D&D 5E 5e's stumbles

[AverageCitizen]

1. Caster hand economy. This whole concept is a mess (I hate that I even have to type "caster hand economy" but there it is), and RAW for it is buried in several separate places.
2. Monster stat blocks. I loved that in 4e you had everything you need for a monster in its block. Now they are back to spell lists so I am printing things out ahead of time or flipping through the PHB. Bummer.
3. Skill/tool proficiency overlap. What the heck? Perform vs. instrument proficiency especially. Not hard to adjudicate around the problem, but RAW it makes little sense.
4. Hiding is all over the place, again. The Twitter de-facto rulings are good.
5. The "rulings, not rules" mentality is good, but some people think it makes 5e above reproach and that anyone who has a problem with the rules doesn't "get" 5e. I like the hands-off approach too, guys, but that doesn't mean 5e doesn't have room to improve.

Overall, I really like 5e. It is my favorite edition so far. Really, it only drops the ball in a few non-critical areas.

 

[AverageCitizen]

Oh, and there's almost no reason for any character to have both strength and dexterity. Almost forgot that one. Primeval Thule fixes it, interestingly.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

6. Drawing your weapon as part of the attack action is fine, don't even worry about it, but you can't draw both weapons before attacking with them unless you're implementing an entirely optional system of character customization and wait until level four when you will be allowed to sacrifice your basic stats in order to pick up that capability. Seriously?

7. Anyone with a swim speed can swing a maul (or flail) underwater, with no issues whatsoever.

 

[nomotog]

I agree with most except for 3. The overlap doesn't actually hurt the system. You can have a proficiency in perform and a proficiency in flute. It the game won't explode. I think it's more a problem with player expectations of thinking of ability checks as universal. Like they look for a defined skill you would use to do the task, but D&D wants you to look at the ability and then proficiency is something that some times comes in or some times not based on the character doing it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

1. Caster hand economy. This whole concept is a mess (I hate that I even have to type "caster hand economy" but there it is), and RAW for it is buried in several separate places.
2. Monster stat blocks. I loved that in 4e you had everything you need for a monster in its block. Now they are back to spell lists so I am printing things out ahead of time or flipping through the PHB. Bummer.
3. Skill/tool proficiency overlap. What the heck? Perform vs. instrument proficiency especially. Not hard to adjudicate around the problem, but RAW it makes little sense.
4. Hiding is all over the place, again. The Twitter de-facto rulings are good.

Yeah, but none of that matters, if you're the DM, because you can just over-rule anything you don't like! (OK, 2 actually does kinda stand, even then. "Ha! I rule against your format... hm.. format hasn't changed...")

5. The "rulings, not rules" mentality is good, but some people think it makes 5e above reproach and that anyone who has a problem with the rules doesn't "get" 5e. I like the hands-off approach too, guys, but that doesn't mean 5e doesn't have room to improve.

Heh.

It does mean that everyone doesn't have to move into the same room when it's improved.

As we've seen with past editions, any given 'improvement' to D&D is as likely to enrage some fans as to (finally) satisfy others that had been waiting 20 or 30 years for it step out of the 80s (or 70s). So why even try? Let everyone do their thing.

 

[ninjayeti]

In my experience everyone has a list of things that are broken in 5e .... but pretty much everyone has a completely different list.

I'd agree with you on hiding. Other than that none of the stuff on your list has been a problem for me, and I would bet the stuff that drives me nuts would get a resounding "meh" from you.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

1. Caster hand economy. This whole concept is a mess (I hate that I even have to type "caster hand economy" but there it is), and RAW for it is buried in several separate places.

Agreed. WOuld it have been haqrd for them to just say "V spells - can't be gagged or silences; S spells - need one hand free, can't be tied up"?

3. Skill/tool proficiency overlap. What the heck? Perform vs. instrument proficiency especially. Not hard to adjudicate around the problem, but RAW it makes little sense.

That one seems OK to me. Is the character singing? Performance. Are they orating? Performance. Are they playing a lute? Tool (Lute).

Overall, I really like 5e. It is my favorite edition so far. Really, it only drops the ball in a few non-critical areas.

Yeah, same here.

 

[Ancalagon]

where are these twitter de facto hiding rulings?

And what did Primeval Thule did to fix it (in brief)?

I'm a bit perturbed about how important the number of encounters per day is for class balance.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Oh, it is Wednesday already, with our "Here's things that suck about 5e!" thread?

 

[cmad1977]

Merge alert. Please put this in with the other redundant threads.