D&D (2024) What do you want to see excised?

[Lanefan]

From every edition of D&D since 2000 (except possibly 5e - I have only played it not run it). The XP value of the monster is what you get for overcoming the challenge of that monster - how you over come that challenge is irrelevant: Sure killing it is one way, but you can also fight in non-lethally (to unconsciousness, surrender or rout), talk it down, sneak past it, challenge it to a bake-off....

However you do it, you get the XP. No killing required. QED.

Ah. In that case 1e worked the same - you got xp for defeating the challenge, but that could be by sneaking past it or killing it or bribing it or whatever.

 

[Reynard]

I'd be tempted to ask for a similar excision of real-world demons and devils, but I suspect that's a bridge too far.

Real world demons and devils are just real world gods certain folks didn't much care for.

 

[delericho]

Real world demons and devils are just real world gods certain folks didn't much care for.

Of course. But given how ingrained some of them are into D&D's lore, I suspect the resistance to removing them would be very significant. That's probably less true to those labelled as deities.

 

[beancounter]

A solid method to advance to the next level, is simply to count the number of encounters.

An "encounter" might be lethal combat, nonlethal combat, social, or exploratory. As long as it feels genuinely challenging it counts toward the number of encounters to reach the next level.

I like the idea, but "genuinely challenging" can be subjective. I would stick to just counting encounter, and not making a judgement call about challenge.

 

[Lanefan]

I like the idea, but "genuinely challenging" can be subjective. I would stick to just counting encounter, and not making a judgement call about challenge.

Shouldn't some encounters be worth more than others, though, based on (intended) difficulty, time and effort spent, and so forth?

 

[Haplo781]

I agree, except make it 11-20. Just compress the "playable" levels into 10 and lengthen the time it takes to ding and, finally, make spell levels the same as character and class levels.

Then, for those of us who want more of a high fantasy feel, add "paragon" and "epic" characters with their own 1-10 progression, and optional rules to advance from the base 1-10 – let's call that "heroic" – up to paragon and from paragon to epic.

 

[Haplo781]

This is the intended use of short rests. I mean, they should be roughly after every other combat, but yeah. They’re intended as a post-battle top-off.

Reduce the time to 5 minutes, balance around them being available after every encounter.

 

[Haplo781]

It very much is average for a d10 is 5.5, agonizing gives +5 with 20 charisma averaging to an extra d10 worth. . The dmg 284 table has:
1st 1d10
2nd 2d10 Level 1-4 agonizing blast is here (1d10+an effective second 1d10)
3rd 3d10 add repelling & you probably get here for a 5 foot knockback on top
4th 4d10 Level 5-10 agonizing blast is here. (2d10+an effective second 2d10)
5th 5d10 add repelling & you probably get here for a 10 foot knockback on top
6th 6d10 Level 11-16 agonizing blast is here. (3d10+an effective second 3d10)
7th 11d10 add repelling & you probably get here for a 15 foot knockback on top
8th 12d10 Level 17+agonizing blast is here. (4d10+an effective second 4d10)
9th 15d10 add repelling & you probably get here for a 20 foot knockback on top
Eldritch blast is very much not the equivalent to a heavy crossbow because a heavy crossbow has the loading property, does not deal force damage, does not have a knockback, & does not scale the fighter extra attack based on character level like EB.



That's a lot of ifs balanced around "your the gm, you fix it & you figure out where it needs to be & you make it work" piled on a GM by d&d5e. With the system structured mechanically to almost guarantee that players can successfully rest without gm fiat simply disallowing it things are almost certain to swing in a direction where short rest classes are problematically overly good

If Warlock is gonna be balanced around "you get 1 leveled spell per encounter and then you're spamming EB" then Agonizing should be built in.

 

[tetrasodium]

If Warlock is gonna be balanced around "you get 1 leveled spell per encounter and then you're spamming EB" then Agonizing should be built in.

Yes it should, but when it's very trivial for short rest classes to dig & bring it closer to 1-10 you get 2/encounter 11-16 3 per encounter 17+ 4 per encounter plus mystic arcanum plus no slot cost invocation spells plus agonizing repelling blast it becomes a problem because agonizing repelling is tuned more towards an expectation of "you get two per adventuring day" given non-pact slot cumulative slowdowns

 

[Charlaquin]

Reduce the time to 5 minutes, balance around them being available after every encounter.

I’d be in favor of that change, but I think it clearly isn’t going to happen in 1D&D.