D&D 5th Edition makes the New York Times

[valadil]

Get rid of the horrible balancing (it's a good idea in theory, but in practice it gets rid the ability of customising your charater to your liking), and the at-will/encounter/daily attack system.

One place where I think that sort of system would benefit things would be for buffs. This was what I first expected when I heard about this type of powers. Basically I don't like tracking how many minutes took place between encounters to figure out if a buff is still around or not. I'd rather handwave away the time between encounters and just know if a buff should last for a round, a fight, or all day.

Easier char creation with less fiddly bits like mundane adding for skill modifiers. Note that I LOVE complex chars myself, but copying numbers is just tedious, and some players really like simple chars. Both styles of char should be viable.

I was thinking about this earlier today. What I'd like to see would be if each class was more like a template. Make it really quick and simple to copy the fighter out of the book. But give options for swapping out skills or class abilities for those of us who like to crunch numbers.

For my own hope, I loved playing 3.5 and I loved playing 4e. But OMFG was 4e easier to run. I didn't need to know the system as well. I could trust the players to know their own powers. Things just ran and I never had to referee or house rule. On top of that, the XP budget worked so much better than CR that I could just deploy an encounter and as long as it was within budget it just kind of worked. I don't think I ever spent more than 15 minutes statting enemies for a session.

I want WotC to realize they aren't a software company. That doesn't mean that I don't want electronic resources - DDI was a huge part of why I could stat encounters quickly - but I'd like it if WotC outsourced more of their software to someone who could write it better.

Finally I'd like to see more emphasis placed on setting. 4e's FR books were pathetic. Entire countries were summed up in a single page. I'd much rather have a book full of adventure hooks, locales, history, and NPCs in Cormyr than another list of feats and powers.

[Yora]

- Generic classes that are customizable. I think the paragon paths in 4th Edition were the right idea, though I have no idea about the implimentation. Pathfinder with the Rage powers, Rogue Talents, and Sorcerer bloodlines are another attempt, or the Talent Trees from Star Wars Saga. But I'd like to see the game limited to 10 base classes that can get additional customizations as options.
Like having a warrior cleric or a cloistered cleric. Maybe even make it that you can multiclass them and split up advancement among the branches.

- No spell slots. I really don't want to have "I can not cast fireball again today, but I still have a lightning bolt and a fly spell to offer if that is any use." Spell points like Expanded Psionic Handbook would be my preference.

- No/less Ability Trees. A rogue with two daggers who taunts enemies to stab them in the back should be playable starting from 1st level. In 3rd Edition, I need two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Combat Expertise, and Improved Feint and by that point I'm 12th level and the campaign has like long ended.

- Drop small modifiers. +1 to attack here, -1 on saves against fear there, that is all too much bookkeeping for way too few payback with buff spells. If you have such modifiers, make them permanent to include on the character sheet, or make them really make a difference at +4 to attack or -6 on Reflex saves.

- Less steep power increase. Once you're 5th level, goblins no longer bother you, at 10th level you laugh at ogres. At 15th level only dragons are worth your time and giants are used as mooks. I would like for early monsters to stay meaningful longer, while you can have epic fights against giants and dragons at the same time. I don't want to have to cut XP by 4 to have a sword and sorcery campaign that can last for 20 or 30 sessions without the PCs being able to storm castles all by themselves while being invulnerable to the guards. But at the same time, low-level characters should be able to defeat 3 or 4 of the same guards.

- Optional system tied in with the basic rules. Psionics, Incarnum, and Maneuvers all require to add new classes to the game and stuff like that. Instead I would like to enable or disable certain options in the running campaign. Like switch all spellcasters from prepared casters to spontaneous casters without having to rebuild them or even deal with a completely new spell list.

[CTrees]

On the other hand that makes it so it is rare in play because of the amount of investment required. Not sure if that's a good thing.

I'm actually okay with that. If the end of the chain is something awesome, but it's rare to see because of the investment required... that rarity actually tends to make it slightly cooler.

Now, there's a difficult balance here, between "so powerful they're required, and take half a characters feats, breeding homogeneity," "cool, worth the investment, but not overpowering," and "maybe interesting, maybe dull, but really weak, so not worth bothering with." But since we're going over our wishes, for hypothetical, perfect game designers, I'll push the idea, anyway.

