D&D 5E My biggest gripe with 5e design

[Quickleaf]

Boy do I agree about remove curse. Remove curse should require things that aren’t easy to begin the process of breaking the curse. But that is alot of work that players and DM’s don’t want to do. Players level so fast these days that ideas like this just get in the way.

Yep.

There were some changes in 5e that were based on making the game easier at the table – e.g. removing most instances of ability score drain & level drain made it easier, because there's less having to recalculate a bunch of things based on your ability score modifier or proficiency modifier. Those changes make a lot of sense to me.

Then there were some changes that were based on play style aesthetic decisions that came out of the playtesting & creative direction of the design team (i.e. leaning more toward heroic fantasy) – e.g. diminishing the deadliness of poisons, things that paralyze, and things that petrify. While I understand why they did that, I really empathize with the OP, and often either find clever ways to make these more dangerous or implement homebrewed versions to make them more dangerous. Fortunately, homebrewing these elements is quick and easy.

And then there are things like remove curse that are just...I see how it's part of the D&D tradition...but I'd say the D&D tradition is lazy design, in this specific case. They don't feel like curses. It's clearly a case where just a page of guidelines provided in the DMG and an extra sentence/component in the remove curse spell description would have made a world of difference. You can do it yourself as a DM, but it does take some effort and design work (which some DMs might prefer to put into other areas of his or her game).

 

[Arnwolf666]

Yep.

There were some changes in 5e that were based on making the game easier at the table – e.g. removing most instances of ability score drain & level drain made it easier, because there's less having to recalculate a bunch of things based on your ability score modifier or proficiency modifier. Those changes make a lot of sense to me.

Then there were some changes that were based on play style aesthetic decisions that came out of the playtesting & creative direction of the design team (i.e. leaning more toward heroic fantasy) – e.g. diminishing the deadliness of poisons, things that paralyze, and things that petrify. While I understand why they did that, I really empathize with the OP, and often either find clever ways to make these more dangerous or implement homebrewed versions to make them more dangerous. Fortunately, homebrewing these elements is quick and easy.

And then there are things like remove curse that are just...I see how it's part of the D&D tradition...but I'd say the D&D tradition is lazy design, in this specific case. They don't feel like curses. It's clearly a case where just a page of guidelines provided in the DMG and an extra sentence/component in the remove curse spell description would have made a world of difference. You can do it yourself as a DM, but it does take some effort and design work (which some DMs might prefer to put into other areas of his or her game).

Yes. And really the types of curses I like should be homebrewed with the solution already thought up and built into the adventure rather than have to brainstorm one on the spot. So I don’t have much problem with the RAW as long as I can creatively adapt. Are we still allowed to do that?

 

[Oofta]

Yes. And really the types of curses I like should be homebrewed with the solution already thought up and built into the adventure rather than have to brainstorm one on the spot. So I don’t have much problem with the RAW as long as I can creatively adapt. Are we still allowed to do that?

I think it's far easier to turn the dial up to 11 now and then by tweaking thing like curse than to de-power things that were too powerful like we did back in the day.

Get cursed? Get thee to a cleric! Except that it's a pretty common trope that the person who should have been able to remove the curse/reverse the spell fail. They tell everyone "Oh, this is bad. That should have worked." Then everyone needs to scramble to figure out what's really going on.

That gives me as a DM a tool to tell great stories about how the witch wasn't just some random crone, but really ... duhn duhn daa ... Baba Yaga in the flesh. Yeah, it's going to take something more than just a remove curse now.

Or any number of variants. Even following the letter of the rules 100%, you can challenge groups. But you can also turn it up to 11 now and then.

 

[Arnwolf666]

One can’t play ravenloft without cool curses

 

[Maxperson]

Real heroism, yes. There's virtually 0 risk at the table (y'might choke on a funyon or step on a d4), and no heroism, period.
There's - possibly - stories of heroism, like those you might find in a book or movie, being modeled in game.

There's possibly heroism, in those times where the PCs lives are truly at risk in a situation where they can also be heroes. Even in the game, though, there has to be risk of death to the PCs.

