5e combat system too simple / boring?

[Greg Benage]

Grumpy grognardic, possibly incoherent rant incoming...

After a year and a half, for my preferences, I'm beginning to think the game rules are too complex and too boring (<-- see "for my preferences" back over there). Compared to editions I came up with, the PCs are buffed to 11 and the monsters are nerfed. Encounters often feel like, "Roll initiative and then apply your character build to whatever page of the Monster Manual we're on." We can play "theater of the mind" just fine, because ranged attackers always have a feat to take care of range and cover. Who cares where anything is? None of it matters. Are you in melee or not? That's all that matters. Wait...with Crossbow Expert, even that doesn't matter. When it's your turn in the initiative order, apply your character sheet. Then it's the next guy's turn.

For me, I increasingly feel like the emphasis has shifted from skilled play to character optimization. I increasingly despise feats. In practice, with the feats players actually choose, they don't enrich or expand a character concept -- they simply apply a specialized mechanical benefit. You take Polearm Master not so that you can use a polearm, but so you become twice as effective with a polearm as any other weapon. Actually, the Weapon Master feat that actually could expand a character concept...LOL at the idea of anyone ever taking it! So much for the days when fighters were weapon masters who could always use the right tool for the job, based on player skill and the tactical situation in actual play. "Uh, I've got Great Weapon Fighting Style, Great Weapon Master, and Polearm Master. What the f--- am I going to do with sword-and-shield or a bow? There's a flying creature? Someone better cast fly on me otherwise the DM is 'punishing' my build."

So yeah, it can get boring. Everyone is hyperspecialized, the monsters no longer have any game-changing abilities to fear, so exploration, recon, information-gathering, dungeon diplomacy and all the rest of it are simply replaced by everyone taking turns executing their specialized mechanical operations.

I'm playing a fighter in a B/X game. I have Str 16 and Dex 13. I carry a spear and use it from the second rank or throw when I engage, then go sword-and-board. I do 1d6+2 with the spear, 1d8+2 with the sword, and 1d6 with the bow (and that's only because we're using the optional variable weapon damage rules). Wizards are powerful, but they need me to keep them alive. Hit points are low and you're dead if they touch 0. Save-or-die effects abound. Tactics matter. Morale matters. Knowing what you're getting into before initiative is rolled matters. The game rules are stupid simple. Kobolds are tough in packs because the DM plays them as intelligent humanoids that use tactics. They don't have a "pack tactics" special ability in their stat block. 5e turns the "tactics" into yet another mechanical operation to execute. Actually, it's really amazing how WotC has made the monsters both more complex and less interesting. Quite an accomplishment!

And that's my assessment of the game as a whole. Too complex, too boring -- for me. I get that many, many players really love character building and optimization, and for them executing those mechanical operations is great fun. Some want even more mechanical operations to build, combinate and execute. I've got no problem with that -- people playing games and having fun makes me happy. I, personally, just find that I'm having less fun with 5e, compared to classic editions, and (at least one of the reasons is the opposite of the thread title: Too complex, too boring.

 

[Celtavian]

*ahem*

I spent a good 3-4 years doing that. From late-BC to late-Cata. Good to know those years I spent and friends I made were non-existent!

Or, less flippantly: What you say never existed did, in fact, exist. I spent more time roleplaying (and writing for) WoW than I've spent on any tabletop roleplaying game, with a far greater number of people too. You didn't engage with it; that's fine. But it DID exist--and, I'm sure, it still exists now.

And I'm with Azurewraith here. "Casters and caddies" is @#$%ing bull&+!*. That I (or anyone) should have a dramatically more limited set of tools, simply because this time, I choose to play a gritty mercenary or retired gladiator instead of an academic in a dress, is stupid. If I am meant to be an equal participant--and all players should be equal participants--then I bloody well better be equipped to participate equally! Equal participation, of course, does not and should not be taken to mean uniform participation. I can engage the world with an equally powerful/broad/enabling set of tools, without using the exact same tools. And if both of us have "the power of imagination" in our back pocket--so what? That just means it's something we can assume is present--indeed, uniform--on both sides, and move on to the places where the sides are non-uniform but still equal.

