D&D (2024) Postmortem: 10 Ideas in 5e that didn't quite work...

[Remathilis]

Do not touch my beautiful Warlock. I don’t think there’s a single thing they could do that would make me drop the new edintion faster than giving warlocks the same boring spell slot progression as every other caster. Leave them alone; if you don’t like them, just play a sorcerer or wizard or something instead. Just let us warlock fans keep the one cool spellcasting class to ourselves.

My big problem with pact magic is

1. Being tied to short rests makes their spell regain unreliable, and the majority of the early game is hoarding two spell slots if you don't think a short rest is going to be available.
2. The fact you have your highest spell slot creates incentive to use your highest level spell and ignore lower level ones, save for bread and butter ones like hex.
3. The system breaks down at 10th level, ergo mystic arcanum and the confusion "why warlocks have 6th level spells but the table only goes up to 5th".
4. It doesn't play well with multi-classing, it doesn't add to other classes the way every other class does, and it can synergize too well with others (I've lost track of what the latest Sage Advice is on paladin smite and pact magic).

I'm not saying the warlock is unfun or not flavorful, and invocations are brilliant. I just think the pact magic system needs a revision because it didn't hit design goals of being simple and intuitive.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

1. Being tied to short rests makes their spell regain unreliable, and the majority of the early game is hoarding two spell slots if you don't think a short rest is going to be available.
2. The fact you have your highest spell slot creates incentive to use your highest level spell and ignore lower level ones, save for bread and butter ones like hex.
3. The system breaks down at 10th level, ergo mystic arcanum and the confusion "why warlocks have 6th level spells but the table only goes up to 5th".
4. It doesn't play well with multi-classing, it doesn't add to other classes the way every other class does, and it can synergize too well with others (I've lost track of what the latest Sage Advice is on paladin smite and pact magic).

I mean, 2 & 4 are literally not problems. At worst 2 is something you personally dislike from an aesthetic perspective. Gameplay-design-wise it's an active positive.
1 is a real problem because Short Rests are a real problem. Easy to fix though.
3 isn't much of a problem, because by the time people get to that level, their degree of system mastery re: Warlocks is high enough to understand, and statistics show few people play above 10th anyway (I think someone quoted 77% of groups play at level 7 or below earlier).

So again this is really a Short Rests problem.

 

[payn]

I would love to have the rule that multiclassing must be within a level difference between classes, but those characters suck.

One solution is to have multiclass characters dual levels at certain point.

I.E.
5th level multiclass is 3/3 split, but with 3/2 HPs, and HDs, 5th level proficiency bonus. Only getting class features of both classes at 3rd level
then
8th level is 5/5
11th level is 7/7
14th level is 9/9
17th level is 11/11
20th level is 13/13

No thanks, I prefer it as is.

 

[Remathilis]

Interesting thoughts everyone.

I want to say they even if the system missed the mark, it wasn't bad. I just feel many of them didn't quite do what they advertised.

A good example is background features and Adventure Paths. If your DM was using one of the many storylines WotC provided, there was little opportunity to use them. The earlier Sword Coast ones occasionally have times you could meet with a noble or get a free inn room, but the more far afield you went, the less useful they were (free room and board from your temple was useless in Avernus, meeting a noble in Barovia is detrimental to your health!). I know that also is a part of the DM and prepackaged modules, but if WotC couldn't find ways to fit uses for backgrounds into their adventures, most newer DMs weren't going to be able to.

So the idea was solid, but the fact that they were easily rendered moot by most adventures meant they rarely were a factor in game.

If I was to add a few new ones, I'd say Downtime didn't work as desired due to how often games without home bases don't have weeks or months of sitting at home. I'd also say the 6-8 encounters per day design is fine for Dungeon Crawls but failed in other types of resource balancing. Ymmv on those.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think you're making a big mistake.

Most of the stuff you mention effectively work as options. Instead of trying to frame an "intended use" for each one of them, you should ask yourself in how many different ways the gaming groups have used them.

