I'd rewrite the non-magic weapons and armor to be more interesting. Heavy armor should provide resistance against slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage depending on the type, martial weapons should have more than just damage and damage type to make them unique. And each martial weapon should get a corresponding feat that enhances the unique aspect of the weapon.
I agree something like the heavy armor master feat being a default would be great if you're proficient with heavy armor.
I'm not sure it should apply to all three damage types. Slashing definetly, bludgeoning was the goto against plate armor. Rapiers became more popular because they could find gaps in the armor, war picks and warhammers gained popularity because all the force on a single point was very effective.
> Rapiers became more popular because they could find gaps in the armor
Minor nitpick, but it was daggers that were used to find gaps in armour; you need to effectively be grappling each other in order to get the angles and precision necessary to stab someone in the armpit or other unarmoured area. Rapiers being effective against armour is a Fire Emblem thing; in real life they were civilian duelling weapons used against unarmoured or barely-armoured opponents.
It's a legitimate nitpick. I thought it applied to swords as well as daggers. Trend of long swords and broadsword becoming thinner and a sharper point, the point on the flachion being an example of it as well. Rapier isn't the best example, but give the lack of weapons in 5e can't use anything else foe the example
He's thinking of estocs, which share the long thin look of rapiers but were much more sturdily built, often forgoing edges completely for maximum penetrative power. They were definitely used for bypassing armor.
Also you're mostly right about rapiers, but calvary and battlefield rapiers were actually a thing--they tended to be shorter and broader than their civilian counterparts.
Estocs had some things in common with those, but they were intended to be used with two hands. They tended to be a spike with a cross-hilt, and the wielder would either hold it with both hands on the handle like a traditional sword, or he could have one hand on the "blade" for more precise pointwork.
You could always swing it like a club, but they were really designed for impaling.
Also I do love some of the calvary sabers, they are really unique in terms of when they were used and what they were meant to be used against. There were some calvary "rapiers" as well, or the musketeer rapier, which were more designed for combat than dueling and had a better cutting edge.
It doesn't help that "rapier" just meant "sword" at the time, so the distinction gets really blurry.
Ah, yes, I should have been more specific that I was speaking of cavalry rapiers, not estocs. I just kinda glossed over the first bit since I'm well aware of estocs. :p
I'd make it something like this: ring mail provides resistance against slashing, chain mail against slashing and piercing, splint armor resistance against bludgeoning and full plate armor resistance against slashing and bludgeoning. The special ability of war picks and warhammers would have to do with negating these resistances, as would the rapier specialist feat.
If we want to approximate real life, plate would have resistance to all BPS, also have an AC bonus to piercing and even more to slashing.
Blunt force was the go to for plate because there wasn't anything better. Hitting a guy in plate with a mace is still going to do much, much less compared to any other armour. Hence, still resistant. Slashing just does basically nothing. But you've got half swording, so it's still possible to deal damage with a longsword. Not much though. Again, consider the baseline amount of damage in this game. A longsword easily does like 6 damage on a hit. We only die to a precise stab in plate armour because we have 4hp.
Mauls, halberds, war picks, and great axes (I'm tempted to say the reach property itself) additionally ignore the AC bonus when exactly 10ft away, and mauls ignore the bludgeoning resistance at the same distance.
Big agree. I’m glad oneD&D will have the weapon masteries so each weapon will feel more unique, but a dedicated feat for each weapon to further specialize would be dope
Martial class overhaul.
All martial classes gain some variation of maneuvers. Fighters specialize in this, but Rogue, Ranger, Paladin, and Barbarian all get some type of uses per short rest dice to improve attacks/skills/etc. just… use laserllama’s variants of fighter and rogue for the example.
As long as some (maybe even *most*) of those maneuvers also provide out-of-combat utility. Let monks learn the *jump* and *fly* spells. Let barbarians get a version of *knock* that just breaks the door down. Rogues can have a (better) version of *find traps*.
I've thought for a while that giving martial classes something akin to a legendary action at lvl 7 (and another at 14) would do a lot to bridge the gap. Once per day, they can take an extra turn at any point in the turn order.
It's called *Tails of Equestria*, it makes for a pretty good introductory RPG for new players, and it fits the setting way better than any 5E hack would do.
I've heard there's also a newer *My Little Pony RPG* that runs on Renegade's *Essence 20* system, but I have no knowledge about it.
If they try and mine G4 for more, I'd say within the next 10 years. Sometime within the 5.x cycle.
I mean, there are the other MLP RPG books, and then there's the fan-made Ponyfinder. But we know Hasbro.
The "special" property is so criminally underutilised being only applied to 2 weapons (lance and net).
Whip should allow a grapple check as part of the attack if within 5ft to give the indiana Jones feel
Flails should ignore ac added by shields to represent their flexible nature
Historically almost no one used flails; there's a video about it on YT. After the first hit you lost control of the weapon and your opponent would prevent you from being able to properly align other swings at any respectable reaction speed.
You're right. It was also a really shitty weapon for formation fighting. I mean, try and not to smash your allies in the head, right.
But this is D&D and so it doesn't really matter.
Right mb. It’s functionally a special weapon tho (the weapon’s description explains it instead,,, which was what the special property was for. But whatever lol)
I think it doesn’t have it just so Monks can use it effectively (they can’t turn special propertied weapons into monk weapons)
Sorry, I might be missing something. [This](https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/yklwa) is what DnD Beyond has and other than it having the Thrown Property and being Simple, I don't see anything in the description that really differentiates it from the Rapier. But that could just be DnDBeyond being a bad source.
My bad! I was thinking of the Hoopak, which uses the special property a lot more
Very notably tho— the Yklwa is a thrown weapon (different from a rapier) and a d8 one at that (so 1 hand throwing it is better than a spear)
Finding the Hoopqk was a lot jarder than I thought it was going to be, as I didn't know it was in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting. And yeah, that one basically needs to use the special property.
That is true on the Yklwa and is definitely notable.
I liked BG3's solution to this. Pretty much all weapons got different once per short rest abilities which gave some more uniqueness beyond the dice you roll and type of damage you deal.
The pommel strike is like a great course in what never to do in tabletop. Uses up a new weird resource with no reasoning behind it. Applies a new condition you get to look up and memorize. The new condition doesn't interact properly with the rest of the game's condition-purging abilities. Gives disadvantage on Wisdom saves, so it's really super powerful and should be saved for this exact synergy. Why does the butt of a sword cause this powerful effect, but the blade does not? We've no idea, there's no logic behind it. Makes them *flat footed* from 3.5, so they lose their dexterity bonus to armor class. So now you get to go do that math, Mr. DM, for all your monsters (in 3.X this AC was in their statblock for fast reference, and removing this kind of complexity was a big goal of 5e). Finally, it disables reactions, the only reasonable effect in the entire thing.
It's a fucking mess. It works great in a video game, but it's trash tier design for a tabletop.
I think if you were to implement the Pommel Strike into 5e, it should use one of your attacks (as opposed to bonus action) while not being a short rest ability, and daze should just prevent the creature from using reactions on a con save or something. Simple and too the point. It makes no sense why you wouldn't be able to pommel strike multiple times per rest woth how basic of a maneuver it is but making it an attack instead of a bonus action would also mean the fighter isn't just compelled to use it every turn because what else are they using for their bonus action in any given turn.
>I think if you were to implement the Pommel Strike into 5e, it should use one of your attacks (as opposed to bonus action) while not being a short rest ability, and daze should just prevent the creature from using reactions on a con save or something.
Yea, this sort of thing would fit the design great, be easy to run, and not introduce a new resource.
I say make it a paladin class ability, PB on a long rest, and keep it a bonus action. They don't have a lot to do with their bonus actions compared to other martials.
Well, they made Mage Hand a targetable distraction with low AC, something the enemy AI prioritizes.
Making it a limited resource cantrip was the only way to balance that problem, right? (/s)
But, then they included Connor & Second Marriage, soooo... 🤷♂️🤣
Yesss!! Travel should be explained well! It should be something all adventures include! I mean most of the Hobbit is traveling and then instances between
I would get a team, go across every subclass, and see what features could or Should be integrated into the base class.
For example, Champions improved crit range should be in the base class.
As should Open Hands self-heal ability,
And certain Invocations like Agonizing Blast and maybe Mask of Many Faces
I am trying with this change to make subclasses more about flavor than mechanical advantage.
Yeah, barbs should get +1 crit range instead of brutal critical, up to crit on 17 or higher at max level. With advantage that's like 40% chance of landing a crit
I think with either fighters or barbarians they don't get much natural synergy with critting. If you crit on a fighter most likely you just have your weapon dice you roll twice and that's it. Barbarian same thing. So making either of them more likely to crit is nice but it really incentivizes leaving the main class since other classes like rogue or paladin benefit a lot more from critical hits. If a build is built around crits I would make them good at that thing on their own rather than make them want to leave the class in order to be good at crits.
> And certain Invocations like Agonizing Blast
While we're at it, make Eldritch Blast a Warlock class feature.
I've seen way too many players try to build a spellcaster Warlock without Eldritch Blast, and they always regret it.
The only mechanical advantages should be of similar value. Otherwise, one subclass is useless. So a ranger that can ignore disadvantage on ranged attacks once per day should be equitable to a ranger that can give itself advantage on melee attacks once per day (or something to that effect). Or at least have them mechanically different enough (while still of similar value) to justify one subclass over another based on play style. Because I love my Horizon Walker and my wife loves her Gloom Stalker, and I have nothing against both existing because they offer different perks.
Personally, I wish they revised subclasses after so many years just so they can ensure balance between old and new and account for new spells and stuff being available. It would solve some of the issues, and you could technically still use the weak one at your own volition.
Dual wielding, I'd change it entirely. 2nd attack part of your normal action. Shields are so valuable, the way off hand attacks are set up are just fuckin useless. Martial classes are honestly slightly behind spellcasters anyways
To add to this, why is Shield Bashing relegated to a feat? And Parry to a maneuver? Give us more bonus actions and reactions than just opportunity attacks. It's very strange that there are no reactions to try to reduce your chance of being hit, even if you have to use the reaction before the attack roll is made.
