Top 10 changes will 5E D&D have to implement to satisfy you?

[NineInchNall]

yeah, but that's what I'm saying, the quality of MM4 was not worth any amount of money. Bad layout (the new statblock layout did not help things), bunches and bunches of monsters that were MM1 monsters with class levels, templates designed to take up as much space as possible, it was terrible. MM5 at least had interesting ideas, like mind flayers that eat your essence.

I've been trying to use the new statblock for literally years now and still can't. The information is laid out in such an obtuse fashion that it's seriously unuseable. Okay, I want to know how many HD a given creature has. Is that under defenses? Offenses? Senses? Other? What? Your mom? Your sister's on my cock? That's your brother? He looks like a girl, doesn't he? No, I'm not gay, fuck you. Don't look at me like that. Aaaaaaagh!

Seriously. That's the kind of mental shit you go through when trying to find shit in the new statblock, because there isn't a nice divide between "normal" stuff and "unusual" stuff. In the standard layout you know where all the basic info is (bab, hd, saves, abilities, attack routines, etc) and then there are two lines that give you a short list of all the special stuff a creature might have, which are then elaborated upon after the statblock. It was simple, straightforward, and rather easy to use.

I still have no idea why they thought the new one was an improvement. It's yet another example of why I have no faith in 5th.

[TheFlatline]

In other words, I want PACKS for D&D and most of my other games that get to the table.

Christ, I'd pay 200 bucks out of my own pocket for a decent, functioning PACKS system for Dark Heresy.

What's a PACKS system?

I was under the impression it was basically a large set of premade NPC's of all types imaginable, including main antagonists and constructs. Possibly a fast, quick and efficient NPC generation system?

Sort of. In Shadowrun it's all kinds of equipment, stats, skills, and other shit broken down into kits that you buy with money or points.

What I'm looking for is the ability to bypass the advance system where you spend XP piecemeal on upgrades. Once you hit rank 3, you're dealing with 30 or 40 advances to get a character up to that point, with a lot of talent (think feats) synergy.

I want to say take a professional guardsman, buy some stats for him, and then buy one or two combat schticks that are *roughly* level compatible for the PCs, and then buy an equipment pack that I think will make use of that. So instead of 30 minutes on an NPC, it takes less than 5 once I know what packs I want.

It's a *lot* of work. Probably more than 200 bucks worth to be honest. It'd also require a good understanding of Dark Heresy and it's expansions.

[Prak]

yeah, but that's what I'm saying, the quality of MM4 was not worth any amount of money. Bad layout (the new statblock layout did not help things), bunches and bunches of monsters that were MM1 monsters with class levels, templates designed to take up as much space as possible, it was terrible. MM5 at least had interesting ideas, like mind flayers that eat your essence.

I've been trying to use the new statblock for literally years now and still can't. The information is laid out in such an obtuse fashion that it's seriously unuseable. Okay, I want to know how many HD a given creature has. Is that under defenses? Offenses? Senses? Other? What? Your mom? Your sister's on my cock? That's your brother? He looks like a girl, doesn't he? No, I'm not gay, fuck you. Don't look at me like that. Aaaaaaagh!

Seriously. That's the kind of mental shit you go through when trying to find shit in the new statblock, because there isn't a nice divide between "normal" stuff and "unusual" stuff. In the standard layout you know where all the basic info is (bab, hd, saves, abilities, attack routines, etc) and then there are two lines that give you a short list of all the special stuff a creature might have, which are then elaborated upon after the statblock. It was simple, straightforward, and rather easy to use.

I still have no idea why they thought the new one was an improvement. It's yet another example of why I have no faith in 5th.

Yeah, the original 3e stat block wasn't great, but it was a hell of a lot better than what they left us with at the end of 3e.

[ishy]

So a PACKS system for dnd 3.5 would be something like this?

Melee PACKS
lvl 1: x
lvl 2: x
etc.
lvl 10: +1 flaming greatsword Belt of giant strength +4 / Boots of speed / cloak of resistance +3 / 10/5 bab / stats: str 22 | dex: 14 | con 16 | int: 10 | wis 12 | char 8
total attack: + (hasted 17/) 17/12 (+1 haste) Dmg: 2d6 + 19 + 1d6 flaming
Saves: con: +12 Will + 7 Ref: + 8

Wizard (conjuration focussed) Pack
pre-selected spells
lvl 1: spell level 1:summon monster 1 *2
lvl 2: spell level 1: + pick one
lvl 3: spell level 1: +mage armour
spell level 2: summon monster 2
etc.

