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

[Minigiant]

The "6-8 encounters a day" thing wasn't an issue.

The "issue" was that 5e assume that your DM was game designer and D&D veteran who did not need any additional rules or advice in order to adjust the game to a different amount of encounters and had the authority to change the rules willy willy without testing or player buy-in.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Even in a void, 8 encounters a day is a slog and a half.

 

[Lanefan]

The general lack of ability to move around in initiative, combined with initiative being super-RNG compared to other rolls is not great design,

That's one area where we'll probably disagree at a core level: in general where there's a choice I want the game to be more random, not less.

Here that would be reflected by re-rolling initative each round, for example.

 

[Minigiant]

Even in a void, 8 encounters a day is a slog and a half.

The encounters were supposed to be short and over 2-3 sessions.
The "issue" is 5e again did not provide the tools to convert your campaign to a 1 session = 1 adventuring day paradigm.

There was no "Convert Fighters to Long Rest" Variant rule.
No "Spell slots for Shorter Sessions" variant rule.

No "Spend your gold on Magic Items" variant.
No "Spend your gold on Strongholds and Mansions" variant.
No "Spend your gold on Henchmen and Hirelings" variant.
No "Spend your gold on City Projects" variant.
No "Spend your gold on Character Modifications" variant.

5e didn't provide most of it and took years to provide the little it did.

The true issue with 5th edition is it assumed your DM had 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd edition, and/or 4th edition DMGs and/or older major 3rd Party Publisher DM books.

 

[Oofta]

I just don't think you can support that last sentence. Plenty of this stuff is pretty broadly agreed, or people who've looked into it agree, and other people just don't have an opinion.

Further, again, if we eliminate people who don't think there's anything wrong with 5E at all, and I think we must, then the issue you're so concerned about suddenly becomes far smaller. Because it's more like there's a solid 10% or so the community (and it used to be more like 40%, but it's really dropped) who will just not accept 5E has any real issues. And people did the same in every edition.

So if you eliminate the people that disagree with you, more people agree than disagree? That is one way to guarantee a higher percentage of people agreeing I suppose.

I don't even think there are that many people who think "nothing" is wrong. I'm a big fan of 5E and I gave my list up above. Most people just don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be.

 

[Lanefan]

The encounters were supposed to be short and over 2-3 sessions.
The "issue" is 5e again did not provide the tools to convert your campaign to a 1 session = 1 adventuring day paradigm.

It didn't, but then again how many tables would use that paradigm? My guess is extremely few; few enough that including in the core rules at cost of bumping something else out probably isn't worth it.

I mean, that paradigm was supposed to be the baseline in 0e-1e but even then few tables played that way, and I don't think that number has grown since.

 

[Oofta]

I don't know that I do.

In 3.x and 4e, you could casually purchase magic items. That's it. That's all that's missing. How much more support do you need for,

Player: "Hey DM, I want to buy [expensive thing]."
DM: "Okay, it costs [amount of money]."

I created a price list based on Xanathars(?) based on rarity and sub-category of rarity. For castles and such I got Matt Colville's Stronghold and Followers. Then again, for the latter nobody was very interested in setting up their own keep. Ah well, maybe someday.

 

[Oofta]

Ten pages in and I've yet to see mention of something that people have been beefing about since 5e's release:

Stealth, hiding, and perception.

Just thought I'd drop that pebble in the pond...

See, but I actually like the way it works. Let's me figure out what makes sense for the scene without someone pulling out a book and saying "Nah ah, the book says I can!"

Funny thing is, this is yet another issue that I wouldn't even know anyone had problems with if it wasn't for online forum.

 

[Zardnaar]

Whilst I think that's a real thing I think that's a different thing from what I was talking about.

In 2014-2018 period there was a lot less name-calling and real aggression or the like, and a lot more "Oh, you're just silly for saying there's anything wrong with 5E, let's continue discussing how great 5E is!", and that just never happened with 3E or 4E, not even at their peak popularity. It was a whole other thing. No rules lawyering, not really "angry" rhetoric, just dismissiveness towards the entire concept that 5E could be flawed. I don't think it was a majority opinion, but it was large minority, which more recently has shrunk considerably.

That attitude developed online with 4E.

It wasn't really there with 3E.

 

[Lanefan]

I created a price list based on Xanathars(?) based on rarity and sub-category of rarity.

I'd also want to include utility in there as a pricing factor. Something can be (relatively) common but really useful all the time, while something else can be rare but only useful in very special circumstances; and IMO the pricing wants to reflect that a bit.

For example: a straight +3 sword is useful all the time to a swordsman, while a much rarer +0 sword that's +10 vs demons is only really useful if-when that swordsman is fighting demons. I'd probably price the uncommon sword higher than the rare one in this case, or at best have them on par.