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Argothair
2018-08-30, 02:00 PM
D&D is a fantastic game that's bogged down by having too many rules that don't accomplish anything important. I know the designers have spent thousands of hours playtesting the 'balance' so that you can send a Level 8 party against a Level 8 encounter and have a statistical expectation that the party will be wounded but survive -- and I don't think that kind of balance is nearly as important as making the game simple, intuitive, and fun. If your Dungeon Master is halfway decent, she'll be able to adjust difficulty on the fly, by adding more monsters or having monsters run away or bringing in NPCs or gifts or cursed loot or divine blessings. So these are my suggestions for how to get the rules right, in the hopes that the rest will follow:

1. Tie ability scores directly to game mechanics.
2. Always let players roll their own dice.
3. Replace spell slots with a mana pool.
4. Use 3d6 instead of 1d20.
5. Give players a clear choice of tactics in combat.

1. Tie character stats directly to game mechanics.

D&D has arguably the best set of core character stats ever developed: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma really do an excellent job of describing a fantasy character's abilities. They fit together well, they don't overlap too much, and they give you an interesting set of tools for thinking about why characters are different from each other.

The problem is that instead of just *using* these character stats, D&D asks you to put them through a series of Rube Goldberg exercises before the stats take on any meaning in terms of the game mechanics. If you want to know how many points of damage you can absorb, you've got to take your Constitution stat, subtract 10, divide by 2, round down, multiply by your current character level, and then add that value to the total shown on a number of dice of varying sizes that's one less than your current level. What? No. Bull****. This is a game, not math class.

A better way to set this up would be to...say that you can absorb one point of damage for each point of Constitution. Got a CON of 14? Congratulations, you're super-buff and you have 14 hit points. Got a CON of 8? Man, that sucks, you only get 8 hit points. If you really want characters to become invincible as they level up, you can add a flat bonus per level -- maybe your hit point maximum is your CON stat plus your current level. That's it. Keep it simple. All that math isn't adding anything to the gameplay value for 95% of the players, and the handful of geniuses who actually like this kind of thing would rather see the complexity applied to something more interesting, like spells.

Speaking of which...your Intelligence can be the number of spells you're capable of memorizing when you prepare your daily spells. Got an INT of 15? You're a smarty-pants, so you can learn to cast 15 different spells before you start forgetting your old cantrips. Your Wisdom can be the total mana cost of spells that you can simultaneously concentrate on maintaining in any given hour. Got a WIS of 13? Great, you can maintain up to 13 mana points' worth of buffs for your allies without slipping up and letting the oldest spell fade away. Your Charisma can be the target that opponents need to beat in order to break free of your magical charms. Got a CHR of 17? Guess those Orcs will need to roll a 17 or better to shake off your extremely persuasive Sleep spell.

Dexterity can represent the difficulty of hitting you in combat when you're not wearing armor. Got a DEX of 14? Cool; you're reasonably shifty, so your opponents need to roll a 14 or better to hit you. If you're wearing leather armor that gives you a +2 to dodging, they need a 16 or better to hit you. This stuff should not be hard. If I never hear the phrase "Armor Class" again it'll be too soon.

Strength can represent the number of different things you can carry, or the number of kilograms you can carry, depending on whether your friends are capable of thinking in the metric system. Got a STR of 15? Cool, that's pretty strong; you can carry 15 things or 15 kilograms (40 pounds) of weight on your back and still be able to thrust and parry and dodge for an hour and then hike 10 hours over a hilly trail.

2. Always let players roll their own dice.

For some reason, D&D 5e tells players to keep track of the differences between "skill checks," "saving throws," "attack rolls," and "magical attack rolls," like these are somehow four separate things. Bull****. As the Angry GM teaches, there is a player, there is something she wants to do, and there is somebody or something that makes it possible for her to fail. That's all. The active player -- the person trying to do something -- gets to roll dice. The DM sets a difficulty target based on how hard the thing is, and if the player rolls equal to or better than the difficulty target, she succeeds. Otherwise she fails.

While this is happening, nobody else gets to roll any dice. They can roll dice later, when it's their turn. That's how taking turns works.

Also, saying that your character is "dodging out of the way of a poison arrow" or "not getting flame-broiled by a Red Dragon" or "resisting the seductive call of the magical Sirens" does not count as "trying to do something." None of these are excuses for wrecking the turn order and taking an extra turn. The person trying to do something in these three examples is, respectively, the orc archer, the Red Dragon, and the mermaid Sirens, respectively. They're probably all controlled by the DM. Let the DM roll dice for them. You can roll dice when it's your turn again. If you really can't wait, consider investing in a fidget spinner.

3. Replace "spell slots" with a mana pool.

Nobody other than D&D players has any idea what a spell slot is or how it's supposed to work. They don't match up with anybody's intuitions, and even after someone explains the mechanics of the rules to you, they still don't make any sense. What does it feel like to be a Wizard who has three Level 2 slots left and one Level 4 slot but no remaining Level 3 slots? I have no frigging idea. Obviously magic isn't real, but this kind of magic isn't even a thing that shows up in books or comics or movies about fantasy worlds. Thor doesn't have spell slots. Gandalf doesn't have spell slots. Stannis Baratheon doesn't have spell slots. Paskennarion doesn't have spell slots. Rincewind doesn't have spell slots. Glinda the Good Witch of the North doesn't have spell slots. Why should your D&D character have spell slots?

Trick question: your D&D character should not have spell slots. Your D&D character should have a mana pool. Mana is easy to understand because it matches people's intuitions about how fantasy magic works. Everyone "knows" that when you cast powerful spells you temporarily exhaust your magical mojo, and when you go to sleep or take a break from spellcasting, your mana slowly replenishes. So if you want to write rules that people can understand, go with what people already know.

There are plenty of ways to make mana pools work, but as one example, let's say your character gets 1 mana point for each point of Charisma, plus 1 mana point for each tier of Spellcasting that she has access to. Full casters like Wizards get a new tier of Spellcasting after every 1 or 2 levels; partial casters like Paladins or Rangers only get a new tier every 3 or 4 levels. So, a level 5 Wizard might have access to Tier 3 casting and a Charisma of 12, which would mean they have a mana pool of 3 + 12 = 15 mana points.

