D&D (2024) D&D 6th edition - What do you want to see?

[doctorbadwolf]

No more so than if any other party members dies.

IMO.

A party member contributes an enormous amount more than even the most well built revised ranger pet.

 

[Parmandur]

I think (so just me thinking on it) that the reason for this probably is that when research has been done it indicates that the levels that are most played are low level games. That means that more games are going to be run for low level characters and PC's than mid to high level. The higher level you get, the fewer people are playing those levels.

Thus, to appeal to the greatest amount of audience (Read money here) you want a product that is useful to the greatest amount of players and groups. Thus, low level adventures are always in demand, and mid-level adventures occasionally (and they just released one with Dungeon of the Mad Mage).

The problem if one creates adventures for high level or advanced levels is that there would be a lower player base to buy the game for those levels. In theory at least. So, the material is made for where the money is.

The issue is not just the predominance of Tier 1 & 2 play over Tier 3 & 4 (and actual play by all accounts is overwhelmingly below Level 10-ish): the major issue for sales purposes is that there is an extremely strong correlation between tables playing high level and wanted by to make personalized Adventures for the characters at that table. Per Chris Perkins, it isn't that high level playing tables haven't been given a product, but are extremely uninterested when WotC asks if they want one.

No accident that the one high level product is basically a Smorgasbord of dungeon material to mine.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The issue is not just the predominance of Tier 1 & 2 play over Tier 3 & 4 (and actual play by all accounts is overwhelmingly below Level 10-ish): the major issue for sales purposes is that there is an extremely strong correlation between tables playing high level and wanted by to make personalized Adventures for the characters at that table. Per Chris Perkins, it isn't that high level playing tables haven't been given a product, but are extremely uninterested when WotC asks if they want one.

No accident that the one high level product is basically a Smorgasbord of dungeon material to mine.

Interesting. And that makes sense to me.

I suppose if I, as a DM, wanted an "adventure" for Tier IV characters I would want it to be much more loosely structured. Like, some major plot elements, then lots of various ideas and threads and NPCs and the like.

For example, if a McGuffin is needed, I'd like to see four different sketches, each a quarter page, outlining how it might be acquired, with each sketch tying in some of the NPCs and themes from throughout the book.

 

[Lanefan]

The thing is:
a) I would like to have a representation of characters that are strong in faith/will, but not necessarily very perceptive (so that the Cleric is not naturally more perceptive than the Ranger)
b) Wisdom is currently the casting attribute for clerics - I considered Willpower as a replacement for that. That is, if Clerics stay.

Second thing first: I'd leave Wisdom as the Clerics' casting stat even if Willpower gets divorced from it. Willpower to me means spiritual strength, relevant to things like attacks against the spirit (e.g. level drain in older editions) and revival from death (which I'd move from Con).

First thing second: go through the stats and try to figure where perception belongs. Strength? Constitution? Charisma? None of those. Dexterity? Maaaybe, but it's a weak connection at best. That leaves Intelligence and Wisdom - and of those the reason you'd give it to Wisdom is that giving it to Intelligence makes Int far more useful all round than Wis, which would become a dump stat for all except Clerics.

Might also be an option. Where would you see the wild-shaping, then?

Still with the Nature Cleric, though maybe dialled back a bit.

Ok, if the amount of non-cleric healing is cut significantly, then that would be an option, too. I would, however, n that case like to see the martial part move out of the archetype.

By "martial part" do you mean martial healing (a la 4e Warlords) or do you mean the Clerics' ability to fight half-decently?

If the former, I completely agree. If the latter, I'm not sold. I could actually see a good case for there being a bunch of different "fight level" (or in 3e, BAB) progressions for different types of Clerics - War Clerics would be nearly as good as Fighters (with their spells - particularly healing - chopped back as a trade-off), run-of-the-mill Clerics would be about as they are now (which is fine), and Healing or Nature Clerics would have a somewhat slower fight-level progression - maybe more like Rogues. There could be half a dozen or more broad Cleric "types", and if they really wanted to get down to it this would all be specific to deity along with deity-specific spells and variants on spells.

Haha! Well, I actually wouldn't only having hobbits and admittedly, iconic characters like Regis from Salvatore's novels are more Hobbit than Gnome. If we could agree, finally calling them the Hobbits they always were, we can drop the Gnomes (sorry, Gnomes! ... well, I actually don't even feel bad about this ).

There's nothing in the world stopping you from calling them Hobbits at your table.

 

[Lanefan]

A party member contributes an enormous amount more than even the most well built revised ranger pet.

Obviously, because the pet isn't counted as a party member on its own but merely as an extension of the Ranger - they're a unit.

Which means one of two results occurs:

[Ranger + pet] > Average Party member; [Ranger - pet] = Average Party member
[Ranger - pet] < Average Party member; [Ranger + pet] = Average party member.