Did you really role-play? Did you? The raid bosses you talked to responded to you? As did the shopkeepers and orc chieftains and the random wandering creatures? They responded to your attempts to role-play? You mean I was missing out when I was reading quest text and I could have talked to them like I do in pen and paper D&D? Or do you mean you were talking with other players? Making friends and conversing with other players is not role-playing. Who gives a crap if you spoke with the other player "in character." The world itself does not allow role-playing. You can't interact with the creatures in ways other than the set parameters of the game. You don't get to negotiate with the Lich King or the dragons in the world.

Sorry, there was no role-playing in WoW. At least not what I consider role-playing. The world was a preset, preprogrammed world that responded the same way every time. That is why raid and play strategies were a matter of rote memory rather than creative play. There is no getting around it even if you and your buddies were talking "in character" among yourselves. It had no effect on the reactions of the game world.

 

[Celtavian]

Rp in WoW was a thing had to know where to look. It wasn't standard but it was there if you found the correct server/guild.

It was non-existent due to the limitations of the surrounding world. I do not consider talking with other characters in character role-playing. The world must respond to the role-playing or its very one-sided and impotent.

I played Everquest and WoW for years. It's how I learned how unsatisfying both games are when it comes to role-playing. I knew plenty of folks that tried to talk in character. It did nothing to affect the world and was completely pointless in the game. Raiding and instancing was a repetitive act meant to accumulate for more advanced raiding and instancing. The entire game is repetitive and doesn't come close to a well done role-playing experience.

 

[Celtavian]

Roleplaying games are not stories. Stories have pre-defined narratives which exist to satisfy only an audience, not the participants of the story itself. So let us just say that I for one reject your definition of "true" roleplaying games.

I care not that you reject it. I play this game to participate in a fantasy story. If you play it for some other reason, so be it.

My audience is the players. I build my game to satisfy them. Writers that write stories often see the reader as a participant in the story. All the writing tricks writers use are intended to draw the reader in as though they were there with the character. Sure, a reader knows they aren't really there logically. But when writing is done well, you feel invested in the story and drawn into the characters and actions occurring, often empathizing with or analyzing the story as though you are there watching the events.

The difference with a role-playing game is you happen to be one of the characters in the story. Your direct actions drive the story along as the writer puts characters, events, and setting about you and lets you attempt to build your character through his interactions with his surroundings.

Edit:
I suppose you could also say there are improv make-it-up-as-you-go-along types of stories. Which is fair, but even there you usually don't have one participant who gets to add more and better parts to the story than others just because he wrote "wizard" on his name badge.

Because a player is given a character to write hardly means it isn't a story. Knowing the outcome of a story makes that story quite boring. Even writers often like to let the characters lead them somewhere they may not be aware prior to the character's arrival.

Edit2:
Actually let's take this one step further. What do we all mean when we talk about "balance"? I'm copy-pasting this from elsewhere, but there's several different kinds.

Numerical Balance: Ensuring that most characters' raw numeric outputs (bonuses, damage, etc.) are roughly on par when averaged out over a range of typical gameplay scenarios.
Narrative Balance: Ensuring that all player characters' abilities are roughly equal in narrative scope (as distinct from being equal in mechanical scope).
Spotlight Balance: Furnishing mechanical incentives for all player characters to receive approximately equal "screen time".
Contributory Balance: Structuring the game's major player character archetypes so that, for a given set of assumptions about the shape of play, each archetype is equally able to contribute to the group's success.
Build Balance: Preserving interest in player-driven character creation as a discrete minigame by ensuring that the process of character-building isn't dominated by obvious "no brainer" choices.
Tactical Balance: Preserving interest in mechanically mediated conflict - which may or may not boil down to combat - by ensuring that turn-to-turn decision making isn't dominated by obvious "no brainer" choices.
Logistical Balance: Ensuring that the game's mechanical resource economy presents interesting choices during play, such that success is dependent on effective management of mechanical resources.
PVP Balance: Preserving interest in player-versus-player conflict by ensuring that the various player character archetypes can fight each other on reasonably even mechanical footing.