Spells are ranked by tiers, with "cantrips" treated as Tier 1 spells, and the most devastating ultra-bombs like Time Stop and Resurrection and Wish topping out somewhere around Tier 12. Each time you want to cast a spell, you've got to pay 1 mana for each of the tiers involved, adding the value of each tier together. So, a tiny cantrip like Acid Splash is a Tier 1 spell that costs 1 mana. Sleep would be a relatively weak Tier 2 spell that costs 1 + 2 = 3 mana. Fireball would be a moderately powerful Tier 4 spell that costs 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 mana. Raise Dead is a awesome Tier 6 spell that costs 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 21 mana. You get the idea.

If you don't have enough mana to pay for your spell, then your mana dips into the negative, and you've got to beat a difficulty check with a target equal to your current mana debt. So, let's say you want to cast Fireball (10 mana cost) but you've only got 3 mana left. Now your mana pool dips down to negative 7, which means you've got to roll your dice and get better than a 7, or else the spell fizzles or explodes or hilariously backfires. If you want to cast *another* fireball before resting, now your mana is at negative 17, which means you need to roll your dice and get better than a 17 to avoid serious consequences. Beating those checks quickly becomes impossible, so you've got to stop casting *eventually* -- but you can press your luck if you want, dig deep for a little bit of extra mojo, instead of always standing around with your hands in your pockets after 3 pm because you're "out of spell slots."

You recover mana at the rate of...1 mana point per hour. This is, coincidentally, the same rate at which you recover hit points. None of this "short rest" or "long rest" garbage that has everyone gaming the system to figure out how to spring back to 100% capacity while sleeping on the moldy floor of a cursed dungeon. The longer and more often you rest, the more you'll recover. You can rest for as long or as short of a period as you like, just like real life. If you take too many naps in the wrong places, you risk being fired by your boss and/or a Red Dragon, but that's just business as usual.

4. Use 3d6 instead of 1d20.

I know, I know, the d20 is iconic; a literal symbol of all that D&D stands for. They're fun to fidget with, and fun to roll, and they work well for Initiative, which comes up nearly every session, and which ought to be mostly random. For other skills and checks, though, d20s are mechanically terrible, because they have such a huge, flat probability curve that a +1 bonus doesn't have any noticeable effect. Like, suppose you have an 55% chance of accomplishing a task instead of a 50% chance of accomplishing the task. Would you even notice the difference? Statistics says no. If you flip a fair coin 100 times, it usually won't come up exactly 50 heads and exactly 50 tails -- it's more likely that it'll be slightly biased in one direction or the other. In fact, the 'average' amount of bias is that you'll get either 55 heads or 55 tails. This means that your +1 bonus gives you literally the same amount of variation you'd expect to see by chance when you make the same roll 100 times.

How often do you actually go and make the exact same roll 100 times in D&D? Let's say it's a really basic roll, like attacking with your sword against a perfectly ordinary goblin. You make the roll 5 times per combat, you fight in 3 combats every 4-hour session, and it takes you 3 sessions to gain a level, and you gain 3 levels before you get any new abilities or equipment that affect your combat roll That's still only 5 * 3 * 3 * 3 = 135 rolls...barely enough to notice a +1 difference, even when you're doing nothing but hacking relentlessly away at the goblin hordes for 36 straight hours of play. In more realistic circumstances, where you fight a variety of enemies using a variety of tactics, you probably would never make the same roll more than 10 times in a campaign, which means you wouldn't even notice a +4 difference in skill. Sure, it *feels* cool to have a fat bonus, but it's all in your head. Mathematically speaking, whether you succeed or fail on any given roll, or even on any given ten rolls, has much, much more do to with luck than with your exact skill level.

That doesn't have to be the case. The problem with the d20 is that it's flat -- you have the same probability of rolling any number. If you switch to 3d6, though, then certain numbers are much more likely than other numbers. It's a lot easier to roll a 10 on 3d6 than it is to roll a 3 or an 18. This means that even small bonuses can have a big effect. Let's say you're trying to whack that goblin again, and you would normally hit on a roll of 11 or better. Using either 3d6 or 1d20, you've got a 50% chance to hit. Now I hand you a magic sword that gives you +2 to all your attack rolls. Using the 1d20, that only boosts your chance to hit from 50% up to 60%. Not much difference. Using 3d6, though, the same +2 sword boosts your chance to hit from 50% all the way up to 74%. That's a big change that you're likely to notice. With a +5 sword, the d20 would still only give you a 75% chance to hit...but the 3d6 would give you an impressive 95% chance to hit.

The probability curves for 3d6 still deliver on D&D 5e's promise that no hero will ever be invulnerable against a swarm of hundreds of goblins, even without dipping into edge cases like critical hits or natural 20s. A goblin *could* roll triple 6's and score 7.5 points higher than the expected attack roll, just like a goblin *could* roll a 20 and score 9.5 points higher than the expected attack roll. The difference is that the crazy, implausible events are *actually rare* when you use 3d6. If you use 1d20, you get supposedly miraculous events all the damn time, to the point where attributes and proficiencies start to lose most of their meaning. If a Level 15 Barbarian, a Level 1 Wizard, and an irritated NPC goat all have a decent chance of kicking you in the shins, then why bother keeping track of stats for different kinds of characters? You could just skip the character sheets and roll totally random dice every time there's a combat. Or, you could use 3d6, and have die results that actually correlate with your character's abilities.

5. Give players a clear choice of tactics in combat.

In theory, D&D players can do all kinds of different things in combat, limited only by their imagination and their core attribute stats like Dexterity and Strength. In practice, almost nobody ever figures out how to do anything other than swing a sword, cast a fireball, drink a healing potion, or run away. The rules for what you can do in combat are buried in a long, rambling encyclopedia of every possible action, and they don't make it clear why you would want to give up your attack to futz around with shoving or grappling or opening doors. There's also a horribly unclear set of rules about surprise attacks, readied actions, and passing your place in the turn order. Do you have to go when it's your turn, or can you wait till later? Can you take two turns in a row if you're sneaky enough? When? Why? Nobody really knows.

