D&D (2024) Things You Think Would Improve the Game That We WON'T See

[Minigiant]

I understand conceptually what you are going for... but when you use the example of Warriors getting Extra Attack but you then have to add Rangers to the Warrior group temporarily in order to give them Extra Attack too (and presumably add Paladins too)... I just can't help think it's just as easy to just list the classes that get Extra Attack rather than create a "group" and then have to include a whole bunch of exceptions in addition to it. What exactly is that Group designation saving us? And Arcane magic? Well, you either strip the Bard of Arcane magic and turn it into something else, or else you have to keep saying "the Arcane Group AND Bard", which is just as many words as listing "Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer and Bard", so again, what's the benefit?

And while 3PP could create content with Groups in mind... they could just as easily create content that lists specific classes too. I mean look at all the exceptions would would need to make-- magical plate mail? Can't say "For the Warrior group" because Monks and Barbarians ain't going to use it and Paladins would... which means you end up just having to list the classes anyway. And there will be plenty of time you'd want to give things to all the nature classes-- Rangers, Barbarians, and Druids-- which would preclude any Group and you'd end up just listing classes again.

Now that being said... yes I agree with you that a whole new edition would in fact be the best time and place to work on it because you could strip everything back down the foundations and try to build them back up so that Groups could be a thing. I just don't know why it would be all that useful even if you could. But I won't dismiss the premise out of hand... maybe when WotC decides to make 6E whenever that is, they'd be able to convince me otherwise? I will fully accept the possibility.

Well the point is that you'd have to start the edition and place the classes in the groups you design them around.
Then design exceptions when they see fit.

I think
Orichalcum Armor, rare (requires attunement by a Warrior class)

is better than

Orichalcum Armor, rare (requires attunement by a barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, or ranger)
and the DM is allowing Warlords and Bloodhunters

 

[mellored]

Or a book that only includes 4 classes total... which is great for new players to learn from, but then they have nowhere else to go once they've learned the game?

Again, I assume the classes branch as you level up.

Start with fighter, then pick barbarian, then pick totem, then pick a feat, and so on...
Experience groups can start at higher levels.

And sure, pre-mades kind of do this too. But it would be more weird if 3 players all pick Sir Stabbington the paladin than if 3 characters picked fighter, paladin.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Again, I assume the classes branch as you level up.

Start with fighter, then pick barbarian, then pick totem, then pick a feat, and so on...
Experience groups can start at higher levels.

And sure, pre-mades kind of do this too. But it would be more weird if 3 players all pick Sir Stabbington the paladin than if 3 characters picked fighter, paladin.

I can understand the direction you are going with this and I'm sure were it to get worked out it would probably be fine, so I'm not going to dismiss the concept out of hand. I just personally don't know if I would say it was an appreciably better system to start with four classes and splitting to twelve at like 4th level (or whenever), rather than just starting at the 12 classes to begin with like we have.

That being said... the format does remind me of d20 Modern, where you would start with one of the six generic base classes (Strong Hero, Fast Hero, Tough Hero etc.) and that at a certain level you would choose an Advanced Class to move into (Bodyguard, Gunslinger, Personality etc.) that was more story-specific on who you were becoming. Were you to then add in a third level of specificity with like a Prestige Class at 12th level or whatever... you'd end up with the same three layers of character class progression that you seem to be advocating for with Core Four classes to 12 Class subclasses to eventual Prestige Class down the line. So there is a precedent with what you're offering.

 

[ECMO3]

The 5% bonus isnt in a vacuum though.

Optimization in one direction or another grants huge bonuses. The STR feats/styles don't benefit the DEX feats/fightingstyles but each add a bunch of power.

But the question is "basic competancy" and you do not need great or even good roles to have basic competency. The class chassis provide that even if your abilities are low.

I am not saying a melee fighter with a 12 strength is better than a melee fighter with an 20 strength and everything else the same, she clearly isn't. But regardless of what feats or fighting styles you pick, a fighter with really, really terrible roles who had to put a 12 in strength, will still be competent at melee using a strength-based weapon. Missing out on the big number does not make such a fighter incompetent at fighting, which is her class role.

Regarding your point about feats/styles, I generally disagree. People take those feats usually because they want to do more damage. It is a gameplay decision, not a power one and with the strength feats in particular they are generally not more powerful for having taken those feats.

Regardless of ability scores, the strength weapon feats generally do not make characters more powerful overall IME. They make characters do more damage at times and less damage at other times while making their characters equal or weaker at virtually ever other metric other than damage as compared to someone who did not take the feat. As such overall characters are generally weaker in play if they take PAM or GWM IME. Dex weapon feats (Sharpshooter and XBE) don't have this problem as much and it is more difficult to make such a generalization, although there are still tradeoffs.

Note I am not including half-feats in this (Heavy Armor Master, Elven Accuracy, Crusher etc), but most of those half-feats will actually improve someone with low abilities more than they will improve someone with high abilities assuming the ability in question in both cases is either even or odd.

So you get more and more by focusing on one end and adding the 5% to it instead of going even on STR/DEX and having no support for it.
Only the ranger has support for being versatile.

Sure, but you don't need "more and more" to be competent in 5E.

Note there is a floor where this is not true - someone who's highest roll is a 12 and has 5 abilities under 10 for example, but in the RAW method of rolling abilities this is extremely unlikely, and far less likely than poor roles with very high ability scores making you "incompetent" or at early levels dead.

If your argument is that characters with high scores are more effective than ones with low scores I would obviously agree, what I take issue with is the idea that high abilities are a requirement to be effective.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well the point is that you'd have to start the edition and place the classes in the groups you design them around.
Then design exceptions when they see fit.

