D&D 5E Class Dice

[Stormonu]

Previously, I was very much against the idea of giving CS dice or its equivilant to any othe class. However, as I have been contemplating how I would do my own "ultimate" edition of D&D, I found myself contemplating unifying abilities - such as spell damage, and found the idea of using dice to "pay" for activating abilities intriguing.

The basic idea is that each class gains a "class die" - at this time, I'm thinking an extra die every other level or so.

Fighter; can spend die for extra damage or combat manuevers
Cleric; can spend die for healing or spells
Rogue; can spend die for sneak attack or skill stunts
Wizard; can spend die for spells

Combat Manuevers: This covers actions in combat from tripping, disarming, sundering, parrying, ripostes, overbearing, etc. Cost varies based on action. If you wish to "sustain" an effect, you simply expend a die in subsequent rounds (opponent may get a save to negate).

Spells (non-damage): You expend a number of dice equal to the spell level to cast the spell. If you want to sustain the spell, you simply expend a die in subsequent rounds (opponent may get a save). If you want to have a round-based tracking maximum, you can put as many sustain dice as you want towards duration; start the dice at the highest number and count one die down one numer each round. When all the sustain dice are '1', the spell ends (you could then have abilities or effects that reroll the duration dice to extend/shorten the spell or even roll the duration randomly at the outset).

Note: sustain dice also work nicely to inhibit mass buffing. You can throw more powerful no-duration spells, but the more spells you're trying to keep running at one time, the harder it becomes to throw more or powerful spells.

Spells (damage): Expend a number of dice equal to the dice of damage you want it to cause. You will need to expend extra dice to make it affect more than 1 target or an area (say, an X by X area or X targets, where X is a roll of the die). Normally, a damage-based spell wouldn't have a duration, but you could concievably set aside dice to sustain the spell (and perhaps roll the sustain dice as the damage per round).

Skill Stunts: Expend the die to gain a reroll on a skill check or roll with the initial check and add to the total. Some special uses of a skill might cost a certain number of dice - for example, using Tumble to avoid an Opportunity attack may cost 1-2 dice.


Perhaps the best thing about this is when you factor in multiclassing. You have a single dice pool, and you can then expend it on the abilities you want, when you want.

 

[Stormonu]

Let me put forth some spell examples:

Wizard 2nd: class pool is 2d4 (with more thinking, it looks like spellcasters may need 1 die per level, but should be of lower value than martial characters, who may in turn gain bigger but fewer dice). In one round, he could expend his die to do:

- A light spell. He can put his second die in to sustain the spell. As long as he give up one d4 each round, the light remains active.

- Arcane Lock. He cause a door to close and lock and increases the DC to pick the lock or bust it down by a roll of d4. He can use the second d4 to sustain the lock for as long as he likes, or until someone's picked the lock or bashed the door in.

- Magic Missile: He can deal 2d4 damage to one enemy, or perhaps 1d4 to 1d4 enemies.

- Fire Blast: He can deal 1d4 damage to a single enemy, and cause that enemy to take an additional 1d4 damage each round (save ends). Or he can blast enemies in a d4 by d4 area for 1d4 damage. Or he can toast a single enemy for 2d4 fire damage.

 

[Stormonu]

As you can tell, I'm doing this stream of thought, so a couple more notes:

Dice limitation: Can't use a spell or ability whose cost is 1/2 your level or higher (keeps folks from throwing 3rd spell level fireballs and such until they hit 5th-6th level and such).

Might want to give 1st level Wizards and Clerics up to an extra 2d4 at 1st level so they can "sustain" or otherwise customize some of their spells, and since they won't be adding weapon damage to any spell attacks they might make.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

You could do all these things with points instead of dice - I have yet to see a specific advantage of dice.

 

[Stormonu]

You could do all these things with points instead of dice - I have yet to see a specific advantage of dice.