Something like this? ((numbers might not add up, and format is not the best))

[TheFlatline]

Yeah that's a start. But it'd be stuff like:

Melee:

Lackey stats (adds +2 points): 14 10 12 8 9 10
Professional stats (0 points): 16 12 14 10 10 12
Heroic stats (2 points): 18 14 16 10 12 14

2-handed package:
1st level (0 points): Greatsword, masterwork chainmail shirt, potion of cure light wounds
4th level (2 points): Something improved over 1st level, STR +2 due to magical items etc.

Sword & Board:
1st level (0 points): Longsword, large masterwork shield, chainmail shirt, potion of CLW, etc...


And so on and so forth. Skill packs, magic item packs (pauper, adventurer, Noble, Monty Haul, etc... with stat adjustments ), spell packs, and feat packs that show symmetry (mobility, metamagic, multi-attack, 2-weapon, etc) that scales with levels.

Ideally you'd pick a point total for your NPC (say, equal to the level of the PCs, or twice the level, or whatever) and buy "packs" of stats, equipment, and other shit. So I go "I want two melee characters, a ranged character, and a caster for this encounter." I go shopping, and I'm done in a few minutes.

So as a DM I get fast NPCs that I can almost generate on the fly, and new players can look at the packs that generally work together and see basic synergies and how they play out in the actual game.

It doesn't have to be particularly super-granual (every 3-4 PC levels you need another set of options), and you don't have to go over the top with power builds, but I should easily be able to come up with competent core NPCs, and maybe with a little finesse I could come up with some different builds.

Since you're ditching the level system, and the PACKs system isn't 1-to-1 equal to levels since it's meant to create NPCs to fight, your feat packs could be called "battle tactics" and cull from both feats and prestige classes and character abilities. So I could take a cleric spell pack, the buffer battle tactics pack, and the ranged weapon pack, and have a cleric archer.

[Swordslinger]

Yeah, the original 3e stat block wasn't great, but it was a hell of a lot better than what they left us with at the end of 3e.

Statblocks (3E and 4E) need a significant reduction in size. There's generally too much redundant information and stats that could be combined. You might as well for instance, use Reflex as initiative. That way you eliminate the need to write out initiative separately.

4E was a nice experiment with unique powers, but they need to find a middle ground somewhere, because 4E's powers took up way too much space to express painfully simple concepts.

3E's statblocks were just rather convoluted. Most of it comes from trying to do monsters as PCs, a rather pointless exercise. Monsters shouldn't always get a fixed number of feats based on hit dice, feats, pretty much like racial abilities should be assigned when they give the monster new abilities. Handing a monster power attack or cleave makes sense, but giving him Iron will doesn't. Just bump up his will save directly, you save text that way and nobody is the wiser.

Monster attacks in general need to be standardized. I do like what they tried with pathfinder where you can write something like Gaze(30ft, Will DC 15, petrified) and be done with it. Doing something like that would be great for shrinking the statblock size.

Monsters don't need ability scores other than strength (and the str is for lifting purposes only). Ability damage can be handled via the pathfinder method and eliminating death/incapacitation by getting ability damage 0. Just make it straight up penalties. Con damage may kill you by reducing your hp to 0, but that's about it.

We should be aiming for monster statblocks the size of 1E/2E's blocks, where you can fit it in a single paragraph.

[Josh_Kablack]

I don't see a point-based PACKS system actually doing much to simplify things in a level-based system.

You'd want something like the 3e DMG NPC charts, but with more readable statblocks and multiclassing options. You simplify by not listing all 20 levels.

For 3e/Tome/PF with open multiclassing you'd end up with something that worked like

Step 1: Race and stats
Step 2: First level in (class A, B, C, D, E, F, G. etc)
Step 3: adding 2 levels in (class A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc).
After 5th level, there's a doubled option for adding 4 levels at once
repeat step 3 until target level reached
Step 4: Feat and EQ packages by final level.

For something wihtout open multiclassing like 4e you'd just spell out what the PHB called "builds" (power, feat and EQ selection) for each class every odd level.

