D&D (2024) D&D 6th edition - What do you want to see?
Parmandur
Book-Friend
That tension is super-intentional, and I think it adds to the game: but it depends on what people are saying in late 5E, whenever that might happen.
Lidgar
Gongfarmer
- I'd like a 5e core but most classes tweaked so they are less magic heavy.
- Less focus on classes characterized by a list of powers, more focus on their role playing potential (partly through a re-haul of the skill system and partly more fluff).
- Change the default healing and rest mechanic so it is not "easy mode".
- Less focus on classes characterized by a list of powers, more focus on their role playing potential (partly through a re-haul of the skill system and partly more fluff).
- Change the default healing and rest mechanic so it is not "easy mode".
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Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
My #1 hope for 6e is that it maintains the basic conversation of play from 5e. DM describes the scenario, players say what their characters do, DM adjudicates, potentially calling for a roll to resolve outstanding uncertainty, narrates the results, and begins the process again. If anything, it would be nice to make that process a little more explicit. Whatever I may feel about 5e’s player-side options, I think its core mechanics are rock solid, and I hope they don’t change too much.
There are a few sacred cows I really hope 6e finally slaughters. The ability score/ability bonus divide is a big one.
I really hope to see more decisions to make in character advancement. I don’t need 3e microfeats or skill ranks or anything, but more decision points than just class, subclass, and a handful of ASIs would be nice. Keep some simple, decision-free options for the folks who like that, but throw the crunch crowd a bone too please.
There are a few sacred cows I really hope 6e finally slaughters. The ability score/ability bonus divide is a big one.
I really hope to see more decisions to make in character advancement. I don’t need 3e microfeats or skill ranks or anything, but more decision points than just class, subclass, and a handful of ASIs would be nice. Keep some simple, decision-free options for the folks who like that, but throw the crunch crowd a bone too please.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
I don't!
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Mearls has talked about keeping 5e as "evergreen", which pushes down thoughts of 6e some. Why spend resources (= money) several years before it can recoup those costs if the sales of the books stay high? And even in the gluts of 3.x and 4e, the core books sales stayed high.
But, just in the spirit of the question, here's some thoguhts off the top of my head what I'd like to see in an all-new edition:
* More tools or guidelines for DMs to tweak the classes based on their table and setting.
* Better balance between different resource recovery models (long rest, short rest, at-will) so that different DMing styles or narrative needs for a particular adventure don't hinder or highlight one model over another.
* More detailed multi-roll systems outside of combat. The concept of a Skill Challenge was good, but limiting it to just skills plus the horrid* mechanical implementation didn't help.
* More options for abstracting parts of combat. One example I see people doing in 5e is treating groups of much-lower-level NPCs as swarms. So being able to have swarms of goblins, or treat the crew of your ship in such a way that they interact with the battle but are still quick and few rolls.
* Somewhere halfway between there - can I do a non-lethal bar brawl in a fun, narrative, and quick way that doesn't involve round-by-round tactics? Same for the higher level party taking out a bunch of goblins. A few rolls, a quick montage, 5 minutes of wall time at most.
* Make Inspiration more then just a bolt-on that many DMs ignore. Integrate it into clases and such. (Such as old Vampire:the Masquerade had doing things that met your internal or external natures to recharge things.)
* Keep the concepts of Concentration and Upcasting.
* Have other long term attrition options for the DM to use besides Exhaustion and HD.
* Keep classes (mostly) not getting more powerful abilities until 3rd or 5th to prevent multiclass cherrypicking. However, make classes get at 1st so they don't suddenly change play style at 3rd. (For example, the Scout subclass that doesn't get needed skills until 3rd needs to get fixed.)
* More use for other ability scores for every class.
* Less reason to rush to increase your "prime" ability score to cap because mathematically it's often the strongest choice in front of customization. (Maybe modifiers change slower like every 3 steps, or change slower as the modifier increases, or other way to say "it's just fine to play a character with a +2 or +3 in your prime ability score, that won't stop you from being reasonable.)
* Grant more 1st level customization options ... and make beginners able to make a character quicker. I put these together because they can be contradictory so need to be considered together. I can create a 1st level character in 15 minutes and find it lacks oomph and uniqueness until later levels, but working with brand-new-RPGers I've taken four hours or more to explain options, how ability scores interact with classes and how races interact with ability scores, spellcasting and going through spells to pick, etc. An example of this type of rule would be to give an ability score modifier from race (choice of a few), and then an ability score modifier from class (choice of a few) - that can't go to the same one. Suddenly any race can play any class, while still feeling like that race.
