By James Gildard 

It’s like 5e, but James. 

I’m about to run a game of dnd with some friends. 5th edition. Again.

I couldn’t help but go off the creative design deep end, and I added a whole bunch of ridiculous extra rules. Sue me.

Lemme walk back and show you where I’m coming from first though. In no particular order or structure, here’s a list of problems I see with 5th edition… ***that I feel like doing something about***. What, you thought it would be exhaustive?

The magic gap

So we all know martial characters in 5th edition are not only kinda boring but notoriously underpowered at higher levels. Magic just dominates dnd, and yes that’s a problem we see mechanically, but I’ll argue it actually stems from our vision of the world. 

We imagine a fantasy world is a medieval setting with magic. Magic wielding characters can do all sorts of crazy reality bending shit, but martial characters are only ever gonna be…buff dudes. No wonder they’re so boring and underpowered. We see them as the mundane part of a magical setting. What are feats of skill worth in the face of a wish spell? Or even the humble Blink? There’s no way we’re going to come up with a system where non magical combatants can keep pace if this is our view of the setting..

So why don’t we change our vision? Let’s imagine a fantasy setting where the physical prodigies actually move like super heroes. At high levels they should have super human strength and most importantly super human speed. Playing as a high level martial character in Dnd should make you feel like the protagonist in a battle anime. Now THAT is something that might actually stack up against Power Word ShitYourPants. 

Get smarter broh

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence.

Or so they say, but really it’s more like

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, Wisdom, intelligence.

I’m sure you feel the distribution is a little different from my illustration, but the point is that you know immediately what I’m talking about. Some of these things are just not as important as others, and that varies per character as it should, but it really especially grinds my gears that unless you’re a wizard or artificer there’s almost no reason to put any points into intelligence at all. The same goes for strength to a lesser degree. It’s way too easy to find a way to make something else your ability mod for attacks and ignore strength all together. 

CON affects your HP

DEX saves are littered in every dungeon and spell description, as well as
WIS saves and checks.

CHA is kindof the only thing that matters for social interactions, which is theoretically a whole pillar of gameplay (I have many gripes with this, a topic for another day).

These are all things that apply to every character regardless of class. Strength and especially Intelligence on the other hand are very much class specific, and here I think is where solutions start to present themselves. All we need are some universal boons every character has access to that rely on these two stats.

Dull Combat

Something about combat is just off. Okay many things about it are off. It takes too long for one thing, but there’s a million and one shortcuts and houserules to help with that already. We can utilize those, but there’s still something dull. 5th edition sets the stage for very engaging and tactical combat, but then doesn’t really arm us with anything more interesting than attacks of opportunity and flanking. 

Now I’m not personally super intent on grinding out the most detailed and choreographed combat ever, but it seems like there should be some way to offer more than just swinging weapons mindlessly over and over again. Yesyesyes, aDd EnViRoNmEnTaL iNtRiGuE or mAkE yOuR mOnStErS mOrE iNtElLiGeNt, yes of course, we’re going to do that too. But like the things I have access to on my character sheet. They could be more interesting. I want just a little more to work with there, that’s all.

Progression

This one is personal preference and not a problem with 5e at all. It’s at this point that you should probably be thinking if you aren’t already “this guy needs to just play a different system, geez” and you’re right. But it can be hard to convince our players to jump ship sometimes, and this kind of tinkering is my idea of fun.

I love leveling up in Dnd. It’s great. There’s so much material to pour over, and they give you a lot to think about for both min maxing purposes and flavor/narrative purposes. 

The thing that itches in the back of my mind however is that all the advancement is done in classes. All the cool new abilities come from class. You get some health, okay, and every fourth level some ability score improvement, sure, but that’s it. It’s that and class features. Absolutely nothing wrong with this, but I think I want a little more complexity.

It should go without saying that these are all more or less personal issues. Fun is subjective. My objections are not objective. I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person to feel this way though, so here we are.

Anyway, here’s what I’m doing to try and resolve those issues in a rather extreme and exciting way.

