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Level Up (A5E) [+] What features should a "Advanced 5E" have?
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
ThatGuySteve
Explorer
More opportunities to get Expertise in skills or tools. Why can't my wizard become an expert in Arcana or my cleric in Religion? A feat is too costly to spend on Expertise when most games only play lower levels and your only picking up 1 or 2 feats.
Let more classes get an option of picking it up without it being mandatory. Eg Wizard could have a class feature to choose between Expertise in Arcana or add a spell with the ritual tag from a different class spell list to their spellbook, that can only be cast as a ritual.
Let more classes get an option of picking it up without it being mandatory. Eg Wizard could have a class feature to choose between Expertise in Arcana or add a spell with the ritual tag from a different class spell list to their spellbook, that can only be cast as a ritual.
Helldritch
Hero
Or simply give the skill free to the appropiated character, give him a bonus. Not all classes should get that treatment. A patch, yes. But it would work and would not require an entire overhaul of the system.
Maybe being more specific can open up solutions.
These are the parts of the abilities that are the most disruptive:
I want an athletic gymnastic character that only needs to invest in one ability, to develop the character concept. Besides it is nonsensical to separate things like climb and balance, or jump and land. But for character building, the ability of Dexterity to replace Strength for combat mechanics, makes Strength itself redundant. So the need to invest in both Strength and Dexterity for the prominent archetype of someone that is agile, is excessively painful.
Maybe delete the Acrobatic skill. Make Strength responsible for every kind of Athletic check, including balance, falling, and tumbling. And make every athletic-theme feature and feat key off of Strength. Completely drop every use of Dexterity for physical stunts.
Dexterity is so overpowered that giving Acrobatics to Strength means nothing to the power of Dexterity. Possibly give athletic dodging and the AC bonus to Strength as well!
I want Charisma to read the crowds and to read people, because reallife charismatic people do this.
(Charisma is a MENTAL ability. It isnt the sexy physically-fit beauty appearance ability. ARTISTIC appeal is part of Charisma. But it isnt the porn score! Some porn performers are taken more SERIOUSLY than others, and these ones with gravitas and presence have the higher Charisma, even if they are all equally sexually appealing.)
Empathy and the Insight skill belong to Charisma, as do telepathic-theme mind-influencing features generally.
Because Clerics are mostly about spiritual communities, and often about personal relationships with spiritual forces, the Cleric class belongs moreso with Charisma. Even things like Turn Undead work more like intimidation.
Wisdom is a frankenstein of unrelated mechanics. Sensory Perception or mindful Willpower.
A perceptive person is "smart". The Perception skill belongs moreso with Intelligence. Challenges to ones Perception, such as illusion, forgery, invisibility, and so on, belong moreso to Intelligence. Much of perception is also investigation. Perception is so powerful in game play, it can even be its own ability score, rather than a skill. If Intelligence gets both Perception-Investigation and Lore, then Intelligence becomes a very valuable ability score for any class to invest in. Especially Fighters who need to be battle ready would find Intelligence desirable, and that would make other "smart" character concepts worth investing in when building a character.
That leaves Wisdom with the Will save. That was its original 1e mechanic, at least narratively, with its example that only wise people can quit smoking. But an entire ability score to quit smoking? People will still want to invest in Wisdom as the mental defense against Charm and Fear. However, 4e moved the Will save to Charisma, and this makes more sense for 5e too.
Alternatively, Wisdom might mean Sensory Perception only and nothing else. This would make hawks "wise" because they see well, and no other reason. Perception is so powerful in gameplay it can stand alone as its own ability. Intelligence would still suck with lore only, and the Investigation skill would remain confusing. But at least there would be more coherence when "Wisdom" is absolutely about colors, scents, tastes, sounds, and nothing else. And overall, the mental scores would be a bit more comparable to each other.
Wisdom:
• Cleric → Charisma
• Will → Charisma
• Empathy → Charisma
• Perception → Intelligence
Wisdom is the least justifiable ability score.
I could probably live with six abilities if:
• Strength handles every physical challenge, especially balance and falling. (Strength can aim swords agily! Thus land competently, climb delicately.)
• Wisdom gets a meaningful fix.
These are the parts of the abilities that are the most disruptive:
I want an athletic gymnastic character that only needs to invest in one ability, to develop the character concept. Besides it is nonsensical to separate things like climb and balance, or jump and land. But for character building, the ability of Dexterity to replace Strength for combat mechanics, makes Strength itself redundant. So the need to invest in both Strength and Dexterity for the prominent archetype of someone that is agile, is excessively painful.
