My Thoughts on DnD, and the next Edition (Long, rambly)

[glass]

How would you handle weapons and armour. Would they be their own feat still as in AU, or would you include them in constant items.

It would probably be its own feat I'd say. Creating magic weapons and armor is a tad different in that in its most basic form it is the only form of item creation thats more like item enhancement...the most basic function of "magicing" armor and weapons is giving them enhancement bonuses. That is to say, enhancing what they were made to do, rather than making them do something else.

Maybe a feat called 'craft enhanced item', use for magical armour and weapons, as well as other magically better tools (lockpicks, maybe).

Armor makes it harder to hit YOU (as opposed to IT). You hit the armor, and the weapon bounces off, harmlessly. Your Base AC is 10, +2 DEX, +4 for armor, a roll of 13-17 hits (but doesn't penetrate) your armor. Rolls of 18+ do damage.

Yes yes....I've heard this all 9 thousand times. Nothing in the rules supports it except flavour text. And my point is, a more logical, elegant way to do it...so that it actually works like you describe both in our heads and in the mechanics, is to have armor having nothing to do with hitting or missing, and simply make it cause you to take less damage. Since in reality thats what it does.

The problem I have with the AC system is that any given suit of armour is equally effective against a bear handed punch and a 200 pt power attack from a giants club the same size you are. I find that jarring. I also dislike the all or nothing nature.

Like I said above, different things damage different people's suspension of disbelief.


glass.

 

[Steverooo]

Things I'd Like To See:

1) Tracking: It's More Than Just "Duh, Dey Went Dattaway!" See the last edition of the ENWorld Players' Journal for my solution. Identifying creatures by their tracks, scat, telling things about them, etc.

2) Race and Age mean something. See a later edition of the ENWorld Gamer for my solution to that. Each Race gets certain racial background points, and skills to spend them on.

3) No blank levels. Every class gets a new ability, feat, or something at every level. They shouldn't all affect combat, but each class should get a goodie at every level.

4) Fighters get paths, which give them predetermined abilities at each level where they don't get Fighter Feats. Cavalry starts off with Mounted Combat, Command starts off with bonus to CHA, eventually leading to Leadership, while Cavalry gets horsemanship feats. Marines get shipboard fighting feats, etc.

5) Every class gets +1 Skill Point/Class Level in ALL Class Skills, PLUS their current Skill Points... These may be spent to maximize skills, or for Cross-Class Skills, as desired. Maximums are done as now.

6) Use Rope is done away with as a skill, entirely. Tying knots is done with either Survival or Climb, whichever has the higher bonus. Throwing a grapnel is done with BAB.

7) Forgery is rolled into either Bluff, or Sleight of Hand.

8) Fighters are allowed access to Profession, as well as Knowledge (History & Architecture and Engineering). This will aid those who multi-class to Bard, yes, but is intended to reflect their knowledge of battles and fortifications. Again, this could be related to their path... Marines getting Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) later than Militia or Guardsmen. At later levels, other skills can be added as Non-Cross-Class Skills, such as allowing Army path Fighters to acquire some survival and Knowledge (Geography), or even add them as class skills (+1 Skill Point/Level) from that point on.

9) Roll Sorceror/Wizard into one class, give the Sorceror the bonus magic Feats, and make them two variants of one class.

10) Do the same with the other (Semi-)Spellcasters. Make a Spontaneous Casting variant of each, and a Studied Caster (with Scribe Scroll as a free Feat) of each. The player chooses which one they want their PC to be.

11) In relation to 3, lots of new special abilities relating to the "Job" of each class, and similar Class-only Feats... For instance, the Druid might get Speak With Animals as an At-Will Ability at a certain level, and a Ranger or Bard might have a Class-only Feat to allow the same ability.

12) Spellcraft is done away with as a separate skill, and all Spellcraft tasks are performed with Knowledge (Arcana).

13) Bards automatically receive Perform (Voice), which includes all aspects of singing, oratory, poetry, whatever, as a freebie. They may then spend their skill points/level to maximize this, and/or on instruments. This solves the "No one will ever take an instrument!" problem.

14) Concentration could be removed as a skill, being rolled into Knowledge (Arcana), as well (although the Class Skills lists would have to be updated).

15) To reduce the reliance upon magic items, "Items" should be buyable as a "Power", instead. So you buy "+1 Power" instead of a "+1 Sword", and any weapon you use is treated as +1. Same with armor, etc. Then other special weapons/armor abilities can be stacked on. This needs playtesting to see how abusive it is, but sounds good to me.

16) I'd like to see more weak, permanent abilities, instead of "X times per day" ones. It's an aesthetic thing...

17) It'll Never Happen: Spells all have a spell failure chance... You start with 50%, and go down from there (just like a Fighter's chance to hit). Spell damage is greatly reduced (in line with weapons damage), but can also be used at will, as long as you have components. Eventually, you get to 100%, but new spells start at 50%. Thus, it is better to use a "Sure-fire" low-level spell than the handy-dandy new Zappathingum you just got.

18) PCs start getting the powers, abilities, and skills they need to do their jobs, and have something left over to flavor themselves as they please.

19) Characters stop being incompetent at low level. They can do things like throw a punch without needing a Feat to do it (right)! Maybe a Mage needs Improved Unarned Strike to do this, but every fighting man (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Rogue, even Druid, maybe even Cleric) should be able to, without the -4 penalty and AoO! Same with Disarm, Grapple, etc.

20) PCs should be more knowledgable... The +1 to each Class Skill/Level will go a long way towards fixing this, and the racial background skills will, too.

