D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Lanefan]

I agree with some of this, not all of it. I think offensive accuracy and defense ought to be baked into class and removed from the stats. Let the stats largely be saves, skills, and class functionality.

How do you bake defense into class (other than Monk)?

Oh, so you must roll for stats but can put them in any order? Seems to mitigate the randomness to begin with.

Only to a point, particularly when a la 1e some classes are gated behind stat requirements.

In my proposed ideas you would still have tradeoffs, but they wont be in the case of every fighter picks str, dumps cha and instead every fighter can choose if they want to focus on cha or str or any other stat.

I don't mind classes having primary stats where if you want to focus on something else you're intentionally playing against type and possibly hosing yourself in the process.

Not what I meant. I meant in 5E if every stat can be targeted as a save, then some of them shouldn't be lightly targeted by lack of spells and spell potency. The threat should be evenly spread so there is little benefit from stat pump and dumping.

I don't want to be targeting stats at all. If anything, I want to be targeting classes.

Im a big Traveller fan and I think Bounded Accuracy is the bees knees. I could easily be convinced of this, but there must be changes to 5E as is for it to work this way.

I think the idea behind proficiency is that it works across all aspects of the game. Skills, offense, defense, etc.. The pro, of course, its easy to design new elements and once you know how the universal system works its easy to learn new tricks. The con is it all feels the same and there isnt much variety across the game.

I dont know if a roll under system is that attractive, but anything to change up 5E's skill system would be an improvement.

I haven't really been sold on any of the WotC-era skill systems. I can live with most of the 1e Thief skills (though Hear Noise and Move Silently should be something anyone can try rather than be specific to Thieves) but that's about it. Roll-under can easily, if less formally, cover knowledge, memory, insight, perception, most dexterity moves, some athletics moves, and (if one must have social mechanics) persuasion, bluff, and so forth. WotC make it all both too formal and too complicaed.

The one set of skills I'd like to see them add in (and we did this in our games decades ago) are what we call "life skills" - things you might or might not have learned just in the day-to-day process of growing up before ever becoming an adventurer, and-or have a talent or aptitude for. During char-gen we have you roll an open-ended d10 for each, with some minor modifiers based on species, to randomly determine how good you are at that life skill outside of anything to do with adventuring. The main three are

Swimming
Boating
Riding (of mounts, unless you're a Cavalier or Paladin in which case your class skills will prevail here)

Others we've seen rolled for have been Drawing or Sketching, Singing, Sewing, etc.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In its early days Magic was played for ante: each player would shuffle then put the top card of the deck aside; the game's winner got both cards.

Sadly, they had to do away with this because it ran afoul of gambling laws in some places.

Sure it is. Not all gambling happens in casinos where the house always wins.

If you're going to argue that all uncertainty is gambling, you're going to have to prove it, not just continually asserting it. I've given good evidence. You've given nothing but "it totally is though".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure, but where is the fun in that!?

I mean...taking on a challenge you know is going to actually help expand your horizons, rather than a task that could easily be only the tiniest bit different...?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

 

[Lanefan]

Funny thing

I have a stock enemy NPC villain in my games that is a human mage.

And all of the Foreign Mage's spells are Foreigner songs.

Hot Blooded is fireball
Cold as Ice is ice storm
Double Vision is blur
Urgent is misty step
Long Way From Home is banishment

I could never get a spell for Waiting for a Girl like you or Dirty White Boy outside of Summon Fey and Summon Celestial respectively.

Double Vision would also do for Mirror Image, hm?
Head Games has to go with any illusion spell e.g. Minor Image, Colour Spray, etc.
Feels Like the First Time = Reincarnation (if mages still get it), or Animate Dead?

Racking my brains trying to think of a spell that matches Blue Morning Blue Day and coming up dry. Charm Person?

 

[Scribe]

In its early days Magic was played for ante: each player would shuffle then put the top card of the deck aside; the game's winner got both cards.

Sadly, they had to do away with this because it ran afoul of gambling laws in some places.

Imagine losing a lotus like this!

 

[Lanefan]

Butting in. Me? Never. At the very least, I have a concept (like a race or class) I want to play, even if I don't have a background in mind.

I often do also. But if the dice don't co-operate then it's on me to be flexible enough to pivot to plan B or C or D while shelving plan A for another time.

 

[Lanefan]

Imagine losing a lotus like this!

Ante was a very good way of keeping some of those overpowered and expensive cards out of play so the rest of us could have a chance.

 

[Zardnaar]

I wouldn't mind prestige classes getting a 2.0. Even if you limit them to 1 only.

 

[payn]

How do you bake defense into class (other than Monk)?

Well, id have defense just baked into character, firstly. You have some proficiency like defense that just gets better (slightly keeping BA intact). Then, some classes will get armor prof, in light, medium, and/or heavy armor. Casters would get access to magic to help their defense.

Only to a point, particularly when a la 1e some classes are gated behind stat requirements.

I don't mind classes having primary stats where if you want to focus on something else you're intentionally playing against type and possibly hosing yourself in the process.

Its the very notion of playing against type I want to excise from the game. There is no "type" any longer in terms of SAD design. You can make many "types" of every class with a MAD set up. Also, "you can do it but your character will suck" is not consolation prize; its bollocks.

I don't want to be targeting stats at all. If anything, I want to be targeting classes.

I dont even know what that means? I can only assume certain classes all have the same strengths and weaknesses? so if you are fighting a fighter you do X, and if you are fighting a caster you do Y. I understand thats a traditional paradigm but its not a tradition I care to keep up with.

I haven't really been sold on any of the WotC-era skill systems. I can live with most of the 1e Thief skills (though Hear Noise and Move Silently should be something anyone can try rather than be specific to Thieves) but that's about it. Roll-under can easily, if less formally, cover knowledge, memory, insight, perception, most dexterity moves, some athletics moves, and (if one must have social mechanics) persuasion, bluff, and so forth. WotC make it all both too formal and too complicaed.

I dont really understand how your proposed system is less complicated? The system for 5E couldn't be simpler. The main difference is its a roll high instead of roll low between them as far as I can tell.

The one set of skills I'd like to see them add in (and we did this in our games decades ago) are what we call "life skills" - things you might or might not have learned just in the day-to-day process of growing up before ever becoming an adventurer, and-or have a talent or aptitude for. During char-gen we have you roll an open-ended d10 for each, with some minor modifiers based on species, to randomly determine how good you are at that life skill outside of anything to do with adventuring. The main three are

Swimming
Boating
Riding (of mounts, unless you're a Cavalier or Paladin in which case your class skills will prevail here)

Others we've seen rolled for have been Drawing or Sketching, Singing, Sewing, etc.

I think backgrounds naturally lead to "life skills" and there is a lot of design space for this kind of thing left on the 5E bone.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I like to play the current version of D&D too, I am just doing the same thing as everyone else here - telling them what my preferences would be regarding what I would like to see changed.

Why don't you find a game that suits you more instead of saying you want things changed?

I do play a game that suits me more. Level Up. I talk about it all the time. I want the official game changed to something that will intentionally appeal to WotC's desired customer base in an incompatible way, so the official game will be easier for me to ignore. Said that a few times in this thread as well.

But as I have been told this thread is simply about what people want from 6e. Obviously specifics will vary greatly.