D&D 5th Edition makes the New York Times

[Yora]

On that subject, please return to a normal letter size. It might be nice for people with poor eyesight, but it doesn't need to have that big and bright. Looks like artifically inflating the page count while making it neccessary to turn lots of pages when you could have a lot more info in the same page.

[Surrealistik]

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.

Lol what? Balancing is the one thing it actually gets _right_ vis a vis the vast majority of other tabletop systems. There's plenty of customization opportunities; the only thing I don't really like in this regard are the occasional powers and feats that are essentially must haves, but there's nothing that even begins to approach 3.5 levels of broken.


Personally I'd like to see its two remaining major flaws; skill challenges and rituals revised.

Rituals should be useful albeit difficult to use and not obviate the use of skills and powers, but should never, or at worst rarely come at the cost of permanent, irreplaceable resources.

[Manateee]

I'd like to see the Core 5e rulebook to be very short, very light, very cheap. One race, three or four base classes [bear with me for a minute], a generalized conflict resolution system with a shared engine between combat-related skills (including attacks and defense), noncombat skills and magic. The resolution mechanic for various actions should be quick, involving one die roll from the characters involved and a general assessment of difficulty by the DM, along the lines of Fudge.

But alongside the publication of the Core rulebook, I'd like to see small supplements to flesh out various areas of the D&D game, both for content and in small supplemental rules systems such as 2e's Player's Options.

The content-based supplements wouldn't be particularly interesting. They'd introduce a race (think the individual race rundowns from the Races of series, plus a handful of subraces and class modifications for all 3-4 core classes), a family of thematic subclasses (eg. a Warrior supplement might involve different tweaks of the core Warrior class to tailor them into different specific weapons specialists, or a Barbarians supplement might provide tweaks to the core classes to turn them into Berserkers, Rangers and Druids) or a collections of thematic monsters. None of these would be published as full $30-40 books with the amount of contents of 3.5 or 4th edition materials, but instead as lighter, smaller $5-10 expansions.

The part that I think would be more interesting would be a series of rulebooks to tone up the Core game into something crunchier. An Advanced 5e Tome could be released alongside the core and rereleased later, including subsequent updates. The first Advanced 5e Tome would include specific rulings for common quantifiable actions, such as precisely how far a Jump check takes a character or how long a character can hold his breath underwater. But it would also have smaller expansions elaborating on different subjects, both combat related (such as a book detailing involved tactical options for melee combat, ranged combat, or new ways to use spells) and not (such as a books statting out naval maneuvers or diplomatic measures that might support courtly intrigue). These could be later compiled into the Advanced Tome on a yearly basis.

Ideally, the light core rulebook would be released at the same time as an advanced play manual, booklets for the various traditional races, a couple class expansions and enough monster guides to make things interesting.

There are a few advantages I'd see in this:

• Most obviously, there'd be support for a lighter beer&pretzels game.
• There'd be more freedom for the buyers to custom-tailor their games' contents - new classes and races could be smoothly integrated, old classes and races could be slowly removed.
• Mechanical updates could be selected and directly applied to the game. A routine release of Player's Option-styled manuals could make something like 3e's introduction of ToB mechanics work more smoothly by applying the mechanics to existing classes, rather than introducing new mechanics alongside the old ones.
• It would allow for a more versatile game. D&D is traditionally highly involved in combat, but the D&D system fights against things like investigation stories. A more module release of rules would make it easier to tailor the game to focus on stories that aren't mostly about beating stuff up eg. dropping the involved combat rules, bringing in a supplement about interrogations and deceptions to customize a less combat-heavy game.
• It would also provide a smooth means of skimming by scenes by selectively applying the light rules to circumstances where rules-heavy involvement isn't necessary.
• Players would get to cherrypick the materials they want without buying the stuff that goes along with it in larger publications. Given the number of times I hear people balk at buying eg. ToM while lusting for the Binder, I suspect that would benefit both buyers and sellers.
• Selling smaller more specific materials would give WotC more direct feedback over the kinds of things players want/are willing to pay for than giant aggregates of content do.
• People seem jazzed about the microtransaction model. I don't know enough about the market habits of those sorts of interaction to say anything about it, but lots of smaller, lighter supplements would play into that model.

I'd also like to totally do away with the ideas of expected wealth/loot by level or magic item dependence from the core game. Knowing that you're going to get a +1 sword around level 4-6 makes the +1 sword you find even more boring than it is from the +numbers alone.

[kaomera]

I hope for a game where fights can be honestly lost as well as won without bringing the game to a halt.

+1. Hell, +∞. I'd also like to see usable system for all of the cool stuff other than combat - exploration, anything that would be a skill challenge, etc.