JamesE

-Firstly, action economy is now tied to movement speed. Everyone gets an Action and a reaction by default, but for every 10 movement speed over 30 a character possesses, they are granted an extra amount of turn time equal to one bonus action. You still need to have an ability that outlines something you can do as a bonus action, but at 40 movement speed, you simply have an extra bonus action time slot on your turn. 

This stacks. 

At 50 movement speed, you have 2 bonus action time slots.

At 60, something interesting happens. I rule that 3 bonus actions are equal to one full action. A character with 60 MS can take 2 actions on a turn rather than just one, or take 3 bonus actions instead of their second action.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain how PC’s can improve their movement speed in a minute. Spoiler: it’s slow and costly, as it should be, because inflating the action economy is busted af.

-Proficiency bonuses are different. Forget the chart that 5e provides. The bonus for each skill is independent, and they all start at 0 by default. 

-So when characters level up, they now have a choice between Skill and Speed

Choosing Speed very simply adds (STR mod + DEX mod)/2 movement speed. 

Let’s do a little bug prevention and call it “Standard MS” that is affected and that the action economy depends upon. This way things that slow a character down may also take away from their action economy, but they can’t simply bonus action dash and double their turn.

Under normal circumstances, the most a character’s movement speed can be wanked to with this system is 130. That is a fucking fuck load. HOWEVER… that means that at maximum, if you started at level one with 20 strength and 20 dex (fucking impossible) and you loaded up speed every level and now you’re level 20…you get a grand total of 4 actions and a bonus action. That’s a lot. That changes the game. But it is not outside the bounds of reason. 4 actions for a martial character who’s been speed maxing and is level 20? Yea that sounds pretty anime to me. That sounds like my rogue might actually be able to keep up with a level 20 druid. That sounds like the game is actually balanced now. It sounds like my character who’s only job in combat is “i hit it with my axe…again…” is actually really fucking interesting, and maybe has more utilitarian responsibility than just whacking shit all day.

Maybe you can see a way that this can be wanked to an even higher number. The PC is Tabaxi and has some legendary item or smth. Sure, but keep in mind that proficiency bonuses start at 0 by default, and I haven’t explained how they’re improved yet…

Skill is how players improve their character’s proficiency bonuses and learn new abilities. When PCs take a level in a class and choose Skill, they add +1 to their proficiency bonus in each skill listed in the class’s proficiencies, and in one skill of their choice.

It should be noted that this skill of choice can be absolutely anything, not just the ones listed on the character sheet. It can be Alchemist’s tools, Lute playing, whatever. We’ll assume that it applies to languages too, but that at +1 in a language, you simply speak that language and no further points need be added. Hardly ever comes up in the first place, and I am NOT DMing a partial language barrier according to your character sheet. The same goes for armor proficiencies, since 5e treats those as a binary “you have it or you don’t” anyway.

We will be adding exactly 3 skills to the list as well.

– Spellcasting. Assume this skill to be included in the class proficiencies list for all full casters. Your proficiency bonus in this skill is what will be added to your spell save DC and spell rolls.

-Unarmed striking. Counts as a weapon proficiency now. Can’t think of a single time DnD was made cooler or more fun because fists didn’t count as a “weapon”. 100% is a weapon skill like any other.

-Grappling. It’s a skill now. Don’t worry, more on this later.

These improvements are not without limitation

Proficiency bonuses may not exceed (Character level)/3 rounded up. This limitation can be bent for one skill at a time when players upgrade their character’s Skill. Choose one skill to focus on, and rather than abiding by the normal (Character level)/3 limitation, it instead must only be lower than the PCs INT modifier.

This means that all proficiency bonuses max out at +7, which is reached at level 19 under normal circumstances. A player with high intelligence however, may increase a skill of their choice to +5 by level 5. Now, after this, that skill will remain stagnant until level 16, when (Character level / 3) affords another improvement, but this at least rewards intelligent characters by letting them learn a new skill rapidly, which feels exactly right to me.

A player choosing Skill has the option to sacrifice the proficiency bonus improvement dictated by their class (so they still increase one skill of their choice) and in exchange learn 1 spell of any kind (of a level they have slots for), or take 1 feat.

