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

[Snarf Zagyg]

Don't forget that Gygax cites the Thief influences as being Zelazny's Shadowjack (i.e. Jack of Shadows) and Vance's Cugel.

THIEF
The Thief first shows up in the Great Plains Game Players Newsletter #9, and then in OD&D (Greyhawk)

Origin: This is the fine line between borrowing and theft? There is no line for this class. Gygax stole the concept from someone else. The original thief had the skills you would expect from a box-man who would deal with traps and safes (but not sneaking, climbing, etc.) and probably used a modified "spell system" like a MU. Gygax switched the system to a percentile system and added some details based on Vance and Zelazny.

Controversy: This may be the mother of all controversies! Gygax always steadfastly maintained sole credit for this class, but exceptionally credible evidence exists that Gary Switzer & Aero Games made the Thief class, and while Gygax added some stuff to it and changed some stuff, it's largely someone else's invention.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And, honestly? That's where the conversation should end. I don't like it is a perfectly fine thing to say. "I don't like it and I want to change it at my table, how can I do that?" is also a perfectly understandable conversation. "I don't like it, therefore it's poorly designed and needs to be changed for everyone who plays the game" is a conversation that will almost never go well.

The problem is, almost everything comes down to that at some point. Even a thing as fundamental as "all classes should be approximately equal in value" isn't something you can reliably get people to agree on, and even when you can you can show them numbers and they'll either disagree with the premise you based the calculation on or do the ultimate trump card of "Well, it hasn't worked out that way at our table so it doesn't matter."

Its fundamentally impossible to have a discussion of how well something is designed until you can set down the assumptions for it and have pretty much everyone actually participating in it more or less to agree with them. And, well, good luck with that.

Conversations get so much more productive when people accept that their tables are not reflective of anything other than their own table.

To a point, but at least in a general criticism thread, once you go there, there's not much to respond to things about.

 

[Greg K]

Thought I had posted this, but I guess I was wrong. My issues are the following:

• Darkvison should go back to 3e low-light vision, darkvision (and too many things have darkvision)
• Humans should work more like Rich Howard's Ultimate Adaptability or better remove non-biological aspects from races and use the article as an example for environment/culture being an additional choice for all races.
• Could use some more PHB races: Deva, Kobold, Goblin, Lizardfolk, Orc
• Classes should all receive their subclasses at first level
• Either stretch the 1-10 levels to 1-20 or have PHB 1 cover levels 1-10 or 1-12 and PHB2 cover the rest.
• Tone down the spellcasters. 7th-9th were not originally meant for players (if necessary move them to an Epic level book)
• Could use more classes: Alchemist (separate from the Artificer), Arcane Warrior, Scholar, Shaman, Warlord, Witch
• Berserker change Exhaustion to a fatigued/winded condition that can be removed with a short rest.
• Cleric: would like to see on a warlock like chasis with much shorter general base list
• Fighter could use more subclasses, fighting styles, and maneuvers
• Monk: needs more customization and some other changes
• Ranger: The Ranger should be non-magical by default with magic via subclasses (see AgenderArcee's Martial Ranger on reddit)
• Rogues
  • Thieves Cant should be a background language for Criminal and, maybe, Urchin,
  • class could use more subclasses in PHB
• Sorcerer: needs a general Arcane Origin for a magic family. needs own spell list
• Wizards: break the spell list down. Too many options in spell list
• Too many ways to bypass/minimize exploration in the wild
• Crticial hits should just be weapon or unarmed damage die maxed and roll a second die
• Some spells need to be reworked/releveled
  • Example: True Strike should just make the target's next attack a natural 20, but not a crit (taken from Mike Mearls's Book of Iron Might (Malhavoc Press) for 3e)
• add downtime from Xanathar's and Tasha's
• add Companion /Sidekick rules
• The DMG should include:
  • skill points, armor as DR, wound/ vitality, touch AC, glancing blow as optional rules
  • More conditions needed: Bleeding, Bloodied, Dazed Fatigued/Winded, Frozen, Shakened, Slowed, Staggered, Swallowed, Weakened Ability
  • More dials/variants for death and dying (fix the whack a mole), lethality, resting
  • actual dials and guidelines for tailoring the game: low magic, sword & sorcery, gothic fantasy, romantic fantasy

Hopefully, I didn't miss anything.

