Level Up (A5E) [+] What features should a "Advanced 5E" have?

[TaranTheWanderer]

Morrus explained in a post from @dnd4vr that the compatibility thing was more in terms of guarantying that a character made with the PHB would still be able to be used in an Level up! game and that the published adventure would still be playable with characters from level up, even if the rules worked differently.

Armor that also adds DR would not change the base game all that much. Any class from the PHB could use armors from A5E without messing with their features or anything. The only thing I can see affecting compatibility is having the heavy-armor wearing NPC/Creatures in the published adventures would not have said DR. But its a little niche problem: either you say that X armor offers Y DR, so if you encounter an enemy with X armor in a published adventure, dont forget to add Y DR, or you say that the DR is only for playable characters.

Yeah. And DR was just an example that I threw out there. I just find that, in 5e, everyone gets to 20 AC eventually and it's all the same, regardless of what route you took to get there. Light armour doesn't have disadvantage and there's no specific advantage to heavy armour (other than requiring high dex). In any case, just some more varied armour would be nice, especially if they are going to give weapons a bit of treatment.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

@Mike Myler @Morrus, another good idea that was raised by another poster on a different thread, I thought I would write it here to see if this is something that could be added in the design of A5E:

- Using HD as a resource to fuel some powers or abilities, like spend 1 HD on a short rest to recover from 1 level of exhaustion, or spend 1 HD when holding your breath to recover X minute of air. On the opposite side, having effects and affliction that targets and drains HD would be interesting as another way to threaten the party beyond HP and Exhaustion.

- Maybe having Inspiration as a common, stacking pool for all the party instead of just 1 per character. In the same vein, have special Action options that are fueled by inspiration. Maybe even the DM could have an Inspiration pool for his side of the fight, using them as the ''doom points'' from 2d20. Like, when a creature crit the DM can either roll an extra damage die OR add one Inspiration point in his pool.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Going above level 20.

 

[Lucas Yew]

0) Fully OGL/SRD compatible rules (the full version I fully trust to have gorgeous art and aesthetics).

1) Actual + practical ability(skill) check DC examples per ability(skill). And material HP/AC/Save information to complement interaction with non-creatures to boot.

2) Keep the Timeless Body class feature of Monks and Druids, while hopefully combining their functions (healthy old age/slow aging) as one to be truthful to the source lore(s).

3) More separated spell schools (especially the bloated Conj and Trans), and practical cantrips + 9th(/10th) spells for each school per tradition (Arcane, Divine, etc.).

 

[CapnZapp]

I know both Morrus and others have expressed interest in going above 20 levels, but the game can't fill more than maybe 12 levels as it is.

And just about every stab at adding epic or immortal levels I have seen come across as... uninspired and sparse, to put it plainly.

Why not instead take all your great ideas for level 21-30 abilities and insert them in the existing 15-20 level range?

The first question that needs to be asked, is:

What is gained by adding another ten sparse levels to the ~5 already there?

With threads about the lack of vision for fighters (and so forth) the obvious solution to me is to cram the existing high levels full of goodies so that leveling up your Barbarian or Rogue from 16 to 17 feels just as empowering as when you leveled up from, say, 3 to 4.

 

[CapnZapp]

Because a specie is not a culture. Just looking at humans in the real world in the past and present and you'll see tons of difference in upbringing. The idea that 'Elf' or 'Dwarves' are all that same, or that species like Orcs, Drow, Goblins, etc, are born with naturally 'evil' traits is filled with all sorts of weird real world connotations, unintentional or not.

Divorcing what is genetic from what is learned would help add variety, but also avoid unfortunate implications.

The idea, at least the one I would suggest, would be to allow the DM to create their own set of cultures (which would themselves be built by smushing one of each Environmental and Societal traits together), and so the PC would just pick from the available species and one of the DM's pre-set cultures, creating a replacement 'race' block that could cover the stuff the Race pick normally does.




To a point yes, but what I'm advocating is just 1 more segment of what is already there. Instead of Race-Background-Class, you go Species-Culture-Background-Class. That way, an Elf Noble Wizard from the Norther Metropolis and an Elf Noble Wizard from the Forest Conclave won't feel like the same character, even if they pick all the same Class element.

Three aspects is already plenty.

The first discussion needs to be, maybe replacing background with culture?

And then we immediately come back to "because Background is what the 5E Devs chose".