So, let's fix this. In combat, you go only on your turn. You never go on anyone else's turn. If enemies are surprised, that means they get a temporary penalty to their stats, not that they lose their turn. Everybody gets one turn, and there's a fixed turn order in each combat, and it almost always goes in a perfect clockwise circle around the table. Is that realistic? No, but neither is interrupting combat for 2 minutes on every single frigging round to pause and try to figure out whose turn it is and what they want to do next.

The turn goes in a circle. When it's your turn, you do any TWO of the following things: attack, cast a spell, move yourself around, move an opponent around, activate an object, talk, or hide. If you want, you can pick the same thing twice, but you normally can't attack twice in the same turn unless you're holding two different weapons. Why two things? It gives you enough flexibility to be interesting, but not so much that you freeze up trying to think about it. If you're not ready with your list of two actions when the DM points at you, you lose one of those two actions. It's harsh but fair. It has to be if you want to keep combat moving at anything even remotely pretending to be a real-time pace.

The players also need a *reason* to care how they're all arranged. Like, if you can hit anyone from anywhere and expect to give and receive about the same amount of damage, then it makes no sense to waste your actions moving around, or, worse, moving your opponents around. Why would anyone want to do that?

I've heard people say that it makes sense to focus on 'glass cannons' -- on enemies who deal a lot of damage each round but who don't have many hit points. And, sure, if you have a choice of who to target, you may as well target someone who's squishy but dangerous. But it's very rare that you would actually want to spend a whole round of combat trying to change your target: most combats are decided within the first 3 rounds; at that point, by then, one of the teams has half its members dead or dying or or paralyzed or unconscious, and victory is just a matter of going through the motions. By the rules of D&D 5e, pretty much the strongest situational advantage you can gain in combat is..."advantage," which lets you roll 2d20 and keep the higher roll. You can't stack up advantages; if you have advantage twice, the second one is just wasted. On average, advantage gives you about +5 to your dice roll. Even if you could spend your first turn to guarantee yourself advantage on your next two turns, that's still only +10, or about half an extra attack. You'll almost always be better off attacking on every single turn -- better to get three attacks (and maybe miss one of them) than to limit yourself to two attacks (and still maybe miss one of them).

Same thing with rescuing teammates: sure, sometimes your own glass cannon is standing right next to your healer, or your healer doesn't have anything better to do, and it makes sense to reach over and slap your poor beleaguered ally with a Healing Touch. On average, though, you can deal more damage each turn by attacking then you can restore by healing -- and if you manage to kill or incapacitate an enemy, that works as a kind of forward-looking healing, because that enemy won't be around to keep lowering your hit points. If your goal is to keep your allies on their feet -- and it should be -- then killing enemies is almost always more useful than casting healing spells or doling out potions.

So we've got to fix that: we've got to make it so that when 4 angry goblins surround your squishy wizard, and you're standing at the other end of the cave crossing swords with one big orc, you have a reason to disengage from the orc, run over to your wizard, and protect her.

There are lots of ways you could do this, but my suggestion is to make advantage modular: for each fact about the situation that gives you an advantage, roll 1 extra d6 (remember, we're using 3d6 now, not 1d20). So, if one goblin is attacking one wizard, the goblin rolls 3d6. If two goblins are attacking one wizard, it's much harder for the wizard to dodge, so the goblins each roll 4d6 and keep the best 3 dice. If three goblins are attacking a wizard, dodging gets even harder, so the goblins each roll 5d6 and keep the best 3 dice. If three goblins are surrounding a wizard and the wizard is hopping around with her legs tied together by rope, dodging gets even harder, so each goblin rolls 6d6 and keeps the best 3 dice. If the number get ridiculous, the DM can declare that the goblins get an automatic hit, or even an automatic critical hit.

You can stack disadvantage this way, too. If your big beefy barbarian is trying to attack a manatee, but the manatee is ten feet underwater and it's hard to swing a greataxe through the water, maybe the barbarian rolls 4d6 and keeps the worst 3 dice. If the barbarian is also being grappled by a hostile squid at the time, maybe he rolls 5d6 and keeps the worst 3 dice, and so on.

So that's how you give players a clear choice: tell them they can attack, cast a spell, move their character around, move an opponent around, activate an object, talk, or hide -- and then use their decisions to stack up multiple advantages and disadvantages, including advantages based on flanking. If you do it right, the game moves faster, players feel like they understand what's going on, and you get real dramatic tension when an ally is in danger.

JBPuffin
2018-08-30, 06:30 PM
I appreciate the idea...sort of. I also think that maybe you just want a different system than 5e, because most of your “problems” with it are part of the fun for many of us, and tbh, most of your fixes don’t actually FIX anything.

There’s a whole thread going right now about how 3d6 is a terrible fit for DND math - if you want to change the dice, 2d10’s a much better way to go.

Making ability scores = actual game traits doesn’t work for similar reasons - the math flies so out of whack, the game is barely playable. In the same breath you’re talking about making the game “simpler and more fun,” you also mention making spellcasters need LITERALLY every stat except Strength. Talk about MAD!

Your “one player rolls at a time” has a much simpler fix, if you really hate saving throws so much - bring back 4e defenses (Fortitude, Reflex, Will) and make them the target numbers for spells like Fireball (gotta beat that goblin’s Reflex to burn him like a French fry). The way you try to fix that is a step backwards from what exists now while ALSO being how the game normally functions, so congrats on that.

Mana pools are a fine alternative - the Dungeon Master’s Guide, if you ever get around to actually reading a 5e book, mentions it too - but your regen rate makes casters nigh-on useless, and slowing HP regen to 1 per hour when players have at least 6 at 1st level means no one’s going to do anything for hours, days even at higher levels, because they want to actually be able to survive another goblin javelin or throw another thunderwave during their next fight. “Everyone gains the system?” Have you played a game of 5e, or just read the optimizers’ posts in the 5e thread? The rest system is probably the best innovation 5e took from 4e...

And combat...gods, what is complicated about “you can move, and you can also stab something/wait to stab something until later/do something that isn’t stabbing something if your sheet says you can?” There’s no way to take more than one turn in a row because initiative is rolled once in a fight, and that determines the order for the whole fight. Dramatic tension is always there because losing an ally means slowing the combat down by having 1/5 or 1/4 of your damage output and actions gone, plus the possibility of them dying permanently (because resurrection isn’t cheap). The optimal thing in the situation you’re describing is for the fighter to go after the goblins IF the wizard doesn’t have, oh I don’t know, any one of a dozen AoE spells which could take one or more of the goblins out/knock them away, which is already a situation the party would be cautious of and intentionally trying to fix.

