D&D General 5.5 and making the game easier for players and harder for DMs

[DEFCON 1]

Yes I am saying that because "the designers at wotc" designing the game to match the game "they want to play" is designing it for a single and highly specific niche rather than a range of play or an array of play styles.in this case it also makes things worse by very much seeming like the gm is assumed to be a paid staff member with no needs wants or concerns of merit.

Well, I don't believe I've seen anyone ever design a game they didn't want to play. I mean maybe you can think of one, but I can't. So designing a game (general) you yourself would want to play is par for the course. And in truth I think actually makes for a better game because (general) you have a specific target you are designing towards-- your own taste of what is good. No one should be surprised or bummed to know that any game designer is aiming for a level of quality they think is great and exactly their speed.

Now is it a highly specific niche to design a game that designers want to play? I mean, sure... you could look at it like that... but it's not as though designing a game a person doesn't like thus produces a wide open game-- that game made by the designer who didn't want to play it is just as highly specific and niche... only difference is that the designers were probably ambivalent towards the game and didn't care about the results as much. Which to me means a higher chance of it not being good because the design was not made with care.

I don't think what you are looking for is possible, quite frankly. Or at least to me it seems like you aren't seeing all the options in any of these versions of D&D producing the range of play and array of styles you think the games should have. Which... okay. If that's how you feel-- D&D 5E24 having an exceedingly niche audience that doesn't meet your target-- then so be it. But so what? What is there to do about that?

 

[James Gasik]

Yes I am saying that because "the designers at wotc" designing the game to match the game "they want to play" is designing it for a single and highly specific niche rather than a range of play or an array of play styles.in this case it also makes things worse by very much seeming like the gm is assumed to be a paid staff member with no needs wants or concerns of merit.

Now I'm the last person who would ever accept the "it's popular so it must be good" argument, but I have to ask- if the game is so narrowly designed that it only supports one play style (which isn't a sentiment I disagree with, by the way- you can just look at how they constantly pay lip service to the exploration tier, but make it trivial to nope out of any kind of exploration challenges to see this in action), how is this game making money?

I can only assume that the majority of people who play the game are actually happy with this play style!

I mean, 5e is far from my favorite TTRPG, but I'm running and playing it because that's what my group has more or less compromised on.

Maybe there's more to that "second-best TTRPG"*- 5e is basically oatmeal, so nobody really likes it, but you can add cream, brown sugar, or strawberries to it and it becomes a vaguely acceptable foodstuff?

*Though in honesty, it's far down the list from my favorite TTRPG, lol.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have character deaths. I have close calls.

I think you overlooked the parts of my comment that I considered necessary to the point, I probably should've bolded them or expanded on them

1. "Appropriate-CR" monsters are a pushover for high level characters. The Pit Fiends, generals of hell, have +14 to hit; one character had 35 AC, the other was in the high-20s. Even if they were hit, they had lots of ways to negate or avoid those hits. The two characters, between them, could easily weather and restore themselves from anything the pit fiend or devils could actually do to them. Those two characters probably could've handled an Ancient Blue without any real chance of danger. TWO characters, not even a party of four :')

2. that it's difficult to challenge high-level characters without turning your setting on its head. This is setting-dependent I guess, and it really just reinforces the other bits I said: I don't like running high level 5e, because to appropriately challenge a tier 4 party you need to be essentially exhausting your setting of its most powerful beings. In 5e (as compared to other editions I've run), the PC power has gone up, and the monster power has come down. Even through the 5e's lifetime, you can see that monsters have become easier for their CR. Look at the CR 30 Tiamat from Rise of Tiamat, vs the CR30 Aspect of Tiamat from Fizban's. The Aspect is a pushover, but it's still CR30. The "Great Wyrms" from the same book, are likewise pushovers for their CR. It isn't just that book, you can go look at the Vecna adventure to see more examples of "the most deadly foes" that are basically just feel-good beat'em-ups.

Feel-good beat'em-ups are what the current game is designed for. The choices if this is a problem for you appear to be:

A. Fix it yourself

Or

B. Get out of the way

 

[Micah Sweet]

50% of the PHB is 50% of the PHB, doesn't matter how you slice it.

It doesn't matter to you.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And how exactly is your "venting" (your word) any less senseless a waste of those things?

It's not. Completely a waste of time! But it's time I'm happy to waste cause I enjoy writing EN World posts. And given the choice between doing something that makes me happy or doing something that makes me sad or constantly want to be in a sour mood to do nothing but complain... it's the former all the way!

If I didn't enjoy this... or especially if I didn't like the topic that the message board was talking about, I'd never waste my time posting there, or indeed thinking about the topic at all. It's why you don't see me on the Level Up, Pathfinder or rarely the Older Editions forums. Cause none of them have anything that I'm interested in or happy to talk about, so why would I go there or think about things enough to warrant typing out posts on it?

 

[Distracted DM]

I mean if your party is optimized to the point one of them has better AC than the literal god of greed... by 10!... then of course a single pit fiend is not a threat. CR 20 is supposed to mean a medium threat to an average party of 4 without magic items.

