Most frustrating quirk of 5E?

5ekyu · Dec 30, 2018

Pauln6 said:
Mind you, there are some that view faerie fire as overpowered.My group is melee focused and mostly human, relying on light spells and a flaming sword to see. The principal missile fire comes from sacred flame (no attack roll) and eldritch blast. Personally, I've never believed that missile fire is as powerful as everyone claims because people hate discarding weapons on the battlefield.

Yup... not surprisingly the truth is folks will adapt and having dim light impact attack roll ranged features but not impact "that you can see" alternatives will drive up the stock in the other options - driving one style over the other, etc.

Each change merely shuffles the options on the rungs of the ladder a might.

oreofox · Dec 30, 2018

Mepher said:
I feel the same way about unlimited at-will cantrips. I suppose I would have little problem with wizards throwing firebolts if they didn't hit as well as the fighter and do as much damage as them swinging their swords. Add to it the scaling damage and I find most casters whipping around cantrips instead of spells most of the time. It just feels so much like a video game. There is no more "bursts of power" from the casters. It's a the same across the board though since every fighter is throwing superiority dice, rogues are sneak attacking every round, rangers are hunter's mark/colossus slaying everything, and warlocks are hex/eldritch blasting everything. Special turns boring when it becomes the norm.

My biggest complaint about cantrips is Light. Combine that with the replacement of Infravision with Darkvision, and most darkness just became trivial. When the adventuring party delved into a dungeon in 2E the human fighter up front might have had a torch burning so they can see. Of course the heat from the torch prevented the Dwarf in the back from seeing with his Infravision because the heat from the torch would prevent it. On the flip side when that torch went out the Dwarf could see those heat signatures in front of him. Of course when those zombies were shuffling towards them the infravision wouldn't pickup their lack of heat. It created a whole dynamic to night and dungeons that is missing when half the party can cast light at the snap of their fingers. Don't forget when combat begins that Fighter must decide what to do with that torch. These are the little change that were made that imo have large impact in the game.

Of course it seems from reading lot of 5E forums or groups that to the new player, this type of play somehow "restricts" their fun.

I never understood this. Something is seriously wrong with the fighter if the wizard is doing the same damage and hitting just as well with a sword as the fighter. Do they both have 10 Strength? Do they both have 20 Str? Just because they both have the same "attack bonus" of +2 at level 1, doesn't mean they have the same chance to hit (as Strength improves this chance). Would you rather go back to total/touch/flat-footed AC from 3rd and Pathfinder? I didn't play much AD&D, and don't have my book near me, so not sure how many spells required the magic-user to make an attack roll. And making them rely on darts or crossbows may as well just have the magic-user say "I do nothing" for their turn since they would miss nearly everything.

As for the Light cantrip, I kinda agree. It makes torches useless, though when every race but 3 (human, halfling, dragonborn) in the PHB has Darkvision, I don't know how useful either end up being. 3rd edition only had 2 races in the PHB with darkvision (half-orc and dwarf), which made it more "unique" and torches and Light were more useful. Though my experience is not many people used the light source stuff anyway. Even now, most people treat darkvision as being able to see perfectly in the dark (minus colors) as you normally can in daylight.

As I said in a previous post, I have no problem with unlimited cantrips, with a wizard firing off a firebolt each round. Makes them feel like an actual spellcaster. Cantrips scale at practically the same rate as a fighter gets his extra attacks (5th, 11th, though 17th instead of 20th), so if you really wanted to, you can only cast cantrips all day every day and be a viable damage dealer similar to a fighter. I'd rather not go back to touch AC, or being useless if I had no spells left or one that had no effect on the current situation.

But, if that isn't your cup of tea, then it isn't your cup of tea. I prefer 5e's cantrips, you don't. Some people miss the magic item shops of 3rd edition, some don't.

Doc_Klueless · Dec 30, 2018

oreofox said:
Even now, most people treat darkvision as being able to see perfectly in the dark (minus colors) as you normally can in daylight.

That's because, sadly, there are people out there who don't read the rules to Darkvision. It lets you see in the dark as if in Dim Light which gives disadvantage to all Active (and -5 to Passive) vision related perception checks. That disadvantage can be huge when sliding through a dungeon littered with traps and foes who can also see in the dark.

Blue · Dec 30, 2018

Mepher said:
I feel the same way about unlimited at-will cantrips. I suppose I would have little problem with wizards throwing firebolts if they didn't hit as well as the fighter and do as much damage as them swinging their swords.

Luckily, they don't!

