D&D General 5e System Redesign through New Classes and Setting. A Thought Experiment.

[Steampunkette]

Ah beans….

Okay I am resisting the powerful urge to argue about 4e powers.

But I do think that if you take specific 4e powers and present them like 5e Battlemaster manuevers or spells, depending on the specific power, you are already a lot to the way to fixing the feel of them. For some reason, if a power has the same format and says, “1[w]+dex” on a hit and then describes a rider, that is perceived as more similar to “1[w]+dex+5” than it would be if written out as a sentence. Battlemaster manuevers simply are not more diverse in effect than 4e encounter powers. They just feel that way to some folks because of the format.

That said, 100% agree about needing to know more powers than you have power uses. It’s a huge improvement in 5e.

One option is to use the format of Battlemaster manuevers, monk discipline features, or Star Wars force powers, depending on the class. Don’t use the same format, just keep them in the power scale of encounter resources.

But I do think that encounter focused class variants work great as an idea, and don’t need to be presented as “restricted”.

I definitely wouldn't use it as Battlemaster Maneuvers, no... Because this would also apply to Spellcasters. Full and Half and 3/4, too.

My current thought is that 1st and 2nd level spells are always Encounter Powers. But after that point, the top three spell levels you can cast are dailies. (And you only get 2-3 daily uses). Anything below your top-tier spellcasting gets downgraded to Encounter power.

So once you can do 6th level spells, your 4th, 5th, and 6th level spells are dailies, but 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are encounter. Which would allow for Encounter Fireball.

I'd also lean in on using Short Rest as the core recovery method. Probably reduced to 10 minutes as a blanket concept so that you can get a rest in while someone is doing a Ritual. Hit Dice still recovering on a long rest, but plenty of HP regeneration on short rests from healer classes so you don't have to burn all your HD at once for out of combat healing...

Things like that.

 

[Zardnaar]

New D&D would need to dump dailies or make modern AD&D 3E or advanced B/X.

Its a modern design problem since 4E. 4E got it wrong as well and still has dailies.

Problem is entire generation of players are used to D&D easy mode.

So drastic redesign that could tank hard or patch 5E with better monster design/DM specials.

Pick your poison. Go with it, drastic redesign or start looking at pre 4E rates of healing (minus wands of clw) for 6E. Reduce power levels of PCs which may not go over well.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I definitely wouldn't use it as Battlemaster Maneuvers, no... Because this would also apply to Spellcasters. Full and Half and 3/4, too.

My current thought is that 1st and 2nd level spells are always Encounter Powers. But after that point, the top three spell levels you can cast are dailies. (And you only get 2-3 daily uses). Anything below your top-tier spellcasting gets downgraded to Encounter power.

So once you can do 6th level spells, your 4th, 5th, and 6th level spells are dailies, but 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are encounter. Which would allow for Encounter Fireball.

I'd also lean in on using Short Rest as the core recovery method. Probably reduced to 10 minutes as a blanket concept so that you can get a rest in while someone is doing a Ritual. Hit Dice still recovering on a long rest, but plenty of HP regeneration on short rests from healer classes so you don't have to burn all your HD at once for out of combat healing...

Things like that.

Yeah that sounds roughly like a 5.4e that could work. I personally wouldn’t let 6th level spells ever be encounter spells, but that’s a small adjustment.

I’d also adjust all classes that aren’t full casters to have the reduced slot progression but not spell level progression pace. So half casters only get 5th level and lower spells but they unlock each level at the same level as full casters.

When they get to treat their higher level spells as encounter powers after level 11…idk. Someone would do the math at some point.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have said in the past I imagine the 5e warlord like a martial adept, a fighter with the martial maneuvers "White Raven" and "Devoted Spirit" from 3.5 Tome of Battle: Book of the nine Swords. And warlord subclases? One focused into stealth for undercover operations, guerrillas or ambushs, other about a magic banner in the battlefield, other about (tamed?) beast minions, other about instant-building and using constructs, traps and gadgets for sieges or tower defenses....

