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I had a lot of success with a 4e campaign for mostly magic the gathering players, who loved the synergy and interactions you could get from well combined powers - echoing their first game of choice.

Some people want to build a combo deck with four colors, three card interactions for producing infinite mana, five card interactions for producing infinite turns, two cards for actually killing, and everything else is search 'n' draw cards to assemble their beautiful Rube-Goldberg machine. Their opponent is optional.

Other people just want a mono-green deck full of tramplers and Giant Growth instants.
 
I guess Wizards is in infobomb mode.

Stuff coming out in the next year or so:
There's a Dragonlance adventure - that's also tied to a boardgame? - set during the War of the Lance.

Another anthology book of adventures - this based on heists.

A book doing to giants what they already did with dragons.

a whole book connected to the deck of many things.

a book length Phandelver campaign.

Planescape in a 3 book slipcase late next year.

MTG is doing all these tie-in decks now: LOTR, Dr. Who, and 40k.

Of all that, Planescape is the only one I'm definitely interested in. Heists are cool but anthologies tend to be a mixed lot. Did Phandelver need expanding? Nice that Dragonlance is getting a moment but it's never been my thing.
 
Some people want to build a combo deck with four colors, three card interactions for producing infinite mana, five card interactions for producing infinite turns, two cards for actually killing, and everything else is search 'n' draw cards to assemble their beautiful Rube-Goldberg machine. Their opponent is optional.

Other people just want a mono-green deck full of tramplers and Giant Growth instants.
Indeed, and our 4e campaign appealed to the spectrum of magic players (I am a Timmy/Spike myself).
 
I'm not the biggest 5e fan, but I did say the one reason I'd come back is Spelljammer. My wife is going to run Spelljammer so I'm making a character.

He is a wood elf artificer from a remote planet of basically hick elves. Imagine an entire planet of South Georgia/North Florida. The whole community got together to pay for him to go off planet to the academy cause he's got all them smarts.

Mostly this has come from a thing about wanting to actually use an accent while playing, and the only accent I can do is backwoods Southern (my natural accent is TV American English, but my whole dad's side of the family is from rural bumfuck nowhere Georgia, and I can sound just like them if I want), but also I thought it would be funny to do the super hick accent while playing the smartest character in the party.

He has a mullet. Also elves from his planet are the only elves that can grow facial hair. But only moustaches and sideburns. He is proficient in the banjo.

(I feel that in any other setting this would be too silly of a character to play, but with Spelljammer I feel it is perfect).
 
I guess Wizards is in infobomb mode.

Stuff coming out in the next year or so:
There's a Dragonlance adventure - that's also tied to a boardgame? - set during the War of the Lance.

Another anthology book of adventures - this based on heists.

A book doing to giants what they already did with dragons.

a whole book connected to the deck of many things.

a book length Phandelver campaign.

Planescape in a 3 book slipcase late next year.

MTG is doing all these tie-in decks now: LOTR, Dr. Who, and 40k.

Of all that, Planescape is the only one I'm definitely interested in. Heists are cool but anthologies tend to be a mixed lot. Did Phandelver need expanding? Nice that Dragonlance is getting a moment but it's never been my thing.
An anthology of small adventures is always welcome, and a campaign around Giants also sounds cool. I'm down for anything expanding Forgotten Realms, so I hope that both books are in this setting. Not sure Phandelver needs expanding, but at least it is a return to the default setting of D&D 5E.

I am also interested in seeing what they do with Dragonlance.

Planescape was absolutely trippy-cool in the 1990s, so I hope the art direction matches the flavour of the original art, otherwise it won't seem Planescape for me.
 
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The Book of Many Things idea could be awesome. Who knows. Planescape for sure. I'm content.
 
I'm not the biggest 5e fan, but I did say the one reason I'd come back is Spelljammer. My wife is going to run Spelljammer so I'm making a character.

He is a wood elf artificer from a remote planet of basically hick elves. Imagine an entire planet of South Georgia/North Florida. The whole community got together to pay for him to go off planet to the academy cause he's got all them smarts.

