D&D 5E (2024) Mearls has some Interesting Ideals about how to fix high level wizards.

[Zardnaar]

Incorrect. People who want to fix 5e do so in one of two directions: adding crunch and complexity (pf2) or removing it down to the studs (SD). The two represent opposite ends of the spectrum with 5e in the center. So the question of how you fix a given problem in 5e inevitably ends up simplifying the game to make it more OSR like or adding complexity to make it more Pathfinder/4e like. 5e being in the relative middle means it never satisfies in either direction, but it also doesn't offend enough to have people stop playing. Hence why it's everyone's second favorite; never what they want, but enough of a compromise to be acceptable.

But any real attempt at overhaul is going to drag the game in one direction or another, and that will be bad for the losing side and the game in general. Which is why I preferred a revised 5e to a different 6e.

Well theres people like me as well who want to overhaul saving throws and some higher level spells.

5.75.
6E ii listed what I would do as a designer. I wouldn't simplify the game in OSR direction but may incorporate it into a 6E. I woujd go more I. 3.5 direction for hit points as a compromise between 4E and 5E hit point bloat and OSR glass cannons.

If I was rewriting the game completely and player base voted for it I would dump dailies and make it a 10 level game. Probably resemble advanced shadowdark.

Otherwise a blend of late 3.5/Basic with various 4Eisms (unified engine, some bits and pieces). Complexity level would be as the player base but probably 5.0 or 5.5 levels unless they were overwhelming for simple or complex.

Some spells need to go away.

 

[Belen]

I think a few tweaks would help high level immensely.

• Bring back reversible spells: It would cut down on the need for too many spells
• Allow Wizards to modify lower level spells like changing damage type, combing effects, or enhancing the spell.

For instance, a sleep spell cast at 4th level could be permanent or cause disadvantage on the save.

It would not be difficult to create an effects table that standardized the type of +spell power gained.

For martials, I’d consider bringing back DR or some type of resistance to weapons for high level. I kind of miss when low level folks had a difficult time just hitting the high level fighter.

High level games also require a change to the adventure format. The challenges may not always be combat. It may be a need to organize the defense of a region. It may need to be building a magical watchtower.

High level adventure design should stop focusing on more high powered combat threats and more on campaign dynamics.

 

[Charlaquin]

There's multiple things about 4e which are quintessential 4e. One can like one aspect of 4e (the power options retained and usable at the moment), while disliking others (battlemat dependence). The nice thing about 'remaking 4e,' as people are calling it, is that one can have one without the other.

Yes, despite the resurgence in '4e did it right' framing that has come out in recent years, I think there's clearly missteps in that edition that people would like to not repeat. That's why a spiritual re-do is so tempting.

Yeah, I mean I’m a huge 4e apologist, but I still play 5e over 4e. Each edition has things I prefer over the other, but ultimately 5e wins for me. A more 4e-ish 5e would be great, even if I would be a little bitter they didn’t listen to those of us who were saying so all the way back in 2012 during the D&D Next open playtest.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure, I get now what you are saying. PF2 is an encounters game thinly veiled as an adventuring day attrition one. PC building is simple, and combat is bump, set, spike, hidden behind walls of text. Which is pretty much how 4E was for me which is why I dont play either of them.

PF2 actively turned me off. One of my players lent it to me. Pass.

 

[Zardnaar]

I never said anything of the sort. Those players tend to play warlocks or sorlocks in my closed games and they have exactly two abilities. You quoted those italicized abilities I'll be honest and admit that there was a Ravenloft campaign where one of them included the celestial warlock healing breeze nonsense the time I banned healing word.


I feel like my experience is plenty broad enough to be confident in my earlier statement though given that I ran AL twice a week for years though and had dozens of not hundreds of players as young as "not yet able to read but [relative] is there helping them with the sheet" all the way up to literally taking the paratransit to the shop because they are no longer legally allowed to drive due to age.

New players who show up to AL new to d&d needing help creating a character don't get pointed to wizard and rarely seem drawn to cleric. I'd attribute that to most of them agreeing when me or whatever player is helping them says that it's probably best to stick with a class like fighter barbarian rogue or maybe warlock while starting out alongside a quick descriptive overview of each.

The fact that players like you describe exist is not in dispute. The dispute is over those players generally being special circumstances like starting off with a high level PC they don't know how to play or not bothering to read the relevant sections of the phb with neither of those types of reason being ones that justify rebuilding wizard to address that edge case rather than to address what actual wizard players who do feel the class needs∆


∆ multiple posters beyond me have mentioned examples and there is pretty strong similarities among them

High level play is rare. I dont think anyone playing wizard will struggle to much.

