D&D 5E Weighing in on 5e

[Kzach]

I give up.

Despite there being absolutely no evidence to support any valid or reasonable conclusion that 5e is coming anytime soon, it seems that rampant speculation based entirely on conjecture is the theme of the hour.

So why not jump in head first? Everyone else is doing it...

Also, I figured that my opinion was so worthwhile and valid that creating a new thread was the only way I could make it stand out amidst all the riff-raff.

On with the show.

In my wholly ostentatious opinion, the most important thing that needs to be addressed in 5e is the matter of optimisation. Feats are, by far, the biggest culprit in this issue and to that end, I believe that there should be no feats that give flat, untyped bonuses to anything. Furthermore, I would go so far as to eliminate ALL bonuses from feats altogether, whether conditional, situational, typed or not.

In other words, no damage increases, no defence increases, no skill increases, no attack increases, at all, ever, through any feat.

This is a line that shouldn't even be flirted with let alone be crossed at any point during 5e's product-cycle. For instance, Backstabber isn't technically a bonus of any type, it simply increases the die of damage. Can it. Armour & weapon proficiencies are also 'backdoor' methods of increasing damage and defences without actually using bonuses in feats.

Now, before people complain, I should also point out that along with this, classes should be built around optimal design. A good example is the rogue (thief) which optimally wants to use a rapier in melee and yet isn't trained in it's use. Purposefully making a class use non-optimal elements just pisses people off. Why do that? It serves no purpose other than to turn people away from your system. Why not just design the classes properly to accommodate optimal choices from the very start? Balance each class around expected outcomes. If a defender should be sticky, then make it sticky. Don't force players to come up with ways to circumvent the class's design in order to simply function in the role they're trying to fulfil.

This all then comes down to play-testing. In this day and age companies have a massive amount of free resources at their disposal; they're called the fan-base. Set-up a department in WotC to solely manage play-testing and the collation and dissemination of feedback and use that to help filter balance issues before publishing content.

And lastly, get a better web design and development team; if that means paying more money, then gosh darn it, fire someone irrelevant, like Mazzanoble.

 

[shamsael]

So, what CAN feats grant?

 

[RangerWickett]

While we're at it, magic items also shouldn't grant bonuses. Nor should leveling. Nor should stats. You should roll a d20 vs the target's defense. The only math involved is:

Favorable circumstance +2
Ideal circumstance +5
Unfavorable circumstance -2
Horrible circumstance -5

Attacks should deal 1 point of damage for light weapons, 2 for heavy, and 3 for very heavy. PCs should have 5 to 8 hit points, and so should monsters. Minions still have 1. Elites might go 10 to 17, and Solos could be 25 to 42.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I give up.

Despite there being absolutely no evidence to support any valid or reasonable conclusion that 5e is coming anytime soon, it seems that rampant speculation based entirely on conjecture is the theme of the hour.

So why not jump in head first? Everyone else is doing it...

Also, I figured that my opinion was so worthwhile and valid that creating a new thread was the only way I could make it stand out amidst all the riff-raff.

On with the show.

In my wholly ostentatious opinion, the most important thing that needs to be addressed in 5e is the matter of optimisation. Feats are, by far, the biggest culprit in this issue and to that end, I believe that there should be no feats that give flat, untyped bonuses to anything. Furthermore, I would go so far as to eliminate ALL bonuses from feats altogether, whether conditional, situational, typed or not.

In other words, no damage increases, no defence increases, no skill increases, no attack increases, at all, ever, through any feat.

This is a line that shouldn't even be flirted with let alone be crossed at any point during 5e's product-cycle. For instance, Backstabber isn't technically a bonus of any type, it simply increases the die of damage. Can it. Armour & weapon proficiencies are also 'backdoor' methods of increasing damage and defences without actually using bonuses in feats.

Now, before people complain, I should also point out that along with this, classes should be built around optimal design. A good example is the rogue (thief) which optimally wants to use a rapier in melee and yet isn't trained in it's use. Purposefully making a class use non-optimal elements just pisses people off. Why do that? It serves no purpose other than to turn people away from your system. Why not just design the classes properly to accommodate optimal choices from the very start? Balance each class around expected outcomes. If a defender should be sticky, then make it sticky. Don't force players to come up with ways to circumvent the class's design in order to simply function in the role they're trying to fulfil.

This all then comes down to play-testing. In this day and age companies have a massive amount of free resources at their disposal; they're called the fan-base. Set-up a department in WotC to solely manage play-testing and the collation and dissemination of feedback and use that to help filter balance issues before publishing content.

And lastly, get a better web design and development team; if that means paying more money, then gosh darn it, fire someone irrelevant, like Mazzanoble.

Well it's no secret that I believe 5th edition is just around the corner and I believe that Mearls and Cook are "cooking" something up. Now whether it will be called Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition is one thing but I do believe that something is coming.

Now with regards to genuine evidence, I wouldn't expect to see any hardcore genuine evidence because Wizards of the Coast want to sell as much 4th edition stuff as they can. If they leaked anything out on purpose then you could have people become angry and run for hills. Pretty much a repeat of 3rd to 4th edition.

I guess really the only thing is to sit back and wait.

