D&D (2024) Command is the Perfect Encapsulation of Everything I Don't Like About 5.5e

[mamba]

Yes, I think 2030 is a good general guess for 6e.

I'd be surprised if it were that early, for that 5e has to fizzle out considerably in the next 3 years or so. I doubt we can see a new edition before 2032, if then

 

[Daztur]

I gave how I would rule. Which is my point, either command is overpowered for a first level spell or already restricted to a few basic options depending on the DM.

If, as a DM, you prefer shenanigans you can just house rule and allow it.

"You can just houserule it" is never a good response to (subjective or objective) problems with the rules. That's like telling people who are upset about linear fighters, quadratic wizards to "just houserule it if you prefer balance."

Again, it's not as bad as you're painting it. It's not that the players are arguing all the time, every time. No one is being unreasonable. That's the thing, no one has to be unreasonable here because, as you say, the rules are open ended. Which means that the players are going to gravitate towards trying to do stuff outside of the box. Not every time. Of course not. Just often enough that it becomes a thing the DM has to deal with.

It's just so exhausting. Because it never, ever ends. It just keeps going around and around, not because anyone is unreasonable, but because while you had that conversation with Players A through E, now your group consists of A, C , and G, H and I. And those three new players haven't had those conversations with you yet.

Yes. This is my favorite part of D&D when I'm DMing. I'm so happy that it never ends. I want more of this. I want this to happen over and over and over every session.

It's not a player problem. It's a problem with the mechanics. And it is so easy to resolve. The new Command spell is exactly how you resolve this. You tighten up the language a little bit. Not a lot. Just enough to cover 90% of the stuff that the spell was being used for anyway and shave off that 10% that was causing the headaches. Because, again, playing silly buggers with the vaguely defined effects of spells isn't creative. Using a Command spell to lure the troll into that carefully crafted kill box after the party has hammered out strong tactics and plans? THAT'S creativity.

How would removing literally my favorite part of D&D be a problem to resolve?

I think you're still not quite grasping just how deeply people think that this is a feature not a bug. Of course you don't have to agree with me, but I think you have to acknowledge that what you're considering a chore is the #1 thing I look forward to when I sit down on the DM chair.

Maybe they felt the power of Command was too variable and dependant on the player's wit and wanted it to be more predictable by the DM?

But it being variable and dependent on the players wit are the things I liked best about Command. I'm finding myself having to say "feature, not bug" over and over in this thread...

Type in "I'm leaving 5e" or "Why I left 5e" in YouTube.

Most of the videos repeat the same things on the DM side

To some extent this just shows how amazingly dominant 5e has been. I didn't "leave" Delta Green, I'm just not running a Delta Green campaign at the moment. I have very fond thoughts about it and would like to run it again one day, but have no current plans. It seems like with a lot of 5e players the hobby as they've experienced it has been just one long string of 5e campaigns, which makes me sad. I don't think it's good for the hobby to be tied up so tightly with a single game system, especially as you seem to constantly get people running 5e campaigns that concepts that 5e seems wildly unsuited for. I have a campaign concept that really cries out for 5.*ed and was planning to run it for 5.5e, but that's shelved for now. I'll run it with 5e later when I've played other stuff for long enough for that to feel fresh again, maybe with lots of the classes yanked out and replaced by Laser Llama homebrew or one of the 5e spin-off games or something, we'll see. I'm not leaving 5e, it's just going back into the rotation.

This is what the starter sets are for: learning to DM when the mentor system isn't working.

And I disagree that WotC has done anything to get DMs excited about 5.5. Just saying the DMG will be better isn't nearly enough.

Yeah, I just haven't seen much that's targeted to DMs in 5.5e except for "the DMG will be better organized"...which fine? I guess? Just not going to set many people on fire to run the system...

Other games are easier, especially ones that don't really have a GM along the lines of what D&D requires. There are also games that are going to be more difficult. But at a certain point it's just comparing apples, oranges and personal preference.

