If you could change one rule about 5th edition D&D, what would it be?

How could you make it 'better' by your interpretation?

What is it missing?

For me, it's weak but, the equipment list. Pathfinder 1e has a great equipment list that empowers PCs.

Traits are nice, as well.

Yours?

Quote from: Theory of Games;1090147If you could change one rule about 5th edition D&D, what would it be?

How could you make it 'better' by your interpretation?

What is it missing?

For me, it's weak but, the equipment list. Pathfinder 1e has a great equipment list that empowers PCs.

Traits are nice, as well.

Yours?

Well, I'd drastically cut back on special case rules, feats and class abilities in particular.  I know that's really many small changes but it's directed.

The character classes need to all be re-written. I was glad to see feats being optional. But having a redundant quasi-skill system was only one of my beefs with the feat system. The other one is all the goofy super powers that come with them. Well, classes are still riddled with goofy super powers where 17th level fighters regenerate and triple the rate of a troll and such.

Despite my first inclination being "warlord class" or "proportional healing" my actual answer is going to be fixing the save math.

Save DCs are always proficient for the attacker. It is also almost always based on their best stat. Only one common and one rare save will be proficient for the defender (and may not even be tied to their best stat). Thus, you actually get worse at resisting opponents of similar level to yourself as you go up in level.

My fix is just that all saves should be proficient and leave the differences purely down to the ability scores. Since every class gets the same "one of Dex/Con/Wis and one of Str/Int/Cha" this change doesn't benefit any specific class more than any other.

As stated in the Monster Manual, monsters are built to only need proficient saves if they're particularly resistant to something (instead the designers just cranked up the ability scores since they don't have the "max of 20" limits that PCs do).

That simple fix would do the most to address the glaring math error in 5e's engine that's arguably worse than 3e's good/bad sabe disparity (because there were at least ways to shore up your poor saves and there were, at worst, only two of that needed buffing).

Then we can talk the benefits of proportional healing the next time this topic comes up.

Quote from: Lunamancer;1090155Well, classes are still riddled with goofy super powers where 17th level fighters regenerate and triple the rate of a troll and such.

Hit Points =/= meat points. The fighter isn't regenerating anything but their stamina and morale when they use their second wind ability. Problem solved.

This exact mentality is why I had to stop calling them Hit Points in the game system I'm writing. Somewhere along the way the notion that hit points are entirely meat got enough of a foothold that anything which attempts to model them in relation to stamina, morale and luck (which is what they've ALWAYS been since Gygax and Arneson were writing the rules) gets labeled as nonsensical superpowers.

So instead of the sensible and realistic "you roll with the attack and the axe glances off your armor... mark off 10 hit points (out of 80)" you've got people who think hit points are all meat saying "the axe lodges in your gut (somehow cleaving straight through your full plate armor, but not actually damaging it, and despite having the axe lodged in your gut, it doesn't impair you at all) for 10 hit points of damage."

The 5e fighter's Second Wind ability makes perfect sense in light of the first description (roll with the impact, glancing blow off the armor and, with each hit you're getting worn down a little more until you're going to be too fatigued to stop a blow that will drop you).

And frankly, if you're using the second description, then fighters are already so unrealistic (walking around unimpaired by multiple fatal wounds) that a little actual regeneration on top isn't going to meaningfully increase the  level of unreality.

I'd change Class/Race/Background to Class/Race/Culture/Background.  Race would be much reduced in importance.  Culture and Background would handle more of the skills, proficiencies, that sort of thing. In turn, that would allow some simplification of the classes.

HP could use a rework

Starting in 3.x there was no good reason for ability scores to go from 3-18. Other than a few minor things (carry capacity & feat pre-reqs are the only things I can think of) only the modifier actually matters.

Just make the modifier be the score and it would significantly reduce complexity, especially for newbies. Unfortunately, it's a sacred cow and unlikely to be changed.


Many of the other changes people have put forward would make D&D no longer D&D. I don't want D&D to be a different game - I can just play one of them.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1090147If you could change one rule about 5th edition D&D, what would it be?

How could you make it 'better' by your interpretation?

What is it missing?

For me, it's weak but, the equipment list. Pathfinder 1e has a great equipment list that empowers PCs.

Traits are nice, as well.

Yours?

I'd remove the Social Justice Wankers from the Adventurer's League and any other flavor of Organized Play.

