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Author Topic: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?  (Read 10950 times)

Pat
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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #30 on: July 28, 2021, 01:49:38 PM »
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.

Any particular reason why?  To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right.  It solves so many scaling problems.
I agree with Ocule, but I'd be interested to hear why you think otherwise.

Chris24601

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #31 on: July 28, 2021, 01:57:35 PM »
Reduce the number of magic using classes drastically, to probably just the wizard and cleric as a first order of business, and add in a penalty for hitting 0 hit points such as fatigue.

Rework rest system, death and dying. reduce hit points drastically after level 10.

Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.

Remove drow, tieflings and dragonborn from core rulebook

Biggest change other than those things would be work modular options for tweak your game experience and remove forgotten realms as the assumed setting
Translation - make it as much like the OSR as possible so the 5e audience reaction will be to ignore it completely.

Like it or not there are people with different preferences in terms of RPGs and the OSR has the demo that wants what you suggest covered extremely well already. The 5e demo isn't interested in Only Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings and Only Fighters, Thieves, Clerics and Magic-Users. They LIKE the tieflings and dragonborn and warlocks and bards and druids and sorcerers.

Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.

Any particular reason why?  To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right.  It solves so many scaling problems.

I found it does the opposite, that it just ensures that some spells are just completely worthless because theyre not worth the higher level slots. As caster level instead it allows your lower level spells to be worth more than just utility spells
The problem with scaling to caster level is it ensures the quadratic spellcaster problem, each level isn't just adding more slots, its making each of the slots better at the same time. Its hard to make non-spellcasting classes keep up with that level of quadratic growth.

I'd say the real issue the amount of scaling from using a higher level slot for a lower level spell isn't sufficient; a third-level spell used in a 5th level slot should perform like a 5th level spell, not like a 3rd level spell plus two extra dice of damage.

Ocule

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #32 on: July 28, 2021, 02:05:45 PM »
Reduce the number of magic using classes drastically, to probably just the wizard and cleric as a first order of business, and add in a penalty for hitting 0 hit points such as fatigue.

Rework rest system, death and dying. reduce hit points drastically after level 10.

Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.

Remove drow, tieflings and dragonborn from core rulebook

Biggest change other than those things would be work modular options for tweak your game experience and remove forgotten realms as the assumed setting
Translation - make it as much like the OSR as possible so the 5e audience reaction will be to ignore it completely.

Like it or not there are people with different preferences in terms of RPGs and the OSR has the demo that wants what you suggest covered extremely well already. The 5e demo isn't interested in Only Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings and Only Fighters, Thieves, Clerics and Magic-Users. They LIKE the tieflings and dragonborn and warlocks and bards and druids and sorcerers.

Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.

Any particular reason why?  To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right.  It solves so many scaling problems.

I found it does the opposite, that it just ensures that some spells are just completely worthless because theyre not worth the higher level slots. As caster level instead it allows your lower level spells to be worth more than just utility spells
The problem with scaling to caster level is it ensures the quadratic spellcaster problem, each level isn't just adding more slots, its making each of the slots better at the same time. Its hard to make non-spellcasting classes keep up with that level of quadratic growth.

I'd say the real issue the amount of scaling from using a higher level slot for a lower level spell isn't sufficient; a third-level spell used in a 5th level slot should perform like a 5th level spell, not like a 3rd level spell plus two extra dice of damage.

Making spells stronger for each level would also be an acceptable option. I really just wanted 5e to be more modular, a basic frame that you can add new mechanics on top of in order to add more flexibility. There are too many things that just kind of got baked into the core game or presented as optional rules when they really arent all that optional. It's the assumed setting that bothers me. Feats? Technically optional but all the content sort of assumes that you're using them. Skills? Pretty rigid list of skills. Rests? Sure we have alternate rest mechanics but it breaks several class mechanics.

Like savage worlds is a good example of modularity done right. Its easy to plug subsystems or tweak how damage is handled without causing issues with other mechanics based on those assumptions.
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Steven Mitchell

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #33 on: July 28, 2021, 02:06:46 PM »
Tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level.

Any particular reason why?  To me, that is one of the few things in later WotC changes that they got right.  It solves so many scaling problems.