At 1st level, with a 16 attack stat:

Wizard w/ Firebolt: +3 to attack, d10 fire damage (5.5 avg hit)
Fighter w/ Greatsword & Great Weapon fighting style: +3 to attack, 2d6+3 reroll 1&2s damage (11.34 avg hit) [4.17 per die due to reroll]
Fighter w/ Longsword & Shield and Duelist style: +3 to attack, d8+3+2 damage (9.5 avg hit), +2 AC
Fighter w/ Longbow & Archery fighting style: +5 to attack, d8+3 damage (7.5 avg hit, with more hits)

This increase at 5th and 11th when cantrips go up and fighters get more attacks. Wizards not adding their attack stat means it also increases at each ASI but only for fighters. Oh, and fighters getting extra ASIs means that they increase chance to hit faster than wizards as well.

If the game allows feats this becomes even more one-sided, as there are a lot more feats that increase weapon damage then increase cantrip damage.

In other words, cantrip damage isn't even close to fighter damage with weapons. I hope you are open minded and stand by your "I suppose I would have little problem with wizards throwing firebolts if they didn't hit as well as the fighter and do as much damage as them swinging their swords."

Mepher said:
Add to it the scaling damage and I find most casters whipping around cantrips instead of spells most of the time.

It just feels so much like a video game. There is no more "bursts of power" from the casters. It's a the same across the board though since every fighter is throwing superiority dice, rogues are sneak attacking every round, rangers are hunter's mark/colossus slaying everything, and warlocks are hex/eldritch blasting everything.

This is part of the base math of the game. 6-8 encounters of 3-4 rounds each is 18 to 32 rounds of combat per long rest. Let's lowball and go 20. Add in one non-action spell per combat like shield or healing word that's 26 casting actions per day.

If you consider just a few spells cast outside combat (mage armor, some utility), you end up with way less spells then rounds of combat.

I think you need to be around 7th before 1/3 of your actions per day can be spells. At 11th you have 16 slots. If you cast mage armor and two other utility spells you still only have enough slots to cast for half your actions.

So the game design is what pushes using cantrips so much. And why restricting the number of cantrips really hurts characters, especially ones below the teen levels.

Mepher · Dec 30, 2018

oreofox said:
I never understood this. Something is seriously wrong with the fighter if the wizard is doing the same damage and hitting just as well with a sword as the fighter. Do they both have 10 Strength? Do they both have 20 Str? Just because they both have the same "attack bonus" of +2 at level 1, doesn't mean they have the same chance to hit (as Strength improves this chance). Would you rather go back to total/touch/flat-footed AC from 3rd and Pathfinder?

The point is that all classes have comparable fighting skill. In older editions your to hit was only affected by your STR modifier. Wizards usually put INT as their primary stat for # of spells and % chance to learn and Dexterity for the AC bonus. Now Wizards can put their main stats in INT for their Spell Save and Spell attack bonuses and Dexterity for their AC and Melee attack bonuses. You can deny it if you want but the wizard gets the same bonuses as a fighter does to attack. He just gets them from INT and DEX.

As for going back to 3rd edition rules, that seems to be the go-to argument here. I never moved to 3.0/3.5/4.0 because of the rule and power creep. Anytime I compare editions its between 1E/2E and 5E. 5E was a response to the creep in later editions but in the process they took away much of what made AD&D so great. While I am currently running a 5E campaign, I find the game a bit flat when it comes to the "flavor" of original D&D. I know that it's popularity comes from the fact that everyone gets to do anything they want, all of the time. It wont take long to read these forums and realize that the current crop of players cannot fathom being told no when it comes to any type of player option. We get to hear endlessly about player agency and how dare anyone take that away from them. Things that made the world exciting and dangerous, such as lighting and darkness have now been trivialized by vision and cantrips. Things such as character advancement has been equalized so everyone gets that same warm fuzzy feeling all of the time. Level progression is equal, everyone gets to attack every round no matter what.

Then you have simple things like Identify. In old editions if you didn't have a Wizard with the identify spell then identifying items might turn into a whole adventure on it's own. Never once in 30 years DMing did anyone ever complain to me about this mechanic. It was always a chance for more roleplaying. They might drag some mythical weapon out of a dungeon and take it back to their church. They send them on some quest to find out information about the weapon leading them to the discovery of it's ancient powers. While you can do exactly the same thing in 5E, the current crop of players might have a problem with that. 5E designers might still embrace Rule 0 - "Rules are nothing but guidelines", the average newer player doesn't. It's apparent with how much everyone loses their crap anytime someone wants to change rules to their liking. Everytime I post here I brace for impact when responses start coming in. Somehow what I do with my group seems to affect other's fun, or so they think. The good thing is that my group thinks like I do. We grew up playing other editions and can see the differences, good and bad. I do like some parts of 5E but I am not sure if it's enough to keep me here in the long run.

