Getting lost in the design again (a fun passtime for many of us, I'm sure) and 6E in my head right now is based on Simplifying and Unifying 5e... possibly also drawing from previous editions.
The Classes are coincidentally similar to 2nd edition. You have the base classes: Brawler, Fighter, Priest, Rogue, Magic-User, Mystic, Artificer.
Brawlers have unarmored defense and better hand to hand combat. Barbarians and Monks are some subclasses.
Fighters are trained in weapons and armours the best. Cavaliers, Paladins, Rangers, and Psi-Warriors are some subclasses.
Priests use magic that they get from some greater power. Clerics, Druids, and Warlocks are some subclasses. They all get fewer prepared spells, but they always have access to their full spell list and can swap them out daily.
Mages / Magic Users don't get magic from another being. They should generally have more spell slots and a spellbook. Sorcerer, Wizard, and one kind of full-caster Bard would be Mage subclasses.
Rogues are skill monkeys who can do a little bit of everything. Thief, Acrobat, Assassin, Half-Caster Swords Bard are all Rogues.
Artificers and Mystics are what you'd expect them to be.
Since 5.5/6e is supposed to be back comparable to 5e what happens to the sub classes of the present classes that you have now made into subclasses? Do they become sub-sub classes or just disappear?
Sounds like way too much hassle rather than looking back to 2e you might want to look over the 3e to 3.5e transition it was much more “legacy friendly”
We don’t really know. M3 is supposed to be the format for revised monster books, radiant citadel the first example of proper adventure books ( tho at least chapt 1 reads more like a settting book) and Spelljammer is supposed to show the new setting format. I’m still waiting to see what they are going to do for a lore book for older settings.
What is the functional difference between having a relatively large number of base classes, each with a relatively moderate number of subclasses (discounting clerics because clerics are weird) and a smalll number of base classes that each have a gorillion subclasses?
You've merged barbarians and monks...why? "Unarmed brawlers with unarmored defense". Okay. That describes neither barbarians, who are very much connoisseurs of Big Iron thank you very much, nor monks who are nimble, precise and dexterous martial artists favoring finesse over force (and who frequently also employ a variety of weapons). All you have done is guarantee that people who like barbarians are pissed off and also people who like monks are pissed off.
You've eliminated rangers and paladins both in favor of "just Fighter". Again, and you'll start to sense a theme here: WHY? What does this decision gain? What is the upshot here? You've ensured that people who enjoy the roving wanderer badass survivalist have nowhere to go since rangers don't exist anymore, and that people who enjoy being a martial champion of their deity/cause also have nowhere to go because paladins are nothing more than a third-grade coloring book reboot of the basic Fighter Man. Someone playing a ranger is not doing so because they secretly want to be a fighter but feel beholden to the superior class. I can guarantee that people play rangers because they want to be a ranger. And of course, I can imagine ninety-nine paladins out of a hundred would likely have opinions for someone who said "Hey! Do you want to give up literally every last drop of your magic in exchange for becoming a subclass of Fighter Man with the name 'paladin' but no actual paladin features in the name of Simplifying an already over-simplified game and 'unifying' a game by shattering it into irreconcilable pieces utterly at odds with its past incarnations?"
The very idea that clerics and warlocks are perfectly equivalent shows a deep, deep misunderstanding opf the driving tropes behind warlocks. People do not, as a general rule, play a warlock because they want to bne a devout, selfless worshipper of a Divine Power. Many warlock subclasses revolve around wresting power from an outright hostile entity, or delicately negotiating the balance between gaining the power to affect change in the world with the requirement to act in the interests of an entity that very much wishes to make the mortal realm a worse place to be. Making clerics and warlocks identical is just...once again: WHY? What does this possibly do, beyond just pissing off every single warlock player currently in 5e?
Seriously. Why do any of this? What possible benefit could there be?
I'm not keen on combining classes... I don't think that there are any two of the current classes that are similar enough to feel like it's simplifying things by combining them. Not without completely reworking the game from the ground up... which I guess is kind of the point of this thought experiment. I think that concept works better if we want to make the game more customizable... like, instead of being a Fighter/Monk/Barbarian there's just one "Martial Warrior" class with different feats and abilities selected at each level up.... so instead of the existing subclasses and such you just make a decision at each level up what abilities you want. Maybe some higher level abilties can only be selected if you picked an early level ability that feeds into it. However, to me, that's not really what I like about D&D... I think it'd be fun on its own, and I'm pretty sure there are TTRPGs that exist that use a similar system, but part of the appeal of D&D these days, and 5e in particular, is that it's relatively quick to pick up and play. If anything I'd rather simplify the game.
So here's what I would want... I think it would be good to standardize your Proficiency Bonus as the measure for skills and abilities. I mean things like... how many uses of a particular skill do you get? How much damage gets added for some abilities? I think that's more or less the direction the game has been going, and although I wouldn't say it's 100% the ideal way to do it (for example, to have a Bard's uses of Inspiration tied to PB seems fine at level 9+, but it's a pretty big nerf for lower levels). But it's a reliable resource that naturally grows as you level up.
I think there are also some "boring" subclasses that should either be eliminated, or have their abilities just folded into the base class. Something like Open Hand monk, which I feel you could give half their abilities to all monks, and the others you could rebalance in some way and just be fine. Or most of the features from the Assassin subclass (other than the assassinate feature, which seems to be the only feature players actually want when they take the subclass). The ability to create false identities and imitate voices seems like something that any character should be able to do if they have the right stats for it.