Mostly this has come from a thing about wanting to actually use an accent while playing, and the only accent I can do is backwoods Southern (my natural accent is TV American English, but my whole dad's side of the family is from rural bumfuck nowhere Georgia, and I can sound just like them if I want), but also I thought it would be funny to do the super hick accent while playing the smartest character in the party.

He has a mullet. Also elves from his planet are the only elves that can grow facial hair. But only moustaches and sideburns. He is proficient in the banjo.

(I feel that in any other setting this would be too silly of a character to play, but with Spelljammer I feel it is perfect).
His name is Klidevar (pronounced like the name Clyde, plus evar).

Also, my son is making a Gnome Druid who is actually a intelligent Giant Space Hamster who has taken the form of a Gnome (basically just using the Gnome stats and then using wild shape to be able to take his "real" form).
 
I've been pretty clear that once it's stripped to the core and given a few tweaks the 5e system is pretty decent for traditional dungeon crawling and exploration. One thing I can't stand though is the initiative. It is so pointlessly dull! I really, really liked B/X initiative. It blew me away how much fun it was and how much excitement it generated around the table. A good initiative roll would lead to standing up and cheering.

Anyway, does anyone have experience with side initiative? My main concern is that spell and ability durations are married to turn order.

Side Initiative.png
 
Side initiative is just a fancy name to the default initiative used in B/X. I doubt using a d20 vs the d6 of B/X will break anything. Just reduces the chances of tied simultaneous initiative.
 
A way I found to make individual initiative quick.

1661371963546.png

I been using this system since 2012 and it has worked out well without having to fiddle with turn order notation. For 5e I start off with anything higher than a 20. Then count down by twos.

Does anybody have a 20 or higher?
Does anybody have a 18 or 19?
And so on.
 
Side initiative is just a fancy name to the default initiative used in B/X. I doubt using a d20 vs the d6 of B/X will break anything. Just reduces the chances of tied simultaneous initiative.
I realize that, but the big issue is that spell durations are intimately tied to traditional turn order. Just about every combat spell with a duration expires at the beginning or end of someone's turn.
 
A way I found to make individual initiative quick.

View attachment 49052

I been using this system since 2012 and it has worked out well without having to fiddle with turn order notation. For 5e I start off with anything higher than a 20. Then count down by twos.

Does anybody have a 20 or higher?
Does anybody have a 18 or 19?
And so on.
My objection to 5e initiative is not that it is difficult; my objection is that it is pointlessly dull. You roll once and then everyone is locked in that pattern for the rest of the combat. Aside from that initial round initiative rarely makes any difference. It's dreary bookkeeping compared to B/X initiative where the roll can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
 
My objection to 5e initiative is not that it is difficult; my objection is that it is pointlessly dull. You roll once and then everyone is locked in that pattern for the rest of the combat. Aside from that initial round initiative rarely makes any difference. It's dreary bookkeeping compared to B/X initiative where the roll can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
I've answered it before, it's great!, and it's not that hard to switch. Perhaps I need to give a different conceptual device. How about a clock face? :thumbsup:

Each 5e Round is a full clock face. Each Turn can be given equivalence on a segment of that clock face. We already have clocks that do away with many if not most of the segments (be it secs, mins, or even all hours but the 12 o'clock position like Movado). *(For outsider clarity, 5e use of terms for Round & Turn are different from preceeding editions.)*

Group Initiative reduces a group of turns within a round into the lowest functional number (i.e. greater than 0). Typically this is 2 groups. That means since Round Start is always at Twelve, one group will be at 12, and the other will be at 6. Given you roll before each round to mix things up a bit, each group has a chance at starting at 12 or 6, and possibly switching by next round.

Spells (and several Features) are text dependent upon their rule-exception design -- some will calculate durations by Rounds, some will calculate by Top OR Bottom of caster's Turn; follow their rule text. If everything is conflated to either 12 or 6 you can quickly discern where each of these durations are ticked down:

Round Start/End = 12 o'clock position.
Caster's Turn Start = either a) 12 o'clock if their group goes first, or b) 6 o' clock if their group goes second.
Caster's Turn End = either a) 6 o'clock if their group goes first, or b) 12 o' clock if their group goes second.

