Treasure by monster based on Challenge Rating is in the Dungeon Master's Guide, chapter 7. There's suggestions and random roll tables for Lair Treasures there as well. "No guidance at all"?
I definitely agree with the medieval research point.
The one which bugs me is spears. In every form of DnD they're either awful and only fit for peasants, or removed altogether, and everyone runs round as swords. Irl spears were not only easier to learn than swords and cheaper, but they were far more effective too.
Imo spears should at least be given the reach capability instead of the throwing (who throws away their primary weapon in battle, it's not a javelin.).
I would also like for Religion, Nature, Arcana, and History be grouped up into one "Lore" skill as well as making another "Lifting" skill based on Strength and an Endurance skill based on Constitution.
At that point why not just call it a 'Stuff I know' skill.... Meanwhile you want to separate 'lifting' and 'endurance' out as additional physical skills?
I kind of like splitting Athletics up a bit, maybe not into lifting and endurance, but the basic concept is not bad.
However having 1 Int skill that allows you to know everything is not so great. Just because a person is well studied in History does not mean that they know much about plants and animals, arcane rituals, or even details on religions ceremonies.
The thing is it doesn't matter if we spend months making a gish class. Most DM's won't accept homebrew, and of those, almost none go all the way to homebrew classes (hell many don't even allow reflavoring).
If homebrew was actually accepted then it would be a better answer, but it's not which is why we want official options.
Another idea would be a 'WotC Stamp of Approval' for certain highly rated homebrew which the community generally considers of a high quality, where a WotC employee gives it a quick look over to double check nothing is too broken. This would give it 'blood hunter' status of being an official unofficial class.
Just saying 'go play pathfinder' is gatekeeping and basically telling people to get lost. Just wanting another class doesn't mean we want the removal of things like advantage and bounded accuracy.
I mean my ideal gish class would have the same power level as paladin and ranger. So please don't assume that everyone wanting to play a swordmage just wants to be the best at everything.
However I don't have the systems knowledge or skill to be able to homebrew one myself and it takes someone a lot smarter than me to make a WotC quality class. (then again I dispute the idea that everything that wizards puts out is perfect).
I'm not looking to powergame, and half the characters I make are outright bad because I'm trying to get abilities which make sense rather than what's good.
And yeah, technically 5e could add a swordmage class. However an innate baked in part of the 5e design philosophy is never adding more classes and moving the burden onto subclasses instead. So 5e will never add a swordmage class. So logically I have to root for 6e. Yes 6e may not have that class either, but a 10% chance is more than a 5% chance.
I mean I think that either more classes or less classes could work.
With less classes they would need to be more customisable though with even more put into the subclasses. A barbarian wouldn't be happy to play identical to a fighter.
Or have classes which are more fixed but there are tons to pick from.
5e has chosen the worst of both worlds. Barely any classes which are not very customisable either. It feels more like picking which monopoly piece you want to use and then spray painting them a new colour rather than making your own actual character.
There seems to be two types of players. Those who want to play chess with pre set pieces, and those who want to play an RPG with full character creation.
It makes it more complex and horrifically unbalanced and 5e is a train wreck of unbalanced classes.
This is really not correct. There are roughly two classes that are weaker than others (sorcerer and ranger) and one that is stronger (wizard) but not by an enormous margin.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I mean ideally I want my character to be immersive and how I picture them for RP, while also being mechanically fun once combat starts. I prefer having a character which I enjoy in all aspects of the game.
For something like 3.5 or pathfinder I would be able to fill both the RP side and a swordmage's mechanics side effectively, but the core game rules are such an overcomplex mess (with some exceptions like the 3 action system) that they are not enjoyable to play.
For 5e I can make a swordmage I enjoy for RP, or one I enjoy for mechanics, but not both. However the things which keep me here are the streamlined and nice core rules along with all my friends playing DnD.
Like sure I can pick a paladin and try to play it with whatever personality I want, but the game mechanics literally hold you to having an oath which directly limits what how you are able to build on the RP side. Not only that but many DM's still enforce paladins must follow a god and be lawful good, which even further limits what you can do with them. If I make a reddit thread asking 'can I be a chaotic neutral atheist paladin without an oath for rp purposes' the answer will be overwhelmingly 'nope'. Classes don't just have a mechanics impact. They directly force you to RP in a certain way.
