Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoonSong" data-source="post: 9838160" data-attributes="member: 6689464">As for what would I do, were I in charge. * Keep ability scores, de-emphasize the modifiers. Use the ability scores for passive benefits. AC, defenses, DCs. Keep the modifiers for active uses. So AC is based on Dexterity score, finesse attacks on the bonus.* Debloat HP. Yes, we need more survivable early characters, we don't need them to gain HP every level. Make it like bounded accuracy, only gain HP at set levels, no faster. * Add parries. Allow martials to attempt to parry enemy attacks. This way they gain another dimension where they can remain engaged. This enhances survivability and lowers the burden on hitpoints. And groups of enemies remain scary across the board. Also, solo bosses can be granted a number of reactions to keep them relevant without having to recur to metagaming constructs to compensate the advantage of sheer numbers. * Make in-combat healing fun. Yes, healing is a chore and something that gets in the way of doing actually fun things. However that is only because designers have gone out of the way to make healing itself not-fun. Having less HP across the board already makes it easier to keep healers relevant. The other part is as simple as making proactive healing give bonuses (more damage, more accuracy, temporal hp, bonuses to saving throws, more parries, even more actions) and even work better on active characters rather than on already downed ones. We can keep boring "insert bonus action, get an ally to rejoin the fight" too because not everybody rolls the same way. The idea is not to take that away, but to expand the viable character types.* Every class gets their archetype at first level. The most idiotic and dumb decision in 24 was to take away subclass choice at first level. Everybody should choose at first level and be able to play the character they want from day one, not having to wait for later levels. This is important for party dynamics. Everybody should be able to perform their party role from the very beginning. Now, to answer to the argument in favor of moving the choice away, (you can't expect noobies to handle so much choice at first level. We want people to have the time to experiment being just an x, before diverging), the answer is to have default archetypes that are explicitly dead simple and purely generic. This way you are not limited to just experimenting "just a sorcerer" for two levels, but you can do so for all of the game. And on the other hand, you aren't forced to pay your dues for two levels before you are allowed to play the character you actually want. This makes, for example, a scout rogue a more suitable spell-less ranger. Also can be a venue for simultaneous multiclassing.   * Stop dodging around Bonus action. Bonus actions are a resource. Stop pretending they aren't. That way you just force people to attain system mastery which slows down play. To make them having a cost, make it so your main action has advantage if you forego your bonus action. * A fireball is a fireball is a fireball. Spells don't need to scale. HP isn't so big anymore, so damage doesn't need to keep growing.* Maybe consider something like mana/essence that can be used for greater exploits. Unlike HP and accuracy, this can be gained every level. * Bring back feats as mini-bonuses. Maybe call them something else, but we need something to customize characters in minor ways. I just want my PC to wield a certain weapon they don't get from class. I don't need to spend a full feat into the whole package. Bring back ways to gain small proficiencies that don't affect too much the power level.* The way I see it, origin/kin/whatever should be purely cosmetic. You choose your origin -which can be open ended-, and your choice of something unique you tie to it. Be it darkvision or something equally valuable. Maybe tone it down to low-light vision. Nearly universal darkvision never sat well with me.* Please bring back backgrounds as mostly fluff. Tying ability score bonuses and a feat to them makes them too mechanistic. Just give the choice of feat and score bonuses as free. -though with suggestions for the kids-* Go to a happy medium between the extreme free-for-all of 5e and the needless codification of 24. More rules for the DMs that need them, but not that much.</blockquote>

Verification