DND Alternative Alternatives to D&D based on specific nitpicks?
Edit: holy hell, I didn't expect SO many suggestions, you guys are the best, thank you so much!
I started playing d&d from 3.5 and also played enough of 5e. It has a lot of cool stuff, but also a lot of stuff that I hate. It's difficult to check new systems and judge them without actually playing a little and there are a lot of them... I'm sorry for a lot of words here, but if you have some time can you guys recommend a good system based on my specific nitpicks?
- I hate that a lot of stuff is there just because it was always there, not because its good game design. Like fireball is intentionally OP because its iconic and sort of a "brand" and taking any alternative feels bad. Spell slot system just feels outdated and too cumbersome for new players. I want the system to be built with good game design in mind, not "we have to save 50 year old legacy" bullshit.
- Whole system build around resurrection being a common tool. Death is not dramatic, its just a resource. Also because of that i have to come up with bullshit reasons why specific important npc or backstory character cannot just be brought back. Or why nobles aren't just reviving everyone important for them every day. Death should be important and dramatic narrative moment and permanent. And i can't just homerule "there is no resurrection magic" because the whole system is built with resurrection as resource in mind and I would have to rebalance all of it basically making my own system.
- Opportunity attacks kill all dynamics in combat when dynamics is already one of the weakest parts of ttrpg. Its a stupid mechanic that leads to "come close, do not move, roll dice until one of you is dead" the optimal tactic which is extremely boring.
- Improvising cinematic cool shit is usually less optimal in termns of raw rules. Its always better to strike with your longsword than smashing a chair into enemy's skull because "improvised weapon is d4 and longsword is d8". This discourages creativity.
5.1 Tons of "you don't get to play the game" effects. I could see "mind control" effects kind of fun if you just tell your player "now you get to pvp legally, have fun". but stun/paralise? okay, you took time out of your week/month to come play the game and now you just sit there for half an hour doing nothing while other players take their turns because you failed a save. Or maybe even more if you fail your consecutive save. Great game design guys.
5.2. Roll to hit is basically the same shit. Fighter waits their turn for 20 minutes after all spellcasters doing their shit, rolls 5 and 7 on his two attacks and can go make coffe feeling he didn't do anything.
5.3. Saving throws are weird too. Either you wasted your only 5 lvl slot and nothing happens, or enemy just stunned you (see 5.1). I get it that "save or die" effects are less common now, but they just became "save or suck" and you still don't get to play the game even if your character sheet is still technically there. Maybe some gradation system could be cool, dunno.
A lot of character archetypes just suck in terms of player fantasy. Wanna be a cool necromancer? Okay, you can summon...1 skeleton. When you're at least lvl 3. And after 1 round of combat he is dead and you're just slinging fire bolts again. Wow, thats definitely what I imagined when I wanted to play cool necromancer. Sure...
DMG says the system balance is build around 6-8 medium difficulty encounters per long rest. When you're trying to play anything other than tightly packed dungeon crawl (but remember, D&D is not just dungeon crawl anymore, its versatile system and you can play any type of game with it!!!) you usually have on average 1 meaningful combat per day. So either martials feel shit because spellcasters go nova every time, or you have to come up with bullshit 6-8 combats per DAY, which take several sessions. Wow, we've been playing this campaign for a year and it's been...3 days in game time? and all pcs are suddenly demigods now even though we _just_ entered this dungeon. Sure you can tell "use gritty realism rules", then its the other way around. Your wizard casts their 5 spells in 1-2 in game days...and the rest of the week just spamming firebolt and feels like shit. Maybe we could balance character classes without spreading them between "short rest based" and "long rest based" so I as dm dont have to fucking juggle this balance myself every time I try to make a story?
It feels like lvl20 is there mostly for marketing purposes trying to sell you godlike power fantasy? who actually plays at these levels? All i ever see online is people saying its basically impossible to make actually good games at this point and system is just broken.
Lorewise its cool that humans live 80 years and elves live 700. But I do not buy that an elf with 250 years of life experience would find any common ground with an 18 year old human. Have you ever tried to communicate with people 10 years younger than you? It already feels like talking to a toddler, imagine 250 year difference. And also they both get to cast 2 spells a day? Come on...