My favorite quote from Gary Gygax that summarizes the game for me will goes so much against the current thinking of RPGs. I spend a minimum of 10x the amount of time working on my campaign that I run for my players than all of my players do combined outside of game. In fact, like most players they for the most part forget about this game outside of the game session. We have a discord server and we chat in it daily but as for real game "work" the players don't have much to do other than maybe update their character between sessions if the leveled or something. With that in mind I have always told my players that if any player chooses to actively derail something I have spent countless hours working on then they don't belong in my game. That isn't to say the players make unexpected choices, I mean a player actively trying to derail my game for the sake of their own enjoyment over others.

"It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule books upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters given in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons volumes, you are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a whole first, you campaign next and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as it was meant to be."

Dungeon Master’s Guide
(page 230), Gary Gygax

To me that is what D&D is about. The DM provides a great world for the players to explore. It's not designed to coddle the players or give them what they want. It's a big dangerous world and that kill them at a moments notice but there is also great rewards to be had. If the players play smart, roleplay well, and are willing to risk it all it can be rewarding. I think most of that is lost these days. Gary says that the game is mastered by the DM, hence the title Dungeon Master. Today if you ask the average group they look at the DM more as the story teller and the players are the real masters of the game. Everyone loves to throw around that idea of player agency but how about DM agency. There are so many generic checks in 5E that many players simply ask to make checks anytime they want to do something. You can see it on the flood of 5E streams out there. I feel for the "new" DM out there today because the game teaches you to observe a bunch of dice rolls rather than adjucate a scenario. Sure there are some great DMs out there running these streams but there are also some that do nothing other than tell a story and ask for rolls to resolve everything. That isn't good DMing and that is a direct result of a ruleset that tells the players that they are #1, not the DM or the story.

I just finished up Dragon Heist last week. I actually doubled the length of time the adventure should have taken with homebrew materials. I found the adventure itself fairly flat without a lot of DM work and the challenge was pretty low. This week they are moving into level 1 of Undermountain. I was very excited when it was announced and preordered it asap. I am indifferent about it now after reading it though. It is NOT the "Oldest, largest, and deadliest dungeon crawl" that the 2E version was. It's a stripped down version with much of the "deadly" removed. I am sure my players will have fun with it. I am also sure I will add a LOT of homebrew to it, much on the fly, as I always do to make it exciting.

I have expounded a bit more than I had planned to in this reply. The more I read this thread the more I really miss the flavor of AD&D. It just seems to have lost it's "soul" in the quest to equalize everything and please everyone all the time.

Cap'n Kobold · Dec 30, 2018

Winterthorn said:
I cannot name an individual quirk so much note a holistic one: several aspects of the game have been simplified for the mass market it seems to me. For example, weapons and armor are do not offer enough mechanical variety and this diminshes cultural flavour options to me. Class and subclass features beg for more granularity too. A few more supernatural conditions could have been offered, and the monolithic proficiency bonus progression is just... lacking. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty good to be found in this edition, but I feel it falls short on closer examination.

I just had a thought: pehaps this simplifying approach was also a means to create design space for variants in campaign settings? FREX, homebrew wise, for my campaign world, I am considering changing the sorcerer and adding a witch class, and tweaking the whole weapons and armor tables. Looking at, say AiME there are wonderful tweaks to the rules to fit the flavour of the Middle Earth setting! So was that part of WotC's intent with the core rules?

The 5e weapons table is designed to give basic stats for pretty much any weapon that the characters might want to use.
As you say however, there is a lot of potential for homebrew/DMsGuild adjustment to weapons according to group preference that include expanding it by splitting off categories and adding new properties.

I'm pretty sure that you'd get at least 5-10 different threads about homebrew additions/revisions to the 5e weapons table just in the ENWorld board.

Harzel said:
The other major part of the problem is that you cannot turn around without bumping into a caster. And, of course, then the majority of them get cantrips. The overall effect is that spell casting becomes magical-in-name-only, as it is ordinary, commonplace, unremarkable - mundane in the common sense of the word.

Just for clarity, are you talking about setting issues, or just the number of players wanting to play a character with an element of magic to them within the party?

So when the wizard casts Firebolt, well, shrug - it doesn't feel any different that if he shoots a crossbow. He makes an attack roll and he can do it every round. What's the difference?

Is your issue the mental image (Wizards shouldn't be able to do magic all of the time) or the mechanical rules (ranged spell attacks use the same basic rules as ranged weapon attacks)?

My other complaint about cantrips is the business of damage scaling with level in order, presumably, to ensure that our poor caster never feels left out. Eff that. That's the way casters (or at least wizards-as-successors-to-1e-magic-users) are supposed to feel in return for the limited* occasions when they can grab the spotlight and do something awesome that no one else can even come close to.