In 1st edition a Fighter could be a Samurai, a Barbarian, a swashbuckler, a Knight... these were all "themes" of a fighter, there was no differences in their operation, they where all standard fighters but you flavored them through how you approach the game.. A Knight would outfit himself with a lance and a heavy war horse, a Samurai would use a Katana and claim the Bushido Code. Again, all of these things didn't change how the class operated and the game was no lesser for it. The basic principle of the game was "use your imagination".
When you speak of classes you are talking about mechanics which has nothing to do with character concepts or character/player behavior or decisions they make in the game, these are "ability" selections.
I question whether that is actually a necessity in a role-playing game. I'm fairly certain if you just had Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Magic-User as classes and nothing more, the game would be no lesser for it. You could tell the same story, all character concepts become possible and the game is simple.
Realistically what we are really talking about here is computer games right? This isn't about role-playing games, this is about "battle simulation", aka, "the game". Which is fine, I don't see a problem with that, but I do find it strange to pretend that wanting more classes has anything to do with role-playing, narrative, character concepts or any of that.
The thing is, even if the fighter chooses to use a lance and warhorse, they are no better at horsemanship of jousting than one that acts like a Samurai. The mechanics don't support the character at all. And I am certain that if only Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Magic-user were in the game, the game would be lesser for it. The game might be simpler, but I think playing it would be far less satisfying. Also, I don't think adding new classes adds that much complexity to the game. If you aren't playing that class, then you don't have to deal with it. Anyways, learning a new class is very easy, at least for me.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Like sure I can pick a paladin and try to play it with whatever personality I want, but the game mechanics literally hold you to having an oath which directly limits what how you are able to build on the RP side. Not only that but many DM's still enforce paladins must follow a god and be lawful good, which even further limits what you can do with them. If I make a reddit thread asking 'can I be a chaotic neutral atheist paladin without an oath for rp purposes' the answer will be overwhelmingly 'nope'. Classes don't just have a mechanics impact. They directly force you to RP in a certain way.
That is the wrong question. You don't ask whether you can make chaotic neutral atheist paladin without an oath because that is not what a paladin is.
What you actually want to ask is "can I use the paladin chassis as a basis for a reflavored custom character class?" Once the name "paladin" which has certain connotations is striped and renamed as something else, people will be far more forgiving.
I mean - I am pretty strict when it comes to lore at my table. If you come to me and say that you want to play a paladin "but..." then I will say no. But if you ask whether you can take paladin class as a template, rename it as something else and remove the oath RP aspect then sure, why not. You will not be a paladin in my setting, no problem whatsoever.
"What does "Mechanics Support" actually mean?" ~BigLizard
Mechanical support means that the story you're telling and the rules you're using collaborate with and reinforce each other. That what the game's rules are asking you to do make sense and intuitively reinforce the story you're telling, and that the story you're telling logically results in the rules you're utilizing. Without tight interlinkage between Game Rules and Story Narrative, neither is as good or satisfying as they could be.
You're saying there's no need to differentiate between a Knight who utilizes horseback weapons from atop a charger and a Samurai who devotes their life to the art of the blade - that if they describe their actions differently in the story they're completely different characters And This Is Enough. Many - even most - players do not agree with this. When a player decides to be a mounted knight, they want mounted combat to be the thing they do. But if their character does not derive any benefits or gain any abilities from being on a mount - if they fight exactly the same way on their horse as they do on foot - then they do not feel like a mounted cavalry knight. Their decision has no impact, weight, or meaning, and they feel - rightly - that there was no point in making that decision, because they could just as easily have said that they were a lumberjack who fights with a logging axe on rollerskates and the rules would remain exactly the same as they already are.
Similarly, the Samurai's player who is trying to tell the story of a master of the blade who's spent his entire life learning the Art of the Sword from his ancient master is not a single iota more skilled with the blade than the cavalry knight, even at the highest character levels. The Samurai is also equally skilled with maces, halberds, whips, crossbows, longbows, siege bows, ranbows, cestus, incestus, excestus, excesses, and every other 'Fighter' weapon in the game despite having never touched any of these things and being ostensibly Devoted To The Sword. Simply because they're a fighter, and all fighters are equally moderately-OK with every form of fighter weapon.
