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

[Micah Sweet]

Meanwhile, at WotC’s secret undersea laboratories:

“It's resolved then: we'll increase the Wizard's hit die to d8. Next order of business: where are we with this whole 'buff the Fighter' nonsense?
"Encouraging news: the grass roots proponents are at each others' throats. No two of them want the same thing, and the arguments quickly turn acrimonious. Our estimates of the probability of the rabble organizing into a threat is less than 2%."
"Good...good. Our Russian troll farms seem to be earning their keep."
"Actually, no. Our troll farms aren't assigned to this project. They don't need to. The discord seems to arise organically."
"Perfect. So...table this for another year? All in favor?"
"Aye."
"Aye."
"Aye."



Epilogue:

"By the way, what are the troll farms working on?"
"Orcs and Drow. That seems to be working. The majority of the fan base is so disgusted with the old guard...or what they think is the old guard...that the new material is testing at 96% approval."
"Mwuhahahahahahaha"

I'm impressed you got a spy so deep into WotC's operation.

 

[FireLance]

Perhaps we could make that "gas in the tank" analogy explicit. You have X Grit in the tank. All of your abilities are decent at-will attacks. Spend 1 Grit to boost one to "Encounter." Spend 2 Grit to make it "Daily."

Of course, in order to make this work and actually be fun, you'd have to deal with an issue. Namely, that you should always pick the best "Daily" option and then spam the living hell out of it until you ran out of Grit. Which is pretty clearly Not Desirable, by way of being Very Boring--it's okay if there's a consistent basic option for folks that don't want to make lots of choices, but it sucks for anyone who wants engaging gameplay. Perhaps some sort of "reverse-reliable"? Or building in a "rebound" time where you have to wait 1d6 rounds before you can boost a particular attack again? I dunno. This is me spitballing.

Spoiler: Souper Sekrit

Don't go spoiling the surprise, 4e fans! I'm curious to see how this one plays out.

Sounds like a great excuse for refusing to actually solve a problem that's been a problem for over a decade, minus the brief respite during 4e.

How I would prevent spamming now is to give characters access to only a fraction of their daily resources at any one time, then allow the character to access more of their daily resources after taking a short rest.

For example, daily spellcasters only get one spell slot per spell level. When they take a short rest they can regain expended spell slots, up to a daily limit. Paladins can only use Divine Smite once per short rest, even if they still have spell slots available.

This is how hit points work in regular 5E, by the way. When you take a short rest, you can spend Hit Dice from your daily pool to regain lost hit points.

So if fighters had Grit as an encounter resource and Super-Grit as a daily resource, they would recover all their Grit and the ability to use Super-Grit once when they finish a short rest.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Back when 4e was an ongoing thing, I did, in fact, suggest that as a superior alternative to the rigid structure that was 4e's AEDU. It's in some of the discussions on this very board.

back in 4e I didn't know the solution (maybe I missed you posting this or maybe I just didn't get it) but today I would want 4e more based on the warlock...
You get some at wills and a pool of encounter abilities that scale but can only use 2 of those encounter abelites per time... (yes I am using short rest and encounter interchangeable) then you get micro class specific feats (invocations) that can give you new at wills new always on buffs or new dailies... and some of those dailies still cost a per encounter resource. At later levels you get daily abilities that do not scale and are in addition to the others. On top of all this you get 2 subclass choices that you can mix and match.

imagine a fighter/warblade/whatever getting this treatment... at 1st level you make a great weapon, or a duel weapon, or a duilist as your subclass (or archer or tank or what ever) you get 2 at wills on top of basic attacks, and you pick 2 encounter/short rest abilities from a list of 5-10... but you can only use 1 per encounter/short rest. At level 2 you get a 2nd use per encounter/short rest and 2 combat buffs (invocations) at level 3 you choose a 2nd subclass and a 3rd encounter ability (but still just use 2) sub classes like Knight, Battlemaster, samari, arcane archer, ect. BUT at level 3 you now can choose from 2nd level maneuvers (that have there own 5-10 list) and your 1st level ones scale up just a bit.

 

[Garthanos]

I don’t think I’m seriously proposing this…just brainstorming…but what if every time the character gains/learns a new effect, you assign it to a d20 result. When that’s your unmodified attack roll, you get to use the effect (if applicable). It takes all agency away, but I personally would still find it fun. At high levels you might have a whole table of effects.

Kind of almost a Champion style effect... but you then have to remember when the condition arises hmmmmm smh.

Level Up made the berserker the crit fisher and crit buffer.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don’t think I’m seriously proposing this…just brainstorming…but what if every time the character gains/learns a new effect, you assign it to a d20 result. When that’s your unmodified attack roll, you get to use the effect (if applicable). It takes all agency away, but I personally would still find it fun. At high levels you might have a whole table of effects.

I can see a short campaign run on this (you would have to rule they can't all be the same number) but I don't know if I would want this always

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How I would prevent spamming now is to give characters access to only a fraction of their daily resources at any one time, then allow the character to access more of their daily resources after taking a short rest.

For example, daily spellcasters only get one spell slot per spell level. When they take a short rest they can regain expended spell slots, up to a daily limit. Paladins can only use Divine Smite once per short rest, even if they still have spell slots available.

This is how hit points work in regular 5E, by the way. When you take a short rest, you can spend Hit Dice from your daily pool to regain lost hit points.

So if fighters had Grit as an encounter resource and Super-Grit as a daily resource, they would recover all their Grit and the ability to use Super-Grit once when they finish a short rest.

That would kill it pretty much dead as far as I'm concerned. You've just brought things straight back to "never getting nice things" territory again.

 

[Micah Sweet]

that's the thing, D&D allows me to be hit by 3 arrows, get breathed on by a dragon (taking full damage) and fall 30ft landing on my back... and if I have 7hp left I have no penalties to attack or skills. I am as good then as I am after a month of rest at everything I do.

I wish that wasn't the case, but "death spirals" are unfashionable these days. We can't possibly have any penalties, now can we?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I wish that wasn't the case, but "death spirals" are unfashionable these days. We can't possibly have any penalties, now can we?

Exhaustion would like to say hi, but it can't because it's at 5 stacks and thus incapable of taking actions.

 

[Garthanos]

I like exertions too but it does not address spamming and without spam limits one has a select always the "best" issue which makes your system potentially boring and require heavier balance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exhaustion would like to say hi, but it can't because it's at 5 stacks and thus incapable of taking actions.

One level of exhaustion is enough to get many players IME to whinge nonstop until it goes away. My opinion stands.

Fatigue and strife in Level Up work better for me.