 

[Stravask]

Some suggestions and requests:

1. One of the biggest things I think needs looked at is the massive problem 5e has with Feats. Some feats are absurdly powerful, while others are borderline useless in 90% of games without a cooperative DM that allows creative use.
   1. For example, stuff like Sentinel gets taken like, a loooooot
   2. Stuff like Keen Mind however gets left out in the cold unless you creatively spin them. I took Keen Mind for my Wizard and was able to justify to my DM that it meant my character should be able to keep a "mental record" of his spellbook for 30 days in case he lost it, but doing things like that with the more "useless" feats is up to whether your DM can recognize something is a justifiably creative use of the feat even if it isn't overtly stated by the description.
2. Same topic of feats but on the subject of Multiclassing, one of the best parts of Pathfinder IMO is the ability to "organically" shift into Multiclassing. 5Es leveling system and multiclassing isn't bad, but compared to Pathfinder it's a lot more... awkward... when handling Multiclassing. A system that allows for a more granular shift to a combination of classes would "feel" a lot better for the aspiring multi-classer.
3. Bounded Accuracy makes sense, but I think there's some areas where people don't need to fear floating modifiers so much. Personally I go with the Taking20 approach to Flanking instead of combat advantage while flanking for example. I think there's some systems like that could use a look.
4. I think all the "Half-Spellcaster" classes could use a look as well. I don't like the idea of Rangers no longer having spells to be honest because then they sound just a bit too much like Rogues to me, but the reason I think the idea of Rangers no longer having spells is appealing to some is because as a whole the "Half-spellcaster" classes were implemented in such a way that many of them feel like a weaker version of a martial class added to a weaker version of a spellcaster class. There's definitely better ways to go about a few of these.
   1. Granted, if Multi-classing underwent a satisfying overhaul, "Half-Spellcaster" classes wouldn't need to exist at all, so this entire point is contingent on how well an alteration to Multiclassing is handled.
5. I don't think additional races/classes are necessary, as 5E is already a bit bloated. That's my personal view on it, but I think "tuning up" existing content is more beneficial than adding new content in this case. Make the current stuff less "simplified" and people might discover they didn't want "new" content, they were just bored of some of the overly-simple content.
6. Like Feats, I think a balancing and clarity pass on Spells would be beneficial. I find myself tweaking a lot of spells because they're either strong enough to drown out the desire to try anything else that does something similar (Fireball), or they're so weak that they're "noob traps" and are almost never worth using (True Strike).
7. If possible, an examination in the the CR system to make it more reliable would be nice.
8. If possible, making every class get something to be excited about every level would also be nice.
9. Going back to Feats (again), Racial Feats being tweaked and included as starting Feats by default (though the latter could just be homebrew) would be nice.
10. I'd like to see a biiit more nuance to some of the exceedingly straightforward classes like the Rogue that is built into the system mechanically, rather than having to be something a player/DM comes up with through roleplaying. For Martial classes it'd be nice to have a mechanically balanced "maneuvers" system for all of them.
11. Truly a "reach for the stars" kind of goal, but if the power gradient of Player Characters was slightly more under control at later levels that'd be swell. Many campaigns stop/die after 14 because PCs just end up so ridiculous that the game becomes progressively harder for DMs to enjoy. If there's a way to smooth out that curve a little bit so that playing until max level was something that happened more often that'd be neat.
12. There's any number of ways to go about this, many of which are solved with simple homebrew changes, but 5e makes avoiding/recovering from death absurdly easy. It'd be nice to see some take on how to mitigate this a bit in an "Advanced" 5e, though admittedly it's easy to handle it with a couple house rules at the moment.

 

[Undrave]

Three aspects is already plenty.

The first discussion needs to be, maybe replacing background with culture?

And then we immediately come back to "because Background is what the 5E Devs chose".

Backgrounds feel too limited to your specific character. They'd need to be way heavier to cover the sort of cultural things found in the PC race write up and there would need to be way more backgrounds otherwise characters would feel pretty redundant after a while.

 

[blackbeetle13]

Tossing tool proficiency away entirely. Maybe doing a background system, in the style of 13th age, if you absolutely need something to stand in for it, but think all tool uses should be folded into existing skills. You might need to add 2 or 3 new skills to cover it, but I can't think of a good reason for my character to ever take wood workers tools or a brewers prof. Either my character can just do that because it makes sense, I roll an ability check, or we maybe (MAYBE!) introduce a single Artisan skill that would cover everything not already covered by Nature (herbalism kit), Arcana (Alchemy tools), Performance (Every instrument prof), Sleight of hand (Thieves Tools), etc....

 

[tetrasodium]

I read all 20 pages before chiming in & will agree with a lot of points people made earlier before getting into things. Get rid of at least 1 of the 6 stats. They may have made sense in past editions with wildly different mechanics & actual niche protection but at least two of them are so much better than the other 4 that they invoke stereotypes like this one. The skill system needs to go & it doesn't really matter what replaces it but too many skills were merged (exacerbating the last point) & advantage/disadvantage is a crude blunt instrument akin to a claw hammer where a set of jeweler's tools are needed. Archetypes need to split at the same level (first or whatever) not this scorlockadin is designed for multiclassing while nearly everything else just pretends because lets be honest about how long most campaigns last. I don't really care if it's "100% compatible" Converting generally isn't that tough. The false illusion of choice in weapons & armor needs to go.

