D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Micah Sweet]

But "plenty of people [opposed it]" is precisely the standard you're complaining about if you dislike the hyperbland sorcerer and not-meaningfully-differentiated warlock. "Plenty of people" is LITERALLY why those things ended up the way they did. They failed to hit a certain minimum approval rating right out the gate, and were thus canned instantly. "Plenty of people" specifically demanded only the most milquetoast flavor, because anything even remotely spicier was upsetting, alien, different, and thus had to be eliminated.

5e was built from the ground up on this principle. If you are questioning it only now, I am choosing the charitable interpretation: that this was always a problem, and thus 5th Edition D&D was always a problem, because this was baked into its DNA from the moment it was announced. I would rather not consider a less charitable interpretation.

Logic suggests that people who like what they are getting rarely complain about it (much), even if they don't like how they got it. I was fairly happy with 5e when it came out. Given that, I think it's understandable that I didn't complain much at the time. It's when you stop getting what you want that folks start to take notice, and then to take action.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A playtest document is designed to be distributed for easy, rapid testing. It is barebones, focused on efficiently communicating the mechanics in question, in a way that helps the user quickly apply said rules, and actually test them. Meaning, it explains to some extent the purpose/intent of the rules provided, especially if they have changed relative to a previous playtest document, and it specifically puts the reader in an analytical mindset relative to its content.

A playtest document is--or should be--a serious thing, presented carefully in such a way as to highlight that which is being tested, and to make it as painless as possible to rapidly perform such tests and provide detailed, specific feedback.

A house-rules document is simply record-keeping.

It's the difference between schematics and illustrations. Schematics do contain visual depictions (in most cases, anyway), but not vice-versa.


If I may use an analogy?

This is "Grandma's annotated cookbook". It is not an experimental procedure being shared so that the procedure can be refined later. Grandma's annotated cookbook is a beautiful thing and, in general, very usage-focused--but it is not for testing purposes.

Oh, I've got an even better idea. Imagine an engineering company working on reviewing all sorts of aspects about cars-in-general to find ways to make them cheaper, safer, more fuel-efficient, less resource-intensive, etc. You don't know what things about the car need to change, so you make it extremely modular, allowing you to swap engines, transmissions/drive-trains, brakes, wheels, exhausts, windows, whatever. All of these things can be easily popped in or out, specifically because the engineers have designed them to work that way. They create various design models with different elements, and provide them to drive-testers to analyze and report back about. As bits get refined and streamlined, they begin sticking to specific parts again and again, but the inherent hot-swappable modularity remains in this model, which would not be present in the finished product.

Now imagine you are a hobbyist muscle car enthusiast who tinkers in your garage. You've re-built and re-imagined a genuine classic car--say a '65 Shelby Mustang GT350--with top-flight, hand-machined parts, improving nearly everything about the vehicle except the upholstery. Your vehicle would not tell an outsider a damned thing about what makes a Mustang "tick", about how to do Mustang-type cars differently. It's simply designed to be a real damn fun ride, for those who are looking for that kind of ride. It has no testing value, and if you gave it to someone else to drive, they might pick up an idea or two they like to take back to their own muscle car in their garage...but they'd have to hand-machine it all over again, just like you did.

A playtest document is one specific "engineers' modular car". A house-rule document, even if made neat and pretty, is one hobbyist's muscle-car rebuild. The former is an experimental platform designed for testing purposes. The latter is a cool object to view (or, in this case, to use). And neither one of them is a production-model car (=manuscript ready for publication).

I would have been happy with something resembling Grandma's Annotated Cookbook from anyone who wants to show off their houserules. The hypothetical "experimental platform" you describe is not what I was envisioning as needed when I asked.

 

[Reynard]

I think having casters should shine out of combat, but in combat martial classes should feel special and important. Have casters buff, curse, and manipulate the environment in combat. Out of combat they can still do amazing things that solve problems.

Isn't that just shifting the problem? Now all your mysteries etc can only be solved by magic? I'm not sure how that is "better."

The question, I guess, is "why is fireball something that should be eliminated?" If the only answer is "it makes people playing martial characters feel bad" it doesn't make much sense to me to remove it. If yhe goal is to make every player in combat feel like they are contributing equally, not letting casters do damage is not going to solve the problem. You need to create scenarios in which whittling away hit points is not the measure of success.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The question, I guess, is "why is fireball something that should be eliminated?" If the only answer is "it makes people playing martial characters feel bad" it doesn't make much sense to me to remove it. If yhe goal is to make every player in combat feel like they are contributing equally, not letting casters do damage is not going to solve the problem. You need to create scenarios in which whittling away hit points is not the measure of success.