Scaling cantrips are designed to flatten the power curve between when casters burn spell slots and when they don't. It removes some of the nova issues and helps balance between the casters and non-casters.

Maxperson · Dec 30, 2018

Mepher said:
The point is that all classes have comparable fighting skill. In older editions your to hit was only affected by your STR modifier. Wizards usually put INT as their primary stat for # of spells and % chance to learn and Dexterity for the AC bonus. Now Wizards can put their main stats in INT for their Spell Save and Spell attack bonuses and Dexterity for their AC and Melee attack bonuses. You can deny it if you want but the wizard gets the same bonuses as a fighter does to attack. He just gets them from INT and DEX.

So for some reason the wizard isn't putting his highest ability score in INT, but rather is putting it into DEX so that he can fight as well as the fighter with a sword? Why would he do that? It seems to me that putting the highest stat into INT, and making DEX second highest would be better. Doing that means that you won't be hitting(not fighting) with a sword as well as the fighter, though.

And then of course there will be the feats the fighter takes, as well as the fighter abilities. All of which give the fighter better fighting skill with a sword than the wizard would have, even if the wizard did have a DEX that was higher than his INT.

5ekyu · Dec 30, 2018

Blue said:
Luckily, they don't!

At 1st level, with a 16 attack stat:

Wizard w/ Firebolt: +3 to attack, d10 fire damage (5.5 avg hit)
Fighter w/ Greatsword & Great Weapon fighting style: +3 to attack, 2d6+3 reroll 1&2s damage (11.34 avg hit) [4.17 per die due to reroll]
Fighter w/ Longsword & Shield and Duelist style: +3 to attack, d8+3+2 damage (9.5 avg hit), +2 AC
Fighter w/ Longbow & Archery fighting style: +5 to attack, d8+3 damage (7.5 avg hit, with more hits)

This increase at 5th and 11th when cantrips go up and fighters get more attacks. Wizards not adding their attack stat means it also increases at each ASI but only for fighters. Oh, and fighters getting extra ASIs means that they increase chance to hit faster than wizards as well.

If the game allows feats this becomes even more one-sided, as there are a lot more feats that increase weapon damage then increase cantrip damage.

In other words, cantrip damage isn't even close to fighter damage with weapons. I hope you are open minded and stand by your "I suppose I would have little problem with wizards throwing firebolts if they didn't hit as well as the fighter and do as much damage as them swinging their swords."

This is part of the base math of the game. 6-8 encounters of 3-4 rounds each is 18 to 32 rounds of combat per long rest. Let's lowball and go 20. Add in one non-action spell per combat like shield or healing word that's 26 casting actions per day.

If you consider just a few spells cast outside combat (mage armor, some utility), you end up with way less spells then rounds of combat.

I think you need to be around 7th before 1/3 of your actions per day can be spells. At 11th you have 16 slots. If you cast mage armor and two other utility spells you still only have enough slots to cast for half your actions.

So the game design is what pushes using cantrips so much. And why restricting the number of cantrips really hurts characters, especially ones below the teen levels.

"Luckily, they don't"

Yup

My sorc firebolt did dmg ewual on avg to that same sorc stabbibg or throwing dagger - way less than what the fighter with weapons dished out.

Yet my GM saw it as wrong - well - that and practically every other difference between 3e and 5e.

And never neglected to mention them in every session either.

It was strange.

Mepher · Dec 30, 2018

Maxperson said:
So for some reason the wizard isn't putting his highest ability score in INT, but rather is putting it into DEX so that he can fight as well as the fighter with a sword? Why would he do that? It seems to me that putting the highest stat into INT, and making DEX second highest would be better. Doing that means that you won't be hitting(not fighting) with a sword as well as the fighter, though.

And then of course there will be the feats the fighter takes, as well as the fighter abilities. All of which give the fighter better fighting skill with a sword than the wizard would have, even if the wizard did have a DEX that was higher than his INT.

You quoted me but obviously only read what you wanted. I said they put their main stat in Int and Dex, same as older editions. Instead of needing them for learning spells and AC he now needs them for Melee hit, Spell hit and AC. I was merely pointing out that you can't use the STR example of how the fighter gets bigger bonuses when in 5E the wizard can get the exact same bonuses from his STR. I never said they would choose INT over Dex, that would be stupid since they need the INT for saving throws.

Mepher · Dec 30, 2018

5ekyu said:
"Luckily, they don't"

Yup

My sorc firebolt did dmg ewual on avg to that same sorc stabbibg or throwing dagger - way less than what the fighter with weapons dished out.

Yet my GM saw it as wrong - well - that and practically every other difference between 3e and 5e.

And never neglected to mention them in every session either.

It was strange.