How to build 5e D&D...

To expand on my earlier thoughts, if 5e D&D were mine to build, this is how I would do it:

Basic 5th Edition D&D
Begin with a basic character build and all the basic, bare bones rules:
• The six stats (use 3.x/4e bonuses)
• The Saving Throws/Defenses (likely close to the 4e version)
• Movement Rate (in squares)
• AC
• Hit Points
• Attacks
• Spells
• Non-weapon proficiencies/Skill (hereafter referred to as skills)

This is all the basic bits each edition has in common. Unify this so at ALL levels of play these things remain and influence the game the exact same. Place all of these bits at the top of the character sheet. Should you need to run a basic game or a basic encounter you can simply cover up the bottom half of your character sheet and have all you need to go on (exception: spells).

All attacks will be a straightforward weapon attack for damage just like in old school D&D. Rounds have attack actions and move actions and all other actions are free or to be adjudicated by the DM. Fiddling with minor actions is too much to deal with at basic level. No attacks of opportunity in Basic either.

Spells work like 4e powers (definitely need to implement 4e's practice of definite terms to describe power effects and defining each of those term in no uncertain way - saves SOOOO many rules disputes). Spell effects listed to show basic effects at the top of the description and more complicated breakdowns for the more complex versions below, again simply adding on to the core basic description. What Basic versions of spells would leave out will likely vary by spell.

4 classes only (bear with me here), based off the the four roles from 4e with some slight tweaking.
• Strikers become Offensive Melee-range Attackers (the term Strikers still works fine)
• Defenders become Defensive Melee-range Attackers (the term Defenders still works fine)
• Controllers become Offensive Ranged Attackers (the term Controller is replaced by Artillery or something similar).
• Leaders become Defensive Ranged Attackers (the term Leader still works fine)

Melee attacks and spells will all be balanced out to an average damage amount based on level. Melee and spell attacks will add in a single number to the attack to increase the damage. This will represent the baseline for more complex powers, attacks, and spells to come. No matter what level of detail you are playing in the effects will be comparable to one another. More on this below.

So, first time players can play one of these four roles. After they are familiar enough with the game, or desire more detailed characters they can upgrade to...


Standard 5th Edition D&D
This introduces the other classes and more detail to more closely resemble 3.x play. So you add in:
• Traditional Classes as different styles of the basic roles above. All classes fit into a role. Classes differ from one another enough so that two players both playing Strikers differ from one another by more than just stats and weapon choice.
• Skill Points to boost skills, maybe.
• Something we will call Feats which resembles 3.x feats in a way, adding bonuses to different aspects of your character (Saves, AC, To Hit, Damage, etc.)
• Attacks of Opportunity
• Minor Actions
• Attacks that can swap out an added effect for reduced damage. The baseline for this will be based on what kind of action it adds or takes away. An attack adding a minor action will have slightly lower damage than one without, one adding a move action will reduce the damage more, one adding a standard will reduce it even more. By this I mean your attack might let you do something like let you perform a minor action as part of the standard attack action. Or might hamper the enemy to the tune of a minor, move, or standard action. Examples of these might be a quick draw which includes the minor action to draw a weapon, a charge which includes a move action, or an additional attack which adds a standard action (much like when you spend an action point), or something like a knockdown attack which will deprive an enemy  of a move action by requiring that they stand back up (they can still attack from prone of course). That sort of thing. Damage would be reduced according to how much is added to the action. Since we were already adding a bonus to Basic 5e attacks, these powers' damage bonus would replace the basic bonus, not stack with it. In this way both systems balance out more or less. Spells for basic might already take some of these balances into account when determining their effects.
• Spells are at full effect, much like a 4e power, again swapping out a damage bonus in Basic (if applicable) for an effect in Standard 5e D&D.


Advanced 5th Edition D&D
This resembles 4e fairly closely. All lower version remain but more effects and powers can be added. Now you can differentiate not only by class and feats but by specific attack powers. Each class essentially becomes rather like a Standard 5e spell caster in complexity. Powers further break down the action-for-damage swap into more individual attacks.

Putting It All Together
With a baseline for damage output and a standard for swapping out damage for effects the three different ways to play the character can be swapped on an encounter-by-encounter basis. If you need to play an absent friend's character you can revert to the basic version knowing that what you lose in variable, dynamic powers you make up for in sheer damage output. Any character can be played any way the player wants them to be played. Sometimes when it gets really late in the evening (or early in the morning depending on how you track time. My gaming group often plays until 5am with the firm conviction of "it isn't tomorrow yet until you wake up from sleep") you might not be as alert as you were earlier in the evening so you might like to swap from Advanced to Standard or to Basic to make things easier on your poor mushy, over caffeinated brain. Or you can switch up to Advanced for dramatic purposes when fighting the Big Bad Evil Guy of your adventure.

DMing 5th Edition D&D
DMs will have monsters broken down in the same way with basic at top, standard below that and advanced below that. Things like saves and movement (barring AoOs that is) will remain the same across all versions. They can play NPCs as easy to whip up basic characters to give them a basic structure or play the grunts of the BBEG's forces as basic types to make them more straight forward than their more complex Standard 5e superiors or the Advanced 5e BBEG. A simple additional adjustment to HP can bump the enemy from a standard down to a couple-hit-minion, or up to a hard to kill elite. A simple formula for raising or lowering HP, attacks, AC and defenses allows the DM to use the monster at any level of play.

And of course different rule sets can be presented as packages to add on to one, some, or all of the versions as the gaming group decides, much like optional rules are presented now but taking into account the tiers of play.

How WotC can make money off of 5th Edition D&D
Wizards of the Coast can come out with Monster Manuals, Class books which add new classes and PC races, DM aids in the form of setting-free materials to use for their adventure, Adventures, Minis, Settings, and the usual suspects of books, collectibles, dice, etc. Wizards of the Coast said that they were trying to overcome the idea that DMing took a lot of work to pull off. Crowd-sourcing the DMs of the world to allow them to fill out a form to upload their own homemade adventures and settings and monsters and NPCs for free use by all would make for a great resource for all players. WotC could still hold onto the best ones and flesh them out with art and such for D&D Insider, keeping their premium service still relevant while providing gamers everywhere with more ready-made content and a reason to view their site to get the latest news and freebies at which time they can market their new creations to their target audience.

Additionally, like in the previous editions, WotC will likely continue the trend of slowly bending the guidelines for how effective a spell or power can be at a certain level making later books desirable because of their better powers and can continue this until the game begins to break at which point they will likely start over with a new edition anyway. If they stuck to their guns about game balance the game would always remain playable and relevant but it is a good model for making money and for updating the game every so often so I would imagine this would continue on. Until it was time for 6e.

As a final note I'll say that this was all brainstormed up in the past 24-48 hours or so so it's obviously a little rough around the edges and lacking in concrete numbers and crunch examples and is intended as more of a view-from-space type overview or a skeletal analysis of how to build a three-tiered system than brings together the best of early D&D (pre-WotC), 3.x and 4e D&D and build a dynamic system that can be customized to meet the needs of your group.

Hey... if you made it this far I just want to say thanks for reading and, you know, if you are, say, feverish and not in a mental state to make good judgements feel free to bookmark or subscribe to this blog's rss feed for other ramblings about D&D and such.