Primarily asking people who liked 5e but thought it could have been better.
I'm brewing up a modification for 5e. I'd like to know what sort of thing people would like from an alternate version of 5e.
Right now what it's looking like is a version of 5e that's more heavily influenced by 20th-century D&D. I wouldn't quite call it OSR, but it's still clearly slanted towards TSR-style D&D rather than WotC D&D. There are fewer classes, with some classes have been turned into archetypes; e.g. the Paladin is now an archetype of the Fighter, and the archetypes of the Paladin now variants of the Paladin archetype. It looks something like the "class groups" system of AD&D.
Do you guys like this idea? What other sorts of things would you like in a similar-but-different 5e clone?
Another change:
Material components can now work in one of two ways. Either the component is sacrificed at preparation, or it is sacrificed at casting. This means that for some material components, you only need one piece, but for others, you need one piece for every time you want to cast the spell. This is to make it to make the system a little bit more like classic Vancian casting without sacrificing the simplicity of the Wizardry/Final Fantasy 1 system of spell charges that 5e uses.
>>48230069
1a. Add tons of new feats.
1b. give martials access to feats as part of character progression separate from the current rule of sacrificing ASIs to get feats.
1c. Don't give casters access to free feats.
2a. Everyone always rolls at least 2d20 for any action. Both rolls benefit from modifiers.
2b. On a roll without advantage of disadvantage, one die is predetermined to be the success/failure roll, and the other die is predetermined to be the side effects/consequences roll. With advantage, the roller chooses which roll is which.. With disadvantage, the DM (or player victim, if a DM is rolling) chooses which roll is which.
2c. Consquences on a high roll are good for the roller. Consquences on a low roll are bad for the roller. Think of things like: You succeed in intimidating the guard, but you see him signaling to his buddies. There may be trouble later. OR You fail to seduce the barmaid, but she seems to like the effort behind your attempt. With a glint in her eye she hands you a free drink and offers to put in a good word for you with her Dad, the town shopkeep.
3. Long Rest/Short rest is 7 days/1 day by default.
4. Crafting rules that aren't retardedly underpowered.
5. Stop being so afraid that people will break the combat game and just let people have fun classes. Bladelocks, Beast Masters, and others all get buffs to be less terrible.
6. rebalance the martial classes to be useful in the 2/3rds of the game that aren't combat. Primarily through introduction of new feats, see above.
Rework the skills into a background system such as used in 13th age. It feels like a much more natural ways to do things imho.
>>48230069
Eh, you lost me with the class reorganizing stuff. Generally, I'm not impressed with the classes as they exist now. I like how 5e has streamlined things, but class abilities seem boring as hell. Perhaps that cant be helped.
Since the 5e classes are already so bare bones, I'd just make new ones to fit your system.
Specifically, I dislike 5e druid shapeshifting. While yes it is very simple, I don't like being forced into new animal forms every few levels. If you want to be a guy who turns into birds, you're fucked because birds all have tiny hp. If you want to be a guy who turns into a ostrich, you're fucked because there are no ostrich stats. In the end, everyone will be in earth elemental form because its better than everything else.
take a look at Pathfinder shapeshifting, where turning into animals is limited by size, but animals are largely equivalent. No real difference between a dog and a wolf. No difference between a pterodactyl and an eagle. the 3.5 Shapeshifter druid variant also had the right idea. Shapeshifting should be a simple buff that grants new movement modes and natural attacks.
5e's HP replacement thing sucks for druids.
>>48230069
Do like 2nd Ed - no additional hit dice after 10th level, just a couple more hit points.
>>48230069
All
>>48230167
these
>>48230487
ideas
>>48230625
are
>>48230637
fucking
>>48230752
terrible.
>>48230787
>Not getting retarded numbers of hit points
>A terrible idea.
You really didn't put any thought into your post at all, did you?
>>48230787
do elaborate.
Or else that is shitty b8
But I ain't irate.
>>48230069
By playing 3.5 instead
>>48230822
Fifth edition's entire power structure is based on increased hit points, PCs and monsters alike.
>>48230487
>1a. Add tons of new feats
Munchkins say this, but usually can't think up any decent/necessary feats the game lacks for.
>>48231172
Skill monkey feats: expertise and rules support for interesting interactions with skills, such as taming animals.
Weapon feats that offer new playstyles, like a whip feat that lets you use objects at a distance, or grapple at a distance.
Quality of life feats that make adventuring easier, such as the gourmand one in the past UA.
Background type feats that represent association with an organization, etc.
Etc, etc.
