) with advantage generate a higher number. Or, generate a number, (on average) with disadvantage generate a lower number. All 2d6 does is give a smaller range and more normalized results (although thats not a bad thing, far from it in fact.)

Also, are there crits in your system? They're so much fun for players and DM, but if it happens on a roll of 2 sixes then the odds are going from 1/20 to 1/36.

 

[Hakon Blum]

Aren't those still kinda basically the same thing? Generate a number, (on average) with advantage generate a higher number. Or, generate a number, (on average) with disadvantage generate a lower number. All 2d6 does is give a smaller range and more normalized results (although thats not a bad thing, far from it in fact.)

Also, are there crits in your system? They're so much fun for players and DM, but if it happens on a roll of 2 sixes then the odds are going from 1/20 to 1/36.

yes they are similar but as you said the 2d6 and the fact it only affects 1 dice out of the 2 normalises it which i find more beneficial, plus the fact it is a re-roll and not an extra dice does mean if the player risks it he could end up with a lower result in some cases.
like wise disadvantage could turn 1 and 2 (3) into a 2 and 6 roll (8) so it does have a far more wild factor on dice then would normally be the case enhancing the bell curve further.

in this case it would mean advantage is optional disadvantage is mandatory.

yes crits do exist and yes they are rarer but in my opinion thats a good thing

I'm thinking at the moment a roll of 10 or 11 results in a targeted blow rolling on a minor crit table resulting in things like an injury to a specific area of the body, this targeted area would also mean if the target wears a breast plate and is hit on the arm where his armour doesn't exist his soak is reduced causing more damage.

this means this happens in 1/6 attacks
but a serious crit of a a roll of 12 results in a devastating crit, resulting brain injury, loss of limbs, or lung puncture etc.


this happens 1/6 times of the regular crits or 1/36 hits

the chart for assigning an injury at present is:

minor crits:
12 eyes (blinded permanent)
11 right foot injured (half movement)
10 right arm (drop anything held in right arm and can't use)
9 right thigh injured (half movement and -4 to reflex)
8 lower torso (dazed for 1d3 rounds)
7 upper torso (may move or take action for d3 rounds)
6 head (stunned for 2d6 rounds)
5 left thigh injured (half movement and -4 to reflex)
4 left arm (drop anything held in left arm and can't use)
3 left foot injured (speed halved 2d6 rounds)
2 groin (incapacitated for d6 rounds)

major crits
12 head (he's dead jim, 3 failed death saves dead)
11 heart (down with 2 failed death saves)
10 right hand destroyed/cut off
9 right upper arm destroyed/cut off
8 right leg destroyed/cut off
7 disemboweled
6 left leg destroyed/cut off
5 left upper arm destroyed/cut off
4 left hand destroyed/cut off
3 lungs collapsed (reduce to -1hp)
2 groin (may only take bonus actions for d3 rounds then starts making death saves, can't have children anymore)

hopefully this kind of crit system wets your appetite

 

[Belltent]

That's pretty cool. I enjoy degrees of success instead of pass/fail. Have you considered a similar system on the opposite side of the spectrum (near misses, glancing blows, and the like)?

 

[Lanefan]

Some quick thoughts:

Advantage-disadvantage is a fine and elegant mechanic in the right places, but sometimes a flat bonus/penalty is better.

Think long and hard - and then think again - about the mathematical ramifications of going to base 2d6 instead of base d20. Why?
- d20 is linear, 2d6 is a bell curve - you'll have lots more middling results and way fewer extremes, which might get dull after a while
- 2d6 has only 11 possible outcomes, d20 has 20, making d20 almost twice as granular - and a lot of the time, granularity is good. (there's a whole bunch of places where d% is even better)
- any bonuses or penalties to the raw roll will be magnified as the initial range is so much smaller. +2 on a d20 (10% change) is less significant than +2 on 2d6 (about 18% change I think but someone better at math than me can feel free to replace that with an actual number). What this means is either you'll have to be very careful with anything that can give bonuses (including base stats) or accept the fact that eventually the actual dice roll may become less important than the bonus.

Don't worry about every little thing having to be somehow mechanically represented. It's unclear whether you're going for rules-lite or rules-heavy (5e kind of supports both); I'd suggest at least start with rules-lite and then if needed add things in after you've started playtesting and seen how things are (or aren't) working.

Lanefan

 

[Hakon Blum]

That's pretty cool. I enjoy degrees of success instead of pass/fail. Have you considered a similar system on the opposite side of the spectrum (near misses, glancing blows, and the like)?

yes i have, i have been considering if you miss by 1 then the blow glances doing minimum damage with no bonus damage (so 1 damage for normal size weapons and 2 damage for 2 handed/large weapons) the problem is i have a soak system in place
and even leather amor would reduce this damage to 0
i have 2 options
1 every hit confers a 2d6 roll to determine where it hit which can slow down game play
or 2 only glancing blows use this

i kind of feel option one would be more fun even though it slows down gameplay but if people were to use different coloured dice they could roll it all at once speeding things up.

