To say that 2024 is a big year for Dungeons & Dragons is an understatement as the game prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary. With new core rulebooks on the horizon, it’s an opportunity to refresh and rework some of the weirder or broken rules that still plague the fifth edition. From spells and mechanics that just don’t quite work to rules that need complete overhauls, there are plenty of aspects of DnD that need updating.
With a host of new DnD books releasing in 2024, there is plenty for people to look forward to. The new Player’s Handbook is set to arrive on September 17, 2024, as the culmination of the One D&D playtests set to reveal the full array of changes made to the core rules of the game. With that in mind, there are more than a few rules and mechanics that need a little TLC to help keep everyone at the table having fun.
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10 Taking Cover
Clarification Is Needed For More People To Use The Rule
There are several DnD rules that can leave people scratching their heads or start a heated debate at the table because the wording in the Player’s Handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide isn’t as clear as it should be. The rules surrounding cover are one of the most common examples, with what constitutes half, three-quarters, and total cover barely explained. This leads to many tables simply ignoring the rule rather than slowing down combat trying to figure it out.
This fix would be the easiest, as all that is needed is clarification on what each type of cover is and what can and cannot be used as cover. By giving clear examples, perhaps in the form of a table of different items to provide exemplars, it allows DMs and players to visualize what each cover type is and apply that to their own situation. Just providing clearer wording with helpful examples makes a ruling much easier for those new to DnD and veterans alike.
9 Summoning Spells
At Times Overpowered But Always A Headache For DMs
It’s been a long-time gripe of many players and DMs that conjuration spells in fifth edition DnD are broken and overpowered. At best, they allow for some insanely powerful creatures to come to the party’s aid, such as the notorious conjure woodland beings that can potentially summon eight pixies or one sea hag, which can cause headaches for DMs. At worst, they can slow combat down to a crawl and render the action economy of battle a complete mess with a horde of new characters suddenly on the field.
As conjuration spells get higher in level, the more powerful creatures can be summoned right through to planar beings, fiends, and celestials. One way to perhaps balance these summonings would be to have the casting time be greater than an action or, in some cases, one to 10 minutes. The find familiar spell requires one hour and very specific spell components which limits how many times that spell can be cast and lends more weight to the repercussions of using it as time and resources must be spent.
8 Dual-Wielding Is Disappointing
The Fighting Styles Needs A Rework To Make Using It Worth It
Dual-wielding, or two weapon fighting, in DnD is more than a little disappointing, with many who choose it feeling let down at how it handles using two weapons at once. As it stands when a character dual-wields, they are forced to sacrifice their bonus action to make use of their extra weapon. So, depending on the class, that can mean choosing between attacking or another useful action such as Disengaging, Bardic Inspiration, or using Second Wind.
One fix could be to allow the off-hand attack to be made as part of the regular attack action for those choosing this fighting style. This wouldn’t make the ability too overpowered, as the weapons have to be light and, therefore, typically do less damage than others, such as greatswords or battleaxes. Having a plus one to AC while wielding two light weapons could also compensate for the lack of defense inherent in this fighting style.
7 Learning New Skills
D&D Needs To Create A Fixed Rule To Help DMs And Players
When creating a new DnD character, there are a number of things that determine a character’s proficiencies, such as class and background. However, once they have been chosen, there is no way in the current rules to learn new skills beyond multiclassing or taking particular feats. New rules to allow characters to learn new skills and languages or gain new proficiencies would be welcomed, as currently, DMs have to create their own homebrew rules for this.
There is a downtime rule in the Player’s Handbook called Training, but it is clunky and only covers tools and languages. Opening up this idea to new weapons and skills would allow characters to be further customized as a campaign progresses, opening up new roleplay opportunities. One idea would be to tie the learning to a skill challenge with a fixed number of successes required over a long period.
6 Vehicle Rules
Clear Rules Surrounding Vehicles In And Out Of Combat
On the subject of skill proficiencies, the rules around vehicles and their use needs to be a lot clearer. Current rules cover the cost and speed of the various vehicles, such as mounts, boats, and carts, but how they can be used in combat is severely lacking. Vehicle combat is frequently left to third-party supplements or DM homebrew; however, providing standardized rules or skill challenges would make any campaigns featuring vehicles much easier.
