And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
Honestly, D&D would be a better game if they gave up on the resource depletion model. They've been trying to cram the multi-encounter day down gamers' throats since 3e, and it's been failing to work for just as long (the five minute workday has been a problem since Basic D&D, but prior to 3e there weren't encounter building rules, and thus nothing was specifically balanced around resource depletion). If you really want to have resource management be a thing, don't base it around a time-based resource, base it on a non-replenishing resource (money, experience points, etc).
I have no problem with either a time based replenishment system, or a non-time based system. Either one, or both, can be fine, as long as well implemented. This all circles back to the quantity and quality of spell casters. There are too many badly implemented caster classes and subclases, and of course spells which trivialize the difficulty of a game, let alone drive a new player or new DM nuts. The same can be said for the resource depletion in 5e. The challenges are trivialized by a plethora of badly designed and outright OP resource replenishment mechanics.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
See my point above; they most likely deliberately designed for a wide margin on HP because attrition there is ultimately disruptive to a campaign and the typical player’s enjoyment of the game. And really, the gritty rules are harder on long rest PCs than short rest ones; a Warlock or Monk replenishes their key resources after a day under those rules, while a Wizard or Cleric needs a week to get theirs back.
There are many game systems where players are essentially unkillable gods and player derive their enjoyment in being able to steamroll anything placed in front of them. D&D has never been that type of game.
Right, because bodies were dropping left, right, and center in every edition before 5e. I can’t speak for back in the early days, but I’ve played 3.5 (well, 1e Pathfinder, but six of one and a half dozen of the other), and barring my one genius moment of trying to scout independently I never felt my character’s life was in particularly dire peril during combat. And, at the same time I’ve been downed several times across various 5e campaigns. No deaths yet (party because one down came from me making a desperate last ditch play while I had the Death Ward the DM had given the party earlier up), but hardly an “unkillable god” either. I’d suggest you maybe switch your eyeglasses prescription out; those rose colored lenses you use when you look back at previous editions aren’t doing you any favors.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
See my point above; they most likely deliberately designed for a wide margin on HP because attrition there is ultimately disruptive to a campaign and the typical player’s enjoyment of the game. And really, the gritty rules are harder on long rest PCs than short rest ones; a Warlock or Monk replenishes their key resources after a day under those rules, while a Wizard or Cleric needs a week to get theirs back.
There are many game systems where players are essentially unkillable gods and player derive their enjoyment in being able to steamroll anything placed in front of them. D&D has never been that type of game.
Right, because bodies were dropping left, right, and center in every edition before 5e. I can’t speak for back in the early days, but I’ve played 3.5 (well, 1e Pathfinder, but six of one and a half dozen of the other), and barring my one genius moment of trying to scout independently I never felt my character’s life was in particularly dire peril during combat. And, at the same time I’ve been downed several times across various 5e campaigns. No deaths yet (party because one down came from me making a desperate last ditch play while I had the Death Ward the DM had given the party earlier up), but hardly an “unkillable god” either. I’d suggest you maybe switch your eyeglasses prescription out; those rose colored lenses you use when you look back at previous editions aren’t doing you any favors.
The very first DMG contains a specific directive that DMs should make the game as difficult or as easy as would be fun, and explicitly recommends that some DMs might want to liberally give our access to healing and resurrection items, creating an environment where players can easily drop and get back up rapidly. Likewise, there are plenty of ways to make the modern game extremely lethal - it isn’t all that hard to drop a player, considering how death saves work with multi attack.
The idea that the game was always only meant to be some hardcore grind is nothing short of a lie grognards tell themselves to try and pretend they are superior to others.
I have no problem with either a time based replenishment system, or a non-time based system.
The problem with time-based is that it generally requires pretty dubious adventure flow to require a 6-8 encounter day, and if it's not actually required... players aren't gonna do it. If you design for more likely adventure flow and player behavior, resource depletion becomes irrelevant because you mostly have the one-encounter day, with some anomalous 2-3 encounter days. This doesn't make the PCs invincible (just ramp up the difficulty of that one encounter) but it does make resource depletion mostly moot.
Right, because bodies were dropping left, right, and center in every edition before 5e.
Death rates were higher in earlier editions, but that didn't have a lot to do with hit point recovery mechanics, it had to do with save-or-die mechanics and death at 0 hp. If you want to see more deaths in 5e, just change the rules for dying.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
See my point above; they most likely deliberately designed for a wide margin on HP because attrition there is ultimately disruptive to a campaign and the typical player’s enjoyment of the game. And really, the gritty rules are harder on long rest PCs than short rest ones; a Warlock or Monk replenishes their key resources after a day under those rules, while a Wizard or Cleric needs a week to get theirs back.
There are many game systems where players are essentially unkillable gods and player derive their enjoyment in being able to steamroll anything placed in front of them. D&D has never been that type of game.