Maybe delete the Acrobatic skill. Make Strength responsible for every kind of Athletic check, including balance, falling, and tumbling. And make every athletic-theme feature and feat key off of Strength. Completely drop every use of Dexterity for physical stunts.
Dexterity is so overpowered that giving Acrobatics to Strength means nothing to the power of Dexterity. Possibly give athletic dodging and the AC bonus to Strength as well!
I want Charisma to read the crowds and to read people, because reallife charismatic people do this.
(Charisma is a MENTAL ability. It isnt the sexy physically-fit beauty appearance ability. ARTISTIC appeal is part of Charisma. But it isnt the porn score! Some porn performers are taken more SERIOUSLY than others, and these ones with gravitas and presence have the higher Charisma, even if they are all equally sexually appealing.)
Empathy and the Insight skill belong to Charisma, as do telepathic-theme mind-influencing features generally.
Because Clerics are mostly about spiritual communities, and often about personal relationships with spiritual forces, the Cleric class belongs moreso with Charisma. Even things like Turn Undead work more like intimidation.
Wisdom is a frankenstein of unrelated mechanics. Sensory Perception or mindful Willpower.
A perceptive person is "smart". The Perception skill belongs moreso with Intelligence. Challenges to ones Perception, such as illusion, forgery, invisibility, and so on, belong moreso to Intelligence. Much of perception is also investigation. Perception is so powerful in game play, it can even be its own ability score, rather than a skill. If Intelligence gets both Perception-Investigation and Lore, then Intelligence becomes a very valuable ability score for any class to invest in. Especially Fighters who need to be battle ready would find Intelligence desirable, and that would make other "smart" character concepts worth investing in when building a character.
That leaves Wisdom with the Will save. That was its original 1e mechanic, at least narratively, with its example that only wise people can quit smoking. But an entire ability score to quit smoking? People will still want to invest in Wisdom as the mental defense against Charm and Fear. However, 4e moved the Will save to Charisma, and this makes more sense for 5e too.
Alternatively, Wisdom might mean Sensory Perception only and nothing else. This would make hawks "wise" because they see well, and no other reason. Perception is so powerful in gameplay it can stand alone as its own ability. Intelligence would still suck with lore only, and the Investigation skill would remain confusing. But at least there would be more coherence when "Wisdom" is absolutely about colors, scents, tastes, sounds, and nothing else. And overall, the mental scores would be a bit more comparable to each other.
Wisdom:
• Cleric → Charisma
• Will → Charisma
• Empathy → Charisma
• Perception → Intelligence
Wisdom is the least justifiable ability score.
I could probably live with six abilities if:
• Strength handles every physical challenge, especially balance and falling. (Strength can aim swords agily! Thus land competently, climb delicately.)
• Wisdom gets a meaningful fix.
Last edited:
Tales and Chronicles
Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
@Haldrik, when you look at it, most problems you have with abilities arent that much the abilities themselves, but HOW they are used. Without removing them or changing them for something else, I think this here book is a good opportunity to correct some weirdness as you noted in your post.
- Move the landing part of falls and jumps to STR. I personally removed ''Acrobatics'', so players wont be tempted to argue that they can acrobatically climb or jump or what not. Somersaults, backflips, handstands are all covered by STR (Athletic).
- I personally went with STR having an influence on ranged attack's range. The base short/long range of thrown/bows weapons is rather low and you gain a bonus equal to 2-3 x your STR score to the range. Crossbows have the advantage of having a range not influenced by STR.
- Time to move perception away from Wisdom! I personally merged Investigation and Perception to Awareness and make it INT-based instead to make INT more than just knowledge, but also mental and observational acuity. Sharp mind and all that, if you want.
- To make all builds potentially able to participate equally (stat-wise) in social encounters, I moved Intimidation to STR and Bluff to INT.
- As I personally prefer the ''defense/resilience'' stats (CON and WIS) to be more reactive and less active, I removed skills from WIS. Nature Lore and Medicine to INT, Insight to CHA, Survival to STR. I also went back to the Streetwise skills (CHA).
- Move Initiative to +level (+HD or +CR for monster).
- Put a a 11 STR requirement for light armor and shields.
This way, you have social and exploration skills over 4 stats, the 2 most common Saves do not have skills but they wont be dumped because a fail CON or WIS saves generally hurts like hell. DEX is not longer a powerstat because its lost 1 skill, Initiative and STR is still required for ranged build and light armor build.