Careful! You're scratching at modern D&D's raison de arte!

 

[AnotherGuy]

I think having casters should shine out of combat, but in combat martial classes should feel special and important. Have casters buff, curse, and manipulate the environment in combat. Out of combat they can still do amazing things that solve problems.

For starters one can remove damage-inflicting cantrips...

 

[BookTenTiger]

Isn't that just shifting the problem? Now all your mysteries etc can only be solved by magic? I'm not sure how that is "better."

The question, I guess, is "why is fireball something that should be eliminated?" If the only answer is "it makes people playing martial characters feel bad" it doesn't make much sense to me to remove it. If yhe goal is to make every player in combat feel like they are contributing equally, not letting casters do damage is not going to solve the problem. You need to create scenarios in which whittling away hit points is not the measure of success.

Wow, you are putting a lot of words in my mouth! I don't think I said anything about mysteries only being solved by magic??? Or the feelings of players??? Who is this strange BookTenTiger you are arguing with, it's definitely not me.

In my dream 6e (the ostensible topic of this thread), classes would be asynchronous in order to fulfill different visions of play. So casters would have spells that manipulate or break the rules, warriors would be good at fighting and killing stuff, experts would be specialized...

I shouldn't have to sit there as a DM trying to hack the system or design adventures that require creative thinking. It should be built into 6e already!

 

[Parmandur]

While internal playtesting is of course important, I really wish they would stop with the "public playtests" which are really just part of the marketing department. If they really wanted to playtest stuff on a large scale,they would introduce it via AL and actually collect useful data and feedback.

They do the latter in their private playtest network: the public tests are just a smell test. Prevents stuff like "Magic of Incarnum" from happening.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i'd like to just put all the martial classes, the fighter, rogue, monk and barbarian, alongside the ideas of bard and ranger in a blender and mix em all up and break down the exclusivity of their abilities to create a bunch of new classes and a pooled resource of various martial techniques equivalent to the pages of spells casters all draw from (i'd suggest making ki/focus a throughline 'power source' for all costed martial abilities, so that your hypothetical multiclass monk/barb/battlemaster only has to manage one resource rather than separate ki, rages and BM dice), this means your fighter can pick up sneak attack or your barbarian can have the mobility of the monk

creating new classes we start from a basic middle of the road 'soldier' concept, medium offence, medium defences/bulk, medium mobility and add and remove from there as our 'centre' to get other new classes.

first variation is the assassin, the glass cannon, more damage less defence/bulk, single target damage.

next skirmisher, more mobility and attacks but weaker damage and bulk, get in, do whatever, get out.

then brawler, this is the unarmed warrior, no need for weapons or armour, it's more of a lateral change here.

expert is the skills class, less combat focus in exchange for leveraging mental stats in battle and expertise, reliable talent and the like.

the knight is the defender, high defence/bulk and ability to protect teammates at the cost of less attacks and less mobility.

finally the supporter, warlord cross bard, gives out buffs and bonuses to the party, auras and bardic inspiration.

there, seven different pure martial classes, edit: designed to mostly be different starting points on a shared grid, starting as say, a brawler, sets you up to already have all the features desired for an unarmed fighter, so you can pick your additional abilities to either spec into that design harder or diversify into other areas not naturally covered by that archetype.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Wow, you are putting a lot of words in my mouth! I don't think I said anything about mysteries only being solved by magic??? Or the feelings of players??? Who is this strange BookTenTiger you are arguing with, it's definitely not me.

In my dream 6e (the ostensible topic of this thread), classes would be asynchronous in order to fulfill different visions of play. So casters would have spells that manipulate or break the rules, warriors would be good at fighting and killing stuff, experts would be specialized...

I shouldn't have to sit there as a DM trying to hack the system or design adventures that require creative thinking. It should be built into 6e already!

What do you have in mind - Would you remove iconic spells such as Magic Missile and Fireball etc? Perhaps tone then down in terms of damage-dealing?

 

[BookTenTiger]

What do you have in mind - Would you remove iconic spells such as Magic Missile and Fireball etc? Perhaps tone then down in terms of damage-dealing?

Keep in mind that this is my own crazy vision for 6e, but yeah totally.

Or maybe they'd be gated to certain paths of spellcasting? Battlemage, etc. But if you're choosing to be a combat-focused spellcaster then you're choosing to not have the other kinds of spells and magic.

Playing a wizard in a long term 5e game, I wound up being bored by the broadness of spell selection. If I'm choosing to not be a combat spellcaster, then I want that to be a path with its own rewards and challenges. There were no mechanical reasons that I couldn't suddenly choose to copy Fireball into my spellbook and start casting it.