With the recent announcement of Dungeon and Dragons’ next edition, there has been a flurry of speculation on the changes it will bring. Given that almost nothing is known about this new iteration,* I figure now is the perfect time for me to come up with my own list of possible improvements to the game that could only come with an edition change.
1. Make Attributes and Spells More Intuitive
Mechanically, these are probably the least impactful of the changes I’m suggesting. 5E’s core attributes each have a raw number and a derived bonus, so 14 strength means a +2 derived bonus. The vast majority of the game’s systems use the derived number. The cost of this mostly useless raw number? A system that is needlessly obtuse and difficult for new players to understand. Removing this dual stat confusion would be nothing but upside for D&D from a design perspective, even though the legacy it represents is one many are reluctant to give up.
While we’re on the subject of removing confusing holdovers from older editions, let’s talk about spell levels. At what level do you think a wizard gets their 1st level spells? How about 9th level spells? In a better-designed game the answer would be 1st and 9th level, respectively, whereas D&D opts for the highly intuitive 1st and 17th levels.
This change could be something as simple as renaming “spell levels” to “spell tiers.” That’s still confusing, but at least it doesn’t reuse the term “level” in two different contexts. If the designers are feeling a bit more ambitious, they could tackle reworking the entire spell progression so it syncs up with character levels, but such a large change is outside the scope of an article like this.
2. Separate Flavor and Rules Text
Wrapping up the “language matters” portion of my list, we have how mechanics and flavor text are displayed in the rules. 5E favors mingling the rules of a feature with descriptive text of how that feature manifests in the game’s world. When rules are unclear, we are told to follow the “plain English.”*
The problem is that when rules mix with flavor, it can become very confusing where one ends and the other begins. An example of this comes from the Burning Hands spell, which includes the following.
As you hold your hands with thumbs touching and fingers spread…
Reading that line of text as rules would mean that anyone trying to cast the spell needs to have both their hands able to touch in a specific way. Following this train of thought, any effect that separates the caster’s hands or stops either from moving, such as the restrained condition, would prevent the use of Burning Hands.
The rub here is that nothing in the actual rules of the game supports the limitations I just described. According to the rules, Burning Hands has verbal and somatic components, meaning the caster needs to be able to speak and have one hand free.* There’s no mention of requiring both hands; that was simply one way you could describe the spell’s casting.
There will always be some amount of gray area in a game like D&D. There is simply no way to model every possible interaction that can take place. However, the game’s design could be changed to reduce this confusion. For an example of how to handle flavor in a rules-heavy game, let’s look at another Wizards of the Coast product: Magic the Gathering. MTG places a card’s mechanics directly below the card art with the flavor below it in italicized text.
This normal/italic split is a great way to let players know what they need to pay attention to when learning your game. Combine this split text with shared game terms and even a rules-heavy system like D&D becomes a lot easier to parse. The best part about this change is that you can keep all of the flavor, and even add some more. If flavor no longer needed to be written around rules, the designers would be free to do whatever they want with it.
3. Add Minor Feats and Items
When it comes to customizing a character, feats and magic items are two of the most common methods. Most characters can choose a maximum of five feats by level 20, and anyone who doesn’t choose artificer as their class never gets more than three attunement slots. Unfortunately, significant power variance coupled with this limited access means players must make a choice between what is good and what fits their characters’ flavor. A spear-wielding fighter is unlikely to pick Chef when Polearm Master is on the table,* and the Hexblade probably won’t stay attuned to their Charlatan’s Die when the boss drops a Staff of Power.
The solution to this problem is to divide these two option sets into different categories based on their power.* An archer character shouldn’t have to choose between Crossbow Expert and Actor. Instead, give that character a set of minor and major feat selections as they level, granting the mechanical strength they want without restricting their roleplay choices.
Items should receive a similar treatment. Instead of three flat attunement slots, there should be different types of slots so characters have a reason to use their minor items even after after finding stronger ones. While I’m at, it I’d also like to see all items require some type of attunement to discourage every member of the party having Boots of Elvenkind and a Sentinel Shield.
4. Allow Extra Attack to Scale With Multiclassing
It’s time to dig into my first character-focused mechanical change. I love how multiclassing has been handled in 5E. It’s a powerful option that adds meaningful decision-making to the character creation process. Unfortunately, in its current form, multiclassing favors spellcasters over martial characters. There are two main reasons for this, and the first is that spellcasting granted by different classes combines together to give the character an aggregated number of slots. The second is that cantrip damage scales with character level, so a 5th level monoclassed character and a character with 1 level in five classes both see their cantrips increase in effectiveness.
