D&D (2024) (+) New Edition Changes for Inclusivity (discuss possibilities)

[Deset Gled]

Ignoring the problem of exactly where they come from, I'll throw out that Moloch, Belial, rakshasas, imps, djinn, and even the concept of devils and demons all come from other mythologies that were once (or still are) religions. And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more.

FWIW, despite my last couple posts saying that D&D shouldn't include real world religions, I'm completely fine with it borrowing mythologies that used to be religions. The devil* is in the details.

*non-denominational

 

[Deset Gled]

A great many are part of the religion, yes. Medusa. Horses. Titans. Etc.

Horses?

 

[Azzy]

I'm not sure if you properly researched the cultural origins of these deities. For starters, Bahamut and Tiamat are Babylonian and not Sumerian. I'm also not sure that neither Pelor nor Correlon are Finnish.

I thought that Bahamut was Arabic, and its name derived from the Hebrew Behemoth. While it helps hols up the world (it carries a giant ox on its back, which carries a gemstone, epon which is an angel that shoulders the world). Either way, it's more of a giant fish/whale/sea monster, not a god.

 

[Maxperson]

Horses?

Poseidon is the god of and creator of horses.

 

[Aldarc]

I thought that Bahamut was Arabic, and its name derived from the Hebrew Behemoth. While it helps hols up the world (it carries a giant ox on its back, which carries a gemstone, epon which is an angel that shoulders the world). Either way, it's more of a giant fish/whale/sea monster, not a god.

You're right. My slip-up.

 

[clearstream]

This works fine for classes where there's a single key ability score (ie wizards) but gets trickier when a class can be played multiple ways with respect to ability scores (ie fighters) - and I think the later category is a lot bigger than the former.

I'd separate design problems to overcome, from conceptual merit.

I'm also going to say: "I want to make a non-charismatic warlock" isn't something that I feel is needed in principal. Trying to make every class work with every ability array is a crazy-huge task that will require a ton of oddball subclasses and alternate features and a lot of weird, contradictory ideas like muscle wizards and charm-focused rangers and scrawny barbarians who get by on pure intellect (while raging). That's not a path that I'd like to see pursued.

What you say here seems contradictory. If we don't want muscle-wizards, why wouldn't it make sense to attach an Int bonus to the wizard class?

You can get "any race/class combination is valid" pretty easily though, so that's a worthwhile goal.

Agreed on that: the new system - if there is one - should open up scope for any race/class combination. It feels like a palpable design flaw that 5th funnels so much.

 

[Deset Gled]

Poseidon is the god of and creator of horses.

Surely this is reductio ad absurdum, yes? The fact that some mythology has a god of XYZ is different than saying XYZ is a borrowed mythology. Otherwise Helios and Gaia are gonna be big problems.

 

[Maxperson]

Surely this is reductio ad absurdum, yes? The fact that some mythology has a god of XYZ is different than saying XYZ is a borrowed mythology. Otherwise Helios and Gaia are gonna be big problems.

A bit, but horses play a significant role in that religion. Poseidon even fathered Pegasus. Leaving horses aside a huge number of D&D monsters have religious/mythological origins. If we're cutting out the gods, we should be cutting those out as well.

 

[jmartkdr2]

A thought I had - do we even need to have named deities in the Player's Handbook? 13th Age get by without any, and clerics really just need the domains spelled out. Even the current book only has them in the appendix.

(I would probably leave the gods in existing settings alone for now - just because someone in Egypt might be offended by how we portray Horus doesn't mean they are and doesn't mean they don't want the god included at all.)

 

[jmartkdr2]

What you say here seems contradictory. If we don't want muscle-wizards, why wouldn't it make sense to attach an Int bonus to the wizard class?

That only works in the case of wizards, and I wouldn't want a special rule for assigning ability scores to a particular class. Easier to leave it out of classes entirely.

The point about muscle wizards was really that I don't want to try to fill in all the boxes of class x ability score. It was bad enough when 4e tried to fill in all the boxes for power source x role. In general, trying to fill all the boxes will get bad results.