I found it does the opposite, that it just ensures that some spells are just completely worthless because theyre not worth the higher level slots. As caster level instead it allows your lower level spells to be worth more than just utility spells

Gotcha.  We may be looking at it from different angles, implementation versus design.  From a design perspective, I think spell slot scaling works better, because it doesn't pick up all the baggage and edge cases that D&D has dealt with in the past.  However, once the design is switched from caster level scaling to slot scaling, it does require some spells to have a different implementation. 

It's pretty obvious on things like fireball,where you just look at what you want the damages to be at 5th level and then how you want it to scale to some cap.  There's a direct translation from caster level to slot level (possibly adjusted for different scaling and caps for the new system).  When the spell affects multiple targets or has increased duration or range by caster level, that's not always the case.

I addressed this in my own system by having such utility spells take on multiple dimension as the slot scales.  For example, my analog of "cure light wounds" has a modest increase in effect AND affects multiple targets as the slot increases.  You could also handle it by having effects increase exponentially every 2 levels (which is roughly what the standard spells do), though I find it more interesting to make the spells more varied.

So where you have "tie spell scaling to caster level instead of spell slot level", I would say instead to revise utility spells to be worth casting at the higher slots.

Finally, I don't think every spell necessary needs to scale all the way up.  If a 1st level spell tops out as useful around 4th or 5th level slot, I'm OK with that.  But I agree that it does need to be worth casting over multiple slot levels in order for such a system to work.

Pat
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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #34 on: July 28, 2021, 02:33:03 PM »
Thanks for the explanations, I can see where you're coming from regarding caster vs. spell level scaling.

Ocule

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #35 on: July 28, 2021, 02:44:54 PM »
Yeah right now just as written damage spells aren’t really worth a higher level slot because they really don’t scale well. Though I could also make the argument that magic damage in general isn’t really all that great especially with the Twitter errata that nerfed evokers.

Also i do kind of agree with the linear fighter and quadratic wizard to some extent. I mean magic is basically hacking the laws of reality. Like an evocation wizard is like a Fister or artillery compared to infantry. One you need to fight, the other just lays waste. Even a low level wizard is like a grenadier. So you drop even a 5thlevel fireball I’m expecting chunky salsa
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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #36 on: July 28, 2021, 02:50:34 PM »
Re: Caster Level vs Slot Level.

Remove all slots and instead use magic points, the caster gets a number of them at chargen, tied to one attribute (INT, WIS, CHA) depending on the type of caster. Every level the caster gains a number of points.

Spells cost points
The caster doesn't need to prepare spells for the day, casting at will.
The more points spent at casting the more powerful the spell (choose one : nrange, duration, DMG, etc)
The caster can cast spells that cost more than his current spell points by powering them with their life force. This price is paid upfront (or not), so the caster can die mid casting if not careful. If the cost doesn't kill the caster it does give him exaustion.
The caster still needs to learn spells, but once learned he can use them at will.

Exception to the last part are Clerics, they don't need to learn spells since they don't use spells but divine intervention (miracles), so they pray to their deity and the deity grants it (or not).

It scales very well and it solves the dilema of lower level spells not being useful anymore.
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Ocule

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #37 on: July 28, 2021, 03:01:06 PM »
Re: Caster Level vs Slot Level.

Remove all slots and instead use magic points, the caster gets a number of them at chargen, tied to one attribute (INT, WIS, CHA) depending on the type of caster. Every level the caster gains a number of points.

Spells cost points
The caster doesn't need to prepare spells for the day, casting at will.
The more points spent at casting the more powerful the spell (choose one : nrange, duration, DMG, etc)
The caster can cast spells that cost more than his current spell points by powering them with their life force. This price is paid upfront (or not), so the caster can die mid casting if not careful. If the cost doesn't kill the caster it does give him exaustion.
The caster still needs to learn spells, but once learned he can use them at will.

Exception to the last part are Clerics, they don't need to learn spells since they don't use spells but divine intervention (miracles), so they pray to their deity and the deity grants it (or not).

It scales very well and it solves the dilema of lower level spells not being useful anymore.

