D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Hussar]

For me: Every single power that slides or allows you to shift. Totally annoying. It starts with people getting defensive and ignoring everything else that does not work well for other people in 4e.

Umm, what? You're saying that anything that allows movement is not plausible and is on the same line as something like CaGI? Okay. Now, you do realize that that's absolutely NOT what the argument is right? "I don't like it, it's annoying" is fine. No one says you have to like it.

The argument is that the powers are completely unbelievable and cannot possibly be narrated in the game. That the powers are purely meta game effects unrelated to anything that's occurring in the game world. I have no problem at all with, "I just don't like this stuff". Although, I wonder that you would play 5e considering how many slide and shift effects there are.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Umm, what? You're saying that anything that allows movement is not plausible and is on the same line as something like CaGI?

No I said they are totally annoying. Because they require a battlemap and slow down combat.
But you ignore that and build a strawman.

Okay. Now, you do realize that that's absolutely NOT what the argument is right? "I don't like it, it's annoying" is fine. No one says you have to like it.

This is my objection for several posts which you ignore. So when you responded to me, you just did not even try to understand my problem witg 4e powers. CAGI ist just the icing of the cake. Because it combines annoyingness with things that don't make sense.

The argument is that the powers are completely unbelievable

No. Not mine. 4e has a lot of different problems. In addition to the one mentioned before, one of them is that powers are just expected to be used every encounter, because they just recharge anyway conveniently (usually) after each encounter and so you just use them without thinking (our experience).

and cannot possibly be narrated in the game.

It starts when people constantly say: I shift (5ft step was not better).

That the powers are purely meta game effects unrelated to anything that's occurring in the game world.

They are.

I have no problem at all with, "I just don't like this stuff". Although, I wonder that you would play 5e considering how many slide and shift effects there are.

So just say: "I don't like spells" too. We can play 5e without non spellcasters feeling totally overshadowed.

This is why I pointed it out to you. You want people to adress 4e fairly, so stop making blanket statements yourself.

I played 4e. I play 5e. I am fully able to compare those games. So stop dismissing the experiences others have made. It is not all about 1 in 100 powers. As I say again: CAGI just combines a lot of the things people disliked in one power. Same as tiny hut (which I really don't like too, btw.).

 

[mamba]

Need to rest? I’ve got rope trick, tiny hut, my genie warlock comes with a magic house, I’m sure there’s more.

if your argument is that these should be removed or weakened, I won’t disagree

 

[Hussar]

No I said they are totally annoying. Because they require a battlemap and slow down combat.
But you ignore that and build a strawman.

This is my objection for several posts which you ignore. So when you responded to me, you just did not even try to understand my problem witg 4e powers. CAGI ist just the icing of the cake. Because it combines annoyingness with things that don't make sense.

No. Not mine. 4e has a lot of different problems. In addition to the one mentioned before, one of them is that powers are just expected to be used every encounter, because they just recharge anyway conveniently (usually) after each encounter and so you just use them without thinking (our experience).

It starts when people constantly say: I shift (5ft step was not better).

They are.

So just say: "I don't like spells" too. We can play 5e without non spellcasters feeling totally overshadowed.

This is why I pointed it out to you. You want people to adress 4e fairly, so stop making blanket statements yourself.

I played 4e. I play 5e. I am fully able to compare those games. So stop dismissing the experiences others have made. It is not all about 1 in 100 powers. As I say again: CAGI just combines a lot of the things people disliked in one power. Same as tiny hut (which I really don't like too, btw.).

Ok. First off, if you insist on fisking fairly short posts, breaking them up sentence by sentence, this conversation is finished. I refuse to carry out this sort of thing. It's nearly impossible to track what you're trying to say. Look at what I've quoted above. None of that makes any sense.

But, in any case, it's not a case of "I don't like spells". You're missing the point.

The point is that players will default to spells because DM's will make rulings about mundane abilities that render the mundane abilities useless. You cannot book passage on a ship despite your sailor background, becuase the DM has decided that your background doesn't apply. You cannot send a message using your Criminal background because the DM has decided that your background doesn't apply. So on and so forth. So, the players learn from these DM's that if they want to do anything, they cannot rely on mundane abilities. They must default to spells because they know that the DM won't negate spells by and large. Even in the Ravenloft example, Sending has a chance of working, while using my Criminal background automatically fails.

