A couple of the regular DMs running games for V.A.L.U.E. will start discussing upcoming changes for Season 4 in the coming months.
What We Will Do (in order ):
collect ideas … we are at this stage right now
have a regular DM meeting to talk about how to rephrase questions to a non/less-biased version
have a regular DM online vote with a 14 days timeframe on those questions
a reminder to vote will be send 7 days after the ability to vote went live
present the results
start the new V.A.L.U.E. Season with the new updated rules
at that point there will also be a Character Reset
This thread is for collecting ideas for upcoming changes
Nothing decided yet! … this is still an ongoing process
In this topic I’d like to collect your input on what we should be discussing from your point of view, so if there is any particular change you’d like to see to the V.A.L.U.E. rules, feel free to share that here. If there is something in the rules you’d like us to keep no matter what, please also share this.
Everyone’s input is welcome, but please keep in mind that only regular DMs will be able to vote, since they will have to feel the consequences the most.
If you wishes regarding these topics: post them here, PM me, or write them in the #dm channel in RPGV’s Discord
new ONE D&D stuff? (note: that D&DBeyond will likely change all their spells to new version!)
everyone can start at level 1, 5, 11, or 17
ability score distribution uses current D&D rules and not VALUE rules to not confuse/penalty D&DBeyond users
downleveling your pc is allowed … you have to level up this character again normally ( = you cannot un-downlevel to re-uplevel your PC; you also cannot “copy” your PC)
item drops
a found expensive armor counts as as magic item drop with limits depending on Tier
a found spellbook counts as as magic item drop with limits depending on Tier
consumeable items count as magic item drop with limits depending on Tier
limit the number of dropable items per game (still can keep only one)
limit the number of consumeable items dropped in a game
DMs cannot split dropped items in a game session; they are always available to every character in that session no matter the story
items that increase an ability score by a number don’t increase in Tier (opposed to items that set your ability score to a certain number)
legendary items which modify your ability scores are still T4
artifacts can be dropped in T4 games
downtime days
spell research as downtime action with limits depending on Tier for Wizards
better brewable potions by Tier with brewing Downtime Activity
‘Retrain Feat / ASI’ as a Downtime Activity
clean up / remove useless Downtime Activities
you can only use Downtime to level up to reach levels 5, 11, or 17
spend Downtime Days to level-up only once per Tier
you cannot use Downtime to level up
use Downtime to trade with your own characters
learn a new language or gain a tool proficiency with Downtime Days
change a Tool/Language proficiency with Downtime Days
change your Background Feature with Downtime Days
reduce cost to revive PCs via Downtime (regardless of spell)
ban reviving PCs with Downtime
get +20 Downtime Days instead of an a level-up after a game session
houserules
natural weapons (except Dhampir) from species deal at least d6 damage (e.g. Leonin)
horseshoes of speed/a zephyr can be used by centaurs
riding/mounted combat & centaur
only allow spells from the new PHB and official WotC books published afterwards
re-allow silvery barbs
creatures can take damage from an emanation only once per round
ban the peace- & twilight cleric subclasses
abilities that trigger when you kill a creature cannot be triggered when killing lifestock
companions, familiars, hirelings, simulacrums, summoned creatures etc. share your attunement slots
ban the hallow spell (because of the new divine intervention feature)
ban the simulacrum spell
permanent statboost book magic items are attunement
ban magic items that are banned in Adventure’s League (e.g. deck of many things)
Reason why we (have to) do this right now:
We will have to change or use at least some D&D 5.5 rulings anyway … since otherwise this would mean, that people who have their characters on an app, would use diff. spell rulings.
Allow T1 characters to start at level 2, 3, or 4 and not just at level 1.
Slight buff to point buy. Like regular D&D rules point buy, but with around 30 instead of 27 points to allow for more leeway and creative builds - that way, after assigning 15s and 14s to the three primary stats, barbarians, paladins or monks and other MAD characters still have some points left to bump another stat - that would allow intelligent or charismatic barbarians, intelligent paladins or strong monks, instead of them always having more or less the same stat spreads.
item drops
Rework the number of magic items allowed in each tier. Currently I think the limits are too low (1 item in T1, 3 items in T2, 5 in T3), especially considering that we already have the limit to 3 attunement slots, that martials are a lot more reliant on magic items including non-attunement ones like armor/shields/weapons +X than casters (dual wielders need two of their three items in T2 to be magic weapons, leaving room for just one more item!), and that artificers actually gain a 4th attunement slot at level 10 and more later on.