Some times a good way to promote a just-released new class is a new setting. For example Kara-Tur could be redesigned to give "space" for the updated version of the martial adepts (crusader, swordsage and warblade). Let's remember the handbook of psionic powers was sold better thanks Dark Sun.

 

[sevenbastard]

Because the mechanical recharge of player power is tied to a 'no-risk' purely narrative mechanic, you quickly get the 5 minute adventuring day. Which the game, hilariously, wasn't designed for.

Every eddtion of D&D has the 5 minute adventuring day problem if you dont have time pressure in a adventure.

Ive always seen this as a Issue related to bad adventure design and less about bad mechanics.

 

[Steampunkette]

What kinda classes would you need for such a setting?

You'd definitely need to cover the 'Core Roles' of Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer, sure. Might be good to take another page out of 4e and build up a set of 'roles' that you want people to play in general. I might suggest:

1) Tank
Melee damage with high defenses or resistance and the ability to be a commanding presence on the battlefield enemies can't ignore.

2) Skirmisher
In and out of combat, striking in melee before retreating. High damage, low survivability, high movement.

3) Blaster
Ranged AoE damage. This is your Alchemist flinging molotovs or something. Even lower survivability than the Skirmisher without the movement.

4) Support
Healing is a part of support, but so is cleansing problems, or creating opportunities. Might even be able to give people extra encounter power uses.

5) Sniper
Ranged damage dealer, sure. Single-target mostly. But also your debuffs. Whether that's a Hunter's Mark or a Warlock's curse or a Bard's insults.

You might notice I ditched the 4e "Controller" label in favor of 'Blaster'. There's two reasons for this. The first is that everyone should be able to reasonably drop some control on the battlefield. Restraining, knockdown, difficult terrain generation, etc. That isn't a "Role" so much as a choice you make between pushing throughput over manipulating enemies to save yourself or your allies. Blasters should absolutely have big AoE control powers, where Skirmishers and Tanks only get short-ranged or melee control effects, it just isn't the functional "Goal" of a specific role.

Secondly, the focus on AoE damage creates a strong dichotomy and role creation space for the Sniper as an option. 4e would've called it a "Ranged Striker" as compared to a "Melee Striker" but that's just ignoring the existence of a separate identifiable role in favor of trying to aim for 4 roles for 4th Edition. It would also create a really strong narrato-mechanical distinction for a theoretical Ranger where they get to be both the Skirmisher -and- the Sniper, helping to separate them out from the other classes in a really cool way.

With that established, we move onto the next most important item for classes: Power Source.

1) Arcane
Twiddle your fingies and say the magic words! Probably add some area denial to these classes.

2) Divine
Pray, and have someone actually respond with tangible support! Probably add some healing to these classes.

3) Martial
Hit it with the pointy end. Or the sharp bit. Or the blunt face. Just hit it. Add some self-buffing to these.

4) Psychic
Brains vs brawn rarely works out so well in reality as it sometimes does in fiction. Maybe add some control.

5) Occult
Wiggity-Wiggity-Woo-Woo. Arcane, but generally 'Evil' or 'Dark'. Slap some debuffs onto these.

6) Nature
Plants and Beasts and Fungus, oh my! Add a little healing and a little control to split the difference.

Now you're not gonna launch a new setting with one combat role for each of these power sources, obviously. That's 30 classes out of the gate before we even get to theming, which is the next most important step. But you should probably try to have at least one of each in the setting to make sure you've got somewhere for pretty much everyone to play. At least one Nature, at least one Arcane, etc. That said, Psychic is always the easiest to cut because people have the least amount of investment into it, lately.

But I did mention Theming... and this one is -so- important, you guys. It is the kind of thing that will define the game table in your settings. The types of characters people like to make.