Part of the problem D&D has by being the biggest game is needing to work for the largest number of people. Been playing for 8 years and I still don't know how you end up with 35 AC in 5e, so I'd wager your problem isnt that common

You're right, I often mention the "5e math was done without magic items in mind" thing but it doesn't occur to me that that just makes them that much more powerful. I intentionally don't hand out +# items frequently because of this, but in the arena fight my players requested, I did allow some +2 and +3 items.
Again though, the "warm-up" was a pit fiend and some other assorted devils- and they weren't able to land hits.

As far as the high AC thing goes? If you just google something like "high ac level 20 character," you'll see builds getting ACs up into the 40s. The 30s isn't a hard ask. I'd have to google stuff like that as well, because I don't sit at 5e tables as a player often.

I haven't had ACs in the 40s in my actual games, even the ones that went to tier4, because I can control what magic items they get... but I know one character, artificer/wizard, got to the 30s.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've felt this way about the community for a long while. It's actually disheartening that every discussion on this board ends up with dozens of people trashing the game and the company that makes it relentlessly and without end. Some people make that their whole posting style. Its one thing to dislike things about the game of WotC (nobody is perfect, especially not them) but its every thread, every discussion and relentless drumbeat of people who feel Old D&D/3pp can do no wrong and WotC/New D&D can do no right.

Perhaps it would be better if talking about one's unhappiness with WotC or the game they make was against the forum rules? There are plenty of forums out there that have similar restrictions. They are echo chambers.

Also, we really don't need more hyperbole regarding how people other than you feel.

 

[tetrasodium]

Well, I don't believe I've seen anyone ever design a game they didn't want to play. I mean maybe you can think of one, but I can't. So designing a game (general) you yourself would want to play is par for the course. And in truth I think actually makes for a better game because (general) you have a specific target you are designing towards-- your own taste of what is good. No one should be surprised or bummed to know that any game designer is aiming for a level of quality they think is great and exactly their speed.

Now is it a highly specific niche to design a game that designers want to play? I mean, sure... you could look at it like that... but it's not as though designing a game a person doesn't like thus produces a wide open game-- that game made by the designer who didn't want to play it is just as highly specific and niche... only difference is that the designers were probably ambivalent towards the game and didn't care about the results as much. Which to me means a higher chance of it not being good because the design was not made with care.

I don't think what you are looking for is possible, quite frankly. Or at least to me it seems like you aren't seeing all the options in any of these versions of D&D producing the range of play and array of styles you think the games should have. Which... okay. If that's how you feel-- D&D 5E24 having an exceedingly niche audience that doesn't meet your target-- then so be it. But so what? What is there to do about that?

Again this is about the logicasl inconsistency in your post where you defined a narrow focus and talked about it as if it was a wide range. Going beyond that however... Being able to consider needs & roles taken at the table beyond your own personal ones as a player of $insertClass in order to ensure is not some ascended being level skill.

Now I'm the last person who would ever accept the "it's popular so it must be good" argument, but I have to ask- if the game is so narrowly designed that it only supports one play style (which isn't a sentiment I disagree with, by the way- you can just look at how they constantly pay lip service to the exploration tier, but make it trivial to nope out of any kind of exploration challenges to see this in action), how is this game making money?

I can only assume that the majority of people who play the game are actually happy with this play style!

I mean, 5e is far from my favorite TTRPG, but I'm running and playing it because that's what my group has more or less compromised on.

Maybe there's more to that "second-best TTRPG"*- 5e is basically oatmeal, so nobody really likes it, but you can add cream, brown sugar, or strawberries to it and it becomes a vaguely acceptable foodstuff?

*Though in honesty, it's far down the list from my favorite TTRPG, lol.

It looks like you got caught up in defcon's topic shifting, that's not what was being discussed on my part. I made a comment back in 225 that the two paragraphs he made in post 193 are at odds with each other logically because he defined an extremely narrow subset of needs being designed for and then painted it as a broad circle that some folks happen to be outside of.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not. Completely a waste of time! But it's time I'm happy to waste cause I enjoy writing EN World posts. And given the choice between doing something that makes me happy or doing something that makes me sad or constantly want to be in a sour mood to do nothing but complain... it's the former all the way!

If I didn't enjoy this... or especially if I didn't like the topic that the message board was talking about, I'd never waste my time posting there, or indeed thinking about the topic at all. It's why you don't see me on the Level Up, Pathfinder or rarely the Older Editions forums. Cause none of them have anything that I'm interested in or happy to talk about, so why would I go there or think about things enough to warrant typing out posts on it?

I enjoy my posts too. Wouldn't do it if I didn't. Admittedly the fact that I have no one in real life with which to have these conversations also contributes.

 

[mamba]

I mean, pick your poison on what the cause of the game being “too easy for the characters.” My actual point is, I agree with the sentiment that the books could do a better job at advising DMs on how to build and run high-lethality encounters. I disagree with the sentiment that the game being easier for the players makes it harder for the DM. It’s not a zero-sum game.

no, it is not zero-sum, but it does not have no impact either