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

[CreamCloud0]

every human in fantasy land is magic, magic permeates the entire universe there, fighter's strength is because of magic letting them naturally grow stronger, tougher, faster than 'earth humans' but it's not 'active magic' you put a fighter in an antimagic field and they don't implode or loose their strength the same way as if you put a griffon in the same antimagic they don't implode, just because the fighters aren#t wiggling their fingers and muttering incantations it doesn't mean they're not drawing on magic

why, in a world where everything is literal fantasy, the martials are excluded for not specifically stating how they manage to be fantastical? sure they might be 'mundane' but they're mundane to the par of a world with elves and dragons and where the gods can and will literally come down from the heavens to deliver boons or smack sense into people.

 

[Minigiant]

There's no question GoT's humans are intended to be very close to real-world humans, albeit with some having magical bloodlines (c.f. Dany being basically immune to heat/fire and inbreeding, for example), and there being a rather high incidence of unusual body shapes/sizes.

Also GOT barely has characters over level 3.

This is the disconnect.

5e provides a 20 level game, describes the 20 levels with magic spells and magic items, says both of those are optional, then doesn't provide a replacement.

So you has a level 10 human with no description of what it is.

 

[Minigiant]

every human in fantasy land is magic, magic permeates the entire universe there, fighter's strength is because of magic letting them naturally grow stronger, tougher, faster than 'earth humans' but it's not 'active magic' you put a fighter in an antimagic field and they don't implode or loose their strength the same way as if you put a griffon in the same antimagic they don't implode, just because the fighters aren#t wiggling their fingers and muttering incantations it doesn't mean they're not drawing on magic

why, in a world where everything is literal fantasy, the martials are excluded for not specifically stating how they manage to be fantastical? sure they might be 'mundane' but they're mundane to the par of a world with elves and dragons and where the gods can and will literally come down from the heavens to deliver boons or smack sense into people.

Actually that's not true.

That's just a personal justification of what happens due to 5e committing to a 20 level game without commiting to any lore or mechanics that match it like every earlier edition.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

In GoT, people see an young dragon and flee in terror since it's basically unkillable (until they got the snipe plot ballistas). In D&D, you can fight swarms of them by level 10.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

why, in a world where everything is literal fantasy, the martials are excluded for not specifically stating how they manage to be fantastical? sure they might be 'mundane' but they're mundane to the par of a world with elves and dragons and where the gods can and will literally come down from the heavens to deliver boons or smack sense into people.

Because, as I have argued many times over the years, the point isn't actually being true to the fictional world these things appear in.

The point is to be true to the player's intuitions about what is physically possible here on Earth. These intuitions need not have any special relationship with what is physically possible here on Earth. Many, for example, think Legolas-type archery is completely impossible for human beings. It isn't. There's a guy who has spent quite a bit of time trying to reconstruct Antiquity and Medieval archery, particularly Mongolian horse archery techniques. The stuff he does is pretty much the same as Legolas' allegedly impossible archery feats. "Mundanes" are not limited to what should theoretically be doable in a fantastical world where things like owlbears and displacer beasts are "mundane." Instead, they are limited to less--often much less--than what Olympic athletes can do IRL.

And this problem is nigh-infinitely compounded by the fact that many of the same voices who call for such limitations on "mundane" characters are also the voices who call for removing, as much as possible, player-side tools from the rules--forcing players to be dependent on whatever they can negotiate for from the DM.

The "invisible rulebooks" tend to be full of an awful lot of junk. But it's a lot harder to correct an invisible rulebook than a visible one.

 

[Parmandur]

I'd like to know how they're going to square that idea with the dropping of Half-species in the new 5e.

I mean, either Humans can interbreed with Elves and Orcs or they can't, right? And if they can, Half-species are viable.

Edit to add: come to think of it, one thing that is slowly becoming an issue with 5e (maybe not to True Issue status quite yet, but give it time): the mechanical homogenization of the playable species.

You realize that they still have Half-Elves and Half-Orcs, but also just made it so you can be half-anything as well...? We'll see if they add any mechanical oomph to that in the end, but viability is already baked in.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

It’s not clear to me that there are many universal issues at all; rather people have preferences for the sort of game they want. There are many different preferences.

The broken game some see does not take them to the gaming promise land they want to land in.

What is amazing is how it is the seven heavens or Arcadia looks like the 9 hells or the abyss to someone else.

There is no objectively big issue in this fantasy game. We have a vote—-and a certain percentage of gamers agree with us. Some don’t.

As one example, some folks really want “balance” and it is really important to them. I have played asymmetrical wargames (and gasp! Rogues in 1e!)! It’s not that big of a deal to me.

We have been playing 5e since 5e came out. I only know we have had a lot of fun and balance has not been a big part of between game discussion.

That does not mean there cannot be improvement or that I am against it but the language of “true issue” is missing important text. “For you.” There is not and will not be unanimity on this stuff.

All you can do is take a poll and get a non representative sample and make a statement about that particular sample.

But it is interesting to see what is a hot button issue for other players/groups…

I just can’t believe anyone would be surprised at disagreement! Like wtf?

 

[mamba]

Your argument has pretty clearly been, "There's no meaningful difference between these fantasy humans and IRL humans, thus they have precisely the same physical capabilities and limitations as IRL humans."

that was not my argument, similar <> identical

Humans having such mixed ancestry--with genuinely fantastical beings that couldn't possibly live in our universe--is a pretty clear reason for saying that they may LOOK like IRL humans, but they are not actually IRL humans. Their limitations should be different.

many are 100% human, some have minute DNA differences . Whether that is a reason for them to have different limitations is at best debatable.

I compared them to Half-Elves and Half-Orcs and then brought the differences down to match their 5% instead of 50% mixed DNA. That resulted in them being near indistinguishable from ‘full’ humans. So I see no justification here either.

Perhaps not radically different, but different nonetheless.

define ‘not radically different’, that sounds an awful lot like my ‘similar’

We cannot simply handwave such concerns with "oh well it gets watered down so it doesn't matter." That's an assumption on your part, not actually backed up by anything but your declaration of it.

They can have that ancestry, they are not required to. The rules do not have separate species entries for these two cases. So they are identical as far as the game is concerned

 

[EzekielRaiden]

that was not my argument, similar <> identical


many are 100% human, some have minute DNA differences . Whether that is a reason for them to have different limitations is at best debatable.

I compared them to Half-Elves and Half-Orcs and then brought the differences down to match their 5% instead of 50% mixed DNA. That resulted in them being near indistinguishable from ‘full’ humans. So I see no justification here either.


define ‘not radically different’, that sounds an awful lot like my ‘similar’


They can have that ancestry, they are not required to. The rules do not have separate species entries for these two cases. So they are identical as far as the game is concerned

Every human can take 1 level of Sorcerer at any time.

As for "not radically different, but still different," it means we can't assume human limits apply. Which is exactly what I said--and what you are not saying. You have, repeatedly, assumed that we CAN apply IRL human limits. I disagree. We should be very cautious about doing something like that.

 

[mamba]

Every human can take 1 level of Sorcerer at any time.

yep, that is a difference to real life, an allowance for the fantastical setting

As for "not radically different, but still different," it means we can't assume human limits apply. Which is exactly what I said--and what you are not saying. You have, repeatedly, assumed that we CAN apply IRL human limits. I disagree. We should be very cautious about doing something like that.

they are still modeled after real humans, the differences are in what them being heroes ‘requires’. That is why they are similar, not identical (a commoner pretty much is identical). We just disagree about how far removed they need to be.

You look at ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and say ‘yep, 8th level Monk alright’ and I don’t