D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

JackOfAllTirades said:

I don't HATE anything, because I long since reached the conclusion that "haters" are a corrosive influence on the RPG community and they should either STFU or GTFO.


And I find the initiative system, basically unchanged from 3E, rather annoying.

The concentration mechanic could be better. Game balance took a giant dump on fun, there.

And the "rulings not rules" approach seems to be a blanket excuse for sloppy writing throughout the text. The authors should have clarified their intent, not just written off every single vague rule in their books as something to be decided by the GM.

And in spite of all that, 5E is still the best version of D&D I've seen yet.

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Initiative i don't like either, and I saw a thread here i'm going to try using cards as Initiative, i think that might be how the Fate system does it and it seems like a streamlined yet tension filled alternative that will work. And yes, some of the rules are just too vague and streamlined for my liking.

ALSO...after 7 months of playing, myself and my players are absolutely not pleased with how the PHB is laid out and lack of easy tabs or markers that make browsing to sections easy. But this is just a quibble and nothing close to "hate" and the ease of houseruling 5e is something that is highly enjoyable.

vandaexpress said:

it's apparently easier to heal a mortal wound than recover from exhaustion.

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Hmmm.....wonder what would happen if you had "getting bloodied" and/or "getting KO'd" give you a level of exhaustion.....I like the taste of it....maybe make Barbarians immune to that...hmm....

Werebat said:

What do you HATE about 5th Edition?

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The forum trolls.

pming said:

Oh, that and that it now constantly fights my brain for being in the top 3 of my all-time favorite RPG's (which was already crowded by me having 4 of them!).

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Out of curiosity, what are the other three (or four)?

Hate is a strong word, but yep, I've got some gripes about 5E.

My main gripe is that for as awesome as the framework of 5E is, some parts of it feel distinctly underdeveloped or untested. If we limit 5E to Basic, everything in the game is solid gold. Once we open up the Player's Handbook, there are a lot of parts that feel like they're still under construction:

• Clerics domains are inadequate. They tried to nail down eight broad cleric concepts that ought to fit any cleric, but instead these "broad concepts" leave a whole bunch of concepts out in the cold. The Light domain is good for a Sun cleric (maybe), but it's not a good fit for a Fire cleric...especially an elementally focused one. The Knowledge domain has a bunch of mind control spells, which seem out of place for clerics of Boccob or Oghma or Aureon. The Death domain is strictly evil/necromancer/NPC territory, which doesn't do neutral death priests (such as Kelemvorites) any favours, considering undeath is an insult to their faith. All said and done, I think 5E's domains are far less versatile than even the plain ones in 3E/3.5E, and not even close to as cool as 2E's specialty priests.
• Sorcerers aren't well implemented here. All sorcerers are forced to either specialize in an element and become a dragon (dragon sorcerer) or become a ticking time-bomb dependent on their DM awarding wild surges (wild magic sorcerer). These concepts are too narrow. Worse, the dragon sorcerer offers features that are redundant for dragonborn, supposedly one of the iconic races for that subclass. Even worse, the Player's Handbook doesn't even have enough (cold, lightning, poison, or acid) spells for non-fire-based dragon sorcerers to be fully viable. Additionally, sorcerers use a subset of the wizard spell list, but there's not much explanation why some spells are available to sorcerers and others aren't. WotC seems to know that 5E sorcerers aren't adequate, so they added two new subclasses via online articles, both of which are mostly superior to the two choices in the PH.
• Warlocks are absolutely dripping with delicious flavour and inspirational material. That said, the class is absolutely chock-full of trap options which severely reduce the breadth of viable choices for warlock characters. The warlock also has a lot of "taxes" in its invocations; agonizing blast should have been built into eldritch blast directly, and the pact-specific invocations should just be class features for those pacts. Eldritch blast and hex seem like they were meant to be class features too, but they're out in the spell section, starting arguments about "balance" for other classes. Overall, like the sorcerer, the warlock really feels like it could've been a much better class with just a bit more playtesting.
• Elemental monks need more options.
• The weapon list could use a revision to weed out imbalanced options.
• Stealth is confusing and depends on the DM's judgement to a greater degree than it should.
• Two-Weapon Fighting is significantly suboptimal for fighters, rangers, and berserker barbarians after 11th level. This is tied to the problem that certain feats (Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Sharpshooter, to name a few) seem a lot more powerful than others.
• The spell list seems like it needed a few more additions or revisions (re: Warlock, Sorcerer, and Cleric variety). It's not well organized either, but that's just a pet peeve of mine.