1) Pretty/Aesthetic
Sounds like a cop-out but it really isn't. You're going to see the faerie princess pop up at your table a fair amount of times. It doesn't specifically have to be a faerie or a princess, but there's going to be people who want to play the 'pretty' class. This is why Warlocks have a Fey Patron option that gets glamours and stuff instead of Fey Patrons that give you decay and rot powers. Bard is probably the quintessential 'pretty' class. You know who else can be pretty? Monks. Robes and peace and gentleness that turns into a fist of iron in the middle of the tea party ceremony.

2) Heroic/Normal
Heroic coves a -lot- of what pretty does, but it also covers your knights in shining armor and some less armored types like barbarians and the grandstanding gladiators or warlords. It also applies to swashbucklers of every stripe, most of the ranger concepts that don't sit in the corner, brooding with a pipe. Your heroic players are going to want classes that stand out with big main character energy. Generally speaking, this won't be a spellcaster, but instead someone who hits things.

3) Dark/Strange
Vampire the Masquerade has Nosferatu as a clan because sometimes people want to play the monstrous even in a game about monsters. Heroic monsters, but monstrous nonetheless. This is why Warlocks exist for the most part. But you can also do dark Rangers, Barbarians, and Rogues pretty easily. Monstrous ones, too. Most settings and games tend to make the dark or strange into a species choice, almost exclusively, and maybe toss in some small asides for magic items or optional features that add some dark/strange.

Now if you were to do a PHD (Pretty/Heroic/Dark) for each of the 5 roles you'd wind up with 15 classes. Much more manageable, but still more than WotC's core class list of 12. 13 if you include Artificer, 14 if you include Blood Hunter, and bang on 15 if you include the Illrigger.

So let's look at a potential example list:

1) Tanks
a) Champion. Martial Heroic type.
b) Swordmage. Arcane Pretty type.
c) Blackguard. Occult Dark type.

2) Skirmishers
a) Keeper. Occult Heroic type.
b) Berserk. Nature Pretty type.
c) Inquisitor. Divine Dark type.

3) Blasters
a) Alchemist. Martial Heroic type.
b) Primalist. Nature Pretty type.
c) Esper. Psychic Dark type.

4) Support
a) Captain. Martial Heroic type.
b) Priest. Divine Pretty type.
c) Spiritualist. Occult Dark type.

5) Snipers
a) Warcaster. Arcane Heroic type
b) Minstrel. Arcane Pretty type.
c) Witch. Nature Dark type.

Yes, some of the above classes are classes I've put out for A5e and 5e compatible games. Don't read too much into that.

With this setup you wind up with 3 Arcane, 3 Martial, 3 Nature, 3 Occult, 2 Divine, and 1 Psychic. As a bonus, I unintentionally excluded any Arcane Full Casters which, hey, really limits the existence of some of the more problematic spells. Win/Win, there, for setting yourself up for an easier time building a more balanced system tied to your setting.

As a reminder, in this thought experiment we're -not- doing the core classes, since you're basically piloting a new functionality built around the 'full' adventuring day that D&D 5e is built off of.

Thoughts? Comments?

 

[Steampunkette]

Every eddtion of D&D has the 5 minute adventuring day problem if you dont have time pressure in a adventure.

Ive always seen this as a Issue related to bad adventure design and less about bad mechanics.

It's great that you've seen it as a matter of bad adventure design. But the ability to Nova/Alpha your most powerful abilities into the first fight of the day is still going to result in players doing that and then trying to find ways to get in that long rest so they can do it, again. And likely complain about cramped time-tables in 'well designed' adventures when they go in to fight the BBEG with all their big spells and abilities expended.

4e, notably, did -not- have the 5 minute adventuring day. Because of encounter powers and the like. Yeah, you'd still wind up with the occasional table that would blow their dailies on a swarm of goblins at level 12, but there's only so much you can really do about people making massive tactical mistakes.

Still. I'd recommend making a general rule that any ability that recovers on a long rest locks you out of using any other long-rest recovered abilities until the end of the encounter. So you get your one daily, your two encounters, and then at-wills after that.

Though you know what would be fun to keep people from feeling utterly useless when they miss with their one shot on their turn? Extra Action at level 5.