As you can see this helps bookkeeping as more groups are added. Say you have a 4-way contest, use a typical Cardinal directions 12,3,6,9 clock face. You roll just 4 Initiative dice for four whole armies and easily know where durations tick down as they switch around the cardinal hours. Does that mean a Group that starts first and casts at 12 then starts their next turn last at 9 gets a little extra, yes. But that same group risks casting last at 9 when they might next start first at 12. So it evens out -- which is exactly the diversity in tempo that you are looking for.

Did this example help? :grin:
 
I actually thought Mearl's Greyhawk initiative idea was on the right track.

But really it had the issue that 5e encourages to many people to do many things on their turn. If you were able to totally remove bonus actions (like he also wished he'd done) then it might work pretty well.
 
His name is Klidevar (pronounced like the name Clyde, plus evar).

Also, my son is making a Gnome Druid who is actually a intelligent Giant Space Hamster who has taken the form of a Gnome (basically just using the Gnome stats and then using wild shape to be able to take his "real" form).
Klidevar screenshot.png

I made Klidevar in Hero Forge. (His gun is just a reskinned light crossbow mechanically).
 
I actually thought Mearl's Greyhawk initiative idea was on the right track.

But really it had the issue that 5e encourages to many people to do many things on their turn. If you were able to totally remove bonus actions (like he also wished he'd done) then it might work pretty well.
I liked it too, but there are enough ripple effects through the system that I think you'd need to redefine the entire thing. Some classes rely a lot on bonus actions while others don't worry about them much at all.

That said, it was unfair how many people jumped on him - "he's the head of D&D, and in his own campaign in his own leisure time he uses rules which aren't perfect and playtested? No, that won't do at all".
 
My objection to 5e initiative is not that it is difficult; my objection is that it is pointlessly dull. You roll once and then everyone is locked in that pattern for the rest of the combat. Aside from that initial round initiative rarely makes any difference. It's dreary bookkeeping compared to B/X initiative where the roll can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
So switch it is not going to break 5e.
 
I liked it too, but there are enough ripple effects through the system that I think you'd need to redefine the entire thing. Some classes rely a lot on bonus actions while others don't worry about them much at all.

That said, it was unfair how many people jumped on him - "he's the head of D&D, and in his own campaign in his own leisure time he uses rules which aren't perfect and playtested? No, that won't do at all".
Yeah. I played around with it. I think it had quite a lot of potential if the system was built around it.

For example, multiple attacks were either weird or could become complicated.

What I think I would do is give a Fighter one attack on their turn, and then perhaps give them one free attack at the end of the round against one enemy that happens to be within reach once they reach a high enough level for multiple attacks.
 
Yeah. I played around with it. I think it had quite a lot of potential if the system was built around it.

For example, multiple attacks were either weird or could become complicated.

What I think I would do is give a Fighter one attack on their turn, and then perhaps give them one free attack at the end of the round against one enemy that happens to be within reach once they reach a high enough level for multiple attacks.
My thought was that there should be perks that change the initiative numbers of things - so a given character could boost their main combat activities to an extent, or let them get more value out of a given die type (Maybe rogue types get access to better initiative dice, but fighter types get multiple attacks from a single initiative die), that sort of thing.
 
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I've answered it before, it's great!, and it's not that hard to switch. Perhaps I need to give a different conceptual device. How about a clock face? :thumbsup:

Did this example help? :grin:
I am trying to understand! Instead of tying spell duration to the beginning or end of an individual's turn, you tie it to the beginning or end or their side's turn? If I am wrong please explain it like I am 5 years old. I am very interested in this solution.
 
Absolutely! An Individual becomes part of a Group!

