D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[overgeeked]

Honestly, there’s not many places to go. The OSR/NSR scenes have all the old-school, lethal D&D game space covered. Daggerheart has the D&D but more narrative space covered. Draw Steel has the D&D but crunchier, tactical combat space covered. The only place to go, really, is up.

5E is commonly referred to as a superhero fantasy game. So embrace that. Lean in to the superheroes angle. Just go nuts. Strip out or severely curtail the limitations on PCs and their power. Drop spell slots for something like you’d see in a superhero RPG. Your fire wizard just controls fire now, go. Keep 1st level about where it is in 5E but seriously crank up the power from there.

PCs can already fly at 1st level depending on species. With the right spell or magic item fly regularly by 5th level. So stop goofing around and just go full-on superheroes in a fantasy setting with it. This would also be familiar territory as it would mimic anime power levels.

Fighters more like the Thing punching holes in dungeon walls.

Wizards more like Doctor Strange casting all the spells.

Rogues more like Batman, Daredevil, or Spider-Man.

1-2 level would be familiar territory. 3-5 would be anime territory. 6+ would be superheroes.

 

[Remathilis]

Would a 6e with a new default setting (that could still support the current/legacy ones) be a benefit, or detriment?

A new default setting would just be another kitchen sink, and we got plenty of those. Not saying it's wouldn't work, but it would have to somehow beat Greyhawk, Realms, Mystara and Nearth at their own game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

you're entitled to your own opinions of course but over half of these i would say fit neatly into existing class archetypes or at least don't deviate from them enough to warrant their own entire class and mechanics
alchemist - artificer
assassin - rogue
avenger - paladin
invoker - cleric
machinist - artificer
psion
shaman - druid or barbarian
summoner/tamer
swordmage
warden - druid
warlord
personally as i have mentioned upthread i would also add the shapeshifter, split off from the druid, being both the shifter and primal fullcaster is too greedy for a single class and i think is a detriment to both archetypes.

My problem is, "fit neatly into existing class archetypes" has two versions:
1. You're only adding a teeny tiny tweak to what this is, so a build/subclass/whatever is more than sufficient
2. You're adding a TON, but it could conceivably fit into something else.

Shaman and Alchemist are great examples of the latter. Druids can be forced into a "uses a spirit guide" form, but it takes a lot of heavy lifting and re-purposing, and is still an awkward, difficult fit. I really like the concept of the flame druid, for example--but ultimately it is trying to kludge a shaman-type character out of existing parts with a ton of extra work, rather than having that be what it is. Similarly, Artificer is about building things, not about concocting things, and is really really going to struggle to express that identity in a way that truly fits. (Further, an Alchemist is a great way to implement several archetypes that flatly DON'T fit into Artificer--such as a Dr. Frankenstein-y "reanimator", a Jekyll-and-Hyde split-personality type, a metamorph type, etc.), meaning that a lot more is gained from its inclusion than is lost from including both Artificer and Alchemist.

And in at least one place, I think you're just straight-up wrong. Avenger doesn't fit into Paladin. It is not a Paladin--period. The only things it shares in common are "uses big weapons" and "has divine power". Actually implementing the Avenger as a Paladin is, quite simply, going to fail, for exactly the same reasons that trying to implement a Warlord as a Fighter has demonstrably failed. Indeed, Fighter and Warlord have significantly more in common than Paladin and Avenger do! Similar logic applies to Machinist vs Artificer. The machinist is not a spellcaster. What they do is not magical. It may still be supernatural--clockpunk/steampunk type stuff, where MAD SCIENCE can go a little bit beyond what is truly physically possible--but it isn't magic, whereas everything Artificers do is always, by definition, outright magical and usually outright spellcasting--it is binding magic to objects.

Kind of surprised about the assassin. Yes, I'm aware of the subclass. But part of what prompted me to write this was, specifically, that people were deeply unsatisfied with the Assassin subclass and wanted it to be its own class.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You have to defend your position too, to be fair. "A lot of people seem to be willing to pay WotC for it" is not to me a particularly good defense.

I'm not the one calling for change. I'm assuming things will stay as they are. "No, things MUST change" is clearly the argument that requires support--even if that change is "things need to go back to what they were immediately before the current state of affairs."

 

[Zardnaar]

As cool as most of them are, I think only the Warlord is necessary for the PHB if the Champion and Battlemaster are broken up.

