1. Class Balance
There are two things that worry me here:
1. The ability to trade mechanical bonuses for flexibility.
I just don’t see how this can work. If one fighter can simply stack bonuses and damage for every level, and another fighter can trade these bonuses for different ways of doing lower damage, they can’t even play in the same game after a few levels of this. The balance for this, even if it is possible, would be very hard to figure.
2. Bleed of various parts of the game to others.
The idea that one character might choose (or be forced by class) to trade combat ability for the ability to talk real good or to find the way through a maze is really terrible. This has always been a problem, but to talk as though this is a feature of the game that is part of the design philosophy really bothers me. There should be no characters who cannot participate in each part (combat/roleplay/exploration) of the game, with the ability to contribute meaningfully in each part. The 3E fighter is exactly the wrong way to go here.
Solutions: Don’t let people trade mechanical bonuses for flexibility. Flexibility should be about the character’s complexity, not his power. People shouldn’t be able to trade abilities from one area to another, either. Make feats combat only; make skills unrelated to combat proficiency; make two (or three) kinds of spell, so that the combat and non-combat spells are entirely separate, and don’t even use the same resources.
2. Minimum Complexity
I worry that this will be set wrong. The comment by Mearls that it is easier to add than subtract complexity is problematic in this game. If I want to play a straightforward sword-and-board fighter, and I don’t want him to talk or look for traps, I should be able to play that character. But if I want to play him, it is easy for me to ignore my fighter’s leadership abilities or his direction sense; that is, I can easily ignore the parts of the game I don’t have an interest in, even if my class could participate in those areas by the rules as written. But if the bard is primarily a roleplay character for simplicity’s sake, then I simply can’t play a combative bard at all. And that’s terrible.
Solutions: Set a relatively high complexity as the standard, and have either classes that are simplified but equally powerful versions of the more complex classes, or builds within a class that simplify the complex elements.
3. Exploration and Roleplaying
I hope that they make this more interesting. I worry that they want skill challenges to “die in a fire.” The problem with skill challenges is the ruleset, not the concept. People like the idea of completing non-combat challenges. People also like rules for this, because, honestly, I can ignore the rules and play a made-up game of cops-and-robbers for roleplaying if I like, even if there are rules for roleplaying, but if there are no rules at all, then I need to be a character actor to play a wide range of interesting characters. And if I wanted to be an actor, there are other games that might work much better for me.
Solutions: I don’t have any, but the designers really need to have something here. It just isn’t good enough to go the 2E or 4E way and say “do what you want”! Because I can already do that, but I wouldn’t pay for rules that tell me to just pretend to talk to the king and decide for myself whether I accomplish my aims or not.
4. Multiclassing
This is a really specific mechanical issue, but it affects so much of the game that it needs to be carefully planned. I know that these guys played 3E – some even designed it – but did they forget the multiclassing problems? If this element will work like that game, how can people make multiclassed spellcasters at all? Will characters who take a level in another class get a level (character-level) appropriate ability, or will it still be a game of the fighter sacrificing his own abilities in order to cast sleep, when what he wants is a character who can sword and cast fireball? And if they adopt the solution I might like, which is to give the level-appropriate abilities, then how can they possibly avoid the kinds of complicated, game-breaking builds that will almost inevitably result?
Solutions: I almost think 4E was on the right track, here, but it had people trading important resources for versatility, which doesn’t work. It would be cool to have the idea of a minor class – that you multiclass in order to have a little of the other class, and you choose a few abilities (of each game type) that work in a level-appropriate way.
5. Modularity
I started D&D with 2E, and loved it to death. It had lots of problems. Late in the 2E cycle, I DM’d a really complicated game, with fully integrated Skills&Powers, including options, and really included everything I possibly could – weapon speeds, parts of rounds, optional classes, kits, - everything. Then I had a chance to play in a 2E game that I wasn’t running, and I played for exactly one session. Partly because I was forced to randomly generate almost everything about my character, and we played a simple game with the PHB and one or two other resources only.
I’m not denigrating other people’s styles at all – surely there were players who would love that DM’s game – but a modular system exacerbates the minimum levels of complexity problem. If I play in another game, I don’t want to have to read through a 10 page document outlining the rules variants AND house rules used in a particular game. And every late 2E game I played was like that.
Solutions: Electronic tools might help, here; if the DM could rig the character builder to include the rules she wanted, and not others, and include house rules, then the character creation part would be simpler. But I don’t see ways of avoiding this problem completely.