In a "true" roleplaying game, which of these is bad? Which of these is good? Which of these are outright ignored? People throw the word "balance" around too often without specifying what they actually mean with that.

I don't worry about balance. I want appropriately built characters. I want them to do be built according to roles in fantasy stories. So when a player plays that character, they feel like they are playing a particular character they liked. If they make Bilbo Baggins, they should feel like a highly effective, stealthy rogue with some fighting ability. If they make an Launcelot-type, they should feel like an extraordinarily skilled fighter capable of defeating numerous enemies in battle. When they make a Raistlin-like wizard, they should feel like that powerful, mysterious figure capable of wielding magic in an extraordinary fashion.

You are correct. Balance is thrown out there far too often. When I see it, I figure they mostly mean numerical balance much like they attempt to do in video games like WoW, mostly so PVP is balanced enough so that any character can effectively defeat any other character. That type of balance is poisonous to a good pen and paper role-playing game. It overrides creativity and makes fantasy archetypes bland and inappropriate, so you don't get the experience of playing a fantasy role inspired by fantasy fiction.

I love how people claiming RPGs aren't stories completely ignore the fact that nearly every RPG creator, every one I know of including the original creator Gygax, listed as their inspiration numerous works of fiction in nearly every version of D&D created. D&D was very much inspired by a desire to create a game that allowed people to participate in a fantasy story. It was inspired by Gygax reading tons of books and saying, "How do I make a game where I can be this character I love to read in this book? How do I make mechanics that allow me to tell a story and have an interesting and appropriate way to resolve the interactions in the game?"

It has always been incredibly obvious from the time I picked up the books way back when that Gygax was trying to combine his love of fiction and his love of war games into a game that allowed you to play a story in a fantastical world. A cooperative story with an unknown outcome determined by a combination of DM and player creativity and game mechanics.

 

[Celtavian]

As it stands now, the spellcasters, especially the 1-9 spellcasters, have more toys than the other classes. Their players have more decisions to make, and thus take more time to weigh those decisions, and thus take up more spotlight time. Their spells can solve problems that noncasters can't hope to, unless they're very good at the "DM may I" required by 5E's wide open skill system. The battle master tries to give the fighters some toys to play with in combat, but the assassin and thief lack them, and the barbarian lacks a lot.

5E fights are too fast; they're over in 3 or 4 rounds, tops, even for hard fights. The monsters are boring; all of the dragons are basically the same thing, for instance. Too many monsters are just "a ton of HP and an attack". To top it off, having 6 to 8 "fair" fights a day, to ensure that the noncasters get to use their fabled "endurance" and to tap out the noncasters, is a chore; the fights have to be too easy and then the casters don't even need to use their spells, and can just use them to ride all over the exploration and social scenes.

I fundamentally believe that 4E's problem was 75% presentation. I bet if the powers hadn't been presented as cards, and if the classes were obfuscated to look different in structure from each other, or if we had gotten something more like Essentials first, more people would have loved it. Book of Nine Swords was popular in 3E, and there were plenty of powers in there that would feel right on a "fighter".

5E is great for a quick system. I want an Advanced upgrade.

I agree to a degree. Out of the box 5E is very basic. I think it was intended to be very basic.

I disagree that I need an advanced upgrade. I have not had an edition of D&D inspire me like 5E does in ages. I'm writing up magic items. Writing up monsters. I'm creating traps and hazards. I'm doing more creative work on D&D than I've done in years due to the simplicity of the system. In 5E you can write so much in plain language and make it work with the simple mechanics that it is a pleasure to create again. No complex mechanics to worry about. Just write it up as you think it should work and play it out. It is easily one of the best editions of D&D yet made for telling a story and making interesting encounters.

