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

[Raith5]

Indeed. I played D&D/AD&D for many years, and never once kept track of who was doing the most damage. I suppose with an extreme disparity, this might matter, but even then, probably not. For example, no-one complained that the Magic User had their 1d6 per day Magic Missile spell, and that was it. It was the ideas that the players brought to the table that were important. Also, all this "strikers", "defenders" nonsense sounds like team sport(s). Ugh. Characters are characters, not positions on a sports field/battlefield.

I think roleplayers can still count kills and talk about damage! For me it has always been part of the fun, but in system terms I certainly would not demand parity, just a meaningful contribution to the fight. Even roles in 4e were not in practice the straitjacket some seem to think.

 

[Mistwell]

The three pillars are not equal.

For your games. Not for mine.

Combat is always and has always been the largest pillar by a huge margin in any edition of D&D.

For you, in your games. Not for mine.

Indeed, during the TSR days, at least in my experience, negotiation trickery stealth and avoidance tended to be more common than combat. You just couldn't afford to get into too many combats - you'd die. Encounters were not balanced - you could run into something way more powerful than you, and you knew it.

We have lots of sessions with zero combat in 5e. Zero. And my players have fun. It's a role playing game after all.

A DM might adjust that if his group does not mind. My group likes combat. They don't like to spend very much time on out of combat material. I very much doubt a very sizeable majority does not play exactly the same way.

I guess everyone thinks their group plays how every group plays. Which is why I am trying to avoid saying others play like me (though you will note my first reply to you got more XP than I think any comment I've ever made in the history of the XP system here). It would probably be wise if you also assumed nothing beyond your own group.

He who kills the most and fastest accumulates for himself the most glory.

In your group. Not mine.

 

[Ratskinner]

Indeed, during the TSR days, at least in my experience, negotiation trickery stealth and avoidance tended to be more common than combat. You just couldn't afford to get into too many combats - you'd die. Encounters were not balanced - you could run into something way more powerful than you, and you knew it.

At least IME, this was directly proportional to the generosity of the DM (or his treasure-table dice) in the distribution of magic items. That is, every OS game I've seen where the magic items are all over has the PCs just kicking in the door and fighting....the "low-magic" games (and the high-magic ones at low level) are quite the opposite. Make of that what you will.

Otherwise, carry on.

 

[Mistwell]

Y'know, a party of three rogues, each one a different archetype, sounds pretty fun. You could plan tactics based around strategies that rely on everyone being good at stealth and subterfuge that a more diverse party couldn't pull off. But everyone could still take on different roles in the plan based on their unique abilities. I kinda want to try this now!

A thief with the Healer feat makes a good healer. They can heal in-combat as a bonus action. Give them the cure potions and they can use those as a bonus action as well. Then have your Arcane Trickster take Magic Initiate: Cleric and now they can cast Cure Wounds too (along with Guidance and maybe Spare the Dying). I think you can cover healing OK in an all-rogue party.

The Arcane Trickster also covers plenty of the arcane challenges. Assassin can cover a lot of the offense, particular as the group would work to get them surprise fairly often. They'd also cover the face-man jobs, particularly once they get their infiltration and imposter abilities. The thief can cover a lot of scouting duties, exploration, sneaking, and eventually use magic devices.

Sounds like a lot of fun. And, you can plan a heist job with such a group!

 

[aramis erak]

For your games. Not for mine.



For you, in your games. Not for mine.

Indeed, during the TSR days, at least in my experience, negotiation trickery stealth and avoidance tended to be more common than combat. You just couldn't afford to get into too many combats - you'd die. Encounters were not balanced - you could run into something way more powerful than you, and you knew it.

We have lots of sessions with zero combat in 5e. Zero. And my players have fun. It's a role playing game after all.



I guess everyone thinks their group plays how every group plays. Which is why I am trying to avoid saying others play like me (though you will note my first reply to you got more XP than I think any comment I've ever made in the history of the XP system here). It would probably be wise if you also assumed nothing beyond your own group.



In your group. Not mine.

And you were not playing D&D by the rules as much as you're improvisationally roleplaying in spite of them. May have been fun, but sure doesn't sound like what 90% of the people I've talked to did in play. Nor 99% of what I've seen in play.

Combat always has been, and still is, the most mechanically detailed pillar. Every edition has been a combat system first, a magic system second, and only about half have had much mechanical resolution of anything else.

Making no assumptions about how you play, other than what you're claiming, I've seldom seen it work out the way you're claiming, because in general, people do what is mechanically rewarded, and the mechanical rewards include both interesting interactions as well as XP; sneaky-pete and talky--man play is less mechanically rewarded than combat, despite having the same XP values.

 

[Sailor Moon]

And you were not playing D&D by the rules as much as you're improvisationally roleplaying in spite of them. May have been fun, but sure doesn't sound like what 90% of the people I've talked to did in play. Nor 99% of what I've seen in play.

Combat always has been, and still is, the most mechanically detailed pillar. Every edition has been a combat system first, a magic system second, and only about half have had much mechanical resolution of anything else.

Making no assumptions about how you play, other than what you're claiming, I've seldom seen it work out the way you're claiming, because in general, people do what is mechanically rewarded, and the mechanical rewards include both interesting interactions as well as XP; sneaky-pete and talky--man play is less mechanically rewarded than combat, despite having the same XP values.

I think you are a bit misguided here.

You seem to think that just because combat occupies the most with regards to rules, then it's suddenly the most important which is false.

 

[Sacrosanct]

let me just say that my experiences mirror mistwell's.. Also, please do not assume that because most of the defined rules are combat related means most of game play is combat. You really don't need rules for playing pretend. Some people like hack and slash, but that is not the default style, nor is anyone playing in site of the rules because they don't have much combat. In AD&D, there was one brief rule that overrode all those pages of combat rules: xp for treasure. That one rule clearly implies that combat was not only not the first option, but should actually be avoided in most cases

 

[Mistwell]

And you were not playing D&D by the rules as much as you're improvisationally roleplaying in spite of them. May have been fun, but sure doesn't sound like what 90% of the people I've talked to did in play. Nor 99% of what I've seen in play.

I disagree. In fact at Conventions during part of the TSR days they made role playing ability THE judge of whether or not you moved on to the next round. It was codified in the RPGA rules that role playing, above all other things, was the thing that was judged for advancement. Lots of people focused on role playing, lots of people tried to avoid combat when they could, numerous interviews with Gygax and Arneson and others from that era said that was how people played, and I think it's fair to say many people played this way.

 

[Sailor Moon]

They might need to play it a bit different (a little more spy-bluff-sneakaport than kick-in-the-door), but there's no limit on their adventuring potential.

I just want to say fair play to KM for this response because I believe it is dead on and needs to be reiterated. I firmly believe that 5th edition is really setup around being able to handle something in more than just one or two ways.

An all one class party is more viable in this edition and I love that.

 

[Uchawi]

All the design elements of 5E are present in previous editions, but the emphasis has changed. The roles are still there based on classes like the cleric, wizard, rogue and fighter. The language has changed and the game has been simplified. So it really boils down to do you like a simple or complex game. And 5E tends towards the former and only time will tell if it has options for the later. But the one innovation I wanted is still not there in reference to giving martial characters maneuvers similar to spells. Then you would really have a solid game that can allow the classes to expand in multiple directions and even the class lines between the core classes would start to blur, especially when considering multi-classing and feats.