D&D 5E A 5e BECMI?

[P1NBACK]

The thing I miss most from BECMI is the progression in the types of adventures you do. AD&D 1-4e all just handled "You go out, adventure, and earn levels, then you do it again." BECMI D&D, by default, assumes more of a life of growth. Start as young scrabbling adventurer, then gain fame and notariety, eventually can settle down with stronghold, land, rulership. As you gain levels, your scope and vision move from the village in which you were born, to your nation, to your world. Culminates in quest for immortality if you wish. You can just adventure for loot forever, but this gives more guidance on what to do something with it. (And don't worry, even at high levels, you'll still need to adventure, but at this point it's not "I want more money" but "I want to expand my kingdom" or something like that.)

Looking at the adventures drives this home for me. At higher levels, you're not just going into a new dungeon and bashing bigger monsters. You're running dominions, leading armies, dragging your fleets between the planes. I haven't seen that in the core rules in a long time. There are 3rd party rules which help support them... But as with any 3rd party book, that means it's a tiny segment of the gamers.

Exactly. The levels in the game have gone up, but the scope has been more limited.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Just the fact that the concept of "dead levels" exists and is addressed by designers to please the ravenous demands of players for wanting new multi-hued rainbows of special effects to come shooting out of every orifice with each level up (which had better happen at a decent pace) is a solid indication that basic simple classes are dead in the water.

I'm not so sure.

I think the "always something interesting to do/get/earn!" idea is a good one. Games are primarily about success and failure, punishment and reward, about feedback for your actions, and both good things and bad things should come in a pretty rapid-fire manner, IMO.

I think a way to improve on the "dead levels" problem, without having class powers bursting at the seams, is to transpose a lot of what would be "class powers" in 3e or 4e onto treasure.

So your wizard starts off with Magic Missile. Nearly every other spell your wizard learns is received through adventuring directly: he finds the spells as treasure. You are not assumed to be able to choose Charm Person or Fireball, only the correct scroll will give you access to it.

So your fighter starts off with a longsword and their basic attack. Nearly every other ability your fighter gained is received through adventuring directly: she finds them as treasure, perhaps locked in magic swords and armor. You are not assumed to be able to choose Come and Get It, or Tide of Iron, only the correct magical equipment will give you access to it.

So the game is balanced on a very simple axis at the basic level, with a limited selection of powers. Vertical power increases with XP (your magic missiles and basic attacks do get more accurate, deal more damage, etc.). Horizontal power increases as you find treasure (you learn new abilities and gain new powers because they are magical things locked in your equipment, not housed in you).

Of course, SOME horizontal power needs to come with levels, too, but the bulk of it being through treasure keeps feeling like there is a "reward" for success, without making reliable class abilities that are so easily twink-able. Gotta get your hands on the right items to pull that off, and that's in the DM's control.

It's just a theoretical idea, of course, no idea how it might go down if implemented, but I admit, I'm enamored of the concept of making treasure something directly powerful, rather than icing on your class-cake.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think a way to improve on the "dead levels" problem, without having class powers bursting at the seams, is to transpose a lot of what would be "class powers" in 3e or 4e onto treasure.

I'd agree with that, though I think there should be a baseline set of things granted to the character through levels. And I think the distinction between what should be granted by power versus item should be expicitly divided up between what every character should have (for minimal balance and so forth) in the base system versus what the DM is expected to manage.

If the "fly power" is too powerful for characters, do it through treasure. Tell the DM, "Hey, when you hand this stuff out, it might be a problem. And if it turns into one, you can talk to your players about it, have someone steal it, or use any number of the solutions developed for too much gear through the years."

OTOH, if your DM is one of those guys that neglects treasure "too much", or you just want to play a game without a lot of magic, then those baseline powers are enough to get you by.

And at that point, if you've got a lot of dead levels, and the game is fresh and fun for people that want new things because they'll find a few interesting ones every level--then cut out all the dead levels and up the XP cost for each jump. If that means that there are only ten levels, and it takes three or more solid months of play to go from 4th to 5th, no problem. The character is only as mechanically hyper or stagnant as the DM/Players have chosen to play the magic items.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Worth moving this to the New Horizons forum, I think

 

[Roland55]

Worth moving this to the New Horizons forum, I think

Oh, yes. Most definitely.

Prescience. He has it.

 

[MoxieFu]

And suddenly with today's announcement this seems all the more possible.

 

[BASHMAN]

Rules Cyclopedia / BECMI "Weapon Mastery Table" was the single best innovation that any D&D brand game has ever done in history. There has never been a better way to represent a warrior's increasing skill with a particular weapon; not even Feats touched this.

It made Fighters BADASS without weird Wuxia "Come and Get It" kind of stuff. Not only did your to hit and damage die improve as you leveled up, but you also got little special side effects that varied by weapon type. Daggers had a greater chance to do critical hits while longswords got more parries. You could "skewer" an enemy with a trident, while you could "delay" or later "stun" an opponent with a mace. These weren't some sort of limited resource that you suddenly, and inexplicably "forgot" how to do once you did it that day or during an encounter; these effects could be used at any time.

The irony is that this could EASILY have been reproduced by using feats to represent mastery levels. And it still could be in 5th Edition.

