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

[Composer99]

A couple of points to add:
For some players, it's not just about not worrying about how much they're carrying for a "more heroic mode" but also to allow them to have a Dex-melee build and dump their Strength stat without a suffering a trade-off. That may sound cynical, but we've encountered plenty of discussion on these boards about players who dump Strength now.

And as for the issue of annoying one set of players who don't want to deal with it vs one set who does - that's why individual tables need a Session 0 to hash the issue out for the group if some players feel strongly about it. It may indicate a general play style incompatibility.

I agree that the trade-off you describe is apt for survival gameplay. For "heroic" gameplay, where (I presume) players aren't particularly interested in keeping track of how much stuff they're carrying at all save in the most abstract sense, though, is that even a worthwhile trade-off to insist upon?

Apropos of annoying players, to my mind it's still better design if the game's rules aren't actively interfering with the kind of game players are interested in playing. That's not something that ought to have to be solved in session 0, except, of course, for the players to vote on or come to a consensus on what kind of game they want to play and then adding the appropriate variant rules.

Except that the alternative - unlimited carrying capacity for all - is even less interesting-compelling-enjoyable.

This is, as far as I can see, plain and simply false insofar as you are asserting it to be some sort of "objective" property of RPG gameplay.

I am comfortable asserting that for the vast majority of players currently playing D&D, "How much gear can I carry right now?" is not an interesting question that they want to be made to answer through the game's mechanics. A more-or-less unlimited carrying capacity would, for those players, be genuinely better because they can focus their time and energy on those questions they do find interesting enough to answer through gameplay.

For those players for whom "How much gear can I carry right now?" is an interesting question, the way in which the game's ruleset and mechanics force them to answer the question also matters; some methods are going lead to more enjoyable gameplay by those players' lights than others. I am comfortable asserting that those methods are not going to correspond precisely to "realistic" encumbrance systems.

I'm also quite comfortable asserting that your preferences are very niche. Nothing wrong with them in and of themselves, but it would simply be a mistake for D&D to cater exclusively or even primarily to them.

Fact of life: players generally welcome and enjoy mechanics that make the game easier and-or less challenging for them and-or their characters and would rather eschew mechanics that make the game harder and-or more challenging.

Magic makes things easier and less challenging Every. Single. Time. Of course players like it and want more of it.

Encumbrance and mundane gear/ammo tracking is there to make the game more challenging. Which means, obviously, players don't like it.

Listening to players is sometimes the worst thng a designer can do for the health of the game.

I completely agree with (2) above but don't think (1) and-or (4) are the best way to achieve such. What I'd prefer (and, I suppose, might have to design on my own someday) is an encumbrance mechanic that somehow takes all three of bulk, size, and weight into consideration, along with the size of the bearer. The challenge in design (and it's a biggie!) would be to somehow make this system simple enough to use without giving the ability to produce ridiculous results.

A Strength-12 Hobbit, for example, should have a measurably harder time carrying three longswords than a Strength-12 Human just because of the size of the swords relative to the size of the bearer.

Again, it seems to me that you are treating your own niche preferences as being "objective" qualities of RPG play - or, at the very least, you come across as not satisfactorily allowing for the fact that satisfying gameplay preferences you don't share is just as valid RPG gameplay as satisfying your own preferences.

I feel comfortable asserting that to the largest chunk of the D&D player base, their preference is either very casual "kick in the dungeon door and kill everything for its loot" gameplay, or character-driven gameplay with an overlay of strategic and/or tactical decision-making, and not for logistics-driven gameplay. "What dungeon are we knocking over in tonight's game session", "What goal is more important for me to pursue right now?", "What allies can I call upon in this situation, or what allies should I call upon?" or "Should I cast a spell right now and if so, what spell?" are interesting questions by such standards, while "Did I remember to bring a crowbar on this expedition or not" just isn't.

Spellcasting, then, is seemingly leading to more of the kinds of decisions players have to make that they find interesting and enjoyable to confront during gameplay. These decisions could relate to questions of resource management, but they don't have to.

Meanwhile, for players who do want to incorporate more mundane resource management and/or logistics-driven gameplay, it's not clear to me that a more "realistic" set of mechanics is going to do the trick. "How much stuff can I carry right now?" might or might not be an interesting question, but "How many pounds or fractions of a pound of stuff am I carrying that I have to spend precious table time computing?" is rather less likely to be.

