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The OP's version is pretty good and I like tying it to a die that scales with level, similar to BM dice or bard dice. But I would like this iconic Ranger ability to: 1. Incentivize ranger-like behavior, such as stalking prey and studying the environment, and 1. Give more noncombat benefits...

I'm a bit late to the conversation but my ideal D&D has a large selection of non-spellcasting classes, which each support a different player style and way of interacting with the game. Some of these can have magical abilities or puch mundane feats to supernatural levels, but as icing on the cake...

So an equivalent Slaad Lord should do damage with maximum variance, such as d60 or d100 damage?

They should replace "Force" with "Ethereal" as a type of magic damage since traditionally such spells are rare and called out as affecting ghosts and creatures with an Ethereal presence. Physical attacks are magical or not--this is a binary flag. There is no advantage to unifiying the two.

I really like the World Tree barbarian but I agree with others that Groot fighting feels off. Regarding the "viking" cultural stamp, many other cultures/traditions have some version of an axis mundi that connects the material world to other worlds. It might not be a tree-it might be a river, a...

You're right that the rules are intentionally agnostic regarding the source and nature of magic. This makes it possible for individual DMs to impose their own cosmology, and if they so desire to modify details of the magic system to match the story. For example, if you are trying to emulate a...

I do my very best to be a good DM to casual players, even the ones who can't be bothered to read the PH. I just think they deserve something cooler (in name and abilities) than "evoker". The War Mage is 10x better.

I don't think the evoker has any identity. It's the boring subclass for casual players like the life cleric and the champion. DM: What kind of wizard do you want to be? Player: I dunno, someone who blasts things?

I'm bored with the eight schools and would like to see them go away entirely. There are too many spells whose classification is arbitrary or ambiguous. And I fully agree that many of the schools are too weak and/or too bland to support interesting subclasses We could replace the schools with a...

I think the intention was that a MU who tried to use non-permitted weapons would get a low rating for "acting appropriately to their class" when training time comes around, but the same to-hit penalty as a permitted weapon. Similar to the restriction for dual-class characters limiting themselves...

I don't want rules that erase differences between the character classes and abilities for the sake of simplifying or unifying "how things work". The real world, and the simulated world are complex, and complexity keeps things interesting. I don't want rules that place an arbitrary gate or...

I think the people in this discussion are using the word "monk" in different ways. A monastic martial artist (monk) may not be a strong enough trope to merit a character class, but an adventurer who fights effectively without weapons and has semi-magical abilities gained through exemplary...

I think it's also pretty unlikely that this alternate-universe first TTRPG would attempt to be generic fantasy. Like AD&D, it would have an implied setting based on what tropes the authors wanted to simulate. For example, we could have a more productive debate around the question "What if the...

It's almost easier to suggest what D&D tropes would NOT be inserted in the first fantasy TTRPG if it were invented today, now that the fantasy literature of the 50's-70's has faded into the background, and literature of the 2000's is more prominent. Of course, it isn't really feasible to tease...

Half-elves could have been given a better name from the outset, but they are a good racial model for the common trope of fairy changelings, humans with a touch of fey/supernatural ancestry, or humans influenced by fey magic in other ways. I would be sorry to see them go. Half-orcs also have a...

I should start by saying that I haven't run very many published settings/adventures, although I have bought a few and enjoyed reading them. In my campaign I'm using several adventures from Ghosts of Saltmarsh and I'm pleasantly surprised by the encounter balance. There is a good mix of easy and...

I agree with the OP that PCs with very high skill levels should be able to do astonishing, nigh-magical things. What are these things? For some skills it is easier to imagine than others, partly because some skills are narrow and others are wide. Thieves Tools : disarm magical locks and traps...

Cliché : zero to hero Subversion: the PCs start at high level because they were involved in a magical cataclysm that infused them with power and corruption. They have one year to heal themselves and extinguish the source of the cataclysm or they will transform into mutated horrors. Each...

I think "balance" and "swinginess" are orthogonal. You can design a balanced, swingy game or an imbalanced reliable version of D&D easily enough. For me, too much balancing leaves a bad taste for another reason: balance and the grand unification of mechanics can discourage building characters...

Focus on skillful exploration and management of the risk/reward tradeoff. Should we explore one more room hoping for the big payoff, or return to town with what we have knowing that the dungeon denizens will have time to regroup? How can we bypass that fight altogether? At its best an old school...