u/ConcentrateIll9460

4 isn't unusual and is more common than 2, but in terms of actual, practical gameplay the average seems to hover just above 3. Anecdotally, that matches my own experience going back beyond even 5e, there are always exceptions, some days have one or none and some days have lots. But overall, 3 or so matches what I've seen.

So where is the 6-8 per day thing coming from? They know very few people play like that, and it would be absurd to expect people to randomly change their narrative style to double the number of fights. So like... why is that number treated as being relevant, by anyone?

For those who don't remember it, it's a pretty simple spell, and it's always had the exact same effects - cast it, and everyone within 30' of the caster passes a save or dies.

Pre-4e design was a lot more hardcore than the current stuff is, fascinating to see a remnant of it return.

I'm not talking stuff like ninja or scout or whatever, the generic bloat classes absolutely contain little enough substance that you could easily make them fit as subclasses.

But whenever there's discussion about old classes that did unique things like warlord or battlemind from last edition, swordsage or binder from the edition before - you get people chiming in with just make it a (usually fighter for some reason) subclass.

And it's like... these are entire classes, ones that have like a hundred plus abilities just like a caster does. But nobody would say that if casting didn't exist, that you could just add wizard to the game as a fighter subclass.

How did we end up here? I'm not talking about needing them, my favourite D&D class ever (runepriest) wouldn't fit 5e one bit. I'm just saying I don't understand where the seemingly ever-present attitude that you could somehow fit an entire class worth of content into a subclass without losing most of what defined it comes from.

Someone made a thread on this exact issue yesterday. They said:

> increased choice and versatility spell casting offers puts them a step above for fun and replayability, at least in many cases

Basically, that for some players the lower amount of choice a martial gets makes them less engaging. And people rushed to respond with "nerf casters, enforce material components (can't they just buy a wand and ignore them?), force five extra encounters that don't fit it into a single adventuring day".

None of that is going to magically add more choices to martials though, it doesn't address the lack of meaningful choice at all. But here's the thing the other side isn't listening to: plenty of players like martials exactly as they are. There are all kinds of players having an absolute ball taking the attack action over and over and over, and they deserve to keep having fun.

Thing is, that's the only choice. If I want to play an intelligent, skilled combatant - someone who achieves victory through clever use of the many techniques they've mastered - my only real option is casting. Despite the fact that said archetype in fiction so often applies to swordsmen, there's absolutely no option with anywhere near the number of choices a wizard gets.

And lastly, we also see "well, I don't have this issue at my table". Cool, nobody at your table wants to play Rurouni Kenshin, doesn't mean people who do want to should have no options. We can have a perfectly enjoyable TTRPG in which this isn't fixed, but that doesn't mean fixing it wouldn't make it better. I'll never understand people who say "I don't care about this option, so I don't want you to have it."

Less homogeneity and more archetypes mechanically supported is good for everyone, right? Or at least no skin off the nose of people who don't care. To remind people: I'm not talking about power level here, I'm talking about the way characters play.

5e changed opportunity attacks so they:

• Use up your reaction
• Can only be done once per round
• Don't scale properly in damage
• Can't be used to attack someone for casting spells
• Don't activate unless someone leaves your range

(so standing directly between an enemy and an ally doesn't help, they can just go around you and attack them, but standing behind the enemy so that there's nothing between them and your ally does)

And it's like. Why? These seem very silly changes, they serve to remove a niche melee characters should have and strengthen casting.

This doesn't apply to every single deck, but I've found even when combat isn't really my gameplan it's often worth having an efficient card or two to boost my evasive commander. With [[Liesa, Shroud of Dusk]] for instance [[Commander's Insignia]] often means she's coming down with double digit numbers to get my life back, and in so many decks [[Shadowspear]] and [[Commander's Plate]] help my commander get through while adding other utility.

But I guess I'm asking what the most efficient, generic options available are. The like undoubtedly somewhere in commander there's a repeatable +5/+5 that costs way too little (or something along those lines), but not sure what it is.

Used to be in D&D that for every broad thing like Arcane Trickster or Ultimate Magus there was something really specific like Eunuch Warlock or Flayerspawn Psychic.

