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

[Derren]

If you don't like something, change it.

This was possible and encouraged in every edition and is not a feature of 5E. But previous edition also tried to deliver rules which do work without having to change them.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Going off my original post. I like the fact that I don't feel like I need to find out what everyone else is playing before I decide what I want to play. I can make my decision and then if someone else chooses the same and I don't want to be like them, even though the system runs just fine if we stayed the same, I can choose to branch off in a different direction further down the road.

 

[aramis erak]

aramis erak, I get what you're saying, and, up to a point, I think I might even agree with you. But, I think you're taking too strong a stand on this. 3e and then 4e went very, very overboard trying to standardise tables. 5e is very much a reaction against that direction. The whole idea of empowering DM's again, and making DM's take control, rather than relying so heavily on the rules or WOTC.

I mean, we've had 5e out for a few months now, at least the basic rules, and we still don't even have an official errata document. By this time in either 3e or 4e, we had several pages of errata issued. This time around, I really think WOTC is trying to release the game back into the wild and let it stand on its own. If you don't like something, change it.

I agree that 4E went too far. I think 3E started out about right, and then they gave in to bloat (and self-contradiction, but that's another related and annoying issue).

I think the errata will be done mostly by gleaning from the boards and tweets. And I think they will probably limit the official errata to once per D&DAL season.

 

[Hussar]

This was possible and encouraged in every edition and is not a feature of 5E. But previous edition also tried to deliver rules which do work without having to change them.

In what way do HP not work? AFAIC, they work perfectly fine and apparently no one is having a difficulty understanding how they work. So, I'm not sure what the problem is here.

But, I do disagree with your first sentence. 3e and 4e did not encourage house ruling. In fact, 3e and 4e actively discouraged it. The whole point of both editions was to do away with the whole, "you have to learn a new game every time you sit down at a different table" mess that AD&D had become. And, one only has to look at the reams, and reams of posts on places like En World bemoaning the difficulties in house ruling d20 D&D to see that it wasn't quite as easy as all that.

 

[Lanefan]

So what? It means I now have to learn essentially 3 different sets of rules, rather than one. And, if any of those is part of organized play, and there are houserules, it's grounds for complaint, because part of the whole justification for organized play is the ability to drop-in and drop-out and not have to relearn the rules just because you switched tables.

So-called organized play is not the core of the game, however, no matter what TSR in the past and WotC today would like people to think.

The core of the game is the base framework around which each table builds its own individual structure(s) and way(s) of operating.

Players now are also more likely to know Jerkface-DM is being Jerkface-DM and not just following the rules, and not making good calls about how he runs the game. Further, 90+% of GM's I've met do not tell players their house-rules; some of them don't even realize they've made house rules, especially in AD&D1E (where some DM's haven't even found all the supposedly core rules in the PHB... after 20+ years. I find something new in 1E PHB about once a year. Ignoring for the moment that printings 4 and 8 don't have the same content).

Hell, I've been DM-ing a variant on 1e for 30 years now and I freely admit to not knowing all the ins and outs of RAW 1e. But you know what? I don't have to. I just have to know my own system and make sure the information about it is there for players to access.

And with really fuzzy misinterpretable rules, the problem becomes identifying when your in houserules and or "GM pulling suff out of his derriere" territory.

Again, so what; as long as what the DM pulls out is internally consistent with what he pulled out last time. This part *is* important; making something up once is just fine and part of the DM's job, but once done it has to stay that way throughout.

I don't play the DM; I play the rules. If the DM doesn't, I have a right to know, so I don't waste my time. The DM is the hardware the game runs on, he shouldn't be the game itself.

The DM also tweaks the "software" to suit the end users, those being she and her players; and has every right to do so.

I sense you're coming from a very 3e-4e mindset where there's lots of hard-and-fast rules for lots of things, along with a sense of if there's not a rule for it it's not part of the game. Me, I come from a 1e mindset where there's lots of guidelines for lots of things and if something comes up that's outside those guidelines the DM can sort it out on the fly.