For instance, Backgrounds can be used by some gaming groups just to give a bit of narrative backup to characters of a certain class picking proficiencies usually of another class. This could have been a cut-and-dry rule such as "pick two skills from the whole list", instead the idea of Background is "pick a background to narrate why you have those two skills". OTOH Backgrounds can be used by another group to create a placement for a PC in the setting: PC1 is the town sage, PC2 is a noble in the local court and PC3 is in the prison guards. If you run a campaign where the PCs don't live their lives behind and become full-time travelling adventurers, these (and the related features) will be handy and will be used. Yet another gaming group might instead focus on their chosen background just as a source of roleplaying suggestions. All of these are fine ways to use backgrounds.

Same goes with Inspiration, Short Rests, Multiclassing... these ARE modular in some sense, or "dialable". The fact that some of these rules are inconsistent is a strength exactly because it allows them to be used differently by different groups. They fact that some don't even connect is also a strength because then a group is even able to completely ignore them if they aren't interested. I can understand wanting more connection for something that you like, but for example 3e was burdensome because too many things connected too much, and didn't give much freedom to individual groups (if you tried to change something, you had to work on how it affected several other things).

All in all, these made 5e work more as a toolbox than a rigid system, and this was very much intended when designers repeatedly stated that the purpose was to allow for as many different playstyle as possible.

Now the 1D&D revision sound like the designers have grown more opinionated about how everyone should play the game (a trend seen in much stronger tones 15 years ago): everybody should use feats, everybody should use inspiration, everybody should make a big deal of backgrounds... This is actually quite surprising, considering that in the more narrative/roleplaying areas of the game they've gone a long way towards more inclusivity. So why are they moving towards less inclusivity of playstyles?

Because that's just mechanics, and it doesn't affect their public image the way the narrative/roleplaying stuff does.

 

[renbot]

13. Wizard specialties. Apart from the Diviner's Portent, very few of the ways to specialize as a wizard given in the PHB were fun: getting a reduction on spell transcription costs is like a coupon you never use.

A thousand times yes! A "specialist" wizard should be strongly incentized to actually cast the spells from their school, whether by making the spells more effective, additional effects, more interesting abilities that recharge when a school-spell is cast, access to metamagic that can only be used on spells from their school, etc.

Historically I have made tailored spell lists for each specialist wizard, removing some wizard spells from their options and adding spells from other class lists that fit the concept. Alas, all that hard work has been...largely unappreciated by my players so I've stopped trying to force my "vision" on their characters. Player agency is my cross to bear.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

You will have to pry the Warlock build out of my cold, dead hands.

There are exactly two (two) interesting class builds right now in terms of design, AFAIC. Warlock and Monk. Okay, Rogue as well, to a lesser extent.

The rest might be good, but they are relatively boring.

I would have made an exception to the Mystic class, which was genuinely interesting, but got shot down.

 

[payn]

You will have to pry the Warlock build out of my cold, dead hands.

There are exactly two (two) interesting class builds right now in terms of design, AFAIC. Warlock and Monk. Okay, Rogue as well, to a lesser extent.

The rest might be good, but they are relatively boring.

I would have made an exception to the Mystic class, which was genuinely interesting, but got shot down.

I think next playtest packet is trying out Warlock and Monk as Bard subclasses.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think next playtest packet is trying out Warlock and Monk as Bard subclasses.

HA HA!

You almost had me there. Based on recent trends, I think they are doing away with all classes and instead making them all just Elf sub-types.

Do you want to play an arctic elf, an astral elf, a space elf, a warlock elf, or a monk elf?

 

[TheLibrarian]

Definitely agree on backgrounds/bonds/ideals/flaws/trinkets. This felt like forced roleplaying to me. Like the meme where the security guard says: "I specifically told you to role play amongst yourselves." But then these are activities most of my groups already engaged in. I can see where they were useful for new players, though. Here's a stereotype you can grab on to to help ease you into this thing that might seem a bit weird. But I felt for experienced players most of the options were pretty shallow.

Hit Dice are interesting, but don't replace a dedicated healer, which it seems like they might have been intended to do. That said, I ported this idea over to a Star Wars saga edition where healing is somewhat obtuse and it works pretty well!