RangerWickett
Legend
TL;DR – 1. HP thresholds for all conditions, and stack conditions in tiers. (So you can't stun a high-level foe on turn one, but you can make him lose his reactions.)
2. Have a list of ‘maneuvers’ for monsters to use, like swallow, trample, and fling so you don’t have to reproduce them over and over.
3. Get rid of spells as the default form of magic. Let characters use magic more like at-will super-powers.
D&D NEXT is still in Beta, and there’s still time to try crazy things. So here are three ideas I’d like to see tried out. The conceit behind all these is that the core game should have examples of ‘doing cool stuff,’ and then specific refinements of that. So anyone ought to be able to try to climb on the back of a monster, and certain character options might improve that or add extra rules to it.
Conditions and HP Threshold
Every character and creature has a stat called Threshold, which is equal to its level.
We create three tiers of conditions, with minor, moderate, and major versions of each. For instance:
Reeling – The target cannot take reactions until the end of the attacker’s next turn.
Dazed – The target is reeling, and can either move or use an action on its turn, not both.
Stunned – The target can take no actions or reactions.
Disarmed – The target drops what it’s holding.
Injured Arm – The target is disarmed and cannot hold objects in its arm until it receives healing. (Point to page xx for a small paragraph on healing wounds.)
Severed Arm – The target loses its arm or hand.
Minor conditions can be inflicted on any creature. A normal character has to spend an action to apply the condition – perhaps you headbutt or use a minor enchantment spell to reel someone, and anyone can try to disarm. A specially trained character can add it to an action, like a fighter using martial dice to swing a sword and disarm someone.
Whenever a creature tries to apply one of these conditions, if the target’s hit points (after any damage dealt by the attack) are at or below the attacker’s Threshold, you kick the condition up a notch.
If you score a critical hit when attempting to apply a condition, you kick it up another notch. So a critical hit that gets someone under your Threshold can basically take someone out of the fight, which honestly would have happened anyway with another attack.
Obviously there’s some reality checking here. If you’re unarmed, and you try to disarm a man who has a club, you might be able to break his arm, but you aren’t going to rip it out of its . . . well hm, Beowulf says maybe we should have rules for that.
Expending Resources to Enhance Conditions
Those rules are for at-will attacks. But different classes should have ways to expend limited resources in order to kick things up. A wizard can use a higher level spell to go from ‘reel his mind’ to ‘daze or stun him.’ For martial characters, I’m not sure if people would go for 4e Essentials-style “once per encounter” boosts.
Monstrous Maneuvers
I posted a thread complaining that the dragon in the playtest bestiary was boring to fight. I’d like to propose the Monster Manual have a chapter on common monster maneuvers, and then each monster’s entry would list the kind of stuff it does. So all dragons would get the same old claw/claw/bite, but reds might enjoy pouncing and mangling, while blues grab, fly away, and fling.
The playtest challenge is balancing different maneuvers. I do want dragons to occasionally bite and claw people, and to occasionally do clever tricks, so a) the combat math needs to have combats that last several rounds, and b) different options can’t be perfect in all situations.
But there ought to be rules for, say, climb onto someone larger than you and hide in their blind spot (useful for goblins vs. PCs, and PCs vs. dragons); or thrash around and knock over everyone surrounding you if they’re small enough; or slam your mighty claw down on a poor human to hold him to the floor as you reach in with your mouth and rip him in half.
Sure, mechanically that last one might just be claw/claw/bite, but let’s inject some more cinematic flavor and dynamism into our combats.
Simple Magic-Users
Spells are awesome. I’m a fan. Harry Potter has spells. Jack Vance has spells. Video games have spells. Anime characters sometimes shout their spell names as they cast them. It’s a cool flavor, and should remain in the game.
But Gandalf doesn’t have a specific spell list; he just does magic. Elemental benders from Avatar just control elements; they don’t have specific spell lists. In most classic folklore, people who use magic have some field of expertise – they control fire, or they talk to the dead – but they can do a ton of stuff in that field, not just one or two things that are statted out as spells.
So one option for character creation should be the magic-user that picks one or two types of magic they can do, and then has broad options there. Using the conditions rules above, every mage can try to create conditions, and the rules for magic would help adjudicate how many people they could affect, and how many times per day or per encounter they can boost the power to do something impressive.
The illusionist doesn’t have spell slots; he just can make illusions (maybe with a limit to how much area or how many fake things active at once). His illusory creatures can attack, but the damage (at least at low level) goes away when the illusion ends.
The necromancer can control dead creatures, and they can spend an action to make corpses move around and attack (with limits on number of corpses and size and damage dealt based on level). He can throw necromantic energy, or deliver it with a touch. He can talk to the dead.
The really powerful world-altering magic is covered by rituals.
Then you get to weird stuff, like the flight specialist. If you want to be able to use flight magic, you need to . . . I dunno, spend a feat? Use a ‘magic-user specialty slot’ that you gain from your class and level? Some limited resource as part of character creation.
At high level you end up with mage A who can control fire, summon celestial animals, and teleport; while mage B can speak any language, see the future, and create defensive barriers to protect his allies; and mage C can grow huge, control insects (and has a pet giant bug that follows him around), and conjure powerful storms.