[Curious]

Spoiler

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Ideally? It'd be a bit like 3.5, but with the following changes.

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.

More dangerous combat/complex encounters. Even without notable optimizing, I can kinda faceroll any vaguely level appropriate encounter in 3.x or 4.

Better social rules. Holy god, do I hate diplomacy as it is written.

Better support for non-magical laden item chars. Again, I have no problem with them myself...but not everyone needs to be one.

An explicit mechanism for players/dms to negotiability affect the plot, similar to drama dice or fate points.

Smaller numbers. Seriously, a thousand xp per level, 100 xp an encounter...you can basically lop off the last digit of all that stuff. It's like tracking spell components or purchases of fishhooks. Dispense with all the pointless bookwork.

More than anything what I'd like them to do is go back to including real significant variety between the classes.

In 3.5 you can play a basic melee fighter/archer, a Vancian caster, a spontaneous caster, a psionic character who casts with PP, a ToB martial adept who uses maneuvers, an Incarnum user who reallocates essentia, a factotum who uses inspiration, and a dozen other types who are all wildly different in mechanics and feel, and you can play all of those classes at any level between level 1 weaklings who go down in one blow to level 20 near-omnipotent demigods who treat the multiverse as their playground.

It's the variety that appeals to me and it's the reason that I'm still playing 3.5 despite having given up on 4e a couple of years ago. If they can't match 3.5's variety then I'm probably not going to stick with 5e no matter how shiny it is.

These. Really, this is all I want out of a good d&d game; solid balance, variety, and as few disassociated mechanics as possible.

[Maxios]

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

No hate. Was just predicting what will possibily happen.

[Infernalbargain]

Although I'd like faster combat, I also don't want the rocket tag of 3.x. Rocket tag makes combat overly volatile independent of player's actions. It also doesn't allow for tactical genius comebacks.

[quillbreaker]

Letting the players design the game is good press but bad policy. I hope they aren't actually doing it. It would be some existing edition with everyone's favorite house rule welded on the side of it, and most house rules a) are there to make the game more realistic by some fool's definition of realistic and/or b) don't do what they are intended to do.

[Yora]

It's not the number of turns, but the length of each turn that I dislike about D&D.Having 10 and more rounds wouldn't bother me if every player can make his turn in 10 to 15 seconds.

[valadil]

Generic classes that are customizable.

I know. They looked cool but I never found a GM willing to play with them.

- 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 mostly agree. I think I'd like to see a compromise here. Have a vancian and a non-vancian caster class. Let them use the same spells, but with different mechanics. I could live with something like that.

• An overhaul of the skills system

The one thing I really enjoyed about 4e skills was that they were balanced in terms of usefulness. 3.5 bugged me because there were skills that were useful under some GMs, but not others. Forgery is a fine example of this. 4e's skills are all within the same general level of usefulness. I think that would be a nice goal.

One thing I did for expanding 4e skills was that I let people use skills in new ways if their background called for it. Normally playing an instrument is undefined and would default to a charisma check. But a bard or other character who had an interest in music could use diplomacy instead. This worked pretty well, though I wouldn't mind seeing it a little more formalized. Maybe something like Complete Scoundrel's skill tricks, where new uses of skills could be purchased.

What I'd love would be for them to blatantly rip off MERP's skills. The way that worked was that you had a number of skill categories, each with 4 skills. Each class got 15 skill points total, but they were distributed differently depending on which class you were. So warriors had 5 points in weapons and nothing in magic. Scouts and rangers had several points for subterfuge. Etc. You could trade points into another category at 2:1 if your class got points in the other category or at 4:1 if they didn't.

...and an abandonment of skill challenges.

Not sure I'd go that far. They definitely need work though.

In general the skill challenges that sucked were the ones that the GM told you were skill challenges. Then they'd ask you for a skill and the best trained character would roll that while everyone else assisted. Bleh.

The good challenges were implicit. The GM let us blunder through a level. We asked to do things that seemed appropriate. Sometimes he'd ask for a die roll and wrote down the result. But he never told us what we were rolling for.

The point is, most of those SCs could be good or bad depending on who was GMing them. A good GM knew what was going on and made it fun. A poor one ran you through an obstacle course. The rules as written didn't really guide the average GM and let him stumble through instead.

Finally, regarding class balance what I'd most like to see would be well documented imbalance. I'd like WotC to create an official tier system. Within each tier the classes should be balanced, but between tiers all bets are off. I think imbalance makes things interesting, but I don't want to deal with a system that pretends the imbalance doesn't exist.

[OracleofWuffing]

Letting the players design the game is good press but bad policy. I hope they aren't actually doing it.

