If I was the king of 5e, I wouldn't make many changes. Oh who are we kidding, I'd go mad with power, but the few that I think are most important are listed here:
Rangers already get an extra skill at level 1. I'd make that its own feature and upgrade it to something like, "You gain an additional proficiency. You may choose Heavy Armor, Wisdom saving throws, or an additional ranger skill."
Rangers would get divine casting. They know all of their spells and can just swap them out after a rest... or else take away the Paladin's divine casting. Or do both of those things. Make the Wisdom casters work the same and the Charisma casters work the same. This one is the least important of these four (and that's saying something, because only the first one I feel is kinda' a big deal).
Warlocks are the only class that have every Intelligence skill on their list. Wizards are missing Nature. I'd give Warlocks the ability to choose between Intelligence and Charisma casting... and they then become proficient in that saving throw.
Some Paladins get their powers because the gods love them (Charisma) and others get their powers through their love of a god (Wisdom). I'd give Paladins the same treatment as Warlocks... and their saving throws would make just as much sense then as they do now.
Okay, those are my four big changes that aren't a big deal. Do you have any?
All classes that come with a fighting style as part of their core kit (fighter, ranger, dingdong, blood hunter) also gain a pool of Superiority die and a selection of maneuvers. Each class has maneuvers unique to itself that the player can take, and each martial weapon also has a single unique-to-it maneuver that is added to your maneuver list while wielding that weapon. A weapon art, if you will. The barbarian continues as a martial/melee-focused character class without native access to fighting styles/maneuvers for those poor mush-minded folks who believe maneuvers are too complicated to bother with. Battle Master redesigned to do something else since it no longer needs to be THE ENTIRE Superiority system and literally nothing else, and Champion fighter is eliminated entirely in favor of:
'Simplified' classes added to the DMG as an optional alternative to ordinary character progression. Rebuild the 'Sidekick' classes specifically as "your players are too new and stupid to understand D&D, so give them these on-rails pregens" tools that can still be used as sidekicks but are otherwise designed and intended primarily as a thing for people who feel a deep need to reduce complexity in their game. "Warrior', 'Expert', and 'Healer', with no option for a "Simplified" Mage. because the Wizard class is already so barebones and bereft of anything other than spells that if you can't handle a wizard, you have no business casting spells. And just to maximally cheese off the grognards...
"Constitution" is eliminated as a stat ENTIRELY. It is a shitty useless tax of a stat that doesn't accomplish anything worth accomplishing. Instead, 'moar HP' as a stat bonus would be folded into Strength, which would become the catch-all for Body Gudness. Were I designing things like crazy, I'd likely incorporate the idea that each character's sixth ability score is instead unique to them, likely chosen from a pool of pregenerated options or configured by the DM specifically. A dwarf could set Honor as their sixth stat, a rogue might set Connection as their stat to represent how thoroughly connected they are with the criminal underground, a paladin might set 'Honor' as well but treat it as how closely they adhere to their tenets...stuff like that. Cool stuff that allows individual characters to actually be different from each other. And finally...
Eliminate the hard-coded, nigh-unbreakable linkages between "Abilities" and "Skills". Instead of a list of eighteen fixed, rigid, unchanging, unbending, deviate-from-this-and-Jeremy-Crawford-will-personally-fly-to-your-house-and-set-it-on-fire-with-your-table-and-all-your-books-in-it OFFICIAL SKILLZ FOREVYR(TM)...there would be eighteen blank lines on your character sheet for you to fill in what you're proficient with. The eighteen skills would be there, of course, and would be considered the 'default'...but if your setting wants to add Mechanics to the skill list because you're playing a Victorian steampunk game? You can write 'Mechanics' on a standard character sheet. if you're proficient in Astrologer's Tools because your game has a heavy focus on fate, destiny, and the movements of the stars? You can just write it in. If you're a wizard who's proficient in Persuasion and you make an argument trying to convince somebody with facts, reason, logic, and a calm appeal to reality? Your sheet doesn't say "Charisma (Persuasion)" and force you to roll with your -1 to CHA instead of your +4 to INT, it just says "Persuasion" and you can roll an Intelligence (Persuasion) check without arguing with a DM for twenty god damned MINUTES that Intelligence is not, in fact, a complete waste of time forever and yes - sometimes you CAN use it to convince people who are dumber than you that you know things they don't!
So there. Four things. All of which people will cheerfully hate, but that's okay. This is why they don't let randomn people be King of 5e, I suppose.
All classes that come with a fighting style as part of their core kit (fighter, ranger, dingdong, blood hunter) also gain a pool of Superiority die and a selection of maneuvers. Each class has maneuvers unique to itself that the player can take, and each martial weapon also has a single unique-to-it maneuver that is added to your maneuver list while wielding that weapon. A weapon art, if you will. The barbarian continues as a martial/melee-focused character class without native access to fighting styles/maneuvers. Battle Master redesigned to do something else since it no longer needs to be THE ENTIRE Superiority system and literally nothing else, and Champion fighter is eliminated entirely in favor of:
'Simplified' classes added to the DMG as an optional alternative to ordinary character progression. Rebuild the 'Sidekick' classes specifically as "your players are too new and stupid to understand D&D, so give them these on-rails pregens" tools that can still be used as sidekicks but are otherwise designed and intended primarily as a thing for people who feel a deep need to reduce complexity in their game. "Warrior', 'Expert', and 'Healer', with no option for a "Simplified" Mage. because the Wizard class is already so barebones and bereft of anything other than spells that if you can't handle a wizard, you have no business casting spells. And just to maximally cheese off the grognards...
