D&D 5E (2024) Unpopular opinion: I wish 5e PCs looked like NPCs

[EzekielRaiden]

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Oh, certainly, we don't need rules.

Unless we care about consistency, or making informed choices, or clear and understandable systems, or...

If you don't care about any of those things, then sure, rules are totally unnecessary and indeed mostly a waste of time.

 

[Gradine]

Oh, certainly, we don't need rules.

Unless we care about consistency, or making informed choices, or clear and understandable systems, or...

If you don't care about any of those things, then sure, rules are totally unnecessary and indeed mostly a waste of time.

This is a thread about homebrew

 

[CreamCloud0]

This is a thread about homebrew

what is homebrew but creating our own set of new rules?

 

[Gradine]

what is homebrew but creating our own set of new rules?

 

[TwoSix]

According to the spell progression of the game...?

A 4th level character, even as a full spellcaster, doesn't get 4th level spells until (4x2-1)=7th level. A 4th level character shouldn't even have 3rd level spells, let alone 4th.

It would be like saying "According to whom, God?" when someone says that a 4th level character shouldn't have "You can make three attacks instead of one when you take the Attack action." That's not a feature that appears before 11th level, and even a singular EA doesn't occur by 4th level.

Sure, but in this thread we were also talking about torching the very concepts around which PCs are built. (I was certainly making that strong implication.)

With that as the use case, every assumption of normal PC progression is open to being analyzed.

 

[Maxperson]

Yep! Turned out my unpopular opinion was unpopular.

And we didn't even need a psychic to predict it.

 

[TwoSix]

And we didn't even need a psychic to predict it.

That’s fine, I can be happy browsing the Monster Manual for my next PC all on my lonesome.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s fine, I can be happy browsing the Monster Manual for my next PC all on my lonesome.

For the record, I'd have worked with you to make the cambion happen. Depending on the circumstances, it might have needed to be tweaked a bit, but I don't see why it couldn't be done.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then I would not have understood it, and would instead have interpreted your message as saying to me, "Homebrew need not have any rules nor consistency whatsoever, it is and can be truly anything, without any limits. It is inappropriate of you to expect limits of any kind, least of all consistency."

Sure, but in this thread we were also talking about torching the very concepts around which PCs are built. (I was certainly making that strong implication.)

With that as the use case, every assumption of normal PC progression is open to being analyzed.

I would deeply and fundamentally disagree with that notion. That's like saying that, because we're re-doing calculus, we not only can but must go back and break every single axiom of arithmetic too. It doesn't follow.

"We are completely rebuilding the classes that actually exist" is not the same as "We are completely rebuilding the entire mechanical space in which classes exist". The latter does, yes, mean that we should question why (say) Sorcerers get this spell but not that spell, for example. But it doesn't mean that we should completely obliterate all game structures and start from a blank mechanical void.

If one class can now cast 4th level spells at character level 4, that embarks us on a complete rebuild, not just of class mechanics, but of the entire spell list, which is easily a quarter of all of 5e's rules. (It still fills me with...I guess "poetic shadenfreude", since it's not regular schadenfreude but like it, given that 5e has very nearly made all characters spellcasters, given that was literally one of the complaints that went into inspiring its creation!) Your proposal read, to me, like saying, "Let's simplify the classes that exist, so they can be presented in this way", and not even slightly like "We should scrap the ENTIRE 5e system, and build a 6e that produces characters like this."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure, you can make it 7th level if you feel the "spell level = 0.5*(character level+1), round down" guideline needs to be strictly enforced. I usually give a little leeway there in my own games for designing feats and magic items.

How can I make a non-homebrewed character that doesn't come with a lot of extra stuff? Making a character and simply ignoring the options I don't want to use is a nonstarter for me, that feels even worse than having the stuff to begin with.

Going back and re-reading, now, since I missed the original post discussing these things.

Now I see that your project really is, and has always been, "This system is bad and should be replaced." I mean, that might be hyperbolic for the sake of simplicity, but...it seems to be where you're coming from. If you will always feel worse having a resource you aren't using because it doesn't interest you, then frankly, no system that isn't tailored to your interests will satisfy you. That's...really the only conclusion I can draw from that stance. It's a valid stance, there's nothing logically wrong with it. It just means that you're going to find the large majority of class-type game systems problematic and frustrating, unless they have a truly mind-boggling number of classes, or do some other unusual trick to push far closer to the kind of thing you want. (E.g. there's a 4e-based homebrew Pokemon tabletop game, where "classes" have, I believe, 5 levels each. You're meant to end up taking something like 4-6 classes over the course of a character's career, reflecting their growing and changing interests over time. "Pokemon Tabletop United" I think was the name, but I haven't played it in years, possibly a decade or more.)

If "I have X, and don't use it because I don't like it" is worse than "I wish I did not have X, but I use it anyway because I can't choose not to have it", then the only way for you to be happy is to never have X in the first place--and that means the classes can't ever include any features that aren't what you want out of that class.