So at level 5 you can attack twice, cast a cantrip twice (cantrips dealing 1 die of damage without scaling functionality), or attack and cast a cantrip on your turn. Look! Now you can Gish really easily. Who needs an Eldritch Knight at level 7?

Could also make things like "Grapple" or "Disarm" into actions for ease of play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then I don't truly believe they actually want the rules changed that badly. They merely want WotC to acknowledge the idea of the thing more than they want the thing.

It's no different than people who still say they want a Warlord in 5E that has been designed and published by Wizards of the Coast. They don't actually want a Warlord to play with and use (because they could have had umpteen Warlords in use at their table for the past decade based on all the different people out there who have made them to be used)... nope, they want WOTC to do it because then and only then is it REAL. They can say WotC gave them what they wanted. And that's more important than the actual thing itself.

Very depressing, but I find no fault in your logic. I think we'd all be better off making or finding the game we want to play, and letting WotC do what they want. It's not like we can affect them anyway; not nearly enough want the same thing to budge a big publically-traded company in its maximum profit-seeking dealings, and even if there were, many people would be left out in the cold regardless.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've got at least 4 5e compatible setting+rulesets that tackle this question. The One Ring, Symbaroum, Beyond the Woods, Historia...

All rejigger the core classes, add rules to adjust resting in different ways, lean harder into the exploration pillar, often red-line out certain spells (or go lower magic in general for ToR), etc.

Level Up too. Rewritten core classes and a much stronger emphasis on the other two pillars.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What kinda classes would you need for such a setting?

You'd definitely need to cover the 'Core Roles' of Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer, sure. Might be good to take another page out of 4e and build up a set of 'roles' that you want people to play in general. I might suggest:

1) Tank
Melee damage with high defenses or resistance and the ability to be a commanding presence on the battlefield enemies can't ignore.

2) Skirmisher
In and out of combat, striking in melee before retreating. High damage, low survivability, high movement.

3) Blaster
Ranged AoE damage. This is your Alchemist flinging molotovs or something. Even lower survivability than the Skirmisher without the movement.

4) Support
Healing is a part of support, but so is cleansing problems, or creating opportunities. Might even be able to give people extra encounter power uses.

5) Sniper
Ranged damage dealer, sure. Single-target mostly. But also your debuffs. Whether that's a Hunter's Mark or a Warlock's curse or a Bard's insults.

You might notice I ditched the 4e "Controller" label in favor of 'Blaster'. There's two reasons for this. The first is that everyone should be able to reasonably drop some control on the battlefield. Restraining, knockdown, difficult terrain generation, etc. That isn't a "Role" so much as a choice you make between pushing throughput over manipulating enemies to save yourself or your allies. Blasters should absolutely have big AoE control powers, where Skirmishers and Tanks only get short-ranged or melee control effects, it just isn't the functional "Goal" of a specific role.

Secondly, the focus on AoE damage creates a strong dichotomy and role creation space for the Sniper as an option. 4e would've called it a "Ranged Striker" as compared to a "Melee Striker" but that's just ignoring the existence of a separate identifiable role in favor of trying to aim for 4 roles for 4th Edition. It would also create a really strong narrato-mechanical distinction for a theoretical Ranger where they get to be both the Skirmisher -and- the Sniper, helping to separate them out from the other classes in a really cool way.

With that established, we move onto the next most important item for classes: Power Source.

1) Arcane
Twiddle your fingies and say the magic words! Probably add some area denial to these classes.

2) Divine
Pray, and have someone actually respond with tangible support! Probably add some healing to these classes.

3) Martial
Hit it with the pointy end. Or the sharp bit. Or the blunt face. Just hit it. Add some self-buffing to these.

4) Psychic
Brains vs brawn rarely works out so well in reality as it sometimes does in fiction. Maybe add some control.

5) Occult
Wiggity-Wiggity-Woo-Woo. Arcane, but generally 'Evil' or 'Dark'. Slap some debuffs onto these.

