D&D General Design issues with 5e

[UngeheuerLich]

Not to pick on you here as others upthread have said similar things, but giving only bonuses or improvements without at the same time giving countervailing (sp?) penalties or reductions elsewhere is nothing but power creep.

Orcs crit hard and move fast. Dragonborn heal fast and have breath. Elves teleport. And they can all see in the dark. OK. But what do all these people give up in order to gain these benefits? The answer cannot be "nothing", else why would anyone ever play a Human that doesn't get any of this shizz?

I think there needs to be a difference between these two situations:

1 - simple surprise, say, where two groups each walk around a corner and bump into each other - who if anyone is momentarily caught off guard
2 - ambush or stealth attack, where the specific intent is that the target (ideally) dies without ever knowing what hit it (extremely important seeing as the dead can still give evidence!).

The WotC-edition surprise rules are all designed around situation 1 here, and do an awful job with situation 2 to the point where for the players or the DM setting up situation 2 properly is close to impossible.

It also makes the conversation around surprise more difficult when some people are talking about situation 1 and others about situation 2.

For exploration to work as anything other than a mere tack-on it needs to be far more granular in resolution than this.

Until you realize that 2 against players is really unfun...

 

[Minigiant]

Ideally I would like:

• Spells (magic: arcane/divine/primal)
• Maneuvers (weapon/armor/body based: martial attacks/defenses/ inner focus)
• Knacks (skill based: exploration/infiltration/social/knowlege)

I'd add

Infusions for generic magic items like returning and reloading weapons or armor of resistance.

Yes. One cleave like attack would be sufficient. Different ways to access the same maneuver.

5e also has what I regard as problematic.

An universal maneuver system would have been nice.

But common manuvers could be

• Cleave/Sweep
• Command
• Disarm
• Distract/Feint/Vex
• Evade
• Goad/Mark
• Lunge
• Menace
• Parry
• Precise
• Riposte/Counterattack
• Shove/Push
• Slay/Colossus Slayer
• Topple/Trip

 

[CreamCloud0]

Orcs crit hard and move fast. Dragonborn heal fast and have breath. Elves teleport. And they can all see in the dark. OK. But what do all these people give up in order to gain these benefits? The answer cannot be "nothing", else why would anyone ever play a Human that doesn't get any of this shizz?

you don't have to make them give up anything if you can give humans their own bonus thing, and i think the idea that 'humans are quick versatile learners' is pretty established, an extra feat, some extra proficiencies (especially if it could be expanded beyond basic skill proficiencies) and your humans have their own defining perk as good as strong crits or teleportation.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Anecdotally, I ran D&D4e over Foundry VTT from level 1-30 and then again from level 1-10 or so, stopping last year when my computer died. We had a good time killing Orcus, and a lot of that had to do with the programmable automation and powers displayed in chat. I would not attempt to run epic level 4e at a physical table, but I found that players, over the course of multiple levels, quickly grew very familiar with what each other's powers could do and strategized around around them. Even if they might not remember the name "Dimensional Vortex," they would remember the swordmage's helpful ability to redirect an enemy's melee attack.

4e was designed around automation in mind.
That said, I have played it a lot during its entire life span. Only using the builder for automation.

It worked. Especially with the restructured martials after essentials.

And still, I really do not remember a lot of iconic abilities even though playing the game was fun for quite a while.

 

[Minigiant]

On a different note :

Hit points as someone else mentioned...

gygax got it right: capped HP after name level... or at least better direction.

One way to correct it:

level 0: start with a size based hit die + con (or str) modifier. Standard d8. Take the average rounded up: 5.

Level 1 and above: get the average of your class hp rounded up. No con modifier. Ever.

So you usually start with 10 to 12 hp.

A gnome (d6) wizard (d6) with 8 con might start with just 7 hp. Still enough to survive level 1.

Con bonus on hit dice to recover hp. The gnome wizard has very bad regeneration. But that is ok.

The catch: weapons deal no bonus damage from stat modifiers. But you might be able to wield higher dice weapons with better str or dex. Or they might allow you to reroll dice results of your modifier or less (or both) No 2d6 weapons.

Str 11 allows d6 weapons
Str 12 reroll 1's
Str 13 allows d8 weapons
Str 14 reroll 2's
Str 15 allows d10 weapons
Str 16 reroll 3's
Str 17 allows d12 weapons
Str 18 reroll 4's

That way damage dealt is significantly reduced. Especially with multiattack.

