Anticipating 5.5: The Sweeping Changes

 Whatever it winds up actually being called, the next iteration of D&D is coming in three years. That's actually quite a bit of time - you can more or less think of it as half again the entire lifespan of 5th edition up to this point (rounded off.) So, it is entirely too early to start seriously speculating on what might be in the new edition or update to D&D.

Still, we're going to be seeing at least some changes to the rules.

In fact, I think we must anticipate that there will be some big, significant changes. This is going to be ten years after the launch of 5E, and I think we're likely to see Wizards of the Coast taking this as an opportunity to redesign major aspects of the game.

That said, 5th Edition has been wildly popular, and WotC has already announced that these new books will be "backwards compatible" with all previous 5th Edition books.

D&D is a modular game - you could technically take the bare bones of the rules and have a totally different array of races and classes and monsters and the game would still work more or less the same - you'd even be able to use the same character sheets.

Even then, you could swap out even more things. Take skills, for instance. You could easily add something like "Computers" and remove something like "Animal Handling" and, without really changing any of the rules (except adding any new skills to backgrounds and classes while removing the old ones) the game could still function exactly the same.

Now, when it comes to TTRPGs, I'm fairly narrow in my experience. 5th Edition is the only d20 system I've played, though at least now I'm learning how Starfinder works. As I understand it, you could do some very radical changes, or you could do some tweaks.

Philosophically, I guess the first question is what they aim to do with this revision/revamp. For example, earlier editions of D&D, along with similar games like Pathfinder, are a bit crunchier in terms of mechanics.

As an example:

If I have proficiency in Perception and Insight, and I don't have any special things like Expertise, my bonus to both of those skills will be the same, because they're both Wisdom-based (at least by default.) Beyond my Wisdom modifier, I'm adding that one flat proficiency bonus, which is the same for all its uses - it's how I calculate my spell save DC, how I calculate my attack bonus with weapons I know how to use or my spells, and it's what I add to those ability checks when I have the requisite skill.

In Starfinder, though, the equivalent skills, which would be Perception and Sense Motives, could be radically different. Not only might one of them be a class skill while the other isn't (making a difference of 3,) but I could also have a Skill Focus feat that gives another 3, and then, each time I level up, I might choose to invest ranks in Perception every level while I only put one into Sense Motive every other, or even not at all.

This is something that allows for greater customization, but it's also something that makes the game more complex. If I have a newer player who is struggling while I DM, I can ask a few quick questions and help them figure this sort of thing out "wait, what's my perception?" "Well, is that bubble filled in?" "Yes." "Ok, you're level 3, so it's just your Wisdom modifier plus two."

If I had that conversation in Starfinder, I'd have to ask a lot more clarifying questions, which might even include "did you assign your skill ranks when you leveled up?"

My sense is that WotC has really benefited from the simplification of these systems. And simplicity doesn't mean the game's boring! Given the power of the D&D brand, it's likely to be many players' first TTRPG, which means that accessibility is a very important thing for the game.

The closest thing I think we have to a preview of what's coming in 2024 (which is almost certainly not finalized - again, it's three years off) are what we've seen of the changes to monster design - specifically the spellcasting monsters. Rather than having statblocks bogged down in a long list of spells and spell slots, NPCs and monsters are getting a clear "this is what they use on most turns" ability along with perhaps some limited utility spells.

As someone who does a lot of DMing, this is very exciting to me - villainous spellcasters are a classic trope of the genre, but so often with stat blocks like Archmage or Biomancer (or Lich, though I've only just had one of those in play as a friendly NPC - spoilers for my campaign, btw!) I find myself looking at their spells and thinking "ok, so... I guess this 7th level spell could be what they use this turn - a cone of cold here, a lightning bolt there" but picking those out of a huge list - and dear lord, tracking spell slots - is a lot of mental effort you've got to do on top of being a DM.

You might accuse this of "dumbing down" the game, but I think it's more about allocating resources better. As a DM, I'd rather be using my mental energy to keep the villain's complex plan to manipulate the heroes in mind rather than tracking how many 5th level spells I've cast.

Having just thrown a Demilich at my party, I really appreciate the design of that monster - it's very deadly and scary, but it doesn't bog you down with a ton of abilities you'll never use.

