D&D (2024) Revised 6E prediction thread

[doctorbadwolf]

It's a question of whether or not you try to anticipate every combination the players might want. Sure, you can create a race/lineage for both elf and wood-elf. But what if a player wants a wood halfling? Do you just disallow that, or do you also have a a lineage for generic "forest folk". If the latter, there are now two very different ways of creating forest-folk.

I mean, one could solve it by adding a fourth option to chargen, so you choose elf as your race and forest folk as your lineage, but we both agree that's not a good solution.

Alternately, background could be co-opted, but that changes the meaning of background.

I agree my solution* wouldn't give people what they're used to getting, but it's a good solution.

*It's not really "my" solution; it's the logical end-point of what we see in the lineage UA. If WotC doesn't do this, they're essentially going to have a weird hybrid system that only makes sense to people who have been playing for a long time.

It isn’t at all a logical end point for what wotc is doing, it’s very much your solution.

And Background can grow to encompass upbringing just fine, while it would be incredibly weird, jarring, counter-intuitive, and limiting, to have to choose between elf and Underdark dweller to make a Drow.

Your solution makes it so, to make a Drow, I can either pick Elf, and use backgrounds as they are now and class and maybe feats or whatever to hack together something that feels like a Drow, or choose Underdark (or evil matriarchy or whatever) and then use background and class and whatever else to kludge together something that feels like an elf.

That’s a bad system.

EDIT: okay, your idea has merit, just not in a D&D PHB. I’d enjoy a fantasy game where stuff like forest folk and seafarers and insular clan-holds and whatever else are the lineages available, with no stuff like “elf” available alongside. It’s just choosing between having a race or having a culture/regional adaptation set, effectively, that I don’t like.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Isn't the subrace thing already a fourth thing you're picking? Elf -> Drizz't-only-useless-in-sunlight -> Background -> Class?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Isn't the subrace thing already a fourth thing you're picking? Elf -> Drizz't-only-useless-in-sunlight -> Background -> Class?

Kinda, though it’s part of a race and thus less impactful on the feeling of being overwhelmed by too many choices, for most people. Like how some folks pick a car manufacturer and only buy cars from them, because otherwise they’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of options.

I think that it’s more likely that it will stay there, but if it changed I think the enviroment part would become part of background instead.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

It’s a bit of a tangent but I’m struggling to think of which monster is based on a warlock chassis?

Deathlock, neogi, shadar-kai....there's a few more. I used a fair number of shadar-kai in my campaign and those stat blocks will make your eyes cross.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Kinda, though it’s part of a race and thus less impactful on the feeling of being overwhelmed by too many choices, for most people.

I am constantly baffled by the 'too many choices' thing. 5e gives you like 5 decision points that matter and makes all customization elements optional (you can just get bigger numbers instead of taking a feat and actually making something of your character). Would making culture a thing really fry that many brains?

It's not like we're asking people at add +2 to a die roll or something.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am constantly baffled by the 'too many choices' thing. 5e gives you like 5 decision points that matter and makes all customization elements optional (you can just get bigger numbers instead of taking a feat and actually making something of your character). Would making culture a thing really fry that many brains?

It's not like we're asking people at add +2 to a die roll or something.

It doesn’t “fry” anyone’s brains. It annoys people and makes them prefer to do something else with thier free time.

Those of us who don’t experience that effect may not grok why it does that, but acting like it’s not legit is just silly.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It isn’t at all a logical end point for what wotc is doing, it’s very much your solution.

Um, no. I mean, it's my projection of where it goes, but the alternative is that race/lineage becomes a patchwork system that works one way in some cases, and other ways in other cases. And maybe they maintain that distinction by calling it the "race/lineage" slot, and you can choose either a race or a lineage, but still, that's awkward.

And Background can grow to encompass upbringing just fine, while it would be incredibly weird, jarring, counter-intuitive, and limiting, to have to choose between elf and Underdark dweller to make a Drow.

Ok, some sometimes "background" means your job, and sometimes it means your biology? Again, awkward patchwork.

Your solution makes it so, to make a Drow, I can either pick Elf, and use backgrounds as they are now and class and maybe feats or whatever to hack together something that feels like a Drow, or choose Underdark (or evil matriarchy or whatever) and then use background and class and whatever else to kludge together something that feels like an elf.

It's a change from what we're used to, for sure. But it's exactly what the new lineages do: you can be an elf Dhampir, but the "elf" part is not mechanical. (Although hopefully the DM supports it narratively.)

So if you want it to "feel" like a variant elf, play like an elf.

That’s a bad system.

