D&D General best of the cutting room floor

[Mind of tempest]

over the editions, dnd has grown a lot of stuff that gets lost in the changes of editions.
here I want to discuss the things we find that are thought-provoking whether they are classes, monsters or playable races.
you know just anything you look and get inspired.

I will start I find the Psurlon a fairly interesting aberration and with a new twist, I think they could become a classic.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Shadowcaster as a whole class was a cool concept that isn't really captured with shadow sorcerer even though it looks like it should be.

But late 3.5 had a lot of that - binders, Book of Nine Swords stuff, other alternate forms of magic like incarnum.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Shadowcaster as a whole class was a cool concept that isn't really captured with shadow sorcerer even though it looks like it should be.

But late 3.5 had a lot of that - binders, Book of Nine Swords stuff, other alternate forms of magic like incarnum.

what the hell was incarnum?

 

[jmartkdr2]

what the hell was incarnum?

IIRC (not by my old books this week) it was a new way to handle magic that basically started with the item-slot system and built all magic-user concepts from there. It was definitely novel, and not well-balanced but it was the first published iteration of the concept.

The takeaway is: if you're bored of typical DnD magic, here's an all-new way to do it that still meshes with the rest of the rules so you're not learning a whole new game. Which was neat, as a concept.

 

[Mind of tempest]

IIRC (not by my old books this week) it was a new way to handle magic that basically started with the item-slot system and built all magic-user concepts from there. It was definitely novel, and not well-balanced but it was the first published iteration of the concept.

The takeaway is: if you're bored of typical DnD magic, here's an all-new way to do it that still meshes with the rest of the rules so you're not learning a whole new game. Which was neat, as a concept.

aside from pure mechanics did it have anything going for it?

 

[jmartkdr2]

aside from pure mechanics did it have anything going for it?

Novelty, mostly. But I've been playing DnD for almost 40 years now; yet another psion who's just a wizard but uses different technobabble isn't as exciting as a genuinely different take on how magic works.

 

[Reynard]

D&D has never repeated the simple elegance of the Companion/RC domain management and war machine rules, despite holding onto the idea of high level characters transitioning to rulership roles at least through 3.5 (I don't know about 4E; they seem to have abandoned that in 5E).

 

[Mind of tempest]

Novelty, mostly. But I've been playing DnD for almost 40 years now; yet another psion who's just a wizard but uses different technobabble isn't as exciting as a genuinely different take on how magic works.

you are a human after my own heart with that as I crave a decent psionic system that feels both familiar and novel.

D&D has never repeated the simple elegance of the Companion/RC domain management and war machine rules, despite holding onto the idea of high level characters transitioning to rulership roles at least through 3.5 (I don't know about 4E; they seem to have abandoned that in 5E).

I have heard of that it bugs me that we have never had an adventure for it in recent years or a book about it as it helps remove the murderhobo.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean, the big obvious standout right now is the Warlord. Beloved by fans of 4e, loathed mostly by folks who never played one (nor, in most cases, even played 4e at all.) But a heck of a good time, and an excellent demonstration of what you can do when you really know what your game design is capable of.

Other fun things I think could be brought back: weapon properties, prestige classes, Cleric spheres, domain management (as Reynard noted above), reaction rolls. I'm absolutely a huge fan of static defenses rather than rolling saves, and think Skill Challenges should have been revamped rather than discarded (and I'm certain both were left out of 5e exclusively because they smelled like 4e, not because there's anything wrong with them mechanically.)

 

[Mind of tempest]

I mean, the big obvious standout right now is the Warlord. Beloved by fans of 4e, loathed mostly by folks who never played one (nor, in most cases, even played 4e at all.) But a heck of a good time, and an excellent demonstration of what you can do when you really know what your game design is capable of.

Other fun things I think could be brought back: weapon properties, prestige classes, Cleric spheres, domain management (as Reynard noted above), reaction rolls. I'm absolutely a huge fan of static defenses rather than rolling saves, and think Skill Challenges should have been revamped rather than discarded (and I'm certain both were left out of 5e exclusively because they smelled like 4e, not because there's anything wrong with them mechanically.)

warlord does sound like a good idea would really go with the above stronghold stuff.
how are cleric spheres different from what we have now?
how would you even do prestige classes now? Would they replace or clip on to the base class?