The "Fairies are good so we shouldn't even put them in the Monster Manual" comment reminds me of Silent Hill's spiral into a mediocre circlejerk of PYRAMID HEAD and BIG TITTY NURSE.
These people are fans of D&D. They have only ever read D&D novels, they don't play other games. They are so young that they haven't run a game of AD&D, but they have these IDEAS about THE OLD DAYS, that have nothing to do with reality.
Also, who the fuck thinks that fairies are good? Did you not watch Peter Pan!?
I think there's a place for good monsters in the monster manual. I don't necessarily need the MM to be full of monsters the players are going to fight regularly. It's just as useful as fluff, for me.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
One of the reasons I never noticed how broken 2e was because I played/DMed it very very young. I was 14 years old when I started with 2E and when I started running 3E, I was nearly 18. In that time I gained a greater desire for balanced game mechanics and my players matured from people who made characters named after genitalia with an obsession with women to players who made genuine characters - but with much more mechanical understanding. Gone were wizards who took spells for sheer fun factor like speak with dead or similar, in was abusing polymorphous, invisibility and haste. Melee users who made every enemy with a weapon automatically irrelevant by abusing sunder, disarm or tripping rules. Godlike clerics that destroyed everything.
Frankly, I feel this was just my players getting better at the game with a higher degree of system mastery and we had more money. With increasing money we could buy splat books on a more regular basis than when we played 2e. I have routinely criticized 3E in the past for being an awful imbalanced system where casters completely ran away power wise, but then again when I played 2e nobody tried to optimize anywhere near as much and we didn't use even 1/4 of the number of additional books. My 2e players were pretty much PHB only.
I wonder if those rose colored glasses are really distorting my impression of the balance of those two systems.
Bah, ef that reason, which conjures up juvenile campaigns that have as much to do with evil as does wearing black.
I'd rather go with the fact that sometimes, through completely good actions and priorities, good people disagree strongly enough to resort to violence. Way more interesting.
Bah, ef that reason, which conjures up juvenile campaigns that have as much to do with evil as does wearing black.
I'd rather go with the fact that sometimes, through completely good actions and priorities, good people disagree strongly enough to resort to violence. Way more interesting.
That works too. Although I was more referring to a more neutral or chaotic party than pure evil. I mean, what good group hasn't landed themselves in jail with the need to escape...violently.
I think my gripe isn't that the MM will have Good creatures, it's with the fact that the Fairies are inherently Good. In myth and legend, they operate under a completely alien morality. That's why real Fairy Tales usually end with terrible things happening to folks who deal with the Fae. They don't think like mortals.
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AnialosCollies are love, Collies are life!Shadowbrook ColliesRegistered Userregular
I think my gripe isn't that the MM will have Good creatures, it's with the fact that the Fairies are inherently Good. In myth and legend, they operate under a completely alien morality. That's why real Fairy Tales usually end with terrible things happening to folks who deal with the Fae. They don't think like mortals.
I think my gripe isn't that the MM will have Good creatures, it's with the fact that the Fairies are inherently Good. In myth and legend, they operate under a completely alien morality. That's why real Fairy Tales usually end with terrible things happening to folks who deal with the Fae. They don't think like mortals.
Yeah, I thought the basic vibe of the first 4e books was that the Fair Folk, except for MAYBE the Eldarin and Gnomes, were dangerous to be around due to their mood swings and bizarre social filters. That's what made the Eldarin an interesting race for me; the chance to roleplay an alien cultural bias.
Now they're just straight Good aligned, no wiggle room? (Although I think there were a few "dark"/Unseelie faerie bad guys in the MM...)
And please don't let this lead into an alignment debate. The "Faeries and their weirdness" is a much better debate.
Hitting the broken computer does not fix the broken computer. Fixing the broken computer, fixes the broken computer.
I like Law/Chaos as cosmic forces and alignment as allegiance rather than personality profile. Astral Plane as home to the Lawful Gods, Devils etc. and Feywild and Elemental Chaos as home to Chaotic Fey, Demons and Elementals that generally oppose the gods.
I've even seen a system where Clerics and Paladins have to side with Law and Wizards with Chaos. Makes a lot of sense, really, if you turn the Paladin's Detect/Smite into something that targets Chaotic things. Instant Witch Hunter.
Of course, this relies on there being enough conflict to be interesting without making it a complete nightmare to have a Wizard and Cleric in the same party.
Well... "great overarching conflict that makes you put aside your jihaadist ways" is one way to work it...
The other is to simply discourage such intraparty conflict in the first place. Religious apathy, or simply an understanding that the conflicts of other planes have only so much to do with what happens in the Material. Not every paladin/cleric need be "LAW RULES YOU. SUBMIT OR DIE" nor should every wizard/whatever be all "KAY-HOSS!!! OMFG BBQ GIANT FROG!"
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
The other is to simply discourage such intraparty conflict in the first place. Religious apathy, or simply an understanding that the conflicts of other planes have only so much to do with what happens in the Material. Not every paladin/cleric need be "LAW RULES YOU. SUBMIT OR DIE" nor should every wizard/whatever be all "KAY-HOSS!!! OMFG BBQ GIANT FROG!"
My entire point was that Chaos doesn't have to be random-generator and Law doesn't have to be Judge Dredd. They're just two sides in a conflict.
Character conflict can be really fun but it's a tricky thing to work well.
It's kind of amazing how deep magic supremacy goes in D&D. I came across the following very good point in the OotS forums:
If this would be the case, everything would be okay... but according to the D&D rules, every squirrel and every three year old is completely unaffected by pain as long as it results from physical harm (including torture btw); it makes sense for player characters who are used to physical harm, but for wizards, little children and
But it only becomes really absurd if you recognize that pretty much every effect an injury could have - pain, slowed movements, limbs which cannot properly used, ability damage, or even continuous damage are A-Okay and completely included in the rules, as long as they are induced by magic, not physical means. And that's just stupid.
Those forums make me sad. Just yesterday some pants-on-head poster declared that magic classes should always be supreme over non-magic classes because summoning arcane power is better than hitting stuff hard with metal.
Guess what that poster thinks of 5e.
