D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Minigiant]

My personal preference is for more classes, but lighter in weight. Only a few features (3-5, depending on complexity), all gained by level 5, and with light scaling of those features as levels increase. 1-2 pages in a book at maximum

That's how I would do it

And delay subclass to level 5.

The big issue is two fold.

1)PCs get too many features too early.
2)When PCs get to high levels where they need to get features of high level tropes, they are so flooded with features you can't add more.

A barbarian gets TEN features at level 5 from class.

Chop that to 3 and make them bigger.

You get Rage and Reckless Attack plus a feat.

Move speed is a base progression like attack bonus and HP.

So if I want to make a level 5 barbarian.

1. Calculate HP
2. Calculate Speed
3. Choose Feat
4. Determine Rage bonus
5. DONE!

if I want to make a level 15 barbarian.

1. Calculate HP
2. Calculate Speed
3. Increase STR
4. Choose 3 Feats
5. Determine Rage bonus
6. Choose Subclass
7. Determine Subclass feature bonuses if applicable
8. Calculate Brutal Strikes
9. DONE!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

While I tend to agree, that is not the case in a lot of fiction with magic.

But it is in a lot of magic-centric fantasy. The hard outer limits might not always be defined but there's often a clear rationale, things it can never do, things it's good at or bad at and so on.

This isn't just modern either - it's true in A Wizard of Earthsea, for example. But in modern fantasy it is extremely common, Jordan and Sanderson centre entire stories around what magic can and cannot do and how and why, for example. ASoIaF we don't know the outer limits but clearly there is little or no battle magic or similar and most magic has a terrible cost. I could go on pretty endlessly.

D&D arcane magic though has just been increasingly the "misc" folder of magic, where literally everything is just filed into there without rhyme, reason, consistency, limits or themes. For a while it generally couldn't heal and had limited buffs but 3E ended even that mild limit. There's no system or theme, there's just a pile of random junk. Much of it pretty dull and unevocative I would personally suggest. Generic simplified shared spells are good for reducing page count, bad for providing flavour or atmosphere or verisimilitude.

It doesn't actually matter whether it's common though. If you never question one power source and are very skeptical and limiting about another there is clearly an issue imho (if you give both a lot of leeway, or both none, fine).

 

[Remathilis]

Fine, but boring.

Where I want that as the default method of play all day long. If the game wasn't at heart a gamble, it wouldn't use dice.

Predictability is boring. Stability is boring. Can't speak for you, but I ain't here to be bored.

I want to focus on the adventure, not rolling to see if my class features work or if I'm going to tpk my own party. I certainly don't want to be taken out with friendly fire because Bob rolled a one on his lightning bolt. With friends like that...

If I want an unserious game with random death and pvp, I'll play Toon, not D&D.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So we need negative levels?? Commoners can be level -5!

Well, we need one non-positive level: level 0.

"Level 0" contains everything from "literally has the bare minimum to exist as a mechanically-relevant being" to "practically an actual character but missing a single relatively important piece."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If the game wasn't at heart a gamble, it wouldn't use dice.

You keep saying this, but it keeps not being true.

The dice do not make it a gamble. They make things uncertain.

There is an ENORMOUS difference between these things. And it is that very difference which explains why the idea of "take 10" or "you just can't do that" (or "you just succeed") exists. Because it's not about gambling. It's about certainty vs uncertainty--not about adding nor removing "gambling".

Gambling is reckless. It is needless risk, risk taken solely for the thrill of the risk, for the limited possibility that it might do something good and the high chance that it won't--or will even do something bad. It is, to quote Kipling, "If you can make one heap of all your winnings/And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss".

"Gambling" is simply not accurate to describe what people are doing when they roll dice in D&D. There's a reason to-hit chances are generally in the 60-ish percentage range. Because if it weren't like that, it would be a decidedly un-fun game to play, and people wouldn't play it. Nothing to do with "biasing things in the players' favor", and everything to do with human perception of risk makes anything south of a 50/50 feel really really bad if it's supposed to be your bread-and-butter, and even that 50/50 is still going to feel Pretty Sucky. Human perception of probability is wrong, but we have to live with that wrongness and work around it, rather than demanding that human beings spontaneously become 100% perfectly rational logic machines.

 

[Remathilis]

I mean,cheating is not cool. Never been a problem in my experience.

It was a survival instinct. A fighter with a 12 strength and 1 HP wasn't going to make it. We knew that, the DM knew that. And after a while we just stopped asking because we knew to reroll was imminent and just did it ourselves.