>>48231172
>Fifth edition's entire power structure is based on increased hit points
You want to explain what that's supposed to mean?
>>48230899
Oh wait, you're serious, aren't you?
Make the Ranger a Fighter or Barbarian subclass. It lacks a lot of substance on its own other than "innawoods survivalist with some nature magic". Paladins could be rolled into Cleric as well but they stand well enough on their own.
Bring back Superiority Dice.
For player races, make Sunlight Sensitivity halve Proficiency bonus instead of straight-up disadvantage.
Get rid of all these complicated action types: regular actions, attack actions, extra actions, interrupts, etc and how they make spells and attacks confusing.
Too bloody complicated.
Spells can botch.
>>48231272
>Weapon feats that offer new playstyles, like a whip feat that lets you use objects at a distance, or grapple at a distance.
According to what I've written down, that sort of feature is something that would be unlocked when you get proficiency with the weapon.
Part of what I'm trying to do with this mod is keep the number of feats to a minimum while making sure that doesn't restrict character creation. I'm trying to keep chargen simple.
>>48231466
Barb and Ranger are already Warrior archetypes, along with Fighter and Paladin and maybe Monk.
Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock are all Magic User archetypes.
Druid and Cleric and maybe Monk are Priest archetypes.
Thief and Bard are Rogue archetypes.
Classes are general, archetypes are specific. Barring the archetype variants like nature Paladin and eldritch knight Fighter, the class system is quite OSR.
>>48230069
I'd basically just turn everything down; slow everything down too. Like, you have to purposefully inhibit yourself to not have most of your abilities in the +3 - +5 range, everyone's got HP to spare, and casters get sooo many spells.
Not any one major change I can think of, it'd just be tons of little changes. All in all it's fine as-is, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be improved upon. Like, in all seriousness I'd basically just take every stat and turn it down by one step of whatever it's measured in. Spells/Day? dowb by 1. Hit die type? one die-type lower. Proficiency bonus? Well it's good where it is, so that stays.
Maybe the one explicit change I would make would be to break skills down into more 3.5-esque Feats that basically just add one thing to your character, and then make Ability advancements also only +1 (but not have any in the feats), but then move the Ability Advancements to levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18, so that by level 20 you've got either an evenly distributed set of +1s through out your abilities, and/or a collection of up to six feats.
As far as starting Ability Scores go I'd probably leave them as-is but add some -2s to the racial blocks. Do it like 4th... never thought I'd say that, and have there be a pair of +2s and a pair of -2s and the player has to pick one from each.
It's really almost like the wrote a great game, and then turned every thing up to 10 because, who wants their characters to have weaknesses?
>>48230069
First modification I would make is turning spells into a contest of Casting Roll vs Saving Throw.
Second modification I would make is turning physical attacks into a contest of Attack Roll vs Saving Throw (shields let you use Strength instead). Instead of contributing to AC, armor now contributes to DR instead of AC.
Third modification is that I would give classes like Fighter and Barbarian a jumping speed equal to 30 feet at Level 10, scaling by 5 feet per every two levels. Rogues get a Climb speed at Level 10. Monks get both.
Fourth modification is that Fly becomes a fifth level spell.
Fifth modification is that the Ranger gets removed from the game. Ranger features now become feats and Animal Training is now added as a new skill. Anyone can now get an animal companion, but they have to get Animal Training to command the animal and must either buy an expensive animal or risk injury trying to tame one.
>>48231490
>Action
>Bonus Action
>Reaction
Those are the only types of actions in the game, anon. You're retarded.
>>48232095
>casters get sooo many spells
Obviously my case might be a little different, but I've been playing a Bard in a game with spell points and I've been having to make careful use of my spells in order to not run out. It was actually pretty fun once I started getting low last session, I ended up having to come up with some tricks in order to help the party out.
>>48232456
Noot on the outset no, but on an over-all level it's less then 3rd, but still a fuck-ton compared to OG/2nd.
But again I'm not talking about halving or anything, but taking off like 1/day, or slowing the rate at which you gain them by 1-level rather (depending on the class).
But then also I'd end up giving you 7 feats (two by 3), so you could diversify.
>>48235746
>still a fuck-ton compared to OG/2nd.
Not... really? 5e wizards start out with a few more to prevent blowing their load immediately but 2e wizards quickly even out and then surpass the number of slots a 5e wizard gets. Of course, there is the difference of preparation (Vancian per-slot vs. 5e's prepared-list-then-spontaneous) but when it comes down to the number of spells cast, 2e have 5e wizards beat, even with the 5e wizard's Arcane Recovery (regaining some spell slots on a short rest once per day totaling half their wizard level).