1. Barbarian
2. Battlemaster
3. Fighter
4. Monk
5. Warlord

MOST of the rest are best as supplements

I would have accepted that if the wizard and cleric spells weren't full to the brim with combat magic. But they are. You want to fighter to shine? Get rid of magic missile, fireball, flame strike, spiritual hammer, hold person, etc. Make THEM stand around doing nothing most of the combat too. (The cleric can heal afterwards, the wizard can't do something like grease once per combat.)

The fighter can tell us when he's done with combat.

Most of those spells aren't very good.

I did a can a spellcaster consistently out damage martials. No one came up with a build that could.

Most efficient thing to do is set martials up to do the killing part.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No negative change that matters to you, to be fair. People do drop off when they change things, you know.

No, you misunderstand me.

I mean no reduction in player counts. The "negative change" is "fewer people playing the game".

I see all the time folks bitterly swearing off ever playing a game if X thing happens. And then X thing happens...and there isn't a sudden player exodus. If anything, numbers go up, not down.

People who make those "IF CUBE MONSOON DOES THIS I'M LEAVING FOREVER!!!" are shouting to the void, not actually proclaiming their serious intent to depart. They want to be heard. They rarely actually want to leave, and the thing they're complaining about rarely actually is a true dealbreaker. They're just mad and calling it a dealbreaker makes them feel better, makes them feel like they're making a stand and truly making a difference.

Edit: And, if you're curious? I made my voice heard as much as I could during the public playtests. I'm someone protesting from the outside, because I only play 5e due to Hussar's invitation to his group. I don't buy 5e products and I don't give WotC any of my money in any other way. I'm already out, as it were.

See WoW every time they reorganize talents or class abilities.

Precisely this.

People b@#$h b@#$h b@#$h without cease, and then when an actual thing goes through...more than half the time they don't do a damned thing they proclaimed they would, they just keep playing.

When people actually do leave, it's almost always a quiet affair, because they've truly passed a breaking point and no longer care about playing the game. Because they no longer care about playing it, they no longer feel any attachment--and thus no reason to complain loudly. They just leave.

People making proclamations, to get attention to an issue, aren't leaving--they're advocating for change. They're protesters, not emigrants.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What I was responding to (I think, don't actually remember as to much has happened between then and now) was that people wanted the rules to suck (and I personally don't like that term as the rules did work for some people so the didn't suck they just didn't work for me).

Okay, but the opinion repeatedly put forward is that the rules were actually bad. As in, they literally didn't work, could not be made to work, and that the fact that that was true was somehow a boon. I dispute this.

Also, the attitude I was discussing was that you were not looking for all the answers in the rules. You learned the rules, or made the rules, by playing not by reading the rulebook cover to cover. It is that DIY attitude that I treasured and continue to use when I play RPGs. IMO, from a certain point of view, all game rules "suck" until you make them work for you.

...why would anyone ever look "for all the answers in the rules"? Written rules are a human creation. They are by definition imperfect. They are by definition not capable of giving every answer. Anyone who has that view is, inherently, wrong and always will be. We can certainly do better, and it is often wise to check (good, serious, well-written) rules to see if you've missed something or to get a better understanding of the purpose and goal.

IMO, that "certain point of view" is jaundiced to the point of active hostility toward rules. If rules are good, they should fairly consistently provide good results for almost everyone who plays the game. They may--almost surely will--still

That is a matter of opinion. Why not have levels 1-10 be "novice?"

From a pure design-side consideration: unnecessary inclusion of significant scaling issues, relegating the part of play most actively sought out by players to an area that gets little to no attention, and spending excessive time on a part meant to be moved through quickly by most players except the relative minority that really really loves such levels.

From an aesthetic position: as previously argued GMs will see 1st level as the place absolutely everyone MUST start always no matter what because "it's first" why wouldn't you start at what is first that's why they call it first etc. (a thought process I utterly detest, but which is unfortunately extraordinarily commonplace), because people who enjoy these rules will avoid what they consider "high" levels and that's guaranteed to be classified as such even if the rules explicitly say otherwise, and because the typical perspective for fans is literally "zero to hero", so starting out at "level zero" is in the most literal way possible giving them what they actually want.

I disagree. Also, as I don't have to worry about selling this thing - so I don't care!