There's no reward for making one decision over another. There's no reason to make one decision over another. Every single fighter may as well be Generic Soldier Guy, because there's absolutely no reason for them to limit their options otherwise. Players are usually pretty willing to reflavor and reskin things to fit their aesthetic without impacting mechanical balance, but when it comes to the meat of their character - their abilities, their special powers and training, the things the game says they're allowed to do? Before coming here, I'd never met a single player of any game who did not want their choices to matter to their character. If the Horse Guy doesn't gain any benefit from being a Horse Guy and the Sword Guy doesn't gain any benefit from being a Sword Guy, why are either of those guys either of those things?
EDIT: And before you get on my case for powergaming, the same goes for the guy who makes the Talky Guy that wants to interact with the world and chatter at all the pretty barmaids. If he's no better at being The Talky Guy than the fighter who never bothered with any talky stuff, simply because BigLizard's Rules-Light Narrative Experience doesn't bother differentiating between anyone's abilities, then why is he bothering with being The Talky Guy? Everybody is The Talky Guy, and just as Syndrome once said, "when everybody's [The Talky Guy], no one is." END EDIT:
Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game. There are two separate terms in there: "Role-Playing" and "Game". Both are important. Both are critical, even. If one ignores the 'Game' part of RPG because they don't like having to deal with it, then they are going to have trouble. It's why the current trend towards 'Rules-Light Narrative Experiences' is bothersome and frustrating. I don't need to spend a hundred dollars on a fancy game book to have myself a 'Rules-Light Narrative Experience' - I can do that my own damn self with nothing but a word processor and a buddy or some to play with. They call that freeform roleplaying, I've been doing it for twenty years, and I've never met anyone yet who needs a honkin' expensive game book to do it. If a gaming company wants me to spend money on a honking expensive game book before letting me play their game, they'd best make sure there's a GAMEto be played within those pages.
That's more the DM forcing a certain vision on the paladin class than 5e doing it. If a DM says your paladin must adhere to an alignment or serve a deity, that's homebrew, and it's likely a holdover from how pre-5e paladins were written.
I would absolutely let you play a chaotic neutral atheist paladin at my table. As for the oath, I would ask you to pick one so I know which subclass features you'd get, but I wouldn't require you to roleplay the character in any particular or stereotypical way. You could be a vengeance paladin who is very reserved, polite, eccentric, and non-violent kid, and who "swears his oath" to the remnants of his childhood stuff animal he keeps in his back pocket. You can flavor his divine strikes as "beating the stuffing out of them" and even insist random bits of cotton fluff emerge when he uses them (maybe the weapon even makes little squeaky noises).
I mean at my current table I have a warlock whose patron is her grandmother (I used archfey as a template). The warlock's overarching mission is to go collect stolen or lost toys, some of which have come to life and serve as (non-combat) pets. One is even now her familiar.
In 1st edition a Fighter could be a Samurai, a Barbarian, a swashbuckler, a Knight... these were all "themes" of a fighter, there was no differences in their operation, they where all standard fighters but you flavored them through how you approach the game.. A Knight would outfit himself with a lance and a heavy war horse, a Samurai would use a Katana and claim the Bushido Code. Again, all of these things didn't change how the class operated and the game was no lesser for it. The basic principle of the game was "use your imagination".
When you speak of classes you are talking about mechanics which has nothing to do with character concepts or character/player behavior or decisions they make in the game, these are "ability" selections.
I question whether that is actually a necessity in a role-playing game. I'm fairly certain if you just had Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Magic-User as classes and nothing more, the game would be no lesser for it. You could tell the same story, all character concepts become possible and the game is simple.
Realistically what we are really talking about here is computer games right? This isn't about role-playing games, this is about "battle simulation", aka, "the game". Which is fine, I don't see a problem with that, but I do find it strange to pretend that wanting more classes has anything to do with role-playing, narrative, character concepts or any of that.