There are a few voices of reason in there, but entirely too many droolers.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
-Kal Ratha, High Elf Rogue Guild Thief Skill Specialist, played by @Nealneal
-Grogni the Dipsomancer, Hill Dwarf Wizard of the Academic Tradition Artisan Brewer Endurance Specialist, played by @Der Waffle Mous
-Archibald Mendaev, Human Wizard Battle Mage Charlatan Ambush Specialist, played by @RiemannLives
-Bruce the Mad, Human Custom Fighter Custom Background Custom Specialist, played by @Leper
-Blank, Halfling Rogue Thief Artisan Cook Ambush Specialist, played by @texasheat
Fucking kids these days. I remember when you were an "elf" and that was it, period.
Those forums make me sad. Just yesterday some pants-on-head poster declared that magic classes should always be supreme over non-magic classes because summoning arcane power is better than hitting stuff hard with metal.
Guess what that poster thinks of 5e.
There are a few voices of reason in there, but entirely too many droolers.
Not to be pants-on-head or anything, but that is kind of a logical conclusion to reach.
D&D has always had this weird dichotomy where martial fighters (be they Fighting Men, barbarians, thieves, a priest with a morningstar, or whatever) follow a nominally realistic, real-world combat milieu while, right beside them, dudes are flinging magical destruction around.
Provided that your non-magical combatants are limited to realistic-ish tactics and your magic users are not in any specific fashion curtailed then yes, anyone with non-physical powers is, at some point, going to be more powerful than anyone without them. The best d&d-setting fighter in the world can...what? Walk into a room full of dudes and beat them all up, eventually? Meanwhile the best d&d-setting magic user can incinerate the entire building in a matter of seconds.
It's a pretty shitty milieu to be a non-spellcaster in and any rulesystem that supports that mindset is going to, eventually, make casters more powerful. It's not a bug in the rules; it's a design failure in the concepts governing combat in the system.
So you have two options:
1) Make non-casters' combat moves more powerful to scale up with the casters' combat spells.
2) Limit the abilities of casters to make them no more capable than non-casters at kicking people's asses.
4E tried to do a little bit of both, simultaneously, which led to people simultaneously bitching about how the martial classes' powers were too outlandish and 'anime' or whatever adjective you'd like to select and bitching about how spellcasters were so stripped down. And both things were true.
You can't have a setting like pre-4E D&D implies, where fighters just bash on things with swords real-world-combat style and wizards fling the equivalent of RPG rounds with one hand while creating pocket universes with the other and end up with a balanced game. It's just not possible. So you either have to satisfy the Wizards Should Have Cosmic Power crowd and end up with melee combat that's more like Exalted than old-school D&D to let fighters keep pace with fireballs, or you have to satisfy the Combat Should Be As Close To What I Think The 15th Century Was Like As Possible crowd, in which case being a spellcaster is going to suck. As long as you try to please everybody by taking a position somewhere in the middle, 4E-style, you're going to have vocal crowds from the ends of the spectrum throwing a fit.
Actually, in those days I was a "halfling" and that was it... And I liked it until I started to notice that the elf and wizard could do everything I could, only better because they used a spell for it.
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
Those forums make me sad. Just yesterday some pants-on-head poster declared that magic classes should always be supreme over non-magic classes because summoning arcane power is better than hitting stuff hard with metal.
Guess what that poster thinks of 5e.
There are a few voices of reason in there, but entirely too many droolers.
Not to be pants-on-head or anything, but that is kind of a logical conclusion to reach.
D&D has always had this weird dichotomy where martial fighters (be they Fighting Men, barbarians, thieves, a priest with a morningstar, or whatever) follow a nominally realistic, real-world combat milieu while, right beside them, dudes are flinging magical destruction around.
Provided that your non-magical combatants are limited to realistic-ish tactics and your magic users are not in any specific fashion curtailed then yes, anyone with non-physical powers is, at some point, going to be more powerful than anyone without them. The best d&d-setting fighter in the world can...what? Walk into a room full of dudes and beat them all up, eventually? Meanwhile the best d&d-setting magic user can incinerate the entire building in a matter of seconds.
It's a pretty shitty milieu to be a non-spellcaster in and any rulesystem that supports that mindset is going to, eventually, make casters more powerful. It's not a bug in the rules; it's a design failure in the concepts governing combat in the system.
So you have two options:
1) Make non-casters' combat moves more powerful to scale up with the casters' combat spells.
2) Limit the abilities of casters to make them no more capable than non-casters at kicking people's asses.
4E tried to do a little bit of both, simultaneously, which led to people simultaneously bitching about how the martial classes' powers were too outlandish and 'anime' or whatever adjective you'd like to select and bitching about how spellcasters were so stripped down. And both things were true.
You can't have a setting like pre-4E D&D implies, where fighters just bash on things with swords real-world-combat style and wizards fling the equivalent of RPG rounds with one hand while creating pocket universes with the other and end up with a balanced game. It's just not possible. So you either have to satisfy the Wizards Should Have Cosmic Power crowd and end up with melee combat that's more like Exalted than old-school D&D to let fighters keep pace with fireballs, or you have to satisfy the Combat Should Be As Close To What I Think The 15th Century Was Like As Possible crowd, in which case being a spellcaster is going to suck. As long as you try to please everybody by taking a position somewhere in the middle, 4E-style, you're going to have vocal crowds from the ends of the spectrum throwing a fit.
You're going to have "vocal crowds" complaining about any system no matter how you design it.
I understand the logic behind the conclusion, and that entire thought process is the whole problem. The worst part is that it's almost entirely a D&D-ism; the actual heroes in human stories throughout history are usually not the magic-users, though they are often "superhuman" in terms of feats of physical ability, or "superlucky" in the case of more Western roguish heroes.
On top of that, the problem is actually worse in 3E and 5E than it was in 4E OR old D&D. It was much easier to save against instant-lose spells pre-3E, for instance, especially as levels continued to climb. The game was by no means balanced, but the fighter-wizard disparity as we're familiar with it is more the creation of 3E than anything else. 2E fighters were boring, but they were effective and could adventure with a wizard just fine.