Right, because bodies were dropping left, right, and center in every edition before 5e. I can’t speak for back in the early days, but I’ve played 3.5 (well, 1e Pathfinder, but six of one and a half dozen of the other), and barring my one genius moment of trying to scout independently I never felt my character’s life was in particularly dire peril during combat. And, at the same time I’ve been downed several times across various 5e campaigns. No deaths yet (party because one down came from me making a desperate last ditch play while I had the Death Ward the DM had given the party earlier up), but hardly an “unkillable god” either. I’d suggest you maybe switch your eyeglasses prescription out; those rose colored lenses you use when you look back at previous editions aren’t doing you any favors.
The only reason why PCs don't die in a campaign is because the DM allows that sort of thing to happen. I couldn't tell you how many PCs I've lost in 1st/2nd edition because the DMs I had were harsh. If you died, you died. Especially if you were a magic-user back in the day. Wizards nowadays are way more resilient than MU's of yesteryear with their 1d4 starting HPs. 5e is way more forgiving than the 1e/2e, but you can still die if the DM allows it. And why I say that is because I had a DM that wouldn't let PCs die. They would always have something happen that would allow PCs to come back. I had to explain to her that having a PC die makes for better storytelling and bring that sense of danger to the table that is sorely lacking in today's game. From my experience, DMs today don't want their PCs to die, which is weird to me. When I DM, I let the players know up front that I won't save your characters. I won't go out of my way to kill your characters, but I won't save you either. Most people are ok with that cause it makes them play cautiously.
The very first DMG contains a specific directive that DMs should make the game as difficult or as easy as would be fun, and explicitly recommends that some DMs might want to liberally give our access to healing and resurrection items, creating an environment where players can easily drop and get back up rapidly. Likewise, there are plenty of ways to make the modern game extremely lethal - it isn’t all that hard to drop a player, considering how death saves work with multi attack.
This part is true.
The idea that the game was always only meant to be some hardcore grind is nothing short of a lie grognards tell themselves to try and pretend they are superior to others.
This part is not.
The context of the DMG suggestions is that Gygax felt very strongly that players will take any advantage they can get and are prone to ruining their own fun and it's the DM's job to monitor the difference. This is as true back then as it is today, players will always take anything they can get, they are never thinking about the impact on the game, nor should they, that is the DM's job.
The difference between old school and new school is that in old school games (game design) you start at a"high difficulty" and you ease the game up for new players. This is what Gygax was talking about, offering ways to soften up the game.
In modern game design, we do the exact opposite. The Default game is easy mode, designed for new players who don't know anything about playing an RPG and it's the DM's job to create the challenge for more experienced players.
I'm not saying one way is better or worse, but that is the design. In a group like mine where I have players that have been playing RPG's, miniature games and strategy games for decades, they absolutely destroy 5e. I basically have to have every encounter be 3x deadly at every level for them to even break a sweat and that is with additional rules that raise the challenge of the game like Gritty Realism.
I suspect they could narrow it down to 3 spell casters to cover everything they have now. Full caster, 1/2 caster and pact caster. At level 1 pick your school arcane, divine, primal. Primal and divine come with armor proficiency and a few other things, arcane gets nothing. Choose prepared vs known Every level select features from a pool depending on those first choices. But do we need barbarian, monk, rogue and fighter couldn't that be one or 2 classed as well. And sure they could go classless, but I feel classes are pretty core to D&Ds identity. That being said Hero Games Fantasy hero 4e is probably my favorite fantasy game system. Classless but you could buy packages of skills on a slight discount that fit themes like burglars, college wizard, soldier etc.
As far as "sorcerer divine class", I believe that's called the Divine Soul Sorcerer.
you are correct, i forgot that was an origin, because really what im after is a "inquisitor" or an arcane trickster who uses divine usually when i want a divine caster. It doesnt have to be "roguish" I just want a skill monkey with divine when I play divine caster.
I suspect they could narrow it down to 3 spell casters to cover everything they have now. Full caster, 1/2 caster and pact caster. At level 1 pick your school arcane, divine, primal. Primal and divine come with armor proficiency and a few other things, arcane gets nothing. Choose prepared vs known Every level select features from a pool depending on those first choices. But do we need barbarian, monk, rogue and fighter couldn't that be one or 2 classed as well. And sure they could go classless, but I feel classes are pretty core to D&Ds identity. That being said Hero Games Fantasy hero 4e is probably my favorite fantasy game system. Classless but you could buy packages of skills on a slight discount that fit themes like burglars, college wizard, soldier etc.
I have devised a system that is far easier to handle, nods at old school, and solves the problem of too many choices.
Druids go back as a subclass of Cleric.
Paladins and Rangers go back as subclasses of Fighters, treated as 1/3 casters.
Bards cease to exist, and if you want to call anything a Bard, consider it a Rogue Arcane Trickster.
There is only one subclass of Wizard, and that is Evocation.
Sorcerers exist with 4 subclasses, one for each of the Elements: Water, Air, Earth, and Fire.
Warlocks, Artificers are bye bye, though Warlock Invocations and potentially spells may be taken by any class when an ASI is assigned, so a minimum of 4th level, and upon the consent of the DM.
There is only one subclass of Wizard, and that is Evocation.
Why? It used to be Illusionist.