The thing is, even if the fighter chooses to use a lance and warhorse, they are no better at horsemanship of jousting than one that acts like a Samurai. The mechanics don't support the character at all. And I am certain that if only Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Magic-user were in the game, the game would be lesser for it. The game might be simpler, but I think playing it would be far less satisfying. Also, I don't think adding new classes adds that much complexity to the game. If you aren't playing that class, then you don't have to deal with it. Anyways, learning a new class is very easy, at least for me.
What does "Mechanics Support" actually mean? When you consider that D&D is a game of using your imagination and collaborative storytelling, what mechanics do you actually need to support that? Is the story somehow supported more if the Samurai has a special "katana strike" attack that does +1d6 damage? Does that somehow mean the game now mechanically supports Samurai?
I'm fine with the argument that "it makes combat more interesting" to have variation, my point is, lets not pretend this has anything to do with a role-playing game.
I'll use an analogy. Lets say you are playing a first person shooter game. You can say that you are shooting magic blasts from a wand, but does it feel like you are shooting magic blasts? No. You still have unwanted things, like recoil and reloading. Even if you retexture the guns to be wands, I doubt that game will feel fantasy at all. That's what reflavoring without mechanical support feels like. It might look like you are doing one thing, but the foundation is still the same.
Like Yurei said, I have been playing rulesless roleplaying games with my friends since I was six. The whole point of D&D is that rules govern what happens.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
In 1st edition a Fighter could be a Samurai, a Barbarian, a swashbuckler, a Knight... these were all "themes" of a fighter, there was no differences in their operation, they where all standard fighters but you flavored them through how you approach the game.. A Knight would outfit himself with a lance and a heavy war horse, a Samurai would use a Katana and claim the Bushido Code. Again, all of these things didn't change how the class operated and the game was no lesser for it. The basic principle of the game was "use your imagination".
When you speak of classes you are talking about mechanics which has nothing to do with character concepts or character/player behavior or decisions they make in the game, these are "ability" selections.
I question whether that is actually a necessity in a role-playing game. I'm fairly certain if you just had Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Magic-User as classes and nothing more, the game would be no lesser for it. You could tell the same story, all character concepts become possible and the game is simple.
Realistically what we are really talking about here is computer games right? This isn't about role-playing games, this is about "battle simulation", aka, "the game". Which is fine, I don't see a problem with that, but I do find it strange to pretend that wanting more classes has anything to do with role-playing, narrative, character concepts or any of that.
The thing is, even if the fighter chooses to use a lance and warhorse, they are no better at horsemanship of jousting than one that acts like a Samurai. The mechanics don't support the character at all. And I am certain that if only Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Magic-user were in the game, the game would be lesser for it. The game might be simpler, but I think playing it would be far less satisfying. Also, I don't think adding new classes adds that much complexity to the game. If you aren't playing that class, then you don't have to deal with it. Anyways, learning a new class is very easy, at least for me.
What does "Mechanics Support" actually mean? When you consider that D&D is a game of using your imagination and collaborative storytelling, what mechanics do you actually need to support that? Is the story somehow supported more if the Samurai has a special "katana strike" attack that does +1d6 damage? Does that somehow mean the game now mechanically supports Samurai?
I'm fine with the argument that "it makes combat more interesting" to have variation, my point is, lets not pretend this has anything to do with a role-playing game.
I'll use an analogy. Lets say you are playing a first person shooter game. You can say that you are shooting magic blasts from a wand, but does it feel like you are shooting magic blasts? No. You still have unwanted things, like recoil and reloading. Even if you retexture the guns to be wands, I doubt that game will feel fantasy at all. That's what reflavoring without mechanical support feels like. It might look like you are doing one thing, but the foundation is still the same.
Like Yurei said, I have been playing rulesless roleplaying games with my friends since I was six. The whole point of D&D is that rules govern what happens.
First of all there are many first person shooters without recoil. Recoil is extra programming. This is why so many involve zero recoil weapons such as lasers. Second, taking out or ignoring rules is a lot easier than adding rules in but both have been done since 0e let alone 1e. It used to be simply called 'DM'ing.'