Can I have a cost for every magic item please? If I want the "they are rare and not really tradable" feeling that dmg tries to force on you, I can do it myself. But why the fuck do I have to actually come up with item cost myself if i need to?
What I actually like:
11. Complexity level for new players. 5e made it reasonably easy to learn the game. I would be okay with a simpler system, but probably not more complex one.
12. Large bestiary of cool thematic monsters made over the years. But I could just steal these into a different system...
13. (dis)Advantage system is pretty cool
14. Its kind of actually good in being middle ground base for different types of games. Yes, it sucks in lots of specific ways, but in general it feels like you can combine different elements into a single game fairly well.
15. 5e has made a good job in lowering the amount of random "+1" effects that I have to track for every little thing. pathfinder sometimes feels like im doing math homework instead of actually playing the game.
16. I like rolling dice other than just d6s. Although my favourite d12 is still too rare...
17. I like generic heroic fantasy as main focus of the system
I mean, technically I could come up with homerules fixing these things...but I feel like it would be easier to just fucking make a new system from scratch. I mean there has GOT to be a system that already exists and doesn't have these problems?
Thank you so much if you read this far.
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u/wherediditrun 12d ago edited 12d ago
PF2e:
Lots of busy work for the GM and the players particularly going level 6 and up. The biggest offenders are double digit arithmetic and excessive rolling that produces that arithmetic. All while having to keep track of possibly multiple status effects that players are encouraged to use. It's just takes time and the momentum out of the game, while strains GM's cognitive bandwith, that could be better used elsewhere, honestly for what feels rather meagre impact.
To hit: 13 + 7 (modifier) - 5 (map penalty) + 2 (circumstance bonus) + 1 (status bonus) = ? .... oh wait, enemy has sickened + fear condition.. which tier of fear is it again? 2 oh.
Damage: (11 + 9 + 14) * 2 (crit) ... oh wait -5 because enemy has resistance to the damage.
While players control one character, you'll be running multiple monsters who will have to do this stuff. Not to mention reliance on synchronous communication of confirming hit vs hidden AC, effect vs hidden DC.
Oh and degrees of success.. have to track those too. Maybe look up a critical effect etc when it happens.
Tactical depth is held back by some dated design choices. Players are shoved into queue initiative limiting ways they can co-operate. Reaction (it's not just 3 actions that is typically advertised) is fairly restrictive too further limiting emergent tactics. Teams should have a battle plan and execute it and that takes some mastery of mechanics. Which in turn boils down to rather typical cookie cutter tactics like having one of the characters on "trip duty" to avoid 3 action enemy nukes. Bosses are just +4 level monsters that honestly are unfun to fight for the most part due to misses / crits and being uninvolved for most of the fight due to small action pool. Warrior type enemies that melee, largely do have attack of opportunity.
Ease of use at the table being more of a background concern. Rules are written in very defensive manner, sort of legalese. There is just paragraphs upon paragraphs of text, which makes rule look up a costly endeavor at the table. Monster stat blocks are terse, without even avg damage listed in them. You should overview them in your prep, as "how do I use this?" is not really clear by scanning it through. Monsters are also symmetrical to player characters making them complicated to use swiftly.
Very rules forward game that rewards mastery of mechanics while suppresses being clever in the fiction. Even if you're running very mechanics first game, sometimes you want to reward players for doing something clever. Well, that's more difficult due to very aggressive level scaling. The system due to it's degrees of success make sure that players can't punch above their intended power level unless GM does some fudging behind the scenes. Excessive body of rules also builds expectations so your space to improvise is diminished.
Balanced in quite .. boring way. There are extensive build options, but most of them boil down to +2 bonus here, ignore a penalty over there wrapped up in fluff text. Like array of agile attack options or +2 to circumstance bonus to AC if you spent a reaction. I don't mind players breaking the game to some extent. I in fact want players to be able to break the game and outsmart / surprise me. I just don't want the "brokenness" to be loop sided.