Jack Daniel
Legend
Is it me, or have the anti-groggites been coming out of the woodwork lately? I mainly see this over at the WotC boards and rpg.net, which is probably why I can only bring myself to post about here. But lately, in certain quarters of the internet, "grognard" is the worst kind of pejorative slur being bandied about. Apparently, we're responsible for killing 4e; we've taken everybody's cool stuff, and we're sending them home now that the party's over. (Never mind that us old-schoolies are probably a far, far smaller niche than the coveted cohort of Pathfinder players. I'm sure it's us that WotC is mainly trying to recapture. It must be, right?)
Hyperbole aside, I have no stomach for edition wars -- nobody does these days, which is why I think the insults tossed at grogs are being let slide -- and I would much rather build bridges than burn them. To that end, I've decided to compile a list (and fellow, like-minded gorgnard diplomats should feel free to join in) of things about D&D, old-school and new-school alike, that I really honestly wouldn't mind seeing changed or even absent from 5th edition. I'm perfectly aware that D&D Next is going to be WotC's third crack at Advanced D&D, and not any kind of simple little basic game of the sort I'd rather play. That's okay. I still have several copies of the Rules Cyclopedia, and I can still play OD&D until I'm sick of it. Whether I play any 5th edition depends on what it does different and better than previous editions.
I'll start with a few choice items.
1. Scaling. I, for one, would not mind in the least of 5th edition butchered the "chumps to gods" sacred cow and dramatically deflated both the numbers and the in-game power scale. If 5e takes the bold step of making the 30th level fighter's BAB less than +10, and makes sure that character and monster hit points rarely exceed 100, that's a game I'm going to want to play, no matter how complicated and fiddly the character and combat systems otherwise get.
2. Skills (and Themes). I may not like feats very much, but I stand against the vast majority of grognards in being pro-skills. Now, this idea that most checks are mere ability checks, and a character's "skills" are unique or situational bonuses to ability checks (kind of like, as many have pointed out, the Dragon Age RPG) -- that's very intriguing, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. But hopefully, we'll also see a more codified skill system, preferably as an optional module. I've always felt that skills are the best way to differentiate characters with the same class and reflect varied backgrounds -- but then again, 5e is reportedly giving us "themes", which might be an even better (and more radical) way of doing that very thing. If themes do the background-fleshing legwork that skills used to, you won't catch me grumbling over the fact that they weren't in 1st edition.
3. Multi-classing. In all of the OD&D games I'm running right now, I don't allow multi-classing of any stripe. Even the elf class, traditionally rendered as a fighter/mage, I make into a variant cleric instead, so that everybody advances at roughly the same pace. But, that said, when it was hinted that 5e might have "3e style multi-classing", I was more than okay with that. I was downright relieved. If 1e/2e multi-classing was a mess, then 4e multi-classing is a hot mess. 3e multi-classing has only two problems: (1) cherrypicking the first level of a frontloaded class, and (2) watering down vancian casters. I can't imagine how they'll begin to address the first problem, but problem #2 almost automatically goes away if (as we've been hearing) casters can trade in piles of low-level spell slots (or spells) in order to get extra high-level spell slots (or spells). A multi-classed vancian caster always seemed to be overburned with too many low-level spells, and not enough high-level magic; and this new structure might just solve things neatly and elegantly.
4. Weird stuff in the rulebooks. I'll come right out and say that I'm a traditionalist. I like my D&D hobbity. The game itself should, as it always has, revolve around fighters, mages, clerics, thieves, men, elves, dwarves, and hobbits. But, lest we forget, the little white books and the blue basic set were the first to point out that a player could potentially play any kind of character, monsters included, provided they started on par with other 1st level characters and advanced with experience (or age, in the case of dragon PCs). So even if the core of 5th edition sticks to classic races and classes, I hope it isn't too long before we see a variety of options. OPTIONS being a key word there, since no DM should ever feel compelled to include shardminds or devas or psionicsts or runepriests in his campaign, just because they're in a book. But I play mainly in steampunk settings, so I pretty much require and artificer class to run any edition, and warforged would be nice to have around too. I also tend to include a lot of mythical and fairy-tale races in my milieus: centaurs, fauns, sidhe, sprites. The sooner I see these things made playable, the sooner I can try 5th edition out for myself.