1 in 10 people might pick wizard less than 10% of games hit high level (1% via WotC depending on what counts as high level). So its maybe an issue for 1 in a 100 or 1000 games.

Its not a big issue in most games imho.

 

[Tigris]

Sure, I get now what you are saying. PF2 is an encounters game thinly veiled as an adventuring day attrition one. PC building is simple, and combat is bump, set, spike, hidden behind walls of text. Which is pretty much how 4E was for me which is why I dont play either of them.

Of course 4E is not for everyone, but one thing 4E was is it being honest.

4E did not try to use any illusion of choice. It presented things as they are to a fault, which made a lot of people also feel "these are all the same", because it did not try to veil anything. If 2 abilities are the same, then they are worded the same way, not a small cranny added to make them look distinct even if they are 99% the same.

4E says that its balanaced about starting encounters with full life and gives a mechanic to do so easily.

If a class gets bonus to basic attacks, it gives bonus to basic attacks, and does not create a cool sounding attack, which lets you do a basic attack with a bonus.

It does have a low number of distinct status effects, not having a "slow" and a "stun" which both do exactly the same.

4E did try to simplify a lot of things compared to 3.5. It still had tons of feats, tons of abilities, and general high numbers. PF2 does not try to streamline things.


This is why I am saying that PF2 and 4E not have exactly the same target audience, and why there is A LOT of things not being Shadowdark and not being PF2, to which a 6E could turn, when one starts to change things in 5E.



Although, as said before, I would 100% prefer to NOT take 5E as the starting point and change it (there are enough 5E hacks), but rather make a new game from which again many games can copy.

Inspiration from 4Es design lead to 13th age, gloomhaven, beacon, lancer, gunwat banwa, bludgeon, trespasser, PF2, Strike, Wyrdwood wand etc.


Copying from 5E lead to Shadowdark, Dragonbane, (and many 5E "but better" games which I cant remember the name) etc.


So 6E should be something which would again lead to completly different games.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Copying from 5E lead to Shadowdark, Dragonbane, (and many 5E "but better" games which I cant remember the name) etc.

Dragonbane pre-exists 5E and is largely building off of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System. I'm not sure what 5E DNA it has.

 

[Artamo]

That said, even if it is a solution to a problem you, I, or the guy over there doesn't think is really that big of an issue, I think we can analyze the proposed solution for relative merit regardless.

And I think from that standpoint, what he’s proposing sounds workable for me. A PC wizard would still feel plenty powerful, the change is reducing the amount of meaningless options without taking away flexibility so that a wizard is still doing cool stuff with low level spells in roleplaying situations and outside of combat. I don’t know if there would be some dissonance switching things up at 11th level. When I have played high level spellcasters (or played with folks who have), I think one tends to have a core group of spells that they have on hand anyways - I.E. that paring down of choices happens regardless.

 

[Tigris]

Dragonbane pre-exists 5E and is largely building off of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System. I'm not sure what 5E DNA it has.

The current english dragonbane hasdefinitly D&D essence in it, especially 5E. Just because a game with the same name did exist before does not mean a new version cant copy from a different big game.

 

[Distracted DM]

I think a few tweaks would help high level immensely.

• Bring back reversible spells: It would cut down on the need for too many spells
• Allow Wizards to modify lower level spells like changing damage type, combing effects, or enhancing the spell.

For instance, a sleep spell cast at 4th level could be permanent or cause disadvantage on the save.

It would not be difficult to create an effects table that standardized the type of +spell power gained.

For martials, I’d consider bringing back DR or some type of resistance to weapons for high level. I kind of miss when low level folks had a difficult time just hitting the high level fighter.

High level games also require a change to the adventure format. The challenges may not always be combat. It may be a need to organize the defense of a region. It may need to be building a magical watchtower.

High level adventure design should stop focusing on more high powered combat threats and more on campaign dynamics.

Reversible spells were such a great concept. I guess it adds more text to a single spell, though? Donno, I like'em.
And they could play into counterspelling instead of having just a flat "counterspell" spell
I see the appeal of the counterspell spell, it's simple, but I guess I'm not satisfied with it. Then again they changed it in 5e24 to be a CON saving throw... actually shouldn't that be a spellcasting ability check of some sort? A save using their spellcasting ability? I guess CON so it can benefit from stuff like war caster for concentration checks. Waaait is it a concentration check or just a CON save?