D&D 5E Behind the design of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons: Well my impression as least.

[MechaPilot]

Changing monster hit points, and the related change of various forms of minion and quasi-minioin, is certainly another widespread form of 4e houserule which many people seem to have implemented without difficuty.

I never changed the HP values, but I did rule that most creatures who are going to run away will do so once they reach their bloodied value. That may be why I never experienced the dragging combat that I've heard others complain about.

 

[Hussar]

It's more the encouragement part that I was referring to. 4e, for example, was written in a fairly authoritative tone, which did not encourage house ruling. That and a constant stream of updating the rules IMO resulted in groups waiting for the official line before instituting changes. Having a very transparent ruleset meant that it was easy to see how changes would affect the game, but, the way the game was written, DM's weren't really being encouraged to start kit bashing. For example, adding a point based casting system outside of the AEDU framework would be a ton of work. Thus we get the 4e psionic rules. It could be done, sure, but, it certainly wasn't encouraged.

Heck, removing the grid, while possible to do, wasn't exactly easy. Nor would futzing about with the initiative system. Just to name two spots where house ruling could be a chore.

Again, I'm not saying impossible, just not encouraged. And not encouraged to the degree that 5e is trying to with it's boatload of optional mechanics.

 

[D'karr]

It's more the encouragement part that I was referring to. 4e, for example, was written in a fairly authoritative tone, which did not encourage house ruling.

I disagree with this because I have a different perspective on it. I got a mechanical ruleset and just because of that I was going to tinker, just like I had been doing for years before with any other system. I think the huge encouragement for me was that 4e presented a base framework that was very robust, and quite transparent. It was not trying to hide the mechanics in obscure flourish, making it very straight-forward. For that reason it was imminently tweakable (because I could easily see what might be a knock-on effect since it was not hidden) and it was robust enough to bend without breaking.

That and a constant stream of updating the rules IMO resulted in groups waiting for the official line before instituting changes. Having a very transparent ruleset meant that it was easy to see how changes would affect the game, but, the way the game was written, DM's weren't really being encouraged to start kit bashing.

I can see that though I disagree. When I have a robust system that works I have less need to house-rule. I don't think that is a discouragement so much as it falls under the umbrella of "if it's not broke, don't fix it." That is a matter of taste. In the case of 4e my house-rules were to implement flavor adjustments, not to "fix" rules. The rules worked OK right out of the box, but if I wanted certain flavor I had to tweak them.

For example, adding a point based casting system outside of the AEDU framework would be a ton of work. Thus we get the 4e psionic rules. It could be done, sure, but, it certainly wasn't encouraged.

But the point is that once you have the psionic rules you don't have to reinvent the wheel and design from the ground up a point based casting system. You can take the psionic rules and tweak them to get that mechanical effect if that is what you are after. In 3e designing, from the ground up, a point based casting system with just the core 3 is also a great amount of work. However, once the designers gave us the psionic system and alternate casting systems in Unearthed Arcana, Magic of Incarnum, there is no need to do so. you can use one of the ones provided, or tweak one of the ones provided to do so.

Heck, removing the grid, while possible to do, wasn't exactly easy. Nor would futzing about with the initiative system. Just to name two spots where house ruling could be a chore.

Interestingly enough I've done both with hardly any hard work involved. So IMO it is a matter of system comfort. If a DM is comfortable with the system then house-ruling all these things is not really hard work. The system makes it easy to do so because it is transparent in a most areas. However I agree that in some areas the level of work might be involved and since for most instances the game works without the adjustments, then why go through the trouble of doing so.

Again, I'm not saying impossible, just not encouraged. And not encouraged to the degree that 5e is trying to with it's boatload of optional mechanics.

The other side of that coin is that even the optional stuff should be seamless when implemented with the base game assumptions. If the optional stuff will "break" the base assumptions I would expect that the designers would provide you with those caveats.

 

[Hussar]

D'karr, I largely agree with you and others that 4e was pretty easy to modify. I'm more addressing the presentation than the actual facts. It's pretty common to see people talk about how it's so hard to modify 4e to suit different tastes. I think that the presentation of 4e largely is to blame for that.

 

[Zak S]

Standard assumptions about character "role" and interclass balance depend on assuming that xp is going to be won by "stand up weak monster fight, stand up weak monster fight, stand up medium monster fight, stand up medium monster fight, stand up boss monster fight," with the players avoiding using any kind of outside-the-box tactics.

Games that don't use those assumptions put players on notice that they can't expect to win by just showing up and fighting as hard as however hard the monster is supposed to be and have to be sneaky, work outside the system and switch to emphasizing different parts of what the team can do every time.