Martials need something similar to help bridge the gap between them and their caster counterparts. The feature that immediately springs to mind is Extra Attack. Every martial class, barring rogues, revolves around making additional attacks to increase their damage. There are a couple ways to modify how multiclassing interacts with the feature. The easiest would be to make it so levels of barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, or ranger all count toward that level-5 feature. That way a ranger 3/fighter 2 gets Extra Attack just like a monoclassed fighter 5.
This idea could be expanded so Extra Attack works like a cantrip, scaling at levels 5, 11, and 17. This rework would require significant retooling of at least the fighter class, as they would be losing what is currently their core class feature. I’m not sure if this route is the right way to go, given how much larger an impact it would have, but it would be very cool if balanced correctly.
5. Include More Ancestries That Synergize With Martial Builds
Continuing on my quest to improve the lives of martial characters everywhere, let’s turn our eyes to ancestries. Simply put, there aren’t enough ancestry features that explicitly work best with martial builds. Spellcasters currently benefit from the new ancestry-based spell system where spells granted by a feature can be cast with normal spell slots alongside a single free cast. This is a good change, but it’s one that only improves casting builds.
I want to see more options that synergize with, or at least don’t hinder, martial options. Metallic dragonborn’s breath weapons replacing a single attack is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. I am somewhat hopeful, as the thri-kreen introduced in the recent Travelers of the Multiverse Unearthed Arcana gets an extra set of arms. This feature is good for just about any build, but it’s strongest for martial characters. Being able to wield a hand crossbow and shield or two light weapons and a shield simply hasn’t been possible before.*
I want to see natural weapons that synergize with a character’s unarmed features,* extra damage dice on weapon attacks, and defensive reactions that many martial classes lack. However the designers go about it, closing the gap of ancestry utilization between martials and casters would be a great boon for the next edition of the game.
6. Rework Vision and Obscurement
The way 5E handles vision and its effect on combat is one of the least intuitive parts of the game. Intuitively, two people trying to have a sword fight when they can’t see each other would result in a lot of missing on both sides. However, according to 5E, both combatants would fight as if they could see normally. This is because of how advantage and disadvantage work. Each combatant counts as blind, meaning anyone attacking them does so with advantage, but because the attacker is also blind, any attacks they make have disadvantage. The advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, resulting in normal attacks.
This counter-intuitive interaction also means that some attacks can be made more accurate by passing through a source of obscurement. For example, javelins have a maximum range of 120 feet but suffer disadvantage against targets more than 30 feet away. However, if you throw your javelin through some darkness that your target can’t see through, even if you can’t either, the attack is made as normal. You get one instance of advantage from the target not being able to see you, which cancels out both instances of disadvantage you get from being out of range and not being able to see the target.
Obscurement can also be more of a headache for some characters than others. For some reason, attacks can be made against a target you can’t see, but spells like Toll the Dead specifically require vision. This unequal treatment can be frustrating for players, especially if the source of the obscurement is another character. I’m not really sure how to best address this problem, but I’d love to see them try.
7. Rework Readied Action
Last but not least, I finally air my grievances about the readied action. If you haven’t seen it for a while, this is the official text from the Player’s Handbook.
Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.
First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it. Examples include “If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I’ll pull the lever that opens it,” and “If the goblin steps next to me, I move away.”
When the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger. Remember that you can take only one reaction per round.
When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell’s magic requires concentration (explained in chapter 10). If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken.
You have until the start of your next turn to use a readied action.
That is way too much text to cover what should be the relatively simple idea of “I want to do a thing but later than my current turn.” This iteration of Ready interacts weirdly with abilities like Extra Attack and trying to ready a spell costs the character’s concentration regardless of what spell they plan to cast. This version of Ready also raises issues of whether or not readying an action prior to a fight is allowed. Can the roomful of goblins all have shortbow attacks readied when the party opens the door? Or can the party’s wizard ready a Fireball for when that same door opens?
The main fix I’ve thought of is simply shifting the character’s turn to a later part of the initiative order. It could be written like this, and take up a lot less text:
Requirements:
- If you have done anything this turn, you cannot take the Ready action.
