D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[AbdulAlhazred]

How about you give us some examples of scenarios with a step by step run through showing us how 4th editions is better?

I think people have already done that, but lets say you have a scenario where a character wants to cross over a chasm of some sort and attack an enemy on the other side. In 4e you could instantly model this on a charge, combine a movement with an MBA, and possibly trigger various other things that come about from charging. In the fiction the character is leaping onto a rope swinging from above and then dropping on his opponent.

The DM consideration will be something like "OK, this is a situational stunt", essentially a 'terrain power' from DMG2 though often it hasn't been formally written up before hand, noting that it COULD have been written up in power format earlier. So, it can be equated roughly to an encounter power. Using the analogy of the charge the DM can ask the player if he is associating a power use with this, or just going for the built-in MBA-type attack. If the player has some specific power to use, then whatever the stunt's effects are would be building on that.

Now, the next question is, what's the DC for this, and what do success and failure represent? The best and simplest approach here is to just proceed with play as if there was no improvisation. That is to say the character can do his normal charge, but consider the swinging on the rope to be a hazard, so give him an Acrobatics check to get it right. The usual consequence being 'knocked prone' for these sorts of terrain (drawing from various examples in the DMG). Suppose the player is expecting to achieve something better than an MBA, this is an 'encounter' level stunt after all! He describes swinging as high as possible and plunging down on his opponent point first. Fine, now we can make it a hard DC check, and give him a restricted damage expression for damage output, and if he fails he slams down into the ground next to his enemy and he's prone AND dazed.

Now, depending on the level of this whole thing you could also add some sort of effect here, a high level fighter coming down like a bolt of thunder from 50' above might stun his opponent if he hits, or do half damage even on a miss.

I could get more specific, but this is all just building on what is presented on Page 42 in a very straightforward way using the procedure there.

LARGELY, you'd do something similar in 5e of course. It just lacks some finer concepts like limited and unlimited damage expressions. Oh, they have a couple of damage expressions, but they seem oriented towards damaging PCs, not PC damage OUTPUT, and the concept doesn't wind its way throughout the system as it does in 4e, where its quite clear that heroic tier powers are 1d/2d/3d with some variation and progression .

 

[Mistwell]

It is kind of sad that people are such fanatics about 5e that they can't take any criticism of the system at all ...

Who could have predicted that going into X fan forum and starting an "X sucks" thread could possibly lead to a thread of heated and rude cheap shots back and forth at each other for many pages?

If this had merely been an "any criticism" thread, you'd have a fair point. But as it started with "your game sucks", it was never an "any criticism" type thread.

 

[Manbearcat]

That is only a piece of what I am referring to... some other sections in the DMG around improv...

Ability Checks (With examples): pg. 237
Difficulty Class (Typical DC's): pg. 238
Improvising Damage: pg.249
Modifying Monsters: pg.273
Creating Quick Monster Stats: pg. 274
Spell Damage: pg. 284
Examples of Wilderness Hazards: pg. 110
Foraging DC's: pg. 111
Wilderness Navigation DC's: pg. 112
Trap Save DC's/Attack Bonuses/Damage severity by level: pg. 121
Sample Traps: pg. 122/123
Tracking Example DC's: pg. 244
Reaction Example DC's: pg. 245
Object Example AC's & Hit points: pg. 246/247
Combat Options: pg. 271

There is probably more but I don't have the time right now to go through the DMG page by page... but in general this is what I am speaking too... IMO, when taken as a whole, 5e has a robust framework for improvisation and quite a few examples.

I didn't mention the Ability Checks and Setting DCs section as that is pretty much fundamental. The traps section and the Improvised Damage section is the foundation for 5e stunting I would think. I'll have to check the Wilderness Hazards section again to see if there is similar support (of the strain I'm thinking of).

How about you give us some examples of scenarios with a step by step run through showing us how 4th editions is better?

I'll do 2 examples tonight in both systems. I already did a few above for 4e.

1) A Wizard doing a stunt with a fire spell.

2) A Fighter pushing over a partially ruined stone wall onto foes.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think people have already done that, but lets say you have a scenario where a character wants to cross over a chasm of some sort and attack an enemy on the other side. In 4e you could instantly model this on a charge, combine a movement with an MBA, and possibly trigger various other things that come about from charging. In the fiction the character is leaping onto a rope swinging from above and then dropping on his opponent.