Getting lost in the design again (a fun passtime for many of us, I'm sure) and 6E in my head right now is based on Simplifying and Unifying 5e... possibly also drawing from previous editions.
The Classes are coincidentally similar to 2nd edition. You have the base classes: Brawler, Fighter, Priest, Rogue, Magic-User, Mystic, Artificer.
Brawlers have unarmored defense and better hand to hand combat. Barbarians and Monks are some subclasses.
Fighters are trained in weapons and armours the best. Cavaliers, Paladins, Rangers, and Psi-Warriors are some subclasses.
Priests use magic that they get from some greater power. Clerics, Druids, and Warlocks are some subclasses. They all get fewer prepared spells, but they always have access to their full spell list and can swap them out daily.
Mages / Magic Users don't get magic from another being. They should generally have more spell slots and a spellbook. Sorcerer, Wizard, and one kind of full-caster Bard would be Mage subclasses.
Rogues are skill monkeys who can do a little bit of everything. Thief, Acrobat, Assassin, Half-Caster Swords Bard are all Rogues.
Artificers and Mystics are what you'd expect them to be.
Since 5.5/6e is supposed to be back comparable to 5e what happens to the sub classes of the present classes that you have now made into subclasses? Do they become sub-sub classes or just disappear?
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Still figuring that out, but ultimately something more like a sister-subclass.
Sounds like way too much hassle rather than looking back to 2e you might want to look over the 3e to 3.5e transition it was much more “legacy friendly”
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Do allthe DM/monster books remain in the same status?
We don’t really know. M3 is supposed to be the format for revised monster books, radiant citadel the first example of proper adventure books ( tho at least chapt 1 reads more like a settting book) and Spelljammer is supposed to show the new setting format. I’m still waiting to see what they are going to do for a lore book for older settings.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Simple question.
Why?
What is the objective here?
What is the functional difference between having a relatively large number of base classes, each with a relatively moderate number of subclasses (discounting clerics because clerics are weird) and a smalll number of base classes that each have a gorillion subclasses?
You've merged barbarians and monks...why? "Unarmed brawlers with unarmored defense". Okay. That describes neither barbarians, who are very much connoisseurs of Big Iron thank you very much, nor monks who are nimble, precise and dexterous martial artists favoring finesse over force (and who frequently also employ a variety of weapons). All you have done is guarantee that people who like barbarians are pissed off and also people who like monks are pissed off.
You've eliminated rangers and paladins both in favor of "just Fighter". Again, and you'll start to sense a theme here: WHY? What does this decision gain? What is the upshot here? You've ensured that people who enjoy the roving wanderer badass survivalist have nowhere to go since rangers don't exist anymore, and that people who enjoy being a martial champion of their deity/cause also have nowhere to go because paladins are nothing more than a third-grade coloring book reboot of the basic Fighter Man. Someone playing a ranger is not doing so because they secretly want to be a fighter but feel beholden to the superior class. I can guarantee that people play rangers because they want to be a ranger. And of course, I can imagine ninety-nine paladins out of a hundred would likely have opinions for someone who said "Hey! Do you want to give up literally every last drop of your magic in exchange for becoming a subclass of Fighter Man with the name 'paladin' but no actual paladin features in the name of Simplifying an already over-simplified game and 'unifying' a game by shattering it into irreconcilable pieces utterly at odds with its past incarnations?"
The very idea that clerics and warlocks are perfectly equivalent shows a deep, deep misunderstanding opf the driving tropes behind warlocks. People do not, as a general rule, play a warlock because they want to bne a devout, selfless worshipper of a Divine Power. Many warlock subclasses revolve around wresting power from an outright hostile entity, or delicately negotiating the balance between gaining the power to affect change in the world with the requirement to act in the interests of an entity that very much wishes to make the mortal realm a worse place to be. Making clerics and warlocks identical is just...once again: WHY? What does this possibly do, beyond just pissing off every single warlock player currently in 5e?
Seriously. Why do any of this? What possible benefit could there be?
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I'm not keen on combining classes... I don't think that there are any two of the current classes that are similar enough to feel like it's simplifying things by combining them. Not without completely reworking the game from the ground up... which I guess is kind of the point of this thought experiment. I think that concept works better if we want to make the game more customizable... like, instead of being a Fighter/Monk/Barbarian there's just one "Martial Warrior" class with different feats and abilities selected at each level up.... so instead of the existing subclasses and such you just make a decision at each level up what abilities you want. Maybe some higher level abilties can only be selected if you picked an early level ability that feeds into it. However, to me, that's not really what I like about D&D... I think it'd be fun on its own, and I'm pretty sure there are TTRPGs that exist that use a similar system, but part of the appeal of D&D these days, and 5e in particular, is that it's relatively quick to pick up and play. If anything I'd rather simplify the game.
So here's what I would want... I think it would be good to standardize your Proficiency Bonus as the measure for skills and abilities. I mean things like... how many uses of a particular skill do you get? How much damage gets added for some abilities? I think that's more or less the direction the game has been going, and although I wouldn't say it's 100% the ideal way to do it (for example, to have a Bard's uses of Inspiration tied to PB seems fine at level 9+, but it's a pretty big nerf for lower levels). But it's a reliable resource that naturally grows as you level up.
I think there are also some "boring" subclasses that should either be eliminated, or have their abilities just folded into the base class. Something like Open Hand monk, which I feel you could give half their abilities to all monks, and the others you could rebalance in some way and just be fine. Or most of the features from the Assassin subclass (other than the assassinate feature, which seems to be the only feature players actually want when they take the subclass). The ability to create false identities and imitate voices seems like something that any character should be able to do if they have the right stats for it.
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