D&D General 5.5 and making the game easier for players and harder for DMs

[UngeheuerLich]

Is there a reason they have been pushing so hard on the PH material? There was no playtest stuff for the other books, and so far virtually no previews either. Hard not to draw the conclusion that players are what WotC cares about.

Why should they preview or playtest monsters? They already did in MMotM. And since they were never interested about numbers in the public playtest, testing monsters makes not a lot of sense.
It is just a concept that people don't grasp, that 90% of things happens in the background.

 

[Charlaquin]

There’s a whole video there (and some text) about how WotC seems to want to make running the game harder for the DM. Which has nothing to do with “5th ed is easy”.

Examples: Having more status effects to keep track of.

You (and others) might give the original post a re-read.

It might help if you actually expressed your argument yourself in your own post, instead of outsourcing it to a video. A lot f people have no interest in watching an hour and 20 minute YouTube video as a prerequisite to participating in a forum discussion.

 

[Chaltab]

no idea, they certainly did not playtest the DMG or MM much. I am not expecting much there that will make the game easier to run, apart from monsters more consistently hitting their CR… what are you expecting that is new and helps (better organization does not count)?

Encounter math not working and the godawful organization of the DMG are the most common barriers I see brought up for DMs. The third biggest issue is how badly balanced or illogical official adventures often are.

IME, beyond those issues the biggest issue I face as a DM is the disparity between classes making things more difficult to gauge. So having more consistent classes that are all in the 7 to 10 range instead of the 6 to 11 range (in terms of power) makes things easier on me.

 

[Charlaquin]

no idea, they certainly did not playtest the DMG or MM much. I am not expecting much there that will make the game easier to run, apart from monsters more consistently hitting their CR… what are you expecting that is new and helps (better organization does not count)?

Why doesn’t better organization count, exactly?

 

[Azzy]

If we use DOOM skill levels would it be:

Nightmare: AD&D 1E
Ultra-Violence: AD&D 2E
Hurt Me Plenty: 3E 3.5E
Hey, Not To Rough: 5E
I'm Too Young To Die: 5.5E

I wonder why it's anything more detailed than "Describe To Me How Awesome You Are As You Win" the RPG.

Except the complete lack of challenge, randomness, surprise, conflict, and drama sure. “Yay, I win again” lacks everything meaningful from both games and stories.

And you wonder why Team Grognardia gets so much pushback? It's a riot. shakes head

 

[Micah Sweet]

As a DM I welcome the potion change.

How many times have enemies carried potions and drinking them was always a bad option, because it healed less than a round of incoming damage.

Now enemies can actually drink them. Double as much deadliness as the potions won't ever land in the PCs hands, as NPC drink them roght before their eyes.

Also players usually have enough time to plan ahead. It is tge npc who usually gets jumped. So drinking a fire resist potion mid combat helps them more.

Also, while PCs get more combat options, monsters seem to be buffed in that regard too. So probably it is a wash. But maybe some things are just a bit more interesting.


And last but not least: how can the game be harder to DM if you can just send monster after monster as much as you like.

By that definition, every D&D edition has always been exactly the same difficulty for the DM, because they could always do that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why should they preview or playtest monsters? They already did in MMotM. And since they were never interested about numbers in the public playtest, testing monsters makes not a lot of sense.
It is just a concept that people don't grasp, that 90% of things happens in the background.

I think not previewing or playtesting DM-side stuff shows that they have little interest in getting DMs excited about the game. The playtest was a marketing tool at least as much as it was an actual playtest. Guess which parts of the game WotC marketed?

 

[Arilyn]

It's not that the individual changes over the years, on their own, are bad. It's the accumulation of them. The changes we are getting for 2024 combined with the decisions made back in 2014 tipped it too far for me. Of course, everyone will have their own preferences.

 

[Charlaquin]

By that definition, every D&D edition has always been exactly the same difficulty for the DM, because they could always do that.

I mean… kinda, yeah, at least in terms of how difficult it is to challenge the PCs. What makes an RPG system easy or hard to GM is not the PCs’ power, but the tools available to the GM and the quality of the advice in the text regarding how to use those tools. That I’d argue is something 5e has struggled with, and made itself harder to DM than it needs to be. But, it’s something they’ve at least claimed to be trying to fix in the revisions. We’ll see how successful or unsuccessful they’ve been in that endeavor when we actually get to see the DMG.

 

[Malmuria]

I mean… kinda, yeah, at least in terms of how difficult it is to challenge the PCs. What makes an RPG system easy or hard to GM is not the PCs’ power, but the tools available to the GM and the quality of the advice in the text regarding how to use those tools. That I’d argue is something 5e has struggled with, and made itself harder to DM than it needs to be. But, it’s something they’ve at least claimed to be trying to fix in the revisions. We’ll see how successful or unsuccessful they’ve been in that endeavor when we actually get to see the DMG.

But the more options available to the PCs don't just make them more powerful, it makes it so that combat is longer as players peruse options and rules get adjudicated. It adds to the DM's cognitive load especially, as they are the ones constantly evaluating and keeping track of the gamestate and determining how each new PC ability introduced meshes with all those other ones. Conditions, for example