Warlocks are what the word "sorcerer" actually means.
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D&D (2024) Pie in the Sky 6E
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Vaalingrade
Legend
D&D's relation with synonyms is... interesting.
Earth spirits can be cobbler elves who talk to badgers or tiny dragon-dog-lizard men.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Pie in the sky? Here goes...
Hugely dial back the "character build" aspect of the game, such that a) most characters of a given class run on the same underlying mechanics and it takes personality-background-roleplay to differentiate them in play, b) class abilities are almost entirely baked-in and strongly niche-protected (i.e. no more feats or spells that allow members of one class to do things that should be reserved for another), and c) char-gen takes 15 minutes tops using nothing but the PH, dice, pencil, and paper.
Bring back the idea of penalties as well as bonuses. Yes, your Hobbit is weaker than the baseline (Human), so stick a flat -1 on your strength before going any further.
Add in a body-fatigue or wound-vitality system to allow for lingering injuries and better narration of damage.
Make hit points valuable again. No in-combat healing unless at significant risk to the caster (e.g. no ranged healing of any kind). Resting overnight only gets you back a small fraction of your h.p., not the whole lot.
Make spells harder both to cast and to aim. Much easier interruption, no such thing as combat casting, must roll to aim non-targeted ranged spells (i.e. nearly all AoE spells), etc. Also, make spells more potentially dangerous to one's allies. Do away with concentration and instead put hard limits on how many times a day a lot of buff/utility spells can be cast.
Somehow randomize initiative each round. Probably requires re-doing the whole system to use a smaller die; and for the love of hell allow ties and simultaniety. Drop dex bonuses to initiative, they don't make sense and dex is already too powerful.
Make strength the only stat that helps (or hurts, if very weak) with melee combat to-hit and damage. No more weapon finesse; leave dex for defense and missile fire only.
Magic items - make them more easy come, easy go; make them interesting; and for gawd's sake give us a useful price list that isn't done on a formula (lookin' sideways at you, 4e) but instead has each item or item-property valued independently by expected usefulness and-or expense to create.
Throw wealth-by-level guidelines out the window. If one DM wants to be super-stingy and another wants to go full-on Monty Haul, each should receive the same encouragement, support, and range of suggestions as does a DM who plays it right down the middle.
Put in enough levels and gradations to allow the game to smoothly progress from true zero (commoner) to hero, then note a series of possible starting points for the DM depending on the campaign. With 4e and to a lesser extent 5e there's far too big a gap between commoner and 1st-level character.
Give players some ideas as to what to spend their PCs' treasure on; be it training, strongholds, spell research, item creation, whatever; and then back those ideas up with some mechanics.
Slow down level advancement. A lot. Echoing (I think it was @Bill Zebub ?) upthread, make the playable part of the game only about 10-12 levels* but make each of those levels really mean something. At the same time, leave it all open-ended such that if a DM wants higher-than-10th foes or the table wants higher-than-10th play the game can handle it. Put another way, design for 1-20 or even higher but make it clear up front that the PC-playable part is intended only to be within the 1-10 or 1-12 range of that.
* - as currently known. My previous note about very-low-level gradations might add a couple of new levels at the low end; thus making the playable range something like -2 to +10 or +12.
I could go on, but that's probably enough for now.
Hugely dial back the "character build" aspect of the game, such that a) most characters of a given class run on the same underlying mechanics and it takes personality-background-roleplay to differentiate them in play, b) class abilities are almost entirely baked-in and strongly niche-protected (i.e. no more feats or spells that allow members of one class to do things that should be reserved for another), and c) char-gen takes 15 minutes tops using nothing but the PH, dice, pencil, and paper.
Bring back the idea of penalties as well as bonuses. Yes, your Hobbit is weaker than the baseline (Human), so stick a flat -1 on your strength before going any further.
Add in a body-fatigue or wound-vitality system to allow for lingering injuries and better narration of damage.
Make hit points valuable again. No in-combat healing unless at significant risk to the caster (e.g. no ranged healing of any kind). Resting overnight only gets you back a small fraction of your h.p., not the whole lot.
Make spells harder both to cast and to aim. Much easier interruption, no such thing as combat casting, must roll to aim non-targeted ranged spells (i.e. nearly all AoE spells), etc. Also, make spells more potentially dangerous to one's allies. Do away with concentration and instead put hard limits on how many times a day a lot of buff/utility spells can be cast.
Somehow randomize initiative each round. Probably requires re-doing the whole system to use a smaller die; and for the love of hell allow ties and simultaniety. Drop dex bonuses to initiative, they don't make sense and dex is already too powerful.
Make strength the only stat that helps (or hurts, if very weak) with melee combat to-hit and damage. No more weapon finesse; leave dex for defense and missile fire only.
Magic items - make them more easy come, easy go; make them interesting; and for gawd's sake give us a useful price list that isn't done on a formula (lookin' sideways at you, 4e) but instead has each item or item-property valued independently by expected usefulness and-or expense to create.
Throw wealth-by-level guidelines out the window. If one DM wants to be super-stingy and another wants to go full-on Monty Haul, each should receive the same encouragement, support, and range of suggestions as does a DM who plays it right down the middle.
Put in enough levels and gradations to allow the game to smoothly progress from true zero (commoner) to hero, then note a series of possible starting points for the DM depending on the campaign. With 4e and to a lesser extent 5e there's far too big a gap between commoner and 1st-level character.
Give players some ideas as to what to spend their PCs' treasure on; be it training, strongholds, spell research, item creation, whatever; and then back those ideas up with some mechanics.
Slow down level advancement. A lot. Echoing (I think it was @Bill Zebub ?) upthread, make the playable part of the game only about 10-12 levels* but make each of those levels really mean something. At the same time, leave it all open-ended such that if a DM wants higher-than-10th foes or the table wants higher-than-10th play the game can handle it. Put another way, design for 1-20 or even higher but make it clear up front that the PC-playable part is intended only to be within the 1-10 or 1-12 range of that.
* - as currently known. My previous note about very-low-level gradations might add a couple of new levels at the low end; thus making the playable range something like -2 to +10 or +12.
I could go on, but that's probably enough for now.
Vaalingrade
Legend
They're a class based on a cyncial reading of the actual people.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
No, they’re not. What on earth are you on about?
Edit: just to be super clear, the 5e warlock is, if anything, a very generous and optimistic reading of the term warlock.
And there is a reason that the witch has never been part of the warlock class, if that’s the road you’re trying to walk down with this nonsense.
The warlock is based on people like Alistair Crowley, as much as on anything else.
Vaalingrade
Legend
I am super curious about why there needs to be hostility over this of all things.
But if one were to encounter a Lawful Good Cleric of Tyr in full armor in universe, they might not be able to see much difference between them and a Paladin.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
That seems unlikely to me. The cleric would almost certainly have different vestments that anyone observing would have the cultural knowledge to know the basics of, would use very different titles, etc.
But you’re also using the most extreme case as if it represents the whole.
No one is struggling to see the difference between any Paladin and the vast majority of clerics.
MichaelSomething
Legend
I would make a single twenty dollar core rule book and supplement that will small monthly releases.
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