"Constitution" is eliminated as a stat ENTIRELY. It is a shitty useless tax of a stat that doesn't accomplish anything worth accomplishing. Instead, 'moar HP' as a stat bonus would be folded into Strength, which would become the catch-all for Body Gudness. Were I designing things like crazy, I'd likely incorporate the idea that each character's sixth ability score is instead unique to them, likely chosen from a pool of pregenerated options or configured by the DM specifically. A dwarf could set Honor as their sixth stat, a rogue might set Connection as their stat to represent how thoroughly connected they are with the criminal underground, a paladin might set 'Honor' as well but treat it as how closely they adhere to their tenets...stuff like that. Cool stuff that allows individual characters to actually be different from each other. And finally...
Eliminate the hard-coded, nigh-unbreakable linkages between "Abilities" and "Skills". Instead of a list of eighteen fixed, rigid, unchanging, unbending, deviate-from-this-and-Jeremy-Crawford-will-personally-fly-to-your-house-and-set-it-on-fire-with-your-table-and-all-your-books-in-it OFFICIAL SKILLZ FOREVYR(TM)...there would be eighteen blank lines on your character sheet for you to fill in what you're proficient with. The eighteen skills would be there, of course, and would be considered the 'default'...but if your setting wants to add Mechanics to the skill list because you're playing a Victorian steampunk game? You can write 'Mechanics' on a standard character sheet. if you're proficient in Astrologer's Tools because your game has a heavy focus on fate, destiny, and the movements of the stars? You can just write it in. If you're a wizard who's proficient in Persuasion and you make an argument trying to convince somebody with facts, reason, logic, and a calm appeal to reality? Your sheet doesn't say "Charisma (Persuasion)" and force you to roll with your -1 to CHA instead of your +4 to INT, it just says "Persuasion" and you can roll an Intelligence (Persuasion) check without arguing with a DM for twenty god damned MINUTES that Intelligence is not, in fact, a complete waste of time forever and yes - sometimes you CAN use it to convince people who are dumber than you that you know things they don't!
So there. Four things. All of which people will cheerfully hate, but that's okay. This is why they don't let randomn people be King of 5e, I suppose.
Yurei, you're too hard on yourself.
I only hate the fourth one... but the more I think about it, a flexible skill system would be pretty cool. Otherwise, I actually love your first two. I've always hated how Barbarian and Monk doen't get a fighting style, but somehow giving maneuvers to the three d10 classes actually makes me more okay with it. (Well done).
And simplified classes sounds fantastic! I disagree with you about wizards, just slightly... but I also have an unnatural hatred of Wizards and I suspect it has more to do with that than your actual point, so take that with a grain of salt.
Psionicist and Artificer would be PHB classes. Psionics would be Magic, but have nothing to do with spells and instead have various powers to choose from that each scaled in level. That would mean far fewer powers would be necessary than the number of spells that exist, but each one could do far more. And as a form of magic it could interact with the magic system for things like countering/dispelling for game balance purposes.
Races would keep their ASIs, but the optional floating system would be a standard option in the PHB the same way we have various options for Ability Score generation and encumbrance. That way every who wants racial ASIs can have them, and anyone who wants floating ASIs can have them, and there’s no more arguing over it.
Strength based weapons would scale in damage all the way up to 2d8 for the greataxe & 4d4 for the greatsword instead of 1d12&2d6. That would give Strength builds a little something more to balance them out against Dex builds better. It would also allow room for a few more weapons to get added into the middle.
The Skills With Different Abilities variant rule would be the standard and having skills linked to specific abilities would be the variant rule.
All base classes would have feature that present different choices at various levels so players have options on how to build their PCs and no two with the same class & subclass have to be so similar to each other. And I don’t mean just stuff like fighting styles, but actual choices like Warlocks get with their Pact Boons, one feature choice in every Tier of play.
The Sorcerer would get somewhat redesigned. They would get more spells, more Metamagics and would run off of spell points instead of slots as standard.
DMs would be encouraged to give out more level ups more quickly to incentivize players to play all the way to 20th level since it would actually be a realistic goal within 2-2&½ years maximum.
That’s all just off the top of my head. I may come back and make another list after I think about it more.
Get rid of racial tied ASI's and make them "floating" to eliminate the optimized character VS. fun conundrum that the system forces that I argued and explained on other threads such as this one). Racial ASI's can be a variant rule.
Begin selling Volo's and Mordenkainens on DDB again.
Make more different sourcebooks allowing players to play in new worlds with different, unique, and cool ideas. Also, make some more "setting-aignostic" adventure books so people can play more on different worlds.
