D&D 5E Revised core book wishlist

[Charlaquin]

Make Druids choose a stat block that's included in their class features to Wild Shape into, instead of having to search through the Monster Manual and similar sources.

I agree, but I think there should be a handful of options based on their utility - a flying form, a swimming form, a climbing form, and a combat form at least.

 

[Stalker0]

So if we are going with a true backwards compatible, so we can't play too much outside the rules:

The Basics

• Another try at the Ranger, Monk, and Sorcerer, aka the classes that generally have had the lowest user satisfaction.
• General adjustments to class capstones.
• Some adjustment to address Moon Druid "imbalance" at level 2.
• A spell pass. Adjustment of levels and effects, perhaps removal of concentration for certain spells or at least some softening (aka casting at X higher level removes concentration requirements).
• Cleanup on stealth rules, which is a scattered in the core rules and has some clarity issues.
• Cleanup on surprise rules, which seems to be a point of confusion at many tables.
• Magic Item rebalance, adjustment of effects by rarity.
• Monster rebalance, CR adjustments for under/over performing monsters.
• Feat Balance Pass
• More Feats.... I doubt they will ever go as far as "feats are core", but its time to recognize they are used in a lot of tables
• Do a bit more with tools or just remove the proficiencies in favor of more core skills. One or the other.
• Make the race "flex bonus" that Tasha introduced core.
• Some improvements to inspiration, which is sometimes seen as a weak mechanic.
• Inclusion of secondary classes (like Artificer) and make them core.

One more Notch

• Rebalance of classes into the "Prof Mod per Day" bonus away from short rest mechanics.
• Possible adjustment to concentration itself (could consider splitting mechanic into "you can't stack this with other spells" and "you lose this spell when you take damage" components, instead of all in one)
• Reintroduction of bloodied as a mechanic.
• Adjustment to core healing and "death/dying" rules.... goal to remove the whack a mole a bit, make single hit death a little more possible.
• Convert crits to "full double damage"
• Major look at midtier and high tier monsters, with a major rebalance based on user feedback (aka many monsters are just over CRed, and can be dealt with by relatively low level parties).
• Better gold sinks (magic items, followers, strongholds, etc etc, something to spend all that cash on)
• Hire Nixlord to coordinate your artwork (seriously, his MMIII is the single greatest collection of dnd artwork in existence as far as I am concerned, its jaw dropping how many gorgeous pieces of art can exist in a single monster book).

Frankly I don't need tooo much though on the player side. 5e is pretty darn solid. Give me a readjustment sweep on spells, feats, etc to tone things up and you have handled the bulk of it. For me its really about the monsters, I think 5e monster design was a step back from 4e, the "bag of hitpoints" being a common critique. Give me a few player updates, but then give me a really slick new monster manual with lots of tighter math that utilizes the experience of years of play.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree, but I think there should be a handful of options based on their utility - a flying form, a swimming form, a climbing form, and a combat form at least.

Hell, I’d want each of those forms to have combat and utility uses, and is add (at least) “big beefy scary tank form”, “fast hard-hitting hard to pin down form”, and “tactically supportive form” (like imagine a wolf that grants advantage to allies by being adjacent to an enemy, rather than gaining advantage).

Then I’d add things like Spirit of The Wood which can basically be a dryad or a Treant, and other similar nature spirits that tie in with classic creatures and/or D&D monsters.

 

[pukunui]

Player's Handbook

• Races presented in the new lineage format with cultural stuff not hard-coded in
• Expanded class features from Tasha's incorporated into classes, including a wholesale revision of the ranger using the Tasha's replacement features
• A more user-friendly / useful index
• Inclusion of spell school in class spell lists (as they've done in subsequent books) and maybe also inclusion of which class can cast a given spell in its description (which they haven't done in any books yet)
• More guidance on how to make tool proficiencies useful in the game
• Improved (depowering the OP ones and increasing power of the weak ones)
• Revision of overland travel rules to make it so mounts are actually useful on long journeys
• Revision of druid's wild shape so it doesn't involve a weird mishmash of the PC's stats and the chosen monster's stats -- a bunch of generic forms that are modified by your stats (a la the newest pets for rangers and artificers and such)
• Removal of concentration from some spells (the druid in particular suffers in that so many of its spells require concentration)