I think
Orichalcum Armor, rare (requires attunement by a Warrior class)

is better than

Orichalcum Armor, rare (requires attunement by a barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, or ranger)
and the DM is allowing Warlords and Bloodhunters

What about:

Orichalcum Armor, rare (requires attunement by a character proficient in heavy armor)?

 

[nevin]

What are some changes to the game that you think would improve it that we WON'T see in the new 2024 releases? And why won't we see them?

I'll start with a couple of things. In general, I think that one of my personal complaints about the upcoming revision is "power creep is creepin'". We've seen new versions of cantrips that increase their damage, lots of additional ways to gain temporary hit points, a potential increase in the amount of healing that spells do that just about doubles it, ASIs moved to wherever you want in order to allow increased optimization out the gate, and so forth. There have been a very few changes that reduce a few of the more powerful options, such as the totem barbarian's "resist everything but force" ability, but mostly, it's all MOAR POWER. So my dislike of that is behind a lot of what I would like to see.

First, I think that reverting wizards and sorcerers to a d4 Hit Die would help restore the balance between casters and martial characters, which is a very commonly complained about thing. I don't think we'll see it because the increase to a d6 was widely praised on 5e's release. I'd like to see warlocks drop down to a d6, too, with a possible invocation to gain 1 hp/level to help those who want to be able to go toe to toe.

If 1st level ability score modifiers aren't going to be tied to race, where they existed to set other races apart from humanity, I'd like to just drop them entirely. But given the move to "this is for the optimizers", I can't imagine we will see this, either.

I'd like to see a modification to some of the better barbarian abilities that trigger when raging such that they require concentration to maintain, along with a qualifier that barbarians can concentrate on these features while raging. I am pretty sure there are several reasons why we won't see this, all related to concentration being hard to maintain at high levels when you're the melee guy taking massive whacks.

I'd like to see metamagic moved entirely out of the sorcerer and into the upcasting mechanic for spells, as well as a new downcasting mechanic that lets you use lower level slots for far inferior versions of higher level spells; for instance, reduce the slot level of your fireball by one level in exchange for reducing the damage by 4d6. Pretty sure that one is a pipe dream, for the same reason that we won't see my next one: it's too big and fundamental of a change for one of the base classes to undergo in what is basically a half-edition (or smaller) change.

Speaking of the sorcerer, I'd like to see the number of levels at which it gets subclass features increased to about ten, and to see its sorcerer point stuff tied heavily to subclass, in order to make each sorcerer both more heavily invested in its subclass/theme and to make higher levels of sorcerer more attractive. For example, a spider-themed sorcerer might have an ability to spend a few sorcerer points to add a web-like effect to any spell that has an area of effect or targets a creature. I KNOW we won't see such a massive revision to the sorcerer, but I'd really like.

And finally, I'd like to see a real, actual, full warlord class.

Magic needs to be wiped and completely redone. We can keep the vancian leveling if the sacred cow is too big but we need to go back to each type of caster has thier own spell list that the Devs can keep appropriately powered per level and quit giving everyone access to everyone elses spells.
that and we need to quit trying to make everyone the same level of DPS in all situation. Specialty wizards should shine in thier speciality and be not as good a a Generalist in general day to day use. Magic can be DPS , magic can be problem solving and magic can be survival improvement or many other things. Why would a divination wizard be as good in combat as DPS as an Evoker instead of being that Awesome buffer that helps people avoid things or hit better?

Magic just needs to be Nuked and redone completely.

And attunement needs to be killed , burned and removed from all the historical archives.......

 

[Minigiant]

What about:

Orichalcum Armor, rare (requires attunement by a character proficient in heavy armor)?

because Barbarians, Monks, and Rangers don't get heavy armor.

 

[Micah Sweet]

because Barbarians, Monks, and Rangers don't get heavy armor.

Medium armor then, whatever.

 

[Shardstone]

Magic needs to be wiped and completely redone. We can keep the vancian leveling if the sacred cow is too big but we need to go back to each type of caster has thier own spell list that the Devs can keep appropriately powered per level and quit giving everyone access to everyone elses spells.
that and we need to quit trying to make everyone the same level of DPS in all situation. Specialty wizards should shine in thier speciality and be not as good a a Generalist in general day to day use. Magic can be DPS , magic can be problem solving and magic can be survival improvement or many other things. Why would a divination wizard be as good in combat as DPS as an Evoker instead of being that Awesome buffer that helps people avoid things or hit better?

Magic just needs to be Nuked and redone completely.

And attunement needs to be killed , burned and removed from all the historical archives.......

Yep that's where I'm at. Or the opposite needs to happen where Spells are renamed Powers and made available to everyone. Let Fighters and Barbarians and Monks have Jump and Longstrider as part of their toolkit etc etc.

 

[Minigiant]

But the question is "basic competancy" you do not need great or even good roles to have basic competency. The class chassis provide that even if your abilities are low.

That's what I disagree with.

You need a good roll in your prime score to meet basic competency and need to continually boost your primary scores to maintain it.

In 2014, they leaned too hard on simplicity of mechanic on many classes. This put too much pressure on primary score, feats, and fighting styles to maintain basic competency at anything but a defender.

The designers created a system where your either need good rolls or higher level dominance to fill any role other than body blocker, defender, healer.

Your STR14/DEX14 fighter/barb/pally doesn't have a supporting fighting style for both their attack options and if they attempt to level both STR and Dex equally, they will fall behind the curve.
Unless they play ranger and rogue which again has class features designed to be competent in hybrid.

The 2014 designers all the non-fullcasters but ranger and ranger to specialize. I don't like it. You don't like it.

It'll take a full edition change to alter that.