Yeah, a lot of those games are easier to DM...but often harder for newbies to play since they put more weight on the players by taking it off the DM.

Considering the companies that designed or changed their game to separate it from the OGL, it might as well have happened. Besides, their clear intention to burn down the 3pp house, even if thwarted, is more than enough for some.

I think the main result of the OGL fiasco is going to be the same as the switch from 3e to 3.5e: 3pp shift from supporting D&D to competing with it in their own little niches.

 

[Lanefan]

Bathos - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Short answer: That scene with Loki and Hulk in first Avengers movie that Hollywood has copied ad nauseatum ever since.

So, bathos seems to be a term for when characters in a fiction provide their own comic relief rather than have it provided for them by another character whose main function is to be that comic relief.

Are you saying you don't like it when players use their in-game characters to provide comic relief? Or if not, what are you saying?

Personally, I like that Hulk-Loki scene.

And now you're conflating getting invested in the roleplay and story with inability to tell what happens to your characters from a personal attack, which is one hell of a strawman.

Not a strawman at all, in that long experience has shown me that players who take the game as seriously as you seem to want are also the players who aren't going to react well out-of-character to bad things that happen in-character, and would indeed directly equate your character attacking mine in the game as you attacking me in person because they either can't or won't separate the two.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Meanwhile the bard is giggling at all of you with his Dissonant whispers spell which has never been language dependent and deals direct damage.

I wonder why no one has been bitching about that for the past ten years.

Dissonant Whispers has always been a pretty straightforward spell with direct, uncomplicated effects.

The discussion is about taking a game mechanic that once had a possibility for nuanced, creative, spontaneous play experiences, and turning it into something straightforward, direct, and uncomplicated.

There is no inherent problem with straightforward, direct, uncomplicated attacks. They're a welcome addition to any turn where you just want to deal damage and move the game along and not think too hard about what you're doing. They're an "I hit it with my sword" mechanic, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's essential, even!

But when I choose to learn and cast command and I choose to do something off-script with it (and we're now three choices deep, so I've been well prepared for this), I am inviting the DM to play with this thing with me, to riff off of me, to build something much more interesting than another bit of damage, to imagine this as a collaborative story-building moment and not a moment of "subtract number from other number until it's 0." Part of the fun (as a player AND a DM) is that it lets me do something more creative than that.

It's entirely legit to criticize the designers for removing something that was fun about the game. D&D is not a game about monster fighting, as much as overly analytical designers and online discussions might focus on that, entirely missing the forest for the trees when they do.

 

[Hussar]

How would removing literally my favorite part of D&D be a problem to resolve?

I think you're still not quite grasping just how deeply people think that this is a feature not a bug. Of course you don't have to agree with me, but I think you have to acknowledge that what you're considering a chore is the #1 thing I look forward to when I sit down on the DM chair.

To each his own I guess.

To me, this is the absolute number one thing I hate about DMing D&D.

And I don't think I'm quite as alone here as all that. Because, as a player or as a DM, I've noticed that those "open ended" spells are either top of DM's banned lists, or are just not taken by players. I mean, sure, illusions are great on paper. But, how many illusion spells (and I mean straight up creating image spells, not simply stuff like invisibility or hypnotic patern) have you seen cast in, say, the last ten sessions you played or ran?

Me? None. The players never use them because they're just too random. Who knows how they're going to be adjudicated? Is it going to be done with the intent of the game? Or is it going to be nothing but Monkey Paws all the way down. It's the reason I see players come to my table who will spend two hours trying to word a wish because they automatically assume that the DM will try to weasel out of it.

Last night's session was a perfect example. The party enters a temple of Vecna and there's an ongoing ritual going on. Lots of chanting and whatnot. Party Psi-fighter uses his flying power to fly into the room, which triggers the ongoing Mass Suggestion effect for anyone entering.

