D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[Reynard]

Re: XP, just stop giving XP for killing things. Make all leveling milestone/story-based.


Well, first, I'm not talking about "a single round of combat." A deadlier combat would likely have multiple foes, or at least one foe with lots of actions, legendary and lair actions, and all that sort of stuff, and monsters moving around instead of going toe-to-toe, causing it to last long enough that the casters will have to use both higher-level slots and cantrips. Also, if you have both combat and non-combat encounters (obstacles, hazardous conditions, social encounters, etc.) then that also helps to deplete resources.


I do agree with that. They shouldn't have used that at all. They should probably also completely redo the CR system to both take other things into consideration (most effects that cause conditions, even conditions like incapacitated, or that reduce hp/stat maximums, don't actually affect CR) and make it so CR 1 = 1 first level character, or something like that, rather than equal a party of four.

I'm all for dissasociating killing and XP but you can keep milestone and story based leveling. Earning XP should be entirely in the hands of the players and should be based on them being to make meaningful choices about risk vs reward.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Bonus Actions.

Each turn you get one Action and some movement.

 

[dave2008]

I feel much the same. Though I take it a step further. Cleric and wizard are just different focused casters. One on damage and control, the other on healing and damage or control. No need for both. And since the cleric is just a fighter/caster, no need for it to be separate. Just make turn undead a spell like any other.

I clarified my response to note that what I want in a "cleric" class is a class that uses magic, but not spells. So you have:

Fighter = martial combat focused abilities/features
Expert = martial skill focused abilities/features
Mage = spellcasting focused magic abilities/features
Invoker = non-spellcasting focused magic abilities/features

I feel to do these concepts justice, the spellcasting magic class and the non-spellcasting magic class would necessarily need to be separate.

 

[dave2008]

I'm not sure what the benefit would be, though. Either barbarians, rangers and paladins have fewer distinct features (less variety) or the fighter class is four times as complex (less simplicity).

It is hard to know without giving the design concept a try. However, flexibility is the low hanging fruit. If a subclass is just a bunch of options you can mix and match them to get the precise type of character you want. It would be more complex, though you could easy Champion or Ranger or Brute builds of preselected or narrowed options to provide some simplicity.

 

[dave2008]

I could see combining Clerics and Warlocks together into a single class. Have it built more like a warlock--perhaps a few more slots, I dunno, but with additional cleric-style invocations of healing, turning undead, etc. If you get your abilities from a "higher power," then it all works the same; doesn't matter if it's a god, angel, demon, queen of the fey, whatever. Call it a Channeler, 'cause you channel the power.

I would combine the warlock, cleric, druid, (at least) and possibly a witch subclass into this fictional class and have no spell slots ideally.

Fighter = martial combat focused abilities/features
Expert = martial skill focused abilities/features
Mage = spellcasting focused magic abilities/features
Invoker = non-spellcasting focused magic abilities/features

 

[overgeeked]

I clarified my response to note that what I want in a "cleric" class is a class that uses magic, but not spells. So you have:

Fighter = martial combat focused abilities/features
Expert = martial skill focused abilities/features
Mage = spellcasting focused magic abilities/features
Invoker = non-spellcasting focused magic abilities/features

I feel to do these concepts justice, the spellcasting magic class and the non-spellcasting magic class would necessarily need to be separate.

I agree that if there is actual mechanical difference between them there should be two casters. But if it’s bog standard spell slots for both it’s only a specialization choice and thus no need for a second class. And I’m not sure you need mechanical difference. Pick a system that works and use it for casters. There’s no need for three different wizards just so there’s mechanical variety.

 

[Mecheon]

I would eliminate the barrier to Warlord being a class, of course

 

[fearsomepirate]

The DM rolling dice. Change everything to player-facing rolls. PCs should roll to avoid being hit. PCs should roll to attack a monster's save. Etc.

Half the fun is rolling, looking at the die, then asking the druid, "What's your AC?" knowing that it sure as hell isn't 29.

 

[Lanefan]

What single thing would I eliminate?

Probably the whole system. Then start over from scratch, looking for subsystem modularity (to better enable DMs to kitbash to suit their own games) and a more old-school sense of danger and (potential) lethality.

 

[Faolyn]

@Blue, all I can say is I've never had any of the problems that you're stating exist, so I don't know what's up with your games.