D&D (2024) Its till just me or is the 2024 MM heavily infused by more 4e influences?

[Paul Farquhar]

I can at least express humanoid that is tougher and more aggressive than a human, with traits like the the typical orc’s relentless endurance and aggressive

Humans can be plenty aggressive. And adding traits that players will barely notice is wasted effort.

The players know it’s an orc because it looks like an orc. Even if it’s an orc pie maker rather than an orc Warrior. The thing that makes RPGs different from board games is the descriptions.

 

[CreamCloud0]

As I’ve said a few times throughout this conversation, perfect identification through mechanics isn’t realistically possible, but it’s a worthwhile design goal. I might not be able to differentiate orcs enough through stats alone to specifically express orc-ness. But, I can at least express humanoid that is tougher and more aggressive than a human, with traits like the the typical orc’s relentless endurance and aggressive. And of course, players with a lot of experience might memorize that orcs have those traits, just as they might memorize that bishops move diagonally in chess.

part of this issue i think is simply the small budget of abilities species often get to define themselves, relentless endurance and agressive are fine but they don't exactly add up to much by themselves, it'd be quite easier to identify an orc purely mechanically if they had for instance:

Agressive: you can bonus action dash towards an opponent.
Bullrush: you can make a single melee range attack as a free action after charging a target.
Savage attacks: when you crit with a melee or thrown weapon attack add an additional weapon damage die.
Relentless endurance: 1/any rest, when you would be reduced to 0hp instead drop to 1hp.
Indomitable: 1/any rest, when you fail a saving throw you can choose to succeed instead.
Blood rush: when you down an opponent you gain CON+Hit Die temp HP.

these traits add up to give them a unique playfeel, you couldn't replicate how this orc would play with a human or an elf.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Three-Barbarian, Fighter and Rogue. The Monk (I am assuming you meant this class) is a bit iffy IMO because some of their abilities are seen as being magic-like. Monks straddle the line between martial and spellcaster.

Level Up has plenty of non-magical classes (fighter, marshal, ranger, rogue, savant, scientist, scout, trooper), and non-casters with a supernatural edge (adept, berserker), and all of them have a lot to do, so for me this is a solved problem. And that's just the official classes!

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you also rule out anything superhuman, you loose barbarian, fighter and rogue too.

Whether or not fighter and rogue are superhuman is debatable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

sure it 'can' work, but when you've restricted yourself to like 15% of class options i wonder just how much the game is 'meant' to be played like that.

The non-magic classes in AiME are quite a bit more than 15% of the available options.

 

[Micah Sweet]

part of this issue i think is simply the small budget of abilities species often get to define themselves, relentless endurance and agressive are fine but they don't exactly add up to much by themselves, it'd be quite easier to identify an orc purely mechanically if they had for instance:

Agressive: you can bonus action dash towards an opponent.
Bullrush: you can make an extra attack when you take the attack action after charging a target.
Savage attacks: when you crit with a melee or thrown weapon attack add an additional weapon damage die.
Relentless endurance: 1/any rest, when you would be reduced to 0hp instead drop to 1hp.
Indomitable: 1/any rest, when you fail a saving throw you can choose to succeed instead.
Blood rush: when you down an opponent you gain CON+Hit Die temp HP.

these traits add up to give them a unique playfeel, you couldn't replicate how this orc would play with a human or an elf.

Expended heritage abilities is another one of A5e's innovations.

 

[Charlaquin]

Adding zombie characteristics to an existing creature is pretty common. But the real trick to reskinning is turning it into something completely different, not something similar.

I didn’t add zombie characteristics to an existing creature. I designed a zombie stat block from the ground up to be recognizable as a zombie with zero description, and then I made small modifications to that stat block to make it no longer scan as a zombie, but still scan as some kind of undead (again, I had a specific reference point in mind, but I wouldn’t blame you for not being able to guess what because it is very specific). I did this to illustrate how stat blocks that are recognizable as the thing they represent through mechanics alone can be made to come across as a different creature with fairly minimal changes. Because that’s what Ezekiel Raiden and I were discussing. I recommend catching up on that conversation if you want to contribute to it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Whether or not fighter and rogue are superhuman is debatable.

As is a monk. Where the boarder between human and superhuman lies is a matter of personal belief. I would consider a rogue’s evasion ability the stuff of action movies, not reality.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As is a monk. Where the boarder between human and superhuman lies is a matter of personal belief. I would consider a rogue’s evasion ability the stuff of action movies, not reality.

Yeah, I really don't like evasion.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The non-magic classes in AiME are quite a bit more than 15% of the available options.

i was referring to the purely martial DnD classes, i didn't realise AiME was a game, i thought it was an abbreviation of 'and in my experience.'