D&D 5E 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e

[DammitVictor]

Other great examples: Early on, the designers were in fact explicitly in favor of "martial healing," and Mearls himself tweeted that if folks didn't like martial healing, they could just choose not to play that type of Fighter (or choose not to permit it in their games, for DMs.) But because they were so adamantly against including an actual Warlord class (even though the Warlord was, by their own polls, more popular than Druid!), they had to find a way to squeeze all of that into the Fighter class.

That's a problem that's plagued WotC D&D since the earliest days of 4e: violently shoving legacy ideas into the immutable structure of the new rules, into conceptual spaces that they simply do not fit into, with no regard for the core fiction of those concepts. Warlock Templars in Dark Sun, really most of the races in Dark Sun, the incompatibility of even basic character archetypes from edition to edition (even going back to 3.0), and just so so much of 5e... the reskinning philosophy and methodology has completely divorced the sacred mechanics from all the worthless fluff.

I'm not even sure I can blame Wizards of the Coast for this, because if this wasn't what the fanbase actually wanted, it's certainly what they've demanded time and time again.

Wow. What an epic Necro, past me gives me cringe.

Think ten years is bad, try using the forum search to look for specific homebrew or campaign ideas, and the only result you get is your own self, asking the same damn questions back when this was Eric Noah's D&D news website.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's a problem that's plagued WotC D&D since the earliest days of 4e: violently shoving legacy ideas into the immutable structure of the new rules, into conceptual spaces that they simply do not fit into, with no regard for the core fiction of those concepts. Warlock Templars in Dark Sun, really most of the races in Dark Sun, the incompatibility of even basic character archetypes from edition to edition (even going back to 3.0), and just so so much of 5e... the reskinning philosophy and methodology has completely divorced the sacred mechanics from all the worthless fluff.

You'll have to break down why the Warlock Templars thing was such a problem, as I wasn't aware of that being a huge issue, and always felt that the Templars being bound to a Wizard-King's service for their magic made a fair amount of sense as a patronage concept.

I'm not even sure I can blame Wizards of the Coast for this, because if this wasn't what the fanbase actually wanted, it's certainly what they've demanded time and time again.

It's the neglected problem of democracy. Everyone saw right away the problem of the demagogue. Almost no one, as far as I can tell, foresaw the problem of rationality not being a conserved quantity. (E.g. it can be the case that a majority of a populace is in favor of increasing all government services, while various different majorities oppose any form of tax increase with which to fund said services, without even one of those people being irrational.)

Think ten years is bad, try using the forum search to look for specific homebrew or campaign ideas, and the only result you get is your own self, asking the same damn questions back when this was Eric Noah's D&D news website.

Is that where the "EN" comes from? I've always been curious.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It also restricted who those classes could be, and thus would have required class after class or just less diversity of options. So, as much as I liked the Next Warlock, I wasn’t surprised or perturbed when it didn’t survive playtesting.

My problem is, this argument only holds water if you assume that the playtest versions never got subclasses that changed how the class developed.

That is, they hadn't nailed down exactly what subclasses were at that point in the playtest, so when we got the "Sorcerer," it had the Draconic elements baked in. But surely those very things are what would have become subclass features instead! That's precisely what I loved about that concept.

Imagine a Shadow sorcerer, literally becoming a living (or perhaps unliving!) shadow as they run out of SP. Stalking prey, slinking around, smothering the life force of their enemies, perhaps even getting sneak attacks. Imagine a Chaos sorcerer, slowly losing their grip on solidity and consistency, but in exchange becoming a powerful shape shifter, adapting to every danger as it raises. Imagine a Storm sorcerer literally becoming the levinbolt and the thunder, the cloud that roils in wrath, as pervasive as the shattering peal, as uncontainable as the lightning.

That in no way limits the kind of things you can be. It just means you reveal your magical nature the more you draw upon that magic.

I only wish they had kept trying to work out warlocks and sorcerers instead of trying to get rid of them in favor of a supermage wizard.

Precisely. If they had taken the time to say, "hey guys, please give this a shot, here's a second subclass to contrast with so you can see what we're aiming for," I genuinely believe they could have preserved these amazing ideas. Instead, they drop kicked them without a second thought and left the classes impoverished at publication as a result.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

My problem is, this argument only holds water if you assume that the playtest versions never got subclasses that changed how the class developed.

That is, they hadn't nailed down exactly what subclasses were at that point in the playtest, so when we got the "Sorcerer," it had the Draconic elements baked in. But surely those very things are what would have become subclass features instead! That's precisely what I loved about that concept.

