D&D General best of the cutting room floor

[EzekielRaiden]

I think Domain management and the War Machine are the biggest drops that could still be done for 5E.


Divine Spheres was an interesting concept that didn't play out well in game. As a priest, your spell list was limited to the spells under the spheres your deity had. This meant that each deity's priests could be slightly different from every other deity's priests. However, certain key spells (healing) were restricted, when they were a primary point of the class. To properly implement it, you'd have to move healing to become a class feature or provide a lot of non-magical healing options (like 5E did). Additionally, you'd probably need 5-10 times the number of spells, just so that every character could have sufficient spells at each level to choose from.

Well, keep in mind, Clerics have the smallest spell list of the full casters, and it's not even by that small a step. Wizards have a total of 335 spells, which is the obvious high-end outlier. But even Warlocks have more spell options (134) than Clerics (125), despite intentionally being presented as a class with limited spells so they have to think carefully! Bards have over 30 more spells (156) and Druids have over 40 more (169).

One possibility could be that every Cleric gets the "Heal & Harm" sphere automatically, and then their subclass gives them one or two additional spheres. This would make each Cleric subclass much more distinct, and push the player to think more specifically along the lines associated with their deity, e.g. Bahamut might give the "Protection" sphere (full of defensive buffs, zones, walls, and protective utility spells) and the "Hope" sphere (full of support spells, offensive buffs, utility spells that improve local conditions, and cooperative/diplomatic spells), while Tiamat might give Pride (all self-buffs, mind control spells, illusions, etc.) and, I dunno, Destruction (elemental damage spells, disintegrate, disenchantment, spell negation/reversal, etc.)

Edit: In fact, if you're familiar with the "Spheres of Power" rules, which were originally made for Pathfinder and got a later adaptation to 5e, then something kinda-sorta like those spheres would be quite appropriate.

 

[John R Davis]

I think by 'weapon vs AC adjustments' they mean the 1e rule whereby each type of weapon had a different to-hit penalty or bonus against each type of armor. Problem was, they had separate adjustments for every combo from plate mail + shield to unarmored and for every single weapon, including the profusion of obscure 1e polearms (bill-guisarme, voulge, etc.), so you wound up having to consult a giant table full of numbers every time you made an attack and nobody used it.

But 'blunt weapons hit better against platemail' had some potential to it. The piercing/crushing/slashing damage trifecta doesn't really see that much use in 5e right now.

We did, and still do use it. Not at all slow ( and only works for enemies in armour). Adds lots flavour to weapon picks, which are rather dull in 5e, but in keeping with 5e easy play style.

 

[delericho]

I think by 'weapon vs AC adjustments' they mean the 1e rule whereby each type of weapon had a different to-hit penalty or bonus against each type of armor. Problem was, they had separate adjustments for every combo from plate mail + shield to unarmored and for every single weapon, including the profusion of obscure 1e polearms (bill-guisarme, voulge, etc.), so you wound up having to consult a giant table full of numbers every time you made an attack and nobody used it.

But 'blunt weapons hit better against platemail' had some potential to it. The piercing/crushing/slashing damage trifecta doesn't really see that much use in 5e right now.

2nd Edition simplified that quite a bit - instead every weapon having modifiers, it dropped down to just the three. Oh, and it was an optional rule in that edition.

Even so, it wasn't without its problems, as there were still modifiers for each unique type of armour, and when they introduced a new set they usually didn't update the table.

I personally would prefer not to go this way, but if they did I would hope they'd simplify one step further - divide armours into categories based on their dominant construction (leathers vs chain vs scale vs plate), and then cross-reference the three weapon damage types against those.

(And if doing that division, I'd also be inclined to tie some magic item enhancements to particular armour types, the same way as is done with some magic weapons.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I really liked feats and other abilities that granted supernatural/spell-like effects. Things like Alternative class abilities, Templates, Draconic/Marshall aura feats, Domain feats, Reserve and Heritage feats were very flavorful and were occasionally more useful than you’d expect. In late-stage 3.5Ed through to present day, it became pretty common for me to design characters around these quirky mechanics.

For instance, in one campaign where PCs were limited to using PHB classes only, I ran a human Sorcerer with a Paladinesque stat array…wielding a maul and wearing scale mail. None of his spells risked ASF because they lacked somatic components. When the PC was introduced, there were eyerolls as people wondered how the hell he’d contribute to combat. I mean, he needed a 16+ to hit most things with his maul because of his non-proficiency, and his spells had few if any combat applications.

That changed when he breathed lighting down a skirmish line of goblins, killing all but the leader.

See also my “Arcane Paladin” and a 2-headed cryo dog Hengeyokai fighter with all kinds of Fey heritage feats.

The characters required a lot of thought to design, in no small part because of the character requirements to select them. But the payoffs were characters that didn’t play like anything else.

Still, I realized that to survive to subsequent editions, those mechanisms would require overhauling to reduce PC creation complexity and general appeal. Many of them seemed to offer little benefit for their cost, only paid off in medium to higher levels, or worse, declined in utility as the characters became more powerful.

 

[JEB]

The top mechanic I miss from earlier editions is monster templates, which was pretty much abandoned in 5E after the Monster Manual. Easy way to create interesting monster variants (and some combinations suggest stories unto themselves).

 

[DEFCON 1]

The top mechanic I miss from earlier editions is monster templates, which was pretty much abandoned in 5E after the Monster Manual. Easy way to create interesting monster variants (and some combinations suggest stories unto themselves).

Only issue I have with monster templates is that you have to re-write the monster statblock to insert the additional info into them.

When we had the monster builder program during 4E, layering a template or new abilities into a monster was fine because they could be inserted right into the statblock in its proper place by the program, then you could copy/paste that statblock to whatever format you used them at your table (for me, it's printed Word docs with the statblocks as inserted images). But if I had to re-type stuff in order to put template info into a statblock, it would never be worth the time. Nowadays, this is why I use D&D Beyond, because more often than not if I need a variant or powered up/down monster from what we normally get in the MM... the Homebrew Monster database will usually have one already created for me to use instead. I can just image capture the statblock and then paste it into the Word doc I'm using for the encounter.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think I know the way to take Psurlons
instead of taking them in the ancient evil Lovecraftian horror, we take them in a more modern but still creepy direction
these are you, aliens, in flying saucer guy they still have a working empire but they are hunting across worlds for things of interest.
they do strange things they might kidnap people to eat them, make aberrant sorcerers in an attempt to merge psionics with arcane magic, play with ecosystems in the name of assorted esoteric goals or they might just dump some prisoners or other aberrations on your planet to get rid of them regardless they do strange things and they are not hiding in the Underdark.

for an idea of what it might be like to be captured by these guys, I would recommend fire in the sky assuming you have a strong stomach.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I miss 3e's magic item creation system. Particularly when it came to weapons and armor. I loved how you could mix and match to create flavorful and interesting weapons within a neatly organized framework.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I miss 3e's magic item creation system. Particularly when it came to weapons and armor. I loved how you could mix and match to create flavorful and interesting weapons within a neatly organized framework.

can you elaborate on how it worked?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Sure, you had your basic plusses, but then you had properties, like being made of energy, on-fire, frost, made of mithral, made of shadow, etc. Each one of those had a "plus" value, plus requirements for making it (which could be a combination feats, skills, level, and spells known), plus a total GP value/cost.

can you elaborate on how it worked?