Just start at 3 HD at "level 1".

Con bonus to HP is a class feature.

And you cap at 10-13 HD depending on class or race.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just start at 3 HD at "level 1".

Con bonus to HP is a class feature.

And you cap at 10-13 HD depending on class or race.

I do not like 3 hd at level 1. I like the squishiness of level 1.
But yeah. It should work too.

Maybe you can just decide how many hd at level 1. Gritty 2d, heroic 3d.

 

[Lanefan]

There are distinct bumps in character effectiveness in 5E at level 5 in particular. While that was present in 3E and earlier editions, it was not quite as major - Fireball only did 5d6 at Wizard level 5 in AD&D and 3E, and then there were the different XP progression rates across classes as you mentioned for AD&D and OD&D. But a major problem was that some classes such as Rogue and Wizard with significantly lower HP had lower survival rates. 5E has done a much better job of balancing classes.

Long-term stats from our old-school games shows Thief-types and Mage-types have roughly the same overall survival rates as the supposedly more burly classes. Anecdotal, sure, but it leads me to question the claim of lower survivability.

I strongly agree that it is good to have a variety in loss conditions other than death. However, magical equipment is tied strongly to character effectiveness in D&D, so the loss of multiple magic items due to some bad dice rolls can be really painful.

Being really painful is kind of the point.

The pain, however, doesnt last forever provided your campaign has any decent length to it.

A while back a character in my game lost every shred of magic he owned (and it was a lot!) via pulling Talons from a Deck of Many Things. Since then, however, he's bounced back quite nicely.

We had a 5E campaign where the characters started a new adventure having lost their equipment, albeit able to recover it within a couple of sessions. That was more fun to play. The difference was that everyone was back to no gear and having to survive and build up from that point.

That adventure idea has been around for a long time, most famously as the module A4 Dungeon of the Slave Lords.

I definitely had less fun in older campaigns where things appeared to be significantly uneven between characters: bad dice rolls for ability scores, bad rolls for HP, bad rolls for item saving throws ... That's why I prefer point buy for ability scores (everyone starts out the same), and the narrower spread of HP + improved survivability in 5E and A5E. I also don't like rolling for HP, just start with max HP at 1st level and half HD (round up) for HP at each level thereafter.

We just assume that such imbalances are a fact of life, just like they are in reality. Further, imbalances caused by in-game effects such as lost levels or blown-up magic items tend to self-correct over the long run

 

[Minigiant]

I do not like 3 hd at level 1. I like the squishiness of level 1.
But yeah. It should work too.

Maybe you can just decide how many hd at level 1. Gritty 2d, heroic 3d.

1-2 HD is for Level 0 PC.

 

[Gorg]

hmm.

a. Have to agree with Concentration being too all encompassing. Could be my TSR era heart coming out, but sometimes it just seems arbitrary and even petty.

b. non mechanical, BUT: as I experiment with more(sub) classes, 5e's decision to list spells only by level , and class list is getting annoying as heck. esp in light of things like arcane knight's restriction to evocation and abjuration. and the Arcane tradition of Wizards. Abjuration, esp has very few spells, esp those appropriate to combat heavy adventuring. and it is a HUGE PITA to have to look up every spell's alphabetized listing to see what school it from!!!

b1, I'm also not a fan of the limited selection of spells available in the PHB. Yes, I know there are more in OTHER BOOKS, but that's my point- digging thru a pile of books to find something on the fly is irritating- for player and DM alike. This, more than anything else- save the race as class- is also why we ditched D&D for AD&D pretty early. Something I had forgotten about, until I started digging into B/X clones like OSE, lol.

c. I was actually a fan of 3e's methods of customizing and scaling up monsters. NPC classes, templates, monster advancement rules, the works. I DO love how 5e MM and Volos for example, statted out multiple...archetypes, I guess of many monsters. darn useful!

d. the proficiency bonus scaling is my other bone to pick. It really needs a wider variance in bonus, considering how much is tied to it.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

you don't have to make them give up anything if you can give humans their own bonus thing, and i think the idea that 'humans are quick versatile learners' is pretty established, an extra feat, some extra proficiencies (especially if it could be expanded beyond basic skill proficiencies) and your humans have their own defining perk as good as strong crits or teleportation.

i don't really care for "humans as quick versatile learners" tbh. i prefer "humans are cockroaches", but "humans are lynchpins of mundane reality" (draw steel touches that idea a bit) can also be fun.