What Content Would Make 5e Good

[Bihlbo]

Was it really necessary for me to clarify that I meant role-playing games? Do I also need to specify the pen-and-paper version so you don't think Legend of Zelda is an appropriate answer? Come on.

[Username17]

Again, like people with even the most minor modicum of care about rules felt disappointed by them. Combat was stupidly swingy.

I haven't personally played any game in which combat was anything but swingy. Are there games with non-swingy combat? Does that exist?

NWoD has combat which is mind numbingly deterministic.

-Username17

[Shrieking Banshee]

I maybe should have said Yo-Yo like. People getting knocked out repeatedly in one round but bounding up just as fast.

[Foxwarrior]

Ah yes, the Chumbawamba edition.

[Dean]

It will be 100% a list of nerfs, and all the nerfs will be ones that don't even nerf an overpowered thing into being simpler and better, but just a nerf that makes things more complex and have worse results for the actual game, like 3e -> 3.5 Hold Person style nerfs.

I mean you're going to be wrong here purely by the law of large numbers. In 200 pages of spells some are going to end up better. For instance I've referenced 5e's Stoneskin as an improvement of design over 3E's. 3e's Stoneskin requires you to pre-purchase some number of costly ingredient spell packets at 250gp a pop, then runs for a very strange 10 minutes per level duration which is very hard to adjudicate in game, then requires you to subtract ten from each damage roll you take and then record the ongoing amount of damage you have prevented every round building up to a spells cutoff point. 5e's stoneskin in comparison just makes you take half damage from slash/bludg/pierce attacks for as long as you say you're concentrating on it. 5e's Stoneskin is obviously much better in terms of playability, simplicity, and design.

Likewise you're going to run into weird buffs now and then like Gate explicitly being a no-save kill button for any non deity in 5e.

Ah yes, the Chumbawumba edition

I like this joke a lot.

Anyway moving on to content

ACKS IN 5E

In working on content to improve the edition it occurs to me that the Adventurer Conquerer King model of having high level characters become people who own towns or become minor deitys or whatever could fit really well into 5e and fix a lot of problems. I'm calling these end game options "Legendary Paths" and I they're a sort of prestige/paragon class system that I think can solve a lot of 5e issues I see. In the first place it'd give high level characters real power that can do the sorts of adventures 5e tells you high levels characters should do instead of 20th level Rangers not only being unable to topple governments but definitely losing to 40 determined men with swords. It would also let me bridge the caster-mundane power disparity by designing the caster Legendary Paths to give cool flavorful narrative powers like making unique magic items and their own demiplanes while designing the mundane classes to deliver direct power and the sort of problem solving abilities they need to be able to actually accomplish anything. The paths I have at the moment are...

Legendary Path Options
Archmage: The classic high level caster. Lets you breed crossbreeds, make constructs, build flying castles and magic terrain, research magic and build your own spells and magic items. Lots of cool abilities but very little in terms of vertical power. Classes that can become Archmages include Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcerers.
Divine: You become a minor deity. Lets you gain power from peoples worship of you. Lets you make your own demiplane, do miracles for people that pray to you and so on. Also should be full of extremely narratively powerful abilities but we absolutely don't need to give full casters more spells per round or DR or any of the normal shit D&D gives "Gods" that makes them feel way more like video game bosses than divine powers. Classes that can become Divine include Clerics and Paladins and mayyyybe Monks but monks suck as a class super hard so I'd kinda like to direct them to a more directly powerful options.
Guardian: Guardian of a powerful magical land. Like Princess Mononoke if you controlled the forest. Like the AD&D Ranger this class gives you bears and centaurs and giant eagles and silver dragons and shit that will do your bidding and gives you a magic land that can cast spells on you. So it's basically a pocket caster and a small number of very awesome troops to help you disguise the fact that your Ranger is bad. Lets you go into battle riding a giant eagle with a ghost spirit magically buffing you and the stone giant you brought dealing damage you get to take credit for. Classes that can become Guardians include Rangers, Barbarians, Monks, and I guess Druid because I think if I don't allow Druid in people would flip. I don't like giving a caster class more power but I can design the abilities to be often redundant to what a Druid could normally be doing for herself so the buff is considerably less for a Druid taking this path than a Barbarian.
Guildmaster: For Rogueish types in charge of thieves guilds or crime syndicates or assassin rings or whatever. Will have abilities to murder people and hire shady mercs and get money and use spies for information gathering powers. Lots of direct upgrades here. Classes that can become Guildmaster include Rogues and....I dunno. Fighters and Rangers can always use more options. Non lore college Bards should be fine too.
Lord: The AD&D Fighter. A 10th level fighting man who gets a small army, an honor guard of pretty good fighters, a town he can levy taxes and services from, and some diplomatic options as a new member of the royal class. Just raw brute power here. Lets any Fighter look at a 5e Necromancer and say "Fine, lets do this". Classes that can become Lords include Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers.

