D&D General Things That Bug You

[fearsomepirate]

Mostly 5e annoyances:

• I don't like how there is functionally almost no difference between the different weapons of a given tier. Why even bother having battleaxes and longswords?
• Odd skill scores should matter
• DEX shouldn't be a god stat; I'd prefer for the best ranged weapons to use both STR and DEX.

 

[embee]

I grew up with horses with a family that did regular long distance endurance rides. Horses absolutely speed up travel compared to walking.

Did you wear a suit of armor, several weapons, and a 50lb pack while riding?

 

[jmartkdr2]

Continuing the tangent: cities (especially in the eastern US) are often thirty miles apart, because that's how far a horse can reasonably travel in a day.

A person walking can make that with difficulty and favorable conditions, but it's much easier on/with a horse.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Having the horse carry things while you walk would speed up your walking. You'd walk faster and rest less often.

 

[Dausuul]

Ability scores. And I don't mean that the specific ability scores used by D&D bug me. (They do, but that isn't the point.) I mean that the whole concept of ability scores bugs me.

First: The numbers you use at the table--skill bonus, attack bonus, save bonus, damage--are composites of other numbers. Any change to those "source numbers" ripples across your entire character sheet. This makes chargen needlessly complex, makes game balance harder, and steepens an already-harsh learning curve.

Second: Along with class, the ability score serves as a broad-strokes description of your character concept. This often forces players to choose between "my ability scores and class describe my concept" and "my character is good at the things my concept says they are good at."

If my concept is "cunning warrior who uses brains over brawn," that suggests a battlemaster fighter with high Int and modest Str. But all of the battlemaster's combat tricks rely on Strength or Dexterity, and care nothing about Intelligence! I am not good at the things my concept says I should be good at.

Get rid of ability scores, and there is no conflict: I just make a battlemaster and it works as advertised.

Third: The distinction between "ability score" and "ability score modifier" is a layer of stupid frosting on a bad design cake. Getting rid of this distinction wouldn't fix the deeper problems with ability scores, but having the distinction--where you almost don't care about the base score, but once in a while you do--makes everything that little bit worse.

 

[iserith]

I grew up with horses with a family that did regular long distance endurance rides. Horses absolutely speed up travel compared to walking.

As far as I know, I'm the only DM who even uses the travel paces and I don't even use those in every adventure or campaign!

 

[el-remmen]

5E's reliance of concentration length spell duration - which I am trying to trick myself into thinking works towards lowering the feel and power of magic some (which I should like in theory).

Cantrips that do damage: If you run out of damage-dealing spells be more creative with your other spells or pick up a crossbow. (But I can live with it in 5E, I guess).

 

[Ancalagon]

In 5E, it really irks me that all of the summoning spells are described as calling form some spirit that then takes the form of the whatever-you-summoned. That is just DUMB. Why not summon the actual thing? It's magic? If I summon wolves -- I literally drag wolves from someplace in the woods to serve me for a short time and send the survivors back.

It may have to do with consent, which can get messy if the summoned creatures are sentient.

 

[Greg K]

Basic D&D (B/X): race as class
AD&D (general): the hodge podge system of mechanics, percentile strength

AD&D 1e

• The Bard: Not a fan of multiple class hoop jumping. Plus, i never liked the jack of all trades aspect
• The Cleric
• The Monk: I don't mind having a monk class. The design is too specific for my taste
• The Weapon vs. armor table: Even Gygax admitted to not using it.
• The Pummeling, Overbearing, and grappling (?): Too cumbersome and Gygax admitted to not using these either
• Psionics: I never liked the mechanics and we know Gygax, to his regret, added them at the behest of others and either did not use or stopped using.

AD&D 2e (specifically)
Planescape and Spelljammer once Dark Sun could be travelled to (not that I liked Planescape or Spelljammer to begin with)

• Bill Slavicsek on Dark Sun
• D&D becoming even more high fantasy as time went on.