Well, chances are they're just printing the suggestions off into a shredder that they use to make material to fuel their furnaces, then fabricate complaints about the system which will be answered by the changes that were previously developed in house, making it look like they were listening. After all, that's what companies do. Mind you, they would certainly claim that they valued and used feedback from their players in every product they ever produced.

Although I'm somewhat interested in seeing a system that combines all the worst elements of all the editions, I'm vaguely interested to see what sort of new things will be done to separate this from previous systems.

[BudgetDM]

Either spell points of some kind or spell casting causing some kind of fatigue. Ideally set-up in such a ways as to allow DMs to tweak it for high or low magic.

A modular system of hit points, from gritty to superheroic.

[OracleofWuffing]

"Stick to the plan."

I don't care what's going on there mechanically or fluff-wise. Every time Wizards announces their new business strategy changes, it sticks out like a sore thumb, people complain about it (whether warranted or not), and those complaints get repeated the next time it happens bringing further attention to the situation.

Do whatever, one or two of you guys have to be doing something moderately fine, I'm in no position to tell you what to do. But, you know, try to achieve your goals, and, yeah, kinda follow through after meeting those goals.

Also I want more motorcycles.

[Urpriest]

"Stick to the plan."

I don't care what's going on there mechanically or fluff-wise. Every time Wizards announces their new business strategy changes, it sticks out like a sore thumb, people complain about it (whether warranted or not), and those complaints get repeated the next time it happens bringing further attention to the situation.

Do whatever, one or two of you guys have to be doing something moderately fine, I'm in no position to tell you what to do. But, you know, try to achieve your goals, and, yeah, kinda follow through after meeting those goals.

Also I want more motorcycles.

This, and reforge the base. I want a game that 80% of 3.5 players, 80% of 4e players, 80% of Pathfinder players, and hey even 80% of Legend players, will agree is unambiguously superior. D&D is not the only RPG, not even the only dungeoncrawling RPG. What D&D's greatest virtue has always been is that everyone could agree on it. Easy to find a group, and you know what to expect when you find one. If you introduce someone to RPGs, you give them D&D. Like World of Warcraft, the whole point of D&D is being the proverbial 800 pound gorilla. D&D is the Giant in the Playground. If D&D isn't the majority game, if it isn't the default when people mention RPGs, if it isn't supremely confident in itself, then there is absolutely no reason beyond nostalgia for it to exist.

[Trog]

Most important thing is faster combats.

It's not the number of turns, but the length of each turn that I dislike about D&D.Having 10 and more rounds wouldn't bother me if every player can make his turn in 10 to 15 seconds.

This.

Spell descriptions got reduced in 4e (Side note: Huz-freaking-zah for things like defining terms and "this breaks the rules and that's fine according to the rules too so shut your pie hole about it" as these two things save a TON of arguments that plagued the earlier editions.) but things like swinging a sword got to be a longer process. I like attack variety but I also require speed and ease of use to aid that speed. Easier than 4e. Can't there be some universal attacks for all classes and that certain classes can add different effects instead of making a separate power for ever separate combination of attack and effect at every separate level for every separate class? Seems like a good way to fill books but a crappy mess to wade through as a player. Can't strikers just add extra generic damage to their attacks, controllers add extra debilitating effects, Leaders add extra ally boons and Defenders add extra nearby targets? I dunno.... I'm just brainstorming here. 4e began to make D&D's main four character types into a sort of chess-piece-like uniqueness and usefulness. It needs to take the next step and solidify and simplify those roles in the new edition somehow.

This next bit I've been saying for a while now but I'll say it yet again: All monsters should scale across All levels with a minimum of work for the DM to convert them. If I want a nation of orcs to be serious threats to a nation of humans and my players want to play mid-level PCs to take them on and plan to try and go up to mid-high level then the game should accomodate my playing style or story. Or anyone's playing style or story. I can't be the only DM that has had to convert over a cool monster into another tier just because it wasn't meant to fit there according to WotC's guidelines for their own adventures. I don't run your adventures guys, sorry, I run my own. But I use your monsters because making up the plots and worlds and maps and NPCs and scenarios and combat maps and treasures and rumors and everything else BUT making up the monsters is where I, as a DM, spend most of my hours. Spending even more on shoehorning a good monster into my players' characters' level is work that I shouldn't have to dread doing.

That's all I can think of for now... I'm sure there's more but it's not coming to me right now.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

This is my opinion on what aspects of each D&D edition so far should be incorporated into the upcoming fifth edition. Please share your own ideas.

Basic D&D: The minimalistic philosophy concerning character options. Dungeons & Dragons doesn't need a massive bloat of items, spells, powers, feats, races, classes and themes to be fun. Getting the options right is much more important than frantically churning them out. Sure, there should be enough to give your character a distinct feel, but do they really need dozens of new powers to choose from at every level? A handful is enough, so long as those powers are crafted with care.

