I haven't noticed that. We don't use point buy, though. But the gear is different, and no one has the same class features. But I'm assuming you mean that two fighters will be similar? To me, that's a feature, not a bug, but your tastes may vary.
I don't use point buy either, makes for far more interesting characters. Like our current Monk, who has the following:
Level 2 Monk - Str 7, Dex 14, Con 8, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 15 - Max HP 8
She's being played as a young monk in her late teens fresh out of an all women orphanage/monastery, trained within the temple of Illmater and pledged to follow the groups Paladin as her personal Handmaiden. She's about as waifish as they come, but she's great when it comes to skills and social roleplay. Her chosen background was Hermit, as it fit well for the backstory.
She'll be interesting I think, as she's definitely not a combat character. A strong gust of wind could kill this girl. She was especially unlucky as she rolled a 2 on her second hit die, so got Max at first level (8) -1 for Con, then 2, -1 for Con... it's statistically likely at this point that anything that touches her will one-shot her. Not that she will be, but if she was going up against the other players it's actually possible for them to do enough damage to reduce her to negative 8 HP in a single hit and insta-kill her. So I'm honestly wondering how long into the campaign she'll last. Still, definitely a cool outcome.
We even have multiple naturally rolled 18's in the party, one 5, and one 6, so... we've got quite a range. No-one has been unlucky enough to roll a 3 but who knows.
Again, this is a difference in taste. I LOVE the new skills and feats system. It's simple, it lets players try things even if they're unskilled, and the feats always mean something (as opposed to the weapon finesse/toughness/skill focus issue of 3e). I'm all for simpler gameplay.
It's in many ways a vast improvement over 3e, (though I tended to play 3.5); but it does seem, somehow, more boring.
Maybe it's just that 5e has so much less to draw on than 3.5; a few splat books, maybe the inclusion of some new classes, new archetypes, or even bringing back prestige classes could spice everything up a little for me I think. I'm definitely hoping for a full and detailed Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book, with, hopefully some additional races/classes. I want to see Shades stated, and I definitely want to see a 5e take on the Harper Scout, Horizon Walker, and Thayan Red Mage... hell, they could easily be archetypes probably of Rogue/Bard, Ranger, and Wizard respectively, though I'd much prefer them as prestige classes or even full classes in their own right.
I dunno about that, but I can see where you're coming from. In my games, so far, the PCs are more broke than they've been in other editions.... due to downtime expenditures. And they're looking at starting up a keep, getting hirelings, etc. But then, I also have limited magic item sales as a possibility (no one's taken me up on it yet, but we're low level).
Trust me, beyond about level 12 it get's ridiculous if you actually give them the treasure the DMG suggests. They could literally afford to pre-pay for multiple resurrections each at one point and afford the have a dozen elephants march through the town to mark the occasion too... there's just far too many ways of making money, and if you have shrewd PC's they could make more. God forbid they kill a Dragon and think to bring empty vials and
. Dragon teeth, Dragons blood, Dragon scales etc. before you know what's going on they're in a mages guild selling the corpse piecemeal as spell components, or selling the scales to armourers to make exotic armour. You can hardly blame them too.
The racial weapons bit is cool, sure, but I'm not sure about weapon proficiencies. I really don't like em, because they force players into using only one schtick. And I'm all for fighters grabbing a weapon in a pinch and going with it (and not penalizing them for doing it). It also means that if I have a player that uses a trident, I have to suddenly make sure there are magical tridents available, despite "realism" of doing it... or let him never get a magic item. Either way, it sucks. And I've seen in play that when that's the case, all players take the same proficiencies - long sword, long bow, dagger, and club (or some variation thereof). Which is boring.
Have him face Sahuagin or Merfolk, they traditionally use tridents. You could even make an adventure around the legend of a magic trident that's used by some underwater gribbly. It'd give you a reason to have underwater combat, a reason to use amphibious monsters, and will make the Wizard feel smart/useful for preparing spells like waterbreathing. It'll make for great RP when the players realise you can't talk underwater so they're limited to sign language or telepathy; this'll make any Warlock with a Great Old One pact very smug, but otherwise, more use for spells. You'll also need darkvision (and I mean real darkvision, not cop-out 5e can see a blurry mess darkvision); so people will need to get hold of Goggles Of The Night, this means seeking an Artificer who will make these magic goggles; or finding a spell that will give them the ability to see in darkness. All this will come together great as a side-quest for getting the trident specialist fighter his magic weapon, and because he had to work for it, it'll be all the sweeter when he gets it. It's as Yhatzee says, you soon get sick of your giant golden cock-and-balls if you're just given one, so when you've had to work for it you'll love it all the more.
