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

[Larrin]

My Level up desire: Cantrips with variety and character. 5e suffers from "Every warlock has eldritch blast, every bard has Viscous mockery, every cleric has sacred flame toll of the dead, every wizard has firebolt" It's not 100% true, but it's pretty common. People like spells that do damage, since bards, clerics, warlocks only have one (two for clerics?) options, everyone takes it. People value damage over side-effect, so the wizard cantrip that does 1d10 at a good range (poison sprays 1d12 can't shake that 10ft range) in given vast preference.

I would say every class that has attack cantrips should have a bunch of choices that are flavorful. Plunder 4e's overdeveloped catalog of at-will powers. Give a slew of comparable spells. I would say make all the damage dice the same size as possible, if firebolt was 1d8 with effect, we'd see a lot more of the other ones show up. Make some more Melee attack weapon spells so clerics and weapon-bards can get their cantrip swing on.

I'd also like to see modal cantrips like "1d4 damage and choose one: knock prone, push 10ft, or disadvantage on next attack"

I spent some time a while back work shopping "eldritch blast" replacements (essentially they'd be effected by any invocation that names eldritch blast) and had fun doing it, but they all kinda had to be 1d8 damage since I wanted effect riders and didn't want to just make a strictly better eldritch blast and the truth is I don't think enough people would take "1d8 fire damage plus something reasonably cool" when "1d10 damage" is at the table.

Give fun cantrips, give fun choices.

 

[Haldrik]

Less distinct weapons. Right now 90% of the weapons list would never be used by a primary weapon wielder character. Make them just general categories that players can flavor however they like within those categories to allow player creativity and chocie of weapons that aren't "the most advantageous".

Between "lumping" versus "splitting", I prefer to lump weapons into general weapon categories.

At the same time, others have asked for even finer splits between weapon mechanics.

Give an example of what you would prefer?

 

[Morrus]

Between "lumping" versus "splitting", I prefer to lump weapons into general weapon categories.

At the same time, others have asked for even finer splits between weapon mechanics.

Give an example of what you would prefer?

Yeah that's an interesting request. The first I've heard to make weapons less distinctive!

 

[polyhedral man]

Alternative initiative systems, including:

-Elective Action Order/Balsera-Style/Popcorn initiative
-Greyhawk initiative (modified not to penalise bonus actions)

...but playtested to oblivion.

Port the rules from Gumshoe/Lorefinder to 5e - the conversion should be easy. Investigations/conveying information are so much faff otherwise. "Roll, and keep rolling until you get the right roll, or otherwise i will spend 10 minutes devising a convoluted way to give you the information you need to progress, anyway". Such a waste of time, and it's easy to fix. I'd call investigative skills "Authorities" and make Spends interact with the Inspiration system.

I like the idea of a non-magical ranger, and the rest of the stuff in Morrus' list.

 

[Fenris-77]

A couple more unrelated thoughts:

On weapon distinction. Rather than have a long list of separate weapons where a long sword does X, a short sword does Y, and a great sword does Z, you could have a short list of basic templates and a list tags or descriptors that provide additional effect. So three fighters could three quite different swords that reflect their style or whatever. I can think of a dozen ways to make that really cool without thinking too hard. Armour could actually be handled the same way.

Something else that occurred to me is encumbrance. It often gets handwaved, and when it doesn't it's not what I'd call usefully complex. If you look at some of the really great stuff some of the OSR games have done (Black Hack springs to mind) there's room for some additional tactical depth there for sure. Not that you necessarily want to go in the OSR direction generally, but there are some really awesome mechanics in some of those games.

Also, a more general idea, if you ask people what rules they most often actually hack into their 5E games, rather than just what they'd like, I bet you'd get a pretty different looking list of examples. Maybe for the survey part of what you guys have planned, IDK.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Yeah that's an interesting request. The first I've heard to make weapons less distinctive!

In my own 10-levels take on the SRD, this is what I went with:
Equipment
Load. You can carry a number of items equal to your STR score. The Powerful build trait increases this number by +5.

• 3 small items (flask of oil, meal, 1 battle worth of ammunitions) stack per load.
• All items use 1 load.
• Items with the heavy or two-handed trait use 2 loads.
• 300 coins stack per load.

Armors. There’s 3 types of armor. In a regular shop, an armor costs 5 gp x its base AC. Cloaks, helms and shields costs 20 gp apiece.

Proficiency Required
Heavy armor
AC 17
Disadv to DEX (Acrobatics and Stealth), heavy, requires 13 STR
Ex: Mail hauberk, plate armor

Medium armor
AC 14 + DEX (max 2)
Disadv to DEX (Stealth)
Ex: Chain shirt, brigandine

Light Armor
AC 11 + DEX mod
Ex: Leather jerkin, gambeson

Others
Shield, +2 AC when wielded, requires 11 STR and proficiency
Helm, +1 AC, Disadv to WIS (Perception), requires 11 STR
Heavy cloak, advantage to resist effects of extreme cold, precipitations and winds.

