I'm curious as to how quickly BG3 rule changes will start making their way into tabletop house rules and 3rd party supplements.
My guess is pretty quickly, if my own group is any worthwhile measurement.
Yeah. Larian made some really good changes to D&D, then they added crit fails to skill checks
Crit fails on skill checks have been houseruled into the game for ages, this is not something cooked up by Larian
What changes have they made? I’d love to know as I’m always game to allow homebrew etc at my table (so long as I’ve read the material, everyone agrees, and we roll with it from the start of a campaign).
Off the top of my head:
Changes fall into two categories:
- Rule Tweaks
- New mini-systems.
Under 1:
- Shove is not a part of the attack action. It is a bonus action available to all characters. Shove only pushes the target back an amount that depends on the shover's strength and the target's weight. It normally does not knock them prone unless they are shoved off a high ledge.
- Weapons are given unique weapon action attacks depending on the weapon type. These can be used once per short rest only if the wielder is proficient with the weapon.
- Removed the requirement that attacks must be made using Strength to activate the benefits of Rage.
- Removed the requirement that attacks must be made using Strength to activate the benefits of Reckless Attack.
- Fast Hands simply gives you an additional Bonus Action with no restrictions.
- Haste simple gives you an additional Action with no restrictions
- Consuming a potion is only a bonus action.
- If a creature throws a healing potion as an action, it will break and heal all targets in a small radius.
Under 2:
Numerous weapons and items have systems attached to them that create or consumes various "charges" to add additional effects
As an example, weapons and items with the "spark" ability builds Lightning Charges in the wielder when certain criteria are fulfilled.
If 5 Lightning Charges are built up, the next instance of damage done with an attack role inflicts an additional 1d8 Lightning Damage.
meanwhile in legally distinct dragon game: Hmm yes I will dip fighter for access to a lv 4 reaction strike on every single character i make.
Also in legally distinct dragon game: Watch in amazement as I use my staff/dagger/rapier as a shield!
Dont forget the dip in fighter in 5th that allows you to use action surge on a caster. So good its banned at the table I play at
Back in my day we got an extra attack at 6th, 11th, and 16th level, and each one was at a cumulative -5 penalty, AND WE LIKED IT!
Paths do not find this.
Yeah, without some third party/house rules, multiclassing casters is already bad for your casting, but then also harms your BAB even more than it normally is, whereas multiclassing full martials has few downsides.
Not going to lie, I'm already taking notes. I like that in general, if you make the right choices, it's easy to make even wizards feel a lot less squishy, which would make me feel a lot more comfortable not pulling punches in my game. One of my favorite changes so far is the wild shape recharge on short rest for druids.
It's gotten me thinking about how to fix some other broken classes again, like making Ranger not fucking suck, and fixing the MADness of Barbarian. Fight me IRL, having the Barb's unarmored defense dependent on dex instead of strength is dumb as hell when the barbarian is clearly a STR/CON class, that would be like having the Monk's unarmored defense being dependent on Constitution. "So, what, Barbarians should just deflect attacks by flexing extra hard?" Yes.
Ummm... Barbarian Unarmored Defense is based off Con, not Dex. They just didn't take away the default Dex bonus to AC that every class in the game gets. They shrug off damage by having a high Con. Barbarians are pretty good as it is, if you let them completely dump Dex and give AC from Str, they would be broken AF... 18 AC at level 1 with a shield under point buy system, and immediate jump to 20 AC at level 4, with no reduction in damage output at all. Possible to be 20 AC at level 1 literally completely naked (no shield) with rolled stats, and 18 isn't even entirely unlikely...
The reason that it's broken (in a bad way) as Dex+Con compared to the Monk's Dex+Wis unarmored defense is that monks absolutely CAN get broken as fuck AC from Dex + Wis, especially as the game goes on. Kinda on a related note, in BG3 I re-specified Astarion as a thief/monk, gave him a few mid-tier magic items, and now he's my front-line tank with an AC of 21 at level 7. No sane Barbarian PC is going dex barb, so realistically the barbarian's unarmored defense is going to cap out at AC 15-16 minus shield (which, come on, what barbarian won't be rocking two handed weapons?). So, while the Monk gets unarmored defense based on both of its chief stats, Barbarian gets unarmored defense based on just one of its chief stats.
Having a barbarian with a broken AC to start with doesn't bother me too much, but then I also tend to not run gritty/from dark style games, and that's also bearing in mind that the martial classes don't really scale as well as the casters do after level five. Giving the barbarian a ludicrous AC to aspire to at high levels might help balance that out.
What could go wrong if a class with the most hp and that halves the incoming damage also had extreme AC naked?
They are supposed to be a tank.
That said, Barbs shouldn't have that high an AC since their rage requires them to either attack or get damage. So a high AC would force them to only attack or lose their rage.
Didn't druid already get wildshape on a short rest? I do agree that barbarian Unarmored Defense is a bit lackluster though.
I get what they were thinking. Monk gets to add Wisdom because their awareness let's them dodge, so it should be roughly equivalent to let a barbarian add Constitution because their natural durability makes them harder to hurt. Dexterity being one of the main Ability Scores for monks throws this out the window though
TBF the only class that gets more than one extra attack is the fighter.