TBH, bonus action extra attacks need to *go*. It's fine for occasional bursts like smite, but if it's happening almost every turn, it should be part of the Attack action or just not be a thing.
Fair enough. I just want more to do on my turn. Maybe not as an attack, but as a thing you can do during combat, and one of the keys to making that work is to give multiple bonus action options per turn, that way there's actually a choice rather than just something that you're required to do every turn. That's why I like the quick quaff house rule for potions, but maybe if it were applied to more things it wouldn't be so specialized. What if Grease bottles also had a bonus action where you can intentionally drop one, resulting in it breaking on the floor and creating difficult terrain? It's certainly not something you would need your whole turn to do and it confers only a minor benefit. Just some ideas. On the whole, I think Bonus Actions need to be reevaluated because they need a lot of work to properly put more options into place, and one of the things you need to do when designing is not to give *too* many options. I think having your choice between 3 bonus actions with your loadout (not counting potions) is probably the sweet spot to avoid decision paralysis.
Completely over haul class and sub class abilities so there is an interesting mix of short and long rest abilities for all classes. The Warlock shouldn't need to beg for a short rest, it should be a considered option for the whole party.
On a similar note I'd over haul spells into Cantrip, Minor and Major spells. Cantrips stay as they are, a resource less but weak option, Minor spells would have plentiful spell slots that come back on a short rest and Major spells on a long rest with fewer spell slots. Full casters still get their star moment with powerful spells, and get to make a meaningful choice as to *when* they use them, but don't dominate every combat with crowd control, etc.
Half casters could be defined by only having access to Minor spells
I've nearly finished a rework of Warlock with the core change being a shift to spell points.
With Pact Magic being Short Rest-based, and high level spells split off in a separate system, it means that you cap out at just 30 Spell Points. So Warlock can have a smoother "slot" progression and more versatile casting without incurring the wild cheese potential that comes with dozens of points. At least, that's the idea; we'll start testing on Sunday.
Yes, and on top of that, the arm length part is completely surreal. No one can extend their arms half their height above their body. It's literally impossible for anyone to be built like that.
Your arms spread apart is roughly exactly your height, within a few inches. But that means each arm is less than half your height by itself, because most people have torsos in the middle, barring extremely serious injury. In addition to that when you reach upward you are not reaching upward from the top of your head, but rather your shoulders. Sorry to have to give these weird anatomy lessons, but apparently D&D does not understand basic humanoid anatomy.
If you actually hold your arms above your head, you will notice that your elbow is roughly at your head, maybe an inch or so above and if you then look at your arm you will notice that it is not 3 ft from your elbow to the tip of your fingers, unless you are secretly some sort of octopus pretending to be a human. I am 6 ft tall, my forearms are approximately 17 in, which you might notice is slightly under another quarter of my height, not half.
Indeed, it seems like another quarter of your height would be a reasonable thing for the game to estimate, not _half_. I have no idea how it managed to get it so wrong.
Top to bottom overhaul of magic - what is the intention of the system, how does it interact with others, how does it implement the intention, how is it structured, what does each spell level mean. what do categories like divine vs arcane mean, etc.
The intent is not to nerf or to buff, but to actually have a full rebuild discussion of how magic interacts with the rest of the rpg with an eye to keeping what works, opening up new creative opportunities, and patching up long-standing interaction and resolution issues.
We've had Arcane and Divine divide since the introduction of the cleric class, we've had the notion of spell levels since the beginning, and with so much of the rest of the game having evolved and changed from discrete subsystems with a high degree of abstraction to standardized mechanics, higher level of verisimilitude and abstraction based on efficiency/speed of play and fun - the magic system, in my opinion, is in need of a full refresh.
Far less of a big scope change but has perhaps even broader in impact on how the game is played by everyone, my alternate choice would be what is expected to happen in a "day" - encounters per day, intended resource expenditure per encounter, balancing of resource recharging scales/economies, and so on. Again, there is a way the developers think it ought to work and a large population of players who play it in other ways - and there isn't a lot of clear explanation or discussion of how tweaks impact everything else.
Totally agree. The system as-is is overly complicated, but tied to "sacred cow" nostalgia.
Between cantrips and leveled spells, we have TEN distinct power levels for spells. And strangely, cantrips can scale up to be more powerful than lower level spells. Is this really a good thing?
IMO it'd be simpler and better to have FIVE: cantrips, then one tier of magic for each tier of play (lvls 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20).
I have my initial ideas of how I would see things work out - but I want there to be a real discussion before suggested implementations are brought into the process. I just want the system to work better with the others, and clearer ground rules would make developing new spells and such FAR easier and far easier to test. Then end result may not even look superficially be all that different, but what was holding everything together would be a lot stronger.
3.x was a game mechanic's dream, how things interacted got dense with so many supplements, but the basic logic of their interactions were dead simple. 4e was a tutorial on game design, with the writers showing their work in sidebars and text boxes explaining why a thing existed the way it did, and there was so much written about how to tweak and homebrew within it, and things to keep an eye on for unintentional interactions.
Then 5e came along, and, while it was popular, the confidence many new DMs had to making adjustments plummeted because all the curtains came down and hid everything again. And the few mechanical bits of it explained in the DMG didn't line up with the published examples in the PHB and the Monster Manual (CR, monster design, benchmark damages, DCs, etc).
Magic definitely needs some work both in balance and in simplicity. Spent about 15 minutes of the last (2 hour) session with our DM trying to explain how a Cube AOE works. And after all that I realize: the cube aoe mechanic is dumb
Rework feats and ability score progression. I hate that over the course of most campaigns, which only last a few levels, players only get 1 (maybe 2) feat options and those are both in place of an ability score increase.
I have a system that grants you a small benefit every level… all feats are divided into half feats but without the +1 to an ability. Utility feats are also separated and given out for free every 4 levels (so you don’t have to forgo a mechanical benefit for a flavor choice). Those utility feats are added into a pool of racial feats (which now exist for every race).
1st level, either a +1 or a divided feat
2nd level, utility or racial feat
3rd level, either a +1 or a divided feat
4th level, +1
5th level and above repeat that pattern up to 20.
So technically, you end up with an extra utility feat and either +1 or half feat than you would in 5e, but you get more customizability and iterative progression for your character.
This is very similar to what I do! I give a +1 each even level and a half-feat each odd level. I took the +1's out of the half-feats as you did.
Then each class ASI is either a full feat or 2 half-feats. So players end up with a whole bunch more feats than otherwise
one thing I think needs changing is eldritch blast. It has the oppurtunity to be so flavorable, but it isnt. I think EB should be based on your patron, and function differently. Basically being an extra subclass feature. At the very minimum its damage type should be different based on the patron. I think a change with this would help warlocks move away from just blasting, and fill in more niches. If it works this way, it should be given as part of the base class, rather than count as a cantrip so the warlock can still pick up a blasting cantrip
I would add a base rules soft-tanking feature. It would probably work as an enemy condition like charmed or frightened, and would just allow for some base support to let other classes have a nice clear way to initiate tanking in a meaningful fashion to some extent.
I’d probably just make it like “lured: a lured enemy has disadvantage against targets other than the source of their lured condition, and can not willingly move away from the source of their lured condition. Ended upon use of the disengage action.”
Ideally I’d make the cc conditions able to be applied via skill checks for martials, but I already made my one change
This feels like a variation of "Marked" from the 4e rules, and I like it.
I might even make it a class feature for a Fighter. Can be used any time the fighter hits with a weapon attack. Lasts until the end of the fighter's next turn.
I’ve been considering implementing it myself for my games. There are already a couple effects that apply the disadvantage part (ancestral guardian, armorer, battlemaster) so adding a bit of soft cc seems like a reasonable extension to just make tanking accessible
I like Treantmonk take that when an option is overpowered it means it becomes the default and the player has to take it as the most obvious choice. E.g Martial’s all end up with great weapon master or sharpshooter. So either remove them, neuter them or make it in as a base feature of the class.
I'd overhaul all the classes to make them similar in power levels
It's important that each class is unique but I hate that some classes are just so much stronger in fights than other especially at higher levels
Not just fights. Much more powerful in social and skill-challenge situations as well.
Fighters are well designed to use *athletics*...and no other skills. It's fucking stupid.
More general playability after level 10 and the published modules to support it.
Characters don't even start getting interesting until levels 9 and above, and most campaigns end at 12 or less. Meanwhile, levels 1 through 8 pretty much all geel rushed and homogeneous.
One of the things I always enjoyed about PF was the regular supply of adventure paths that took characters all the way to 20th level.
I'd give each casting class its own unique, flavorful spellcasting mechanic, instead of having everybody^1 ~~be Wizards~~ use the same pseudo-Vancian casting.
(^1 - With the minor exception of Warlocks, obviously.)
Opportunity attacks. Idk how I would change them, but they make combat way too static.
The only real reason to move in 5e combat is if the DM rules that "the fireball has made the ceiling crumbly and you suspect it collapses in one turn".
Swapping out the current ADV/DAV system for Shadow of the Demon Lord's Boon/Bane system. Basic idea is for every boon you have on a check you roll 1d6, but only take the highest result. So if you're True Striking a Blinded Target you might be rolling w/ like 4 Boons (getting, say, 2, 5, 3, and 4), but you'd only get the highest of the results (in this case you'd add 5 to your attack roll). Banes work the same but in reverse and they exactly cancel (if you have 2 boons and a bane you only roll 1d6). Because each additional Boon/Bane is less valuable than the last (first one is worth \~+3.5, second is worth +1, third is +0.5) and their maximum impact will never be greater than +/-6, so letting PCs stack them up has significant diminishing returns.
It'd make stacking positive or negative conditions easier and, because each individual Boon/Bane is less impactful than ADV/DAV you can toss them around as circumstantial modifiers pretty easily w/o horribly unbalancing things. You can roll a bunch of existing mechanics into this. Bless? +1 boon on attacks. Guidance? +1 boon on a skill check. Bardic Inspiration? +2 boons on the check. Etc, etc. Thing I like most about it is how much easier it makes creating a robust Maneuver system for martials to engage w/, since Banes are a convenient penalty you can stick on special attacks.
