D&D 5E Is 5e the Least-Challenging Edition of D&D?

[tetrasodium]

Facing is trivially easy to replicate, after a fashion, simply by ruling that a shield can only be effective against the first two creatures* that attack you in a round. This way you don't have to fuss with actual directions and facing etc. if you don't want to or if you're doing TotM, but the general idea of "a shield only goes so far" is maintained.

* - swarms being a different ball o' wax altogether.

That was part of flanking, but It's more complicated than just adding facing because adding them without it amounting to permanent advantage if you have more than one melee type in the group requires rebuilding all the missing AoO rules. Take this example fight

In 5e if you add flanking, A&B can just swing around to the left & right of C while completely ignoring D without suffering from even a single AoO resulting in both flanking and facing to be games with no risk or effort despite the huge power of ignoring a shield or gaining advantage because 5e allows you to use your full movement (or even dash for double)to run circles around a creature without suffering an AoO unless you move away.

So because they did away with any meaningful tactical impact of AoO's on the battlefield you could say anything but a 5 foot step when moving between threatened squares, but now you need to consider if cunning action & every other ability that lets you move in combat needs a special exemption or not & while your at it should preemptively go through every action & ability to decide what now provokes an AoO before your players start asking till one day they ask for a list. Later on you get a new player & hand them a spiral bound booklet of houserules saying chapter one covers AoOs & changes to class abilities for them.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Touch AC sounds like a good idea until you remember how much of a GOD STAT dexterity already is in 5e, so something would have to go away in its place

There's no class-based BAB/THAC0 table in 5e, so there's no need for something like touch AC, which was 3.5's solution to AD&D wizards being hilariously bad at landing touch spells. If you brought back Touch AC, you'd have to take away the Spell Attack Bonus and reintroduce BAB.

 

[tetrasodium]

There's no class-based BAB/THAC0 table in 5e, so there's no need for something like touch AC, which was 3.5's solution to AD&D wizards being hilariously bad at landing touch spells. If you brought back Touch AC, you'd have to take away the Spell Attack Bonus and reintroduce BAB.

yes it would be a mess to bring it back because of so many other things in 5e like the massive boost in value of dex @Undrave noted. Wotc did not give enough thought* to what things like these countered when they removed them so you are left with a situation where 30+++ AC means that you always have 30+++ AC against everything & no longer have a tool in the gm toolbox other than "this monster ignores bounded accuracy & has +25 to hit & will hit everyone else 100% of the time" or saving throws.

*or they gave it & decided that was badWrongFun so there are multiple barriers to just changing 5e to fit it.

 

[fearsomepirate]

They gave it plenty of thought and realized that layers of complication that boil down to "the wizard rolls a d20 against a different target than the Fighter" is not really very interesting.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That was part of flanking, but It's more complicated than just adding facing because adding them without it amounting to permanent advantage if you have more than one melee type in the group requires rebuilding all the missing AoO rules. Take this example fight
View attachment 119332

In 5e if you add flanking, A&B can just swing around to the left & right of C while completely ignoring D without suffering from even a single AoO resulting in both flanking and facing to be games with no risk or effort despite the huge power of ignoring a shield or gaining advantage because 5e allows you to use your full movement (or even dash for double)to run circles around a creature without suffering an AoO unless you move away.

So because they did away with any meaningful tactical impact of AoO's on the battlefield you could say anything but a 5 foot step when moving between threatened squares, but now you need to consider if cunning action & every other ability that lets you move in combat needs a special exemption or not & while your at it should preemptively go through every action & ability to decide what now provokes an AoO before your players start asking till one day they ask for a list. Later on you get a new player & hand them a spiral bound booklet of houserules saying chapter one covers AoOs & changes to class abilities for them.

And even with 3.5's rules and 5 ft steps, D can be flanked with no cost. So, in 5e you can flank D or C, in 3.5 you can only Flank D. It sounds like 5e has more choices to work with here.

And, if you want to make exceptions and decide for every ability, that is on you. The movement based AoO's have nothing to do with most abilities, since most classes do not get movement abilities (or they get teleports). If you want to also add back AoO's for spellcasting, manuevers, ranged attacks, healing, ect ect ect. That is your choice. Not a fault of the system.

yes it would be a mess to bring it back because of so many other things in 5e like the massive boost in value of dex @Undrave noted. Wotc did not give enough thought* to what things like these countered when they removed them so you are left with a situation where 30+++ AC means that you always have 30+++ AC against everything & no longer have a tool in the gm toolbox other than "this monster ignores bounded accuracy & has +25 to hit & will hit everyone else 100% of the time" or saving throws.

