D&D General Let's Talk About How to "Fix" D&D

[Lanefan]

Sounds too fiddly to me. While I get your problems with the standard initiative system; I think they're overridden by the benefits of its simplicity. There is no real bookkeeping or cognitive load to worry about; which lets you focus on making combat feel exciting. Your system sounds like its designed to make combat more fluid; but I think it would instead make it feel more jerky.

It's not quite as fast, to be sure, but ideally this would be part of an overall combat tweak where the slowdown here would be cancelled off by a streamlining elsewhere (in 5e this would start with a big reduction in hit points).

Also, I find when it comes to combat "more predictable" always equals "less exciting" and often "less interesting" as well.

 

[TheSword]

My solution to the BBEG problem would be to do the following.

1. Make enemies larger... either because they are monstrous, unique, or swollen with corrupt power or enspelled. If the would normally be large, make them huge. If this creates reach then even better.

2. Give enemies the disengage ability. This should be standard for large creatures and bigger in my opinion, as the stomp and smash their way across the board. One of the ways PCs feel in control is by ganging up and surrounding them, pinning the enemy in place. Have the solo ignore that, it’s too busy knocking them out of the way.

3. I would definitely give solos extra actions and reactions where possible. Multiple attacks, some of different types of weapons to keep things interesting.

4. Give monsters area affect abilities or spells. Even if on a cool down. One way PCs feel safe is to control who takes damage. By affecting multiple people they remove this element of control. Poison cloud, beguiling aura, entanglement. Hell any big monster could justify smashing the ground and knocking everyone down, or doing a belly flop.

5. Multiple attack vectors. If all a monsters attacks work on to hit rolls then high AC characters can sit back and relax. Effects targeting Dex or Wis, or Con all make for useful alternatives. This works well with area effects.

6. For humanoid enemies. Give them the full range of actions, bonus actions, reactions. Give them feats and class abilities and see PCs own abilities used against them.

 

[TheSword]

My issue would be...

The attunement mechanic means that PCs end up carrying around magic items they can’t use. With the difficulty of selling items (and the difficulty of buying them) they effectively become bumpf as characters progress. This cheapens the overall value of magic items rather making them precious.

What use can the PCs have for old magic items they got at levels 3 or 4 when they are now obsolete?

For the record there is zero to nil chance of the players giving items away. They would drag it around for years unless they thought they could get value out of it.

 

[dave2008]

It's not quite as fast, to be sure, but ideally this would be part of an overall combat tweak where the slowdown here would be cancelled off by a streamlining elsewhere (in 5e this would start with a big reduction in hit points).

Also, I find when it comes to combat "more predictable" always equals "less exciting" and often "less interesting" as well.

I find that limiting players to 30 seconds to resolve their turn (standard) has made the game faster and more exciting and engaging for us. It also helps make everything feel like it is happen simultaneously.

 

[dave2008]

My issue would be...

The attunement mechanic means that PCs end up carrying around magic items they can’t use. With the difficulty of selling items (and the difficulty of buying them) they effectively become bumpf as characters progress. This cheapens the overall value of magic items rather making them precious.

What use can the PCs have for old magic items they got at levels 3 or 4 when they are now obsolete?

For the record there is zero to nil chance of the players giving items away. They would drag it around for years unless they thought they could get value out of it.

Not a problem I've had, of course non of my players have more than 3 attunable magic items (they area lvl 15), so maybe that is why!

 

[Lanefan]

I find that limiting players to 30 seconds to resolve their turn (standard) has made the game faster and more exciting and engaging for us. It also helps make everything feel like it is happen simultaneously.

Feeling like it's simultaneous is one thing. Actually having things be able to happen simultaneously in the fiction is another, and is more what I'm after.

Put another way, what you're doing is great for addressing a problem I'm not really looking at.

 

[TheSword]

Not a problem I've had, of course non of my players have more than 3 attunable magic items (they area lvl 15), so maybe that is why!

Fair play. I’ve started slowing levelling up and as such give out more items to keep the rewards going. I’m also converting a lot of Paizo APs and while I strip out most items, there are some that are in there for story reasons.

Plus magic items are fun. I want to give them out.

The suggested tables in Xanathars indicate that a party of 4 would get 100 magic items in their careers. So even if a chunk of those don’t require attunement the party is likely to be well over their limits.

 

[dave2008]

Feeling like it's simultaneous is one thing. Actually having things be able to happen simultaneously in the fiction is another, and is more what I'm after.

Put another way, what you're doing is great for addressing a problem I'm not really looking at.

I get that, I guess it hasn't been an issue for our group, and of course some things do happen simultaneously.

Many moons ago I was fascinated by the Hack Master initiative (which is basically what you described), but my group hated it when we tried it. Maybe if we tried it longer so they could get more familiar it would have worked.

 

[dave2008]

Fair play. I’ve started slowing levelling up and as such give out more items to keep the rewards going. I’m also converting a lot of Paizo APs and while I strip out most items, there are some that are in there for story reasons.

Plus magic items are fun. I want to give them out.

I've solved some of that by having the magic items grow with the players. As they get more "attuned" the unlock more powers of the magic item

 

[Reynard]

Well, that's simple. Get rid of 10+ levels and flatten advancement a bit. Then, standardize the naughty word out of everything. Action surges, ki points, superiority dice? To the trash bin, turn them into "martial spells". Also get rid of alignments completely. And throw out ability scores, modifiers are enough.

Otherwise, for me there's already fixed D&D in the guise of Dungeon World.

Dungeon World is an interesting game, but it isn't D&D.

And "pick a different game" is not a productive addition to the discussion.