D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[DaveDash]

I don't know if any of you are actually working on Literary Theory (professionally or just Goodreads/ TV Tropes). I do both of them (sorry, but it's in Spanish). I'm not trying to sell you an Authority Fallacy, but the fact is that there is enough evidence to say that world construction (and the rules within) are actually a hell lot of important in order to determine the genre and its narrative conventions (check out also Mendlesohn Rethorics of Fantasy). In this way, "In-world rules" are genre conventions too.
Look at fantasy writers: Tolkien, Martin, Jordan, Bodoc, Gorodischer. They actually work a lot to construct their worlds and their verosimiles, which allow their stories to function in their own genres within a coherent mainframe. A laser gun, or even a Fireball, in A Game of Thrones would break the verosimile and genre conventions, as well as it would modify the narrative structure. So I will say too that the above statement (about narrative vs world) is blatantly false, as is the claim of the obstacles vs narrative consequences. Obstacles are actually a way of constructing narrative tension, and to encourage taking decisions too. They are also the chance to shine of several classes outside combat. In fact, thanks to the direst consequences of fighting in 5 ed (the drainage of resources is severer, and there is a good chance of a fight going bad) the choice becomes more legitimate.

In fact, there is where the DM agency comes around. Does the DM want to encourage problem resolution? Or does he want to encourage bravery and bold action? Or to make significant the skill sets and differences between characters (for example, giving world significance to the fact that the Fighter is stronger than anyone else).

Every approach works perfectly with the worldly DC resolution, which absolutely can escalate. And The 20th level wizard can admire how well the Fighter saves the children from drowning boldly swimming against the flow, with a good or not that good chance of success (depending on the table's interest).

In several ways, magic is never enough to solve every problem partly because the spells don't last forever, and partly because they have a limited application. There is where the skill checks become relevant. And the Bounded Accuracy and Proficiency rules are there too to make the stats very important, on pair with the powerful feats, because a miserable +1 actually is a lot here, not that much the level or the skill points (because they are gone). Being trained or not makes the difference here. Also, it is here where the superior ASI of the fighter means a lot (and hence, the RA ability comes around with a magnificent +2 to non trained skills). DM agency, here, means keeping true to the genre conventions and the "world" conventions. When and how or why make a skill check is up to the DM (and hence, the table, the players).

Being trained or not is relevant narratively (the strong sailor is expected to swim better than the squishy bookworm wizard, no matter the level to make a narration diverse and grounded) and table-wise, and if a non trained but higher level character have the same ammount of success (high, low, whatever) than my well trained, stat strong character, I would be extremely angry, and maybe I'll punch you on the face before leaving. Why do I waste a resource if, in the end, it does not matter, only my level? Where is the difference between playing a magician, a rogue or a fighter, or to train an ability? And narratively, it generates different tension if the bookworm, no matter his lack of training, for pure heroism swim against the flow, whereas the sailor don't dare.

It's funny though because I've noticed a lot in 5e due to bounded accuracy the big Fighters failing to smash down doors and the Bookworm Wizard getting lucky and smashing it down. Not everything is a skill check (athletics, etc), many things are ability checks, and then the difference between a level 20 and level 1 is really only +5 at best.

The DMG even talks about this a bit and offers different ways to deal with it, but those ways also offer unsatisfactory results, as you go from a wildly unpredictable system to one with too much predictability.

That's where 5e starts to unravel a bit.

 

[Erechel]

It's funny though because I've noticed a lot in 5e due to bounded accuracy the big Fighters failing to smash down doors and the Bookworm Wizard getting lucky and smashing it down. Not everything is a skill check (athletics, etc), many things are ability checks, and then the difference between a level 20 and level 1 is really only +5 at best.

The DMG even talks about this a bit and offers different ways to deal with it, but those ways also offer unsatisfactory results, as you go from a wildly unpredictable system to one with too much predictability.

That's where 5e starts to unravel a bit.

False:
a +5 difference is only the difference with a maxed or ignored stat, not a trained one.

Wizard will probably never go for more than a 10 St, and no proficiency at all in Athletics. A Lvl 20 Fighter has probably 20 St (+5), and +3 by RA to this particular problem (smashing a door is not an Athletics check), so in fact, between two untrained people, there is 8 of difference. The difference becomes more apparent when a skill is trained or not: 5+6= 11 (lets say swimming). Eleven points of difference. A 55% more chances. Also, the fighter at this point automaticaly succeed in a DC 12, and has a 10% chance in a Near Impossible task, whereas the untrained wizard has only a 5% to overcome a hard task. And the Rogue with expertise and maxed stat? he has 17 points of difference. He has 15% chance to overcome an Impossible task (such as hide in plain sight).