What it boils down to, though, is this: someone who advocates for making an entire set of player options valid both in the game's presentation and in theme to be substantially weaker than another set of options because "it just makes sense," in the context of a cooperative team game played for fun, is pants-on-head. This is someone who wants to infringe on the fun of other people because "it just makes sense" to them.
There are options. You can alter the theme behind warrior-based classes so that they can reach mythical heights themselves. You can aim for magic that feels magical without being godlike. You can design the game such that obstacles and challenges require cooperative input from players who actually are playing different game modes.
Or, you can choose to make certain themes and presented options objectively weaker, less deep, and thus usually less fun for most players who would otherwise have been interested in using those options.
Personally, I've no interest in tolerance for the latter viewpoint. It's instant pants-on-head status, every time.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
You can't have a setting like pre-4E D&D implies, where fighters just bash on things with swords real-world-combat style and wizards fling the equivalent of RPG rounds with one hand while creating pocket universes with the other and end up with a balanced game. It's just not possible. So you either have to satisfy the Wizards Should Have Cosmic Power crowd and end up with melee combat that's more like Exalted than old-school D&D to let fighters keep pace with fireballs, or you have to satisfy the Combat Should Be As Close To What I Think The 15th Century Was Like As Possible crowd, in which case being a spellcaster is going to suck. As long as you try to please everybody by taking a position somewhere in the middle, 4E-style, you're going to have vocal crowds from the ends of the spectrum throwing a fit.
I think it's perfectly valid to be put off with fighter powers that seem too magical.
That doesn't mean that:
1)Attacking with swords couldn't cause more crippling injuries and thus be *more* realistic.
2)Monsters/players have to have inflated hp totals that make SoD the only real option.
3)Ignoring the fact that spells being so powerful implies that much work would be done to make items to defend against them is fine.
4)Making magic more dangerous to it's practitioners isn't an option.
5)Magic users need magical feats to make their spells even better.
6)Combat feats need to have downsides, dual wielding must be punished, etc.
7)Number of spells available can't be strictly limited and/or mages couldn't be forced to specialize.
8)There is a reason that mages don't fail to cast their spells correctly more often
9)etc., etc.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
You can't have a setting like pre-4E D&D implies, where fighters just bash on things with swords real-world-combat style and wizards fling the equivalent of RPG rounds with one hand while creating pocket universes with the other and end up with a balanced game. It's just not possible. So you either have to satisfy the Wizards Should Have Cosmic Power crowd and end up with melee combat that's more like Exalted than old-school D&D to let fighters keep pace with fireballs, or you have to satisfy the Combat Should Be As Close To What I Think The 15th Century Was Like As Possible crowd, in which case being a spellcaster is going to suck. As long as you try to please everybody by taking a position somewhere in the middle, 4E-style, you're going to have vocal crowds from the ends of the spectrum throwing a fit.
This is a silly false dichotomy that acts like fantasy settings either give magic unlimited power or barely any power at all. Many settings don't adhere to either of these paradigms, and work quite well. Whatever rules you establish for magic, internal consistency is what will save suspension of disbelief.
Realistic sucks, and is not the point of the game. If you want "realistic" combat, then play GURPS, or its kin.
If it's "realistic" within the game system for sword damage that kills a player at first level to be little more than "first blood" at, say, eigth, then why is it suddenly not "realistic" for that character's ability to deal damage to scale up similarly? Being okay with HP progression for fighters as they go up in levels, but not okay with power progresion, seems to me to be inconsistent and biased.
I want my tenth level fighter to be a wuxia kung-fu bad ass, who can knock crowds of mooks prone with just his battle cry. But maybe that's just me.
You can't have a setting like pre-4E D&D implies, where fighters just bash on things with swords real-world-combat style and wizards fling the equivalent of RPG rounds with one hand while creating pocket universes with the other and end up with a balanced game. It's just not possible. So you either have to satisfy the Wizards Should Have Cosmic Power crowd and end up with melee combat that's more like Exalted than old-school D&D to let fighters keep pace with fireballs, or you have to satisfy the Combat Should Be As Close To What I Think The 15th Century Was Like As Possible crowd, in which case being a spellcaster is going to suck. As long as you try to please everybody by taking a position somewhere in the middle, 4E-style, you're going to have vocal crowds from the ends of the spectrum throwing a fit.
I think it's perfectly valid to be put off with fighter powers that seem too magical.
That doesn't mean that:
1)Attacking with swords couldn't cause more crippling injuries and thus be *more* realistic.
2)Monsters/players have to have inflated hp totals that make SoD the only real option.
3)Ignoring the fact that spells being so powerful implies that much work would be done to make items to defend against them is fine.
4)Making magic more dangerous to it's practitioners isn't an option.
5)Magic users need magical feats to make their spells even better.
6)Combat feats need to have downsides, dual wielding must be punished, etc.
7)Number of spells available can't be strictly limited and/or mages couldn't be forced to specialize.
8)There is a reason that mages don't fail to cast their spells correctly more often
9)etc., etc.
If you're going to be put off by fighters with magic-ish powers then you're pretty much stuck with either fighters not being as good as wizards or wizards being constrained to not have powers beyond what could be done by a non-spellcaster.
Anything that a realistic fighter could conceivably do, the type of wizard described in D&D could do better. If nothing else he could just summon up a construct or charm a fighter to do the fighting for him while he does something else.
If you decouple spellcasters and non-spellcasters in pre-4E D&D you really have two different games. A party of fighters, rangers, rogues, etc. would all be relatively balanced against one another and have their moments in the sun doing different things. A party of all wizards and clerics could go around blasting the shit out of things to their hearts content. There are certainly flaws in both games but they're not bad games. The problem arises from trying to jam them together.
You can turn wizards into something more akin to sorcerers, which is pretty much what 4E did, or you can make them fail at spellcasting all the time or similar, but any solution is going to leave you with a wizard that is pretty dissimilar to the wizards of pre-4E D&D.
