I am working on re-doing the whole spell system and more. Last night I worked on a Rufian class.

But mostly I have been re-working "spells" I want first level spells to still be relevant at higher levels. I have also busted down the spells to 5 ranked tiers instead of nine levels. Think DCC meets 5E ish.

Here is an example of a first level priest spell or as "prayer". You roll 1d20 and add proficeincy + Wis modifier. I should also note that character creation is 4d6 drop the lowest straight down the line. So it is unlikely characters will have +10 to add to the roll until much higher levels.

Bolster Spirit
1st Rank Augmentation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: See Below
Components: V,S
Duration: Varies
Save: None

Description: The Priest recites prayers and chants of the Sovereign to bolster the his allied in the face of overwhelming odds or to soothe the emotions of those afflicted by madness.
Roll   Effect

1-11   Failure.

12-14   The priest bolsters the spirit of all allies within a 20' radius allowing each ally to make an immediate saving throw to remove any fear effect they are currently under.

15-18   The priest bolsters the spirit of all allies within a 20' radius allowing each ally to make an immediate saving throw to remove any fear effect they are currently under. Additionally any NPC ally gains a +2 bonus on any morale check within the next minute.

19-22   The priest bolsters the spirit of all allies within a 30' radius allowing each ally to make an immediate saving throw to remove any fear or paralysis effect they are currently under. Additionally any NPC ally gains a +2 bonus on any morale check within the next minute.

23-27   The priest bolsters the spirit of all allies within a 30' radius allowing each ally to make an immediate saving throw with advantage to remove any fear or paralysis effect they are currently under. Additionally any NPC ally gains a +2 bonus on any morale check within the next hour. The priest does not have to concentrate to maintain this effect.

28-30   The priest bolsters the spirit of all allies within a 30' radius allowing each ally to make an immediate saving throw with advantage to remove any fear or paralysis effect they are currently under.
Additionally any ally under the thralls of madness can make an immediate Wis saving throw adding the priest's Wis bonus to remove the madness. The fist save removes the madness for an hour. The second for a day. If a third save is made, the madness is removed permanently.
Additionally any NPC ally gains a +4 bonus on any morale check within the next day. The priest does not have to concentrate to maintain this effect.

31+   Miracle. The priest bolsters the spirit of all allies within a 30' instantly negating any fear or paralysis effect on an ally.
Additionally any ally under the thralls of madness can make an immediate Wis saving throw with advantage to remove any madness effect permanently.
Additionally the priest so bolsters the spirits of NPC allies, they make all morale checks for the next week with advantage.

Quote from: S'mon;11365625e has the Exhaustion track for stuff like that, it's very handy to say "this NPC you rescued has like 4 levels of Exhaustion, no they can't help you!"

As for Long Rests, I never liked the heal-overnight; I went over to 1 week LRs and that solved all balance & credulity issues. 1 week is enough for sore muscles & minor injuries to heal. Of course the bounce-back-from-Dying is still silly but I don't see an easy fix there. I tried using negative hp but now I just accept it as a gamey abstraction. If I want realism I play 1e AD&D or D6 System!

What do you do for spell recovery that requires a long rest?
Long rest=1 week, short rest= 8 hours and recover spells?

That is what I am leaning toward.

Quote from: Anselyn;1136580I've seen the suggestion that the bounce-back gives a level of exhaustion. What do you think?

I don't think it would work well in my 5e games - would cause too many TPKs - might work in other campaigns.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1136614What do you do for spell recovery that requires a long rest?
Long rest=1 week, short rest= 8 hours and recover spells?

That is what I am leaning toward.

I do LR = 1 week, SR = 1 hour, max 3/day.

Letting LR-class spells recharge faster would screw hugely with class balance. The system is designed around 6-8 encounters per LR and LR classes needing to husband resources, while SR classes get resources back every couple encounters.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1136587That isn't specifically what Exhaustion rules are for. Though, suppose you could take the existing rules for Exhaustion and modify them to create a separate "Wounded" condition, that works mechanically almost identical to Exhaustion levels (same penalties), but deal with physical injuries instead. Every time you get to 0 HP you automatically suffer one Wound level, and every time you get struck by a critical hit or suffer 25+ damage from a single attack you need to make a 15 (+1 per 10 damage?) DC Con save or suffer a wound level as well. Recovery from Wounds levels take one week of rest (as opposed to one 8 hour Long Rest, as with Exhaustion levels), or 20 (or more?) HP worth of magical healing specifically devoted to Wounds (no actual HP healed) per level.

