D&D (2024) D&D 6th edition - What do you want to see?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I had a player tell me he wanted to use intimidate during a fight in 3.5. I told him the most intimidating thing he could probably do was keep swinging that greatsword at his foe. But if he wanted to stop that and run off at the mouth he could give that a shot. I have a hard time thinking it would be more effective though.

 

[Gladius Legis]

4. A few tweaks to the core races. Nonhumans should get more flexibility in their stat boosts. Humans need a happy medium in between the "+1 to all stats human," which sucks, and the "free bonus feat human," which is godlike.

I've been testing out a Human that takes the Variant but, instead of +1 to 2 stats + bonus feat, it's just a flat +2 to any 2 stats with no bonus feat. It seems to be balanced pretty well. They still get the bonus skill proficiency.

And if a feat is worth +2 to a stat, the math is the same between the actual Variant and my Variant, er, variant. (Net +4.)

 

[RSIxidor]

I'm in the camp that would like to see 6E be largely backwards compatible with 5E; more of a 5.5. What I would like in 6E whenever it comes out:

1. Drastically scale back the use of bonus actions. You should never have an expectation of using your bonus action every round (two-weapon fighting, I'm looking at you), and you should not have to worry about bonus-action abilities "clashing" often unless you are multiclassing or doing something really exotic. Also, the bonus-action spells rule should be replaced with "You cannot cast more than one non-cantrip spell per turn."

I'd honestly be okay with just removing bonus actions. Stuff that happens quickly can be reworded to work in addition to another action. Like Healing Word could be a regular action but allows you to do another action in the same turn. Two-weapon fighting (regardless of whether the BA goes away altogether) could just be made to be part of attacking (when you take the attack action, if you requirements make an additional attack as part of that action).

 

[Blue]

Perhaps.

Now, wouldn't it be super-cool if the people who designed the game might be able to give some suggestions - not hard rules, but suggestions - on working with that, seeing as the timescales we are talking about (seconds for combat, vs. minutes or hours out of combat) are not the same? Or maybe some thoughts about how you might have the skills have different effects in each realm?

It isn't like everyone is good with making rulings right out of the box. A lot of people haven't been playing for decades. Maybe having someone really experienced supply some idea sis useful for folks, hm?

There's a balance point of being inviting to new players by including lots of guidelines, and being inviting to new players by presenting them with less rules. I know size of book and amount of rules are not the same thing, but it can feel like it and intimidate players.

I hear what you are saying, but adding more guidelines to every bit of play, including breaking out every specific bit for different pillars of play, seems to be against the design philosophy of "More Rulings, Less Rules" that they followed.

 

[Krachek]

6ed. Dream on. I heard they just open new market in Asia and South America.
2030 not before.

 

[Gladius Legis]

In general, I'm also in the camp that would want a 6e to be more of a 5.5, or an "Advanced" 5e. Things I've thought about that I'd like to see:

1) Every class, in addition to their class skills and proficiencies, gets to Expertise 1 proficient class skill at Lv. 1. And only 1. Rogues' and Bards' Expertise features stay as they are, that just means they get to Expertise many more skills than everyone else. That still allows the skill monkey classes their purpose, while also fixing certain iniquities such as Wizards not being the best at Arcana, or Clerics at Religion, Druids at Nature, Fighters and Barbarians at Athletics, and such.

2) All subclasses gained at Lv. 1. Adjust other early-level feature gains as necessary in all classes to accomodate that.

3) Things like Paladin Divine Smite and Battle Master Superiority Dice work like 4e Reliable powers. i.e., declare the Smite or maneuver before the attack, but if you don't hit you don't use up your spell slot or SD. Makes more sense narratively and eliminates the strategy of saving those resources for crits. (A strategy some find overpowered but I think is rather overrated, so meh, wouldn't miss it.)

4) Rogues being able to Sneak Attack with light weapons, even if they aren't finesse. A whack to the head with a club is as iconic a Sneak Attack as anything and should be allowed as such.

5) Rangers' favored terrain grants abilities based on the terrain they favor, but that can still be applied anywhere.

6) No Beast Master subclass. Just give Rangers a 2nd-level spell that allows them to bond with an animal and gives them a few bonuses, and if said animal dies, that same spell resurrects it.

7) Advanced and more powerful maneuvers for higher-level Battle Masters, perhaps those that take multiple dice to use.

8) Finesse weapons have a STR requirement to be used as finesse. For example, the dagger's finesse STR requirement could be fairly low (9), a shortsword somewhat higher (11) and the rapier taxing (13). It could even open the door for the longsword to be finessed, but the STR requirement could be made really steep (15).

9) Ranged weapons have a STR requirement. If your STR is below the requirement, your attacks are at disadvantage.

10) Maybe have an option to cast Concentration spells without Concentration, but to do so you have to cast it two spell levels higher? So apply the Bestow Curse model to general spellcasting. And that requirement would stack on top of a typical upcasting, so a non-Concentration 2nd-level Bless for example takes a 4th-level slot to cast.

11) Just bring back the proper surprise round. Seriously.

12) Designate an "off-hand" property on certain 1d4 weapons like daggers. Allowing an off-hand attack even if the main weapon isn't light. Thus actually allowing the classic rapier or longsword + dagger combination to function without a feat.

 

[Nebulous]

I really like the idea of having an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons book as a supplement to 5E. Why not dig out an old title and give it a new purpose?