But, to expand outward: I think that we might deduce that WotC plans on making the 5.5 revamps more user-friendly, rather than adding crunchiness to the game.

So, where else might we see such changes?

Honestly, it's hard for me to think of things, in part because I'm so used to the game system that most of it feels pretty intuitive at this point.

One of my pet issues has always been the use of "levels" to refer to spells as well as classes. New players will often think that their 2nd level Wizard can now cast 2nd level spells, which makes a ton of intuitive sense and is, well, wrong. I think calling spell levels "ranks" instead might, yes, step on the toes of older editions that used ranks for skills (I... assume? If they worked anything like they do in Starfinder?) but I think this could clear up a lot of confusion.

But that's a one-word change that hardly warrants a new edition.

While I think it's great to give monsters a "default move," I wouldn't necessarily push that design on players. To be fair, plenty of classes already have such a thing - usually "the attack action," (or "eldritch blast") but I don't think that they need to make non-Warlock pure casters stick with a "primary move." In a lot of ways, I think that role is already filled by cantrips, and it's a liberating feeling when your caster gets high enough level that you can go through a whole combat (or a few) and only cast leveled spells.

I suspect that if they really want to make good on the promise that 5th Edition books will still be compatible with the new core rulebooks, they can't change all that much.

That being said, in previous edition transitions, WotC has published free conversion documents to help navigate the changes. Perhaps, if these rules can be succinct enough, they might be more radical in their redesign.

My suggestions are far more evolutionary than revolutionary, which makes them more likely to actually happen but also a bit less interesting to talk about.

Philosophically, I would love to see a greater focus on high-level play. I think that there's a bit of a vicious cycle when it comes to this sort of thing: WotC hears that players don't tend to play to the higher levels, and so they don't publish adventures that go to the higher levels. But then, as a result, players don't tend to get to those higher levels.

Now, as much as I enjoy having all the adventure books, I haven't actually run any of them (though I might run Wild Beyond the Witchlight possibly after the Starfinder adventure for my Sunday group, unless our DM feels up to continuing her homebrew campaign that we started with). But I think that having high-level published adventures could also encourage DMs who like to homebrew by showing them the sort of challenge they can present to a high-level party.

Frankly, I'd love a DM-facing book focused on running high-level content, though I also get that WotC wants to make sure that every book has some player-facing aspect to broaden the potential market - I think this is likely why Fizban's Treasury of Dragons has subclasses (unlike previous monster books) and why Wild Beyond the Witchlight and the upcoming Strixhaven books have playable races.

Anyway, it's early to speculate, but I think keeping an eye on the future 5th Edition releases will give us a strong indication of the direction that 5.5 will be heading.

Metroid Dread: Gotta Go... Kinda Fast

 So, second run of Metroid Dread, I've mostly avoided doing any serious item searching. I've just beaten the red elite chozo in Hanubia, so I've basically just got to go to the golden one and then Raven Beak to beat the game.

And I'm at about 4h30m in terms of time, which means I've missed the 4 hour mark to get the fastest time.

After one-shotting several of the early bosses, it turns out that the bosses in the latter game are still pretty tough. Escue, oddly, gave me a fair amount of trouble, despite my not remembering that as all that hard (then again, four or five tries the first run through didn't seem like a whole lot). The twin robot chozo fights have proven way, way easier than the first time I tried them, in large part due to the fact that my "hey, maybe focus one of these down at a time" strategy is really, well, good. But I've managed to slip on the elite chozo fights.

I still think that maybe four robot chozo fights and like... five elite chozos is a bit much, though the fact that I've been churning through the game with little "smell the roses" time set aside means that everything's rushing by.

I think perhaps to prove something to myself I did the really hard shinespark puzzle in Burenia on this run as well - the hardest part of it is honestly just getting the shinespark in the first place. But it did mean that I actually wound up skipping a pretty huge swath of Burenia, which is a shame because, despite being an underwater zone, I think it's my favorite (I don't know if the fact that it doesn't have an EMMI zone has anything to do with that.)

I've always had complicated feelings about time limits - the somewhat relaxed pace of grabbing 100% of the items appeals more to my sensibilities. Naturally, Metroid games have always been built for speed-running, and Metroid Dread was 100% designed with that in mind (consider, for example, the special way to kill Kraid that requires you to sequence-break.) I do like to think that the "canonical" way to play the game is more of the slow, deliberate and cautious pace that I imagine most people take on their first run.

