D&D 5E Historical Problems and 5E

[The-Magic-Sword]

Linear Fighters, Quadratic wizards was fixed in 4e, 5e keeps it fixed but makes the playstyles more asymmetrical through clever resource design.

Bloat is arguably fixed- not because its impossible but because the streamlined elements of 5th edition and a slow release schedule have kept options down and will continue to do so for- many spells scale by level for instance and we only get about 1 player book per year (if that!)

Healing is more convenient in that 5e offers hit-dice spending on a short rest with a mess of features and spells to improve that. Clerics have a lot more they can do in combat than heal- my parties dont even expect a healbot.

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[Flamestrike]

For example: Through 3rd edition, the cleric often found that the best thing they could do for the party in almost all rounds of combat was to heal.... 5E has a bit of backslide here as clerics often find that the best option for them is to heal during their turn.

Healing during combat is a terrible idea and almost never 'the best thing' to do. If you cleric is healing in combat he should be sacked. You invariably get stuck in a healing loop, particularly in 5E where monsters do an awful lot of damage, and you have fewer spell slots to work with.

Round one: Cast bless. [cant cast healing word or spiritual weapon as your bonus action as youve already cast a spell]
Round two: Melee attack [cast spiritual weapon as bonus action. You cant cast it if you've already cast a healing spell this turn]
Round three: Use bonus action to wallop with spiritual weapon. Make melee attack, or channel divinity if its a good one.
Repeat round three, recasting bless when needed.

Combat is usually over by round 4.

From 5th level, exchange bless for revivify or spiritual guardians occasionally.

In 5E all PCs can heal with HD on a short rest, plus you get all HP back on a long rest. Plus everyone is loaded with nothing to spend it on other than potions of healing which are 50gp each. Using valuable spell slots for healing is generally speaking a very bad idea.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'll amend my answer. The #1 problem I've seen across all editions? Rules Lawyers. Everything else is easily worked around. But rules lawyers? Ruins the game every time.

 

[FrogReaver]

Bless isn't that good unless you need the saves or have party members with one of the "power attack feats". Unless u can cast it before combat starts..

 

[Raith5]

Our cleric in our 5e campaign spends 80% of his spells on healing. He is not in the party because of his personality.

I like/miss the way 4e siloed healing word from other spells, so that there was no decision to be made between healing and dealing. But I do think that 4e clerics had too many other healing spells (other than healing word), but the real limit in 4e was the hard limit on the number of healing surges. I think it is hard to compare 4e and 5e for this underlying reason.

 

[ccs]

Oh that reminds me. It may have started in 3e, but I was fed up back then about monsters having resistance/DR to non-magical weapons.

It wound up just becoming a mechanical, unfun thing that was overdone and thus failed for me.

I'd rather see it only used as special material (silver for werewolves) and in very rare cases.

Oh no, certain monsters have been resistant or even just immune to mundane weapons since the late 70's (go browse the 1e MM) & I presume earlier.
Green Slime comes to mind from my 1980 basic book - cold or fire, that was it. Vampires, wraiths, etc from the Expert book required magic weapons, Mummies required fire/spells/or magic weapons - though they only took 1/2 damage from the weapons.
Then we get to AD&D (late 70s+) where there were a good # of monsters that required weapons of at least certain +s to harm - many of the demons/devils for ex.

 

[cbwjm]

Oh that reminds me. It may have started in 3e, but I was fed up back then about monsters having resistance/DR to non-magical weapons.

It wound up just becoming a mechanical, unfun thing that was overdone and thus failed for me.

I'd rather see it only used as special material (silver for werewolves) and in very rare cases.

I thought the 3e DR was anice improvement over earlier editions where enemies were straight up invulnerable unless your weapon's + was high enough. It became even better in 3.5e when they turned the DR 10/+3 to DR 10/magic.

For me one of the things that has been improved is spell memorisation. I was never a fan of it and was always looking for different systems. Spells & Magic came out with spell points and and channelling which I thought was better. 3e came out with the sorcerer which was nice in not having to forget spells but they were limited in spells known. 4e was a completely different kettle of fish and now in 5e we have a separation of spell preparation and spell slots which I like a lot. If I was going to play one of the earlier editions it would include the 5e spell preparation system or one like it.

 

[Flamestrike]

Bless isn't that good

+2.5 to 3 x PCs attack rolls and saves? Its one of the best spells in the game. It turns hits into misses routinely every round, an turns failed saves into passed saves (including concentration saves, conserving resources for a 1st level spell).

unless you need the saves or have party members with one of the "power attack feats". Unless u can cast it before combat starts..

With the power attack feats it goes from good to brokenly awesome. We have a wolf barbarian giving us all advantage along a cleric blessing us all, and the barbarian, my warlock and the mystic all have GWM. At 4th level we spit out metric crap tons of damage.

 

[ccs]

I guess if I were going to point to some multi-edition thing I think got fixed/better I'd have to point to the linear Fighter/quadratic Mage argument.
It seems people who claim this as a problem are happier now days.
I'm not sure why though. Their martial types characters still aren't flying, teleporting, casting mass death/damage effects, plane shifting, wishing, etc themselves.... Apparently they're happy that their Mage-type buddies have less spell slots to support them, and that support can go away if the caster takes damage or casts some other really useful spell. (shrugs)

You can probably tell that I don't subscribe to that LF/QM line of crap. And my favorite types of characters tend to be martial types.
It was never a problem in BECMi - 2e. Why? Because for all the casters awesome at higher lvs? They topped out around 30 HP & the AC of roughly chainmail+shield. Maybe plate & shield depending upon the loot. Plenty of chances to become dead at any lv.
3x/PF? Martial players who mewl about this must not know how to build effective characters.....

And of course this "problem" doesn't happen in a vacuum.
There ISa DM to blame if play becomes unbalanced so that one of these "factions" can't contribute. Instead of pointing to the rule book & crying foul, look at that guy sitting behind the DM screen.

 

[mellored]

I guess if I were going to point to some multi-edition thing I think got fixed/better I'd have to point to the linear Fighter/quadratic Mage argument.
It seems people who claim this as a problem are happier now days.
I'm not sure why though. Their martial types characters still aren't flying, teleporting, casting mass death/damage effects, plane shifting, wishing, etc themselves....

While true, the fighter now has one thing he can do better than the wizard that he couldn't in previous editions. Kill things.

Boring, sure, but you can't argue that it's not powerful.