D&D 5E Your 5E Hypothetical Variant

[Zardnaar]

Imagine if back in 2011 you get put in charge of D&D and can kinda of do anything you want.

1. The goal is to make a commercially successful D&D

2. Changes cant be to drastic so you're stuck with things like AC, hit points, 6 ability scores, saving throws etc.

3. Answer can't be "As 5E" unless you genuinely believe you thought of most of 5E's innovations before 5E was released or some of the late playtest packets.

4. Can't clone an existing edition, has to be different in a lot of ways.

You have to make a D&D not a love letter fantasy game based on your own preferences. Be as honest as you can in regards so you can only include stuff from 5E you like if you think you could have independently thought of it in 2011-12.

Back in 2012 I was playing OSR D&D and played Pathfinder briefly. 3.5 ended for us around 2009 or 2010 where I heavily houseruled it (banned stuff, replaced the magic item creation stuf).

Here is stuff I would not have done because being honest I would not have thought of it.

Archetypes
Feats optional/ASI's
Advantage/Disadvantage

Stuff I may have done

Unified Proficiency bonus of some sort ( I liked Star Wars Saga, played 4E)
Spellpoints on some classes, maybe the Sorcerer.
Capped ability scores (probably 18 or 25 though)
Some sort of background (Pathfinder and AD&D had something like this)
At will cantrips

Stuff I Probably Would have done

11 Classes, no archetypes, no warlock
75% chance of feats, 25% chance no feats (I wasn't sure back then)
Scaling damage spells. Remember the Warmage being broken? Nope me either.
No buy your own magic items (already done in late 3.5 houserules, used Spells and Magic from 2E)
Trimmed the 3.5 Spellist down, maybe not as far as 5E but problematic ones are bye bye (damage dealing spells are easy to judge)
3 Saves, fort reflex and will. 3 is easier than 6, all saves would scale
Magic/spell resistance would return as an absolute number (probably 6,11,16 on a d20 to beat)
Tweaked 4E engine (3.5, 4E and 5E are somewhat similar here anyway)
Smaller numbers, not bounded accuracy as such like 5E but somewhere between that and BECMI.
Magic items similar to 5E or 2E in style.

Some personal preferences from OSR games would not make it in, violates rule 1- the goal is to make a commercially successful D&D.

 

[Xenonnonex]

The thing is you the general you may think your ideas are great. One of the reasons why 5e is such a colossus is because of the extensive playtest cycle. You the general you need to be able to scrap ideas entirely and go back to the drawing board.

 

[Zardnaar]

The thing is you the general you may think your ideas are great. One of the reasons why 5e is such a colossus is because of the extensive playtest cycle. You the general you need to be able to scrap ideas entirely and go back to the drawing board.

Its a hypothetical, whats your ideas for example. You are the general if you think you would have thought of a 2 year open playtest in 2012 put it in.

I put rule 3 in there. Basically imagine its you in the drivers seat but you don't have the last 5 years of knowledge of 5E and you can't clone an existing edition and you can't say make D&D a skills based system as you personally like it. What would you do the same, differently? What would you have thought of or not thought of?

 

[Leatherhead]

The One thing I would have absolutely included:
The Condition Track. It just solves so many problems regarding control spells and status ailments.

Other things I would have striven for:
Streamlined characters (because things were getting crazy)
Simplified Monsters with transparent math (ala-4e).
At-will powers.

But realistically, the commercial success thing boils down to two points:
Nostalgia pandering, with tiptoeing around the questionable bits. (Which, of course, they realized)
Modernization, such as digital integration (5e is the first edition to achieve this properly, even if they had to outsource it after the launch), and social media presence.

 

[Raith5]

This may breech rule 2. But after 4e (But before 5e) I probably would have advocated for creating a system with only encounter/scene abilities and spells. That game showed that "Daily" abilities and spells were not the only way D&D could function. Of course 5e has sucked me back into the fun of (mostly) daily resource management!

But aside from this I agree with the posters above: at will abilities for all classes, backgrounds etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

The One thing I would have absolutely included:
The Condition Track. It just solves so many problems regarding control spells and status ailments.

Other things I would have striven for:
Streamlined characters (because things were getting crazy)
Simplified Monsters with transparent math (ala-4e).
At-will powers.

But realistically, the commercial success thing boils down to two points:
Nostalgia pandering, with tiptoeing around the questionable bits. (Which, of course, they realized)
Modernization, such as digital integration (5e is the first edition to achieve this properly, even if they had to outsource it after the launch), and social media presence.

Condition track like Star Wars Saga or something else?

 

[Leatherhead]

Condition track like Star Wars Saga...?

Yes.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes.

Interesting big SWSE fan and yeah that idea has crossed my mind more than once.

Reason I didn't was importing damage threshold, it's not hard a bit more work.

 

[Coroc]

The three saving throw fort, refl, will, maybe with feats like force of personality and intelligent reflexes so you can key will and reflex from charisma and intelligence, I would prefer that one.maybe with 1 strong save and 2 weak saves dunno if it would work out.

I definitely would have altered the weapon and armor tables to get them to a reasonably accurate historic equivalent.
Means Quarterstaff is d6 2handed only, you get short sword, arming sword(=d8 slashing 1h), bastardsword(=versatile Longsword), Longsword(=greatsword, 2h only)

Additional curved swords langes messer 1d6 1h, Kriegsmesser 2d4 2h.

Additional polearm Great flail 2d4

No nonsense like (studded) leather or ringmail anymore. instead linen, padded, brigandine, scale, chain (breast-,half-,three quarter-, full-)plate

Sword and buckler, or rapier and dagger, or two daggers, or maybe short sword and dagger as only viable 2 weapon builds, everything else is mumpitz with no base in reality except circus.

Dueling style should not work with shields.

Crossbows are far weaker than bows because of bow = 2 attacks except if you got xbow expert. They should be far stronger because they pierce armor, bows do not.
I rule around this that in settings renaissance and up techlevel no one uses bows whereas in archaic settings (tech level dark ages and below) no xbows exist.
Another option would be to leave the loading property in but give them advantage to hit and/or a drastic increase in damage dice. But I dunno how this scales with xbow expert.

Intimidate may also be keyed of strength, maybe dexterity, Constitution (dwarves)

Mountain dwarf only get +1 str not +2.
Reason: Dwarves are strong, but not stronger than humans.
Halforcs may be stronger than humans.

Well except for the three save thing those are houserules I use anyway so....

 

[Shiroiken]

I would have switched to spell points, but not the method used by the 3E psion. The number of points would be similar to HP, with significant costs between levels (and possibly some variation within levels, such as combat vs. utility). An option I would consider, but doubt a lot of people like, would be that all classes get some MP, because using some item abilities would cost MP.