I really do hope that they do some DLC for this, or that Nintendo greenlights a new Metroid game via Mercury Steam. They've clearly proven themselves (though I think there was some controversy vis a vis credits - maybe something they can fix with a patch?) Really, just having any excuse to control Samus again in this fluid way would be very welcome.

I think that, much like the Metroid Prime trilogy (and I'm still looking forward, however distantly, to Metroid Prime 4,) it'd be cool to see the next Metroid game give us some new upgrades. Prime 2 used the classic Varia suit as the starting suit, and then gave us the Dark and Light suits, which were both very distinctive in their appearances. Dread was pretty light on brand-new abilities. The Cross Bombs were truly new (though I don't think they got much use) but the Spin Boost and Diffusion Beam were really just underpowered versions of better upgrades you get later on. I guess the Spider Magnet was also new (though it evoked the Spider Ball of earlier games.)

I'd be curious to see new designs rolled into the mix, but I guess it's a bit early to start speculating on future Metroid sequels. Granted, I think they've got a really solid base system here. If this were earlier in the Switch's console generation, I'd advocate for another Metroid game to come out with the same basic framework, a bit like how Majora's Mask game out not long after Ocarina of Time.

But then, I also don't really know what a "new console generation" means anymore. Nintendo just game out with the Switch OLED model (marketing it along with Dread) and I don't know if or when they're going to announce their next console (I think it would probably be wise to go with a similar hybrid home console/mobile system, maybe the "Super Switch" or something).

Anyway, this all boils down to: Metroid Dread is really good, and I hope we'll see Nintendo pushing this franchise as one of their major ones in the coming years.

Arrays and Grafts - Monsters for GMing Starfinder

 The Alien Archive is the initial "monster book" for Starfinder. But if you compare this with D&D's Monster Manual, it's rather thin - both literally and in terms of content. Each two-page spread tends to have a creature or two under a certain theme (such as two examples of Reptoids or two Drow statblocks) but there are some real gaps. There's a grand total of one devil presented in the book, and no demons or daemons (what in D&D would come to be called Yugoloths,) which is a super-high CR that would likely serve as an endgame threat (it's a colossal - which is bigger than gargantuan - devil that can transform into a starship).

However, if you go to the back of the book, there's a section on how to create your own monsters. I've only scratched the surface of this, but it does seem a super-useful tool when you need some quick stat blocks.

The book presents you with three arrays for each challenge rating starting at 1/3 and going up to 25. These arrays are combatants, experts, and spellcasters. Combatants are going to be major physical threats, attacking with weapons and other sorts of attacks. Experts are going to be more skill focused, and might be more of a challenge to deal with outside of combat (though they do have combat stats) while Spellcasters are, well, spellcasters.

Again, I've only scratched the surface, the charts here give you the fundamental basics of how to use them in the game - you get HP, AC (both of the KAC and EAC varieties,) saving throw bonuses, attack bonuses, and attack damage (usually with some harder-hitting major attack and a less powerful alternative).

What this made me realize is that if my party winds up going into a sketchy bar to try to meet some source who can, say, tell them about the guy who's been selling hacked cybernetic implants that take over the host's body and turn them into assassins (basically the plot of a Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex episode) and the local gang isn't too happy about people asking questions and tries to kill the party for putting their noses where they don't belong, I can just flip to the back of the Alien Archive and grab an appropriate CR array to give the party a decent fight.

Now, the arrays aren't everything. There are also several "grafts" that you can add to them. To a large extent, this will just give the creatures racial features - so for example, if that thug trying to shoot your technomancer is a Lashunta, you can give them that species' limited telepathy.

Grafts go pretty far and wide - it also includes things like creature type, so you can make Archons or Devils or Undead that conform to these arrays, gaining the natural features of a being like that (for example, your undead monster isn't going to worry about breathing.)

There are also grafts to apply various class features. This I'm a little hesitant to use, as I think generally class mechanics are more complicated than monster mechanics should be - a player only has one PC to control while a GM has all the NPCs.

Still, I think getting used to picking up these arrays on the fly could be very helpful for running the game. I'm super excited to try the system out and start telling space opera stories.