But these days, subclasses are built to be fairly general. Which is good! Smart way to do things. But if we were to see stuff with really specific hooks, like "you have a Jekyll and Hyde style other self" or "you are a champion of Gruumsh, now poke an eye out and go kill elves", what would you like to see?

We've all heard it a million times, either "5e doesn't have rules to do interesting things for martials" on forums or "I pull my knives out and roll to mountain climb up its back" in play.

Question is though, for such an insanely common talking point I've never really understood what it's supposed to actually do. This isn't me knocking it, just asking... now what? Aside from I guess automatically moving if the giant enemy moves, what mechanically is supposed to have changed?

As many are probably aware, sorcerers have existed for three editions now and in the first two there were plenty of sorcerer-only spells.

But in 5e, they got rid of them. This seems silly, all other classes have spells unique to them - why not sorcerers? Wizards used to prepare each spell they'd use each day, but now they cast the same way sorcerers do, so the entire reason the sorcerer class was invented (to be an alternative that could cast on the fly) is gone now.

Surely then it's even more important that they have their own spells! Aside from just giving back some of their old ones, what kinds of spells would you give sorcerers?

Got sick of the lack of simple options - yes, we're missing a warrior with anywhere near as many choices as a wizard. But we're also missing a mage that's as simple to build and play as a barbarian!

So, say I was trying to make the champion version of a magic user - something for a player who wants to be throwing fire but doesn't want the complexity of spellcasting. My thinking was give them access to one broad, simple trick per subclass - one has telekinesis, another makes things go boom, etc. And baseline class feature is just a moderate range, simple magical attack. So we're going talking a mage with the low versatility of a warrior, meaning it should be doing roughly the same damage.

1d10 every two levels?

The various discussions where people suggest classes D&D used to have (like warlords and swordmages) that covered ground 5e doesnt like has me curious. And I don't mean stuff like ninjas which could fit in 5e, but are pointless since you could just make them as a subclass.

What class that used to exist would fit the worst in 5e? We've heard about the stuff that is missing, so I'm curious as to what is best left behind ^1.

^1 I don't necessarily mean best left behind because bad idea, can just mean doesn't fit with 5e's design.

So, created new homebrew martial classes for my players and it's worked great, given a couple of them a playstyle they really vibe with. Gave the classes a stamina system (stronger moves cost tempo, weaker moves build it), added a bunch of aoe and bleeds and blinds and chokeholds etc, lots of lassoing dragons and spinning/throwing them by the tail Mario and Bowser style.

Lots of control, utility etc has to come at a price though, and for balance that price is single target damage! In terms of unconditional damage, each does about half the sustained single target a fighter does. I'm intending to keep it that way, but there's room to push the envelope: conditional damage, ensure that doing more damage is a meaningful choice rather than an obvious pick.

So far I've had a few that have been successful - you'll notice they all share a theme of having high potential effect, but of there not being an obviously correct choice:

• Blood Frenzy, go berserk and attack the nearest creature, friend or foe, unable to stop until you or a target you've attacked dies.
• Through the Self, stab sword through yourself and opponent for massive damage to both.
• False Finish, ignore a nearby bloodied target to lunge at an unbloodied one.
• Throat Cut, bleed for thirty damage each round and weakened while bleeding (one example of a ton of damage over time ones, bleeding can be fixed by being healed for more than you're bleeding for or you or an ally taking an action to staunch)
• Wrecking Ball, multi-turn maneuver where the user charges at least 15' and attacks a target as long as they haven't moved beforehand. The party needing to set up there being a viable target each round has proved a fun combat puzzle, since your last target is probably right next to you and can't be charged.

So! Now that I've exhaustively explained the exact context (sorry people last thread who found it unclear!), does anyone have any other ideas for making single target damage itself something with meaningful choice?

So, created new homebrew martial classes for my players and it's worked great, given a couple of them a playstyle they really vibe with. Gave the classes a stamina system (stronger moves cost tempo, weaker moves build it), added a bunch of aoe and bleeds and blinds and chokeholds etc, lots of lassoing dragons and spinning/throwing them by the tail Mario and Bowser style.