The DM consideration will be something like "OK, this is a situational stunt", essentially a 'terrain power' from DMG2 though often it hasn't been formally written up before hand, noting that it COULD have been written up in power format earlier. So, it can be equated roughly to an encounter power. Using the analogy of the charge the DM can ask the player if he is associating a power use with this, or just going for the built-in MBA-type attack. If the player has some specific power to use, then whatever the stunt's effects are would be building on that..

How is that easier or "better" than just saying, "OK, that's pretty challenging, so it will be a DC 18. Make the check, and then if you succeed go ahead and make your attack." Sounds like you have to reference several rules in 4e to do that, and in 5e (and AD&D) you don't at all.

 

[spinozajack]

This is clear. Maybe this will explain better. Take this famous scene from Airplane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7fchtEJpy8

It seems by comparison that 4e tells you exactly what that paper is for, and how you can use it. 5e is much more vague. 5e is Johnny. And I have a really hard time buying that you can do more improvisation with this item when you're limited to only using it a few clearly approved ways. Again, I think you're using "improvise" in a much different way than it's defined. Please note I'm not saying 4e is a "worse" game or anything like that. But it's very much focused on different goals. Clarity and clearly defined roles and objectives. That has a lot of benefits. But as a general rule, rigid definitions has never been the best way to support improvisation when compared to general guidelines. Ever take a drama class? Heck, I'm constantly being told that 4e was designed to take away DM fiat compared to other editions; to make every table the same with the same rulings. Rules over rulings is directly at odds with improvisation because the goal is to remove the gray areas.



Are you telling me that you're having even the slightest difficulty in making that determination? If easy is 10, and medium is 15, then something that is moderately easy would be anything in between that. With bounded accuracy, a hard task is hard. PCs, especially when they become heroic levels, can complete "impossible" tasks over anyone else. The difficulty rating is always the same and uses the general population as a baseline. Not having 20 different definitions of what "hard" is for each of the levels is a very good thing because it removes needless clutter and complexity. I don't know about anyone else, but after playing for more than a session, I have a pretty good idea what the chances are for each PC at varying levels for succeeding at various tasks without needing additional rules or guidelines for it. I.e., I know that a high level PC who is proficient at a task will almost always succeed at a medium DC 15 check. Which they should. I shouldn't need extra rules telling me what "medium" means at every level. It's also impossible with 5e, because it's skill driven over level driven. I.e., a PC not proficient doesn't get their prof bonus, so two 15th level PCs would have much different rates of success.

Yep.

Not only that, the very idea of scaling DCs is contrary to the goal of creating the illusion that the world the PCs are in is a living, breathing, believable world with an independent reality. Having a door get harder to break down to match when my character gets a proficiency bonus increase seems like probably the dumbest idea to ever come to RPGs. It's done because it's easy. 5e's approach with bounded accuracy, while not perfect, still makes higher level PCs both hit harder and more often as they gain levels, and the world around them gets easier too. So that means they need to travel to deeper levels of the dungeon to get challenged. Once you pull the veil and see that every thing you encounter is going to be balanced for you to win, but not too easily or too difficult, it allows you to play the game on auto-pilot because, hey, this must be balanced, so I don't need to think before I jump in. Whereas I prefer to let PCs figure out, based on experience, what is a tough fight and whether they should try or come back later or maybe split the enemies up to divide and conquer.

Strict balance on every encounter or challenge, is contrary to the goal of immersion. Not knowing what to expect next keeps players on their toes, and gets them thinking tactically. Because they have to, or they could easily step into a fight they can't win. At least then there is a chance they might realize they need to run or get battered. I want the dice to have a say, but not the only say, about whether players win or lose. I don't want a negative outcome to only come about when a succession of poor dice rolls happens, but when players get too cocky and think they are unstoppable.

If you're not afraid for your characters dying, you're not going to be attached to them, or play them intelligently as if it was you in their shoes. That's a pro-roleplaying argument in favor of removing this idea of "balanced encounters". And it ties directly into the notion of why on earth would anyone do an improvised action? The reason why, is sometimes you have to in order to win. To pull a victory out of the jaws of defeat. That is the heart of D&D to me. Not just the dice rolls, but the idea that players can think outside the box to get an unfair advantage against the enemies, or rather to take an unfair or losing scenario and turn the tables.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is clear. Maybe this will explain better. Take this famous scene from Airplane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7fchtEJpy8

