D&D 5E Silly/Senseless Rules You Have Found

[Lerysh]

I don't see how this is any different. Other than creating 2 buckets when 1 would have been fine.

Skills
Stealth
Perception
Acrobatics
Tools
Lock picks
Healing kit

Skills
Stealth
Perception
Acrobatics
Lock picking
Healing

Healing Kit is not a Tool. I am going to repeat this over and over in this thread (apparently) to emphasize this point.

Also, Thieves Tools covers more than Open Lock. It's also Disable Device. Basically they wanted to cram all thief skills into one thing, especially with limited proficiency choices.

Another big difference between Tools and Skills: Anyone can learn to use a tool with 250 days of downtime practice (Page 187 PHB). You can collect tool proficiency in many different sets if that's what you want to do, and your adventuring career spans multiple years. They are 2 buckets for reasons, maybe not good ones, but they are in fact different.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I don't see how this is any different. Other than creating 2 buckets when 1 would have been fine.

Skills
Stealth
Perception
Acrobatics
Tools
Lock picks
Healing kit

Skills
Stealth
Perception
Acrobatics
Lock picking
Healing

Except in reality what you would have is one of two things: A blank list like in 3.5

Skills
Perception
Acrobatics
Tools: ____________
_________________
__________________
__________________
Lock picking
Healing kit (not sure why this is here anyway, did you mash it with medicine?)

This is cumbersome, and takes up space that isn't needed on the character sheet. The other way would be to just list each one individually, but again, that takes up unneeded space and crowds up the skills.
Tools and skills are separated for one simple reason that I've stated before and Tormyr stated above me: tools require something, skills do not. All of the tools require you to have a specific device or object to work. You cannot pick a lock without Thieves tools. Period. Skills are something that absolutely everyone can do with varying degrees of success. Anyone can try to climb a wall or try to be sneaky, or try to remember the location of something. That's why they are bundled together and tools are not. This is why I think the proficiency system is so elegantly designed. You can simply have a section at the end where all of your proficiency's go, and each character can list which ones they have and which ones they don't. The reason they don't do that with skills as well is because of the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy.

My basic answer is that DEX penalties should not disappear when you put on Heavy Armor.

Secondarily, from a game design standpoint armor should not limit DEX in my mind. What should limit it is encumbrance. Armor limiting is just short cut to the actual burden which is you overall encumbrance.

Well, yeah, 90% of things in D&D are just short cuts to actual things. If they went through and outlined every single nitty gritty little detail, sure, some people might like it, but the vast, vast majority would find it too cumbersome to work with. If you want, you can just say heavy armor encumbers you more and be done with it if it bothers you.

What my proposal was in the playtest was your Casting Stat in times per day. That may be ludicrous to you but it is very workable for me. You also happen to not have a cantrip blast things indefinitely (castle walls, dungeon doors etc.)

Except when they play tested, most people enjoyed having an attack cantrip that they could use all the time. It hearkens back to the 3.5 and older days, where a wizard at level 1 takes just a few rounds to run out of spells and is forced to twiddle his thumbs or take pot shots with a cross bow. Endless cantrips make the wizards still feel like wizards even in normal combat, and lets them be viable all the time. I see no problem with that at all.

 

[Sadrik]

Healing Kit is not a Tool. Thieves Tools covers more than Open Lock.

Did not have book with me and just made up two skill/tool things. My concept is valid.

Another big difference between Tools and Skills: Anyone can learn to use a tool with 250 days of downtime practice (Page 187 PHB). You can collect tool proficiency in many different sets if that's what you want to do, and your adventuring career spans multiple years.

This appears to be the only thing to set them apart. You can gain tool use through narrative training rather than through level advancement.

They are 2 buckets for reasons, maybe not good ones, but they are in fact different.

I agree it does appear to be largely arbitrary. To me adding the narrative tool training ability to skills would not be bad too. Narrative language training would be good too.

For me, I would have weighed two subsystems against one subsystem and would have erred on the side of one subsystem and then potentially added on additional variants to the one subsystem to make it more complex and add little twists like narrative training.