#'s 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 on your list have been either optional rules or part of the core rules at various points in D&D's history (playing 1e AD&D by the book made it pretty freaking difficult to be a wizard with a shit ton of spells; it took a lot of money, a huge amount of time, and reasonably good luck to learn new spells as you went up in level). #'s 5 and 6 only apply to 3rd edition, which was a fairly horrible edition in terms of everything except the existence of the d20 mechanic, and to a lesser extent to 4th, but wizards weren't particularly overpowered there anyway.
All of these things have been tried, and the situation you end up in is either one where wizards are made completely useless by every enemy having huge spell resistance (thus leading to the ridiculous arms race in 3rd edition between spell-resistance and spell-resistance-resistance) or with wizards who are fundamentally dissimilar to OD&D - 3.5E D&D wizards. And I'm not saying that having dissimilar wizards is a problem; I'm all for an edition where old-school wizards are relegated to a purely NPC capacity and PC wizards are more akin, conceptually, to 3E sorcerers/4E wizards.
It's all just a matter of what assumptions you want to make. If your goal is a balanced game where every class is equally powerful then you can't have classes based on the philosophical assumptions of pre-4E D&D. If your goal is to have a world full of the kinds of spellcasters in pre-4E D&D and realistic non-caster combatants then you can't have a balanced game.
I was all "I'll fucking knife you over those racial ability score modifiers!" but....I'm super in favor of basically saying one of the modifiers should be as listed and the other can be what you need for your class. So I'm already half way there with you anyways.
So if you were building D&D, from the ground up, how would you go about it?
There are a few legacy bits that I would maintain:
d20 to resolve actions
Ability Scores (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha)
To Hit and Armor Class
Umm yeah, that's about it. Everything else (hit points, spells/powers, Saves/Defenses, etc.) can all be reworked.
Things I'd absolutely get rid of:
Racial Ability Score modifiers
Linear martial/Quadratic spellcasting
I think I'd keep hitpoints. There are plenty of systems out there that use Wounds or other methods. HP works reasonably well for high-fantasy heroic (IE: D&D) since you don't want your players frequently maimed or killed by a die roll. If you want that play WHFRP or MERP or Rollmaster.
Also 4th ed already nailed the linear martial vs quadratic spellcasting problem. Don't see that's a big issue anymore.
You can't have a setting like pre-4E D&D implies, where fighters just bash on things with swords real-world-combat style and wizards fling the equivalent of RPG rounds with one hand while creating pocket universes with the other and end up with a balanced game. It's just not possible. So you either have to satisfy the Wizards Should Have Cosmic Power crowd and end up with melee combat that's more like Exalted than old-school D&D to let fighters keep pace with fireballs, or you have to satisfy the Combat Should Be As Close To What I Think The 15th Century Was Like As Possible crowd, in which case being a spellcaster is going to suck. As long as you try to please everybody by taking a position somewhere in the middle, 4E-style, you're going to have vocal crowds from the ends of the spectrum throwing a fit.
This is a silly false dichotomy that acts like fantasy settings either give magic unlimited power or barely any power at all. Many settings don't adhere to either of these paradigms, and work quite well. Whatever rules you establish for magic, internal consistency is what will save suspension of disbelief.
The problem isn't the power level of the magic, it's the combination of: the ubiquity of magic, the power level disparity with non-casters, and the fact that it's a game rather than a fixed narrative.
You can have a setting with wildly powerful wizards and not-very-powerful non-wizards and have it work out fine by making the wizards of the world not take a direct hand in the affairs of the non-wizards most of the time. See, for example, Tolkien.
You can have powerful magic and realistic non-magic fighting, but given magic to everyone important to the story, leaving them all on equal footing. See, for example, every Urban Fantasy novel.
You can have a setting with powerful magic held by a few but non-wizards who have equivalent 'martial' powers that go beyond anything actually physically possible, yet put them on-par with the wizards. See, for example, wuxia kung-fu movies.
In D&D not everyone has magic, so option 2 is out. Some of the PCs are wizards, so option 1 is out. And, for some reason, people are frequently violently opposed to #3.
Internal consistency doesn't matter to this discussion because we're aren't talking about creating a believable system of magic, we're talking about magic a system of magic that doesn't outshine the capability of non-spellcasters in a game.
Let's compare 3rd edition and 4th edition:
In 3rd edition, wizards have ultimate cosmic power and fighters have swords which they can swing with some degree of accuracy. There is no way to reconcile these into a balanced system.
In 4th edition we have non-casters who have abilities that frequently either push the edges of what's believably physical or just blow past them entirely. We also have casters who, while still powerful, are dramatically more limited in both the breadth of abilities and the power of individual abilities as compared to their 3rd edition equivalents. This system is, by broad agreement, balanced.
You're probably still going to want to knife me, @DevoutlyApathetic - let ability score be determined by the class. Each race can provide a special ability and some skill/defense bonuses. It should make balancing races and classes much, much easier. It would allievate so many problems in the game while allowing some races to favor specific classes based on their skill/defense bonuses, but not so much that they completely out-classes other race/class combinations. Classes are the real meat of the game. I would want to put focus back on them.
@RiemannLives I agree. I'd likely steal a lot from 4E to maintain that class balance. Also from the combat system.
Yea, hitpoints are D&D to me. At least the play environment it inspires.
4th edition really nailed damage and healing for me.
Edit: @Mikey_CTS ....I don't hate it. One thing that annoys me about 4e is just how important your primary attribute is, which de facto limits some class combos.
Realistic sucks, and is not the point of the game. If you want "realistic" combat, then play GURPS, or its kin.
If it's "realistic" within the game system for sword damage that kills a player at first level to be little more than "first blood" at, say, eigth, then why is it suddenly not "realistic" for that character's ability to deal damage to scale up similarly? Being okay with HP progression for fighters as they go up in levels, but not okay with power progresion, seems to me to be inconsistent and biased.
I want my tenth level fighter to be a wuxia kung-fu bad ass, who can knock crowds of mooks prone with just his battle cry. But maybe that's just me.
I, for one, wholeheartedly agree.
As for re-designing D&D from the ground up, I'd chuck Armor Class, too. I'd much rather see an opposed to-hit roll against a dodge roll, followed by armor acting to reduce damage. The heavier your armor, the less likely you are to dodge a blow but the less likely it is to hurt you. And then you can have the difficulty of hitting an opponent scale with the opponent's skill rather than with the cost of his equipment.