*or they gave it & decided that was badWrongFun so there are multiple barriers to just changing 5e to fit it.

Interesting thing. 3.5 had AC, Flat Footed Ac, Touch AC, Reflex Saves, Fortitude Saves, Will Saves.

5e has AC, Dex Saves, Con Saves, Strength saves, Intelligence Saves, Charisma Saves and Wisdom Saves.

6 vs 7

So, it would appear just from that, that 5e has more tools than 3.5 to challenge players. Especially on the mental side, where previously all effects were Will saves and now you have three different types of effects to work with.

And, to be frank, there is nothing that stops you from saying "this monster ignores non-natural armor when attacking. The target's AC is calculated without armor or shield bonuses"

So, done. There is your touch AC for whatever you want to use it for that Dex saves wouldn't account for.

 

[tetrasodium]

They gave it plenty of thought and realized that layers of complication that boil down to "the wizard rolls a d20 against a different target than the Fighter" is not really very interesting.

No they decided that anything capable of piercing absurd AC was badWrongFun because they didn't impliment something between that and nothing.

 

[Oofta]

No they decided that anything capable of piercing absurd AC was badWrongFun because they didn't impliment something between that and nothing.

Yeah, you nailed it. The designers were pondering how to personally screw you over and now they're cackling with glee at how well their nefarious plans worked.

Or ... wait for it ... only having one defense and one way of resolving attacks greatly simplifies the system without sacrificing anything other than a sacred cow.

It's so much easier to explain to newbies now, it's hard to remember how needlessly complex the old system was.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, you nailed it. The designers were pondering how to personally screw you over and now they're cackling with glee at how well their nefarious plans worked.

Or ... wait for it ... only having one defense and one way of resolving attacks greatly simplifies the system without sacrificing anything other than a sacred cow.

It's so much easier to explain to newbies now, it's hard to remember how needlessly complex the old system was.

what's that?... sounds like you are agreeing with me that they overly simplified at least one too many things but hiding that plate of crow you are eating behind sarcasm & changing GMs as a whole who might want a tool in their toolbox like that to me specifically.

Either that or you are agreeing with me and saying that wanting a tool like that in the gm toolbox is badWrongFun.

 

[Undrave]

That was part of flanking, but It's more complicated than just adding facing because adding them without it amounting to permanent advantage if you have more than one melee type in the group requires rebuilding all the missing AoO rules. Take this example fight
View attachment 119332

In 5e if you add flanking, A&B can just swing around to the left & right of C while completely ignoring D without suffering from even a single AoO resulting in both flanking and facing to be games with no risk or effort despite the huge power of ignoring a shield or gaining advantage because 5e allows you to use your full movement (or even dash for double)to run circles around a creature without suffering an AoO unless you move away.

So because they did away with any meaningful tactical impact of AoO's on the battlefield you could say anything but a 5 foot step when moving between threatened squares, but now you need to consider if cunning action & every other ability that lets you move in combat needs a special exemption or not & while your at it should preemptively go through every action & ability to decide what now provokes an AoO before your players start asking till one day they ask for a list. Later on you get a new player & hand them a spiral bound booklet of houserules saying chapter one covers AoOs & changes to class abilities for them.

I'm not seeing a problem here... this was how we did flanking in 4e and it wasn't a big deal. It made movement matter since you weren't stuck into a single square by on lone goblin. You could easily flank these guys, but THEY could flank you just as easily in return, so you had to be careful.

Of course, flanking in 4e granted 'combat advantage', which was a basic condition that ammounted to +2 to your attack rolls.

No they decided that anything capable of piercing absurd AC was badWrongFun because they didn't impliment something between that and nothing.

You could just target the DEX save or the CON save though, right?... not sure if we needed multiple ways to screw over someone who has good AC but bad DEX... Note that 5e Fighters (and Barbarians and Paladins) aren't proficient in Dexterity saving throw. Even with high DEX they could get screwed over by a bad DEX saving throw while a Rogue, Ranger or a Monk has a much greater chance of avoiding the effect.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Don't forget granting Advantage and imposing Disadvantage. Shocking Grasp grants advantage when attacking somebody in metal armor. You could also make an opposed Athletics check. Or make a melee attack contested by an Acrobatics check. Or make it melee vs passive Acrobatics.

There's no shortage of options within the rules.