[Southern Cross]

Actually, Saph, what I really want is a fusion of Arcana Evolved and Pathfinder- that is the Arcana Evolved game system (though the setting should be a separate book), but with the changes that Pathfinder made to D&D 3.5.
(Plus of course,replacements for the existing racial feats, as most of the Arcana Evolved races (with the exceptions of humans and dragons) do not seem to exist on other worlds (unless you are running a Ptolus campaign).

[Saph]

- No spell slots. I really don't want to have "I can not cast fireball again today, but I still have a lightning bolt and a fly spell to offer if that is any use." Spell points like Expanded Psionic Handbook would be my preference.

I think this would be a really bad idea from WotC's perspective. This is exactly why Pathfinder was able to steal so much of WotC's playerbase - all the players who wanted to play Vancian casters stuck with 3.5 or went to Pathfinder rather than going to 4e.

3.5's greatest strength was always the huge variety of mechanics and power levels that you could play around with. For every bit of that they decide to abandon, they'll lose a corresponding bit of the playerbase.

[Mando Knight]

In that case, make it Dungeon & Dragons 2013.

D&D 2013: We're dropping everything Mayan from the mythos.

[Yora]

It's just a system without any internal logic and unique to D&D. Being able to cast one fireball, one lightning bolt, and one fly spell, instead of being able to cast three fireballs or two lightning bolts and a fly spell.
Having a sorcerer who is able to switch his spells known every morning with his spellbook would be something I can live with, but I need at least the option, out of the core rules, to run a campaign in which spellcasters have some degree of flexibility in what spells they cast each day, like sorcerers or psions.
Having to ban all prepared caster classes for my game and leaving only sorcerers, dragon shamans, and favored souls would be something I'd rather avoid. And switching to an entirely different system like psionics would be even worse, since you can't simply use the regular spells out of the book.

[Blas_de_Lezo]

I felt D&D 4 as playing a videogame, which is not. So my group and me just QUIT playing D&D... (nobody wanted to "go back" to 3e)

Damn you Wizards...

We really hated many things from 4e. But I'm telling the most offensive stuff, out of hope to not be included in 5e, 5.0, 5whatever:

- Classic table RPG are NOT videogames. If you try to design a table RPG as a videogame, you won't have neither a videogame, neither a table RPG. So people will prefer to play videogames o go back to "safe" table RPG editions (all this revivial of "old school D&D" that we're living, well, at least in Europe)

- If there are classes, they should be different in mechanics and effects. We had the feeling playing 4e that choosing classes was like choosing the same character "with different color", as in a videogame. So, you can do almost the same type of actions and attacks, just call them "martial, arcane, psionic and divine", but at the end there was not almost diferences. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a "fireball attack" for all classes: arcane ball, divine ball, blade circle and psionic ball: blast 1, 1d6+proper stat, ¿sounds familiar?

- Forget about the perfect "balance". It's impossible to reach. Back in other editions, the player who played the meat shield was happy with that simple role, and the player who played the wizard was renowned as he had to "study" many books. This doesn't mean that warrior shouldn't have fighting options, but that it should be something unique and credible: not a weird swing of the sword that you can only do 1/day for who-knows-what-reason. Utterly ridiculous.

- It really took me out-of-the-game, that you could fight in an almost deadly combat, where you are stabbed, swinged, burnt, and critically-hit with a damn big sword, and you go to bed and wake up fully replenished without any wound. I mean, ¿¿what?? I know D&D uses HP system, but this kind of thing totally makes you believe that you're playing a videogame by just speaking. It looks designed for diminished.

- All the powers and abilities (again, a warrior shouldn't have "powers") are almost only usable at a fight. Again, it makes me think of Final Fantasy, where you can only chatter around and you are only able to use you powers in a fight (I was only hoping to the DM screen to change the kind of view of the table! )

- Roleplaying is role playing, not roll playing neither roll paying.

- There is too many magic, too many "special effects", too many powers. It makes magic look cheap.

- Where do you buy your magical items? Why can't I defeat the guy selling them and take all the magical stuff with me? Is it that you buy in an extradimensional space where you aren't allowed to kill the shop keeper? ¿As in a videogame?

