D&D 5E (2014) Cosmetic Changes You'd Like to See

[gweinel]

I would love more "art-themed" rpg books/projects like Diterlizzi did for Planescape and Brom did for Dark Sun

 

[Sunseeker]

No Wayne Reynolds art plz. Pathfinder can keep him.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Another cosmetic change I really wish/hope they do is to finally come up with an actual specific race name for the half-elf and the half-orc. They did it for the half-elves in Eberron with the khoravar... but I'd love both of these races to have generic world names as well. Especially considering the idea that many HE/HOs are now ancestrally "true blooded" races (IE rather than being the progeny of an elf and a human, you are the progeny of a half-elf and half-elf).

And its not even without precedent... since the human/dwarf hybrid is called the mul, and that's a name that I would imagine gets used by players to identify the race even in a world outside of Dark Sun. And they went ahead and renamed the ogre mage the oni, seeing as how they realized it was an actual different humanoid race and not an actual ogre who just used magic.

So come up with a good name for these two races that can be used side-by-side with 'half-elf' and 'half-orc'. That way both sides of the opinion can have something they like and can justify making a semblance of sense.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I'd have them pick a rough time period of Medieval Europe and then build an equipment list that reflects the time period more accurately.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'd have them pick a rough time period of Medieval Europe and then build an equipment list that reflects the time period more accurately.

I think you missed the seminar on what "cosmetic" constitutes. Such a list would incur significant game changes.

 

[nightwalker450]

Silver standard for pricing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Silver standard for pricing.

Another one I'm in on. At one point they had mentioned possibly switching to a silver standard and I thought that was a great idea.

The biggest problem with a gold standard is that you end up with huge amounts of copper pieces that are pretty much completely useless as treasure. When everything is on a gold standard... having giant piles of coinage which are pretty much nothing more than pennies serves absolutely no purpose. They're too bulky to carry in huge quantities to make them actually worth something... and thus are not worth the effort to try and collect/carry so they pretty much get left behind.

Add to that the idea that on the gold standard in turn, platinum pieces are just 10 dollar bills... and those don't have nearly the allure they probably should have. It used to be that a handful of platinum pieces in a treasure pile were exciting... now, it's just 'eh'.

By going to a silver standard... copper regains some worth as a treasure piece because you have piles of dimes. 10 copper is still a buck. Electrum also becomes meaningful as the 50 cent piece. Gold gains back a little more cache like it used to have as it's now the 10 dollar bill and thus you will get more of the "Ooh!" reaction from the players when the party finds a bunch of it. And then on top of that... the platinum piece becomes the "Oh crap! We're rich!" treasure... as even a single one is like a gorgeous 100 dollar bill sitting upon a pile of money. And if you were to find like a half-dozen PPs? That's HUGE.

My next campaign is going the silver standard route... because I want copper to be a meaningful treasure piece again. And that's just not possible when it's worth nothing more than a penny.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I think you missed the seminar on what "cosmetic" constitutes. Such a list would incur significant game changes.

Not so much in the way I'm thinking. I'd keep the mechanics and the same range of modifiers or die rolls. I'd just drop some items, rename others, and possibly add some variants. I consider this to be mostly superficial.

 

[Sunseeker]

Not so much in the way I'm thinking. I'd keep the mechanics and the same range of modifiers or die rolls. I'd just drop some items, rename others, and possibly add some variants. I consider this to be mostly superficial.

Ah I see what you mean then.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Yes, yes and yes. Oh, and did I mention: YES? I hate the gold standard as it makes the entire D&D economy ridiculous.

Edit: Drat! Hit Reply instead of Reply With Quote. This is in response to Defcon 1's desire for D&D to be put on the silver standard.