Players may not spend 2 levels in a row learning a spell, nor two levels in a row taking a feat, and no player may have feats exceeding (INT mod) + 1, minimum of 1 (even stupid characters can have a feat).

To ensure a smooth marriage with the rest of 5e, we will assume, wherever 5e calls for “proficiency bonus” without specifying which skill, or where there isn’t an immediately obvious relevant skill, that this value should simply be (character level)/3 rounded down.

Mage Pox

Casters may not produce more than one leveled spell during their turn (so reaction spells and cantrips are fine) without risking Mage Pox.

When an additional leveled spell is cast, the caster must roll a d20 as many times as infracting spells they have attempted to cast this turn. When any of these rolls shows 10 or lower the caster contracts Mage Pox:

-The spell fails, consuming the spell slot.

-An additional spell slot is burned, and the caster sustains a hideous cosmetic deformity.

-The caster takes force damage equal to the attempted spell’s level.

Mage Pox deformities may only be cured by a restoration spell.

There are no skills or ability modifiers applicable to Mage Pox rolls, nor situations that might provide an edge. It is purely a gamble.

One thing I had worried about with this add-on progression system was the possibility of a new spellcasting meta where casters ditch proficiency bonuses and even their spell casting abilities in favor of Speedmaxxing. If I can cast fireball 4 times a turn, who cares if the save DC is low? Yea I might blow all my slots in one go but maybe that’s just my build.

This would totally defeat the purpose of the new system. It’s supposed to reward characters who focus on their physicality by making… well, more of it. You do the same mundane stuff on your turn but MORE. If the magical characters are all doing this too then it doesn’t really matter and now everyone’s turn takes 3 times as long… Oh boy…

Mage Pox solves that problem by deterring casters from spamming spells. For most cases it is more prudent for casters to focus on the Skill option, because the point of being a caster is… to spell cast. Mage pox makes it risky enough to spell spam that it’s just more prudent to focus on the quality of your spells. As intended. I want Speed to be an option for both, but for the meta to pretty clearly point caster classes away from it.

What this DOESN’T prevent is a niche where casters invest heavily in Speed and use a bunch of bonus action cantrips. I don’t mind this at all, in fact this is a great little unexpected byproduct. 5e is balanced for dungeon crawling, where spell casters supposedly need to ration their spell slots carefully. For myself and for most people I talk to, this almost never ends up happening. Skill issue on the DMs part? Nah, more so just different styles of play. 

So now you tell me this thing I wrote clears the path for cantrip spamming combat mage DPS style characters? Ummm, fuck yeAH?! 

See the Caster/ Martial imbalance was never really about the amount of damage done per round. I think in some cases that is true too, but really it’s about utility. It is not always applicable to swing an axe at the monster again. At high levels there’s just so much more going on that requires magic to solve the problem, leaving martial PCs to stack dice and mindlessly lose ELO on chess.com while the adults discuss who’s gonna use a spell slot to plane shift the party this time. So I have no problem with a little Eldritch blast spamming hack for your warlock minmaxer. Those guys deserve some love anyway.

I do enjoy this new granular point allocation of proficiency bonuses just in and of itself. It’s a big departure from 5e because I want it to be, because fuck you, thats why. It tastes good in my braintongue. AND, if that wasn’t enough, it is actually there to serve a functional purpose. Firstly it’s a further check against Speedmaxxing. Even for full martials, what’s the point of dumping all your levels into extra attack actions if you don’t have the proficiency bonus to hit anything? This system encourages players to invest in both, since their benefits synergize. 