Lan-"common sense sometimes shows up in the game as well, though not as often as it probably should"-efan

 

[pemerton]

3e and 4e did not encourage house ruling. In fact, 3e and 4e actively discouraged it. The whole point of both editions was to do away with the whole, "you have to learn a new game every time you sit down at a different table" mess that AD&D had become. And, one only has to look at the reams, and reams of posts on places like En World bemoaning the difficulties in house ruling d20 D&D to see that it wasn't quite as easy as all that.

This came up on a recent thread (I think the "Holy Trinity" thread).

I guess it partly depends on what is meant by "house rule". But I don't think 4e is particularly hard to house rule as far as introducing new powers, items, weapons, monsters etc. New themes, or changing themes/paths/destinies, mixing up class skills or saving throw bonuses, etc - all these are pretty straightforward.

Nor do I think it is hard to house rule alternative healing times (many people did that), lingering wounds based on the disease track (many people did that), and various changes and additions to skill challenges (many people did that).

Many people had house-rules in inherent bonuses before WotC published them as an option in the DMG2.

I doubt that it is hard to houserule the squares into hexes either.

There are some components of 4e that are relatively core to the system: the basic class structures; the basic healing mechanic based around healing surges; the core action economy (although this could easily be simplified just by banning most immediate action powers); the fundamental resolution mechanic of d20 + stat + bonuses vs target number. Are these the things people are trying to change via house rules? In which case I'm not sure how much easier 5e is (for instance, I don't think you could easily strip hit points out of 5e, any more than you can strip healing surges out of 4e).

 

[MechaPilot]

There are some components of 4e that are relatively core to the system: the basic class structures; the basic healing mechanic based around healing surges; the core action economy (although this could easily be simplified just by banning most immediate action powers); the fundamental resolution mechanic of d20 + stat + bonuses vs target number. Are these the things people are trying to change via house rules? In which case I'm not sure how much easier 5e is (for instance, I don't think you could easily strip hit points out of 5e, any more than you can strip healing surges out of 4e).

Actually, it's fairly easy to remove surges altogether in 4e if you want to. You'd just decide how effective you want overnight healing to be, then ignore the requirement to spend a surge as part of being affected by a power or magic item. The surge value would either still be kept, or you'd have to replace it with a die roll. You could even go with the traditional d8 + 1 per level; allow me to explain.

If you want to have one random die roll value for all classes, the d8 classes are median, that means looking at the cleric. The 4e cleric get 12 HPs from her class at first level, and 5 hps per level thereafter. One-quarter of 12 is 3, and one-quarter of 5 is 1.25. That means that +1 per level keeps up fairly well with 25% of the median's HP advancement. Now, that still leaves out the first-level HPs you get from your Con score, but you could easily choose to make the surge value replacement 1d8 + 2 + 1 per level. Or, you could allow the casters of healing spells to add their casting attribute modifier to the 1d8 + 1 per level surge value replacement.

 

[pemerton]

Actually, it's fairly easy to remove surges altogether in 4e if you want to. You'd just decide how effective you want overnight healing to be, then ignore the requirement to spend a surge as part of being affected by a power or magic item.

I guess I was thinking "not easy while maintaining the general dynamics of play and balance". The change you suggest, especially with all the encounter healing powers, would radically change the play of the game, I think.

That's not necessarily bad - maybe that's even what someone who was house-ruling out healing surges might be looking for! It does start to take me out of my personal comfort zone for "easy house rules".

 

[MechaPilot]

I guess I was thinking "not easy while maintaining the general dynamics of play and balance". The change you suggest, especially with all the encounter healing powers, would radically change the play of the game, I think.

That's not necessarily bad - maybe that's even what someone who was house-ruling out healing surges might be looking for! It does start to take me out of my personal comfort zone for "easy house rules".

It would certainly change the pace of play by changing the resource structure. However, I don't think it would change the balance too much.

That said, I think that most people who are interested in getting rid of surges are looking for a more old-school pace to begin with, and those DMs who aren't interested in the old-school pace can certainly hand out more potions.


Also, combat speed can be ramped up without sacrificing off-turn abilities by simply halving the HPs of PCs and monsters alike.

 

[pemerton]

combat speed can be ramped up without sacrificing off-turn abilities by simply halving the HPs of PCs and monsters alike.

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.