D&D 5E What rules would you like to see come back in 5E?

[Mishihari Lord]

You also saw many people not even bother with them or simply ignore many of the rules that made the combat "tactically interesting" or casters balanced. Things like spell interruption, and a slower leveling curve, these are not overly popular in their own right, and even less popular when in order to implement them, you force the core rules as a whole to be more complex. Done right, spell interruption could work in a limited form, but for true spell interruption, you would have to completely abandon the overall framework of how rounds work developed in, and used since, 3.0. That isn't going to happen; pre 3E, combat rounds were just plain messy. Tactical to a certain degree for those who liked it, but overall they were just plain messy. 3E's model wasn't perfect, but it smoothed out most of the worst messes; one of the costs was that casting spells became easier and it's now necessary to look for other ways to limit caster's power. If you want spell interruption, PF's solution is the best I've seen. It doesn't require reworking the basic combat structure, but it does mean that you have to take at least some care in your battle tactics. In the end, full on spell interruption has the same problem as weapon speed; both are great simulationist rules, but a lot of people simply want to play a game. For them, reality is fine as long as it can be done simply, and neither of these things can be. They didn't get left behind because they were inherently bad, they got left behind because they just weren't worth the hassle to worry about, and they still aren't. They don't work as optional material, and trying to incorporate them into core is an even bigger pain.

Uh-huh, "many people," "not overly popular," etc etc. Got any data to back that up?

My games were fast and fun with 2E initiative. There's a bit of a learning curve but once that's done it runs very fast. 3E initiative was significantly less fun and caused at least as many problems as it fixed. I'd rather see 2E style initiative as baseline, it's easy enough to take out for the folks that want a rules-light game, but harder to add in if the baseline is 3E initiative.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

You also saw many people not even bother with them or simply ignore many of the rules that made the combat "tactically interesting" or casters balanced. Things like spell interruption, and a slower leveling curve, these are not overly popular in their own right, and even less popular when in order to implement them, you force the core rules as a whole to be more complex.

I've played in probably hundreds of AD&D games for over 30 years, at game stores, at cons, and many, many, MANY different weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly groups, and the odd online game, dating back to the old bbses. Sure, there were house rules, but not once did someone not use spell interruption. I also think you underestimate the amount of old school players out there, and not all of them are old bastards like me.

 

[Vael]

That's an interesting system. When do the bad guys go?

When the players select them.So, for example, 3 PCs fight 3 goblins. Adam wins initiative, goes first and attacks. He selects Barry to go next, who then selects a goblin. The first goblin attacks and then selects a second goblin. However, the second Goblin passes to Carl. Carl has no choice but to choose the last goblin. That goblin goes, and now that everyone has gone, chooses who goes first in the next round. He can select himself.This system was introduced in the Marvel Heroics system, and the Angry DM wrote up how to adapt it to DnD. I've used it in FATE and 13th Age.

 

[sunshadow21]

you need shovel, in case you hadn't noticed.
Reduction of paperwork? While adding tons of rules? Generalizations about what players and DMs like according to what, interweb polls?
Nope, sorry. There are many abandoned rules by the original authors that play well and are great fun reg rdless of age of players. All that is old will be new again...

Eventually maybe, but definitely not yet. And the thing with 3E is that it added a lot of rules, but most of the individual rules were comparatively simple when put next to similar rules from 2E. Also, there were actually a lot more rules in 2E than people realize simply because a lot just plain got ignored, something that I saw just as much in post 2E home games with the supposedly "complex" ruleset. Age of player has nothing to do with it either; it's mainly playing style, and the preferred playing style for most players has changed a lot. "Tactically interesting" combat that takes 4 hours for one battle is great when you have the time for it, but if you have 6 hours every other week to play the game, you don't want 4 hour combats, no matter how interesting the tactics may be. You want to be able to knock out an entire adventure in at most 2 decent sessions, with one really standout combat once every two months or so. That is where most of the players today are at for a wide variety of reasons. The type of rules that have been abandoned have been abandoned due to playstyle and the difficulty in bolting them on later as optional addons, not because they are inherently unfun. You're not going to see weapon speeds again because the typical player anymore doesn't really care what a weapon's real life counterpart would have for it properties, or at least not enough that they feel like interrupting every single combat action to find out. And this is pretty clear by the number of people that even in 2E were already starting to ignore the more complex rules to the point that the designers for 3E didn't feel any pressure to keep them.

Ultimately, those rules work for a wargame designed around a single party; D&D was already moving past that to becoming a full roleplaying system by 2E where combat wasn't nearly as critical to everybody who picked up the books. I know that while I make all my characters battle capable that battle is almost never their focus, and I'm far from the only one to do this. That doesn't mean that the idea behind those rules grew stale, just that the implementation needs to change and adapt to fit changes in the system as a whole. 3.x/PF still has spell interruption of a sort, so it's not like designers are completely ignoring the ideas; they just can't always make them work within the overall framework of what the game has become.

 

[ren1999]

I'd like to see some of the spell concentration,interruption and opportunity attacks that we had worked on in the past make its way back into D&D5. Why not just put that in a Tactical Optional Module?

Other than that, I'm happy.

There never was a version that didn't have redundant spells and feats. I think it is important to the game to keep that redundancy down.

I noticed Healing Word and Cure Wounds is very similar.

 

[Mircoles]

I wouldn't mind a return of the AD&D multiclassing, which I never caused me any problems. The 3e multiclassing has has never felt right to me and just annoys me overall. The Hybrid classes of 4e were enough like the classic multiclassing to bring back the feel but with improvements, though it's only for two classes.

 

[calprinicus]

Sounds like a lot of people just want things that old editions had. I agree with some, but believe a lot of them should stay in the past.

what I feel is severely lacking:

• spell interruption.
• more rules to reinforce cooperative play
• different ways to gain XP (not just combat )
• removing the sacred cow of ability scores ( keeping only the modifier )

 

[howandwhy99]

When the players select them.So, for example, 3 PCs fight 3 goblins. Adam wins initiative, goes first and attacks. He selects Barry to go next, who then selects a goblin. The first goblin attacks and then selects a second goblin. However, the second Goblin passes to Carl. Carl has no choice but to choose the last goblin. That goblin goes, and now that everyone has gone, chooses who goes first in the next round. He can select himself.This system was introduced in the Marvel Heroics system, and the Angry DM wrote up how to adapt it to DnD. I've used it in FATE and 13th Age.

This sounds pretty interesting. Like the goblins are complicit in combat ordering rather than competing against the players for it. What are your rules for how an NPC determines who goes next?

 

[MJS]

An obscure rule, but allowing fighters one attack per level vs. creatures of 1HD or less is pretty cool.

 

[sunshadow21]

An obscure rule, but allowing fighters one attack per level vs. creatures of 1HD or less is pretty cool.

It would definitely allow DMs to throw more at the party without worrying about overwhelming them.