Quote from: goblinslayer;1091311There's a good reason why the default assumption in OD&D was that you retire from adventuring at 9th level and settle down to run a castle.

And the game didn't end. It shifted to players running armies and shaping the campaign world by their actions. The ultimate in sandbox play?

Armor Class needs a tweak for me. I like Star Wars Saga Edition for having the rule that AC is the best of either the armor worn + Dex bonus, or character level + 10 + Dex bonus.

Maybe cap that at about level 6-7, so that there's always a reason to don plate mail.

It's worked so far for my Stars Without Number games.

Quote from: RandyB;1091312And the game didn't end. It shifted to players running armies and shaping the campaign world by their actions. The ultimate in sandbox play?

Yep. And that's why I'd have "advanced" rules for levels 11+.

But that would be a separate line of books that plugs into the core based on the demand.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1090456locked XP chart.  Individual XP charts per class, please.  Different people learn different things differently. The takeaway that a Magic-User has after a battle is wholly different than that of a fighter, or a thief, or a cleric (or a monk, bard, assassin, illusionist, druid, paladin or ranger).

Locked XP chart blandifies characters and leads to push-button games.  Bleh.

I never got this.

I mean, wouldn't this be an argument not for having different xp thresholds for leveling, but for having different classes gain different amounts of XP for different tasks, if anything?

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1090229Changing armor to Damage Reduction wouldn't work in D&D without basically rebuilding the system from the ground up.

Changing armor to damage reduction won't work, but changing it to an all-or-nothing saving throw does work. Convert the to-hit process to a skill vs skill roll and add an armor save if the target is wearing armor.

Not only does this scale better, as it doesn't require the PCs constantly upgrade their armor as they level up, but it also makes it easy to adjudicate attacks, such as grappling, bullets, and magic, that would ignore armor. And it also works without modification in genres that don't have heavy armor, such as Barsoom, the wild west, or WW2.

I've been playing OD&D this way for five years now. Of all the rules changes I've made over the decades, no other rules tweak has resulted in as much improvement to the gaming experience as this one has. So, yes, if I could change one aspect of D&D this would definitely be it.

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

I would focus on 12 levels instead of 20. That would break compatibility hard so the effort is not worth it compared to just writing a D&D clone from the ground up.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1090147How could you make it 'better' by your interpretation?

D&D 5th edition is fine in of itself.

However Adventures in Middle Earth is instructive. By altering the list of stuff; class, monsters, skills, abilities, items, spells, etc. D&D 5e can be adapted to completely different setting with different assumption on how magic, life, and the supernatural works.

That what I would focus on. And I wouldn't promote it as a better D&D 5th edition, but rather as a version of D&D 5th edition that offers a different experience than what was found in the PHB. One that was compatible if you wanted to do a hybrid campaign.

It does not take much little work to allow a player to play a AiME Scholar in Forgotten Realms or a PHB Warlock in Middle Earth.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1091857Changing armor to damage reduction won't work, but changing it to an all-or-nothing saving throw does work. Convert the to-hit process to a skill vs skill roll and add an armor save if the target is wearing armor.

Not only does this scale better, as it doesn't require the PCs constantly upgrade their armor as they level up, but it also makes it easy to adjudicate attacks, such as grappling, bullets, and magic, that would ignore armor. And it also works without modification in genres that don't have heavy armor, such as Barsoom, the wild west, or WW2.

I've been playing OD&D this way for five years now. Of all the rules changes I've made over the decades, no other rules tweak has resulted in as much improvement to the gaming experience as this one has. So, yes, if I could change one aspect of D&D this would definitely be it.

That would be a much easier rule to tack on from a balance perspective (though not easy - as I'm not sure what you'd be saving against), but it would slow down gameplay substantially. I'd have to see it in action to decide if it would be worth it.

Note: I like the idea of opposed rolls (at least for melee) and armor as DR. I think they're vibe is better - and the system I'm building uses both (melee is opposed attack rolls where one of you is hit each round - so it doesn't slow gameplay like opposed rolling usually does). It's just that I realize that both have substantial drawbacks which the D&D chassis isn't built for.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1090456locked XP chart.  Individual XP charts per class, please.  Different people learn different things differently. The takeaway that a Magic-User has after a battle is wholly different than that of a fighter, or a thief, or a cleric (or a monk, bard, assassin, illusionist, druid, paladin or ranger).

Locked XP chart blandifies characters and leads to push-button games.  Bleh.

On the other hand one could design classes so that the amount of learning per level is equivalent thus justifying a unified XP chart.

My experience in writing and playing the rules for my Majestic Fantasy RPG, is that if classes are not balanced that it is best to have varying XP charts. I use the following excel spreadsheet

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tjuUIRQOFtUFDosTIXZ_Yt49AoEJNZDZ/view?usp=sharing

I have 7 charts that I pick from when creating a class

Starting at the following values for 2nd level.

1,500 xp Clerics
1,750 xp Burglar, Thug, Merchant Adventurer
2,000 xp Fighters, Mountebank (street MU), Assassins,
2,250 xp Knight, Solider (fighters with some extra abilities)
              Artificers (ritual only caster), Rune caster (ritual only caster), Theurgists (ritual only)
2,500 xp Magic User, Wizards (different spell casting system)
2,750 xp Order of Thoth (MUs with extra abilities)
3,000 xp Paladin, Myrmidon (fighters with supernatural abilities)

The only outlier are the clerics but they are agents of their religions and can't just do whatever they feel like. So I left it at the traditional level. Otherwise I would pegged it at a base of 1,750 or 2,000.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1091862That would be a much easier rule to tack on from a balance perspective (though not easy - as I'm not sure what you'd be saving against), but it would slow down gameplay substantially. I'd have to see it in action to decide if it would be worth it.

