D&D (2024) Revised 6E prediction thread

[tetrasodium]

We are ready for a sourcebook as 3.5 Unearted Arcana, with lots of alternate rules and options. Other thing would be a d20 Modern 2.0. where WotC could allow herself to get rid off some sacred cows, such things as a different list of abilities scores for games with more investigations or social interactions, for example noir detective against Lovecraftian cults or palace intrigues at the fae court.

The prototype of 6th Ed will be a not-fantasy ARPG videogame, maybe a sci-fi shooter. The goal would be a system where famous videogames franchises were easy to be adapted.

The runup to tasha's made it sound like it was going to have a lot of very phb2/unearthed arcana type variant X type stuff. Sadly they stopped short after a brief glance in that direction & weren't really ready to take that step, hopefully with some feedback & the most recent lineages UA thing we will get there. If not I'm looking forward to a5e

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'm more in the boat that sales of an edition is more important to WotC than rules clutter. Meaning, even if an edition is running out of rules material or is even creating too many inconsistent rules, if the product still makes huge sales you don't start from scratch.

Is simply doesn't make much business sense that they would kill the sacred cow of 5E when it sells so well. Almost all the $ people will scream at the rules people to not go near the subject of a 6E.

Now, I think it's maybe possible that a 5.5 edition is made in a couple years, that is essentially just 5E with some changes made for racial mechanics and maybe some other things like bonus actions. But I don't think it would hugely invalidate big swathes of published 5E rules either.

Sale will start to dip when they stop coming out with new toys for the player base to buy - not only because you lose the direct sales, but you let the conversation die off, which creates a gap for competitors to fill and take away your audience. "Clutter" isn't the problem except in as much as it makes it harder to make new sourcebooks that account for all the existing optional rules.

But as the past several years have shown, you do not need a lot of content to keep us chatting. And chatter > people hearing about the game > new sales.

And they've got a lot of ore in the mine right now; a truly new edition is a long ways off at best. I could see a revised set of core books in a few years, maybe, but not more than that.

(The same thing happens with fandoms of all stripes. New show > fresh memes > people checking out the show. Unexpected wins > more people watching the games > more jerseys sold. Etc.)

 

[SehanineMoonbow]

I have mixed emotions about the way D&D seems to be going. Some of the changes I support, others I'm more uncertain about. I just hope they don't entirely do away with what it means to be of a certain species, at least culturally. Of course, just like in real life, each member of a species is an individual, and not the sum of their culture, but each species does have a culture. Just like in the real world, this adds to diversity, not depletes it. One of the reasons I didn't really like the changes made to the bladesinger was because it was a part of elven culture as much as it was a class.

Sure, the shifts have allowed for you to play a halfling raised by dwarves, so you would be "culturally" more dwarven, but I just hope they don't do away with certain cultural "identifiers" if you will of a given species. Elves have their own culture, dwarves have theirs, halflings, orcs, etc.

 

[dave2008]

D&D needs 3-6 standard combat maneuvers/options that any PC can do. And they need no be complex multi roll affairs.

I could maybe get on bored with a few standard maneuvers, but I see no reason to make them complex multi roll options.

 

[dave2008]

l.., but each species does have a culture.

But different species could share a culture. It is the Tarzan phenomenon. Until meeting, Jane Tarzan was ape culture.

And just the opposite, creatures of the same species can have a different cultures. I mean there are hundreds if not thousands of different human cultures in RL. Heck even different groups of chimpanzee or prides of lions have different cultures.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I'm just about to wrap up my first level 1-20 campaign for 5E. I also have multiple active lower level campaigns. After over 150 sessions, I feel like I have a solid grasp of how the game plays. Here's the headline: 5E plays just fine at all levels.

At 20th level, I can run monsters straight out of the book against player characters built straight out of the book. PCs are very powerful but not invulnerable. Combat is a bit slow and grindy. However, I have five PCs plus allied NPCs, so our sessions have always been somewhat slow. But it's not enough to kill the tension and I can still generate suspense.

One recurring point of friction is between short rest classes vs long rest classes. My group rarely takes shorts rests, in part because I like to put them on a ticking clock. The result is that short rest classes have felt underpowered. I've tweaked the rules to accommodate that, but it came late.

