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

[tetrasodium]

And some spells remain effective even without upcasting. Ultimately how effective warlocks end up being compared to other casters varies from table to table, but I think the common consensus is they trend a little on the weak side.

That’s just not the case. Eldritch Blast is tuned like a Fighter with a heavy crossbow and no additional resource expenditure (such as action surge or superiority dice). It’s strong for a cantrip, yes, but it is definitely not tuned to be the Warlock’s only source of damage.

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.

YMMV. If this is the case at your table, yeah, warlocks are going to be about twice as strong as expected. If you get fewer then one short rest every other encounter, warlocks will be weaker. This is also the case with every other caster with the frequency of long rests. Turns out, resting as a limitation of power can become unbalanced pretty easily if the actual frequency of rests doesn’t end up meeting the expectation.

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

 

[Lanefan]

The amount of xp it takes to get to each level is very unintuitive and arbitrary-seeming, especially to new players. You need 300 to get from level 1-2, but then 8000 to get from levels 5-6, and so on. Meanwhile, xp for killing monsters is a skewed incentive. On the DM side, calculating xp awards and budgets is a pain.

I'm also not a fan of just leveling up whenever the dm thinks it's a good idea. Milestones as originally conceived are like single-digit xp points. So something like, "you need 5 xp to level and you get 1 xp when you do x,y, or z."

Milestones only work if the player/PCs follow the path that leads them from one milestone to the next. Fine for hard-line adventure paths, I suppose, but hardly a useful model for anything more free-form or sandbox-y.

Worse - FAR worse, IMO - is that they're a group thing, meaning they don't reward individual risk-taking or initiative or anything like that, while overly rewarding those who hang back and let others take the risk.

Kill 'em. Kill 'em dead.

 

[Lanefan]

What I'd like to see excised: Inspiration, and any other similar purely-meta mechanics that have nothing to do with reflecting and-or presenting the fiction.

In its place, put a strongly-worded note in the DMG to the effect that xp and other character rewards are to be earned only by the characters in the setting through their actions, not by the players at the table through their bribes or lucky rolls.

 

[tetrasodium]

In its place, put a strongly-worded note in the DMG to the effect that xp and other character rewards are to be earned only by the characters in the setting through their actions, not by the players at the table through their bribes or lucky rolls.

That kind of thing would actually be useful in the PHB too. Thanks to so many players being exposed to d&d through AL there is a very strong expectation of "I get what everyone else gets even if I skip or show up late" & it's even worse with "I showed up on time so get what everyone gets". It's annoying needing to reduce the total exp &pretend that I'm not doing that with "bonus exp". Worse still is that I start getting salty players & pushback when observer type players who avoid involvement & risk start falling further & further behind over the course of several+ months

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

not by the players at the table through their bribes

What?! NO!

Its way better if my players cling to the hope of bribing me to appease my wrath with chips and pretty eyes!

 

[delericho]

Alignment. At some point, it will be pointed out that trying to provide a universal definition of 'good' and 'evil' is problematic; might as well get ahead of the curve.

Encumbrance. Tracking of mundane ammunition. Tracking of rations. For all of these things, the rules provide the merest of nods, which are essentially useless as-is, but also provide inertia that the DM needs to fight against if they want to change.

XP budgets for encounter building. Indeed, they should divorce the amount of XP gained from defeating an encounter from the budget used to build it - that way, once the players become more experienced DMs can build tougher encounters without speeding up progression.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

You’re comparing to the damage for environmental hazards, not to PC at-will attacks. No doubt EB is a strong cantrip, but Warlocks are by no means DPS leaders with EB alone.

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

You’re definitely the first person I’ve seen complain that short rest classes are overpowered.

 

[HammerMan]

An entire chapter on character creation (ch1) that do not mention consulting the DM, setting adherence or working in collaboration with the other players until a player has a fully completed character ready for you to tell your story.

I think the 1st thing character creation should say is that this is all for the default FR setting and some games will restrict some options

 

[Malmuria]

Milestones only work if the player/PCs follow the path that leads them from one milestone to the next. Fine for hard-line adventure paths, I suppose, but hardly a useful model for anything more free-form or sandbox-y.

Worse - FAR worse, IMO - is that they're a group thing, meaning they don't reward individual risk-taking or initiative or anything like that, while overly rewarding those who hang back and let others take the risk.

Kill 'em. Kill 'em dead.

Here's how I'm currently doing it (playing an OSR game, not 5e)

Group
Major discovery: explore a new and dangerous location, find a rare treasure, make a definitive ally or enemy, confirm the veracity of rumors
Minor discovery: explore safe location, make some money, chat with locals, hear rumors

Individual (once per session)
Invoke character background in some way
Further a personal goal or objective

 

[Stalker0]

Completely remove Verbal and somatic spell components. They have long lived past their usefulness. Instead just assume that there are 3 ways to disable spellcasting.

1) Inside silence.
2) Their hands and/or mouth is bound
3) They cannot access their arcane focus or spell component pouch.

And then if a spell ignores these restrictions, specifically note it as a 'big deal" in the spell itself. These removes all the weirdness with paladins and shields, having to look up components on various spells, how it interacts with ABC, etc. Its all streamlined and simplified.