Alignment on player characters. Just get rid of it.

I saw a better implementation of Alignment done in Aperita Arcana for Fate Core. You give places and things alignment. But you make people subject to their personal reputation. if someone is an evil prick, then they will have the reputation of an evil prick. And face the consequences in kind.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1090147If you could change one rule about 5th edition D&D, what would it be?

Paladin & Ranger would not be spellcasters. They'd be Fighter paths.

Alignment is easy to ignore in 5e, it pretty much only ever appears as a mechanic in third party stuff from people who grew up on 3e/Pathfinder, but I'd drop it entirely as a core rule and move it to the GM's toolbox section.

Quote from: Chris24601;1090160Hit Points =/= meat points.

Nobody said it was.

QuoteThe fighter isn't regenerating anything but their stamina and morale when they use their second wind ability. Problem solved.

Not really.

QuoteThis exact mentality is why I had to stop calling them Hit Points in the game system I'm writing. Somewhere along the way the notion that hit points are entirely meat got enough of a foothold that anything which attempts to model them in relation to stamina, morale and luck (which is what they've ALWAYS been since Gygax and Arneson were writing the rules) gets labeled as nonsensical superpowers.

Nope.

Gary actually spelled out in fairly precise terms what hit points are. For beasts, it's all meat. All hit points from CON bonus are physical. And all hit points at first level are physical. Pre-stat inflation, what this meant is like 95% if not 99% across the board hit points were physical. High level player characters were an exception. But even then, say you've got a Fighter with 18 CON in AD&D and got max hp at first level, average rolls after that. By 5th level you've got 52 hit points. 30 of them are physical. Still more than half. Under that schema, the hypothetical 17th level 5E character, with a 20 CON, max hp at first level, average hp thereafter, would have 183 hit points (goofy already) and 90 of them--pretty much half--would be physical. But here's the icing on the cake. This goofy super power only kicks in when the character is below half hit points. So it only restores meat. Not stamina. You couldn't design something this goofy on purpose.

QuoteSo instead of the sensible and realistic "you roll with the attack and the axe glances off your armor... mark off 10 hit points (out of 80)" you've got people who think hit points are all meat saying "the axe lodges in your gut (somehow cleaving straight through your full plate armor, but not actually damaging it, and despite having the axe lodged in your gut, it doesn't impair you at all) for 10 hit points of damage."

Your own interpretation of this had a wooden stake driven through its heart by D&D haters in the 90's they brought up the poison save? Of course, 1E had an answer for this. All of the insinuative poisons in the DMG do zero damage on a successful save. Meaning the Poison save can be used to determine if a hit was physically substantial--at least substantial enough to get venom into the bloodstream. See, for every one person who might genuinely mistake hit points for meat points, there's gotta be at least 5 people like you who go totally off the rails in the opposite direction. The mechanic was originally meant to be more nuanced than either if the interpretations you graciously offer. And in fact only ever fully works when treated as nuanced. So when you get a newfangled mechanic that is absolutely dependent on hit points being something invisible from the land of make-believe, it's going to be goofy.

If I am limited to only one thing. I'd make all spellcasting hazardous and unpredictable. Maybe some kind of variant on the wild sorcerer, but much easier to trigger. And a much bigger table of possibilities, obviously.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1090220If I am limited to only one thing. I'd make all spellcasting hazardous and unpredictable. Maybe some kind of variant on the wild sorcerer, but much easier to trigger. And a much bigger table of possibilities, obviously.

Something like this or this works really well for that.

Personally, I'm in the "never seen this in real life" / "only exists on the internet" camp. I half suspect that people who do see this at the table are playing with classes essentially designed to break the game. You'd never see some of the classes mentioned a few posts back at my table, ever. But then, I don't play 3.x or later editions, either (own, yes - play, no). So there's that. This thread has made me mighty grateful of that fact.

There are a lot of things I'd change, but if I can only choose one, I'd change the way armor works in the game to how armor actually works. Armor is all about mitigating damage when being physically hit, not the avoidance of being hit. There's a big difference there. The heavier the armor, the easier it is to physically hit you. Of course, the heavier the armor, the better the mitigation it will have and any damage you do take will be much less. There's a trade-off there that is ignored in D&D. It's over simplified and inaccurate because the game is designed around being a hit point sponge.