I'd like to see a D&D with asymmetric mechanics based on your role. Everybody gets something to do but those things aren't necessarily similar. Fighter types are good at fighting, so they get at-will abilities to select from every round in combat. Rogues are sneaky and tactical but not necessarily that tough, so they get some kind of dice/point pool to spend on abilities. Spellcasters fill in the gaps with a broad variety of abilities, but are limited by foresight and get only a handful of narrow abilities during any particular fight.
Also, while I like d20 resolution, I've always hated D&D's adherence to pass/fail mechanics. If I were to redesign it form the ground up there'd be a built-in assumption that almost all rolls will have graduated degrees of success and failure.
I think I'd keep hitpoints. There are plenty of systems out there that use Wounds or other methods. HP works reasonably well for high-fantasy heroic (IE: D&D) since you don't want your players frequently maimed or killed by a die roll. If you want that play WHFRP or MERP or Rollmaster.
But why keep Save or Suck spells then?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I think I'd keep hitpoints. There are plenty of systems out there that use Wounds or other methods. HP works reasonably well for high-fantasy heroic (IE: D&D) since you don't want your players frequently maimed or killed by a die roll. If you want that play WHFRP or MERP or Rollmaster.
But why keep Save or Suck spells then?
Given the bolded text and that he didn't mention them, why would you assume he'd keep them?
Taking out race/attribute association entirely is a bit rough... Aside from suspension of disbelief issues, for a lot of people it's a familiar thing.
GreyScale took the approach of "forbidding bonuses" in essence when you built a character you applied bonuses to stats but two stats per race were forbidden. (Backwards way of saying apply to two of these 4 from 6)
Additionally class/attributes were suggested, but not set by the system. If you wanted a Dexterity based physical defender who minored in demoralizing witty banter... That's what you put together.
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
Taking out race/attribute association entirely is a bit rough... Aside from suspension of disbelief issues, for a lot of people it's a familiar thing.
4ths Racial powers did a whole lot for me in establishing races as having a distinct identity that the player got to bring up once a fight if they wanted.
I'd keep d20s, the six ability scores, and the general concept of rolling to beat static DCs/ACs/defenses/etc. I'd keep HP, but clarify that it's way abstract so don't get annoyed when most things do HP damage. I'd definitely remove linear martial/quadratic casting.
I'm on the fence about racial ability scores. If you give all races a bonus to one or two things (never penalties (NEVER PENALTIES)) it's not a big deal (assuming your ability scores are balanced) and conveys a lot. (An aside, while you guys are talking about it, I like what 13th Age does --- pick one of two bonuses from your race, and one of two bonuses from your class (provided it isn't what you picked for your race).) On the other hand, they feel kind of vestigial. I would definitely have each race do a cool thing, though.
I'd definitely keep 4e's ubiquitous healing. From a conceptual level, I'd keep the idea of a tight system language that is used to describe everything. And I'd keep power blocks or something else to divorce mechanics from flavor. I'd keep the concept of steady mathematical improvement as levels increase. I'd keep the 4e tiers (and I'd actually support epic (hell, I personally would probably focus on epic)). Relatedly, I'd keep prestige classes out, but I'm not sure if I would necessarily keep the progression of class (heroic)/PP (paragon)/ED (epic) choices --- I do like them, however.
I'd keep the standard/move/minor/free action economy. I'd keep opportunity attacks and immediate actions but reign in the number of options.
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Taking out race/attribute association entirely is a bit rough... Aside from suspension of disbelief issues, for a lot of people it's a familiar thing.
4ths Racial powers did a whole lot for me in establishing races as having a distinct identity that the player got to bring up once a fight if they wanted.
This and also just because its familiar doesn't mean its good for the game. I'll side with good design over sacred cows every time. However, no need to take them to the slaughter house if you don't have to. The more I think about the more I like Devout's idea - +2 to race stat and +2 to primary class ability. However, this can cause problems when the race and class ability align. There would have to be a caveat that if they align instead assign the class +2 to any other ability score. I think its better to avoid this sort of situation entire, but this is less offensive than most.
4ths Racial powers did a whole lot for me in establishing races as having a distinct identity that the player got to bring up once a fight if they wanted.
I agree, and I love the concept, even if the execution was just a bit flawed. (in keeping with usual 4e math--miles ahead of previous editions and many other games, yet still never quite right)
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
Taking out race/attribute association entirely is a bit rough... Aside from suspension of disbelief issues, for a lot of people it's a familiar thing.
GreyScale took the approach of "forbidding bonuses" in essence when you built a character you applied bonuses to stats but two stats per race were forbidden. (Backwards way of saying apply to two of these 4 from 6)
Additionally class/attributes were suggested, but not set by the system. If you wanted a Dexterity based physical defender who minored in demoralizing witty banter... That's what you put together.
I've always disliked the idea of racial stat modifiers on the basis that stats are so tightly coupled to classes. Sure it makes sense that elves are more dexterous and half-giants are stronger, but in game terms that means that elves are more likely to be rogues and half-giants are more likely to be fighters. I'd be much more in favor of bonuses that aren't directly tied to any class ability; stuff like keen senses, natural weapons/armor, racial resistances to things... I'd rather not be penalized right out of the gate for wanting to be a dwarven thief instead of a gnome thief, or a half-giant bard instead of an elven one.
Taking out race/attribute association entirely is a bit rough... Aside from suspension of disbelief issues, for a lot of people it's a familiar thing.
GreyScale took the approach of "forbidding bonuses" in essence when you built a character you applied bonuses to stats but two stats per race were forbidden. (Backwards way of saying apply to two of these 4 from 6)
Additionally class/attributes were suggested, but not set by the system. If you wanted a Dexterity based physical defender who minored in demoralizing witty banter... That's what you put together.
I've always disliked the idea of racial stat modifiers on the basis that stats are so tightly coupled to classes. Sure it makes sense that elves are more dexterous and half-giants are stronger, but in game terms that means that elves are more likely to be rogues and half-giants are more likely to be fighters. I'd be much more in favor of bonuses that aren't directly tied to any class ability; stuff like keen senses, natural weapons/armor, racial resistances to things... I'd rather not be penalized right out of the gate for wanting to be a dwarven thief instead of a gnome thief, or a half-giant bard instead of an elven one.
