I've never touched anything beyond level 20. I thought that's what the epic stuff was? Are there regular class features and such published for those levels too, or were you homebrewing by then?

>I concede that it's pretty generic and would benefit from some refinement That's my point. A couple paragraphs on one page, and an addendum in another book to *consider* giving the player advantage and maybe an "added benefit", again left entirely up to the DM. The Xanathar's content is nice, if again a bit vague, assuming your DM uses it. But that's still buried in an appendant text. And that's just one example. Called shots are another good example. Anything outside the narrow scope of the written rules is left up to the DM. That's not fundamentally problematic in a ttrpg, the game master always has the final say anyway, but it's lazy game design, and it's only getting worse with each release. I said elsewhere that I quit D&D after buying the 5e Spelljammer set, which dumped all mechanical decisions onto individual DM decision. I don't buy rulebooks to get permission to run my game how I want. I buy rulebooks for playtested rules.

Lancer seems interesting but terrifyingly involved between the fresh setting, combat that feels like two legendary monsters fighting, and the host of new adjectives I’ll have to incorporate into my vocabulary. I’d only heard about it once before, from a zee bashew video, and it seems far more fleshed out than what I expected. Mythras significantly cuts down on one of those, so I’ll probably try that one out. Multiple degrees of success and more gradation between the cost of actions seems pretty neat as well. Thank you for the recommendations! I’ll almost certainly need to chew on them for a while to really understand them, but I adore both setting and the mechanics behind them!

I will admit to being biased towards Lancer because I was already a big fan of one of the author's other work beforehand. Tom Bloom (ne Parkinson-Morgan) writes and illustrates [Kill Six Billion Demons](https://killsixbilliondemons.com/). I promise I do genuinely like the mechanics though. If you do decide to take a look at Lancer, there's a really powerful thing that makes it a lot simpler: [COMP/CON](https://compcon.app/#/). It manages character creation, initiative, tracking values in combat etc just like all the non-store parts of D&D Beyond, but it's a _lot_ smoother to use If you get a go at Mythras, have fun! I will have to quietly envy you because I don't a group to play it with

Shit, I thought this is an anti-marxist meme then I read the community. It's good to see lemmy gaining popularity. :'D

Unfortunately the DMG says that if a character somehow acquires the same feature more than once, only one counts.

There's published stuff for after 20. We didn't use any of it, because the campaign was winding down. It all came to a nice ending, so wrapping up was more a matter of mutual storytelling than any dice rolls or challenges.

I thought it was about programming and was wondering why the words only half seemed to mean something.

I agree 100% with your sentiment about the quality and depth of supplemental books having sharply dropped off! I don't know exactly where the turning point was for me... sometime around Tasha's Cauldron and its variant rules for racial traits, maybe... but I definitely lost interest in anything new that they put out. I saw how thin Spelljammer and Fizban's Treasury were, and thought... "that's it?!" If you don't mind indulging me, could you elaborate on what you like better about GURPS? I tried to get into it, but was quickly put off by its extreme granularity. Character creation boiled down to (and I'm paraphrasing), > You can be literally anyone or anything!!! ...as long as you meet the budget for points. However, this is a setting-agnostic system, so make sure you check in with your game master to see if your concept is actually allowed in their game. Also the primary attributes, skills, and point values of various traits could all be quite different than the default presented here because, again, they might not make sense for the setting of your game. So maybe your game master should hold your hand through character creation. But anyways, here's a three-mile-long list of things you can spend your points on, go nuts! The foreword also said something along the lines of, "here's the most important rules, you can ignore the rest of this book and still play GURPS just fine" ...but that sounds like the same thing you're complaining about with D&D? That it leaves SO MUCH up to the game master to decide. In D&D 5e, personally I appreciated having only the basic rules in the PHB. I felt that combat was complex enough without having called shots, flanking, speed factor, and lingering injuries presented as ***the default.*** But when we were ready to increase the complexity, we were quite glad to have all of those additional rules written up in the DMG in a modular format. Likewise, when 95% of the game is focused on combat, social interaction, and exploring dungeon-like environments, I don't see any need for the basic rules to include a fine-tuned granular system for downtime activities. "You can create 5gp worth of any item per day using the appropriate set of tools, given that you are proficient, and it costs you half that much in raw materials." Boom, that's super simple and it gets the job done for the majority of players who are interested in crafting during their downtime in between the actual adventures. For those hardcore outliers who desire a more fleshed-out set of rules for tools, Xanathar's includes DC's for a range of tasks to do with each tool, a list of specific components that are included in each kind of tool kit, and at least three examples per tool for how you can apply it in conjunction with a skill OR use the tool in a special way. It's a lot more detailed than just "consider giving the player advantage and maybe an added benefit IDK." I know you're frustrated that it's buried in a supplemental text rather than the core rulebook, but I don't know. Should the PHB also have the specific rules for large-scale army battles? Maritime navigation? How to play dragon chess? There's only so much you can fit into the basic rulebook...

Hide pit in Sovngarde

Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely going to read up on it after mythras. It will just take me so much longer to get the feeling for how to tell the story of benevolent armored core ostensibly set in Macross. And even longer to adapt the lexicon that it deserves. Like, I can currently describe thundering annihilation and cleaving the landscape in only so many ways. The mechanics are simple in comparison to avoiding repetitive verbiage. This is prime brisket. Mythras won’t require months for me to fully immerse myself, which is why I’m checking it first. It’s just much less involved and I need something to fall back on in case “the thing I’ve been super excited to show you guys” doesn’t fly.

