"'Kill it before it grows'...he said 'Kill it before it grows'..."

[Ratinyourwalls]

What a nightmare that was back in 1e/2e with individual XP awards. D&D is a cooperative game where the party should rise and fall together. Not be scrabbling, scrapping, metagaming, and arguing for every last point of XP in some sort of PC levelling battle royale. Ugh, its bringing back horrible memories of my high school games. It was a bad idea in the 80's and 90's and its a bad idea today.

That actually tickles my fancy quite a bit lol. I wouldn't mind playing in such a game. And please don't start telling people what D&D is or isn't. That's the kind of stuff that's caused the fragmentation of the hobby in the first place.

 

[Dragonblade]

Differing advancement rates for different classes may have made the game a bit funky, but that has absolutely no connection with scrabbling, scrapping, and metagaming for every last point of XP in a PC leveling battle royale. That's pretty much non-sequitur, if you ask me.

Right, to clarify I was specifically referring to individual class based XP awards. The fighter and other melee classes gets bonus XP for killing stuff, the Rogue gets bonus XP for doing their Rogue-y stuff. It sounds kind of neat in principal, and some video games do skill levelling in this way, but in practice it was kind of a mess with people competing for XP.

"I struck the killing blow! I should get all the XP!"
"But I did the most damage, I should get the XP!"
"I'm not letting the monster go, I won't get bonus XP if I don't kill it!"

Or things like the Rogue trying to sneak everywhere and pick everyone's pockets just so they could get their bonus class XP award regardless of its effect on the narrative. These rules effectively incentivized poor RP and excessive metagaming. It turned the game into a Knights of the Dinner Table-esque farce.

3e wiped all that away with unified XP and 4e built on that. It would be messy to go back to that and it would wreak havoc with trying to balance classes to each other and also gets back to the heart of the whole linear fighter vs. quadratic wizard power progression problems in prior editions.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm fine with rolling for stats included as an option, as I'm sure it will be. Just so long as there are other, better options.

Classes advancing at different rates... it's not a deal-breaker for me, but it's a major negative, and I can't see how this could possibly be made optional. 3E killed it and I hope it stays dead.

I don't ever want to see "doom on a single die roll" again (and again, I don't see how this can be optional). Doom should either take multiple die rolls or no die roll at all. When you fall into the Cracks of Doom, you don't get a saving throw to survive. You just effing die.

 

[Vayden]

I have no problem with doing both on the first two options. For rolling for hp/attributes, I think every edition ever has had an option for that and there's no problem keeping that option available (as long as point buy is also an option).

For separate xp by class, I don't know how you would print both options without making a head-ache for yourself, but if you can put both options in there and it brings back some groups, great, do it.

Save-or-die / save-or-suck effects are a much trickier subject. We all rely on the monster manuals or published adventures occasionally when we're low on prep-time, and if the published material is full of monsters who stun/paralyze/banish/kill pcs with a single attack, that makes it a major head-ache for me, as I find that type of gameplay very frustrating and un-fun. Yeah, I can work around it and not use those monsters if I have to, but if that mechanic is built into the core of the game, it makes the game a lot less fun for me and makes me question why I would give up 4e for the new game.

I understand that a large collection of players (like the OP) feel the exact opposite way and would feel like things were less fun without paralyzing Medusas, or the cleric being able to banish the pit fiend in one attack if it fails its save (pick your example of choice). That's why I said in my first response that it will be impossible to have an edition for everyone. If WotC can manage to come up with a system that can make players on both sides of the save-or-suck divide happy, it would be amazing, but I'm having trouble imagining how you would do that.

 

[LostSoul]

I think they could do both.

Point buy or roll: Offer both as an option. Make the stat modifiers lower so that stat values aren't as important (like in B/X).

XP advancement: This could be as simple as two tables. edit: Or one table with a "unified XP" column.

De-fanging threats: There are a lot of ways to do this; the first that comes to mins is an option to include "Get out of jail free" cards (or points). If you're stoned, you spend one point to get back to stunned or immobilized or something like that. If you're killed outright you spend a point to lie on the ground bleeding out. Maybe two points will moderate the effect even more; then you could have a dial saying "you can only spend 1 point per (period)" or "you can spend as many as you want and they refresh each (period)".

