D&D General What elements does D&D need to keep?

[loverdrive]

I've voted Ability scores (though, I'd thrown out ability scores and retained only modifiers), HP, Great Wheel and Levels. Also I'd add that progression should be drastic -- like from a human to a god.

As for classes, I'd return to Fighter, Magic User, Specialist and Cleric -- everything else can neatly fit as subclasses. I don't see any point in having Barbarian and Paladin as distinct classes, for example -- they are basically fighters, but with a bunch of extra ribbons.

 

[Lanefan]

If there's no endcap for levels, then you have to keep coming up with new XP totals for every level from 1 to infinity--because there will be some table that manages to get their PCs up to 1,000th level.

Or slow the progression down so that if a table stays together long enough to get to 1000th level (which even if run as fast as a level per session is a hella long campaign even by my lofty standards!) they've actually only got to 25th.

IIRC, it costs 1,000 XP to go up a level, and your total resets to 0 when you level up. The XP you get from dealing with threats depends on your level vs. the CR, like in D&D3x.

Any idea what the rationale is behind resetting to 0 xp each level? (and I'll cry in my beer if it's because they think - or have somehow proven - people have trouble adding numbers bigger than 1000.)

 

[Lanefan]

I think people are caught up on the name "tiers" and not what they represent. I think tiers are vital to the D&D feel, whether official or unofficial. Tiers are part of D&D whether they are explicitly named or not.

In D&D, a level 1 fighter, a level 6 fighter, and a level 11 fighter have different experiences, obstacles, and challenges. It's more that the numbers going up. Some options are unlocked. Some challenges are trivialized.

You could say that about any class and any 5-level gap: of course there's going to be a difference.

Tiers, however, have nothing to do with that difference. It arises instead as a sum of the incremental differences between each level of the five in the gap you're looking at.

And yes, some classes gain key particular elements at certain levels. I still don't see this as tiering, just that some level-ups are naturally better than others for some classes.

But in D&D, your 5th level fighter is in the heroic tier and isn;t scare ofa randomorc anymore unless already wounded.

That's just the game's power curve expressing itself, and this concept hasn't changed since day one, though the steepness of the curve has varied widely over the editions.

Your druid of Tier 3 doesn't drown. Drowning is for level 1 druids. The game changes as you level.

Again, nothing to do with tiers but instead caused by incremental improvements as the levels go by. As the Druid goes through the levels there is - or should be - a slow but steady change from "likely to drown" to "unlikely to drown" to "almost can't drown" to outright "can't drown".

I'm not disputing that the game changes as you level. It's supposed to. What I am disputing is the perceived necessity of batching those levels into tiers rather than just treating them each the same.

 

[Greg Benage]

And yes, some classes gain key particular elements at certain levels. I still don't see this as tiering, just that some level-ups are naturally better than others for some classes.

Even then, for most characters, I'd say the level when they get their subclass is pretty significant, but this doesn't align with any new tier of play (except by accident if you're multiclassing). And on the subject of multiclassing, it would appear to "break" the concept of tiers, since my Fighter 5/Rogue 6 is just as "Tier 3" as the Fighter 11, even though he doesn't gain anything special with rogue level 6.

Maybe tiers are useful to new DMs in signaling the kinds of adventures that might be appropriate for the characters in certain level ranges. But if that's true, it's odd that the designers didn't see fit to model that in the published campaigns.

 

[Lanefan]

As for classes, I'd return to Fighter, Magic User, Specialist and Cleric -- everything else can neatly fit as subclasses.

Yeah, I can kinda get behind this - with one exception, that being Bard. If, as I do and WotC doesn't, one sees Bard as being something other than just another type of using-the-same-mechanics spellcaster, they don't fit under any of those main headings and end up incorporating elements of all four plus some stuff unique to them.

The biggest argument would be whether Ranger becomes a subclass of Specialist (i.e. Drizzt) or Fighter (i.e. Aragorn). Right now, to get it over with, I'll put myself firmly and unmovably in the Aragorn camp...

And what do you do about multiclassing?

I don't see any point in having Barbarian and Paladin as distinct classes, for example -- they are basically fighters, but with a bunch of extra ribbons.

Ditto Druid (Cleric with extras), Sorcerer or Warlock (MU with extras), Assassin (Thief with extras), and so on.

Barbarian is unusual, though, in that instead of being a subclass it could maybe instead be made a culture or background that could be overlaid onto some (but not all!) other classes.

 

[Greg Benage]

The biggest argument would be whether Ranger becomes a subclass of Specialist (i.e. Drizzt) or Fighter (i.e. Aragorn). Right now, to get it over with, I'll put myself firmly and unmovably in the Aragorn camp...