Me: Ok, you failed your save. The suggestion is to sit down and start praying.
Player: Ok, well, I'm in mid air, so, I stop and sit down in mid air. When my turn is up, I fall and take damage, so, I get another saving throw.
Me: Facepalm.

It's exactly that sort of crap that I detest. Cheesemonkey weaseling out of effects because I didn't write a freaking ten page contract in order to give the exact wording of the Suggestion.

And I guarantee that if I did it the other way - if the party had cast the Suggestion and I did that, they'd be the first ones to cry foul.

It just sucks any and all enjoyment out of the game for me.

 

[Hussar]

Dissonant Whispers has always been a pretty straightforward spell with direct, uncomplicated effects.

The discussion is about taking a game mechanic that once had a possibility for nuanced, creative, spontaneous play experiences, and turning it into something straightforward, direct, and uncomplicated.

There is no inherent problem with straightforward, direct, uncomplicated attacks. They're a welcome addition to any turn where you just want to deal damage and move the game along and not think too hard about what you're doing. They're an "I hit it with my sword" mechanic, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's essential, even!

But when I choose to learn and cast command and I choose to do something off-script with it (and we're now three choices deep, so I've been well prepared for this), I am inviting the DM to play with this thing with me, to riff off of me, to build something much more interesting than another bit of damage, to imagine this as a collaborative story-building moment and not a moment of "subtract number from other number until it's 0." Part of the fun (as a player AND a DM) is that it lets me do something more creative than that.

It's entirely legit to criticize the designers for removing something that was fun about the game. D&D is not a game about monster fighting, as much as overly analytical designers and online discussions might focus on that, entirely missing the forest for the trees when they do.

But Command and Dissonant Whispers are almost, not quite, but almost exactly the same spells. Caster forces enemy to take an action. The only difference is Dissonant Whispers has a single, specific effect, and Command is written with vague wording because that's the way it was written in the PHB forty years ago. I mean, heck, you only have to look at how new spells are written. You don't get these vague, open ended spells because they cause nothing but problems at tables.

It's not fun for me. It just isn't. It's players trying to game the system, rather than actually playing the game. People can tell me how much fun this is until the cows come home. I have zero interest in playing amateur game designer in the middle of a game session. Vague, open ended effects are simply poor game design as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, we don't allow this for anything other than magical effects in the game. Ever. I'm not allowed to cut off someone's hand with a great axe. Full stop. There is literally no rules in 5e D&D that let me disable a monster's claw attack. Despite the fact that there should be. If I ask the DM, "Hey, can I disable the creature's claw attack instead of dealing damage?" No DM would ever allow it. Just not going to happen.

But, as soon as I'm using a spell? Hoo Boy! I get to tell the DM all sorts of things and so long as I can convince the DM that it's okay, then I get to do it. Create Water inside a creature used to be a thing, and now it's not. Have we really lost creativity because I can no longer make a monster's head explode with a 1st level cleric spell?

 

[I'm A Banana]

To each his own I guess.

To me, this is the absolute number one thing I hate about DMing D&D.

And I don't think I'm quite as alone here as all that. Because, as a player or as a DM, I've noticed that those "open ended" spells are either top of DM's banned lists, or are just not taken by players. I mean, sure, illusions are great on paper. But, how many illusion spells (and I mean straight up creating image spells, not simply stuff like invisibility or hypnotic patern) have you seen cast in, say, the last ten sessions you played or ran?

Me? None. The players never use them because they're just too random. Who knows how they're going to be adjudicated? Is it going to be done with the intent of the game? Or is it going to be nothing but Monkey Paws all the way down. It's the reason I see players come to my table who will spend two hours trying to word a wish because they automatically assume that the DM will try to weasel out of it.

Last night's session was a perfect example. The party enters a temple of Vecna and there's an ongoing ritual going on. Lots of chanting and whatnot. Party Psi-fighter uses his flying power to fly into the room, which triggers the ongoing Mass Suggestion effect for anyone entering.