I think you missed the entire last paragraph. Attributes were effectively de-linked from class.
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
Taking out race/attribute association entirely is a bit rough... Aside from suspension of disbelief issues, for a lot of people it's a familiar thing.
GreyScale took the approach of "forbidding bonuses" in essence when you built a character you applied bonuses to stats but two stats per race were forbidden. (Backwards way of saying apply to two of these 4 from 6)
Additionally class/attributes were suggested, but not set by the system. If you wanted a Dexterity based physical defender who minored in demoralizing witty banter... That's what you put together.
I've always disliked the idea of racial stat modifiers on the basis that stats are so tightly coupled to classes. Sure it makes sense that elves are more dexterous and half-giants are stronger, but in game terms that means that elves are more likely to be rogues and half-giants are more likely to be fighters. I'd be much more in favor of bonuses that aren't directly tied to any class ability; stuff like keen senses, natural weapons/armor, racial resistances to things... I'd rather not be penalized right out of the gate for wanting to be a dwarven thief instead of a gnome thief, or a half-giant bard instead of an elven one.
I think you missed the entire last paragraph. Attributes were effectively de-linked from class.
No, I saw it. It's just a different concept than racial bonuses. And one I don't particularly like.
I guess if everything you do is a class ability then you can swap out attributes however you want, but so long as hitting things is based on strength and/or dexterity you're going to be penalized to play any class based on hitting stuff with a primary attribute that isn't strength or dexterity.
Edit:
Also: What's even the point of racial stat bonuses if you get to pick which stats to use for what? Are there stat-linked skills or something? Otherwise it seems like having a racially low strength is basically meaningless since your dex-based brawler can be evenly matched with the strength-based brawler of the high strength race.
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Frankly, I feel this was just my players getting better at the game with a higher degree of system mastery and we had more money. With increasing money we could buy splat books on a more regular basis than when we played 2e. I have routinely criticized 3E in the past for being an awful imbalanced system where casters completely ran away power wise, but then again when I played 2e nobody tried to optimize anywhere near as much and we didn't use even 1/4 of the number of additional books. My 2e players were pretty much PHB only.
I wonder if those rose colored glasses are really distorting my impression of the balance of those two systems.
I'd rather go with the fact that sometimes, through completely good actions and priorities, good people disagree strongly enough to resort to violence. Way more interesting.
That works too. Although I was more referring to a more neutral or chaotic party than pure evil. I mean, what good group hasn't landed themselves in jail with the need to escape...violently.
Agreed. Fairies are dicks.
Yeah, I thought the basic vibe of the first 4e books was that the Fair Folk, except for MAYBE the Eldarin and Gnomes, were dangerous to be around due to their mood swings and bizarre social filters. That's what made the Eldarin an interesting race for me; the chance to roleplay an alien cultural bias.
Now they're just straight Good aligned, no wiggle room? (Although I think there were a few "dark"/Unseelie faerie bad guys in the MM...)
And please don't let this lead into an alignment debate. The "Faeries and their weirdness" is a much better debate.
I've even seen a system where Clerics and Paladins have to side with Law and Wizards with Chaos. Makes a lot of sense, really, if you turn the Paladin's Detect/Smite into something that targets Chaotic things. Instant Witch Hunter.
Of course, this relies on there being enough conflict to be interesting without making it a complete nightmare to have a Wizard and Cleric in the same party.
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The other is to simply discourage such intraparty conflict in the first place. Religious apathy, or simply an understanding that the conflicts of other planes have only so much to do with what happens in the Material. Not every paladin/cleric need be "LAW RULES YOU. SUBMIT OR DIE" nor should every wizard/whatever be all "KAY-HOSS!!! OMFG BBQ GIANT FROG!"
Character conflict can be really fun but it's a tricky thing to work well.
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Guess what that poster thinks of 5e.
There are a few voices of reason in there, but entirely too many droolers.
Fucking kids these days. I remember when you were an "elf" and that was it, period.
....and we LIKED IT.
Not to be pants-on-head or anything, but that is kind of a logical conclusion to reach.
D&D has always had this weird dichotomy where martial fighters (be they Fighting Men, barbarians, thieves, a priest with a morningstar, or whatever) follow a nominally realistic, real-world combat milieu while, right beside them, dudes are flinging magical destruction around.
Provided that your non-magical combatants are limited to realistic-ish tactics and your magic users are not in any specific fashion curtailed then yes, anyone with non-physical powers is, at some point, going to be more powerful than anyone without them. The best d&d-setting fighter in the world can...what? Walk into a room full of dudes and beat them all up, eventually? Meanwhile the best d&d-setting magic user can incinerate the entire building in a matter of seconds.
It's a pretty shitty milieu to be a non-spellcaster in and any rulesystem that supports that mindset is going to, eventually, make casters more powerful. It's not a bug in the rules; it's a design failure in the concepts governing combat in the system.
So you have two options:
1) Make non-casters' combat moves more powerful to scale up with the casters' combat spells.
2) Limit the abilities of casters to make them no more capable than non-casters at kicking people's asses.
4E tried to do a little bit of both, simultaneously, which led to people simultaneously bitching about how the martial classes' powers were too outlandish and 'anime' or whatever adjective you'd like to select and bitching about how spellcasters were so stripped down. And both things were true.
You can't have a setting like pre-4E D&D implies, where fighters just bash on things with swords real-world-combat style and wizards fling the equivalent of RPG rounds with one hand while creating pocket universes with the other and end up with a balanced game. It's just not possible. So you either have to satisfy the Wizards Should Have Cosmic Power crowd and end up with melee combat that's more like Exalted than old-school D&D to let fighters keep pace with fireballs, or you have to satisfy the Combat Should Be As Close To What I Think The 15th Century Was Like As Possible crowd, in which case being a spellcaster is going to suck. As long as you try to please everybody by taking a position somewhere in the middle, 4E-style, you're going to have vocal crowds from the ends of the spectrum throwing a fit.