Tell DM's guild to accept things from different "non-official" worlds.
Make backrounds more impactful to your character. Maybe you get one feat from your backround like in Strixhaven (though that would probably increase minmaxing, so maybe not). Either way, I wish what backround you chose had a bigger effect on your character. As it is, a 5e character is pretty much defined by their class.
Keywording, mofo. We need stuff to go off keywords. One of the biggest examples I have is Hunger of Hadar, which explicitly states "Blackness" over Darkness, and yet people still gripe "I should be able to see through it cause Devil's Sight" and blah blah blah. No. stop it, shut up. Keywording.
I'd also fix True Polymorph a little bit so that way people stop the permanency debate.
I'd reimplement Permanency as a spell, so that way spells like Enlarge/Reduce can be used in more fun ways, and also help really set up a Simic Biomancer with their modifications to allies by permanently applying Longstrider, Jump, etc.
Assign base racial ASIs to the races from Tasha's onwards, but as "informed flavor" for the races. Everyone else already kinda sorta said this, so meh.
Rename races to Species.
Make using alternate attributes for skills more... in your face? Really, it only ever comes up in the case of "I use Strength to intimidate instead!" and only in the DMG iirc.
Undo the BB/GFB errata because *weapons by default have value so of course they aren't in a component pouch or replaced by a focus*.
Reword some of the SAC so things make more sense.
Allow Divine Smites to be used on Unarmed attacks, period.
Allow grapples on Opportunity Attacks, because grapples are a special attack.
...That's all I have for now.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Keywording, mofo. We need stuff to go off keywords. One of the biggest examples I have is Hunger of Hadar, which explicitly states "Blackness" over Darkness, and yet people still gripe "I should be able to see through it cause Devil's Sight" and blah blah blah. No. stop it, shut up. Keywording.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
In any adventure or setting book, provide summary pages for lore. These pages cut the flowery descriptions, and just give tables or bullet points of the most important stuff you need to know about locations, factions, religions, and major NPCs.
Rebalance everything relating to hitpoints, to fix these issues: -Level 1-2 character HP makes everyone 1 bad roll away from being downed or even killed outright -Low CR minions and bystander NPCs being too squishy to survive the slightest breeze -Every character and monster being designed with a high constitution
Rebalance mundane weapons, armor, and starting equipment so there's actually some room for progression without having to start the campaign with a prison break or shipwreck. As it stands, there are several armors and weapons that only see use in niche situations, since everyone starts with what's effectively their final or near-final mundane gear. It also currently feels pointless to design magic items based on the lower mundane items.
Rebalance either the strength stat or the strength-focused classes so they have some kind of resilience without armor. I don't like how characters that are supposed to be the most physically imposing feel just as fragile as anyone else when not encased in steel.
Weapon-specific special attacks, as mentioned earlier in this thread. I'd also really like to see throwing weapons redesigned to be more impactful, and not simply "melee guy pretends to be helpful vs flying enemy".
Make "somatic component with no material component" spells doable with a focus in that hand. Having to drop a magical focus in order to do magic just because you have a shield in your other hand feels hyper-dumb.
I mostly have issues with how things are done rather than the content itself.
I hate the use natural language as it is just plain stupid, especially when they mix unnecessary lore in them too, so it is difficult for some people to tell what is RAW and what is not. They need to pay a technical writer to write their rules. Technical writing is no more difficult to read than natural language, and if anything, it should be easier to read and understand because it is not causing a ton of confusion.
I think books should be more narrowly focused. I do not have this issue since I use Beyond with a nice database, but if I were a physical books user, I am going to be pretty frustrated trying to find that one generic monster I remember reading somewhere but it is not in the Monster Manual or one of the bestiaries. I also think magic items deserves its own book, because the way it is currently handled being sprinkled everywhere makes things very hard to find and easily overlooked. I think some people completely brushing off AI just because its tone is a little wacky is kind of dumb because there are a lot of cool stuff in there that is not wacky (Keg Robots and Battle Balloons), but the cool stuff in there do not get as much recognition because it has the baggage of being in the AI book.
I think the errata system is kind of dumb. This is not an much of an issue for physical book users, but it is an issue for digital users. Instead of removing old rules, I think they should have just labeled them as optional. There are a ton cool stuff in UA that got rejected, but a lot of it can also be simply recycled and printed into official books as additional options.
While 5e is pretty modular, it is not modular enough, especially in regards to classes and subclasses. Having a more modular system makes it easier to incorporate all those extra options from the previous point.
They need to print level 20+ adventures. I think it is an easily avoidable self fulfilling prophecy that not many people play high level campaigns because there is not a good example of what such adventures look like. The best example we have is W:DOTMM, and that is a dungeon crawl without much of a story.