If you want to play a role playing game that “solves” your “problems” with 5e, go play FATE. It’s got much simpler rules, the play style fits what you’re looking for much better, and there’s a System Reference Document available for free online, so you don’t even have to buy new books.

Argothair
2018-08-30, 08:20 PM
Hey JBPuffin, thanks for the thoughtful and detailed feedback.


most of your “problems” with it are part of the fun for many of us,

This is exactly what i'd like to learn more about. Clearly thousands of D&D 5e players love the stuff I'm complaining about. What I can't figure out is why. What's the appeal? Do people like doing arithmetic? Do they like solving the puzzle of how to use the same resources to get an extra 1% chance of winning a battle? Do they like the opacity of the system, like, having lots of concepts floating around helps obscure the way the sausage is made in a way that helps everyone suspend disbelief? I'm willing to believe that this stuff is serving a real purpose, but I'm confused about what that purpose is. If you can teach me, I'd be grateful.


making spellcasters need LITERALLY every stat except Strength. Talk about MAD!

Well, I don't know about *needing* every stat. They're all useful, certainly, but an evocation wizard who's optimized for repeatedly blasting orcs with fireballs doesn't really need the ability to concentrate on maintaining multiple spells at once, and a utility bard who's optimized for keeping a bunch of low-level buffs in play at the same time doesn't necessarily need a huge mana pool, and a warlock who's just going to cast Eldritch Blast and Hex over and over again, doesn't really need a high INT. Part of what *I* find fun about the D&D system is being forced to make challenging trade-offs between different ability scores. Like, yes, I want more WIS, and I also want more DEX, and I'm not sure which is more important, and I have to choose, and I get to choose and then see how that affects things. That's fun for me! If it's not fun for you, and you'd rather have your class make it obvious exactly which stats you should invest in, that's fine, but that's part of why we're disagreeing here.


bring back 4e defenses (Fortitude, Reflex, Will) and make them the target numbers for spells like Fireball...The way you try to fix that is a step backwards from what exists now

Sure, that could work, although it's three more things to keep track of. I'd probably rather just have the target numbers be CON, DEX, and WIS. I'm not sure what makes 4e defenses "backward" other than the fact that they're older. Can you say a bit more about what you like about 5e's saving throws or why they're fun or useful?


Mana pools are a fine alternative - the Dungeon Master’s Guide, if you ever get around to actually reading a 5e book, mentions it too

I've read the DMG twice, cover to cover, and I've also read Xanathar's Guide to Everything. I play in a campaign with friends about twice a month, and I also sometimes do one-shots with another group of friends, and I played in a different campaign every week back when they were still playtesting D&D 5e and calling it "D&D Next." I thought about giving WotC a shout out for including alternate rules for mana pools in the DMG, but I decided to cut it to save space, since my complaint isn't really about the WotC writers. They've done a pretty good job of suggesting the possibilities for minor variations on the core D&D ruleset; I just think mana pools should be standard, rather than an alternate rule buried in the back of a book that most people don't buy. I also object to the fussy 'conversion rate' the DMG offers between spell slots and mana points...it basically requires spellcasters to keep an extra chart in front of them at all times showing them how much spells cost. It should be easy to figure out how much spells cost; you shouldn't need a chart.


no one’s going to do anything for hours, days even at higher levels, because they want to actually be able to survive another goblin javelin

You can set the regen rate to be as fast as you like; if you want to play with a party full of demigods, go ahead and dole out 20 hit points and 20 mana points per hour of rest instead of just 1. In my opinion, though, resting for days after you take a javelin to the gut is a feature, not a bug. If you're at a place in the story that allows you to safely rest and recover, great! Narrative time skips forward by a week, and then you're healed. If you're hot on the heels of Vladimir the Unkind, then you have to choose whether to let Vladimir escape, leave your wounded party member behind, or risk going into combat with low hit points. I think it's fun. Again, if you'd rather have characters spring back to full health between every scene, just crank up the regeneration rate. I'm not sure what kind of benefits the "short rest / long rest" scheme is actually offering in terms of mechanics or theme.


If you want to play a role playing game that “solves” your “problems” with 5e, go play FATE.

I like FATE. I also like a *lot* of what D&D has to offer, like the races, the classes, the backgrounds, the spells, the monsters, the cities, the character stats, the level system, and the weapons. I'm interested in trying to improve the D&D experience so that I can keep the parts that I like while removing the parts that annoy me and confuse my friends. That seems to offend a lot of people! I'm not really sure why.

Eric Diaz
2018-08-30, 10:30 PM
Many old school system do exactly that.. Con=starting HP was in 4e in some form IIRC, Str =encumbrance slots is something I used for D&D 5e (a rule included in the Dragon Heresy book) and my B/X retroclone (Dark Fantasy Basic), etc.

For skills, roll 3d6 under a stat was in BECMI. d20 is more fun for combat exact because its so random, and you get many crits.

However, starting the game with 15 spells would be a nightmare.

In DFB I did a spell roll (exactly like skill roll): d20+Int+level. You don't even need a mana pool. Also, "skill checks," "saving throws," "attack rolls," and "magical attack rolls" and even "spell casting", "backstab" and "turn undead" are all the same roll in DFB.

If you want something really simple, there is the Black Hack... People who play 5e are looking for some extra fiddlyness, balance and options.

Thanatos 51-50
2018-08-31, 12:45 AM
You're not streamlining anything with this system. You're creating an arguably more complex system, with different ability scores and probability curves that do different things. You're making a whole new system.

Especially for spell slots, where you're basically just... reshuffling the existing mana system into something arguably more complex, to the point where you don't even bother to provide an example, but rather "here's a bunch of way of dealing with mana".
Spell slots are not even difficult to explain! You're easily adding more book keeping and making the game less streamlined by switching Spell Slots for Mana.

Ability Scores are already tied directly to game mechanics! It's a sliding scale that goes from -5 to +5, with each slot on the scale taking up two spaces (top of this range/beginning of this range), so that they prop up upon the second boost, and not the first one.

