D&D 5E Is 5E Special

[Parmandur]

Sure, I'm a wiz at doing this levels 1-10. I don't like playing afterwards because it stops being fun, and balance has a lot to do with that.

It's less a balance shift, and more a genre shift as you hit Tier 3 at 11. Which, you know, I prefer that Tier 2 as a narrative Genre, too.

 

[Parmandur]

This is going pretty far afield of the topic, but at this point it seems fine:

Probably the biggest weakness of 5E is that it can't decide whether it is a Dungeon Fantasy game or not. Half od the design choices point toward dungeons, but the other half don't -- and the "culture" presented in the official modules certainly doesn't. You are absolutely right in your comment "needed a bigger dungeon" because the attrition of hit points and spells that "balances" fighters versus casters is built around the dungeon. The PCs should be pulling out when they are spent, hauling whatever treasure they can carry and considering knocking out the torchbearer's knee in order to slow those trogs down.

But not all of 5E embraces that. While we still have wizards and fighters, we also have warlocks and other "short rest" classes. We have too many resources that don't suffer attrition, and we have too many cheap or free abilities that bypass the difficulty in the dungeon and wilderness.

I think D&D needs to decide what it is and excise the mechanics that don't support that. The OSR showed that people do in fact still want resource management and dungeon procedures -- and not just us old farts. But not everyone wants that. The Hickman mode is alive and well today. "Stories" are something a lot of people want -- and not just the new kids. The thing is, D&D has never been good at doing them both well, and I think 5E is particularly bad at the former.

Maybe there is an answer that allows D&D to be both, but I don't think so. Frankly, there is probably more money in the latter, story oriented play, so they should kill those dungeon crawling sacred cows that exist only in diminished form anyway.

It's both, exact misture varying by table and phases of the Moon, but the latter doesn't require the same balance that dungeon delving does.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I have mine on my older computer. Which was still in use 2 years ago.
What I remember is that the ranger went from slightly overpowered to slightly underpowered after the last playtest.

There are a few things that annoyed me, but the changes were not as dramatic. What we saw in the last package was close enough to the release version, and in between there was an internal test version which was leaked back then, that was very close to the released rules IIRC.

The game has evolved since them and even if they had a few more months, they would not have gotten everything right.
Now, with 10 years of public testing, they have another chance, which might have a chance to be almost perfect.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Is it possible to get the playtest documents?

Not from any Jedi. More seriously: there is no legitimate source. You'll have to find bootleg copies. I know for sure they exist, but I don't know where to find them.

Should you succeed in this endeavor, definitely see if you can find the playtest Sorcerer as well. Ah, what could have been...

 

[Oofta]

This is going pretty far afield of the topic, but at this point it seems fine:

Probably the biggest weakness of 5E is that it can't decide whether it is a Dungeon Fantasy game or not. Half od the design choices point toward dungeons, but the other half don't -- and the "culture" presented in the official modules certainly doesn't. You are absolutely right in your comment "needed a bigger dungeon" because the attrition of hit points and spells that "balances" fighters versus casters is built around the dungeon. The PCs should be pulling out when they are spent, hauling whatever treasure they can carry and considering knocking out the torchbearer's knee in order to slow those trogs down.

But not all of 5E embraces that. While we still have wizards and fighters, we also have warlocks and other "short rest" classes. We have too many resources that don't suffer attrition, and we have too many cheap or free abilities that bypass the difficulty in the dungeon and wilderness.

I think D&D needs to decide what it is and excise the mechanics that don't support that. The OSR showed that people do in fact still want resource management and dungeon procedures -- and not just us old farts. But not everyone wants that. The Hickman mode is alive and well today. "Stories" are something a lot of people want -- and not just the new kids. The thing is, D&D has never been good at doing them both well, and I think 5E is particularly bad at the former.

Maybe there is an answer that allows D&D to be both, but I don't think so. Frankly, there is probably more money in the latter, story oriented play, so they should kill those dungeon crawling sacred cows that exist only in diminished form anyway.

I haven't run a dungeon-centered campaign ... umm ... ever. The last time I had significant dungeons was probably in high school in a time long ago and far away. But I agree that some aspects of the game seem to be trying to please two masters, one for old school dungeon crawls and on, well, not.

That's part of why I'd like to see a paradigm shift on rest and recovery. For example get rid of short and long rests, have rest "units" . For every unit of rest you spend HD to recover HP, you can only recover HP naturally by spending HD. Recover n HD per y units of rest. Do something similar for spells and other abilities (i.e. ki points). So if you want to do dungeon crawls your unit could be 15 minutes. Do more urban/exploration? Your unit could be 8 hours.

Not that I ever expect to see anything like that, so until then I'll use the alternate rest rules and call it good.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not from any Jedi. More seriously: there is no legitimate source. You'll have to find bootleg copies. I know for sure they exist, but I don't know where to find them.

Should you succeed in this endeavor, definitely see if you can find the playtest Sorcerer as well. Ah, what could have been...

I really wish even if they switched the sorcerer to what it is now if we kept that class as a concept and made something new from it

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That's part of why I'd like to see a paradigm shift on rest and recovery. For example get rid of short and long rests, have rest "units" . For every unit of rest you spend HD to recover HP, you can only recover HP naturally by spending HD. Recover n HD per y units of rest. Do something similar for spells and other abilities (i.e. ki points). So if you want to do dungeon crawls your unit could be 15 minutes. Do more urban/exploration? Your unit could be 8 hours.

where I am sure that wont be a default resting method I really like it and think it would have been great for those dials they were talking about around the playtest

 

[Oofta]

That's not my point.

The playtest survey said to keep something.
They took it out by overstapling grogs
The audiences (not me) disagreed
They put it back in.

5e succeeded more due to the climate and tech changing than their accessibility. If anything, the parts 5e emphasized to be accessible is the parts 5e fans complained about and got changed in XGTE/TCOE/MOTM.

Do you have access to the polling results? Access to internal reviews, and playtests done by the core testing groups? Have recordings of meetings that they discuss this? Anything at all other than "I don't like their decisions"?

I have no idea what the majority of people did or did not want, what the results of polls were or how they made final decisions. I do know that this is the best selling edition ever. In my opinion that would not have been possible without a solid game that works well enough for most people. Whether you, me, or your uncle Bob agree with the decisions are not particularly relevant.

 

[Oofta]

where I am sure that wont be a default resting method I really like it and think it would have been great for those dials they were talking about around the playtest

Yeah, I'd like to see something with a clear default that works something like the current rules and then suggestions for adjustments. Be clear about how they decide the math and how many encounters and what assumptions they made so the DM could make informed decisions.

A well. if wishes were horses we'd be knee deep in horse dung.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah, I'd like to see something with a clear default that works something like the current rules and then suggestions for adjustments. Be clear about how they decide the math and how many encounters and what assumptions they made so the DM could make informed decisions.

yup some of the most fun my group has had was with playing with the rest values... we have not tried it yet but we discussed a theriacal '10-20 min short rest' and '1 hour long rest' game with the cavate that you can only regain half your HD per long rest and total HD recovered per day was maxed at your max... I think i said that weird

so if we did 3 encounters each with a short rest between, then a long rest then 2 encounters and a long rest then 2 encounters and a long rest... we took 3 long rests, but if we where 5th level we could at each long rest recover 2HD and over all three added together could not regain more then 5... even though in theory 2 each time would be 6.