D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'd bet you money on it, easily. I'd take your money without a problem. The magic system was a huge point of contention with the new system. You can try to pretend it wasn't, but you would be wrong.

Sure, its easy to offer bets you know you'd never have to pay up on. Nobody is going to 'win' a bet like that, there's no proving such things. Your opinion is
inherently just as likely to be wrong and subjective as anyone else's. So, whatever. I continue to maintain that most people don't have any really strong convictions one way or the other. They play a game based on what other people they are around will play and they enjoy themselves. There's no big 'silent majority' of people that even waste their time thinking about game systems all that critically.

I do have a very good idea that it is true. It's pretty apparent in 5E. If the 4E magic system weren't a huge problem, they would have kept it, right?

There are a million things wrong with that statement. First of all its not just a magic system. Just changing things for nothing else than the sake of change is a perfectly good reason. Nor do I think that its stupid or foolish when you do that go draw heavily on something that was widely accepted in the past. Suppose they just decided "well, we're not going to use the power system for fighters this time around, then immediately you'd find there's MUCH less reason to use it for wizards and/or clerics and/or druids. Its not really rocket science. And just as most people were OK with playing 4e with powers, they're OK with playing 5e with spells, feats, and class features. They just don't care that much, they're really after the overall experience of playing different fantasy characters in roughly the 'D&D genre'. Most of them don't really even get into all the gory details THAT much.

I would say there are bunch of lazy DMs that don't want to learn how to handle the caster-martial disparity.

We will see over time if your DM and yourself as the minority opinion as I believe they are. Caster players that prefer magic be powerful in D&D are the majority. The dollar will tell in time won't it? These little debates are amusing. But economic votes are the strongest. We'll see if WotC wins back the lost caster customers with a magic system that allows caster players the power they crave to feel like a D&D wizard.

Whatever, we're all lazy, that's right. lol. And really, honestly? I don't understand why I should even care about sales figures. Frankly its not all that interesting to me. I don't really think what run-of-the-mill "I play on Saturday and don't crack a book all week" type players care about is actually what drives sales anyway.

You paint it as you wish. You pretend you don't know the problem with 4E. I'll continue to see clearly what 5E changed and know absolutely that the magic system was THE BIGGEST factor in a new edition. They took the 4E magic system and tossed most of it in the trash. You keep on believing 4E wasn't a failure by WotC regardless of the fact that for the first time in the history of D&D, they were unseated as the top dog in the TTRPG market, by their previous game. The D&D team instead of continuing to build on 4E decided to return to older editions for design inspiration. I guess they did that in your mind just because? They completely scrapped the 4E magic system just because? They went back to Vancian magic just because?

Yes yes, you know all. Sheesh.

There's mountains of evidence the 4E casting system was the main element of contention. WotC all but admitted it with their 5E design goals. I wouldn't be surprised if Mearls outright admitted at some point during the data collection process that the 4E magic system was a huge mistake that they worked hard to correct this edition. But I get it, you don't want to believe that and are using the "You don't know argument", when it is clear by the design choices that returning caster power was a huge part of 5E's goal. Not to the insane 3E level, but definitely back to where magic felt like a powerful force that exceeds the capabilities of mundane swingers of weapons.

Well, obviously you're vastly more insightful than the rest of us...

This debate will be decided by economics. I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope you and your group will be playing E6 if you can't DM for the 5E caster-martial disparity, while my group gets to return to the D&D fold with caster power much closer to what it is was prior. We all like magic as an extremely powerful force in the D&D world.

And with that, I bid you good gaming. I know I'm glad to be back in the D&D fold. I missed playing the game with the name I grew up on.

Yeah, well, I'll happily run 100 more 4e games, or my own stuff that is built on it and you can do whatever you want. Thanks for being such a sport, all of you.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well, maybe with the exception that magic is always the best thing to use to set off traps - mage hands and unseen servants are more disposable than hirelings, so if you know something is trapped, often the best approach is just to go at the utmost range of the longest-range spell and blow up your minion.

It's good when traps have side-effects too. "Not only is your invisible servant dead, but the explosion blew a hole in the bulkhead and the room is now underwater." Not all trap consequences should be expressed as HP loss if the trap-setter knows what he is doing. It's not like red-shirts are a new or surprising tactic to a BBEG.