 

[Kzach]

While we're at it, magic items also shouldn't grant bonuses. Nor should leveling. Nor should stats. You should roll a d20 vs the target's defense. The only math involved is:

Favorable circumstance +2
Ideal circumstance +5
Unfavorable circumstance -2
Horrible circumstance -5

Attacks should deal 1 point of damage for light weapons, 2 for heavy, and 3 for very heavy. PCs should have 5 to 8 hit points, and so should monsters. Minions still have 1. Elites might go 10 to 17, and Solos could be 25 to 42.

I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or serious, but regardless, I like where your head is at!

I wouldn't go as extreme as your system but I genuinely think something similar to what you posted is the way of the future. Levels without (much) scaling. Power through versatility and options.

So, what CAN feats grant?

Versatility and increased options. Changing what can be done with what you already have, in ways that are fun and interesting rather than just static or inferred scaled increases to statistics.

For example, the ability to change an area burst 1 within 10 attack to a close blast 3, or the ability to change your teleport 5 squares ability to levitate 5 squares, or instead of charging requiring movement directly towards the nearest square from which the character can attack, allow roundabout routes as effective charges, etc.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I think the inherent bonus material from the DMG2 should be expanded upon - I don't like having to rely on having certain levels of magic items throughout the campaign. I think it allows one to play the game in a low magic sort of way, but also allows you to easily add magic to make it high magic.

Plus, when DMing 1e through 3.5e, I liked to sometimes create my own magic items to hand out to the players, which doesn't work quite as well within a character builder.

Also, I'd like to see healing surges be a bit more limited. Not sure how to do that, though.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I am in no way against the curtailing of feats and bonuses. I think I've mentioned that a time or two over the last couple of years. Problem: You've just eliminated a major source of bloat, and that page content has to be replaced with something.

Scaling by level just to be scaling is rather lame. Problem: Players generally want to feel as if leveling leads to "bigger numbers", and you'll have to find a way to accommodate that same feeling without the bigger numbers.

What I'd like to see is proper use of exception-based design. The current usage of, "everything is an exception" is not exception-based design, and is particularly misplaced with some of the long lists of things that are aren't very different. See powers, for example.

Real exception-based design would be welcome. With such design, if you have a power that is granted to every defender in some reasonably close form, you'd have it as a "defender" power, once. Then, critically, if you have a power that you really do want limited to paladins or charisma-based defenders or charisma-based characters or Classes Who Start with the Letter P (I made that last one up), you make it an exception and list it as such.

The whole point of exception-based design is that you categorize things where convenient to keep the list small, but don't hesitate to make exceptions where warranted. So you don't consolidate everything down into parallel structures due to some fidelity to symmetry, but neither do you put everything into a list because 10% of it is truly different. Problem: See bloat problem in #1 above.

 

[CroBob]

I completely disagree with feats not granting bonuses. However, I do agree they should never, ever give out untyped bonuses, because that's where power creep comes in. The more feats you get, the circumstantial and untyped bonuses you get, which means every time a new set of feats is made, the power creep... creeps.

On that note, though, there should not be "replacement" feats. That is, there should not be a cool feat for heroic tier, but there's a paragon tier feat that does either the same with additional bonuses or simply bigger bonuses. If the tier idea remains, simply have each feat give "heroic" or "paragon" bonus, so that higher tier feats still give you more than your heroic feats do, but there is no overlap.

Otherwise, I think feats are fine the way they are, not counting "the feat tax". Feats are kind of like cool extra things. You should not have to take a specific feat just to keep up with the power curve. All feats should be viable in whatever situation they're designed for, but not so viable that they're necessary.

I am a bit angry about cross-classing. Sure, 3.5 had far too much, but making up for it with far too little is no answer. Multi-classing should not be an essential aspect of character design, but nor should it make the character sub-par. I can't claim I know exactly how to accomplish this, but if multiclassing is done through feats, make each feat for the cross-classing abilities just as good as any other feat someone might want to take. Maybe allow a new class feature to be purchased via feat from the class you're multied into. That's what my house rules do.

 

[Vael]

I'd go the opposite way, feats are purely for combat optimization and improvement. I'd then cut down the number of feats a PC gets, and then introduce Talents, a purely non-combat character customization system that works with skills.

So, your PC's powers are enhanced and augmented by feats, your PC's skills are enhanced and augmented by talents.

 

[CroBob]

That's kind of how feats and skills developed. In 2nd edition, there were "Weapon Proficiencies" and "Non-Weapon Proficiencies". The latter became skills, the prior became feats, with third edition. I can't claim I like it too much when the mechanics of the game get involved with role-playing. I consider it a good idea to get rid of most crafting skills, for example. It makes no sense for a 20th-level rogue to be a supreme chef through fighting monsters, and the level 10 commoner chef (a damned high level, considering the dude's a commoner (3rd edition rules, btw)) , whom spends his entire life as an apprentice chef and then a full chef, is a less good chef.

The only reason that I think insight, bluff, diplomacy and other such skills should remain is because it'd be difficult to adjudicate who's a better liar or teller of when someone's hiding something through role-playing alone.

At any rate, Perhaps a specifically bonus "skill feat" every fourth level or so would add something to the game. There would no longer be a choice between skill augmentation and increased combat effectiveness, a dichotomy I oppose.