I mean yeah I usually prefer spell points or roll to cast style magic over slots. Would it still be dnd at that point?
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Steven Mitchell

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #38 on: July 28, 2021, 03:37:16 PM »
I would say spell points scale well in some systems, but not those that cover as wide a power range as D&D.  There are things you can do with the point costs and math to alleviate some of the issues (even in D&D) but there are some advantages to discrete slots that spell points can't easily replicate.

Now, if you want to compress the spell levels and adjust the level at which certain spells are cast, then things get a little easier.  You'll need to chop off cantrips (at least in the spell point economy) and remove things like meteor swarm, wish, and prismatic spray entirely.  More than one D&D clone has gone exactly that route, with any spells above about 5th to 6th level becoming non-standard and only something cast through alternate means.  Alternately, you can inflate the spell points a little so that a typical first level spell takes 3-5 points, and adjust accordingly, and still keep the cantrips at 1 point.  Meanwhile, things like Invisibility becomes at least 3rd level and some of the utility spells move down a level.  That's one place where spell points shine, in that it gets easier to manage the lower-level defensive spells versus the attacks.

You'll still have the issue that past a certain point, lots of low level spells are just more valuable than the equivalent spell point cost of higher level spells, unless you make the higher level spell insane game enders.  You'll still have handling issues with spell points and analysis paralysis during play with which spell to cast.  Though in fairness, you've got different issues in a D&D slot system instead.

For a hybrid approach that would work fairly well with D&D, I'd have about 3 to 4 separate pools of spell points.  Let's call them Lesser, Major, and Greater.  Then Cantrips have a separate 4th pool or fit into Lesser depending on how you want the math to work.  Say Lesser is Cantrip to 2nd level, Major is 3rd to 5th level, and Greater is 6+, with grossly inflated costs as the level goes past 6th.  Never let pools cross, no matter what.  You'll still have a few spell point design issues, but they will be around the margins and aren't insurmountable.  You've still got spell levels.  They just govern how many points a spell costs within its pool.  (That's for a nod to traditional D&D.  If you don't care about that aspect, then you drop the levels entirely and give spell direct point costs, which means you can tweak spells that are somewhat weak or powerful accordingly.)

Chris24601

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #39 on: July 28, 2021, 03:58:32 PM »
Making spells stronger for each level would also be an acceptable option. I really just wanted 5e to be more modular, a basic frame that you can add new mechanics on top of in order to add more flexibility. There are too many things that just kind of got baked into the core game or presented as optional rules when they really arent all that optional.
The issue here is that it is a lot harder for most people to create the things you want to leave out on their own and the largest share of rpg groups will never use anything outside of the initial release.

Basically, if you want to reach a broad audience, you NEED a lot of those options in your core books, even if you’d rather not use them yourself. Your potential audience will have moved on if they have to wait a year for a supplement to allow them to create the character they want. 4E launched without even all the core races and classes from 3e and, even though they all got released within 9 months, 4E never heard the end of it for not having them from the word go or that you had to buy a supplement to get them (similarly, 5e lost a lot of 4E fans by dropping the Warlord class).

You want irony? I only play humans in every campaign I’ve ever participated in. I generally feel that probably 99% of other fantasy races are just charicatures of certain types of humans and I’d rather have the full range to work with.

Yet the system I’ve written includes probably one of the largest assortments of playable species options I’ve seen outside of Rifts. Why? Because my audience is more than just me and I wanted to be sure people could create a version of anything from all the prior editions of D&D in the system using just the core rules.

If the GM doesn’t want a world with playable sapient golems, it’s easy for any GM using my system to just say “no golem PCs.” It would be a lot harder for a GM, particularly a new one, to have to create a golem race from scratch, particularly if the only examples to compare it with are humans and the near human dwarves, elves and halflings. They’ll probably just decide it’s too much work and just drop the idea of having sapient golems in their world.

The same goes for classes; one of the primary reasons for my breaking the D&D class concepts into two parts (combat class and non-combat background) was because the resulting mix-and-match allowed a LOT more D&D class concepts to be expressed with a smaller page count.