Finally, bluntly put, challenge is, at best, only minimally "objectively" good for gameplay, insofar as gameplay that is not-at-all challenging, or that is consistently underwhelming as regards challenge, is likely to be boring. Beyond that, it is a useful element of gameplay when players find it interesting and enjoyable in and of itself. And, of course, even when players who are not Lanefan value challenge, it does not follow that a more "realistic" encumbrance mechanic is going to be an interesting and enjoyable way for them to experience challenge.

 

[James Gasik]

That's one option. It's also the option that contributed significantly to a lot of people viewing 3e as "caster edition" because there were several aspects of casting in AD&D dropped for 3e because they were on the onerous side to use. They did, however, serve as balancing mechanisms.

I look at it this way; balancing things by making them annoying has a tendency to lead to scenarios where people avoid the annoying thing, making it a virtual ban, or find ways to do end runs around it, at which point "balance? what balance?".

For example, I find stealth mechanics to be annoying in most games. In real life, you can sneak up behind someone on open ground. In a game, you have several requirements and caveats to deal with before you can even roll the dice, such as needing certain levels of cover or concealment. Enemies tend to almost always have some special sense to take into account as well. Oh and obviously you can't have light, because then you blunder right into traps!

Now, before anyone starts typing "but that's all how it would work in real life"- that may be so, but every time I've tried to make a stealthy character in a game, I almost inevitably find myself in a situation where I'm easily detected by an enemy, and then have to try and escape a solo encounter while my party is a necessary distance away (meanwhile, I get ambushed by stealthy enemies all the time, lol).

It's to the point that I don't want to interact with stealth rules at all; I avoid being proficient in the skill and rarely bring it up as an option when planning; it's generally easier to just assume we'll be detected by our enemies and go from there.

 

[Composer99]

On the direct contrary, the plot coupons and so on typically act to fill GAPS in your planning that expert thief you're playing would have thought of, whereas the slightly overweight 40-something lawyer you are would not.

Why'd you have to go so hard?! (j/k)

 

[billd91]

I agree that the trade-off you describe is apt for survival gameplay. For "heroic" gameplay, where (I presume) players aren't particularly interested in keeping track of how much stuff they're carrying at all save in the most abstract sense, though, is that even a worthwhile trade-off to insist upon?

Good question. Is being less likely to succeed at Str saves, athletics checks, and a few offensive options like shoves and grapples a sufficient trade-off for being able to dump all your martial offense into Dexterity (ranged AND melee) while also improving AC, Reflex saves (WAY more common than Str saves), stealth checks, AND improve your initiative?

Mmmmmmm....Probably not. Ideally, Dex would have to give up something more to stop being such a juicy stat compared to Str. But I know WotC gave up that particular fight long ago.

 

[Maxperson]

They should definitely say how much you can dig with a shovel in what period of time, because how many people even know that?

Shovels come in different sizes and shapes, earth comes in different densities and compositions, and strength/constitution would play into it. Short of another Wilderness Survival Guide with a fairly sizable chart, there's no way to tell a DM how much someone can dig with a shovel.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Let's take a simple example: ye olde ten-foot pole.

No-one has "ten-foot pole" listed on their character sheet*, but a situation has arisen - e.g. deep in a dungeon there's something hanging on a loop of light chain on the other side of a 6-foot chasm that's already been shown or telegraphed as deadly for the living to cross - where a ten-foot pole would be the perfect solution.

Now, a ten-foot pole is the poster child for mundane gear. Do you allow them to use a token to have brought one, and if yes, do you then somehow retcon their having had that ten-foot pole all along and the various inconveniences it might have caused e.g. with stealth or with fitting through narrow twisty passages?

Or instead if they want one do you make them go back outside, fashion one from a sapling, and return (thus meaning they have to face the journey's other hazards twice)?

For me it's the second option every time.

* - nor anything similar such as a polearm, and Unseen Servant and-or Telekinesis aren't available.

In most cases a 10' pole would be something that wouldn't be plausible to have because it's too large, so would fail the "plausible to have brought" test, so couldn't be obtained that way.

That obviates most of the rest of your concerns I note ("twisty passages" etc.). Whereas if they wanted a one-handed hammer, or a crowbar/prybar, something similar that could have been in a backpack, sure.

That said, I've never seen a D&D situation where a 10' pole was actually particularly useful (or at least - more useful than a shorter but equally wooden stick or pole or club), and I've been playing for 34 years.