Possible consequences to triggering a trap:

* An obstruction is created (water, stone walls, dropped bridges).
* The enemy is alerted to your presence/reinforcements dispatched (bell is rung).
* A resource is lost (potions of healing get smashed instead of stolen).
* A monster is released (Rancor's cave opens).
* Damage is inflicted on the trap-triggerer or those in the vicinity (Indiana Jones boulder trap).

A key thing you want in a trap is that either it doesn't go off on a false positive, or false positives are tolerable: a trap which rings a bell is a simple, cheap force multiplier and you can afford to have the kobolds trip is accidentally; but a trap which buries the Dark Wizard's research library in rocks and then pours in magma had better not go off unless someone was about to capture the library anyway. That's part of what makes monster traps so good: if a kobold accidentally triggers the rune summoning the pair of Goristros into the wizard's library, they just eat the kobold, no harm done.

Mage Hand won't help much against these kinds of traps.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well I think my point was more worrying about the DC is kind of like putting the cart before the horse. If you want a paragon challenge, you build a paragon-level challenge. Then, by the sheer fact that the challenge you have crafted is designed to feel like something fit for paragon characters to tackle, it will make sense to have a paragon-level DC.

I think that is largely true. At least for me the process is that I probably have various plot hooks, ideas for possible adventures, background that suggests things, etc and after seeing how the players are leaning and which elements can be brought together, I conceive of say a paragon level of presentation of the idea. It may inherently be a paragon concept, or it could be a less specific thing that I then add paragon elements to. I'm not sure if everyone does it that way.

The other thing you can easily extrapolate from that is there is no actual difference between objective and subjective DCs other than the angle at which you look at them. After all, couldn't I say something like this...

"Okay, I want a challenge befit my paragon PCs. Let's go with mountain climbing during a blizzard while an avalanche is happening. That sounds sufficiently over the top for paragon. Okay, what DC would that skill check be..."

From there, I could look at a table, like the one presented by 4e, and find a DC based on what I crafted. OR... if I'm using some other system, I might look up what the DC is for climbing a mountain, DC modifiers for blizzards and avalanches (or similar obstacles) and establish my DC.

At the end of the day, I have a DC that's probably the same and the whole objective/subjective thing is just semantics.

Yeah, maybe. I mean I don't think any of us have a huge bone with any of that. My original contention was only that the subjective DC situation can be easier, as often you find yourself in those situations where you're establishing the fiction and the DCs on the fly, or many times there just really is no clear reason for a DC to be different from 65% success rate or something. I mean how hard is it to convince a king to do something? There's really no objective DC for that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It just felt like this aspect of the game was designed by people who never enjoyed playing a healer in the first place. Why turn healing into a minor action, to trivialize its cost, when they could have just designed the game so it didn't need a healer at all, and left the option for a full action-spending healer that didn't contribute to the damage output of the party? Would that have been so difficult to balance?

The theory was, most people that played a cleric (and by extension other similar leaders) would not want to do nothing but spend their entire turn every turn healing. People that played 3e clerics apparently found this rather boring. So the idea was to allow the healer to deploy 2 heals per encounter. Doing so effectively isn't always trivial BTW. For the rest of his part the healer would then be free to carry out another aspect of the character, attacking for damage, inspiring and directing others, buffing, debuffing, etc.

Obviously this wasn't what you wanted. As for making a character that didn't participate in combat. Its kinda tough. There's only so much healing that you can bring to bear, and what do you have said character do otherwise to pull his weight? You can't really say "oh, if you're a healer you don't count for encounter building purposes" or something, that would just be weird, and create bizarre edge cases and add complexity. The inevitable conclusion was that either you'd have to make it much more critical to get lots of healing, so that said pure healer pulls his weight, or not have pure healers. Option 1 doesn't work because if you NEED that much healing, then the pure healer isn't optional anymore. If you don't, then he's at loose ends and needs some sort of damage dealing or similar shtick on top of healing.

