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I am already working on a sort of 5e, with flat math, though based more on 4e than D&DN seems to be. I am creating the system for superheroes specifically, but I am including a system of "volume controls", like 5e wants to: 1. Three settings for campaign tone: lethal, serious, light 2. Three...

Simply put, maneuvers have to be weighed against that opportunity cost (doing damage). That could be an attack penalty for extremely good maneuvers (grapple, disarm), doing less damage but getting a rider (bullrush, overrun), or maybe both (trip). If the special attack also inflicts some...

I hope that they make a design decision that feats will not offer constant, flat bonuses. I would like feats that give situational bonuses to some things, but I would like most feats to be modifiers or extensions to class features and racial traits. Feats could be a great way to differentiate...

In the long AD&D campaign I ran, there was a TN druid. I was running the game in an evil-dominate Greyhawk, wherein the Great Kingdom and its allies ruled the east with cruel tyranny, the Slave Lords ruled the central coast, humanoid armies and Iuz controlled the North, and the West was besieged...

Characters don't have to be exemplars of an alignment to have that alignment. Let's not fall into the "everyone is a paladin of his alignment" fallacy. A LE character can have friends and a even a true love--and still be a ruthless dictator that kills perceived enemies without remorse (and...

Yeah, this isn't really a 5e topic.

Group initiatives did make the first round so much more important--I don't think I liked that. I am not in favor of a system that adds even more die rolls (and time) to combats.

You were thinking of the quadrilateral wizard. Completely different situation. :D

In my AD&D campaign from high school, I had a 21st level wizard take out a small army, as well as a 13th level druid--and the druid was far more terrifying (conjured elementals without need for control/concentration). How does it work? Wizard: flight+invisibility, summoned monsters, wall of...

I did find group initiative much faster. I found it kept the players more focused.

Yes, balancing classes without making them somewhat the same is very, very hard. Using three different aspects of the game to try to balance classes doesn't usually work, because combat is the most common challenge in default D&D (throughout all editions). Of course, some adventures...

The problem for many of us is that the in-game reasoning breaks immersion--it clashes with most other fantasy wizard tropes I hold, for instance.

I just hope this sort of thing is a rules mod in the DMG, or a secondary book. I haven't had a campaign go down this road since high school. Some heroes become rulers and sages. Some don't.

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic, since I agree with the sentiment, even if not exactly 12 spells per level. I would love the books to have a little less of spell lists (which was a huge portion of each PHB in editions 1-3), and more information on other things. The game isn't just...

One of the most iconic D&D characters, perhaps THE iconic D&D wizard, Mordenkainen, was True Neutral--as seeker of balance, of cosmic order. Definitely not "unaligned". I consider one of the original D&D characters as least as iconic (if not more so) than a character from a 1950's or 1960's...

BECMI: Plain language rules. Easy to learn the game, easy to make new PCs. 1e: The spirit of the game back then: dungeon crawl is just as valid a playstyle as anything else. Really great adventure modules. 2e: Specialty priests. Storytelling. 3e: The flavorfull classes of later 3e, like the...

I "stop" the party from taking extended rests in two ways: 1. I don't design all encounters to be challenging the PCs to their utmost. No more 3e encounter design. A lot of encounters are just wearing them down a bit. Remember adventures in AD&D? 2. More importantly, extended rests have to...

I guess that I don't consider "cosmic balance", "nature's way", and "not interested" as loosely related. The first two, sure, but not the third--making a choice to pursue or preserve balance is really different from not choosing anything at all, or not even being aware that choices exist.

I get that--and I would just prefer that Unaligned were split away from "cosmic balance". They are really, really different things, so why put them under the same alignment?

*ahem*