Me: Ok, you failed your save. The suggestion is to sit down and start praying.
Player: Ok, well, I'm in mid air, so, I stop and sit down in mid air. When my turn is up, I fall and take damage, so, I get another saving throw.
Me: Facepalm.

It's exactly that sort of crap that I detest. Cheesemonkey weaseling out of effects because I didn't write a freaking ten page contract in order to give the exact wording of the Suggestion.

And I guarantee that if I did it the other way - if the party had cast the Suggestion and I did that, they'd be the first ones to cry foul.

It just sucks any and all enjoyment out of the game for me.

This is just why the DMG (and maybe the PHB) needs to discuss things like bottlenecking and collaboration in terms DMs (and players) can quickly grok and apply, not a reason to ban all open-ended game mechanics.

If I'm worried about "cheesemonkey weaseling," I'm worried about a player behavior that's toxic to the group's dynamic, not about a game mechanic. The problem with paladins and rogues fighting each other was never really about paladins and rogues, after all. Kender players never needed the kender as an excuse. Etc.

We're often missing good game mechanics to support this pillar of play. It's an area that desperately needs work in D&D. Taking out parts of the game that are like that isn't really a solution, though.

But Command and Dissonant Whispers are almost, not quite, but almost exactly the same spells. Caster forces enemy to take an action. The only difference is Dissonant Whispers has a single, specific effect, and Command is written with vague wording because that's the way it was written in the PHB forty years ago. I mean, heck, you only have to look at how new spells are written. You don't get these vague, open ended spells because they cause nothing but problems at tables.

That's not the reason command was written that way in 2014. I can confidently say that it was an intentional choice, not an accident.

There's good things that come from that choice.

It's not fun for me. It just isn't. It's players trying to game the system, rather than actually playing the game. People can tell me how much fun this is until the cows come home. I have zero interest in playing amateur game designer in the middle of a game session. Vague, open ended effects are simply poor game design as far as I'm concerned.

There is a vast gulf between "I don't like this," and "this is poor game design." Don't mistake preference for quality.

It also sounds like the reason you don't like this is because there's some tension between you and some players - some place where you're not agreeing on what you're sitting down at the table to do (you want a moment of a cool dungeon trap, they reject that - why?). That is a social contract problem, not a rules problem. It's still a problem D&D should be better about designing around, IMO, though it can't very well do that if it's focused on flattening the experience, either.

I mean, we don't allow this for anything other than magical effects in the game. Ever. I'm not allowed to cut off someone's hand with a great axe. Full stop. There is literally no rules in 5e D&D that let me disable a monster's claw attack. Despite the fact that there should be. If I ask the DM, "Hey, can I disable the creature's claw attack instead of dealing damage?" No DM would ever allow it. Just not going to happen.

But, as soon as I'm using a spell? Hoo Boy! I get to tell the DM all sorts of things and so long as I can convince the DM that it's okay, then I get to do it. Create Water inside a creature used to be a thing, and now it's not. Have we really lost creativity because I can no longer make a monster's head explode with a 1st level cleric spell?

Trojan horsing a martials vs. magicals argument into here is a meaningless distraction. It doesn't just move the goalposts, it imagines we're playing a whole different sport. Stay on target.

If you have an issue with open-ended mechanics, you have an issue with both the 2014 command spell and, let's say, an open-ended "called shots" system for attacks that could disable monster parts if a player opted to target a specific bit. Because players could hypothetically steamroll you and exploit some mechanical loophole you weren't prepared for in both situations ("I cut off it's head!" could end a fight real quick).

But, like, you're the DM, so what's forcing you to agree to the exploit? Or preventing you from having it work Only Once? Or limiting your ability to say Yes And or Yes But? Why AREN'T you comfortable doing a bit of house ruling for your preferred experience?