I also have a few more I'm working on including "Hero" a path with some generic boosts for people who don't want to lead towns or spy rings or clergy. "Headmaster" as a way to get divination style problem solving powers into the hands of mundane classes and to let people do a Monk School in a satisfying way. And "Demigod" where you become like Hercules or Maoi and gain the ability to bend rivers and stuff which would be through something similar to powerful illusion magic where you can "lasso the sun" which is actually just a powerful Daylight style effect in a localized area so people in a large nearby area see you lasso the sun and make it day but the earth doesn't get incinerated to a crisp and crushed by a stars gravitational pull.

The Divine and Guildmaster are done so here they are

LEGENDARY PATHS
Paths are ways to make characters that are world-affecting. Characters that can alter the setting and influence the world around them. For a game about kicking in temple doors, killing monsters, and taking their loot they may not be necessary but if you’d like your campaign’s characters be the sort who become kings, fabled heroes, demigods, and masters of might and magic then these rules are for you.

In a game with Path’s any character may take one starting at level 10. While you continue to gain levels in your normal classes your Path offers greater and greater rewards as your total class levels rise. In other words you don't gain levels in a Path instead of a normal class, you gain them in addition to levels in whichever class you are playing.

The Divine

The Divine
10th Following, High Priest, Prayer
12th Faith, Minor Miracles
14th Spreading Belief
16th Timeless body
18th Ascension, Grant Afterlife, Grant Domain
20th Wish

To become divine is to cross the bridge between man and the gods. The powers of your abilities and stories of the miracles you have worked in the name of your god have created a small faith around you personally. To facilitate this founding religion you have to have a temple or hold that you can allow them to meet and practice in. At first this will be the only site of your worship but soon it will travel to surrounding lands.

Following: You have a small cult following that worships you in a particular region. Your following numbers around 250 people. These are people who at least once a week visit a site dedicated to you and offer their devotion and prayer. This increases to 500 believers at 12th level, 1000 at 14th level, 2500 at 16th, 5000 at 18th, and 10,000 at 20th level.

High Priest: You gain the service 5 Acolytes and 1 Priest of particularly strong devotion to you. This is your High Priest and by honoring him or her as such you create a divine bond between you. You gain the ability to communicate telepathically with your High Priest whenever you choose for up to 1 minute at a time once per short rest. You can change who you have this connection with simply by choosing another individual to be your High Priest and you gain the ability to communicate with them next dawn. This communication is not affected by being on different planes.

Prayer: Anyone who either willingly holds a symbol crafted in your devotion or is within one of your places of worship may send you their prayers simply by speaking or thinking a short prayer directed at you up to 25 words in length. You gain the ability to view anyone, as if by the Scrying spell, willingly holding your symbol or anyone who has prayed to you in the last 7 days and has your symbol on their person. You can tune out these prayers at any time and you know who is sending them to you, allowing you to differentiate prayers between different individuals. If multiple prayers come in simultaneously you have the ability to listen and understand them simultaneously without difficulty.