(Vomitous exposition follows... :shade: :drink: )

Your Turn is a segment within the Round. The clock face is a good visualization of a segment within a whole, like when learning fractions with pie slices. When you Group several Turns together to form a Grouping, the rules for your individual turn does NOT change -- just your accounting has broadened. So instead of many thin slices we are talking about fewer fat slices.

e.g. Twelve combatants, 4 PCs, 8 NPCs. Everyone gets an hour slice on the clock face. Your Wizard rolled a 5 hour slot, so segment five to six, everything within that hour is your Turn, including Turn-based duration ticks.

You have three spell/features/feats on whose duration are ticked at 1. Round End, 2. Your Turn Start, and 3. Your Turn End.
They are Tabulated as: 1. 12 o' clock, 2. 5 o' clock, & 3. 6 o' clock.

If you rolled again next round and all twelve switched places, again the primacy of Round Start, Your Turn Start, & Your Turn End doesn't change. If you got 7 o' clock the principle rules hold, but this time they give result of: 1. 12 o' clock, 2. 7 o' clock, & 3. 8 o' clock. The pie slice moved along the pie tin, but the trigger points to count down ticks remain the same.

So when we group several pie slices to each other we get a similar function. Let us return to the 4 PC v 8 NPC example:

e.g. PCs versus Everyone Else, that equals two groups. Granted we could account for 8 pie slices together being larger than 4 pie slices together, but that already is done by their action economy throughput. We do not need to account for it any deeper intellectually than two abstract sides.

(For clarity, if 4PC starts Turn first at 12 o' clock, then 8NPC starts Turn last at 4 o' clock.... which then proceeds all the way back to New Round 12 o' clock. If 8NPC starts Turn first at 12 o' clock, then 4 PC starts Turn last at 8 o' clock... which again back to New Round 12 o' clock. Since someone must always go first and persist until finished until next turns, then the size differences between the pie slices don't affect their ordering, a.k.a. abstract reduction of the Amount of Groups is not concerned with the Size of Each Group. In this example it's just two groups, irrelevant one big, the other small.)

This can persist if you want to do tricks like have the 8 NPC group splinter! So you can have 4PC v 3NPC v 5NPC, which equals 3 groups in the abstract. You don't have to account for those size numbers besides HP & Downed from here on. You just have 3 Groups, so 3 init dice rolls per round, each group having its own Turn with its own Beginning and End.

So you go R1, declare actions (so as to not allow metagaming of sequencing), roll off, order up, process, repeat.
R1: A, B, C. R2: C, B, A. R3: A, C, B. etc.

You can even allow Double Knock Outs by using a single grouping for all! This creates fun chaos where movement affects targeting due to simultaneous processing. It also makes Readying actions VERY interesting. Suddenly closing in, using cover & concealment, wolf pack tactics, and generally reading opponents becomes a new risky game. Since it is Six Second rounds you can divide things up along that metric (Mv, RoF, Extra Attack, Bonus sequencing etc). Warning, this has high returns but for way more processing and possible tears -- better for smaller skirmishes.
 
One thing that dynamic side initiative does really well is emulate the ebb and flow of battle, the tide of momentum as it shifts from one side to another.

The con is that rather than a tug of war over momentum, sometimes you have a single round where one side greatly reduces or wipes out the other. This is especially dangerous in a game without carefully balanced encounters.

At a player's suggestion I am toying with the idea of player skill and battlefield conditions affecting side initiative. Implementation as always is the challenge. I dislike players feeling as if they have to play "mother may I" or "play the DM" so some rules or guidelines would be in order.

Assuming no surprise. things that grant advantage in side initiative might be:

Superior position. ex. One side is alert and in prepared positions when combat starts
Superior morale.
???

@ opaopajr opaopajr Please explain your method like I am 5 years old. PMs are fine
 
I'll try again, Brock. I appreciate your patience. This time I will use an example.

Three Players, Joe, Bob, Sue, are the PCs. They come upon an overturned cart and two goblins. Suspicious so on high alert they still go forward to enquire the goblins. They are poorly ambushed by four more jumping out! GM rules ambush is so bad no surprise round is granted.

Three plus two plus four equals nine. That means nine dice rolls for initiative. And for simplicity's sake a GM may rule that order is carried on throughout the fight because rolling 9 dice at the top of the round is a lot.