[rasmuswagner]

Statblocks (3E and 4E) need a significant reduction in size. There's generally too much redundant information and stats that could be combined. You might as well for instance, use Reflex as initiative. That way you eliminate the need to write out initiative separately.

4E was a nice experiment with unique powers, but they need to find a middle ground somewhere, because 4E's powers took up way too much space to express painfully simple concepts.

4E statblocks are fucking great. The only real pain is "Close Burst 5, target: One or two creatures within the burst". Just say "one or two creatures within 5", define that shit and the rulebook, and be done with it.

And yeah, "Does this shit matter in a serious fight. I mean, for real? If not, keep it the fuck out of this statblock." One of the things that 4E got right.

[Swordslinger]

4E statblocks are fucking great. The only real pain is "Close Burst 5, target: One or two creatures within the burst". Just say "one or two creatures within 5", define that shit and the rulebook, and be done with it.

Well 4E statblocks even are a bit too wordy, and not very space conscious. For instance, it takes 2 lines to do a basic melee attack in core 4E and 3 lines in essentials format (one for title, attack roll and hit). A basic "swing a sword and chop someone" attack should take up one line at most. It's just not that complicated.

3E actually did a better job with that stuff. Where it does +15 claw 1d6+6 damage + poison. And it can do that on one line. If you had poison be a keyword, similar to how pathfinder works where you can describe the effect of the poison in parenthesis. So it'd be like poison (DC 15, 1d6 strength damage), that's even better.

Doing that has cut out several useless extra lines of description.

[OgreBattle]

And yeah, "Does this shit matter in a serious fight. I mean, for real? If not, keep it the fuck out of this statblock." One of the things that 4E got right.

I wonder if something like "Backgrounds" for monsters would work.

Ex: Every orc just has the blurb that says they're Tribal this and Warrior that. A beholder can have the Scheme Lord background+something else, then you just detail in the back of the book what all these do.

[Ice9]

Saving space is good, but having to flip back and forth isn't. So as long it's not something you're going to need to cross reference all the time.

[tussock]

A little block at the end of the entry for a monster's less used or non-combat abilities would be fine. Doesn't matter if it's ignored, but can help fit them in the game in interesting ways if you take the time to look.

1: Natural language. Yes, people look at you funny when you're talking about fireballing some Orcs, but at least you can talk about it. No one talks about 4e, it's written in a fucking abstract code.

2: Complete an adventure in an evening, or a week of lunch hours. Get there, go in, explore, fight, fight, talk, fight, explore, fight, traps, talking, assorted bullshit, puzzle, out, rewards, done. This thing where you finish a single fight over two weeks, NO.

3: If a newbie arrives, I can have them create their own damn character in a few minutes with limited guidance and start playing. Automatic investment in the game. Rolling dice to make characters by default, so they're playing immediately. That fussy thing, with adding stuff, options are fine, later.

4: An introductory price would be nice, so that more groups kicked off at once. I'm going to wait for the 2nd printing anyway, because there's less errors.

5: Get Paizo on board, and all the other little engines that can.

6: Spells should work. Magic that works is D&D. Fighters and Dragons just need 90% saves, because Magic is for killing hordes, not legends.

7: Hordes! You fight 30 Hobgoblins with 5 Wargs and the game doesn't grind to a halt.

8: Random. Outcomes need to be somewhat unpredictable, otherwise there's really no point in rolling all these dice in the first place, eh.

9: Character death. Even pointless, random ones. Quick games with quick character generation means I can get a lot done in a few weeks; and it's OK if some characters die while we get things done. That risk brings tension. I like it.

10: that first bit without a number. Monsters that have a place in the world.

[Lago PARANOIA]

One way that you could really save space on powers is by having monsters, you know, friggin' use PC powers now and then. You don't need to go bananas with it for most monsters, just a small smattering of spells will do.

Of course doing so in a satisfying way would entail getting rid of that retarded health/damage asymmetry, but whatever.

[TheFlatline]

A little block at the end of the entry for a monster's less used or non-combat abilities would be fine. Doesn't matter if it's ignored, but can help fit them in the game in interesting ways if you take the time to look.

1: Natural language. Yes, people look at you funny when you're talking about fireballing some Orcs, but at least you can talk about it. No one talks about 4e, it's written in a fucking abstract code.

2: Complete an adventure in an evening, or a week of lunch hours. Get there, go in, explore, fight, fight, talk, fight, explore, fight, traps, talking, assorted bullshit, puzzle, out, rewards, done. This thing where you finish a single fight over two weeks, NO.

