D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[Charlaquin]

The time-saving advantage of not tracking XP on a per-encounter basis is heightened at tables where the DM doesn't balance encounters based on CR. In combination, not tracking per-encounter XP and not using CR to balance encounters lets the DM avoid the entire CR system in the first place. That's a lot of math and record-keeping avoided.

I don’t have any particular aversion to CR (I don’t use it to design my encounters, though I do use a system that is similar to it in broad strokes), but you also don’t have to use it to make effective use of XP. Award XP for quest objectives completed, or award it for encounters, but base it on the complexity of the encounter rather than the CR (I do both of those things).

That's definitely a major style difference between us. As a player I don't want a clear way to actively pursue leveling up distracting me from making IC decisions.

You can make in-character decisions and actively pursue character advancement. The only time I see those two things being in conflict is if you’ve created a character who would not want to pursue whatever activities are the focus of the campaign, which is generally considered bad form anyway.

To the extent that I'm letting OOC factors intrude on my sense of immersion, I'd rather prioritize things like table fun (e.g. asking myself whether a possible IC decision is going to increase or decrease the fun of the other players) over consciously thinking about making IC decisions to speed up character advancement.

Why does making decisions based on OOC factors have to be intrusive on immersion? If your goals and your character’s goals are in concert, being rewarded for pursuing them should only further enhance immersion.

 

[Charlaquin]

That’s not really true. The Paizo APs are set up so that characters level up at certain parts of the chapter - partway through a larger encounter area/dungeon, after the events in a chapter have played out, etc - generally not just something like hours or sessions played. And that means a group of PCs does have some control - do they focus on advancing their way up the storyline or do they pursue other agendas as well, delaying their advancement along the path and their level advancement?

But from a player perspective, that doesn’t grant any feeling of agency over your rate of advancement unless you as a player know what actions will advance the storyline and what actions won’t. And if you do, the behavior it encourages is finding the critical path and following it as directly as possible, ignoring all side-content. Which... Is a valid design choice, I suppose, though it isn’t the one I would make as a DM or as a game designer. I would much rather reward the players for exploring off the beaten path and engaging in optional, missable content.

 

[Xetheral]

You can make in-character decisions and actively pursue character advancement. The only time I see those two things being in conflict is if you’ve created a character who would not want to pursue whatever activities are the focus of the campaign, which is generally considered bad form anyway.

Because making decisions in-character is a process, not a result. If I give weight to OOC factors like potential XP gain in additional to the character's IC concerns, that's a different process than focusing exclusively on IC concerns.

For example, let's say the PCs are deciding between two competing priorities: answering an urgent call from their allies for military aid, or keeping their contractual commitments to the Wizards Guild to provide security at a new dig site. An exclusively IC decision-making process would only look at the character's motivations, loyalties, and priorities. That's a different mental process than considering all of those factors in addition to trying to trying to give added weight to whichever choice will result in the fastest XP gain. Maybe my character has a love interest among the allies in need, but values their reputation for honestly highly, and thus doesn't want to break a contractual commitment. Weighing those competing priorities may be a hard choice, but it's a straightforward binary trade-off. Trying to add relative rates of XP gain as a factor in the decision instead turns it into a much more complicated multidimensional optimization problem.

Why does making decisions based on OOC factors have to be intrusive on immersion? If your goals and your character’s goals are in concert, being rewarded for pursuing them should only further enhance immersion.

Because my emotional state and the character's emotional state are different. It's hard enough trying to empathize with the character strongly enough to make decisions from their point of view, and based on their emotions rather than my own. I can do that while trying to keep an intuitive, OOC sense of the other players' moods so that I can make sure my IC decisions are also fun for the rest of the table. I can't do both of those while also trying to simultaneously make a rational extrapolation of which IC options will result in the fastest character advancement.

Also, my goals and my character's goals are almost never going to be in concert. My goal is to be a fun player (or DM) who contributes to everyone else having a great time while also enjoying myself. My character's goals are all framed in terms of the state of a made-up fantasy world. So unless it's an isekai game (and I've never actually played one of those) my goals and my character's goals are literally worlds apart.

 

[Li Shenron]

Druid metal restrictions.