Or, since there are just two sides, you group PCs vs Goblins. Now you only need to roll two dice per round. Since you roll each round you can end up having the PCs go first or the Goblins.

Now, I'll do something different: You put in the spells or features whose durations confuse your bookkeeping and we will work together from here on (there probably is a new confusing widget I have not seen). You flesh out Round One of this PCs vs Goblins example and I will take Round Two.

Seem promising? :thumbsup: If you want to take it to DMs from here I understand.
 
Dungeon Craft reviewed 5e Hardcore Mode so I finally picked it up. I have had it on my wishlist for a long while but frankly the title put me off. The ruleset gives me strong WHFRP 1e vibes which isn't surprising since it the first truly 'hardcore' game I played. It is an excellent deal at $3.50 for 38 pages of rules, adventures, and a style guide; the presentation is attractive and I found no typos in my first read-through.

The million dollar question is: will I be using these rules? They answer is yes, I am planning to use a couple of them. Some of the rules are either not a fit for my particular campaign or go against personal preferences e.g. I've never cared for "rolling to cast" and catastrophic spell failure even though they are classic "hardcore fantasy" tropes. None of the rules are bad; the author clearly groks the 5e core rules and all of the hacks make sense.

Edit: Here is the review for those who are interested.
 
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I got Brancalonia and love it! The setting is awesome and the system tweaks seem to bring it to life. This is a perfect example of what I mean when I say the 5e core system is excellent and flexible; 5e can do a lot more than Medieval superhero power fantasy.

Edit: I like this so much I might have to get a hardcopy. Did I mention the art was cool as well?

To be clear, I am NOT saying every RPG genre should be shoehorned into 5e nor would I want that.
 
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I got Brancalonia and love it! The setting is awesome and the system tweaks seem to bring it to life. This is a perfect example of what I mean when I say the 5e core system is excellent and flexible; 5e can do a lot more than Medieval superhero power fantasy.

Edit: I like this so much I might have to get a hardcopy. Did I mention the art was cool as well?

To be clear, I am NOT saying every RPG genre should be shoehorned into 5e nor would I want that.
Is it standalone or do you need the dnd basic rules/PHB?
 
I wrote on another thread half-jokingly making my own 5e PHB. It was indeed half-jokingly because I already have once used a bunch of papers to replace current spell lists, much of the spell descriptions, and all of the feats. Also in my home games, those adventures I deem more 'serious' in nature, there are a bunch of restrictions, including the outright ban of certain races, classes and subclasses.

Now I'm interested in exploring the idea of bringing back race-as-class. So far my idea does not have pretty much any concrete stuff in it, because I wanted to pick the forumites brains here a little bit for this one. Here's some guidelines I doodled on a paper while working:

- Dwarf class has d10 HD and medium armor proficiency. Subclasses include a Paladinesque follower of Moradin, gaining heavy armor proficiency and limited divine spellcasting. Another is a Rangerish medium armor user that negates some of the penalties crossbow users get.

- Elf class has d8 HD and light armor proficiency. Subclasses include a gish that is more durable than a Bladesinger, but more squishy and castery than an Eldritch Knight. Another one might resemble an Arcane Trickster, perhaps with a better spell progression and a wider selection of spells.

This has a level cap of 6, so not too many level features per race class are required...

Thoughts and ideas would be welcome :grin:
 
I wrote on another thread half-jokingly making my own 5e PHB. It was indeed half-jokingly because I already have once used a bunch of papers to replace current spell lists, much of the spell descriptions, and all of the feats. Also in my home games, those adventures I deem more 'serious' in nature, there are a bunch of restrictions, including the outright ban of certain races, classes and subclasses.

Now I'm interested in exploring the idea of bringing back race-as-class. So far my idea does not have pretty much any concrete stuff in it, because I wanted to pick the forumites brains here a little bit for this one. Here's some guidelines I doodled on a paper while working:

- Dwarf class has d10 HD and medium armor proficiency. Subclasses include a Paladinesque follower of Moradin, gaining heavy armor proficiency and limited divine spellcasting. Another is a Rangerish medium armor user that negates some of the penalties crossbow users get.