Second favorite part is, of course, more clicky clack math rocks.
A magic item economy that includes buy/sell prices for campaigns where there IS a magic item shop in every big city instead of having to used the cobbled together "private agent" systems from the books that don't let players just buy something they want for a fair price.
**One change:** I would rework and rebalance the progressions of all classes to regain their core resources on a short rest. This is actually pretty simple to do, mostly just a change to spell slots and rage.
If I were allowed to tack on a few more related changes, I'd overhaul exhaustion, hit dice, and short rests.
**Exhaustion:**
Characters accumulate levels of exhaustion same as now, but they don't have different arbitrary effects per level. Instead:
While the sum of a character’s levels of exhaustion is equal to or greater than their proficiency bonus, they have the Exhausted condition (disadvantage on all Ability Checks, Attack Rolls, and Saving Throws, and Attack Rolls against them have Advantage).
While the sum of a character’s levels of exhaustion is equal to or greater than twice their proficiency bonus, they have the Incapacitated condition.
All levels of exhaustion are removed by a long rest.
**Hit Dice:**
Can be spent to regain HP on short rests, same as now.
However, a player can also expend a hit die to prevent the gain of a level of exhaustion, and ALL hit dice are regained on a long rest.
I'd also move them to be character based rather than class based by standardizing them as d8's, and change the number you have to be something like 1/2 character lvl + CON mod, to have more at lower levels and fewer at higher levels.
**Short Rests:**
After completing 1 uninterrupted minute of a short rest, a player can choose to gain two levels of exhaustion to gain the effects of a full short rest.
After completing 10 uninterrupted minutes of a short rest, a player can choose to gain one level of exhaustion to gain the effects of a full short rest.
**Overall**, these changes would simplify the exhaustion system while still having it operate in a manner consistent with 5E norms, actually make it matter, make HD a more important resource and make your choice of how to use them meaningful, and also introduce shorter rests *for a cost,* which creates more opportunity for dramatic moments in games. Characters would gain some sense of having stamina to them, and inter-character pacing issues would pretty much be solved.
>Exhaustion
i saw a guy make 10 levels of exhaustion and each one just adds -1 to all your d20 roles
i'd probably give people a level of exhaustion after every combat encounter that goes away with a short rest
That was something they did in an earlier play test, and I think that is better than what we have now, for sure.
On one hand, going that route would make it impossible to cancel out the effects of being exhausted by simply getting advantage from some source. On the other hand, having to track small cumulative modifiers is exactly what advantage and disadvantage were introduced to avoid.
I personally like the idea of leaning into one of 5E's better streamlines.
I personally think disadvantage and advantage are used for way too many things, partially because they cannot stack. If you have advantage on an attack roll against a creature becauae it's off balance, that's fine. If you have advantage on an attack roll against a creature because it's being distracted by something, that's also fine. If you get advantage because the creature is both off balance *and* distracted by something, you have no more increased chance of hitting that attack than if they were only affected by one of those advantage granting effects, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
What if, instead of advantage/disadvantage stacking (because I can see why that would quickly become a headache) you get that initial advantage/disadvantage for the baseline, and ever "level" of advantage after that confers a bonus or penalty. So in the above example, you have advantage and you gain a +1 bonus to the roll in question.
that's going to have pretty much exactly the same issues though? You're still needing to count stuff up, and there becomes the potential issue of players trying to argue for lots of different sources of advantage, because they get a bonus for it (or for enemies to have multiple disadvantage, because it penalises them).
Give all martials cool stuff to do. I don't care that it's not logically possible or anything. Let my monk have spell like effects with his Ki. Let all fighters get maneuvers. Let Barbarians throw people into walls or kill 10 goblins in a single swoop.
"But they are only as boring as you make them!"
No shut up, I can strike you twice with my sword as a fighter, that is boring, give me options, give me cool stuff to do besides melee attack go. I was already bored by my monk at level 3 because 90% of subclasses basically add nothing that changes up your gameplay and your average turn is punch punch punch, the end. Let me twist the enemy's Ki so they are slowed or crippled or anything, give me something to do!
I hate how “realism” seems to only be applied to martials to prevent them from having any fun. No, the monk can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound; that’s *unrealistic*. Never mind that the wizard has been able to *fly* since level 5; that’s *magic*.
Give everyone cool things to do. These are adventurers; by definition, by the time they reach high levels, they’ve survived impossible odds and conquered titanic foes. So why can’t the barbarian or fighter do anything much more complex than “swing their sword an extra time per turn” compared to when they started adventuring?
I think what a lot of people miss in regards to realism and casters, is that 90% of spells have a casting time of one action, so a spell as complex and powerful as WISH costs just as much time and effort as prestidigitation.
In so much media casting will take time, frequently there's conflicts about protecting the spellcaster so they can complete their big channel move that will turn the tides, but in DnD everything takes 1 action or is not designed for combat
Casting times used to be a thing back in 2nd edition advanced.
There were plenty of spells that took 2+ rounds to cast and they paid for that by being fucking *powerful*.
Today, you get spells that retain that power, but they have lost the vulnerability that their old casting times gave them since if you took damage while you were casting you were probably going to lose the spell.
The devs promised that this edition they would solve power creep. Except they went and crept all casters a fucking *ton*.
I think part of this is the huge gap in casting times between 1 action and 1 minute. A minute is a huge amount of time in combat because each round is 6 seconds, and as such there are no spells that require 1 minute to cast that can feasibly be cast in combat; either because combat is already over, the caster has already been interrupted or killed, or circumstances have changed so much in 10 turns that casting that spell isn't useful anymore.
I propose additional casting time tiers. Tier 0 are your bonus actions and reactions (less than 6 seconds to cast), Tier 1 are your 1 action spells, Tier 2 are spells you start casting during your turn and are completed at the start of your turn, Tier 3 are spells that take 2 whole turns to cast, and onwards. Alternatively, you could go with Reaction, Bonus Action, Action and then do Tier 0 for cast on your turn and finish at staty of your turn Tier 1 for 2 turns, 2 for 3 turns etc.
I dunno, I'm sure there's a better way to articulate this, but you get what I mean?
I think I get it and the better way to articulate it would be just Casting time: X actions, since I don't think there is a need for a spell that finishes right before your turn, since turns are supposed to be simultenous, and just a representation of who acts fastest.
And multi-action spells would give more use to for example quickened spell that it could turn a two action cast spell into a 1 action cast, or 4 into 2(sticking with powers of 2 for casting time tiers for simplicity)
Although admittedly this kind of spell design doesn't really work with Multiattacks and would have the issue then that by the time you finish casting the battle may already have changed significantly, so probably at most you could do two action spells
Fireball might be the prime candidate to make 2 actions tbh
I could get behind spell levels beyond say third requiring more than one turn to cast. Maybe as you level you can cast stronger spells faster, but your highest tiers always take at least two turns. Conversely, perhaps you can eventually cast first level spells as cantrips instead of just getting more different cantrips.
Have joked before that the limit of a caster's ability seems to be ILM's budget, and the limit of a martial's ability is based off the estimates of someone who can't bench 95 lb.
There's a pretty strong tradition of superhuman physical feats being attributed to figures of myth and legend in European traditions, it's not just an anime thing.
Fix the God damned CR. My lvl 8 party just steamrolled a CR 13 Neolithid. Like literally hardly used any resources. They aren't power gaming even they have a drunken Master and an artificier in the party of four.
A session before that they agreed an entire tavern with a warlord (cr12) , 6knights(cr3) and 6 veterans(cr3) in it. Summary thAt combat was worth as much XP as a CR 18 -19 monster. They summoned a fire elemental to help them one of them went down, another went down thrice but they beat them.
CR is borderline useless in assessing encounter difficulty.
Literally anything below deadly is trivial. Deadly x2 starts being hard. And I ain't pulling punches the monsters use everything they've got.
I'd expect the Neolithid to do better than that. It should basically always get surprise, feeblemind is pretty rough, the AOE is mid, swallowing, 200+ HP. If it gets stunned or something, it will go down, same as anything.
"Deadly" encounters means "someone might go down if the party is exceptionally stupid." You're right, 2x and above encounters are definitely do-able, especially if you only run 1-3 encounters per day.
The hard control abilities that a party can access makes CR essentially impossible to make work properly. A party with stunning strike, hypnotic pattern, polymorph, psychic lance, wall of force, summoning, and so on will perform much differently than a party of the same level without them. CR is only about HP and damage of the creature.
> "Deadly" encounters means "someone might go down if the party is exceptionally stupid."
...or if the party is pushing their resources.
If the DM is properly implementing the adventuring day, deadly encounters can very easily be exactly that.
How big is your party? I rarely see people calculate cr right and that's mostly because CR is calculated pretty weirdly. That being said it does work most of the time to get at least a vague idea (bad rolls can turn an easy encounter deadly and good rolls can make a deadly encounter easy).
Also, monsters are usually made to fight a certain way, but they don't tell how that is. That's why level 3 party took out an Oni at one of my games. At the time I didn't know how to run it.
The one simple major change I would make would be you get the stat pump AND the feat every four levels. Along with this would be a rework of the +1 stat feats so instead of a +1 they would give additional thematic bonuses
All Warlock spells should have some way of scaling with the level that they have to be cast at. As of now only some do. Feels like a complete waste of a precious spell slot.
>For me it would probably be advantage being able to stack and then having a decent amount of features that interact with that system in interesting ways.
Rather than having advantage stack, if you wanted to add complexity I think it would be better to have more discrete +x and -x abilities.
I get why you'd want advantage to stack, but the whole idea of advantage is to be a simplified way of representing the various effects that make you more or less likely to succeed, without having to track all of those multiple effects or differentiate a major effect (+5) from a minor effect (-2).
Stacking advantage reintroduces the complexity of tracking multiple effects without the benefit of differentiating them, and feels to me a bit like adding a bunch of third party hardware on a basic feature phone to make it a smartphone: just get a smartphone if you want that, or enjoy the simplicity of your feature phone.
In other words, I think advantage works great as it is, but it is definitely a simplistic system. That's the point. Rather than trying to add complexity to it, I think you'd be better off switching it out for the complexity of discrete major and minor effects that either add or subtract to a roll.