Guidelines for mundane item drops - for example, balance-wise plate armor is perfectly fine in T2, but 1500gp is much more than the allowed amount of gold we can give out. On the other hand, counting it as a magical item would be a middle finger to Strength-based martials - they are much more reliant on magic items than casters and even Dex-based maritals only need mundane armor worth 45gp (Studded Leather). I’d suggest simply banning the selling of such an item or limiting the amount of gold you can get by selling the loot you got in a session to the maximum for a session in the given tier (so that with current rulings, you would only get 480gp for selling a plate armor you got in T2).
houserules
Remove concentration from Hunter’s Mark (if transitioning to OneDnD rules) or Favored Foe (if staying with “old” 5e)
allow custom backgrounds/ability score allocation if transitioning to OneDnD (as custom backgrounds are not in the PHB, but coming in the DMG in this edition, and ability scores are tied to backgrounds for some reason - that makes farmer one of the best backgrounds for mages and sage one of the best backgrounds for martials…)
Allow exotic languages to be learned at character creation (if we use OneDnD, that’s not an issue in 5e)
ban Simulacrum/Wish chains
character reset
Is that really necessary - even if we switch to new OneDnD rules, OneDnD is backwards compatible. We could say that things that got updated in OneDnD need to be updated (base classes and certain subclasses, feats like GWM or Sharpshooter), but otherwise characters can stay. And if we limit magic items even further, characters simply do not use items above the new limits anymore.
Players withdraw or kill off their characters and make new ones when they feel so, I wouldn’t want them to force to personally.
if we do it, allow each player to keep one or two characters, or maybe one per tier, with adjustments if we switch to OneDnD?
Public vote if players want to have a character reset or keep characters?
Recommended Rulings
Another thing I’d suggest is a list of recommended rulings. There some ambiguous things that get ruled one way or another depending on the DM; having a list of recommended rulings to guide newer DMs would be nice. Some examples include:
Conjure Animals/Woodland Beings (in “old” 5e) - does the DM or player choose the summons? I’d prefer the ruling to be the player, of course with the DM able to veto the player’s choices if they’re potentially game-breaking, such as conjuring 8 pixies.
Limit the amount of summons in general. Important not just for the above, but for Animate Dead users too (that spell is unchanged in OneDnD) - or use swarm statblocks for bigger amounts of undead.
Rings of Spell Storing and permanent spells/summons. For example, a paladin in T2 has a Ring of Spell Storing, and a T2 bard, who took Find Greater Steed as a magical secret at level 10, casts it into the Ring (paladins don’t get the spell until level 13, T3) - can the paladin bring the pegasus they got in this way to other tables? Some DMs allowed it, others stated they would not. An interesting middle way would be to say that they need to be attuned to the Ring of Spell Storing if they want to use the Steed.
Simulacra and Wish. What happens when a simulacrum casts an unsafe Wish - does the “original” character have to deal with the fatigue (3 Strength, necrotic damage on every spell cast) and/or potential loss of the spell?
Other common houserules that we think are good but don’t want to enforce across all tables.
Also, while it is independant from seasons, I think it would be a good idea to have an “official” way to contact VALUE DMs/staff, such as to appeal character deaths or other permanent alterations to characters, and as a way for players to be able to contact us while remaining anonyme in case there were issues at a table.
so far we had a character reset every new season
honestly see no reason why changing that this time
… but nothing is or was stopping anyone to rebuild their old characters as a new one
(esp. considering that we will likely allow PCs to start at 1,5, 11, 17 anyway)
the regular DMs will vote anyway … since they will have to “face the consequences” of the result^^
… according to Treeantmonk: Jeremy Crawford said that these Custom Backgrounds in the DMG will rely on “o.k” from your DM
… so these things sounds better for a home campaign than at an open V.A.L.U.E. table
ability to trade in items of similar rarity for items from the “evergreens” (aka the list of magical items available for character creation at higher tiers, and/or if we keep it the free item upon reaching a new tier) as a downtime activity (probably 5-10 downtime days imho)
I don’t agree with this - lots of stuff technically is “o.k. by the DM”, including feats and multiclassing in 5e, but we used it anyways because it benefits everyone and makes the game more interesting. Same should go with backgrounds, if we want to see creative, interesting characters.
In OneDnD, both stat increases and origin feats are now part of backgrounds (instead of races) - which means, if we do not allow custom backgrounds, people will select backgrounds based on them rather on what fits their character’s backstory; or they try to justify their background with their character’s backstory. Like most wizards being farmers due to that background granting a Constitution increase and the Tough feat, both useful for the concentration-reliant and frail wizard.
Remember how much more diverse characters got once Tasha’s Cauldron came around and let players freely choose racial ability score increases. No more was half-elf strictly the best race for charisma-based characters, high elves became viable Strength-based paladins, tieflings became viable Strength-based martials, dragonborns could become good wizards and so forth.