Because Illusionist has always been fraught with difficulties for a DM to adjudicate, going right back to 1e. If a Wizard wants to take Illusion spells, they are still available. Oh, and Cleric subclasses: Only Life, War, and Druid. Call War a Battle Cleric if you like.
As far as "sorcerer divine class", I believe that's called the Divine Soul Sorcerer.
you are correct, i forgot that was an origin, because really what im after is a "inquisitor" or an arcane trickster who uses divine usually when i want a divine caster. It doesnt have to be "roguish" I just want a skill monkey with divine when I play divine caster.
I suspect they could narrow it down to 3 spell casters to cover everything they have now. Full caster, 1/2 caster and pact caster. At level 1 pick your school arcane, divine, primal. Primal and divine come with armor proficiency and a few other things, arcane gets nothing. Choose prepared vs known Every level select features from a pool depending on those first choices. But do we need barbarian, monk, rogue and fighter couldn't that be one or 2 classed as well. And sure they could go classless, but I feel classes are pretty core to D&Ds identity. That being said Hero Games Fantasy hero 4e is probably my favorite fantasy game system. Classless but you could buy packages of skills on a slight discount that fit themes like burglars, college wizard, soldier etc.
I have devised a system that is far easier to handle, nods at old school, and solves the problem of too many choices.
Druids go back as a subclass of Cleric.
Paladins and Rangers go back as subclasses of Fighters, treated as 1/3 casters.
Bards cease to exist, and if you want to call anything a Bard, consider it a Rogue Arcane Trickster.
There is only one subclass of Wizard, and that is Evocation.
Sorcerers exist with 4 subclasses, one for each of the Elements: Water, Air, Earth, and Fire.
Warlocks, Artificers are bye bye, though Warlock Invocations and potentially spells may be taken by any class when an ASI is assigned, so a minimum of 4th level, and upon the consent of the DM.
Far be it for me to tell another GM how to adapt the game at their table, but I can tell you that the easiest way to reduce choices in the game is to eliminate sub-classes entirely. The game works perfectly fine without sub-classes, especially now that you also get feats. You do that with 3d6 down the chain and 5e is basically 1st edition AD&D without the class/race/level restrictions in terms of power scale and options.
I suspect they could narrow it down to 3 spell casters to cover everything they have now. Full caster, 1/2 caster and pact caster. At level 1 pick your school arcane, divine, primal. Primal and divine come with armor proficiency and a few other things, arcane gets nothing. Choose prepared vs known Every level select features from a pool depending on those first choices. But do we need barbarian, monk, rogue and fighter couldn't that be one or 2 classed as well. And sure they could go classless, but I feel classes are pretty core to D&Ds identity. That being said Hero Games Fantasy hero 4e is probably my favorite fantasy game system. Classless but you could buy packages of skills on a slight discount that fit themes like burglars, college wizard, soldier etc.
I have devised a system that is far easier to handle, nods at old school, and solves the problem of too many choices.
Druids go back as a subclass of Cleric.
Paladins and Rangers go back as subclasses of Fighters, treated as 1/3 casters.
Bards cease to exist, and if you want to call anything a Bard, consider it a Rogue Arcane Trickster.
There is only one subclass of Wizard, and that is Evocation.
Sorcerers exist with 4 subclasses, one for each of the Elements: Water, Air, Earth, and Fire.
Warlocks, Artificers are bye bye, though Warlock Invocations and potentially spells may be taken by any class when an ASI is assigned, so a minimum of 4th level, and upon the consent of the DM.
Far be it for me to tell another GM how to adapt the game at their table, but I can tell you that the easiest way to reduce choices in the game is to eliminate sub-classes entirely. The game works perfectly fine without sub-classes, especially now that you also get feats. You do that with 3d6 down the chain and 5e is basically 1st edition AD&D without the class/race/level restrictions in terms of power scale and options.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
See my point above; they most likely deliberately designed for a wide margin on HP because attrition there is ultimately disruptive to a campaign and the typical player’s enjoyment of the game. And really, the gritty rules are harder on long rest PCs than short rest ones; a Warlock or Monk replenishes their key resources after a day under those rules, while a Wizard or Cleric needs a week to get theirs back.
There are many game systems where players are essentially unkillable gods and player derive their enjoyment in being able to steamroll anything placed in front of them. D&D has never been that type of game.
Right, because bodies were dropping left, right, and center in every edition before 5e. I can’t speak for back in the early days, but I’ve played 3.5 (well, 1e Pathfinder, but six of one and a half dozen of the other), and barring my one genius moment of trying to scout independently I never felt my character’s life was in particularly dire peril during combat. And, at the same time I’ve been downed several times across various 5e campaigns. No deaths yet (party because one down came from me making a desperate last ditch play while I had the Death Ward the DM had given the party earlier up), but hardly an “unkillable god” either. I’d suggest you maybe switch your eyeglasses prescription out; those rose colored lenses you use when you look back at previous editions aren’t doing you any favors.