Or adds the low levels everyone else loves? I mean the whole argument is one of opinion.

I mean I'm pretty sure this is demonstrable fact, but whatever, I don't care about arguing over it.

Why can't the novice levels be 1-5?

Nothing "can't" be. Necessity is an irrelevancy when talking about TTRPG design. It's a matter of what achieves goals in productive ways. Novice levels should be designed to be of best use to the people who really really want to use them, which are (a) people introducing brand-new players, who need a gentler introduction that isn't forced upon them every single time they play but is an opt-in possibility for the first time they play, and (b) OSR-style fans who consistently want brutal difficulty, fragile characters, and low mechanical competency.

Personally I think the idea of 0 levels and particularly negative levels are just silly. Start at l (or 0) and move everything up from there. Then you should have robust guidelines desrcribing how to start at any level you want.

Oh, certainly negative levels are silly. No dispute there. Zero levels, novice, whatever we want to call it.

Perhaps I have made you think something too specific by my verbiage? I'm not actually talking about LEVELS, as in like, "At Novice Level A, you definitely always get feature X, and at Novice Level B you definitely always get feature Y" etc. Instead, it is more a loose term for having rules that allow the GM to parcel out the process of going from an absolute bare-minimum, barebones character (as in, "you have... hit points!" levels of ULTIMATE bare minimum) to a proper, full 1st-level character who is a competent adventurer with a little bit of relevant experience (not necessarily specifically adventuring, but implicitly that's the most common option). These rules would then guide how characters pick up the competencies which permit them to go from "I am literally a generic character who lacks any features other than the absolute bare minimum required to be playable at all" to "I am a fully-fleshed-out 1st level character", but by degrees, piecemeal, assembled.

Unfortunately, the accepted term for this sort of thing is "novice levels", even though the system I would create would not at all look like "levels". You are always a level 0 character until you are a level 1 character. It's just that "level 0" is a rich and complex state to be, where you can be (perhaps) moonlighting in different things before you lock features in. Flirting with divine magic for a moment before rejecting it, or whatever.

You want 0-hero: start at level 1
You want hero-legend: start at level 5
You super hero: start at level 10.

That seems a lot more straightforward than sub-level 1 novice levels and incremental advancement rules.

Except, as I have specifically and repeatedly said, actual people aren't doing this.

They will ALL start at 1st level. Because it's first. If it weren't the place absolutely everyone were supposed to start, why would they make it first? Isn't "first" the place where things start? Then we're going to start at 1st, because it is first!

I have seen this kind of position--never explicit, but functionally this is the argument being made--over and over and over and over and over and over and over when looking for 5e games. Even though the designers have repeatedly and explicitly said that levels 1 and 2 are meant to be skipped over by groups that already know what they're doing and aren't interested in a gritty difficult start. Doesn't bloody matter what the books say, nor what the creators say, nor what people advise online, none of it bloody matters. The one and only thing that matters is that it is called 1st level, therefore it must, ALWAYS, be first.

That is the utility of novice """"levels"""" (remember, NOT ACTUAL LEVELS, that's just what this kind of thing gets called). It stops people thinking that ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE has to start there.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Fine. The Rogue can have the Fighter's niche.

I'll hear no more complaints about the poor downtrodden Fighter, though, if you're so willing to give away that which makes it strong.

Woah now. You've just made a lightyear sized leap, jumping to conclusions like that.

I've never--not once--said that that should be a thing.

That's your assumptions coming into play. The Fighter absolutely should also have nice things for them. The Rogue getting sneak attack damage emphatically is not the problem here, and never has been. Like literally never. The Rogue has never, in neither 3e nor 5e, even remotely threatened the Fighter by having Sneak Attack. And the 4e Rogue had it and was emphatically not a threat to the Fighter there either! Fighter was THE favorite class for 4e players!

It's always the casters. Always.

Or keep all those spells but make them harder and-or riskier to use.

Make AoE require aiming thus making it possible to hit allies. Make casting while within reach of melee functionally impossible. Make casting much easier to interrupt, with interruption risking a wild magic surge. And make casting take time within a round rather than starting and resolving on the same initiative.

Do all that, and the high reward of combat casting is balanced out with some high risk.

No. Because I refuse to punish people for liking an archetype. It's exactly the same concept as refusing to punish Fighter fans for liking the Fighter archetype.