I'd change the Strength and Intelligence scores to give them more meaningful impact to the game, as these two scores tend to be the most commonly dumped ones depending on choice of class and possibly subclass. Ideally, I'd want each score to be more viable and add some reason for a player to want to have each score regardless of class choice. I think this can be achieved by giving Strength and Intelligence more mechanical impact. - Strength is pretty easy, I'd make that the only ability score that affects weapon damage. So you would add your Strength modifier to the damage rolls for melee and throwing weapons, as well as short and longbows (realistically, you actually need some strength to get the most out of weapons like bows, so I think this makes perfect sense to do); ranged and finesse weapons can still use Dexterity for attack rolls. This is a bit of a nerf to Dexterity, but given all the other benefits Dex has to offer, I think we can live with this. - Crossbows and firearms would need to be redone to make them more viable with this change, so I'd probably just increase the damage dice, maybe give those weapons multiple dice like the greatsword and maul; hand crossbows could do 2d4 damage, while a pistol might be 2d6, for example. - Intelligence is a bit trickier to figure out, although I might have that be used to determine any extra skill/tool/weapon/armor proficiencies or languages a character could have access to, probably based on your modifier. So whenever a character increase their Intelligence modifier, they learn 1 of their choice of skill/tool/weapon/armor proficiency or language. On the flip side, if they have a negative modifier, they'd have less of these available to them; there would probably be a hard limit of at least 1 skill and weapon proficiency and 1 language known regardless of modifier.
This has been mentioned before, but I'm going to say it again: have both the floating ability score bonuses or racial ability score bonuses as options; the latter can be a variant rule for all I care, just let this be an option for those who prefer it one way or another.
Rework certain classes to give them more variety. Like let every fighter have access to at least some of the Battle Master maneuvers by default; give them something cool to do that isn't just "I attack several times". Battle Masters can still be the supreme badass with all the fancy moves, but let the other fighters have a piece of the pie too. Also let sorcerers have all the metamagic options available to them, or at least let them have more known. None of them are "bad" choices, but players always pick the same handful of the most useful options. Give the pre-Tasha's sorcerers some prepared spells based on their subclass too.
I echo Sposta's sentiment on giving each class more meaningful choices as they progress in a manner similar to Warlocks. I also echo his sentiment on leveling up faster; let those higher tiers of play actually come into play more often.
I think there should be two more types of shields; a buckler and a tower shield. Maybe bucklers can be used with certain two-handers or even with two weapons but only have a +1 AC boost, while tower shields have a +3 AC boost but require some Strength and are heavy?
I'd change how fighting with two-handed melee weapons works too; give a damage bonus if a weapon is being used with two hands, probably a flat +2 bonus to maintain the "keep it simple" design philosophy 5e uses, and have this be what the versatile property does instead of changing damage size (effectively this would be the same thing but gives a bit of a buff, as it improves your average damage). This can also help casters that actually want to use weapons like quarterstaves as well.
Rework two-weapon fighting so that the two-weapon fighting attack is part of the attack action; maybe even let them do two two-weapon fighting attacks if the character has the Extra Attack feature. Maybe change it so that only the weapon that's being used for two-weapon fighting is light, not both weapons. I think this is really all that two-weapon fighting needs to make it more fun and viable to use.
'Simplified' classes added to the DMG as an optional alternative to ordinary character progression. Rebuild the 'Sidekick' classes specifically as "your players are too new and stupid to understand D&D, so give them these on-rails pregens" tools that can still be used as sidekicks but are otherwise designed and intended primarily as a thing for people who feel a deep need to reduce complexity in their game. "Warrior', 'Expert', and 'Healer', with no option for a "Simplified" Mage. because the Wizard class is already so barebones and bereft of anything other than spells that if you can't handle a wizard, you have no business casting spells. And just to maximally cheese off the grognards...
I really love the idea of simplified subclasses for each class. I'm tired of new players thinking that they HAVE to be a fighter because spellcasting is "too complicated." No, choosing spells can be complicated, but actually casting and using spells can be lots of fun, even for newbies.
'Simplified' classes added to the DMG as an optional alternative to ordinary character progression. Rebuild the 'Sidekick' classes specifically as "your players are too new and stupid to understand D&D, so give them these on-rails pregens" tools that can still be used as sidekicks but are otherwise designed and intended primarily as a thing for people who feel a deep need to reduce complexity in their game. "Warrior', 'Expert', and 'Healer', with no option for a "Simplified" Mage. because the Wizard class is already so barebones and bereft of anything other than spells that if you can't handle a wizard, you have no business casting spells. And just to maximally cheese off the grognards...
I really love the idea of simplified subclasses for each class. I'm tired of new players thinking that they HAVE to be a fighter because spellcasting is "too complicated." No, choosing spells can be complicated, but actually casting and using spells can be lots of fun, even for newbies.
Sure, casting can be fun, that doesn't mean it's not complicated. A simple spell like Web has many things to consider - where to drop it, what areas can support it, how it will affect ally movement, whether its flammability comes into play, when the affected creature actually makes the save (our party of veterans gets this wrong 50% of the time), the difference between making the save and breaking the effect with your action, how it affects creatures who succeed on their save, whether spiders should treat it as difficult terrain...
Those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more. Spellcasting is complicated by its very nature. I suppose a simplified wizard could just be a blaster, but at that point is it really a wizard anymore? I dunno, I don't think every class needs to be an onboarding class.