It's usually just a straight save. Leather saves at 17+, Chainmail at 14+ and Platemail at 10+. This closely corresponds to the percentage of hits that turn to misses using the base OD&D to-hit charts. Of course, I have a ton more types of armor as well.

It doesn't slow down the game as most monsters don't actually have armor saves and the players roll theirs while I'm making the monster's attack roll. Of course, some monsters, such as dragons, giant bugs, and elite orcs might wear armor but these are special cases. It takes less time than the math from using damage reduction.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1091942It takes less time than the math from using damage reduction.

I didn't say that it takes more time than DR. But it does take more time than D&D's traditional method of armor as AC.

And frankly - it throws D&D's normal balance totally out of whack. Maybe you can make it work by eyeballing the difficulty of various foes, but they would not be the same with those rules in place. It's at least halfway to an entirely new system.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1091944I didn't say that it takes more time than DR. But it does take more time than D&D's traditional method of armor as AC.

It takes more time -per roll- but less time overall to resolve the entire combat. I also use rules that speed up combat such as damage spillover and abstract movement. I can run 10 v 10 fights in significantly less time than I could run 4 v 4 fights in AD&D.

QuoteAnd frankly - it throws D&D's normal balance totally out of whack. Maybe you can make it work by eyeballing the difficulty of various foes, but they would not be the same with those rules in place.

What balance you are about talking about here? Yes, some monsters might be slightly tougher or weaker than in the current rules, but that's something common with any new version.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1092005It takes more time -per roll- but less time overall to resolve the entire combat. I also use rules that speed up combat such as damage spillover and abstract movement. I can run 10 v 10 fights in significantly less time than I could run 4 v 4 fights in AD&D.


What balance you are about talking about here? Yes, some monsters might be slightly tougher or weaker than in the current rules, but that's something common with any new version.

All of this 100% confirms what I said initially.

The change doesn't work slapped on top of D&D. I did not say that it couldn't work at all.

You have drastically changed the rules of the game (which is 100% fine) and it's not really D&D at all anymore. It's your homebrew system which started out with a D&D chassis.

It's like if I buy a F150 truck, change out the engine, body, add seats, and then talk about how the F-150 can totally comfortably & safely seat 7. Well... maybe mine can, but that doesn't really make it true for F-150s. Without those major modifications it seats 2 comfortably and 4-5 in a pinch.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1092006All of this 100% confirms what I said initially.

The change doesn't work slapped on top of D&D. I did not say that it couldn't work at all.

You have drastically changed the rules of the game (which is 100% fine) and it's not really D&D at all anymore. It's your homebrew system which started out with a D&D chassis.

It somewhat of an art to craft a mechanic that feel D&Dish and there are specific nuances for each edition.

I found you can to a lot of modifications to the list of stuff and still have the result work with the edition you started from. Of course the feel of the fantasy genre will change with the new lists but that probably the point like with Adventures in Middle Earth versus the D&D 5e PHB.

Lists include

• Classes
• Spells
• Equipment
• Magic Items
• Monster

As far as the mechanics goes I found mucking around with the follow renders it incompatible with the original edition.

• Armor Class
• Hit Points
• Levels and Hit Dice
• Saving Throws to avoid something "bad" happening
• Damage is dealt by rolling higher or equal to a number based on AC (THACO, chart or ascending)

Mechanics one can muck around with that has little to no impact on compatibility are

• Resolve tasks and check. Either by using skills, proficiency, something based on attributes, d6s, or something else.
• Special abilities on Equipment, like a Mace get +1 to hit on plate armor. A flask of oil does 1d6 damage for 2 round in a 10 by 10 square.
• Attribute modifiers

One divide between classic D&D (AD&D 2e and prior) and later editions (D&D 3.X, Pathfinder, 4e, 5e) are how to conduct initiative and combat actions.

As a rule in a classic edition you can muck around with how initiative and combat actions are handled and still remain compatible.  However you are much more limited in later editions as many abilities make use of standard terms used in the combat rules. Like reaction, standard action, swift action, bonus action, move action, and so on.

One caveat that anything with numbers can make things easier or harder thus effect the feel of the fantasy genre. For example effect of AD&D 1e Unearthed Arcana on characters meant that the creature in the AD&D 1e monster manual were easier to deal with. It didn't make it compatible but it alter the feel of the fantasy genre.

Some of my thoughts from mucking around with my own rules.
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2008.pdf

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.

The problem with this is that if magic doesn't work usefully enough, often enough, to be worth the risk of what happens when it goes wrong, the vast majority of players are going to stop doing it, especially if the consequences of a magic backfire stand a reasonable chance of hosing all the other PCs in the vicinity.

Razor007, I think, phrased it better with the words "Risk vs. Reward".  Players should be able to fine-tune the oomph of their magic to set their own balance, so that players who try for game-breaker effects are more likely to get broken themselves. Maybe take all the different magic-enhancement feats and spell-level limits and work them all into a set of tradeoff charts, so that in theory a first-level mage can try to cast a Still, Silent Meteor Swarm -- but faces so many penalties he's practically certain to fry himself from inside first.

Baked-in Interventionist Polytheism/Monolatry.