I might also consider extending a "Long Rest" to a full week as well. Though, a wound system like that in the standard default rules could shut me up about HP = Stamina.

I've always used negative HP since the 90s (think I got the rules from Dragon or a supplement, probably both). But those rules went just up to -10 for comatose, higher for death. 5e went all the way to your max HP, which is too much. Now if your character has 100 HP you can go up to -100 before kicking the bucket. And there's always raise dead for occasions like that. Higher level character just can't die anymore.



I think I saw something like that in the optional rules section. But that's stashed away in the DMG, and we were talking default rules originally. IMO, full recovery in one day doesn't feel heroic, it feels like a video game or cartoon.

Of course those rules are in the DMG, that's the book aimed at DMs and talking about how to tweak the game to get it to work the way you want. That's the logical place for those rules. The DMG is not less important than the PHB.

Quote from: Anselyn;1136580I've seen the suggestion that the bounce-back gives a level of exhaustion. What do you think?

I tried it for some time, but it was too much.  I'm using variants on the exhaustion rules that are very similar to Smon's in effect (though not the 1/week long rest, my other changes come out similar to about a 2/week long rest).  

What I do instead is that every failed death save is a level of exhaustion and death saves do not reset until the long rest.  What this does is create kind of a mental separation between characters that are down and brought back immediately versus those that linger. Players will move heaven and earth to get someone back from the brink, and thus the line in their minds is not "character at zero" but "unattended character at zero".  You fail a death save in any way, including a monster hitting you while you are down, you don't just bounce back from that.  

I've had several times where players in D&D game (or D&D-like game) would press on when seriously depleted.  All of them were in:  1. AD&D/BEMCI with a large group and certain fighters or clerics beat up pretty bad and rotated out of the front line.  2. 5E using my house rules and certain characters carrying 2 death saves and rotated out of the front line or even staying near a healer that is also rotated out.

I'm game for some theory-crafting, I guess, and I've played a few games, adn run a few games, of 5E... enough to have a feel for where the system goes wrong, but I'm no expert. I did like Spinachcat's comment about research, cheeky bugger.

Off the top of my head the main problems that 5E has tend to revolve around being overly simplistic and somewhat bland.  They flattened the range of hit die by boosting the lowest die types... I imagine in the next edition all the Hit Die will be d10's, with a couple of standouts in the d12 range, because who likes sucking, right?

That seems to be a big issue with the current design philosophy, they've lost sight of the concept of Trade-offs, so in their ruthless quest for 'Balance', not having any grasp of the complexity of trade-offs, everything has be be as numerically simple as possible, thus the game is shallow and bland. I've already talked about how the low end Hit dice climbed upwards, narrowing the band, but this is also present in the spells, which have had their ranges radically truncated, so that now almost all actions have to take place within 'stabby stabby' distance, so that melee is now 'balanced' easier with spells, since their ranges wind up being similar (move and stab vs stand and spell...). I'm simplifying an already simple rule set, but not by terribly much.

While it may be going a bit far on the 5.5 idea, heading more to a proper full edition, I think in the main that in addition to being too ruthlessly and simplistically balanced, a lot of changes are over-corrections to a perfectly good system that 3 had... necessary corrections taken too far, so my version of a 5.5 is something of a hybrid between 5E and 3E, which seems weird, but then 5E is already a walkback to 3e from 4e, so there is precedent.

So I've already mentioned spells, and while I agree that the class list needs to be collapsed, I do think some posters are going too far, I think what 5.5 needs to do is bring back the numbers, among other things, to get rid of all that bland same-ness.

First some caveats: I think 5E's treatment of Feats is far, far superior to 3E, and captures what Feats should have been, and fixes one of the things that was dragging 3E for a long time. Most of the worst theory-crafting build-nonsense that broke 3E came from the Feat Bloat.  I'm not so convinced regarding Prestige Classes vs the new path system, as I do think the more open multiclassing was superior in allowing unique, and uniquely capable (or incapable) characters to support player uniqueness, but 3E definitely needed work in that area, so we'll ignore it.  