In a book or movie, heroism is enabled - and not often posthumous - thanks to author force (plot armor &c). In games, it must be modled by mechanics, or forced by the GM 'cheating.'

Books and movies are a different form of entertainment. When I read one or see a movie, even if the people in the book call the protagonist a hero, I never think to myself, "Wow! A hero." Why? Because there is total control by the author as you note, so the "hero" was never really at risk.

With an RPG, the PCs can die with varying degrees of difficulty. The easier it is for them to die, the greater the chances that they can be heroes. The harder it is for them to die, the harder it is for them to be heroes. They are not being played in a movie or book.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This risk of death is what allows heroism, though. Less risk = less heroism, so 5e has less, not more.

Therein lay the problem and the solution. The game was designed to be more heroic adventure, because that's what most players want (the playtest made it pretty clear).

I don't think the game was designed to be more heroic. See Maxperson's post. It was designed for PCs to live longer and be easier, with much less PC death (which is what people wanted, because most people did not like their D&D to be "fantasy f**** Vietnam" as the saying goes). That doesn't automatically mean heroic. I think it's about context. Heroic means to be bold, brave, overcome great odds that most people can't.

Look at it like this. I'm gonna use a military analogy because I'm a veteran, and it's easier for me to put it like this.

Two guys run into each other at a coffee shop, and the barista tells them both, "Thank you for your service. You guys are heroes! What did you do?"

The first guys says, "I was stationed in Korengal, and we did daily patrols trying to root out the Taliban and provide protection for the local farmers. We got shot at every day, and often an IED would go off. One day we got ambushed on a hill, and SGT Moore got killed. The Black Hawks raced in under heavy fire to extract SGT Moore, but they couldn't get to the hospital in time during the golden hour."

The other guy says to the barista, "Thank you. It was rough for me too. I was on an aircraft carrier. We had to hot bunk, and had freeze dried eggs instead of fresh eggs. We had a horrible battle with each other to see who could get to the showers first before the other guys "did their thing" and made it gross. And if you weren't careful during your dance routines on deck, you could fall overboard. Can you believe it!"


Both guys had some risk. But it's not really heroic unless the risk is significant. I'm not saying 5e is without risk. I'm not saying it's without risk of dying. And I'm not saying the DM can't tweak it. And I'm not saying one edition is objectively better than the other (because preference). But what I am saying, is that out of the box, it feels more heroic to survive great risk and challenge than it is to survive the "Great battle of the Showers" because in all things, not just RPGs, the level of heroism is related to the risk/challenge/greatness of the task that was overcome. It feels more heroic to survive a battle against a cockatrice that you had a 50% chance of permanently dying than it does to survive a battle against a cockatrice where you have virtually no chance of permanently dying. Having your mission suffer setbacks is not like dying. That's a false equivalency, and makes one sound like the sailor above. Having my dinner plans ruined is not nearly as bad as getting sent to the hospital from a major car wreck. They aren't comparable.

 

[Gadget]

I think it is pretty much on record that many of the complaints in the OP were indeed intentional design decisions. Having gone straight from AD&D to 5e, I can see how the OP can feel the lack, having missed all the design and game play changes overtime. AD&D could be somewhat arbitrary about death and disability at times, and that could be frustrating to many players, though of course some really like that style as OSR shows.

That said, I can sympathize with being uncomfortable with the designers going "all in" on HP attrition. I say "all in" but I must equivocate a bit; I don't think they went quite that far, it would be too much "not D&D" if they did. Like say, if Hold Person only affected you if you were under X HP. The whole game would have to be designed around it, and they really didn't go that far. They had design goals that ran counter to this, namely tradition and the asymmetric design of PCs vs Monsters, particularly in the matter of HP. That's why spells like the Power Word spells are not that great for PCs: Monsters have a much greater pool of HP compared to PCs; and they really need it to stay at all competitive.

