BookBarbarian
Expert Long Rester
My players, having played 5e together for 4 years now, would completely forget that feats and multiclassing exist if I didn't remind them.
D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Sounds like you have a social contract/expectation problem, not a 5e problem.
I would totally agree with this. But, it was a situation where I don't know what it is I don't know. My newness to the system worked against me. I've never experienced a situation of multiple players wanting to change mid-campaign and I was caught totally unprepared. Therefore, I never set an expectation of no changes at the onset of the campaign because I honestly didn't think I had to. Perhaps that too old school thinking in this day and age, don't know. But characters never just changed mid flight in any campaign I've run or participated in unless they died.
So, I will say that it was more my problem than 5e. Again, 5e didn't help me and the lure of the spell casters was obviously too great for them. But I've already learned from this thread, no feats, no multi-class. Now a social contract, which makes sense. The more people respond, the more I'm learning on what to do if I dive into 5e again.
Erechel
Explorer
I should say that I wouldn't change feats and multiclass. I would surely put a "no-nonsense" clause in a game. Feats, specially, aren't such a problem once you acknowledge that they aren't absolute. Multiclass is its own problem. Why a fighter with 20 str should become a warlock suddenly? The "dip" concept is mostly misused, and leaves you behind in many, many areas. Spells are very limited, specially when you acquire them late on the game.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Overpowered spellcasters isn't a problem 5e has, especially at 7th level. The game actually works best in the 5-9 level range. I'm not sure what happened at your table, it's clear your expectations differed drastically from your players and no one handled things well (it's entirely possible you encouraged spellcasters rather than non-spellcasters through play incentives). However, the problems you're talking about are player-DM problems, not systemic issues with 5e. I'm perfectly open to having issues with 5e -- I have a few myself -- but it really seems like your blaming a mismatch in expectation on the system. Perhaps you could start a thread on what happened and the community could provide advice on how to keep on track.
Lord Mhoram
Hero
I've had a couple campaigns just blow up on me due to unforseen circumstances. And I almost destroyed a game, but having been a GM, I retired the character and built another (this was in Champions/Hero). I can laugh at it now.....
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Now, see, my opinion (speaking as one who has played D&D since its inception, so 'OSR' or 'classic D&D' is something I understand inside and out) is that the preciseness of mechanics combined with the robust 'hook' of highly well-thought-out ubiquitous keywords actually frees both GM and players to be MORE creative! The players know that they can and cannot do and the stakes they are playing. Both GM and players can easily understand what the relations between story and mechanical action are via keywords, and fictional positioning can reliably leverage on those keywords, as can attempts to go beyond the normal rules.
This is why, IMHO, 5e is a step backwards as a system. It actually reduces the overall freedom and set of options that are practically available. Without adding anything compensatory.
Sadras
Legend
Sure different tables have different experiences. At our table we find 4e was restrictive, despite the inclusion of these key-words whereas 5e allows for more creativity.
YMMV
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Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
Keywords make the rules master of what you can do, as opposed to the DM. So while this might increase freedom at a table with a DM more towards the "permit the least amount" side of the spectrum, I think your average table results in increased freedom because your average DM will find a way to say "yes" to more things than the keywords would otherwise allow.
In addition, the keywords by their very nature are intended to cover a range of expected elements of the game, but the nature of the game is that you cannot always accurately anticipate the range of things which can be attempted in a game driven by the imagination of individuals. Which means you inevitably get keywords which don't accurately predict how something will be used sometimes, which leads to further refinement in errata or sage advice, which leads to more unanticipated consequences, more revisions, and you get the snowball effect of page after page of rules revisions like we got in 4e.
I think these two reasons are why reports of actual 5e play tend to, more often than not, express a sense of increased freedom to do more of what you can imagine on the fly than in many prior editions that had more stringent keywords in the rules.
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