Weapon. Weapons are divided in categories.In a regular shop, a weapon costs 5 gp + (3 x its maximum damage). Ammunition cost 1 gp for 1 battle worth of arrows, bolts and stones.

• Melee works in close range (5’); two-handed have reach (10’)
• Ranged suited for ranged attacks disadv in melee and beyond short range (2 x STR score in feet) up to max reach (5 x STR score in feet)

Proficiency Required

Natural
Natural weapon are not considered weapons when it comes to classes features. They cannot be removed from you or lost.
Ex: breath weapons, claws and fangs

Simple
Easy to use but weak

• One hand or ranged/thrown: 1d6 damage
• Two hand: 1d8 damage
• Dual 1h: 2d6 dmg, take best single d6 result

Ex: Clubs, spears, hunter bows

Martial
More complex and powerful

• One hand or ranged/thrown: 1d8 damage
• Two hand: 1d12 damage
• Dual 1h: 2d8 dmg, take best single d8 result

Ex: Swords, halberds, war bows

Traits: At the DM’s discretion, some weapons gain trait allowing special abilities.

• Finesse: can be use DEX instead of STR for attack and damage rolls (ex: dagger).
• Two-hands: This weapon requires to hands to use (ex: longbows).
• Heavy: A small creature using this weapon has disadvantage on attack rolls. (halberd).
• Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing/Silvered/Magic: Some creatures have special resistances, immunities or vulnerabilities to specific damage types. (ex: skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage).

Light and darkness. There is 4 level of lighting: Darkness - Dim - Normal - Bright.
Dim light grants ½ cover to all creatures and gives disadvantage to ability checks relying in sight within it while darkness grants total cover.
Bright light makes it impossible to all creatures to hide and creatures have advantage on WIS (Perception) and INT (Investigation) checks. Creatures with darkvision increase the level of lighting by +1 in their vision range.

Supplies. Here you’ll find a list of some sundries you may require on your adventures.

Acid (vial) 25 gp Alchemist's fire (flask) 50 gp Antitoxin (vial) 50 gp Arcane focus 20 gp Artisan’s tools 40 gp Backpack 2 gp Bedroll 1 gp Chest 5 gp Druidic focus 5 gp Gambler’s set 5 gp Grappling hook 2 gp Healer's Kit (5 uses) 25 gp Holy symbol 15 gp Holy water (flask) 25 gp Kit, climber's 25 gp Kit, forgery 15 gp Kit, herbalism 5 gp

Kit, poisoner's 50 gp Lamp 5 gp Magnifying glass 100 gp Meal (1 day) 10 sp Musical instruments 30 gp Navigator's tools 25 gp Oil (flask) 1 sp Paper (one sheet) 2 sp Potion of healing 50 gp Rope, hempen (50 feet) 1 gp Spellbook 50 gp Spyglass 1,000 gp Tent, two-person 2 gp Thieve’s tools 25 gp Tinderbox 5 sp Torch 1 cp Vial 1 gp Waterskin 2 sp

But in the end, I guess that if you want to go with an Advanced version of 5e, you'd better focus on more options and granularity. For A5E, I'd go with more distinct weapons, maybe inspired by the more recent weapon feats.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Seriously though, when I see a game with an economic system that says "It costs 50% of the market value of an item to make that item, you can only sell items for 50% of their market value, any particularly valuable magic item is un-sellable because nobody wants it or can afford it" I just freaking lose it. I will foam and froth and I will bite you and give you rabies.

 

[Larrin]

Yeah that's an interesting request. The first I've heard to make weapons less distinctive!

There is certainly an appeal to " 1 handed martial weapons deal 1d8 Chose damage type, chose one: versatile 1d10, thrown, finesse; call it anything you like" as a way to let you have any weapon you want on an even playing field. If weapons are "fair" then the combinations are fairly deterministic and why bother having two entries for longsword and battle axe when they are identical stat-wise?

In the end, though, I find it unsatisfying. There is something fun about a nice weapons chart with a bunch of stuff on it, even if they are following a pattern that is pretty easy to figure out. I would rather a nice, complete weapons table, with rules for how the weapons were made so you can add your own.

 

[Blue]

I would suggest mining the 6e and 5.5e threads for ideas as well.

 

[1988Sander31]

Remove if short rest and the instant heal of long rest with crippling classes that rely on it

Like a dally charge feature recharge there class resources x-Time out of battle

Combat terrain effects like an environment turn that effects all ( but villains and mister have adapted)

Remove of counter spell Or rework so spell casting villains don’t get shut down so easy

for table top and theatre of the mind to keep it flexible

Solo monster rules like the monster (takes A turn after each players turn ?)

3 action economy (only one spell each round unless Bono’s /qucickebd action Tag and cantrip )