Community

One big thing that I think should be done for 5th is to go over a lot of the old variant rules and ideas that were used in different systems. What I loved about 3rd was that it was the edition of experimentation, my favorite books from that period being the Book of 9 Swords, Tome of Magic, and Magic of Incarnum. Incarnum was admittedly kinda messed up, but I give them credit for gambling with an interesting if poorly exectured concept, I consider it a magnificent failure and something that I would like to see tried again.

What I mean is this, when I was waiting for 4th edition I was hoping for martial characters that would be clear evolutions from the tome of battle, the idea of stances and set manuevers were very appealing to me, and the class abilities coupled with that stuff made some very fun and interesting characters. I also remember the magic systems from tome of Magic, the Binder still blows my mind when I read it today. It was something that was simple, effective, mechanically viable and had some very cool and interesting effects. Always on abilities that might require recharges, a kind of cost in what would happen if you rolled badly when forging the pacts. Hell, with some tweaking that could make a very good kind of cleric. The shadowcaster while a little wonky might offer a more easily balanced version of the wizard without moving completely away from vancian roots. The truenamer...well there might be some things that need to be rebuilt entirely, but again, nice attempt.

Hell, the warlock might even be called a more realized version of the sorcerer concept as originally written. What I'm hoping is that when the new edition comes the classes will feel mechanically distinct and also there might be some attempts to ressurect old ideas that might be very useful in this go round.

What I mean here is that there were some very cool and innovative ideas, and I'm worried that because they weren't core they'll be forgotten. If anyone else has any favored variant mechanics or ideas that they think would be cool as possible addons or replacements in the new system might as well bring them up here.

My likes and dislikes are mixed with regard to martial manuevers.  But I do like stances in the abstract.

Loved Incarnum, have an important Aasimar Incarnate/Monk NPC in my Planescape campaign.

I love alternate systems (here comes the Balance Brigade). 

Apr 10, 2012 -- 2:01AM, Archangel62 wrote:

Apr 6, 2012 -- 7:54AM, Emerikol wrote:

My likes and dislikes are mixed with regard to martial manuevers.  But I do like stances in the abstract.

I have to ask, what didn't you like about martial manuevers?

I've been on dozens literally threads debating the pros and cons of the way they did martial manuevers in 4e.   I hate to hijack an innocent thread that has nothing to do with that subject.

Let's just say I don't like plot coupons.  If you want to email about it Archangel62 thats fine.  Let's no distract this thread.