3d6 makes balancing bonuses much, much harder that the very easy to balance 1d20 system. d20s are easier math for players, GMs, homebrewers, and game designers, and lets us give basic advice like "Your players should have about a 50% chance to do that thing? Make sure the DC is (Skill Bonus + 10)

Have you tried GURPs? It's significantly different from D&D and is a relatively simple 2d6, roll low system, despite its reputation as being absurdly complicated, it's actually quite simple and decently quick. It might be more up your alley. The basic rules are free (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/)if you want to check them out.

I don't understand where you're coming from with your complaints about unclear tactical choices, even? D&D's tactical choices seem pretty simple to me. Your module advantage/disadvantage sounds like the Accuracy/Difficulty mechanic from LANCER, or even negative die pools from OVA, and both of those games are pretty cool.

Zombimode
2018-08-31, 02:55 AM
Have you tried GURPs? It's significantly different from D&D and is a relatively simple 2d6, roll low system, despite its reputation as being absurdly complicated, it's actually quite simple and decently quick. It might be more up your alley. The basic rules are free (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/)if you want to check them out.

First, it's 3d6.
Then, part of the complexity, or rather the entry barrier for GURPS is the character creation process. You're not really supposed to use everything so the GM has to provide at least some guidelines to what is available in the specific setting.
It is also a very free Point buy System and without guidance different Players bring incompatible characters. Decision paralysis is also a Thing that can happen quite easily when creating a GURPS charakter.

And finally, while I love the combat System, it is anything but easy.

Eric Diaz
2018-08-31, 07:51 AM
There is one other thing: since we have 5e SRD, you can write your own streamlined version of 5e, like I did.

From experience, I can say that some people will love your changes, while others will hate it; many will like some and dislike others, and most will just stick to the "official" D&D rules no matter what.

Truth is everyone has little or big changes they want to make in D&D, and many people are playing their own unique versions.

3d6 for skills, for example? Great idea. AC = DEX? Neat, but wouldn't work well in 5e.

Composer99
2018-08-31, 10:25 PM
If you find certain elements of 5e annoying and want to fix them, fair enough. However, if other people either enjoy those same things, or at the very least don't find them annoying, they're hardly going to heap praise upon your fixes.

At any rate, your proposed fixes here will do little, if anything, to streamline the 5e experience, so far as I can see. Not only that, but they commit you to completely overhauling the game in very fundamental ways, which strikes me as being the opposite of streamlining. Overall, it seems to me that you'd be better served by adopting the mechanical underpinnings of some other game entirely, and adapting such 5e elements that you do like to that game.



1. Tie character stats directly to game mechanics.

D&D has arguably the best set of core character stats ever developed: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma really do an excellent job of describing a fantasy character's abilities. They fit together well, they don't overlap too much, and they give you an interesting set of tools for thinking about why characters are different from each other.

The problem is that instead of just *using* these character stats, D&D asks you to put them through a series of Rube Goldberg exercises before the stats take on any meaning in terms of the game mechanics. If you want to know how many points of damage you can absorb, you've got to take your Constitution stat, subtract 10, divide by 2, round down, multiply by your current character level, and then add that value to the total shown on a number of dice of varying sizes that's one less than your current level. What? No. Bull****. This is a game, not math class.

A better way to set this up would be to...say that you can absorb one point of damage for each point of Constitution. Got a CON of 14? Congratulations, you're super-buff and you have 14 hit points. Got a CON of 8? Man, that sucks, you only get 8 hit points. If you really want characters to become invincible as they level up, you can add a flat bonus per level -- maybe your hit point maximum is your CON stat plus your current level. That's it. Keep it simple. All that math isn't adding anything to the gameplay value for 95% of the players, and the handful of geniuses who actually like this kind of thing would rather see the complexity applied to something more interesting, like spells.

Speaking of which...your Intelligence can be the number of spells you're capable of memorizing when you prepare your daily spells. Got an INT of 15? You're a smarty-pants, so you can learn to cast 15 different spells before you start forgetting your old cantrips. Your Wisdom can be the total mana cost of spells that you can simultaneously concentrate on maintaining in any given hour. Got a WIS of 13? Great, you can maintain up to 13 mana points' worth of buffs for your allies without slipping up and letting the oldest spell fade away. Your Charisma can be the target that opponents need to beat in order to break free of your magical charms. Got a CHR of 17? Guess those Orcs will need to roll a 17 or better to shake off your extremely persuasive Sleep spell.

Dexterity can represent the difficulty of hitting you in combat when you're not wearing armor. Got a DEX of 14? Cool; you're reasonably shifty, so your opponents need to roll a 14 or better to hit you. If you're wearing leather armor that gives you a +2 to dodging, they need a 16 or better to hit you. This stuff should not be hard. If I never hear the phrase "Armor Class" again it'll be too soon.

Strength can represent the number of different things you can carry, or the number of kilograms you can carry, depending on whether your friends are capable of thinking in the metric system. Got a STR of 15? Cool, that's pretty strong; you can carry 15 things or 15 kilograms (40 pounds) of weight on your back and still be able to thrust and parry and dodge for an hour and then hike 10 hours over a hilly trail.

This is more complex and less elegant than the ability score/ability modifier mechanic. It has more moving parts and potential failure points.

With the existing system, every ability score works the same way: knowing its ability modifier, you apply it to a pertinent set of die rolls, which you will be able to see on your character sheet, and when in doubt your DM will tell you which ability to use. The only ability score, if memory serves, that has any additional use is Strength (for encumbrance and jumping).

Your proposed fix has no consistent mechanic, at least not yet. Does your Strength affect attack and damage rolls? If so, how? What about Dexterity? How does your Charisma help you persuade the queen to send troops to defend the northern watchtower, or bluff the dretch into thinking you're a high-ranking fiend who just happens to be shapechanged into mortal form?

It also creates subpar mechanical-conceptual relationships. You couldn't have a wizard, for instance, who was a dab hand at spellcasting but was terribly misanthropic (low Charisma), because their saving throw DCs would be terrible. (Or you'd have to have a high Charisma but roleplay contrary to your character's nature.)

