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

[pukunui]

The default 5e chase rules are borked. I’ve tried using them several times, and they just don’t work well at all.

There’s a much better set of variant chase rules in the AL season 2 adventure, Cloaks and Shadows. I’d prefer WotC replaced the current rules in the DMG with those variant rules for the anniversary revision.

 

[Maxperson]

Gotta appreciate how we've got threads on the front page that are essentially 'tell us how ~speshul~ 5e is and how all the boys in school want to get with her' and then 'Let's all talk about 5e behind her back and how she is totally not pulling off that top and those jeans'.

And people are doing both in both.

Might be because there's both good and bad in the edition.

 

[cbwjm]

The default 5e chase rules are borked. I’ve tried using them several times, and they chose don’t work well at all.

There’s a much better set of variant chase rules in the AL season 2 adventure, Cloaks and Shadows. I’d prefer WotC replaced the current rules in the DMG with those variant rules for the anniversary revision.

I had a look at them (admittedly, it was in game and I wasn't prepared for a chase) and I ended up ignoring them and improvising a skill challenge. Might have been because I was in a rush, but I couldn't get my head around them at the time.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Summon Tweet Nojitsu!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No doubt some folks have expected me to post in this thread. I have largely stayed out of it, mostly because while I absolutely have my criticisms of 5e, I don't really know if going into them here is worthwhile.

In very simple terms, my problems with 5e are:
Martial/caster balance is back to favoring casters significantly over non-casters.
There is no simple caster class.
Healing is anemic, especially in combat.
Resting is poorly-designed at best and outright awful at worst.
The designers openly mocked stuff I loved about 4e (Warlords, dragonborn, tactical combat, etc.)
"Modularity" was vaporware, and the Tactical Combat Module doubly so.
The encounter balance is all off, both in terms of potency and in terms of frequency.
Skill use rules are poorly-handled and encourage 3e-style "every skill is narrow and specific" thinking. Huge step backward.
They killed Skill Challenges and didn't even talk about it.
The early game is the only place that makes onboarding relatively easy...and is stupidly deadly, punishing new players for small errors.
The refusal to just call actions Bonus Actions and Standard Actions.
Fighters, Wizards, and Sorcerers are all bland as hell and the first two do not actually support the thematic elements of their concepts.
Paladin and Ranger should never have been casters.
The Primal power source was awesome, shoehorning Druids (and Rangers) back into divine magic is dumb.
Feats were supposed to be awesome, big huge chunks of power. 3/4 of them are mediocre. Only the very best actually live up to the hype.
The DMG is, simply put, not very good. I dunno if I'd call it outright bad, but it's taken after the 1e DMG in all the wrong ways.

There are probably more things I could mention, but I won't. Suffice it to say, I have a laundry list of complaints about the design and implementation of 5e.

 

[humble minion]

The early game is the only place that makes onboarding relatively easy...and is stupidly deadly, punishing new players for small errors.

That's very very true.

I don't think that's a problem any edition of D&D has solved 100% satisfactorily, but level 1-2 is the swingiest phase of the game by far and a few bad rolls (orc greataxe crit) can be brutal. It's a pretty harsh learning environment.

 

[d24454_modern]

It affects distribution of rolls.

it makes rolls more reliable and bonuses matter more as the random factor is less "swingy"

with d20 rolls of 15+ are 30% of the time, same with bad rolls of 1-6. That leaves middle rolls of 7-14 with 40% of the distribution.

with 3d6, rolls of 7-14 take 81% of the possible rolls.

I prefer the swinginess. If rolls only have faux-swing, then we might as well not have dice rolls at all.

 

[Hussar]

It's funny. Everyone keeps telling me that the caster imbalance is this big thing in 5e, and yet, when I asked about the top damage dealers in the game, most people tell me that it's the non-casters that are the top guns.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's very very true.

I don't think that's a problem any edition of D&D has solved 100% satisfactorily, but level 1-2 is the swingiest phase of the game by far and a few bad rolls (orc greataxe crit) can be brutal. It's a pretty harsh learning environment.

No one will be surprised, but I found 4e did a decent job here. Outright bad decisions could DEFINITELY still get you killed (that happened to a Wizard in a game I played), but the higher starting HP and slightly more comprehensive toolkit made it reasonably effective at keeping the lowest end working.

It's funny. Everyone keeps telling me that the caster imbalance is this big thing in 5e, and yet, when I asked about the top damage dealers in the game, most people tell me that it's the non-casters that are the top guns.

I'm still pretty sure you can build a caster to do better damage. Even if not, though? Save-or-suck/save-or-die and utility spells were always the bigger concern. Like...doing damage is still kind of a sucker's game in 5e, because you have so much HP to chew through.

 

[Ondath]

Summon Tweet Nojitsu!

Eh, I disagree with this line of thinking. I'd much prefer for every choice to have consequences instead of allowing very special OC do not steal character concepts right off the bat. No, you can't be a special snowflake half-dragon who is so awesome and everybody loves them, choosing to be draconic has its consequences. No, you can't be super cool omni destroyer robot, if you wanna be a construct character you gotta be ready to face some deep existential questions.

I think giving everyone exactly what they want isn't always a good idea. Delayed gratification is good for a reason, and requiring that characters be flawed and require arc open for character development instead of being wish fulfilment badasses makes the game better in the long run. At least for me.