So, why would I bother using backgrounds? Players have been taught by DM's to never rely on mundane abilities. So, they rely on spells. Then DM's complain that the spells are the problem. Such as:

if your argument is that these should be removed or weakened, I won’t disagree

Which isn't what I was arguing at all. What I've been pointing to is the reason why these spells exist in the first place. If DM's would allow mundane abilies to work the way they are written without having to play Mother May I and jump through all these hoops just to keep the DM happy, then we wouldn't need these spells. But, that's not going to happen. DM's will insist that these abilities cannot possibly work. So, the players make the very understandable decision to abandon mundane abilities.

You reap what you sow. You don't like these spells and think they should be removed or weakened? Then stop screwing over your players by insisting that they satisfy YOUR personal justifications for why their abilities work.

 

[mamba]

Which isn't what I was arguing at all. What I've been pointing to is the reason why these spells exist in the first place. If DM's would allow mundane abilies to work the way they are written without having to play Mother May I and jump through all these hoops just to keep the DM happy, then we wouldn't need these spells.

I doubt that this is why we have these spells, do you have anything to back that up?

 

[Aldarc]

The point that @Hussar has been making with spells vs. the Mother-May-I features found in Backgrounds seemed abundantly clear to me. I'm not sure why this needed as many pages of back-and-forth to debate what seems fairly obvious, particularly in light of statements that WotC made about wanting to remove Mother-May-I elements from 5e in the 2024 update.

 

[Cadence]

The point is that players will default to spells because DM's will make rulings about mundane abilities that render the mundane abilities useless.

The point that @Hussar has been making with spells vs. the Mother-May-I features found in Backgrounds seemed abundantly clear to me.

Don't DMs also have to make rulings about spells that can greatly change their usefulness.

Is this a more 5e thing than other versions? (What exactly does it mean if one is in a "gaseous form" for things like grapple. Why does picking up the can of gas mean the fireball won't make it explode? Wait, see invisibility doesn't do what?!?)

I find myself wondering why that isn't more of an issue to more people about many spells for the same reason as many mundane abilities.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ok. First off, if you insist on fisking fairly short posts, breaking them up sentence by sentence, this conversation is finished. I refuse to carry out this sort of thing. It's nearly impossible to track what you're trying to say. Look at what I've quoted above. None of that makes any sense.

Ok. You are right.
The quotes indeed do not make sense. Wothout your posts in between.

So in short: you complain that people are not satisfied with 5e powers and only cite one argument when there are many. You bemoan that people always take CAGI as an example. As if there are not several reasons not to like 4e.

Then in 5e we have background abilities that make no sense at times, you seem to like.

So it seems you have no problem with mundane abilities that make no sense in fiction or which need work to make sense of it.
Which we tried to do in 4e as well as in 5e with backgrounds.

So what I said was that I am glad those background abilities are gone, and wish them to be replaced with feats/features that are more usable. Less absolute. Advantage to rolls instead of auto successes.

So now we are getting back to CAGI, I or someone else cited, because this is the same kind of ability. You do something with an effect that does not always make sense within the story. Or the encounter. It just works.
I show off and the gelatineous cube runs at me. Or something like that.

I really don't like such abilities. Why no saving throw? Why are some enemies not immune? 4e had foremost player empowerment in mind. Abilities should generally work. Not like 3e sneak attack, which often did not...
this is not a bad idea, but 4e went overboard with that.

4e could easily be changed to remove those few heavy offenders.

Back to spells in 5e. Of course there are spells that make mundane abilities redundand. Usually they are a few times per day abilities that help the whole group. Sometimes they are still too powerful or convenient and should be changed (tiny hut I look at you).

I don't know if that all makes sense to you. Probably not. So be it.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The point that @Hussar has been making with spells vs. the Mother-May-I features found in Backgrounds seemed abundantly clear to me. I'm not sure why this needed as many pages of back-and-forth to debate what seems fairly obvious, particularly in light of statements that WotC made about wanting to remove Mother-May-I elements from 5e in the 2024 update.

Replacing "Mother-May-I" with "Mother, you don't have the right to forbid me" features is no solution either...

 

[Clint_L]

Why, exactly, is "mother may I" a bad principle for running a TTRPG? There are a rules, and a referee to interpret them, since that allows a game where the vastness of DM and player imaginations far outscores any set of rules a game can provide. Sure, that puts more onus on the players and DM to create cooperative, copacetic space. It seems to have worked for decades.

My favourite TTRPG, Dread is almost entirely "mother may I."