Eventually, we just figured out that points and fixed HP did the same thing as the unspoken reroll (prevented weak characters) without also guaranteed super powerful ones. Yeah, some people still miss those multiple 18 beasts, but overall people are just happy they can make their characters what they want without worrying about the dice giving them a different one.

 

[Parmandur]

It was a survival instinct. A fighter with a 12 strength and 1 HP wasn't going to make it. We knew that, the DM knew that. And after a while we just stopped asking because we knew to reroll was imminent and just did it ourselves.

Eventually, we just figured out that points and fixed HP did the same thing as the unspoken reroll (prevented weak characters) without also guaranteed super powerful ones. Yeah, some people still miss those multiple 18 beasts, but overall people are just happy they can make their characters what they want without worrying about the dice giving them a different one.

Yeah, as I said, thwt is entirely outside my real life experience, only something I've heard online.

 

[Remathilis]

"Gambling" is simply not accurate to describe what people are doing when they roll dice in D&D. There's a reason to-hit chances are generally in the 60-ish percentage range. Because if it weren't like that, it would be a decidedly un-fun game to play, and people wouldn't play it. Nothing to do with "biasing things in the players' favor", and everything to do with human perception of risk makes anything south of a 50/50 feel really really bad if it's supposed to be your bread-and-butter, and even that 50/50 is still going to feel Pretty Sucky. Human perception of probability is wrong, but we have to live with that wrongness and work around it, rather than demanding that human beings spontaneously become 100% perfectly rational logic machines

In my book, I don't view dice rolls during play and during character generation the same. I view the latter as gambling with your character. In game, a dice roll represents a single action: swing a sword, pick a pocket, resist a spell. The odds of that one roll permanently affecting your character is small. The attack fails, but the rest of your attacks aren't affected. Plus, those rolls often have modifiers that influence them like ability bonuses or level bonuses (ThacO/BAB/PB).
Whereas ability scores generation is permanent. Those six rolls will stick with your character for their entire play. A bad roll here cascades to all future rolls with that score. Depending on edition, you may not be able to fix it without DM intervention (magic items and boons) or have to use multiple stat increases just to get to acceptable. Further, there are far less ways to weigh the dice favorably. An extra d6 (drop the lowest roll) being the only one, assuming you are picking a race for any reason other than the ASI.
So my rule is short term uncertainty is desired because that adds drama to the game, but long term uncertainty is bad and should be avoided. Things like ability scores and hp are too integral to be left to a single roll. (I mean, we don't roll to determine starting level, or roll to determine AC or attack bonus, but we do/did with AS and HP?)

 

[Micah Sweet]

But it is in a lot of magic-centric fantasy. The hard outer limits might not always be defined but there's often a clear rationale, things it can never do, things it's good at or bad at and so on.

This isn't just modern either - it's true in A Wizard of Earthsea, for example. But in modern fantasy it is extremely common, Jordan and Sanderson centre entire stories around what magic can and cannot do and how and why, for example. ASoIaF we don't know the outer limits but clearly there is little or no battle magic or similar and most magic has a terrible cost. I could go on pretty endlessly.

D&D arcane magic though has just been increasingly the "misc" folder of magic, where literally everything is just filed into there without rhyme, reason, consistency, limits or themes. For a while it generally couldn't heal and had limited buffs but 3E ended even that mild limit. There's no system or theme, there's just a pile of random junk. Much of it pretty dull and unevocative I would personally suggest. Generic simplified shared spells are good for reducing page count, bad for providing flavour or atmosphere or verisimilitude.

It doesn't actually matter whether it's common though. If you never question one power source and are very skeptical and limiting about another there is clearly an issue imho (if you give both a lot of leeway, or both none, fine).

I very much miss the arcane/divine divide or, failing that, any divide between different kinds of magic. In fact, since A5e has a lot of spell school tags for its spells (not just the classic 8), I'm thinking of having spell availability restricted by subclass and/or institution of learning.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I want to focus on the adventure, not rolling to see if my class features work or if I'm going to tpk my own party. I certainly don't want to be taken out with friendly fire because Bob rolled a one on his lightning bolt. With friends like that...

If I want an unserious game with random death and pvp, I'll play Toon, not D&D.

I dislike the idea that an element of randomness and risk is somehow "unserious". Friendly fire is a thing in real life, and hardly a silly one. It's a matter of verisimilitude.