5th Edition: Keepers, Wants, Don't Wants (Part 1?)

The D&D Next group is purportedly the place to be for the latest information (despite other sites already offering up more information), but is also home to almost thirty pages of comments consisting of things people want to see, don't want to see, and those oh so fucking tired MMO declarations still being made almost four years after 4th Edition was released (despite being made and disproved before the game was even launched). I figured I would pitch in my 2-cents here, where they can be immortalized in such a fashion as only the internet can instead of being drowned in the page count.

I will probably do another one of these as I think of them, though for now I think this is lengthy enough.

KEEPERS
Racial ability score modifiers, but only the way 4th Edition did them. 
One commenter in his ignorance wants these to go away because by making a race slightly good at specific classes that it killed a promise of "any race, any class". Racial bonuses were not required to maintain the curve, making them attractive but not required; I have seen players try goliath bards and halfling fighters to great effect, so his claim of "of you want to play an illusionist have fun with a gnome" are very misleading. No, racial bonuses are fine, so long as they do not come with penalties, which was the real class-shoehorn.

Point buy should remain standard.
The only game that I have read recently that makes you roll for stats is Death Watch and Black Crusade, though Gamma World has you roll for stats that do not directly impact what your origins use for attacks. A player should not have to cross her fingers in the hopes that she can “finally get to play a paladin”. I find this particularly odd that old timers selectively espouse this, yet think it is find to not force players to roll their gender, race, skin/hair/eye color, and by extension a bunch of background events.

Fighters should have shit to do at all levels.
I do not want to go back to Linear Fighters, Quadratic Wizards. I do not care if in some fantasy media that magic is better; D&D is a game, not a novel or movie. I also do not want the Pathfinder solution where I need to spend feats on the “right” ones in order to deal bonus damage that frankly should have been packaged into the class. The class should provide you with the things you need, while feats should make you better at things/change the way they work.

Wizards should feel like wizards.
Except for the part where the game becomes Wizards & Those Other Guys. I like being able to cast spells all the time without being relegated to an ineffectual crossbow- or sling-wielding liability. At the same time I do not want wizards to have abilities that let them completely ignore hit points, skill resolution, or shape reality on a whim. Rituals were a big step in the right direction, though some refinement would be great. Again, I do not care what book series Gary cribbed the idea from, as D&D is a game and not a novel.

Variable resource management.
I like that 4th Edition classes had a variety of balanced ways to track resources. Initially every class had at-will, encounter, and daily powers, but eventually martial classes got classes with only at-will and encounter exploits. This was great for players that wanted to set their own degree of complexity, but what made it even better was that despite that they will still useful across all levels. I think that they could do something similar to power points, but call it stamina or mana for martial and arcane classes respectively.

NPC’s play by their own rules.
NPCs should not needlessly utilize the same mechanics as a player character, especially not stock monsters. Keep it simple. A blacksmith does not need to "have" blacksmithing just to justify that he can make swords. I mean, fuck, the only time I recall having some pointlessly complex NPCs was when 3rd Edition came out. I want to be able to come up with a monster’s stats on the fly, not pore over books for an hour or so methodically—and, again, needlessly—ensuring that all the formulas add up proper.

Every class should get some tangible improvement at each level.
I do not care if it is a feat, perk, talent, power, ability score boost, or whatever, but it needs to be more than just some hit points and/or skill points.


No save-or-die effects.
These arbitrarily up the difficulty level by largely removing skill from the game and turning your longevity into a crap-shoot. I do not care if in mythology looking at a cockatrice or medusa was an immediate death sentence as, again, D&D is a game. Neither I nor my players want to play a game where your character and her backstory are cast aside (regardless of what impact it has or might have had in the bigger picture) due to one shitty die roll. Am I saying that characters should be unkillable? No, even though people will claim that. What I am saying is that life or death should not hinge on one die roll regardless of circumstances.

Multiclassing.
Holy fucking shit, I like multiclassing almost exactly as is! I always felt it made no fucking sense how a fighter could clobber some orcs and then spontaneously master all cantrips, a shit load of 1st-level spells, and conjure up a familiar. Screw spending years studying in a tower, you can go from 0 to magic missile over the weekend. Apparently? No thanks. That makes no sense in context of the game, even if you go with the contrived "I have been studying another wizard" line.
In 4th Edition you burn a feat and get skill training and basically a feature of another class. It makes sooo much more sense for a fighter to pick up scorching burst over a weekend, especially usable only once per encounter. Makes a lot more sense, though I could go without having to spend feats to swap out encounter and dailies later on (which I do).



WANT 
More elaborate rules on crafting. 
Particularly special materials and magic items. Older editions allowed you to have adamantine and cold iron weapons and armor, which could in turn could still be enchanted. Metals and materials should have inherent functions, and if possible there should be rules or guidelines on using parts from monsters in place of costs when making magic items. For example, a red dragon’s blood might be useful in making a flaming weapon.