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5 Jumping Tied To Strength
A Better Rule Needs To Be Found To Balance Jumping
One confusing DnD rule surrounds jumping, with the ability tied to a character’s Strength score. The Strength score is used to determine how far/high a character can jump, with long jumps being equal to the Strength score and high jumps being three plus Strength modifier. But by these rules, a fighter in full plate can jump further and higher than a rogue, bard, or ranger wearing higher armor.
There is an argument to make jumping Dexterity-based, with many DMs adapting the jumping rule this way for their own house rules. However, as jumping realistically does still fall under Athletics, however there are other parts of DnD that are not realistically representative, such as archery being Dexterity-based, as in reality, archers need to have tremendous upper body strength. While the fix for this is less clear, it is still a strange rule that is worth reexamining for a new edition.
4 Long Rests Are Overpowered
Sleeping Should Not Heal Broken Bones
Healing is extremely overpowered in fifth edition DnD to the point where a long rest can mend broken bones and fully heal an adventuring party. While there is better balance with the healing spells on offer, having long rests act as a reset, which breaks the balance of the overall game. Short and long rests were designed around dungeon delving which many early DnD modules focused on, however with the shift to longer campaigns this design needs reworking.
Perhaps bringing the optional variants from the Dungeon Master’s Guide into the main rules would be a solution. In chapter nine, under Adventuring Options, there are alternative rules that can be used for healing and rest. Slow Natural Healing and Gritty Realism could be adapted into a new primary rule to spend hit dice to heal during long rests too, but those rests can only take place in safe areas.
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3 Death Saving Throws
Bring In Alternatives To Give Downed Players More To Do
Death saving throws are another area that requires updating because, as they currently work, they rob downed players of their agency. Death saves are made when a character drops to zero hit points, needing the player to roll a d20 to see if they stabilize or die. But that reduces the player to simply sitting and rolling a dice each turn, passively watching the game rather than still playing a part in it.
There are some great alternatives to death saves in DnD, many of which make use of the exhaustion mechanic to allow for the downed player to still participate. These keep the player engaged and also opens up some fantastic roleplay opportunities. Replacing the current rule or even just providing some alternatives can help give the downed player something to do beyond rolling a d20 and crossing their fingers.
2 Fall Damage Cap
Falling From Ten Thousand Feet Should Not Be Survivable
The rules surrounding falling and fall damage have long been confusing and illogical in fifth edition DnD. Currently, a creature takes 1d6 of damage for every 10 feet it falls, which makes sense. However, what baffles many is that there is a cap on fall damage at 20d6, meaning that, theoretically, characters with over 120 hit points can survive falling thousands of feet.
To fix this, there could perhaps be different damage categories based on the height of the fall. Realistically a character falling hundreds of feet will take a lot more damage than a fall of tens of feet, but the current ruling does not scale realistically to take into account the velocity a creature would pick up as they fell. Dividing the heights into different categories would allow for more realism or, at the very least, removing the damage cap might work.
1 Moral Alignments Are Less Relevant
The System Feels Outdated
Finally, moral alignments are something that started out as an integral rule to DnD, determining how a character would act or respond to events. However, as time has gone on, the classic nine alignments have become less and less relevant. For some beings, such as celestials or fiends, these alignments are a key part of their identity and existence; however, with fifth edition DnD, the average adventuring party pays little attention to their own alignment beyond the odd magic item restriction.
There are other systems, such as beliefs, backgrounds, or personality traits, that serve the same function as the old, overly simplistic alignment system. Going forward, Dungeons & Dragons needs to make a choice. Either find a way to make the moral alignment system relevant and useful again or scrap it.
Dungeons and Dragons
- Franchise
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Publisher
- TSR Inc. , Wizards of the Coast
- Player Count
- 2-7 Players
- Original Release Date
- 1974-00-00
- Designer
- E. Gary Gygax , Dave Arneson