I understand the logic behind the conclusion, and that entire thought process is the whole problem. The worst part is that it's almost entirely a D&D-ism; the actual heroes in human stories throughout history are usually not the magic-users, though they are often "superhuman" in terms of feats of physical ability, or "superlucky" in the case of more Western roguish heroes.
On top of that, the problem is actually worse in 3E and 5E than it was in 4E OR old D&D. It was much easier to save against instant-lose spells pre-3E, for instance, especially as levels continued to climb. The game was by no means balanced, but the fighter-wizard disparity as we're familiar with it is more the creation of 3E than anything else. 2E fighters were boring, but they were effective and could adventure with a wizard just fine.
What it boils down to, though, is this: someone who advocates for making an entire set of player options valid both in the game's presentation and in theme to be substantially weaker than another set of options because "it just makes sense," in the context of a cooperative team game played for fun, is pants-on-head. This is someone who wants to infringe on the fun of other people because "it just makes sense" to them.
There are options. You can alter the theme behind warrior-based classes so that they can reach mythical heights themselves. You can aim for magic that feels magical without being godlike. You can design the game such that obstacles and challenges require cooperative input from players who actually are playing different game modes.
Or, you can choose to make certain themes and presented options objectively weaker, less deep, and thus usually less fun for most players who would otherwise have been interested in using those options.
Personally, I've no interest in tolerance for the latter viewpoint. It's instant pants-on-head status, every time.
I think it's perfectly valid to be put off with fighter powers that seem too magical.
That doesn't mean that:
1)Attacking with swords couldn't cause more crippling injuries and thus be *more* realistic.
2)Monsters/players have to have inflated hp totals that make SoD the only real option.
3)Ignoring the fact that spells being so powerful implies that much work would be done to make items to defend against them is fine.
4)Making magic more dangerous to it's practitioners isn't an option.
5)Magic users need magical feats to make their spells even better.
6)Combat feats need to have downsides, dual wielding must be punished, etc.
7)Number of spells available can't be strictly limited and/or mages couldn't be forced to specialize.
8)There is a reason that mages don't fail to cast their spells correctly more often
9)etc., etc.
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This is a silly false dichotomy that acts like fantasy settings either give magic unlimited power or barely any power at all. Many settings don't adhere to either of these paradigms, and work quite well. Whatever rules you establish for magic, internal consistency is what will save suspension of disbelief.
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If it's "realistic" within the game system for sword damage that kills a player at first level to be little more than "first blood" at, say, eigth, then why is it suddenly not "realistic" for that character's ability to deal damage to scale up similarly? Being okay with HP progression for fighters as they go up in levels, but not okay with power progresion, seems to me to be inconsistent and biased.
I want my tenth level fighter to be a wuxia kung-fu bad ass, who can knock crowds of mooks prone with just his battle cry. But maybe that's just me.
If you're going to be put off by fighters with magic-ish powers then you're pretty much stuck with either fighters not being as good as wizards or wizards being constrained to not have powers beyond what could be done by a non-spellcaster.
Anything that a realistic fighter could conceivably do, the type of wizard described in D&D could do better. If nothing else he could just summon up a construct or charm a fighter to do the fighting for him while he does something else.
If you decouple spellcasters and non-spellcasters in pre-4E D&D you really have two different games. A party of fighters, rangers, rogues, etc. would all be relatively balanced against one another and have their moments in the sun doing different things. A party of all wizards and clerics could go around blasting the shit out of things to their hearts content. There are certainly flaws in both games but they're not bad games. The problem arises from trying to jam them together.
You can turn wizards into something more akin to sorcerers, which is pretty much what 4E did, or you can make them fail at spellcasting all the time or similar, but any solution is going to leave you with a wizard that is pretty dissimilar to the wizards of pre-4E D&D.
#'s 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 on your list have been either optional rules or part of the core rules at various points in D&D's history (playing 1e AD&D by the book made it pretty freaking difficult to be a wizard with a shit ton of spells; it took a lot of money, a huge amount of time, and reasonably good luck to learn new spells as you went up in level). #'s 5 and 6 only apply to 3rd edition, which was a fairly horrible edition in terms of everything except the existence of the d20 mechanic, and to a lesser extent to 4th, but wizards weren't particularly overpowered there anyway.
All of these things have been tried, and the situation you end up in is either one where wizards are made completely useless by every enemy having huge spell resistance (thus leading to the ridiculous arms race in 3rd edition between spell-resistance and spell-resistance-resistance) or with wizards who are fundamentally dissimilar to OD&D - 3.5E D&D wizards. And I'm not saying that having dissimilar wizards is a problem; I'm all for an edition where old-school wizards are relegated to a purely NPC capacity and PC wizards are more akin, conceptually, to 3E sorcerers/4E wizards.
It's all just a matter of what assumptions you want to make. If your goal is a balanced game where every class is equally powerful then you can't have classes based on the philosophical assumptions of pre-4E D&D. If your goal is to have a world full of the kinds of spellcasters in pre-4E D&D and realistic non-caster combatants then you can't have a balanced game.
There are a few legacy bits that I would maintain:
d20 to resolve actions
Ability Scores (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha)
To Hit and Armor Class
Umm yeah, that's about it. Everything else (hit points, spells/powers, Saves/Defenses, etc.) can all be reworked.
Things I'd absolutely get rid of:
Racial Ability Score modifiers
Linear martial/Quadratic spellcasting
I think I'd keep hitpoints. There are plenty of systems out there that use Wounds or other methods. HP works reasonably well for high-fantasy heroic (IE: D&D) since you don't want your players frequently maimed or killed by a die roll. If you want that play WHFRP or MERP or Rollmaster.
Also 4th ed already nailed the linear martial vs quadratic spellcasting problem. Don't see that's a big issue anymore.
The problem isn't the power level of the magic, it's the combination of: the ubiquity of magic, the power level disparity with non-casters, and the fact that it's a game rather than a fixed narrative.
You can have a setting with wildly powerful wizards and not-very-powerful non-wizards and have it work out fine by making the wizards of the world not take a direct hand in the affairs of the non-wizards most of the time. See, for example, Tolkien.
