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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blackbird71" data-source="post: 6598982" data-attributes="member: 6794081">I've been quiet for a while, but I have been keeping up with the thread.  There have been a lot of very useful responses with helpful opinions and information, and I have to thank everyone for all their contributions so far.With some of the discussions, I suppose it might help if I clarified a bit of what I intend with my campaign world.  I had hoped to keep things somewhat generic, but as has been pointed out, "rare magic" can have many different interpretations which can greatly affect the viability of certain concepts.By "rare magic," my main intent is that arcane magic in general is very rare - wizards and the like are all but extinct in most of the world, with magic only being practiced in certain isolated locations or within secret societies.  To the average inhabitant, even the existence of magic has almost faded into a myth or superstition; it is something feared and reviled by the common man, and so its few practitioners exist largely in hiding.  Any magical objects encountered tend to be relics and artifacts of a bygone era, and they will be extremely rare.I haven't yet entirely figured out the extent of divine magic in this campaign world.  There will be a heavy religious presence, and there will be divine casters as a part of that (considered by the populace to work miracles as opposed to magic), I just haven't quite decided how common they will be.  Certainly more frequent than arcane casters, but likely still a rare and memorable sight in the life of the average person.My purpose in all of this is to try to restore some of the sense of wonder and power of magic that I feel our games have lost.  The pitfall I have observed in many campaign settings over the years is that magic has become so commonplace that it is ordinary.  No one bats an eye at a +3 flaming longsword, an amulet of protection, or boots of speed anymore, and a demon from the abyss can be just about as intimidating as the bandit king with a really big axe; they're both just one more obstacle to chuck some dice at.  My hope is that if I present my players with a world in which magic is a rarity, and start them off with little to no interaction with this sort of magic but instead slowly introduce it over time in small doses, that magic will again feel like something special and unique within the game world.  I don't intend for there to be no casters among my players' characters by any means, as the PCs should themselves be unique in the world.  But for practical reasons, even among a group of PCs there should be few magic users, as the more there are the more conspicuous they become, and the more likely they are to draw unwanted attention (of which there most definitely is the potential for within this world; "mage hunters" are very much a thing to be cautious of).So this is the sort of world I am looking to fit a rules set to.  Early on in my design, I was planning to use AD&D (mostly 2E, possibly with some 1E elements), but with what I've been hearing of 5th I am willing to consider giving it a try.  Since I started this thread, I've ordered the starter set (should arrive in a few days), and I've managed to borrow a set of the core books to look through.  I've only gone through a few bits of the PHB (mostly class descriptions) and some points in the DMG so far, and I have a long ways to go before I really grasp the rules as a whole, so my perspective at this point is limited and may be a bit skewed.  Both in my readings of the rulebooks and online discussions such as this, I've seen a lot of good stuff in 5th that I like, but at the same time I've seen some potential problems.  Some of these problems are things that I can alter or adjust if I'm willing to put the time and effort into it (both things which I tend to have in short supply, so it would have to be worth it to do so).  Others are issues I have with fundamental mechanics which I would either have to learn to accept and deal with or move on to another system.For an example of a mechanics issue, I was rather disappointed (but not at all surprised) to see that 5th still uses attribute modifiers.  I've had a problem with these ever since 3.0, primarily because they emphasize the importance of even-value attributes and make odd attributes practically worthless.  In older systems, each attribute value had a purpose and a distinction from those above and below it; a 15 STR was mechanically different from a 14.  But when attributes are reduced to modifiers, for all the difference between attribute scores we may as well cut all attributes in half to use a 1-10 scale instead of 1-20, and roll d10s for our attacks and skill checks.  Can I live with a system that uses attribute modifiers?  I suppose; I have before.  I just feel that it devalues half of the available attributes and promotes "gaming the system" in attribute selection (particularly if using a point-buy system).Likewise, I'm not entirely fond of systems that include regularly increasing attributes, as it drives a continuing increase in power level, but also gives the feeling that at lower levels, characters are not that special or unique in the world as they have so far to grow.  I prefer a system that gives the players the feeling that they can be great heroes even at 1st level, not that they have to "grow up" first.  Can this be accomplished with an increasing attribute system?  Certainly; it just doesn't seem to encourage it (at least from my perspective).Again, I can probably live with these mechanics issues; I'm just not crazy about them and would have preferred something different.  So the question is going to come down to whether the rest of the system offers enough to make it worthwhile.  A lot of that will come down to what aspects I will need to modify in order to make it work.  As some have pointed out, 5E does seem to lend itself well to modification, so it may still work out all right for what I need.  First, with regard to classes:  The cleric and domains available in the PHB are far too limited in scope for what I had in mind, and will require the creation of several new domains at the very least.  But I would have needed to do something similar for the cleric with just about any system I chose, so this shouldn't be a huge factor.The ranger - where to begin?  I'm tempted to try a complete rewrite of this one; I just don't know that I trust my abilities enough to come up with something that's well-balanced.  Still, I look at the ranger as written and wonder if I could do any worse?The more that I read of 5E bards, the more I realize how problematic bards as full casters would be within my campaign world.  I'd only barely managed to figure a way to fit in bards who "dabble" in a bit of magic in addition to all else that they do (at one point I'd been considering a completely non-magic bard); having them as full casters may very well break my system entirely.  I realize that the bard's range of spells is limited, but it is more a matter of how much of the class is now focused around magic, whether through spells or "performance magic".  I would hate to have to cut bards out entirely, as I do have a role in the world I would like them to fill, but I don't think that they will work as is, and would require a significant rework.Multiclassing - I have never been crazy about 3E style multiclassing, where characters pick and choose classes at each level.  Fortunately, I've already found a few hacks out there for using AD&D style multiclassing with 5th, so this isn't a huge hurdle to overcome.  I may also implement a dual-class option, basically using the 5E multiclass rules but with a few additional penalties and requirements.I realize this post probably comes off as mostly negative towards 5E, but there is actually a lot that I really like about the system.  That's why it is becoming so difficult for me to decide what system to run.  I'm appreciative of a lot of the simplification, such as the reduction in feats.  I love the world-building tools in the DMG!  Ritual casting is something I've always wanted to see; it always bothered me that given enough time a wizard couldn't just cast a spell from his book just because it was one he hadn't prepared the day before.  There are several other parts I like, and I'm sure I'll find even more as I delve deeper into the system.  In the end I think it will be a question of whether I want to modify enough of the parts that don't work for me, or if I just decide to run a 2E game with some 5E elements tacked on.Although, there was one moment when I almost tossed out the idea of 5th entirely.*  It was when I opened the race section to see what had been done with elves, only to be met with the image of the thrice-cursed Drizzt Do'overdone!  I just about threw the book across the room (didn't, because it was borrowed).  Seriously, that's the image representing the entire elven race?  Couldn't they have at least moved him to the page discussing drow?  Ugh!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />*I'm kidding... mostly.</blockquote>

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