The only reason why PCs don't die in a campaign is because the DM allows that sort of thing to happen. I couldn't tell you how many PCs I've lost in 1st/2nd edition because the DMs I had were harsh. If you died, you died. Especially if you were a magic-user back in the day. Wizards nowadays are way more resilient than MU's of yesteryear with their 1d4 starting HPs. 5e is way more forgiving than the 1e/2e, but you can still die if the DM allows it. And why I say that is because I had a DM that wouldn't let PCs die. They would always have something happen that would allow PCs to come back. I had to explain to her that having a PC die makes for better storytelling and bring that sense of danger to the table that is sorely lacking in today's game. From my experience, DMs today don't want their PCs to die, which is weird to me. When I DM, I let the players know up front that I won't save your characters. I won't go out of my way to kill your characters, but I won't save you either. Most people are ok with that cause it makes them play cautiously.
To each their own, but I prefer a game that encourages roleplay. I’ve had many, many cases when a character made a mistake the player knew was an error, but which made sense for the character.
To each their own, but I prefer a game that encourages roleplay. I’ve had many, many cases when a character made a mistake the player knew was an error, but which made sense for the character.
It's both a question of playstyle but also independently a matter of D&D culture. This argument is as old as role-playing itself, the question being, when SHOULD a character die? Is it by the rules, by the DM's will, or by some sort of logical argument? Whenever this discussion comes up you have to ask that question first.
By the rules, games before 2nd edition AD&D were deadly as hell, a single successful attack with a melee weapon could easily kill a 1st level character outright. The question however was, do you play that RAW as a DM, dice on the table, let the chips fall where they may or do you intervene, house rule or whatever else? The answer was, as it is today, it depended on the DM. The idea that old school games were "super deadly" is an old wives tale, every table was different, as it is today.
There is a certain sort of prestige attributed to the idea of the deadly game, but that ideology comes form the OSR not old school gamers that actually played the game back in the day. What I mean is that modern OSR players, see the "RAW" element as some sort of core of what old school gaming was about, but this is objectively false. Quite to the contrary, old school gaming was every bit if not far more about role-playing than it is today. When you really think about it, old school gaming was basically free-form role-playing, we didn't have role-playing crutches like backgrounds, feats or skills upon which the game was base, you had only your imagination and your wits.
My point here is, as much as I love the OSR for all the contributions it has made to RPG's, much of the OSR is more myth than reality, they WANT the game to have been a certain way, but simply was not. The game really hasn't changed all that much, in fact, 5th edition revised is closer to AD&D 1st edition, than 2nd edition AD&D was in terms of philosophy.
To each their own, but I prefer a game that encourages roleplay. I’ve had many, many cases when a character made a mistake the player knew was an error, but which made sense for the character.
It's both a question of playstyle but also independently a matter of D&D culture. This argument is as old as role-playing itself, the question being, when SHOULD a character die? Is it by the rules, by the DM's will, or by some sort of logical argument? Whenever this discussion comes up you have to ask that question first.
By the rules, games before 2nd edition AD&D were deadly as hell, a single successful attack with a melee weapon could easily kill a 1st level character outright. The question however was, do you play that RAW as a DM, dice on the table, let the chips fall where they may or do you intervene, house rule or whatever else? The answer was, as it is today, it depended on the DM. The idea that old school games were "super deadly" is an old wives tale, every table was different, as it is today.
There is a certain sort of prestige attributed to the idea of the deadly game, but that ideology comes form the OSR not old school gamers that actually played the game back in the day. What I mean is that modern OSR players, see the "RAW" element as some sort of core of what old school gaming was about, but this is objectively false. Quite to the contrary, old school gaming was every bit if not far more about role-playing than it is today. When you really think about it, old school gaming was basically free-form role-playing, we didn't have role-playing crutches like backgrounds, feats or skills upon which the game was base, you had only your imagination and your wits.
My point here is, as much as I love the OSR for all the contributions it has made to RPG's, much of the OSR is more myth than reality, they WANT the game to have been a certain way, but simply was not. The game really hasn't changed all that much, in fact, 5th edition revised is closer to AD&D 1st edition, than 2nd edition AD&D was in terms of philosophy.
I started playing regularly in 1985 or thereabouts. That probably doesn’t put me on the short list of grognards, but I’m probably not too far away from qualifying.
First ed was deadly as hell. Yes, a GM could intervene, but he had to do so allot more often back then if he wanted a low kill count. There were many spells that could flat out kill you if you failed a single roll. Some spells, like Sleep, didn’t even require you to fail a roll to make you as good as dead. It was a party-wide effort to keep the wizard alive until fifth level when they could start casting fireball and lightning bolt. Then, wizards had to deal with casting times. If they got hit while casting, they lost their spell (they had far fewer spells per day back then and, when cantrips came out in Unearthed Arcana, they had no combat use). That probably didn’t matter at low levels since a low level Wizard could be killed from a single attack. They were considered a lucky roller if they had three hit points. A fighter might have a +3 to damage just from their strength mod alone. There were no death saves. If you dropped to 0 hit points, you were dead.
Yes, a GM could intervene, just as they can now. If they didn’t want a high death count, they had to intervene far more often than now.
