D&D 5E What (if anything) do you find "wrong" with 5E?

[overgeeked]

I think groups checks in 5e are a good idea that could be expanded upon. They dont replace the idea of skill challenges but are a simple starting point for collective party skills check in social or exploration contexts.

Doctors & Daleks expands on the idea almost bringing back skill challenges by making group checks take three rounds of successes where the characters cannot roll the same skills in a given round. It’s kinda neat.

 

[Monero]

The social and political ideology forced into the game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So that you still have the Guild Artisan feature and equipment!

Or the feature from any other background. And starting gold.

 

[Horwath]

d20 still being default over 3d6

 

[Shardstone]

I mean, men in glass houses though.

Talking of recent anime I haven't watched that much since Bebop, but occasionally watch something my brother suggests. I weirdly enjoy the somewhat dumb-sounding and very basic shonen that is Jujutsu Kaisen. It's just really well-executed with much better characterisation than is typical in anime.

Haha, JJK manga gets extremely complex and nuanced. Trust me. Season 1 is my least favorite part of the manga material.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The social and political ideology forced into the game.

Mod Note:

The political threadcrapping, forcing you out of yet another thread.

 

[Ondath]

One thing (among many others people pointed out in this thread) I've come to hate in 5e is its inability to choose between using natural language for its rules and using rules text like a computer code (a la Magic: the Gathering or 4E). 5E was first marketed as having natural language rules (a step away from 4E's "gamified" presentation with ability cards and so on), but over the years Jeremy Crawford has increasingly interpreted the rules as almost working like computer code (see the way he rules between attack with a melee weapon and a melee weapon attack, for instance). I'm impartial to either way of writing the rules, (well that's not true, I prefer natural language rules but I can appreciate code-like rules when they're done well and make everything super clear) but I feel like 5E has the worst of both worlds. The code-like rules design causes a lot of things to work in nonsensical ways just because they were written with specific words, while the illusion of natural language stops the rule designers from making keywords explicit (unlike MtG) and makes most ability text really awkward.

After having seen OSE's "true natural language" rules, I really wish 5E was written like that instead of the mess we have now.

 

[cbwjm]

Only thing I really thing is wrong with 5e is that they put the subclasses for each class on different tracks. If they'd set them all up to start from 1st level with each class gaining additional subclass abilities at the same level, it would solve pretty much my main issue with 5e.

 

[Baron Opal II]

What I dislike about 5E...

I dislike subclasses, and would prefer "paths", or something, where you have a list of abilities at, say, 3rd, 6th, 9th level or whatever. If you want to be an Eldritch Blade you had these abilities, but you could pick your 6th level from Battle Master and your 12th from Ghost Step Warrior.

I dislike the assumption that the attribute bonus will be equivalent to the proficiency bonus. One thing I appreciated about older editions was that the attribute bonus became a small contributor to the die roll at higher levels.

I dislike that monetary or physical wealth is irrelevant beyond, what, fifth level? No reason to wear more than rags, bribe people, donate to orphanages, build temples, whatever. Also, I can appreciate that people don't want the formulaic method to price / create magic items from 3e, but I think that was better in many ways.

I am greatly disappointed in the lack of wilderness adventure tools. No one on that team read any Burroughs, London, Verne, Defoe, or Stevenson. There is very little for Man vs. Nature situations, and what there is can be obviated by a fifth level party if not earlier. The B/X rules are better, and that was over 40 years ago.

I dislike that every utility spell requires concentration. The option of the wizard boosting the rest of the party, rather than just one character, is particularly difficult. Or, that a magician can't use all their spells to boost themselves and be a magical thief. I know people don't like that, but it's real handy if no one is playing a thief. And, if someone is doing that to just screw over another player then you tell the wizard to stop being a jerk.

I dislike every non-mundane thing being magical. I think there is plenty of design space for uncanny or preternatural abilities that are not necessarily vulnerable to a dispel magic or anti-magic shell.

I dislike the lack of guidance on social interactions. How much to bribe a guard? Can you bribe a guard? How do I get a guard that isn''t bribable?

 

[MoonSong]

sorcerers being the metamagic class. actually, no, metamagic being a class gimmick at all. why is this a class gimmick? why not just let it be a thing casters can get access to, whether through feats or some other mea--OH, RIGHT, BECAUSE YOU MADE THOSE OPTIONAL.

The designers had already given up on metamagic as a thing. They couldn't find a way to balance it and threw the towel in the middle of the open playtest. Only when at the eleventh hour they needed an urgent mechanival hook for the sorcerer -because they had wasted most of the playtest time trying to get rid of sorcerer instead of actually working on it- they came and salvaged metamagic. Without the sorcerer class we wouldn't have had metamagic at all.

Death is wildly too easy to avoid. High hit points, easy recovery, clerics and others dirty with healing, death saves, easy access to resurrection magic. Too many potential fixes to consider. Cap hit points at 9th level or lower. Use gritty realism as the standard rest mechanics. Remove death saves. Characters at zero hp are dying and the referee rolls 1d4. They die after that many rounds. The players don't know how many rounds that will be. Remove several of the more potent and healbot healing spells.

Healing magic is simultaneously too weak and too strong. It should be stronger wheb used on conscious allies and weaker on downed allies. Healing a downed ally should be hard and healing a conscious ally should be easier and probably even give a combat bonus so that it is better than using your own action to attack.
Yes being a healbot is not really possible in 5e. The game is balanced so your attacks are always better than healing and raising an downed ally is risibly easy (cof... cof ...healing word) Since a long rest heals to full and characters easily self heal during a short one, there is not much for a dedicated healer to do.