AD&D 1e/2e: Being a hero. One of the things that irks me about Fourth Edition is that there are several races that are only really playable as dark, brooding anti-heroes that walk the line between light and darkness. Races such as tieflings, shades, other shades (called "shadar-kai" or something), and drow. I'm okay with a bit of that stuff here and there, but it seems that dark characters are getting more attention than shiny ones as of late. It explicitly states in the new Red Box "Dungeons & Dragons is about being a hero", but WotC isn't really living up to that.

The art. One thing I loved about old AD&D - especially late 90s AD&D - was the art. Adventure covers looked like the covers of those awesome old fantasy and sci-fi novels, and brought to mind things like Conan the Barbarian, the Hobbit, and Forbidden Planet.

The lack of focus on balance. Some character classes are harder to play than others. Some have a harder time staying alive. Suck it up. I'm not saying there should be intentional power gaps between classes, but the game feels more real when more attention is paid to making the classes interesting and believable than evenly powerful.

AD&D 3.0/3.5: Miniatures and grids being optional. One of the amazing things about 3.x was the fact that one can play equally well with or without using miniatures and grid maps. Sure, grid maps made the game a tad more realistic, but everything worked perfectly and confusion-free without them. I understand that Dungeons & Dragons is made by people who play A LOT of tactical miniatures games, which is why they should make an extra effort to make miniatures optional.

The multi-classing system. It was great how classes could be layered on top of each other, used to build characters like lego-blocks. One could play a tenth-level character who was a Barbarian/Druid with an extra focus on greatsword use and combating undead (Druid 4/Barbarian 4/Fighter 1/Paladin 1) without too much messing around. It was fun to construct new classes by combining existing ones.

AD&D 4e/Essentials: The minimalistic skill system. One of the things I used to dread about 3.5 character creation was assigning skills. One had to first figure out how many skill points they had (which took longer than it should have), then decide where they would put them, then apply ability modifiers, then calculate synergies, then realize that they screwed up early on and have to do most of that again. Fourth Edition fixed this.

The monster design. I think 4e monsters stuck around a little to long in battle, but besides that, monster design was near-perfect. Monster roles were great, sub-roles were even better, and making homebrew monsters was as fun as it was easy.

[Gralamin]

I like 4e. I like 3.5. I like Legend. This list isn't all inclusive, it's just off the top of my head.

Here are the things I'd like to see stay from 4e:
- Dynamic fluid combat, with a good balance, and a focus on tactics over power-gaming.
- Traps and challenges as part of the combat - just because you are killing a demon doesn't mean you can't also be saving a princess.
- Warlords
- More "Soft control" effects then "Hard control" (IE, slowing the opponent should be a large advantage, but don't just take them out of the fight or kill them instantly.)
- Large amounts of DM support and content devoted toward making a DM's life easier.
- Minions

Here is what I'd like to see stay from 3.5:
- Willingness to experiment with the system (ToB, Psionics, Binding, MoI)
- Non-combat options.

Here is what I'd like to see from Legend:
- Legend style multi-classing
- Most of the Legend non-combat stuff, or interesting combat variants.
- Interesting classes, with interesting other options available
- Interesting, discrete, powerful feats.
- Items / full buy-in
- Legendary
- Fast combat, without being too fragile. Maybe a bit tougher.

[Stubbazubba]

Business-wise, I would release all the fluff descriptions on the official website, so people can get really into the idea of a certain campaign setting and decide they want to buy it so they can have it fully realized in numbers. That would work on me, at least.

Although more important than that is to define their end goal ahead of time and then deliver a product which fulfills said goal. Wizards needs their own version of Steve Jobs; someone who not only has a vision which can revolutionize an industry (several times over) but has the determination to perfect all the little details so the product exceeds customers' expectations of what to expect from a TTRPG. Unfortunately, no one they have on their team has ever shown said determination.

Talking about the game itself, I agree with Manatee that there should be light and heavy rules for each aspect of the game, though I have serious reservations about the odds this goal has of being realized. I would love to be able to play a stealth/political game of spies and subterfuge with battles that only take 15-20 minutes to resolve, instead of 30-45, without having to buy another game and get used to entirely different mechanics. Basically, you would need two different Resolution Mechanics, but then write all the abilities so that they're mostly able to be resolved using either one.

