Which D&D "cow" is least sacred?

[Turjan]

I'm not familiar with his work. Is it worth looking up? And which came first, D&D style magic, or Vance's stories?

Vance's stories and Vancian magic are older than the Lord of the Rings . Although he had still successful novels in the 90's, too .

As far as the vote goes, I chose Tolkienesque Races. In my homebrew, they already had to say good bye, anyway .

 

[Desdichado]

Tolkien esque races have (arguably) already been excised in settings like Dark Sun. That'd be an easy one too, although there are plenty of folks that'd get right bent out of shape if they can't play their elves.

 

[Turjan]

Tolkien esque races have (arguably) already been excised in settings like Dark Sun. That'd be an easy one too, although there are plenty of folks that'd get right bent out of shape if they can't play their elves.

Oh, right . Btw, I meant it with stress on "Tolkienesque". I still have elves in my campaign, but they are neither Tolkienesque nor humans with pointy ears like in D&D. I think, those players you mentioned wouldn't be pleased with them .

 

[Wombat]

I voted for the Tolkeinesque races for many of the same reason others did -- the races are not (with the possible exception of the dwarves) particularly "Tolkeinesque". Equally there are so many settings with so many other races and I have seen games that had so many restrictions and/or additions on races that if this were dropped no one would notice straight away.

The other elements are the true cattle, because if they were changed I think there would be a huge fight.

And the biggest cow is Alignment...

 

[Turjan]

And the biggest cow is Alignment...

Arggh! Don't get me started on that !

 

[Xeriar]

Heh, funny that the poll largely reflects my view of the matter.

Vancian Magic is the most frequently homebrewed out. I've seen some particularly convoluted replacements for it at times (one consisted of paying for spells with XP, based on its level and metamagics via some algebra equation).

Tolkeinesque races come next because - although D&D started there, it's not there now (gnomes, half-orcs, general attitude). Races frequently got swapped.

Hit points being a distant third - a lot of people don't like them (which drove the creation of many RPGS IMO)

 

[Norfleet]

What, AC didn't make the list? I'd say AC has to go. It's probably the worst, most clumsy, awful hack ever made in D&D, and as the combat system becomes increasingly complex, the entire AC system gradually begins to come apart more and more apparently.

 

[Corinth]

Vancian Magic: This has got to go, regardless of how well it works from a game design standpoint- that is, to treat magic as just another resource for the player to manage, akin to Hit Points. A system that follows the lead of d20SW Force rules & Shadowforce Archer's Psionics rules would be better.

Tolkien Races: Get rid of the half-breeds and gnomes; the latter have no niche and the former are better handled as background feats. This leaves Elves, Dwarves, Halflings and Men; revise them to better fit their origins (and standardize the default elf off of those Moriquendi such as Mirkwood's wood elves, as they do not have nearly the powers that the other bands do), and for Men follow the Macro-Department/Macro-Species concept from Spycraft/Stargate SG-1 (so you could choose to be a Man of Rohan, a Man of Gondor, a Man of Far Harad, a Man of the Wainriders, etc. and have both choose actually mean something on your character sheet). You could do this for all of the four races, if you want to get really detailed.

Classes: Dump all but the Core Four- Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard. All of the other classes either become a series of class-specific Feat trees--i.e. Talents--(such as the Barbarian, Druid, Monk & Sorcerer) or prestige classes (the Bard, Paladin & Ranger); repeat this will all basic and prestige classes in the game, emphasizing the Feat/Talent side of the conversion equation and making prestige classes prestigious again.

Levels: Recalibrate the game so that gameplay works well past 20th level from the core rules alone, thus eliminating the need for the ELH.

Hit Points: The sticking point is how healing intereacts with Hit Points. Recalibrate this, and the majority of the problems go away.

 

[Olive]

...and the concept of Massive Damage Threshold in d20 Modern.

3.0 PHB pg 139 'Massive Damage'
3.5 PHB pg 145 'Massive damage'.

So, this isn't a d20 Modern invention, it's a d20 system one. It was in Call of Cthulu d20 as well.

I voted tolkienesque rces, but i like the system, and I don't want 4.0 to take any of it out. There are other games, even d20 games that have these things removed. So play those if you don't like vancian magic or HP. Leave DnD alone!

To be honest, if they took any of these out altogether, I wouldn't upgrade. Putting in options for alternate systems is great, but taking any of these out isn't.

 

[cdsaint]

I voted for Vancian magic to go the way of the Dodo, but would also like to see major changes to the class system. I'd like to see the next edition take a page (or two) from D20 Modern. Six basic classes, one for each ability. Use advanced classes and prestige classes to further customize characters.

I also liked what Eolin had to say about Races too. It seems like an idea that would mesh well with having 6 classes based off ability scores.

Someday I may actually try to come up with rules to do this, but it seems to me there must be someone out there far more industrious than myself to do it and sell it to me.

Chris