Edited for clarity:
- Move the landing part of falls and jumps to STR. I personally removed ''Acrobatics'', so players wont be tempted to argue that they can acrobatically climb or jump or what not. Somersaults, backflips, handstands are all covered by STR (Athletic).
- I personally went with STR having an influence on ranged attack's range. The base short/long range of thrown/bows weapons is rather low and you gain a bonus equal to 2-3 x your STR score to the range. Crossbows have the advantage of having a range not influenced by STR.
- Time to move perception away from Wisdom! I personally merged Investigation and Perception to Awareness and make it INT-based instead to make INT more than just knowledge, but also mental and observational acuity. Sharp mind and all that, if you want.
- To make all builds potentially able to participate equally (stat-wise) in social encounters, I moved Intimidation to STR and Bluff to INT.
- As I personally prefer the ''defense/resilience'' stats (CON and WIS) to be more reactive and less active, I removed skills from WIS. Nature Lore and Medicine to INT, Insight to CHA, Survival to STR. I also went back to the Streetwise skills (CHA).
- Move Initiative to +level (+HD or +CR for monster).
- Put a a 11 STR requirement for light armor and shields.
This way, you have social and exploration skills over 4 stats, the 2 most common Saves do not have skills but they wont be dumped because a fail CON or WIS saves generally hurts like hell. DEX is not longer a powerstat because its lost 1 skill, Initiative and STR is still required for ranged build and light armor build.
| | STRENGTH | CONSTITUTION | DEXTERITY | INTELLIGENCE | WISDOM | CHARISMA |
| MODIFIER | | | | | | |
| SCORES | | | | | | |
| SAVES | | | | | | |
| SKILLS | ATHLETIC INTMIDATION SURVIVAL | - | SLEIGTH OF HANDS STEALTH | ARCANA AWARENESS DECEPTION MEDICINE NATURE RELIGION | - | ANIMAL HANDLING INSIGHT PERSUASION |
Edited for clarity:
- Performance is removed in favor of a CHA or DEX check with appropriate instruments.
- History is removed in favor of INT checl with the appropriate Language which also count as ''cultural and historical lore about this people''.
- Survival is STR because I consider it the activity of exploring an environment, physically navigating it and dealing with its reality, including hunting, climbing, cutting wood, fishing etc. Should a encounter feature specifically plants or animal based challenges, I would a INT (Nature) or CHA (Animal Handling).
- Deception includes mind game, disguises, forgery as well as the act of lying or hiding intentions.
- I think that makes all stats more or less balanced in usefulness and makes a dump stat a really bad idea.
Last edited:
ThatGuySteve
Explorer
I don't think every class needs an Expertise option, just where appropriate, eg wizard-arcana, cleric-religion, ranger-survival.
Fighter, warlock, sorcerer and others don't have a real defining skill they should be an expert in.
Helldritch
Hero
Exactly my point. Or may be have background skills get this treatment? We have many possible fixes that are available to us without changing everything in a drastic manner.
I can live with all these updates. And they relieve the most pressing concerns.
My only question is, do you find Wisdom as moreorless Will defense to be on par with the other abilities?
Tales and Chronicles
Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
I do yes. To me Wisdom is a badly called Willpower-stats; all spells targeting Wis involve a test of will to resist a mental-ish effect. Wis targeting effect are so common, and generally so nasty that I cant help to consider it as the ''CON score the da brainz''. It is the strongest save to have.
@vincegetorix
Regarding Intimidation.
I use intimidation more in the sense of fear-mongering, heightening any concerns and fears.
So it rarely means to "look intimidating".
To threaten pain or physical harm, can be a way to make someone fearful, but so can calling attention to an enemy nation amassing armies.
The source of fear needs to be believable. So a Tiny scrawny character is less likely to be a source of fears about getting into a fight.
So for me, "Frightening" really is a Charisma skill.
Probably, "Charisma (Intimidation)" and "Strength (Intimidation)" are both legitimate uses for the Intimidation skill. Heh, even "Intelligence (Intimidation)" could be useful to warn people about climate change.
Regarding Intimidation.
I use intimidation more in the sense of fear-mongering, heightening any concerns and fears.
So it rarely means to "look intimidating".
To threaten pain or physical harm, can be a way to make someone fearful, but so can calling attention to an enemy nation amassing armies.
The source of fear needs to be believable. So a Tiny scrawny character is less likely to be a source of fears about getting into a fight.
So for me, "Frightening" really is a Charisma skill.
Probably, "Charisma (Intimidation)" and "Strength (Intimidation)" are both legitimate uses for the Intimidation skill. Heh, even "Intelligence (Intimidation)" could be useful to warn people about climate change.