 

[Greg K]

THIEF
The Thief first shows up in the Great Plains Game Players Newsletter #9, and then in OD&D (Greyhawk)

Origin: This is the fine line between borrowing and theft? There is no line for this class. Gygax stole the concept from someone else. The original thief had the skills you would expect from a box-man who would deal with traps and safes (but not sneaking, climbing, etc.) and probably used a modified "spell system" like a MU. Gygax switched the system to a percentile system and added some details based on Vance and Zelazny.

Controversy: This may be the mother of all controversies! Gygax always steadfastly maintained sole credit for this class, but exceptionally credible evidence exists that Gary Switzer & Aero Games made the Thief class, and while Gygax added some stuff to it and changed some stuff, it's largely someone else's invention.

I heard abou tthe controversy, but I don't how much was borrowed or "stolen"

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I heard abou tthe controversy, but I don't how much was borrowed or "stolen"

Gygax's "The Thief Addition" (1974)

As I make my way to GenCon this week, I can't help but think back to thirty-eight years ago, to the first GenCon after the release of D ...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

Gary Switzer

In D&D, you don't win or lose. You survive and you learn from your mistakes and you have a good adventure. It's a lot like life.Gary Switzer, 1979 Gary R. Switzer was a Dungeons & Dragons player credited by Gary Gygax as originating the concept of the thief character class. Switzer was the owner...

dungeonsdragons.fandom.com

 

[Krachek]

Question: What (if anything) do you find "wrong" with D&D 5E?
Answer: One D&D UA Material.

That’s quite clever.
So unarmed attack is wrong,
but the Though feat is perfect!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

CR should be abandoned. It can't work. There's no way to make every combination of 4 classes have the same strengths and weaknesses vs. various monsters of the same CR. Therefore monsters will punch higher, lower and equal to their CR against various different groups.

4e balanced encounters by giving monsters a level x rating that put them roughly equivalent to a weak PC of a given level. This way you could easily tell that 4x level 4 PCs would probably win in a fight against 4x level 4 monsters. (They were roughly equivalent, but slightly weak, to give the PCs an edge).

Personally I found that significantly more intuitive than any CR system.

 

[Maxperson]

4e balanced encounters by giving monsters a level x rating that put them roughly equivalent to a weak PC of a given level. This way you could easily tell that 4x level 4 PCs would probably win in a fight against 4x level 4 monsters. (They were roughly equivalent, but slightly weak, to give the PCs an edge).

Personally I found that significantly more intuitive than any CR system.

My issue with the CR system(and I don't know 4e at all so can't comment there) is that even though monsters are balanced to be roughly as powerful as 4 PCs of the same level, classes all have different strengths and weaknesses. So just because a rogue and warlock are going to be roughly on par with one another, doesn't mean that a given monster won't be stronger against one class or the other.

That means that some parties will be able to destroy something that is 3 CRs over their heads when their abilities hit hard at the creature's weaknesses and their strengths match up to the creature's strengths, but will have trouble with something a CR or two lower if the opposite happens.

Did 4e have a similar issue at all?

 

[James Gasik]

Not as much, no. I mean, yeah, not all classes of a particular role were equal, some of the later classes were pretty shabbily built. But things like Ardents and Wardens and Seekers were less popular classes overall.

4e looked at what they expected someone's attack bonus and defenses to be at level X. The math didn't line up perfectly, but it did a fair job. Outliers were based on the role of the monster- a Brute had lower attack and defenses, but did more damage, a Soldier was more accurate and had higher defenses, but average damage, that sort of thing.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Did 4e have a similar issue at all?

Well, of course there is two kinds of optimizing (both of which can be done by accident as well as on purpose): There is making a powerful character, and there is making a powerful party.

4e whatever its faults, was very well balanced. There was still both those kinds of optimization, but it was also easy for DMs to build a "party" of bad guys. With roles (like James says above, Brutes, Lurkers, etc) they corresponded roughly to PC classes, so you could easily make a "party" of similar monsters that would cover more bases (and therefore fill in more weaknesses) than a similar 5e encounter.

It could still happen, but less often (or you would be more aware of it, if say, you threw an entire group of brutes at a party, you'd know that they'd do a ton of damage and die quickly. (Think Ogres here - big walloping clubs, bad at defending themselves. Not that there couldn't be ogres of the other roles, but you know, standard ogres would be the quintessential brute).

For all its faults, encounter building was extremely easy to eyeball in 4e. (Monsters just badly needed to have their HP dialed down and their DPR dialed up to speed up combats - most else about that end of the game was quite good.)