I think WotC really has a golden opportunity to do something revolutionary here. Yes, 4e was revolutionary in many ways, but it was plagued by poor implementation at most every level and inadequate testing, which led to reams and reams of errata, and a game which left a bad taste in the mouths of many. 4e was, by and large, less fun than the previous edition, thus PF picked up all that slack. Pathfinder's success means that the old formula seemed to ring true-er to many players, but it also means that WotC cannot go back. If they try, it'll fail, because everyone has PF already; they even released their own SRD now. Wizards has to chart a new course, and really push the genre in a good way, in order to become what they used to be. They have to articulate the place that they want the genre to go, an unknown place that has not yet been explored, and it has to be the right place, the right target. Then they have to create a product that truly delivers that target output. Do I think they can do it? Not really, no. But I'll dream about the awesome turnaround of the D&D brand under daring new designers and extremely capable developers still.

[Seerow]

Things I really want to see:

-Powers for everyone. I don't care if you call them powers or something else to suit your fancy. If Clerics use Prayers, while Fighters use Feats, while Mages use spells, and Psions use Manifestations, that's fine. But everyone gets cool things to do, both in and out of combat.

-You get both more powers, and better variety of powers than in 4e. In Tome of Battle, a 20th level character will have at least 13 maneuvers known, and 7 readied.That can be as high without any multiclassing or feats as 25 known and 12 readied. With dips and optimization the numbers of abilities get much higher. Plus you can recharge mid combat.
To contrast, a 30th level 4e character will have 2 at wills, 3 or 4 encounter powers, and 3 or 4 daily powers. Lower than the lowest number from Tome of Battle. Comparing it to any sort of spell caster and that comparison is far worse (say a Wizard who gets 40+ spells known just from leveling, and can learn more). Point is, you should have many more options available at any given time.

-Power sources should relate directly to resource systems. A guy who gets his abilities from martial training should feel very different from a guy who draws on arcane energies, who should also feel different from someone who channels the power of gods or demons. 3.5 has a ton of subsystems that could be cherry picked from and improved on, to make sure every power source has a solid base mechanic that could be improved upon.

-Powers should be your nice things, feats should be an expression of minor customization and role customization. They should be the thing that separates a Fighter Tank from a Fighter Controller from a Fighter Striker. Rather than roles based on class, classes should be somewhat capable of performing in at least 2-3 roles (if not all), and can use feats to augment their capabilities to make them truly fill that role.

-3.5 style multiclassing should come back, but more streamlined. I'm imagining things like prestige classes that say +1 level to Class abilities, rather than haphazardly trying to apply things like smite progression or only advancing maneuver progression. Possibly also something like the ToB 1/2 level out of the class counts as one level in class for powers, so when multiclassing you still remain somewhat relevant. A lot of the details here would depend on other things, but the big thing would be maintaining the flexibility of 3.5, while streamlining the process.

-Skills need to be consolidated greatly. Knowledge/Profession and other background skills should be tracked separately from 'real' skills. So you get x+int mod background skills, then get Y real skills from your class. Real skills should be pared down so there's no more than a dozen of them, allowing a skill monkey like a rogue to be trained in 2/3 of the skill list before burning anything like feats.

-RNG needs to be stable. 4e did a good job with this. I actually really like the way Legend handled it as well, and think their method is preferable as it allows bringing back different BAB progressions.

-Monster rules heavily based on 4e. Change the math around to hit a more desirable combat duration, if the fights drag too long, but please keep Monsters as separate from PCs. I don't care that random guy on the internet wants to play a beholder and he can't do that if monsters are different. It's far more important that the barrier to entry for DMing is MUCH lower with the simpler monster set up.

-Items should not be necessary. I would prefer default rules with no/rare magic items and an optional rule to bring back +x items, but if need be a set +x item progression that can be eschewed for an optional no/low magic ruleset is okay.

-4e HP levels/healing surges. I really am a fan of the healing surge mechanic, and also like how 4e gives more HP at low levels while giving less HP at higher levels. I'd personally ask to give rolled HP back, with an optional rule for the set HP gains (ie instead of gain 5 HP a level, give d8 hp each level).

-Standardized buff/debuff durations. In 3.5 you have rounds, minutes, hours, days. In 4e you have beginning of next turn, end of enemies next turn, save ends, end of encounter. I'd like to see it standardized to three durations: Beginning of your next turn, End of Encounter, All Day. Saving Throws only come in when an ability specifically allows it. So the Barbarian gets hit with Paralysis until end of the encounter. He's stuck that way until the end of the encounter, unless he happens to have Iron Heart Surge, in which case on his turn he yells "By Crom!" and makes a saving throw. (Saving throws would use the 4e mechanic of roll a 10 or higher to break out. Higher level effects may grant bonuses or penalties on the saving throw)

[The Underlord]

My opionion=everything Seerow said

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think any of a number of things could be done to advance 5e in ways that I'd love, but most of them are extrapolations of ideas that began in 3.5e and Pathfinder, which means that if I want those ideas to see the light of day, I could basically just merge 3.5 and Pathfinder--and I, and many others, already have.