Monster Manual

• Inclusion of proficiency bonus in statblock (practically a given)
• Better rules around resistances / immunities (I'd particularly like to see special materials like silver and adamantine have more of an impact ~ like perhaps lycanthropes are immune to nonmagical weapon damage, resistant to magical weapon damage, but take full damage from silvered weapons [regardless of whether they are magical or not]
• More interesting actions for some of the more boring creatures (like most beasts, giants, and the like) and/or more varieties of the common creatures (like more different types of goblins and kobolds and whatnot -- like how 4e used to do)
• It sounds like they're getting rid of categories (e.g. demon, devil, dinosaur) but I'd really like to see them go back to using "Wolf, Dire" and "Spider, Giant" so that you get all varieties of one type of creature in one place instead of having all the giant creatures be found under "Giant"
• More monster lore and some guidance on which knowledge skills are useful to learn that lore and how difficult / common that lore typically is (like in past editions)

Dungeon Master Guide

• Incorporate session 0 advice
• Replace planar affects with some more interesting than forced alignment changes
• Improve downtime activities (I like the ones in Xanathar's better)
• Include domain and mass combat rules
• Improve the custom monster / CR determining guidelines
• Provide better guidance on monetary value of magic items
• Improved balance of magic items and rarities
• Usable chase rules (the rules in the DMG suck; the variant rules in the season 2 DDAL adventure, "Cloaks and Shadows", are much better but could still do with some work)
• Rules for harvesting plants and animal parts and the like - they've started to include some of this stuff in the more recent adventures, but I'd like to see some standardized baseline rules (or at least some baseline guidance) on how to adjudicate when your player wants to find some useful herbs in the forest or when they want to extract some spider venom from a giant spider the party has just killed
• I know this will never happen but I would like to see both the assassin and necromancer moved out of the PHB and put in the DMG with the oathbreaker and death cleric. I also think the oathbreaker should be renamed, as I think it makes no sense that you'd get a whole new set of abilities just for breaking your paladin oath.

Something Chris Perkins said is that they're looking at developing some new rules for the exploration pillar. Hopefully they're taking some inspiration from AiME's Journey rules. I hope they include something usable, but I'm not sure if they should be in the PHB or the DMG.

Probably some more stuff that I can't think of right now.

 

[Li Shenron]

WotC confirmed updated core books in 2024. They say they will be fully backward compatible.

So what do you want updated in the new core books?

The word "most" before "druids will not wear metal armor".

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I agree, but I think there should be a handful of options based on their utility - a flying form, a swimming form, a climbing form, and a combat form at least.

I agree. I would do it similarly to the options granted by the TCoE Beastmaster Ranger, but probably include a Burrowing form, too. (And with mechanical choices when you wildshape, like how the summoning spells from Tasha's work. So you could turn into a "Burrowing Tank" creature that has natural armor, or you could do a "Nimble Swimming" creature that gets a bonus action disengage/hide, etc.)

 

[overgeeked]

The word "most" before "druids will not wear metal armor".

Or pulling from Dark Sun and allowing non-metal versions of armor.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

know this will never happen but I would like to see both the assassin and necromancer moved out of the PHB and put in the DMG with the oathbreaker and death cleric.

But assassination isn’t inherently evil, nor is someone who is trained in that skill set.

Assassin =\= paid murderer. The origin of the term comes from a group that used the methodology of stealth and fear to try to discourage persecution by the dominant socio-economic-ethnic group, and popular media characters with the skill set of assassins are often people who use guerilla tactics to fight a more powerful force.

 

[pukunui]

But assassination isn’t inherently evil, nor is someone who is trained in that skill set.

Assassin =\= paid murderer. The origin of the term comes from a group that used the methodology of stealth and fear to try to discourage persecution by the dominant socio-economic-ethnic group, and popular media characters with the skill set of assassins are often people who use guerilla tactics to fight a more powerful force.

That’s why I said it will never happen.

At the very least, I would like them to revise the assassin as it just isn’t all that great mechanically (aside from the level 3 ability).

 

[Scribe]

Turning all Planetouched into Lineages, a la the Gothic Lineages from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (Tieflings, Genasi, Aasimar, etc).

Looking at how Feywild now communicates a race, is this even needed? Its already going to be completely wide open 'Choose your own.' across the board for everything, assuming its 'generally humanoid/human' with variation of 'small or medium' at most.

What is it that Ravenloft ones do differently for you?

EDIT: This is quite literally the likely format of an Aasimar for example, and the first 5 options will be applicable to most everything.

• Ability Score Increase. Increase one ability score by 2, and increase a different one by 1.
• Age. About the same as a Human.
• Type. You are a Humanoid.
• Size. You are Medium or Small.
• Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character.
• Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Celestial Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic damage and radiant damage.
• Healing Hands. As an action, you can touch a creature and cause it to regain a number of hit points equal to your level. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.
• Light Bearer. You know the Light cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it.

So REALLY.

Darkvision: Y or N. Some Resistance, a Healing Hands, and a Light Cantrip, thats your race.