6) Nature
Plants and Beasts and Fungus, oh my! Add a little healing and a little control to split the difference.

Now you're not gonna launch a new setting with one combat role for each of these power sources, obviously. That's 30 classes out of the gate before we even get to theming, which is the next most important step. But you should probably try to have at least one of each in the setting to make sure you've got somewhere for pretty much everyone to play. At least one Nature, at least one Arcane, etc. That said, Psychic is always the easiest to cut because people have the least amount of investment into it, lately.

But I did mention Theming... and this one is -so- important, you guys. It is the kind of thing that will define the game table in your settings. The types of characters people like to make.

1) Pretty/Aesthetic
Sounds like a cop-out but it really isn't. You're going to see the faerie princess pop up at your table a fair amount of times. It doesn't specifically have to be a faerie or a princess, but there's going to be people who want to play the 'pretty' class. This is why Warlocks have a Fey Patron option that gets glamours and stuff instead of Fey Patrons that give you decay and rot powers. Bard is probably the quintessential 'pretty' class. You know who else can be pretty? Monks. Robes and peace and gentleness that turns into a fist of iron in the middle of the tea party ceremony.

2) Heroic/Normal
Heroic coves a -lot- of what pretty does, but it also covers your knights in shining armor and some less armored types like barbarians and the grandstanding gladiators or warlords. It also applies to swashbucklers of every stripe, most of the ranger concepts that don't sit in the corner, brooding with a pipe. Your heroic players are going to want classes that stand out with big main character energy. Generally speaking, this won't be a spellcaster, but instead someone who hits things.

3) Dark/Strange
Vampire the Masquerade has Nosferatu as a clan because sometimes people want to play the monstrous even in a game about monsters. Heroic monsters, but monstrous nonetheless. This is why Warlocks exist for the most part. But you can also do dark Rangers, Barbarians, and Rogues pretty easily. Monstrous ones, too. Most settings and games tend to make the dark or strange into a species choice, almost exclusively, and maybe toss in some small asides for magic items or optional features that add some dark/strange.

Now if you were to do a PHD (Pretty/Heroic/Dark) for each of the 5 roles you'd wind up with 15 classes. Much more manageable, but still more than WotC's core class list of 12. 13 if you include Artificer, 14 if you include Blood Hunter, and bang on 15 if you include the Illrigger.

So let's look at a potential example list:

1) Tanks
a) Champion. Martial Heroic type.
b) Swordmage. Arcane Pretty type.
c) Blackguard. Occult Dark type.

2) Skirmishers
a) Keeper. Occult Heroic type.
b) Primalist. Nature Pretty type.
c) Inquisitor. Divine Dark type.

3) Blasters
a) Alchemist. Martial Heroic type.
b) Primalist. Nature Pretty type.
c) Esper. Psychic Dark type.

4) Support
a) Captain. Martial Heroic type.
b) Priest. Divine Pretty type.
c) Spiritualist. Occult Dark type.

5) Snipers
a) Warcaster. Arcane Heroic type
b) Minstrel. Arcane Pretty type.
c) Witch. Nature Dark type.

Yes, some of the above classes are classes I've put out for A5e and 5e compatible games. Don't read too much into that.

With this setup you wind up with 3 Arcane, 3 Martial, 3 Nature, 3 Occult, 2 Divine, and 1 Psychic. As a bonus, I unintentionally excluded any Arcane Full Casters which, hey, really limits the existence of some of the more problematic spells. Win/Win, there, for setting yourself up for an easier time building a more balanced system tied to your setting.

As a reminder, in this thought experiment we're -not- doing the core classes, since you're basically piloting a new functionality built around the 'full' adventuring day that D&D 5e is built off of.

Thoughts? Comments?

Forgive me if you made this clear earlier, but are you mainly looking for a revision that's just a lot more like 4e? I would not be in favor of that (or I suppose I wouldn't buy it). Moving to an encounter-based model as you suggest seems likely to harm the sim playstyle I play and enjoy RPGs for.