D&D 5E The problem with 5e

[embee]

it’s a long post. If TLDR, whatevs. If interested read on.

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My problem comes in with occasional
dissatisfaction about the level of danger in the game. It seems like people are healed quickly and unless it’s a TPK, it’s not as dangerous and getting beat down lasts a round or two max.

But that is when reality hits me. When we were younger, the way we really got far was by DM fiat. Sure, you could get level drained and miss a death save but more broadly, the DM moderated some consequences so we could have a longer term meaningful story vs. a meatgrinder of anonymous jerks. In short, 5e has merely codified this fiat into the rules. It may not be that different, really.

In terms of moving forward I need to alter my expectations and be clear about what changes might give us a little more sense of danger. For one, it would not take much to make healing a little less automatic. Maybe long rests don’t take care of everything. Perhaps, long rests allow us to expend hit dice…or something. I have to think that through.

First of all, you're not alone. In many ways.

I cut my teeth on AD&D when I was in the Dungeons & Dragons club in junior high. I played a bunch of 2e in college, mainly Dark Sun, a setting so brutal it told you to make multiple characters so when your PCs died, a new one would be ready to go. That was before I moved over to WoD, Call of Cthulhu, and then CCGs. And then, life happened. I never played 3, 3.5, or 4. When I started getting back into the game, Pathfinder was putting out 2e and WOTC had 5e going strong. So I can understand the Rip van Winkle aspect of it.

5e characters are springy. They are Weebles. They will wobble but they won't fall down. To me, I see some broken game mechanics. The whole damage takes you down to 0 unless it would drop you to negative of your max HP (which is instant death) is a problem. It means that 1 hp and 41 hp are the same thing:

You have a character with 41 hp max.

1) You're at max 41 hp and take 41 damage. You're at 0 hp. You are unconscious and start rolling death saves.
2) You're at 1 hp and take 41 damage. You're at 0 hp. You are unconscious and start rolling death saves.

The other 40 hp doesn't count because the remaining damage doesn't equal your HP maximum.

That's a problem. Also, there is no negative hp. You just need 1 hp to stand back up. And if you roll a nat 20, you're at 1 hp. That's another problem.

Add to this the elimination of elimination of save-or-die. It's gone.

And on top of all of that, there's the change to resting. 5e players are cautious - in that they love to rest between encounters. You can spend a hit die to heal 1 hit die in a short rest or take a long rest for 8 hours and get back all of your hp.

There are other subtler problems. Ye Olde Majick Shoppe is gone. There's really no way to buy magic items in 5e. So now you have PCs running around with a ton of money because there is nothing to buy. Nothing to buy except for... healing potions. Which leads to another problem.

RAW, drinking a potion takes an action, not a bonus action. This sounds silly because that potion is a shot of liquid. It shouldn't take a full action using common sense. But if you house rule it to drink a potion as a bonus action, you break the game and make already springy characters nigh-invulnerable.

Of course, I'm probably wrong. But, that's the way I see it (through my Coke bottle nerdlinger glasses).

 

[GigawattWarlock]

<snip>
My problem comes in with occasional
dissatisfaction about the level of danger in the game. It seems like people are healed quickly and unless it’s a TPK, it’s not as dangerous and getting beat down lasts a round or two max.
I also have some nostalgia for the logistics of old….worrying about running out of things like torches and food. Some things just seem easier now.

But that is when reality hits me. When we were younger, the way we really got far was by DM fiat. Sure, you could get level drained and miss a death save but more broadly, the DM moderated some consequences so we could have a longer term meaningful story vs. a meatgrinder of anonymous jerks. In short, 5e has merely codified this fiat into the rules. It may not be that different, really.
<snip>

I often feel the game should have more Consequences. Here's a few ideas I brainstormed:

1. When hit by a Critical Hit, there is a lasting injury or damage. Examples: A graphic wound, a permanent scar, equipment damaged or destroyed.
2. When HP drops to 0, the character experiences lasting injury (same as above).
3. If you get hit by a dragon breath weapon or anything remarkable or terrible, it doesn't solely reduce your HP. It also has some cinematic effect. You might be badly burned and experience serious pain both immediately and for several days.
4. Basic run-of-the-mill Healing helps you restore HP, but it doesn't remove scars or restore lost limbs or severed hands. It may ease the pain of your serious acid burn, but you'll be disfigured and still in serious pain for a while.
5. I'll probably re-introduce the idea of Critical Failures (1 on a d20) causing some kind of self-harm, equipment damage, friendly fire where you accidentally strike a friendly target. I might use it in sparingly or inconsistently.

