D&D General What are the coolest/most innovative mechanics D&D could take from other games?

[Haplo781]

Personally, I consider Shadow of the Demon Lord's Boons and Banes to be a better take on advantage/disadvantage. Blades in the Dark's clocks are an elegant evolution of the skill challenge mechanic (which I can't understand why 5e dropped after years of iteration and improvement), and 4e making all spells use attack rolls while saving throws were specifically to end ongoing effects was brilliant.

What about you?

 

[SakanaSensei]

One of my core issues with DnD, a game where the rules mostly revolve around fighting stuff, is that combat gets more and more boring as rounds go on. I posit this is because of the always available nature of the abilities players and monsters have at their disposal. If you are a Battlemaster fighter, you're probably using your maneuvers early. If you're a spellcaster, you're casting your best spell early.

You start off with the cool stuff and things just get less interesting from there.

There are probably lots of ways to handle this, but one that sticks out to me is the Resolve resource from ICON by Massif Press. Each round your party gets a point of Resolve, and Resolve can be spent on Limit Breaks, incredibly powerful abilities that can turn a whole fight around on its head. MCDM's new game they are making seems to be kind of toying with an idea of building up a resource early in the fight to then have something explosive later on, although for their game I think there's a good chance that they end up with individual resources based on your class rather than a shared pool.

 

[aco175]

You start off with the cool stuff and things just get less interesting from there.

Sounds a bit like 4e where you had encounter powers that were cooler than your basic powers.

 

[LordEntrails]

I like Frontier Space's scaling crit system. i.e. the higher your chance to hit, the more like a crit success and lower crit failure rate.

 

[Blue]

Personally, I consider Shadow of the Demon Lord's Boons and Banes to be a better take on advantage/disadvantage.

Haven't played it, what are Boons and Banes? Adv/Dis is fairly elegant because of how quick and easy it is, how it doesn't make things possible/impossible that weren't before, and how it ends up changing based on if you were likely, balanced, or unlikely to make the roll in the first place. So I'm really excited by a better take on that much goodness.

 

[Blue]

One of my core issues with DnD, a game where the rules mostly revolve around fighting stuff, is that combat gets more and more boring as rounds go on. I posit this is because of the always available nature of the abilities players and monsters have at their disposal. If you are a Battlemaster fighter, you're probably using your maneuvers early. If you're a spellcaster, you're casting your best spell early.

You start off with the cool stuff and things just get less interesting from there.

I like the Resolve system you talked about, just wanted to mention another one. 13th Age (a d20) has the Escalation Die. Basically it's a d6 that at the end of the first round of comabt gets set to a 1, and then increments up from there to a 6. It adds to player attacks (and like 4e you make an attack against a save, so in current D&D it would also affect DCs). But the most interesting point is tghat monster math starts uneven, with characters at a disadvantage until it gets up to +2-3. So if you start with your big novas you have a lot greater chance of missing.

It also wraps up grinds quickly, because when it's a forgone conclusion the PCs have big bonuses and can just wipe up.

 

[Blue]

I like Frontier Space's scaling crit system. i.e. the higher your chance to hit, the more like a crit success and lower crit failure rate.

How do those mechanics work? That sounds cool.

 

[dave2008]

I like the Resolve system you talked about, just wanted to mention another one. 13th Age (a d20) has the Escalation Die. Basically it's a d6 that at the end of the first round of comabt gets set to a 1, and then increments up from there to a 6. It adds to player attacks (and like 4e you make an attack against a save, so in current D&D it would also affect DCs). But the most interesting point is tghat monster math starts uneven, with characters at a disadvantage until it gets up to +2-3. So if you start with your big novas you have a lot greater chance of missing.

It also wraps up grinds quickly, because when it's a forgone conclusion the PCs have big bonuses and can just wipe up.

I've forgotten, does the escalation die apply to both PCs and monsters or just PCs?

 

[Clint_L]

The option for sharing the dungeon master role a la Fiasco.