"You can have literally world-rewriting power, you just have to get lucky when using it" isn't a balancing mechanism. It just flips people the bird for trying to enjoy the characters they want to play. It sucks, and I will not ever accept its inclusion as a balancing mechanism in D&D. It was bad design then and it's bad design now.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There comes a point where diminishing returns have their say. If 95+% of the end use is in levels 0-12* but 40% of the work lies in designing for levels 13-20, is it worth it?

Have you ever thought that, perhaps, you have the cart before the horse?

Because the high levels--other than 4e--have always been lazily and badly designed. Even 4e wasn't ideal, it has pain points, it's just a lot better about it.

Maybe people stop because they don't like playing rules that suck?

Better, says I, to design rock-solidly for 0-12 and leave it open-ended after that; and at the same time warn the end users in great big letters that things may or may not be or remain entirely functional as levels advance beyond 12, with increasing risk of dysfunction the higher you go.

If you're going to do that, then just don't even design the higher levels at all. Don't make bad rules. Period. Just don't.

* - I specifically start at '0' rather than '1' as IMO commoners and non-adventurers also need to be part of that solid design space, given how often and in how many different ways they're likely to arise in play.

I completely agree. That's why I advocate for "novice levels" (which, as I said to @Uni-the-Unicorn! , are not "levels", that's just the phrasing people use for this). Rules for how someone who literally has no features beyond possibly-not-fully-developed ability scores, hit points, and AC, can grow into being a proper 1st-level character. Rules that are robust enough to help both GMs and players navigate that space--so that GMs can have a gentle curve if they want to introduce new players, or a brutal one if they want a hardcore zero-to-hero experience.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, most of these I think I get, but I'm left with the following.

• Avenger, the warrior-of-zeal, whose absolute focus is both shield and sword against their enemies, who executes the turncoat apostate.
• Invoker, the emissary-as-magician, who calls down disaster upon the foes of the faith, Elijah calling fire down against the altar of Baal.
• "Machinist" (not my fav name), the warrior-of-technology, who uses guns, machines, and tools to overcome their foes.
• Warden, the warrior-of-the-land, who wears Nature's power like a cloak, and wreaks Her wrath where he walks.

I don't see how these are not either Fighters (Avenger/Warden), a Cleric/Sorc/Warlock (Celestial themed) or Artificer? What makes them specific enough to require their own class, when we have Subclasses, and Feats to 'turn the dial' as well as Background as another lever?

Trying to fit an Avenger into a Fighter (or Paladin) is even less reasonable than trying to fit in Warlord, because they're doing fundamentally different things.

The Avenger, from 4e, revealed an under-served archetype, that has both historical precedent (the actual Hashshashin, for example, or the--claimed--righteous warrior nature of the Benandanti) and roleplay-gameplay value (e.g. fans of Ezio Auditore and his whole thing). That does not fit into the "oath" structure of the Paladin thematically, nor does it fit into the "heavy armor, shield, protector-healer" Paladin mechanically. The Avenger gives us something that has been missing for a long time: the holy skillmonkey, the divine stabby-boi. Someone who can be a devout religious person, and yet also a ruthless killer, whose "support" manifests only and exclusively in the hunting down of wickedness, not in anything that actually heals or bolsters or inspires others.

Wardens are straight-up people who wear the power of nature as a cloak. Why would that be a Fighter? How would that be a Fighter?

Do you really think a person with angelic blood captures what teh Benandanti or Hashshashin were?

The Invoker is one I'll at least somewhat grant. I, personally, think it is important because what the Cleric is is actually pretty badly not-compatible with the Moses archetype, the "Calling God's fire down from the heavens" type. I personally think that that thematic (and mechanical) niche has been badly underserved, and that's why I think it's in there. It's also, you'll note, one of the ones I felt was less likely to get implemented, so....it's not like I didn't know there were weaknesses here. But the simple fact is, Clerics are, inherently, supportive--they can elect to lean away from that, but it's just that, electing to. Invokers aren't supportive--they don't get the choice. Invokers have only a very minimal amount of support (mostly in that the fire they call down doesn't hurt allies, and might even slightly boost them). They don't heal, they don't resurrect, they don't do buffs really. They're miracles of divine wrath, not divine succor.

A machinist actually uses machines. Not magic. This is like saying that a Fighter should just be re-interpreted as a Bladesinger with spells that can't be counterspelled.