Were I designing things like crazy, I'd likely incorporate the idea that each character's sixth ability score is instead unique to them, likely chosen from a pool of pregenerated options or configured by the DM specifically. A dwarf could set Honor as their sixth stat, a rogue might set Connection as their stat to represent how thoroughly connected they are with the criminal underground, a paladin might set 'Honor' as well but treat it as how closely they adhere to their tenets...stuff like that. Cool stuff that allows individual characters to actually be different from each other.
My only issue with this is that now those unique stats become part of the zero-sum game of ability scores. You'd have people arguing about how a "true roleplayer" dwarven paladin would pump his Honor at the expense of Strength. I think those concepts would feel better if they were affected by actual player choices rather than ASI boosts every 4 levels.
I'd change the Strength and Intelligence scores to give them more meaningful impact to the game, as these two scores tend to be the most commonly dumped ones depending on choice of class and possibly subclass. Ideally, I'd want each score to be more viable and add some reason for a player to want to have each score regardless of class choice. I think this can be achieved by giving Strength and Intelligence more mechanical impact. - Strength is pretty easy, I'd make that the only ability score that affects weapon damage. So you would add your Strength modifier to the damage rolls for melee and throwing weapons, as well as short and longbows (realistically, you actually need some strength to get the most out of weapons like bows, so I think this makes perfect sense to do); ranged and finesse weapons can still use Dexterity for attack rolls. This is a bit of a nerf to Dexterity, but given all the other benefits Dex has to offer, I think we can live with this. - Crossbows and firearms would need to be redone to make them more viable with this change, so I'd probably just increase the damage dice, maybe give those weapons multiple dice like the greatsword and maul; hand crossbows could do 2d4 damage, while a pistol might be 2d6, for example. - Intelligence is a bit trickier to figure out, although I might have that be used to determine any extra skill/tool/weapon/armor proficiencies or languages a character could have access to, probably based on your modifier. So whenever a character increase their Intelligence modifier, they learn 1 of their choice of skill/tool/weapon/armor proficiency or language. On the flip side, if they have a negative modifier, they'd have less of these available to them; there would probably be a hard limit of at least 1 skill and weapon proficiency and 1 language known regardless of modifier.
This has been mentioned before, but I'm going to say it again: have both the floating ability score bonuses or racial ability score bonuses as options; the latter can be a variant rule for all I care, just let this be an option for those who prefer it one way or another.
Rework certain classes to give them more variety. Like let every fighter have access to at least some of the Battle Master maneuvers by default; give them something cool to do that isn't just "I attack several times". Battle Masters can still be the supreme badass with all the fancy moves, but let the other fighters have a piece of the pie too. Also let sorcerers have all the metamagic options available to them, or at least let them have more known. None of them are "bad" choices, but players always pick the same handful of the most useful options. Give the pre-Tasha's sorcerers some prepared spells based on their subclass too.
I echo Sposta's sentiment on giving each class more meaningful choices as they progress in a manner similar to Warlocks. I also echo his sentiment on leveling up faster; let those higher tiers of play actually come into play more often.
I think there should be two more types of shields; a buckler and a tower shield. Maybe bucklers can be used with certain two-handers or even with two weapons but only have a +1 AC boost, while tower shields have a +3 AC boost but require some Strength and are heavy?
I'd change how fighting with two-handed melee weapons works too; give a damage bonus if a weapon is being used with two hands, probably a flat +2 bonus to maintain the "keep it simple" design philosophy 5e uses, and have this be what the versatile property does instead of changing damage size (effectively this would be the same thing but gives a bit of a buff, as it improves your average damage). This can also help casters that actually want to use weapons like quarterstaves as well.
Rework two-weapon fighting so that the two-weapon fighting attack is part of the attack action; maybe even let them do two two-weapon fighting attacks if the character has the Extra Attack feature. Maybe change it so that only the weapon that's being used for two-weapon fighting is light, not both weapons. I think this is really all that two-weapon fighting needs to make it more fun and viable to use.
That's all I got for the time being.
Oh yeah, two weapon fighting!
Currently I say to KISS it, it "costs" your bonus action, but you then get to roll twice as many damage dice. You don't add your mod again, just double the dice. No extra attack rolls. Just double the dice for each attack.
Two shortswords? 2d6. Two shortswords with extra attack? 4d6.
Also, related to that, a player may choose to forgoe any subsequent attack rolls that turn against that target on a success. If they do, every subsequent attack against that target that turn is a success... meaning, if I'm a 20 level fighter with two shortswords and I hit a dragon on my first attack, I can just skip rolling and sink all 9 attacks into the dragon then and there.
If I miss the first and hit the second, I can sink the remaining 7 as well. Just speed up attacking.
Give us clear definitions as to what is an object, and when a creature becomes one. For example, a creature's corpse is no longer a creature, so it must be an object right?
But if a troll is at 0 HP, but it still can regenerate, is it simultaneously an object and a creature? or is it an object until it regenerates and becomes a creature again?