Yeah, but traditions aren’t always great Maybe it is time to break that particular traiditon? Players might very well prefer to keep their characters and the characters of other players they already know and like. Meeting another player’s known character and roleplaying with them can be a lot of fun in VALUE.
Maybe a public poll is the way to go?
I don’t think a public poll is the best idea. We have to think about what is best for the game and the season in total and not what players like the most.
I understand that people are attached to their characters and the stories but sometimes it is good to say goodbye and let new characters have new stories.
Also we have a lot of players so we’d probably have to make an open poll, which easily can be manipulated, by a bad faith actor.
Why not let players decide when they want to say good bye to a certain character? There are many good ways to let characters go out - not resurrecting them after a death, heroic sacrifices, just good story moments like a multi-session game/campaign ending, even an one-shot for that specific character like we did for the evil ones…
I have enough trust in our community for such a poll to not get manipulated; and if we use the forum for it, we would know who voted already.
Would make sense if we made drastic changes to our magic item rules like from last season to this season - but if item rules largely stay the same (which appears to be the case considering the suggestions so far), then a reset here would not be needed either - and some characters are quite reliant on their magic items to work.
Of course, before we can determine whether a character reset will be necessary, if players can keep certain characters and whatever else, we need to have our polls to see what rules will change for the new season
PS: Another thing, shouldn’t we wait with the new season until the new DMG is out (waiting for the MM might be too long) and people actually had the chance to experience OneDnD a bit? Might be useful, considering the DMG is the main source for magical items and encounter building. Maybe D&D Beyond will make an announcement about how they are going to handle the transition?
main problem is, that I heard from one source that DNDBeyond will change all spells to the newer PHB 5.5 version (as they did with the cantrips from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide)
… and the danger is, that those having their PCs on an app on their phone having diff. spell rules than other VALUE characters
also, as I wrote above … “in the coming months”
so there is no need to rush things
Do we have a good idea of how the changes would interact with legacy content? Or should we expect weird interactions between 5e and perhaps the upcoming releases?
As for a reset - wrapping up current campaigns should do the trick. One shots are quite transient anyway, esp with the respeccing suggestions. An the other hand recurring games start well with basically blank slates & no required meta- or background information.
I haven’t really updated myself on the changes but I agree that this would make rangers a lot more fun without overpowering them in the current rules. I feel that the fact that both are concentration limit what rangers can or will do.
Rangers in their being are intune with the nature around them. Their ability to “hunt down and kill bad guys” shouldn’t be influenced by the fact that maybe they also know how to cure their party’s wounds and want to use that spell.
I’ve read about other options though than removing concentration. Maybe rangers can concentrate on two spells if they succeed on the roll for concentration but if they fail, both spells fail.
new rangers can attack in melee with 2 weapons without using their bonus action to do so (thanks to weapon masteries) … so using hunter’s mark on the same turn isn’t an issue anymore
thus hunter’s mark would be +3d6 damage on a 5th level melee ranger
… that’s the same as a 5th level rogue’s sneak attack, who does not get the extra attack feature
pretty likely hunter’s mark on a ranger who also has swift quiver up would be overkill
the main reason why hunter’s mark was considered a “trap” by munchkins with the 2014 rules, was because the Crossbow Expert (2014) feat is overpowered
… but that is fixed in the 2024 version
We are not talking about removing the bonus action requirement, but about the concentration.
I don’t think it is going to be an issue to have both Hunter’s Mark and Swift Quiver up at the same time - are 3d6 more damage per round at level 17+ (Rangers get 5th level spells at that level as half-casters) really going to be problematic? I doubt so.
Removing concentration would allow the ranger to actually use spells other than Hunter’s Mark/Favored Foe (basically all ranger combat spells require concentration, which clashes with Hunter’s Mark/Favored Foe), and it would allow melee rangers to exist without dropping Hunter’s Mark/Favored Foe all the time - that is the important issue.
It is about the enjoyment of playing a ranger, not about issues for certain munchkin builds (not even I played a CBE build in VALUE ).
Note that I suggested to remove concentration from Hunter’s Mark only if we switch to OneDnD; but remove concentration from Favored Foe instead (and keeping it for Hunter’s Mark) if we stay with 5e - there is no Tasha Favored Foe in OneDnD anymore.
By the way, Divine Favor, the paladin’s aequivalent to Hunter’s Mark, no longer requires concentration in OneDnD.
):
we are at this stage right now
post them here, PM me, or write them in the #dm channel in RPGV’s Discord
Maybe it is time to break that particular traiditon? Players might very well prefer to keep their characters and the characters of other players they already know and like. Meeting another player’s known character and roleplaying with them can be a lot of fun in VALUE.
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