It seems by comparison that 4e tells you exactly what that paper is for, and how you can use it. 5e is much more vague. 5e is Johnny. And I have a really hard time buying that you can do more improvisation with this item when you're limited to only using it a few clearly approved ways. Again, I think you're using "improvise" in a much different way than it's defined. Please note I'm not saying 4e is a "worse" game or anything like that. But it's very much focused on different goals. Clarity and clearly defined roles and objectives. That has a lot of benefits. But as a general rule, rigid definitions has never been the best way to support improvisation when compared to general guidelines. Ever take a drama class? Heck, I'm constantly being told that 4e was designed to take away DM fiat compared to other editions; to make every table the same with the same rulings. Rules over rulings is directly at odds with improvisation because the goal is to remove the gray areas.

You are mischaracterizing 4e as if all you can do is some rigid thing. Its exactly the opposite, its giving you loads of advice and help by example, and then you go and play with your paper airplane and make whatever you want. Rulings SUCK because I don't know what they are until I get to each table. I don't DO crazy things because who knows what happens if you do? You stick to the things you KNOW work, because they're in the book.

Are you telling me that you're having even the slightest difficulty in making that determination? If easy is 10, and medium is 15, then something that is moderately easy would be anything in between that.

This is bass-ackwards. I don't sit down and take a DC and figure out the words for it. I sit down and say "I want to make this task pretty simple for the PCs" and then I have 'Very Easy' and 'Easy' to choose from, which one is appropriate? Its splitting hairs.

With bounded accuracy, a hard task is hard. PCs, especially when they become heroic levels, can complete "impossible" tasks over anyone else. The difficulty rating is always the same and uses the general population as a baseline. Not having 20 different definitions of what "hard" is for each of the levels is a very good thing because it removes needless clutter and complexity.

Huh? There IS no absolute definition of what is 'hard'. For a level 20 PC the 5e hard DCs are cheese, you aren't even give a tool to challenge them. In 4e 'hard' means something. It means that at the level this challenge is designed for, the level of the DC, the check will be hard to accomplish for an average PC. I could give a piss about the 'general population', I'm not running 500 peasants through my dungeon, I'm running the PCs through it.

I don't know about anyone else, but after playing for more than a session, I have a pretty good idea what the chances are for each PC at varying levels for succeeding at various tasks without needing additional rules or guidelines for it. I.e., I know that a high level PC who is proficient at a task will almost always succeed at a medium DC 15 check. Which they should. I shouldn't need extra rules telling me what "medium" means at every level. It's also impossible with 5e, because it's skill driven over level driven. I.e., a PC not proficient doesn't get their prof bonus, so two 15th level PCs would have much different rates of success.

2 different 4e PCs will also have vary different rates of success, but a level 15 Medium DC tells me a HUGE amount. It tells me that this is a challenge for a level 15 PC, and that it will be a success about 2/3 of the time for a character who is either trained or has a high attribute bonus, but not both. By level 15 he will probably also have had to acquire SOME sort of additional skill bonus in the given skill to still have exactly the same chance as at level 1 vs a level 1 Medium DC, but not a ton. It could easily be just some side benefit of an item or feat. A really focused PC OTOH will succeed about 90% of the time on this Medium DC, that would be a guy that has training, AND a high ability score, and has spent a bit of resources on this skill.

The beauty of this is, I can tell what the designer of any item, adventure, etc intended just by knowing that phrase 'level 15 medium DC ability check'. By contrast 'Difficult DC check' in 5e leaves me entirely at sea. Was this supposed to be something that a level 5 PC was supposed to be stumped by, or something a level 15 PC was supposed to find slightly challenging? I just don't know.

 

[Imaro]

But that's just the point. You have no way of knowing what the DC of a lock should be that is locking Vecna's Vault of Secrets vs one that is locking the Village Bank in 5e. And even the highest DC listed won't suffice to make this difficult for the highest level PCs who are good at lock picking.

Wait, maybe I'm not following here...I'm the DM the DC of a lock that is locking Vecna's Vault of Secrets is whatever I want it to be... or are you saying the rules should tell me what it is? Or are you speaking to examples... because I listed various places where 5e gives you examples of DC's...the average lock is a DC 15, you use that as a baseline and decide. We do seem to have different priorities... I am not looking to artificially make the lock difficult for the highest level PC... if he's good enough to pick what I set it at, based on the world I've built, then he does, and he deserves too...