Which means one of two things has to happen for the Ranger design to work: either every Ranger has to have a pet in order to keep up (whether the player wants one or not), or pets get banned because the pet unbalances the class.

Now if 5e was a lot more supportive and encouraging of characters bringing henches and hirelings and so forth into the field as a regular thing then I'd be much more on board with pets as they're just another variant on the same idea. But it isn't...so I'm not.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Obviously, because the pet isn't counted as a party member on its own but merely as an extension of the Ranger - they're a unit.

Which means one of two results occurs:

[Ranger + pet] > Average Party member; [Ranger - pet] = Average Party member
[Ranger - pet] < Average Party member; [Ranger + pet] = Average party member.

Which means one of two things has to happen for the Ranger design to work: either every Ranger has to have a pet in order to keep up (whether the player wants one or not), or pets get banned because the pet unbalances the class.

Now if 5e was a lot more supportive and encouraging of characters bringing henches and hirelings and so forth into the field as a regular thing then I'd be much more on board with pets as they're just another variant on the same idea. But it isn't...so I'm not.

Nope. Ranger+pet can be slightly more powerful in some ways (mostly HP on the field and tactical options, in the case of the very functional revised BM), and Ranger-pet slightly less powerful, as long as the pet is available most of the time, but also sometimes either not available or uses resources to keep around. The trick is not making it cost more than it benefits the party.

The Revised Ranger, with Primeval Awareness and Natural Explorer tweaked to not make nonsense of exploration, Beast Master accomplishes this just fine. Well, as long as you switch it back to normal Extra Attack instead of making another attack with the pet when you use the attack action. That is probably fun for some players, but every ranger player I know isn’t playing a BM ranger to play a wolf with a ranger pet.

 

[Blue]

No more so than if any other party members dies.

IMO.

But the issue is that the Pet dies a lot more frequently. That once you've hit third tier the pet will die if they are unharmed and MAKE their save vs. an AoE.


Frequency would make them take up more in that case.

 

[Aldarc]

Agree with this, both specifically and in a broader sense of don't try to shoehorn everything into one mechanic (which is a flaw with 5e - advantage is a great mechanic for some situations but the 5e designers went nuts with it)

So umm.... wow. We agree on something.

If anything, get rid of Gnomes and - while politely telling the Tolkein estate to get stuffed - rename Halflings as Hobbits like they should have been all along.

I would be less interested in halflings and D&D if they were renamed back to hobbits. The moment they are renamed "hobbits," then people bring Middle Earth to any homebrew I may use that may include halflings. I would not like that.

Second thing first: I'd leave Wisdom as the Clerics' casting stat even if Willpower gets divorced from it. Willpower to me means spiritual strength, relevant to things like attacks against the spirit (e.g. level drain in older editions) and revival from death (which I'd move from Con).

First thing second: go through the stats and try to figure where perception belongs. Strength? Constitution? Charisma? None of those. Dexterity? Maaaybe, but it's a weak connection at best. That leaves Intelligence and Wisdom - and of those the reason you'd give it to Wisdom is that giving it to Intelligence makes Int far more useful all round than Wis, which would become a dump stat for all except Clerics.

From my understanding of @schneeland's post, they are not proposing Wisdom to coexist alongside Willpower and Perception, but, rather, that Willpower and Perception would replace Wisdom entirely such that there is no longer a Wisdom stat. So "[leaving] Wisdom as the Clerics' casting stat even if Willpower gets divorced from it" would not be hypothetically possible because Willpower and Perception are replacing Wisdom, which is getting removed entirely from the game (per schneeland's proposal).

Some interesting ideas there. I personally dislike D&D beyond 12th level, maybe even 10th, so splitting the game into different books would be fine with me. I also wouldn't mind seeing a god-level supplement like they did for Basic D&D years back.

This is a fairly brilliant idea, though I'm sure it would ruffle some feathers. Sell D&D as levels 1-10 and then later publish D&D for levels 11-20 (D&D Advanced?) after those rules have been appropriately playtested. The major issue I would foresee is that people may feel like they are only getting "half a game" if WotC sold the game this way.

 

[schneeland]

From my understanding of @schneeland's post, they are not proposing Wisdom to coexist alongside Willpower and Perception, but, rather, that Willpower and Perception would replace Wisdom entirely such that there is no longer a Wisdom stat. So "[leaving] Wisdom as the Clerics' casting stat even if Willpower gets divorced from it" would not be hypothetically possible because Willpower and Perception are replacing Wisdom, which is getting removed entirely from the game (per schneeland's proposal).

Yes, that was the idea. I find Wisdom too fuzzy if it includes both awareness/perception and the spiritual power of a cleric (I got the impression @Lanefan did not share this assessment).

 

[SkidAce]

Some would sat that wise people can be very perceptive.