Finally, it's killer for verisimilitude. Historical weights for common armours, for instance, blow your proposed encumbrance limits out of the water. Even common NPC footsoldiers or travelers would need to have extraordinary Strength scores, instead of 10-12, just to carry their stuff.

You say you hate the term "Armour Class", but what you propose to do is to replace it with two distinct scores: your Dexterity score when you aren't armoured (plus maybe a bonus if you're wearing light armour), and some yet-to-be-named score when you're wearing armour. What would you call this second score? "Armour"? "Armour Rating"? How is it fundamentally any different from "Armour Class" in that case?



2. Always let players roll their own dice.

For some reason, D&D 5e tells players to keep track of the differences between "skill checks," "saving throws," "attack rolls," and "magical attack rolls," like these are somehow four separate things. Bull****. As the Angry GM teaches, there is a player, there is something she wants to do, and there is somebody or something that makes it possible for her to fail. That's all. The active player -- the person trying to do something -- gets to roll dice. The DM sets a difficulty target based on how hard the thing is, and if the player rolls equal to or better than the difficulty target, she succeeds. Otherwise she fails.

While this is happening, nobody else gets to roll any dice. They can roll dice later, when it's their turn. That's how taking turns works.

Also, saying that your character is "dodging out of the way of a poison arrow" or "not getting flame-broiled by a Red Dragon" or "resisting the seductive call of the magical Sirens" does not count as "trying to do something." None of these are excuses for wrecking the turn order and taking an extra turn. The person trying to do something in these three examples is, respectively, the orc archer, the Red Dragon, and the mermaid Sirens, respectively. They're probably all controlled by the DM. Let the DM roll dice for them. You can roll dice when it's your turn again. If you really can't wait, consider investing in a fidget spinner.

All right, so first of all, this contradicts what you said about Charisma earlier (how it sets save DCs).

Second, "you roll dice against a DC provided by the DM" is already the core mechanic of the game. In and of itself, the distinction between "ability check" (you want to do something that isn't killing someone), "attack roll" (you want to kill someone), and "saving throw" (you want to avoid something) is purely cosmetic, as far as the mechanics are concerned. However, adding the keywords lets you give PCs and monsters special abilities that let them modify some or all of these rolls, such as the fighter's Indomitable feature.

You're literally not simplifying the game in any way, here.

If you don't like saving throws as a concept, someone has already suggested reviving the 4e defences. Or, I suppose, use ability scores in their stead.

Describing rolling a saving throw as "wrecking the turn order and taking an extra turn" is simply false. A "turn" is a purely game-mechanical construct in which you take a certain set of actions, in a structured, ordered abstraction of a chaotic real-time process. As long as the math works out the same, there's no difference between the siren rolling a spell attack roll against your Wisdom or Will defence and you making a saving throw against the siren's save DC - except that your character's fate is now in your hands.

(As a nitpick, "dodging out of the way of a poison arrow" is a bad example, since the orc archer would be making an attack roll against your AC (or, in your proposed fix, against one of two possible defences).)



3. Replace "spell slots" with a mana pool.

Nobody other than D&D players has any idea what a spell slot is or how it's supposed to work. They don't match up with anybody's intuitions, and even after someone explains the mechanics of the rules to you, they still don't make any sense. What does it feel like to be a Wizard who has three Level 2 slots left and one Level 4 slot but no remaining Level 3 slots? I have no frigging idea. Obviously magic isn't real, but this kind of magic isn't even a thing that shows up in books or comics or movies about fantasy worlds. Thor doesn't have spell slots. Gandalf doesn't have spell slots. Stannis Baratheon doesn't have spell slots. Paskennarion doesn't have spell slots. Rincewind doesn't have spell slots. Glinda the Good Witch of the North doesn't have spell slots. Why should your D&D character have spell slots?

Trick question: your D&D character should not have spell slots. Your D&D character should have a mana pool. Mana is easy to understand because it matches people's intuitions about how fantasy magic works. Everyone "knows" that when you cast powerful spells you temporarily exhaust your magical mojo, and when you go to sleep or take a break from spellcasting, your mana slowly replenishes. So if you want to write rules that people can understand, go with what people already know.

There are plenty of ways to make mana pools work, but as one example, let's say your character gets 1 mana point for each point of Charisma, plus 1 mana point for each tier of Spellcasting that she has access to. Full casters like Wizards get a new tier of Spellcasting after every 1 or 2 levels; partial casters like Paladins or Rangers only get a new tier every 3 or 4 levels. So, a level 5 Wizard might have access to Tier 3 casting and a Charisma of 12, which would mean they have a mana pool of 3 + 12 = 15 mana points.

Spells are ranked by tiers, with "cantrips" treated as Tier 1 spells, and the most devastating ultra-bombs like Time Stop and Resurrection and Wish topping out somewhere around Tier 12. Each time you want to cast a spell, you've got to pay 1 mana for each of the tiers involved, adding the value of each tier together. So, a tiny cantrip like Acid Splash is a Tier 1 spell that costs 1 mana. Sleep would be a relatively weak Tier 2 spell that costs 1 + 2 = 3 mana. Fireball would be a moderately powerful Tier 4 spell that costs 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 mana. Raise Dead is a awesome Tier 6 spell that costs 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 21 mana. You get the idea.

If you don't have enough mana to pay for your spell, then your mana dips into the negative, and you've got to beat a difficulty check with a target equal to your current mana debt. So, let's say you want to cast Fireball (10 mana cost) but you've only got 3 mana left. Now your mana pool dips down to negative 7, which means you've got to roll your dice and get better than a 7, or else the spell fizzles or explodes or hilariously backfires. If you want to cast *another* fireball before resting, now your mana is at negative 17, which means you need to roll your dice and get better than a 17 to avoid serious consequences. Beating those checks quickly becomes impossible, so you've got to stop casting *eventually* -- but you can press your luck if you want, dig deep for a little bit of extra mojo, instead of always standing around with your hands in your pockets after 3 pm because you're "out of spell slots."

You recover mana at the rate of...1 mana point per hour. This is, coincidentally, the same rate at which you recover hit points. None of this "short rest" or "long rest" garbage that has everyone gaming the system to figure out how to spring back to 100% capacity while sleeping on the moldy floor of a cursed dungeon. The longer and more often you rest, the more you'll recover. You can rest for as long or as short of a period as you like, just like real life. If you take too many naps in the wrong places, you risk being fired by your boss and/or a Red Dragon, but that's just business as usual.

