D&D (2024) What Should D&D 2024 Have Been +

[Corinnguard]

I would like to see more Tiefling lineages.

Ditto for the Aasimar and the Genasi. 3e had it where you had quite a number of Celestial and Fiendish lineages for the Aasimar and Tieflings, and other elemental variants for the Genasi. By the time 5e comes around, the Aasimar are bound to angels while the Tieflings just have an infernal legacy thanks to Asmodeus. This despite the fact that 5e had other kinds of Celestial and Fiends in the MM for them to have descended from.

PF1 had 6 Aasimar heritages and 10 Tiefling Heritages.

 

[mamba]

5. I would like more powerful spell options, it sounds to me like some spells are actually going to be nerfed. These will likely be some of the most popular spells in the game as the popular spells are also largely the most powerful. I don't get this logic- people really like something so let's change it.

call it 'people exploit unintended imbalance' and it makes more sense...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

it sounds to me like some spells are actually going to be nerfed. These will likely be some of the most popular spells in the game as the popular spells are also largely the most powerful. I don't get this logic- people really like something so let's change it.

Weeeell, if everyone feels compelled to cast Heroes Feast at the beginning of every adventuring day*, it's no longer a meaningful choice for the party. It's just something they do. So either its benefits should just be baked into high-level play (and making high level character immune to poison by default would probably provoke a lot of outcry and for good reason) or the spell should be considered too good to be considered balanced.

WotC hasn't said they're redoing Heroes Feast, but I'd be shocked if it doesn't get slammed with the nerf bat.

There are a fair number of spells like that which need retuning, either by reducing their effects, upping their spell level, or adding some other sort of restrictions to them.

* Listen to any high level Critical Role campaign and it's cast every single time, like clockwork. It's ubiquitous once play reaches that level.

 

[Lanefan]

Contrary to most here it seems, I'd have liked them to strip some things out, simplify others, complexify others, and generally go more gritty-less superhero. Some specifics:

Inspiration - metacurrencies like this just bring the metagame front and centre. Get rid of it, without replacement.
Lucky and similar mechanics that can post-hoc change a roll whose result is already known - get rid of it.
Multiclassing - just encourages optimizers and leads to broken combos. Either get rid of it entirely or make it clearly and obviously suboptimal in all cases.
Slow down the level-advance rate and make training to level be the default, in order to a) force some in-character downtime and b) allow a campaign to last longer if desired.
Add in downtime as a fourth pillar and provide downtime activity guidelines.
There's too many classes as it is; several (Paladin and Warlock for sure, maybe others) could be stripped out without really losing anything.
Notwithstanding the above, there's room for a Swashbuckler class and a Cavalier or Knight class.
Put more emphasis on random elements.
Make resting far less beneficial in all cases, particularly overnight hit point recovery.

All of the above would or could be backward compatible.

What wouldn't be so backward compatible:

Design for levels 1-12 with open-ended design beyond that e.g. each x-levels beyond 12th you gain this benefit, each level beyond 12th you gain this many hit points, and so on (1e sort of did this but it can be done more elegantly).
Abandon the "tier" concept - I've never seen the point - and just have levels be levels.
Abandon the hit-dice concept for healing - I've never seen the point of that either - and just have hit points be hit points when it comes to getting them back.
Use flat bonuses/penalties to rolls where it makes sense and adv-disadv where that makes sense.
Encourage DMs to have check results be on a sliding scale rather than binary pass-fail.
Much stronger niche protection for each class, with harshly limited abilities for any class to impinge on the niche of another.
Adopt a Wound-Vitality or Body-Fatigue hit point system.
Make Rangers more Fighter-like and less Rogue-like.
Get away from the idea of Rogues being primary damage dealers; that should be the Fighters' job.
...and about a hundred other things I can't be arsed to type out right now.