The end result of all that logic was the 4e cleric/bard/warlord/etc. It proved quite robust, but even later when they did add a true healer it proved quite problematic because sure enough Pacifist Cleric was overkill. It really was too much healing and too little oomph. They enjoyed a brief surge of popularity but players quickly found they weren't all that interesting and it was pretty hard to justify a non-combatant running around with a bunch of murder-hobos.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Two thoughts:

1.) The PHB suggests things like an all-fighter party (choose your own background) or an all-entertainer party (choose your own class). The former would be forced to de-emphasize magic solutions and could be a lot of fun as an alternate thing.

Which is great, but then question is, in 5e anyway, what level of difference does this make in the expectations of party capability? Will you also have to run only custom adventures?

2.) Anyone who relies exclusively on Zone of Truth instead of their own brains is going to have a wakeup moment when they finger the wrong traitor because someone they trusted (he passed Zone of Truth!) turns out to have been a Rakshasa who can lie all he wants in a Zone of Truth. Or someone under Glibness, or an Enchanter who modified your memory to think you'd interviewed him in a Zone of Truth, or a Sorcerer who Subtly dispelled your zone of truth during the interview. Or more prosaically, just someone who is really good at evasive answers. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

I don't know, this sounds like special pleading to me. Sure, its possible that now and then you'll go wrong, but the police in the real world work in the same sort of way. They employ investigation techniques that work 97% of the time. The other 3%, well you win some and you lose some, but avoiding the simplest and most straightforward techniques just because they might fail in one corner case just on the whole makes your life a LOT harder than it has to be. And when you only have time to do it one way, you'd be best off to have that Zone of Truth spell ready. I personally find such magic to be an overly pre-packaged solution.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a party that faces a lot of this needs to check their encounter rate. If they're having the 6-8/day, spellcasters might do this for a few challenges, but often have much more vital uses for their spell-slots later in the day.

But this also doesn't seem to be a big thing IMXP. Party scouts are those with good Perception/Stealth. Party "Faces" are those with a high Persuade/Insight. Magic is kind of second-tier - invis and charm are good backups, but their slot-cost and limitations keep them from being the go-to.

Well, maybe with the exception that magic is always the best thing to use to set off traps - mage hands and unseen servants are more disposable than hirelings, so if you know something is trapped, often the best approach is just to go at the utmost range of the longest-range spell and blow up your minion.

These things don't make great scouts, though.

I think what CAN tend to happen though is that magic gets trotted out for the big deal of the day. The thief scouts around, but when you find where the BBEG is and you want to get a guy in close to pull something, you toss an invisibility spell on him because its just that much better, and one level 2 spell slot is worth it when the stakes are high.

So the magic may not get used more than even 30% of the time or less, but its plot impact and its effect on the game world can be disproportionately large.

 

[sunshadow21]

I think what CAN tend to happen though is that magic gets trotted out for the big deal of the day. The thief scouts around, but when you find where the BBEG is and you want to get a guy in close to pull something, you toss an invisibility spell on him because its just that much better, and one level 2 spell slot is worth it when the stakes are high.

So the magic may not get used more than even 30% of the time or less, but its plot impact and its effect on the game world can be disproportionately large.

That's why in my games, getting to the point where you know it's going to have that impact is part of the challenge, and that's where roleplay, skill checks, character backgrounds, and world contacts come into play. The zone of truth is massively effective at getting the confession, but you have to know the right time and place to use it in order for it to work. Invisibility can be a game saver in that key moment, but you have to know it's the key moment. Even divination spells require that you ask the right questions or look in the right place. Spells and magic can be amazingly powerful tactical tools with good party support, whether it be pinning down an enemy in combat or the rogue sneaking off to do some investigating to get that key piece of information, but it takes a really good player to use them as strategic tools.

That was actually my biggest frustration with rituals in 4E; they were nice, but for the majority of them, by the time you realized you needed it, it was too late to cast it, so they really didn't do much to take the place of lost spells. I suspect that 5E has more or less the same issue, being tied to the regular spells like they are. I would have preferred rituals similar to 4E but with longer durations (possibly reducing the overall effects to emphasize the duration aspect) or quick, immediate response type things (like a single action for 1 round of invisibility type of thing) to get yourself out of tight spots. By tying them to spells, it actually removes both of these potentially useful uses, spell design has to really emphasize the big and the flashy, but mostly immediate effects.