Huh? I really don't think you understood my analogy at all. I was trying to use it to explain the disconnect between mechanics and flavor. And secondly, I agree with your second statement, I think. It is far easier to take out a rule than playtest and create a new one.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I find it odd that the people who object to more content for 5e are the same people who object to 6e. Surely if 6e is brought out, it will then leave 5e without constant new content and bloat? The very things those people don't want?
I find it odd that the people who object to more content for 5e are the same people who object to 6e. Surely if 6e is brought out, it will then leave 5e without constant new content and bloat? The very things those people don't want?
I think that the people who do not want classes or a 6e to ever exist are just resistant to change.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I find it odd that the people who object to more content for 5e are the same people who object to 6e. Surely if 6e is brought out, it will then leave 5e without constant new content and bloat? The very things those people don't want?
I think that the people who do not want classes or a 6e to ever exist are just resistant to change.
I find it odd that the people who object to more content for 5e are the same people who object to 6e. Surely if 6e is brought out, it will then leave 5e without constant new content and bloat? The very things those people don't want?
I think that the people who do not want classes or a 6e to ever exist are just resistant to change.
Change is scary stuff.
It's really hard, to. Ever tried to bend a quarter? (Sorry.)
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I have an idea: how about D&D formats. Anyone who plays M:tG knows what I mean, but here is an explanation. Basically, it allows and disallows certain things due to time period or power balance. For example, a "Basic" format that only includes the PHB, and advanced variation with all the books, there could be a "Low Magic" format that bans specific classes and subclasses, and many other versions.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Treasure by monster based on Challenge Rating is in the Dungeon Master's Guide, chapter 7. There's suggestions and random roll tables for Lair Treasures there as well. "No guidance at all"?
<Insert clever signature here>
I definitely agree with the medieval research point.
The one which bugs me is spears. In every form of DnD they're either awful and only fit for peasants, or removed altogether, and everyone runs round as swords. Irl spears were not only easier to learn than swords and cheaper, but they were far more effective too.
Imo spears should at least be given the reach capability instead of the throwing (who throws away their primary weapon in battle, it's not a javelin.).
I kind of like splitting Athletics up a bit, maybe not into lifting and endurance, but the basic concept is not bad.
However having 1 Int skill that allows you to know everything is not so great. Just because a person is well studied in History does not mean that they know much about plants and animals, arcane rituals, or even details on religions ceremonies.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
The thing is it doesn't matter if we spend months making a gish class. Most DM's won't accept homebrew, and of those, almost none go all the way to homebrew classes (hell many don't even allow reflavoring).
If homebrew was actually accepted then it would be a better answer, but it's not which is why we want official options.
Another idea would be a 'WotC Stamp of Approval' for certain highly rated homebrew which the community generally considers of a high quality, where a WotC employee gives it a quick look over to double check nothing is too broken. This would give it 'blood hunter' status of being an official unofficial class.
Just saying 'go play pathfinder' is gatekeeping and basically telling people to get lost. Just wanting another class doesn't mean we want the removal of things like advantage and bounded accuracy.
I mean my ideal gish class would have the same power level as paladin and ranger. So please don't assume that everyone wanting to play a swordmage just wants to be the best at everything.
However I don't have the systems knowledge or skill to be able to homebrew one myself and it takes someone a lot smarter than me to make a WotC quality class. (then again I dispute the idea that everything that wizards puts out is perfect).
I'm not looking to powergame, and half the characters I make are outright bad because I'm trying to get abilities which make sense rather than what's good.
And yeah, technically 5e could add a swordmage class. However an innate baked in part of the 5e design philosophy is never adding more classes and moving the burden onto subclasses instead. So 5e will never add a swordmage class. So logically I have to root for 6e. Yes 6e may not have that class either, but a 10% chance is more than a 5% chance.
I mean I think that either more classes or less classes could work.
With less classes they would need to be more customisable though with even more put into the subclasses. A barbarian wouldn't be happy to play identical to a fighter.
Or have classes which are more fixed but there are tons to pick from.
5e has chosen the worst of both worlds. Barely any classes which are not very customisable either. It feels more like picking which monopoly piece you want to use and then spray painting them a new colour rather than making your own actual character.