Going for Speed in a Second Metroid Dread Run

 I am by no means a speedrunner. But I figured I'd try a second run of Metroid Dread. The only real difference in my approach here is that A: I've already beaten the game, so I know what I'm facing (though I don't always remember exactly where I'm supposed to go) and B: I'm not going for 100% of the items. I'm picking up things that I can get along the regular route, but unless I find myself underprepared to face Raven Beak, I don't think I'm going to put much effort into grabbing everything.

My initial run was about 12 hours. On this second run, I've just gotten back from my first trip to Elun (and given that I'm not item-farming, it might be my only one) having picked up the Plasma Beam, and the light-blue EMMI has just been re-activated, so I think Ice Missiles are coming soon (it's crazy to me how soon you get Ice Missiles after getting Super Missiles).

If we're judging true bosses as the ones that have the weird little door-worms, I've one-shot three (Corpius, Kraid, and Drogyga). The first Robot Chozo got me once, but I took it out on the second try. Then, the first Elite Chozo Warrior gave me a little more trouble (annoyingly, I got him to the final counter-attack on the second try and then jumped the gun on the counter, and then instantly got killed,) taking 3 tries.

While I'd like to clear the 4-hour goal on this, being two and a half hours into this run, I suspect it'll be down to the wire (to be fair, I definitely think I'm past the midpoint) though I think I'll very likely hit the 8 hour goal.

I haven't tried Hard Mode yet, but I think the game's tough enough. I don't know that I need to unlock absolutely everything, of course, but it's a fun game. I suspect this is one I'll be coming back to years from now.

Rolling Up Another Starfinder Character and Getting Used to It

 After beating Metroid Dread, I've been feeling the urge to start a new game of it - having gotten 100% of the items, the only real challenge is to try to clear it quickly. (I'm sure that I'll do significantly better against the bosses this time around, at least). But, I also decided to try to roll another character in Starfinder to get a better sense of how the game works.

When presented with the possibility of playing an Android, though, I really had to wonder what race I'd be interested in playing otherwise, and what I landed on was the Gray from the Alien Archive. The Grays are the classic "alien," the short, big-headed, creepy alien abductors who fly around in flying saucers. So, a Gray Operative seemed like a good fit. While they don't get any bonus to Dexterity, they do get a rather huge one to Intelligence, so it would be very easy to get a whole ton of skill ranks.

I had been a little surprised at the high DC of the trick attack feature for Operatives. You need to beat a DC equal to the creature's CR plus 20 in order to get your bonus damage and the other effects. However, I then realized that you get a ton of things to boost the abilities that you use for these. I went with a Ghost specialization, which gives bonuses to acrobatics and stealth. First and foremost, you get a +1 to everything thanks to Operative's Edge. Then, you can factor in the Skill Focus feat that you get with your specialization's key skills, which adds a +3 bonus. Then, you take into account that these are both class skills, which gives an extra 3. Then, you automatically get a rank in these two (which doesn't allow you to have two ranks at level 1, but is still nice.)

And on top of it all, as a ghost, you get a +4 bonus to Stealth checks that are made to get you a trick attack. So all in all, at level 1, with only a +3 to Dex (which also gets factored in,) I had an effective +15 to Stealth checks when trying to see if I got a trick attack. That means that, against a CR 1 creature, I'd have to roll a 5 or lower not to get the trick attack.

One thing I do miss a lot from D&D when making Starfinder characters is starting equipment. There is so much to buy in Starfinder that I wish they had an option for "basic gear." You could even make it relatively simple by saying "get a survival knife or a tactical baton and a small arm weapon that is level 1," to preserve options. I went with a survival knife and an azimuth laser pistol.

With the 1000 credits you start with, I did also pick up a few other items. I got a Second Skin armor suit, which seems like a good one to start with for any light armor character. Then, I picked up 2 Serums of Healing, 20 R2Es (basically a day's rations,) a Personal Comm Unit (which seems like a staple - I'd assume that as a Gray, who relies on telepathy, he'd use it to text) along with two extra weapon batteries. Then, I got an Industrial Backpack, which increases carrying capacity (by a small amount - it weighs one bulk and then can carry 2 bulk that don't count against your limit) and then, the most exciting thing: a hideaway limb, so I can keep a weapon hidden in his leg, which seems like a useful thing for an operative.