EDIT -- 5. Silver standard! This is a nice toss to realism that lots of folks, even old-schoolers, already use anyway. I can't wait for big piles of gold pieces to become rare and special!
Hyperbole aside, I have no stomach for edition wars -- nobody does these days, which is why I think the insults tossed at grogs are being let slide -- and I would much rather build bridges than burn them. To that end, I've decided to compile a list (and fellow, like-minded gorgnard diplomats should feel free to join in) of things about D&D, old-school and new-school alike, that I really honestly wouldn't mind seeing changed or even absent from 5th edition. I'm perfectly aware that D&D Next is going to be WotC's third crack at Advanced D&D, and not any kind of simple little basic game of the sort I'd rather play. That's okay. I still have several copies of the Rules Cyclopedia, and I can still play OD&D until I'm sick of it. Whether I play any 5th edition depends on what it does different and better than previous editions.
I'll start with a few choice items.
1. Scaling. I, for one, would not mind in the least of 5th edition butchered the "chumps to gods" sacred cow and dramatically deflated both the numbers and the in-game power scale. If 5e takes the bold step of making the 30th level fighter's BAB less than +10, and makes sure that character and monster hit points rarely exceed 100, that's a game I'm going to want to play, no matter how complicated and fiddly the character and combat systems otherwise get.
2. Skills (and Themes). I may not like feats very much, but I stand against the vast majority of grognards in being pro-skills. Now, this idea that most checks are mere ability checks, and a character's "skills" are unique or situational bonuses to ability checks (kind of like, as many have pointed out, the Dragon Age RPG) -- that's very intriguing, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. But hopefully, we'll also see a more codified skill system, preferably as an optional module. I've always felt that skills are the best way to differentiate characters with the same class and reflect varied backgrounds -- but then again, 5e is reportedly giving us "themes", which might be an even better (and more radical) way of doing that very thing. If themes do the background-fleshing legwork that skills used to, you won't catch me grumbling over the fact that they weren't in 1st edition.
3. Multi-classing. In all of the OD&D games I'm running right now, I don't allow multi-classing of any stripe. Even the elf class, traditionally rendered as a fighter/mage, I make into a variant cleric instead, so that everybody advances at roughly the same pace. But, that said, when it was hinted that 5e might have "3e style multi-classing", I was more than okay with that. I was downright relieved. If 1e/2e multi-classing was a mess, then 4e multi-classing is a hot mess. 3e multi-classing has only two problems: (1) cherrypicking the first level of a frontloaded class, and (2) watering down vancian casters. I can't imagine how they'll begin to address the first problem, but problem #2 almost automatically goes away if (as we've been hearing) casters can trade in piles of low-level spell slots (or spells) in order to get extra high-level spell slots (or spells). A multi-classed vancian caster always seemed to be overburned with too many low-level spells, and not enough high-level magic; and this new structure might just solve things neatly and elegantly.
4. Weird stuff in the rulebooks. I'll come right out and say that I'm a traditionalist. I like my D&D hobbity. The game itself should, as it always has, revolve around fighters, mages, clerics, thieves, men, elves, dwarves, and hobbits. But, lest we forget, the little white books and the blue basic set were the first to point out that a player could potentially play any kind of character, monsters included, provided they started on par with other 1st level characters and advanced with experience (or age, in the case of dragon PCs). So even if the core of 5th edition sticks to classic races and classes, I hope it isn't too long before we see a variety of options. OPTIONS being a key word there, since no DM should ever feel compelled to include shardminds or devas or psionicsts or runepriests in his campaign, just because they're in a book. But I play mainly in steampunk settings, so I pretty much require and artificer class to run any edition, and warforged would be nice to have around too. I also tend to include a lot of mythical and fairy-tale races in my milieus: centaurs, fauns, sidhe, sprites. The sooner I see these things made playable, the sooner I can try 5th edition out for myself.
EDIT -- 5. Silver standard! This is a nice toss to realism that lots of folks, even old-schoolers, already use anyway. I can't wait for big piles of gold pieces to become rare and special!
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