D&D General Simple, Gritty,Modern. Unpopular Opinions

So currently running 3 campaigns 1 OSR, 2 5.5. Winding down C&C looking into 2E replacement.

5.5 is a very high powered D&D at least at the levels that matter. Had a barbarian yesterday land a 8d6+5 critical hit. Things like this and 5E hit point bloat is starting to leave me cold. Inflating the power level of 5.5 monsters isn't really helping as the main problem is hp bloat and removing various immunities and special abilities.

At levels that matter 5.5 is generally more OP than 3.5. Druid might be an exception to that statement. 5.5 is starting to pass me off already in 4 months or so. There's a lot of powerful abilities coming online level 3-6.

3.X and 4E are to complex.

B/X is to simple. At least player facing.

2E still has the AD&D engine as such.

5E came close but needs another pass over. 5.5 ramps up a lot of class and feat designs.

Various clones and OSR are interesting but there just tweaking B/X over and over. Other games like 13th age stray to far from D&D.

Of course you may like some things I have outlined. Be honest though do you want to be a player or run this stuff?

Zards Specific Thughts on Mechanics. After playing 5E, TSR and OSR

1. AscendingAC is just better. Alot f OSR games have reached this conclusion.

2. Players like moving parts. I'll go with feats but there's 2 ways of doing them. Kits and archetypes also count. They increase complexity however. Archetypes may be a mistake however.

3. Conceptually 5E has a good engine and basic monster building guide. Eg small creatures have d6HD, medium d8. Large d10. Bucket of hp and low AC maybe not.

4. Bounded accuracy of some sort is good. 4E 1st 20 levels, B/X and 5E are decent examples of smaller numbers.

5. Magic items should top out at +3 a'la B/X and 5E. They should be under the control of the DM. Curated buy and sell lists are fine. Artifacts can go beyond +3 (+5 or 6 top end).

6. Saves need to scale a lot better than they do. Personally leaning towards 3. Martials are proficient in all 3, half casters/hybrids 2, full casters 1.

7. Monsters need to be scary again. Energy drain could do exhaustion levels for example.

8. Most spells aren't broken. One could dump concentration but you would need to overhaul them.

9. Magic resistance needs to return. If spells cant fail monsters need to be able to shrug them off. Combine with good saves. Mindflayers shrugging off spells 90% of the time (19+ on d20 roll) changes things.

10. 3.0 and 3.5 are closer to where monster HP needs to be. PC damage and abilities ca be sealed vs that.5E was to much, 4E not enough and 3E was all over the place.

11. S and D tier spells need to go bye bye or be reworked. One could do worse than a curated 2E or 3E spell list with the elimination of the problem spells. Magic Missile and Fireball weren't broken.

Zardnaar said:

Be honest though do you want to be a player or run this stuff?

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Scribe said:

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More or less. It seems like HP bloat when you compare 5E to previous editions, but B.A. makes 5E operate differently. I dont think Zard has taken any of that into account.

payn said:

More or less. It seems like HP bloat when you compare 5E to previous editions, but B.A. makes 5E operate differently. I dont think Zard has taken any of that into account.

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Hadn't finished. BA isn't the issue they bloated player damage as well.

You don't get a reliable 24 attacks at low level or action surge either. Or modern rage.

Zardnaar said:

Hadn't finished. BA isn't the issue they bloated player damage as well.

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Again, this is how B.A. differentiates power levels. It doesnt matter if its coming from PCs or NPCs.

payn said:

Again, this is how B.A. differentiates power levels. It doesnt matter if its coming from PCs or NPCs.

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BA determines thing lije hit chance and smaller numbers.

You can tweak that.

It's been fairly miserable for determine monsters survivability. PCs deal buckets of damage (slows combat down adding up dice).

Monster saves are terrible making control spells way better.
. Spell damage is still similar to 3.5 excep liw levels 5E is more. In effect it's a lot less 8d6 Fireball is meh with triple HP.

Have you checked out DCC? It falls between super-heroic and super-gritty. That, or Shadow of the Weird Wizard.

DCC yes. Been a while though

A few sessions in, and my players finally had an encounter that was not only challenging but actually killed one of their characters. Though the challenge was exacerbated by the players splitting the party and giving the necromancer time to prepare for their attack. This was my first use of a spell caster as the main antagonist in 2024 and through a combination of a good defensible choke point, spells taking advantage of terrain, and the bad luck of the Paladin to fail to save versus Hold Person, I've come to the conclusion that I really need to be playing my monsters smarter than I usually do.