Advantage of dice would be when you roll them for various actions. For example, if at some point the wizard's dice changed from d4's to d6's. In the example above, this would affect the use of Arcane Lock, Magic Missile and Fire Blast. It might even affect light if you are using round tracking on the sstain dice.

Multiclass example:

Fighter 5/Wizard 5 (a 10th level character): class dice 2d8 (fighter) + 5d4 (wizard)

Rogue 5/Wizard 5: 3d6 (rogue) + 5d4 (wizard)

Fighter 5/Rogue 5: 2d8 (fighter) + 3d6 (rogue)

 

[Li Shenron]

Spells (non-damage): You expend a number of dice equal to the spell level to cast the spell.

Do you mean that class dice is the only limitation, i.e. no spell slots or other daily limit?

 

[The Shadow]

While I'm not thrilled with the idea of wizards using dice to cast spells, I could get behind them using dice to use metamagic.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Advantage of dice would be when you roll them for various actions. For example, if at some point the wizard's dice changed from d4's to d6's. In the example above, this would affect the use of Arcane Lock, Magic Missile and Fire Blast. It might even affect light if you are using round tracking on the sstain dice.

Multiclass example:

Fighter 5/Wizard 5 (a 10th level character): class dice 2d8 (fighter) + 5d4 (wizard)

Rogue 5/Wizard 5: 3d6 (rogue) + 5d4 (wizard)

Fighter 5/Rogue 5: 2d8 (fighter) + 3d6 (rogue)

So will dice from one class be usable for another class' powers?
I can see that sometimes having something to roll is useful, but that sort of thing can be baked into a power or spell. Each stamina point you spend as a fighter does, say, 1d6 damage + 1 per Fighter level - rewarding both multiclassing to get the ability to do extra damage, and staying as a Fighter to do lots of damage. Changing the d6 to d8 to d10 just increases the average by 1, but you can still roll terribly (or well) - it's very unpredictable.

 

[Stormonu]

Do you mean that class dice is the only limitation, i.e. no spell slots or other daily limit?

That was the initial idea. If you wanted to further limit spellcasting, it could be done with casting time, monetary expense or perhaps even a reduction in the caster's dice pool for the day - maybe even more or all of the above.

For example, the spell teleport *might* reduce the caster's dice pool by 3 dice for the rest of the day. If the wizard started with 10 dice in his pool, at best he could hope to teleport twice in a day (assuming a 10th+ level wizard). After the 2nd teleport, he wouldn't be casting higher than 4th level spells for the rest of the day.

While I'm not thrilled with the idea of wizards using dice to cast spells, I could get behind them using dice to use metamagic.

That's certainly an interesting idea.

So will dice from one class be usable for another class' powers?
I can see that sometimes having something to roll is useful, but that sort of thing can be baked into a power or spell. Each stamina point you spend as a fighter does, say, 1d6 damage + 1 per Fighter level - rewarding both multiclassing to get the ability to do extra damage, and staying as a Fighter to do lots of damage. Changing the d6 to d8 to d10 just increases the average by 1, but you can still roll terribly (or well) - it's very unpredictable.

Yep, the dice would combine so, for example a fighter/wizard could use his dice for spells, combat manuevers or weapon damage. If the dice are scaled properly, it would create some interesting interplay. F'ex, if you took mostly fighter levels and one or two wizard levels, you'd have fewer dice for spells than a straight wizard, but your damage spells would be "bigger".

I thought dice would be better than points on the assumption that rolling dice is "more fun"; I also prefer more randomization to downplay the optimization with static points.

 

[GameDoc]

While I'm not thrilled with the idea of wizards using dice to cast spells, I could get behind them using dice to use metamagic.

This would be more consistent with how Expertise Dice are being used with the fighter now. He doesn't use his dice to make an attack, he uses them to augment attacks (and can chose not to use them). He doesn't lose his ability to attack for lack of dice, he just loses options for augmenting his attacks until his dice replenish.