D&D 5E Is 5E Special

[Dannyalcatraz]

This is what happened with brexit: a very low participation that was skewed towards leaving the EU because the brexiteers had an easier time mobilizing the dissatisfied people.

Mod Note:

Lots of potential examples in the world and you chose one that was CLEARLY political?


Do better.

 

[Minigiant]

5e kinda proves the statements " a simple solution is usually great." and there is a limit on how much a simple solution can solve a complex problem."

5e to me feels like an a old star who got traded to a team making a championship run. 5e isn't close perfect and had obvious flaws. However it landed in the 2009 Yankees.

 

[Parmandur]

So it's just another phrase for "spotlight balance." If so, it suffers exactly the same problems. Spotlight balance is a great idea in theory and a terrible idea in practice. Mostly because the PCs--particularly those who have access to supernatural powers--are the ones who decide where the spotlight shines. And the ones with all the magic mojo have no reason to shine it anywhere else, even if they are legit actually team players trying to help the party as much as possible. To shine the spotlight on others is, quite literally, to put them at greater risk

Yes, spotlight balance, if you prefer: narrative balance is Crawfoed's term. That and DPR over and Adventure Day is what constitutes balance in modern D&D.

Also, you left out something crucial in your second bit there.

What is the Fighter contributing that literally any other character could not? Because that's what actually matters here. 5e skills are weak (particularly in comparison to 4e, where skills were explicitly presented as extremely broad and powerful), and even if they weren't, Fighters don't get anything to help with that. Literally all characters get at least 4 starting skills, two of which don't even come from their class. Unless the class provides something more than just having skills, it's not being a Fighter that let you do it. Period.

Everyone else gets things they can contribute specifically because they are the class they are. Fighters do not. That sucks. It should not be.

Yes, they contribute just like everyone else. Balanced. They really shine in the mass murder department, fighting: go figure.

So, everybody but doctorbadwolf then.

Not only do I 100% agree with what the good doc says below, it is one of what I would consider the primary factors in 5E's success on streaming and in the marketplace.

Oh I know I’m not alone in seeing the design of skills in 5e as both intentional and successful at reaching its intended design goals.

 

[Parmandur]

So, not at this high level, but this clip illustrates how playing a 5E Fighter has felt in my experience:

 

[darjr]

I can’t keep up with this thread, apologies.

I dint have exact numbers but I see a lot of fighters in public play. H*ck I run one and he’s nigh invulnerable, till the freaking will saves start…..

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes, they contribute just like everyone else. Balanced. They really shine in the mass murder department, fighting: go figure.

That's not what I said. I said with skills, as in out of combat, Fighters contribute absolutely nothing from their class. At all.

There is no other class that you can say that, about any other part of the game. Why is that? Why do we have classes that in and of themselves can do all sorts of skillful things and also do combat just fine, but Fighters are forced into a position where the class itself gives diddly-squat outside of combat and literally nothing particularly special for combat? (Fighters definitely are not head-and-shoulders above all other classes for combat capacity, especially against groups of enemies which is what 5e is specifically designed to employ lots of. As the designers told us.)

Not only do I 100% agree with what the good doc says below, it is one of what I would consider the primary factors in 5E's success on streaming and in the marketplace.

Oh I know I’m not alone in seeing the design of skills in 5e as both intentional and successful at reaching its intended design goals.

Frankly, I'd be interested to hear exactly what those goals are supposed to be, and exactly how 5e meets them. Because I personally don't see it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Frankly, I'd be interested to hear exactly what those goals are supposed to be, and exactly how 5e meets them. Because I personally don't see it.

The 5e skills are open ended descriptions instead of rules blocks for a reason. They didn’t like…stop working, they made a choice.

If you want to dig into it, I’d be happy to do so in a new thread.

 

[Minigiant]

The 5e fighter kinda proves my point that 5e more or less walked into a situation that benefited most editions.

5e, like 3e and 2e, has a sweet spot for "balance and fun" around levels 3-9. At these levels, the casters get a good amount of spells and items to show their stuff but not enough spells to shift low level spells into toping warriors and experts without heavily diminishing their combat effectiveness. So right before spellcasters can be a problem, warrior's low modifiers could become useless, and experts could run into magically brickwalls, the campaigns end and restarts.

But what if people start campaigns at higher levels? couldn't you start a campaign at level 10 when the 5e starts to break down?

You could. But it doesn't happen because the plurality of gamers to play 5e are relatively new. They got into D&D via streaming, VTT, and video games. So they tend to restart back at level 1 and never get to the part of 5e where the mechanics start falling apart and becomes a hassle for the DM. And old school D&D gamers usually restart back at level 1 and have a high preference for low level low magic play.

So the current climate hides the flaws of 5e.

This is probably where 5.5e and 6e will have a challenge. D&D fans won't be all freshmen when they come out.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The 5e skills are open ended descriptions instead of rules blocks for a reason. They didn’t like…stop working, they made a choice.

If you want to dig into it, I’d be happy to do so in a new thread.

Not particularly, so I'll just say one final thing on the matter: My experience of 5e skills has not been anywhere even remotely near the level of open-endedness and potency you could get out of 4e skills. I don't know why that is. But it's what I've seen. 5e DMs, IME, have been extremely conservative about what they permit skills to do.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not particularly, so I'll just say one final thing on the matter: My experience of 5e skills has not been anywhere even remotely near the level of open-endedness and potency you could get out of 4e skills. I don't know why that is. But it's what I've seen. 5e DMs, IME, have been extremely conservative about what they permit skills to do.

I’ve seen the polar opposite. I can’t even fathom what would cause a dm to be restrictive about 5e skills. How would you even be restrictive?