D&D (2024) Blast from the past

[Mind of tempest]

psionic.

a skill system that is good.

monster ecologies

and having that 4e primal stuff as druids just end up animal lovers and that is dull.

 

[Dausuul]

A DM has to put work into learning how to present anything. So, this is hardly an argument against them.

All I know is that I've rarely seen a DM who couldn't present combat in a way that was at least moderately engaging. But I've rarely seen a DM who could present skill challenges as anything other than a mindless die-rolling exercise.

So I would prefer not to see skill challenges make a comeback unless the designers figure out how to provide "out of the box" functionality as good as that of the combat rules*.

*How they would do that, I have no idea. I suspect it would require a whole other rulebook and would not be practical for D&D. So, in practice, my position may be equivalent to "I don't want skill challenges to come back at all." Which works for me.

 

[Umbran]

All I know is that I've rarely seen a DM who couldn't present combat in a way that was at least moderately engaging. But I've rarely seen a DM who could present skill challenges as anything other than a mindless die-rolling exercise.

Because, personal experience is the limit to what happens?

The wonderful thing is, there' sis already an entire game that shows you how to do skill challenges well - it is Fate. The entire game (including combat) is basically skill challenges (with different die rolls).

You don't need a whole other rulebook to do decent skill challenges. They aren't that deep. The problem is that, in D&D, players are generally trained to think mechanics first, rather than fiction first. So, when we are told we are in a skill challenge, we think in terms of the mechanic, instead of what reasonable actions in the fiction might be helpful.

Try this - behind your GM screen, run a skill challenge, but DO NOT TELL THE PLAYERS that is what you are doing. Just ask what they are doing, and call for skill rolls when appropriate - when they either succeed or fail, narrate the results. Whammo, you have a decent skill challenge.

 

[AtomicPope]

Skill challenges are best used to represent a series of skill checks where the narrative serves as the map. It removes the tedium of checking for traps every ten feet with your 10ft Pole™. The players are told their objective and then they decide what skills will best be served in achieving that. The DM sets the DC, monitors progress, and provides the story behind their success and failures along the way.

The D20 skill challenge comes from Star Wars Saga edition, and was later implemented in 4e. The skill challenges were broken down by tier and level, with the Average Tier sitting a few points lower for DC requirements. When you look at the highest tiers they seemed impossible. However, in Saga each of the heroic characters (aka PC classes) had access to Force Points which allowed them to add additional dice to rolls. These Force Points were limited by level and only replenished when you gained a level, or if you had a class feature that replenished them. They allowed PCs to strive for the impossible. It's best to keep this in mind when designing them, and letting the players know what they're doing and just how difficult it will be.

Sometimes I'll start a skill challenge with a montage scene where the PCs are scouting, planning, and gearing up for their mission. In my epic campaign the PCs had to sneak into an undead city to kill the Death Tyrant and then escape. Part of the planning montage was a trusted informant who gave them a secret way in. The skill challenge was broken up into several sections, each representing movement in and under the city. When they reached their location then it would default back to standard D&D. They could stealth, disguise, bribe, intimidate, climb, or do whatever best fit their character. The way I spice it up is I limit one skill use per challenge, and I have a Challenge Skill (or two) that must be used during every PC's turn. These Challenge Skills represent the theme of the challenge. For the undead city it was History and Religion. The DC is average (about 10-12), and represents the PCs awareness of their surroundings. Success means no penalties. Exceptional success means a +2 bonus on their next skill roll.

5e really needs a skill challenge system that's similar to Saga, not to mention an improved Inspiration that integrates with character classes, races, and even spells. It would be nice to add a little bit of spice to the game with Inspiration.

 

[Lanefan]

Blasts from the past worth resurrecting:

--- The 1e idea that with things like skill checks etc. one roll does for all and represents the best attempt you can muster over the time* you're taking to do it; you don't get to keep re-rolling until you succeed unless each time you're trying something materially different in the fiction. No take-10, no take-20. You roll what you roll - once - and if you blow it, you blow it: try something different.

* - which means when you've got lots of in-fiction time you-as-player need to declare how long you're willing to spend on the attempt before giving up.

--- Faster, shorter, more lethal combats a la 0e-1e; with the added lethality there as an encouragement to look at other options besides combat. This means generally fewer (much fewer!) hit points for monsters, more save-or-die effects, and so forth.

--- a return to death (without death saves) at -10 and possible unconsciousness between 0 and -9, a la 2e.

--- non-additive multiclassing where each class advances at its own rate, a la 2e.

--- the "bloodied" condition from 4e. (and while they're at it expand this to PCs as well; where becoming bloodied triggers some abilities while shutting down others)

 

[Mind of tempest]

maybe that domains thing should come back?

 

[Horwath]

4E short rest of 5 mins. Might limit them to 2 or 3 per long rest

4E healing surges instead of HD healing. much simpler and reliable

 

[DEFCON 1]

--- Faster, shorter, more lethal combats a la 0e-1e; with the added lethality there as an encouragement to look at other options besides combat. This means generally fewer (much fewer!) hit points for monsters, more save-or-die effects, and so forth.

--- a return to death (without death saves) at -10 and possible unconsciousness between 0 and -9, a la 2e.

D&D is a game about monster combat. That's why an entire book is dedicated to presenting foes for characters to fight and 90% of a character sheet is statistics about how well the characters can fight. Thus options besides combat will always be much, much further down the list of things the PCs will choose to do than fighting stuff is. Combat will always be option #1, because that's how the game has been built.

And thus... any rules that kill or destroy characters really easily (and thus really often) are ultimately pointless. Because then D&D ultimately becomes the board game that it already has in its background-- you have your "playing piece" for a session, you lose the game, the "playing piece" goes away, and then next game you start with a new "playing piece". If this is actually what most players of D&D wanted, the game wouldn't have evolved away from that paradigm so quickly and easily and so continuously over the last 40 years, with new rules constantly being added so that your "playing piece" character doesn't die and reset each session and you can see it stick around a long, long time (perhaps even the entirety of a campaign.)

If people want to play D&D combat as a board game with no character memory and a reset of a new playing piece each game session... that's why WotC's tried to make the 'miniatures combat game' a thing in both 3E and 4E's eras. And in both cases they gained no traction in the marketplace. Because that is not actually what 99.99% of D&D players want.

 

[Li Shenron]

The only thing I really miss is the abundance of fantasy settings books.

Although it's not like you can't use old edition ones, it's only the crunch that doesn't work out of the box.

 

[thundershot]

Wow. A lot of you are brutal. I love 5E’s clean system. It’s not realistic, no, but it’s not like the old days when you were beat down and had to go home for a week to heal up while the DM restocked the dungeon. I don’t miss that, I don’t miss wizards being useless early on. The only things I WOULD bring back.,

2E Spells (spells since 2E, to me, have been boring)
2E Monsters (over the top abilities even on low level ones), ecologies
3E Progression (different classes get different proficiency bonuses)
4E Minions (I guess there’s no reason not to make them in 5E)