D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[mamba]

we do know they can move quickly when they feel they need to.

yes, with emphasis on ‘need’, i.e. plummeting sales. We / they will not see that or react to it for at least another 2-3 years (not that it is guaranteed to happen in the first place…)

I'm thinking seven to eight's probably the right time frame, too, with planning to start in about 5 years.

I don’t think there are plans for that today. If they started in 5 years they are reacting to the market / sales. If there are any plans today at all, I would expect them to be another refresh for the 60th

 

[Micah Sweet]

No,. i know you've already been given this answer in several threads a dozen times over, we're not derailing another just to satisfy micah sweet's worldbuilding grouses yet again for a game you by your own admittance have little to no interest in playing yourself.

it's a fantasy word, people can do fantastical things, please stop bringing it up and let us actually have the conversation we're trying to have.

Are you somehow assuming no one disagrees with you? It's not just me.

 

[payn]

A lot of people will dabble, and some of them will switch, but I don't expect anything to ever replace D&D because D&D is more than the game.

Yeap. I realized during the edition wars how much D&D means to people. Especially since 5E launch. Folks want a particular experience from D&D and its often found elsewhere, but elsewhere is not good enough. The mantle worn by D&D is apparently worth fighting for and anything less is unacceptable to some.

 

[mamba]

That is already the case -- hence Shadowdark, Daggerheart and Draw Steel (plus others like Nimble and DC20 I guess).

that was at least as much a reaction to the OGL as to 5e getting stale. When you are a 3pp and the license you rely on goes away, you do not have that many options

 

[TwoSix]

But should they never cut bamboo, a small tree or even a mast in half from range?

This is something that happens routinely in some fantasy fiction (not just anime/manga, but those and videogames are the main fantasy referents for gen Z I would suggest, and gen Z and younger millennials are the vast bulk of 5E players, and can be expected, together hopefully with gen A, to be the bulk of 6E players), and I think the issue here is that people have this (frankly mistaken and dated) impression that there's "supernatural" and "non-supernatural" in a fantasy world but that's just not how it is. Everything in a fantasy world is at least a little bit supernatural, whether it's a goblin, a human, a dragon, a griffon, an elf or w/e. The entire world is permeated by the supernatural. It's not "the real world + magic", that's a weird '80s/'90s-specific viewpoint, it's a fantasy world. Things don't work the same way. Maybe everyone can access a Ki-like force (call it, I dunno, Focus) in theory.

100% agree. When I run D&D nowadays, concepts like "class" and "hit points" are explicitly supernatural phenomenon that exist within the setting fiction. The game just runs so much more smoothly when you stop pretending that a "class" is simply a vocation and that hit points are a combination of meat and destiny.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Thing is, if you can't explain how a fantastical thing works in the fantasy you're hung out to dry if-when someone wants to replicate it, or find a way to prevent it, or find an in-fiction explanation for it.

Mid-to-high-level PC: "I've been hit by one too many Dragon breaths over the years. During downtime I want to figure out the physiology of how they do it so I can work out a way of proactively stopping them from using that ability before they start."
DM: (with no rules or guidance to back her up) "Uuhhhhhhh....... "

This is what I'm talking about, @CreamCloud0 . I'm not a lone voice in the wilderness here you can silence.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

At some point, you will be so Good At Sword that you can, in fact, kill someone from the other side of the room without getting close.

Yeah and worth noting this sort of thing would probably be an actual limited ability, not just at will distance chops unless that was the entire "deal" your subclass has. Like, maybe you can do it Proficiency bonus times per rest when you make an attack.

Oh yeah speaking of which:

If 6E doesn't stop HP increasing linearly with level, it should straight-up steal Daggerheart's concept of Proficiency (but rename it). In Daggerheart what it does is multiply your weapon dice, i.e. if you normally do 1d12 damage, if your proficiency is 3, you'd do 3d12 damage. And don't let anyone do more than 2-3 attacks come on. Just give them special abilities to hit multiple targets or hit extra hard or the like.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Very strongly implies" is not what is demanded of Fighters though. Fighters have to have ironclad, unequivocal proof.

The same standard should apply to everyone. Either the Fighter having wuxia powers means that wuxia powers have implied justification--just as Wizards copying scrolls "very strongly implies" their connection to an academic and/or hermetic tradition, or Clerics having this-that-etc. "very strongly implies" the existence of monasteries that train them--or Fighters having wuxia powers needs firm, irrefutable explanation and so do Wizards and Clerics etc. etc.

Otherwise, it's a blatant double standard, predicated solely on "Fighters aren't part of the caster club, so they get shafted."

Great! Have it apply to everyone then.

 

[payn]

Yeah and worth noting this sort of thing would probably be an actual limited ability, not just at will distance chops unless that was the entire "deal" your subclass has. Like, maybe you can do it Proficiency bonus times per rest when you make an attack.

Oh yeah speaking of which:

If 6E doesn't stop HP increasing linearly with level, it should straight-up steal Daggerheart's concept of Proficiency (but rename it). In Daggerheart what it does is multiply your weapon dice, i.e. if you normally do 1d12 damage, if your proficiency is 3, you'd do 3d12 damage. And don't let anyone do more than 2-3 attacks come on. Just give them special abilities to hit multiple targets or hit extra hard or the like.

I wish PF2 would have gone this route. Instead they have these magic runes that up your damage but must be applied to the weapon. Meaning if you are disarmed and have to choose an alternative you are being reduced drastically in effectiveness.

(I know there is a variant rule that bakes this into leveling and id certainly look at using that!)

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean the buy-on has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of either version of 5e. Like genuinely it is completely irrelevant which is better and which is worse.

The market for people who were considering buying D&D 5e, but didn't for a whole decade, is pretty damned slim. So outright brand-new customers are going to be thin on the ground.

Then why does 5.5 seem very clearly marketed to these nearly non-existent brand-new customers?