I'm enjoying the hell out of 5E, but it's kinda frustrating that certain elements of the game feel so undercooked. I've spent a lot of time asking mechanical questions about the game and houseruling more than I wanted to.

Also, I'd like it if there were more products for me to look forward to.

Not much hate, but I'd like to see some more options (magic items, feats, subclasses, monsters) that aren't buried in APs or presented "in pencil" playtests. Basically, I'd like to see at least SOME rules expansion, just to give a few more options. (Before anyone goes claiming rules glut; I just want more stuff like the EE Player's Guide; hopefully we get that for RoD).

I would like to see some more "examples" of things rather than solid rules; stealth being primary. A few examples might go a long way to clearing up confusion without piling on extra rules.

If there is anything I hate, its the kinda dark space about D&D's future. WotC's habit of announcing things minutes before it comes out makes it hard to plan for things; do I buy PotA or OotA for setting/monster info or wait for some future Monster Manual or Forgotten Realms book that may/may not happen? Do I use the UA Eberron material and fix it myself or wait for some future fix that could come year(s) down the road? Do I use my 3e Eberron/FR books and convert of wait for 5e based campaign settings? Not knowing what WotC is doing beyond two APs and licensed video games grows tiring.

Eh. I don't hate it. However, I feel that whilst 5E is a good system, it's not great at anything either, but maybe that's where D&D should be anyway.

Stuff that's preventing me from doing anything other than dabbling in 5E:
1. The classes/subclasses. I don't like how most of them are built and would have to rewrite most class features to get them into shape. Doable, but I won't bother.
2. Short rests. I hate these things, yet they're impossible to get rid of. I hate that some classes use them to recharge powers while others don't, essentially mandating 6-8 encounters a day with 2 short rests to keep everything fair. I prefer a much more naturalistic style--the default 5E assumptions are way too contrived for me.
3. Advantage/disadvantage is a good simplifying mechanic, but it adds way too much rolling. The same goes for features like GWM. If my group was so in love with dice rolling we'd just play Yahtzee instead.
4. Monsters are dull and require cross-indexing in play if they have spells. Would rather they have more flare. At the same time, I don't really need to know what a goblin's charisma is.
5. Scaling is questionable.
6. Proficiencies and skills are baked in and half-baked at the same time. Not much discussion in how to set DCs for different types of tasks.
7. Spells and cantrips seem poorly vetted.

I'm sure there's more, but those are the ones that come readily to mind. It's still one of the best editions of D&D. I'd take it over 3X, 4E or Pathfinder easily. It just doesn't go far enough or is as readily changeable as I want it to be.

It's too vague, bland, familiar, and inoffensive to hate.

And you can change anything you don't like about it, anyway.

Kamikaze Midget said:

Hmmm.....wonder what would happen if you had "getting bloodied" and/or "getting KO'd" give you a level of exhaustion.....I like the taste of it....maybe make Barbarians immune to that...hmm....

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Yeah. This might be a good idea. Relevant experience:

I often chat with my players between sessions to get a feel for where they're at. My most skilled player (the party sorc) and I were discussing the Loremaster Bard (who functions, along with the paladin, as the party healer) and her decision to take Aura of Vitality with one of her special pick-any-spell features at the sorcerer's insistence. I pointed out that the healing just isn't that remarkable, especially since it takes conc, 2d6 a round?

His response echoed what I've seen a few people mention here on the forums and I'm not sure how much it bothers me at this point: "All you really need is one point of healing to get someone back into the action though" hinting at the "wack-a-mole" style combats where a PC goes down and then gets up the next round without really any repercussions except possibly missing a round or two of combat and being prone.

Man, I really like that "getting KO'd gives you a level of exhaustion" idea, KM. I might just have to steal it.

As if my PCs aren't already in a perpetual enough state of terror.