There is a big difference after all. And the rogue only has too decide two things: trained or not, expert or not.

The point is keeping relevant stats and training.

 

[Celtavian]

It's funny though because I've noticed a lot in 5e due to bounded accuracy the big Fighters failing to smash down doors and the Bookworm Wizard getting lucky and smashing it down. Not everything is a skill check (athletics, etc), many things are ability checks, and then the difference between a level 20 and level 1 is really only +5 at best.

The DMG even talks about this a bit and offers different ways to deal with it, but those ways also offer unsatisfactory results, as you go from a wildly unpredictable system to one with too much predictability.

That's where 5e starts to unravel a bit.

I don't see this as a problem. If the fighter tries and fails, then the wizard tries and succeeds, as a DM you just say, "The fighter left the door in a state where the wizard was able to break it down." You can turn it into a joke.

Whereas in Pathfinder it was assumed that a failure meant the door wasn't damage in any fashion. Whereas in 5E bashing down a door could go like this. Fighter hits it and fails. Second roll he gets advantage or anyone after him gets advantage. Fighter hits it again with advantage. He breaks it down. Even seems more like what would really happen with a door you could actually break down. You could even turn it into a series of checks for a really strong door further making it so the wizard would have a far less chance of breaking it down.

Create an iron door. If you don't have a strength of 20, it is disadvantage to break it down. The door requires a DC 20 Str, DC 15, and DC 10 strength check to break it down. The wizard has little chance of succeeding on such a check. The 20 strength fighter or barbarian has quite a good chance.

5E has me thinking outside the box for how to set up different things in the game. I like how it works. I can change things up rather than using the simple single roll resolution process of Pathfinder where the 4 strength kobold rolling a lucky 20 might break open the door or the 34 str fighter rolling a 1 might not. Instead, I can set it up so the 20 strength fighter can do it far easier than the 8 strength wizard because I don't have to make it a single check to accomplish. I can set up the fiction to ensure that the strong fighter or barbarian have the absolute best chance to succeed.

 

[DaveDash]

False:
a +5 difference is only the difference with a maxed or ignored stat, not a trained one.

Wizard will probably never go for more than a 10 St, and no proficiency at all in Athletics. A Lvl 20 Fighter has probably 20 St (+5), and +3 by RA to this particular problem (smashing a door is not an Athletics check), so in fact, between two untrained people, there is 8 of difference. The difference becomes more apparent when a skill is trained or not: 5+6= 11 (lets say swimming). Eleven points of difference. A 55% more chances. Also, the fighter at this point automaticaly succeed in a DC 12, and has a 10% chance in a Near Impossible task, whereas the untrained wizard has only a 5% to overcome a hard task. And the Rogue with expertise and maxed stat? he has 17 points of difference. He has 15% chance to overcome an Impossible task (such as hide in plain sight).

There is a big difference after all. And the rogue only has too decide two things: trained or not, expert or not.

The point is keeping relevant stats and training.

What are you talking about? I specifically raised ability checks - not skill checks - as a consequence of bounded accuracy leading to some weird circumstances in game. You can spout maths all you want, I don't care, I see this happening more in 5e than previous versions of the game.

Not only that, If I say B, you can't use C as some kind of proof.

The DMG actually goes into detail about this weirdness so even the designers identify it as a potential issue.

 

[Uchawi]

Hiya!

Wow...if this isn't flame-bait, I don't know what is! Sure, I'll through the first match...

I hate trying to answer questions posed by players who just can NOT grasp that "It's vague on purpose, the DM fills in the blanks" is a perfectly viable 'rule'. And then having to answer the same thing in a slightly different manner. Over and over, and over...and OVER...and OVER again. They come into 5e expecting the mechanically tight numbers and rules-system that their previous incarnation had. When they don't find it, they loose their kittens! They scream about "unfinished rules", or "broken mechanics", or supposedly needed "errata" or they can't even play the game. All the while, no matter how many times, or how many different ways we (general we) try and help them by explaining that 5e doesn't roll that way...that the DM in 5e is required to run a smooth game by adjudicating and just making up on the fly...it just doesn't sink in. It's like there's a mental block keeping them from accepting that what the DM says is more important and "correct" than what the rule book says.

