New D&D Survey: What Do you Want From Older Editions?

WotC has just posted this month's D&D feedback survey. This survey asks about content from older editions of D&D, including settings, classes and races. The results will help determine what appears in future Unearthed Arcana columns.

The new survey is here. The results for the last survey have not yet been compiled. However, WotC is reporting that the Waterborne Adventures article scored well, and that feedback on Dragon+ has been "quite positive".

"We also asked about the new options presented in the Waterborne Adventures installment of Unearthed Arcana. Overall, that material scored very well—on a par with material from the Player’s Handbook. Areas where players experienced trouble were confined to specific mechanics. The minotaur race’s horns created a bit of confusion, for example, and its ability score bonuses caused some unhappiness. On a positive note, people really liked the sample bonds and how they helped bring out the minotaur’s unique culture.

The mariner, the swashbuckler, and the storm sorcerer also scored very well. A few of the specific mechanics for those options needed some attention, but overall, players and DMs liked using them.

Finally, we asked a few questions about the Dragon+ app. We really appreciate the feedback as we tailor the app’s content and chart the course for future issues. The overall feedback has been quite positive, and we’re looking at making sure we continue to build on our initial success."

 

[MechaPilot]

Effectively, the Martial Power Source was a magical power source, so that means there were effectively no strictly non-magical classes in 4e.

The various Exceptional abilities of 3e are also effectively magical abilities, with the description of exceptional abilities stating that they "may break the laws of physics." The only thing that makes them non-magical is the book saying they aren't magical, which is no different that the 4e martial power source.

 

[MechaPilot]

Good point.

Why NOT limit Second Wind uses per day, given all these other things have daily limits.

Second wind already has a daily limit. In fact, it has several different daily limits.

It has a hard limit of 24, for the number of one hour rests that can be taken in a day.

It has a rational hard limit of 16, for the number of one hour rests that can be taken in a day between long rests.

It has a soft limit of the number of times the party is willing to stop for an entire hour and do nothing just so one character can use her second wind.

It also has a practical soft limit of 2-3, representing the average number of short rests one can expect to take during an adventuring day.

 

[MechaPilot]

Going back to the practical aspects of adding a new Warlord class, there's a few big stumbling blocks.

1. Warlord healing isn't really needed in the form that it was in. In 4e, because combat was generally so long, the group needed mechanisms to "unlock" healing surges during combat. So, all the leader classes got lots of powers that let you heal in combat. But 5e doesn't work that way. Combats are generally only 3-4 rounds at most and you aren't really healing in combat all that much. The fighters can self heal anyway, so, it's not like they need a second character stroking their HP every round to keep them on their feet.

2. Tactical positioning in 5e is less important. In 4e when every single class had burst and blast effects, it really mattered where characters were on the battle map. Additionally, since 4e combats tended to focus on larger scale encounters with a dozen or more PC's and NPC's on the board at once, it was very important to know where everything was. So, the Warlord got lots of battle map friendly powers to change the positioning on the map. 5e, where you have far fewer opportunity attacks, far, far fewer area attacks and, again, much shorter combats, means that tactical positioning in combat is far less important.

So, I'm not sure what a 5e warlord would actually look like. I understand why they didn't bring it forward. A lot of its raison d'être simply doesn't exist in 5e.

What I think I'd like to see is a non-magical Bard of Valor who has some of the 4e style tactical options, but a lot simpler than a 4e warlord.

In 5e the characters do have a significant amount of their daily HPs locked up behind a rest gate: 50% to be precise. If a warlord could allow PCs access to those HPs during combat, it would be beneficial to the character, it would reflect that you can only push/inspire someone so far, and it would release the pressure on other resources (namely potions and the slots used by healing spells).

Warlords could also be very good for condition mitigation. A warlord could direct a blinded PC as to when to duck or where to swing, temporarily reducing or removing the penalties for blindness in combat. A warlord could push/inspire a slowed character to temporarily relieve the slowed effect. A warlord could try to slap a frightened PC to her senses to help her snap out of it (allowing another fear save, perhaps even with advantage).

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not sure if that would be 'helped' rather than 'complicated.' I've played games that make that sort of distinction, and they can easily break down if you can find a way to target just one of those pools, typically the smaller, make'em dead, one.

We modified 1e about 33 years ago into a b.p.-f.p. system; as we're still using the same system today I'd have to say it's worked out OK. An attacker usually* can't "target" one or the other; if you run out of f.p. you're into b.p.. B.p. are harder to cure (the major complication is that each cure spell does two different amounts depending on whether it's b.p. or f.p. being cured; we just live with it), but f.p. are always assumed to involve at least a little physical damage (nicks, scratches, etc.) mostly so poisoned weapons still work as intended.

* - the most common exception being a coup-de-grace type maneuver, where the damage goes straight to b.p. unless the attacker states the attack is to subdue rather than kill.

Preach it, brother.

Every chance I get! Quickest way to rein casters in is to bring back 1e-like interruption rules and casting times, and do away with any idea similar to "combat casting".

You think the Cleric concept is so unappealing that it needs that level of niche-protection for it's healing function?

Me personally, no; but I see/read enough people complaining about it (except for its 3e/pf incarnation) that I suspect it needs what help it can get.

That's a hard fail for every edition, then.

Ayup. That said, the different editions have certainly required different *amounts* of looking-up during play.

