D&D 5E What new content do you like most?

[DragonLancer]

Personally, I'm all about the monsters. Extra feats, spells, items, classes....etc are nice but also a lot to try and remember as more are added. New monsters that the players and their characters don't know make for new and interesting moments in games.

 

[Marc Radle]

I voted for Classes, Monsters, and species. I miss the products from 3.5 like the PHBII. It was nice to get more options.

I'm hoping to see if LevelUP or Kobold Press perhaps do something along those lines. From what I've seen so far they've mainly done some reflavoring of the core classes, whereas I'd like to see a whole book of new options.

More species is fun too. And Monster books have so far been the 3pp products I've purchased and gotten the most value from, I think.

Oh, then I suspect you will be quite happy to see what Tales of the Valiant has in store …

 

[Meech17]

Oh, then I suspect you will be quite happy to see what Tales of the Valiant has in store …

I'm not a kickstarter backer, because I just don't tend to do much crowd funding.. But I've got my eye on TotV for sure. I'm really happy with my two monster books from KP so far.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What I find most interesting is, apart from monsters being even more popular, many folks seem to agree with you. This has some implications for WotC's design goals...because it means the invested fans may not be as durably on board with the "less is more*" philosophy as either WotC or the fans themselves thought.

Subclasses were meant to break class free of rigid structures, allowing effective support of previously multiclass-only concepts without needing such rules, and being really diverse, adding much needed richness and depth. Instead, they are all too often held back because changing the base class too much isn't permitted. Further, because a small minority (~35%) can block any new developments if they're vocal enough, concepts that could have partially pushed things back toward the intended goal (such as subclasses available to multiple classes) have been abandoned for not being resoundingly popular.

Likewise, the strong "magic items are optional" stance was meant to free groups from the unpleasant feeling that such items were mandatory, making them a fun and flavorful opt-in choice. Instead, I've found magic items to now be decidedly excluded in many contexts, with many DMs reluctant to ever give out anything more interesting or valuable than a handful of +1 weapons. Far from making magic items magical again, it's mostly just made magic items unattainable, weakening the feel of fantasy for many tables.

As for the lack of new rules, honestly I just blame the death of "modularity." 5e really could have been a modular system at least somewhat like what they totally-didn't-promise-but-really-wanted-folks-to-feel-was-promised. It just would have required actually serious, rigorous playtesting, coupled with specific and clear design goals and an aggressive development schedule. Instead, what we got was very lightly playtested, decidedly un-rigorously, with vague and often useless design goals, and lots and lots of dithering about. (I mean, it took them nearly two years of playtesting to settle on just the Fighter!) 5e wanted to offer rules diversity but balked at the effort required to make it work, so we got what little we got and minimal effort to grow beyond that.

*Except spells. With spells, more is always more. Most books that contain any player content at all contain spells. Bluh.

Well, spells are pretty easy.

In general I think you're quite right. My own interest is in mostly DM side stuff (monsters, new rules, points of interest for filling in sandboxes). I'm particularly interesting in things 3pps excel at, like new rules for non-standard genres (sci-fi and western are big favorites of mine) and under-served aspects of the setting (crafting, followers, domains, mass combat, etc).

 

[Micah Sweet]

So my personal experience proves your claim that designers favor spellcasters? I'm honored.

Or are you agreeing with me that the way spells and spellcasting are designed is that powerful and useful? That's not a bad thing.

I wouldn't be against a Tome of Battle-level system of maneuvers. But I understand that type of design isn't core book-level, because it deserves more design space dedicated to it, and warrants its own book, like it did in 3E. I feel the same about psionics.

Level Up has its combat maneuver system in the core.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Be prepared for cries of "4e did things that way, therefore it's the worst design crime ever committed."

I defy you to find anyone who uses that phrase.

 

[el-remmen]

I've thought of a product like this. Like essentially a campaign book, but everything is broken into individual zine sized components. Like the starting village would be it's own little booklet, and include a couple of maps, a couple of well fleshed out NPCs, a few more slightly less fleshed out NPCs. A handful of plot hooks built in.

Then a Dungeon would get it's own booklet. They'd be made in a way that would be easy to put the two together. You can take one of the NPCs and their hook from the village book, and use the dungeon book to flesh out the adventure, or at the same time, you could just drop either into your existing campaign on their own.

I did something like this when I was making zines remixing Against the Cult of the Reptile God (though not remotely a professional product). One issue was the town and its NPCs (and the cult activity there), one was the temple in the town (and what is going on there), and the final one was the dungeon climax out in the swamp.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Level Up has its combat maneuver system in the core.

Great! I'm glad there are options for folks. But it still isn't the same size and scope of spells.

I want them as options. Not replacements for what has come before. D&D already has battle master maneuvers, and people can opt into them with feats. The 2024 books will bring weapon mastery into the fold to completely change at-will weapon attacks.

But a broad system of short rest and long rest maneuvers, that can handle a variety of mundane and mystical striker, defender, and support options? I want it to be bigger. Like the Tome of Battle.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Great! I'm glad there are options for folks. But it still isn't the same size and scope of spells.

I want them as options. Not replacements for what has come before. D&D already has battle master maneuvers, and people can opt into them with feats. The 2024 books will bring weapon mastery into the fold to completely change at-will weapon attacks.

But a broad system of short rest and long rest maneuvers, that can handle a variety of mundane and mystical striker, defender, and support options? I want it to be bigger. Like the Tome of Battle.

Have you seen Level Up's Combat Maneuver system? It is bigger, and getting bigger all the time.

Just like spells. The secret is getting it into the corebook so people care about improving and expanding it.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I voted for Monsters/NPCs, Subclasses, and Spells.