And thus I would also adjust the wording of the resurrection spells to include a newly defined "target corpse of a creature who has died in" blah blah blah etc.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
- My top one would be more classes. Warlord, swordmage, psion, summoner, playtest sorcerer (renamed as something else) and potentially a few more.
- All martials get manoeuvres and superiority dice. (Different ones for each class).
- Backgrounds become much more mechanically impactful.
- Aasimar, tieflings, and genasi become templates which can be applied to any race.
- More mundane weapons. Like a martial spear without thrown, but with reach.
- More classes get warlock type options to make builds more varied.
Probably some other changes too which I just can't think of right now, but inevitably will the second I hit 'post reply'.
- Make feats not compete with ASI's.
So, what was this Playtest Sorcerer? Where can I find it?
I'm not sure that I'm allowed to post the link. But I'll give a summary here.
Some background first. Back in 3.5, all casters used vancian casting. They had to prepare spells for each slot individually. Sorcerer had the unique mechanic of being a spontaneous caster, where it could cast any of its spells known from slots of the correct level. This made sorcerer far more flexible than other casters. Metamagic meanwhile was just a feat. Any caster could access it by taking that feat.
So when the original DnD 5e playtest came around, all casters now had spontaneous casting. Which left sorcerer in a weird place as its signature mechanic was now standard for all casters. To solve this, they decided to kill two birds with one stone, and combine it with the arcane half caster class.
The result was a half caster, which used will points to cast instead of spell slots. It had a d8 hit die, and access to martial weapons and all armour. However its signature ability was becoming more and more like its source of power as it 'spent' its will over the day casting. So a draconic sorcerer would grow claws and scales and become more melee orientated over the day.
The reception was mixed. With some people liking how unique the class was, while other disliked it due to it straying so far from the sorcerer's roots. After the initial playtest, it vanished for the next ten of so playtesting packets, only to appear in the final game as a ****** wizard with the metamagic feat glued onto the side with duct tape. Along with the ranger, it had received by far the least playtesting, and 'coincidently' both classes have been the worst received and most complained about this edition.
As a secondary effect, what happened with sorcerer also is the reason why DnD 5e had no arcane version of the paladin and ranger. As sorcerer was meant to take that spot, when it got reverted to being a full caster at the last minute, there was nothing to fill that gap.
If I was the king of 5e, I wouldn't make many changes. Oh who are we kidding, I'd go mad with power, but the few that I think are most important are listed here:
Okay, those are my four big changes that aren't a big deal. Do you have any?
So there. Four things. All of which people will cheerfully hate, but that's okay. This is why they don't let randomn people be King of 5e, I suppose.
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Yurei, you're too hard on yourself.
I only hate the fourth one... but the more I think about it, a flexible skill system would be pretty cool. Otherwise, I actually love your first two. I've always hated how Barbarian and Monk doen't get a fighting style, but somehow giving maneuvers to the three d10 classes actually makes me more okay with it. (Well done).
And simplified classes sounds fantastic! I disagree with you about wizards, just slightly... but I also have an unnatural hatred of Wizards and I suspect it has more to do with that than your actual point, so take that with a grain of salt.
If I was the King of 5e I would do the following:
That’s all just off the top of my head. I may come back and make another list after I think about it more.
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I have a lot of things:
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If I was king of 5e, I'd first...
Keywording, mofo. We need stuff to go off keywords. One of the biggest examples I have is Hunger of Hadar, which explicitly states "Blackness" over Darkness, and yet people still gripe "I should be able to see through it cause Devil's Sight" and blah blah blah. No. stop it, shut up. Keywording.
I'd also fix True Polymorph a little bit so that way people stop the permanency debate.
I'd reimplement Permanency as a spell, so that way spells like Enlarge/Reduce can be used in more fun ways, and also help really set up a Simic Biomancer with their modifications to allies by permanently applying Longstrider, Jump, etc.
Assign base racial ASIs to the races from Tasha's onwards, but as "informed flavor" for the races. Everyone else already kinda sorta said this, so meh.
Rename races to Species.
Make using alternate attributes for skills more... in your face? Really, it only ever comes up in the case of "I use Strength to intimidate instead!" and only in the DMG iirc.
Undo the BB/GFB errata because *weapons by default have value so of course they aren't in a component pouch or replaced by a focus*.
Reword some of the SAC so things make more sense.
Allow Divine Smites to be used on Unarmed attacks, period.
Allow grapples on Opportunity Attacks, because grapples are a special attack.
...That's all I have for now.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
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You had me at “Keywording mofo.”
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If I were king of 5e, I'd make sure people could tailor the game however they wanted regardless what is in print.
Oh, wait. That's already true.
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If I was King of 5E...
In any adventure or setting book, provide summary pages for lore. These pages cut the flowery descriptions, and just give tables or bullet points of the most important stuff you need to know about locations, factions, religions, and major NPCs.
Rebalance everything relating to hitpoints, to fix these issues:
-Level 1-2 character HP makes everyone 1 bad roll away from being downed or even killed outright
-Low CR minions and bystander NPCs being too squishy to survive the slightest breeze
-Every character and monster being designed with a high constitution
Rebalance mundane weapons, armor, and starting equipment so there's actually some room for progression without having to start the campaign with a prison break or shipwreck. As it stands, there are several armors and weapons that only see use in niche situations, since everyone starts with what's effectively their final or near-final mundane gear. It also currently feels pointless to design magic items based on the lower mundane items.
