D&D General If D&D were created today, what would it look like?

[Aldarc]

Ah. I wasn't looking at healing as a thing here; and though for some odd reason healing gets classed as necromancy I've never equated the two in the slightest. I have a hard time even grasping the concept of a White Necromancer or even a Good Necromancer (though my wife does her best to play one as one of her PCs); White Wizards and White Witches are do-able as noted earlier provided the definition of White doesn't include healing.

If your conception of a "necromancer" is entirely built around a narrower conception of it as an undead re-animator with hordes of undead followers, I could see why that would be the case, though this is mostly an ahistorical understanding of a necromancer (i.e., the death diviner), which often involved Speaking with the Dead.

Healing has always been solidly in the divine-magic section rather than arcane - and for good reason in one regard: a wizard of any kind that could also heal itself would be even more over-the-top than wizards already are! Wizards, for the most part, already have more than enough going for them.

Would it? A wizard that uses their spells for healing are not using their spell slots on their more powerful offensive or utility spells.

In Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, for example, there is a unified spell list for all spellcasting classes, which means that the Magister can cast healing spells if it wanted to. What made it powerful was not that it could cast healing spells, but, rather, that it got all simple and complex spells up to 10th level spells. But it's not the class you would pick to be a dedicated healer, which was the Greenbond. The Greenbond got simple spells up to 10th level and also complex spells with the Plant and Positive descriptor, but it also got abilities to increase its healing capacity.

I have a played in a number of other systems where there is no divine/arcane divide and mages have access to healing. It's hardly the big deal you make it out to be.

Healing-wizards would also gut the Cleric class as its primary niche would be gone...but maybe that's the intent?

Ever since I have played D&D, I have personally found the Cleric/Wizard divide to be pretty silly, if not overly restrictive.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Yeah - they either needed to go all in on this or not bother trying. The Monk class has always seemed like no more than a "well, we tried" result.

remind me a monk discussion thread must be made as I have had big ideas on how to do it.

 

[wingsandsword]

Edit: seriously, D&D has become extremely gay. People meme eachother into specific queer categories based on the races and classes they prefer, and I’ve even seen gen z D&D players state that “pretty everyone under 40 who plays D&D is queer.”

D&D would more likely come from queer teenagers with tiktok accounts than from a corporation, were it made today.

In my personal experience, the D&D community has been very LBGT accepting for decades.

Since I started playing in the late 90's, D&D players seemed to both be pretty accepting of LBGT people, and have a lot among them.

I don't think it's a recent change, or at most it's an increase in a very longtime trend that probably correlates with an increasing societal acceptance overall.

 

[wingsandsword]

I have a played in a number of other systems where there is no divine/arcane divide and mages have access to healing. It's hardly the big deal you make it out to be.

I think the arcane/divine separation of magic is more a D&D setting presumption "sacred cow" that players expect than something required for game balance.

It's like inserting Monks out of Wuxia/Kung Fu movies and Anime into a setting that otherwise mostly draws on medieval European inspirations, or the settings that make guns exceedingly rare or unheard of despite having other technologies like sailing ships that can sail across oceans or full plate mail that generally existed at the same time. It's just an assumption of what makes a fantasy world a typical D&D world, instead of anything innate to game balance or even the game itself.

The Magister of Arcana Evolved was a good class, and I largely liked how AE did magic as something very much like D&D magic, but distinctly different. I really liked the separation of healing magic into spells that instantly healed wounds miraculously. . .but in-universe would cause scarring, and spells that could heal wounds perfectly but a healer just use them as effective tactical healing.

As an aside, in one way, I think the biggest failure of Arcana Evolved was that it failed to make it clear that it was meant to coexist alongside the PHB, not to completely replace it. I remember people complaining there was no rogue-equivalent class in AE, only for Monty Cook to say that the rogue is already in the PHB so he didn't need to reinvent it. . .which many or most AE players never really thought they could just pick things from both books, that it was a one-or-the-other situation.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In my personal experience, the D&D community has been very LBGT accepting for decades.

Since I started playing in the late 90's, D&D players seemed to both be pretty accepting of LBGT people, and have a lot among them.