Alternatively you can give them a ritual that let's them move low end enchantments from one weapon to another so long as they're both finely crafted weapons; and you spend say 100gp in ritual components. This doesn't work on artefacts, and you need a fine crafted weapon, so charge them double for the base weapon (or pay again to reinforce your current weapon, if for RP reason you don't want to change it... ie. your grandfathers sword you're using to honour him etc.) to make sure it's suitable for the enchantment to stick.
BUT, if you do it this way, might I suggest cultural weapon proficiencies for human characters?
Ooooh... Interesting. I like that. I'll certainly look into doing that, as that sounds like a very good idea.
It's a bit finicky for my tastes, but it's not going to break your game.
The downside here is, you get your PCs spending a huge amount of time in school, doing... well.... not much. And what do you do as a GM if one PC goes into seclusion to learn a new spell, while everyone else wants to play?
Also, doesn't this mean longer-lived characters are going to do better in your game?
They can only reasonably go into seclusion if they've not got an active quest. If they're actively questing and one player doesn't want to go along, that player is being a dick! Just like if they get hired to do a quest, and one of the players decides he doesn't want to part way through... that's a bad player who you should probably ask to leave the game. There's a reason it's called downtime. Training over 6 months can easily be roleplayed in; the Ranger discussing magical theory with the Wizard as he studies to perfect his arcana training (and gain the proficiency). With competent roleplayers they'll do this all on their own.
One of my favourite times running a game was three of the party having a discussion in character while they were camping. This was a big game with 7 players and myself GMing. Fantastic game though. 4 of the players had left the game to go get pizza, and they waited for when the team was camping to go (my players have always been thoughtful like that, I can't fault them). The remaining three spent an hour just talking in character; one playing a Sun Elf, one playing a Thayan Wizard trained in necromancy, and the last, a Gargoyle (using the rules for playing a monster). They talked about what it was like growing up, why they adventure, the human wizard discussed why in his town necromancy is accepted because it's an honour to offer to serve as a soldier beyond death to protect your country, but his time outside of Thay was causing him to question this. They then went outright philosophical, discussing in character what they believed the stars where... the souls of the departed, a map on the weave of magic to help lost travellers find the way, and more. Even the gargoyle had stuff to say, and with a more bestial perspective, it was interesting to watch them interact. The two humanoids laying on their bedrolls, with the gargoyle, hidden in the branches of a nearby tree. The player who played the gargoyle was fantastic, even going so far as to have animalistic body language and to growl and snarl between words. The entire scene was incredible, and will stick with me for years. As the GM, I had virtually no input on this scene. I was playing the NPC stable hand they'd hired using the hireling rules, and I was tending to the horses (for those players who had horses). The other PCs where asleep, after all, it's smart to sleep in shifts. I didn't join in because I didn't want to break the flow, or cause them to break character. I was enjoying the raw improv roleplaying.
This kind of roleplaying is why I run these games. It would be easy to incorporate discussions of your training, your studies etc. and to act out tool and weapons training, even if only by description around the table. I have faith in my players that they could run with this and make it great.
As for characters that live longer being at an advantage... yes in theory, but I'm not likely to have my campaign spread more than a decade, and I don't tend to run campaigns where characters cross over. There will be a major story arc, with a few side quests and character lead development. Usually taking between 2-5 years in character and between 6 months to 2 years in reality to play (usually closer to 6-8 months, though my Shadowrun campaign is over 2 years at this point and still going strong). Once the main story arc is finished, and main character goals are resolved; the characters are retired and the game finishes. I rarely see characters go past level 15 and this is by design, we like drama and intrigue in our games, and the very high level stuff loses that. At level 20 you can literally fight with Gods, which is just daft, Gods by virtue of being Gods, should be omnipotent. Their character sheet should just be a blank piece of paper with "YES!" written on it. Gods are not monsters, they're philosophical concepts of the game world that frankly you should never formally even confirm or deny the existence of. It's religion... we don't have people ACTUALLY going to have a chat with Jesus or Muhammed, and last time I checked, no-one has ever taken a sword, gone off into a field somewhere in India and successfully done battle with Vishnu. It's a stupid concept so why entertain it in D&D. Gods should be Gods, figures of worship and religion; nothing more, and for that to work we can't have level 20 characters turning up in the celestial plain and trying to smash the face in of Tyr... just no.
Strongly disagree. Though experience, Expertise is one of the rogue's best abilities. Giving it away for a relatively small cost (considering you expect players to spend a lot of time in downtime), is just screwing over the rogue.