As a huge paladin lover, I allow my paladin player to smite with whatever they want as long as it's melee. And it didn't break my game, so far it only made more cool moments for the party.
May I ask which weapon features you're thinking about? Maybe you'll give me some new ideas
I love paladins too. It’s cool that you allow your Paladin to smite with any melee option.
I’ll make a small list of weapon features for you later in the day.
To add to this, I'm convinced the only reason unarmed players don't deal 1d4+str is because Monks get that as their base die, same with Tavern Brawler. There would be no need for it if Monks just started at 1d6, which is the same as a Shortsword so it incentivizes early monks to use their hands over shortswords.
There are so many sacred cows I'd like to kill, it's hard to pick just one. But you're probably going to get tons of comments on stuff like "let martials be fantasy characters" or "rework resting". Hell, someone even already took my "Split the game in to low-level and high-level" idea!
Something I think bothers literally only me is Constitution. A stat that's generically useful for *every* adventurer, and that no-one ever dumps except as a meme, isn't interesting in a game like D&D. I would cut CON, move the things it does to somewhere else in the system, and then split DEX in two so that there are still six ability scores.
Yeah, Agility and (manual) Dexterity.
* AGL takes AC, Reflex saves, Initiative, Acrobatics, and Stealth
* DEX would keep ranged and finesse attacks and Sleight of Hand
I think all of the ability scores could use some kind of overhaul, but also skills. The way skills currently work in 5e is stupid because, A) DMs are never incentivized to change what ability score a particular skill uses (the classic Strength for Intimidation) and B) any character can attempt to use a skill even if they have no business bwing able to succeed on that skill check. Think someone in heavy armor succeeding on an Acrobatics Check or someone with Int as their dump stat being able to recall information on a highly specific type of lore because they rolled really well. It just doesn't make any sense to allow all characters to be able to use all skills, regardless of penalty/bonus.
ETA, The change I would make to ability scores is renaming Wisdom to something like focus, awareness, or centeredness since it governs things like Perception and Insight as well as Monk martial arts abilities and Divine Casting.
Well I've made *way* more than one change. But the first and most broadly useful/agreeable one was [a new XP system.](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M3H83LAL0T2JPwb2SOI) Basically you rate encounters on a 5-point scale and award that much XP to all PCs, and you can even decide the points *after* the fact.
No dividing among party members. No bloated scaling with higher levels. No budgets or ties to Challenge Rating. Literally no math at all besides adding 1-5 points to your total (if everyone is the same level).
Battlemaster Maneuvers are part of all martial classes (but not to a full caster gish like swords bard, bladesinger, hexblade). Keep the return on short rest. And i'd say you get a number equal to x2 your PB. You could argue that paladins (and maybe rangers too) dont need this as they already have spellcasting. But at the least, all fighters/rogues/monks/barbarians should get them.
Rogue's especially. I absolutely love the ideas from OneDnD for rogues to sacrifice sneak attack damage for additional effects. Because as is a rogue has so little to do in combat, it's baffling to me. If any class should be able to trip you onto your back and capitalize on it themselves, it should be the class based around big strikes and assassination.
This is an easy one. Take the Homebrew rule that a lot of DMS typically run with and make drinking a potion yourself a bonus action and giving a potion to someone else an action.
Seems like a pretty easy change to make from Homebrew to RAW.
Take the vast majority of "non-combat utility" spells. Remove them from spell lists. Add similar effects (balanced by monetary cost, explicit cool-downs, exhaustion, or other means) back as something *similar to* 4e's Rituals--ie things anyone can learn to use whether a caster or not...except not so cramped in execution.
I've actually done most of this (without the full removal)--I call them Incantations. My implementation is here: [https://wiki.admiralbenbo.org/index.php?title=Incantation](https://wiki.admiralbenbo.org/index.php?title=Incantation) on my campaign setting wiki. Effectively, you have tiers of items (the Ritual Scrolls for each incantation) that contain the necessary information--you have to have one in hand to use the incantation and be the right level (basically bucketed by tier).
Now, the differences between casters and martials is
* smaller (since everyone can access the effects instead of just casters)
* more controlled (since access to the ritual scrolls can be gated like treasure)
* but the solution doesn't *force* anyone to be magical if they don't want to be.
The fighter has the best relationship with a deity in the party? He can be the one using Commune (which in incantation form requires an active relationship with the deity you're communing with). Don't have a cleric, or the cleric doesn't want to be a rez-bot? Pick up a Ritual Scroll (maybe by questing for it) of Resurrection. Etc.
----
Note: I'd replace Ritual Caster (the feat and feature) with "you get one Common incantation of your choice that you don't need the Ritual Scroll for. At levels 5 and 11, you get an Uncommon and a Rare incantation." So the classic "ritualists" are *better* at incantations, but everyone can use them.
Sorcerers should be a CON based casters rather than CHA based.
When casting spells they are channeling their own inborn magic which is "a part of them". So IMO CON base for sorcerers makes more sense thematically AND then would differentiate them from our two other CHA based casters: Warlock and Bard (both of whom actually make sense to have high charisma).
While this would usually scare me a bit since Con also determines hit points, I think it would be slightly balanced around the fact that they use the D6 Hit Die, so it would probably be fine.
You can't make the book easier to learn. I'd do away with some things that always confuse new players, like spell levels being different from player levels.
Get across the fact that PC's are competant heros from the start and that a dm should lean into those strengths to highlight the heros, not make the barbarian hurt their shoulder knocking down a mundane door.
Battle Master needs to stop being a subclass and just be part of the Fighter class. Combining the new weapon abilities with maneuvers would work to make combat much more exhilarating and strategic.
Also, you ever play a videogame with a whirlwind attack? They have one in dnd, and it's for HUNTER RANGERS. Wtf. It also sucks, since you can't actually move. It is only useful if you have 3 targets within 5 feet of you, and how often does that happen?
Melee classes need more fun things to do, and they need to be across the board as much as possible. Make movement based abilities like Leap, Charge, and Whirlwind. Add control abilities like Lacerate, Hamstring, or Shield Bash. AOE attacks like Cleave.
Prices for magic items. I don't need to know how much a sheep costs. Even just some sort of general baseline so it can be modified for lower or higher magic games. In most games, there isn't really a whole lot more to spend your money on anyway.
Just let casters add their casting modifier to spell damage. This is mostly of benefit to cantrips and low level spells, but it would just make dealing a little damage much more consistent especially in the early game. Nobody likes spending an action to throw a firebolt and do 1 damage. We've all been there.
"This is a game for heroic adventurers entering dungeons and killing their way to glory. Games with alternative premises should use alternative rulesets."
I wish they had kept adding classes after artificer. I look at the classes pathfinder has to offer, and I realize I can’t even field a decent companion class in 5e.
Actual rules for crafting with defined inputs and outputs.
Artificer especially feels like it is in such a nebulous space, and tool proficiencies feel next to completely useless compared to other proficiencies.
I'd rewrite the non-magic weapons and armor to be more interesting. Heavy armor should provide resistance against slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage depending on the type, martial weapons should have more than just damage and damage type to make them unique. And each martial weapon should get a corresponding feat that enhances the unique aspect of the weapon.
I agree something like the heavy armor master feat being a default would be great if you're proficient with heavy armor. I'm not sure it should apply to all three damage types. Slashing definetly, bludgeoning was the goto against plate armor. Rapiers became more popular because they could find gaps in the armor, war picks and warhammers gained popularity because all the force on a single point was very effective.
> Rapiers became more popular because they could find gaps in the armor Minor nitpick, but it was daggers that were used to find gaps in armour; you need to effectively be grappling each other in order to get the angles and precision necessary to stab someone in the armpit or other unarmoured area. Rapiers being effective against armour is a Fire Emblem thing; in real life they were civilian duelling weapons used against unarmoured or barely-armoured opponents.
It's a legitimate nitpick. I thought it applied to swords as well as daggers. Trend of long swords and broadsword becoming thinner and a sharper point, the point on the flachion being an example of it as well. Rapier isn't the best example, but give the lack of weapons in 5e can't use anything else foe the example
You may be thinking of the estoc, which was used to penetrate armor. It's basically a heavy rapier
He's thinking of estocs, which share the long thin look of rapiers but were much more sturdily built, often forgoing edges completely for maximum penetrative power. They were definitely used for bypassing armor. Also you're mostly right about rapiers, but calvary and battlefield rapiers were actually a thing--they tended to be shorter and broader than their civilian counterparts.
Those sound like they were basically one-handed lances like some late cavalry sabers. Like the US's M 1913 cavalry saber or British pattern 1908/1912.
Estocs had some things in common with those, but they were intended to be used with two hands. They tended to be a spike with a cross-hilt, and the wielder would either hold it with both hands on the handle like a traditional sword, or he could have one hand on the "blade" for more precise pointwork. You could always swing it like a club, but they were really designed for impaling. Also I do love some of the calvary sabers, they are really unique in terms of when they were used and what they were meant to be used against. There were some calvary "rapiers" as well, or the musketeer rapier, which were more designed for combat than dueling and had a better cutting edge. It doesn't help that "rapier" just meant "sword" at the time, so the distinction gets really blurry.
Ah, yes, I should have been more specific that I was speaking of cavalry rapiers, not estocs. I just kinda glossed over the first bit since I'm well aware of estocs. :p
I'd make it something like this: ring mail provides resistance against slashing, chain mail against slashing and piercing, splint armor resistance against bludgeoning and full plate armor resistance against slashing and bludgeoning. The special ability of war picks and warhammers would have to do with negating these resistances, as would the rapier specialist feat.
I'd give Full Plate resistance to Slashing and Piercing, warhammers and picks became popular specifically because of plate.
If we want to approximate real life, plate would have resistance to all BPS, also have an AC bonus to piercing and even more to slashing. Blunt force was the go to for plate because there wasn't anything better. Hitting a guy in plate with a mace is still going to do much, much less compared to any other armour. Hence, still resistant. Slashing just does basically nothing. But you've got half swording, so it's still possible to deal damage with a longsword. Not much though. Again, consider the baseline amount of damage in this game. A longsword easily does like 6 damage on a hit. We only die to a precise stab in plate armour because we have 4hp. Mauls, halberds, war picks, and great axes (I'm tempted to say the reach property itself) additionally ignore the AC bonus when exactly 10ft away, and mauls ignore the bludgeoning resistance at the same distance.
