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

[S'mon]

I don't know where I saw it but I seem to remember the Raven Queen being a thing way back in 2e or even earlier. I know I'd heard of her many years before 4e was even a blip on the radar.

As for Primordials - OK, the name changed for 4e but the idea of deity-level primordial or elemental creatures goes back, again, to 2e if not earlier.

Ditto Archons - they were redefined for 4e as elemental soldiers (which makes no sense to me whatsoever!). Far better they be divine minions or angel-equivalents from various pantheons.

Well 1e-2e-3e Greyhawk had Wee Jas who is basically Raven Queen.
The Elemental Princes of Evil are from 1e, originally Fiend Folio.

 

[Undrave]

Yeah, I think reissued and updated current ruleset (PHB, MM, & likely DMG) with new art for the 2024 anniversary is probably likeliest, but that they won't call it 6e or 5.5e, and it'll be fully backwards compatible with 5e material, especially the adventures.

The 5e PHB could really do with a do-over considering how hard it is to find stuff - no page bleeds, terrible index, unintuitive layout & ordering. But the actual gameplay is good & very popular. The 5e MM lacks encounter tables (they are in XGTE), lacks listings by CR (they are in DMG), lacks NPC racial adjustments (they are in DMG), and monsters vary wildly within the same CR listing. The 5e DMG does not have big problems, but XGTE generally has better stuff on eg downtime activities. Also I think the DMG should begin with 'running your first adventure' not 'creating the world'!

They could include the revised Ranger directly in there, maybe reprint a couple of additional spells (Seriously, why do Clerics and Bards only get 1 attack Cantrips in the PHB? Toll the Dead should be in there!)... The various class Spell Lists at the start of the Spell section really need a marker to indicate which ones are Rituals.

 

[Undrave]

6E for me would be a revival and improving redaction of 4E. AEDU, paragon, epic, character builder, everything is core, treasure wish lists, stat blocks, skill challenges. I know I am an exception, so actually I would just like WotC to support and update the 4E character builder for us non-OSR/non-Pathfinder weirdos.

How about we just drop daily powers entirely? Push the Rituals a bit more and give Ritualist classes features to make them cheaper (especially the Wizard who also get free ones).

Or really shake the grognards and turn Wizards not Psion-style classes with a bunch of At-Wills they can augment a certain number of time per short rest, but with a bit more flexibility (like instead of Augment 1, augment 2, etc there's Augment 1A, Augment 1B, Augment 1C etc and you can combine them together).

AND then give the Fighter the dailies

 

[Nebulous]

I find the 5e Fighter much more boring -- at least the 4e version had some interesting powers. Doing basic attacks all day long, like the 5e fighter, gets boring faster for me at least.

You know, Dungeon Crawl Classics has a mechanic in the fighter (warrior) class called Mighty Deed of Arms. I wonder if it can be ported to 5e without unbalancing things?

The mechanic for Mighty Deeds of Arms was designed
to encourage exciting stunts by ambitious warriors in the
tradition of literary heroes. The goal was to create a rules
system that encouraged situation-specific freedom without
creating a lot of cumbersome rules. The author’s original
expectation was that this system would be used for disarms,
parries, and other traditional combat maneuvers,
but in actual playtesting the Mighty Deeds of Arms have
been exciting and unpredictable. It’s clear now that the system
encourages creative actions, and the author believes it
works best with creative warriors who devise interesting
attacks.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah, I think reissued and updated current ruleset (PHB, MM, & likely DMG) with new art for the 2024 anniversary is probably likeliest, but that they won't call it 6e or 5.5e, and it'll be fully backwards compatible with 5e material, especially the adventures.

The 5e PHB could really do with a do-over considering how hard it is to find stuff - no page bleeds, terrible index, unintuitive layout & ordering. But the actual gameplay is good & very popular. The 5e MM lacks encounter tables (they are in XGTE), lacks listings by CR (they are in DMG), lacks NPC racial adjustments (they are in DMG), and monsters vary wildly within the same CR listing. The 5e DMG does not have big problems, but XGTE generally has better stuff on eg downtime activities. Also I think the DMG should begin with 'running your first adventure' not 'creating the world'!

I would be very, very happy if they did this.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The mechanic for Mighty Deeds of Arms was designed
to encourage exciting stunts by ambitious warriors in the
tradition of literary heroes. The goal was to create a rules
system that encouraged situation-specific freedom without
creating a lot of cumbersome rules. The author’s original
expectation was that this system would be used for disarms,
parries, and other traditional combat maneuvers,
but in actual playtesting the Mighty Deeds of Arms have
been exciting and unpredictable. It’s clear now that the system
encourages creative actions, and the author believes it
works best with creative warriors who devise interesting
attacks.

I really like that conceptually. I wonder how well it would mix with the 5e mindset/approach, since as a game it doesn't really encourage that kind of gameplay. By which I mean vaguely defined mechanics. Just look at how much debate/argument ensues from minor illusion. Or how Paladins no longer have 'detect evil' but rather 'detect specific creature types.' Or how the Wish spell has changed over editions.

But, yeah, I personally would have a blast with that, both as a player and as a DM.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I find the 5e Fighter much more boring -- at least the 4e version had some interesting powers. Doing basic attacks all day long, like the 5e fighter, gets boring faster for me at least.