But that isn't to say that these ideas themselves aren't worth merit, so here goes:

(EDIT: TL;DR is in the spoiler below for those of you who don't want to read through all this.)

Spoiler

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1) A diverse array of base and prestige classes, with varied and unique combat systems when the situation calls for it
2) More limited-list casters with more specific focuses, like the 3.5 Dread Necromancer and the Pathfinder Alchemist
3) Classes as templates, and genuine class features as feats
4) Splat support for everything published

1) A large, diverse array of base and prestige classes: There are more than 50 base classes in D&D 3.5 (and hundreds of Prestige Classes), all of which fit a particular niche, none of which feels entirely like playing any other class, only a few of which are generic (and most of those, like the Fighter, are designed that way). Many of these classes incorporate entirely unique systems (such as the Binder, Shadowcaster and Truenamer in Tome of Magic, the Warlock and any other Invocation-users, the Martial Adepts in Tome of Battle, and so on). Going beyond the base classes, you have an extremely diverse array of prestige classes that combine character options (like the Mystic Theurge, Arcane Trickster, and Jade Phoenix Mage), or develop increasingly specific, highly specialized characters (such as the Malconvoker and the Exotic Weapon Master) that basically made it possible for anyone to actualize literally any idea that they wanted (up to, and including, characters that specialized in the use of single skills).

In my opinion, this was one of the things that 3.5e/PF did right that 4e didn't. I played 4e briefly in two different games (one at 3rd-4th level and one at 6th-7th), and in both games, my characters and everyone else's characters did essentially the same thing. It felt like we all rolled the same characters, basically. I think that 4e concerned itself too much with being simple and easy-access, and so they didn't have the diversity inherent in a system that itself had lots of systems (like inspiration points, invocations, spells, powers, pact/shadow/truename magic, martial powers, etc). Every class seemed to be working within the confines of the same system, so at the same time you had many classes being pigeonholed into the same roles, and a lot of lines being blurred.

2) Subsets of Spell Lists: While both 3.5 and Pathfinder had the Wizard, and Sorcerer (and to a lesser extend the Cleric and Druid), which can cast literally everything under the sun with enough splatbooks and are all generally broken to Hell, they also included base classes with specialized focuses that were much better designed: in addition to the Bard (which has always been around), the Beguiler, Dread Necromancer and Warmage still strike me as among the most well-balanced classes in 3.5 (the Hexblade, Duskblade, and a few other classes lag behind these in power somewhat, but also fall under this category), and they are able to very effectively fulfill their niche (Beguiler is a roguish enchanter-type; Warmage is a combat-focused blaster; and Dread Necromancer is a summoner who deals in death magic) without becoming catch-all characters. Pathfinder did this largely with their 6th-level casters, namely the Summoner (a Conjurer), Alchemist (a Transmuter), Magus (an Evoker), and Inquisitor (doesn't really have a school focus, but Diviner/Abjurer is close), all of which use the precedence and design model originally reserved for the Bard.

All of these classes have either 2/3 (PF) or full (3.5e) casting, and are more than competent spellcasters in their own right; however, all of their class spells are drawn from subsets of the traditional arcane and divine lists, meaning that they can do what they were designed to do quite well, but aren't able to do everything (meaning they don't step on everyone's toes) and they don't shatter the balance of the game. What's more, since all of these classes have a focus more specific than "I cast arcane spells" or "I cast divine spells", they also (for the most part) have class features that are both unique and interesting! Had it been around at the time, and had our DM been the type that would have allowed it, I'd bet my bottom dollar that the Cleric in my 3.5 group (who was playing an inquisition-type character) would have loved to play the Inquisitor out of Pathfinder, and the Illusion-focused Sorcerer would have loved to play a Beguiler (I actually suggested this, and the DM shut it down - sad face). This strikes me as a good way to incorporate class balance in a way that still renders all the characters unique and the playing experience enjoyable, and rather than seeing the Big Three (Wizard, Cleric and Druid) playable out-of-the-box as they've always been, I'd like to see them focus on more specialized caster roles that use subsets and varieties of the umbrella lists that these three cast from.

(If people would still like a greater level of customization with their spell lists in character creation, perhaps they could still have classes that can draw from any of the lists, but in different ways: For example, limited-list casters can learn spells like the Shugenja learns them, but with a focus on favored schools instead of favored elements; or instead of starting as generalists and dropping schools, prepared casters can begin as highly specialized casters and add schools as they level up and broaden the scope, say, beginning with one or two schools, and adding a new school every four levels, but at a cumulative -4 penalty to caster levels. This way, when a Necromancer/Transmuter becomes 5th level and selects Conjuration as his new school, he can learn, prepare, and cast spells as if he were a 5th-level Necromancer/Transmuter and a 1st-level Conjurer.)