 

[payn]

Contrary to most here it seems, I'd have liked them to strip some things out, simplify others, complexify others, and generally go more gritty-less superhero. Some specifics:

Inspiration - metacurrencies like this just bring the metagame front and centre. Get rid of it, without replacement.
Lucky and similar mechanics that can post-hoc change a roll whose result is already known - get rid of it.
Multiclassing - just encourages optimizers and leads to broken combos. Either get rid of it entirely or make it clearly and obviously suboptimal in all cases.
Slow down the level-advance rate and make training to level be the default, in order to a) force some in-character downtime and b) allow a campaign to last longer if desired.
Add in downtime as a fourth pillar and provide downtime activity guidelines.
There's too many classes as it is; several (Paladin and Warlock for sure, maybe others) could be stripped out without really losing anything.
Notwithstanding the above, there's room for a Swashbuckler class and a Cavalier or Knight class.
Put more emphasis on random elements.
Make resting far less beneficial in all cases, particularly overnight hit point recovery.

All of the above would or could be backward compatible.

What wouldn't be so backward compatible:

Design for levels 1-12 with open-ended design beyond that e.g. each x-levels beyond 12th you gain this benefit, each level beyond 12th you gain this many hit points, and so on (1e sort of did this but it can be done more elegantly).
Abandon the "tier" concept - I've never seen the point - and just have levels be levels.
Abandon the hit-dice concept for healing - I've never seen the point of that either - and just have hit points be hit points when it comes to getting them back.
Use flat bonuses/penalties to rolls where it makes sense and adv-disadv where that makes sense.
Encourage DMs to have check results be on a sliding scale rather than binary pass-fail.
Much stronger niche protection for each class, with harshly limited abilities for any class to impinge on the niche of another.
Adopt a Wound-Vitality or Body-Fatigue hit point system.
Make Rangers more Fighter-like and less Rogue-like.
Get away from the idea of Rogues being primary damage dealers; that should be the Fighters' job.
...and about a hundred other things I can't be arsed to type out right now.

 

[Celebrim]

5e isn't my thing. 4e wasn't my thing. But 5e has been extraordinarily popular especially with young people and is probably the most successful edition at reaching new players since 1e. I think it would be a mistake for them to depart too much from a formula that worked for them. It's hard to say now how it will turn out, but my feel like this the first time they've assessed correctly how much change they actually need. With 1e->2e they did too little as well as throwing in some changes like "no paladins" or "no barbarians" no one was really asking for. With 3e->4e they did too much, alienating their existing fanbase in a "Classic Coke" versus "New Coke" sort of way.

Maybe this will end up like the 1e->2e transition where they do too little. I'll probably take a look at it at some point, but my heart is likely to be forever with the homebrew version of 3.0e I ended up making and investing in. The person who will probably care to some extent what the new edition looks like is my daughter.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

3.5 was a tweak and social media as such didn't exist. Forums did. It also wasn't very popular sales wise relative to every other edition except OD&D.

Vastly different scale in very different media scape.

I disagree with the scale.

 

[Zardnaar]

I disagree with the scale.

5E is vastly bigger than 3.5.

3.0 was the big seller.

Low side you're probably looking at X10 bigger. Its probably more like x15 or 20. If you offend 10% of them that's a large amount pissed off users on social media (which barely existed when 3.5 died).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

5E is vastly bigger than 3.5.

I really disagree. 3.5 changed a fundamental thing: theater of the mind - > battlemap and minis.

If you read the last interview with jeremy crawford about the creation of 5e, you will see that he agrees with me there.

There were also changes in the amount of skills and some basic math. 2024 d&d does nothing of that sort.

3.0 was the big seller.

Yes. Because 3.5 looked like too little and it was too soon. And on top of that changing things in the wrong direction.

Low side you're probably looking at X10 bigger.

Depends on how you look at it.

Its probably more like x15 or 20. If you offend 10% of them that's a large amount pissed off users on social media (which barely existed when 3.5 died).

Yeah. Social media is an echo chamber.

 

[Reynard]

Another change I would make in a proper 6E is eliminate the arcane overlap. You don't need wizard, sorcerer and warlock. In a perfect world, you could have a single arcane class and use something like subclasses to illustrate their path to power. In fact, I would probably just do that across the board with fighters, clerics and rogues too. It would help with the broadly applicable subclass idea, too.