Back in 2E, the party used to have a portable hole which they spent an entire session buying stuff for and loading up to the point where they basically never needed to think about gear again (and anything exciting they found, like smokepowder barrels, went in there too). They even had a ballista in there. And yeah they had some foldable 10' poles. Did those poles ever get used? They did not. The ballista did once to fire a grapnel across a chasm.

 

[Composer99]

Good question. Is being less likely to succeed at Str saves, athletics checks, and a few offensive options like shoves and grapples a sufficient trade-off for being able to dump all your martial offense into Dexterity (ranged AND melee) while also improving AC, Reflex saves (WAY more common than Str saves), stealth checks, AND improve your initiative?

Mmmmmmm....Probably not. Ideally, Dex would have to give up something more to stop being such a juicy stat compared to Str. But I know WotC gave up that particular fight long ago.

(1) I expect most players who want to play a high-Strength, low-to-middling Dexterity "brute" type (either because it fits their casual play or because that is the character concept they're going for) are just going to play that character regardless of how much better Dexterity is by the numbers.

(2) I just don't see that taking a harder line on encumbrance is going to close the gap between Strength and Dexterity, especially not in games where "how much stuff can you carry?" isn't a question anyone (neither the DM nor the players) is particularly interested in exploring.

(3) On the other hand, questions such as "what is the heaviest thing you can possibly lift, heave out of the way, or possibly displace" or "how quickly can you clear away the rubble blocking this passageway" might - or might not in all fairness - be interesting questions, questions for which a higher Strength leads to a more positive answer for the player characters than a lower one. That's still not enough, I suspect, to close the gap with Dexterity.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why'd you have to go so hard?! (j/k)

To be fair I was thinking of one of my players when I wrote that lol.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Now you've sent me on an investigative quest to uncover current and historical opinions on this. I was unaware of any prevailing opinion to the contrary. I mean 1st edition has a quirky charm, and not just from simply being the origin of it all, but at the time my local gaming scene really found 2nd edition a great improvement. I mean, you could play a Bard from level 1!

1e and 2e are much more different than is generally acknowledged because the XP system is so different. 2e cleaned up 1e - but if you're playing them relatively purely then 1e has the XP for GP rule meaning that it's a game about exploration, heists, and where combat is a failure mode. 2e's default XP rules are XP for killing and XP for acting like a stereotypical member of your class meaning that it's a game about slaughter and acting like stereotypes.

But if you switched then you at the time probably saw it as an improvement because you had either ditched the old XP rules or you kept them.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Good question. Is being less likely to succeed at Str saves, athletics checks, and a few offensive options like shoves and grapples a sufficient trade-off for being able to dump all your martial offense into Dexterity (ranged AND melee) while also improving AC, Reflex saves (WAY more common than Str saves), stealth checks, AND improve your initiative?

Mmmmmmm....Probably not. Ideally, Dex would have to give up something more to stop being such a juicy stat compared to Str. But I know WotC gave up that particular fight long ago.

The real problem here is not dumping STR.

The problem is too much stuff is DEX-only in 5E, and the single-stat save system is blitheringly stupid, and I don't think anyone on these boards even particularly likes it and I know D&D players in general don't. It's just an outright bad design.

You're looking at this from too narrow a perspective - you don't have make DEX give things up to be less valuable, you just have to give alternatives to DEX in a lot of cases.

Like in 4E, Initiative was the higher of DEX or INT mods. That devalued DEX and valued INT, relative to 5E. It was simply a better design.

In 4E, you had three defences, and each of them took the better of two stats (did 3E do the same?). Again that devalued a number of stats that could easily get over valued.

Thinking that nerfing DEX slightly (you'd have to nerf it so hard it wasn't even DEX anymore) or bringing back tedious Encumbrance tracking (something almost no-one wants) will make people not dump STR is not rational.

You need to look at other parts of the system. STR isn't dumped as much as it could be, for example, because of stuff like Heavy Armour (STR 15 needed) and Great Weapon Mastery (there are no 2-h finesse weapons, thank god). No DEX Fighter is ever going to outdamage a GWM STR Fighter, let alone a GWM/PAM, not with without nuclear-grade cheese and probably multiclassing.

A subsidiary problem is that 5E forgot that Composite Bows exist. If it added them back in with the simple "Use STR to hit and damage" rule then sudden the ranged advantage vanishes too and STR and DEX are looking a lot closer or even STR is looking better. Plus the AC thing only helps up to 14 DEX unless you're in Light armour so that's wildly overstated as an advantage. It's not like 2E or something.