 

[Hakon Blum]

Some quick thoughts:

Advantage-disadvantage is a fine and elegant mechanic in the right places, but sometimes a flat bonus/penalty is better.

Think long and hard - and then think again - about the mathematical ramifications of going to base 2d6 instead of base d20. Why?
- d20 is linear, 2d6 is a bell curve - you'll have lots more middling results and way fewer extremes, which might get dull after a while
- 2d6 has only 11 possible outcomes, d20 has 20, making d20 almost twice as granular - and a lot of the time, granularity is good. (there's a whole bunch of places where d% is even better)
- any bonuses or penalties to the raw roll will be magnified as the initial range is so much smaller. +2 on a d20 (10% change) is less significant than +2 on 2d6 (about 18% change I think but someone better at math than me can feel free to replace that with an actual number). What this means is either you'll have to be very careful with anything that can give bonuses (including base stats) or accept the fact that eventually the actual dice roll may become less important than the bonus.

Don't worry about every little thing having to be somehow mechanically represented. It's unclear whether you're going for rules-lite or rules-heavy (5e kind of supports both); I'd suggest at least start with rules-lite and then if needed add things in after you've started playtesting and seen how things are (or aren't) working.

Lanefan

the problem with a d20 is the dice gods take way longer to even out their dice results
last night in my 5e session i rolled 4 20's skill crits in a row, on things my character sucks at
2 other new players to the game at the other end had a miserable combat, one rolled 2,2,2,2 for his 4 rounds of combat on attack rolls, the other rolled 2,2,2,1 luckily he was a halfling and re-rolled the 1

but the problem was it almost TPK the group

in a 2d6 system, yes most of the time you will roll a 7, but with tighter bound dc's the game stays just as interesting
people don't go to the casino and gamble on d20 games, the roll 2d6 and pray they don't roll snake eyes.



my system will be a rules heavy system, but even with lots of rules i intend to keep things lean, the most complex roll in the game at present is a ranged shot, with negatives for range, visibility, moving vs stationary etc
but the way i make it rules heavy but lean it, is have all the calculations done at creation leaving a nice sheet character sheet which you simply look at to know what you need to roll.
the complexity of combat will be somewhere between a game of mordheim and a 3.5e

but i intend to include skirmish/war style rules which simplify things
(abilities become just their bonuses)
the skirmish rules will work 90% like mordhiem
the war rules will work like a hybrid of mordhiem and SW:EOTE with their grouped minions system.
which will let people who love just the combat and not the rpg side of things play that kind of game
or allow DM's who want to push things to run a campaign on a battle field, having troops work like the war-game, but zooming in and using the rpg rules for all roles affecting the players.

i think this option is great as rpg's set on a battle field are so cool but rarely done due to complexity
imagine using these rules to play a hero set in the WH40k universe, as you see the tide of battle weakening in areas you use your sniper rifle to take a heavy weapon out of a squad wrecking havoc on your side, swing the way the fight goes in that area.

 

[Blue]

in a 2d6 system, yes most of the time you will roll a 7, but with tighter bound dc's the game stays just as interesting
people don't go to the casino and gamble on d20 games, the roll 2d6 and pray they don't roll snake eyes.

I draw the opposite conclusion from 2d6. It's MUCH swingier than d20, especially in a system aiming for bounded accuracy so results are near 50/50.

Let's say in a 2d6 system Adam is looking for a 7 or better. That happens 58% of the time, say it's about the same as a 9 or better on d20 which is 60% success. Or 10 or higher (55%) - doesn't matter.

Bob is like Adam but his player didn't optimize quite as hard. He's 1 point worse in modifiers. Bob needs an 8 or higher. That's only a 41% chance of succeeding. That's a 17% swing. On a d20 it would only be a 5% swing. It's more than three times as swingy right where you are aiming for. Even the slightest bit of better or worse building or small numerical modifier (like the Bless spell) will make a huge difference in character chances to succeed.

It gets too sensitive, where the slightest change int he numbers throws the probability of succeeding all over the place much more than a d20. It will have the exact opposite effect as what you are looking for if you. You've got the idea with the bell curve, but the issue is that bounded accuracy puts it on the bell curve right where you have the most variation because dice are granular. A bell curve will have a chance to get a 6.95 or a 7.12, all near a 7, but you can't roll that. The smallest granularity you have, +/- 1, is a really big deal near the middle.