3: If a newbie arrives, I can have them create their own damn character in a few minutes with limited guidance and start playing. Automatic investment in the game. Rolling dice to make characters by default, so they're playing immediately. That fussy thing, with adding stuff, options are fine, later.

4: An introductory price would be nice, so that more groups kicked off at once. I'm going to wait for the 2nd printing anyway, because there's less errors.

5: Get Paizo on board, and all the other little engines that can.

6: Spells should work. Magic that works is D&D. Fighters and Dragons just need 90% saves, because Magic is for killing hordes, not legends.

7: Hordes! You fight 30 Hobgoblins with 5 Wargs and the game doesn't grind to a halt.

8: Random. Outcomes need to be somewhat unpredictable, otherwise there's really no point in rolling all these dice in the first place, eh.

9: Character death. Even pointless, random ones. Quick games with quick character generation means I can get a lot done in a few weeks; and it's OK if some characters die while we get things done. That risk brings tension. I like it.

10: that first bit without a number. Monsters that have a place in the world.

They've created this game. It's called Kobolds Ate My Baby!

[sake]

6: Spells should work. Magic that works is D&D. Fighters and Dragons just need 90% saves, because Magic is for killing hordes, not legends.

So you really want 3E's wizard/fighter problem back... just flipped over?

And early 4E tried the wizards as AOE minonkiller bots concept... everyone said "fuck that shit, I'm making an orbizard instead!"

[Libertad]

Obligatory Penny Arcade comic.

I like Tyco's analysis of WotC's attempts to please everyone. Spoiler: You can't.

[ishy]

Why the fuck do people care whatever penny arcade has to say? It is a shitty comic. I wouldn't normally care, but really that is the 4-5th time it has been linked in this sub forum

[BearsAreBrown]

Why the fuck do people care whatever penny arcade has to say?

Because they're one of the biggest voices in gaming journalism? Because they run one of the largest gaming conventions in the world? Because most of their points are valid?

[ishy]

Of course their points are valid. They are also irrelevant.

Everyone knows that already and skips past it because it is not interesting. That is why we ignore that because it is unhelpful shit that nobody can do anything with.

[erik]

Why the fuck do people care whatever penny arcade has to say? It is a shitty comic. I wouldn't normally care, but really that is the 4-5th time it has been linked in this sub forum

[TheFlatline]

Of course their points are valid. They are also irrelevant.

Everyone knows that already and skips past it because it is not interesting. That is why we ignore that because it is unhelpful shit that nobody can do anything with.

Everyone knows what already?

That' it's impossible to please everyone and the attempt to try it is doomed?

Someone, very important doesn't know that:

Wizards of the Coast.

So maybe PA should keep talking. As was mentioned, they're a pretty big gaming voice and *might* actually be listened to.

[ModelCitizen]

I think people put too much stock in WotC polling the community for design goals. It's a PR stunt. I don't think anyone at WotC seriously intends to let the community design their game for them because fuck that game would be awful.

The actual best thing they could do would be to never read any of the community's design feedback. WotC has the same internet we do so here's a sneak preview of how that would go:

Mike Mearls: Me and my BFF Monte Cook just made a skill system. Here it is. Go nuts.
Smart Person: Well, this is much better than skill challenges, but these numbers are flawed in ways X, Y, and Z.
Some 4rry: Nuh uh, you criticized a 4e mechanic so I now insist it is the bestest thing ever! This skill system sucks because it needs to be more like skill challenges!
Smart Person: We're not talking about skill challenges. Anyway, you could improve problem X by...
Some Other 4rry: Hey, don't change the subject! I also like skill challenges because I used them to create this scene which I will now describe in detail!
New Guy: WTF, that's not a skill challenge. You're not using the skill challenge rules, like at all.
Smart Person: Hey, can we get back to...
Yet Another 4rry: That's totally a skill challenge! Anything with skills is a skill challenge because Mearls said so! Watch me lie to pretend I'm unaware of the flaws of my favorite edition! Skill challenges best mechanic wooooooo
Mike Mearls: Wow, you guys really love skill challenges! I can't wait to bring this up at my next performance review. Thank you for your feedback everyone. Stay tuned for Round 2 of the playtest, featuring our new Skill Challenge mechanic!