There are two things that worry me here:
1. The ability to trade mechanical bonuses for flexibility.
I just don’t see how this can work. If one fighter can simply stack bonuses and damage for every level, and another fighter can trade these bonuses for different ways of doing lower damage, they can’t even play in the same game after a few levels of this. The balance for this, even if it is possible, would be very hard to figure.
2. Bleed of various parts of the game to others.
The idea that one character might choose (or be forced by class) to trade combat ability for the ability to talk real good or to find the way through a maze is really terrible. This has always been a problem, but to talk as though this is a feature of the game that is part of the design philosophy really bothers me. There should be no characters who cannot participate in each part (combat/roleplay/exploration) of the game, with the ability to contribute meaningfully in each part. The 3E fighter is exactly the wrong way to go here.
Solutions: Don’t let people trade mechanical bonuses for flexibility. Flexibility should be about the character’s complexity, not his power. People shouldn’t be able to trade abilities from one area to another, either. Make feats combat only; make skills unrelated to combat proficiency; make two (or three) kinds of spell, so that the combat and non-combat spells are entirely separate, and don’t even use the same resources.
2. Minimum Complexity
I worry that this will be set wrong. The comment by Mearls that it is easier to add than subtract complexity is problematic in this game. If I want to play a straightforward sword-and-board fighter, and I don’t want him to talk or look for traps, I should be able to play that character. But if I want to play him, it is easy for me to ignore my fighter’s leadership abilities or his direction sense; that is, I can easily ignore the parts of the game I don’t have an interest in, even if my class could participate in those areas by the rules as written. But if the bard is primarily a roleplay character for simplicity’s sake, then I simply can’t play a combative bard at all. And that’s terrible.
Solutions: Set a relatively high complexity as the standard, and have either classes that are simplified but equally powerful versions of the more complex classes, or builds within a class that simplify the complex elements.
3. Exploration and Roleplaying
I hope that they make this more interesting. I worry that they want skill challenges to “die in a fire.” The problem with skill challenges is the ruleset, not the concept. People like the idea of completing non-combat challenges. People also like rules for this, because, honestly, I can ignore the rules and play a made-up game of cops-and-robbers for roleplaying if I like, even if there are rules for roleplaying, but if there are no rules at all, then I need to be a character actor to play a wide range of interesting characters. And if I wanted to be an actor, there are other games that might work much better for me.
Solutions: I don’t have any, but the designers really need to have something here. It just isn’t good enough to go the 2E or 4E way and say “do what you want”! Because I can already do that, but I wouldn’t pay for rules that tell me to just pretend to talk to the king and decide for myself whether I accomplish my aims or not.
4. Multiclassing
This is a really specific mechanical issue, but it affects so much of the game that it needs to be carefully planned. I know that these guys played 3E – some even designed it – but did they forget the multiclassing problems? If this element will work like that game, how can people make multiclassed spellcasters at all? Will characters who take a level in another class get a level (character-level) appropriate ability, or will it still be a game of the fighter sacrificing his own abilities in order to cast sleep, when what he wants is a character who can sword and cast fireball? And if they adopt the solution I might like, which is to give the level-appropriate abilities, then how can they possibly avoid the kinds of complicated, game-breaking builds that will almost inevitably result?
Solutions: I almost think 4E was on the right track, here, but it had people trading important resources for versatility, which doesn’t work. It would be cool to have the idea of a minor class – that you multiclass in order to have a little of the other class, and you choose a few abilities (of each game type) that work in a level-appropriate way.
5. Modularity
I started D&D with 2E, and loved it to death. It had lots of problems. Late in the 2E cycle, I DM’d a really complicated game, with fully integrated Skills&Powers, including options, and really included everything I possibly could – weapon speeds, parts of rounds, optional classes, kits, - everything. Then I had a chance to play in a 2E game that I wasn’t running, and I played for exactly one session. Partly because I was forced to randomly generate almost everything about my character, and we played a simple game with the PHB and one or two other resources only.
I’m not denigrating other people’s styles at all – surely there were players who would love that DM’s game – but a modular system exacerbates the minimum levels of complexity problem. If I play in another game, I don’t want to have to read through a 10 page document outlining the rules variants AND house rules used in a particular game. And every late 2E game I played was like that.
Solutions: Electronic tools might help, here; if the DM could rig the character builder to include the rules she wanted, and not others, and include house rules, then the character creation part would be simpler. But I don’t see ways of avoiding this problem completely.
I think it behooves us to graciously take the same advice we gave to people who wanted to play archer fighters in 4e.