It also allows players more agency in their development and skill specification, and rewards high intelligence characters with the ability to gain high proficiency bonuses quickly in their area of focus. Intelligence is a little more relevant! Yay! Feats and extra spells are available to increase the value of the Skill option, further pulling against action economy abuse, and giving players who feel pigeonholed into one role a way to easily diversify (and more intelligence allows for more feats, even more INT relevance!) At maximum, PC’s will be able to take 5 feats, and may do this as fast as level 10, and will be able to learn a new spell every other level. So at level 20, a PC could have 5 feats, and have learned 10 extra spells. Yea I’m sure that would make some DMs vomit, but I’m fine with it. Maybe I should write an article about not being intimidated by slightly overpowered players and giving them walloping hard challenges anyway…

lol, @Trevor

Grappling

Attempting to grapple an opponent is an attack. The target must succeed a DEX save against the aggressor’s Grapple save DC (8 + grappling proficiency bonus + STR mod) in order to escape the Grapple. Failing this check not only results in both creatures grappling, but it gives the aggressor Advantage in the grapple. Alternatively the target may accept the grapple and immediately prompt a contested grapple check. Both parties roll a D20 and add their STR and grappling proficiency bonuses. The winner gains advantage in the grapple. 

Having advantage in the grapple means that when you roll subsequent grapple checks or saves, you have advantage (or if applicable, your opponent has disadvantage). 

When Advantage is gained a second time, the winner forces their opponent into a position of choice from the following. 

-Shove: The opponent is walked up to (movement speed/2) feet in a direction and shoved off of or into an environmental element.

-Pin: A pinned creature is considered restrained, while the attacking creature may now make actions as normal, so long as they do not require movement (aggressor still has zero movement speed).

-Throw: The opponent is tripped or hauled off balance and thrown to the ground. They take 1d4 + Aggressors STR mod Bludgeoning damage and are prone. Add an extra 5 bludgeoning damage for each size class larger than their opponent the aggressor is.

-Chokehold: A target without sufficient neck protection (like plate, or a bearded helmet) takes (proficiency mod + Strength mod) non lethal damage at the start of every turn spent in a chokehold. 

-Arm/leg bar: The Aggressor may break by hyperextension the captured limb at will (as a reaction or bonus action)

These rolls are made with plus or minus five for every size class difference between you and the target. If the save is successful then nothing happens. If the target fails however, the two of you are now grappling.

Creatures who are grappling have zero movement speed, disadvantage on every activity other than grappling, or something sensible like a CON save, and cannot cast spells with somatic components.

Creatures who are grappling may use their attack action to attempt to gain advantage in the grapple, or to escape.

Attempting to gain advantage in the grapple invokes the same mechanic as before: the opponent must either make a grappling save against the aggressor’s grapple save DC in order to escape, risking the opponent gaining advantage, or engage in the grapple and prompt a contested grappling check where the winner gains advantage.     

Yea so. I had some issues with grappling. I wanted it to be a viable tactic, something that a player might consider specializing in, but that isn’t generally successful outside of specific scenarios. If it’s too profitable then some players will spend all their efforts on grappling and… it’s interesting to have as an option, but is not interesting as a focal point. We just needed to upgrade it from ‘irrelevant artifact’ to ‘viable option’, that’s all.

These rules make grappling very rewarding and effective against a singular dangerous opponent of similar size class and low strength. Specific, but not uncommon at all. I added the bit about blocking spells with somatic components because it makes sense in the narrative, and because there needs to be more to mageslaying than just one feat. This sort of specificity I think accomplishes the goal. It’s very strong against one type of enemy, but cuts off too many other options to be a competitive playstyle to focus on.

Maneuvers

The Battlemaster subclass is no more. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but it is being harvested and distributed to the masses.

Any character may learn a maneuver when they gain an even numbered level in a full martial class (Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Monk) or a level divisible by 4 in a half martial class (Artificer, Paladin, Ranger).

A list of available maneuvers – edited to be viable without Superiority dice – is provided in table A (separate document).

R.I.P. Battlemaster. Your sacrifice benefits the greater good. Is this too much complexity for combat? No, all we’ve done is give everyone more options. Does this take away from the individuality of each class? Not in the slightest. It allows players more ways to specialize and make their characters unique. Most importantly though, it puts more interesting options on the character sheet. We can make combat engaging with narrative techniques sure, but that’s a whole other topic. What we’ve done here is back up that intrigue with more readily available and well tested combat options for everyone to implement. Except casters, haha.

Yea so uh, that’s what I think anyways. I’m gonna run it and see what happens. For those of you praying on my downfall, stay tuned! I’ll letcha know how it goes.