- Which leads me to... Why should PCs depend on magical equipment to be effective, why did you do it WotC? ¿¿WHY?? It's so retarded. Many people don't like to depend on so many items to be effective. I want my choice back! PCs should work ok if they didn't have a fluffa-dooly-starric ton of magical garbage. Magic items should be less common. It will make finding one cooler.

Damn, this feels good... I really wanted to spit this out... It's somekind of relief, therapy or something...

EDIT: also, combat in 4e is way too long.

[Yora]

3) Coming up with dozens or hundreds of unique non-passive abilities that aren't keyed to a specific class or archtype is ridiculously hard. Just try to come up with a list, see how far you get.

It also makes it unneccesarily difficult to customize the character the way you want. Chery picking isn't all bad in such a case.

[Tvtyrant]

2) You assume powers are available to only one class. I'd much rather spells be like they are in 3.5, where there is a lot of overlap between classes. Not a 100% overlap, but some.

See, this is what I am emphatically against. In 3.5 you have a series of powers that everyone has to have to be relevant, and most of the interesting/unique design goes into how to handle those abilities.

Look at the list of tier 3s, and you find that they all have different mechanics for getting powers. However, a lot of those mechanics go to replicating a series of first, second and third level spells.

Flight, invisibility, dispel, protection from energy, shatter, false life (temporary hit points), etc. Everything a Swordsage/psywarrior/beguiler/binder/etc. does is something that everyone does already, but using different mechanics.

[Blackfang108]

My only hope for 5e is nonexistence until 2020.

I guess I'll be disappointed.

So I'll hope that it is closer to pre essentials 4e than any other edition.

[Delvin Darkwood]

To make it a roleplaying game again! 4e was far too combat centric. It was far too concerned with "how many spaces can this thing move a turn", "how many ways can i flank this or that", "how many times can i roll these dice for this much damage". It wasn't a role playing game. It was a tabletop war game, with a fantasy feel attached. My biggest problem with 4e was that it didnt even feel like D&D. Even 3rd edition, where it changed everything around from AD&D, still felt like dungeons and dragons. Sure, the rules were different, optimization was a new found beast, but that didnt matter, because it still held the feel and essence of dungeons and dragons.

My hope is that they'll reign it back in with a focus on roleplay, and make a battlegrid an option, not a nessesity. What i like in 1st Edition AD&D is that there are rules for fighting on a grid, but you certainly dont need it. Far from the same can be said in 4e, were everything is in terms of how many squares this or that. A greater degree of character customization would be wonderful, and a doing away with a laundry list of various "at wills" or "encounter powers". Also, making it so that death is actually a possibility instead of everyone getting pampered with all these "healing surges". All these high numbers, having 30 some odd hp at level one, its ridiculous. I'm going to stop myself now, before this turns into more of a 4e rant.

[bloodtide]

Because it gives you guide lines to work with. And it's not like that hasn't been accepted tradition in table top since 1st edition anyway.

All it does is spell it out in the book a little more clearly and give some suggestions on how to do it well.

The basic problem with D&D, and really all RPGs is that they are rules that are somehow meant to cover all of (an alternate) reality. But it would be impossible to come up with a 'game' that can cover 'life'. A book can't be too many more then 300 pages, and you can't fit it all in.

But what you can do is give people the basic building blocks of an alternate reality. And let each DM build off of it.

[Yora]

The problem is that you can't sell players books with fluff. Books with new classes and feats apparently always sell, but I think they are exactly what gets people into the mindsets of searching for the optimal way of representing their character and finding powerful synergy connections, instead of making your character unique through his personalty.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

And when the game designers hand you lots of books on a regular basis and tell you "here, you need this to overcome the shortcommings of your current character build", then improving the build becomes what you concentrate on.

[Seerow]

See, this is what I am emphatically against. In 3.5 you have a series of powers that everyone has to have to be relevant, and most of the interesting/unique design goes into how to handle those abilities.

Look at the list of tier 3s, and you find that they all have different mechanics for getting powers. However, a lot of those mechanics go to replicating a series of first, second and third level spells.

Flight, invisibility, dispel, protection from energy, shatter, false life (temporary hit points), etc. Everything a Swordsage/psywarrior/beguiler/binder/etc. does is something that everyone does already, but using different mechanics.