I also liked the X number of free parries per round that different weapon types got. Two things that need fixing with it though is: 1. Shields can be used to parry at "Basic" skill. 2. Fighters are better at parrying than Clerics and Halflings (it was based on your save vs. Death using RAW (we always house-ruled out this silliness) and clerics and halflings have better saves than fighters.

 

[BASHMAN]

I agree. I think the BECMI route by itself, would probably be very popular in some quarters, but ultimately not overall. You can see this by the outrage at not having a bard class in 4E PHB 1, for example.

I don't think so. Because had they done the BECMI model in 4e there'd be no rage because there WOULD have been a Bard in the first D&D book. There would have been gnomes and half-orcs, etc. All for levels 1-10.

You could then later buy a book for levels 11-20, and a third book for 21-30. Frankly that is a MUCH more player friendly model than saying here is level 1-30 of a bunch of classes you don't want while we hold a few classes/races you do want hostage till next year's book. Here is rules for playing levels 11-30 even if you only wanted to play levels 1-10.

I think it makes much more sense to divide the game up into rows of everything you need for every class for levels 1-10 and levels 11-20 are coming out in 6 months than to divide it up into columns and say "here is 1/3 of the stuff you might want for levels 1-30, and that race/class you want might come out in 6 months".

I am aware that the counter argument could be made "but what about people who want to play 30th level characters the day they buy the book?" but frankly I'm sure there were a lot less people in this category than there were of people wanting to play gnomish bards on day 1. And I think WOTC knew it. Why make level 30 characters optional if less people will buy them? But they definately will pay to get that race/class they want.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't think so. Because had they done the BECMI model in 4e there'd be no rage because there WOULD have been a Bard in the first D&D book. There would have been gnomes and half-orcs, etc. All for levels 1-10. (snip)

I'm not sure why you say this, since BECMI didn't have everything in the first books. Not sure we are on the same page as to what copying the BECMI model exactly would mean. And it isn't as if BECMI didn't have plenty of flaws of its own (including some flaws in weapon mastery ). I advocate it as the most neutral starting point for improvement, not as that close to perfect by itself.

That said, I also said before 4E came out that I'd really like to see them release by tier instead of class. I wouldn't go as far as some others have said, as I really think the initial products ought to support extensive gaming by themselves, if you are so inclined. That is, don't replicate the BECMI model and say that you have to buy another box to get characters over 5th level.

But I believe one of the big problems with selling by tier is that the upper tiers won't sell as well as the lower ones, and you get into development timing and quality issues as well. Whether this is settled preference or quality issues with the upper tiers compared to the lower ones, I don't know. Either way, that does raise the question of, if the upper tiers won't sell, for whatever reason, why do them then? In a sense, selling the complete level span in one book is letting the lower tier fans support the rest.

Whatever else one could say about the Basic and Expert sets, though, they were complete games--that then supported expansion. That's the way I see it, however they divide the content. There should be a complete, core game. Then there should be optional pieces that change that core in various ways that people like. Then there should be supplements that you don't necessarily need, but a lot of people will want (more magic items, setting material, etc.)

 

[BASHMAN]

I'm not sure why you say this, since BECMI didn't have everything in the first books. Not sure we are on the same page as to what copying the BECMI model exactly would mean. And it isn't as if BECMI didn't have plenty of flaws of its own (including some flaws in weapon mastery ). I advocate it as the most neutral starting point for improvement, not as that close to perfect by itself.

That said, I also said before 4E came out that I'd really like to see them release by tier instead of class. I wouldn't go as far as some others have said, as I really think the initial products ought to support extensive gaming by themselves, if you are so inclined. That is, don't replicate the BECMI model and say that you have to buy another box to get characters over 5th level.

BECMI added maybe 1 class per setting book. So the Dwarves of Rockhome had rules for Dwarf Clerics. The 5 shires book has rules for the Hin Master (prestige) class. They did release some race books, like "Tall Tales of teh Wee Folk" but those races were definitely seen as optional, not "hostage core". It isn't the same as "ha ha ha ha! if you want gnome bards or half-orc barbarians, you have to buy the next book! Meanwhile here's rules for a level 30 Dragonborn Warlock that you'll never play. Mua ha ha ha HA! " that they did in 4e.

But I believe one of the big problems with selling by tier is that the upper tiers won't sell as well as the lower ones, and you get into development timing and quality issues as well. Whether this is settled preference or quality issues with the upper tiers compared to the lower ones, I don't know. Either way, that does raise the question of, if the upper tiers won't sell, for whatever reason, why do them then? In a sense, selling the complete level span in one book is letting the lower tier fans support the rest.

And I for one, definitely DON'T want that! I don't think that making everyone buy epic tier stuff for the 25% of people that want it is a great solution. If they say "since only 25% of people will willingly buy epic tier stuff, it should be manditory to ensure it gets made in the first place" doesn't make sense to me. It's just going to upset the other 75% of people who wanted their half-orc barbarians and gnome bards at level 1 and got stuck with stuff they'll never use instead. Why not make the Epic Tier stuff be part of another book, like the DMG that would likewise have a limited audience? Then there's twice as much reason to buy it.