D&D (2024) Toward a Theory of 6th Edition

[dave2008]

It very much depends on what you mean by 'low magic.' High-magic, spellcasting PCs adventuring in a low-magic world with few to no magic items to be found? 5e works fine. A low/no-magic party, regardless of world? Not s'much.

I disagree, it works fine with no magic. If you have a healing issue you can just increase HD healing, but depending on your campaign style this is really not needed either.

The core to hit/AC/DC/Save mechanic works well (if not better) without spells and magic equipment. It puts the MM monsters on a more level playing field, which makes the game more interesting IMO. Haven't played this way a lot, but we have messed around with it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you have a healing issue you can just increase HD healing...

HD healing can extend the adventuring day, but in the absence of class balance issues with large amounts of daily resources in the form of spell slots, that's not really a terribly important issue - in-combat healing, OTOH, can be.

The core to hit/AC/DC/Save mechanic works well (if not better) without spells and magic equipment. It puts the MM monsters on a more level playing field, which makes the game more interesting IMO.

They did come right out and say they 'didn't assume' magic items, and it does show in the way encounter balance can skew when items are included. But, spells are very much assumed, and the absence of support and other capabilities that are primarily or only available through spells is problematic - as is the simple lack of range in concepts & contributions that non-supernatural PC options encompass.

There is a difference between something being considered Supernatural (capitalized) in terms of game rules, and the effect it is describing being supernatural (lowercase).

There is a difference between an explicit rule, like a keyword, with a jargon meaning in context, and an 'opinion' that is the exact opposite of that explicit rule. The difference being is that the rule is a simple fact about the game in question, and the opinion is a judgement of how desirable that rule is.
D&D, for instance, has always had explicit rules about magic making at least some casters in D&D 'Vancian,' it has been a common opinion that such is simply not how magic works. The opinion is wrong in the context of D&D, but the opinion that D&D's magic system doesn't model most source material (even Dying Earth, if we get technical & exact about it), is not invalid, just a judgement.

Similarly, Oofta could have opined that the superhuman feats of 4e martial characters were, say 'unrealistic.' It's merely calling them 'supernatural' or magical or 'casting spells,' that is false, even with an 'IMHO' fatuously appended.

To steal your example from another thread, if a human leaps over a castle wall...

...it's super-human, but not supernatural. Supernatural feats are things done through agencies outside of nature and natural experience. Jumping is a natural agency, the strength & skill of the person doing it, it's not supernatural, in itself, even if it is super-human or unrealistic by the bar set by modern knowledge of physics. Casting a jump spell, OTOH, relates an action (mumbling and breaking insect legs) that, in nature, doesn't cause you to move let alone leap any distance, and an agency not found in nature (magic), to the otherwise natural act of jumping - it's supernatural.

Of course, like the supernatural, the super-human can be fantastic (suitable for a fantasy setting), "naive" (suitable for an pre-scientific traditional tale), or unrealistic (not suitable for a accurate simulation of RL, or a hard-science-fiction story).
So the conflation is understandable.

 

[Oofta]

There is a difference between something being considered Supernatural (capitalized) in terms of game rules, and the effect it is describing being supernatural (lowercase). To steal your example from another thread, if a human leaps over a castle wall, it's supernatural, end of story, regardless of how the game rules describe its source. Call it "superhuman" if you want, but if it's a human (or human-like being) doing it, then that's synonymous with "supernatural".

I was going to reply something along this lines. I don't care what the label was, martial powers could only be explained as supernatural. Take the lowly "Come and Get It". You forced movement, can only do it every once in a while and you get to wack everyone.

Yeah, I know you can say it's just yelling at people and pissing them off, but how do you insult an wolf? "Your mother was a lazo-apso"?

Almost all fighter powers were supernatural in practice, they did things that could not be physically accomplished without supernatural assistance.

Yes, champion fighters in 5E push the boundaries of what is physically possible, but I've also seen videos of archers who can fire more arrows in a short period of time than I would have though physically possible Lars Anderson.

 

[Wiseblood]

I shock myself when I even think this. Don't make a 6e. Leave D&D alone. Like Monopoly. 4e might have done better or worse if it didn't have D&D on the label. D&D, as awesome as it has been, has a lot of baggage. Sacred cows, legacy IP, and assumptions about rules (because of how they used to work).

