Sorry, I was really tired and ended up blurring the lines between bardic inspiration and DM inspiration. I don't really like either mechanism, but DM inspiration is mostly what I was referring to. There are already enough ways for PCs to gain advantage and succeed in really difficult situations without it. Bardic inspiration I'm less averse to but still don't really see the need for it, again because there are numerous ways for PCs to succeed as it is.
Correct, no one goes into negative HP but they die if they take more than 15 damage beyond 0.
delericho
Legend
I think my #1 would be a simple rewrite, especially in the various "creating a..." sections in the DMG. The systems here are generally workable, I think, but they could be laid out and explained much better. So, yeah, that's what I'd like to see. (And if you want a more specific example, the Angry GM has a couple of articles on building monsters that are a good "starter for ten".)
(But, yeah, I actually would quite like, and would pay for, a full-blown 5.5e - take all the lessons learned from the last two years, bring them together into one place, polish up... and make sure you get a really strong binding in place...
)
(But, yeah, I actually would quite like, and would pay for, a full-blown 5.5e - take all the lessons learned from the last two years, bring them together into one place, polish up... and make sure you get a really strong binding in place...
)
Be careful. Mr. Lowkey is a harsh taskmaster.
Still, if everybody else is doing it, I might as well...
Problem:
I've met too many players who were confused by the action system.
1. Bonus actions are confusing. It's hard to remember what's a bonus action, what's a free action, and what's a regular old action. Many players don't realize at first that you get only 1 bonus action per round (it's a "bonus," right? so it shouldn't be counted). There's some confusion about when the bonus action takes place: often you can do it before your main action, but sometimes it must come after. Technically, something you can do as a bonus action can NOT also be done as a regular action; except for many abilities that let you do a regular action as a bonus action.
2. Reactions are hard to track, especially in a large battle with lots of monsters. It's easier for players because they only have one character to track -- but PCs often have more reaction abilities, and in a big fight where there's a long stretch between turns, players sometimes take two reactions by accident (plus there's no incentive for them to be really careful about this). Furthermore some "passive" abilities look like reactions but aren't; for example, Evasion is something you have to remember when you get hit, but it doesn't use up your reaction (contrast a ring of evasion which does use up your reaction).
3. Extra Attack and two-weapon-fighting gum up the works even more. I've seen so many people try to use Extra Attack to take two arbitrary actions, like attack plus cast a spell. The conflict between the off-hand bonus attack and the rogue's Cunning Action bonus action is an interesting trade-off, but it doesn't come naturally to most players; I've seen multiple people get so used to taking the Cunning bonus action every single round, that they forget they can't do this when they make an off-hand attack. Heaven forbid anyone cast haste on that poor guy; there will probably be smoke coming out of his ears.
4. The Ready action is a very elegant piece of game design, how it turns an attack or spell into a reaction. But holy
is it way more complicated than it needs to be. Usually when I see a person Ready it's not because they have some clever master plan that involves precisely timed reaction to a pre-defined trigger; it's because they don't have anything useful to do right now, and they just want to wait without giving up their turn.I want to be clear that I do not find these rules confusing, and you probably don't either. Us people who read forums like this and respond to topics like this are good with rules, good with turn sequences, good with tracking little bits of state like "took a reaction already this turn." But a LOT of the people who play D&D just want to sit down and have some fun bashing monsters. They want to announce their PC's action, and they don't want a whole ton of pushback in the form of "you can't do that this turn."
Solution:
I'm going to steal ideas from 4E and Savage Worlds, both of which I have played a lot, and Shadow of the Demon Lord, which I have never played but seems pretty sensible and was written by one of the designers of 5E.
1. Opportunity Attacks are no longer reactions. Take as many as you want. Who really cares. Are too many OAs really a bottleneck at most games? I didn't see this in 4E and I think the problem was overstated in 5E. Especially considering the new withdrawal rules that let you circle a creature without provoking, which means you no longer even need to restrict OAs to 1 per turn (it's pretty rare that a foe would leave your reach twice in the same turn so don't bother counting). I think making all the OAs is going to be faster and less cognitive load than keeping track of who has used up all their OAs.