There seems to be two types of players. Those who want to play chess with pre set pieces, and those who want to play an RPG with full character creation.
This is really not correct. There are roughly two classes that are weaker than others (sorcerer and ranger) and one that is stronger (wizard) but not by an enormous margin.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I mean ideally I want my character to be immersive and how I picture them for RP, while also being mechanically fun once combat starts. I prefer having a character which I enjoy in all aspects of the game.
For something like 3.5 or pathfinder I would be able to fill both the RP side and a swordmage's mechanics side effectively, but the core game rules are such an overcomplex mess (with some exceptions like the 3 action system) that they are not enjoyable to play.
For 5e I can make a swordmage I enjoy for RP, or one I enjoy for mechanics, but not both. However the things which keep me here are the streamlined and nice core rules along with all my friends playing DnD.
Like sure I can pick a paladin and try to play it with whatever personality I want, but the game mechanics literally hold you to having an oath which directly limits what how you are able to build on the RP side. Not only that but many DM's still enforce paladins must follow a god and be lawful good, which even further limits what you can do with them. If I make a reddit thread asking 'can I be a chaotic neutral atheist paladin without an oath for rp purposes' the answer will be overwhelmingly 'nope'. Classes don't just have a mechanics impact. They directly force you to RP in a certain way.
The thing is, even if the fighter chooses to use a lance and warhorse, they are no better at horsemanship of jousting than one that acts like a Samurai. The mechanics don't support the character at all. And I am certain that if only Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Magic-user were in the game, the game would be lesser for it. The game might be simpler, but I think playing it would be far less satisfying. Also, I don't think adding new classes adds that much complexity to the game. If you aren't playing that class, then you don't have to deal with it. Anyways, learning a new class is very easy, at least for me.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
That is the wrong question. You don't ask whether you can make chaotic neutral atheist paladin without an oath because that is not what a paladin is.
What you actually want to ask is "can I use the paladin chassis as a basis for a reflavored custom character class?" Once the name "paladin" which has certain connotations is striped and renamed as something else, people will be far more forgiving.
I mean - I am pretty strict when it comes to lore at my table. If you come to me and say that you want to play a paladin "but..." then I will say no. But if you ask whether you can take paladin class as a template, rename it as something else and remove the oath RP aspect then sure, why not. You will not be a paladin in my setting, no problem whatsoever.
"What does "Mechanics Support" actually mean?"
~BigLizard
Mechanical support means that the story you're telling and the rules you're using collaborate with and reinforce each other. That what the game's rules are asking you to do make sense and intuitively reinforce the story you're telling, and that the story you're telling logically results in the rules you're utilizing. Without tight interlinkage between Game Rules and Story Narrative, neither is as good or satisfying as they could be.
You're saying there's no need to differentiate between a Knight who utilizes horseback weapons from atop a charger and a Samurai who devotes their life to the art of the blade - that if they describe their actions differently in the story they're completely different characters And This Is Enough. Many - even most - players do not agree with this. When a player decides to be a mounted knight, they want mounted combat to be the thing they do. But if their character does not derive any benefits or gain any abilities from being on a mount - if they fight exactly the same way on their horse as they do on foot - then they do not feel like a mounted cavalry knight. Their decision has no impact, weight, or meaning, and they feel - rightly - that there was no point in making that decision, because they could just as easily have said that they were a lumberjack who fights with a logging axe on rollerskates and the rules would remain exactly the same as they already are.
Similarly, the Samurai's player who is trying to tell the story of a master of the blade who's spent his entire life learning the Art of the Sword from his ancient master is not a single iota more skilled with the blade than the cavalry knight, even at the highest character levels. The Samurai is also equally skilled with maces, halberds, whips, crossbows, longbows, siege bows, ranbows, cestus, incestus, excestus, excesses, and every other 'Fighter' weapon in the game despite having never touched any of these things and being ostensibly Devoted To The Sword. Simply because they're a fighter, and all fighters are equally moderately-OK with every form of fighter weapon.