*Increase focus on background, both fluff and mechanically. That a sorcerer criminal makes a reasonable thief, and an sage fighter makes a reasonable learned man. One way would be making training a larger part of the bonus that ability scores.
EDIT TO ADD
* More design space given to races to keep them relevant. For example, each race has enough features that we can have a bare-bones larged sized race without breaking things. In addition have potential for racial advancement besides a small list of racial feats.
EVEN MORE BONUS EDIT TO ADD:
* Workable pets. (Beastmaster, necromancer, etc.). Putting action economy first (among other things) has caused consistant problems. Assume that an extra attack or two will still be shorter than the spellcaster and get over it.
* Multiple formats, with reasonable costs once you own the format to get it in another format. Hardcover, softcover, PDF, digitally integrated. Yes, the cost for some of those changes of formatting is real an needs to be covered - moving to PDF isn't just checking layout, it's bookmarking, putting in indexes, covering watermarking & distribution costs. Just like *cover have distribution costs. Digitally integrated even more so, and probably separate for each application. But being able to by a book for $30+format cost, and then rebuy the book for just $format cost plus a small convience fee - very nice. And working with 3rd party like D&DBeyond, that $format can go majorly to them, and iof someoen is buying content for the first time through them the $content cost cost mostly to WotC.
But, just in the spirit of the question, here's some thoguhts off the top of my head what I'd like to see in an all-new edition:
* More tools or guidelines for DMs to tweak the classes based on their table and setting.
* Better balance between different resource recovery models (long rest, short rest, at-will) so that different DMing styles or narrative needs for a particular adventure don't hinder or highlight one model over another.
* More detailed multi-roll systems outside of combat. The concept of a Skill Challenge was good, but limiting it to just skills plus the horrid* mechanical implementation didn't help.
* More options for abstracting parts of combat. One example I see people doing in 5e is treating groups of much-lower-level NPCs as swarms. So being able to have swarms of goblins, or treat the crew of your ship in such a way that they interact with the battle but are still quick and few rolls.
* Somewhere halfway between there - can I do a non-lethal bar brawl in a fun, narrative, and quick way that doesn't involve round-by-round tactics? Same for the higher level party taking out a bunch of goblins. A few rolls, a quick montage, 5 minutes of wall time at most.
* Make Inspiration more then just a bolt-on that many DMs ignore. Integrate it into clases and such. (Such as old Vampire:the Masquerade had doing things that met your internal or external natures to recharge things.)
* Keep the concepts of Concentration and Upcasting.
* Have other long term attrition options for the DM to use besides Exhaustion and HD.
* Keep classes (mostly) not getting more powerful abilities until 3rd or 5th to prevent multiclass cherrypicking. However, make classes get at 1st so they don't suddenly change play style at 3rd. (For example, the Scout subclass that doesn't get needed skills until 3rd needs to get fixed.)
* More use for other ability scores for every class.
* Less reason to rush to increase your "prime" ability score to cap because mathematically it's often the strongest choice in front of customization. (Maybe modifiers change slower like every 3 steps, or change slower as the modifier increases, or other way to say "it's just fine to play a character with a +2 or +3 in your prime ability score, that won't stop you from being reasonable.)
* Grant more 1st level customization options ... and make beginners able to make a character quicker. I put these together because they can be contradictory so need to be considered together. I can create a 1st level character in 15 minutes and find it lacks oomph and uniqueness until later levels, but working with brand-new-RPGers I've taken four hours or more to explain options, how ability scores interact with classes and how races interact with ability scores, spellcasting and going through spells to pick, etc. An example of this type of rule would be to give an ability score modifier from race (choice of a few), and then an ability score modifier from class (choice of a few) - that can't go to the same one. Suddenly any race can play any class, while still feeling like that race.
*Increase focus on background, both fluff and mechanically. That a sorcerer criminal makes a reasonable thief, and an sage fighter makes a reasonable learned man. One way would be making training a larger part of the bonus that ability scores.
EDIT TO ADD
* More design space given to races to keep them relevant. For example, each race has enough features that we can have a bare-bones larged sized race without breaking things. In addition have potential for racial advancement besides a small list of racial feats.
EVEN MORE BONUS EDIT TO ADD:
* Workable pets. (Beastmaster, necromancer, etc.). Putting action economy first (among other things) has caused consistant problems. Assume that an extra attack or two will still be shorter than the spellcaster and get over it.