I knew a wizard that had traded his soul for favors so many times he was effectively immortal. He never went adventuring any more, just oversaw research in our flying screened tower. Since old age was the only feasible way he was going to die, which would cause a war between all the outer planes over ownership of his soul, no one would cause his death. He was 218 when I met him, and he was over 5000 years old, and a demigod of secrets, when I met him again, because of a mixup we had while inventing portal magic. We ended up 5000 years in the past and I went back to the present, but he stayed behind.

That is an entirely reasonable position! I didn't mea to try to push you about it, I am just enthusiastic to share a thing I'm a fan of. Sorry if it came across otherwise. I wish you luck in your games

Big John Constantine energy.

Why does this sound so familiar?

Oh no, you didn’t come across that way at all! I just felt obligated to explain the reason for where I’ll begin reading, given that you were my impetus, and I needed to affirm to myself that it was the right course after how miserable call of Cthulhu ended up being for one of my players. You are a lovely person with excellent taste in ttrpgs, and also very probably too hard on yourself.

I have talked about Pagy on many other sites.

>If you don't mind indulging me, could you elaborate on what you like better about GURPS? I tried to get into it, but was quickly put off by its extreme granularity. Gladly, any chance I can get, tbh. The base system is very simple: for anything you're trying to do, the GM determines what the relevant skill is, and what situational modifiers make that attempt easier or more difficult, roll 3d6 ≤ skill level ± modifiers. With the exception of rolling damage and a handful of other situational things (Reaction, Self Control, etc.), basically everything you do mechanically will be that same Success Roll (3d6 ≤ Skill Level ± Modifiers). All the granularity comes down to determining your Skill Level and relevant Modifiers. The point buy character creation is awesome, it's really it's own mini-game. You have total control over what you're able to do, and good at (within the confines of your specific setting). I got fed up with trying to build a character concepts within the D&D creation options. It got to where I was cobbling together races and classes and subclasses and feats and multiclass dips to try to approximate an idea, picking up all sorts of baggage I was never going to use and only halfway getting to what I envisioned, and even then only by the grace of a tolerant DM. I like making *exactly* the character I want, and not worrying that it's going to be some half-baked novelty or an overpowered munchkin. I got bored making D&D characters after like 7 or 8; they're all either the same basic mechanic build with a personality swap, or basically useless in play outside very specific conditions. >The foreword also said something along the lines of, "here's the most important rules, you can ignore the rest of this book and still play GURPS just fine" ...but that sounds like the same thing you're complaining about with D&D? The difference is: D&D touches vaguely on a subject, or doesn't touch on it at all, and tells you to fill in the rest ; GURPS gives you more options than you can ever use, and tells you to pick and choose whatever helps you in your story and setting. When considering value as a game system, I much prefer being given a selection to choose from than bare bones that I'm *forced* to expand on. Again, it comes down to design, balance, and playtesting. GURPS gives you balanced mechanics to incorporate as you please, D&D forces you to come up with adjudication on the spot and pray that it doesn't break anything. It's the difference between being handed a tub of Lego, and a tub of clay. >I know you're frustrated that it's buried in a supplemental text rather than the core rulebook, but I don't know. Should the PHB also have the specific rules for large-scale army battles? Maritime navigation? How to play dragon chess? There's only so much you can fit into the basic rulebook... Where do you find those rules in D&D? A bit in Xanathar, a bit in Tasha, a bit in Volo, a bit in Saltmarsh, a bit in SCAG, more bits sprinkled around. GURPS has plenty of supplementals, but the organization and density of content is miles better. In GURPS, the basic stuff to build most characters, and the core mechanics are in Basic Set Characters. The advanced mechanics are in Basic Set Campaigns. The advanced rules for magic are in Magic. The advanced rules for melee combat are in Martial Arts. The rules for space stuff are in Space. The rules for sci-fi technology are in Hi-Tech. There are dozens of short supplementals for Mass Combat or Social Engineering or Psionic Powers. Everything is modular, indexed, and extensively cross-referenced. If I want to use a special mechanic, I don't have to guess where it is and go digging. I go to the book that makes sense and check the contents or index, and I can find an obscure rule within a minute. If a mechanic interacts with another, it'll tell me. Personally, I love the granularity. For as much as D&D focuses on combat, it's so *boring*. Roll to attack, miss AC. Roll to attack, hit AC, roll damage. Some classes sprinkle some extra damage for certain conditions, and wizards get a little more creative utility, but otherwise that's it. GURPS has superior mechanics for defense, grappling, targeted shots, tactical maneuvers, martial arts techniques, shock, wounds. All optional, but you do have *options*, and you can use that options creatively. The main problem OP cited, not being able to multi-subclass, can't happen because there are no classes. Choose whatever abilities and attributes suit your character concept, campaign setting, and budget. The only time it restricts you from doing something is when you try to take things that contradict each other (like being Wealthy and Dead Broke), or break the balance (like adding over 80% Limitations on a Trait to make it super cheap). Oh yeah, Enhancements and Limitations, another awesome level or granularity that let's you *further* fine tune your Traits to align *exactly* with your concept. Honestly, I could gush about this system all day. I could never imagine going back to 5e.

The joke's on you: thanks to min-maxing, the fighter can't count in the first place!

Why don't cars have six wheels though.