So let's take a PC rogue at 12th level (because that's where most games end) with 18 Dex and Thieve's tools proficiency...and expertise +4 attribute/+8 proficiency(expertise)... now this is a thief at his practical peak in the world so +12 vs. DC 20... he can still fail roughly 35% of the time...IMO, for someone not looking for the hassle of consulting charts and looking up examples, that seems like a pretty good hard DC... that's about right for someone whose at their peak in the fantasy genre...If not what would you consider challenging? Of course if I want to get more granular and I am really pitting a 12th level Rogue against the god of secrets locks, I'm probably going to make it a nearly impossible task... DC 30

At least in 4e I know that a level 30 difficult lock is what I should use, and what its DC is. Beyond that I know I should be using an SC, and that's a whole other gaping hole in 5e's mechanics. Oddly it uses a limited list skill system, like 4e's, but the designers failed to appreciate the role that the SC plays in that kind of system.

How do you know you should use a level 30 difficulty lock? Eh, why would picking a lock require a SC??

Personally I wasn't fond of SC's so that was definitely not a loss for me personally... and I'm fine with using the DMG's loose guidelines for awarding experience for non-combat accomplishments... but hey apparently they worked for you so I can understand you missing them. Maybe the designers realized many people just didn't like SC's and that they were awkward to run in official games and insert into published adventures in a manner that didn't feel artificial to many.

As for this whole 'scaling' thing, this is simply not really true. In the PHB/DMG rules there is no hint of any scaling of anything at all. All that is stated is that the DM should scale the challenges (IE provide fiction which is objectivized into rules that give higher DCs for higher level characters to face). They use examples like doors to illustrate this.

So the given advice is to scale difficulties... how does that not align with what I said?

Later on, in the RC, some wag stuck in some 'scaling phrases' that apply for a few specific uses of certain skills. The idea was obviously to make things like in-combat Heal checks for challenging for high-level PCs (the PHB gives a set of DCs for these that are roughly appropriate for level 1 PCs, and become fairly trivial by level 10). While it was a nice thought in some sense it doesn't really represent a generalized rule. A lock that was DC10 at level 1 isn't mysteriously now DC20 at level 10. Its just that if you run into a lock in a level 10 adventure, its going to be a much tougher lock, generally speaking, and thus be DC20. If you really wanted to, you could put level 1 locks in your level 10 dungeon, but why bother?

And more support for exactly what I stated... the implicit or explicit default is geared towards scaling threats... while in a my games you don't suddenly only run into godlocks at a certain level... I actually tink bounded accuracy has helped me with this.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but tool proficiencies, for instance, make 5e's skill (proficiencies that apply to ability checks) system technically open-ended rather than limited-list. FWIW.

Yeah, I was avoiding that whole discussion. I think in all fairness 5e's skill system is a bit schizoid, they made a short list of skills, AND an unlimited list of skills, and called them different things. If you dislike the later you can stick with the former, except then they left out some critical skills from the short list, so its a bit messy (Thievery mainly). Its worth noting that in our game we rewrote the skill list and discarded 'tools' as a separate category. The few critical tools were just promoted to skills, and the rest were pretty much color anyway, so they just exist as "yeah, and I can chip stone!" kinds of things that were background in 4e.

It might have made more sense for the heal check to scale with the level of the enemy that dropped the PC than with the level of the PC making the check. Similar scaling was done with Aid Another, based on the level of the character being assisted, which does make some sense (you have to be remotely 'in their league' to lend a hand with a skill check - as opposed to 'helping' in some more bonehead sense, like holding a lantern).

Right, the rule for AA made sense. It ALMOST makes sense for Heal as well, given that the nastiness of the wounds is likely to be proportionate with level, but it comes across a bit weird. Honestly, I saw the scaling RC check thing as mostly laziness. The devs didn't have a lot of page space in Essentials, and they wanted to convey that 'stuff should get harder'. A very simple way to do that is to just say "scale all your DCs no matter what". In practice this won't create a problem.

You might bother with that just to highlight that the PCs are advancing. You also might not bother calling for the auto-success roll, something 5e builds into it's core resolution mechanics. You may not have solid numbers saying that a given lock has a specific DC and comparing it to the Rogue's rapidly scaling Thievery Skill, but you can just have the DM decide no roll is required for the Expert Thief to open the lock he deems relatively 'easy.'