There is a ton of exciting stuff to spend credits on, and you're definitely going to have things to work toward after you've spent your initial 1000.

Oh, and for my level 1 feat, I took Mobility, which increases your AC by 4 against opportunity attacks made because you moved, but more importantly unlocks additional feats later on.

I do think it's a shame that Operatives get proficiency in sniper weapons, but both their trick attack and their big multiattack can't work with that type of weapon. I'm also a little surprised that their BAB is 0 at level 1, so my dude only has a +3 to hit with his attacks (though with a successful trick attack, he makes the foe flat-footed, which lowers their AC by 2, so effectively he gets a +5).

With 10 skill ranks per level, it does seem that this character (whom I've named Alpha) would likely be quite good at many things in the course of leveling.

I will say that Paizo's style guide does seem a lot more concerned with efficiency than WotC's. There are things that I know Wizards of the Coast would be very explicit about that are kind of left up to you to discern. For example, the description in Alien Archive of the Grays is that they never speak, even to one another, preferring telepathic communication. You get the Telepathic Message spell as an at-will racial ability (the equivalent of Message in D&D) but it doesn't say if Grays can't speak, or if they just don't. So, for example, if I try to communicate something to someone in the heat of battle, am I going to need to use my standard action to cast Telepathic Message and then draw an opportunity attack because I'm casting a spell, or can I be the Gray who breaks with his culture and is willing to shout a quick "he's got a grenade!" when I see some hostile dude pull out an explosive?

There are other things like this, like a Soldier's 20th level ability allows you to force a creature you hit to make a Fortitude save or immediately die, but it doesn't say how that DC is calculated. Instead, buried in some other chapter, there's a single sentence that says "oh, and by the way, class abilities have a DC that's equal to... like 10 plus your character level, or something - honestly, I don't actually remember.

I think this is in part due to the fact that the Core Rulebook is a combination of both DMG and PHB, which makes a ton of sense (only D&D can get away with making you buy three 50 dollar books to play the game) but also forces Paizo to sacrifice clarity in favor of efficiency. (Similarly, creatures in the Alien Archive have their attacks kind of buried as this single line amidst a bunch of other statistics). I think it's also possible that Paizo's philosophy is less geared toward accessibility. Certainly, from a game design perspective, players are expected to make a lot of impactful decisions at level 1, whereas for a lot of D&D classes, you have a bit of time to get used to the class before you, for example, pick a subclass (of course, not always.)

I have talked with friends who have played a lot of D&D who like the way that Pathfinder and Starfinder really force you to build a character carefully, as there's a bit more strategy involved. I think that makes sense, and I think a game having these more complex rules is a good thing when there are simpler options (I realize that newcomers to D&D might be gobsmacked at the notion that D&D is the simpler game in this comparison.) I suspect that if I had a comparable level of experience with Starfinder I might even prefer its style of complexity. But to me, TTRPGs are only as good as your ability to get your friends to play it, which means accessibility is always going to be a concern.

Still, I'm planning to make my regular Sunday group play Starfinder for a short, couple-week adventure, and we'll see how much we like it. (I'm more nervous about GMing for it. When I started with D&D, I had very little ego at stake if I screwed things up, but as someone who's very comfortable running D&D, I want to be able to provide the same smooth experience with Starfinder, which just flat-out isn't going to happen.)

I also think the Alien Archive is a bit anemic compared to the Monster Manual - it is a much shorter book, of course. It does seem like the expectation is that you'll be homebrewing more creatures using its creature creation guidance, but I'd love to just have a big selection of space pirates, alien monsters, and such that I can just toss at a level 1 party without fearing that I'm going to wipe them out.

I'm also trying to wrap my head around Computers. As a technologically-advanced setting, computers are ubiquitous, and there are a ton of class features (especially for Mechanics) that tie into them, but I'm not sure how many random computers to add to an environment and how much I need to plan out how well-defended they are from hacking. While a plot-relevant computer with various countermeasures makes a ton of sense, I guess I've just got to improvise super low-tier computers like lighting controls.