3e:

• Dungeon Punk Aesthetic and the direction of WOTC fantasy (I prefer my default D&D "Medieval" with the inclusion of Tolkein races)
• the new races such as the Shadar-Kai, Killoren, and Illumian
• edit: Barbarian = Berserker. Not as bad after Unearthed Arcana introduced the Crafty Hunter which helped in part to recreate the 1e Barbarian and the UA cultural weapon variant helped recreate it even more.
• Clerics: I strongly dislike it in comparison to both 2e Priests of Specific Mythoic and Specialty Priests with their Spheres. Plus, imo, it was time to support the unarmored priest archetype found in many cultures and fantasy (which were later kind of supported with the Cloistered Clerics which only covered one narrow portion)
• the fantasy weapons
• most of the official supplements (excluding Unearthed Arcana and Fiendish Codex I: Armies of the Abyss),
• the class related books: I prefer the 2e PHBR series and their focus on individual classes so that common fantasy and cultural variants of a class could be covrered. Similarly, I liked Green Ronin's 3e Psychic's Handbook, Shaman's Handbook, and Witch's Handbook for their focus on single topic
• the deluge of PrCs
• edit: all of those skill DCs in the phb. I ignore them and use my interpretation of how hard it should be for someone with no training and a no modifiers to achieve the task.

4e: I didn't play it, but were things that I liked, but things that I did not like.

• The Power System: I like the idea of the power system. However, parts of it reminded of early Hero System without many of the design lessons learned by the time of Hero 4e. I strongly disliked the handling of the Beastmaster's animal companion (and several companions were not my type of fantasy).
• The Cleric and Invoker: Even with the Invoker as the robed priest, it did not cover what i wanted.
• Saves as duration
• Inclusion of fantasy type armor in the main book while some real world armors were moved to supplements
• lack of skill points
• Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies: I didn't like them as they took the game in directions I did not like and, yet the game assumed you would use them.
• The additional PHBS to introduce new class books and races. Again, for classes and races, I prefer an approach similar to Green Ronin's Master Class books and TSR's 2e Player's Handbook Referece series (sans Complete Humanoid). The Power books helped somewhat, but...
• The Power Books. I love the sample builds and wanted more similar to the 2e PHBR Complete Fighter's Handbook, Complete Thief's Handbook.

5e: There are many things to like about 5e, but I dislike

• race and culture/environment not being separate, I am fine with suggesting a culture/environment, but i really prefer race giving certain innate qualties (e.g. darkvision, small size) and leaving culture/environment of the races open for DMs to determine which is appropriate for their campaign (e.g. Arctic Elves, Desert Elves, and Swamp Dwarves) without the need for an explosion of subraces based on environment.
• refusal to offer official tiny and large PC races
• All classes not receiving their subclass at first level
• WOTC not going back to various classes and not adjusting them to meet later settled design goals that getting a subclass should not change how you played your character or resulted in drastic equipment or ability changes, but should build expand on the character as portrayed at first level. Mearls discussed this in episodes of his Happy Hour with regards to the Valor Bard, the Sorcerer, and the Ranger. However, it also applied to the Rogue Scout when the designers decided that, since the Rogue is the light armor martial class, it would be the class for the non-spellcasting Wilderness Warrior expert.
• lack of a skill point variant in the DMG (and later supplements)
• The Monk class. Too many class abilities are too specific, , anything with unarmed fighting and ki/chi being forced under the class as a subclass, martial arts needs more customization (similar to Battlemaster manuvers), and i don't like the implemenation of ki despite liking the concept of ki points. Honestly, I would have preferred the monk be split into two classes or have been a subclass of a more general martial artist class.
• Paladin and Ranger as 1/3 casters.
• Too many weird subclasses when many traditional fantasy and cultural archetypes have not been covered

 

[Musing Mage]

I'm not a huge fan of the excessive escalation of hit points in 5e. The sheer bloat gets ridiculous.

Also the attempt to 'balance' out the attributes has lead to a worse imbalance. Dexterity has been mentioned above as having been supercharged; on the flip side - intellect is the opposite, basically a dump stat unless you're a wizard. Trying to give charisma combat relevance in the form of attack modifiers was also dumb.