So you want a bunch of different powers doing the exact same thing with a different name rather than just using the same power? I understand wanting different subsystems, but that doesn't explain not wanting shared powers.

[ShriekingDrake]

What makes our games great is the DM. And frankly, the DM had more to work with in 3.x. 4 had a better combat system, but thee gave the players and dm more to work with. Take the good from both, but favor 3.x, I say.

[horseboy]

To make it a roleplaying game again! .

Well, I'd argue with the 'again" part, but other than that, yeah. They really need to choose between "detail heavy" and "detail light". You can't really do both well in one system. Detail heavy requires so many more character resources than detail light that there's no really good way of scaling short of just launching parallel systems, then you're competing against yourself.

[Tvtyrant]

So you want a bunch of different powers doing the exact same thing with a different name rather than just using the same power? I understand wanting different subsystems, but that doesn't explain not wanting shared powers.

No, I want the subsystems to do different things. My point is that 3.5s subsystems don't do different things, its basically the same dozen powers repeated. I don't see the point of classes with similar abilities or subsystems; I would prefer that classes do different things and do them in different ways.

[Yora]

They seem to aim for a modular approach.

For example, you could have skills purely optional by not making skill ranks prerequisites for other things. So as in AD&D, you can play the game with skills or without.
Or you could make sub-classes like Kits in AD&D or the archetypes of Pathfinder. You can use them, or you can stick to the standard class chasis.
Or have a simple and expanded equipment list: The simple list has "dagger, small sword, medium sword, large sword", while the expanded list has "dagger, knife, kukri, stilett, gladius, sabre, scimitar, falchion, broadsword, claymore, longsword, katana, bastard sword" and so on.

Those would be options the DM could "enable" or "disable" for the campaign as he sees fit, since neither option depends on the other options being available in the game or conflicts with them.

[turkishproverb]

I'm hoping for something good. Mind you, with all the d&D descendants out there, I doubt it'll be hard for me if it's not...

[horseboy]

Those would be options the DM could "enable" or "disable" for the campaign as he sees fit, since neither option depends on the other options being available in the game or conflicts with them.

The problem with this is that before you can make a character the DM then has to hand out a list of what is and what isn't allowed that's only slightly thinner than the PHB.

[DrBurr]

• The Return of Wizards as Vancian Magic Users, though I love 4e, Wizards bug me because theirs no real difference between them and Sorcerers besides Power selection
• An overhaul of the skills system
• Retaining Fighter's combat challenge and some powers, maybe in the form of Stances which give a +1 to opportunity attacks or something
• 4e's HP system, a simple X+CON
• 4e's 4 Defenses over 3e's Saves
• Return of the Two Axis Alignment
• The ability to have Useful characters without Magic Items
• The ability to play without a battle grid

[MagnusExultatio]

I'd like to have this topic repeated and reposted at least a hundred more times, because we clearly don't have enough of these threads.

[Blas_de_Lezo]

Well, I'll rant a bit about what I don't want...

I felt D&D 4 as playing a videogame, which is not. So my group and me just QUIT playing D&D... (nobody wanted to "go back" to 3e)

Damn you Wizards...

We really hated many things from 4e. But I'm telling the most offensive stuff, out of hope to not be included in 5e, 5.0, 5whatever:

- Classic table RPG are NOT videogames. If you try to design a table RPG as a videogame, you won't have neither a videogame, neither a table RPG. So people will prefer to play videogames o go back to "safe" table RPG editions (all this revivial of "old school D&D" that we're living, well, at least in Europe)

- If there are classes, they should be different in mechanics and effects. We had the feeling playing 4e that choosing classes was like choosing the same character "with different color", as in a videogame. So, you can do almost the same type of actions and attacks, just call them "martial, arcane, psionic and divine", but at the end there was not almost diferences. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a "fireball attack" for all classes: arcane ball, divine ball, blade circle and psionic ball: blast 1, 1d6+proper stat, ¿sounds familiar?

- Forget about the perfect "balance". It's impossible to reach. Back in other editions, the player who played the meat shield was happy with that simple role, and the player who played the wizard was renowned as he had to "study" many books. This doesn't mean that warrior shouldn't have fighting options, but that it should be something unique and credible: not a weird swing of the sword that you can only do 1/day for who-knows-what-reason. Utterly ridiculous.