The big thing I've noticed with groups that stick to "magic solves everything" is that the DM never introduces consequences for always taking shortcuts. DMs that occasionally do things like using that zone of truth to reveal that what the PCs thought was the truth wasn't, and the actual truth is something that the party could have used to their advantage if they had discovered it quietly, but because of the circumstances required to effectively use the zone of truth, they lost that advantage, and may have even had it turned into a disadvantage, tend to not have major martial/caster disparity issues. Magic can resolve just about any encounter with the right amount of preparation and foreknowledge, but even a small story arc is going to be beyond the range of a single spell if written and ran even half way decently. Multiple spells could resolve a small story arc, but the setup for those spells to work together is almost certainly going to involve nonmagic activity, and magic is no longer automatically the quick and easy shortcut, so there is no reason for casters to automatically dominate anything.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's why in my games, getting to the point where you know it's going to have that impact is part of the challenge, and that's where roleplay, skill checks, character backgrounds, and world contacts come into play. The zone of truth is massively effective at getting the confession, but you have to know the right time and place to use it in order for it to work. Invisibility can be a game saver in that key moment, but you have to know it's the key moment.

So much this. Wish I could give XP multiple times.

 

[Hussar]

That honestly is something that the system will have in it; 4E only seemed to get rid of it because it basically made everyone casters. DMs that let parties abuse magic to that extent will always have that problem. DMs that build worlds and run campaigns where that kind of abuse of magic is not rewarded will always have a much easier time dealing with the differences in the classes. I have seen groups where that disparity is a major problem, and I've seen groups where the players and DMs ran things in a way that it never really came up. Blaming the system is not likely going to get you very far; D&D is what it is, and magic being powerful is part of that. It's up to the DM to control the rarity of it, and therefore the problems it can cause at the table.

No, it really, really isn't. Magic being that powerful was largely a 3e artefact. Basic through 2e, wizards were so limited on the number of spells per day, learning new spells was not automatic, and there just weren't that many spells to be had. Basic/Expert has exactly 12 wizard spells of each level. That's it. Twelve spells. No one ever bitches about wizards or clerics stealing the show. Even AD&D 1e only had a handful of spells.

It was 2e, which combined all arcane spells into one list and all divine spells into another list, that greatly increased caster power, never minding the bajillion splats which just added to the problem. Then you have 3e, where wizards automatically learn spells, scrolls are very cheap, and an even longer spell list made thing much worse. At least 5e has reined in the number of spells on the list, thankfully. And removed a lot of the more problematic spells as well.

But, then again, what's the biggest bitch about GWF/SS feats? Combination with Bless. Take Bless out of the equation and those feats go back to being just nice feats to have.

And, as far as making situational changes, like blowing bulkheads or rakshasa, that's extremely campaign dependent. You're generally not bombing Rakshasa on 5th level parties. How many adventures take place on a boat? And, if you have these incredibly dangerous traps in someone's house, how have they not blown themselves up? Oh, right, more magic.

I am very much not impressed with the return of the Batman Caster where every problem has a magical solution that is just flat out better than the mundane one. Why? Magic! How about we make Mage hand tied to the caster's HP? If mage hand gets destroyed, then your hand hurts for the day and you take disadvantage on all checks until your next long rest. As it stands, using magic is just so safe and so effective that it might as well replace the skill monkeys. My second level druid shape changes into a snake, now I've got blindsight, and as good of a stealth check as the thief. Or near enough. Who's the better scout now?

Because magic is so useful and so safe, it's really hard not to start stepping on everyone's toes.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

And, as far as making situational changes, like blowing bulkheads or rakshasa, that's extremely campaign dependent. You're generally not bombing Rakshasa on 5th level parties. How many adventures take place on a boat?

People who crab about specific examples being "campaign dependent" risk looking like they're arguing just to be difficult. All specific examples are situational. That's what makes it an example and not a paradigm.

Bottom line is that if you're making a trap, you need to consider what your goals are. "Inflict moderate HP damage on whoever triggered it" is a good goal for sadistically punishing casual thieves and impudent servants prying into your private stuff; it's not a great goal for hardening yourself against a minor military expedition like a party of PCs.