D&D General Ditching Archetypes 6E?

[Zardnaar]

6E or homebrew.
So I'e started a stretching Bounded accuracy thread. This one's about conceptually ditching archetypes. Main reason is you're the one writing this and its more work.

Do you prefer a one true way design a'la OSR/Shadowdark or something sort of build options (feats, talent tree, powers, invocations etc). Keep in mind you're the one writing it. More options more work and complexity. (4 classes to lvl 5 would be a decent start point imho).

If things go well might do monsters or feats concepts next weekend.

 

[pukunui]

I liked SWSE's talent trees and feats approach. I had been hoping D&D 4e would go the same route. That's probably what I would do if I was writing 6e.

 

[Scribe]

6E or homebrew.
So I'e started a stretching Bounded accuracy thread. This one's about conceptually ditching archetypes. Main reason is you're the one writing this and its more work.

Do you prefer a one true way design a'la OSR/Shadowdark or something sort of build options (feats, talent tree, powers, invocations etc). Keep in mind you're the one writing it. More options more work and complexity. (4 classes to lvl 5 would be a decent start point imho).

If things go well might do monsters or feats concepts next weekend.

For a 6e, I believe some assumptions of D&D need to be maintained, especially for the "5e was my first D&D" cohort.

Ancestry, Class, Subclass, Feats, is how I would do it.

 

[Zardnaar]

I liked SWSE's talent trees and feats approach. I had been hoping D&D 4e would go the same route. That's probably what I would do if I was writing 6e.

Yeah my current 5E reforged homebrew is very SWSE inspired right down to some borrowed talent trees. A few are basically 5E archetypes.

Also kinda wish evolved 5E went in that direction. Trained +5, skill focus+5 is a bit much imho.

 

[Lanefan]

Opposite: take the archetypes and lean into them hard. Ironclad niche protection for each class. No jacks of all trades. No workarounds to sneak one class' benefits into another class. Make it hard to impossible to cover over a class' weaknesses, thus soft-forcing interdependence within a party.

The only time a jack-of-all-trades character makes any sense is if-when you're running a long-term party of one, which I would guess is fairly rare.

 

[Zardnaar]

Opposite: take the archetypes and lean into them hard. Ironclad niche protection for each class. No jacks of all trades. No workarounds to sneak one class' benefits into another class. Make it hard to impossible to cover over a class' weaknesses, thus soft-forcing interdependence within a party.

The only time a jack-of-all-trades character makes any sense is if-when you're running a long-term party of one, which I would guess is fairly rare.

Would that be like removing fireball from light clerics?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm fine with keeping the game relatively the same as it is if/when it comes to an eventual 6E. I don't think it should be a One True Way game (as you put it) because D&D is the universal RPG and thus is everything to all people. There is no reason to pigeonhole the game into just one format or direction. Keep it open as it is, keep it as flexible as it is, and keep it Open Gaming so that those other people who want to laser-focus D&D into some sort of singular vision can do so on their own in their own product.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

On the next exciting episode of What Rules Will We Delete?!, Archetypes: A concept introduced by 5e specifically to simplify and streamline class design, with several added benefits so that other options could be removed instead, are now ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK. Because we all know...you can't make a new edition without deleting important parts of the previous one!!!

For God's sake, I wish that there were even a little bit of engagement with the idea that maybe, just maybe, constantly stripping things out of the game isn't the best idea.

It's like there are only two possible states: Blow up everything and reinvent the wheel every time, or absolute deference to nearly every single design decision. Never, y'know, sitting down and asking: What function did this serve? Did it serve that function well? What changed as a result of adding it? What would we need to change in order to remove or replace it?

Because yeah. If you remove archetypes entirely? You're going to have to either massively expand the number of base classes, or you're going to have to add some significantly more complicated, and likely much more daunting to new players, mechanical elements. You're going to have to rebuild a LOT of stuff that 5e erased, and you're not guaranteed to like the sacrifices you'll have to make to do it.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Opposite: take the archetypes and lean into them hard. Ironclad niche protection for each class. No jacks of all trades. No workarounds to sneak one class' benefits into another class. Make it hard to impossible to cover over a class' weaknesses, thus soft-forcing interdependence within a party.

The only time a jack-of-all-trades character makes any sense is if-when you're running a long-term party of one, which I would guess is fairly rare.

I think they scrapped that to get rid of the, "who's playing the cleric?" problem. Because it makes it more difficult to play a cadre of wizards or a rogue campaign etc.

As for the question.

4(maybe 5? or 6 if you base one on each stat like d20 modern) basic core classes that are pretty lacklustre but each has its own ability/talent trees that are bought with xp/ability points.

You can buy other classes abilities but they are 3x the price. Some classes might get other class's abilities in their trees but at higher levels.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's like there are only two possible states: Blow up everything and reinvent the wheel every time, or absolute deference to nearly every single design decision. Never, y'know, sitting down and asking: What function did this serve? Did it serve that function well? What changed as a result of adding it? What would we need to change in order to remove or replace it?

Heh... well I think there's a reason why none of us are bothering to make posts like you suggest... because there's no real point. Yeah, we could take a scalpel and try to be judicious and talk about taking out X thing and adjusting Y thing so on and so forth... but all kinds of threads made around here already does that as people complain about the stuff they don't like in the game currently and how they think it should be done this different way. So there's no reason to spend time going over all that stuff again in a new thread like this, LOL!

Thus I think people are either going to give us their top-down total change to what they want their personal D&D to be... or they are going to say it's pretty much fine but not go into any real detail. Cause there's no real point getting into the deep weeds about this since it just stuff we've already talked about ad nauseum before in the hundreds of other threads over the years.