Sure, 5E out of the box is too easy for experience players. 5E leaves lots of room for creative play if you allow players to try things that aren't covered by the rules and create challenges that highly player capabilities.

 

[Xeviat]

And adnd 5e would be very nice indeed the system is a Tad to light for my tastes but this is a blessing and a curse as I can add as appropriate just takes time I'm currently expanding the weapon list to make each weapon special so its more than a choice of 2d6 vs 1d12

I'd love to see what you do with it.

I'm getting ready to test out the 3.5 weapon table and the 3.5 magic items when added to the system. I'm also looking at testing out a faster proficiency system and a graded skill system, and maybe adjust the number of encounters per day. The monsters ... I want to rewrite them entirely. I find their balance to be okay (a hard encounter feels like a hard encounter), but their options are just too low.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Did you really role-play?

Yes.

Did you?

Yes.

The raid bosses you talked to responded to you? As did the shopkeepers and orc chieftains and the random wandering creatures? They responded to your attempts to role-play? You mean I was missing out when I was reading quest text and I could have talked to them like I do in pen and paper D&D?

No? What does the scripted nature of bosses or shopkeepers have to do with it? It's not like D&D bosses and shopkeepers are radically different most of the time. I can count the number of actual D&D "bosses" I've been able to meaningfully negotiate with on one hand. And that was specifically because the DM in question likes worlds that get you to challenge preconceived notions. (But even his worlds have ancient vampires and goblin-slaver warchiefs who don't negotiate.)

(Also, I very rarely did raids--though sometimes we wove our own stories around raids or, more commonly, instances).

Or do you mean you were talking with other players? Making friends and conversing with other players is not role-playing. Who gives a crap if you spoke with the other player "in character."

First: Get the frak off your high horse. Second: Let me get this straight. Being able to have a two-way conversation with a shopkeeper or BBEG is roleplaying, but talking in character isn't roleplaying. WTF? Really? So 99% of the tabletop gaming I've done isn't roleplaying either. Because I spend way more time interacting with the other people at my table (well, electronic table) than I do killing baddies or trading.

We had a guild. All guild meetings were conducted in-character. OOC comments were held for the period after (or posted in the appropriate place on the website). We arranged interactions with other guilds--both Alliance and Horde--to have "live" allies and opponents as well as computer-operated ones. We would arrange times to do content, not because it had any mechanical value, but because adventuring through a particular area gave the right background for the story we wanted to tell. Sometimes, a story would come to us, that we'd play out in a particular instance--and sometimes, as we had our characters react to the world around them even in an instance we were doing for the loot, a story would evolve out of it anyway.

The world itself does not allow role-playing. You can't interact with the creatures in ways other than the set parameters of the game. You don't get to negotiate with the Lich King or the dragons in the world.

Not within the client, no. That's why you strike a balance between what you can do "live," within the game client, and what you can do in stories, where the limitations of the client are relaxed (though some limitations remain--as limitations remain in almost all campaigns, tabletop or otherwise). But in our stories, we could interact with these forces (though not always negotiate--Arthas, much like Demogorgon or Graz'zt, or the aforementioned slaver goblins and vampire ancient, has little need or desire to "negotiate" with anyone). We could do things that aren't possible in the client alone. And with the right addons, it's possible to communicate much of this "layered on top" story.

Sorry, there was no role-playing in WoW. At least not what I consider role-playing.

See above: given your statements, I'm really confused about what you do consider roleplaying. Interacting with your party members doesn't count, but haggling with a shopkeeper does?

The world was a preset, preprogrammed world that responded the same way every time. That is why raid and play strategies were a matter of rote memory rather than creative play. There is no getting around it even if you and your buddies were talking "in character" among yourselves. It had no effect on the reactions of the game world.