Sorry, I thought you wanted to streamline 5e. At this point, you're talking about devising a new game entirely. That's not streamlining in any way, shape, or form.



4. Use 3d6 instead of 1d20.

I know, I know, the d20 is iconic; a literal symbol of all that D&D stands for. They're fun to fidget with, and fun to roll, and they work well for Initiative, which comes up nearly every session, and which ought to be mostly random. For other skills and checks, though, d20s are mechanically terrible, because they have such a huge, flat probability curve that a +1 bonus doesn't have any noticeable effect. Like, suppose you have an 55% chance of accomplishing a task instead of a 50% chance of accomplishing the task. Would you even notice the difference? Statistics says no. If you flip a fair coin 100 times, it usually won't come up exactly 50 heads and exactly 50 tails -- it's more likely that it'll be slightly biased in one direction or the other. In fact, the 'average' amount of bias is that you'll get either 55 heads or 55 tails. This means that your +1 bonus gives you literally the same amount of variation you'd expect to see by chance when you make the same roll 100 times.

How often do you actually go and make the exact same roll 100 times in D&D? Let's say it's a really basic roll, like attacking with your sword against a perfectly ordinary goblin. You make the roll 5 times per combat, you fight in 3 combats every 4-hour session, and it takes you 3 sessions to gain a level, and you gain 3 levels before you get any new abilities or equipment that affect your combat roll That's still only 5 * 3 * 3 * 3 = 135 rolls...barely enough to notice a +1 difference, even when you're doing nothing but hacking relentlessly away at the goblin hordes for 36 straight hours of play. In more realistic circumstances, where you fight a variety of enemies using a variety of tactics, you probably would never make the same roll more than 10 times in a campaign, which means you wouldn't even notice a +4 difference in skill. Sure, it *feels* cool to have a fat bonus, but it's all in your head. Mathematically speaking, whether you succeed or fail on any given roll, or even on any given ten rolls, has much, much more do to with luck than with your exact skill level.

That doesn't have to be the case. The problem with the d20 is that it's flat -- you have the same probability of rolling any number. If you switch to 3d6, though, then certain numbers are much more likely than other numbers. It's a lot easier to roll a 10 on 3d6 than it is to roll a 3 or an 18. This means that even small bonuses can have a big effect. Let's say you're trying to whack that goblin again, and you would normally hit on a roll of 11 or better. Using either 3d6 or 1d20, you've got a 50% chance to hit. Now I hand you a magic sword that gives you +2 to all your attack rolls. Using the 1d20, that only boosts your chance to hit from 50% up to 60%. Not much difference. Using 3d6, though, the same +2 sword boosts your chance to hit from 50% all the way up to 74%. That's a big change that you're likely to notice. With a +5 sword, the d20 would still only give you a 75% chance to hit...but the 3d6 would give you an impressive 95% chance to hit.

The probability curves for 3d6 still deliver on D&D 5e's promise that no hero will ever be invulnerable against a swarm of hundreds of goblins, even without dipping into edge cases like critical hits or natural 20s. A goblin *could* roll triple 6's and score 7.5 points higher than the expected attack roll, just like a goblin *could* roll a 20 and score 9.5 points higher than the expected attack roll. The difference is that the crazy, implausible events are *actually rare* when you use 3d6. If you use 1d20, you get supposedly miraculous events all the damn time, to the point where attributes and proficiencies start to lose most of their meaning. If a Level 15 Barbarian, a Level 1 Wizard, and an irritated NPC goat all have a decent chance of kicking you in the shins, then why bother keeping track of stats for different kinds of characters? You could just skip the character sheets and roll totally random dice every time there's a combat. Or, you could use 3d6, and have die results that actually correlate with your character's abilities.

If you think critical hits are supposed to be "crazy, implausible events" an/or "supposedly miraculous", then I put it to you that the problem is with your conception with the game, and not with the game itself. In 5e, the only special event that happens when you roll a 20 on any d20 roll is a critical hit when you make an attack roll. That's it, that's all.

A critical hit isn't "supposedly miraculous". It's plain old "got lucky". A 1-in-20 chance to "get lucky and hit a vital area" seems pretty reasonable, and certainly far more realistic than a 1-in-216 chance of same.

Others have addressed the d20 vs 3d6 issue, so I'll leave it at that.



5. Give players a clear choice of tactics in combat.

In theory, D&D players can do all kinds of different things in combat, limited only by their imagination and their core attribute stats like Dexterity and Strength. In practice, almost nobody ever figures out how to do anything other than swing a sword, cast a fireball, drink a healing potion, or run away. The rules for what you can do in combat are buried in a long, rambling encyclopedia of every possible action, and they don't make it clear why you would want to give up your attack to futz around with shoving or grappling or opening doors. There's also a horribly unclear set of rules about surprise attacks, readied actions, and passing your place in the turn order. Do you have to go when it's your turn, or can you wait till later? Can you take two turns in a row if you're sneaky enough? When? Why? Nobody really knows.

So, let's fix this. In combat, you go only on your turn. You never go on anyone else's turn. If enemies are surprised, that means they get a temporary penalty to their stats, not that they lose their turn. Everybody gets one turn, and there's a fixed turn order in each combat, and it almost always goes in a perfect clockwise circle around the table. Is that realistic? No, but neither is interrupting combat for 2 minutes on every single frigging round to pause and try to figure out whose turn it is and what they want to do next.

The turn goes in a circle. When it's your turn, you do any TWO of the following things: attack, cast a spell, move yourself around, move an opponent around, activate an object, talk, or hide. If you want, you can pick the same thing twice, but you normally can't attack twice in the same turn unless you're holding two different weapons. Why two things? It gives you enough flexibility to be interesting, but not so much that you freeze up trying to think about it. If you're not ready with your list of two actions when the DM points at you, you lose one of those two actions. It's harsh but fair. It has to be if you want to keep combat moving at anything even remotely pretending to be a real-time pace.

The players also need a *reason* to care how they're all arranged. Like, if you can hit anyone from anywhere and expect to give and receive about the same amount of damage, then it makes no sense to waste your actions moving around, or, worse, moving your opponents around. Why would anyone want to do that?