 

[Sadrik]

Except in reality what you would have is one of two things: A blank list like in 3.5

Skills
Perception
Acrobatics
Tools: ____________
_________________
__________________
__________________
Lock picking
Healing kit (not sure why this is here anyway, did you mash it with medicine?)

This is cumbersome, and takes up space that isn't needed on the character sheet. The other way would be to just list each one individually, but again, that takes up unneeded space and crowds up the skills.
Tools and skills are separated for one simple reason that I've stated before and Tormyr stated above me: tools require something, skills do not. All of the tools require you to have a specific device or object to work. You cannot pick a lock without Thieves tools. Period. Skills are something that absolutely everyone can do with varying degrees of success. Anyone can try to climb a wall or try to be sneaky, or try to remember the location of something. That's why they are bundled together and tools are not. This is why I think the proficiency system is so elegantly designed. You can simply have a section at the end where all of your proficiency's go, and each character can list which ones they have and which ones they don't. The reason they don't do that with skills as well is because of the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy.

Again I fail to see how this is any different in either scenario. (I will keep Medicine/healing kit for consistency realizing this is imprecise)

Skills
Perception
Acrobatics
Tools: ____________
_________________
__________________
__________________
Lock picking
Medicine

Skills
Perception
Acrobatics

Tools
Lock Picks
Healing Kit
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________

Except when they play tested, most people enjoyed having an attack cantrip that they could use all the time. It hearkens back to the 3.5 and older days, where a wizard at level 1 takes just a few rounds to run out of spells and is forced to twiddle his thumbs or take pot shots with a cross bow. Endless cantrips make the wizards still feel like wizards even in normal combat, and lets them be viable all the time. I see no problem with that at all.

I do see a problem. Also, in those old days (3.5 and earlier), you had many options to avoid this. The primary avoider was wands. You routinely acquired a wand (or staff) which would give you up to 100 charges in a wand (in 1e and 2e) you could Magic missile 3 missiles every round for quite some time. In 3e you had wands and staffs too. There was no shortage of blasting all the time. The thing with this and where I see one of the issues is they took the wands and made them a class feature. They did not do this with swords and armors for warrior types. Score for casters? Nope. It adds a subsystem to the game where one subsystem (spells) would have been fine without two (Spells and cantrips).

 

[SilverfireSage]

Again I fail to see how this is any different in either scenario. (I will keep Medicine/healing kit for consistency realizing this is imprecise)

Skills
Perception
Acrobatics
Tools: ____________
_________________
__________________
__________________
Lock picking
Medicine

Skills
Perception
Acrobatics

Tools
Lock Picks
Healing Kit
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________

Except that isn't how it works. Instead of tools with two arbitrary tools filled out, you have a flat "proficiencies" where everything that doesn't fit with skills and requires a particular object to use is put. For instance, a rogue might have light armor, simple weapons (along with daggers, etc), thieves tools and disguise kits in their proficiencies. A fighter would have all armor and weapons, and potentially some role playing proficiency like Herbalism Kit or something. Could a fighter have the same things? Yes, but likely not, and there's no point in putting in a "locking picking" skill when the fighter can't even do it at all in the first place.

I do see a problem. Also, in those old days (3.5 and earlier), you had many options to avoid this. The primary avoider was wands. You routinely acquired a wand (or staff) which would give you up to 100 charges in a wand (in 1e and 2e) you could Magic missile 3 missiles every round for quite some time. In 3e you had wands and staffs too. There was no shortage of blasting all the time. The thing with this and where I see one of the issues is they took the wands and made them a class feature. They did not do this with swords and armors for warrior types. Score for casters? Nope. It adds a subsystem to the game where one subsystem (spells) would have been fine without two (Spells and cantrips).

and at that point, how are wands not a subsystem in themselves? You now not only have the same basic effect (a nearly limitless supply of attacks) but it's actually limited by having only 100 charges that you have to keep track of. You could just as easily say they took a class feature of wizards (spells) and made them into wands. Wands themselves are a horrifically broken item in those editions, and many are glad to see them gone. Which is a different topic entirely.

