D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[Raiztt]

Alternatively: A better rules or 'amendments' can remove the need for rulings on things.

There is no way to overcome the 'interpretation' problem because language is, famously, indeterminate. The Indeterminacy of Translation and Radical Interpretation | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

[Raiztt]

Did anyone ever make this argument you're going against here?

It's implied by your complaint. If you're able to find a DM who runs the game the way you want him to, what's your problem?

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's implied by your complaint. If you're able to find a DM who runs the game the way you want him to, what's your problem?

1) No it isn't. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

2) We are talking about problems with the game, not my game.

The game doesn't have rules for making illusions work, they depend on the DM to make constant spot rulings to the point that whether there's even a point to taking illusion spells varies from table to table. And it isn't just illusions. that's the problem. That's the discussion. No one is trapped in a dungeon, or on the supreme court, or in a bad social circle, or any thing else used to distract from the actual issue.

 

[Raiztt]

1) No it isn't. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

2) We are talking about problems with the game, not my game.

The game doesn't have rules for making illusions work, they depend on the DM to make constant spot rulings to the point that whether there's even a point to taking illusion spells varies from table to table. And it isn't just illusions. that's the problem. That's the discussion. No one is trapped in a dungeon, or on the supreme court, or in a bad social circle, or any thing else used to distract from the actual issue.

I don't think it's a problem with the game.

 

[kilpatds]

This is one of those cases that Organized Play makes more relevant. If it's a long campaign and my DM hates his scene/plot getting derailed by an illusion, I know not to play an illusionist and move on. If it's organized play, my mileage varies wildly by DM in a way that's ... "not optimal"

Organized Play is a great tool for getting people into the hobby. Pick-up D&D is Good!(tm)

But I have no sense of how popular organized play is to home games. I assume organized play is the tip of a proverbial iceberg.

 

[mamba]

Most of the issues names are just preferences.

The ones that designers even mention:

1. DMG layout
2. Subclass levels
3. Lay of modules and variants for spending or investing treasure
4. Monster variety across CR in MM

All revolve around their assumption that the DMs would be experienced, have their own books from other editions, and would only use the MM and DMG for short reference.

how do the subclass levels fit into this theme?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Supernatural is somewhat in the eye of the beholder though.

Take level's up "size up" ability for fighters, which lets them determine the CR of any creature they can see within 200 feet. Honestly....that's pretty damn fantastical. I can see a little girl and go "hmm that's a CR 19 creature.....wonder if she's shapechanged or something".

I can literally get the Cr of creatures that I have never seen, heck that my world has never seen. It could be a monster of myth and legend, but the fighter can go "CR 15 looks like.... oh wait CR 17 yeah looks like its thats enhanced variety".


Its a cool ability, but it quickly strains the notion of a "mundane ability". At somet point it gets a bit fantastical. Now personally I am ok with fighters dipping their toes into the fantastical and supernatural a bit more, but some might balk at even that much.

I think it can be imagined as impressive powers of observation from an individual with a lot of combat experience. What I don't want is for something like that to be seen as supernatural and therefore it's acceptable for all manner of supernatural stuff to be brought in. This is not an excuse to dismiss one's argument by calling them a hypocrite.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The designers themselves, after play testing. Sometimes, an idea is just not turning out how you expected.

Sure, but your statement here does not imply that you have to make changes for "simplicity and streamlining". There are any number of reasons that a proposed rule doesn't work out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is one of those cases that Organized Play makes more relevant. If it's a long campaign and my DM hates his scene/plot getting derailed by an illusion, I know not to play an illusionist and move on. If it's organized play, my mileage varies wildly by DM in a way that's ... "not optimal"

Organized Play is a great tool for getting people into the hobby. Pick-up D&D is Good!(tm)

But I have no sense of how popular organized play is to home games. I assume organized play is the tip of a proverbial iceberg.

I  far prefer the apprenticeship model to organized play.

 

[Parmandur]

Right. That number of encounters is expected to challenge an average party, where "challenge" means to drain their resources sufficiently that getting through those encounters doesn't seem easy or a pushover.

And I think that this is a useful figure if you're playing a dungeon crawl, but it's much less useful if you're doing other things, where a slower pace of encounters makes more sense.

It works fine for that, but that's juat dialing down the difficulty notch. The game is built to allow a customization of how much difficulty a party will have. A slower pace of encounters will be an easier game, which can be made a little more difficult by making then difficult encounters. But it's not designed to scale back on the main source of challenge and them find other ways to challenge players, no.