Rebalance either the strength stat or the strength-focused classes so they have some kind of resilience without armor. I don't like how characters that are supposed to be the most physically imposing feel just as fragile as anyone else when not encased in steel.
Weapon-specific special attacks, as mentioned earlier in this thread. I'd also really like to see throwing weapons redesigned to be more impactful, and not simply "melee guy pretends to be helpful vs flying enemy".
Make "somatic component with no material component" spells doable with a focus in that hand. Having to drop a magical focus in order to do magic just because you have a shield in your other hand feels hyper-dumb.
I mostly have issues with how things are done rather than the content itself.
I hate the use natural language as it is just plain stupid, especially when they mix unnecessary lore in them too, so it is difficult for some people to tell what is RAW and what is not. They need to pay a technical writer to write their rules. Technical writing is no more difficult to read than natural language, and if anything, it should be easier to read and understand because it is not causing a ton of confusion.
I think books should be more narrowly focused. I do not have this issue since I use Beyond with a nice database, but if I were a physical books user, I am going to be pretty frustrated trying to find that one generic monster I remember reading somewhere but it is not in the Monster Manual or one of the bestiaries. I also think magic items deserves its own book, because the way it is currently handled being sprinkled everywhere makes things very hard to find and easily overlooked. I think some people completely brushing off AI just because its tone is a little wacky is kind of dumb because there are a lot of cool stuff in there that is not wacky (Keg Robots and Battle Balloons), but the cool stuff in there do not get as much recognition because it has the baggage of being in the AI book.
I think the errata system is kind of dumb. This is not an much of an issue for physical book users, but it is an issue for digital users. Instead of removing old rules, I think they should have just labeled them as optional. There are a ton cool stuff in UA that got rejected, but a lot of it can also be simply recycled and printed into official books as additional options.
While 5e is pretty modular, it is not modular enough, especially in regards to classes and subclasses. Having a more modular system makes it easier to incorporate all those extra options from the previous point.
They need to print level 20+ adventures. I think it is an easily avoidable self fulfilling prophecy that not many people play high level campaigns because there is not a good example of what such adventures look like. The best example we have is W:DOTMM, and that is a dungeon crawl without much of a story.
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If I was king of 5e...
I'd change the Strength and Intelligence scores to give them more meaningful impact to the game, as these two scores tend to be the most commonly dumped ones depending on choice of class and possibly subclass. Ideally, I'd want each score to be more viable and add some reason for a player to want to have each score regardless of class choice. I think this can be achieved by giving Strength and Intelligence more mechanical impact.
- Strength is pretty easy, I'd make that the only ability score that affects weapon damage. So you would add your Strength modifier to the damage rolls for melee and throwing weapons, as well as short and longbows (realistically, you actually need some strength to get the most out of weapons like bows, so I think this makes perfect sense to do); ranged and finesse weapons can still use Dexterity for attack rolls. This is a bit of a nerf to Dexterity, but given all the other benefits Dex has to offer, I think we can live with this.
- Crossbows and firearms would need to be redone to make them more viable with this change, so I'd probably just increase the damage dice, maybe give those weapons multiple dice like the greatsword and maul; hand crossbows could do 2d4 damage, while a pistol might be 2d6, for example.
- Intelligence is a bit trickier to figure out, although I might have that be used to determine any extra skill/tool/weapon/armor proficiencies or languages a character could have access to, probably based on your modifier. So whenever a character increase their Intelligence modifier, they learn 1 of their choice of skill/tool/weapon/armor proficiency or language. On the flip side, if they have a negative modifier, they'd have less of these available to them; there would probably be a hard limit of at least 1 skill and weapon proficiency and 1 language known regardless of modifier.
This has been mentioned before, but I'm going to say it again: have both the floating ability score bonuses or racial ability score bonuses as options; the latter can be a variant rule for all I care, just let this be an option for those who prefer it one way or another.
Rework certain classes to give them more variety. Like let every fighter have access to at least some of the Battle Master maneuvers by default; give them something cool to do that isn't just "I attack several times". Battle Masters can still be the supreme badass with all the fancy moves, but let the other fighters have a piece of the pie too. Also let sorcerers have all the metamagic options available to them, or at least let them have more known. None of them are "bad" choices, but players always pick the same handful of the most useful options. Give the pre-Tasha's sorcerers some prepared spells based on their subclass too.
I echo Sposta's sentiment on giving each class more meaningful choices as they progress in a manner similar to Warlocks. I also echo his sentiment on leveling up faster; let those higher tiers of play actually come into play more often.
I think there should be two more types of shields; a buckler and a tower shield. Maybe bucklers can be used with certain two-handers or even with two weapons but only have a +1 AC boost, while tower shields have a +3 AC boost but require some Strength and are heavy?
