D&D General Should ENworld Posters Design a D&D?

[Faolyn]

See, I'd want to go back to the TSR saves, because I prefer the idea that you're saving against something, not showing off your reflexes, toughness, or willpower in a general sense.

Yeah, but it's impossible to determine all the things you can save against. So many times I saw "save against breath weapon" used for completely random things. And then you get things like "should area spells be counted as saving against magic, or as saving against breath weapon? Arguments can be made for both. Because your ability to withstand a fireball should be different than than your ability to withstand a charm.

Having three or six saves is simple and useful. There may still be better ways to do it than using your physical/mental abilities, but I don't think saving against something is the way to go.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, but it's impossible to determine all the things you can save against. So many times I saw "save against breath weapon" used for completely random things. And then you get things like "should area spells be counted as saving against magic, or as saving against breath weapon? Arguments can be made for both. Because your ability to withstand a fireball should be different than than your ability to withstand a charm.

Having three or six saves is simple and useful. There may still be better ways to do it than using your physical/mental abilities, but I don't think saving against something is the way to go.

The ones 1e used, or something similar, worked out just fine for me.

 

[Composer99]

I was going to post a thing about saving throws, but I feel like that's going into the weeds, kind of.

Anyway, suffice to say that ENWorld posters should feel free to design their own 3PP D&D-likes. (Goodness knows I already am, even if it's not a 5e-like.) But I think it'd be best if they split into small groups with more or less cohesive design visions.

 

[Faolyn]

I think the much better question is, can ENWorld users design one?

Way back when, on the SJ Games forums, they would do "vote up a setting" things all the time. Each part would have several options, and the readers would vote for the one they liked. Back then, they had to manually tally up the votes, but these forums have a poll option built in.

For instance: Saving throws. How many?

Options:
6 saves based on stats (Strength save, Dexterity save, etc.)
3 saves, a la 3.x (Fortitude, Reflexes, Willpower)
6 saves based on saving against something (spells, breath weapons, death effects, etc.)
And whatever.

I think it would be fairly simple to have two threads going. In one thread, people discuss the upcoming section. In the other thread are the actual polls based on what was discussed. So if the topic is, say, heritages, and some people wanted to do heritages only, and some people also wanted to do culture, and some people wanted to do heritage, culture, and background, then those would be the available options.

 

[Lanefan]

Of course, damage output (especially monsters) would have to be rechecked and tweaked. A tuned group of PCs can currently chew through huge chunks of hit points in a single round as it is. Though, I would like that when the wizard drops a fireball things die, rather than getting a light sunburn. Same goes for when the other classes whip out their high-power encounter enders. Just balance it somehow by limiting how often they can bring it online (I would not be opposed to a momentum system that an encounter-ending ability takes a little bit of time to work up to so as to deflate the 5MWD where possible).

Or - and this'll be a radical idea for some - instead lean into the 5MWD, as it's what wise characters would try to achieve anyway, and design things with the expectation that the PCs can and will go nova on the first significant encounter of the day.

Then make those nova-scale resources take time (e.g. overnight) to recover and boom - things get interesting the moment the PCs meet more than one significant encounter in a day.

 

[Lanefan]

Why 3 saves tho?

6 saves is better.

1. Death
2. Stability
3. Magic Items Will
4. Transformation (petrification/polymorph)
5. Reflex
6. Magic (everything else)

And don't auto-tie each save type to a stat - have the specific effect state whether a stat applies to a save or not; and if so, which one. Example, where three different things are forcing a death save:

Banshee's Wail: death save, Cha applies (or Wis, depending which stat "strength of soul" resides under this week)
Deadly Poison: death save, Con applies
Massive Damage: death save, unmodified.

One could in fact easily make an argument for there being more than 6 save categories, especially to break out the catch-all "magic" category into smaller bits. There might, for example, be different save categories for area spells, targeted spells, psionics, and devices; and-or to account for whether the effect is arcane or divine in origin.

 

[Lanefan]

The 4e engine is a solid one. It has its flaws, but the vast majority of those are things that aren't rules design. They're presentation, organization, adventures, individual bits and pieces.

I know that they're seen as unnecessary complexity by a lot of folks, but the "stat and also modifier" thing is a beloved tradition which doesn't really cause that much grief. Instead of eliminating them, we should strive to make raw scores more useful. 4e already tried that by making all feat prerequisites require odd ability score amounts, but that's kind of a weak step. I'm not sure how to do this, but something should be done.

Simple solution for that: use roll-under-stat mechanics for a lot of what are now skill checks. Do that, and every point counts.

 

[aco175]

I would be interested to see what comes up and would try to post in good faith.

 

[cbwjm]

See, I'd want to go back to the TSR saves, because I prefer the idea that you're saving against something, not showing off your reflexes, toughness, or willpower in a general sense.

I don't mind those saves, but I'd prefer something simpler and I think the 3e saves are easier for people to understand. For instance, It makes more sense to me that dodging a fireball and a dragon's fiery breath uses reflex instead of one being a save against a breath weapon and the other being a save against spells.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Simple solution for that: use roll-under-stat mechanics for a lot of what are now skill checks. Do that, and every point counts.

That's how we did it back in the day, and it worked pretty darn well.