With 5th edition winding down and 1D&D ascending, I'd like to look at some ideas presented during the game's lifespan that didn't quite work out as desired. Some will be removed, some will be changed, and some may yet live to see 5.5. In no paricular order
You’re missing the caveat here… “for me”
1.) Backgrounds
Yeah, the kinda exist in the packet as predefined options, but the current background is dead. It started life in D&D next as a kind of mixture of 4e Themes along with 3e-style feat trees before morphing into a collection of non-weapon proficiencies and role-playing aids. It helped define your character as more than just as fighter or a sorcerer, but as a soldier, an outlander, or a sailor. And lots of supplements (Official and 3pp) added more of them to fit every possible origin. However, they maintained a few flaws in their design: most players viewed them as inflexible options for skills and proficiencies despite "customizing your background" being an option. Most of the Features were heavily DM and campaign dependent (and often amounted to little more than "free room and board" or "NPC will cut you some slack". Easily forgotten by both DM and player. They also had a cascading effect as we'll see below. While I genuinely liked the ideas of backgrounds, I don't think they did what WotC wanted in terms of role-playing.
They are a way of customizing intangible elements and adding a little bit of extra detail. The rule that if they granted a skill you already had you could pick any other, meant they were actually very flexible. They were fun, flavourful and helped customize the classes. They clearly aren’t going anywhere.
2.) Bonds/Ideas/Flaws/Traits
Alongside Backgrounds were lists of personality traits, written in first person sentences to foster deeper role-playing options by having PCs define their personality, beliefs, and shortcomings. Like the backgrounds they were attached to, they were supposed to offer suggestions, but more than a few PCs took them as the only options for playing your acolytes or urchins. Others picked them at character creation, wrote them down and promptly forgot them, or didn't bother to write them down at all. While BIFTS may exist in some fashion in 5.5, they aren't attached to background and I suspect won't appear as some rollable table of suggestions, though I feel they will probably remain for NPCs in modules.
Excellent at easing new players into the experience of pretending to be somewhere else. Not needed for everyone but didn’t do any harm, and useful for those that needed them. Again, fun and flavour. God forbid we step outside the mechanical.
3.) Trinkets.
Ah trinkets. Little curiosities you rolled for at chargen, wrote-down in your equipment and were ignored afterwards. Sometimes interesting, rarely useful, often forgotten.
Totally dull… right up until that token you wrote into your backstory ends up being a magic item that the DM weaves in. It’s a tangible way of bringing backstory to life. It worked for dark souls. Honestly, who care though? It’s a bit like saying the spare dagger the PC carries doesn’t work.
4.) Multi-classing
5e brought back 3e style multiclassing, with some adjustments to fix the problems inherent to such a system. Spell slots (but not spells known) were dependent on all caster classes, proficiency bonus and cantrips were a function of character level, not class level, and starting proficiencies were staggered to avoid dipping for free saves and weapons/armors. Despite all this, the system was still primarily used to dip one class into another to pull some low-level features from one class and add it to another. In particular, the Charisma classes (Warlock, Sorcerer, and Paladin) synergized almost too well with each other. Eventually, subclasses and feats became more popular ways to poach from one class and into another, and I wager that multiclassing with get another revision (if it remains at all) to curb abuses and discourage 1-2 level dips.
Hard disagree. The best multiclassing system in the 5 editions of the game. Allows me to do what multiclassing should do, which is play a hybrid character in a viable way. Love it. Two thirds of my characters multiclass.
5.) Inspiration.
Designed as a reward for good role-play (remember those BIFTS?) Inspiration didn't quite work as they wanted. It was hard or inconsistent to get, easily forgotten, and didn't connect to the rest of the system. I see why WotC has opted to make it more widely and consistently useful.
You or your DM forget to use it, so it doesn’t work? This is a classic PICNIC… Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.
6.) Modular Rules
Ah what sweet summer children we were! The notion that 5e would be rules-modular was partially true: It's a remarkably easy system to house rule. But the dream of Alternative skill systems, advanced combat options, new spell systems, mass combat, alternative ability scores, and other ideas hinted at in the DMG but never expanded on or fleshed out quickly faded. An alternative "Greyhawk" initiative based on weapon/spell speed was UA'd but that was the only attempt at any sort of alternative rule modules we saw from WotC.
There are tons of optional rules and systems for 5e. Added to by a plethora of third parties. Folks can’t even agree on what modular means so it’s a leap to criticise 5e for not being it.
7.) Psionics.
Another bit of vaporware: true psionic rules seemed like a necessity and WotC honestly tried to make the Mystic a thing, but it never gelled and eventually collapsed into the vaguely psychic subclass options we have today.
I don’t hold 5e accountable for an UA play test. Pretty much everything a 3e and earlier psionic could do is replicated in 5e. Tasha’s additions were nice. They tested the water without precluding later options. I don’t call that failure.
8.) Short Rests
The short rests were designed to resemble the encounter recharge mechanic in 4e: a way to recharge certain abilities more often than a long rest as well as to heal between encounters. But the long duration needed to use one made it hard to do in most situations (if you were safe enough to take a lunch break, you probably weren't in the kind of place you needed to recharge those abilities in) and the fact certain classes and races (warlock, monk, fighter, dragonborn) needed them far more than others lead to a lot of tension in using them. They still exist in some fashion, but I wager the change from short-rest recharge to prof/day will make their usefulness dimmish further.
Again, this is a picnic. Our group takes plenty of short tests. Usually two per adventuring day. One hour isn’t very long. Crickey, I get up from my office from work to get a cup of tea and by the time I’m back at my seat an hour has passed. Finding a defendable space in a dungeon is a form of tactics, as is making sure you have the resources to successful take that rest. Our group had no tension in using them. If they are causing tension, you probably need to examine the group social contract.
9.) Hit Dice
Speaking of, they were great for short rests to heal hp without magic, but as short rests were skipped either due to the inability to safely rest for an hour or skipped instead for a long-rest, HD rarely had a chance to shine. It seems a few more options to use them to heal 4e style (spending them in combat or via a spell) might bring them more use beyond low level.
Much more could be done. Adventures in Rokugan and Adventures in Middle Earth give good examples of this in their add one. 3pp is great for pushing the boat out on this. To be honest, HD is our groups main method of healing.
10. Pact Magic
I'm going to get some flack for this. Pact Magic is the Warlock method of casting spells; a few spell slots recharged over a short rest and always cast at max efficiency seemed like an interesting alterative to spellcasting on paper, but warlock magic was very finicky. It was a very hard concept for new players to wrap their heads around always casting at max level (no, you use your 5th level spell slot to cast your 1st level spell as if it was 5th level), was wholly dependent on frequent short rests, and was an absolute nightmare with multiclassing. Further, the spell list went up to 9th level, but levels 6-9 were part of a different class feature (mystic arcanum) and didn't use spell slots at all to cast. The system looked cool, but maybe (if WotC is open to more radical adjustment to the class system) it would be better to have warlocks be a regular spell slot caster akin to sorcerer or bard rather than their own weird spell system that doesn't play nice with the rest of the game.
On this I agree. Ditch Warlocks from the PHB.