>>48230069
When I found myself disappointed by 5e, I sat in thought wondering about how it could be better. It wasn't awful, it just didn't do it for me, and it felt like there were a whole lot of things simply not there that should have been, even though it was hard for me to put my finger on what.
Then I came to a revelation of sorts.
>A system that tries to be everything for one genre will only succeed some of the times and the other times it will simply be mediocre.
It's D&D. It's not going to be your magic bullet, it's NEVER going to be your magic bullet.
It's the pizza of roleplaying, the thing people have when they can't decide on anything else. It's not bad, it's just pizza, which means there are limits to the things you can do with it before it either stops being pizza or fails.
>>48236507
It's apretty goodpizza, though.
>>48236527
Yeah, but the point is you don't order pizza when you really want barbecuethough the meat lovers with barbecue sauce might pass muster once, you go get barbecue.
I mean, I work part time as a pizza delivery guy. If someone asked me if the crew could make him a pizza that tastes like Chinese food, I'd tell him to order Chinese.
You want tacos? Go to Torchy's.
You want burgers? Go to a roadhouse or Applebee's or something.
You want pancakes? Go to IHOP, or go to an actually good breakfast place.
If you want pizza, get pizza, but don't complain when your Bacon Cheeseburger pizza (Good Lord, this is a thing that exists) doesn't quite live up to a 100% charboiled patty grilled just right and topped with fresh lettuce, tomatoes and 100% American cheese on a kaiser bun with cinnamon sugar sweet potato fries on the side.Incidentally, I've only had one full meal today.
>>48230069
Make a better crafting system, make it so there is an incentive to craft over buying, have some sort of official difference between materials and quality of arms and armor.
>>48230487
kill yourself or go back to pathfinder kiddo
>>48236661
Here's something I'd actually want. Crafting rules.
They're straight up missing, and they're one thing the game could get use out of.
>>48236741
Kind of home brewed in a 5*(Proficiency+relevant Ability modifier) GP worth of goods per day produced at half product cost rule for mundane items and 25 instead of 5 for magical (at full cost, and level restrictions for rarity).
So a level 1 character with 16 in their relevant ability score can make 25 GP worth of goods per day at the cost of 12 GP and 5 Silver pieces. I still don't feel like it;s interactive/realistic enough however.
>>48230069
Get rid of the planes bullshit, number one thing
give the ranger some more flexible qualities because they're mostly built around the terrain you're on, give the warlock more pact magic spell slots (like add one once per day spell slot at 3rd/5th/11th/17th level), make it clearer to GMs that they need to drop
better gear for the fighters in order for them to keep up with spellcasters because fighters are gear dependent
Have spell levels line up with caster levels in a way that makes sense
Do something about level balance, Make it easier to determine what encounter is what difficulty for your group because challenge ratings don't cut it. Add in some shit about putting in the right terrain, traps, mobs. Combine monsters that work together well like an adult red dragon with iron golems for higer difficulty ect.
Release some splatbooks that give some foundation for character progression
Honestly the game is pretty solid. It's my favorite edition so far. It just needs a few tweaks here and there, but overall it's crazy easy to set up and play which I love because these days I have a lot going on and don't have a lot of time to sit down and homebrew a lot of stuff. My only complaint is that the books need to be a bit clearer on how to set up homebrew stuff for people that do like that. I feel like that sort of thing might just take time and experience with the edition, though.
>>48230069
>Either a fuck ton more classes and archetypes, like pf quantity, in combination with increasing the number of opportunities to customize your character as pf has; or m&m/gurps style build it yourself characters designed to match 5es power scale.
>Everyone gets feats in addition to stat increases.
>More reasonable guidelines for magic items for higher level characters, something like what you'd acquire through play.
I like the 5e core mechanics and power curve well enough, but fuck is it ever bland/restrictive.
>>48230752
Monsters aren't designed this way. This change makes using the published monsters and adventures a pain in the ass. Do not like.
>>48237881
Before you tell me to go back to pathfinder, I already did.
I want to like 5e but it feels so cookie cutter and bland in comparison, even though I like having a smaller proportion of trap options and a tighter numbers balance and easier monster creation and no need to stick to WBL.
>>48237955
So my one suggestion is a suggestion of how to make it less bland.
Honestly I'd be paging through M&M, GURPS, HERO, or all three, and using them for inspiration for this brave new 5e chargen.
But I don't care enough to do it myself.