I don't think it's a recent change, or at most it's an increase in a very longtime trend that probably correlates with an increasing societal acceptance overall.

My experience is similar, but I think there has been a big shift in how queer classes and races are seen by newer players.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think the arcane/divine separation of magic is more a D&D setting presumption "sacred cow" that players expect than something required for game balance.

It's like inserting Monks out of Wuxia/Kung Fu movies and Anime into a setting that otherwise mostly draws on medieval European inspirations, or the settings that make guns exceedingly rare or unheard of despite having other technologies like sailing ships that can sail across oceans or full plate mail that generally existed at the same time. It's just an assumption of what makes a fantasy world a typical D&D world, instead of anything innate to game balance or even the game itself.

The Magister of Arcana Evolved was a good class, and I largely liked how AE did magic as something very much like D&D magic, but distinctly different. I really liked the separation of healing magic into spells that instantly healed wounds miraculously. . .but in-universe would cause scarring, and spells that could heal wounds perfectly but a healer just use them as effective tactical healing.

As an aside, in one way, I think the biggest failure of Arcana Evolved was that it failed to make it clear that it was meant to coexist alongside the PHB, not to completely replace it. I remember people complaining there was no rogue-equivalent class in AE, only for Monty Cook to say that the rogue is already in the PHB so he didn't need to reinvent it. . .which many or most AE players never really thought they could just pick things from both books, that it was a one-or-the-other situation.

guns are not allowed in fantasy for some mad reason.

the monk has finally hit passable and would likely still happen if made today.

so the problem of AE is people are dumb?

 

[Minigiant]

I think if D&D were created today, I could see it going to a color magic type system. With no schools and arcane/divine, colors would be the natural replacement. All the spells would be asigned a color and classes would get access to acertain number of colors. Your know it all trained wizard might get access to all the colors. A sorcerer like character with a special bloodline might get access to a few colors but with an accelerated speed or high power. Then you have your one color caster that is closer to how comics and mange/anime do power systems.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think if D&D were created today, I could see it going to a color magic type system. With no schools and arcane/divine, colors would be the natural replacement. All the spells would be asigned a color and classes would get access to acertain number of colors. Your know it all trained wizard might get access to all the colors. A sorcerer like character with a special bloodline might get access to a few colors but with an accelerated speed or high power. Then you have your one color caster that is closer to how comics and mange/anime do power systems.

one colour but super depths for it.

 

[Faolyn]

Ah. I wasn't looking at healing as a thing here; and though for some odd reason healing gets classed as necromancy I've never equated the two in the slightest.

It's the manipulation of life force. Go one way, you heal; go the other way, you harm; go a third way, you bring life to the dead. Whether you want to call that necromancy or something else depends on the game.

 

[Scribe]

Here are some fantasy conceptions that D&D didn't "nail":

* Various sorts of magic-users like white wizards, witches, necromancers etc - these are all subsumed into the heavily armed and armoured clerics (either good ones or bad ones);

* All sorts of martial artists from Chinese and Japanese tradition;

* Knights - D&D has never really had, and certainly didn't begin with, solid rules for jousting and charging on horseback;

* Robin Hood-types who don't use magic and don't fight "giant class creatures" but are at home in the forest rather than on conventional battle fields.

I've got nothing particularly against D&D, but I don't think there's any need to exaggerate it.

My view on those tropes must be not aligned with yours, but through the history of the game (especially 3.5 with its unending tidal wave of Prestige Classes) and even today in 5e you can build characters which can fit into those tropes.

White Wizards are just healers. Clerics, Divine Souls, Celestial Warlocks. Yeah there is the divide between Divine/Arcane, but that doesnt mean it cannot be covered (or has not been).

Witches, yeah I dont know the tropes well enough so if thats a miss, thats fine.

Necromancer, I'd say this has or could be covered.

Knights, the game was never centered around mounted combat, but you could certainly do so, its just a Fighter or Paladin with a specific combat system in need of implementation or expansion.

Robin Hood, Fighter, Rogue, or Ranger with appropriate build/back ground.

I dont know, there's not much that throughout 2e/3.5e/5e I cant find a fit for, especially now that they are at the subclass stage of blending the types of Magic (Divine Soul/Celestial Lock).