More elaborate rules on minions.
I am a huge fan of summoners and necromancers, and would like "offiical" rules on being able to boss around my own minion(s), whether conjured or cobbled.

Skill challenges need a closer look.
I am not a fan of arbitrarily ending a skill challenge after a pre-set number of successes or failures. A chase and exploration skill challenge should end when appropriate in context for the narrative. Hell, for all I care there could be different methods depending on the type of skill challenge.

Even more flexible characters.
When it comes to making a character 4th Edition offers up the most flexibility while making it very difficult to fuck yourself over (I am looking at you, 3rd Edition multiclassing). I would like to make it easier to make functional hybrids, or fuck, just make classes as modular as possible, allowing a player to drag and drop class features to build almost precisely what you want. I guess, something like Exalted (though "not" Exalted), but also with archetype "loadouts" that tell you what you should pick in order to make a fighter, wizard, cleric, etc.


DO NOT WANT
First and foremost, I do not want to “go back” to an earlier edition.
The faults of yester-year's editions were much, much worse than anything 4th Edition might have done. I am all for taking a look at what made those games fun, but try to avoid relying on nostalgia for your judgment. Games and game design have become more informed, and there is nothing wrong at looking at current role-playing games (digital and analog) and seeing what makes them fun as well. I would rather D&D result with unfamiliar-yet-superior mechanics than going back to a lapsed edition.


Rolling for stats.
I know I mentioned point-buy in the keepers section, but this is just so, so fucking retarded. The only time I recall players actually enjoying this was when they rolled really well. I think this only survived as long as it did because in 2nd Edition stats did not tend to do a whole lot until they got to 15 or higher. In 3rd Edition when they really started to matter the DM let my fighter reroll his Strength because it was so low that I could barely hit anything. Players should be in control of their character. I do not give a fuck if it is not like “real life”. By that logic, you should have to roll for gender, weight, height, race, and probably on a laundry list of character generation tables to see how you were brought up.

Rolling for anything, really.
For the same reason, rolling for hit points is also a really stupid idea and can result in gimped characters.

Rewarding lucky players.
On a similar vein I do not want to see classes have prereqs, especially if that class is superior to the rest (2nd Edition paladin, if I recall correctly). That is basically rewarding the lucky player with yet another advantage, and I have no idea why anyone with any game design experience would go along with that. While I am on the tangent of rewarding lucky players, no bonus XP for having a high stat (and likewise no penalty, either). I mean, really?


Charging for background skills.
Craft/Profession/Perform skills should not require a skill or feat expenditure, especially if all they do is help justify a character’s background prior to actually adventuring.

COMMENT COMMENTARY
Here is a handful of comments that stood out. I might do more of these as I blog more about 5th Edition; there is plenty of material.


"Go back to the 2nd Edition proficiency system; it allowed for better character customization."


Umm...what? Are you fucking shitting me? I remember having a fighter that knew how to ride a horse and build fires. I also burned a slot at later levels so that I could reroll my miss percentage against targets that I could not see. So, I guess what I want to know is how being able to automatically ride a horse, build a fire at no cost, and have a reasonable chance of doing any number of other things is less flexible.

"I miss the heroes that aren't a carbon copy of each other if they go with the same builds. I miss the diversity that [an] older edition was able to give [us]. Sure if we got down to the grit a lot of characters were carbon cutouts but not every player got theirs the same way."


I am really confused how on one hand, playing a fighter in 2nd Edition or even 3rd Edition made it less of a "carbon cutout", especially given that 4th Edition further divides characters from each other thanks to class features and exploits. Like, if two people play human fighters in 3rd Edition the main difference is your weapon and skills.
Most weapons are basically just damage with little mechanical differentiation beyond damage. 4th Edition fighters on the other hand get to pick class features and exploits, so even two human fighters packing longswords could end up doing very different things.

"How about for arcane characters you can choose a class, and that determines how you learn spells and how many. You could have one that is Vancian, one that is AEDU, one that is more like a 3rd Edition sorcerer. Each caster chooses a school and the school determines the spell list, and the spell lists are the big determinant of what spells do."


First, fuck Vancian spellcasting. It was a terrible idea and served to grossly shift a player's usability, for good or ill, too far and too easily. This is what resulted in groups blowing through spells and then resting up to repeat it all over again. Second, arcane casters already work like that in 4th Edition: how wizard's learn magic is not how warlocks learn magic is not how sorcerers learn magic, even if they all use the same resolution mechanic.
No, how they did it in 4th Edition was mostly alright. My gripe with some classes like the sorcerer was that there were not enough spells to make an appropriate thematic character. Like, there are only two at-will spells for a sorcerer that seem to work for the storm spell source, and not nearly enough for the dragon spell source. My complaints can--and in my games at least are--resolved with the simple inclusion of some new spells.