- It really took me out-of-the-game, that you could fight in an almost deadly combat, where you are stabbed, swinged, burnt, and critically-hit with a damn big sword, and you go to bed and wake up fully replenished without any wound. I mean, ¿¿what?? I know D&D uses HP system, but this kind of thing totally makes you believe that you're playing a videogame by just speaking. It looks designed for diminished.

- All the powers and abilities (again, a warrior shouldn't have "powers") are almost only usable at a fight. Again, it makes me think of Final Fantasy, where you can only chatter around and you are only able to use you powers in a fight (I was only hoping to the DM screen to change the kind of view of the table! )

- Roleplaying is role playing, not roll playing neither roll paying.

- There is too many magic, too many "special effects", too many powers. It makes magic look cheap.

- Where do you buy your magical items? Why can't I defeat the guy selling them and take all the magical stuff with me? Is it that you buy in an extradimensional space where you aren't allowed to kill the shop keeper? ¿As in a videogame?

- Which leads me to... Why should PCs depend on magical equipment to be effective, why did you do it WotC? ¿¿WHY?? It's so retarded. Many people don't like to depend on so many items to be effective. I want my choice back! PCs should work ok if they didn't have a fluffa-dooly-starric ton of magical garbage. Magic items should be less common. It will make finding one cooler.

- Also combat in 4e is way too long.

[Seerow]

No, I want the subsystems to do different things. My point is that 3.5s subsystems don't do different things, its basically the same dozen powers repeated. I don't see the point of classes with similar abilities or subsystems; I would prefer that classes do different things and do them in different ways.

Well there's always going to be things that everyone wants to or needs to do. A campaign where one guy can fly and everyone else can't sucks for everyone else ESPECIALLY when all the monsters can do it as well..

I'm not saying every class should have the exact same power list to pick and choose from, but those universally needed things should either be equally accessible by anybody at a point where it is still relevant, and the easiest way to do that is via shared powers.


Classes/Power Sources can have unique powers that aren't shared among others. But core things that multiple sources need shouldn't be repeated, they should just be available to the sources that need them.

[Yora]

The problem with this is that before you can make a character the DM then has to hand out a list of what is and what isn't allowed that's only slightly thinner than the PHB.

Is that any different than saying "In the campaign we start, you can use psionics and Binders, but no Incarnum and Tome of Battle. Also your characters can not be evil, will start at 4th level and everyone starts with one magic item worth about 2,500 gp."?

[Sorcerer Blob]

It was an interesting article, both the NYT and D&D ones. I have some mixed feelings about it: I'm lamenting the loss of the first D&D edition I really considered my own but also excited for what the future holds. It's a weird feeling, to be sure. Dread Gazebo definitely has the right attitude about it on his site.

That said, I'd be happy with a return to the "Advanced" line as far as naming goes. D&D 2013 just sounds so... "bleh" to me. The "Anniversary" moniker would also be fitting and interesting, methinks.

2013 is going to be an interesting year, and this playtest sounds intriguing. Here's to hoping we all get something that we want out of this!

[Psyren]

*snip*

I agree with this whole post (well, except the magic items thing - I think magic items should be either a necessity or at least extremely desirable at high levels, and their lack should be a significant drawback for most classes - but the rest is spot on.)

[bloodtide]

- Generic classes that are customizable. I think the paragon paths in 4th Edition were the right idea, though I have no idea about the implimentation. Pathfinder with the Rage powers, Rogue Talents, and Sorcerer bloodlines are another attempt, or the Talent Trees from Star Wars Saga. But I'd like to see the game limited to 10 base classes that can get additional customizations as options.
Like having a warrior cleric or a cloistered cleric. Maybe even make it that you can multiclass them and split up advancement among the branches.

I too like generic classes, but sure don't like the 4E 'locked in' type system. I like it more like 3E where a person can make any type character they wish and they don't have to follow a set plan.

[DarkEricDraven]

Well, I'd sure like Dungeons and Dragons this time, rather then Dungeons and Dragons: World of Warcraft. A return to subtle, awesome, animeish Tieflings, rather then "DEVILS FROM 1990 DEATH METAL ALBUMS!". Something like a total return to form.