We have D&D. Heck, we even call Pathfinder D&D. No need to name it D&D if it is fun it will probably be called D&D by us anyway.

I would like to see Wizards produce a fantasy role playing game. One that is compared to D&D but doesn't have to feel like D&D.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I was going to reply something along this lines. I don't care what the label was, martial powers could only be explained as supernatural.

Obviously, you could, as the DM, remove a power or change it's keywords if you found it didn't fit your campaign, and, as a player, you could always change fluff to fit your character concept, or simply not choose a power that didn't fit it.

But, the 4e fighter & it's powers were explicitly not magical, nor supernatural, though sometimes super-human. Just as the Monk's ki, in 5e, is explicitly magical, even though it's used to some do things that aren't necessarily superntural (many Open-Hand uses) as well as things that clearly are (by the other two 'Ways').

Take the lowly "Come and Get It". You forced movement, can only do it every once in a while and you get to wack everyone.

Nod. It's the kind of thing that happens in the action genre all the time. The minions are no match for the hero, but they come at him one-at-a-time to be cut down, anyway. Why didn't they attack him all at once and beat him down in 2 seconds flat, or keep their distance and pepper him with missile fire? Because that'd be a sucky action scene.

Yeah, I know you can say it's just yelling at people and pissing them off, but how do you insult an wolf?

You meet it's gaze, they're like dogs that way, it's a challenge.

Really, the dumber the monster, the more predictable and easy it's going to be to manipulate tactically. A golem or ooze, for instance, C&GI and other 'trick'-based maneuvers should 'realistically' be at-will vs things like that.

No, there's nothing supernatural, or even terribly unrealistic, about goading, tricking, or maneuvering enemies into a tactical mistake (and not being able to do so constantly, for that matter) - nor, on the other extreme, is there anything supernatural, about a player pushing a genre-conformance button to 'make' enemies do something (another, willfully 'dissociative' way of imagining C&GI as non-supernatural, if it works for you).

But, ultimately, it was up to the player to choose and describe his powers in ways that fit his character concept, including any personal bars he had for realism or fantasy tropes.

In 5e, the magical/superntural status of various class abilities is mostly explicit, and it's up to the DM to change them, if he likes.

Yes, champion fighters in 5E push the boundaries of what is physically possible, but I've also seen videos of archers who can fire more arrows in a short period of time than I would have though physically possible .

Every fighter heals itself instantly with Second Wind, or suddenly doubles his speed with Action Surge, each - separately - only once/rest. CS dice are similarly guilty. It's no different in nature, just fewer in number - and thus not so nearly-balanced with the supernatural powers of other classes.

Yeah, about all I see that they could do to address these things without making the game less useful to huge groups of people is to make the game a bit more flexible and modular, but even then you have to consider that one of the biggest criticisms of 5e is that it isn't focused and defined enough.

Adding options, especially in one-off supplements not necessarily meant to be combined with other one-off supplements can address both issues: it can add options for types of characters and campaigns the game doesn't handle well, as it is - /and/ when applied by itself, such a supplement can make the game more focused and defined.

 

[Oofta]

HD healing can extend the adventuring day, but in the absence of class balance issues with large amounts of daily resources in the form of spell slots, that's not really a terribly important issue - in-combat healing, OTOH, can be.
They did come right out and say they 'didn't assume' magic items, and it does show in the way encounter balance can skew when items are included. But, spells are very much assumed, and the absence of support and other capabilities that are primarily or only available through spells is problematic - as is the simple lack of range in concepts & contributions that non-supernatural PC options encompass.

...it's super-human, but not supernatural. Supernatural feats are things done through agencies outside of nature and natural experience. Jumping is a natural agency, the strength & skill of the person doing it, it's not supernatural, in itself, even if it is super-human or unrealistic by the bar set by modern knowledge of physics. Casting a jump spell, OTOH, relates an action (mumbling and breaking insect legs) that, in nature, doesn't cause you to move let alone leap any distance, and an agency not found in nature (magic), to the otherwise natural act of jumping - it's supernatural.

Of course, like the supernatural, the super-human can be fantastic (suitable for a fantasy setting), "naive" (suitable for an pre-scientific traditional tale), or unrealistic (not suitable for a accurate simulation of RL, or a hard-science-fiction story).
So the conflation is understandable.