[Lago PARANOIA]

Look, you guys are way overthinking it. The process for playtesting should work like this:

1. After gathering complaints about previous edition (and there are many) Monte Cook et. al work on a gaming system in seclusion. For brand spank-my-ass new stuff like optional difficulties they should just float trial balloons. But for the vast majority of old and reworked material they should just put together the best system they can.

2. After getting together the best system they can, then they release it to the public and ask for suggestions. Ideally they'll want to release it to people who know what the fuck they're doing as opposed to releasing it to Internet celebrities. But in addition to getting broad complaints about the math they also get peoples' general opinions about how the system is run.

3. After getting feedback, they head back to their labs and use the data to refine the previous rules and also implement new systems suggested by players (ha! like that will be the day) and/or positively-tested trial balloons. They they do a new round of playtesting. If the results are generally positive, then they can start releasing it to Internet Celebrities like Rich Burlew and Penny Arcade.

4. Repeat step three until the project timeline for testing is over.

That's all you need to do. Really.

[tussock]

6: Spells should work. Magic that works is D&D. Fighters and Dragons just need 90% saves, because Magic is for killing hordes, not legends.

So you really want 3E's wizard/fighter problem back... just flipped over?

That's not what happens. Spells do everything, so high level Wizards can totally still dominate the game, as they did when Dragons had 90% fixed MR and saved on a 4+. The trick is, you don't target the enemy, you just nuke their support, remove their buffs, and tie them up with the environment so the Fighters can get at them; all while being basically invulnerable because you're a Wizard.

The game doesn't need high level Fighters and Ancient Dragons to be charm bait and disintegration fodder for that to happen.

And early 4E tried the wizards as AOE minonkiller bots concept... everyone said "fuck that shit, I'm making an orbizard instead!"

Wizards are vastly more than that, and 4E got pretty much everything wrong. Minions are ... not good, and you have to be an orbwizard to lockdown the dragon for 20 rounds to give everyone time to whittle it to death with their potato peelers. It's not really D&D.

[FatR]

1. A gameplay that doesn't immediately disintegrate into either boring HP grind or OHKO-fest, while having enough tactical elements to be fun. I'm not asking for perfect balance, I'm not even asking for good balance, but I want a game where I can make tactical decisions that matter and which doesn't automatically fall apart even if you use it as intended. Set normal combat length to like 3 rounds, unless you simplify it enough to make rounds flow alot faster.

2. Seriously prune bullshit minor modifiers and conditions, bullshit weak abilities, bullshit "just like X, but better" abillities, and other bullshit fiddly bits. That was entertaining once. Now, when I have a mentally exhausting job and another time-consuming hobby, not counting videogames and books and whatever, it fucking isn't. In addition, snowballing of this bullshit is one of the main reasons why high levels are nigh-unplayable in every edition. I can relatively easily deal with spell abuse, even if by banning or severely nerf those half-dozen of 3.X spells which actually break the game. I can't deal with the fact that generating a reasonably optimized 12th-level PC seriously takes over a day even if you trawl the net for advice; or that planning by players seriously takes longer than actual adventuring (3.X); or that even insignificant combats easily can take hours (4E); or that there often are more modifiers in combats than I, as a GM, can actually remember.

In fact, the problems with cumbersome monster statblocks or overtly difficult NPCs generation also are largely created by this, so if you just do a good work of removing level-inappropriate abilties and +/-1 modifiers from the game, you can kill many birds with one stone.

3. A setting I'll care about. Not sure what it can be, but sure as hell that recycling Forgotten Realms (at any points of its development) again isn't it. Add some fucking originality to usual DnD cliches - if even Magic guys can think up some original fantasy worlds, why can't you? Eberron is probably closest to what I want of the published settings, if you replace shitty grimderp cosmology and ignore all the penis extension NPCs from supplemental materials.

4. Provide a solid adventure support. Cranking out adventure paths at the rate Paizo currently does is fine, you can do it somewhat slower, if less of them will be bad, but providing just a single good adventure path during your entire edition life is unacceptable.


These are necessary requirements which will make me seriously consider switching to 5E. Sure I have a considerably bigger wishlist of stuff I'd like to see in my ideal DnD, but if the 4 demands above are met I'll be willing to overlook the new edition not conforming to my personal tastes otherwise (unless it manages to actually offend my sensibilities).