High-level PCs could be far more powerful than they are now. They would probably have far more magic items and high level spells were more powerful. But, low-level PCs had to work harder to survive (like I said, keeping the wizard alive until 5th level was a group effort).
I prefer the current edition because you can roleplay a character’s flaws without feeling so much pain.
As someone who seldom plays casters (and on the rare occasions I do, it's invariably a cleric), they all seem to blend together in my mind. They don't really feel functionally all that distinct from one another, especially in the case of Wizards vs. Sorcerers and Clerics vs. Druids. Thematically and aesthetically distinct, sure, but I feel like that could have been handled by making the Sorcerer a subclass of Wizard and Druid a subclass of Cleric.
And what's the point of the Warlock at all? What historical/mythical/fictional archetype is this class trying to emulate? I find them confusing and unnecessary, and while I've never felt like I need to ban their use at my games, I've also never had a player actually want to play one either; I don't see their point or their appeal. Can someone explain it to me?
Modern D&D feels very spellcaster-focused compared to BECMI and AD&D; it's clear that the designers heavily favor casters and that really shows in the rules they've produced for us. It still rankles that the new PHB continues to have hundreds of pages focused on spells and magic, but only four or five pages devoted to the tools of the non-magical physical combatant classes. I want to see dozens of pages of mechanically distinct armour and weapons! I mean, why not? I contend that many of the spells aren't really that mechanically distinct from one another, differing primarily in terms of flavor text. Why, then, would it be so bad to lavish equal attention on the armour and weapons? They even removed the armour and weapon descriptions from the latest PHB! :/
I was going to avoid commenting on this thread. And well, for the last while this one has been at the top of the discussion. I may or may not read back a bit, but I don't think I need to, as long as the thread has stayed on topic. (but seeing some of the usual rabble rousers I kind of doubt it)
So here is my take. OP is wrong.
While every one is allowed an opinion, if the opinion is on a subject beyond your understanding or involves something that doesn't affect you personally. You should always hold your tongue. Which the OP states both of these in the opening.
As someone who loves playing casters and gish style classes, I'm annoyed at Anti-Magic D&D players always having the loudest voices. Just like people who unconditionally hate elves and dragons. Why the F do you play D&D if you hate basic core concepts of D&D. Play one of the no magic TTRPGs then.
There is however a missing type of caster in 5e. The Mana caster. I'm a big supporter of the mana point caster. It's mechanically very different from Slot casters and Pact Casters, it has some powerful strengths and weaknesses. Depending how you recharge you mana.
How a mana caster works, instead of Spellslots, you get mana points that can be spent to cast a spell. Say 1 point is a level 1 spell, and the number of points you get increases with each level. At the same time, your spell list which may or may not be able to be added to, is set from level one and you have access to all your spells from the start.
Each level of spell costs more to cast, and each with each spell you cast you can increase the level of the spell by adding more mana to it. Once you are out of mana you can not cast spells, and in some cases may experience levels of exhaustion.
Example, using gain using Sorcerer spell slots for how quickly you gain mana
Level 1 = 2
Level 2 = 4
Level 3 = 6
Level 4 = 7
Level 5 = 9
Level 6 = 10
If you are a mana caster at level 5 with 9 mana you can cast Burning hands at level 9, but will basically pass out as you are now out of mana. And can no longer cast magic until you regain your mana. Which might not comeback to full with a long rest, they can be very powerful in a short burst, but end up being much weaker than a martial class. With the right spell list, a mana caster can be incredibly rewarding to play though.
To each their own, but I prefer a game that encourages roleplay. I’ve had many, many cases when a character made a mistake the player knew was an error, but which made sense for the character.
It's both a question of playstyle but also independently a matter of D&D culture. This argument is as old as role-playing itself, the question being, when SHOULD a character die? Is it by the rules, by the DM's will, or by some sort of logical argument? Whenever this discussion comes up you have to ask that question first.
By the rules, games before 2nd edition AD&D were deadly as hell, a single successful attack with a melee weapon could easily kill a 1st level character outright. The question however was, do you play that RAW as a DM, dice on the table, let the chips fall where they may or do you intervene, house rule or whatever else? The answer was, as it is today, it depended on the DM. The idea that old school games were "super deadly" is an old wives tale, every table was different, as it is today.
There is a certain sort of prestige attributed to the idea of the deadly game, but that ideology comes form the OSR not old school gamers that actually played the game back in the day. What I mean is that modern OSR players, see the "RAW" element as some sort of core of what old school gaming was about, but this is objectively false. Quite to the contrary, old school gaming was every bit if not far more about role-playing than it is today. When you really think about it, old school gaming was basically free-form role-playing, we didn't have role-playing crutches like backgrounds, feats or skills upon which the game was base, you had only your imagination and your wits.
My point here is, as much as I love the OSR for all the contributions it has made to RPG's, much of the OSR is more myth than reality, they WANT the game to have been a certain way, but simply was not. The game really hasn't changed all that much, in fact, 5th edition revised is closer to AD&D 1st edition, than 2nd edition AD&D was in terms of philosophy.
I started playing regularly in 1985 or thereabouts. That probably doesn’t put me on the short list of grognards, but I’m probably not too far away from qualifying.