Likewise, the NUMBERS in 3E were simply ridiculous, with all manner of stacking modifiers and the inherently flawed premise of rolling a variable (D20, of course) with so many modifiers tacked on it that the highest possible roll was less than the modifiers... at the top end.  Again: 5E introduced a necessary fix to this problem, but they overcorrected.



So, with my premise laid out, how would I actually implement my ideas?
Revert the class tables (To Hit, Hit Dice, saves) to something more akin to 3E. This gives the classes more distinct feels than the single universal proficiency that exists now. The numbers need to be brought down, perhaps in alignment with the 5E range, or close to it.   Likewise, skills need to have variable levels distinct from class. THis might be unpopular, as I know the fixed profiency thing has been praised highly since Star Wars Saga edition, but honestly the problem is that 'everything is the same' begins here. Again the numbers need to be tightly corralled, but inextricably linking them to Class is simply piss poor as a solution, and honestly there should be the possibility within the system that a low level whatever can be a better... say Horseman (though I know Riding seems to have fallen out of favor as a skill...) than a high level whatever, which the current system does not really allow.  There is no good balance reason why high levels are necessary to have high skills that I can think of. Skill 'points' should be front loaded, with additional points being parcelled out with as much miserliness as the current feat system, say.  (Actually, this represents to me a crucial design failure of the 3E team, as the 1-4 skill ranks available at creation, combined with attribute and perhaps class bonuses, provide as much 'range' as a d20 can reasonably support, while their decision to open skills up to 23 ranks (at level 20) led to an absurd specialist skill system that made a mockery of encounter design by midlevels... either you had a specialist in that skill, in which case you almost never failled, or you didn't, in which case you almost always failed.  In other words, the system worked at level one, and got progressively more broken as you levelled... which the designers should have caught adn been able to fix by simply... removing points for skills from levelling! Stupidly easy once you see the problem!).

I agree that classes should be cut down. Barbarians, while they've done some creative things iwth them, are fighter variants, just as warlocks and sorcerers are wizard/magic user variants. I think that the number of classes should remain reasonably high, however, to keep options open. So we start with the core Fighter, Rogue (Thief, fucking call it a goddamn thief and stop trying to treat it like some weird variant fighter!), magic use and cleric, though I agree that some effort to increase the distinction between divine and arcane casting should be made, that's beyond the scope of a 5.5. I think unlimited combat cantrips is 'too much', but that a nice increase to the number of low end (1st level and cantrips) available allows magic types to feel magic, while also making magic something to be used sparingly, which 'infinite cantrips' definitely does not do.  I also think that some 'odder' classes don't necessarily work as paths, or rather should be kept distinct. Hybrid classes (Bards as theif-magic user) stand out in this regards, and 'roles' for other classes can be found to make their play niche a little more distinct, such as the shapechanging druid (as distinct from Nature-Cleric, which should just be a cleric), or the Pet Wranger, whose abilities and combat/adventure utility should be primarily focussed on their pets, rather than just adding a pet to an otherwise fully complete class, or making pets mechanically sub-optimal.

As a minor aside, I miss the part of spell entrees where it tells you what lists and levels that spell belongs to, but maybe I'm just failing to grasp the new user interface, but on that, spell ranges, at least, need to be restored to their former numbers. I'd also like to see a return to balancing via casting times, as each edition of D&D seems to reduce Casting Times to the simplest, easiest denominator of 'one combat action' or there-abouts, but this is probably a reversion to somethign even older than 3E.  I have no problem, conceptually, with a wizard being able to murder entire armies of goblins with a single brutal spell... but being able to do it in the time a fighter can stab one or two goblins in the face is absurd, and equally absurd is the idea he can do it that fast but only because his super-high-level-death-cloud spell only does enough damage to inconvienence the army of goblins.

Anyway, I'm well into wall o'text territory, and honestly this is the sort of thing I'd rather have thought out and organized my ideas rather than sperg blindly as I'm doing now, so I'll end here.