Because I do think D&D could be a lot better about supporting those decisions, and designing things that reduce the insecurity of players and DMs. And wouldn't it be great if you COULD use all those creative illusions without fear and fragility preventing you? Because I've been at tables where it happens, and it is, IMXP, a LOT of fun.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But, like, you're the DM, so what's forcing you to agree to the exploit? Or preventing you from having it work Only Once? Or limiting your ability to say Yes And or Yes But? Why AREN'T you comfortable doing a bit of house ruling for your preferred experience?

Because, as he has said easily a dozen times in this thread already:

It's not once. If it really were once or twice across an entire campaign, it wouldn't be an issue.

It's over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over. Spell after spell after spell after spell.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The battle between Law and Choas reigns eternally over us all...

 

[Daztur]

To each his own I guess.

To me, this is the absolute number one thing I hate about DMing D&D.

Yup, I just love it when there gets to be a bit of chaos. Straight-up brawls get a bit samey after a while, the last game I DMed was a Star Wars game that had all kinds of crazy naughty word like PCs jumping out of the back of transport ships to try to board Tie Fighters and stab the pilots with light sabers, only to be saved at the last moment by friends zipping about with jet packs and force powers being used to yank them about out of danger.

And I don't think I'm quite as alone here as all that. Because, as a player or as a DM, I've noticed that those "open ended" spells are either top of DM's banned lists, or are just not taken by players. I mean, sure, illusions are great on paper. But, how many illusion spells (and I mean straight up creating image spells, not simply stuff like invisibility or hypnotic patern) have you seen cast in, say, the last ten sessions you played or ran?

Illusions are a good example, in that they annoy me as well, for the same reason they annoy you (just less, they're something I like taken too far, not something I fundamentally dislike). Why I do like spells like Command but dislike a lot of Illusions? For me if there's a spectrum from completely open-ended to locked down a lot of illusion spells are on one end of the spectrum (too open-ended, right alongside spells like Suggestion which I don't like for similar reasons) and more bog standard direct damage spells generally sitting at the other end of the spectrum (not open ended enough and kinda boring) while Command hits the sweet spot for me in that you can do a lot of things with it but it's specific (just one word), and limited and requires players to work within those limits.

As far as how many illusions I've cast in the last ten sessions I played in...my last PC was a trickery cleric and I was CONSTANTLY using Invoke Duplicity and having a lot of fun with it and trying to squeeze every ounce of utility I could out of it. I liked that a lot more than normal illusions as what it could do is a lot more nailed down and limited. Similarly I like Wildshape in that it's limited to specific animals a lot more than a theoretical Anything You Wantshape as that's just too open-ended for me.

Limits breed creativity as long as there's enough room to maneuver within those limits.

Me: Ok, you failed your save. The suggestion is to sit down and start praying.
Player: Ok, well, I'm in mid air, so, I stop and sit down in mid air. When my turn is up, I fall and take damage, so, I get another saving throw.
Me: Facepalm.

It's exactly that sort of crap that I detest.

Heh. That's exactly the sort of crap I love. I'd grin ear to ear at that kind of cleverness.

Cheesemonkey weaseling out of effects because I didn't write a freaking ten page contract in order to give the exact wording of the Suggestion.

I don't need a ten page contract to stop the players from being clever since I love it when they pull clever naughty word like that psi-fighter.

And I guarantee that if I did it the other way - if the party had cast the Suggestion and I did that, they'd be the first ones to cry foul.

Then too bad for them. But I'm not an naughty word DM so I don't pull this kind of stuff often unless the PCs are REALLY giving me rope for me to hang themselves with.

It just sucks any and all enjoyment out of the game for me.

Heh. Would be the absolute high point of a session for me.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. That's kind of my point in this thread. Both of us could do OK in 5e despite wanting pretty different things since 5e was a decent enough compromise (however messy and imperfect). With stuff like this 5.5e (especially going forward) is going to be less and less of a good compromise.