Sure, if you consider the only parts of the game world to be the monsters, baddies, and shopkeepers in it, and completely neglect the players and their ability to interact with each other, as well as the built-in factions, variety of cultures, petty political squabbles with minimal grand impact, or potential to tell your own story of how a particular enemy was defeated--or not defeated!--mechanics be damned. But, as I've said above, if you ignore any and all contributions from your fellow-players in a TTRPG, you're going to have a pretty damn spare "roleplay" experience anyway.

 

[mflayermonk]

Roleplaying games are not stories. Stories have pre-defined narratives which exist to satisfy only an audience, not the participants of the story itself. So let us just say that I for one reject your definition of "true" roleplaying games.

This is an excerpt from the podcast Imaginary Worlds, where Paul La Farge talks about the time he sat down and played a game of D&D with Gygax.
Starts around 24:35 and is about 3 minutes long.
https://soundcloud.com/emolinsky/rolling-the-twenty-sided-dice


Interviewer is Eric Molinsky (EM)
Guest is Paul La Farge (PLF)

EM: "After the interview was over, Gary Gygax offered to DM a game with Paul and his colleague."

PLF: "He came out of the wargaming world which was very much strategy-based, and he (Gygax) played D&D as if it were a wargame. He posed problems to the players and there were better solutions and worse solutions and he had very little compunction about killing characters off if the occasion warranted.
And his thought was if you play smart you are going to win and if you don't you're very likely going to lose, and now let's sit down and see how you play."

EM: "But it sounds like you were slightly disappointed a little bit in terms of you really were...were you more interested in the character?"

PLF: "No, it was great because if as a kid if someone had waved their magic wand over me when I was eleven years old and said poof you are in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and here is Gary Gygax and he is running a game of D&D, here is your seat at the table...go. Which actually would have been possible because he loved to Dungeon Master and he ran games at conventions.

But if it had happened then I would have been disappointed because I would have lost... I wouldn't have gotten into the problem solving aspect of it, and there wouldn't have been room for the part I liked and I would have felt frustrated.

But to meet him in the context of doing this as a grown-up, it was kind of perfect because it was as if Gary were saying 'hey this is about reality now, here's a problem, see if you can solve it'. You don't get into the theatrics of being an elf because who cares about the theatrics of being an elf...you're not an elf."

 

[Emerikol]

As it stands now, the spellcasters, especially the 1-9 spellcasters, have more toys than the other classes. Their players have more decisions to make, and thus take more time to weigh those decisions, and thus take up more spotlight time. Their spells can solve problems that noncasters can't hope to, unless they're very good at the "DM may I" required by 5E's wide open skill system. The battle master tries to give the fighters some toys to play with in combat, but the assassin and thief lack them, and the barbarian lacks a lot.

5E fights are too fast; they're over in 3 or 4 rounds, tops, even for hard fights. The monsters are boring; all of the dragons are basically the same thing, for instance. Too many monsters are just "a ton of HP and an attack". To top it off, having 6 to 8 "fair" fights a day, to ensure that the noncasters get to use their fabled "endurance" and to tap out the noncasters, is a chore; the fights have to be too easy and then the casters don't even need to use their spells, and can just use them to ride all over the exploration and social scenes.

I fundamentally believe that 4E's problem was 75% presentation. I bet if the powers hadn't been presented as cards, and if the classes were obfuscated to look different in structure from each other, or if we had gotten something more like Essentials first, more people would have loved it. Book of Nine Swords was popular in 3E, and there were plenty of powers in there that would feel right on a "fighter".

5E is great for a quick system. I want an Advanced upgrade.

I disagree that 4e's "problem" was presentation. 4e's "problem" was that it dramatically switched sides in the game design philosophy department. It made those who had "suffered" in prior editions, or who hadn't known better and would suffer now, realize the sort of game they really wanted. The "problem" is that an awful lot of people still want the original side that D&D had taken. 4e basically split the playerbase irrevocably. I never wanted 4e and I'd never be happy with it. I'd gladly play 3e before 4e or 5e.