Honestly, I wouldn't change much, but there are a few things I would like:

1. Crafting rules have to come back. The group I play with often want to run a business, brew beer, make art, etc in character. I know Xanathar's has rules, but I found them rather weak. Same with magical items. When we played 3rd, often my players would spend a few days preparing to enter into a dungeon, and often the wizard would be making a wand or two for the trip ahead.

2. More robust skill system. I would actually bring back the skill system from 3rd edition, perhaps not wholesale, gain proficenciy in a certain number of skills, pick a new skill every so many x levels, something like that. I know that might be an unpopular decision, but it was easier for me with games when I could say, "alright, you have craft:art, since you have been practicing art and selling items to the upper class" or something like that because of player's role playing.

QuoteI agree that classes should be cut down. Barbarians, while they've done some creative things iwth them, are fighter variants, just as warlocks and sorcerers are wizard/magic user variants. I think that the number of classes should remain reasonably high, however, to keep options open. So we start with the core Fighter, Rogue (Thief, fucking call it a goddamn thief and stop trying to treat it like some weird variant fighter!), magic use and cleric, though I agree that some effort to increase the distinction between divine and arcane casting should be made, that's beyond the scope of a 5.5. I think unlimited combat cantrips is 'too much', but that a nice increase to the number of low end (1st level and cantrips) available allows magic types to feel magic, while also making magic something to be used sparingly, which 'infinite cantrips' definitely does not do. I also think that some 'odder' classes don't necessarily work as paths, or rather should be kept distinct. Hybrid classes (Bards as theif-magic user) stand out in this regards, and 'roles' for other classes can be found to make their play niche a little more distinct, such as the shapechanging druid (as distinct from Nature-Cleric, which should just be a cleric), or the Pet Wranger, whose abilities and combat/adventure utility should be primarily focussed on their pets, rather than just adding a pet to an otherwise fully complete class, or making pets mechanically sub-optimal.

I actually think the number of classes is fine. I think that is a major thing it has going for it as a whole, the number of choice without being a massive pile of stuff to dig through like the feat system in 3rd. I think the base cantrips are fine actually, too, they don't really do that much damage compared to a fighter, but its still a ranged magical option. I think that might be more of a mod/playstyle issue, and setting dependant though.

I get what you mean about a specific niche though. Classes really do feel the same in a lot of ways, other than maybe some mechanics and fluff.

Quote from: ZetaRidley;11369921. Crafting rules have to come back. The group I play with often want to run a business, brew beer, make art, etc in character. I know Xanathar's has rules, but I found them rather weak. Same with magical items. When we played 3rd, often my players would spend a few days preparing to enter into a dungeon, and often the wizard would be making a wand or two for the trip ahead.

I was originally going to make a comment that Xanathar's needed to be eliminated as a book, that everything good in it should be included in the core book. Too much of it was clearly a 'patch' on the PHB, but then I went a different direction in my comment and left that out as distracting. Agreed, however that it was weak, the whole edition is weak, but after 4e...

QuoteI actually think the number of classes is fine. I think that is a major thing it has going for it as a whole, the number of choice without being a massive pile of stuff to dig through like the feat system in 3rd. I think the base cantrips are fine actually, too, they don't really do that much damage compared to a fighter, but its still a ranged magical option. I think that might be more of a mod/playstyle issue, and setting dependant though.

I get what you mean about a specific niche though. Classes really do feel the same in a lot of ways, other than maybe some mechanics and fluff.

I really only touched on the class idea because I had been skimming the thread and a number of people commented on it. The Barbarian Class, circa 3E was really galling to me, in an edition that already dumped on my go-too class (Fighters)... which was admitted by... Tweet I believe, then also introduced a 'variant fighter' class that was both outside my 'style' for fighter types, but was mechanically superior to the fighter in pretty much every single way in game play, so that was personally galling, which may be why I jumped on the idea a little quickly. 5e Barbarians, due to the path system, are reasonably distinct, within the extremely limited bounds that 5E allows, from Fighters, but yes, in an honest appraisal, they do, as a class, belong as fighter variants.  Having played a Warlock, adn appreciating the... feel... of casting differences between them and more traditional arcane casters, that one is a bit more a margin call... but what is good for the goose and all.