The 'defender' was /based/ on the fighter's Iconic role, from 2e, all the way back to Chaimail, as a front-line infantry figure who protected his back-line artillery support.

Protected the back-enders, yes; but while also whaling on the enemy front-liners as well. Put in 'role' terms the Fighter (or any heavy class e.g. Paladin, Cavalier, etc.) should be both defender *and* striker, with things like Thief/Rogue and light Ranger put into more of an unwritten "sniper" role to go along with their sneaking and scouting (which Fighters generally don't do, or not well). In 5e terms Rogues and Rangers do the exploration part, Fighters and other heavies do the combat part.

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] - would you by any chance be getting to GenCon this year? It'd be fun to sit down over a beer and bash on things like this.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

I suppose if people are really opposed to warlords standing up people who have dropped below 0 HP, attaching the rider, "the target can see and hear you" would probably work.

And then add in a line about how a warlord's powers can always work on an adjacent ally. IOW, he's not shouting you awake from across the room, but actually taking the time to patch you up, which lets you roll whatever HD worth of healing his healing powers can do. Which does keep it nicely in line with a cleric who generally can't heal at range at all. Warlords would be able to heal at range any conscious ally, or adjacent to any fallen ally.

Would that not be a workable compromise?

Not bad at all; were I ever to have such abilities in the game they'd probably end up with very similar limits to these.

I'd point out that this isn't true in 5e at all. No matter how grievous the wound, you can fully recover in a single long rest. You're adding things to 5e that aren't in the books.

Full recovery from anything in a single long rest is a complete non-starter in any game I'll ever run. I'm not impressed with how 5e did this; but hey, the rules are there only as something for the DM to kitbash.

In 5e, the fluff is Rules As Written. It is material that the DM can shape, but the DM cannot make it go away.

Oh yes she can! Don't like the fluff/rule that says all h.p. are recovered after a single long rest? Bam! Gone, replaced with recovery of 10% of total h.p. on a long rest, or less if you've been at 0 h.p. recently. Don't like h.p. stopping at 0? Bam! Negative h.p. values are right back in the game. And so on.

Lan-"there would need, of course, to be a mechanism built in such that the warlord's restorative powers can - like a spell - be interrupted by an attack or whatever"-efan

 

[MechaPilot]

My setting votes were for most of the settings that are not standard medieval fantasy: Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Planescape, and Eberron.

My PC race votes were for the goblinoid races and the pixie. However, in the space provided at the bottom of the survey I indicated that above and beyond all of those races, what I most wanted to see were 1) Merfolk, and 2) a means of playing monstrous PCs (such as medusas and dragons).

 

[MechaPilot]

Because hit points include the ‘will’ to live, it seems reasonable for some options to substitute Wisdom for Constitution when determining max hit points while leveling.

I agree that your premise is sound, but one potential issue I see with substituting a different modifier when determining HPs is that the Con modifier seems like it's the only clearly defined health/physicality contribution to the HP pool.

Now the loss of that clearly defined physical health contribution will impact people differently (or not at all, depending on perspective), but I could see people taking issue with it even if their personal preference for HP interpretation includes non-physical factors.

Also, I'm sure that some would make the argument that it greatly reduces the inherent power of the Con score. While I disagree with that argument based on the prevalence of Con saves in 5e, I can see someone making the argument.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Anybody else write-in Al-Qadim?

Heck yeah I did. But, the setting seems like a minefield for a corporation that wants to avoid major political/religious controversy. Do you really think it's possible for today's WotC to do AQ in a way that's true to the original boxed set?

 

[aramis erak]

Have you ever seen a defender at work? That's.... Not even remotely how marking plays out. The DM is still making all the tactical decisions; the defender is there to capitalize on any opportunities.


I'm just reading the rules and letting them tell me what's happening. [emoji38] In D&D combat, there's no such thing as severe injury, so it looks like it'd only an actual deadly wound if you, you know, die. But seriously, a mod asked that the hp debate not take over this thread, so I'll leave it at that. Feel free to have the last word!

I'd leave out the misogyny and/or transphobia, though. It was a bit uncalled for.

Someone needs to reread the DMG optional rules... My home game does use the lasting injury rules for crits and for Deathsave-rolled-a-5-or-less....

 

[Minigiant]

Really, did anyone write in Dragonfire Adept?
What if we bring back the Dragonfire Adept and Dragon Shaman and combine them.

The base class is the Dragonfire (name WIP) and it gets an at-will breath weapon and invocations.

The subclasses are the Dragonfire Adept who gets the Breath effects as invocations, Dragonfire Shaman who gets auras as Invocations, and the Dragonfire Disciple who gets claws ad fangs.

• Dragonfire (Class)
  • Breath Weapon cantrip ("Linefire" and "Conefire" cantrips)
  • Invocations
  • Dragon Origin
    • Dragonfire Adept
      • Invocations alter "Linefire" and "Conefire"
      • Use 'Dragon God" breaths Invocations (Fivefold Breath of Tiamat, Discorporating Breath of Bathmut)
    • Dragonfire Shaman
      • Invocations after "Dragon Aura" cantirp
      • Gains Invocations that match Dragon Totem
      • Gain skills and minor feature based on Dragon Totem
    • Dragonfire Disciple
      • Gain claw and bite attacks
      • Extra Attack at level 6
      • Gains Invocations that match Dragon Heritage
  • Wings at high level