People have the strangest deal-breakers

[Wormwood]

4E it got even closer to video game design, complete with the reality-defying "once per encounter" abilities. seriously? how does your body know what constitutes an 'encounter'? you can use it only once a day if you have only one encounter, but if you have ten encounters, suddenly it is available ten times--but never twice in the same fight. huh?

You can use an encounter ability once every five minutes or so. It is taxing and you require rest to recover from using it.

That's it.

 

[Reynard]

You can use an encounter ability once every five minutes or so. It is taxing and you require rest to recover from using it.

That's it.

What if an encounter lasts more than 5 minutes?

/full disclosure: I hate encounter powers with the passion in my cold little heart.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Is any dissent with D&D design decisions allowed without being accused of "not liking D&D" enough to your satisfaction?

Certainly, Mr. Snarkypants!

I'm not a fan of every design decision that was ever made with D&D over the years- including (but not limited to) 1Ed's AC math & different bonuses for the same stat value; different XP charts for different classes; the lack of symmetry between PC class "level" and spell "level" that persisted until 4Ed; "dead" levels- and by and large, the changes that corrected those were clear & logical. I welcomed each of those design changes, and wouldn't want to go back to the way things were before in any of those cases.

I could go on about changes over the years that I not only liked, but cheered. If this were not the case, 1Ed would be my favorite version of the game (instead of 3.5Ed) and I'd probably be posting at Dragonsfoot, not here.

It's only when people get to wanting to change the big stuff (like Vancian casting as a popular example) that really help distinguish D&D from other FRPGs- things that are not usually just mechanics or fluff, but are often a blend of both, that I get puzzled. Not only does swapping other games's mechanics for D&D's detract from D&D's identity, it also smacks of being derivative instead of innovative, and the other games usually do it better anyway.

As for 5th as discussed in this forum, I've seen posters discuss changes I liked and things I absolutely didn't...none of which really matter since so few people are actual insiders to the process of designing the game. I can only hope that more of what i liked makes the final cut.

All together, this makes me take the same position on 5Ed as I did on 4Ed: I'll probably buy the initial core release and decide from that what, if anything, should be added afterwards. For all my gripes about 4Ed, I still sunk hundreds of dollars into purchasing books- and I'm not done yet- because its a good FRPG...but I won't buy 4Ed stuff like I did for previous editions because I don't think it's a good version of D&D.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The only single deal-breaker I have is if the game no longer has the Soul of D&D.

The mechanics can vary quite a bit and in the end I'll probably be OK. Whether I get excited or not will take time. I was excited with 4E when I got to play it initially, but that excitement cooled with exposure, and while it still retained the Soul of D&D I discovered it wasn't my first choice to play -- but that said, I prefer any version of D&D to any game that isn't D&D (and my definition of D&D is pretty broad, and includes Pathfinder, C&C, OSRIC, etc ...).

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

To me, deal-breakers are related to what people expect of the game. I'll use myself as an example: I see lots of role-playing systems as being able to deliver a good experience in terms of fantasy gaming. I once played in a fantasy campaign that used Vampire: The Dark Ages for the basic rules. Personally, I believe Luke Crane's Burning Wheel is able to deliver an experience in fantasy gaming that D&D is not able to replicate. So, why do I play D&D?

- I play D&D to kill beholders who can petrify/disintegrate with an eye ray.
- I play D&D to have some characters that are lawful, some that are good, and some that are necessarily lawful good (yes, I'm talking about paladins here).
- I play D&D to get high elves that are different from gray elves, demons that are different from devils and blue dragons that are different from silver dragons.
- I play D&D for the great wheel cosmology, and I couldn't care less for the fact that the elemental plane of fire is not a good setting for my adventures.

So, all of those things are deal-breakers? Yes, they are, because If I'm going to play a game where silver dragons are evil, blue dragons are good, elemental planes don't exist and gray elves are called eladrin, I may as well simply play a game where becoming more powerful doesn't mean becoming better at melee combat, and being wounded in combat actually means something before you go down below 0 hp.

To some people, D&D is generic fantasy gaming: build the game you want, as long as it has dungeons and dragons in the mix. I'm not one of those, and that's why I have my deal-breakers. I don't want to push WotC in the direction I'd prefer, but I see lots of games with better building blocks for a "build the game you want" model. I like D&D because a specific kind of flavor is supported, and departure from that flavor was one of the main reason I kept away from 4E, and will do the same for 5E if any of my deal-breakers indeed appear broken.

Cheers,

 

[Wormwood]

What if an encounter lasts more than 5 minutes?

You need 5 minutes of rest to recover the power. If an encounter is set up to allow one side to rest for five minutes, then it's not one but two encounters.

/full disclosure: I hate encounter powers with the passion in my cold little heart.

Neat.

 

[Oni]

axiomatic strike (hey i've "learned" how to do extra damage against "chaotic" opponents!)
destructive rage (hey i've "learned" how to increase my strength by 8 on command!)
faster healing (hey i've "learned" how to heal faster!)
greater resiliency (hey i've "learned" how to not take as much damage when hit with things!)
intimidating rage (hey i've "learned" how to yell at an enemy and make them "shaken"!)
weakening touch (hey i've "learned" how to make enemies lose 6 strength by hitting them!)

these are just from the complete warrior book. most books containing feats contain a solid percentage of crap feats that grant quasi-magical abilities that make no intuitive sense in a world where characters (prior to 3.0) always had to pray for or study for spell-casting. the shift from a limited source of "magical" effects to a nearly-limitless variety of powers changed the game from a lower-magic setting to an over-the-top high fantasy cliche, and with 4E it got even closer to video game design, complete with the reality-defying "once per encounter" abilities. seriously? how does your body know what constitutes an 'encounter'? you can use it only once a day if you have only one encounter, but if you have ten encounters, suddenly it is available ten times--but never twice in the same fight. huh?

if they continued this trend, 5E would be nearly guaranteed to have a "save game" and "load game" feature. with feats and skill tricks, the game went from one where the emphasis naturally was on problem solving, role-playing, and imagination to trying to emulate a video game with powers falling off trees every time you turn a corner. with 3.0-4E, dnd became a parody of its earlier incarnations.

For the most part these feats are extensions of the already existing abilities of various classes, I will point out most of them are barbarian or monk feats whose abilities are already pseudo (to not so pseudo) supernatural anyway, but you have robbed them of their context. You've very much misrepresented them. I had thought to do a point by point refutation, but we're already straying into Edition War territory and farther and farther away from the intent of this thread. If your view of these feats is truly that they are some how more remarkable than learning how cast spells then I shall simply have to admit defeat and say you were most correct that you will never be able to make your point with me. My apologies for wasting your time.

 

[delchrys]

Don't get me wrong--loving 3.5 or even 4.0 doesn't make a person "not a true Dnd fan"--I just personally prefer a lower-magic, lower-powered campaign setting that focuses on story over "powers", and earlier editions do that better for me. I feel that 4E makes it harder to make the focus be about the story, but I'm sure others love 4E and make it about the story easily. In the end, we are all fans of Dnd, and that's a unifying thing, not a dividing one

 

[Number48]

Well, it looks like I may have to go back on what I've said before. With the new information out there, it looks like 5E will the game I play. Themes separate choice from class? Check. Skills relevant, but not limiting? Check. From what I've gathered so far, it looks like I might have done it a little differently if I did it myself, but not too differently.

 

[FireLance]

Great post, Oni! I like to say that the worst enemy I often face is the one in the mirror.

Don't you mean the one in the mirror of opposition?