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

[Zardnaar]

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?

You don't need to formalize roles.

Eg a sorcerer can be built as blaster or controller. Its cant excel at both.

Depends how complicated you like it.

But no dailies abd 5-10 levels if youre really boiling it down.

Archers probably a sunset of striker. Generally they do a lot of damage in D&D. 5.5 may be the odd one out.

 

[tetrasodium]

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.

That 100% aligns with my experience. For all the lip service given to the idea that people just need to up their GM game and design better adventures encounters storylines or whatever, it's still a deep pit of no win options for the gm facing players who feel the nova>rest>repeat loop is a requirement to successful play because it doesn't matter what the GM does if their players are stuck on servicing a self fulfilling prophecy about how the alternative can't work. The end result is almost always going to crash into "see we tried it your way and obviously it didn't work" with continuing to push just adding spite & animosity on top of an ever growing pile of reasons for players to feel frustrated.

It looked like wotc wanted to address some of these kinds of problems during the playtest with the shift from everyone having spells known or spontaneous prep to flex-vancian prep and an endless parade of barely changed rest/recovery mechanics but that all got shutdown hard when the revised warlock got nuked by the "there's a problem with the new warlock"video dndshorts did on it where the video alone got more likes on YouTube than the revised warlock survey had total respondents. Crawford came out shortly after saying that they were going to stop being experimental(or whatever) and people questioned if anything in the playtest could be considered experimental.

Answering the questions in the OP though... I backed abime5e hoping it would change more than it did shifting to point out levelup5e really hoping for much more drastic revisions in a lot of areas and most recently did the same with draw steel because it proved that it was willing to slaughter the sacred cows sustaining 5e's problems. I also back mearls's patreon and have been intrigued but not yet sold over some "ehhh..." Design goals he seems to be targeting

 

[Zardnaar]

Well to solve it dailies have to go. Assuming you pulled the trigger on that.

Do you use encounter abilities or at will only?

Thinking of an escalation dice. You get one every encounter you defeat. Various classes can use it to manipulate their at wills or encounters. You can still nova but you need to build up to it. Your at will may be firbold but 5 dice adds that much damage and ads 5' per dice used to AoE.

Healing may be encounter based. You get cure, healing word and something like warding flair on the light cleric.

Idea being PCs keep going until damage out stripe healing ability. But if you want more power more encounters. Players and groups can figure out how far they want to go risk vs reward.

 

[GobHag]

That 100% aligns with my experience. For all the lip service given to the idea that people just need to up their GM game and design better adventures encounters storylines or whatever, it's still a deep pit of no win options for the gm facing players who feel the nova>rest>repeat loop is a requirement to successful play because it doesn't matter what the GM does if their players are stuck on servicing a self fulfilling prophecy about how the alternative can't work. The end result is almost always going to crash into "see we tried it your way and obviously it didn't work" with continuing to push just adding spite & animosity on top of an ever growing pile of reasons for players to feel frustrated.

It looked like wotc wanted to address some of these kinds of problems during the playtest with the shift from everyone having spells known or spontaneous prep to fkex-vancian prep and an endless parade of barely changed rest/recovery mechanics but that all got shutdown hard when the revised warlock got nuked by the "there's a problem with the new warlock"video dndshorts did on it where the video alone got more likes on YouTube than the revised warlock survey had total respondents. Crawford came out shortly after saying that they were going to stop being experimental(or whatever) and people questioned if anything in the playtest could be considered experimental.

Answering the questions in the OP though... I backed abime5e hoping it would change more than it did shifting to point out levelup5e really hoping for much more drastic revisions in a lot of areas and most recently did the same with draw steel because it proved that it was willing to slaughter the sacred cows sustaining 5e's problems. I also back mearls's patreon and have been intrigued but not yet sold over some "ehhh..." Design goals he seems to be targeting

I'm genuinely this kind of player; I know that a ore attritional campaign is better designed, and I even find the Nova elements bothersome and baffling intellectually but if I have to slog through 6-8 encounters for a more balanced game then I'll prefer going Nova. I grit my teeth and pick caster/half-casters mostly at that point because resource anxiety sucks ass, and if it's multiple sessions for one adventuring day? Forget it, I'll just not bother with bothering.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Disagree. The mechanics are bad specifically because they weren't designed to take the 5 minute adventuring day into account.

Wise parties (i.e. smart players) are going to try for that five-minute day whenever they can, as it's the safest way to go, which means the designers need to recognize this and design for it.

Putting time pressure on every adventure or mission gets tiresome real fast for both sides of the screen.

 

[Remathilis]

2) Repetition
Not only was the mechanical description repetitive, so was the gameplay. You had access to a handful of encounter powers and once a given power was used up you couldn't use it, again. So actual combats often felt fairly samey as you specifically took the exact same encounter actions over and over with the occasional Daily power to alpha-strike or At-Will power as filler.

Rather than have a fairly large number of options with limited uses, 4e went with you getting between 2 and 5 encounter powers at a time and each one had a single use. I think this was a mistake as compared to having between 5 and 10 -choices- and 2-3 encounter power uses per fight. That would allow for a player to engage in a lot more variety, fight to fight, on what they want to do while still keeping the number of encounter powers at a reasonable level.