Faith: You are empowered by people’s faith in you. For every 10 worshippers you have you generate 1 point of Faith per week. This accumulates and allows you to perform incredible feats and divine miracles. The Faith you gain based on the size of your following is shown below. Any additional followers you personally win to your cause may be added on top of this.
Faith Gained Per [/td][td]Level[/td][td]Worshippers[/td][td]Week[/td][td]Month[/td][td]Year[/td][td][/td][/tr]

12	500	50	200	2500
14	1,000	100	400	5000
16	2,500	250	1000	12,500
18	5,000	500	2000	25,000
20	10,000	1000	4000	50,000

Minor Miracles: You gain the incredible ability to use the collected power of people’s faith to work actual miracles on the world. To generate an effect you must have the listed minimum level for a miracle of that power and you must expend the list cost in Faith points You can generate any of the spell effects listed below on any target within 30ft of anyone willingly holding one of your symbols (include the holder themselves) or anyone who has prayed to you in the last 7 days who has a symbol of yours within 30ft of them. The caster level and DC of the spells is as if you had cast it yourself.
[/td][td]Level[/td][td]Cost in Faith[/td][td]Spell [/td][/tr]

12th	5 points	Cure Wounds, Guidance, Light, Purify Food and Drink, Produce Flame
14th	25 points	Enhance Ability, Create Food and Water, Lesser Restoration, Magic Circle, Major Image, Protection from Poison, Sending, Water Walk
16th	250 points	Control Water, Locate Creature, Raise Dead, Telekinesis
18th	2500 points	Control Weather, Conjure Celestial, Find the Path, Plane Shift

Spreading Belief: Other priests begin temples to your service. You gain the services of 10 priests each with their own small convocations. At any of these temples (including your primary one) you can recieve spellcasting by the resident priest or acolytes for free.

Timeless Body: Your divine nature now sustains you so that you suffer none of the frailty of old age, and you can't be aged magically. You can still die of old age, however. In addition, you no longer need food or water

Ascension: The power of the divine inside you finally awakens in full. If you meditate for 24 hours on a plane other than the material plane you transcend mortality. You become a truly immortal being, a minor deity in fact, and in the moment of your awakening you create an immobile, finite demiplane. The demiplane you create is initially very small, a 100ft radius area, but the demiplane grows at a rate of 10 feet per week, 40 feet per month, or 500 feet per year. You determine the environment in the demiplane, reflecting most any natural desire you can visualize, such as atmosphere, water, temperature, and the shape of the terrain. You can restrict interplanar travel to your plane and can do so on a case by case basis, by creating a password, or by allowing individual creatures or creature types. Additionally while on your plane you can’t be targetted by any divination magics or percieved by scrying sensors unless you wish to be.

Grant Afterlife: You gain the ultimate power, the ability to take souls passing from the material plane and give them a form of afterlife. For 500 faith you can create any CR 1 or lower Beast, Humanoid, or Celestial which forms in your demiplane. Beasts or Humanoids take on the Celestial type and if any base creature has less than Int 6 they gain Int 6. For 1000 faith you can create any CR 2 Beast, Celestial, or Humanoid, for 5000 faith any up to CR 5, or for 25,000 Faith you can create a Deva. Any beings you create are essentially new creatures and as loyal to you as your believers were in life. It should be noted that Celestials as a rule don’t enjoy violence so will defend you and your plane but not accompany you in battle.

[Sidebar: The Afterlife: It takes 500 Faith to create an afterlife for a soul and an average faithful worshiper generates about 5 faith a year. This means it would take one person a hundred years of worship to “make good” on the reward of an afterlife. As most creatures don’t live to be a hundred years old deity’s are necessarily restricted to who they can bring back and this, among other reasons, is why worshipers try to live to their gods ideals and gain their favour and attention. To curry their God's favor and gain an edge in a competition for eternal life in some form. By this math it seems few would get into the afterlife, but don’t despair yet.
It should be noted that the mortality rate is about 1% in our world, meaning every year one out of a hundred people die and for these purposes lets assume the D&D world is about the same. A hundred people in a year generate 500 Faith, just enough to give an afterlife to the one soul among them that on average would pass on each year. By promising to give an afterlife to worshipers who follow guidelines with reasonable standards a gods number of followers can grow to incredible numbers. Regardless of the number of worshipers however a deity that gains followers by promising eternal rewards to every follower would never really gain any more Faith. Every additional 100 followers will give them enough faith to give an eternal reward to the one that, on average, passes each year.]