That's what I hate about 5e.

Oh, that and that it now constantly fights my brain for being in the top 3 of my all-time favorite RPG's (which was already crowded by me having 4 of them!).

On the flip side, one of the things I LOVE about 5e: that they made both Feats and MulticlassingOPTIONAL. That right there has already saved me (probably) hours of arguing, rule-fiddling, and beating myself up about wanting to nix some, and change others. Not that my players were ever really keen on Feats (we never liked them, really), but anytime we played PF it was one of those things they felt they HAD to put serious effort into multi-level character planning to get some feat chain or something. Multiclassing was much the same. At least now I can say "Don't worry about it...we aren't using them" and nobody feels pressure to choose them or even think about them.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I believe the root of such arguments comes down to the internal consistency of the game, where you may have very detailed spells versus more abstract mundane actions. So the overall level of abstraction/detail of the game varies depending the rule that is being discussed. From my standpoint, the game lacks internal consistency and arguments start to pop up depending on the level of abstraction you prefer.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't look at it in this fashion. The way I see it is a return to the time when you wing it with some loose rules for how to do it. The focus is on the imagination. You make up what you want to do.

For example, a 5E DM could incorporate a 4E skill challenge. He would write out what he wants accomplished like say negotiating with a steward to gain entrance to a castle. He turns it into a skill challenge. You have the rogue make a Deception and Sleight of Hand check to acquire a letter providing information on deliveries to the castle. You could then have the Paladin use persuasion to get the group hired as delivery men to the castle. Then you have the wizard make an intelligence check with a Forgery kit to properly forge the documents for the delivery. You set the DCs according to what you deem each tasks relatively difficulty. Let the players roll, resolve the situation without combat using skill checks. ALl very possible in 5E.

Or you can use DCs if a rogue is climbing a cliff and he is suddenly catches on a series of slippery stones. You have him make Athletics checks to get past the slippery area.

You can use the DC system in whatever fashion suits you. You may wing it at times forcing checks on the fly to create some dramatic tension. You may plan it all out in advance having the skill challenged written out. There are not inherent limitations in 5E that disallow you from using a 4E skill challenge or a 3E DC for acrobatics. I don't understand why anyone believes there is something in place to stop them from doing so. If you want the world to seem static and real, write up a bunch of DCs for common acts. Problem solved. If you don't, then don't. The 5E skill and DC system can be used in a similar fashion to either 3E or 4E. The complaint seems to be "It isn't codified for us like 3E or 4E." It isn't. That doesn't mean you can't use either system or devise one to your liking. There is nothing in 5E to stop you from doing so.

OK, but we are talking about published games and what they do and don't include, not the possibilities of homebrew. I mean we can talk about how good the homebrew might be in each system too, but 4e has skill challenges. 5e doesn't even mention the possibility. You could incorporate the morale rules from Chainmail too, that doesn't mean the game includes them and you can call it a plus.

And we're still left with the point that has been hammered on, maybe too much, that the range, particularly for ability checks is VERY narrow in 5e. Even giving full consideration to Erechel and epic level RA that's only a maximum range of 8 pips on the d20. Yes, that means 40% greater success. However the issue is again more that the range is too limited to allow a lot of differentiation in terms of what is possible for different extremes of character. DaveDash's wizards breaking doors is really a weakness of the system.

And yes, you can simply state that "5e lets the DM just make it up and ignore the check system" but that's again just Oberonni. Just because you can handwave your way past something that rules won't cover doesn't make it any less true that the rules don't cover that thing! I mean all basis for criticism and comparison of game systems entirely disappears the moment the answer is "rules don't matter."

I don't really agree either that you can simply make some minor tweaks to 5e and get the sort of play that works well in 4e. Obviously at some level, if you strip away and rewrite enough of the game you can get there, but you'd have to restructure character progression somewhat, change around resource management significantly, write effectively all new versions of each class, and introduce several subsystems that were left out of 5e. At that point its not really even a 5e compatible game anymore, you should just play 4e! Obviously that's what we do, but that's the whole point of what at least I'm saying about 5e in terms of 'sucks'.