First ed was deadly as hell. Yes, a GM could intervene, but he had to do so allot more often back then if he wanted a low kill count. There were many spells that could flat out kill you if you failed a single roll. Some spells, like Sleep, didn’t even require you to fail a roll to make you as good as dead. It was a party-wide effort to keep the wizard alive until fifth level when they could start casting fireball and lightning bolt. Then, wizards had to deal with casting times. If they got hit while casting, they lost their spell (they had far fewer spells per day back then and, when cantrips came out in Unearthed Arcana, they had no combat use). That probably didn’t matter at low levels since a low level Wizard could be killed from a single attack. They were considered a lucky roller if they had three hit points. A fighter might have a +3 to damage just from their strength mod alone. There were no death saves. If you dropped to 0 hit points, you were dead.
Yes, a GM could intervene, just as they can now. If they didn’t want a high death count, they had to intervene far more often than now.
High-level PCs could be far more powerful than they are now. They would probably have far more magic items and high level spells were more powerful. But, low-level PCs had to work harder to survive (like I said, keeping the wizard alive until 5th level was a group effort).
I prefer the current edition because you can roleplay a character’s flaws without feeling so much pain.
But, different players have different tastes.
Not that I disagree with what you said in its entirety but how is 1e's potential for death any different than today? I could throw a couple of CR 5 monsters at 1st level characters and wipe them in a single round of combat as easily today as you could back in the 80's.
This wasn't a question of the deadliness of the system, it was a question of what the DM put in front of the players, what their intent was, how far they pushed the challenges, how they designed encounters.
It was a choice, not a rule to create encounters that killed characters and that is no different than today.
The thing about old-school adventuring, namely, old-school adventures is that it was pretty customary to create impossible-to-win scenarios. For example, T1's 1st level dungeon (the old moat house) was absolutely deadly. But the reality is that if we do the math by today's standard, that fight at the front gates would be roughly a CR6 or CR7 fight. It wasn't designed for anyone to survive it and it would be no less deadly in 5e than it was in 1e.
Adventures like that set the precedent for how encounter building was done in 1e, meaning, you didn't really balance it and there was no expectation of balance, but you could just as easily assume that philosophy in 1e. It really had nothing to do with the rules and everything to do with the approach.
I played 1e for decades and still do, the game is no more less deadly than any other edition of the game, especially if you take a determined approach to keep the encounters balanced and fair towards the players power levels. If there is any difference between modern and old school gaming, its our expectations and understanding of what a fair fight means.
Not that I disagree with what you said in its entirety but how is 1e's potential for death any different than today?
It's meaningfully more difficult to kill single PCs without resulting in a TPK. This is mostly a consequence of the changes to death rules, and save-or-die effects being mostly removed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I have no problem with either a time based replenishment system, or a non-time based system. Either one, or both, can be fine, as long as well implemented. This all circles back to the quantity and quality of spell casters. There are too many badly implemented caster classes and subclases, and of course spells which trivialize the difficulty of a game, let alone drive a new player or new DM nuts. The same can be said for the resource depletion in 5e. The challenges are trivialized by a plethora of badly designed and outright OP resource replenishment mechanics.
Right, because bodies were dropping left, right, and center in every edition before 5e. I can’t speak for back in the early days, but I’ve played 3.5 (well, 1e Pathfinder, but six of one and a half dozen of the other), and barring my one genius moment of trying to scout independently I never felt my character’s life was in particularly dire peril during combat. And, at the same time I’ve been downed several times across various 5e campaigns. No deaths yet (party because one down came from me making a desperate last ditch play while I had the Death Ward the DM had given the party earlier up), but hardly an “unkillable god” either. I’d suggest you maybe switch your eyeglasses prescription out; those rose colored lenses you use when you look back at previous editions aren’t doing you any favors.
The very first DMG contains a specific directive that DMs should make the game as difficult or as easy as would be fun, and explicitly recommends that some DMs might want to liberally give our access to healing and resurrection items, creating an environment where players can easily drop and get back up rapidly. Likewise, there are plenty of ways to make the modern game extremely lethal - it isn’t all that hard to drop a player, considering how death saves work with multi attack.
The idea that the game was always only meant to be some hardcore grind is nothing short of a lie grognards tell themselves to try and pretend they are superior to others.
The problem with time-based is that it generally requires pretty dubious adventure flow to require a 6-8 encounter day, and if it's not actually required... players aren't gonna do it. If you design for more likely adventure flow and player behavior, resource depletion becomes irrelevant because you mostly have the one-encounter day, with some anomalous 2-3 encounter days. This doesn't make the PCs invincible (just ramp up the difficulty of that one encounter) but it does make resource depletion mostly moot.
Death rates were higher in earlier editions, but that didn't have a lot to do with hit point recovery mechanics, it had to do with save-or-die mechanics and death at 0 hp. If you want to see more deaths in 5e, just change the rules for dying.
