D&D 5E (2014) 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e

[MoonSong]

4e DID have Aasimar. They just called them Deva. I suspect that 5e will likely go back to calling them Aasimar, with perhaps Deva being a subrace. It's consistent with what they've been doing: Make the 4e versions available, but keep them subtly "hidden" so as to attempt not to offend. It backfires sometimes when the 4e-lovers don't spot the 4e-isms, but the 4e-haters spot them like they're waving flags and jumping up and down.

I always took 4e's deva as a rose by any other name. Is that not the case for you?

Granted, the tiefling did offended my sense of symmetry until the deva was introduced in PHB2, but I was thereafter happy with the ease of refluffing both tieflings and devas into their more traditional counterparts.

On the surface they are pretty similar, but look at the niches they occupy, for an Aasimar I would have expected a racial power involving light and they being good paladins, bards and sorcerers out of the book, and until late into the edition Deva were only good as wizards, druids and invokers, with racial support focussed on lore and knowledge. Both are equally good as clerics, but by that marker Dwarfs are good stand ins for Aasimar. Don't get me wrong, I love Devas, they are damm good, but they feel very different from Aasimar, if anything Kalashtar come closer to fill the Aasimar niche.

And talking about an offended sense of simmetry, I wish they would have placed the Asuras in the game too.

Just because that's all they've vaguely mentioned doesn't mean that's the only subclasses sorcerer has or will ever have. If you don't spot one you like on release, start a campaign asking for it. I'd be with you. Personally, I'd like to see a sorcerer subclass that is as easy (or nearly so) to play as a simple fighter subclass, but with magic. They may not go splat-happy (we all hope), but I doubt they will never expand past the original subclasses either.

They've pretty much specifically said they'd listen to feedback and try to add any elements that look to be asked for.

That said, I can understand your concern (they've been known to disappoint in the past) but I wouldn't get too overly concerned... yet. Wait a month, at least.

I wouldn't hold my breath for it to happen, and that subclass being in a late arrival splatbook will only hurt my chances of actually playing one, having to campaign for a DM to allow both the class and the splat with the subclass every single time I get into a new game is a huge effort. See below, the change in mentality between editions is key to my worries.

I haven't had many terrible DM experiences, but I have found that as silly as the "Everything is core" sounds, it does seem to have a positive influence on DMs. Or maybe it's 4e's relatively fine balance that makes DMs comfortable with no longer micromanaging player options. Or maybe it's a little of both.

Perhaps, the shift in the paradigm isn't entirely positive, I'm still waiting on the news for the Standard game. If it is confirmed that standard will include both the extended classes and races and multi classing I will have more hope in the edition.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

"Everything is core" is just fine and dandy until you get your first player demanding to be a warforged in your homebrew...

Well just between us DMs, sometimes putting your foot down is reasonable -- or even booting a truly bullheaded player. Not every campaign is for every player. On the other hand, if you find yourself short on players excited about your campaign, it might be time to loosen up that carefully crafted masterpiece of a homebrew. Or to run a different setting, if there truly is no place for what the players want -- Planescape is practically made for oddball parties! There are no hard and fast rules, and I've done all of the above.

 

[Campbell]

"Everything is core" is just fine and dandy until you get your first player demanding to be a warforged in your homebrew...

From a cultural standpoint I don't think it's good to have stark content divisions between core and optional material. I think "Everything is core" might have pushed the messaging too far in the other direction, but I fail to see how not having Dragonborn in your homebrew is in any meaningful way different than not having elves. When you explicitly mark some content as optional other content seems less optional.

In other words I fully reserve my right to ban gnomes and halflings due to the fact that I'm heightist. You can't trust short folk - you never see them coming. On a more serious note one of my more successful 4e games did not feature any of the Tolkien races, but Tieflings, Deva, Dragonborn, Genasi, Shadarkai and Gith all played a big part.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

_________________________________________________________________

Wow...you managed to post a message that was nothing but quoting what I've already read back to me while simultaneously calling me bizarrely angry. That may go down in history as the least helpful post ever.

Here's why it isn't "bizarrely angry": Let's say I've got 20th level PCs in 3.5e, I decided to play a game with no magic items or casters at all.

I say, alright, they are level 20, they can beat a CR 20 creature: A Pit Fiend. The book says CR 20 creatures should take about 20% of the party's resources.

Let's say the Fighter in the group started with an 18 Strength and bumped it every chance he got. He has 23 Strength at this level and +2 due to feats. So, he has +28 to hit. He does 2d6+10 points of damage with his attacks. The Pit Fiend has 225 hitpoints. The fighter does 12.75 damage per round against it. That means it takes 17.64 rounds for the Fighter to do enough damage to kill it. That's assuming he can find some way to stop the DR 15...which he likely can't and will reduce the damage to about 3 points of damage per round.

