D&D (2024) What do you want & expect to see in 2024's 5.5e?

[Parmandur]

me too.

although I wouldn't mind if WotC let us peak behind the curtain and tell us how to balance drow spell like abilities

They have. Cross reference the Spell creation guidelines in pages 283 and 284 of the DMG with the Feats that grant Spell like abilities, build out a Feat and use Tasha's guidelines to create a Rave around that Feat.

 

[Parmandur]

Here's what I want from 5.5E.

More DM materials.

More then anything, more DM materials. I want them to actually hire people who know story structure AND game design, and can combine those two things into good experiences.

This might be a hot take, but most stories released by WotC for 5th Edition are sub-par at best. They are clunky, written by different people, don't often make sense, make unclear assumptions, and often don't live up to the hype and idea WotC markets them as.

Out of the Abyss was supposed to be Wonderland in the Underdark and scary. It wasn't.

Storm King's Thunder was sold as a Shakespearian Epic. It wasn't.

Tomb of Annihilation was at least close to what it wanted, but then I got this cringe culture on Chult that was just a bunch of black people needing their foreign white saviors to help them because they are too busy going oongo boonga in the jungle or getting drunk on Capitalism. I'm black, by the way, so this isn't racist, what's racist is ToA.

I wrote a whole essay on how Avernus failed to be Mad Max, or anything close to it.

That isn't to say people don't have fun times with these adventures. I know about 5 people are going to read this and quote me saying "My group loved blah blah"

But guess what? I loved Transformers 2, and that movie is still dog water.

WotC could be making far better adventures. I can see great ideas in the OSR and 3PP realms, but all the WotC stuff constantly feels half-assed, and I really can't run it. Not just because the assumed story is usually sub-par, but because the layout of the books is just almost unnavigable. I gave up on Storm King's Thunder because with all the prep I had to do, I was basically making my own adventure and filling out EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING.

And I'm TIRED of it. I just want adventures that are both good to read AND good to play. It isn't all that hard! But they seem so dedicated to the story writing and narrative techniques of the 70s-00's, that they have failed to create anything even remotely compelling to me for this generation.

That isn't to say there isn't good lore either! Even though most people hate the 5E lore, I actually prefer it to most other D&D editions. But none of that lore matters; in fact, it matters less now then it ever has.

Just for God's sake give me one good, well-written adventure. Please. Please. Just try.

And fix the art. God, first party D&D should always set the bar. This edition, it constantly misses the mark.

The only part of this that I agree with is the yikes implict racism operating in Tomb of Annhilation.

5E art is actuallt some of my favorite art...full stop. Hits the spot.

 

[Guest 7034872]

What do I expect to see? I really don't know. What would I like to see? Fewer races and fewer sub-classes. Yeah, that's right--fewer.

By analogy, suppose you're in the grocery store and you're walking down the cereal aisle. Suppose it's no longer an aisle: suppose they've now got an entire two-story warehouse devoted exclusively to varieties of cereal. Does this make your shopping experience more or less enjoyable? You know my answer.

 

[ART!]

More then anything, more DM materials. I want them to actually hire people who know story structure AND game design, and can combine those two things into good experiences.

This might be a hot take, but most stories released by WotC for 5th Edition are sub-par at best. They are clunky, written by different people, don't often make sense, make unclear assumptions, and often don't live up to the hype and idea WotC markets them as.

This. They're very plot-based, which I find clunky and frustrating to run and as a player feels miasmic.

WotC could be making far better adventures. I can see great ideas in the OSR and 3PP realms, but all the WotC stuff constantly feels half-assed, and I really can't run it. Not just because the assumed story is usually sub-par, but because the layout of the books is just almost unnavigable. I gave up on Storm King's Thunder because with all the prep I had to do, I was basically making my own adventure and filling out EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING.

And I'm TIRED of it. I just want adventures that are both good to read AND good to play. It isn't all that hard! But they seem so dedicated to the story writing and narrative techniques of the 70s-00's, that they have failed to create anything even remotely compelling to me for this generation.

God yes.
I'm preparing to run the final chunk of Tomb of Annihilation, and remembering part of why I stopped where I did in the first place. I'm going through it and just editing the bejeebus out of it. It's so frustratingly set up, with more questions raised than answered about really basic things. At least the final dungeon crawl is fairly straightforward.

I had similar experiences with the two Tyranny of Dragons books.

 

[Shardstone]

The only part of this that I agree with is the yikes implict racism operating in Tomb of Annhilation.

5E art is actuallt some of my favorite art...full stop. Hits the spot.

That's fine! I know many people who like the art and enjoy the adventures. My taste just don't jive up

 

[Krachek]

Agreed. If anything, I wager that this "5.5E" will be to 5th Edition, as 3.5E was to 3.0. Or maybe as the Book of Nine Swords was to 3.5E. It's not going to be a new game, or even a new edition...it's just going to be a handful of updated mechanics.

I think we've already seen all of the biggest changes:

• The errata incorporated.
• The lore will be updated.
• The monster stat blocks will be updated.
• Racial adjustments are ala carte, instead of fixed.
• Alignment is no longer default for certain races.
• New subclasses, feats, spells, etc. from other splatbooks might be included in the core rules, or they might be repackaged as a "PHB II" or something, neither would surprise me.

That's...about it, as far as I can tell.

The biggest change I see would be to convert all classes and subclasse into Long rest class.
Getting rid of short rest recovery for anything other than hit points.
But even that I’m not sure they will go that far.

Otherwise the core will remain the same.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I want more obtuse and obscuring writing that will push the players and DM into using their judgement more instead of relying on the books to tell them how to play.

 

[Yaarel]

I think elves get the genasi treatment. All categorized as elves, but slightly different stat blocks.

Because the abilities are now all player-choice "lineage" design, there is no longer a reason for separate elf races.

Every elf can be one elf race, with a player choice of a level-2 spell or level 1 plus cantrip; plus swapable Darkvision (which I consider a powerful cantrip or level 1 spell).

The writeup can say members of an elf community often share from the same assemblage of typical spells and cantrips. But individuals might vary.

So, using the same race stats, a High community might tend to choose Misty Step, while a Udadrow community might choose Darkness. And so on. The mutability of potentially other spells is a known elven quality.

 

[Yaarel]

me too.

although I wouldn't mind if WotC let us peak behind the curtain and tell us how to balance drow spell like abilities

The Monsters of the Multiverse has writeups for various elves:

sea elf, shadar kai, and eladrin.

All of them include the choice of ability improvements, the sleep immunity being part of Trance, and other newly standardized features.

I still feel the "core" elf, can be a single race, whose choice of spells and Darkvision can model high, wood, and drow, without needing separate writeups.

Instead, the race writeup will mention "cultures", and members of that culture will "typically" choose certain spells as their innate spell.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm pretty sure the Astral Elf is just a playtest for the new standard Elf to encompass the High and Wood varieties. I think Drow will get their own writeup, similar to the 3 Elf Races in MotM.

I kind of expect yhe other Subraces to be folded together, and maybe some (like Tinker Gnome stuff) going over to Background Feats

I think they’ll go the opposite direction, and make the wood and high elf more distinct.

The rock gnome might disappear, but I think enough people prefer non-nature non-Fey gnomes that they’ll find a way to keep them.