Don't get me wrong: I love that there are systems for things like vehicle chases and starship battles and computer hacking. But it's also a ton of information to try to internalize before running a game. I guess the key is to keep it simple and start the players off with a classic adventure of "go into a spooky place, investigate a mystery, encounter monsters, fight monsters" structure as my typical D&D one-shots tend to go, except they'll be on a derelict spaceship rather than some haunted crypt. Then, if people enjoy the game, we can get into the more elaborate stuff (I do think that I've got to have a starship battle in there, if for no other reason than to justify building the party's starship, which will probably happen only after they've had some time to fight "on foot.")

D&D 5.5: What Needs Fixing?

 5th Edition has been the most popular and successful version of the age-old TTRPG. It's brought tons of new players into the fold (myself included) and seen the brand explode in popularity thanks in part to actual-play shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20.

When I was first getting started, veterans praised 5th Edition as a great time to jump in, with a more approachable rules system.

As I've been documenting on this blog, I've been learning the Starfinder game system, which is based largely on Pathfinder, itself built on D&D's 3.5th edition. While it's very exciting to have a game similar to D&D that takes place within a sci-fi setting, I certainly feel that it's going to take a lot of effort to get players to invest in what is certainly a more complicated rules system.

Having not actually played Starfinder yet, I don't know how it will feel, exactly. And to be fair, there's a lot of stuff that I've just internalized with D&D over six years of playing it that gives it a significant head start in terms of familiarity.

In 2024, WotC will be releasing new core rulebooks, but this is not being billed as a true 6th edition. Indeed, the books are being designed to be compatible with 5th Edition adventures and books, meaning that we will be getting a somewhat more conservative update.

How conservative or radical the changes are remains to be seen, and we're also 3 years off, so I'm sure that's an internal debate still going on. But let's talk about changes we might anticipate. These might be granular things or broader ideas.

1: Artificers in the PHB

With the addition of the Armorer subclass, WotC has shown a willingness to expand upon the Artificer, first introduced in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. However, because it is not in the Player's Handbook, the philosophy of only ever requiring that a play group has the core rulebooks to use any other books (which I think is a sound policy, mind you) means that any addition to the class requires a full reprint. The Artificer fills a niche that was not filled by other classes, and I think has been a popular addition. Putting it in the Player's Handbook would free Wizards to simply add new subclasses and features like infusions in future rules-expansion or campaign setting books without having to print the whole thing again (along with an ever-expanding list of subclasses). Artificers have had their time to prove themselves both non-game-breaking and also cool enough to warrant inclusion in the core books. As a side note, I'd also love to see some Artificer-exclusive spells, which could perhaps be easier to do if it were a PHB class.

2: Clearer Uses for Tool Proficiencies

Artificers get a bunch of tools to use, but they're of course not the only ones. Tool proficiency makes a ton of sense from a flavor perspective, but the clear opportunities to actually use them are not very well-delineated. Does one make a "thieves tools check" or is it simply a "sleight of hand check" using thieves tools to pick a lock? I'd love to see these get some clarification.

3: Better Uses for Money

To be fair, this might be a bit of a controversial one. For some people, the acquisition of gold in D&D and then spending it is pretty dull. Brennan Lee Mulligan (DM of Dimension 20) makes a pretty compelling argument that a magic weapon is way cooler when you get it after completing some grand quest instead of just stopping by the "magic item store" and buying it from some dude. At the same time, though, I do feel like, if you're rewarding gold for defeating monsters at the rates suggested in the DMG, your players are likely going to wind up with more gold than they know what to do with. Indeed, only a few characters wear heavy armor, and once those characters have a set of plate, there's very little left to actually spend that gold on that has a clear mechanical benefit.

Now, I don't know if you want to go all the way into Starfinder's style - where you're going to constantly get more powerful weapons as you level up for more and more credits (for one thing, D&D's difficulty scaling is much slower, so having a greatsword that does like 6d6 damage on every hit is going to be a tad OP.)

Having rules to purchase magic items could potentially help with this, though perhaps things like legendary items and artifacts would be priceless. I don't know.

