D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[Oligopsony]

That's why every should really pick a lane and devote energy towards the playstyle they want players to experience. For example, I don't like 4e, but it did an excellent job picking a lane. 5e, on the other hand, seems to actively drive on the divider.

If you’re playing with people matched together because of common play preferences, absolutely. The more physical proximity or out-of-game friendship are considerations, the more compromises everyone might have to make on system, GMing style, tone, and all the rest.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not saying anyone should agree with this list.....

Monsters were totally boring, that's improving, but still isn't great.

Attacks of opportunity discourage so much. I know why they're there....

Fighters have little to do.

There is no advanced version with a lot more interesting stuff to do during combat.

Adventure support from WotC is too focused on campaigns.

No dungeon or dragon magazine with me ideas and small doses of material.

No Dragon and Dungeon magazines is definitely a true problem of 5e.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No dungeon or dragon magazine with me ideas and small doses of material.

Yeah that's a really sad one. I didn't realize how, even into 4E, the drip-drip-drip of official material and short adventures was beneficial to D&D until it stopped.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you’re playing with people matched together because of common play preferences, absolutely. The more physical proximity or out-of-game friendship are considerations, the more compromises everyone might have to make on system, GMing style, tone, and all the rest.

Compromises happen, sure. But the DM and players should, imo, be the ones making them, not the game design.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Maybe I'm unusual in this way, but I find myself agreeing with every post that states what they think is wrong, even if it's an issue that I personally have no problem with. Whereas the only posts here that I disagree with are the ones that say "everything is fine".

Because even if it's "fine" - that someone might find an issue with it means that it could be better. I don't know why we should settle for "works if you hit it hard when it rattles" when we could have a smooth-running game.

And I don't think that it's about playstyle. There's a LOT of things that could be improved, IMO, that are playstyle-agnostic.

My list for the OP (some of which just repeats other posts for agreements sake):

Better DMG. Better DMing advice.
More stuff to buy. Better/More interesting ways to spend gold.
Bigger Fonts. Better layouts. Better organized core books.
Better encounter-building rules.

I don't think any of those ought to be all that controversial.

For a deeper dive (stuff that I think could more reasonably argued):

I'd like a skill system that more closely examines the kinds of checks that are actually rolled in the game. Identify the checks that are made and make skills that target those checks. Give each skill more even weight. Does that make sense? I don't expect to be agreed with here, but I'm really quite unhappy with the skill system, in particular how it works in conjunction with tools, but that's another story.

These are all things that I think that people, even if they argue "don't need to be fixed" would come around if they experienced the fixes after they were made.

 

[Zaukrie]

Yeah that's a really sad one. I didn't realize how, even into 4E, the drip-drip-drip of official material and short adventures was beneficial to D&D until it stopped.

That's the key.... Just a little something fun every month.

 

[Zaukrie]

Maybe I'm unusual in this way, but I find myself agreeing with every post that states what they think is wrong, even if it's an issue that I personally have no problem with. Whereas the only posts here that I disagree with are the ones that say "everything is fine".

Because even if it's "fine" - that someone might find an issue with it means that it could be better. I don't know why we should settle for "works if you hit it hard when it rattles" when we could have a smooth-running game.

And I don't think that it's about playstyle. There's a LOT of things that could be improved, IMO, that are playstyle-agnostic.

My list for the OP (some of which just repeats other posts for agreements sake):

Better DMG. Better DMing advice.
More stuff to buy. Better/More interesting ways to spend gold.
Bigger Fonts. Better layouts. Better organized core books.
Better encounter-building rules.

I don't think any of those ought to be all that controversial.

For a deeper dive (stuff that I think could more reasonably argued):

I'd like a skill system that more closely examines the kinds of checks that are actually rolled in the game. Identify the checks that are made and make skills that target those checks. Give each skill more even weight. Does that make sense? I don't expect to be agreed with here, but I'm really quite unhappy with the skill system, in particular how it works in conjunction with tools, but that's another story.

These are all things that I think that people, even if they argue "don't need to be fixed" would come around if they experienced the fixes after they were made.

Great list. I've upped the font in my products.

If I didn't use DNDbeyond for most things, the organization of the DMG would really annoy me.

Your skill point really resonates with me.

 

[James Gasik]

5e has universal spell levels, there is no reason not to factor them into organization.

Why do people look up spells?

A) to prepare/learn spells: you want spells clustered by level so that you don't need to flip through 95% of the spell list to get from Animal Friendship to Unseen Servant at 1st level. This is how you get people unwilling to play casters because it's hard.

B) check exact wording of a spell - you should already know the level so level + alphabet organization is no impediment.

That first scenario happens a lot. Clerics, paladins & wizards preparing spells for special circumstances and every time every spell casting class levels.

The second one doesn't happen a lot and when it does, player casters have their spell list by level as do pregen adventures so again, no impediment. The only time level might not be noted is a homebrew.

You don't make life hard for 65% of players just to save the sloppy 1% from themselves when adding "(4th)" to their notes will fix the issue.

I think my 2e PHB handles this best; in the spells section, they are divided by level. But there's a spell index starting on page 242 which has all the spells in alphabetical order and tells you what page they are found on in the book.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think the saving throws are one of my biggest issues.

Just making them match the ability scores has three problems, in my experience.

1. Some of them are simply much more common and much more important than others, with Dex and Wisdom and Con getting even more importance put on them.
2. Newbie players easily confuse Saves with Ability Checks (and even experienced players can easily get tripped up on what spells or effects aid or hinder one vs the other).
3. The disparity between good saves and bad saves means high level characters can have an absurdly wide variation in vulnerability level to certain attacks. You can literally have a 15th or 20th level character who can never make a save against a given enemy's attack, because it's a stat you put an 8 or 10 into and you're not proficient.

I think this is something TSR D&D arguably did better, though the 3E save categories of Fortitude, Reflex, and Will were very intuitive. But 3E still had the issue of too-wide save disparity. 4E probably did it the best of any WotC edition. If they went back to 3E style but using 4E-style bonuses (best of Con or Str for Fort, Dex or Int for Ref, Wis or Cha for Will, plus basing it partly on level) it would be a significant improvement, I think.

 

[James Gasik]

In 5e, if it's not a spell, Counterspell can't block it, Dispel Magic can't dispel it, feats like Mage Slayer don't trigger, and some Paladin Auras don't protect from it. Most things should be spells because "spells" are the default form of magic and everything else is weird and poorly defined.

The alternative is some form of well-defined not-spell magic which goes back to 3e's Extraordinary, Supernatural and Spell-Like classifications. (which I personally liked)

The problem is that this only works with player abilities. What powers of monsters are "magical" is rarely spelled out, making what should be powerful abilities, like the legacy Yuan-Ti's magic resistance only occasionally useful. In my current game, my DM was bewildered last session when his NPC caster started throwing out spells and I didn't counterspell them.

"But you know the spell, you found a scroll of it!"

"Sure, but I only have so many spells I can prepare, only 3 level 3 slots to work with, and I have no way to predict if some weird monster ability is a spell or not. Plus, with most NPC casters being way stronger than I am, chances are if I did counterspell something, I'd have to make a roll, and they could just counterspell me right back!"