That's it, for now... I'm too hungry to go on. Suffice it to say that D&D would look much different, if I ran it. Tying a steenking knot would be pretty easy, and everyone would be more able than disabled!

21) Oh yeah... and Rangers still need Balance, so they won't fall outta da trees, and offa da cliffs! ;-o

 

[glass]

Ok, now we're getting somewhere.. you're finally admitting that the rules have been designed for use with some kind of representations. What I was saying is that AoO is one of those things that tends to make that "some kind of representation" more nescessary.

I had promised myself I wouldn't continue this anymore, but I can't let that go. Anyone who couldn't be bother to slog through the whole thread might believe I had changed my position. I haven't, as evidenced by...

Or the fact that dice, tidily winks, coins, pencil marks on paper, or miniatures from other manufacturers work just as well for rules adjudication as do WotC miniatures if you can't keep track of where everything is in your head.

...and while we are on the subject, there is also this from the same post that you have conspicuously failed to reply to...

Like the fact that when 3e D&D was being designed, WotC's strategy for selling miniatures was the separate 'chainmail' game.

Now, as to your discussion with this other fellow, you may be right that it is not specifically nescessary that the "represenations" be little plastic fighters and wizards, much less WoTC's version therein... but at the same time, you could look at this sensibly from the point of view of marketing and figure that WoTC didn't make 3.5 more "representation mandatory" because they were hoping for a big boom in the tiddly-winks market. They did it because they want to sell their miniatures.

WotC didn't make 3.5 more 'representation mandatory' at all. The rules for AoO are basically identical between the two editions, if better explained in 3.5. I tend to find arguments more credible when they do not contain flat-out lies, like the two in the post I quoted.


glass.

 

[glass]

You should really read Sean Reynolds thoughts about why Armor as DR is not worth the work: http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/armorasdamagereduction.html

Interesting, but I am still not convinced.

The way I see it, armour as something like DR (but not DR in D&D terms, maybe call it soak) is that is, for me, more believable. This is not the same as more realistic.

If I have time, I post a more detailed reply later.


glass.

 

[Staffan]

Yes yes....I've heard this all 9 thousand times. Nothing in the rules supports it except flavour text. And my point is, a more logical, elegant way to do it...so that it actually works like you describe both in our heads and in the mechanics, is to have armor having nothing to do with hitting or missing, and simply make it cause you to take less damage. Since in reality thats what it does.

Actually, there is rules support for it - at least there was in 3.0 (not sure about 3.5, and I don't feel like checking the books). In the rules for determining misses with ranged weapons, it says that an attack that misses your full AC but hits your touch AC is a hit that got deflected by your armor, so you shouldn't bother to figure out where the missile struck.

 

[buzz]

Interesting, but I am still not convinced.

Convinced that it's not worth the work, or that it's not any more "realistic".

I would have no problem if D&D 4e chose to go this route, but it does seem like it would involve overhauling a *lot* of the system. It also seems like it would make normal armor even more irrelevant at high levels.

I'm fine with it as-is, really.

 

[Grayhawk]

Steverooo, nice list.

17) It'll Never Happen: Spells all have a spell failure chance... You start with 50%, and go down from there (just like a Fighter's chance to hit)...

I'm quoting this part, as I too believe magic could do with an element of uncertainty.

And on that subject I don't hope anyone will be offended if I blatantly link to a thread I recently started in House Rules, than until now have went unnoticed.

It deals with making spellcasting less of a sure thing in combat and I'd appreciate any input, both from those interrested in such a thing and from those who would just give my mechanic some criticism as an intellectual exercise.

 

[eyebeams]

1) Remove AoOs that aren't position/movement based and find other ways to balance the things that provoke AoOs. AoO's are cool on the battlemat, not so cool as something you have to refer to for certain combat moves.

2) Drop concentration checks in favour of a damage threshold to cast while struck.

3) Replaced all the skill bonus feats with one skill bonus feat. Those feat are sheer padding.

4) Saves for all ability scores that also double as ability score checks, so that ability score checks scale to DC similar to skills.

5) Shallower feat trees. Some feats (like PB Shot) are filler.

6) Simplify the dragon. The emblematic creature of the game has, in the name of making it fearsome, been turned into a morass of special rules that's annoying to DM.

7) More class and PrC progressions that do not rely on magic or an obviously supernatural power set.

8) Get rid of the lingering d% rolls for things like miss chance and spell failure.

 

[Steverooo]

3) Replaced all the skill bonus feats with one skill bonus feat. Those feat are sheer padding.

Unless you want PCs to be able to take the same Feat more than once, and stack the bonuses (which, I think, no one wants), then you're going to need at least two. Here's why:

Skill Focus gives a bonus of +3 to ONE skill, while the host of "Padding" feats gives +2/+2 to TWO. So, if you put them both together into ONE Feat that gives you +3 to ONE skill or +2/+2 to TWO, then your maximum bonus drops from +5 to +3... Is that what you're wanting?

I think the previously suggested "Multi-Talented" Feat solves the problem:

"Choose any two skills, and apply a bonus of +2 to each. This Feat does not stack with itself, but does with other Feats, such as Skill Focus. This Feat may be taken multiple times, choosing a different set of skills each time."

 

[glass]

Convinced that it's not worth the work, or that it's not any more "realistic".

That it is not worth the work. New editions change stuff. That requires a lot of work. If they are not going to change things, there is no point in a new edition.

And, one last time, I don't think armour as DR is more realistic, I think it is more believable. D&D is never going to be realistic.


glass.