D&D (2024) Pie in the Sky 6E

[GMforPowergamers]

Abandoning the existing schools of magic and coming up with say six clear schools.

I almost want something more akin to the Mage system in old world of darkness for schools

 

[Seramus]

More support for the Exploration and Social Pillars. That includes martials getting some class feature choices to help, too.

 

[James Gasik]

An end to plain +X items has been one of my dreams since I first started DMing and felt shame giving one out instead of a magic item.

I despite vanilla items. I always give magic weapons and armor something special, even if it's just a quirk or minor drawback. This has gotten me in trouble in the past, and it always bothered me that a +5 weapon was superior in every way to one that did a d6 cold damage.

 

[Reynard]

Have you ever tried playing with "cool magic items"?

As much as I sympathize with the dislike for simple +x items that boost numbers and push bottom spell dispensers, if you move too far from that model the game becomes unplayable owing to information overload.

Complex magic items and especially those with numinous effects become a massive burden on play because of their situational effect on resolution. The less the player knows how the item works, the worse the problem gets. But it turns out that not fully understanding something is often a precondition for it being numinous and thus feeling 'magical', and you actually need the player to help with process resolution just to reduce your mental burden.

I tried running a game where everything had artifact like complexity without artifact like power, and it worked right up until when everyone started getting multiple magic items. Then it was too complex.

There are a lot of things as a GM I thought I wanted which turn out not to work - social combat systems, realistic languages, realistic coinage, magical feeling magic items, etc. Each has their own problem that makes the game worse that can't be overcome in pen and paper (or at all). You can do 'cool magic items' like Diablo II or Noita if you have a computer to run the math and keep track of whether the magic is working. With a computer you could even obfuscate the information about the item from the player so that they don't know why the craziness is happening. But it turns out that you can only have a couple such items in an entire campaign.

So you are stuck I think with trying to create flavor for what is at the bottom just +2 swords and push button spell dispensers.

Not every magic item needs to be a wand of wonder, but "+1d6 magical fire damage on a hit" is still better than "+1 sword".

 

[Vaalingrade]

Have you ever tried playing with "cool magic items"?

Yes. For years now.

As much as I sympathize with the dislike for simple +x items that boost numbers and push bottom spell dispensers, if you move too far from that model the game becomes unplayable owing to information overload.

I continue to dispute the continual accusations of information overload based on basic RPG elements.

 

[James Gasik]

I have played with cool magic items, quite a lot in AD&D. As for creating flavor, this thing creates it's own flavor! It slices, it dices, it juliennes fries!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Oh, speaking of Wizard and magic: ''Vancian'' casting references are so far removed from the current zeitgeist that it seems like an hipster move to keep it in the game.

Nobody coming for the first time in D&D in the past 20 years has had in mind: ''gosh, I hope my spellcasters work like the ones from Jack Vance's Dying Earth!''. Nobody.

Either use a strain system or a mana pool and arrive in 2022, WotC!

There. I said it!

 

[rooneg]

I want a PHB that's published in digest format. The game is fundamentally not that large, there's no reason the core rulebook can't fit that form factor.

 

[James Gasik]

Oh, speaking of Wizard and magic: ''Vancian'' casting references are so far removed from the current zeitgeist that it seems like an hipster move to keep it in the game.

Nobody coming for the first time in D&D in the past 20 years has had in mind: ''gosh, I hope my spellcasters work like the ones from Jack Vance's Dying Earth!''. Nobody.

Either use a strain system or a mana pool and arrive in 2022, WotC!

There. I said it!

I know I shouldn't say it, but 4e Wizards didn't use Vancian style magic, and that was an actual complaint by those who didn't like the system.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I despite vanilla items. I always give magic weapons and armor something special, even if it's just a quirk or minor drawback. This has gotten me in trouble in the past, and it always bothered me that a +5 weapon was superior in every way to one that did a d6 cold damage.

I started out adding knock-on flavor effects and then just threw up my hands and deleted them and the 3x requirement that an item be +X before having a real magical effect. Life has been far more beautiful and basically none of us use them anymore except the new guy who just started and quickly figured out why we weren't excited to get a +2 sword.