D&D 5E To Crunch or not to Crunch?

[Tony Vargas]

It's hard for me to say, as I basically want them to release a defined set of new crunch, and then almost entirely fluff for the rest of the life of the game. I like to have a complete ruleset, not an ever growing one.

That's just not the kind of system D&D is. You can't just add fluff to D&D, you want new fluff, pretty soon you need new crunch to support it. It's just the nature of the system, no mechanic's entirely generic.

There are such systems - like Hero - of course. It's cycle is just what you describe. They put out a core rulebook, then supplements that add fluff - genre stuff, mostly - and little or no crunch. Because the crunch is all generic mechanics, it's just a matter of mapping existing mechanics to new fluff.

(I know, I know, the only way to get that in D&D is with the old Rules Cyclopedia, but we're talking about what we want to see here.)

Wasn't the RC just printed towards the end of the 'two-prong approach' though?

In that sense you can take up any ed of D&D after the end of it's run, and it'll be crunch-stable.

Most subclasses, for instance, have actual setting identity for me--they aren't just mechanical tools to represent a character.

So, if 5e had been designed with adding more crunch in mind, it could have kept sub-classes fairly setting-generic, and used PrCs for more setting-specific things with such identies, like Oath of the Crown or PDK.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

That's just not the kind of system D&D is. You can't just add fluff to D&D, you want new fluff, pretty soon you need new crunch to support it. It's just the nature of the system, no mechanic's entirely generic.

2e, with more products than any other edition by far (I could be wrong, but that's what it felt like) could have taken out most of the crunch that wasn't in the core rules or a core setting book and been totally fine. Maybe keep the "Complete" line.

Most setting fluff doesn't require much crunch. For each setting, add a few iconic (including what's intended to become iconic in a new setting) spells, magic items, and monsters, and maybe a couple of races and subclasses, and you're pretty much good. With 5e this is extra true.

So, if 5e had been designed with adding more crunch in mind, it could have kept sub-classes fairly setting-generic, and used PrCs for more setting-specific things with such identies, like Oath of the Crown or PDK.

I'm not going to say it couldn't be done in a way I'd like, but I dislike the way Prestige Classes have been implemented in the past so much that it would take some serious brilliance to pull it off. Knights of Solamnia as one of the major proto-prestige classes, would be the place to test it out.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I would certainly enjoy more fluff, but I don't need a faster release schedule of crunch material.

I would like for the crunch to be less class focused, however. There are races that haven't been touched, race variant ideas to explore, explorations of differnent kinds of magic items, etc.

not to mention that the class options they are putting out for existing classes don't really expand the game much.

I'd rather see a whole set of subclasses that bypass the need for multiclassing.

Or variant class feature options that can be taken instead of a given class feature when you take level X of class Y.

Or a series of subclass options that work more like 4e classes or SWSE characters, with distinct abilities that provide meaningful tactical options in a given round of combat, exploration, or interaction. (the singular thing, IMO, that makes 4e what it is. no amount of broad tactical options like grid spacing and facing/flanking rules will make 5e able to be played like 4e, because that misses the point

Rules for organizations, that can be used to build armies, trade fleets, settlements, theives guilds, etc, and provide incentive to adventure in some form via plot hooks provided by the organization, threats to it, etc.

Strongholds. with multiple ways of handling them.

Rules for the broad magic items of Eberron.

 

[Tony Vargas]

2e, with more products than any other edition by far (I could be wrong, but that's what it felt like) could have taken out most of the crunch that wasn't in the core rules or a core setting book and been totally fine. Maybe keep the "Complete" line.

That's not a level of crunch I'd be dissapointed with for being too little. (The Complete line did get pretty extensive.)

Most setting fluff doesn't require much crunch. For each setting, add a few spells, magic items, and monsters, and maybe a couple of races and subclasses, and you're pretty much good.

Some might call for full classes, too I suppose (that where the Artificer came from, for instance). But that's definitely some crunch y'got there, and it'll add up over the many traditional D&D settings. That was my point: you want to add something - a new race, a new order of this or that class or whatever, it requires some crunch to support it.

I'm not going to say it couldn't be done in a way I'd like, but I dislike the way Prestige Classes have been implemented in the past so much that it would take some serious brilliance to pull it off. Knights of Solamnia as one of the major proto-prestige classes, would be the place to test it out.

I know PrCs got pretty abuseable and where they weren't they were often pretty awful. And I know that got used to kludge various problems, too. But, if PrCs were /just/ used to handle setting-specific bits of color, knightly orders and unique studies and secret societies and the like, they needn't get out of hand. Using sub-classes to do both as 5e does tempts crossing one with the other. So you have a generic name for the PDK and a bit of Cormyrian color bleeds out.

 

[Sunseeker]

I want new crunch. Not just more subclasses or more ways to shoot a bow or more ways to shoot magic.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And what new race/class options that come out next, I want to be focused on areas of the game that aren't yet supported, not new ways to do an already supported thing.

I want alternate routes, too, eventually, but later.

First, finish the Artificer and Mystic, and then give us the races and subclasses you haven't yet for setting support. Thri-keen, Dray, Muls, Desert Runner Elves, Kalashtar, Draconians, updates for the eberron races we've already seen, even if it's just a bit of polish, etc. I'm sure i'm forgetting some.

I know I'm in the minority, but my campaigns can't convert into 5e using official material, or even UA, yet, because in various campaigns (we round robin through campaigns instead of running one until it's done, and the group varies in who can play, so we play different campaigns in differnt people are missing) I've got:

Shadar-kai, Vryloka, usable Kobolds, Gnolls, Kalashtar, Thri-keen, Satyrs, Pixies, Hengeyokai, Wilden, Dryad, Deva, and probably at least one I'm forgetting. I've been able to homebrew just fine, or use other people's homebrew, but I'm just saying, I'd rather have more races than more subclasses.

tldr: more new/as yet unsupported stuff before new ways to do already supported stuff, for a while, would be cool.