Grant Domain: Choose a domain. You may now grant spells and features from this domain to Clerics and other spellcasting followers of appropriate level. Beyond that the act of becoming divine, tying your being in with innate concepts of the universe has subtler effects on you personally. Whatever concept you choose, one you believe you personally embody, becomes something of an obsession for you. A god devoted to knowledge or nature comes to think of those things as the driving force for their being, and the spread or power of them in the universe as equating directly to their own value as a being.

Wish: You can now alter reality through sheer divine power. You may manifest the Wish spell either personally or for any target you could use a Minor Miracle on by expending 10,000 Faith at any time

The Guildmaster

Guildmaster
10th Syndicate, Thieves Can
12th Assassin, Spy
14th Deputy, Guildmage
16th Instincts, Shady Connections
18th Assassin, Track
20th Unparalleled

A Guildmaster connects a group of people talented at subterfuge and makes them a greater whole than the sum of their parts. Whether a spy ring or an organized crime syndicate you create a network of operators that can let you exercise control over entire regions and gain a great deal of money and power while doing so. To be a Guildmaster requires a headquarters. It doesn’t need to be a stronghold in the military sense but it does need the proper protections from the actions of enemies and the eyes of ordinary citizens. Once you have established a headquarters you begin to attract personnel.

Syndicate: Starting at 10th level you gain three kinds of followers: Spies, Thugs, and Scouts. Spies are the high ranking members of your organization, they are in charge of whatever kind of operations your Syndicate performs whether it be smuggling, selling information, thievery, piracy, or any other thing. Spies gain you 20gp a week per spy and your organization attracts more of these talented individuals as your renown grows, gaining you 5 more spies every even level as shown in the chart below.
Thugs and Scouts are your enforcers, your muscle. They make up the bulk of your manpower and will fight for or with you as requested as opposed to Spies who prefer to avoid combat if at all possible. Thugs or Scouts don’t directly make you any money but provide the manpower required to run and defend your operation. You gain 10 Thugs or Scouts every even level (your choice of which) as shown on the chart below
If you lose a Thug or Scout you can replace them with new blood at a rate of 1 per week. If you lose a Spy they take 1 month and 100gp to replace and you don’t gain the income that Spy would have generated, meaning you make 80gp a month less for each Spy you lose. Attacking another guild’s important members like this is how guilds go to war with each other. Preventing another organization from making money drains their war coffers and can prevent them from being able to replace key members. Do that for long enough and you can destroy an entire enemy guilds operation.

Syndicate Size By Level [/td][td]Level[/td][td]Spies[/td][td]Thugs/Scouts[/td][td] [/td][/tr]

10th	5	10
12th	10	20
14th	15	30
16th	20	40
18th	25	50
20th	30	60

Money Gained Per* [/td][td]Week[/td][td]Month[/td][td]Year[/td][td]*Includes [/td][/tr]

100	400	5000
200	800	10,000
350	1400	17,000	50/week from Deputy
500	2000	25,000	100/week from Deputy
700	3000	35,000	200/week from Deputy
1000	4000	50,000	400/week from Deputy

Thieves Can: You may now climb any surface, from ceilings to sheer cliff faces. You gain a climb speed equal to your move speed and as long as you have your climbing tools you can climb anything short of a perfectly smooth unpierceable surface without any required check. Additionally you only require 3 limbs on a surface to maintain a hold allowing you to make attacks or perform any action you can perform with one hand while climbing. You may also use your reaction if you fall to reduce any falling damage you take by an amount equal to 5 times your level.