4: Clean Up Old Classes and Subclasses

This is probably the most expected change coming in the new books. As design has evolved over the course of 5th Edition, many of its subclasses are just kind of strictly better than the ones that first appeared in the PHB. When I did my subclass review earlier this year, I found that the designers were just far too conservative in the concepts and abilities that many of the original subclasses got. For example, if you compare the level 1 telepathic communication features of the Great Old One Warlock to the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, the sorcerer subclass' feature is far superior in basically every conceivable way. And a lot of subclasses (including the GOO) have profoundly underwhelming features that pale in comparison to things other subclasses get at those levels. So, a rework and even a full redesign would be in order. The PHB subclasses often represent the most iconic archetypes for each class, and so it would be nice to see mechanics that allow for those iconic designs to be playable without feeling like the player is handicapping themselves.

5: Rangers

As written, the Ranger doesn't really have much to recommend it over a dexterity-based fighter. Tasha's made an attempt to improve that, though a few of the replacement abilities missed the mark, ironically enough. For example, Favored Foe is a sort of attempt to turn Hunter's Mark into a class feature, but is overall just kind of worse than the spell, and it's not like you can even stack them.

To be fair, some later ranger subclasses wound up granting the class a fair amount of power, but it seems that either they've got to recognize that the subclass features are where the class power lies, and redesign the PHB options to reflect that, or they need to give Rangers some serious power baseline.

6: Warlocks

I actually love Warlocks as they are. But there are a few tweaks and adjustments that I'd like to see to make them a bit more versatile. As it stands, Warlocks more or less work as a magical version of a martial class, with Eldritch Blast playing the role that a Fighter's longbow might. While I get that that's kind of their whole deal, I'd want to allow their actual spellcasting to be a little more flexible, so that the Warlock could play the role of the group's arcane magic person if needs be.

One suggestion I saw was giving Warlocks spell slots equal to their proficiency bonus. As it stands, you start off with just 1, getting two at level 2, and then you have only two spell slots until level 11. Then, you only get 4 at level 17. This would unquestionably be a buff to the class, but I don't know that it would break the game.

Next, when learning cantrips, I'd say that Warlocks should automatically learn Eldritch Blast. Making it optional feels mostly like a trap for new players, rather than allowing for unusual builds.

Finally, I think some of the functionality of the Hexblade needs to be rolled into the Pact of the Blade. With the exception, perhaps, of multiclassers, I don't see any Warlock who wants to fight with a weapon as going anything other than a Hexblade. At the very least, I'd have the pact weapon scale with Charisma, and then perhaps add the ability to get medium armor and a shield as an invocation (that requires pact of the blade.)

7: Include the Xanathar's Guide to Everything guidance for Encounter Building

Dear lord, did the charts introduced in Xanathar's just make encounter building way easier than the system in the DMG. For those who are unfamiliar, rather than applying various multipliers and having an XP budget and all that, the Xanathar system just gives you ratios of how many monsters of a certain CR equate to a player of a certain level. So when I build an encounter, I often go "ok, I've got 5 level 13 PCs. CR 3 monsters are each worth about half a player, so I'm going to have six CR 3 monsters, which leaves me with 2 players' worth of monster. So, I can either do two CR 6 monsters or a single CR 8. Great! That's their leader!

It's a lot quicker and easier.

8: Monster Reworks

This we know is happening. Monsters, especially spellcasting ones, are going to get a new system where they have a signature move that is intended to be what they do on most turns and then have spells that act more for utility. I'd like to have those signature abilities classified as spells, though, to allow players to counterspell them. Then we're gold.

9: Race Reworks

Naturally, I expect we'll see the changes to ability score bonuses that came with Tasha's baked into the PHB, which is a major boon for the game. I also would like to see the PHB Dragonborn reflect the updates found in Fizban's.

Now, should any additional playable races be added to the PHB? I think we're actually ok without that. They can't just add and add to the PHB, and I think the options presented in the regular 5E PHB do a decent job covering your options.

10: Spell Clarifications

There are a few ambiguities here and there that I'd like to see addressed. (Basically, arguments I've had with my DM.) For example, I believe Jeremy Crawford has said that the blasts form Eldritch Blast go off sequentially, so you can wait and see if you've killed a monster with a first blast before targeting it with your second or third. Also, with the Shield spell, does the DM have to tell you what they rolled on their attack or only whether or not it hit your armor class before you decide whether to burn the spell slot?

11: Something Radical

What I've been suggesting is far more iterative than revolutionary. And I think that the popularity of 5th Edition means that WotC should tread carefully and not butcher the golden goose. But I think there's definitely some room to go in unexpected directions.

