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

[Lanefan]

They literally exist. You do not care for them. There is a difference.

Can't speak to Spelljammer but if, as people have suggested, the ship-v-ship combat rules there are similar to those in Ghosts of Saltmarsh then saying they don't exist - while literally false - might as well be true, as the rules given in Saltmarsh are rather underwhelming to say the least.

I mean hell, the naval combat rules I knocked together in an afternoon 25+ years ago would appear to do just as good a job (though still far from good enough IMO; I really should revisit and expand those rules someday) as the ones in GoS, and I ain't no professional game designer.

 

[Parmandur]

Can't speak to Spelljammer but if, as people have suggested, the ship-v-ship combat rules there are similar to those in Ghosts of Saltmarsh then saying they don't exist - while literally false - might as well be true, as the rules given in Saltmarsh are rather underwhelming to say the least.

I mean hell, the naval combat rules I knocked together in an afternoon 25+ years ago would appear to do just as good a job (though still far from good enough IMO; I really should revisit and expand those rules someday) as the ones in GoS, and I ain't no professional game designer.

Oh, for goodness sake: they ate there in the book, and they work to function. Saying they "might as well not exist" is utter nonsense (goes for Saltmarsh or Spelljammer). It's D&D, not a naval simulation game. Quick and dirty gets the job done.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Don't need to houserule anything.

The more long rests they take, the longer they're in the field - which means they're going through more food, water, etc. which they either had to carry in with them (adding to their encumbrance) or forage in the wild.

Put another way, if their SOP is to long-rest and heal up after any noteworthy encounter, exploring a single dangerous hex could easily go from taking one day to taking several; and every day there's a party full of hungry mouths to feed...

So yes, in that way long-resting does tie in to encumbrance.

That is a relation to having finite supplies.

You can have finite supplies without having encumbrance. That was literally my argument.

 

[Lanefan]

That is a relation to having finite supplies.

You can have finite supplies without having encumbrance. That was literally my argument.

Without encumbrance, what forces those supplies to be finite?

Certainly not money; most adventurers (particularly in pre-5e editions) are rolling in money after their first adventure or two, and even in 5e money isn't usually an object after a short while. And failing that, the characters can always just steal the food etc. they need.

So what else is there to prevent infinte supply cartage?

 

[Lanefan]

Oh, for goodness sake: they ate there in the book, and they work to function. Saying they "might as well not exist" is utter nonsense (goes for Saltmarsh or Spelljammer). It's D&D, not a naval simulation game. Quick and dirty gets the job done.

Not for me. Quick and dirty just ain't good enough; and if it comes across in play as quick and dirty it's no wonder people don't want to play it.

 

[Parmandur]

Not for me. Quick and dirty just ain't good enough; and if it comes across in play as quick and dirty it's no wonder people don't want to play it.

Fair enough: but the rules exist, and are right there in the book. Saying Spelljammer "doesn't have ship combat rules" is simply misinformation.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Without encumbrance, what forces those supplies to be finite?

Certainly not money; most adventurers (particularly in pre-5e editions) are rolling in money after their first adventure or two, and even in 5e money isn't usually an object after a short while. And failing that, the characters can always just steal the food etc. they need.

So what else is there to prevent infinte supply cartage?

Money is more of a concern than you're allowing for...especially if you want to run a game where encumbrance actually matters. Because there are scads of ways to spend just a bit of money and then essentially obviate all encumbrance concerns. If money flows like water, having encumbrance isn't better than lacking it.

Availability is another. Just because you have a million bucks and no weight limit doesn't mean you can find anything under the sun in Podunk.

Capacity in some form other than encumbrance can be a third. E.g., as I mentioned before, you can only wear so many weapons, hold so many things, etc. That's not relevant for everything, but it's relevant for some things. Great, you can carry a thousand suits of plate mail--too bad it takes forever to switch between them so there's literally no point. Etc.

Spoilage and other timing-based mechanics (which I alluded to previously.)

I'm sure I could develop more if I really sat down to think about it. Those are just off the top of my head.

 

[Hussar]

Are people not interested in ship combat because there's never been good rules for it, or has there never been good rules for ship combat because people aren't interested in it?
It's a bit of a chicken/egg situation.

I think it has very little to do with the mechanics themselves. It really doesn't matter what mechanics you put in front of the players. And, unless the players are groovy with it, I kinda see their point.

If I invite you over to watch football and then in the third quarter, switch over to the baseball game every week, you're probably not going to be happy unless you really like baseball. The players want to watch football. I want to watch baseball for a quarter, and then go back to football. They have zero interest in baseball and just want to watch football. So, in the interests of everyone having a good time, I just switched to watching football and not try to sneak in a baseball game.

It really is kind of a bait and switch if you pop out a ship to ship combat system that isn't really D&D. Do it once in a campaign? Sure, nobody's going to complain about that. But, if you're running a naval campaign, and you're popping out this mini-game every session or two, I do kinda understand why players aren't interested. I'M interested. Fair enough. But, then again, I love war-games. I enjoy the heck out of them.

