D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Remathilis]

That would be nice. I have had to disallow so many subclasses (College of Glamour, Archefay Patron, for example) because I simply cannot work out how to the ability to supposed to function in the game world. If I can't even get a clear imagine of how the ability works, how a I supposed make rulings on corner cases that affect that ability?

Take an example:

How does a tramsuter wizard's transmuter's stone work? Does the transmuter invest a piece of his soul/magic in the stone? (Obviously, if when a new stone is created the first ceases to function, then the magic is not invoked into the stone?) If a piece of his stone is invested into the stone and the stone is captured by a necromancer, can that necromancer extract and trap that piece of the transmuter's soul? If so, what happens? If not, why?

My mind spins circles around these class features, but can't really make heads or tails of them in any objective way, which can make it difficult to agree on supplementary mechanics/rulings with individuals players.

I had a player jokingly ask if his PC (a dhampir) drank the blood of the sorcerer, could he get spellcasting ability since sorcery is tied to blood/bloodline. The books are silent on this, so I made a ruling like a DM does. I certainly didn't ban dhampir and/or sorcerer. Ymmv.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I think that is a dial, too. Some campaigns work well with "long rest is a week in a safe environment" while others would benefit from "you get 2 minor recharges and 1 major recharge per session."

I absolutely loathe the session recharge concepts whether it be inspiration or otherwise (per your example).
There are some gamist tools that are too far even for me (@Lanefan )

Long Rests for us are a full 24-hours within a safe environment.
Travel Rests remove a Level of Exhaustion or recharge 1/2 your HD if you have no Levels of Exhaustion and act as a Short Rest as well.
HD may be expended for class features per a cost table or to regain hit points as normal.

So our Rest mechanic is faster than the gritty week but slower than standard 8-hour refresh.

 

[TwoSix]

Not gonna happen.

You want to kill someone 20 feet across the room with a sword? Then either you gotta have a 20-foot long sword (and good luck getting that down the twisty hallway!); or have a sword that shoots lightning or death rays now and then; or a sword you can throw.

GobHag's ideas are fine for optional mythic-level play but not for the core game.

Lanefan's ideas are fine for optional gritty play but not for the core game.

 

[Remathilis]

Star Wars Saga used the 4E engine. 5 classes around 5 pages each.

Ackshually....

No. It used elements that would be part of 4e (static defense numbers, universal progression) but in most ways was not very 4e. There was no ADEU division of powers. No healing surges. Talent trees instead of powers. While you can see 4e thinking in it, it's clearly not 4e. It's best described as 3.8; ideas are pointing to 4, but it's not there yet.

 

[TwoSix]

I had a player jokingly ask if his PC (a dhampir) drank the blood of the sorcerer, could he get spellcasting ability since sorcery is tied to blood/bloodline. The books are silent on this, so I made a ruling like a DM does. I certainly didn't ban dhampir and/or sorcerer. Ymmv.

Exactly. The player just handed you a story hook, why would you drop it like a hot potato?

Let's play the game to discover exactly what your subclass means in the story!

 

[AnotherGuy]

I don't think either one is strictly a problem in isolation. The problem is trying to make them both speak the same proverbial language.

Disagree. 8-hour refresh EVERYTHING is an issue.
@EzekielRaiden out of interest have you DMed 5e?

 

[Zardnaar]

Ackshually....

No. It used elements that would be part of 4e (static defense numbers, universal progression) but in most ways was not very 4e. There was no ADEU division of powers. No healing surges. Talent trees instead of powers. While you can see 4e thinking in it, it's clearly not 4e. It's best described as 3.8; ideas are pointing to 4, but it's not there yet.

I said it used the 4E engine not 4E design ethos.

Looking in 4E phb it's engine is 8 or 16 pages iirc that's it.

AEDU, classes, roles etc are layered on top of that.

I used it in my home brew and though you goukd use it to clone B/X almost. Hell you coukd use it to run 3.5.

5E kinda similar. You could strip back to basic frame work and clone 4E or 3.5 for the most part.

 

[Remathilis]

I said it used the 4E engine not 4E design ethos.

Looking in 4E phb it's engine is 8 or 16 pages iirc that's it.

AEDU, classes, roles etc are layered on top of that.

I used it in my home brew and though you goukd use it to clone B/X almost. Hell you coukd use it to run 3.5.

5E kinda similar. You could strip back to basic frame work and clone 4E or 3.5 for the most part.

Yeah, we call that the "d20 system"

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not gonna happen.

Why not?

You allow it with one kind of supernatural power. Why not another?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Interesting. I'd say the Long Rest issue is a far larger issue for 5e than the Short Rest - and this is not just me but as evidenced in Enworld's thread history.
I would imagine them revisiting the Long Rest for 6e.

I think that's because ENworld is extremely, extremely un-representative of 5E players as a whole, based on I dunno, anywhere which isn't full of grogs like us, but more of the vast majority of 5E players who are 35 and under, and for whom 5E is their first (or first for so long they barely remember it) TTRPG.

So we've had endless pointless going-nowhere discussions of Long Rests from literally day 1 of 5E and what they should represent and so on. If you changed the default effect of them, sure, you'd please like, some grogs, but according to WotC's own surveys, grogs as a whole (i.e. the oldest category of players, I think WotC had it as like 40+ or 42+ or something) is like what, 12%? And of that 12% of 5E players, how many want Long Rest to change? 50%? 25%? 10%? So you might be looking at pleasing 1.2% of players or less by changing this!

And importantly, not only would you be pleasing say, 6%-1.2% of players, you'd probably be actively pissing off somewhere ABOVE 50% of players who are used to Long Rest working a specific way and don't see why it would change.

The question of course is, do you want to design a 6E that is popular and successful, or do you want to design 6E into an ultra-niche game that is ideal for you, but makes 4E look incredibly popular by comparison? A lot of people would be happy with the ultra-niche I'm sure, but my point is that if you change stuff to be more OSR-ish/Old-Skool just because some grogs on ENworld wanted you to, then that's probably the direction you're headed in.

I mean, look at 5E-likes - A5E, ToV, DC20, etc. do any of them change the definition of Long Rest significantly by default? I don't think they do. I could be wrong, tell me if I am! But if this was an ez-pz way to ensure more people liked something, all of them would.

(DH, a D&D-related but not 5E-like game notably does change Long Rests a bit, in that it's a case of "Pick 2" rather than always a full reset - I think fiddling on that level might work, but even then it'll probably just create balance issues.)

I do think that ENworld etc. does show people want some options here, but I don't think it supports changing the default situation.