Friday 2 September 2022

5 Changes I Want in OneD&D

With all the work being done to revise the D&D game at the moment, there are a lot of things I really would like to see. But there are some really simple changes that I think could help a lot. 


Paces

One of the most infuriating issues in running the game is having to constantly convert distances. The most simple of these is usually to take a distance (say, 30 feet) and convert that into inches, squares, or hexes on a tabletop (usually symbolic of five feet each). This is even more frustrating for those of us who use metric measurements in our daily lives, who might then want to convert those distances into something we can understand, resulting in those inches being converted again into 1.5 metre increments. It's bloody frustrating.

4th edition tried to simplify this by referring to distances by the square, and that got criticised for gamifying the system too much, but I think a middle ground could be found by introducing the concept of the "pace". A pace could be easily introduced into most gameworlds as a standard unit of measurement which was adopted by X army just like how it was by the Roman legions (the distance from one foot leaving the ground to when the same foot hits again while marching, which happens to be five feet.) The fluff could be easily adapted and discussed, but in essence it is essentially 5 feet, 1.5 metres, or 1 inch/square/hex on the tabletop. Using the pace for all game measurements would make conversion so much easier and would feel equally at place whether talking in-game or out of it.


Hinder Action

The Help action is a great tool that covers a lot of creative and interesting exploits your PCs may come up with into one simple and versatile rule. Use your action to give a mate Advantage. Easy.

But I think there's a place to bring in a similar rule to give an opponent Disadvantage, and the obvious name for it is Hinder. Naturally, there would need to be rules and restrictions to govern it (much like Help does) but it could easily be implemented.


Bloodied Condition

For all of 4th edition's flaws, it did get a few things right, and one of them was the Bloodied condition, which typically kicked in once a creature had lost half of its Hit Points. It's also nice and easy for a DM to use it as a term to vaguely but accurately answer a player's answers as to how injured an enemy is ("Ooh, it's been injured, but it's not Bloodied yet.")

The condition doesn't actually have to do much, but it could act as the trigger for other abilities and effects. For instance, spells such as Toll the Dead which can do extra damage to a creature that isn't at full HP could be reworded to get that change when used on Bloodied creatures (and it would also balance that cantrip much better.) Barbarian abilities might be readdressed to operate differently when the character is Bloodied. Some creatures, such as zombies or oozes, might not be able to get Bloodied at all.

Honestly, this condition would require a bit more work to introduce than some of the other changes I'd like, but I think it's worth the effort.


Versatile Warpicks

This is a small change, but one that would make me very happy. I have a bit of a fondness for dwarves and like the idea of a dwarf warrior rocking a big ridiculous warpick in the same way they are often shown with battleaxes and warhammers.

But mechanically they're simply a poor choice just because they lack the versatile trait. I don't really see any good reason why they shouldn't be versatile, which would make them the piercing equivalent to the battleaxe, longsword, and warhammer. 


Renaming Inspiration/Bardic Inspiration

Honestly, there's a lot of work I want to see done with Inspiration, but the very first thing I'd like to see is addressing the fact that Bardic Inspiration is too similar a name. New players always stumble on this and the term "Bardic Inspiration" is a bit ugly.

Ideally I'd like to see the Bard ability adopt the "inspiration" moniker for itself and have the Inspiration system use another name entirely. However, I don't have a great suggestion for what term it could be replaced with. Destiny? Motivation? Drive? Fate? Drama? Not sold on any of it so far, but I'm sure something could be thought of.


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