Assassin: At 12th level you gain the services of a deadly assassin (Monster Manual pg343), the most feared member of any syndicate. As long as you have an assassin in your organization you are able to put a contract on someone which the assassin will carry out. The assassin disappears for 1d4+3 days, at the end of this resolve a single assassin surprise attack against the target of your choice. If the target dies the mission was a success. However the attack resolves the assassin then tries to escape, making a stealth check against DC 15 or DC 20 if the target survived. If the assassin succeeds he is undetected, if he fails he is captured or killed. If you lose an assassin it takes a month and 1000gp to replace him. You can tell the Assassin to destroy or remove a vital body part to prevent Raise Dead from functioning on the target. Through the assassins guidance and effort your syndicate may now protect up to 5 targets from assassination by tasking your men to watch over them. If one of these protected individuals is targeted by an assassin both their attack roll and escape roll are made with disadvantage. At 18th level you gain another assassin. Assassins automatically count as protecting themselves (as does any Rogue with the Assassin archetype) and for this reason assassins almost never take contracts on other assassins.

Spy: You can task some of your spies to observe a target who’s location you at least roughly know who is on the same plane as your syndicate’s headquarters. You can task the spies to investigate 3 questions you give them which must have observable answers such as “Did they meet with the Governer”, “Do they worship Asmodeus in secret”, or “Do they possess an Orb of Dragonkind”. Your spies take 1 week to investigate and report back to you. At the end of that time have a spy make a stealth check with a DC based on the targets security as defined below
DC 5 No security: A normal person with perhaps a locked door, family, and neighbors.
DC 10 Moderate security: Precautions such as servants and complex locks for valuables
DC 15 Considerable security. A stronghold with many guards, complex locks and hidden chambers for valuables
DC 20 Impregnable: A stronghold with magical locks, traps, and passwords for entry to important areas, things hidden in interdimensional spaces.

If they succeed all spies make it back to answer your questions. If they fail you lose one spy but still receive answers. If they fail by 5 or more you lose one spy and receive no information. If your DM believes there is no way the information could be observed by anyone the spies may refuse the mission or simply return with no information found.

Deputy: At 14th level your organization has grown large enough that it can start reaping incredible benefits from someone managing its day-to-day operations full time. You can fill this role with someone of your choice or within a month you can attract the services of a talented Veteran, someone familiar with the underworld who is devoted to making sure your operation runs smoothly. They act as an enforcer, second, gopher, muscle, and confidant. Your deputy, whoever they are, makes you an additional 50gp a week (included in your earnings above). An amount that doubles every even level (as noted above). If your Deputy dies it takes a month and 500gp to incentivize and find and train someone qualified to replace them. The cost doubles each time you lose another deputy within a 5 year period. If you already have someone assigned to this role when you reach 14th level that person immediately starts gaining you the additional money with no time lost or training required.

Guildmage: Your organization can now attract a syndicate Mage who will work for you bolstering your organizations magical protections. Your Mage will not join you in combat and will prioritize their spells to escape if caught in an attack but they are still an invaluable asset. Upon their joining your organization they will begin work on creating a permanent Teleport Circle and Mordenkainens Private Sanctum through daily castings of those spells in locations of your choosing. They will also cast spells for you for a cost of 5gp times spell level squared plus the cost for any expensive material component.

Instincts: At 16th level your instincts for the world of subterfuge are borderline supernatural. Your instincts are so fine you can effectively cast Augury at will, checking your gut to see if you feel good, bad, or ambivalent about any situation. While the effect is essentially identical to Augury it can be done in a single action and is a strictly mundane ability and as such can be used inside antimagic fields and the like.
You can also use your fine instincts to focus on someone while they speak as an action, if you do you can tell if they ever speak a lie. You can use this ability as often as you want but must decide the target each time and closely focus on them.

Shady Connections: At 16th level your organization has connected you to a wide variety of unsavory characters who, for the right price, might be exactly who you need to get a job done. You can hire any of the creatures listed below. For the price given they will accompany you on a single mission or work for you more generally for a period of no more than 48 hours. While these creatures will fight for you their relationship to you is mercenary. They will retreat if reduced to less than 25% of their hitpoints or to less than half their starting number if coming in a group.