My problem with the Cantrips isn't that they are over-balanced or under-balanced, its that strips magic of its... magic. Outside of 'all magic' settings, where non-magic isn't even an option, I can't think of any compelling, successful fantasy setting where wizards are dropping spells non-stop and at the drop of a hat.  Power levels as distinct from ubiquity.  Infinite Cantrips are not 'magical', they are a SFX, adn a not terribly interesting one at that. More, infinite COMBAT cantrips means a distinct dumbing down of game play. What does the wizard do? Same thing he did last round: He fires off a no-effort combat cantrip.  Same Spell, over and over, because he can.  I can't think of a single 5E game I've sat in where the spell casters (any breed) touched more than one or two of their actual spells, just hitting those cantrips every round...

Again: It goes down to the concept of Balance as conceived of by a not terribly clever person.  They see melee types able to do their thing every round and thinks its unfair that the magic types have to manage their resources, so end resource management and viola! Instant Balance!

The concept of trade offs is simply too abstract for them, apparently.  Its the same thing that happened to negative stats for various races, only there they could at least hide behind what they were doing with a bit of virtue signalling about fantasy racism.  

Of course, I have a theory that a lot of design decisions in 5E were sort of sour grapes from the 4E crew, who were upset that their perfectly acceptable strategy miniature game wasn't liked by the RPG fandom, and basically they did their best to back door all their "wonderful" 4E ideas into a dumbed down 3E as a sort of 'Fuck You' to the players. THere is some irony in there, depending on your point of view...

Quote from: Spike;1136998I really only touched on the class idea because I had been skimming the thread and a number of people commented on it. The Barbarian Class, circa 3E was really galling to me, in an edition that already dumped on my go-too class (Fighters)... which was admitted by... Tweet I believe, then also introduced a 'variant fighter' class that was both outside my 'style' for fighter types, but was mechanically superior to the fighter in pretty much every single way in game play, so that was personally galling, which may be why I jumped on the idea a little quickly. 5e Barbarians, due to the path system, are reasonably distinct, within the extremely limited bounds that 5E allows, from Fighters, but yes, in an honest appraisal, they do, as a class, belong as fighter variants.  Having played a Warlock, adn appreciating the... feel... of casting differences between them and more traditional arcane casters, that one is a bit more a margin call... but what is good for the goose and all.

My problem with the Cantrips isn't that they are over-balanced or under-balanced, its that strips magic of its... magic. Outside of 'all magic' settings, where non-magic isn't even an option, I can't think of any compelling, successful fantasy setting where wizards are dropping spells non-stop and at the drop of a hat.  Power levels as distinct from ubiquity.  Infinite Cantrips are not 'magical', they are a SFX, adn a not terribly interesting one at that. More, infinite COMBAT cantrips means a distinct dumbing down of game play. What does the wizard do? Same thing he did last round: He fires off a no-effort combat cantrip.  Same Spell, over and over, because he can.  I can't think of a single 5E game I've sat in where the spell casters (any breed) touched more than one or two of their actual spells, just hitting those cantrips every round...

I will agree to this idea overall. The fighter has been shit on for about 20 years at this point, WotC even had fun killing the white guy iconic fighter in everything because, hes white I guess. In my 5e games, where I typically throw about 2 hard to deadly encounters depending on the travel and location, and the miscelanious amount in dungeons, my players have used all their spells at their disposal and very rarely rely on the cantrip. But I can see why some players would default to that. I think it was intended as an "oh shit" option, but it didn't translate to the player base.

QuoteAgain: It goes down to the concept of Balance as conceived of by a not terribly clever person. They see melee types able to do their thing every round and thinks its unfair that the magic types have to manage their resources, so end resource management and viola! Instant Balance!

The concept of trade offs is simply too abstract for them, apparently. Its the same thing that happened to negative stats for various races, only there they could at least hide behind what they were doing with a bit of virtue signalling about fantasy racism.Of course, I have a theory that a lot of design decisions in 5E were sort of sour grapes from the 4E crew, who were upset that their perfectly acceptable strategy miniature game wasn't liked by the RPG fandom, and basically they did their best to back door all their "wonderful" 4E ideas into a dumbed down 3E as a sort of 'Fuck You' to the players. THere is some irony in there, depending on your point of view...