This is certainly a self-interested suggestion, but I think also maybe a viable one. I think in the past, genre fans have really preferred to keep fantasy and sci-fi, and other speculative fiction genres, separate. I, however, have always been one to prefer some mix. I love getting a little sci fi in my fantasy and vice-versa. But beyond that, I'd also love to see support for fantasy games in modern-like worlds.

To be fair, this might not be a "core books" kind of thing to add. It's very likely that Spelljammer is coming next year, which to be fair is less sci-fi than just fantasy-in-space, but it's a step in that direction. Chris Perkins has mentioned that they're developing brand-new, original to D&D settings that might see release in 2023 or so, and one idea I've seen bandied around is an Urban Fantasy setting (which is the general term for modern fantasy worlds, usually with a focus on urban locations.)

The 5th Edition DMG has a brief segment that introduces firearms and other more modern (or futuristic) weapons, but seeing those ideas expanded upon and explored could be very cool.

We've got a lot of time to wait before these new books come out. As new products come out in the next few years, we'll have a better sense of the direction the game is moving - we know that the Monsters of the Multiverse book will be a sort of preview of the new philosophies, applying to creatures found in books like Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. Until then, though, we can only speculate!

Action Economy in Starfinder

 While I'm still a few weeks away (at least) from running a brief Starfinder adventure for my usual Sunday D&D group, I've been jumping around the Core Rulebook to try as best as I can to familiarize myself with the way the rules work.

In many ways, of course, the game is similar to D&D. But one thing that I was surprised to discover was that none of the classes have an extra attack feature, which is standard for just about every weapon-based class in D&D. The reason, as it turns out, is that there's a built-in rule for making multiple attacks per turn that anyone can use from level 1.

So, let's talk action economy.

In D&D, you have your movement, your action, and sometimes a bonus action, and then a reaction you can use once per round.

In Starfinder (and I assume Pathfinder,) there's a Standard Action, a Move Action, and a Swift Action, along with a Reaction.

For the most part, these correspond with one another. But you can also take a Full Action, which takes up your entire turn. One of these full actions you can take is to make two attacks, with a -4 to your attack bonus. In Starfinder, as you gain levels and better gear, the damage of a single attack scales up considerably, and so even with a pretty hefty penalty to hit, it becomes worth it if you don't need to move to make multiple attacks. Also, by level 9, a Soldier might have a +14 to hit with their, say, Plasma Doshko (a kind of axe-like weapon that replaces traditional triangular blades with jets of plasma that deal fire damage) and so might still be content with a +10 to hit when each strike is doing 2d10+14 damage.

Generally, maneuvering in combat is a trickier thing in Starfinder. In D&D, you only draw an attack of opportunity from a foe if you use your own legs (or whatever means of conveyance) to exit the reach of a foe. In Starfinder, not only do you draw one simply from moving at all within that area, but also if you attempt to cast a spell (with some exceptions for spells that have a range of touch) or make a ranged weapon attack against them.

As such, there are a wider variety of move action options, like a guarded step, which lets you avoid opp attacks but only if you move only 5 feet. There are also variations on dashing that can potentially put you at a full sprint, but make you vulnerable to attacks.

Honestly, this is an area of the game where I'm struggling to internalize a lot of the rules. For example, there's a rule where you avoid the opp attack for making a ranged attack on someone in melee if you're partially concealed, like if you're partially around a corner from them.

Unlike in D&D, there's no penalty for making a ranged attack while in melee range of a foe, except the potential for an opportunity attack, but you can pick up feats that raise your AC against such opportunity attacks.

On top of this, a lot of weapon types have various special properties that often allow for different attack options. For example, automatic weapons can be fired on full-auto, which depletes all the remaining ammo in the cartridge/battery but allows you to make an attack against every target within a big cone. Also, many weapons have the Unwieldy trait, which means you can only fire them once per round - so no full attack, but usually this means that they do a lot of damage.

All in all, I definitely think that Starfinder has a higher bar of entry than D&D. While newcomers might feel a bit overwhelmed by all the rules in 5th Edition, Starfinder seems built for people who can navigate the minutiae of its rules system. I think the benefit is that you can seriously customize the way that you build your character and play it in a way that D&D doesn't allow, but doing so requires remembering a whole lot of complex rules.