D&D 5E What is balance to you, and why do you care (or don't)?

[Maxperson]

It would be interesting, here or in another thread, to try and determine just how much general across-the-board overlap there was. I suspect there was quite a lot, and we'd find much common ground on:

--- dropping weapon-vs-armour-type rules

We dropped those.

--- relaxing or eliminating level limits for demihumans

We had no level limits for them.

--- dropping the gender-based stat differences (for Humans for sure, maybe for some demihumans also)

We would probably have dropped this, but the only woman that played with the group dropped out just before I joined it, so it never came up again.

--- dropping weapon-speed rules (and-or overhauling the entire initiative system)

We used this.

--- addition of crit and-or fumble tables and rules

We added these.

--- not giving xp for treasure

We gave it for 1e, but dropped it for 2e.

--- ignoring a lot of what came out in UA.

There was a UA? Seriously, though, we only used a very little from that book. Comeliness got added for a while and dropped.

 

[James Gasik]

Ho boy do I know the feeling.
One popular DM was barely able to read english and made it so that feign death could be cast on unwilling targets...
When I showed them the translation, they accused me of being dishonnest and went to an english teacher that confirmed what I had said. Needless to say that some of his players were mad at me as a feign death was even more powerful than power word stun... No one reads the DMG, but a lot misread the rules descriptions in the PHB as well...

If I had a gold piece for every player who reads the first two sentences of a spell and instantly interprets that mean the spell works 100% to their advantage without any downsides, forcing me to stop doing whatever I was doing to open the book and read it myself, I'd be a very wealthy man.

Like the guy who said Hold Person affected 1d4 targets and they all save at -2...

 

[James Gasik]

We dropped those.

We had no level limits for them.

We would probably have dropped this, but the only woman that played with the group dropped out just before I joined it, so it never came up again.

We used this.

We added these.

We gave it for 1e, but dropped it for 2e.

There was a UA? Seriously, though, we only used a very little from that book. Comeliness got added for a while and dropped.

I had the opposite group- they loved UA and everything in it!

Fortunately, after a few levels, their Barbarians and Cavaliers tended to crash and burn thanks to forced roleplay requirements.

"I'm sorry, but as Bobo the Barbarian is not high enough level to trust Clerics, you'll be healing for 2 weeks. I suggest you play a different character this session."

"I mean, yes, attacking the demon head on is suicidal, but you must attack the strongest enemy, and you're not allowed to retreat, so..."

 

[tetrasodium]

Ho boy do I know the feeling.
One popular DM was barely able to read english and made it so that feign death could be cast on unwilling targets...
When I showed them the translation, they accused me of being dishonnest and went to an english teacher that confirmed what I had said. Needless to say that some of his players were mad at me as a feign death was even more powerful than power word stun... No one reads the DMG, but a lot misread the rules descriptions in the PHB as well...

I think that the "natural language" of 5e amplifies this problem with (convenientlydeliberately) misread PHB rules since it's no longer a simple "no bob it says 2+2=4 not 2+1+1, now is not the time" & so many things wind up with these rabbit holes of interconnected ask your GM subsystem upon ask your gm" subsystem in enough cases that it provides cover for deliberately misread & outright ignored ones.

As a player it drives me bonkers to watch players do it & as a gm it's just soul crushing having to keep interrupting sessions with "no bob..."

 

[Micah Sweet]

But why do we need whole classes dedicated to simplicity? Why can't an individual player just decide to play their class simply?

It's a nice idea, but I think many players, whether or not they want a simple class, are concerned about PC power relative to other characters. If you play a complex class simply, you are intentionally weakening your character, at the very least by removing choices.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But why do we need whole classes dedicated to simplicity? Why can't an individual player just decide to play their class simply?

I don't think having simple and complex modes for individual classes is a very good idea (I don't like, for example the idea of a wizard being run two totally different ways to create options around complexity). And I wasn't saying there should be simple classes (though I think the fighter and thief have always been good options for people who don't want to juggle the complexity of a spell list). What I am talking about more is entire editions being either simple or complex, or editions having enough optional rules that you can simplify the system for a whole campaign.

 

[Eric V]

It's a nice idea, but I think many players, whether or not they want a simple class, are concerned about PC power relative to other characters. If you play a complex class simply, you are intentionally weakening your character, at the very least by removing choices.

Presumably one doesn't like those choices, though, right?

A few people have said "But what about the power levels?" in response to my idea, saying "in the wild" in wouldn't work.

If we are really looking at things in the wild, though, then it will work just fine: this isn't AD&D, or 2e; this is 5e, one of the least deadly versions of the game available. No TPKs happening because one player in the party is playing "sub-optimally."

 

[Maxperson]

I had the opposite group- they loved UA and everything in it!

Fortunately, after a few levels, their Barbarians and Cavaliers tended to crash and burn thanks to forced roleplay requirements.

"I'm sorry, but as Bobo the Barbarian is not high enough level to trust Clerics, you'll be healing for 2 weeks. I suggest you play a different character this session."

"I mean, yes, attacking the demon head on is suicidal, but you must attack the strongest enemy, and you're not allowed to retreat, so..."

I don't think we had a Cavalier make it past 2nd level due to that requirement. Desire to play that class dropped off very quickly. The desire to play a Barbarian was strong and continued for a very long time. However the desire of everyone else in the group to have magic items and use magic was stronger, so I think I only saw one or two briefly played Barbarians.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

Presumably one doesn't like those choices, though, right?

A few people have said "But what about the power levels?" in response to my idea, saying "in the wild" in wouldn't work.

If we are really looking at things in the wild, though, then it will work just fine: this isn't AD&D, or 2e; this is 5e, one of the least deadly versions of the game available. No TPKs happening because one player in the party is playing "sub-optimally."

Yes you're right but socially it doesn't feel like that always.
This is a socially interactive game and it is easy to feel you have to hold your own/not let the rest down. Not even including when other players do actually complain and it's not just self imposed.
This doesn't mean there aren't many groups where it wouldn't be a problem if a PC was from a weaker class/subclass or played weaker to match a character idea, its just the rules side is only one factor.

 

[Helldritch]

I don't think we had a Cavalier make it past 2nd level due to that requirement. Desire to play that class dropped off very quickly. The desire to play a Barbarian was strong and continued for a very long time. However the desire of everyone else in the group to have magic items and use magic was stronger, so I think I only saw one or two briefly played Barbarians.

As I said in many posts. The power of the cavalier coupled with the paladin's own, led to the lawful stupid way of playing paladins as many would not even impose the complete set of RP restrictions coming with the cavalier. The barb was very strong for a solo game but as soon as you were with a group, fights between players would emerge and ho boy it was not pretty at times. Only the new rules on the ranger, druids and the new thief acrobat (class wise) were relatively good and even then, the skills presented in the dungeoneer and wilderness survival guides kinda mess with both the thief acrobat and the new ranger's rules...
So the new limits on the demi humans, the spells (and not all of them), magical items (and not all) and the part on the deities were good. The rest...