I agree with the trade off thing, it is a concept that seems to be lost to time now, its now bound numbers and accuracy and classes can basically do everything just with different fluff. They're still putting out the same damage per turn. D&D was better when Casters had to rely on the martials to stay alive, and vice versa. I think casters have way too much HP now.

I'm not sure about the 4e thing, but it wouldn't surprise me. I just, don't know what the fuck they were thinking when they put it out. I ran some campaigns in 4e, it was fine, but it was just so different from anything that came before.

To be fair, unlimited spell effects first got added in mid-3.5e with the Reserve Feat which allowed a caster to use a spell-like ability at-will as long as a certain type of spell remained uncast; ex. a fire blast that did 1d6 per highest level fire spell you had prepared to a 5' burst.

Those proved extremely popular with those who actually used more than just the core and was part of the reason at-will spells were added.

The other reason was that media like Harry Potter or Avatar the Last Airbender where spellcasters used spells again and again with no more exertion than swinging a sword in combat would cause were both in widespread circulation during 4E's development and were VERY popular.

In fact D&D's pre-4E Vancian casting is almost unheard of in media that wasn't expressly derived from D&D. Exhaustion-based casting limits (coupled with whether they knew the spell in the 3e bard/sorcerer sense) are probably far and away the norm for fantasy series (with the specific level of exhaustion varying with the setting).

Quote from: Chris24601;1137061The other reason was that media like Harry Potter or Avatar the Last Airbender where spellcasters used spells again and again with no more exertion than swinging a sword in combat would cause were both in widespread circulation during 4E's development and were VERY popular.

The thing about Harry Potter, or Avatar to a very very modestly lesser extent, is that they are fantasy worlds were every single character of importance is magical, in which case endless magic is expected and understood.

D&D, for all its over the top style fantasy styling is not, and never has been 'All Magic All the Time', which is why it doesn't work.  Vancian magic is, for good or ill, one of the sacred cows of D&D, and if it is to be slaughtered wholly, then do the job, don't just make a deep cut and let the damn thing wander all over the landscape mooing and bleeding and making a mess.

5e has Vancian Magic AND makes a mockery of Vancian Magic at the same time by having At Will Infinite Spellcasting.  In your example of 3e, at the very least, you had to make a choice and engage in trade offs (not having a feat for, say, metamagic and also having to keep a spell at full power uncast to take advantage of it, arguably too weak tradeoffs, but now we're just negotiating a price for your virtue, rather than giving it away...)


I believe I made a point about such 'all magic' settings in my initial post, considering the pro's and con's of 5e, because believe it or not, even when spitballing I do like to have a coherent idea behind my bullshit.

Quote from: S'mon;1136624I do LR = 1 week, SR = 1 hour, max 3/day.

Letting LR-class spells recharge faster would screw hugely with class balance. The system is designed around 6-8 encounters per LR and LR classes needing to husband resources, while SR classes get resources back every couple encounters.

Wow! That is a big swing from Mages/Clerics back to Monks/Warlocks. Now low level Warlocks get up to 6 spells per day (probably only 4 though) - low level Mages/Clerics are getting 3 - 16 spells per week. (Both get + cantrips). It moves Warlocks from being the big cantrip users to Mages/Clerics being big cantrip users. Is that how it's turned out in actual play?

Quote from: spon;1137126Wow! That is a big swing from Mages/Clerics back to Monks/Warlocks. Now low level Warlocks get up to 6 spells per day (probably only 4 though) - low level Mages/Clerics are getting 3 - 16 spells per week. (Both get + cantrips). It moves Warlocks from being the big cantrip users to Mages/Clerics being big cantrip users. Is that how it's turned out in actual play?

I haven't seen many warlocks played since I made the switch, so I can't really say, though I'd expect it to help Warlocks - they were certainly underpowered with overnight LR and 2-3 fights on a typical adventuring day. The big change I've seen is that Battlemaster Fighter is now viable compared to Barbarian or Eldritch Knight; Rogues shine a bit more. Monks already had a ton of Ki so not a noticeable change.

At 6-8 significant fights per LR, the LR casters do actually need to husband spell slots somewhat even at higher level. They still tend to sonewhat outshine martial PCs at high level, but not so much as before. And Barbarians now can't Rage in every encounter.

"Balance" was not really a very active design goal in creating 5e.  Playability and ease of play for introductory gamers was.