So building classes around the idea of limited use encounter-powers would really help to sell the core identity of a game where you go through multiple encounters over the course of the day. And giving them Dailies, perhaps with a 'one daily per encounter' general rule and only a handful of daily slots in general, could keep the Alpha Strike and 5-minute workday to a minimum.

I want to hone in on this element for a moment. I think part of the tragic element of ADEU was the fact that essentially, each power (other than at wills) was Vancian. You knew X abilities and you can use them each exactly 1 time before recharge. Fire and forget. Star Wars Saga did the same thing with Force Powers. But the 3e spontaneous caster and 5e traditional method shows that a far better way is to separate powers known and usages. I know five encounter powers (A, B, C, D, E), I can use them five times before resting. I can use each once, use A five times, use ABACA, or any combination. That fixes the saminesss argument (since I'm not going to run ABCDE in order each combat) and fixes the common complaint about only being able to trip an opponent once and then it never again for the rest of combat.

I will apologize if 13th Age, Pathfinder 2e or Daggerheart already fixed this issue. I haven't followed any of them.

 

[zakael19]

Daggerheart already fixed this issue.

I'm not sure it "fixes this issue" but it does have a split between powers always available, those that are x/rest, x/long rest, x/session, and xcharges/trigger to replenish (eg: the Arcana domain magic missiles style spell that you put tokens on at the start of a session and then replenish those by marking a Stress).

One thing that DH does to make you change things up is have a lot of abilities require some sort of resource expenditure: spend a Hope to... or mark a Stress to... etc. Depending on your current supply of either, your choices are going to be different. You are limited to a hand of 5 abilities at a time, but you can Vault / Recall cards while resting, or at a Stress cost while active.

 

[Steampunkette]

But you don't need the power source to be the big differentiation.

You don't "Need" to do anything. But I think you misinterpreted me saying "some differentiation" with "This is the only thing that makes the classes different at all and otherwise they all function the same way"

Power Source alignment was just so that classes with the same power source have something in common with one another, and different from other power sources.

Not "The only thing" or "The big thing" just something.

You don't need to formalize roles.

Eg a sorcerer can be built as blaster or controller. Its cant excel at both.

Depends how complicated you like it.

But no dailies abd 5-10 levels if youre really boiling it down.

Archers probably a sunset of striker. Generally they do a lot of damage in D&D. 5.5 may be the odd one out.

Don't need to formalize roles... but you can. And it works well to design off a structure.

Both because it gives you some rules to follow in your designs and rules to break in your designs. And you know me: I like to break rules in my designs.

That said, yeah, a Sorcerer would 100% be a Blaster if I were to build it from scratch using these guidelines. It'd still have the -option- to use control, just like every role, but "Controller" isn't a role in this setup both to ensure everyone gets to do some and no one gets pigeonholed into that concept.

I'm genuinely this kind of player; I know that a ore attritional campaign is better designed, and I even find the Nova elements bothersome and baffling intellectually but if I have to slog through 6-8 encounters for a more balanced game then I'll prefer going Nova. I grit my teeth and pick caster/half-casters mostly at that point because resource anxiety sucks ass, and if it's multiple sessions for one adventuring day? Forget it, I'll just not bother with bothering.

'Kay! That's a perfectly reasonable position to have! I'm not here to yuck your yum, just express a way that the design problem the WotC D&D team didn't plan form can be solved.

I want to hone in on this element for a moment. I think part of the tragic element of ADEU was the fact that essentially, each power (other than at wills) was Vancian. You knew X abilities and you can use them each exactly 1 time before recharge. Fire and forget. Star Wars Saga did the same thing with Force Powers. But the 3e spontaneous caster and 5e traditional method shows that a far better way is to separate powers known and usages. I know five encounter powers (A, B, C, D, E), I can use them five times before resting. I can use each once, use A five times, use ABACA, or any combination. That fixes the saminesss argument (since I'm not going to run ABCDE in order each combat) and fixes the common complaint about only being able to trip an opponent once and then it never again for the rest of combat.

I will apologize if 13th Age, Pathfinder 2e or Daggerheart already fixed this issue. I haven't followed any of them.

It is a tragic design flaw, yes. It's why I'd much rather castery-types get spell slots, martial types get exertion, etc. So that you don't get trapped in that vancian structure where you play out battles in a routine.

 

[Steampunkette]

Just to be clear:

Designing the classes to fulfill a role does not mean "This is the only thing this class does or the only way to play this class".

A Paladin is designed to be a tank as far as D&D terms go. So's a Barbarian. But you can play them both as tanks or skirmishers or whatever. Or design a Paladin Archer Archetype that allows them to Smite with arrows.

Clerics are meant to be healers/support. But you can slap the War domain on those bad boys and wade into melee with Spirit Guardians on to wipe out chunks of the battlefield.

These kinds of options would still be built into a Swordmage, for example. But the Swordmage class, conceptually, would be designed to fulfill the tank role in the same way the Paladin is. Does that help folks understand where I'm going with this?

 

[Lanefan]

Just to be clear:

Designing the classes to fulfill a role does not mean "This is the only thing this class does or the only way to play this class".

In that case, don't mention or even allude to the roles anywhere in the final version; because you just know that if you do mention them people will take them to be straitjackets, similar to how alignment was mis-played in the TSR days or Leader was misinterpreted as "party boss" in 4e.

In fact, I'm tempted to suggest dropping the idea of designated 'roles' completely and instead design each class to find its own place within a typical party as best it can.