That said:
I don't know if the D&D5 monsters as written and modules are as unpredictable and eccentric as they could be to support this style of play--but I think they could easily be rewritten that way and, for my group anyway, you're always kind of in trouble in any game if you're using the material right out of the box.

Also, for this style of play, I think the magic is too powerful and there's too much of it. Problems like light and manipulating objects from afar are too easily solved, which bulldozes over some of the problems which make a more unpredictable playstyle work. That, too, though, is house-ruled easily enough that I'm still using 5e for my game.

 

[Ranes]

I've never met a game that wasn't easy to house-rule. I've seen a lot of people on discussion boards bemoaning the difficulty of doing so with game X or edition Y. Then again, I've seen six-figure audited sales figures for monthly lifestyle magazines and audience numbers in the millions for reality TV shows. Just because these people are legion, it doesn't mean they're onto anything.

 

[Gnarl45]

I disagree with this because I have a different perspective on it. I got a mechanical ruleset and just because of that I was going to tinker, just like I had been doing for years before with any other system. I think the huge encouragement for me was that 4e presented a base framework that was very robust, and quite transparent. It was not trying to hide the mechanics in obscure flourish, making it very straight-forward. For that reason it was imminently tweakable (because I could easily see what might be a knock-on effect since it was not hidden) and it was robust enough to bend without breaking.

People that didn't like 4e tried to change that base framework you're talking about. It's a crap load of work to change the chasis of a game. Modifying half a game is a lot harder than modifying 5% of it. The comparison wasn't fair and I think that's what gave them the impression that 4e was hard to tinker with.

I like how the 5e rules invite you to modify them though. During the Internet RAW fascism era of 3e/4e, it was a lot harder to house rule the game because of player resistance.

 

[MechaPilot]

People that didn't like 4e tried to change that base framework you're talking about. It's a crap load of work to change the chasis of a game. Modifying half a game is a lot harder than modifying 5% of it. The comparison wasn't fair and I think that's what gave them the impression that 4e was hard to tinker with.

It really depends on what they wanted to change in 4e, and how they wanted to change it. Putting vancian casting back in is certainly more effort-intensive than adjusting overnight healing rates. Of course, there are also a lot of changes that are quite easy to make:

Alter the amount of surges per day, the surge value, the overnight recovery rate, or decouple magical healing from limitation by surges? Easy.

Speed up combat by chopping all HP values in half? Easy.

Allow greater flexibility of power use by turning the ability to use two specific powers once each into having two power uses to distribute among the powers as you choose? Easy.

I like how the 5e rules invite you to modify them though. During the Internet RAW fascism era of 3e/4e, it was a lot harder to house rule the game because of player resistance.

I've never seen that at all. Sure, there is plenty of internet discussion about what the intent is of the rules as written and how they interact with other rules, but no player at my table ever tried to throw "but that's not what RAW says" or "this internet discussion says you're wrong" in my face whenever I said "I use this houserule."

 

[Sailor Moon]

It really depends on what they wanted to change in 4e, and how they wanted to change it. Putting vancian casting back in is certainly more effort-intensive than adjusting overnight healing rates. Of course, there are also a lot of changes that are quite easy to make:

Alter the amount of surges per day, the surge value, the overnight recovery rate, or decouple magical healing from limitation by surges? Easy.

Speed up combat by chopping all HP values in half? Easy.

Allow greater flexibility of power use by turning the ability to use two specific powers once each into having two power uses to distribute among the powers as you choose? Easy.



I've never seen that at all. Sure, there is plenty of internet discussion about what the intent is of the rules as written and how they interact with other rules, but no player at my table ever tried to throw "but that's not what RAW says" or "this internet discussion says you're wrong" in my face whenever I said "I use this houserule."

You are only naming very easy things to do.

How about remove healing surges entirely?

Remove AEDU?

Remove most magical items.

These things are not so easy to remove to the point where it is close to impossible because they are baked into the system.

 

[Lanefan]

You are only naming very easy things to do.

How about remove healing surges entirely?

Remove AEDU?

Remove most magical items.

These things are not so easy to remove to the point where it is close to impossible because they are baked into the system.

Actually, in fairness they're all easy enough to remove.

What isn't so easy is trying to forecast how the game will actually play in the long run without those elements in it.

In 1e and the like (and, I think, 5e) it's reasonably easy to tell ahead of time what effects a major change will probably have, at least to some extent. This isn't the case with 3e and its ilk, nor 4e; their tight integration which at other times is a fine feature here becomes a bug.

Lan-"do I get experience points for slaying system bugs?"-efan