* Multiple formats, with reasonable costs once you own the format to get it in another format. Hardcover, softcover, PDF, digitally integrated. Yes, the cost for some of those changes of formatting is real an needs to be covered - moving to PDF isn't just checking layout, it's bookmarking, putting in indexes, covering watermarking & distribution costs. Just like *cover have distribution costs. Digitally integrated even more so, and probably separate for each application. But being able to by a book for $30+format cost, and then rebuy the book for just $format cost plus a small convience fee - very nice. And working with 3rd party like D&DBeyond, that $format can go majorly to them, and iof someoen is buying content for the first time through them the $content cost cost mostly to WotC.
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Tales and Chronicles
Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
I'd like the potential 6e to give more space to players choices beyond class. For the moment, race and background doesnt matter a lot past character creation. I'd like to choices to ''get better'' at higher level, just like class.
Like:
at level X,Y,Z you gain class features
at level A,B,C you gain new race features
at level F,G,H you gain new background features
a little like PF2, but with less mechanical tidbits, more streamlined.
EDIT:
and build the game starting with the exploration or social pillars, instead of them being afterthoughts once combat mechanics are all in place.
Like:
at level X,Y,Z you gain class features
at level A,B,C you gain new race features
at level F,G,H you gain new background features
a little like PF2, but with less mechanical tidbits, more streamlined.
EDIT:
and build the game starting with the exploration or social pillars, instead of them being afterthoughts once combat mechanics are all in place.
Parmandur
Book-Friend
I've been thinking about looking to the Ravnica Guilds as an example, and giving Tier based fluff abilities to other backgrounds: new stuff at 5th, 11th and 17th levels.
the Jester
Legend
No thanks. I want off the edition treadmill entirely and forever. I recognize that might be asking too much, but that is what I want from 6e- it never to come around.
What I want from 5e is a better suite of options- more dials that can be tweaked to achieve various desired playstyles. I want more and better options for setting up different rates of recovery from resting. I want more and different methods of advancing with or without xp. I want a suite of options that brings back the feel of 4e combat. I want mass combat rules and domain management systems.
Just increasing the font size of the index and getting rid of every single entry that references another entry instead of just putting a page number on it, making the goddamn page numbers in the book readably dark instead of light enough that you can't see 'em in dim lighting, and putting a sort of "you are here" down the side of every page (like in PF2e) would pretty well fix this, IMHO.
My wishes for a 6E.
Core of 5E ruleset - bounded accuracy, advantage, actions, etc
Rules to allow more variety of builds - but don't break the class+subclass model. Just give more options within that flavor framework. More choices on proficiency in skills to express personal choices (maybe proficiency and expertise are choices for all characters at certain levels and some classes/races/backgrounds get more). Maybe modify the class+subclass framework to allow for multiple subclasses to be chosen, with limitations. Multiclassing could also come from this subclass structure, though I don't personally have much issue with the per-level MC'ng. Make races and backgrounds provide more options as well. I started as a guild artisan, cool. Maybe sometime later I can become a master guildsman or something.
Rangers without favored anything. It's a sacred cow that I just don't care about. Make it so that rangers are extremely good at tracking, good at dealing with rough terrain, and good at hunting prey. Favored whatsits could be an optional feature but shouldn't have to be a forced one.
Add options to use skills more in combat where they make sense. Frightening with intimidation. Declaring a duel with diplomacy (or something). Acrobatics to disengage without spending an action.
Core of 5E ruleset - bounded accuracy, advantage, actions, etc
Rules to allow more variety of builds - but don't break the class+subclass model. Just give more options within that flavor framework. More choices on proficiency in skills to express personal choices (maybe proficiency and expertise are choices for all characters at certain levels and some classes/races/backgrounds get more). Maybe modify the class+subclass framework to allow for multiple subclasses to be chosen, with limitations. Multiclassing could also come from this subclass structure, though I don't personally have much issue with the per-level MC'ng. Make races and backgrounds provide more options as well. I started as a guild artisan, cool. Maybe sometime later I can become a master guildsman or something.
Rangers without favored anything. It's a sacred cow that I just don't care about. Make it so that rangers are extremely good at tracking, good at dealing with rough terrain, and good at hunting prey. Favored whatsits could be an optional feature but shouldn't have to be a forced one.
Add options to use skills more in combat where they make sense. Frightening with intimidation. Declaring a duel with diplomacy (or something). Acrobatics to disengage without spending an action.
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