- You cannot take the Ready action more than once per round.
You ready yourself to take your action at a later time. You select an initiative roll lower than your current one, then your turn immediately ends. For the duration of this round, you act as if your initiative roll was the one you selected. Your initiative resets to its original number after taking this special turn.
Alternatively, if being able to lower a character’s initiative for just one turn is too powerful or requires too much bookkeeping, then the initiative change could be permanent rather than resetting after the character’s action.
If the designers really want to keep this style of “x triggers action y,” then simplify it. Make it so if the fighter readies an attack they can use all of their Extra Attack feature, and if the wizard plans to use Firebolt on the first enemy to enter their room, don’t force them to drop that Haste spell they were concentrating on. I favor the approach of shifting the character’s entire turn, but either of the approaches I outlined here would be a great improvement.
As I was writing this article I kept coming up with more changes or additions I’d like to see to D&D’s next incarnation. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone wants to read a list with 50 entries, so I tried to restrict myself to topics I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere. I agree that subclasses need updates and the game could use a new crafting system, but it’s important to look into some of the underlying design philosophies present in the game. Whether experiments that didn’t work out or holdovers from a game made forty years ago, nothing should be considered untouchable when making D&D the best game it can be.
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Didn’t 4th edition have a “delay your turn” option? I definitely remember doing that, but that was when I started playing so it might have just been a house rule we used.
Didn’t play much of 4e myself, but I remember playing with a rule like this in older editions. Also not sure if it was a house rule or not =P.
I if I understand ‘Backwards compatible’ right, than that means this is going to be more like a 5.5e than a 6e. I also think it means that any of your old 5e PCs should slot into the new system with minimal fudging required ie the stats will still fall between 3 and 18, so many feats per level, ect.
Giving two feats a level, one of each type, works ok. But I would divide it up differently. Maybe one Combat and one Non-Combat feat? That way, some of the perennially useless features, like languages and tool-proficiency, can be worked in and balanced around. Ten feats total sounds like a lot, so maybe 4-and-4 instead?
Fleshing out the non-combat mechanics in general would also be nice, but that would be a much bigger overhaul than I think they would do. Something like the ‘Battle of Wills’ from Burning Wheel (I think?), but fitting better into a d20 system.
If I was designing a system from scratch, I would have at least one caster who uses each stat as their primary casting stat. Wizards use int, clerics and druids wis, and char for Sorcerers. I would have at least one class (Primary class, not sub-class) of spellcaster who uses str and dex to cast spells as well. Maybe or maybe not one for con, but constitution is already a wierd stat balance wise- it is already fairly important for every class.
The type “backwards compatible” you’re describing is what I fervently hope they avoid. Trying to make a new iteration of the game so married to the current one that you can just dump old 5e characters into it without problem means they will be so constrained on the changes they can make that this will end up looking like a scaled up version of Tasha’s, with lots of little erratas and “optional” class features.
“If I was designing a system from scratch, I would have at least one caster who uses each stat as their primary casting stat. Wizards use int, clerics and druids wis, and char for Sorcerers. I would have at least one class (Primary class, not sub-class) of spellcaster who uses str and dex to cast spells as well. Maybe or maybe not one for con, but constitution is already a wierd stat balance wise- it is already fairly important for every class.”
They tried something like this in the later stages of D&D 3.5e with Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, aka “The Book Of Weeaboo Fightan Magic” or “The Book Of Nine Euphemisms For My D*ck” — the fact that it got those nicknames should tell you all you need to know about what many players of the time thought about “Martial Magic.” It was a book filled with optional martial classes that had Stances and Maneuvers which were functionally spells — they were the forerunner of Encounter Powers in 4e and “Short or Long Rest” powers in 5e.
If you’re talking about casters who use Strength or Dexterity to cast normal spells, I’d want to know more about what sort of flavor such a casting would have. Are they like doing Dragonball Z screams to power up their spells or something?
I always imagined dex-based spell casting as fancy finger-wagglin’, casting spells by tracing precise runes and glyphs in the air. Con-based magic could be something like blood magic.
Strength is much harder to picture.
“You punch the ground with impressive force. Each creature within 10 ft of you takes damage equal to your strength modifier”
I responded via a tumblr post, but I wanted to put this here too, in a much shorter format that someone might actually read.
