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Originally posted by Diffan

So I'm a bit late to the party on this:

Combat: So two schools of thought come to mind when it comes to combat in RPGs - Ease of use or in depth faux-realism. Both have their fans and their games/editions however, I find that a LOT of people prefer ease of use to the hyper-specialized mechanics that require either A) a LOT of different dice and checks OR table-upon-tables. Take 5e for example, it's d20 similar to most other versions of D&D BUT it doesn't require a LOT of other stuff to get going. 3e, by contrast, is a quagmire of rule-specific exception-based design (meaning that you either take a huge penalty or can't do something EXCEPT if you have this widget). For my preferences, I hated 3e/3.5/PF multitude of punitive aspects that basically said "If you don't have X, Y, and Z then you're basically wasting your time, my time, and everyone at the table's time in attempting something that has a significantly high chance of failing just to look cool." Basically this is what all the special attacks were - Bull Rush, Disarm, Grapple, Trip, etc. Not only did this require a significant portion of your resource allotment (ie. Feats) but it also had a negative return after a certain level (by level 8 and onward) because monsters got exceptionally stronger, bigger, and more resistant to where you never used these Options later because despite the investment, their use was negligible at best. If you're going to make a combat system, I beg you to think of the Martial warrior players. DON'T throw penalizing things into the game (ie. Iterative attack penalty, fighting with Two-Weapon penalty, arbitrary -4 to *insert cool combat trick* penalty). It doesn't make the game more fun IMO.

SKILLS Sometimes more is better, and sometimes less is more. In this category you have a LOT of free-form, and you're correct that D&D post-2E sort of handles Skills separate from Combat (well, slightly) because all it still requires is d20 roll +/- modifier to beat a DC (same as attacking in 3, 4, and 5e). But there's more variance in what skills you're good with or not good with (or can't try at all). I'm fairly ignorant of how other systems handle skills besides maybe GURPS and other d20-based games. I can say that I hated skill ranks and, again, hyper-specific skills that you have to invest in to get similar elements (like who really hides but doesn't want to be quiet?). I'd also keep crafting and Professions completely separate from this area. I think crafting needs to be it's own fun, unique, and flavorful element vs. well I have 10 ranks in Craft (basketweaving) so I can basically weave anything together bwhahaha. Same with Profession, I just don't get the need to have ranks in a skill that is almost entirely stated "You work 1 week, roll and see how much GP you get based on this arbitrary stats...?) I roll bad so....what the stocks are bad that week? I don't get customers because....? Its too much like SIMS and if I wnated to play SIMS, I'd buy SIMS, not a Fantasy RPG.

MAGIC You're correct, D&D's system is horribly broken. But it's two-fold in reason. The first is the Quadratic component, that you're 1st level Magic Missile just instantly gets an additional bolt of 1d4+1 at 3, 5, 7, & 9....cus why not for the same expenditure of resources (one 1st level spell slot). 4E capped the dice at the level it's cast and based their potential in Rider-effects (spell deals damage and has awesome effect) or has a bigger area, or only effects enemies, etc. But apparently that didn't allow wizards to feel.....ultra-powerful like before (because we couldn't have that now could we?) so 5E hit a nice little middle ground of using higher resources for better effect. The second problem is that magic is just too damn versatile and some classes just have too much access to everything. Specialization HERE wouldn't be a bad thing. As I look to "Fix" 3.5, I always thought that Wizard should've been required to specialize in a school and spells outside that school get cast with 1/2 their caster level and you can't use higher slots than what that spell is at anyways. you should also play up the requirement for resources in casting said spells.

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