How so, the Rogue gets TWO lots of Expertise as does the Bard, as a class feature. That means they can either be training for a third, while everyone else is either getting their first expertise, or getting a new proficiency. Or better yet, the Rogue or Bard can be seeking a Mastery in a skill right from the get go. It doesn't diminish their class feature at all I feel.
The idea is cool, but I doubt it'll see much play. A more fun idea (in my opinion) is just to grant this to PCs that have shown aptitude in play, as a result of awesome adventures. The druid who rescues a treant gets mastery in nature; the cleric who has a divine revelation gets mastery in religion; the fighter who climbed the tallest mountain without faltering gets mastery in athletics; etc.
The problem with that is it becomes very much like Inspiration only far more flinky. It's a reward for roleplaying, which is something you should be doing anyway. It'll also seem arbitrary and unfair to some players as they may feel the thing they did was worthy of a mastery but the GM didn't so they weren't awarded one. It'd also, likely make mastery MORE common, which is bad. Mastery should be rare, very rare. To find a true master in a skill should be exceptional, and becoming one should be something you've set out to do and purposely trained towards, not just something you stumble upon for doing things (admittedly great things but just things non-the-less) that are already in-fitting with your class.
If you go this route... it'll come back to bite you in your keister. I'd suggest your "mastery" is some sort of advantage. You could even put a rider in there. "I've got mastery history - elvish lore" So, whenever an elvish lore check comes up, the character gets advantage. Giving someone a +12 to a check is HUGE. It's big in pathfinder, even... so it's monstrously big in Fifth.
Yeah, but everything gives bloody advantage; and it just feels like a cop out. "I have a book with me on elven lore, so I have advantage right?" doesn't compare with, "I am an expert in elven lore who travelled to the site of the ancient library in the mirror-image city of Evereska found mirrored on the Shadowfell, to uncover the secrets of my race lost in time. By finding the library on a plane where time is no longer linear thanks to the aid of my Wizard friend, I was able to uncover texts lost to my people for centuries... so I what? Do I just have advantage as well? REALLY!? Why did we go on that 3 session long side-quest again? Mastery sucks dude, if I knew it just gave me advantage, I'd have gotten a damn book out of the library at Candlekeep and saved myself the bother of spending a year in character tracking down the ancient lost library at Evereska. Oh, and I want my 1000gp back"... and he'd be right to be pissed.
As for weapons, it's the same issue. Fighters would dish out buttloads of damage... meaning the way to take em down is to destroy their weapon. Which could be tactically fun, but it's a huge burden at the table for the player. A fighter with three or four attacks, with a strength of 20 and a +1 sword, would be doing in your system something like +10 damage per hit. So, assuming a longsword, three attacks, and they all hit, an average of 42 points of damage a round. Which is huge in fifth.
Yeah, it's almost as though getting smacked three times with a longsword by a trained combatant might be dangerous or something... I don't know about you, but where I'm from, that kills some people!
In all seriousness, yes, it would make weapons a hell of a lot more dangerous in the hands of someone with a mastery in that weapon, but that's the point. D&D at higher levels gives out so much HP that people can frequently become damage sponges. You can't have a town guard point a crossbow at a 10th level fighter and say "Stop or I'll shoot", because he could easily just think "Go ahead, I have 104HP Max, your crossbow does what? 1d10+5, let's be kind and assume you have levels in Rogue AND the Sharpshooter feat. So that's 1d10+2d6+15 - Maximum 37HP damage. Unless you roll max every time, I can easily tank that
3 times over. Do your worst." Frankly, adding +6 damage (and even then that's only once you hit 17th level) to a strike is hardly excessive, and if it makes the world feel a little more deadly when people are swinging around what should by all rights be deadly weapons, well good. That was exactly what I was going for.
I don't like characters specializing too much. I've played Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and other similar games. Those games reward specialization... and system mastery... and encourage the casual players to sit to the side. I'd rather have a game where everyone at least has a CHANCE to do something (and not be in "well, you could roll a 20...." territory.
But I get your idea, and if that's where you want your game to go, you can edit from there. Tastes vary and all that jazz.
I agree, I don't think this is too extreme. I think specialisation works well when it's complimentary with the group and fits roleplaying and backstory. If you've got a group that play hack 'n slash dungeon crawling games where they have a tendency to min-max, you'll probably find that it will get a little too lop-sided. Without this though, I find it hard to mechanically distinguish one player spending their entire life and all their energy in the pursuit of something, and someone who's just kinda good at it and has a high attribute... and that feels very limiting to me.
Still it was good chatting. If you ever use any of the ideas I've put forward let me know if they work for you, and happy gaming.
