Five point five ee

Here’s my prediction for the future. Or at least what I’d do if my name was Mr. John Wizardsofthecoast.

Why 5.5?

You gotta make a new edition

This is just economics. Innovate or die.

 

But you can’t throw everything away

Once, you could get away with telling people that all their stuff was worthless. Not today. WotC learned that lesson with 4e.

 

Hence, 5.5e

New edition, new rules, compatible with old modules. New Players Handbook, new Dungeon Master’s Guide, new Monster Manual, same balance (bounded accuracy, action economy, damage-per-level, encounters-per-reset). Old modules and monsters still work.

Don’t change

Simplicity. Pathfinder 2 is niche. “Advanced” 5e is niche. They cater to a small (but loud) audience. Not the way to go.

 

Sacred cows: alignment, the six stats. Vestigial, but also core to the D&D experience.

Change

Focus on fixes. Then maybe put one or two crazy new ideas on top. I don’t know how to fix these, that would be a full-time job, but I can point out the (in my opinion) main flaws of the game as-is:

 

• The rest system
• Bonus actions, and probably the entire action/bonus/reaction triumvirate
• Fireball
• The role of tactics in combat
• Explicit procedures for dungeon crawling
• Explicit procedures for traveling
• Social rules
• The role of cash-money
• Major class tweaks for Ranger, Warlock, and Barbarian
• Dying and death saves
• Spell save DCs
• Encumbrance
• Inspiration (& ideals, bonds, flaws)
• (Tweak a couple of feats I guess, but that stuff is small fry, really)

Why tho?

While I can’t pretend to have all (or any, really) of the answers, I can point out why each of these needs fixing. I feel most of these are pretty obvious though but maybe you would consider some HOT TAKES. But I’ll save them for their own posts.