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Exactly. The rules for hiding and stealth in 5E are not at all ambiguous. What is left open to DM discretion is the context in which they can be used. Which is perfectly reasonable. Nailing down exactly when a PC is in a position to be able to hide, in a game that takes place in its...

As do the players in my groups. Only a handful of the people I've played D&D with had any interest in mechanically-optimizing characters. But it's also worth nothing most of the people I've played with found little appealing in 3E or 4E for that very reason. There's that too. And I think for...

That may be the case. But a very large part of the D&D fanbase has no interest in - or even knowledge of - indie RPGs. That makes them far more conservative than the hardcore RPG crowd who play a half-dozen games a year and eagerly seek out the newest and most innovative games. I know the...

Not everyone who plays D&D has 10 or more hours a week to create their own content. I used to. But not anymore. Now I may have bursts of time and creativity when I can spend three or four hours in a week, followed by a couple weeks where I have no time. That means I need professionally-produced...

Exactly. The fighter was a defender and a striker. The cleric was a front-line melee guy who could also heal (typically outside of combat). The magic-user could do all kinds of things, much of it outside of combat. And the thief was flat-out bad at combat and contributed with expertise outside...

Absolutely. Shaping the whole game to suit the needs of organized play is penny wise and pound foolish.

Yep. I have shelves full of boardgames. I probably spend more time playing them than RPGs. And issues I might have in boardgames rules are largely irrelevant to issues I have with an RPG book. Because when I play RPGs, I'm using an entirely different part of my brain, for entirely different...

Same here. Controlling monsters that cower under they're attacked it just a hassle. It typically involves the party driving the turned monsters into a dead-end or the bottom of a stairwell, preparing some sort of wall of spears, flaming oil, etc. and then launching an overwhelming attack from a...

I agree. Apparently the 5E devs did not include turn undead as a default cleric power in some of the early playtests, and the playtesters demanded it back in as a 'canon' element of the class. Me, I've never liked turn undead as a default power (why the heck would a cleric of Poseidon or Ares...

The PHB has a bunch of downtime options. I expect the DMG will have more. Gathering rumours, training, researching, etc. If you have a living campaign world where things happen outside the spotlight of the PCs, then time matters. The orc raiders withdraw to their mountain fastness; the...

Yep. And if you want a spellcasty fighter, take the Eldritch Knight. Those three sub-classes have all the broad types of fighters covered (not to mention the variety offered in fighting styles).

A series of themed regional setting books. Small-scale locales along the lines of the Nentir Vale from 4E. A small city, some towns, a few small dungeons, a handful of organizations, lairs, legendary monsters, and story hooks. Each would have a theme (arctic, fey forest, desert ruins, shadow...

That was my experience. The terminology of strikers, controllers, marking, etc. was absolutely baffling to my players. Not only were the terms alien, but we had never thought of classes in terms of their tactical role (we never used a grid). Wizards use magic. Fighters fight things. Thieves...

No. You're expressing the remarkably specific and esoteric want list of one hardcore D&D player. Everyone on this site could post their own such wish list, and they would all be different. Most of the books you list would sell no more than 100 copies, and those to well-heeled completionists. A...

That's what I'm leaning towards: Short rests are 10 minutes (long enough that you need to take them at a safe interlude). Long rests are 5 days in a secure location, or 8 days in the wilderness. Short rests can be taken once every 24 hours. So the adventure tempo might look something like this...

It occurs to me that a way to make Sleep effective against more powerful creatures is to add this effect: regardless of HP, on a failed save a single target has its passive Perception reduced by 10.

This was my experience in the playtest. The crux of the issue is the pace of combat encounters in your campaign. And that varies dramatically. RAW works well in a combat-heavy dungeon crawl. The more you diverge from that assumption, the wonkier it gets. Action economy and balance aside...

That may be true. But the massive success of Skyrim shows there's plenty of appetite out there for sandbox RPGs. WotC just needs to get ahead of the curve and stop chasing Paizo's model. One of the reasons adventure paths work so well with Pathfinder is the game itself is so crunchy and...

That's not my experience. The first 20 or so published modules* I used (they weren't called adventures) presented locations, foes, NPCs, and maybe some environmental effects. The rest was up to me. It wasn't daunting or difficult. When PCs interact with monsters, NPCs, and dangerous...

Setting based adventures that I can use how I see fit. I don't want or need epic adventure paths every time I play.