D&D General My "Perfect D&D" Would Include...

[tetrasodium]

this means like herbalism kit or disguse kit right?

Kits were a thing in 2e, here is a pretty good thread on them. The first couple posts in that link do a good job of explaining them without getting into the crunch of 2e itself. those are almost certainly the kits in question

Spoiler: said posts

Kits were originally introduced in Complete Fighter and were designed to be a way to further customize characters to a specific concept, without having to create whole new classes. So you'd pick a class and then pick a kit from the list of kits for that class - a fighter could be an Amazon or a Beastrider or a Barbarian or a Savage, while a wizard could be a Savage Wizard or a Militant Wizard or a Noble Wizard, and a thief could be a Smuggler or an Assassin or a Troubleshooter.
Each was a package of abilities - typically one special benefit, one special hindrance, a couple of bonus Non Weapon Proficiencies, and often a recommended weapon. Quite often there are reaction roll modifiers to other characters.

The kits do vary greatly from just being cool concepts, to pretty over the top: some of the dodgier ones include the elven Bladesinger kit, the bard Blade and the 3-armed tree ranger from the Ranger's Handbook. Some of the fancier classes (particularly Bard) had kits which radically redesign the class; a bard kit is basically a wholly different type of bard and loses all the standard bard powers for a completely different list of special abilities - like a blade (guy who shows off weapons skills) getting defensive spin and ambidexterity, instead of the normal song abilities. A number of the kits allowed unusual races to pick up a class, as long as they took a kit e.g. dwarves could be Bards if they took the Chanter kit, and halflings could be Ranger/Explorers.

Kits were initially largely for single-classed characters; the race handbook's however include a number of kits available to multiclassed characters. Skills & Powers had a list of rebalanced kits which were available to all character classes (and regardless of multiclassing) as well. Planescape noted that only 'Prime' characters had kits - they got these instead of choosing a Faction.

One of the design decisions that went into 2e was the insistence on keeping the number of actual classes small, usually limiting them to just those found in the PH. Kits were a way of compensating for that self-imposed limitation by giving people specific builds to customize those basic classes. Therefore instead of having a Barbarian class, you could apply a barbarian-flavored kit to the Fighter class, or so the logic went. Many discrete classes from 1e became kits in 2e, added to whichever basic class they were seen to be most like. The 3e designers reversed that trend and made them either full classes or prestige classes, leaving kits a uniquely 2e thing.

In theory, a kit's additional benefits were supposed to be counterbalanced by specific drawbacks so that adding a kit would not make the class objectively better than the base class. In practice the authors of 2e were only loosely acquainted with balance as a concept, they often got carried away with the coolness of a given concept, and power creep was a thing. As a result, you were often better off taking a kit than not.

In a way they would probably be very useful for setting localization type things that could be applied blanketed across the classes without having the kind of pushback from players that tends to come with "x class is not allowed" even if nobody planned to play x.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In particular I take issue with point #5 where it seems you want to do away with the zero-to-hero journey, which to me (and backed by the levelling progression in all editions) has always been the basic point of the whole exercise.

No, that's a misunderstanding on your part.

OD&D was designed so Wizards were zero-to-hero, and everyone else wasn't. LFQW was an intentional design choice. A really dumb one, but an intentional one.

1E/2E/3E were pretty similar to that. 4E wasn't, and 5E tones it down a tone.

I want all classes to be equal amounts of zero-to-hero, not some classes having it way more.

 

[jasper]

Players and DM who show up 90% + of the time. And the Budwiser Swedish Bikini Team to help me roll dice.
HEY YOU STATE OUT MY FANTASY D&D.

 

[Vaalingrade]

In particular I take issue with point #5 where it seems you want to do away with the zero-to-hero journey, which to me (and backed by the levelling progression in all editions) has always been the basic point of the whole exercise.

No, that'd be me.

I am so tired of sad farmboys failing their way through the first half of the movie with the corpse of Campbell strapped around their necks. I'm calling on a five year moratorium on zero-to-hero and a quota for competence pron instead.

 

[CreamCloud0]

looking at the list and was wondering how the game's dynamic would shift without exp from combat.

 

[Reynard]

looking at the list and was wondering how the game's dynamic would shift without exp from combat.

It would depend on where it came from, i think. If it comes from gold, you encourage a more old school playstyle. If it comes from story, you encourage more of a Hickman playstyle. If it comes from milestones, you encourage a rollercoaster* playstyle. If it comes from discovery, you encourage a more sandbox playstyle. Of course, encouragement doesn't guarantee behavior. It's D&D and 90% of a character's abilities are focused on combat, so they'll still fight.

*I use "rollercoaster" instead of "railroad" because rollercoasters are fun!

 

[Vaalingrade]

If it just doesn't come and you level once you've been playing long enough and achieve something major be it in the story or personal/player generated plot, you achieve Gaming Nirvana.

 

[DND_Reborn]

My perfect D&D game would include dice (well, and players...). Everything else is optional.

 

[Reynard]

My perfect D&D game would include dice. Everything else is optional.

Funky dice?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Funky dice?

No... really just 3d6. I can do pretty much anything I need to with only that. Sure, a full "set" would be easier, however.

And I don't do "funky".