Author Topic: DnD 5.3 - Sharing & Peer Reviewing  (Read 2690 times)

Offline 7h39

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DnD 5.3 - Sharing & Peer Reviewing
« on: February 10, 2018, 05:53:12 AM »
Hi everyone, today i want to share the last refined beta version of the home-brewing project that i worked for about 1 year.

As i said, 1 year ago, I had to start a new group of that never played dnd or other paper rpgs, so i proposed them to start with the 5e as an easier to digest mechanical ruleset for them, and a novelty for me. However i seen also that for them magic was a little too much at the beginning (and for a more appreciated low-to-no-magic flavor) so i had to strip magic from Bards, Paladins and Rangers (replacing most of the features) to have a almost mundane campaign, playing only Humans o Variant Human to have some build variation.

From the first (and short) campaign i masterd i noticed many things that the 5.0 edition was missing from 3.5 (here is why 5.3) so i begun an hybridization process with the 3.5, replacing, adding and mixmatching rules from the two editions. TLDR version, i left the class-archetype version of 5.0 and implanted some combat and skill options from 3.5 that had a more granular system, mostly simplified for the 5.0 play.

Along with the hybridization process, i wanted to insert some caster type mundane - or at least alchemical - classes, and WOTC came to help with the Artificer's arcana, that i transposed a little to match the existing game environment and to make up for the absesnce of magic items.

This addition intrigued the players, and they asked for more option and magic, so i continued to develop the game, expanding it through a defined camping setting and re-introducing magic items and magic-users. The setting is basically a low-magic fearun where after karus folly a "laic" church  - The Faith - proceeded to exterminate all wizards, sorcerers and clerics with the silent placet of the druids that  - a direct emanation of toril - was angered by the mess that gods, clerics, wiz and sorc did to the world. 500 year after, magic is having a secret and small revival, and the unigod of "The Faith" is born granting spells to few chosen as the old gods did. Only humans remain on toril after the Purge, with all the regional differentiations of Faerun.

From a mechanical point of view i left the rule base prepared before with small additions: every class has 4 archetypes, only one class has magic with 4 archetypes of magic users, about 9 different races are available, and there are magic items (relics) from 3.5 and 5.0, 9 different base races are aviable and the class spread tries to have every ability matched to some class.
There would be much more to say, but, i didn't made a changelog so i think it's easier to Link the Book and leave you to read it.

(click to show/hide)

This is not a dead project. With your help, i'm looking for a update/hotfix/patch/errata in 6 months with the feedback of the users about balance, flavor, misprints etc.: every suggestion, correction or tip is much appreciated. As a future resolutions i want to begin expanding the base ruleset with prestige classes, that was - by some extend - the heart of 3.5.

I hope to read your feedbacks and opinions, and thanks for reading.

Offline Bronzebeard

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Re: DnD 5.3 - Sharing & Peer Reviewing
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2018, 02:05:28 PM »
There would be much more to say, but, i didn't made a changelog so i think it's easier to Link the Book and leave you to read it.

I'm afraid this is a number of times more difficult then describing the changes.
Your book is 132 pages long. Reading and critiquing it is no small task to boot.

I'd hope you'll find time to construct some general bullets of what were major changes you made (mechanically. Thematics are no subject one can objectively criticize) and pointers to which page to find them.


Best of luck

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: DnD 5.3 - Sharing & Peer Reviewing
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2018, 04:03:18 PM »
Hmmm

(googles)
Doing a mashup of the 3e and 5e SRDs , is very interesting.
And you get a first mover advantage.

De-Tolkien-izing and piles of fluff is of course fine.
Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: DnD 5.3 - Sharing & Peer Reviewing
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2018, 06:45:01 PM »
From the first (and short) campaign i masterd i noticed many things that the 5.0 edition was missing from 3.5 (here is why 5.3) so i begun an hybridization process with the 3.5, replacing, adding and mixmatching rules from the two editions. TLDR version, i left the class-archetype version of 5.0 and implanted some combat and skill options from 3.5 that had a more granular system, mostly simplified for the 5.0 play.
Love the idea.

Your book is 132 pages long. Reading and critiquing it is no small task to boot.
And a pain to load/read on a portable device.

Anyone a member, or willing to sell their soul to link google to it, to download it and post it on google drive? I can thumb through it on my next night shift call load willing.

Offline Eldritch_Lord

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Re: DnD 5.3 - Sharing & Peer Reviewing
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2018, 10:33:31 PM »
Seconding the request for a reasonably thorough changelog, or at least a broad overview of what was changed and what your goals were.  To be blunt, after skimming through the document I'm seeing very little 3e influence, nor really any notable changes that would make me want to use this over vanilla 5e.

For those who don't want to or can't read through it at the moment, the major changes I noticed were as follows:
  • More granular rules were added for awarding XP (and the fact that social encounters reward XP only to "the most interesting character," which usually translates to "character that talks the most or the loudest", make them a non-starter for me, quite fankly)
  • The human subraces are largely strictly-worse takes on existing races (Bedine humans being wood elves minus Darkvision and Fey Ancestry, for instance)
  • Some of the optional combat maneuvers from the DMG were moved to the combat section of this PHB
  • Some skills uses were ported over from 3e like Spellcraft and Track (with their DC tables left intact or increased, meaning that 5e characters have very little chance of success due to their overall lower skill modifiers)
  • Take 10/Take 20, item hardness, and percentile miss chances were ported over (an indisputably positive change for the first two, I'd say, and a matter of preference for the third)
  • Magic item attunement is 1 per 3 levels rather than a flat 3 (overall a good thing, since most 5e items requiring attunement are rather underwhelming)
There were probably more new things slipped in there that I missed; most non-5e-core feats, subclasses, and the like seemed like they were drawn from 5e UA or splatbook material rather than being inspired by anything 3e, but they all start to blur together after a while so there could have been some new-to-5e things in there.

In short, 7h39, if your goals with this were "homebrew a low-magic human-centric 5e FR setting, with a few tweaks and a few of my favorite 3e mechanics sprinkled in," I'd say you did a pretty good job, even if I disagree with most of the specific design choices you made.  If your goal was "hybridize 3e and 5e to address 5e's shortcomings," unfortunately I'm not seeing it.

Offline 7h39

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Re: DnD 5.3 - Sharing & Peer Reviewing
« Reply #5 on: May 07, 2018, 06:43:37 AM »
Thank you all for the replies and the feedbacks!

I had a new workplace and i left the project for some time, but now i have some more time to spare and resume the updating.

Currently i'm working on a second hybridation with iron heroes and maybe the removal of magic items. i dunno, i'll keep you posted.

Next time Google Drive, i promise!