What do you think?
2. Have a list of ‘maneuvers’ for monsters to use, like swallow, trample, and fling so you don’t have to reproduce them over and over.
3. Get rid of spells as the default form of magic. Let characters use magic more like at-will super-powers.
D&D NEXT is still in Beta, and there’s still time to try crazy things. So here are three ideas I’d like to see tried out. The conceit behind all these is that the core game should have examples of ‘doing cool stuff,’ and then specific refinements of that. So anyone ought to be able to try to climb on the back of a monster, and certain character options might improve that or add extra rules to it.
Conditions and HP Threshold
Every character and creature has a stat called Threshold, which is equal to its level.
We create three tiers of conditions, with minor, moderate, and major versions of each. For instance:
Reeling – The target cannot take reactions until the end of the attacker’s next turn.
Dazed – The target is reeling, and can either move or use an action on its turn, not both.
Stunned – The target can take no actions or reactions.
Disarmed – The target drops what it’s holding.
Injured Arm – The target is disarmed and cannot hold objects in its arm until it receives healing. (Point to page xx for a small paragraph on healing wounds.)
Severed Arm – The target loses its arm or hand.
Minor conditions can be inflicted on any creature. A normal character has to spend an action to apply the condition – perhaps you headbutt or use a minor enchantment spell to reel someone, and anyone can try to disarm. A specially trained character can add it to an action, like a fighter using martial dice to swing a sword and disarm someone.
Whenever a creature tries to apply one of these conditions, if the target’s hit points (after any damage dealt by the attack) are at or below the attacker’s Threshold, you kick the condition up a notch.
If you score a critical hit when attempting to apply a condition, you kick it up another notch. So a critical hit that gets someone under your Threshold can basically take someone out of the fight, which honestly would have happened anyway with another attack.
Obviously there’s some reality checking here. If you’re unarmed, and you try to disarm a man who has a club, you might be able to break his arm, but you aren’t going to rip it out of its . . . well hm, Beowulf says maybe we should have rules for that.
Expending Resources to Enhance Conditions
Those rules are for at-will attacks. But different classes should have ways to expend limited resources in order to kick things up. A wizard can use a higher level spell to go from ‘reel his mind’ to ‘daze or stun him.’ For martial characters, I’m not sure if people would go for 4e Essentials-style “once per encounter” boosts.
Monstrous Maneuvers
I posted a thread complaining that the dragon in the playtest bestiary was boring to fight. I’d like to propose the Monster Manual have a chapter on common monster maneuvers, and then each monster’s entry would list the kind of stuff it does. So all dragons would get the same old claw/claw/bite, but reds might enjoy pouncing and mangling, while blues grab, fly away, and fling.
The playtest challenge is balancing different maneuvers. I do want dragons to occasionally bite and claw people, and to occasionally do clever tricks, so a) the combat math needs to have combats that last several rounds, and b) different options can’t be perfect in all situations.
But there ought to be rules for, say, climb onto someone larger than you and hide in their blind spot (useful for goblins vs. PCs, and PCs vs. dragons); or thrash around and knock over everyone surrounding you if they’re small enough; or slam your mighty claw down on a poor human to hold him to the floor as you reach in with your mouth and rip him in half.
Sure, mechanically that last one might just be claw/claw/bite, but let’s inject some more cinematic flavor and dynamism into our combats.
Simple Magic-Users
Spells are awesome. I’m a fan. Harry Potter has spells. Jack Vance has spells. Video games have spells. Anime characters sometimes shout their spell names as they cast them. It’s a cool flavor, and should remain in the game.
But Gandalf doesn’t have a specific spell list; he just does magic. Elemental benders from Avatar just control elements; they don’t have specific spell lists. In most classic folklore, people who use magic have some field of expertise – they control fire, or they talk to the dead – but they can do a ton of stuff in that field, not just one or two things that are statted out as spells.
So one option for character creation should be the magic-user that picks one or two types of magic they can do, and then has broad options there. Using the conditions rules above, every mage can try to create conditions, and the rules for magic would help adjudicate how many people they could affect, and how many times per day or per encounter they can boost the power to do something impressive.
The illusionist doesn’t have spell slots; he just can make illusions (maybe with a limit to how much area or how many fake things active at once). His illusory creatures can attack, but the damage (at least at low level) goes away when the illusion ends.
The necromancer can control dead creatures, and they can spend an action to make corpses move around and attack (with limits on number of corpses and size and damage dealt based on level). He can throw necromantic energy, or deliver it with a touch. He can talk to the dead.
The really powerful world-altering magic is covered by rituals.
Then you get to weird stuff, like the flight specialist. If you want to be able to use flight magic, you need to . . . I dunno, spend a feat? Use a ‘magic-user specialty slot’ that you gain from your class and level? Some limited resource as part of character creation.
At high level you end up with mage A who can control fire, summon celestial animals, and teleport; while mage B can speak any language, see the future, and create defensive barriers to protect his allies; and mage C can grow huge, control insects (and has a pet giant bug that follows him around), and conjure powerful storms.
What do you think?
