D&D 5E The Decrease in Desire for Magic in D&D

[Garthanos]

I think expertise is somewhat problematic to begin with with their bounded accuracy system.

yes and no... keep it but expand it a bit

if everyone and everything had access to expertise (like say fighters could get long sword expertise or short bow expertise) and give everyone jack of all trades (half prof to everything you aren't prof in) you will find teh system improves...

my fighter not prof in wis saves still has +3 in it by end game, and can have expertise in Con saves for +12 (both before stat)

I think one needs better definitions of what can be done with high end DCs

Precision attack if you can use it often and perhaps allow it to combine with other maneuvers is a bursty sort of way to put something like expertise on weapon attacks

 

[FrozenNorth]

5e almost got it right.

+0 for the nonproficient
+2 to +6 for the proficient
+4 to +12 for the expert
+4 to +12 with a minimum roll of 10 for the master

The problem is 5e only gave 2 classes Expertise and 1 class "Mastery".

I’ve been working on a proficiency die system (and spreading expertise around more).
1d4 for trained
1d6 for expert
1d8 for master
Circumstances, spells, bardic inspiration etc, can push that further to a d10, d12 or even 2d6.

You still get the rush from being an expert, but the system plays better with bounded accuracy.

 

[FrozenNorth]

hmmm give Fighters expertise in Athletics/Acrobatics and Wizards Arcana and so on and everyone gets "Mastery" in a skill they have expertise in at level 11.

I played with that as well. Some classes got a choice between 2 or 3 (Rangers could choose between Nature, Perception or Stealth). Sorcerers could choose any of their background skills instead to reflect that they come from all walks of life.

 

[Minigiant]

Is front-loading a lot less trouble without multi-classing being a thing?

I've wondered about how it would work if there were one or two "apprentice levels" below 1st level that someone would take if multi-classing (maybe you need one of them if in a similar class and two if in a very different class?). Would that would be great for a more realistic skill training system but be so harsh mechanics wise that lots of people wouldn't play them? And then I wonder if that would be an ok thing if you already had lots of classes filling the in-between roles (like Magus and the hybrid classes in PF1e) and lots of archetypes? (I'm assuming those that like finding the most powerful 1 or 2 level dips would really disagree).

A 0th level and -1st level of apprentice with more frontloading and more classes would have been best. High level feats can replace 1 level dips.

hmmm give Fighters expertise in Athletics/Acrobatics and Wizards Arcana and so on and everyone gets "Mastery" in a skill they have expertise in at level 11.

Give every class one Expertise except Artificer, Bard, Ranger, and Rogue

 

[James Gasik]

Do you think it would be a good solution if there was the choice for either the caster or the recipient to maintain concentration on a buff spell?

I do, and in fact, this is a house rule I want to test out in my next campaign.

 

[James Gasik]

Some people don't see the problem of doubling the proficiency bonus, since it's been reserved to skill so far, which don't have set DC's, and there is great table variance to what a "good" skill bonus is (see recent thread about success rates).

What I do to explain to them why expertise is bad is just have them imagine what would happen if you could double your proficiency bonus for other things, like saving throws, calculating save DC's, or attack rolls. That usually gets their eyebrows shooting into the stratosphere!

 

[Minigiant]

I’ve been working on a proficiency die system (and spreading expertise around more).
1d4 for trained
1d6 for expert
1d8 for master
Circumstances, spells, bardic inspiration etc, can push that further to a d10, d12 or even 2d6.

You still get the rush from being an expert, but the system plays better with bounded accuracy.

I'd go
1d4 for trained
1d8 for expert
1d12 for master

Bounded Accuracy is a misnomer. It should have been called Bounded Difficulty. The point is that the target DCs and ACs don't scale so a kobold and a dragon can always hit your fighter's 20 AC with a high roll. This way you don't need to magically equip the kobold.

But there's nothing wrong with the Fighter having +8 to Athletics before Strength or the Rogue having +8 to Stealth before Dexterity.

 

[Undrave]

How would you incentivize playing this spellcaster vs a class that doesn't kill itself to use its class features?

Note that ‘Push your Luck’ games are popular so I can see people enjoying that sort of gameplay, especially if there was way to mitigate the risk through various tactics (like hiding behind cover to begin casting so enemies can try to disrupt you).

But other things would be to make Cantrips more fun, giving them variety of effects beyond boring damage.

Another is that there would no longer be spell slot to track: You can cast Fireball all day if you’re ready to take the heat yourself.

Furthermore, the risk would be relegated to spells that can cause harm to others, or maybe to types of divinations that can ‘cheat’ the game.

I would move a LOT of non-combat utility magic to an out of combat ritual system where failure to perform them properly would just cost some time and some components. Components that I would probably try to make more engaging. I could see one of those ritual basically be ‘replace a skill check with your Arcana check for an hour’ but each skill would require a specific plant or something.

The idea would be to make spellcasting more engaging and not a simple point and click exercise where you just use the best option when you have it and use the second best when the best is no longer available. And no matter how many fights you’ve gone through, you always have the option to pull out ‘The Big Gun’ when things turn sour… but your allies might just have to carry your unconscious body out of the fire once you pull that trigger, ya know, even if you succeed. (this would give high STR a solid function in a way).

I’d probably get rid of ‘preparing’ spells too. You learn a Spell, you know how to cast it. Any spellcaster could find books with extra spell for them to learn as treasure.

Or a % table, kind of like the Wild Magic table, of all sorts of things that can go wrong. Could be a ton of fun. Maybe that's how the Sorcerer class could be really different from the Wizard. No spell slots, just risk.

Oh yeah, fix the biggest issue with the Wild Magic sorcerer: You get to pick when to roll on the table by trading that risk for an advantage.

 

[Minigiant]

Some people don't see the problem of doubling the proficiency bonus, since it's been reserved to skill so far, which don't have set DC's, and there is great table variance to what a "good" skill bonus is (see recent thread about success rates).

What I do to explain to them why expertise is bad is just have them imagine what would happen if you could double your proficiency bonus for other things, like saving throws, calculating save DC's, or attack rolls. That usually gets their eyebrows shooting into the stratosphere!

Double Prof forSkills is fine because everyone gets them, everyone can choose freely which skills to focus on, and contests use the same formula for both characters (1d20 + Ability + Prof vs 1d20 + Ability + Prof).

Double Prof for anything else is iffy because everything else is fixed and both sides of the test don't use the same calculations (Hit vs AC, Saves vs DC, Initiative)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Some people don't see the problem of doubling the proficiency bonus, since it's been reserved to skill so far, which don't have set DC's, and there is great table variance to what a "good" skill bonus is (see recent thread about success rates).

What I do to explain to them why expertise is bad is just have them imagine what would happen if you could double your proficiency bonus for other things, like saving throws, calculating save DC's, or attack rolls. That usually gets their eyebrows shooting into the stratosphere!

and yet I think letting fighters get expertise in weapon attacks and some people getting to choose expertise in some saves is a great option... but yes it will slightly increase ACs averages (Not top end, keep those the same, but move high level AC zone more to low 20s)