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

[EzekielRaiden]

You're coming at this from a premise of, "I don't like encumbrance. What can we do to make it not a thing?" That's not where we're coming from.

I'm coming at it from a perspective of exactly what I said: Encumbrance is bad as a general design approach to a problem because it exclusively exists to punish poor play, and never reward good play. Which is why so many groups elect to simply ignore it completely or handwave it in most in-character situations.

Money doesn't work that way. Money saved over time rewards you with whatever you can purchase with it, as noted before. Saving 10 coins a week may not be much, but over the long haul that frugality may reward you with a nice item or whatever (note, I don't think existing 5e rules do this well, but it is still possible.)

Time doesn't work that way. While it is easier to waste time, saved time is time that can be spent later. Not just as a cushion against future delays, but truly as new opportunities. Good time management rewards you.

Good inventory management has the "reward" of merely not punishing you. You don't have to give up something you wanted to keep, or suffer nasty penalties. You can't bank saved weight. You can't leverage frugality to enable you to do more. You get genuinely nothing for good, effective play beyond not suffering annoying problems.

I would genuinely love it if someone could change that! I would genuinely, truly love to see an encumbrance system that was rewarding to use, rather than exclusively punishing to mess up. Because that would almost certainly be some very clever design, for one thing, and for another it would make a useful design space actually interesting and desirable to many D&D fans who otherwise avoid such bookkeeping as dull and irritating.

 

[overgeeked]

Encumbrance being tracked and mattering is an old-school concept. It was in TSR-era D&D as part of gameplay. It was in WotC-era D&D as a vestigial nod to the past. Whether you think tracking encumbrance (along with food, water, ammo, gold, etc) comes down to the kinds of stories you want to tell. Sometimes it’s very interesting to me, other times I can’t think of anything more boring to waste time on. Is your game about the hard-scrabble life of people going from zero to hero, use encumbrance. Is your game about literally anything else, handwave it.

 

[Cadence]

Encumbrance being tracked and mattering is an old-school concept. It was in TSR-era D&D as part of gameplay. It was in WotC-era D&D as a vestigial nod to the past. Whether you think tracking encumbrance (alomg with food, water, ammo, gold, etc) comes down to the kinds of stories you want to tell. Sometimes it’s very interesting to me, other times I can’t think of anything more boring to waste time on. Is your game about the hard-scrabble life of people going from zero to hero, use encumbrance. Is your game about literally anything else, handwave it.

Sometimes when the scout troop goes camping we pull the car right up to the site, and sometimes we're going on a long trip and bringing everything in. For the former, weight and good packing aren't a big part of the experience... for the later you better hope you took them as being important!

 

[Vaalingrade]

But that is like a 100% on to the DM to put into the world. Like in a Homebrew-World as a DM if you want fantastic locations to find, you have to put them in. And in published adventures if you find them lacking in that regard that's also the DMs job to change them how the DMs want to have it.
Having fantastic locations is 100% on the DM and not a bad rules issue. And WotC has several books with cool examples of fantastic locations. From the DMG over Ebberon to Ravenloft and Witchlight to the adventure books.

Okay, then so if making making the world worth exploring is a DM thing, then hows about we put some advice on making the world worth exploring in the DMG instead of the 'exploration pillar' stuff we've got that penalizes you for trying to explore the world with logistics spam and death spirals?

 

[Incenjucar]

Encumbrance would be more interesting if it had a wider usage, like making it easier to walk underwater or could be used to throw heavy sheets over enemies to encumber them.

 

[Cadence]

Encumbrance would be more interesting if it had a wider usage, like making it easier to walk underwater or could be used to throw heavy sheets over enemies to encumber them.

Pixies putting shrunk down bowling balls in enemy backpacks, so that when the spell wore off...

 

[FitzTheRuke]

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.

THIS. This is my problem with Spelljammer ship-to-ship rules. I want "quick-and-dirty". These rules aren't that. They're rules that just don't work. If they were quick and dirty AND actually worked, I'd be fine with them.

And before I hear "well, I can run them fine!"... SO CAN I. I just have to do all the work to bang them into shape myself. The rules themselves don't work. You have to ignore them/make stuff up to make it work.

All I'm asking is for WotC to print rules that you can actually use as written. And I'm not a DM who cares much about RAW - it's the other way around. I want RAW to reflect how the game is played, not the game being played by RAW. (If you get what I mean). If EVERYONE has to houserule to make the rules work, then the rules need to change.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yet they are there, they exist. And your reading does not match everyone's experiences.

You keep harping on this, yet it's obvious to you and it's obvious to everyone that no one literally meant there were no rules (even if they said it). It was hyperbole, and you know it. So why not just acknowledge that you understand what the poster meant (that they didn't like the rules, not that they literally didn't exist) and move on?

 

[Parmandur]

You keep harping on this, yet it's obvious to you and it's obvious to everyone that no one literally meant there were no rules (even if they said it). It was hyperbole, and you know it. So why not just acknowledge that you understand what the poster meant (that they didn't like the rules, not that they literally didn't exist) and move on?

Because the hyperbole is very annoying, and I have seen people get confused and think that the books "literally have no ship combat rules" because of the ridiculous hylerpole was taken as factual rather than hyperbole.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Because the hyperbole is very annoying, and I have seen people get confused and think that the books "literally have no ship combat rules" because of the ridiculous hylerpole was taken as factual rather than hyperbole.

I'm pretty sure that everyone understood. I feel ya - hyperbole can get a bit much. But when it's obviously and clearly hyperbole you can just take their (overblown) point, disagree with it, and move on. You spent three posts (at least) trying to counter it!

Now, I'm trying to keep the peace here, so I don't want to get into an argument with you. I get it. You found it annoying that they overstated their case. I really understand. I think it's clear that I felt the same way about your counter-arguments, or I wouldn't have spoken up.

It would be nice if everyone avoided overblowing their statements, but I also feel that everyone could benefit by just recognizing hyperbole for what it is: An exaggeration for effect. Once you understand that they're overblowing their statement (which is actually usually pretty early on, isn't it?) You can just acknowledge it (to yourself) and move on.