 

[Blue]

Don't Rest Your Head is an RPG taking place in a dream. You assemble a dice pool from various parts, with each part having a different color. Besides your normal success/failure, there are consequences to whatever die is the highest (with I believe the player picking highest among ties). Like the consequence of Exhaustion is that you get another Exhaustion die - making you even better at everything. Except that if you reach a limit, you fall asleep in the dream and that's effectively removing your character from play.

Similarly, I seem to recall that one of the Warhammer-like games had adding dice to a pool and totaling them, but since magic was fraught with peril any doubles (or more) would attract chaos and bad stuff. You could voluntarily use less dice, but then you were less likely to succeed.

Ideas like this, where more effort can cause problems, I think could be used. Even if it's just for stress/exhausion mechanic where you can push yourself to add more dice.

 

[dave2008]

How do those mechanics work? That sounds cool.

I don't know how Frontier Space does it, but PF2 does something similar by making a Crit Success/Failure a +10/-10 to the hit roll. It makes monsters of a higher level/CR much more deadly as they crit a lot more.

 

[Blue]

I've forgotten, does the escalation die apply to both PCs and monsters or just PCs?

Escalation die applies just to PCs.

Except when it doesn't. For instance, Dragons get to add the Escalation die as well.

But in general monsters start at a math advantage, and the Escalation die adds to the players to offset and then flip that the other way.

 

[dave2008]

Similarly, I seem to recall that one of the Warhammer-like games had adding dice to a pool and totaling them, but since magic was fraught with peril any doubles (or more) would attract chaos and bad stuff. You could voluntarily use less dice, but then you were less likely to succeed.

That sounds interesting. I wonder if there is an easy way to adapt that to D&D?

 

[dave2008]

Blades in the Dark's clocks are an elegant evolution of the skill challenge mechanic

PF2 has the VP (Victory Point?) system which is similar. I plan to use a similar mechanic in my next 5e campaign, but haven't settled on the rules yet.

 

[payn]

I like PF2's three action economy.

 

[Blue]

Another mechanic I really like a Conflicted Gauges. Basically, something which is both good and bad just in different ways whatever your rating. The ur-example of this is Lasers & Feelings, where you have a single score between Lasers (tech, rational thought, etc.) and Feelings (persuasion, charisma, interpersonal relations, etc.) If you are doing one, you need to roll above it, if you are doing the other roll under it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's too bad the whole d20, pass/fail thing is so iconic to the brand, because it's just about the least interesting dice mechanic there is. Heck, rolling for ability scores is more interesting than actually playing the game (from the perspective of interesting math).

I'd love to see them give the Sorcerer the casting mechanic from Five Torches Deep: you can cast all day long, but each time you do you have to make an ability check, and if you fail that checks bad things happen and you can't cast spells of that level until you've had a long rest. Now that would make the Sorcerer more distinct from the Wizard.

I'd also like to see them implement a 'signature ability', which exists in lots of games. One for each class, powered by Inspiration. You could still use Inspiration the normal way, or you could spend it to power your class's unique ability.

 

[Blue]

That sounds interesting. I wonder if there is an easy to adapt that to D&D?

OneD&D's more granular Exhausion system might make a good penalty, but with D&D usually being a single roll and advantage being a big bonus it's harder. I've seen some people talk about playing with multiple dice to change the d20 to a bell curve. Say a d20 was replaced with 2d10. Allow players to add an extra d10 when they want to push themselves and use the top two, but any doubles gives a level of exhaustion, and if they are triples (1 chance in 1000) you are also stunned until the end of your next round. Not the best, but something off the top of my head.

 

[Blue]

I like PF2's three action economy.

Agreed. Especially as there are interesting a useful things to do with the third instead of just more attacks.

 

[dave2008]

I like PF2's three action economy.

I go back and forth on this and though I have heard mostly positive things, I have heard some negative ones as well. Like most things, depends on the group.

From a design point I mostly love it (I don't like that it doesn't include reactions), but I also love having the independent move action in 5e. I also don't really like the complexity of reducing efficiency with more actions, but then that is the incentive for not just standing there and waking away. I am actively work on some house rules and this rule, or a version of it, is one I am currently struggling with. So, @payn: what do you like about it.