150gp- An Ogre or 5 Gnolls
200gp- An Ettercap or 3 Merrow*
250gp- A Doppleganger, Green Hag, Succubus, Incubus, or Wererat
300gp- A Werewolf or 3 Harpies**
650gp- A Hobgoblin Devastator

*Merrow will not accept primarily land based missions
**These Harpies carry shortbows granting them a +3 attack for 1d6+1 damage at 80/320 range

Track: At 18th level there’s almost nothing your organization can’t find. With 24 hours work through a combination magical and mundane investigation your spies can report to you the location of any creature or magic item on earth. If the DM believes no one alive could determine that information through any method the spies will report that that appears to be true instead and their best guess with how to move forward.

Unparalleled: At 20th level your operatives are amongst the best in the world, well equipped, well trained, and well supported. From now on you, any spies, and any assassins in your organization gain advantage on any stealth checks you make.

[Emerald]

For instance I've referenced 5e's Stoneskin as an improvement of design over 3E's. 3e's Stoneskin requires you to pre-purchase some number of costly ingredient spell packets at 250gp a pop, then runs for a very strange 10 minutes per level duration which is very hard to adjudicate in game, then requires you to subtract ten from each damage roll you take and then record the ongoing amount of damage you have prevented every round building up to a spells cutoff point. 5e's stoneskin in comparison just makes you take half damage from slash/bludg/pierce attacks for as long as you say you're concentrating on it. 5e's Stoneskin is obviously much better in terms of playability, simplicity, and design.

There's a key difference between 3e DR and 5e resistance, though, in that DR 10 is very good against lots of weaker attacks and negligible against single high-damage attacks while resistance is the reverse. The two versions have different design goals, the 3e version to be a You Must Be This Tall To Play mechanic to make archmages and dragons immune to hordes of commoners with pointy sticks and the 5e version to be easy to math out, and in a 5e context where said hordes are scarier than single boss monsters I'd take the 3e version over the 5e version any day despite the extra fiddliness.

I do agree that removing unnecessary resource and duration tracking is a good thing, though, so I'd take a flat-long-duration no-component no-damage-cap stoneskin that grants DR over either the 3e or 5e version.

[Kaelik]

I mean you're going to be wrong here purely by the law of large numbers. In 200 pages of spells some are going to end up better.

I didn't claim that every change would be a nerf, I claimed that every spell that specifically Bihlbo thought was a strictly better written spell would be a nerf.

[Shrieking Banshee]

You know the strange thing is that 5e is actually less substantial then 2e. 2e had plenty of material about actually doing stuff and having a lasting impact on the world. Gaining followers, creating stuff. It wasn't very well thought out, but I do prefer not very well thought out enabling ideas over not very well thought out disabling ideas.

[Cervantes]

i like the concept dean, def goes a long way in making 5e actually have higher level content

banshee does raise the whole issue of "the outside world in 5e is a smooth featureless plain that exists only in the DM's mind" tho

[Shrieking Banshee]

banshee does raise the whole issue of "the outside world in 5e is a smooth featureless plain that exists only in the DM's mind" tho

It's not great for DMs either. Our DM despite trying to be enabling always felt flustered.

[Monkeyknuckles]

(I have no idea how to do quotes)

Dean said:"For instance I've referenced 5e's Stoneskin as an improvement of design over 3E's. 3e's Stoneskin requires you to pre-purchase some number of costly ingredient spell packets at 250gp a pop, then runs for a very strange 10 minutes per level duration which is very hard to adjudicate in game, then requires you to subtract ten from each damage roll you take and then record the ongoing amount of damage you have prevented every round building up to a spells cutoff point. 5e's stoneskin in comparison just makes you take half damage from slash/bludg/pierce attacks for as long as you say you're concentrating on it. 5e's Stoneskin is obviously much better in terms of playability, simplicity, and design. "

In terms of usefullness, the 3.5e version isn't concentration while the 5e version is. This means that the 3.5e version will always get full use of the casting, it will under normal circumstances always prevent 10 hp/caster level, bypassed only by adamantine weapons, which are uncommon especially among monsters.

