D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[lowkey13]

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[JeffB]

Yeah, well my anecdote can totally beat up your anecdote!

Seriously, though, as I've mentioned before in the threads, I DM for kids. 5e is incredibly easy for them to grok. Never had a problem. And some are younger than 10.

Perhaps the issue is what they started with? If you started by teaching them 4e, then that might have seemed more "natural," and the difficulty was the switch from what they knew to a different system.

Personally, I don't pay much attention to one person or another saying X System is "easier" or "better," because it's whatever works.

Is this some sort of a competition to you? Kinda sounds like it. I'm not here to argue about it. I'm simply stating my history with them and I've gone over their system history if you have been following along.

And age makes a difference no matter what we talk about. 10 year olds are different than 20 year olds when it comes to learning.

 

[lowkey13]

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[doctorbadwolf]

I think you're overstating how hard it is to learn 5e. My own group is completely new to D&D, with myself only starting to really delve into the rules when 5e came out, and nobody's had any problems (aside from a switch from online to offline where everyone forgot how to roll d20s). There's enough resources out there that the actual book terminology isn't going to prevent people who want to learn the game from learning.

Just give them the resources needed to ease them into the game, and they'll survive.

this post seems to suggest that you think I or someone else ITT is claiming that any edition is especially hard to pick up. That isn't the case.

 

[Imaro]

this post seems to suggest that you think I or someone else ITT is claiming that any edition is especially hard to pick up. That isn't the case.

Well you claimed 4e was the easiest to pick up...I don't think 4e or 5e is particularly hard to grasp but I also don't see 4e as defintively easier either.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well you claimed 4e was the easiest to pick up...I don't think 4e or 5e is particularly hard to grasp but I also don't see 4e as defintively easier either.

So, like I said. No one claimed that any edition was hard to pick up.
Great. Glad we agree!

 

[lowkey13]

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[PMárk]

Im inclined to agree with the bolded part. things like the artificer could be done as subclasses for a handful of different classes, but it will not be half as good as it would be as a full class. Same with the "warlord", and IMO, assassin.

I do think a solid gish class is still needed. IMO, divine classes don't count, and clerics are my least favorite class in the game. Maybe tied with fighter.

A swordmage class could combine frontliner defenses and proficienies with arcane spellcasting, and the scag cantrips, and from level one, no tinkering or taking human for the feat required, just be a gish. "Out of the box", as it were. Said class could also include an arcane archer, and maybe something more outside the box.

For me, warlock comes closest because you don't need blade pact to be a gish. Make your first two invocations give you at will mage armor, and false life, and use the scag cantrips. Level 2 gish ain't bad. My group starts at lvl 3, though. So for us, the EK and AT are fine gish options. for the most part.

Agree, the warlock and especially the bladelock is the closest. Also agree, divine classes don't count, because, well, different features and spell lists.

EK is pretty close to the duskblade in concept IMO, but some of the signature abilities come in only at late levels and it's even more restricted spell-wise than the duskblade and lacks other features.

Bladesinger tried the mobile arcane scholar-fighter that the magus is in PF, but IMO, it is inferior to that, just look at what the magus does and what the bladesinger does.

Some concepts are just better as an individual class. Like the ranger could be a druid, cleric, fighter, rogue or even paladin subclass, but we still have a ranger and I think it is better this way. Or the druid itself could be "just" a nature priest.

The problem with doing concepts as archetypes is that you must build on the base class's chassis, so necessarily any archetype that mixes in concepts from the other end of the spectrum ends up as just dabbling instead of a true hybrid class. Also, as I said earlier, the problem with multiclassing is the vast majority of the gish multiclass options I saw somehow assumed 18-20 levels to be an effective gish.

I feel that some people just won't acknowledge any reasonable critique toward 5e, because it only could be just perfect and thinking it lacks something, like specific character concepts is pure blasphemy.

 

[Uchawi]

And overall I believe that 5E would fare better with more classes that are well defined in regards to niche, versus only have a set mount of classes and trying to add archetypes; with an emphasis of combining previous edition classes into broad archetypes. If you are going to condense then certain classes like a ranger or paladin don't make sense.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think every concept needs to be a class, but certainly just about every subclass in 5e could be one. Still, some things need a class more than others. I don't think arcane Trickster needs a full class to do what it wants, for instance.

The game does need a summoner class, though.

I think if you add a summoner, a true gish class, an assassin, at least one psion, a captain/warlord/noble, and an artificer, there isn't much else that is "big" enough to need a class.