D&D 5E Thoughts on Divorcing D&D From [EDIT: Medievalishness], Mechanically Speaking.

[Reynard]

I generally do prefer to have firearms be at least somewhat more powerful than melee in modern and sci-fi games, both because it's more realistic to me and it encourages players to stick with the intended genre of play. Otherwise, the hit point system kinda craps all over modern warfare.

Think the Brendon Frasier The Mummy here for what I think adventures should look like.

 

[payn]

The wizard stays because the turn of the 20th century hermetic wizard was a real thing.

A bard is skald or minstrel. A paladin in a holy knight. A druid is an archaic priest. A monk is a kung fu hustler. They don't fit.

A journalist, a dedicated hero, and a proto-environmentalist all have places in the implied setting, but not necessarily under those old archetypes. The monk can probably stay, though, given its actual inspiration in "old west chinaman".

I was uncertain about the sorcerer when i wrote that list, mostly because the sorcerer has no reason to exist with the wizard and the warlock both existing. I would replace it with an actual psionicist if I wanted the mechanical archtype.

I guess I dont see the hard lines you do particularly with warlock inclusion.

 

[Reynard]

I guess I dont see the hard lines you do particularly with warlock inclusion.

The warlock is what the name "sorcerer" implies. The D&D "sorcerer" is basically an x-men style mutant and really isn't particularly D&D-y.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If it were me, I'd start by putting my D&D books aside and then go looking for sourcebooks from other games that are of the era that you speak of. Like I wouldn't be surprised if there was a GURPS sourcebook for Industrial-era, Victorian, or WWI-era gaming. So I'd pick up one of those... find out what the sourcebook indicates are the most important historical bits and bobs that the designers of that book felt they needed to build mechanics around... and then go back and mix and match 5E mechanics to reach a similar place (if indeed running the game using 5E matters that much.)

Because I just think that if you start at 5E and merely try to push the game forward in time-- adjusting classes, races, equipment, combat rules and so forth as you go to try and make them "Industrial-like"-- you are going to end up with a game that pretty much is exactly the same as it currently is other than a couple mechanical changes here and there. And thus not even hit upon a large amount of the actual setting material you'd probably want. In other words... pushing the Cleric or Wizard forward as a class into the Industrial / turn of the 20th century era does nothing but muddle the types of character classes you should have for classes of that era.

Make a full break of 5E staples from the beginning, create the setting and game from the time period you want to begin with... and then see if anything after that from standard 5E could be incorporated just as nod to the original game.

 

[Weiley31]

You can't get into sword fights durring WW2

Anime and the rule of cool beg to differ.

 

[Oofta]

I've thought about doing a weird west campaign were all the Native Americans were wiped out by the monsters, but I also want to support current archetypes. So, for example, people still wear armor. But my armor does effectively stop bullets because of advances in metallurgy and a bit of magic. Lighter weight armor may be made from giant spider silk, etc..

Then there's the issue of still allowing for strength based characters. You can give them heavy duty shotguns, even portable Gatling guns. Bows might still be useful because guns are noisy. At the same time, a lot of monsters like to get up close and personal and a bullet here and there won't stop them. In addition unlike magic bows there is no such thing as a magic gun, or at least not one that transfers it's magic to the bullets so you still need melee.

But there's a different approach. Early guns were developed in part as a terror weapon and were around for centuries before they were significantly more dangerous than bows and crossbows. Guns were just easier to use and learn than a bow. Cannon of course were a different issue, but do you really need cannon if you have wizards? In any case, you don't need to rewrite anything. You just need to use Eberron as the starting point.

 

[Reynard]

If it were me, I'd start by putting my D&D books aside and then go looking for sourcebooks from other games that are of the era that you speak of. Like I wouldn't be surprised if there was a GURPS sourcebook for Industrial-era, Victorian, or WWI-era gaming. So I'd pick up one of those... find out what the sourcebook indicates are the most important historical bits and bobs that the designers of that book felt they needed to build mechanics around... and then go back and mix and match 5E mechanics to reach a similar place (if indeed running the game using 5E matters that much.)

Because I just think that if you start at 5E and merely try to push the game forward in time-- adjusting classes, races, equipment, combat rules and so forth as you go to try and make them "Industrial-like"-- you are going to end up with a game that pretty much is exactly the same other than a couple mechanical changes here and there. And thus not even hit upon a large amount of the actual setting material you'd probably want. In other words... pushing the Cleric or Wizard forward as a class into the Industrial / turn of the 20th century era does nothing but muddle the types of character classes you should have for classes of that era.

Make a full break of 5E staples from the beginning, create the setting and game from the time period you want to begin with... and then see if anything after that from standard 5E could be incorporated just as nod to the original game.

I think you misunderstand my intent. I am not trying to fundamentally change the way D&D 5E is played or the kinds of adventures folks get up to. I am trying to move it out of the ancient, medieval or early modern aesthetic/milieu. I am aiming for D&D by way of Carnival Row or The Mummy.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

You can't get into sword fights durring WW2.

Unless your name was Jack Churchill.

 

[payn]

The warlock is what the name "sorcerer" implies. The D&D "sorcerer" is basically an x-men style mutant and really isn't particularly D&D-y.

Not my understanding. Warlock is a patron driven caster making them more like arcane clerics. Its all D&Dy to me. I dont think we will see eye to eye on this so ill see myself out of the thread.

 

[Weiley31]

On a more serious note, Everyday Heroes does their AC calculations similar to how the monk, barbarian and similar things do their unarmored defense in 5E with a modified take. It is via a Defense Bonus(that goes up at certain levels)+their primary stat that their Class type focuses on IIRC. Armor ends up becoming more of a soak/save type deal vs a gun's Penetration value, I think.

That's probably one of the more elegant ways I've seen a 5E based product distant AC with wearing stuff like Platemail in a setting that has moved on from stuff like actual metal armor.