My motivation for this change sounds similar to @Warpiglet-7. Here are some of the play experiences I want to avoid:

1. No matter how terrifying the enemy sounds, players charge headlong into danger. "Giant epic dragon? No problem, I run straight at it and attack with my sword." I want my players to feel powerful and confident at times and terrified at other times.
2. Player overconfidence (as described above) means they don't have to employ any kind of strategy, tactics, restraint, or cooperation.
3. Healing is so easy it feels cheesy. We have a Cleric with "Healing Word" (1st level, bonus action, 60 ft range). When a party member goes down, they can just bring them right back to their feet without any effort or consequences at all. A TPK (or any character death at all) is really rare because it's so easy to heal.

Finally, some of my players actually want their characters to die from time to time so they can roll up new characters. They like making new characters.

 

[dave2008]

I find that 5e runs like we played 1e, but with a lot less house-rules. I had 20 pages of house-rules for 1e. I have the same group of friends and we play basically the same way, but with only 1 page of house-rules. So for me, 5e feels very much like how we played 1e (which we played until 4e came out).

 

[Lanefan]

A few other things that if implemented can quickly bring back some 1e feel:

--- rebounding lightning bolts
--- expand-to-volume fireballs (i.e. 33000 cu ft, or about 33 10x10' cubes)
--- introduce aiming rolls for all ranged a-of-e spells
--- on a failed save vs a-of-e damage your carried/worn items and possessions need to save as well. All of 'em.
--- penalties for shooting into melee, and if you miss because of the penalty it means you hit your ally instead
--- level drain

 

[embee]

I'll probably re-introduce the idea of Critical Failures (1 on a d20) causing some kind of self-harm, equipment damage, friendly fire where you accidentally strike a friendly target. I might use it in sparingly or inconsistently.

A problem with that is that many spells don't have an attack roll. So the spellcasters are taking less risk and it gets less realistic as the character progresses.

20 equals critical hit. 1 equals critical failure. Both are a 5% chance. But this means that a Level 10 Barbarian, for whatever reason, has a 5% chance of dropping his sword in battle (or stabbing a friendly or whatever your consequence is). WHAT?! So now the barbarian misses AND loses an entire turn because he is disarmed. Again, the usual "1 equals dropped weapon" means that the party loses its main damage output source for a round.

A workaround I use is that on a 1, roll again. Roll another 1 and sure, that is the very rare occurrence that would merit disarming someone. Otherwise, it's a miss and that's it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

RAW, drinking a potion takes an action, not a bonus action. This sounds silly because that potion is a shot of liquid. It shouldn't take a full action using common sense.

I agree with everything else, but a round is still only six seconds long, and an action isn't even everything you can do over the course of those six seconds.

Of course, I also rule that a healing potion is like a can of soda rather than a shot, because it's supposed to feel significant.

 

[el-remmen]

I think there are two perspectives going on in this thread:

1. There are changes to the game that can make it more like the "old days."
2. The "old days" is more about the social conditions of playing (for good or ill or both) than any particular rule-set you are using.

Of course, both can be true at the same time.

I am just trying to create fun group experiences through gaming with my friends now, which is why I like re-running adapted/modified modules I once played twenty years ago and stuff like that - but I think it is cool in how a new group does it differently - the specifics of the modules mean less to me (except it should be "good")

 

[Retreater]

When DMs tell me they're using gritty realism rest systems, that's fine. I just refuse to play a weakened caster who takes a week to get his spells back. And if no one takes a cleric, that's fine. Let the campaign die due to the DM's lack of understanding how the game works.

 

[Krachek]

It is not 5ed.
It is the culture of Dnd that changed,
long time ago in 1ed, we were not thinking of xp budget, or number of encounter per day.
We didn’t have review and rating for all classes, spells, builds.
Most of the game mechanic were hidden for us, and we were really afraid of what was going to happen next.
Today we have been DM ourself, we know the odds, we know all the little tricks, so when our character die it is a kind of amusing or sometime ridiculous,

 

[Lanefan]

RAW, drinking a potion takes an action, not a bonus action. This sounds silly because that potion is a shot of liquid. It shouldn't take a full action using common sense.

Sure it should. With a 6-second round one could argue it might even take more time than that - maybe two rounds.

You've got to stow your weapon, fish the potion out from whatever pocket you've got it stashed in, unstopper or uncork (or unseal) it, drink it, and then re-wield your weapon...all the while also trying to keep a shield up.

The more unrealistic-to-me thing about potions is that they always take effect immediately - surely there ought to be some delay while they're digested or otherwise absorbed into the bloodstream - but as the iconic image is Popeye's can of spinach and as that works immediately, I'll live with it.