Legends & Lore: Class Design Concepts

Martial damage bonus dice? Really?

First of all, that label is pretty long-winded. Second–and more importantly–it does not make their role clearer when you can spend your martial damage bonus dice to activate things that are not tied to a martial damage bonus, like reducing damage from an attack (Parry), shielding someone else from harm (Protect), or gaining an initiative bonus (Danger Sense).

Expertise dice fit the description perfectly; bonus to damage, Armor Class, saving throws, skill checks, whatever. I guess if the name must be changed, something like stunt dice or exploit dice would make a lot more sense.

It will suck to see the rogue lose maneuvers in favor of another dice-based mechanic that also…grants…special…abilities? Huh. Anyway, maneuvers made them more flexible, interesting, and provided a cohesive system for martial classes (or, at least, classes with noteworthy, non-magical exploits). It also fulfilled the goal of making Sneak Attack a rogue option, as opposed to a universal class feature.

I think that whatever other system they cook up will achieve similar–if not the same–results, I just wonder why they would go through all the trouble. Maybe it will better fit the rogue?

While maneuver-granting feats sound all well and good, I am skeptical as to how useful and applicable they will be, especially with multiclassing and the reduced number of feats overall. Maybe with two editions under their belts and vocal playtesters, the designers will be able to avoid giving us options that sound good but end up having performance issues.

Good to hear that the spellcasting system will still support other options, as it means that–for me at least–that there is a chance that I will actually like one of them. Power points and encounter-refreshing are obvious candidates, but maybe will we see stuff like fatigue, damage, sacrifices, and more.

In a similar vein I am interested to see what kind of experimental rules they roll out for skills. A rank system, or something like 4th Edition’s skill powers could be cool. Just throw it in there as an optional rule. Actually just throw in a lot of experimental rules for a lot of things; who knows what will stick?

I like the idea of a paladin being charged with alignment-based powers, especially if each alignment component does its own thing (or rather, has access to a menu of things), allowing for a bunch of combinations. It reminds me of the champion from Arcana Unearthed–I think…I might be thinking of something else, if not mis-remembering it entirely–and helps differentiate them from clerics.

On the topic of alignments, forcing paladins-as-alignment-champions to have certain alignments makes sense. Forcing all monks to be Lawful when there are non-Lawful archetypes does not.

Legends & Lore: Expertise Dice

It looks like expertise dice are more or less going to become a kind of universal mechanic for weapon-using classes, like psionic classes and power points, except that not every class is necessarily going to get maneuvers as part of the deal.

I agree with having damage scale as opposed to attack bonuses. 3rd Edition’s three separate base attack bonus rates made it a nightmare to balance monsters, especially with melee-oriented characters that dared to multiclass. At least this way more characters will be able to land a hit, though depending on how things scale it might not be a good hit.

On a similar note this allows low-level monsters to remain viable threats, even if it means having to gang up in order to inflict a meaningful amount of damage. Hopefully this means we can avoid having to scale up their level as we did in 4th Edition (resulting in some strange things like level 10 goblins), or spend hours piling on class levels and re-calculating attack bonus, saving throws, skills, feats, and more as with 3rd Edition.

I know that expertise dice started out as the fighter’s shtick, but to me it really made a lot of sense to give the rogue (and the monk, and probably some iteration of the ranger, paladin, barbarian, etc) maneuvers; they are simple, dynamic, and for those that took issue with 4th Edition not limited by the encounter or day (though Mearls makes mention of that being a possible optional module near the end…dun dun duuun).

Even so some people are upset that the fighter has to share its nice things, but I do not see an issue with it because maneuvers are not universally available; a rogue cannot take Deadly Strike (so the fighter gets to regularly burn dice to dish out bonus damage), fighters cannot take Skill Mastery, and only monks can run on water thanks to Step of the Wind. So even ignoring class features, to a point there is some form of niche protection, though I wonder how well things will be preserved with multiclassing.

While I am all for giving the fighter some more iconic features, I think Parry is a pretty boring way to go about it. What about swashbuckling rogues? What about monks slapping aside swords with their bare hands? What about armor? I hear a lot of complaints about how a good Dex and light armor is better than going the heavy route, so why not give them options that make them even better in heavy armor, such as damage resistance or even just a plain ol’ AC boost?

I am baffled that some might think that expertise dice are too complicated. Are players really forgetting if they used one or two dice less than a minute ago? Do not get me wrong, I am all for giving the fighter full access to dice for actions and reactions (some would argue that it is better to just use them for bonus damage instead of anything else, so this would encourage people to use things like Parry and Protect), I just cannot believe that it is because it is too difficult to keep track of.

Feats giving out extra maneuvers sounds interesting, but if they are all fueled by expertise dice then it still restricts it to certain classes. Granted if more classes have access to expertise dice it will at least end up being a lot more flexible than in past editions (even 4th Edition, which made it very easy to make functional duel-wielding fighters, rangers, barbarians, and maybe something else I am forgetting about).

Maybe if said feats granted bonus expertise dice? Actually, I wonder how expertise dice will scale through multiclassing; it would suck to take a second attack that does all of 1d4 damage at 5th-level.

Speaking of scaling, another issue is how magic works in the bigger picture given that most spells do not scale. They do one thing, no matter what level you are. In past editions many spells automatically scaled, often with a damage cap. An iconic example is fireball, which dealt 1d6 damage per level, up to 10d6. In 4th Edition this was also handled via power swapping: eventually you got to a point where you could exchange one power for another (though a few powers scaled up automatically).

Not so in In 5th Edition where there are only like, two spells that I can think of that scale–magic missile and thunderwave–and that is only if you memorize them using higher-level spell slots. There are still a couple potent save-or-screws, such as hold person and polymorph but, eh…if you follow this blog at all then you know that for me the traditional D&D magic system is another can of worms entirely.

In short I am behind the idea of scaling damage instead of attack bonuses and dice-fueled maneuvers, so long as they are thematically tied to class. I can also get behind feat-granted maneuvers, though it depends on how it gets executed. Same goes for the optional encounter/daily stuff. As always, magic needs a major overhaul.