Now of course it would make sense to sum up the levels you have in classes that get multiattack, and if you have >=5, you get an extra attack. But since attack progression is far less regular than spell slot progression, getting something approaching regularity beyond that would be difficult.
Now if OneD&D wanted to boost martials and introduce some sort of a multiattack scaling across multiclassing, here is how that could work:
- Introduce features called Special Attack and Signature Attack. (Simply because just stacking extra attacks in a way that gives a bunch of half-casters extra attack at level 5-6 would give full martials a ridiculous number of attacks per turn at higher levels.) Special Attack is an attack that deals double weapon damage (which stacks with crits), but other extra damage sources like smites don't get doubled. Signature Attack is a Special Attack that can also force a save, either a STR save vs. being disarmed, a DEX save vs. being knocked prone, or a CON save vs. being dazed. You pick which one when you get the feature, and you can change it on level up.
- Introduce an attack progression table which details how many regular and special attacks you get per warrior level. (IDK if Lemmy's MD syntax allows tables in lists, so see the table below.)
- Like for spell slots, some classes (fighter, barbarian, monk) count as whole classes, others (paladin, ranger, artificer) count as half, and some caster subclasses (bladesinger, swords bard, hexblade, etc...) count as third.
The table:
Warrior Level Normal attack Special attack Signature Attack 0 1 - - 3 2 - - 6 1 1 - 9 2 1 - 12 1 1 1 15 2 1 1 18 1 2 1 So:
- A level 12 single class fighter gets 1 normal, 1 special, and 1 signature attacks.
- So does a fighter 6 / barbarian 6.
- A level 12 paladin counts as a level 6 warrior so they get a normal and a special attack. (Also, in OneD&D the divine smite is a bonus action spell like every other smite, so the level 18 paladin can't go too nuclear with 3 smites per turn.)
- A fighter 6 / paladin 6 counts as a level 9 warrior, 2 normal attacks and 1 special attack.
Of course this could be refined a bit further, e.g., instead of a generic "special attack" they could pick power attack (must be a strength-based attack), precise strike (must be a dexterity-based melee attack), or pinpoint shot (must be a dexterity-based ranged attack) and they could swap this one on level-ups too. But I think this should be a start.
in dnd 5e
Can you elaborate? I really only have experience with 5e
Martial hybrids are fun and good in other systems. In D&D 3e, for example, its the complete opposite situation; martials can pick up cool tricks like dual wielding while progressing their accuracy and health, whereas casters lose a level of spell progression and gain a second track of spell progression thats about as strong as a lv 1 character
I usually offer players with multiple instances of extra attack a +1 to their to hit, and Im considering offering +1 crit range as well. This is a real sticking point to me in 5e, the lack of viable build variety.
Im considering offering +1 crit range as well.
Champion fighters in shambles right now
I mean, their +1 would stack. Crit range expansion was a big part of the game in 3.x. That game had you crit confirmation, and 5e makes it easy to get advantage, but I literally do not care.
Champion is also a badly designed class, it could have had maneuvers for a teensy bit of complexity, but they needed a "newb" subclass, paving the way for conceptually elemental subclasses with no mechanical complexity at all (note that the wizard didn't get hit with any of this).
Spellcaster doesn't get spell of higher level in this case, only spellslot. A martial still get the proficiency up.
Casters also get proficiency up, that depends on total character level.
And higher spell slot levels still increase the character's damage output and specific utility. Some spells - such as Cure Wounds or Hold Person - are pretty much designed to be upcast, and some others (e.g. Heat Metal) are unexpectedly great. Someone with Bard 3 / Sorcerer 4 might only have second level spells, but a level 4 Heat Metal vs. a heavily-armored target deals 4d8 per turn without a saving throw for up to 10 turns.
In the case of heat metal the better effect is the disadvantage it gives to the victim. 4d8 is not much. A lvl5 martial does this with a rusty one handed weapon, without a spell slot, two less levels, and I resource whatsoever.
And then most lvl4 spells are much more powerful or much more useful.
Multiclassing before lvl5 is usually a bad idea. You can twist the problem how you like, that's how the game is designed.
Take a paladin 4/fithter 3, and any smite will do much, much more than your heat metal. A champion 3/berzerker 4 (you must be really stupid to do that) will still do much, much more than your heat metal. And he will be able to do it as many time as you will.
Just saying, the cantrip gets more powerful but you just get one. I would prefer smaller cantrips but more of them like eldritch blast. So more sword swing is decent
@Golett03 hot take: cantrips ruined spellcasting. Spells should take spell slots unless they are a ritual or granted by a magic item. If I could go back in time and make cantrips not a thing, I would
Hot take: cantrips are fun and give new players exciting stuff to do and there's absolutely nothing even remotely fun at all about keeping track of how many casts you have.
I think some very basic things, like prestidigitation, are fine. Basically magical effects that a child might do by accident but controlled through experience. Damaging spells? Probably not. Essentially, if it adds flavor to knowing how to manipulate magic, fine. If it grants power, it's probably not a good contrip.
@Cethin pretty much every centripetal worth taking either deals damage, give combat advantages, or has a very useful effect like Light.
Essentially my hot take is that even Prestidigitation and Light should be a 1st level spell. Especially Light.
You don't run out of attacks in a day, martials. Kindly fuck off. :P
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