The only reason why PCs don't die in a campaign is because the DM allows that sort of thing to happen. I couldn't tell you how many PCs I've lost in 1st/2nd edition because the DMs I had were harsh. If you died, you died. Especially if you were a magic-user back in the day. Wizards nowadays are way more resilient than MU's of yesteryear with their 1d4 starting HPs. 5e is way more forgiving than the 1e/2e, but you can still die if the DM allows it. And why I say that is because I had a DM that wouldn't let PCs die. They would always have something happen that would allow PCs to come back. I had to explain to her that having a PC die makes for better storytelling and bring that sense of danger to the table that is sorely lacking in today's game. From my experience, DMs today don't want their PCs to die, which is weird to me. When I DM, I let the players know up front that I won't save your characters. I won't go out of my way to kill your characters, but I won't save you either. Most people are ok with that cause it makes them play cautiously.
This part is true.
This part is not.
The context of the DMG suggestions is that Gygax felt very strongly that players will take any advantage they can get and are prone to ruining their own fun and it's the DM's job to monitor the difference. This is as true back then as it is today, players will always take anything they can get, they are never thinking about the impact on the game, nor should they, that is the DM's job.
The difference between old school and new school is that in old school games (game design) you start at a"high difficulty" and you ease the game up for new players. This is what Gygax was talking about, offering ways to soften up the game.
In modern game design, we do the exact opposite. The Default game is easy mode, designed for new players who don't know anything about playing an RPG and it's the DM's job to create the challenge for more experienced players.
I'm not saying one way is better or worse, but that is the design. In a group like mine where I have players that have been playing RPG's, miniature games and strategy games for decades, they absolutely destroy 5e. I basically have to have every encounter be 3x deadly at every level for them to even break a sweat and that is with additional rules that raise the challenge of the game like Gritty Realism.
I suspect they could narrow it down to 3 spell casters to cover everything they have now. Full caster, 1/2 caster and pact caster. At level 1 pick your school arcane, divine, primal. Primal and divine come with armor proficiency and a few other things, arcane gets nothing. Choose prepared vs known Every level select features from a pool depending on those first choices. But do we need barbarian, monk, rogue and fighter couldn't that be one or 2 classed as well. And sure they could go classless, but I feel classes are pretty core to D&Ds identity. That being said Hero Games Fantasy hero 4e is probably my favorite fantasy game system. Classless but you could buy packages of skills on a slight discount that fit themes like burglars, college wizard, soldier etc.
you are correct, i forgot that was an origin, because really what im after is a "inquisitor" or an arcane trickster who uses divine usually when i want a divine caster. It doesnt have to be "roguish" I just want a skill monkey with divine when I play divine caster.
I have devised a system that is far easier to handle, nods at old school, and solves the problem of too many choices.
Druids go back as a subclass of Cleric.
Paladins and Rangers go back as subclasses of Fighters, treated as 1/3 casters.
Bards cease to exist, and if you want to call anything a Bard, consider it a Rogue Arcane Trickster.
There is only one subclass of Wizard, and that is Evocation.
Sorcerers exist with 4 subclasses, one for each of the Elements: Water, Air, Earth, and Fire.
Warlocks, Artificers are bye bye, though Warlock Invocations and potentially spells may be taken by any class when an ASI is assigned, so a minimum of 4th level, and upon the consent of the DM.
Why? It used to be Illusionist.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Because Illusionist has always been fraught with difficulties for a DM to adjudicate, going right back to 1e. If a Wizard wants to take Illusion spells, they are still available. Oh, and Cleric subclasses: Only Life, War, and Druid. Call War a Battle Cleric if you like.
So take the skilled feat as your origin feat.
Far be it for me to tell another GM how to adapt the game at their table, but I can tell you that the easiest way to reduce choices in the game is to eliminate sub-classes entirely. The game works perfectly fine without sub-classes, especially now that you also get feats. You do that with 3d6 down the chain and 5e is basically 1st edition AD&D without the class/race/level restrictions in terms of power scale and options.
Sounds like a reasonable alternative.
What a silly idea that a rolepl
To each their own, but I prefer a game that encourages roleplay. I’ve had many, many cases when a character made a mistake the player knew was an error, but which made sense for the character.
It's both a question of playstyle but also independently a matter of D&D culture. This argument is as old as role-playing itself, the question being, when SHOULD a character die? Is it by the rules, by the DM's will, or by some sort of logical argument? Whenever this discussion comes up you have to ask that question first.
By the rules, games before 2nd edition AD&D were deadly as hell, a single successful attack with a melee weapon could easily kill a 1st level character outright. The question however was, do you play that RAW as a DM, dice on the table, let the chips fall where they may or do you intervene, house rule or whatever else? The answer was, as it is today, it depended on the DM. The idea that old school games were "super deadly" is an old wives tale, every table was different, as it is today.
There is a certain sort of prestige attributed to the idea of the deadly game, but that ideology comes form the OSR not old school gamers that actually played the game back in the day. What I mean is that modern OSR players, see the "RAW" element as some sort of core of what old school gaming was about, but this is objectively false. Quite to the contrary, old school gaming was every bit if not far more about role-playing than it is today. When you really think about it, old school gaming was basically free-form role-playing, we didn't have role-playing crutches like backgrounds, feats or skills upon which the game was base, you had only your imagination and your wits.