3) Character Classes as Templates/Class Features as Feats: 3.5 and Pathfinder do the former on a detail-oriented level already, and frankly, I like both systems that are already in use. The first way that they incorporate this on a small level is alternative class features, which play into both systems, but more heavily in 3.5, where you have literally dozens of variants for some classes (mainly the core classes), allowing you to trade some class features for others that are like in kind (like the ranger trading evasion for the ability to feign death, for example). Pathfinder does this as well, but they have also included customization on a different level: Characters of all types get class-specific traits and characteristics of various kinds that they can use to supplement their existing features, such as the Alchemist's discoveries, the Rogue's talents, and the Barbarian's rage powers. This serves as an effective way to give characters who don't already have diverse applications for their primary class feature (cough cough, Druid) to tweak their characters as they see fit.

But what I'm talking about is more along the lines of the Generic Classes delivered to us in Unearthed Arcana. There, we were given the Generic Expert, Generic Warrior and Generic Spellcaster, which were basically nameless, faceless templates, whose only class features were bonus feats (or, in the case of the Spellcaster, spells. Surprise, surprise). What made these bonus feats interesting is that you could select a number of class features as opposed to the generic list of feats. Doing this, you could have a fighter-esque character with Improved Evasion and Uncanny Dodge, or a Spellcaster with splashes of Sneak Attack to complement certain spells without having confusing class combinations or gestalts. You also got to select your skills and your good save, which meant you could have a reflexive Warrior or a willful Expert.

Now, imagine if this idea was implemented to a greater extent: If a broader range of class features were made accessible as feats, but perhaps to weaker extents (analogous to using the Rage spell for power level instead of the Barbarian Rage class feature, or only getting 1/day usage per feat, as is the case with the Favored Enemy feat), then you could have the fullest level of class feature customization available, and create whatever works best for you.

Really, feats in general just need a huge overhaul anyway. Almost every feat ever published, especially those in the core books, was terrible (metamagics excluded, but largely only because of metamagic abuse), and it made playing a class that had "bonus feats" as its defining class feature, like the Fighter, feel pointless. Dodge, you say? You mean I get to declare an enemy at the beginning of combat and get a whole +1 bonus to AC against that creature only for the duration of the encounter? And I get 11 of these features of similar power level as all of my class features from 1 to 20? Where do I sign?

Feats in 3.5 were a missed opportunity to do something fun and interesting and offer a greater level of customization. I mean, metamagic feats weren't--metamagic feats were pretty much what you might want a feat to be, ultimately--but instead of getting something interesting, like a new strike, or attack method, or entirely unique ability (imagine if, as a feat, the fighter could learn a special attack that let them hamstring their opponents, reducing their movement speed to 5ft for rounds/level, or daze the enemy for 1 round with a successful melee attack, or perhaps something cooler from someone more inventive than me?). Martial Study and Martial Stance are a step in the right direction, being that they give you extra unique strikes and stances, but this should have been something that was happening from the very first splatbook, not the very last.

I think 4e did this fairly well to a certain extent with the dizzying number of unique attacks and features that you could choose within a single class, but nothing really beats Unearthed Arcana's level of customization in this respect.

Let's see... I know I had more, but I can't quite remember them, I spent so much time with the first three...

Oh, yes.

4) Splat Support for Everyone and Everything: If there's one thing that really annoys me about 3.5, it's that, unless the class was printed in Core, it's not going to get any love from any book that it didn't originate from (with few minor exceptions). There are a lot of interesting base classes, for example, that never got any love outside of the book that they originated in, such as the Duskblade, Warmage, Shadowcaster, Martial Adepts, and the Scout. Some of these (like the Scout) have bonus feat lists that are very limited in scope (Complete Adventurer and Player's Handbook only, if I recall), while there are a number of cool feats that would be great on their bonus feat list if only splat support was added for it. The Duskblade would be a really cool class if only it had spells like Whirling Blade and Combust on its spell list, and it might have them too, if only splat support was added for it. Instead, the Scout has an ostensibly core-only list of feats, doesn't support any other splat books that came out before its time, and isn't supported by any splat books that came out after, and the Duskblade has a fairly gimped list of spells that don't even include many of what could have been the smartest choices for the Duskblade, if only splat support was added for it. They were smarter about this in the design of some other characters (the Hexblade draws its spells known list from schools of magic, instead of from a specific list, so its list would naturally grow with more published spells of that school), but most characters lived and died only within their own book (particularly those from the Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic books, which had their own unique systems that were largely explored only within their own book and a few select web supports).