Imagine a Shadow sorcerer, literally becoming a living (or perhaps unliving!) shadow as they run out of SP. Stalking prey, slinking around, smothering the life force of their enemies, perhaps even getting sneak attacks. Imagine a Chaos sorcerer, slowly losing their grip on solidity and consistency, but in exchange becoming a powerful shape shifter, adapting to every danger as it raises. Imagine a Storm sorcerer literally becoming the levinbolt and the thunder, the cloud that roils in wrath, as pervasive as the shattering peal, as uncontainable as the lightning.

or a divine soul sorcerer, slowly turning into a literal angel, calling down light from heaven to reveal evil and overwhelm their enemies, healing the worthy around them by merely existing.

or an aberrant mind sorcerer, becoming some incomprehensible thing that can turn men insane by gazing upon them, physically getting into their minds with writing tentacles and other just weird stuff.

or a clockwork sorcerer, becoming a cog in the machine of the multiverse, visibly warping the world around itself with its turning and forcing it to comply.

or a lunar sorcerer, becoming...becoming a moon? just an actual moon, i guess? i don't really know what you'd do with that...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My problem is, this argument only holds water if you assume that the playtest versions never got subclasses that changed how the class developed.

A safe assumption IMO, because I am convinced such subclasses wouldn’t have survived playtesting, and if they had I don’t think it would have made the game more successful or more fun.

That is, they hadn't nailed down exactly what subclasses were at that point in the playtest, so when we got the "Sorcerer," it had the Draconic elements baked in. But surely those very things are what would have become subclass features instead! That's precisely what I loved about that concept.

Imagine a Shadow sorcerer, literally becoming a living (or perhaps unliving!) shadow as they run out of SP. Stalking prey, slinking around, smothering the life force of their enemies, perhaps even getting sneak attacks. Imagine a Chaos sorcerer, slowly losing their grip on solidity and consistency, but in exchange becoming a powerful shape shifter, adapting to every danger as it raises. Imagine a Storm sorcerer literally becoming the levinbolt and the thunder, the cloud that roils in wrath, as pervasive as the shattering peal, as uncontainable as the lightning.

None of that sounds remotely appealing to me. I want to play a sorcerer, not a storm cloud.

That in no way limits the kind of things you can be. It just means you reveal your magical nature the more you draw upon that magic.

So different enough each one is basically a different class, and no ability to just be a sorcerer you have to become a dragon or a shadow or whatever. Not to my taste, but I won’t yuck your yum.

Precisely. If they had taken the time to say, "hey guys, please give this a shot, here's a second subclass to contrast with so you can see what we're aiming for," I genuinely believe they could have preserved these amazing ideas. Instead, they drop kicked them without a second thought and left the classes impoverished at publication as a result.

The classes are great as is.

 

[Ondath]

What, exactly, qualifies as being a "petty" reason, anyway? That seems to imply that there's some duty to buy 5(.5)e, and that you must therefore justify choosing not to--with some justifications thus being spiteful and mean-spirited.

I think your premise is false. You can very well have petty reasons for not doing something even when there is no duty to do that thing. Nobody has a duty to wear green, but if I say that I refuse to wear green because a guy who wore green looked at me funny once and now I hate green clothes, people would rightly say that my reason is pretty petty. Similarly, nobody has a duty to switch to the latest edition of D&D, but if someone gives "+X weapons, ugh" as a reason for not switching, hell yeah they've got petty reasons.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Except that that system never worked the way they wanted, despite IIRC three different attempts to make it work over the course of more than six months. Eventually, they ended up scrapping the whole thing and going with the more familiar "take whatever you qualify for" thing for feats. Except....they had already put ALL of their "Warlord Fighter" eggs into the Specialties basket. So when that basket was gone...they had nowhere left to go. It was too late to do a meaningful redesign of the Fighter class, since IIRC they were less than six months from ending the public playtest at that point, and the existing Fighter was far too damage-focused to be able to squeeze an actual Warlrod in there as well. So you know what they did? They just straight-up stopped talking about the Warlord. Within mere months of that aforementioned tweet (sadly, I can't find it now), Mearls and the rest of the staff literally stopped talking about the "Warlord Fighter" at all, in any way--and they maintained that silence all the way to publication.

And yet I maintain that there's enough space in the fighter to make Commander's Strike a Fighting Style and Inspiring Word a Battlemaster Maneuver (spend a superiority die as a bonus action - and the target needs to spend a hit die to get healing equal to the combination).

And we can even see how post-production comments from the designers themselves reflect that there was a lack of vision in a lot of ways. Mearls explicitly said that one of his only regrets about 5e was that the Fighter came out bland and flavorless--that he felt he had let the community down by producing something bordering on dull, when it's both one of the most popular classes and the one that connects so well to epic fantasy fiction.

So...yeah. I fundamentally disagree that 5e had a "clear vision." The only "clear vision" it had was "desperately scramble to appease." As others have said on this forum, 5e is the apology edition. And I'm far from the only person who sees it that way.

I think the vision worked out as a decent one. " A version of D&D with all the pain points sanded down and smoothed out". There are reasons the Happy Meal sells so well; not that everyone likes it but few hate it. (And my not so petty reason was that I wouldn't buy any book thanking the RPG Pundit - and my PHB doesn't).