D&D General What elements does D&D need to keep?

[billd91]

I am baffled how levels can be so popular when XP are not? What's the point of levels if you don't earn your XP?

Accumulating XPs is only one way to level up. Plenty of people prefer milestone leveling.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Simple in theory but not in practice.

No, it's simple in practice too. Since that's what I do. It's not simple for the GM, since I have to keep track of how much XP each character gets; but the players just get their number (along with the explanation of what it's for - that bit's important so they know how to earn it).

But to each their own. This part answered my question:

People like level-ups because it drips novelty and mastery into the game.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Another way to look at it is 'what does XP offer the player outside of leveling, which can be divorced from XP?'.

Back in the day, it was a motivator to get the players to take risks fighting monsters and logistics puzzling treasure back to town, but these days fighting monsters is its own reward and far fewer people enforce logistics puzzles so... the question is what else can XP offer?

 

[Maxperson]

With the obvious caveat of "play what you like", I have never gotten these types of characters. The ones who MUST be 3-4 archetypes crammed together like that. I have a player in my group who does exactly this: he can't pick just one archetype, he picks several and somehow his tortle bard w who not only fights giants and wanders The Sword Coast in search of adventure, is also a popular chef and the culinary critic writer and restaurant reviewer for a Waterdeep newsrag and whose personality is a mix of Volo, Anthony Bourdain and Alec Guinness's Obi-Wan. That sentence wore me out. There is nothing wrong with playing off type, but that reads to my like three very interesting characters (mad scientist, Disney princess, sinister-origin aasimar) all Frankensteined together.

Play what you love man, but I don't get it.

I can understand it. Just looking at those three, mad scientist(what you do) and sinister-origin Aasimar(who you are) fit a theme. I don't see how Disney Princess fits in there, but other "in-theme" types can work well together with the other two. People are complex and generally aren't just one narrowly defined thing.

 

[Maxperson]

The thing is, it's not like I set out to make this weirdo; she happened organically: a Bard with the archivist archtype. The mad science came from having craft: alchemy that I ended up getting very aggressive with getting reagents for. The Disney Princess came from Handle animal skill + Fascinate turning our wilderness encounters hilarious as I hypnotized every animal. The aberrant celestial thing came from spell choice and an alternate aasmiar trait that the party started commenting on and I ran with.

My point is that I was able to get something cool because I had a lot of room to customize.

That's really cool. I love when organic play leads to changes in the character like that.

I want to say right now that the following isn't a negative opinion on what you did, but rather just what I would have done with that character. Were that my character, I wouldn't have gone Disney Princess with the animal stuff. I'd have roleplayed it along the Mad Scientist lines. Yes, handle animal and Fascinate would be the means, but I'd have roleplayed using chemical concoctions(fluff) as the method by which I handle the animals and Fascinate them.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ooo, that's good. Sadly, the Disney Princess jokes started before the mad science... I just like talking about mad science more.

Also, she's literally the Princess (actually Queen) as we're playing a Kingmaker style campaign.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Merging classes into subclasses is rarely satisfying, and just ends up diluting what makes that class unique to much that it loses what made it enjoyable.

Which is why we have people asking for a warlord and swordmage every other day. If you do that to all classes apart from fighter, rogue, wizard, you will just end up with the same as the warlord/swordmage thread spam.... for 11 other classes!

 

[Faolyn]

However, I'd far rather see feats Go Away. Bake the key elements that make a class what it is into those classes and bin the rest. ASIs, on the other hand, while somewhat unneccesary are all in all relatively harmless.

I'm a bit leery of this. While I understand where you're coming from, feats did a lot to allow for customization. I know, it could still be customized by giving each class a lot more choices at each level, or allowing racial/lineage choices when you level up as well. But at least some of the current feats are things that don't fit into any one class or lineage (Linguist, Observant, Poisoner) but are still rather cool and flavorful.

 

[Faolyn]

I am baffled how levels can be so popular when XP are not? What's the point of levels if you don't earn your XP?

You can level up with milestone/story awards.

The problem with XP is that it's so strongly rooted in killing monsters. Yes, attempts are made to include exploration and social challenges in them, but they're rarely all that well implemented and often those challenges aren't worth as much as killing a monster is.

I could see an XP system where you get to check off a box when you accomplish a goal, and after so many boxes are checked you go up a level, could work. Thus, killing a monster and talking your way past the hostile guards and successfully repairing the boat and sailing it to your destination would all be worth a checkmark.

 

[ART!]

Yeah, I can't be bothered with XP as a DM. If I award XP for killing monsters, I feel like I need to award points for other achievements, which means I have to come up with XP for different achievements - which means I will also have to come up with XP rewards on the fly, or sit down after each session and work it out. I've got enough on my plate as a DM, so no thanks.