Lots of control, utility etc has to come at a price though, and for balance that price is single target damage! In terms of unconditional damage, each does about half the sustained single target a fighter does. I'm intending to keep it that way, but there's room to push the envelope: conditional damage, ensure that doing more damage is a meaningful choice rather than an obvious pick.

So far I've had a few that have been successful - you'll notice they all share a theme of having high potential effect, but of there not being an obviously correct choice:

• Blood Frenzy, go berserk and attack the nearest creature, friend or foe, unable to stop until you or a target you've attacked dies.
• Through the Self, stab sword through yourself and opponent for massive damage to both.
• False Finish, ignore a nearby bloodied target to lunge at an unbloodied one.
• Throat Cut, bleed for thirty damage each round and weakened while bleeding (one example of a ton of damage over time ones, bleeding can be fixed by being healed for more than you're bleeding for or you or an ally taking an action to staunch)
• Wrecking Ball, multi-turn maneuver where the user charges at least 15' and attacks a target as long as they haven't moved beforehand. The party needing to set up there being a viable target each round has proved a fun combat puzzle, since your last target is probably right next to you and can't be charged.

So! Now that I've exhaustively explained the exact context (sorry people last thread who found it unclear!), does anyone have any other ideas for making single target damage itself something with meaningful choice?

Other than it being part of a resource based subsystem, anyway. People often get confused by this kind of question and say stuff like "add conditions like prone!" which makes what you're doing more interesting, but doesn't actually answer what I'm asking - which is specifically single target damage itself and what variations can make it more interesting.

So - what mechanical ideas do you guys have for adding more meaningful choices to make for dealing single target damage? I've given players access to several abilities, and would appreciate ideas for more. So far I've used:

• Deal more damage to unbloodied enemy if near bloodied enemy (typically efficient to focus down wounded enemies, genuine friction in choice)

• Similarly, deal extra damage to targets they haven't damaged yet. (Requires movement and otherwise inefficient splitting of attacks - though both this one and the last don't work in single enemy fights)

• Stab sword through self, attack deals massive extra damage to both you and target (this one's obvious, HP cost)

• Enter frenzy that deals more damage each turn, frenzy ends when you kill one of the targets you've attacked, have to spend each turn charging and attacking nearest creature (enemy team tries to have you start closer to an ally so you attack them instead, ally team tries the reverse)

• Dealing damage over time, less upfront in exchange for continuous damage over the fight (this isn't a video game, fights don't last for minutes, turns it into a meaningful tradeoff)

• Having a character change to a stance that starts weaker and gets stronger over time, but is positional in requirements or interruptible (have to stay where you are, ended once a certain amount of damage is taken, have to move at least 20' each turn)

• Honourable mention to stuff like "add a mark or whatever on a hit, consume X marks for Y effect" which is just a resource system but attached to a specific for instead

Other than it being part of a resource based subsystem, anyway. People often get confused by this kind of question and say stuff like "add conditions like prone!" which makes what you're doing more interesting, but doesn't actually answer what I'm asking - which is specifically single target damage itself and what variations can make it more interesting.

So - what ideas do you guys have for adding more meaningful choices to make for dealing single target damage? I've given players access to several abilities, and would appreciate ideas for more. So far I've used:

• Deal more damage to unbloodied enemy if near bloodied enemy (typically efficient to focus down wounded enemies, genuine friction in choice)

• Similarly, deal extra damage to targets they haven't damaged yet. (Requires movement and otherwise inefficient splitting of attacks - though both this one and the last don't work in single enemy fights)

• Stab sword through self, attack deals massive extra damage to both you and target (this one's obvious, HP cost)

• Enter frenzy that deals more damage each turn, frenzy ends when you kill one of the targets you've attacked, have to spend each turn charging and attacking nearest creature (enemy team tries to have you start closer to an ally so you attack them instead, ally team tries the reverse)

• Dealing damage over time, less upfront in exchange for continuous damage over the fight (this isn't a video game, fights don't last for minutes, turns it into a meaningful tradeoff)

• Having a character change to a stance that starts weaker and gets stronger over time, but is positional in requirements or interruptible (have to stay where you are, ended once a certain amount of damage is taken, have to move at least 20' each turn)

• Honourable mention to stuff like "add a mark or whatever on a hit, consume X marks for Y effect" which is just a resource system but attached to a specific for instead