And if you were prestiging into a class that had a unique spell or feat list? Unless it's the Assassin (a core PrC), fuggeddaboutit. You get the meager spell list you ascribed to, and only that meager spell list. There are dozens of PrCs with their own spell lists or feats that literally got nothing but what was written in their initial entries that could have been improved incrementally, if only splat support was added for it.

This problem is so pervasive that I'm considering writing up a splat support entry for every under-supported class and feature in the 3.5 system, big and small (and have already done so for Permanency, my first big undertaking).

Seriously, if every 5e book had just one chapter, or a section in the glossary, or a "Special:" addendum at the end of each feat, detailing which classes get new goodies from the book as splat support, I'd propably jump on 5e like my friend's homebrewed Dragoon on... Well... More or less anything, really.

[Tengu_temp]

I hope the involvement of Monte Cook and the Essentials guy in the project just means they're fetching coffee for the people who do the actual designing work.

[Mando Knight]

won't have the god-awful at will power system,

...At-will powers is personally one of the things I like about 4e.

[MeeposFire]

...At-will powers is personally one of the things I like about 4e.

agreed. I always look for ways to get more at will powers.

[Sidmen]

...At-will powers is personally one of the things I like about 4e.

Got to agree with you there. Being able to shoot off a Magic Missile whenever I felt like it seems like a good thing to me - as opposed to "you can use this very basic spell 2 times today"...

[horngeek]

...really? It's only been three years since 4e, and you're releasing a new edition?

Eh.

It should be noted that I like 4e, so this may be coloring my reactions.

[LordBlades]

Seriously I really hope not. The way 4e handled monsters (in terms of ease of use) is one of the best things that WotC did in 4e. It makes things infinitely easier on a DM trying to figure out what his party can and cannot handle, and it's also much easier and faster to run monsters with only a couple of powers vs monsters with a full PC stat block. The only change I'd want to see is in the core math, where monsters typically have a little too much HP and too little damage, particularly at higher levels. The benefit of getting PCs who can play as monstrous races is dubious at best. While strange/exotic races are relatively popular on the internet, my experience is that the vast majority of gaming groups don't like them even if they are perfectly balanced.

It's a matter of taste I guess. I personally like a world where stuff makes sense for in-game reasons, not because 'it's level appropriate'.

Also, especially as a player, but also as a DM, I like to be able to do stuff that I want without changing the rules(even if it's hard to do/not very effective), not to be flat out told by the system 'you can't have it; that's an ability for team PC/team monster and you're on the other team'.

[Lord Raziere]

darn it, people were right, there will be a new edition…

but considering how opinions are so varied about DnD these days….I question how player feedback will improve things.

what I'm hoping for is more at-will powers and some mana system for the more powerful stuff.
and no more alignment, and a more skill-based system.

my hopes will probably be dashed. anyone want to start a pretend betting pool for what they will change in 5E? I bet three cookies that the above stuff will happen!

[WickerNipple]

...really? It's only been three years since 4e, and you're releasing a new edition?

Eh.

It should be noted that I like 4e, so this may be coloring my reactions.

And thus the edition war cycle continues!

[Seerow]

It's a matter of taste I guess. I personally like a world where stuff makes sense for in-game reasons, not because 'it's level appropriate'.

Also, especially as a player, but also as a DM, I like to be able to do stuff that I want without changing the rules(even if it's hard to do/not very effective), not to be flat out told by the system 'you can't have it; that's an ability for team PC/team monster and you're on the other team'.

You can make PC and NPC abilities interchangeable. I really don't mind that.

However I don't think that a Monster needs to have a full selection of feats, and as many powers as a PC. A mid-high level PC might have as many as 20 powers to manage, plus resources to manage and other things to keep track of. The PC needs these things because he has exactly one character to keep him engaged with the game. He needs to be getting something new every level and have enough options available to keep things interesting for him.

The monster on the other hand? He doesn't care if he got a feat at third level. He doesn't need 20 powers. He's only going to exist in the game for an average of 4 rounds anyway. Give him 2-3 powers, maybe with a recharge timer, and HP/Hit bonus/Defenses that are level appropriate, and he's good to go.

I don't care if the monster draws from PC powers, or if some monsters have unique powers that can be picked up by PCs somehow or another. What I do care about is that NPC complexity be kept down enough that they can be run as easily as in 4e. If that means that a NPC orc has fewer powers, and statistics that aren't 100% accurate when compared to a PC Orc Fighter, I'm really not too bothered, because it's almost a certainty that the PCs won't ever notice the difference.