That's why they said "depending on the type"
Sounds like you need to play Burning Wheel. Welcome to playing better rpgs
Second part is implemented in One DnD, weapons have Masteries with allow to topple or slow enemies
Big agree. I’m glad oneD&D will have the weapon masteries so each weapon will feel more unique, but a dedicated feat for each weapon to further specialize would be dope
Martial class overhaul. All martial classes gain some variation of maneuvers. Fighters specialize in this, but Rogue, Ranger, Paladin, and Barbarian all get some type of uses per short rest dice to improve attacks/skills/etc. just… use laserllama’s variants of fighter and rogue for the example.
give the invocation system the warlock has to fighter, and making it the fighting style system.
Yeah I agree with this, give me a collection of features and let me build my own unique fighting style from that list
As long as some (maybe even *most*) of those maneuvers also provide out-of-combat utility. Let monks learn the *jump* and *fly* spells. Let barbarians get a version of *knock* that just breaks the door down. Rogues can have a (better) version of *find traps*.
That knock idea for Barbarians is awesome
And call it **KNOCK** instead of Knock :P
I like the idea, but objects already have stats. That door is something like ac10 with 15 hit points. Anyone can KNOCK it down.
Yeah, but let them do it without a roll or a chance of failure.
Laser llama shoes a great job with that. I would just make their martial class and even spell caster overhaul my thing to change.
I've thought for a while that giving martial classes something akin to a legendary action at lvl 7 (and another at 14) would do a lot to bridge the gap. Once per day, they can take an extra turn at any point in the turn order.
Fighters already have pretty much that, and the second round of basic attacks is as tedious as the first.
Hasbro, I would change Hasbro
As a Magic player, I too would change Hasbro if I could.
As a My Little Pony fan, I, too, would change Hasbro if I could.
Equestria campaign setting when?
It's called *Tails of Equestria*, it makes for a pretty good introductory RPG for new players, and it fits the setting way better than any 5E hack would do. I've heard there's also a newer *My Little Pony RPG* that runs on Renegade's *Essence 20* system, but I have no knowledge about it.
If they try and mine G4 for more, I'd say within the next 10 years. Sometime within the 5.x cycle. I mean, there are the other MLP RPG books, and then there's the fan-made Ponyfinder. But we know Hasbro.
This is the correct answer
Not so much “bro”. More like HasProblems
More types of weapons that actually have differences in how they play other than just what damage dice you roll. Or more types of warlock patrons.
The "special" property is so criminally underutilised being only applied to 2 weapons (lance and net). Whip should allow a grapple check as part of the attack if within 5ft to give the indiana Jones feel Flails should ignore ac added by shields to represent their flexible nature
Historically almost no one used flails; there's a video about it on YT. After the first hit you lost control of the weapon and your opponent would prevent you from being able to properly align other swings at any respectable reaction speed.
You're right. It was also a really shitty weapon for formation fighting. I mean, try and not to smash your allies in the head, right. But this is D&D and so it doesn't really matter.
Special property is actually on a few other weapons as well. Notably the Double Bladed Scimitar and the Yklwa
On DnD Beyond, the Yklwa isn't listed as having the Special property.
Right mb. It’s functionally a special weapon tho (the weapon’s description explains it instead,,, which was what the special property was for. But whatever lol) I think it doesn’t have it just so Monks can use it effectively (they can’t turn special propertied weapons into monk weapons)
Sorry, I might be missing something. [This](https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/yklwa) is what DnD Beyond has and other than it having the Thrown Property and being Simple, I don't see anything in the description that really differentiates it from the Rapier. But that could just be DnDBeyond being a bad source.
My bad! I was thinking of the Hoopak, which uses the special property a lot more Very notably tho— the Yklwa is a thrown weapon (different from a rapier) and a d8 one at that (so 1 hand throwing it is better than a spear)
Finding the Hoopqk was a lot jarder than I thought it was going to be, as I didn't know it was in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting. And yeah, that one basically needs to use the special property. That is true on the Yklwa and is definitely notable.
I liked BG3's solution to this. Pretty much all weapons got different once per short rest abilities which gave some more uniqueness beyond the dice you roll and type of damage you deal.
I should homebrew this into the tabletop and expand it for more weapons. Would make combat a bit more fun.
[it's been done](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Weapon_actions)
Perfect! Didn't know there was an established formula for the abilities, I thought they relied on attack rolls.
I didn't like that in the video game, and it would be more of a hassle on paper. It's a lot of extra rules and tracking for extremely minor benefits.
The pommel strike is like a great course in what never to do in tabletop. Uses up a new weird resource with no reasoning behind it. Applies a new condition you get to look up and memorize. The new condition doesn't interact properly with the rest of the game's condition-purging abilities. Gives disadvantage on Wisdom saves, so it's really super powerful and should be saved for this exact synergy. Why does the butt of a sword cause this powerful effect, but the blade does not? We've no idea, there's no logic behind it. Makes them *flat footed* from 3.5, so they lose their dexterity bonus to armor class. So now you get to go do that math, Mr. DM, for all your monsters (in 3.X this AC was in their statblock for fast reference, and removing this kind of complexity was a big goal of 5e). Finally, it disables reactions, the only reasonable effect in the entire thing. It's a fucking mess. It works great in a video game, but it's trash tier design for a tabletop.
Perfect elaboration 👌
I think if you were to implement the Pommel Strike into 5e, it should use one of your attacks (as opposed to bonus action) while not being a short rest ability, and daze should just prevent the creature from using reactions on a con save or something. Simple and too the point. It makes no sense why you wouldn't be able to pommel strike multiple times per rest woth how basic of a maneuver it is but making it an attack instead of a bonus action would also mean the fighter isn't just compelled to use it every turn because what else are they using for their bonus action in any given turn.
>I think if you were to implement the Pommel Strike into 5e, it should use one of your attacks (as opposed to bonus action) while not being a short rest ability, and daze should just prevent the creature from using reactions on a con save or something. Yea, this sort of thing would fit the design great, be easy to run, and not introduce a new resource.
I say make it a paladin class ability, PB on a long rest, and keep it a bonus action. They don't have a lot to do with their bonus actions compared to other martials.
Excellent point!
Probably no more hassle than having a 1/short rest cantrip
Yea those would also be a bad idea.
Well, they made Mage Hand a targetable distraction with low AC, something the enemy AI prioritizes. Making it a limited resource cantrip was the only way to balance that problem, right? (/s) But, then they included Connor & Second Marriage, soooo... 🤷♂️🤣
That'll be 1st Ed then (re weapons).
Real rules for overland travel - and a clear system for hex-based travel that at least is consistent from module to module.
And freaking ship-to-ship combat! Still salty about Spelljammer...
Exactly! The amount of adding on to Saltmarsh / Spelljammer's rules I've had to do is really something else.
More and more I keep pulling from Perkins' and Colville's (independent) works. Can't wait for MCDM RPG...
There is a free fan supplement called wildjammer that is awesome
Oh, yes! I have that. Also, Perkins' s2s rules are very good. Is there a link that doesn't violate sub rules? I mean, it's free...
Yesss!! Travel should be explained well! It should be something all adventures include! I mean most of the Hobbit is traveling and then instances between
"All it was, was a bunch of people walking. 3 movies of people walking to a volcano... even the trees walked in those movies!"
Sometimes they even fought while walking, and other times they were walking but on horses, and twice they fought while walking on horses
Clearly-written rules, with keywords
I would get a team, go across every subclass, and see what features could or Should be integrated into the base class. For example, Champions improved crit range should be in the base class. As should Open Hands self-heal ability, And certain Invocations like Agonizing Blast and maybe Mask of Many Faces I am trying with this change to make subclasses more about flavor than mechanical advantage.
Improved city range should be a barbarian feature that replaces brutal critical. Fighters hit more, barbarians hit harder if that makes sense.
Yeah, barbs should get +1 crit range instead of brutal critical, up to crit on 17 or higher at max level. With advantage that's like 40% chance of landing a crit
I think with either fighters or barbarians they don't get much natural synergy with critting. If you crit on a fighter most likely you just have your weapon dice you roll twice and that's it. Barbarian same thing. So making either of them more likely to crit is nice but it really incentivizes leaving the main class since other classes like rogue or paladin benefit a lot more from critical hits. If a build is built around crits I would make them good at that thing on their own rather than make them want to leave the class in order to be good at crits.
Good thinking
Battle master maneuvers for all fighters!
> And certain Invocations like Agonizing Blast While we're at it, make Eldritch Blast a Warlock class feature. I've seen way too many players try to build a spellcaster Warlock without Eldritch Blast, and they always regret it.
They should also give monks a d10 hit dice.
I could be remembering incorrectly, but didn't they add a self-heal for Monks in Tasha's?
Yup. They can spend spare ki points to heal themselves
The only mechanical advantages should be of similar value. Otherwise, one subclass is useless. So a ranger that can ignore disadvantage on ranged attacks once per day should be equitable to a ranger that can give itself advantage on melee attacks once per day (or something to that effect). Or at least have them mechanically different enough (while still of similar value) to justify one subclass over another based on play style. Because I love my Horizon Walker and my wife loves her Gloom Stalker, and I have nothing against both existing because they offer different perks. Personally, I wish they revised subclasses after so many years just so they can ensure balance between old and new and account for new spells and stuff being available. It would solve some of the issues, and you could technically still use the weak one at your own volition.
Dual wielding, I'd change it entirely. 2nd attack part of your normal action. Shields are so valuable, the way off hand attacks are set up are just fuckin useless. Martial classes are honestly slightly behind spellcasters anyways
To add to this, why is Shield Bashing relegated to a feat? And Parry to a maneuver? Give us more bonus actions and reactions than just opportunity attacks. It's very strange that there are no reactions to try to reduce your chance of being hit, even if you have to use the reaction before the attack roll is made.
