D&D 5E Volo's 5e vs Tasha's 5e where do you see 5e heading?

[Parmandur]

I would definitely be onboard for a mild refresh. I would hope for something that would (a) support backwards compatibility, much as you say here, but also (b) address some balance/flavor issues that both the players and designers seem to have with the various character options and possibly some of the ambiguous ruling areas (e.g., stealth, vision, and lighting). I could also foresee that a new edition would swap out less popular core character options for more popular options from later books. (Could the half-orc just be replaced with the orc? Possibly.)

I would definitely be curious whether the designers would use the opportunity to scratch some of their personal design irks. Mearls, for example, wished in hindsight that the warlock was designed differently regarding the interaction between their patron/boon. So I would be curious whether or not things like that would change if they had the opportunity to refresh or whether they would keep it the same.

Edit: I am curious what people see within the acceptable boundaries of a "refresh" and which things should remain untouched, though that may just repeat a lot of the same points raised in this thread.


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Crawford has admitted to having a document recording the problem points from all his Dage Advice work to use in future revisions if they come up.

 

[Parmandur]

Yup. It feels like we've reach that stage in the edition when they're willing to let the power creep flow in the name of diverse options, but not to the weird experimental stage yet. Ravenloft and Theros both just felt really "confident", like they know the approach they want to take (as did Tashas). Also the massive power-creep from Divine Blessings or whatever they're called in Theros and the Dark Gifts in Ravenloft is a clear statement of intent re: future settings. It also provides an additional layer of customization which I think a lot of people like. If 5E Eberron was developed and published now instead of when it was I'm pretty sure they'd have used a model more like that to handle Dragonmarks (and likely given people w/o Dragonmarks other advantages).

The Supernatural Gifts and Dark Gifts aren't even power creep: they are just Feats. Theros explicitly says that instead of the included new options, a player can just take any Feat from the PHB.

 

[Marandahir]

The Supernatural Gifts and Dark Gifts aren't even power creep: they are just Feats. Theros explicitly says that instead of the included new options, a player can just take any Feat from the PHB.

And "bonus feat at 1st level" is a common house rule used by tables for like, forever.

We were doing it in 3.5e, we were doing it in 4e, we've been doing it now in 5e. Feats have had different weights between editions, but the rule remains a classic one because it provides a bit more differentiation for 1st-level characters.

 

[Aldarc]

Crawford has admitted to having a document recording the problem points from all his Dage Advice work to use in future revisions if they come up.

Just problem points from the Sage Advice? Because it seems like there are a slew of other sore spots that are regularly recognized by the community. It's not exactly a secret, for example, that the Hexblade is a backdoor patch for the Bladelock, and I don't think that it's the only backdoor patch that WotC has tried to do for its various classes and subclasses.

 

[Parmandur]

Just problem points from the Sage Advice? Because it seems like there are a slew of other sore spots that are regularly recognized by the community. It's not exactly a secret, for example, that the Hexblade is a backdoor patch for the Bladelock, and I don't think that it's the only backdoor patch that WotC has tried to do for its various classes and subclasses.

Probably, but it was in 4he context of a Sage Advice segment with Greg Tito where he said that.

 

[Minigiant]

I just don't think 5e is granular enough to support that sort of thing in a meaningful way. You'd have to simultaneously reintroduce weapon speed, reach by the foot and weapon vs armor types to make it worthwhile. Which isn't to say one couldn't, but it's not simply a matter of expanding the weapon list.

It's not that hard to make a new chart of weapons and armors. That's the easy module WOTC could produce that in an hour.

 

[Parmandur]

It's not that hard to make a new chart of weapons and armors. That's the easy module WOTC could produce that in an hour.

If they felt it was wanted. Figuring out that was not wudely wanted seems to be one of the results of the Next playtest.

 

[Marandahir]

Just problem points from the Sage Advice? Because it seems like there are a slew of other sore spots that are regularly recognized by the community. It's not exactly a secret, for example, that the Hexblade is a backdoor patch for the Bladelock, and I don't think that it's the only backdoor patch that WotC has tried to do for its various classes and subclasses.

Ways of the Sun Soul and Ascendant Dragon seem to be patches for Way of the Four Elements. Rather than fixing the Four Elements, they created other elemental themed monastic traditions. Way of the Kensei is a fix for Monk Weapons, but then Tasha's fixed it for all Monks. So there are different ways of tackling the fixes.

It's not that hard to make a new chart of weapons and armors. That's the easy module WOTC could produce that in an hour.

Sure. I'm not sure it's what the audience is asking for, but there are so many free or cheap third party 5e resources that do this too if WotC's playtests show it's not wanted (like Next did).

 

[Aldarc]

Ways of the Sun Soul and Ascendant Dragon seem to be patches for Way of the Four Elements. Rather than fixing the Four Elements, they created other elemental themed monastic traditions. Way of the Kensei is a fix for Monk Weapons, but then Tasha's fixed it for all Monks. So there are different ways of tackling the fixes.

I suspect bloodline/origin spells would be included for the sorcerer as well.

 

[Krachek]

The base can be simple. I just want my variant rules and I'm only going to pay for it once.

You’re safe! 5ed has a credo about letting DM adapt the game to suit their needs.
UA and DM guilds provide enough free or budget wise material to fill any Variant needs.