- Elf class has d8 HD and light armor proficiency. Subclasses include a gish that is more durable than a Bladesinger, but more squishy and castery than an Eldritch Knight. Another one might resemble an Arcane Trickster, perhaps with a better spell progression and a wider selection of spells.

This has a level cap of 6, so not too many level features per race class are required...

Thoughts and ideas would be welcome :grin:
Into the Unknown does race as class for Dwarf Elf and Halfling. It's a really good hack of 5e that strips things to the bone, serving as a spring board for making the system your own.
 
So what's the deal with all of these Kickstarter campaigns for 5e settings that are... are you ready for this (brace yourselves)... full of... DRAGONS?!?

It's the new Fantasy Heartbreaker:

"post apocalyptic fantasy... with dragons!"

"the dragonlands... an innovative and exciting setting for 5e"

"Dragon banes, the grim and perilous Dark Souls world with evil giant... dragons"

Are D&D gamers really THAT obsessed with dragons? I mean, I get that they're in the title of the game but of all the things to be pitching about your setting to make it distinct from all of the others. Motherfucking dragons are the best that they can come up with?!

Dragons?!?

 
Apparently the dragon-themed books for D&D (e.g. Draconomicon, Fizban’s, etc.) sell a lot better than most other sourcebooks, at least in the WotC era.

I don’t get it either, at least from a playing perspective. Dragons should be epic foes that appear maybe twice in a campaign. But from a publisher perspective, I get why they choose that approach. It’ll probably sell better than most other settings without dragons front and center.
 
I had this thought at the back of my mind even before D&D One was announced, but now it has become even more pronounced. It started out when I saw some talk about an online optional addition about tattoo magic. Palladium put it's hands into the tattooed man O.C.C. in the nineties. Also, chronomancy, multiverses, etc. Is Wizards going the way of Uncle Kevin now?!?!? Because to me it very much seems so... Kitchensinks for everyone, yay! What next, spelljamming killer satellites above Toril that everybody needs to be very concerned about, even though they were never mentioned before?
 
A while ago I wrote on the forum, at the time of the One D&D announcement, that I'd make my own player's handbook with blackjack and hookers. I believe that it is now pretty much in printer condition. This is made only for me and my two groups, but if anyone want's to have a look, I'll be happy to toss a pdf your way. I can't publish this even in free format, because I've loaned a few bits from an official publication that isn't part of the SRD/OGL or whatever it's called nowadays. Also I've loaned few parts from free fanmade publications as well. Here's the features I came up with:

- Maximum level is 6.
- Race as class.
- Fewer classes.
- No subclasses.
- Background is just a few options now, including a feat at 1st level.
- Herbalism and hired combatants expanded in equipment list.
- Feats are completely overhauled (by a fan called Treantmonk).
- 3.5e style Tumbling (with acrobatics skill) is back.
- Spells are overhauled. Some overused spells are removed, some are borrowed from outside of the SRD/OGL, and some are just modified to reflect their true spell level and usefulness.

I said I'd write this thing to include blackjack and hookers. I didn't add a random prostitute table, but I added one instance of the word blackjack... So sue me :wink:

What I haven't added yet are the special capstone feats that the PCs can gain after the 6h level, and the rituals that copy 4th level spells and higher. Those are for the Epic level handbook that is out for release in... pretty much never.
 
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I roll out of my dragonbone bed and fold back the dragonlinen sheets. My head hurts like the blazes from all the dragonwine I drank last night, but it's the last day of dragon's feast and I have things to do. Kicking a couple of empty dragonbone flagons out of the way I shuffle over to the dragonwood armoire, which squeaks when I open it. I dress in my usual black, finished with a sumptuous dragonscale cloak I won off an unsuspecting rube playing dragondice. It pays to look good when you charge what I do. I toss back the dregs of last night's dragonwine just as the bells ring third dragon. Time to go to work...
 
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