Well, sure. Even the high-end of the 5e fighter player-agency scale, the BM, has less going on than a 'boring' (to me) 4e striker, heck, the BM doesn't even stack up to the Essentials Knight/Slayer, who at least got some utilities.

As to the Ranger, I liked what 4e did because I like the concept of a purely Martial Ranger, whose power comes from skill at arms, rather than from spells (even if, admittedly, the 4e Ranger had some crazy spell-like abilities).

The latter eRangers, Hunter and Scout, got primal invocations, which would have been spells or spell-like abilities in any other edition, yes. They also got pretty bizarre from a game design perspective, their 'spells' were utilities, usually minor-impact, but the Hunters were amped-up into Controller role-support. ::

To me, the Warlord was never about DPR (at least for himself). I liked the fact that I could be an effective healer/buffer as a Martial combatant; I've never really liked playing a healer, but I did like playing a Warlord. And I loved roleplaying as the salty drill sergeant, or the commander who leads from the front. Good times.

I got the feeling that secondary-striker was in the back of the design across the board with Martial. A warlord's buffs and action granting gave it high de-facto DPR (though, really, it was boosting allies DPR), a fighter whose mark was consistently ignored did striker-like DPR via Combat Challenge. 4e never got completely away from the D&D tradition of using weapons meaning contributing damage, just away from the tradition of not contributing anything else.

 

[Nebulous]

I really like that conceptually. I wonder how well it would mix with the 5e mindset/approach, since as a game it doesn't really encourage that kind of gameplay. By which I mean vaguely defined mechanics. Just look at how much debate/argument ensues from minor illusion. Or how Paladins no longer have 'detect evil' but rather 'detect specific creature types.' Or how the Wish spell has changed over editions.

But, yeah, I personally would have a blast with that, both as a player and as a DM.

I dunno. I guess I could houserule it in and see what happens. It's kind of a shame that D&D doesn't have that baked it, it would create much more interesting fights that are cinematic.

 

[Nebulous]

I really like that conceptually. I wonder how well it would mix with the 5e mindset/approach, since as a game it doesn't really encourage that kind of gameplay. By which I mean vaguely defined mechanics. Just look at how much debate/argument ensues from minor illusion. Or how Paladins no longer have 'detect evil' but rather 'detect specific creature types.' Or how the Wish spell has changed over editions.

But, yeah, I personally would have a blast with that, both as a player and as a DM.

Mighty Deed of Arms: Warriors earn their gold with
pure physical prowess. They swing across chapels on
chandelier chains, bash through iron-banded oaken
doors, and leap over chasms in pursuit of their foes.
When locked in mortal melee, their mighty deeds of
arms turn the course of battle: a brazen bull rush to
push back the enemy lines, a swinging flail to entangle
the beastman’s sword arm, or a well-placed dagger
through the enemy knight’s visor.

Prior to any attack roll, a warrior can declare a Mighty
Deed of Arms, or for short, a Deed. This Deed is a
dramatic combat maneuver within the scope of the
current combat. For example, a warrior may try to
disarm an enemy with his next attack, or trip the opponent,
or smash him backward to open access to a
nearby corridor. The Deed does not increase damage
but could have some other combat effect: pushing
back an enemy, tripping or entangling him, temporarily
blinding him, and so on.

The warrior’s deed die determines the Deed’s success.
This is the same die used for the warrior’s attack
and damage modifier each round. If the deed die is
a 3 or higher, and the attack lands (e.g., the total attack
roll exceeds the target’s AC), the Deed succeeds. If
the deed die is a 2 or less, or the overall attack fails,
the Deed fails as well.

So it is a d3 at 1st level that you roll alongside your attacks. It is a simple system. It SEEMS like it would mesh with 5e, but every other class might feel left out when the fighter is doing all this cool crap (and logical simple things) that they can't expressly attempt. But DAMN - that would turn your vanilla fighter into one whopping interesting class.

 

[Nebulous]

Types of Deeds
There is no limit to the types of Deeds that a warrior can
perform. Any situation-appropriate specialized attack
should be encouraged. To help provide some general
framework for understanding the concept behind Mighty
Deeds of Arms, we have provided seven general categories
below. These are merely suggestions to give a sense of possibility
and scale. The guidelines that follow should help the judge
decide which benefits to apply to a high deed die roll.
Creative players will certainly come up with new Deeds.
Encourage and allow this.

Blinding Attacks
Blinding attacks usually involve making a called shot to an
enemy’s eyes. Examples include throwing sand in an enemy’s
face, stabbing a knife through a visor, or impaling a
target’s eyeball with an arrow. Blinding attacks obviously
must take place where appropriate to the enemy; they are
useless against oozes, for example. Against certain opponents,
such as a cyclops, the judge may “bump up” results
to the next-higher level, given the more serious effect of
blinding blows against such creatures.

Deed Die Blinding Result
3 Opponent’s eyes are irritated and stinging, and
he has difficulty seeing. On his next attack, the
opponent suffers a -2 attack penalty.

4 Opponent is temporarily blinded. He suffers a
-4 penalty to his next attack roll and may only
move at half speed.

5 Opponent is completely blinded for 1d4
rounds. He flails about with wild attacks, suffering
a -8 penalty to attack rolls, and can move
only in a random direction at half speed.

6 Opponent is completely blinded, as above, for
2d6 rounds.

7+ Opponent is blinded for the next 24 hours. Additionally,
he must make a Fort save against the
warrior’s attack roll. On a failure, he is permanently
blinded.