D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[Remathilis]

- the new undead abilities in the 2025 MM. No save, no way to avoid or cure it, just bam= HA HA!! your character sucks now! They're a hardass evil DM's dream.

This reminds me. I am happy level drain is gone. It's such a metagame ability that attacks your levels rather than your HP and it was really silly that you could fight a vampire and forget how to cast fireball or a speak goblin because you lost a level.

 

[Zardnaar]

I love playing healer/buffer classes. One of the evolutions I'm grateful for is the fact that I'm no longer locked into Cleric if I want to play them. Not only do I just personally prefer keeping my friends alive and helping them fight better, but it makes the more Goodish members of the party more likely to put up with my shenanigans, and somewhat mitigates my tendency toward optimization.

Nobody minds the "broken" character that's staying in the background and giving everyone else the spotlight time.

Ive seen it irl.

1. Players forget theyre buffed. In one case reminding them they got grumpy.

2. One pkayer felt left out. Attack granting i pretty much always picked the rogue. Optimal didn't realize it was less fun.

3. Players often forget bless. Most dont care if you remind them but see 1.

Mist f the time youre right. Occasionally it causes issues.

 

[Li Shenron]

So what changes to core D&Disms (classes, mechanics, settings, meta-game, etc) that have occurred over time do you like? Which ones could you do without?

My favourite evolution has to be the gradual removal of character restrictions: racial limits, race-character restrictions, multiclassing (even though I am not a fan of using it), alignment, and finally druids armor. Generally I think restrictions are a positive force to create a stronger setting's theme, but I don't like being told which restrictions, leave them up to us!

On the more technical/rule side, I liked the convergence towards proficiency bonus instead of the previous array of rules and tables.

The trends I generally dislike are those related to codifying retraining into player's entitlement.