The 5e version will require a dc 10 Con save on a hit of even 1 damage, and is bypassed entirely by a magic weapon,meaning the caster will quickly fail if subjected to numerous small hit (Minions)

A non-sorcerer isn't going to be proficient in con saves and so probably has a +2 to the save, so they'll fail this check quickly, probably within 2-3 hits, Barring lucky rolls 3 goblins will remove your 100gp buff in one-2 rounds. The Warcaster feat can mitigate this but that's a whole other can of worms.

[Kaelik]

WAIT WHAT!!!

His example of a spell that is better designed is one that is NEGATED BY MAGIC WEAPONS and is like 5th level or something. Hahahahahahaha

[Prak]

I mean, I suppose it depends on your design goals. What he seems to mean is that 5e's Stoneskin is better in its simplicity, not necessarily it's in game effectiveness. Which I can see.

[Dean]

WAIT WHAT!!!

His example of a spell that is better designed is one that is NEGATED BY MAGIC WEAPONS and is like 5th level or something. Hahahahahahaha

This was in a conversation with you. I was saying in all 200 pages of spells some would end up more powerful and some would even end up better designed. My example for the latter, which I'll maintain, is that 5e's Stoneskin is easier to run and has a better duration, and then there's some spells like Gate which are directly buffed in 5e. Also I don't know how many monsters attacks count as magic weapons in 5e but I'll bet it's not a lot. As for Monkeyknuckles point of your average caster only taking like 3 attacks at half damage before his protection drops that's true but I expressly wasn't arguing that 5e stoneskin is more powerful than 3e stoneskin I was saying it was a more elegantly designed spell which I still think. Something that gets a caster through one fight or most of one fight at half damage is still a buff worth knowing.

[CapnTthePirateG]

The concentration is a much bigger deal in my opinion, because you could be concentrating on wall of force and trapping dudes in there with no way to get out unless they have disintegrate*. The concentration system needs to be taken out back and shot.



*As 5e NPCs run on arbitrarium like 4e NPCs, they will probably not have this unless they got sop PC spellcasting to disguise the fact that 5e NPCs run on arbitrarium. It's very strange, if you are a PC drow wizard you just have wizard spells and drow racials. If you are a drow mage NPC you get wizard spellcasting at a higher level than your CR AND the ability to randomly summon demons, and I don't think you even suffer the loss of not having an int bonus. Likewise if you look at the generic NPCs in the back of the book they all get arbitrarium abilities not granted by any PC class, and of course there's no way to get them. But what do you expect from a system that grants the CR 4 banshee a literal AoE save or die but nerfs finger of death to inconsequential damage?

[Whipstitch]

I'd disagree that it's elegant since I just see it as a really awkward buff that doesn't do anything particularly well.

To my mind Stone Skin is yet another casualty of the whole bounded accuracy business. In 3.x I wouldn't consider it a great spell since it's not that powerful against level appropriate opposition and can lead to some annoying book keeping but in terms of world building and tiering it was still somewhat useful as a soft GTFO ability that allows high level spell casters to waggle their dicks at the local militia then no sell the slings and arrows that get sent their way. Basically, when nobody's dealing more than 1d8 per shot 3.5 Stone Skin is tantamount to just running around with a 90 point ablative insurance policy. That's kinda niche, but it has its uses when your goal is to have an uninterrupted round of evil cackling as you troll the local constabulary.

[Ignimortis]

Content can't fix most flaws with 5e. But if I were to ignore its' numerous flaws and focus of "what is lacking", I'd say that 5e needs an INT-based halfcaster along the lines of Paladins/Rangers, because both Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger are shit.

Also any martial class with complexity level of spellcasters would be welcome, but then again, I consider ToB/PoW subsystems to be the best content for 3.5 or Pathfinder.

[Username17]

Stone Skin in particular was a game defining buff in high level 2nd edition play, and all kinds of weird shit has happened because of it. Back then it straight up stopped the next X hits from doing any damage, which caused much of combat to be based on hitting enemies many times to grind stoneskin off. And literally every edition since then has had weird stone skin changes that are clearly heavily colored by trauma experienced by the designers in the 1990s.