So 5e was tasked (impossibly I might add) with reuniting the playerbase. The problem is that the two sides have seen what they like and what they don't like. We are no longer ignorant. Now having said that, I believe the WOTC staff is too blind to even see the distinctions between the two sides.

So Xeviat, I really do respect your position and preferences but I don't share them. I want the options complexity of 3e with traditional spell casters and martials but streamlined combat mechanics with fewer hit points like 5e. You might say that is 2e but I want a system. I want it all to fit together. The very things the designers grumbled about when working on 3e are things I probably like having. I want it all to work together like a good machine.

I think we are like two political factions. There are obviously moderates out there that we can get to play in games we like but who can also play the other way too. We though are true believers in our style and enjoy that style. Nothing whatsoever like that. I will say though that the way I play I never or very rarely see the problems that you see in my style.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I fundamentally believe that 4E's problem was 75% presentation. I bet if the powers hadn't been presented as cards, and if the classes were obfuscated to look different in structure from each other, or if we had gotten something more like Essentials first, more people would have loved it. Book of Nine Swords was popular in 3E, and there were plenty of powers in there that would feel right on a "fighter".

Business factors were by far the biggest problems: promising 2-4x the revenue the entire industry was pulling down, and the death of the key developer of the subscription-based service that was supposed to drive that revenue, while simultaneously burning OGL bridges were just three big strikes against WotC at the time.

More circumspect presentation might've given edition-warriors less ammunition, but they never had any trouble making up more. Powers were only presented as 'cards' in the CB, for instance. No amount of obfuscation would have undermined class balance enough to deliver the kind of system-mastery-rewards PF could. But, yes, maybe leading with Essentials and improving on it to get to 4e would have been a better path. IMHO, timing was off, too. It was too early to toss 3.x to the curb, and OSR was just getting rolling.

As it stands now, the spellcasters, especially the 1-9 spellcasters, have more toys than the other classes.

Well, other sub-classes. All classes have some access to spells.

Their players have more decisions to make, and thus take more time to weigh those decisions, and thus take up more spotlight time. Their spells can solve problems that noncasters can't hope to, unless they're very good at the "DM may I" required by 5E's wide open skill system.

That's only a problem if you insist on playing a non-caster. The game's fairly up-front about that being something to do only if you hate having choices & 'agency,' and just want to hit stuff.

5E fights are too fast; they're over in 3 or 4 rounds, tops, even for hard fights. The monsters are boring; all of the dragons are basically the same thing, for instance. Too many monsters are just "a ton of HP and an attack".

That's just the pendulum swinging. 4e swung away from 3.x rocket tag to big set-piece encounters and 5e swung back. Inevitably that's going to be too fast for some of us. We can always just have 3-4 doubled-up, thus bigger, longer & more complex, encounters per day, with a short rest after each of 'em. That'd be the same amount of exp and the same number of short rests per day - probably at least as many rounds/day, too.

To top it off, having 6 to 8 "fair" fights a day, to ensure that the noncasters get to use their fabled "endurance" and to tap out the noncasters, is a chore; the fights have to be too easy and then the casters don't even need to use their spells, and can just use them to ride all over the exploration and social scenes.

It's the attrition model: it's not just any theoretical balance that might exist, it's the whole challenge of the play experience that's emergent over that magic number of 6-8 encounters. Maybe there's a point w/in that 6-8 Encounter prescription where the party's mix of classes (if it even includes any non-casters) will happen to balance, maybe not, regardless the DM can contrive to impose spotlight balance.

5E is great for a quick system. I want an Advanced upgrade.

That's what the PH options and DMG modules are. They're the Advanced Game. The pdf, by itself, is the quick & simple Basic Game.