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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Grab Rob Shwalb and ask him: ''why did you keep all your best ideas for your own system instead of sharing them with the team when working on the 5e PHB?!''

I mean, take Shadow of the Demon Lord, make it a little more generic fantasy in terms of flavor and your all set:

• Ancestries with some weight behind it.
• Stackable Dis/Advantage that dont break the bounded accuracy.
• All combination of class/specialization/prestige class are possible. You can be a mage, specialized as a berserker with a diplomat mastery.
• Fast/Slow turn to make initiative a little less passive.
• Themed magic! You can now be a fire mage, or summoner or time traveler, or enchanter etc
• You Str score determines your proficiency with weapons and armors, not your class.
• Still remarkably close to DnD 5e.

I suspect @vincegetorix knows about it, but for folks who want a Shadow of the Demon Lord take on more traditional D&D, keep an eye on Schwalb's Shadow of the Weird Wizard, coming at some point in the future.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

some third party company is out there waiting for the day wotc makes a radically new edition of the game that doesn’t resemble d&d.

You can say Paizo. It's not a secret.

 

[Sithlord]

You can say Paizo. It's not a secret.

Might be a different company next time. Pathfinder 2E sucks

 

[Mind of tempest]

Might be a different company next time. Pathfinder 2E sucks

What's so bad about it?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Might be a different company next time. Pathfinder 2E sucks

I'm not sure who's big enough to step in, interested in D&D, and doesn't already have their own system. Necromancer/Frog God and Goodman Games are all that come to mind that are interested in D&D, other than Paizo. But post-4E, all three have their own systems they seem devoted to.

I guess someone like Mophidius or Free League could swoop in, but it would mean abandoning their current players, which I don't think they'd do.

I think of Renegade as being too small, but I suspect they're probably staffing up with the oWoD license.

 

[Shardstone]

Bard as a half-caster would work in a game with Burning Wheel-esque social mechanics, or different exploration mechanics. But Half-Caster Bard in current 5E is a complete dud. But...now I want to try it, and then build up a bunch of social mechanics around it that the Bard excels at.

Only for most people to tell me that they don't need mechanics for social RP and to tell me my ideas will never make it into anything, ala how some people in this thread act

 

[overgeeked]

Bard as a half-caster would work in a game with Burning Wheel-esque social mechanics, or different exploration mechanics. But Half-Caster Bard in current 5E is a complete dud.

I disagree. As it stands, the bard is half-a-thief, half-a-fighter, and a full caster to boot. My basic math skills tell me that's four halves. Reduce the bard to a half caster and you're still sitting at three halves. It's still a powerful character, it's just no longer laughably overpowered.

 

[Minigiant]

You might be the first person I've run across with that level of enthusiasm for bugbears. What's the appeal?

Eat.
Sneak.
Sleep.
BASH!
Repeat.

Bugbears are only of the few STR/DEX iconic racial archetypes in D&D. Especially one of the few that is melee.

They are basically Lazy Melee Ranger the Race. You get to roleplay as a simple brute without being an oaf or an idiot.

Morroc thinks this quest is a lot of work for not enough gold. The thing you wish us to obtain is well guarded. Morroc would not leave his bed and oil his club such low pay.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I disagree. As it stands, the bard is half-a-thief, half-a-fighter, and a full caster to boot. My basic math skills tell me that's four halves. Reduce the bard to a half caster and you're still sitting at three halves. It's still a powerful character, it's just no longer laughably overpowered.

Only a couple of bard subclasses can claim "half-a-fighter" at all, and calling the class "half-a-thief" as a whole is a massive stretch. The only rogue-type feature they really get is Expertise. And the one bard subclass that can somewhat claim to be "half-a-thief" is widely considered the weakest bard subclass.

The only thing "laughable" here is your hyperbole.

 

[Parmandur]

So, as a starting principle, Ibwould maintain "modular" backwards compatibility with 5E: nit necessarily keeping things the same, but working the math to ensure that people could bring 5E characters to a 6E table without causing disruption, or use 6E characters in a 5E Adventure without needing to recalculate anything. So, nothing radical on the gut level. More specific changes:

- "Races": I would take Tasha's approach to Lineages, and bake it in Core, and push it forwards a bit: make it easy for a DM and table to add in new Lineage options based on a player's ideas or the needs of the world.

- Replacing "Subrace" with "Culture," so that every PC mixes a Lineage with a culture, which cab be mixed and matched: Halflings raised by Dwarves, urbane Goliaths, etc.

- Backgrounds: I appreciate that they are mechanically perfectly equivalent in 5E, and I would like to keep that. I would take more of the fluff from some Classes and put them into Baclgrounds that are Class agnostic (looking at you, Monk).

- Classes: I would keep the current 13 Classes, promoting the Artificer, but some would receive significant changes: de-Orientalize the Monk (Mknasticsm is a Background, anyways), rebuild the Ranger extensively (make the usual Subclass choice be based on Favored Terrain: Underdark Rangers, Forest Rangers, etc), etc. Make every Class choose an Archetype at Level 1, which leads to

- Themes/Archetypes: Replace ""Subclass" with "Archetype" or "Theme," based off of the Strixhaven UA: many if not most Archetypes could remain focused on a single Class, but allowing for cross-Class options built into the system would be amazing (maybe based around Fighter-Rogue-MU-Cleric groupings). Allow a Fighter or Rogue to take Ranger Archetypes to have a "non-magic" Ranger, or have Fey Warlocks and Fey Sorcerers key off of similar abilities.

Other than that, wouldnchange much at all.