Right, and continuing what I was saying above, you won't normally run into a problem by just scaling DCs. If the PCs go back to the village and break into the Mayor's level 1 safe, then just give it to them, its not a challenge anymore at all for them. This goes along with the concept of 'minionizing'. Also you can 'minionize' challenges. What was a tough SC at level 1, breaking into the Mayor's office and stealing his papers, is now just a single routine Easy DC check for the level 10 thief. Its possible he can fail, some complication comes up, but its not likely. Everything still scales, you always use the level DCs for your level, but the rules representation and process changes to reflect the lesser importance of such minor details to high level PCs.

I'd also note that 4e has take 10, a sort of 'take 20', and that there is no auto-fail on skills in 4e. If you have a skill bonus 20 higher than the DC, you ALWAYS succeed, if you have one 10 higher you can always succeed with care outside a dangerous situation. With limitless time and no consequences you can always succeed if a 20 will grant success.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You are mischaracterizing 4e as if all you can do is some rigid thing. Its exactly the opposite, its giving you loads of advice and help by example, and then you go and play with your paper airplane and make whatever you want. Rulings SUCK because I don't know what they are until I get to each table. I don't DO crazy things because who knows what happens if you do? You stick to the things you KNOW work, because they're in the book.

I get that you think rulings over rules suck. I'm not questioning that. But it is objectively true that the more freedom you are given (less defined rules as how you MUST do something), the more options you have. This isn't a question about which is better, which you seem to keep trying to preach, because that's subjective. If given two choices:

1. If you want to do something, follow step 1, then step 2, then step 3
2. If you want to do something, figure out how you want to do it to your full imagination

#2 is always going to allow more options of improvisation. Whether you prefer it or not doesn't matter. The more rules you have limiting you, the more limited you are in options. THis isn't even up for debate.

*Edit* Also, you might only stick to things written on your character sheet or in a book, but I'm here to tell you most other people don't. Especially in more rules-lite systems like B/X or 5e. The tagline for D&D for decades was "products of your Imagination", not "Products of what the rules say." To be honest, I can't even fathom playing an RPG where I was only allowed to perform actions that had a rule for them clearly written down. Screw that noise. Playing rpgs is pretend. Don't shackle my imagination please. Even if I fail, at least I had the option.

This is bass-ackwards. I don't sit down and take a DC and figure out the words for it. I sit down and say "I want to make this task pretty simple for the PCs" and then I have 'Very Easy' and 'Easy' to choose from, which one is appropriate? Its splitting hairs.


Huh? There IS no absolute definition of what is 'hard'. For a level 20 PC the 5e hard DCs are cheese, you aren't even give a tool to challenge them. In 4e 'hard' means something. It means that at the level this challenge is designed for, the level of the DC, the check will be hard to accomplish for an average PC. I could give a piss about the 'general population', I'm not running 500 peasants through my dungeon, I'm running the PCs through it.

I don't think you read what I wrote. "Hard" means something in 5e too. Bounded accuracy is important, and you keep ignoring it. In 5e, a 15th level PC can't even succeed at a very hard (DC25) task they aren't proficient in unless they have a max ability score or some other outside influence. Whereas the same PC who is proficient in that task and also had a max ability score only needs a 15 or higher. 30% chance of success vs. 5%. That's a huge difference even with two PCs at the same level. I'm not sure how I can explain this. In 5e with bounded accuracy, you cannot assign a definition of what is easy/medium/hard by level of the PCs because two level 15 PCs can have a wildly different chance of success at a task depending on whether or not they are proficient in it.

So yeah, there is an absolute definition of what "hard' is. It's even right there in the book. In 5e, proficiency is the key, not level. With two equal level PCs, what's extremely hard for one is only moderately hard for another. That's why you can't have defined rules for what "hard" is that changes depending on what level the PCs are. The difficulty of the task stays the same, like hitting a target at 100m away. The most skilled someone is, it doesn't change the difficulty of the task overall, it just means they are better at it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Let me use this example. You've got 2 15th level PCs, both trying to do an Adele cover. The solo is very hard (DC 25). One is a musician proficient in singing, and has a high CHA to reflect that career path. The other is a pro basketball player who has his highest abilities in DEX, CON, and STR. No bonus in CHA at all, and not prof with singing.

It seems to me that your arguing that 4e is better because at 15th level, you'd know what DC to set as "hard" for PCs in general at that level. How would you do that here? The first PC has a +10 bonus overall, and the second has +0. How would you set a "hard" DC for 15th level PCs in this case? One will succeed half the time, and the other has no chance at all.