Eliminate the specialist (D&D's original sin) and the argument resolves itself.

 

[Lanefan]

Eliminate the specialist (D&D's original sin) and the argument resolves itself.

No Thieves? No Assassins? No Rangers? No thanks.

 

[Greg Benage]

No Thieves? No Assassins? No Rangers?

Yes to all of the above! Variations of each can be subclasses of fighters, clerics and magic-users. I'm a big fan of the Man of War, Man of Faith, Man of Magic archetypes, whether I'm reading Gordon R. Dickson or Giambattista Vico. Backgrounds, feats, and subclasses handle thieves, assassins and rangers just fine.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I've voted Ability scores (though, I'd thrown out ability scores and retained only modifiers), HP, Great Wheel and Levels. Also I'd add that progression should be drastic -- like from a human to a god.

As for classes, I'd return to Fighter, Magic User, Specialist and Cleric -- everything else can neatly fit as subclasses. I don't see any point in having Barbarian and Paladin as distinct classes, for example -- they are basically fighters, but with a bunch of extra ribbons.

If all of the flavor is moved to the subclass, what is the point of classes? I mean, fighters get skills, clerics use magic, but subclasses get abilities that change the way an entire class plays? What role do classes serve under such a structure?

I ask because I've seen a lot of people advocate for fewer classes, and the best answer they can give is "it's simpler" - but if you lose variety, is that really an improvement? And if you don't r=lose variety, you've added complexity in the form of another level of taxonomy.

Edit: actually, there is one scenario I can think of where collapsing classes like this makes some sense. If you assume all magic works the same way, having different classes of spellcasters is less logical. But that would mean: if you assume that a wizard, a cleric, and a bard casting detect magic are all doing the same thing: same gestures, same words, same components, same underlying energies being manipulated in the same way - then, yes, the difference between these is not 'what they do' but 'where they learned to do it. One class called "magic-user" with subclasses like wizard, cleric, bard, druid, warlock, sorcerer, and psion makes sense. But in that case, you wouldn't have spell lists, because if you can learn to cast fireball you can learn to cast cure wounds, and vice versa. There would be one master list everyone uses, with some subclasses having bonuses to particular types of spells. (ie life clerics are better healers, but anyone who can cast 1st-level spells can cast cure wounds.)

If, on the other hand a wizard and cleric are using two different types of power: why are there only two? Why are druids the same as clerics? Why are bards the same as wizards (but can somehow break limitations wizards must face in terms of what they can theoretically learn)? Why not have a new class for each new way of doing magic? The 4e "power sources" didn't break the lore, they doubled down on the direction the game had been going since druids were introduced, if not since clerics.

And following from that: non-spellcaster classes should not be dramatically more or less broad than spellcasters. Barbarians aren't just fighters from a low-tech-infrastructure environment, they have a distinct way of fighting that captures different power. Maybe, if all spellcasters are one class (1), then all fighters should be one class. But I'm not convinced of the former at all, for a game that wants to brand itself Dungeons and Dragons.

(1) or a few classes, since under this theory of magic you'd only have three base classes, which means it might be easier to do half-classes as new classes rather than dealing with multiclassing.

 

[Minigiant]

You could say that about any class and any 5-level gap: of course there's going to be a difference.

Tiers, however, have nothing to do with that difference. It arises instead as a sum of the incremental differences between each level of the five in the gap you're looking at.

And yes, some classes gain key particular elements at certain levels. I still don't see this as tiering, just that some level-ups are naturally better than others for some classes.

It's not incremental though. That's my point.

When your party getsfly, fireball, a 100hp PC, or 2 attacks a turn, it's MAJOR.

That's just the game's power curve expressing itself, and this concept hasn't changed since day one, though the steepness of the curve has varied widely over the editions.

The point is things turn on as you level. The levels are gradual but things switch on in availability.

D&D's leveling system is not a game of knobs but switches.

Again, nothing to do with tiers but instead caused by incremental improvements as the levels go by. As the Druid goes through the levels there is - or should be - a slow but steady change from "likely to drown" to "unlikely to drown" to "almost can't drown" to outright "can't drown".

I'm not disputing that the game changes as you level. It's supposed to. What I am disputing is the perceived necessity of batching those levels into tiers rather than just treating them each the same.

It's not incremental. The ranger cast's Water Breathing on himself. He now cannot drown.
A monk or barbarain could strike certain monsters unhindered when they excel to certain levels.
Certain obstacles and foes (mostly foes) are batched together as challenges in D&D.

It's not like Diablo or Final Fantasy where you lvl 40 barbarian is your 10 barbarian with bigger numbers.