D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Mort]

My opinion is that 5e followed the flaw of 3e where it was designed around the new players, poor players, and other under optimized players.

So once players gained experience and learned the game, they had to form a gentleman's agreement to not meaningfully optimize building or playing unless you were playing a weak PC.

It doesn't take much to learn major single entities were vulnerable to control spells.

It was an agreement to not control down every Boss monster.

I've found it designed more than will enough for most players, not just new or poor players. I've DMd at all levels with few issues. Will fully admit that the published adventures (at least from WoTC) are not difficult for the players. But I've also found that players actually like that, they don't want adventures where survival is on a razor's edge. If you have players that do want that? Yeah, you're going to have to change things a bit. But with experience, 5e can provide that play style.

I think designing specifically to reign in optimizers is a losing proposition. And I'm actually glad that didn't happen. I think if that's the direction the designers had gone, the result would be worse than what we have now.

That, of course, leads to a conundrum. WoTC (the designers there) now has a pretty good idea where the problematic elements are. But 5e is still going gangbusters. Changing things too much could jeopardize that. Just because the product would be better from a "game" perspective (assuming it even would be), in no way, guarantees people would like it more.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

My opinion is that 5e followed the flaw of 3e where it was designed around the new players, poor players, and other under optimized players.

So once players gained experience and learned the game, they had to form a gentleman's agreement to not meaningfully optimize building or playing unless you were playing a weak PC.

It doesn't take much to learn major single entities were vulnerable to control spells.

It was an agreement to not control down every Boss monster.

I actually fundamentally disagree that 3e was designed for new players, since that game always felt like only catering to the very crowd that tries to optimize and build most powerful stuff, even in the core.

 

[Minigiant]

I actually fundamentally disagree that 3e was designed for new players, since that game always felt like only catering to the very crowd that tries to optimize and build most powerful stuff, even in the core.

3E that was designed for new players and players who don't seriously optimize.

This is why so many of the players handbook feats and options were so bad for optimization.

But as people left and came in, the later products became tailored to optimize us.

It's like the story of the 2014 Champion fighter (new trap) and the 2024 Champion fighter (top tier DPS monster)

 

[Minigiant]

Do you have proof of this assumption on dev's side at all? Because unless they said this somewhere, this is armchair psychology and quite frankly, sounds irrational.

All the podcasts, articles, videos, and interviews by Mearls and later Crawford. They say it all the time.

5e was designed to go back to the traditional feel of D&D but have room for all these optional opt in modules and variants for different fandoms who wanted different feels.

But unfortunately most of these modular rules and variants never came . And most of those that did come weren't fully cooked or died in obscurity where few ever saw them*

*In The DMG sometimes because we learned many tables had DMs who never read the DMG

 

[billd91]

I actually fundamentally disagree that 3e was designed for new players, since that game always felt like only catering to the very crowd that tries to optimize and build most powerful stuff, even in the core.

I can assure you that there were new players who came to 3e who had been reluctant to play earlier editions. 3e may have a lot of features that were responsive to optimizers, but it also built the game around more regular and systematic mechanics than previous editions with their diverse, varied, and complicated subsystems. And that made the game, in many ways, easier to teach and learn. Moreover, according to a friend of mine to dove into 3e, the new rules put her on the same level as the rest of us old-timers - we were ALL learning the ins and outs of the new system with new(-ish) eyes.

 

[Minigiant]

I've found it designed more than will enough for most players, not just new or poor players. I've DMd at all levels with few issues. Will fully admit that the published adventures (at least from WoTC) are not difficult for the players. But I've also found that players actually like that, they don't want adventures where survival is on a razor's edge. If you have players that do want that? Yeah, you're going to have to change things a bit. But with experience, 5e can provide that play style.

I didn't say it was hard.

I said that it was designed for people who weren't pushing the game in any sort of optimization seriously which is typically new players, poor players, or players playing for complete flavor.

But what I mean is that if your players put just a little bit of s optimization, start killing everything

If you decide that your great sword wielding fighter might be served well by increasing his strength and taking the Great Weapon Master feat and BAM you start wrecking monster appropriate monsters.

You take a control spell on your caster and actually decide to cast it on a dangerous enemy and you just take it out the fight.

Basic optimization which would match very common lines of character creation and character narrative would increase your character's ability in combat exploration or social interaction so greatly without even doing much.

If not high optimization to take a feet that matches the weapon that your Warrior uses or take a basic spell that your caster is known to have as a trope of the character class.

Is it really optimization for a warlock to take a debuffing control spell and an invocation that boosts Eldritch blast?

 

[Remathilis]

All the podcasts, articles, videos, and interviews by Mearls and later Crawford. They say it all the time.

5e was designed to go back to the traditional feel of D&D but have room for all these optional opt in modules and variants for different fandoms who wanted different feels.

But unfortunately most of these modular rules and variants never came . And most of those that did come weren't fully cooked or died in obscurity where few ever saw them

Why do you think that is?

I'd maintain that a lot of those theoretical "modules" weren't as popular as people thought they would be. WotC did try experimenting in early in 5e's life (Greyhawk initiative, mass combat, prestige classes) and none of them made it out of UA. Even most of the options in the DMG were not frequently used outside of the healing variants. The closest to those modular options in the 3pp space is something like Level Up.

If the D&D audience had wanted a bunch of variant systems, I think WotC would have pushed those. Instead, fans wanted a more uniform experience with a little flourish in their settings.

 

[Minigiant]

Why do you think that is?

Profit and theft versus work hours required to make it

It's a lot of work hours and upfront dollars to make something that most fans feel is worth paying

I have tons of ideas for modules that possibly could be very popular. I'm sure many many people in this space couldn't do the same thing.

It just takes a whole lot of time. And if you want it to look good you got to pay artists. And then you got to edit it and play testing and brainstorm to fix the parts that didn't work.

So that's why most of the things you see that become popular in the spirit and discussions of ivy are typically either kick-started, done by real publishers who have clout enough to get these things done, or design for the rove of the game or bragging rights via a lot of free assets and little play testing.

Remember... anything your DM doesn't see and allow, practically doesn't exist.

I'm sure a lot of people would love the D&D spells rebalance and rewritten but but it has to be of a certain level of quality, hype, or clout for fans to pay for it and a DM to allow it.

 

[Azzy]

3E that was designed for new players and players who don't seriously optimize.

This is why so many of the players handbook feats and options were so bad for optimization.

No, it was deliberately designed to reward system mastery and punish lack of system mastery.

 

[Minigiant]

No, it was deliberately designed to reward system mastery and punish lack of system mastery.

I don't think the level of reward and punishment that resulted was intended.

They kinda.. overdid... it.. to the point it became very obvious and hurt the game