There's no reward for making one decision over another. There's no reason to make one decision over another. Every single fighter may as well be Generic Soldier Guy, because there's absolutely no reason for them to limit their options otherwise. Players are usually pretty willing to reflavor and reskin things to fit their aesthetic without impacting mechanical balance, but when it comes to the meat of their character - their abilities, their special powers and training, the things the game says they're allowed to do? Before coming here, I'd never met a single player of any game who did not want their choices to matter to their character. If the Horse Guy doesn't gain any benefit from being a Horse Guy and the Sword Guy doesn't gain any benefit from being a Sword Guy, why are either of those guys either of those things?
EDIT:
And before you get on my case for powergaming, the same goes for the guy who makes the Talky Guy that wants to interact with the world and chatter at all the pretty barmaids. If he's no better at being The Talky Guy than the fighter who never bothered with any talky stuff, simply because BigLizard's Rules-Light Narrative Experience doesn't bother differentiating between anyone's abilities, then why is he bothering with being The Talky Guy? Everybody is The Talky Guy, and just as Syndrome once said, "when everybody's [The Talky Guy], no one is."
END EDIT:
Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game. There are two separate terms in there: "Role-Playing" and "Game". Both are important. Both are critical, even. If one ignores the 'Game' part of RPG because they don't like having to deal with it, then they are going to have trouble. It's why the current trend towards 'Rules-Light Narrative Experiences' is bothersome and frustrating. I don't need to spend a hundred dollars on a fancy game book to have myself a 'Rules-Light Narrative Experience' - I can do that my own damn self with nothing but a word processor and a buddy or some to play with. They call that freeform roleplaying, I've been doing it for twenty years, and I've never met anyone yet who needs a honkin' expensive game book to do it. If a gaming company wants me to spend money on a honking expensive game book before letting me play their game, they'd best make sure there's a GAME to be played within those pages.
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That's more the DM forcing a certain vision on the paladin class than 5e doing it. If a DM says your paladin must adhere to an alignment or serve a deity, that's homebrew, and it's likely a holdover from how pre-5e paladins were written.
I would absolutely let you play a chaotic neutral atheist paladin at my table. As for the oath, I would ask you to pick one so I know which subclass features you'd get, but I wouldn't require you to roleplay the character in any particular or stereotypical way. You could be a vengeance paladin who is very reserved, polite, eccentric, and non-violent kid, and who "swears his oath" to the remnants of his childhood stuff animal he keeps in his back pocket. You can flavor his divine strikes as "beating the stuffing out of them" and even insist random bits of cotton fluff emerge when he uses them (maybe the weapon even makes little squeaky noises).
I mean at my current table I have a warlock whose patron is her grandmother (I used archfey as a template). The warlock's overarching mission is to go collect stolen or lost toys, some of which have come to life and serve as (non-combat) pets. One is even now her familiar.
I'll use an analogy. Lets say you are playing a first person shooter game. You can say that you are shooting magic blasts from a wand, but does it feel like you are shooting magic blasts? No. You still have unwanted things, like recoil and reloading. Even if you retexture the guns to be wands, I doubt that game will feel fantasy at all. That's what reflavoring without mechanical support feels like. It might look like you are doing one thing, but the foundation is still the same.
Like Yurei said, I have been playing rulesless roleplaying games with my friends since I was six. The whole point of D&D is that rules govern what happens.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Huh? I really don't think you understood my analogy at all. I was trying to use it to explain the disconnect between mechanics and flavor. And secondly, I agree with your second statement, I think. It is far easier to take out a rule than playtest and create a new one.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I find it odd that the people who object to more content for 5e are the same people who object to 6e. Surely if 6e is brought out, it will then leave 5e without constant new content and bloat? The very things those people don't want?
I think that the people who do not want classes or a 6e to ever exist are just resistant to change.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Change is scary stuff.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
It's really hard, to. Ever tried to bend a quarter? (Sorry.)
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Like surely a 6e coming out is perfect?
As it leaves 5e in this unbloated holy state of pure perfection for all eternity?
I have an idea: how about D&D formats. Anyone who plays M:tG knows what I mean, but here is an explanation. Basically, it allows and disallows certain things due to time period or power balance. For example, a "Basic" format that only includes the PHB, and advanced variation with all the books, there could be a "Low Magic" format that bans specific classes and subclasses, and many other versions.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System