The nature-themed options of the barbarian background can be applied to a daring berserker fighter w. the ravager path for a D&D barbarian, to a swift wary fighter with the striker path for a D&D ranger or to a Mystic for a D&D druid. The religious background that provides non-combat divine spells can make a paladin (strong fighter), a cleric (theurge) or even the non-combat “cloistered cleric” variant from earlier editions (with the mastermind class).

Between all the class and background combos you can get close to even the most obscure classes from past editions of D&D.

And again it’s easier to remove certain options; ex. No gadgeteer class; than to add them. A GM could absolutely restrict class/background options down to, say, “the only options allowed are military strong tactical fighters with the striker path (OSR Fighter), outlaw swift daring fighters with the brigand path (OSR thief), religious militant theurges with the benedictor path (OSR cleric) and arcanist lore wizards with the interdictor path (OSR magic-user).”

I’ve even got an optional rule for pre-set features in place of having player choices at every level because it’s easier to restrict than create your own.

You can say you prefer a modular system, but unless the system has modules ready to plug in, it’s just an empty toolbox. Likewise, billing something as a complete toolbox, but then requiring them to buy additional tools to actually make it functional is going to see customers turn to the guy offering an actual complete set even if some of your tools are better built.


Shawn Driscoll

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #40 on: July 29, 2021, 01:04:18 AM »
What the tin says, if YOU were developing a non-woke "clone" of D&D 5e what would you change, what would you leave as is what would you import from other games?
For one. Remove the bisexual coloring used in the art.

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #41 on: July 30, 2021, 01:05:01 PM »
So to me it seems that the key to making 5E not "woke" is to not play it as "woke".

Pretty much.

The few places where woke actually impacts systems and gameplay (as opposed to fluff or art in the books), it can get annoying... but still something you can ignore.

Like changing race to "ancestry" or "lineage" or (my preferred change if you need one) "species".  They're all still "race", and mean the same thing mechanically and thematically, so... whatever.

Another good example is "orcs and drow are coded for black people, we need to make them all morally diverse, and then make everyone else morally diverse too, and then do away with morals".  Knock yourself out.  In my games, if I want evil orcs there's evil orcs.  If I want good drow, there's good drow.  I'm the most dangerous kind of gamer: I'm one that can think outside the rulebook.

Chris24601

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #42 on: July 30, 2021, 02:07:32 PM »
Like changing race to "ancestry" or "lineage" or (my preferred change if you need one) "species".  They're all still "race", and mean the same thing mechanically and thematically, so... whatever.
I use “species” in my system because not every option is even humanoid (or organic), but I’ll admit to sometimes thinking about yet changing it to “ancestry” simply because the other two elements of a character in my system are Background and Class and being able to call it “the ABCs of character creation” would be rather pithy.

Zelen

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #43 on: July 30, 2021, 03:57:30 PM »
To me "species" implies we're talking about different shades of related things, like a Siberian Tiger vs. Bengali Tiger. When races might be humans, plant-things, and entities from another plane of existence, it's pretty odd to use the word species to categorize things that might not have any common ancestor.

It's also colored by a formality/scientific classification that's probably not appropriate for most fantasy worlds. YMMV.

jhkim

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Re: 5e non-woke "Clone" what would you remove or add?
« Reply #44 on: July 30, 2021, 04:11:17 PM »
I use “species” in my system because not every option is even humanoid (or organic), but I’ll admit to sometimes thinking about yet changing it to “ancestry” simply because the other two elements of a character in my system are Background and Class and being able to call it “the ABCs of character creation” would be rather pithy.

To me "species" implies we're talking about different shades of related things, like a Siberian Tiger vs. Bengali Tiger. When races might be humans, plant-things, and entities from another plane of existence, it's pretty odd to use the word species to categorize things that might not have any common ancestor.

It's also colored by a formality/scientific classification that's probably not appropriate for most fantasy worlds. YMMV.

Yeah, I also don't like species for fantasy games - though I don't think species implies any degree of relation. There are species of algae as well as species of gorilla. Though "race" also doesn't fit when one is talking about completely different category of beings like warforged or other creature types.

I am coming to like "ancestry" for class-based games -- because ancestry is about how you were born or created, background is about how you grew up, and class is about what you are trained in as an adult. That fits nicely as ABC and it is clear from the term that ancestry is about inherent qualities.