It wouldn't really even address the stylistic issues either. I'd much rather have a rule that says something definite that I can ignore or change. When the author of a game says basically "I'm leaving big parts of this up to you" the message to me is they didn't finish their job. Just as you feel free to add to and change 5e, I feel perfectly comfortable making situational rulings in 4e to accommodate whatever circumstances the game doesn't detail (or ones I think they got wrong, though truthfully there's nothing much in that category).

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

I find it a big plus that the wizard actually has a chance to break down the door, when the party doesn't include a fighter or other STR-based PC.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Why do you believe this to be the case? Why do you believe a 5E DM could not construct a DC system that does what you want it to do? Or determine percentages that create dramatic tension in a non-combat scenario? Why do you believe you can't accomplish exactly the same effect in 5E as 4E? That is what I don't understand. There is nothing that prevents a DM from using the skill system to do exactly what you outlined above. I don't understand why you believe that to be the case.

Well, we're talking about 2 editions of the same game here, so in some sense they're both able to 'do the same thing', so what can be the point of discussion really except which one does certain things better? You guys have spent a huge amount of time trying defend some sort of proposition that 5e 'does it all'. Whenever some limitation or quirk is mentioned the 5e defender corps swings into action and tries to make like it doesn't exist, its unimportant, or "you can just house rule it." This is missing whatever point might exist to this kind of discussion, which is 5e can do X better, but it doesn't do Y as well, or you have to make up entirely new rules for Y, etc. That's a valid point to consider.

So, what I don't understand is why you guys keep trying to say "so what?" to the points made here. They're pretty much all perfectly valid points. That doesn't mean there's some tragic flaw in 5e that makes it a bad game or something. I mean really, be glad people are in such a kind and generous mood because I spent the last 7 years hearing virtually NOTHING but how the game I like literally objectively sucked rocks in hell and was a piece of garbage because of any little thing the poster didn't like. By comparison there's not the slightest need to get defensive about 5e, we all think its a perfectly OK game. It doesn't need a blanket "nothing at all is imperfect here" defense. In fact the thing that always really pissed me off about the execrable quality of the debate about 4e was that you couldn't have a constructive discussion about it at all, anywhere, except in a private chat.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I find it a big plus that the wizard actually has a chance to break down the door, when the party doesn't include a fighter or other STR-based PC.

I can see it both ways. I could easily see, particularly WRT STR, a sort of 'threshold' which says you simply can't break an iron door down with a 12 STR. Now, maybe there's an additional rule that says "well, you can, if you're willing to expend some resource to go into 'superhuman mode'" (IE like the guy that lifted the car off his kid or something, but its not something you do 10% of the time, its something you do once in a lifetime). OTOH if there are things like that which simply cannot be done, then its clear that's the case and the GM needs to build adventures accordingly.

I'm not sure exactly what the ideal is, but I'd think the best overall design is one where all this range of possibilities can be expressed in a fairly succinct way. In 5e, by raw, all characters in a party probably have SOME chance at making all but a very few ability checks, even if they differ a lot in levels. You can't set a DC that gets around that, unless its almost impossible for everyone to do the thing (and lets face it, if its even 50% likely that nobody can force the door, then forcing the door cannot possibly be a mandatory obstacle). At that point you might as well just say "yeah, its impossible for the wizard, but he's got knock."

A wider DC range system would open up the chance to have the low bonus guy simply unable to do something, and the high bonus guy able to do it easily enough that it can be counted on. Then of course its pretty much mandatory that every obstacle have another way around, or there's that "spent a point to do it" kind of mechanic. I think the wider DC range system is a little simpler in principle. It doesn't need ability score minimum cutoffs or something to avoid the problems described above.

Overall it almost seems like maybe there are some abilities/skills that fit better with one model, and others that fit better with the other model. I mean anyone might figure out a puzzle, even if they're 'stupid'. Only a trained person can possibly play a piano concerto, and only a strong enough person can lift a huge weight. Then the question I guess becomes whether its really worth having such a complicated system. Neither 4e nor 5e wanted that, they're both trying to be quick and easy to run at the table. They both largely succeed at that, they each just have slightly different edge cases. I like the wider range system a little better myself.

 

[Ashkelon]

I find it a big plus that the wizard actually has a chance to break down the door, when the party doesn't include a fighter or other STR-based PC.

Cool, so you agree that the fighter doesn't bring anything cool or meaningful to non-combat situations.