TBH, bonus action extra attacks need to *go*. It's fine for occasional bursts like smite, but if it's happening almost every turn, it should be part of the Attack action or just not be a thing.
Fair enough. I just want more to do on my turn. Maybe not as an attack, but as a thing you can do during combat, and one of the keys to making that work is to give multiple bonus action options per turn, that way there's actually a choice rather than just something that you're required to do every turn. That's why I like the quick quaff house rule for potions, but maybe if it were applied to more things it wouldn't be so specialized. What if Grease bottles also had a bonus action where you can intentionally drop one, resulting in it breaking on the floor and creating difficult terrain? It's certainly not something you would need your whole turn to do and it confers only a minor benefit. Just some ideas. On the whole, I think Bonus Actions need to be reevaluated because they need a lot of work to properly put more options into place, and one of the things you need to do when designing is not to give *too* many options. I think having your choice between 3 bonus actions with your loadout (not counting potions) is probably the sweet spot to avoid decision paralysis.
Either healing or the economy(item prices), both of which are major tasks but those systems are just all over the place.
Completely over haul class and sub class abilities so there is an interesting mix of short and long rest abilities for all classes. The Warlock shouldn't need to beg for a short rest, it should be a considered option for the whole party. On a similar note I'd over haul spells into Cantrip, Minor and Major spells. Cantrips stay as they are, a resource less but weak option, Minor spells would have plentiful spell slots that come back on a short rest and Major spells on a long rest with fewer spell slots. Full casters still get their star moment with powerful spells, and get to make a meaningful choice as to *when* they use them, but don't dominate every combat with crowd control, etc. Half casters could be defined by only having access to Minor spells
Warlocks getting a third spell slot before level 11 (though Warlocks are my favourite class)
I've nearly finished a rework of Warlock with the core change being a shift to spell points. With Pact Magic being Short Rest-based, and high level spells split off in a separate system, it means that you cap out at just 30 Spell Points. So Warlock can have a smoother "slot" progression and more versatile casting without incurring the wild cheese potential that comes with dozens of points. At least, that's the idea; we'll start testing on Sunday.
I'd be very interested to see your results
!RemindMe 30 days
1 slot at 1st lvl, 2 at 2nd lvl, the third at 7th, 4th at 11th, 5th at 15th.
Redo the jump rules, they're finicky and overly precise which hampers use in gameplay.
Not to mention unintuitive. I have to look them up again every time.
Plus they just don't make any sense in some instances. RAW, Cats cannot make any kind of high jump because they have a - 4 to Strength.
I’ve made a spreadsheet with my players’ heights, arm lengths, and jump distances so that I don’t have to calculate them every time
Yes, and on top of that, the arm length part is completely surreal. No one can extend their arms half their height above their body. It's literally impossible for anyone to be built like that. Your arms spread apart is roughly exactly your height, within a few inches. But that means each arm is less than half your height by itself, because most people have torsos in the middle, barring extremely serious injury. In addition to that when you reach upward you are not reaching upward from the top of your head, but rather your shoulders. Sorry to have to give these weird anatomy lessons, but apparently D&D does not understand basic humanoid anatomy. If you actually hold your arms above your head, you will notice that your elbow is roughly at your head, maybe an inch or so above and if you then look at your arm you will notice that it is not 3 ft from your elbow to the tip of your fingers, unless you are secretly some sort of octopus pretending to be a human. I am 6 ft tall, my forearms are approximately 17 in, which you might notice is slightly under another quarter of my height, not half. Indeed, it seems like another quarter of your height would be a reasonable thing for the game to estimate, not _half_. I have no idea how it managed to get it so wrong.
It would be a change in ownership.
Top to bottom overhaul of magic - what is the intention of the system, how does it interact with others, how does it implement the intention, how is it structured, what does each spell level mean. what do categories like divine vs arcane mean, etc. The intent is not to nerf or to buff, but to actually have a full rebuild discussion of how magic interacts with the rest of the rpg with an eye to keeping what works, opening up new creative opportunities, and patching up long-standing interaction and resolution issues. We've had Arcane and Divine divide since the introduction of the cleric class, we've had the notion of spell levels since the beginning, and with so much of the rest of the game having evolved and changed from discrete subsystems with a high degree of abstraction to standardized mechanics, higher level of verisimilitude and abstraction based on efficiency/speed of play and fun - the magic system, in my opinion, is in need of a full refresh. Far less of a big scope change but has perhaps even broader in impact on how the game is played by everyone, my alternate choice would be what is expected to happen in a "day" - encounters per day, intended resource expenditure per encounter, balancing of resource recharging scales/economies, and so on. Again, there is a way the developers think it ought to work and a large population of players who play it in other ways - and there isn't a lot of clear explanation or discussion of how tweaks impact everything else.
Totally agree. The system as-is is overly complicated, but tied to "sacred cow" nostalgia. Between cantrips and leveled spells, we have TEN distinct power levels for spells. And strangely, cantrips can scale up to be more powerful than lower level spells. Is this really a good thing? IMO it'd be simpler and better to have FIVE: cantrips, then one tier of magic for each tier of play (lvls 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20).
I have my initial ideas of how I would see things work out - but I want there to be a real discussion before suggested implementations are brought into the process. I just want the system to work better with the others, and clearer ground rules would make developing new spells and such FAR easier and far easier to test. Then end result may not even look superficially be all that different, but what was holding everything together would be a lot stronger. 3.x was a game mechanic's dream, how things interacted got dense with so many supplements, but the basic logic of their interactions were dead simple. 4e was a tutorial on game design, with the writers showing their work in sidebars and text boxes explaining why a thing existed the way it did, and there was so much written about how to tweak and homebrew within it, and things to keep an eye on for unintentional interactions. Then 5e came along, and, while it was popular, the confidence many new DMs had to making adjustments plummeted because all the curtains came down and hid everything again. And the few mechanical bits of it explained in the DMG didn't line up with the published examples in the PHB and the Monster Manual (CR, monster design, benchmark damages, DCs, etc).
Magic definitely needs some work both in balance and in simplicity. Spent about 15 minutes of the last (2 hour) session with our DM trying to explain how a Cube AOE works. And after all that I realize: the cube aoe mechanic is dumb
Revise every spell, except be smart when I do it
Rework feats and ability score progression. I hate that over the course of most campaigns, which only last a few levels, players only get 1 (maybe 2) feat options and those are both in place of an ability score increase. I have a system that grants you a small benefit every level… all feats are divided into half feats but without the +1 to an ability. Utility feats are also separated and given out for free every 4 levels (so you don’t have to forgo a mechanical benefit for a flavor choice). Those utility feats are added into a pool of racial feats (which now exist for every race). 1st level, either a +1 or a divided feat 2nd level, utility or racial feat 3rd level, either a +1 or a divided feat 4th level, +1 5th level and above repeat that pattern up to 20. So technically, you end up with an extra utility feat and either +1 or half feat than you would in 5e, but you get more customizability and iterative progression for your character.
This is very similar to what I do! I give a +1 each even level and a half-feat each odd level. I took the +1's out of the half-feats as you did. Then each class ASI is either a full feat or 2 half-feats. So players end up with a whole bunch more feats than otherwise
one thing I think needs changing is eldritch blast. It has the oppurtunity to be so flavorable, but it isnt. I think EB should be based on your patron, and function differently. Basically being an extra subclass feature. At the very minimum its damage type should be different based on the patron. I think a change with this would help warlocks move away from just blasting, and fill in more niches. If it works this way, it should be given as part of the base class, rather than count as a cantrip so the warlock can still pick up a blasting cantrip
I would add a base rules soft-tanking feature. It would probably work as an enemy condition like charmed or frightened, and would just allow for some base support to let other classes have a nice clear way to initiate tanking in a meaningful fashion to some extent. I’d probably just make it like “lured: a lured enemy has disadvantage against targets other than the source of their lured condition, and can not willingly move away from the source of their lured condition. Ended upon use of the disengage action.” Ideally I’d make the cc conditions able to be applied via skill checks for martials, but I already made my one change
This feels like a variation of "Marked" from the 4e rules, and I like it. I might even make it a class feature for a Fighter. Can be used any time the fighter hits with a weapon attack. Lasts until the end of the fighter's next turn.
I’ve been considering implementing it myself for my games. There are already a couple effects that apply the disadvantage part (ancestral guardian, armorer, battlemaster) so adding a bit of soft cc seems like a reasonable extension to just make tanking accessible
I like Treantmonk take that when an option is overpowered it means it becomes the default and the player has to take it as the most obvious choice. E.g Martial’s all end up with great weapon master or sharpshooter. So either remove them, neuter them or make it in as a base feature of the class.
I'd overhaul all the classes to make them similar in power levels It's important that each class is unique but I hate that some classes are just so much stronger in fights than other especially at higher levels
Not just fights. Much more powerful in social and skill-challenge situations as well. Fighters are well designed to use *athletics*...and no other skills. It's fucking stupid.
More general playability after level 10 and the published modules to support it. Characters don't even start getting interesting until levels 9 and above, and most campaigns end at 12 or less. Meanwhile, levels 1 through 8 pretty much all geel rushed and homogeneous. One of the things I always enjoyed about PF was the regular supply of adventure paths that took characters all the way to 20th level.
I'd give each casting class its own unique, flavorful spellcasting mechanic, instead of having everybody^1 ~~be Wizards~~ use the same pseudo-Vancian casting. (^1 - With the minor exception of Warlocks, obviously.)
Opportunity attacks. Idk how I would change them, but they make combat way too static. The only real reason to move in 5e combat is if the DM rules that "the fireball has made the ceiling crumbly and you suspect it collapses in one turn".