Someone who wants to keep these threats in the game could use them, or even use them against some monsters only.


Clear organization in the book would be a big issue, though.

 

[Elf Witch]

I dislike point buy but I know there are people who likeit, which is why in my games you have choice do point buy or roll for your stats. If you roll you accept what you get unless the rolls are unplayable and if you do point buy then don't whine if someone who rolled may have better stats. It works just fine at my table. So I see no reason why both can't be available as options as well as some if the stat array choices I have seen.

I think XP should be uniform it avoids the whole but I did more blows then you did argument. There should be advice for DMs on different ways to do XP but the default should be uniform.

I want some save and die rolls back. As someone said rust monsters should eat armor and metal weapons. I also like rules for making a roll not to die for taking massive damage in one blow. Death is part of the game and I have never really understood what is different from being killed with a spell and killed with a sword dead is dead.

Now I do think spells like sleep or paralyze should have more than one save but not every round to me that makes the spell next to useless. Also it should work the same for both NPCs and PCs.


I really hate the term deal breaker when used on things like how XP is handled or how you roll stats. It so minor and can easily be house ruled. Now if to much of the game is things that you don't like then yeah that is a deal breaker.

 

[Dausuul]

As regards the third item... one approach I can see working is to corral all the "save-or-lose" effects into a handful of monsters and spells and put a big fat "USE WITH CAUTION" notice on them. The vast majority of monsters don't need instant-death effects. Poison doesn't have to take effect instantly, and in fact it's grossly unrealistic to have it do so. Most spells can take a few seconds to kick in.

If instant death or paralysis are limited to a few monsters where it's really thematically appropriate, and those monsters are called out so we don't grab them "off the rack" and only realize mid-combat that we're about to kill somebody on a bad die roll, I think it'd be okay. As for the spells, they could be limited to targeting enemies of lower level than you. So you can power word kill a regular monster, but you can't do it in the big boss fight.

Although I still think that anywhere you're going to put an insta-kill effect, you should have the guts to not give a saving throw. If you want a medusa to petrify enemies the instant they look at it, that's what it should do, period. Then DMs and game designers both have to face up to the possible consequences; no hiding behind "you shoulda rolled better."

 

[Vayden]

I don't ever want to see "doom on a single die roll" again (and again, I don't see how this can be optional). Doom should either take multiple die rolls or no die roll at all. When you fall into the Cracks of Doom, you don't get a saving throw to survive. You just effing die.

Can't give XP right now, but quoted for truth. I hate save effects, but I love the old "comprehensive lava rules" paizo.com - Fire and Brimstone: A Comprehensive Guide to Lava, Magma, and Superheated Rock (OGL) PDF and would encourage their adaptation to other areas (falling greater than x distance, staring contest with Medusa, etc).

 

[Odhanan]

If all you have is save or suck, if the baseline of the game covers every single case as if the rules were the game and the game the rules, if you can't have random HP or random stats, if the "encounter" is the basic building block of the adventure design, if the delve format is not gone, if I can't have Vancian casting back, if if if... if it's basically 4e with a different dress, that's a dealbreaker for me. I won't be playing the game.

I want sacred cows to return. I want the classic game to return. If really it's a game for all fans of all editions, then these things must be included, one way or another. If all it is is basically a fifth edition that just nods smiling condescendingly upon old school editions of the game, I won't be playing it.

I wouldn't want to be WotC right now.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think that variable experience charts are so far past what is acceptable nowadays that we can't expect to see them even as options. The arguments for it are flimsy at best and I have a feeling that they're more deeply rooted in nostalgia than anything else.

Is there any skin off your nose if someone wants to indulge their nostalgia, as long as you don't HAVE to, too? For a lot of people, nostalgia is fun, and D&D, as a brand that's been around for a generation or so now, can embrace that if that's what a group wants.

I wouldn't use different XP charts for different classes, but I don't really care if someone else does in their games.

I don't ever want to see "doom on a single die roll" again (and again, I don't see how this can be optional).

Of COURSE it can be optional.

Some systems have "save or die" as an option. Others do not. You can add it in or take it out and it'll have effects X, Y, and Z. Derp.