Let's assume that the Fighter can somehow get AC 25 due to feats and stuff without any magic items. That's likely a bit high. That means the Pit Fiend hits on a 2 with all his attacks. That's 99.75 points of damage per round(without crits or worrying about the poison, it'd be more). So, it'd take the Pit Fiend about 3 rounds to kill the Fighter.

So, assuming the rest of the party performs about as well as the fighter does(which, if I'm not allowing spellcasters is extremely unlikely), that means the party can beat the Pit Fiend in about 4.25 rounds(assuming a party of 4 all hammering on it). However, one of them dies in round 3. Once again, assuming they can bypass the DR. Otherwise, they all die before they kill the Pit Fiend.

I don't feel like doing the math for a party with the magic items that they could purchase with the wealth guidelines for their level, but let's just say they are able to defeat the Pit Fiend while taking nearly no damage cause that's very likely what happens.

The problem is that the DMG and the game doesn't tell me what to do or how to adjust for not using magic items or using less magic items. It has just as vague or non-existent guidelines on how NOT to hand out that much gold and magic items. It just says "You MUST give out those magic items, that's how D&D works".

The game only gives me two choices: Have a party filled with super powered PCs or guess randomly what kind of monsters they can handle now.

I'm saying that 5e will likely include better guidelines on scaling up when PCs have magic items than that.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

"Everything is core" is just fine and dandy until you get your first player demanding to be a warforged in your homebrew...

In which case, I say yes. I'm not sure where you're going with this.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Being very atypical for me and ignoring the math for a second, I have to say, based on experiences of 2E, I am very skeptical of people who claim that having a +1 or +2 weapon won't make a noticeable difference to a character's performance, because it sure as hell did back then.

I never said it wouldn't make a difference. I don't know who said that either. What I'm saying is that the difference is small enough that it wouldn't be worth worrying about.

Also, in 2e it had a bigger effect because there were a lot of monsters with really good ACs and low hitpoints at higher levels. Even high level monsters were in the 80 hitpoint range, so 1 damage is a more significant chunk of their hitpoints. Also, you need less hits to kill them so each time that +1 to hit works, it shortens the combat significantly.

In theory, the better math on ACs and hitpoints should help to smooth that over.

Plus, people are good at noticing when special events happen. They take notes of them. So, each time that +1 to hit causes you to hit, someone will note it and make a big deal of it. It can seem like it's happening all the time. That's cause we tune out the monotony of the other 19 rounds where it has no effect at all.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

The game only gives me two choices: Have a party filled with super powered PCs or guess randomly what kind of monsters they can handle now.

Ah, so you agree that vague or absent guidelines for deviating from the game's expected loot levels is problematic, to say the least. See, my post was more helpful than you gave it credit for!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Ah, so you agree that vague or absent guidelines for deviating from the game's expected loot levels is problematic, to say the least. See, my post was more helpful than you gave it credit for!

They can be, but my point was that the more variation that magic items give you from the "norm" the more problematic they are. If the variation is small enough, the lack of them isn't a problem.

Also, it's best to start with the assumption that more people are going to use so that less people need to adapt.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I never said it wouldn't make a difference. I don't know who said that either. What I'm saying is that the difference is small enough that it wouldn't be worth worrying about.

Yeah, I disagree, I'm not saying you said it wouldn't make a difference. I'm saying that +2 to hit and damage on multiple attacks WILL definitely be noticeable, in practice, and a party with several pieces of magic armour and magic weapons WILL be stronger than one without to the point where it might impact encounter difficulty (esp. if they also have other combat-influencing items).

I mean, if you're saying "One +2 weapon is unlikely to change an encounter", I agree, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about multiple PCs, likely with multiple items, and the need for the system to account for that in some way, because it's apparently tuned for zero items by default.

Also, in 2e it had a bigger effect because there were a lot of monsters with really good ACs and low hitpoints at higher levels. Even high level monsters were in the 80 hitpoint range, so 1 damage is a more significant chunk of their hitpoints. Also, you need less hits to kill them so each time that +1 to hit works, it shortens the combat significantly.

Plus, people are good at noticing when special events happen. They take notes of them. So, each time that +1 to hit causes you to hit, someone will note it and make a big deal of it. It can seem like it's happening all the time. That's cause we tune out the monotony of the other 19 rounds where it has no effect at all.

Completely missing the woods for the trees, here, imho. We, or I, at least am not suggesting one item is a big deal - but the difference between a party where most/all PCs have magic weapons/armour and other combat-applicable items and one where few/none of them have the same will be stark.

Also, it's best to start with the assumption that more people are going to use so that less people need to adapt.

Totally agree, but we're told that isn't the assumption.

 

[evileeyore]

I mean, if you're saying "One +2 weapon is unlikely to change an encounter", I agree, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about multiple PCs, likely with multiple items, and the need for the system to account for that in some way, because it's apparently tuned for zero items by default.

"The system" has to account for this?

Isn't that what a DM is for?