I'd change how fighting with two-handed melee weapons works too; give a damage bonus if a weapon is being used with two hands, probably a flat +2 bonus to maintain the "keep it simple" design philosophy 5e uses, and have this be what the versatile property does instead of changing damage size (effectively this would be the same thing but gives a bit of a buff, as it improves your average damage). This can also help casters that actually want to use weapons like quarterstaves as well.
Rework two-weapon fighting so that the two-weapon fighting attack is part of the attack action; maybe even let them do two two-weapon fighting attacks if the character has the Extra Attack feature. Maybe change it so that only the weapon that's being used for two-weapon fighting is light, not both weapons. I think this is really all that two-weapon fighting needs to make it more fun and viable to use.
That's all I got for the time being.
I really love the idea of simplified subclasses for each class. I'm tired of new players thinking that they HAVE to be a fighter because spellcasting is "too complicated." No, choosing spells can be complicated, but actually casting and using spells can be lots of fun, even for newbies.
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Sure, casting can be fun, that doesn't mean it's not complicated. A simple spell like Web has many things to consider - where to drop it, what areas can support it, how it will affect ally movement, whether its flammability comes into play, when the affected creature actually makes the save (our party of veterans gets this wrong 50% of the time), the difference between making the save and breaking the effect with your action, how it affects creatures who succeed on their save, whether spiders should treat it as difficult terrain...
Those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more. Spellcasting is complicated by its very nature. I suppose a simplified wizard could just be a blaster, but at that point is it really a wizard anymore? I dunno, I don't think every class needs to be an onboarding class.
My only issue with this is that now those unique stats become part of the zero-sum game of ability scores. You'd have people arguing about how a "true roleplayer" dwarven paladin would pump his Honor at the expense of Strength. I think those concepts would feel better if they were affected by actual player choices rather than ASI boosts every 4 levels.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Oh yeah, two weapon fighting!
Currently I say to KISS it, it "costs" your bonus action, but you then get to roll twice as many damage dice. You don't add your mod again, just double the dice. No extra attack rolls. Just double the dice for each attack.
Two shortswords? 2d6. Two shortswords with extra attack? 4d6.
Also, related to that, a player may choose to forgoe any subsequent attack rolls that turn against that target on a success. If they do, every subsequent attack against that target that turn is a success... meaning, if I'm a 20 level fighter with two shortswords and I hit a dragon on my first attack, I can just skip rolling and sink all 9 attacks into the dragon then and there.
If I miss the first and hit the second, I can sink the remaining 7 as well. Just speed up attacking.
Oh, I came up with another one.
Give us clear definitions as to what is an object, and when a creature becomes one. For example, a creature's corpse is no longer a creature, so it must be an object right?
But if a troll is at 0 HP, but it still can regenerate, is it simultaneously an object and a creature? or is it an object until it regenerates and becomes a creature again?
And thus I would also adjust the wording of the resurrection spells to include a newly defined "target corpse of a creature who has died in" blah blah blah etc.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
- My top one would be more classes. Warlord, swordmage, psion, summoner, playtest sorcerer (renamed as something else) and potentially a few more.
- All martials get manoeuvres and superiority dice. (Different ones for each class).
- Backgrounds become much more mechanically impactful.
- Aasimar, tieflings, and genasi become templates which can be applied to any race.
- More mundane weapons. Like a martial spear without thrown, but with reach.
- More classes get warlock type options to make builds more varied.
Probably some other changes too which I just can't think of right now, but inevitably will the second I hit 'post reply'.
- Make feats not compete with ASI's.
So, what was this Playtest Sorcerer? Where can I find it?
I'm not sure that I'm allowed to post the link. But I'll give a summary here.
Some background first. Back in 3.5, all casters used vancian casting. They had to prepare spells for each slot individually. Sorcerer had the unique mechanic of being a spontaneous caster, where it could cast any of its spells known from slots of the correct level. This made sorcerer far more flexible than other casters. Metamagic meanwhile was just a feat. Any caster could access it by taking that feat.
So when the original DnD 5e playtest came around, all casters now had spontaneous casting. Which left sorcerer in a weird place as its signature mechanic was now standard for all casters. To solve this, they decided to kill two birds with one stone, and combine it with the arcane half caster class.
The result was a half caster, which used will points to cast instead of spell slots. It had a d8 hit die, and access to martial weapons and all armour. However its signature ability was becoming more and more like its source of power as it 'spent' its will over the day casting. So a draconic sorcerer would grow claws and scales and become more melee orientated over the day.
The reception was mixed. With some people liking how unique the class was, while other disliked it due to it straying so far from the sorcerer's roots. After the initial playtest, it vanished for the next ten of so playtesting packets, only to appear in the final game as a ****** wizard with the metamagic feat glued onto the side with duct tape. Along with the ranger, it had received by far the least playtesting, and 'coincidently' both classes have been the worst received and most complained about this edition.
As a secondary effect, what happened with sorcerer also is the reason why DnD 5e had no arcane version of the paladin and ranger. As sorcerer was meant to take that spot, when it got reverted to being a full caster at the last minute, there was nothing to fill that gap.
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