Not that I can't just treat it as fluff in my games or make a case for it being irrelevant even as RAW, but it is the most idiotic piece of text in core, apparently setting a hard restriction without consequences and going against the spirit of a game that even allows CE paladins as well as high-tech druids using laser guns and chemical weapons and even metal clothes that provide AC bonus as long as they aren't called armor.

 

[Zardnaar]

Spellcasters sure will, even if only in terms of what degree (i.e. level) of spell they can cast and what's required in order to gain the ability to do so.

And it's not at all difficult to imagine Monks and all warrior-types using a vague equivalent to a martial-arts belt system in the real world, to designate different stages of training/ability.

Same here, which ideally means they should get the same 450 xp for dealing with that Ogre no matter what their solution might be; as long as it's dealt with and no longer remains a threat to either the PCs or those who the PCs were trying to protect.

Druid metal restrictions.

Not that I can't just treat it as fluff in my games or make a case for it being irrelevant even as RAW, but it is the most idiotic piece of text in core, apparently setting a hard restriction without consequences and going against the spirit of a game that even allows CE paladins as well as high-tech druids using laser guns and chemical weapons and even metal clothes that provide AC bonus as long as they aren't called armor.

Even in 2E they had a work around.

 

[John R Davis]

Multi Classing. Each PC more special without the constant dips

 

[Horwath]

Multi Classing. Each PC more special without the constant dips

MCing only with 2 classes and classes MUST be within 1 level of each other.

 

[TheSword]

But from a player perspective, that doesn’t grant any feeling of agency over your rate of advancement unless you as a player know what actions will advance the storyline and what actions won’t. And if you do, the behavior it encourages is finding the critical path and following it as directly as possible, ignoring all side-content. Which... Is a valid design choice, I suppose, though it isn’t the one I would make as a DM or as a game designer. I would much rather reward the players for exploring off the beaten path and engaging in optional, missable content.

Think of that kind of adventure as a journey with identifiable legs. I’m travelling from London to Paris as leg one. I can go by any route, take as long as I want, and visit what I like along the way. As long as I end up in Paris. The same for Paris to Lyon. Lyon to Nice. Nice to Florence. That’s the agency the players get in an AP style game. They don’t get to decide to go to Morocco.

That’s the deal players make. It’s also not a matter of relying on a DM. It is understood that after completing a storyline they then are rewarded for that with level up. If the PCs find a creative way of avoiding one section or encounter entirely they are rewarded for that by advancing quicker.

I like that Level is tied to storyline goals. Treasure on the other hand be it gold, magic items, spells etc are tied to exploration. The balance keeps the game moving at pace and not drifting but still encourages exploration and discovery.

 

[Oofta]

Spellcasters sure will, even if only in terms of what degree (i.e. level) of spell they can cast and what's required in order to gain the ability to do so.

And it's not at all difficult to imagine Monks and all warrior-types using a vague equivalent to a martial-arts belt system in the real world, to designate different stages of training/ability.

In real life people gain new skills and abilities. As a software developer I learned new techniques, new patterns, better ways of doing things. But I don't have "levels" it's just that as I learned one thing it opened up other new things to learn and master. That training I took to learn database design later helped me with data modeling, learning about threading later had application to web back end design and high volume services. You have to crawl before you walk, walk before you run.

So I disagree. Casters don't know that because they're level 5 they can now cast fireball. They know they have been studying how to control and manipulate magic long enough and had enough practical application of spells that they now understand how to cast fireball. The monk slowly learns how to control their ki and one day has a breakthrough, the fighter slowly through practice and battle slowly gets better.

Of course it should be messier and the "jumps" from one level to another should not be as big as they are. But it's D&D and they have to simplify things down to a level that works for the game.

 

[Democratus]

So I disagree. Casters don't know that because they're level 5 they can now cast fireball. They know they have been studying how to control and manipulate magic long enough and had enough practical application of spells that they now understand how to cast fireball. The monk slowly learns how to control their ki and one day has a breakthrough, the fighter slowly through practice and battle slowly gets better.

It depends on the edition of D&D.

In the version I'm playing, there is literally a name for every level. And your character knows what name they go by. A 3rd-level Cleric is a Priest. A 3rd-level magic-user is a Conjurer.

Once a fighter reaches 9th level, they are a Lord and can be granted land and titles.

Each level is distinct, named, and known in-character for exactly what they are.