D&D 5E Blog Post by Robert J. Schwalb

[Obryn]

Only in 3e are casters overpowered. AD&D has this thing called casting time. A meteor shower spell has a one in 6 chance of having a one round cast time - If a 6 is rolled for initiative. Hold person can easily take two rounds to cast and it's a 2nd level spell (for clerics). This gives the opposition plenty of time to interrupt a spell, which can be done by a six year old with a rock. Casters in AD&D are only overpowered if you don't play the game as intended.

Yep, I was just remarking on this the other day.

I will link to this thing which, more and more, it's looking like the 5e designers didn't notice. As I'm saying in another thread, here's the mistakes I see them repeating (unless I'm proven wrong tomorrow, which I hope I am):

* Saving throw DCs increase at a much more rapid pace than "weak" saves
* You have 4 weak saves now, not 2.
* Evocation is not scary, because 5e HP = 3e HP, by all appearances, and spell damage isn't that improved, so save-or-lose is the order of the day.

 

[Obryn]

I admit fun is subjective. My own evaluation of those games no doubt differs from yours. The problem is that 4e is by no means universally acclaimed as more fun. In fact wotc is changing 5e for a reason. They've felt the pinch of customer dissatisfaction.

So when you act like 4e was the second coming of rules realize you probably annoy people in the exact same way wotc annoyed people when they told players they had been playing wrong all those years.

I'd say if the statement, "4e D&D fixed many of what I perceive were D&D's rules problems" annoys you, that's pretty much on you, not him.

 

[Henry]

This brought me right back to playing 2nd Edition in my friend's basement in high school at least once a week.

Great Blog post!

It brought me back to a winter huddled near a fireplace in a friend's Antebellum house, bundled in jackets and trying to piece together the rules for Twilight 2000 and create cool characters in post-nuclear Poland.

 

[The Hitcher]

I am reading a full 180 turn in your argument from paragraph one to paragraph two, since you already want to house rule something from the PHB, or maybe even basic rules.

Multiclassing will be marked as optional in the PHB, so no house ruling necessary. But it wouldn't matter if it was necessary, because 5E actively encourages modding to suit your individual needs.

 

[The Hitcher]

Phrexus says:

"Let me start with this: I’ve been playtesting next since the encounter with 18 rats, to Vault of the Dracolich and beyond, all the way to Dead in Thay. It has not been an enjoyable journey. I’ve really tried, I swear, to make an awesome Rogue, and when that didn’t pan out I tried Fighter. Nada. Meanwhile in our Dead in Thay run that’s likely about to finish (we’re up against a Lich who has Time Stop and Meteor Shower), the two teams have been carried exclusively by Warrior Cleric and a slightly altered pre-gen Wizard. The rest of the crew are just there to mop up whatever the two ‘Walking Apocolypse’ classes leave crippled.

Then I read this blogpost, and I see that the problem wasn’t just noticed, but met with a throwing up of hands and ‘Eh, it’s always been like that (except in the edition that must not be named), whataya gonna do?’

Everything I’ve seen in the playtests feels like 5e was made solely from happy memories of when the designers were 17 while completely ignoring the breakthroughs since then. There have been monumental breakthroughs, from computers that help make formatting a snap, to indepth study of balance from 40 years of gaming, to realizing that aesthetics count and making things easy to read and reference, to realizing it sucks having to swap back and forth between two books because of monsters that use spells.

Everything up to this point has felt like a desperate bid for nostalgia, and you’ve explicitly stated that (1) 5e was knowingly created a sub-optimal product because “that’s the way it’s always been”, and (2) when presented with the opportunity to rectify the known issues of past editions, the designers opted not to because “Gosh, math and balance is hard work!” and “It’s was broken and I still enjoyed (*cough* because I played a wizard or cleric *cough*).”

I know the playtests already presented sufficient evidence, but thank you Mr. Schwalb. This article has been eye opening."


Yuuuup.

My two biggest disappointments with 5e so far: needlessly fragile low levels (showing that they either learnt nothing from 4e or actively ignored what they did learn), and the Wizard (and, short ways behind, Cleric) not carved into several different classes, or hit with a severely restrained spell list.

The game actually does play pretty well if you ban Wizards, though.

None of that has anything remotely to do with what he said. But if it puts people like you guys off the edition, that's not such a big loss.

 

[LFK]

None of that has anything remotely to do with what he said. But if it puts people like you guys off the edition, that's not such a big loss.

You know how DC comics is a soft turd circling the drain because they aggressively court their same old fans, terrified of losing even a single one, despite objective proof that a lot of their fans are toxic and are the very thing that prevents DC's market share from growing?

 

[Emerikol]

I'd say if the statement, "4e D&D fixed many of what I perceive were D&D's rules problems" annoys you, that's pretty much on you, not him.

And if he'd have just stated it that way he wouldn't have provoked a negative reaction.

Instead he attacks the designers for not totally ignoring their customer base and making a 4.5e.

Again if he'd have just said they weren't offering enough 4e options I'd be supportive.

 

[caudor]

From what I've seen, when people think back on the fun they had playing prior editions (especially 1e/2e), at the heart of the fun was their heroes in the context of an adventure. The adventure is where the rubber meets the road in D&D. The adventure is the soul of the game. The rules exist to run an adventure, and it the interaction between players and DM that gives the game life. A role-playing game is a narrative experience supported by a rule set.

 

[Raith5]

When Schwalb says "The prize for being the best player goes not to the creative mind, the cunning tactician, the burgeoning actor, but to the best mathematician" I just dont agree. I have seen suboptimal characters perform meangingful roles and shine in 3E and 4E. Sure I did think that 3E got the power of casters OTT after about 9th level, but non-casters still had a crucial role in play. For me the problem of LFQW in 3rd ed was one of magnitude of the difference rather than the existence of difference between casters and melee types. Maybe 4e did overreact to the power of casters by making them similar to martial types, but personally I found casters in 4e to still be magical enough despite being at a stronger mathematical parity with martial types.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I largely agree with the blog's sentiment. The big thing for me is that I want to interact with the game-fiction. I don't want to interact with the rules mechanics at all, they take me away from the game I enjoy. I tolerate them because they're a necessary evil, but that's about it. I'll be happy if 5E works well with that kind of play, but I don't have any particular hopes for it.