You can have powerful magic and realistic non-magic fighting, but given magic to everyone important to the story, leaving them all on equal footing. See, for example, every Urban Fantasy novel.
You can have a setting with powerful magic held by a few but non-wizards who have equivalent 'martial' powers that go beyond anything actually physically possible, yet put them on-par with the wizards. See, for example, wuxia kung-fu movies.
In D&D not everyone has magic, so option 2 is out. Some of the PCs are wizards, so option 1 is out. And, for some reason, people are frequently violently opposed to #3.
Internal consistency doesn't matter to this discussion because we're aren't talking about creating a believable system of magic, we're talking about magic a system of magic that doesn't outshine the capability of non-spellcasters in a game.
Let's compare 3rd edition and 4th edition:
In 3rd edition, wizards have ultimate cosmic power and fighters have swords which they can swing with some degree of accuracy. There is no way to reconcile these into a balanced system.
In 4th edition we have non-casters who have abilities that frequently either push the edges of what's believably physical or just blow past them entirely. We also have casters who, while still powerful, are dramatically more limited in both the breadth of abilities and the power of individual abilities as compared to their 3rd edition equivalents. This system is, by broad agreement, balanced.
@RiemannLives I agree. I'd likely steal a lot from 4E to maintain that class balance. Also from the combat system.
4th edition really nailed damage and healing for me.
Edit: @Mikey_CTS ....I don't hate it. One thing that annoys me about 4e is just how important your primary attribute is, which de facto limits some class combos.
I, for one, wholeheartedly agree.
As for re-designing D&D from the ground up, I'd chuck Armor Class, too. I'd much rather see an opposed to-hit roll against a dodge roll, followed by armor acting to reduce damage. The heavier your armor, the less likely you are to dodge a blow but the less likely it is to hurt you. And then you can have the difficulty of hitting an opponent scale with the opponent's skill rather than with the cost of his equipment.
I'd like to see a D&D with asymmetric mechanics based on your role. Everybody gets something to do but those things aren't necessarily similar. Fighter types are good at fighting, so they get at-will abilities to select from every round in combat. Rogues are sneaky and tactical but not necessarily that tough, so they get some kind of dice/point pool to spend on abilities. Spellcasters fill in the gaps with a broad variety of abilities, but are limited by foresight and get only a handful of narrow abilities during any particular fight.
Also, while I like d20 resolution, I've always hated D&D's adherence to pass/fail mechanics. If I were to redesign it form the ground up there'd be a built-in assumption that almost all rolls will have graduated degrees of success and failure.
But why keep Save or Suck spells then?
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Given the bolded text and that he didn't mention them, why would you assume he'd keep them?
GreyScale took the approach of "forbidding bonuses" in essence when you built a character you applied bonuses to stats but two stats per race were forbidden. (Backwards way of saying apply to two of these 4 from 6)
Additionally class/attributes were suggested, but not set by the system. If you wanted a Dexterity based physical defender who minored in demoralizing witty banter... That's what you put together.
4ths Racial powers did a whole lot for me in establishing races as having a distinct identity that the player got to bring up once a fight if they wanted.
I'm on the fence about racial ability scores. If you give all races a bonus to one or two things (never penalties (NEVER PENALTIES)) it's not a big deal (assuming your ability scores are balanced) and conveys a lot. (An aside, while you guys are talking about it, I like what 13th Age does --- pick one of two bonuses from your race, and one of two bonuses from your class (provided it isn't what you picked for your race).) On the other hand, they feel kind of vestigial. I would definitely have each race do a cool thing, though.
I'd definitely keep 4e's ubiquitous healing. From a conceptual level, I'd keep the idea of a tight system language that is used to describe everything. And I'd keep power blocks or something else to divorce mechanics from flavor. I'd keep the concept of steady mathematical improvement as levels increase. I'd keep the 4e tiers (and I'd actually support epic (hell, I personally would probably focus on epic)). Relatedly, I'd keep prestige classes out, but I'm not sure if I would necessarily keep the progression of class (heroic)/PP (paragon)/ED (epic) choices --- I do like them, however.
I'd keep the standard/move/minor/free action economy. I'd keep opportunity attacks and immediate actions but reign in the number of options.
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This and also just because its familiar doesn't mean its good for the game. I'll side with good design over sacred cows every time. However, no need to take them to the slaughter house if you don't have to. The more I think about the more I like Devout's idea - +2 to race stat and +2 to primary class ability. However, this can cause problems when the race and class ability align. There would have to be a caveat that if they align instead assign the class +2 to any other ability score. I think its better to avoid this sort of situation entire, but this is less offensive than most.
I agree, and I love the concept, even if the execution was just a bit flawed. (in keeping with usual 4e math--miles ahead of previous editions and many other games, yet still never quite right)
The "Rare" once a tier awesome items for everybody and Dark Sun static bonuses for the rest of the magic item crap.
I'd be willing to countenance a subsystem to replace the whole Dark Sun thing if I wanted to.
I've always disliked the idea of racial stat modifiers on the basis that stats are so tightly coupled to classes. Sure it makes sense that elves are more dexterous and half-giants are stronger, but in game terms that means that elves are more likely to be rogues and half-giants are more likely to be fighters. I'd be much more in favor of bonuses that aren't directly tied to any class ability; stuff like keen senses, natural weapons/armor, racial resistances to things... I'd rather not be penalized right out of the gate for wanting to be a dwarven thief instead of a gnome thief, or a half-giant bard instead of an elven one.
I think you missed the entire last paragraph. Attributes were effectively de-linked from class.
No, I saw it. It's just a different concept than racial bonuses. And one I don't particularly like.
I guess if everything you do is a class ability then you can swap out attributes however you want, but so long as hitting things is based on strength and/or dexterity you're going to be penalized to play any class based on hitting stuff with a primary attribute that isn't strength or dexterity.
Edit:
Also: What's even the point of racial stat bonuses if you get to pick which stats to use for what? Are there stat-linked skills or something? Otherwise it seems like having a racially low strength is basically meaningless since your dex-based brawler can be evenly matched with the strength-based brawler of the high strength race.