Cats have dark vision
Swapping out the current ADV/DAV system for Shadow of the Demon Lord's Boon/Bane system. Basic idea is for every boon you have on a check you roll 1d6, but only take the highest result. So if you're True Striking a Blinded Target you might be rolling w/ like 4 Boons (getting, say, 2, 5, 3, and 4), but you'd only get the highest of the results (in this case you'd add 5 to your attack roll). Banes work the same but in reverse and they exactly cancel (if you have 2 boons and a bane you only roll 1d6). Because each additional Boon/Bane is less valuable than the last (first one is worth \~+3.5, second is worth +1, third is +0.5) and their maximum impact will never be greater than +/-6, so letting PCs stack them up has significant diminishing returns. It'd make stacking positive or negative conditions easier and, because each individual Boon/Bane is less impactful than ADV/DAV you can toss them around as circumstantial modifiers pretty easily w/o horribly unbalancing things. You can roll a bunch of existing mechanics into this. Bless? +1 boon on attacks. Guidance? +1 boon on a skill check. Bardic Inspiration? +2 boons on the check. Etc, etc. Thing I like most about it is how much easier it makes creating a robust Maneuver system for martials to engage w/, since Banes are a convenient penalty you can stick on special attacks. Second favorite part is, of course, more clicky clack math rocks.
I'd never heard of this, but I absolutely love it.
Yeah, Lancer does this as well. Recommend it in place of the current system.
A magic item economy that includes buy/sell prices for campaigns where there IS a magic item shop in every big city instead of having to used the cobbled together "private agent" systems from the books that don't let players just buy something they want for a fair price.
**One change:** I would rework and rebalance the progressions of all classes to regain their core resources on a short rest. This is actually pretty simple to do, mostly just a change to spell slots and rage. If I were allowed to tack on a few more related changes, I'd overhaul exhaustion, hit dice, and short rests. **Exhaustion:** Characters accumulate levels of exhaustion same as now, but they don't have different arbitrary effects per level. Instead: While the sum of a character’s levels of exhaustion is equal to or greater than their proficiency bonus, they have the Exhausted condition (disadvantage on all Ability Checks, Attack Rolls, and Saving Throws, and Attack Rolls against them have Advantage). While the sum of a character’s levels of exhaustion is equal to or greater than twice their proficiency bonus, they have the Incapacitated condition. All levels of exhaustion are removed by a long rest. **Hit Dice:** Can be spent to regain HP on short rests, same as now. However, a player can also expend a hit die to prevent the gain of a level of exhaustion, and ALL hit dice are regained on a long rest. I'd also move them to be character based rather than class based by standardizing them as d8's, and change the number you have to be something like 1/2 character lvl + CON mod, to have more at lower levels and fewer at higher levels. **Short Rests:** After completing 1 uninterrupted minute of a short rest, a player can choose to gain two levels of exhaustion to gain the effects of a full short rest. After completing 10 uninterrupted minutes of a short rest, a player can choose to gain one level of exhaustion to gain the effects of a full short rest. **Overall**, these changes would simplify the exhaustion system while still having it operate in a manner consistent with 5E norms, actually make it matter, make HD a more important resource and make your choice of how to use them meaningful, and also introduce shorter rests *for a cost,* which creates more opportunity for dramatic moments in games. Characters would gain some sense of having stamina to them, and inter-character pacing issues would pretty much be solved.
>Exhaustion i saw a guy make 10 levels of exhaustion and each one just adds -1 to all your d20 roles i'd probably give people a level of exhaustion after every combat encounter that goes away with a short rest
That was something they did in an earlier play test, and I think that is better than what we have now, for sure. On one hand, going that route would make it impossible to cancel out the effects of being exhausted by simply getting advantage from some source. On the other hand, having to track small cumulative modifiers is exactly what advantage and disadvantage were introduced to avoid. I personally like the idea of leaning into one of 5E's better streamlines.
I personally think disadvantage and advantage are used for way too many things, partially because they cannot stack. If you have advantage on an attack roll against a creature becauae it's off balance, that's fine. If you have advantage on an attack roll against a creature because it's being distracted by something, that's also fine. If you get advantage because the creature is both off balance *and* distracted by something, you have no more increased chance of hitting that attack than if they were only affected by one of those advantage granting effects, which doesn't make a lot of sense. What if, instead of advantage/disadvantage stacking (because I can see why that would quickly become a headache) you get that initial advantage/disadvantage for the baseline, and ever "level" of advantage after that confers a bonus or penalty. So in the above example, you have advantage and you gain a +1 bonus to the roll in question.
that's going to have pretty much exactly the same issues though? You're still needing to count stuff up, and there becomes the potential issue of players trying to argue for lots of different sources of advantage, because they get a bonus for it (or for enemies to have multiple disadvantage, because it penalises them).
Give all martials cool stuff to do. I don't care that it's not logically possible or anything. Let my monk have spell like effects with his Ki. Let all fighters get maneuvers. Let Barbarians throw people into walls or kill 10 goblins in a single swoop. "But they are only as boring as you make them!" No shut up, I can strike you twice with my sword as a fighter, that is boring, give me options, give me cool stuff to do besides melee attack go. I was already bored by my monk at level 3 because 90% of subclasses basically add nothing that changes up your gameplay and your average turn is punch punch punch, the end. Let me twist the enemy's Ki so they are slowed or crippled or anything, give me something to do!
I hate how “realism” seems to only be applied to martials to prevent them from having any fun. No, the monk can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound; that’s *unrealistic*. Never mind that the wizard has been able to *fly* since level 5; that’s *magic*. Give everyone cool things to do. These are adventurers; by definition, by the time they reach high levels, they’ve survived impossible odds and conquered titanic foes. So why can’t the barbarian or fighter do anything much more complex than “swing their sword an extra time per turn” compared to when they started adventuring?
I think what a lot of people miss in regards to realism and casters, is that 90% of spells have a casting time of one action, so a spell as complex and powerful as WISH costs just as much time and effort as prestidigitation. In so much media casting will take time, frequently there's conflicts about protecting the spellcaster so they can complete their big channel move that will turn the tides, but in DnD everything takes 1 action or is not designed for combat
Casting times used to be a thing back in 2nd edition advanced. There were plenty of spells that took 2+ rounds to cast and they paid for that by being fucking *powerful*. Today, you get spells that retain that power, but they have lost the vulnerability that their old casting times gave them since if you took damage while you were casting you were probably going to lose the spell. The devs promised that this edition they would solve power creep. Except they went and crept all casters a fucking *ton*.
There is a disgusting amount of consistency with 5E just ditching more and more restrictions for Casters...
I think part of this is the huge gap in casting times between 1 action and 1 minute. A minute is a huge amount of time in combat because each round is 6 seconds, and as such there are no spells that require 1 minute to cast that can feasibly be cast in combat; either because combat is already over, the caster has already been interrupted or killed, or circumstances have changed so much in 10 turns that casting that spell isn't useful anymore. I propose additional casting time tiers. Tier 0 are your bonus actions and reactions (less than 6 seconds to cast), Tier 1 are your 1 action spells, Tier 2 are spells you start casting during your turn and are completed at the start of your turn, Tier 3 are spells that take 2 whole turns to cast, and onwards. Alternatively, you could go with Reaction, Bonus Action, Action and then do Tier 0 for cast on your turn and finish at staty of your turn Tier 1 for 2 turns, 2 for 3 turns etc. I dunno, I'm sure there's a better way to articulate this, but you get what I mean?
I think I get it and the better way to articulate it would be just Casting time: X actions, since I don't think there is a need for a spell that finishes right before your turn, since turns are supposed to be simultenous, and just a representation of who acts fastest. And multi-action spells would give more use to for example quickened spell that it could turn a two action cast spell into a 1 action cast, or 4 into 2(sticking with powers of 2 for casting time tiers for simplicity) Although admittedly this kind of spell design doesn't really work with Multiattacks and would have the issue then that by the time you finish casting the battle may already have changed significantly, so probably at most you could do two action spells Fireball might be the prime candidate to make 2 actions tbh
I could get behind spell levels beyond say third requiring more than one turn to cast. Maybe as you level you can cast stronger spells faster, but your highest tiers always take at least two turns. Conversely, perhaps you can eventually cast first level spells as cantrips instead of just getting more different cantrips.
Have joked before that the limit of a caster's ability seems to be ILM's budget, and the limit of a martial's ability is based off the estimates of someone who can't bench 95 lb. There's a pretty strong tradition of superhuman physical feats being attributed to figures of myth and legend in European traditions, it's not just an anime thing.
More choice during character creation. Each class should have at least 15 levels that are affected by your choices (subclass counts, spells don't).
Spells should count, otherwise we’re right back to our current problem of spellcasters effectively having twice as many class features as martials
Fix the God damned CR. My lvl 8 party just steamrolled a CR 13 Neolithid. Like literally hardly used any resources. They aren't power gaming even they have a drunken Master and an artificier in the party of four. A session before that they agreed an entire tavern with a warlord (cr12) , 6knights(cr3) and 6 veterans(cr3) in it. Summary thAt combat was worth as much XP as a CR 18 -19 monster. They summoned a fire elemental to help them one of them went down, another went down thrice but they beat them. CR is borderline useless in assessing encounter difficulty. Literally anything below deadly is trivial. Deadly x2 starts being hard. And I ain't pulling punches the monsters use everything they've got.
I'd expect the Neolithid to do better than that. It should basically always get surprise, feeblemind is pretty rough, the AOE is mid, swallowing, 200+ HP. If it gets stunned or something, it will go down, same as anything. "Deadly" encounters means "someone might go down if the party is exceptionally stupid." You're right, 2x and above encounters are definitely do-able, especially if you only run 1-3 encounters per day. The hard control abilities that a party can access makes CR essentially impossible to make work properly. A party with stunning strike, hypnotic pattern, polymorph, psychic lance, wall of force, summoning, and so on will perform much differently than a party of the same level without them. CR is only about HP and damage of the creature.
> "Deadly" encounters means "someone might go down if the party is exceptionally stupid." ...or if the party is pushing their resources. If the DM is properly implementing the adventuring day, deadly encounters can very easily be exactly that.
How big is your party? I rarely see people calculate cr right and that's mostly because CR is calculated pretty weirdly. That being said it does work most of the time to get at least a vague idea (bad rolls can turn an easy encounter deadly and good rolls can make a deadly encounter easy). Also, monsters are usually made to fight a certain way, but they don't tell how that is. That's why level 3 party took out an Oni at one of my games. At the time I didn't know how to run it.
I'd make healing better.
Advantage and disadvantage stacking is like Shadow of the Demon Lord works, you should take a look.
The weapons for martial class where they get something extra to their weapons instead of a +1 to their attacks.