IMO that's what makes many of the spells and abilities in the game lackluster, the asymmetric nature of the design and the fear that abilities that are good enough for the PCs to actually use against monsters, likely would be too effective if the Monsters used them against the PCs. Exhaustion can be vary frighting when the PCs are threatened with it, but giving a level of Exhaustion to a Monster isn't really all that; particularly since many Monsters aren't meant to really last beyond the encounter and HP attrition is a more effective way of eliminating them. Same with effects that stop healing for a time. Another example is the Stone to Flesh spell, there's really no reason for this to be a concentration spell, it already has the fail x saves before passing x mechanic. But if the evil Sorcerer casts it on the PC, they want to give them every last opertunity to undo the effect by breaking his concentration.

 

[jayoungr]

It wasn't save or die or really suck that I miss, but the secondary effect of it. I.e., players were extremely cautious and genuinely careful when going out on an adventure or discovering an enemy.

Just try to inflict as much HP as damage as possible and don't worry about getting poisoned, petrified, etc. As long as you had HP left, you will never fail.

I really think that depends more on the players than the game. A few months ago, I complained in another thread about running a high-level 5E adventure for six level 13 PCs, whose extreme caution in interacting with a dungeon was (IMHO) sucking all the fun out of it:

I just felt like it was their goal to interact with the dungeon as little as possible. These were high-level characters (a party of six PCs at level 13), with a ton of tools to deal with anything that happened, and I don't have PC permadeath at my table anyway unless the player wants it; but they touched nothing unless they absolutely must, and tried not to even enter rooms. Their ideal way of handling the place was never to touch anything except with mage hand or by having a summoned earth elemental bring it to them. They also sent the elemental first into every room and corridor to see if anything attacked it or any traps went off. Again, I understand why they do this, but I feel like it leads to a less fun experience for them as well as for me.

Also, and on a related note: I feel like lower instant lethality means you can have more surprises. If any surprise is likely to be fatal, then players will go through their 17 safety checks before interacting with every single object. In theory, knowing that if something happens, it probably won't mean instadeath should allow the PCs to spend more time actually engaging with the adventure and less time on safety checks that are basically just the same processes repeated over and over. I don't find those repetitive safety checks to be fun or to feel heroic.

But again, see my first paragraph--there are groups that do the repetitive safety check process anyway, even in 5E.

ETA:

I was on an aircraft carrier. We had to hot bunk, and had freeze dried eggs instead of fresh eggs. We had a horrible battle with each other to see who could get to the showers first before the other guys "did their thing" and made it gross. And if you weren't careful during your dance routines on deck, you could fall overboard. Can you believe it!"

I think you're going a little overboard in suggesting that playing 5E is like this.

 

[Oofta]

I've never felt "heroic" for not dying because of a bad roll. Nor have I felt heroic because I had to be overly cautious. Annoyed because there was nothing I could have done to prevent a death? Sure. Bored because we'd spend a ton of time trying to avoid the inevitable random luck save or die? Yep. Useless because my PC had no way to contribute? Of course.

I've played grindhouse style games, the only thing I felt was disenfranchised because most of the time there wasn't anything I could have done to prevent the PC death.

But even having said all that, 5E is as dangerous as the DM wants it to be. You don't need "save or suck" spells to have a sense of danger.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I was on an aircraft carrier. We had to hot bunk, and had freeze dried eggs instead of fresh eggs. We had a horrible battle with each other to see who could get to the showers first before the other guys "did their thing" and made it gross.

I think you're going a little overboard in suggesting that playing 5E is like this.

I think he's suggesting that 1e was like that, though 1 guess 5e has it's fair share of freeze-dried eggs, too.

There's possibly heroism, in those times where the PCs lives are truly at risk in a situation where they can also be heroes. Even in the game, though, there has to be risk of death to the PCs.

See, the imagined heroism of the character isn't a matter of the game-artifact 'character' being statistically at risk under the rules, it's a matter of the internal fiction. A human being battling a dragon is being damned heroic. Whether it's in a book/movie, where the writer has already decided he's going to win, or an RPG where the player can calculate DPR throughput and be confident of the same.

Conversely, the player, no matter what his pretensions to immersion and method-acting, is never being heroic.

Books and movies are a different form of entertainment.

They are, but if the game is good enough, they tell the same sorts of stories with the same tropes. Not that most RPGs often rise to that level, and instead, more often, fall into ruts of rampant paranoia or murder-hoboism or the like.