D&D (2024) You're not planning on getting 2024 D&D? Why is that?

[ART!]

Right now I'll just pick up people's 5e cast offs and used books stores/thrift stores while I see how this new thing goes

This is a sound approach! You're gonna get some great deals, I imagine!

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I guess if the most interesting or salient thing about the fiction is how crossbow reloading occurs, that's a sign of something in itself.

I have a vision of hand crossbows themselves, (and maybe braces/belts) having specialized hooks on part of their frame, to set the string against, letting you pull them back into the locking positions. It's a rough vision, but good enough for the action narrative of my brain.

I can imagine using the hand crossbows to use each other to slide/pull the strings back to locking position.

It would take finesse engineering, but in a world of masterpiece craftsman, dwarves, gnomes, warforged, constructs, etc., it's fine for me.

 

[ART!]

Can you not go back to the 5.14 fighter in that case? You might need a little house rule boost from the DM to make up for the slight power escalation from 5.24, but thats game/group dependent I'd imagine.

But your post has the opposite effect on me. Making me think how to juice more 4e fighter into it.

I could definitely go back to the 2014 version, and you're right that it would need to be beefed up somehow if my group segues to 2024 D&D. I like Tale of the Valiant's "Martial Action" feature for fighters, and Level Up's non-combat class features might make up some of the difference, too.

 

[M.L. Martin]

This is a sound approach! You're gonna get some great deals, I imagine!

I saw almost the entire run of 5E (except the core books, oddly enough) at a local Half Price Books this weekend ...

 

[MoonSong]

@Aldarc I like 4e, but disliked it at first. There are things I love about it (great tactical game, cool toolkit for improvisation, it equalizes the board, there's lots of chance for synergies in the party, rituals and martial practices, themes, the warlord, hybrids...) but to get there I had to overlook some stuff (mechanization that disregrads the fiction and a wall of jargon) that I didn't exactly liked. 5.2 is adding the latter without the former on top of a shaky foundation.

 

[ART!]

I saw almost the entire run of 5E (except the core books, oddly enough) at a local Half Price Books this weekend ...

Now I'm trying to think if there's any 5E books on my want list...

 

[ART!]

I think your example is really interesting - You’re describing an accessibility issue!

Thank you for seeing me!

 

[MoonSong]

Now I'm trying to think if there's any 5E books want list...

I never got Ghosts of Slatmsmarsh, Rising from the last war, the additionla monster books and one of the adventure anthologies

 

[ART!]

Strixhaven always interested me, for reasons I don't quite understand!

 

[Manbearcat]

The irony is that I think they are moving the game partially into the direction you want. What has turned me off the worst is all of the needless codification that is being going. But that is the funny irony, it is too much codification for me, not enough for you.

Yup. Quite a conundrum for WotC.

I have no idea where you stand on games generally, but when it comes to D&D, there are two, very distinct (from each other and from alternative paradigms) modes of play that I'm interested in and they require rather different systemization (though both need to be very clearly, very transparently codified in terms of play agenda, best practices, and procedures). The present game meets neither of those requirements by a longshot (at actually works at cross-purposes with both) and a minor shift toward them doesn't remotely do the necessary work to draw me in.

Meanwhile, you're clearly very much opposite of me so, while a minor shift in my direction does absolutely nothing to turn me on, it invariably turns you off.

This juxtaposition is one of the big reasons why I think designers should just design the games they want to and design them as well as they possibly can. Make a lot of games with different play agendas and different types of game engines to suit the particular agenda being designed around. That way, everyone can have games that draw them in. I'm perfectly happy with the present TTRPG market as there is a glut of diverse games that I enjoy. I don't remotely need the current corporate brand D&D to cater to my interests...and I'm definitely of the opinion presently that it generates a particularly unhealthy TTRPG culture when it becomes terribly important for people that corporate brand D&D caters to their particular interests...its unhealthy for the individuals so invested and that unhappiness and poor health, scaled up, makes for a considerably unhealthy cultural body.