 

[Lerysh]

Did not have book with me and just made up two skill/tool things. My concept is valid.


This appears to be the only thing to set them apart. You can gain tool use through narrative training rather than through level advancement.


I agree it does appear to be largely arbitrary. To me adding the narrative tool training ability to skills would not be bad too. Narrative language training would be good too.

For me, I would have weighed two subsystems against one subsystem and would have erred on the side of one subsystem and then potentially added on additional variants to the one subsystem to make it more complex and add little twists like narrative training.

There is also the "you must have the tool to make a tool related check" thing, as mentioned by Tormyr and SilverfireSage. You can not make a Charisma (Lute) Roll without actually having a Lute.

 

[Sadrik]

Except that isn't how it works. Instead of tools with two arbitrary tools filled out, you have a flat "proficiencies" where everything that doesn't fit with skills and requires a particular object to use is put. For instance, a rogue might have light armor, simple weapons (along with daggers, etc), thieves tools and disguise kits in their proficiencies. A fighter would have all armor and weapons, and potentially some role playing proficiency like Herbalism Kit or something. Could a fighter have the same things? Yes, but likely not, and there's no point in putting in a "locking picking" skill when the fighter can't even do it at all in the first place.

Ok taking this back to the original question. I think this is a distinction that could be confusing to newer players. They use the same rules as skills but are instead tools and then tack on the narrative tool training to them. I think this is a silly/senseless rule. Feel free to disagree. I don't mind.

and at that point, how are wands not a subsystem in themselves? You now not only have the same basic effect (a nearly limitless supply of attacks) but it's actually limited by having only 100 charges that you have to keep track of. You could just as easily say they took a class feature of wizards (spells) and made them into wands. Wands themselves are a horrifically broken item in those editions, and many are glad to see them gone. Which is a different topic entirely.

Cantrips are a tweak that I did not like. It is actually one of the biggest flavor changes from previous editions. 5e feels like older editions except for cantrips. Spamming blasts was not a feature of low level casters. It happened later on with wands, like I said. Were wands over powered, I have made that case before. Trickily, are cantrips overpowered for you... hmm, you seem to think so.

So you don't think I am side stepping your wand subsystem remark. Spells will be put into magic items. Yes a subsystem but no it does not impact the validity of if the cantrip subsystem is warranted or not.

 

[Sadrik]

There is also the "you must have the tool to make a tool related check" thing, as mentioned by Tormyr and SilverfireSage. You can not make a Charisma (Lute) Roll without actually having a Lute.

So with your "tool: lute" proficiency when the DM says you need to judge between two lutes to find the better one. What do you do? My point here is, there are probably many uses of a tool where not actually having the tool in hand could be a thing a DM could make a call for. Treating them as tools you either have to overlap with skills or you simply have those potential rolls vanish or perhaps get rolled into just a stat check. Breaking them up seems to cause more rules to appear when less is usually better.

 

[SilverfireSage]

We'll simply have to agree to disagree on this one, which I'm totally fine with. It's funny though that you would say that about the newer players having a harder time. I've actually found that the newer players read through the whole book and have an easy time grasping that, while the players I have that have been playing pathfinder for a while got stuck on it. Something to note.

 

[diaglo]

1. naming your character. why do you need to give the character a name? does it mean so much that the character can't just be the player's name. example: Melf casts fireball vs. Luke casts fireball. we (all the people at the table) are thinking the same thing. it is Luke's turn to act.

2. pick a race. why? do you really think you know what it means to be a dwarf or elf in a world where real evil monsters want to eat or enslave or torture or just kill you for your race? do you have to play a halfling to know what it means to be looked down upon as a thieving race or a dwarf to be constantly drunk or elf to be stuck up or half orc to be rude?

3. pick a class. can't any class be a hero? don't they all have it in them? why do i have to limit my imagination?