D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[Remathilis]

- the new undead abilities in the 2025 MM. No save, no way to avoid or cure it, just bam= HA HA!! your character sucks now! They're a hardass evil DM's dream.

This reminds me. I am happy level drain is gone. It's such a metagame ability that attacks your levels rather than your HP and it was really silly that you could fight a vampire and forget how to cast fireball or a speak goblin because you lost a level.

 

[Zardnaar]

I love playing healer/buffer classes. One of the evolutions I'm grateful for is the fact that I'm no longer locked into Cleric if I want to play them. Not only do I just personally prefer keeping my friends alive and helping them fight better, but it makes the more Goodish members of the party more likely to put up with my shenanigans, and somewhat mitigates my tendency toward optimization.

Nobody minds the "broken" character that's staying in the background and giving everyone else the spotlight time.

Ive seen it irl.

1. Players forget theyre buffed. In one case reminding them they got grumpy.

2. One pkayer felt left out. Attack granting i pretty much always picked the rogue. Optimal didn't realize it was less fun.

3. Players often forget bless. Most dont care if you remind them but see 1.

Mist f the time youre right. Occasionally it causes issues.

 

[Li Shenron]

So what changes to core D&Disms (classes, mechanics, settings, meta-game, etc) that have occurred over time do you like? Which ones could you do without?

My favourite evolution has to be the gradual removal of character restrictions: racial limits, race-character restrictions, multiclassing (even though I am not a fan of using it), alignment, and finally druids armor. Generally I think restrictions are a positive force to create a stronger setting's theme, but I don't like being told which restrictions, leave them up to us!

On the more technical/rule side, I liked the convergence towards proficiency bonus instead of the previous array of rules and tables.

The trends I generally dislike are those related to codifying retraining into player's entitlement.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No. If it's a team based game, teamwork tends to work better, just like in every edition of D&D. I doubt anyone here will argue that basketball isn't a team based game, but you still have some superstars who ball hog and scores lots and lots of points when "leading" their team to victory.

That's just a multiplayer game.

That has nothing to do with being team-based.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Who claimed that it did? I've been saying that what it means is 1) that you have to capitulate to the narrative of the warlord leader, or 2) that you defy the warlord leader, invalidating his abilities which can ruin his experience, or 3) that the DM has to rewrite the narrative of most to all of the warlord's abilities so that they aren't about a leader ordering his teammates around.

Why don't you ask the enemy if they think the controller feels like they are being controlled by him? I doubt a dominated enemy feels like he's in control of his own actions.

Max, you have twice now asserted that we have to consider things in context....only to then ignore the context, as in, the people I was talking to.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No. If it's a team based game, teamwork tends to work better, just like in every edition of D&D. I doubt anyone here will argue that basketball isn't a team based game, but you still have some superstars who ball hog and scores lots and lots of points when "leading" their team to victory.

Except that--as a person who has been a fan of basketball to some extent--I am quite familiar with the consequences of having a team of "superstars who ball hog and score...lots and lots of points". It doesn't lead to victory! My preferred team, the Portland Trailblazers, had an absolute star-studded roster when I was a kid/teen. And guess what? They were so dysfunctional it never got them anywhere special. Once they started actually playing like a team, rather than playing like five individuals who just coincidentally happened to all be shooting hoops at the same time--once they got rid of their "superstar...ball hog" players and actually cared about putting together a team, they started doing MUCH better, both on the court and off the court.

Point being, no. It's not just that teamwork "works better". It's that basketball is actually a team-based sport, and people who try to play it like "superstars" who need no team simply don't succeed much--if at all.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Such things are not banned by the rules

Something being "not banned by the rules" has little, if anything, to do with what the game was designed for.

The rules cannot ban people choosing to shoot themselves in the proverbial foot. That doesn't mean it somehow stops being that if you decide to do it.

 

[Reynard]

My favourite evolution has to be the gradual removal of character restrictions: racial limits, race-character restrictions, multiclassing (even though I am not a fan of using it), alignment, and finally druids armor. Generally I think restrictions are a positive force to create a stronger setting's theme, but I don't like being told which restrictions, leave them up to us!

To do that, they need to show it. The Greyhawk mini-setting in the 2024 DMG was a perfect opportunity to limit access to some species, or species class combos, explicitly to emulate OG Greyhawk.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My favourite evolution has to be the gradual removal of character restrictions: racial limits, race-character restrictions, multiclassing (even though I am not a fan of using it), alignment, and finally druids armor. Generally I think restrictions are a positive force to create a stronger setting's theme, but I don't like being told which restrictions, leave them up to us!

More importantly, don't make pronouncements from on high about what the "correct" limitations are, like telling us every world has elves but not half-orcs, or whatever. Instead, show us both how to (a) make those restrictions for any given world, and (b) actually benefit from those restrictions.

Because as it stands, what 5e gives us is a list of preconceived correct limitations, and no actual analysis of why limitations might be used, nor why one might actually prefer their presence, even when one normally would like the things that have been limited out.

But, as I have said before and gotten flack for doing so, "limitations breed creativity" is wrong. It should be "good limitations breed creativity". Or "constructive", if you don't like "good". Just as how it is wrong to say "conflict is the soul of drama", when the actual truth is that "meaningful conflict is the soul of drama"--and people following the previous maxim is precisely what has created so many miserable shows focused on a laundry list of unlikable, nasty people behaving in repellent ways. You absolutely need conflict to tell a dramatic story, but the conflict needs to be worth hearing about. Limitations can certainly breed creativity, but they need to be limitations that...go somewhere, that achieve something or highlight something or (etc.) Just having limitations merely to have limitations doesn't breed any more creativity than avoiding limitations solely to avoid them.

 

[DammitVictor]

Generally I think restrictions are a positive force to create a stronger setting's theme, but I don't like being told which restrictions, leave them up to us!

Yeah. The  concept of class limitations by ancestry is sound and valid-- with or without ancestral classes-- but the implementation left a lot to be desired. I think there  should be a default set in the core rules, but with a sidebar saying that it's not set in stone and umpires/tables should feel free to tailor it to their setting and lore.

As little as I like the Four in the Core in the first place, the premise that every ancestry has access to Priest (almost always Cleric), Fighter, and Thief... with few races having  any Mage or Druid, and even fewer having Ranger, Paladin, or Bard... just feels like a wasted opportunity. Dark Sun and Planescape were  great about blowing this open, not just adding more options, but restricting them, too; it seems like a small thing, but "thri-kreen can't be thieves; those with an inclination to stealth become rangers" is a  powerful statement, especially when contrasted with their xixchil cousins.

More importantly, don't make pronouncements from on high about what the "correct" limitations are, like telling us every world has elves but not half-orcs, or whatever. Instead, show us both how to (a) make those restrictions for any given world, and (b) actually benefit from those restrictions.

Speaking of little changes reshaping the "feel" of a world... try replacing the Tolkien Trio (plus orcs) with goblinoids and half-goblinoids. Doesn't seem like a big deal?

I wholly understand the reasoning behind homogenizing the PC ancestries and humanoid monsters between settings, but I consider it regrettable. Every old setting does, and every new setting  should, have its own unique character and the population is a big part of that.

Drow are an iconic part of Greyhawk and the Realms, but they're out of place om Krynn, Mystara, or Athas. Thri-kreen canonically existed on Oerth and Toril before Dark Sun was even a pitch... but they feel weird as player characters there; thri-kreen and xixchil work much better in Spelljammer than they do even in  Planescape.

Having worlds where certain things don't exist makes the "D&D Multiverse" more vibrant than having everything, everywhere, all at once.