You have a unique definition of supernatural. It's kind of right there in the word - supernatural is anything that goes above and beyond what is natural.

Anyway, I don't think it's worth arguing about and I really don't want to pull my 4E books off their shelf of shame to pull out more egregious examples of fighters so called "martial" powers.

 

[Guest 6801328]

...it's super-human, but not supernatural. Supernatural feats are things done through agencies outside of nature and natural experience. Jumping is a natural agency, the strength & skill of the person doing it, it's not supernatural, in itself, even if it is super-human or unrealistic by the bar set by modern knowledge of physics. Casting a jump spell, OTOH, relates an action (mumbling and breaking insect legs) that, in nature, doesn't cause you to move let alone leap any distance, and an agency not found in nature (magic), to the otherwise natural act of jumping - it's supernatural.

Of course, like the supernatural, the super-human can be fantastic (suitable for a fantasy setting), "naive" (suitable for an pre-scientific traditional tale), or unrealistic (not suitable for a accurate simulation of RL, or a hard-science-fiction story).
So the conflation is understandable.

No, false. A normal activity (e.g. jumping) with impossible results is supernatural. I don't know exactly where the line is between "improbable" and "impossible" but I know jumping over a castle wall is on the impossible side, and therefore if a human does it (without technology support) it's supernatural/magical. (We can do some F=ma and dy = vo*t + 0.5at^2 if you want to...). "The existence of twilight does not disprove the difference between Day and Night."

I know you rely on this argument to demonstrate why a Warlord class is necessary, but it's a false argument.

 

[Satyrn]

I would get rid of tool proficiencies. It is clunky having tools and skills. There is a sense that tool proficiencies are less useful, and therefore easier to acquire, but thieves tools totally fly in the face of that theory.

I also would prefer the proficiency system be more diverse. All classes get all proficiencies at the same rate. First of all, should your proficiency bonus in attacks, skills and saves be the exact same number going up at the same rate as everyone else? Maybe classes should get a proficiency/non-proficiency bonus, with the proficiency bonus going up faster. Non-proficiency bonus would still improve, but at a much slower rate. Maybe even have three rates, good, average and poor.

I don't think we need a non-proficiency rate. 4e did it with its half-level bonus to everything, and all it wound up leading to was an inflation of all numbers, because in the end if everyone's adding half their level to everything, they might as well be adding zero.

But I like where you're going at the end with the good/average/poor ratings. But I would scrap the poor and just leave it at +0. Good would be what we have now, capping out at +6, while I'd have decent cap out at +4. Just a small difference.

Then I'd give fighters good profuciency in all things combat, and decent proficiency in skills, while the rogue would be decent in combat and good with skills, etc. Something like that anyway.

 

[snickersnax]

I would like to see a consistency pass by the editing team. For example if a wizard can't cast spells wearing padded armor (winter coat and snow pants) or a leather cat suit because he's too hampered, how is that same wizard able to have no trouble casting spells restrained by manacles, wearing a backpack with a suit of full plate in it, and being grappled by an orc who is stabbing him with a dagger. This kind of silliness and dozens of similar examples should edited out.

This consistency should include verbal descriptions and rules math. There shouldn't be two rules sets, one if you read a description and one if you look at the math.

Whoever decided that a self-referencing index was a good idea should be fired from the editing team see index, self-referencing

 

[dave2008]

HD healing can extend the adventuring day, but in the absence of class balance issues with large amounts of daily resources in the form of spell slots, that's not really a terribly important issue - in-combat healing, OTOH, can be.

By increase HD healing I was also including he possibility of adding in combat HD healing like 4e. I don't think this is necessary for my groups play style, but for some it might.

They did come right out and say they 'didn't assume' magic items, and it does show in the way encounter balance can skew when items are included. But, spells are very much assumed, and the absence of support and other capabilities that are primarily or only available through spells is problematic - as is the simple lack of range in concepts & contributions that non-supernatural PC options encompass.

I disagree (unless I am misunderstanding you), my group is all blasters at heart, they almost never use support/buff/nerf spells (no cleric or paladin and almost always chose damage spells) and the game works fine. To be clear, i do not currently limit spells in my campaign, but I am frugal with magic equipment and treasure in general.

Now, the lack of base non-magic classes would be an issue. But that is not, IMO, an issue with the core design. You just need to add more non-magic class / subclass options.