D&D (2024) YOU are in charge of the next PHB! What do you change?

[Parmandur]

There is something that people sometimes do; they look back at a time or event and believe they intended something else, when in fact, their intentions were shown in their actions. A boxer who hauls off and hits a loud mouth at the bar, and then later, decides he was doing it to protect the people around him. A dissertation on the positive effects of (fill in something awful), then later, upon reflection, believe they did it because there were no other paths to follow. A doctor giving poor advice to a patient, and then thinking the advice was because of this other extraneous circumstance of the patient. The point is: the boxer was just annoyed not trying to protect anyone. The doctoral student believed what they wrote at the time, and later reframed the actual writing to only having one path. The doctor gave the advice they thought best at the time without ever considering the extraneous variable they now place in their memory.

None of these people are liars, nor is Mearls. But, the ranger was as they intended. There is more than one writer, and that makes things even more convoluted. They tested the ranger. They thought it was fun. The feedback they received was just as positive as other classes. They wrote it as intended. Only after the fact, did they decide it didn't fit the parameters, and that is especially true after the negative feedback they received about the ranger.

Sorry for the tangent.

The changes Mearls thought he would want to do weigh the Ranger if he could redo it had as much to do with thematic mistakes as rules design: he realized that to "favored environment" made more sense as the Subclass fulcrum at Level 1, so Forest & Swamp Ranger being Subclasses. That's different from the overall Class structure being off.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Get the index right.
Remove Dragonborn and Tiefling.
Improve the art.
Emphasis the main rule is Wheaton's Law.
That's about it

Isn’t Wheaton’s Law “don’t take it too seriously if you roll three 1s in a row”?

 

[FrozenNorth]

My principal changes would be to classes, specifically wizards, druids, clerics and sorcerers.

Druids I find the theming of druids to be too narrow: requiring all druids to get wildshape as a major feature leaves less room for non-shapechanging concepts of nature priests. Instead, wildshape should be a subclass exclusive, with other subclasses that lean into other concepts (for instance, one that goes all in for primal spellcasting or one that goes all in on non-magical terrain effects).

Clerics Greater restrictions on the general cleric spell list (should be restricted to healing and minor buffing), BUT greater flexibility for domain spells. Basically, Arcana clerics shouldn’t be relying on Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon but should be slinging cool arcane type spells (at a lower level than wizards) and Flame Strike should be a Light cleric exclusive. Also, while all Clerics should get Channel Divinity, Turn Undead should be limited to Domains who care about undeath (Life and Grave).

Wizards Their niche is their versatility. Its a good niche, so they don’t need the additional niche of being specialists. Remove Wizard subclasses.

Sorcerers. Broaden their niche to be the focussed spellcasters of the game. You want to play an enchanter? There should be a sorcerer for that! An illusionist? Ditto. A caster specialized in Earth themed spells? As well! To do this, the sorcerer spell list should be the broadest in the game. I’m ok with slightly increasing their spells known, but their real power should be in the fact that their spell list reflects exactly what the player wants the character to be able to do.

 

[hopeless]

Just a thought, but has anyone suggested the Nature Cleric become the new Druid with the loss of metal armour in return for the ability to wild shape?

No that would be too much especially as that would require the druid spells to be added to the Cleric's reportoire unless made domain spells?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I would have some things provide an actual bonus instead of advantage. And for the people who complain about bonuses, I will include a tutorial for the calculator app for both Android and iPhone.

 

[Scott Christian]

Just a thought, but has anyone suggested the Nature Cleric become the new Druid with the loss of metal armour in return for the ability to wild shape?

No that would be too much especially as that would require the druid spells to be added to the Cleric's reportoire unless made domain spells?

That is actually something I actually would change; letting the druid have one subclass that doesn't make the class always about shapeshifting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think this is on the DM, either for giving the party too much loot or not making them pay for things like food, rooms, horses, sea travel etc. None of the official campaigns I have played or DMed provide enough loot to have everything you need by level 4 or even by level 8 for that matter, and I played or Dmed most of them with a small party of 4 players. Things like holy water and healing potions are constantly in short supply and quite costly to replace.

Your post says folks are buying magic items below level 5. I'd submit that you thinking money is tight in 5E is on you. It should not be easy to acquire magical items at low levels by RAW. If you do allow that, you're going to encounter a lot of other issues with the math of the game going kablooey, since this isn't 4E, where everyone is expected to have X number of magical items by Y level. In theory, you can go to level 20 without any magic items in 5E and only be minimally inconvenienced. (Although your players will likely be pissed.)

 

[Faolyn]

Sorceror's can select their spells from both arcane AND divine spell lists.
Perhaps the one restriction is they declare which divine class spell list they have access to?

Option: There is a small core list of sorcerer spells.

Each type of sorcerer has access to a larger list of spells--not just two each of 1st-5th level--that depends on their magical origin.

 

[MoonSong]

With spell slots having changed, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between wizards and sorcerers, so there's no need for a sorcerer class anymore.

I disagree, maybe to you there isn't a difference, but there is.

In the end, let's remember that sorcerers have been in the game for 21 years already. That is nearly half of the game's lifespan. Remove the sorcerers and you are telling a lot of players that they aren't welcome anymore.

 

[Stalker0]

One thing that I would love to see changed and would probably have very little push back from anyone - fix the damn economy! The gold based economy is not only seriously unrealistic (not only in history, but also in most fiction), it's also dumb in a gaming sense. Copper and silver are pretty much useless. Also, players have little need for money to buy non-magical items.

In most other rpgs, you will start with the cheapest equipment and have to save up to afford things like plate armor. In D&D, you start off with good equipment and can afford the best equipment after 1 or 2 adventures. I think they have a lot of room to improve how this works.

Only note here, that is not true of plate armor in 5e. If you go by normal treasure horses a fighter won’t have the money for that until like 4th level.