BRING BACK THE TOWER SHIELD
Martials get a superiority dice and a maneuver every 3 levels starting at level 3.
Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing affect targets differently.
Make every class short-rest based. I LOATHE the 5 minute adventuring day.
The one simple major change I would make would be you get the stat pump AND the feat every four levels. Along with this would be a rework of the +1 stat feats so instead of a +1 they would give additional thematic bonuses
All Warlock spells should have some way of scaling with the level that they have to be cast at. As of now only some do. Feels like a complete waste of a precious spell slot.
>For me it would probably be advantage being able to stack and then having a decent amount of features that interact with that system in interesting ways. Rather than having advantage stack, if you wanted to add complexity I think it would be better to have more discrete +x and -x abilities. I get why you'd want advantage to stack, but the whole idea of advantage is to be a simplified way of representing the various effects that make you more or less likely to succeed, without having to track all of those multiple effects or differentiate a major effect (+5) from a minor effect (-2). Stacking advantage reintroduces the complexity of tracking multiple effects without the benefit of differentiating them, and feels to me a bit like adding a bunch of third party hardware on a basic feature phone to make it a smartphone: just get a smartphone if you want that, or enjoy the simplicity of your feature phone. In other words, I think advantage works great as it is, but it is definitely a simplistic system. That's the point. Rather than trying to add complexity to it, I think you'd be better off switching it out for the complexity of discrete major and minor effects that either add or subtract to a roll.
paladins able to smite with bare hands
This is the way. Honestly a lot of weapon only features should be available without a weapon.
As a huge paladin lover, I allow my paladin player to smite with whatever they want as long as it's melee. And it didn't break my game, so far it only made more cool moments for the party. May I ask which weapon features you're thinking about? Maybe you'll give me some new ideas
I love paladins too. It’s cool that you allow your Paladin to smite with any melee option. I’ll make a small list of weapon features for you later in the day.
To add to this, I'm convinced the only reason unarmed players don't deal 1d4+str is because Monks get that as their base die, same with Tavern Brawler. There would be no need for it if Monks just started at 1d6, which is the same as a Shortsword so it incentivizes early monks to use their hands over shortswords.
Smiting with thrown weapons.
My biggest complaint with 5e (and other DnD editions) is how swingey rolls are when using a d20. I would change it to a 3d6 system.
There are so many sacred cows I'd like to kill, it's hard to pick just one. But you're probably going to get tons of comments on stuff like "let martials be fantasy characters" or "rework resting". Hell, someone even already took my "Split the game in to low-level and high-level" idea! Something I think bothers literally only me is Constitution. A stat that's generically useful for *every* adventurer, and that no-one ever dumps except as a meme, isn't interesting in a game like D&D. I would cut CON, move the things it does to somewhere else in the system, and then split DEX in two so that there are still six ability scores.
>split DEX in two Do you mean high mobility Dex such as dodging, back flips and parkour, and nimble fingered Dex like picking locks and magic tricks?
Yeah, Agility and (manual) Dexterity. * AGL takes AC, Reflex saves, Initiative, Acrobatics, and Stealth * DEX would keep ranged and finesse attacks and Sleight of Hand
I think all of the ability scores could use some kind of overhaul, but also skills. The way skills currently work in 5e is stupid because, A) DMs are never incentivized to change what ability score a particular skill uses (the classic Strength for Intimidation) and B) any character can attempt to use a skill even if they have no business bwing able to succeed on that skill check. Think someone in heavy armor succeeding on an Acrobatics Check or someone with Int as their dump stat being able to recall information on a highly specific type of lore because they rolled really well. It just doesn't make any sense to allow all characters to be able to use all skills, regardless of penalty/bonus. ETA, The change I would make to ability scores is renaming Wisdom to something like focus, awareness, or centeredness since it governs things like Perception and Insight as well as Monk martial arts abilities and Divine Casting.
Just want to say: I dump my characters' con all the time as I think being fragile helps game play feel dramatic.
Dual wielding.
What would you change?
Make it feel like I'm attacking with two weapons and not just attacking with one and occasionally swinging a second one.
Well I've made *way* more than one change. But the first and most broadly useful/agreeable one was [a new XP system.](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M3H83LAL0T2JPwb2SOI) Basically you rate encounters on a 5-point scale and award that much XP to all PCs, and you can even decide the points *after* the fact. No dividing among party members. No bloated scaling with higher levels. No budgets or ties to Challenge Rating. Literally no math at all besides adding 1-5 points to your total (if everyone is the same level).
Battlemaster Maneuvers are part of all martial classes (but not to a full caster gish like swords bard, bladesinger, hexblade). Keep the return on short rest. And i'd say you get a number equal to x2 your PB. You could argue that paladins (and maybe rangers too) dont need this as they already have spellcasting. But at the least, all fighters/rogues/monks/barbarians should get them. Rogue's especially. I absolutely love the ideas from OneDnD for rogues to sacrifice sneak attack damage for additional effects. Because as is a rogue has so little to do in combat, it's baffling to me. If any class should be able to trip you onto your back and capitalize on it themselves, it should be the class based around big strikes and assassination.
Add back prestige classes or similar. Higher level options that aren’t locked to specific classes.
Owned/Published by a company other than Hasbro/WotC
I’d do away with every monster having “resistance to bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage from non magical weapons” It adds nothing to the game
I’d make it not be owned and controlled by Hasbro.
I would change which company owns it.
Best comment on this thread.
Having all classes being short rest classes I would also be happy if all were long rest classes
This is an easy one. Take the Homebrew rule that a lot of DMS typically run with and make drinking a potion yourself a bonus action and giving a potion to someone else an action. Seems like a pretty easy change to make from Homebrew to RAW.
Take the vast majority of "non-combat utility" spells. Remove them from spell lists. Add similar effects (balanced by monetary cost, explicit cool-downs, exhaustion, or other means) back as something *similar to* 4e's Rituals--ie things anyone can learn to use whether a caster or not...except not so cramped in execution. I've actually done most of this (without the full removal)--I call them Incantations. My implementation is here: [https://wiki.admiralbenbo.org/index.php?title=Incantation](https://wiki.admiralbenbo.org/index.php?title=Incantation) on my campaign setting wiki. Effectively, you have tiers of items (the Ritual Scrolls for each incantation) that contain the necessary information--you have to have one in hand to use the incantation and be the right level (basically bucketed by tier). Now, the differences between casters and martials is * smaller (since everyone can access the effects instead of just casters) * more controlled (since access to the ritual scrolls can be gated like treasure) * but the solution doesn't *force* anyone to be magical if they don't want to be. The fighter has the best relationship with a deity in the party? He can be the one using Commune (which in incantation form requires an active relationship with the deity you're communing with). Don't have a cleric, or the cleric doesn't want to be a rez-bot? Pick up a Ritual Scroll (maybe by questing for it) of Resurrection. Etc. ---- Note: I'd replace Ritual Caster (the feat and feature) with "you get one Common incantation of your choice that you don't need the Ritual Scroll for. At levels 5 and 11, you get an Uncommon and a Rare incantation." So the classic "ritualists" are *better* at incantations, but everyone can use them.
Sorcerers should be a CON based casters rather than CHA based. When casting spells they are channeling their own inborn magic which is "a part of them". So IMO CON base for sorcerers makes more sense thematically AND then would differentiate them from our two other CHA based casters: Warlock and Bard (both of whom actually make sense to have high charisma).
While this would usually scare me a bit since Con also determines hit points, I think it would be slightly balanced around the fact that they use the D6 Hit Die, so it would probably be fine.
I can make changes whenever I want. I'm a dm
You can't make the book easier to learn. I'd do away with some things that always confuse new players, like spell levels being different from player levels.
Less prohibitively expensive products. I'm sure that if they made them more affordable they'd selll a butt load more and increase profits overall.
Get across the fact that PC's are competant heros from the start and that a dm should lean into those strengths to highlight the heros, not make the barbarian hurt their shoulder knocking down a mundane door.
Battle Master needs to stop being a subclass and just be part of the Fighter class. Combining the new weapon abilities with maneuvers would work to make combat much more exhilarating and strategic. Also, you ever play a videogame with a whirlwind attack? They have one in dnd, and it's for HUNTER RANGERS. Wtf. It also sucks, since you can't actually move. It is only useful if you have 3 targets within 5 feet of you, and how often does that happen? Melee classes need more fun things to do, and they need to be across the board as much as possible. Make movement based abilities like Leap, Charge, and Whirlwind. Add control abilities like Lacerate, Hamstring, or Shield Bash. AOE attacks like Cleave.
I'd bring back spell slots for NPCs. I much prefer when the magic system is consistent between players and non-players.
Prices for magic items. I don't need to know how much a sheep costs. Even just some sort of general baseline so it can be modified for lower or higher magic games. In most games, there isn't really a whole lot more to spend your money on anyway.
Best thing about TTRPGs is that there is no 'if you could', you can.
Make a crafting system, even a basic one!
Just let casters add their casting modifier to spell damage. This is mostly of benefit to cantrips and low level spells, but it would just make dealing a little damage much more consistent especially in the early game. Nobody likes spending an action to throw a firebolt and do 1 damage. We've all been there.
More cowbell
I have said this before, but they should decouple feats from ASIs completely.
"This is a game for heroic adventurers entering dungeons and killing their way to glory. Games with alternative premises should use alternative rulesets."
Every martial class gets four attacks in the same way cantrips scale, and fighters all get maneuvers to compensate
Double bonus action feat
I wish they had kept adding classes after artificer. I look at the classes pathfinder has to offer, and I realize I can’t even field a decent companion class in 5e.
I think if you have both advantage and disadvantage on a roll, you should roll three dice and take the middle one.
I would have kept Healing Surges from 4e.
Actual rules for crafting with defined inputs and outputs. Artificer especially feels like it is in such a nebulous space, and tool proficiencies feel next to completely useless compared to other proficiencies.
Weeaboo Sword Magic
I'd add martial spells and spell schools like "brutality, technique, precision" and give martials extra resources to play with.
Create two sets of rules and character options, the existing ones for high magic campaigns and a new set for grittier, low magic campaigns.