• Someone at wotc keeps trying to shop some screwy version of initiative (speed factor, greyhawk initiative, etc), this person needs to accept that it is really problematic for how most folks run initiative & the game and accept that initiative is not the proper place for the tactical gameplay someone at wotc left out from 5e and add tactical combat to the core gameplay again.
• Wotc needs to accept that the PHB is not the proper place to write that "forgotten realms campaign setting" book that they don't expect to sell well enough to get a book dedicated to gmpc's & plot armor. The PHB needs to be written for the various settings rather than for the setting baselines of Forgotten realms but occasionally is willing to namedrop other settings.
• I DGAF if there are 20 levels or not, but 5e screws the pooch on that one. The game needs to work for slower advancing parties who focus more on plot/story/setting development than 5e currently allows where the game is assumed to quickly skyrocket through levels & then has a ton of classes not feel like their archetype comes online till they are basically in campaign wrapup or later. Fewer levels would go a long way here. Alternately split classes into 3 pillars like race(hp, maybe some skills)/(core)class/background with archetype stuff falling into background along with skill developing archetypes. hybrid classes once known as 1/2 & 1/3 bab/caster level could include the occasional background level gestalt levels
• Kill the offensive cantrips as a class feature, make them buyable wands or something & save class cantrips for untility type cantrips. There are a ton of things I can't change in the game because half or more classes have class based weapons in the form of cantrips & those cantrips scale with character level to pretty much exempt them from caring about loot.
• Change the extra attacks. Every class needs to get them. Maybe at proficiency X & Y you can make # attacks up to your statmod in the relevant weapon (ie caster/strength/dex) against a target.
• Gear in general (ie weapons & armor) need more designspace, as a GM it's important to have headroom there to give out an improved bit of gear that is subjectively better for slower leveling games. I don't care if this is a condensed weapon/armor list with fewer choices or not as long as it results in more room than +# & more/larger dice. "do I want the d6 d8 or d10 version of my finess/1h/2h/heavy weapon" is pants on head stupid design & painful for slower advancing campaigns unless they are built into a system like fate where the numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.
• DR needs to return. JFC on a pogostick, there are a bunch of differing halfass attempts to avoid just having d like dmg247 damage threshold, heavy armor master (phb167) that literally is DR, parry (phb74), resistance, & god knows what else that each describe a different one off version of DR meaning that as a GM we can't just add it without a never ending stream of edge cases needing one off rulings. A couple people mentioned ac being heavily based on dex with DR based on armor & that's a good switch.
• Bring back SR & some analog for representing caster level checks
• There needs to be a structural framework that combat abilities are built off rather than everything being a one off stand alone rule that will conjoin to fight any houserules they might later interact with.
• Standardize duration. If a spell/ability lasts a number of rounds that's great, but this hybrid "some last minutes some last hours/days while everything else is short/long rest". If it's not counted in rounds it should be balanced against lasting something like "till next $type rest". Alternately go back to the old 3.5 style rests measured in hours where each hour counts.
• Lots of people talked about elevating melee/martial... sure fine whatever but Save or Suck & Save or Lose spells & abilities need to be back. This goes for both casters like the old "god wizard" & monsters like wraith/ghast/trog/etc. These SoS/SoL abilities need to come in both short term & long term but must not be something with less impact than a night of drinking & resulting hangover.
• Concentration is massively overused, good in some cases sure but it just makes a ton of spells into pointless nonoptions. Instead of concentration for most (buff) spells use something like anarchy online's NCU system using dragonshards or whatever equipment/level/class based thing to maintain these spells.
• The idea of combining feat chains was nice & all but it resulted in feats that are too powerful so they weren't really a choice so much as "I'm level a 4 $whatever so I'm going to take one of these feats & take the others at 6/8/10/12" while also making a ton of the smaller feats into traps that catch less experienced players by looking good.
• Humans are an omnivorous endurance predator & they build communities, If race still is the place for stats they should be con/cha & get a racial ability related to those because a feat is way too good compared to what every other race gets as soon as a multifeat build comes online at 4/6/8.
• Warlock needs to just diaf. Seriously, this munchkin deck of multiplicative multiclass abilities masquerading as a class just needs to die & be split among the various classes and/or feats instead of consuming all of their design space. I'm not opposed to the concept of a warlock, but it needs to be a cohesive class rather than this all consuming bolted on homebrew build-a-class system.
• The Dragonmarked races need to be part of core not some afterthought.