You keep saying this, but you aren't being specific.

What this approach loses compared to the status quo is that (for example) Wood Elf and Forest Gnome would become mechanically identical. Which means that if it's important to you that your sub-race have mechanics of the base race, you would lose that. Except for the language.

What this approach gains is:
- Overall more consistent approach: instead of having some "races" (some of which have sub-races, and some of which do not) with mechanics and some "lineages" where you roleplay your race, it is just a single consistent layer
- It opens up more new and potentially interesting combinations, such as Dark Halfling or Forest Orc.

EDIT: okay, your idea has merit, just not in a D&D PHB. I’d enjoy a fantasy game where stuff like forest folk and seafarers and insular clan-holds and whatever else are the lineages available, with no stuff like “elf” available alongside. It’s just choosing between having a race or having a culture/regional adaptation set, effectively, that I don’t like.

Yes, that I understand. As with the psion, this system defies a lot of fixed expectations.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Those of us who don’t experience that effect may not grok why it does that, but acting like it’s not legit is just silly.

It becomes and issue when their proclivities keeps forcing bad design on my game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I am constantly baffled by the 'too many choices' thing.

I can only speak for myself of course...

I'm opposed to many proposed classes/subclasses because often (usually?) their flavor conflicts with my preferred imagery. To make an extreme example, if somebody shows up in my adventuring party with a Clockwork Gunslinger, it kind of poops all over the world I'm trying to imagine. Heck, even rapiers and hand-crossbows do that for me.

But when I say, "Yick, I don't like that option" it somehow is assumed that I'm not cognitively able to handle too many choices. I mean, c'mon, I play wizards sometimes and that involves WAY more choices than all the classes and subclasses ever proposed.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Back on predictions, I suspect the OP is mostly right. My predictions would be:

1) Equivalent of DNDBeyond + battlemap is done by a WotC-owned or directly contracted studio, and launches with the game, and maintains better integration with the game.

1a) Some kind of paid "early access" period for 6E's online component, before the physical books are actually released.

2) Overall rules changes are more like 1E to 2E than other edition changes.

3) Monsters statblocks and how they work get seriously overhauled. I would expect a move towards something that's a bit more like 4E in some ways, in that the minimum number of "things a monster can do" goes up slightly, and the maximum number of spells, abilities, and so on for you to have to look up goes down a bit. I expect less thing to be expressed as X spell 1/day and more as actual, specific, lore-grounded abilities.

4) As noted, racial ASIs are likely to go away. I suspect they'll be replaced by class ASIs, not background/culture ones.

5) Race replaced with Lineage. Broader set of options to start with, too - and probably the "Basic" set will include default Lineage/Background combos.

6) Background probably expanded a bit. I'd personally like it if they made it a thing you could roll, but I dunno if they'll go that far. I actively dis-predict any "culture" thing being added on top of class/lineage/background (though within "Lineage" I think we'll see more formal options for some Lineages).

7) Be shocked if they don't keep Proficiency Bonus as a thing that scales with level and Advantage/Disadvantage as they seem to work so well.

8) HP/healing re-worked again. I think base HP will go up a bit, and I think the current "Heal to full on a Long Rest" and "Use Hit Dices to heal on a Short Rest" thing will be replaced. I don't know by what, but I do think it doesn't work great for really any groups.

9) Classes re-designed to use Proficiency Bonuses instead of Stat Mods in a lot of cases (this is basically a gimme).

10) Inspiration re-worked to at the very least include re-rolls, probably made less optional and more an official part of the game, too.

11) Big re-works to some classes, some of which will seem really pointless and unwarranted. Wizards will be left unscathed and vaguely overpowered yet again.

12) 5E-Vancian-type spellcasting remains the dominant approach.

13) More "Warlock-style" classes where you make meaningful decisions regularly as you level up, rather than getting a big block of stuff early on. Some will see this as a "return to 4E", for better or worse, but I don't think that will be how it works, in practice.

14) No unified class/ability framework unlike 4E.

15) A bunch of combat rules being changed in mildly confusing ways for no apparent reason, ensuring people trip over them for years to come.

16) Surprise re-worked so it's even more confusing than 5E (anyone who says it isn't is playing their own specific vision of it or has never actually read the rules even, in some cases, as can be seen from the thousand+ posts on reddit discussions of it).

17) Some class random MIA and inexplicably replaced with Artificer in the core PHB.

18) No Psionics at launch.

19) Rangers underpowered and with no coherent design-concept (I mean, it's been true in every other edition, why not 6E?).

Now I'm getting cynical/sassy but I do tend to believe these predictions.