And, frankly, it took an embarrassingly long time for me to understand why my campaigns kept fizzling. Looking back, I realize now that I should have switched away from ship to ship combat YEARS ago. And, in D&D, it's so easy to do. You can't mount catapults on cogs. They don't work. Ballista? Maybe? But, again, kinda pointless. Add in a rule that ranged combat on ship is wildly inaccurate and cut all ranges by 75%. Poof, all combat starts at nearly boarding range and everyone is happy. Put in a bit that spell casting on water doesn't work very well because open water interferes with magic somehow and cut spell ranges by 75% too. Boom, done. I still get shipboard combat, the players are happy and everything works.

Heck, in Scarred Lands, that would be ridiculously simply if you used the Blood Sea - the taint of Titan's blood in the sea makes magic all wonky. There's a million ways to implement this and make it a lot simpler to use. Next time I try to run Ghosts of Saltmarsh, I'm definitely incorporating this. Maybe Procan, God of the Sea, has declared that all magic upon the waves is limited to second level spells or lower. Or limited by range. "A god did it" is as good an explanation as any.

 

[M_Natas]

Oh, for goodness sake: they ate there in the book, and they work to function. Saying they "might as well not exist" is utter nonsense (goes for Saltmarsh or Spelljammer). It's D&D, not a naval simulation game. Quick and dirty gets the job done.

In Spelljammer the Ship Combat Rules are two pages. And what are they saying? Battle starts at either 250, 500 or 1000 feet. A spelljammer pilot can move the ship up its movement speed. When in 5 feet distance they can board another ship. They can crash into each other. They can use the mending spell. They may use side initiative.
That are literally all the combat rules outside of the ship statblocks.

What happens when we use these rules to actually do ship to ship combat?

First of all: Damage to ships really doesn't matter. It has no effect until a ship is reduced to 0 HP. So slowing down a ship by damaging it sails doesn't work. Killing its crewman to slow it down doesn't work. And the damage you are doing with ship board weapons would take for ever to reduce another ship to 0 HP. Like rounds in the 100th.
So destroying other ships is not really an option unless you get into fireball range.

So boarding should be the preferred tactic. Really, it is the only tactic that is supported by the rules. And only barley.

Scenario 1:
The ships are at 1000 feet distance. They want to fight each other. They both want to board each other. If both go full speed it will take, depending on the ships 10 round to reach each other. And in this 10 round, 8 to 9 round are out outside of any class ability to reach the other ship. So it is 8 to 8 boring rounds of "ship moves, fires weapons that don't do anything".

Now you can say you shouldn’t start a fight in a 1000 feet distance but that is what's written in the rules!

So, now let's say we have a galeon that wants to flee from a shrike- the biggest speed difference between two ships. Foe the shrike to catch up with a galeon it would take 26 rounds to get under 100 feet distance. 26 rounds of moving in a line each round, firing ship weapons and doing nothing else. If you have to ships closer in speed or even two ships equal in speed, you have an eternal chase.

And destroying a ship is like unrealstic. Within the far distances balistae only hit 1/3 of the times and only 2/3 of the times do enough damage to reach the damage threshold.

So if you use the Spelljammer Ship Combat Rules RAW you will always have super boring meaningless slog.

They work only in one scenario. That is: short distance between two ships (250 feet) that want to board each other.

 

[Parmandur]

In Spelljammer the Ship Combat Rules are two pages. And what are they saying? Battle starts at either 250, 500 or 1000 feet. A spelljammer pilot can move the ship up its movement speed. When in 5 feet distance they can board another ship. They can crash into each other. They can use the mending spell. They may use side initiative.
That are literally all the combat rules outside of the ship statblocks.

What happens when we use these rules to actually do ship to ship combat?

First of all: Damage to ships really doesn't matter. It has no effect until a ship is reduced to 0 HP. So slowing down a ship by damaging it sails doesn't work. Killing its crewman to slow it down doesn't work. And the damage you are doing with ship board weapons would take for ever to reduce another ship to 0 HP. Like rounds in the 100th.
So destroying other ships is not really an option unless you get into fireball range.

So boarding should be the preferred tactic. Really, it is the only tactic that is supported by the rules. And only barley.

Scenario 1:
The ships are at 1000 feet distance. They want to fight each other. They both want to board each other. If both go full speed it will take, depending on the ships 10 round to reach each other. And in this 10 round, 8 to 9 round are out outside of any class ability to reach the other ship. So it is 8 to 8 boring rounds of "ship moves, fires weapons that don't do anything".

Now you can say you shouldn’t start a fight in a 1000 feet distance but that is what's written in the rules!

So, now let's say we have a galeon that wants to flee from a shrike- the biggest speed difference between two ships. Foe the shrike to catch up with a galeon it would take 26 rounds to get under 100 feet distance. 26 rounds of moving in a line each round, firing ship weapons and doing nothing else. If you have to ships closer in speed or even two ships equal in speed, you have an eternal chase.

And destroying a ship is like unrealstic. Within the far distances balistae only hit 1/3 of the times and only 2/3 of the times do enough damage to reach the damage threshold.

So if you use the Spelljammer Ship Combat Rules RAW you will always have super boring meaningless slog.

They work only in one scenario. That is: short distance between two ships (250 feet) that want to board each other.

So, you admit that the rules are literally present. Well and fine.