My point here is, as much as I love the OSR for all the contributions it has made to RPG's, much of the OSR is more myth than reality, they WANT the game to have been a certain way, but simply was not. The game really hasn't changed all that much, in fact, 5th edition revised is closer to AD&D 1st edition, than 2nd edition AD&D was in terms of philosophy.
I started playing regularly in 1985 or thereabouts. That probably doesn’t put me on the short list of grognards, but I’m probably not too far away from qualifying.
First ed was deadly as hell. Yes, a GM could intervene, but he had to do so allot more often back then if he wanted a low kill count. There were many spells that could flat out kill you if you failed a single roll. Some spells, like Sleep, didn’t even require you to fail a roll to make you as good as dead. It was a party-wide effort to keep the wizard alive until fifth level when they could start casting fireball and lightning bolt. Then, wizards had to deal with casting times. If they got hit while casting, they lost their spell (they had far fewer spells per day back then and, when cantrips came out in Unearthed Arcana, they had no combat use). That probably didn’t matter at low levels since a low level Wizard could be killed from a single attack. They were considered a lucky roller if they had three hit points. A fighter might have a +3 to damage just from their strength mod alone. There were no death saves. If you dropped to 0 hit points, you were dead.
Yes, a GM could intervene, just as they can now. If they didn’t want a high death count, they had to intervene far more often than now.
High-level PCs could be far more powerful than they are now. They would probably have far more magic items and high level spells were more powerful. But, low-level PCs had to work harder to survive (like I said, keeping the wizard alive until 5th level was a group effort).
I prefer the current edition because you can roleplay a character’s flaws without feeling so much pain.
But, different players have different tastes.
I was going to avoid commenting on this thread. And well, for the last while this one has been at the top of the discussion. I may or may not read back a bit, but I don't think I need to, as long as the thread has stayed on topic. (but seeing some of the usual rabble rousers I kind of doubt it)
So here is my take. OP is wrong.
While every one is allowed an opinion, if the opinion is on a subject beyond your understanding or involves something that doesn't affect you personally. You should always hold your tongue. Which the OP states both of these in the opening.
As someone who loves playing casters and gish style classes, I'm annoyed at Anti-Magic D&D players always having the loudest voices. Just like people who unconditionally hate elves and dragons. Why the F do you play D&D if you hate basic core concepts of D&D. Play one of the no magic TTRPGs then.
There is however a missing type of caster in 5e. The Mana caster. I'm a big supporter of the mana point caster. It's mechanically very different from Slot casters and Pact Casters, it has some powerful strengths and weaknesses. Depending how you recharge you mana.
How a mana caster works, instead of Spellslots, you get mana points that can be spent to cast a spell. Say 1 point is a level 1 spell, and the number of points you get increases with each level. At the same time, your spell list which may or may not be able to be added to, is set from level one and you have access to all your spells from the start.
Each level of spell costs more to cast, and each with each spell you cast you can increase the level of the spell by adding more mana to it. Once you are out of mana you can not cast spells, and in some cases may experience levels of exhaustion.
Example, using gain using Sorcerer spell slots for how quickly you gain mana
Level 1 = 2
Level 2 = 4
Level 3 = 6
Level 4 = 7
Level 5 = 9
Level 6 = 10
If you are a mana caster at level 5 with 9 mana you can cast Burning hands at level 9, but will basically pass out as you are now out of mana. And can no longer cast magic until you regain your mana. Which might not comeback to full with a long rest, they can be very powerful in a short burst, but end up being much weaker than a martial class. With the right spell list, a mana caster can be incredibly rewarding to play though.
Not that I disagree with what you said in its entirety but how is 1e's potential for death any different than today? I could throw a couple of CR 5 monsters at 1st level characters and wipe them in a single round of combat as easily today as you could back in the 80's.
This wasn't a question of the deadliness of the system, it was a question of what the DM put in front of the players, what their intent was, how far they pushed the challenges, how they designed encounters.
It was a choice, not a rule to create encounters that killed characters and that is no different than today.
The thing about old-school adventuring, namely, old-school adventures is that it was pretty customary to create impossible-to-win scenarios. For example, T1's 1st level dungeon (the old moat house) was absolutely deadly. But the reality is that if we do the math by today's standard, that fight at the front gates would be roughly a CR6 or CR7 fight. It wasn't designed for anyone to survive it and it would be no less deadly in 5e than it was in 1e.
Adventures like that set the precedent for how encounter building was done in 1e, meaning, you didn't really balance it and there was no expectation of balance, but you could just as easily assume that philosophy in 1e. It really had nothing to do with the rules and everything to do with the approach.
I played 1e for decades and still do, the game is no more less deadly than any other edition of the game, especially if you take a determined approach to keep the encounters balanced and fair towards the players power levels. If there is any difference between modern and old school gaming, its our expectations and understanding of what a fair fight means.
It's meaningfully more difficult to kill single PCs without resulting in a TPK. This is mostly a consequence of the changes to death rules, and save-or-die effects being mostly removed.