2. For stuff that's really worth limiting, like many special powers, combine bonus action and reaction into a single "special action." You can take 1 per turn. It's special because they always come from special features, not the basic rules (remember OA no longer counts as a reaction, and I'll talk about TWF in a sec). And because the action itself says when you can take it, as opposed to the regular action, which you take on your turn. So now everybody gets 1 action on their turn, and 1 special action per turn. It's a lot less to track, and I'm guessing monsters with off-turn special actions should be pretty rare.
3. Make Extra Attack a special action. Yup, if you wanna attack twice on your turn, it uses up your special for the round. This provides a baseline for balancing other special actions. Fighter's extra Extra attacks would be a very special case of a special action that lets you attack more than once; by the time people reach level 11+, I think they can handle a rule of that complexity. Not sure how that interacts with Action Surge but we'll figure it out.
4. To compensate for the above point, all weapon attacks do +1[W] at 5th, 11th, and 17th level. This mirrors cantrip scaling, keeps OAs more relevant, and means your warrior-type can dish more and more damage without relying on too many special features; the special features become truly special.
5. Two-weapon fighting: Whenever you attack with your main hand, you can make a single attack with your off-hand. The off-hand damage doesn't get an ability bonus. If you're using your special action to Extra Attack, you wind up making an off-hand attack for each main-hand attack. This may be overpowered for someone with the Dual Wielder feat and weapons that do d8 damage (because of the [W] scaling), so we'll need to review the math on it.
6. Ready replaced with Delay: You don't take your turn now (no moving, no actions) although effects that trigger on the start/end of your turn happen now. Later, when you want to take your turn, you can. If two creatures are delaying and want to act at the same time, they solve this with a contest of Initiative. If the turn sequence gets back around to your regular turn and you're still delaying, then you basically lost a turn. I'd like to say that your place in the turn sequence changes when you take the delayed action, but, some groups may have trouble tracking this; observation would be required. (I generally see people use index-cards or something to track initiative, which would make changing your place easy, but for some groups it may be hard.)
7. Finally, if a PC wants to take multiple actions on their turn, or multiple special actions, let them. Each action is at a -5 to the attack roll, check or the saving throw DC, per additional action. An action that doesn't require an attack or check, or impose a save, now requires a DC 10 ability check (also at -5) using an ability score selected by the DM; on a failure, they can't take that action. This uses a -5 modifier instead of disadvantage so that it stacks (I don't want multiple actions to be easier when you are exhausted and blind). I don't expect novice/casual players to understand this rule. It's there for the when they say, "I want to run past all the goblins, stab the chief in the head, and then push him into the pit!" The DM can explain how they can do all that this round at a massive -10 penalty, or they can do less and have a better chance to succeed; maybe just run up this round and stab next round?
Jester David
Hero
Threads like this should be filled with so much awesome and creativity. But they're always filled with whining, negativity, and snark.
Makes me sad. ENworld used to be so much better.
Anyhoo... what would I change?
Monster saving throw DCs.
The catch with spell spell saves is that for PCs they're meant to reflect increasing accurcacy. You either attack with a spell and roll or the enemy evades and rolls. But your odds of success increase over time. Like your odds of hitting with an attack.
However, this means monster DCs also increase regularly. There's no bounded accuracy with high level saves, as proficient characters don't get better, while nonproficient charcater get worse and worse.
I think the solution is slowing down the advancement of monster saves. Remove proficiency from that.
Makes me sad. ENworld used to be so much better.
Anyhoo... what would I change?
Monster saving throw DCs.
The catch with spell spell saves is that for PCs they're meant to reflect increasing accurcacy. You either attack with a spell and roll or the enemy evades and rolls. But your odds of success increase over time. Like your odds of hitting with an attack.
However, this means monster DCs also increase regularly. There's no bounded accuracy with high level saves, as proficient characters don't get better, while nonproficient charcater get worse and worse.
I think the solution is slowing down the advancement of monster saves. Remove proficiency from that.
Corpsetaker
First Post
It's that thing called HONESTY.
Ath'kethin
Elder Thing
I'mbon board here. Training should trump natural talent in almost all cases.
I don't see this at all. Most of the text here is positive, constructive attempts to take parts of the game that people think are sucktastic, and rewrite them to be better. I'm pleased that the thread has maintained such a low level of bitchery for so long.
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