1. These are pretty minor complaints, and changing these would actually be a huge amount of trouble and probably fundamentally change the game.
2. There aren’t actually a lot of places where separating flavor and rule text makes sense. Most spells don’t include a description of how they’re cast, and burning hands is just an exception. Because of this, I think trying to divide things up in a consistent way would be a huge pain, and I’d rather they just make it so that this sort of contradiction is ironed out.
3. There are minor feats, ie feats that allow you to take 1 stat point instead of costing you both. Chef and Actor both fall into this category. You could also say that items that don’t require attunement are minor items, although for some I would say that attunement simply doesn’t make sense (Sovereign Glue).
4. Great idea, and I think the levels you chose work well too. In previous editions, multiclassing tended to be the opposite way, where martial stuff stacked but spellcasting didn’t, so I imagine that they wanted to change that, but they went too far in the other direction.
5. I like this too. Cool race abilities are always fun.
6. Neutral, but Toll the Dead doesn’t have an attack roll, so I don’t think there’s an unequal treatment between the classes here. If you use something like Chill Touch that does require an attack roll, concealment works normally.
7. Reading the 5e rules for readied actions make me angry. I prefer your second option of just simplifying them, since while delaying your turn in the initiative is fine, I feel that the purpose of the Readied Action is to be able to act during someone else’s turn. For example, you can ready an action to attack someone if they draw their weapon, so that you can get the first strike in, and possibly kill or debuff them before they can attack.
The rules for readying a spell are especially egregious imo, as you have to 1. Drop whatever spell you are concentrating on, 2. burn a spell slot, and 3. might lose the spell if you get attacked before you cast it and 4. might never even have the condition met in the first place!
Fixing the intuitiveness of the system is minor for experienced players, but a huge boon for new players. This is an easy way to make the game more inviting without reducing the depth that many experienced players love.
Go look up the debate on whether or not the artificer’s repeating shot lets you use a hand crossbow and a shield and you’ll see why separating rules and flavor text is important. It would also let the designers add in cool flavor to all the mechanics that currently lack it.
Those aren’t minor feats, they’re just feats with +1 attribute attached to them. Some of them are very strong, like Elven Accuracy, and some are not great, like chef. Chef shouldn’t compete with Elven Accuracy and could be made into a minor feat that is acquired separately, just remove the attribute boost.
There are items without an attunement requirement that blow many attunement items out of the water, see Boots of Elven Kind and Sentinel Shield. Making all items attunement, grading them based on general power level, and allowing for different slots for each of those grades would allow items of all power levels to see play even at higher levels.
There’s no reason why Toll the Dead requires more sight than firing an arrow at someone. Obscurement is a mess in general but making sure that one character doesn’t dick over another is a good design goal.
I’d like to see an expansion of the spell list so you aren’t shoehorned into specializing in fire spells if you want to be a DPS caster. Hell, while I’m whistling for the moon I’d like to see different elemental magic get some more differentiation/standardized “extra” effects. Something like:
Fire spells: Big damage, risk of friendly fire (pun intended)
Ice spells: less damage, but get a built-in frostbite debuff that (on a failed con save) imposes a penalty on dex checks or a reduction to the affected creature’s movement the next turn or something like that.
Earth/rock spells innate chance of a knockdown effect on a dex save or automatically creating patches of difficult terrain
Lightning spells: innate chain effects with higher level spells (and spells hightened to higher levels) being able to chain to targets further away
Thunder damage/sonic spells: Stun chance on a con save, higher level spells having a harder DC. This is potentially really overpowered, I know, but I can’t think of any other real gimmick for this damage type.
Radiant is easy: dazzled debuff, make the next attack roll at disadvantage
Necrotic is nasty enough as it is, but maybe imposing a level of exhaustion on a crit?
Although it didn’t make this list I agree that a full rebalancing of the spells in 5e and making consistent damage type themes like the ones you’re talking about would be a great addition to the game.
Hey, this is pretty neat! Something that caught my eye is the way you’re describing the Ready action is almost like how it worked in 3.5. There, you could drop your turn 10 points down the initiative order. Did you take inspiration from that?
I wasn’t thinking about it consciously, but I used to play 3.5 many years ago so it’s quite possible. Wherever I got it from it’s certainly better than the overcomplicated mess that is 5e’s readied action.
