MichaelSomething
Legend
Have you heard about the concept of Tier Lists???
There's even an OSR tier list!
D&D General Simple, Gritty,Modern. Unpopular Opinions
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
Have you heard about the concept of Tier Lists???
There's even an OSR tier list!
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Hadn't heard of it before checking those links.
While I certainly get the idea of ranking things, I always think of it as ranking individual items rather than groups (e.g. ranking the NHL teams from 1 to 32 rather than just splitting them into 5 ranked tiers or groups).
Horwath
Legend
upcasting for damage spells is horrible in 5E.
3rd level fireball is good at level 5,
4th level fireball is weak at level 7, much better spells to spend that 4th level slot.
upscaling needs a boost for damage spells, with extra boost at 3rd, 6th and 9th spell level slots.
IE:
Fireball:
1st level: 3d6(if you want to make it a 1st level spell as a house rule)
2nd level: 5d6(if you want to make it a 2nd level spell as a house rule)
3rd level: 8d6 (default)
4th level: 10d6
5th level: 12d6
6th level: 15d6(extra scaling)
7th level: 17d6
8th level: 19d6
9th level: 22d6(extra scaling)
shorthand formula:
single target damage: +3 dice per spell level(+4 dice for 3rd, 6th and 9th level slots)
AoE damage: +2 dice per spell level(+3 dice for 3rd, 6th and 9th level slots)
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Ranking individual things makes the most sense when you have a bunch of at least theoretical peers, all competing for the top spot--the specific intent of a tournament or a competitive sport season is to win the grand prize/cup/bowl/etc., so there will ultimately be a single winner.
For things where there are a large number of options and none is necessarily "the very best", bands/categories/tiers are much, much more common and fitting, because something being A-tier doesn't mean it's strictly better than B-tier, for example, but rather that it has more "going for it" than the thing in B-tier. You see the exact same sort of thing in all sorts of charop guides, just using colors instead of labelled tiers (in 4e, most guides used gold/teal/blue/black/purple/red to range from "unless you simply can't, you MUST take this" down to "absolutely avoid this at all costs unless you simply can't"; in 5e guides, it's usually a rainbow scheme, generally with blue/purple being the best and orange/red being the worst.)
Because, as an example, fireball is a strong offensive spell, but that doesn't mean it fits on a clean one-by-one hierarchy where fire storm is specifically #12, fireball is specifically #11, and flaming sphere is specifically #10. There are too many different benefits, too many different metrics, to make a single well-ordered numbered sequence. But if, for example, comparing subclasses? It's almost certainly not truly accurate to say that X subclass is the first, Y is the second, Z is the third, etc. Instead, you'd say that (frex) of 5.0 Barbarian subclasses, Totem and Beast are both good but for different reasons, while Berserker is absolutely crap and should be avoided at all costs. That's how you capture things like "different people want different things and have different priorities", while still recognizing that some designs are just really awful while others are good or even great.
Zardnaar
Legend
Upcast damage spells need to be 2d6 or whatever.
Sustained spells eg spirit guardians are fine at +1 dice.
Horwath
Legend
well, it depends on the base damage and how much scaling is of HPs of opponents.
spirit guardian as AoE over time might be ok with just +1D increase, maybe with +2D for 6th and 9th level spell slot.
it's especially bad comparing to utility/control spells.
fly from 3rd to 4th level gets +100% efficiency, 1 target into 2 targets
same with Holds/banishment and similar spells.
fireball get +1D from starting 8d6, that is +12,% increase in efficiency.
Zardnaar
Legend
Yeah and control tends to shut them down.
Matrix Sorcica
Hero
Honestly sounds like you're looking for C&C without the SIEGE engine (easily house ruled), but you're moving away from that?
How about Blood & Treasure 2e (3e rebuilt as OSR).
Or Advanced OSE?
Of course, you could look to something completely different than d20 systems. If so, you could do worse than checking out Savage Worlds Pathfinder
How about Blood & Treasure 2e (3e rebuilt as OSR).
Or Advanced OSE?
Of course, you could look to something completely different than d20 systems. If so, you could do worse than checking out Savage Worlds Pathfinder
Zardnaar
Legend
C&C just taking a break. Don't like a couple of classes eg fighter, ranger.