I've heard people say that it makes sense to focus on 'glass cannons' -- on enemies who deal a lot of damage each round but who don't have many hit points. And, sure, if you have a choice of who to target, you may as well target someone who's squishy but dangerous. But it's very rare that you would actually want to spend a whole round of combat trying to change your target: most combats are decided within the first 3 rounds; at that point, by then, one of the teams has half its members dead or dying or or paralyzed or unconscious, and victory is just a matter of going through the motions. By the rules of D&D 5e, pretty much the strongest situational advantage you can gain in combat is..."advantage," which lets you roll 2d20 and keep the higher roll. You can't stack up advantages; if you have advantage twice, the second one is just wasted. On average, advantage gives you about +5 to your dice roll. Even if you could spend your first turn to guarantee yourself advantage on your next two turns, that's still only +10, or about half an extra attack. You'll almost always be better off attacking on every single turn -- better to get three attacks (and maybe miss one of them) than to limit yourself to two attacks (and still maybe miss one of them).

Same thing with rescuing teammates: sure, sometimes your own glass cannon is standing right next to your healer, or your healer doesn't have anything better to do, and it makes sense to reach over and slap your poor beleaguered ally with a Healing Touch. On average, though, you can deal more damage each turn by attacking then you can restore by healing -- and if you manage to kill or incapacitate an enemy, that works as a kind of forward-looking healing, because that enemy won't be around to keep lowering your hit points. If your goal is to keep your allies on their feet -- and it should be -- then killing enemies is almost always more useful than casting healing spells or doling out potions.

So we've got to fix that: we've got to make it so that when 4 angry goblins surround your squishy wizard, and you're standing at the other end of the cave crossing swords with one big orc, you have a reason to disengage from the orc, run over to your wizard, and protect her.

There are lots of ways you could do this, but my suggestion is to make advantage modular: for each fact about the situation that gives you an advantage, roll 1 extra d6 (remember, we're using 3d6 now, not 1d20). So, if one goblin is attacking one wizard, the goblin rolls 3d6. If two goblins are attacking one wizard, it's much harder for the wizard to dodge, so the goblins each roll 4d6 and keep the best 3 dice. If three goblins are attacking a wizard, dodging gets even harder, so the goblins each roll 5d6 and keep the best 3 dice. If three goblins are surrounding a wizard and the wizard is hopping around with her legs tied together by rope, dodging gets even harder, so each goblin rolls 6d6 and keeps the best 3 dice. If the number get ridiculous, the DM can declare that the goblins get an automatic hit, or even an automatic critical hit.

You can stack disadvantage this way, too. If your big beefy barbarian is trying to attack a manatee, but the manatee is ten feet underwater and it's hard to swing a greataxe through the water, maybe the barbarian rolls 4d6 and keeps the worst 3 dice. If the barbarian is also being grappled by a hostile squid at the time, maybe he rolls 5d6 and keeps the worst 3 dice, and so on.

So that's how you give players a clear choice: tell them they can attack, cast a spell, move their character around, move an opponent around, activate an object, talk, or hide -- and then use their decisions to stack up multiple advantages and disadvantages, including advantages based on flanking. If you do it right, the game moves faster, players feel like they understand what's going on, and you get real dramatic tension when an ally is in danger.

Yeah, here again I'd have to say that the problem here is with your perception of how complex the combat rules are, and not the rules themselves. You complain that the rules "don't make it clear why you would want to give up your attack to futz around with shoving or grappling or opening doors", when it is plainly not their job to do so. The rules are there to tell you what you can (or can't) do - it's up to you and the circumstances in which you find yourself to decide when to do what.

The other rules to which you specifically refer in that first paragraph are perfectly clear.
- Surprise is dealt with on the first page. On the first round of combat, if you're surprised, you don't take actions. Period, end of story.
- When your turn comes up, you either take your turn then or ready an action to take when triggered (e.g. "I shoot the first thing that comes through that door" means you'll use your reaction to make a weapon attack when a creature comes through the door, but won't shoot anything if nothing does).
- In 5e, you can't move your turn around in the initiative order (as you would with the 3.5 Delay action), so I'm not even sure why you bring that up. If you Ready an action and don't use it, it's wasted when your next turn arrives. Simple as that.

Your proposed fixes literally do nothing to give players tactical options, only to take them away, and they do not streamline combat in any appreciable form.

On the topic of taking actions, on your turn in 5e, you generally can take an action, interact freely with up to one object (such as drawing a weapon or opening a door), and move up to your speed. If (and only if) you have a special ability that allows you to take a bonus action, you can do so. (If you want your play experience to be simple, avoid abilities that use bonus actions. Simple.)

What you propose both takes away options (because you lose the "free" object interaction) and adds complexity to the remaining decisions, because now one fixed thing (moving) becomes "choose a thing to do".

What's more, one of characters' most potent tactical options (especially for non-casters) is the use of their reaction, which you are taking away. Reactions, again, are also much simpler than you seem to make out. The only reaction that everyone gets is opportunity attacks; otherwise, you only ever get a reaction when you have a special ability allowing you to do so, and that ability always specifies exactly what you do with that reaction. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you want to add tactical options, you really should be giving fighter-y types more reactions, so they can better control the battlefield (instead of having to rely on the wizard or druid) and better react to unfolding circumstances. That might run contrary to your desire, but the reality is that more options implies more complexity.

On the topic of advantage, adding "modular advantage", by which you appear to mean "stacking advantage", is patently not streamlining. You're just reintroducing the chain of +2s/-2s, only in advantage form. The whole point of the way the 5e system currently handles advantage and disadvantage is that it's streamlined: you have one, the other, or neither, and that's it.

On the topic of dying PCs, if you want to put the fear of death in your PCs without changing the rules, just have monsters make the effort to properly kill them. If 4 goblins are ganking the party's wizard, they can keep stabbing the wizard once s/he's down, and that wizard will suffer automatic death saving throw failures and/or even instant death from massive damage. After that happens once or twice, I daresay your players will soon learn to protect the squishies and to resort to in-combat healing more often. Except, of course, for the part where protecting the squishies becomes much harder when you don't have reactions to stop monsters from brushing past you to attack them.