Pathfinder 2nd ed is an example of separating roleplaying features and combat that I think was done beautifully. Skills can be improved for new uses, Lore skills for niche interests, even ways for races to gear themselves well for any class.
I also fell in love with its multiclassing. You are always your level in your core class, but you can instead take Limited features from another class instead of features in your own. Instead of the crazy cluster of different levels all over the place to take the best features.
I haven’t gotten around to reading Pathfinder yet, but I’ve heard good things. It’s important for games like 5e to remove competition between options of vastly different power levels wherever possible and I’m glad other games are handling it better.
My hope is that they do something about weapon damage. I find that a bazillion different weapons with almost as many different damage dice and hit point mountains are annoying.
I’d like to talk my GM into a method where all weapons do a d6 and for every (maybe) three points higher your roll + modifier is over the target number, you get another d6 for damage. A small problem is that sneak attacks and critical hits can go over the top, damage-wise. I’m still in the testing phase.
Minor feats would be a good addition, to make minor skills more available. One thing 3e had was the sense that skill points were generally locked into the noncombat side of the game, so taking some Baker was easier than sacrificing everything for yet more Spot Hidden. 5e really does go the other direction, where getting even a token skill beyond the initial set probably costs what would have been a precious combat feat.
The way games are played tends to separate combat and noncombat, and flavor abilities too. And every group has its own balance of them… which means, giving the players the option to sacrifice noncombat and minor traits for Yet More Power usually ends up with people on different pages.
So yes, I’d like to see characters get some extra picks, that can only be used for noncombat or flavor skills. A party with no Bakers just isn’t as sweet.
But wasn’t that the idea behind backgrounds? That a “guild artisan/merchant” would cover artisan tools be it an brewer, baker and candlestick maker. So you could be the son of a carpenter that made a deal with a fairy in exchange for not cutting down a particular oak tree, thus becoming a Fey-lock, Druid, Ranger, Paladin of the Ancients or a Nature Cleric.
While we’re talking about visibility and obscurement, we need to address cover too. The issue comes up surprisingly often in my games, especially when Wall of Force is cast. The wall is solid (and therefore grants total cover), but also transparent. Can you cast a spell through it? Even if normally you can’t target anyone behind total cover? What if the spell specifies “a target you can see”?
It only gets worse when you get into spell description, like you mentioned on the flavor text topic. Does the magic specifically streak between caster and target like Scorching Ray? Does it manifest directly under/on top of target like Ice Storm? What if the streak is only light (Fireball)? What it the WHOLE SPELL is only light (Sickening Radiance)? What if the spell simply manifests (Heat Metal, Haste, Slow…)???
Separate question, but also tangential: we need clearer rules on hiding. Can you hide on a plain square? Does this mean rogues get advantage on pretty much every attack they make (because of Cunning Action)?
You should check out pathfinder 2e.
I really agree with most of your points, wouldn’t mind to actually hear your other ideas. I would look forward to another post on this subject.
There’s going to be another edition???!!!
I usually will disagree with you on several matters related to 5e but this is spot on. I’d like to add that there needs to be more to the exploration tree as right now I have no clue about anything on it.
how to fix 5e.
let languages do something past level 5. a single spell shouldn’t make the accomplishment of learning 4 languages insignificant.
make skills and expertise more useful beyond perception, stealth and persuasion. unless you’re specifically asking to do something like identify a spell, these are all you need.
tools actually have a use. magic should not solve every problem. smiths tools should be able to make quality armor. magic can duplicate it maybe.
this would actually make the game an adventure, not just ‘combat, sneak, persuade.’
In general, I feel as if 5e has been massively stripped down from… well, everything.
Almost everything about the game seems open at first but is actually very limiting (a big part of the reason PF2e just doesn’t appeal to me).
I’d never begrudge anyone for playing it, and in fact it is an excellent starting system for DnD and RPGs in general.
What do you think are the most noticeable elements of being “stripped down” compared to the previous edition?
Don’t Let The DM set DIFFICULTY LEVELS!
It’s so hard to build trust at the table.
You already don’t trust the dice, how can you trust your pals (or worse, some guy on d20) to make decisions that show off what you want your character to do? Why make a great character when you know, halfway through acting like you’re good at archery, the DM’s going spike that DC on a called shot for whatever agenda they’re pursuing.
Take a page from many indie RPGS: set the difficult levels in the rules.