Monster design is also simply not as elegant or exciting as 4E. Related to that, I wish that 5E had taken 13th Age's approach to building dynamic combats without the requirement of a grid. 5E is distinctly tilted more toward an attrition model than a set piece encounter model -- and I prefer the latter as it supports more cinematic storytelling.

Overall, 5E has been a great D&D experience.

 

[Oofta]

but different species could share a culture. It is the Tarzan phenomenon. Until meeting Jane Tarzan was ape culture.

And just the opposite, creatures of the same species can have a different cultures. I mean there are hundreds if not thousands of different human cultures in RL. Heck even different groups of chimpanzee or prides of lions have different cultures.

Right. Like I said earlier we can't have any attribute differences in species because lack of a bonus is viewed as a penalty. We can't have any cultural differences because we can't have mono-cultures. We can't emphasize that either of those is just a default because that's what Tasha's does and for some reason it doesn't go far enough. You can't have race specific feats because then you're penalizing every non-elf because they can't have the elven accuracy feat.

So I don't know what's left. At some point you're just left with what costume your human is wearing.

 

[dave2008]

One recurring point of friction is between short rest classes vs long rest classes. My group rarely takes shorts rests, in part because I like to put them on a ticking clock. The result is that short rest classes have felt underpowered. I've tweaked the rules to accommodate that, but it came late.

Not sure what you did, but the new paradigm appears to be a number of uses equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. You would need to adjust for some classes. For example, I might give the battlemaster 2x profiencey bonus # of maneuvers per long rest.

Monster design is also simply not as elegant or exciting as 4E.

I don't know that I agree with that. I've made a lot of custom monsters throughout 4e and 5e and am fairly familiar with both. I think we sometimes forget 4e monsters went through a number of redesigns before the hit their sweet spot in the MM3 and after (really the essentials line of monster books were the best IMO). We also forget there were a lot of fairly boring monsters in 4e too. Finally, there are actually a lot of interesting monsters in 5e (even more so after the MM). In fact, I would agree the legendary monsters are more interesting than their 4e equivalent 80% of the time.

 

[Oofta]

I'm just about to wrap up my first level 1-20 campaign for 5E. I also have multiple active lower level campaigns. After over 150 sessions, I feel like I have a solid grasp of how the game plays. Here's the headline: 5E plays just fine at all levels.

At 20th level, I can run monsters straight out of the book against player characters built straight out of the book. PCs are very powerful but not invulnerable. Combat is a bit slow and grindy. However, I have five PCs plus allied NPCs, so our sessions have always been somewhat slow. But it's not enough to kill the tension and I can still generate suspense.

One recurring point of friction is between short rest classes vs long rest classes. My group rarely takes shorts rests, in part because I like to put them on a ticking clock. The result is that short rest classes have felt underpowered. I've tweaked the rules to accommodate that, but it came late.

Monster design is also simply not as elegant or exciting as 4E. Related to that, I wish that 5E had taken 13th Age's approach to building dynamic combats without the requirement of a grid. 5E is distinctly tilted more toward an attrition model than a set piece encounter model -- and I prefer the latter as it supports more cinematic storytelling.

Overall, 5E has been a great D&D experience.

I've run one campaign to level 20, played in another. I think things work at every level. While the game does run a bit slower at high levels there are some things you can do to speed combat up. But overall? Even if I have to throw infinite dragons I can have level appropriate encounters and had fun at all levels.

Having run and played 4th to level 30, and run/played previous editions up to higher levels I'd say 5E does better than any previous edition at high level play for me.

 

[dave2008]

Right. Like I said earlier we can't have any attribute differences in species because lack of a bonus is viewed as a penalty. We can't have any cultural differences because we can't have mono-cultures. We can't emphasize that either of those is just a default because that's what Tasha's does and for some reason it doesn't go far enough. You can't have race specific feats because then you're penalizing every non-elf because they can't have the elven accuracy feat.

So I don't know what's left. At some point you're just left with what costume your human is wearing.

I don't know, I think there might be a way to make most of the people happy. Your never going to get the fringes (like me), so go with what works for most. I think there is a happy medium that most would be OK with.