But Stone Skin hasn't been a useful spell since 1999. There are people who are old enough to vote who have never lived in a world where people prepared stone skin for serious. I just genuinely don't care what specific nerfs there are on that spell in any particular edition, it's not a spell real people have cast for like 18 fucking years.

-Username17

[Dean]

I'd disagree that it's elegant since I just see it as a really awkward buff that doesn't do anything particularly well.

Take half damage from physical attacks as long as you concentrate isn't an awkward buff imo. It certainly is not a more awkward buff than removing 10 damage from each incoming physical attack unless it's adamantine for 10 mins per level. You are correct that it doesn't fix bounded accuracy but my entire claim is that I think 3.e's Stoneskin is clunky and awkward while 5.e's is much less so.

To Ignimortis I'd say that 5e doesn't need any more half casters because only full casters are functional in 5e. I started playing with an entire group that was brand new and it only took until 3rd session for even new players to recognize that playing anything but a caster was extremely boring and offered no options. I think the closest thing 5e could use to what you're saying is a Warblade style class that's just a full caster but with powers that are sword themed.

[Whipstitch]

I meant awkward to use in the sense that I don't really know what the hell it's supposed to be outperforming or what its particular niche is really supposed to be. The ability to take half damage on your next attack or two irrespective of how much damage those attacks threaten in the first place is fundamentally something where you'd want to be picking and choosing what you halve rather than just hoping you get hit with big things before you get hit with small things. It's not something I'd expect to bother justifying as a feature even on sandbagged NPC casters.

[Ignimortis]

To Ignimortis I'd say that 5e doesn't need any more half casters because only full casters are functional in 5e. I started playing with an entire group that was brand new and it only took until 3rd session for even new players to recognize that playing anything but a caster was extremely boring and offered no options. I think the closest thing 5e could use to what you're saying is a Warblade style class that's just a full caster but with powers that are sword themed.

Well, that's the trick, most problems with 5e can't be fixed with content. But at least they should've followed their own paradigm to the end, instead of presuming warlock was actually a good design that was worth the paper it was printed on. The only thing non-casters are good at is dealing damage at low levels, that much is true.

Initiating classes are usually full-casters with sword-themed powers, so that'd be great.

[Kaelik]

I'd disagree that it's elegant since I just see it as a really awkward buff that doesn't do anything particularly well.

Take half damage from physical attacks as long as you concentrate isn't an awkward buff imo. It certainly is not a more awkward buff than removing 10 damage from each incoming physical attack unless it's adamantine for 10 mins per level. You are correct that it doesn't fix bounded accuracy but my entire claim is that I think 3.e's Stoneskin is clunky and awkward while 5.e's is much less so.

Half damage is more clunky and awkward than -10, and Concentration is more clunky and awkward than 10 minutes per level.

The damage cap on Stoneskin exists, but the fact that you keep talking about two much clunkier and more complicated parts of the spell as if they were simplifications is a sign that perhaps your aren't really qualified to balance those increased complications against stoneskins cap removal.

[OgreBattle]

Whatever your game decides stoneskin to do, it should follow the same mechanics as hitting a monster made of stone or a structure made of stone too

[Darkholme]

Okay, so I forgot a disclaimer when I was talking about the homebrew shit. When you use more homebrew documents made by fans than actual books made by the developers, you are either playing the Mind's Eye Society Vampire the Masquerade(Which is pretty fucking rad all things considered) or you're playing a game that has failed so utterly on every level of design that a bunch of people on reddit can outdo your entire professional company.

Which 5e 3pp/fan books are you adding to your game to make it better?

[Ice9]

A system for a scope of play that few games do well, done well. And decoupled enough from the rest of 5E that it can be easily ported to other systems or used stand-alone.

I would totally buy a 5E book to steal a good system for:
* Kingdom level play
* Invention, with interesting and non-arbitrary decisions.
* Political maneuvering
Or various other things. Of course this would require them to be capable of writing a good system in the first place.