For nostalgic reasons, it does sound very appealing. I would welcome a 5.5 edition, just clean up some of what we have now and make it a little crunchier.

 

[77IM]

OK, here's my dream list for 5.5. (Actually I'd rather call it 5.1 because that's how version numbers work; .5 isn't supposed to represent a decimal half-way to the next full version.)

1. Largely backwards-compatible with 5e.

2. Balance/playability/clarity tweaks to certain feats, spells, classes (ranger), etc. Especially FEATS -- I like the design of choosing between an ASI and a feat, but most feats are just too weak (except for a few that are just too strong!).

Compatibility: This could almost certainly be done in a backwards-compatible way; for example, the way the revised ranger has special abilities with the same names as the regular ranger, they just do something slightly different.

3. Eliminate bonus actions. They are used for too many different things, including extra damage. This leads to min-maxers attempting to optimize their use of bonus actions, which is really bad. I've also seen WAAAAAAAY too many new players confused by bonus actions.

I think they could solve this by recategorizing and rephrasing all the things which currently take a bonus action. For example, anything that gives you a bonus action attack should just become part of Extra Attack, with some wording that doesn't allow stacking. Cunning Action has really got to go.

Compatibility: This would be tricky because some magic items in some published modules and supplements use the "bonus action" language. I think a sidebar about the old language and how to handle it would probably be sufficient to clear things up.

4. Nerf Expertise. I hate that Expertise breaks bounded accuracy. It's totally unnecessary. After much thought, I favor making Expertise a flat +2. This way it still "breaks" bounded accuracy but only by a mere +2, which is not nothing, but won't cause problems at higher levels.

Compatibility: Published supplements that include "double your proficiency bonus" would have to change to +2, but there aren't very many of them. This could probably be handled by a conversion guide. Some monsters also have Expertise in certain skills, but monster math is weird, so I think we can just ignore that (plus, most of those monsters are CR 4 or lower, so it's already effectively a +2).

5. Inspiration needs work. Its problems and potential fixes have been discussed to death. My preference is to allow Inspiration to stack, and to collapse the traits/bonds/ideals/flaws into fewer characteristics. I'd say, one Motivation (bond or ideal) one Quirk (trait or flaw) and maybe one more of either if you feel like it.

Compatibility: Easy, since Inspiration is largely detached from the rest of the rules. Modularity FTW! The old non-stacking Inspiration could be kept as a variant.

6. Magic Items need a better and more-granular power ranking. The current "rarity" system is poor. We need something like CR or spell levels, but for items. (We all know CR is imprecise, but imagine if monsters were rated only by Tier; encounter-building would be a mess.)

I would NOT include magic item prices in the core books. The power ranking could be used to derive prices if you want to allow commerce, but would primarily be used to rate items against each other for balance purposes.

Compatibility: There would need to be some guideline to rank items that have been published in 5e supplements. Other than that, this would be a purely additive change that needs literally a single sentence to explain.

7. Monster XP needs to go. Just make XP values free-form based on encounter/adventure difficulty, with some simple guidelines. Or ditch XP altogether in favor of milestones, or move to a simplified system (e.g. 100 XP per level or 5 XP per level or whatever).

Compatibility: Well, if you like XP, this is not backwards-compatible at all. I think this change might be worth it though.

8. Make point-buy/array the default for ability scores, and rolling the variant. I know rolling is a time-honored tradition beloved by many, but for most purposes, it's really terrible game design.

Compatibility: Full. Literally just swapping which option is presented first.

9. Detach skills from ability scores, reduce the size of the skill list, and give skills a little more meat in the form of special options that you can only use if you are proficient. These would have to be "special" options, not generic things that anybody would try.

Alternatively, they could vastly increase the skill list, and make individual skills relatively less important. This would allow the designers and the DMs to phrase things in terms of ability scores only without even thinking about skills: the player can chime in with any skill proficiencies they might have. This is kind of the way tool proficiencies work now, and I think it could be expanded to non-tool areas.

This is a VERY difficult line to walk, and I think the current skill design sits right in the unhappy medium between "skills don't really matter; it's all about ability scores" and "skills matter a lot; pay attention to them."

Compatibility: Sketchy at best. This is the change I'm least confident could be done in a backwards-compatible manner. A cleaner option might be to simply give each skill a slightly better definition and detach them from ability scores; give each skill examples of being used with at least two different abilities.

 

[Jer]

Despite 5e not being perfect - and heck not even being my favorite edition of D&D to play or run - I really don't want them to make any massive changes to it. IMO the game is now "mature" and it's time to stop worrying about being innovative with D&D and start viewing it as a stable rules system. There should be about as many changes to D&D between editions as there are between editions of Monopoly or Risk.

Having said that - what I'd like to see eventually is them market variants of the core ruleset that don't have to be 100% compatible with the current edition but speak to particular needs. Like a version of the game that has more choices for characters without having to worry about how it remains balanced with the more minimalist 5e framework, or a version of the game that requires a grid and is designed to give a more tactical combat experience. That's what I'd rather see happen instead of an actual 6th edition personally.

 

[jasper]

All this ranger hate... They should release a Warden class which is essentially a revised ranger just to .... how should I say this.... settle people down.

I know why, no one likes anyone in dressy blues and wearing a mask. In fact he shot my uncle joe just for herding cattle.
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We ain't going to mention they weren't our cattle.