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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6781637" data-attributes="member: 6790260">My experience of 5e, such as it is, has not illustrated that the combat system is particularly interesting, and can in fact get quite boring. People frequently tout the speed of combats, but I have yet to see a 5e combat run meaningfully faster than 4e would. Out of a 3-4 hour session, we still spend 1-2 hours in combat. If we only get a single combat in a session, it might drop down to half an hour, but certainly no less than that. We use a grid (via Roll20, so all the math stuff, distances, and grid positions are handled for us), but AFAICT no variant rules.And, despite having taken community advice on the kind of character to play as a 4e-fan+5e-skeptic trying to give 5e a chance, I still feel like I have far too few choices. We've only gotten up to level 3, but combats are still mostly meat-grinder-y, leaving me terrified for my character's survival--a non-ideal situation when I'd specifically made the character for being decent-to-good at melee (a grappling Valor Bard). Unlike most people, I don't find a constant substantial risk of death to be exciting, I find it harrowing and unpleasant, a constant specter hanging over my head.* I habitually describe my character's actions, so there's no improvement to be gained there, though I'm afraid I'm not quite clever/funny enough to come up with real zingers for vicious mockery every turn. Which, incidentally, vicious mockery the vast majority of what I do, because I have so few spells to work with, I feel compelled to hoard them until they're truly needed--mostly cure wounds, or the occasional faerie fire.The most frustrating thing is that I feel like I am supposed to have a substantial toolbox and lots of bells and whistles, but I'm either too terrified to use them, or can't justify the expenditure on so few threats (or so small a threat). For example, I'm playing a Dragonborn, but I have yet to use my dragon breath--because the only fight I've been in where it would've been worth using, I was bleeding on the floor by the end of the first round and never got the chance. I have allegedly powerful utility spells like sleep, but they succeed so rarely or so minimally, I can't justify spending the slot when it could instead be used to keep one of my allies from getting pasted. I don't dare get in melee range most of the time, because almost every time I have, I've been brutally punished for it (first: zombie nearly knocked me out in one hit; second: mummy attacked me exactly once and cursed me almost to death; third: bandit lord should have killed me and I was only saved by DM fiat)--which doubly sucks because melee is core to what I've tried to do with the character.I know lots of people are pleased with the simplicity of 5e, but I just straight up haven't seen most of the good things people talk about, and the bad things seem significantly worse than how most people sell them. I'm still invested in the 5e campaign my group is playing, but the system has thus far proven a frustration I tolerate, not a facilitator of anything positive.*For me, random death = "game over, you lose, please stop playing now," not "ooh, so close, try again!" because I find it difficult or even impossible to invest in randomly-generated characters. This is not likely to change anytime soon.Yeah, I can definitely agree with that. It's one of D&D's numerous "chicken-and-egg" problems, and also one of its "all solutions MUST be extreme"* problems, unfortunately. (Really, it's "all solutions in the past have been extreme, so an edition which mainly prioritizes dressing up traditional mores must follow suit." But that's not as pithy.)I...find the second option you suggest hard to comprehend. What does the events during other peoples' turns matter, for my enjoyment of what I'm doing? Whether or not the things they do are interesting/dangerous/boring is...entirely orthogonal to whether I am turned off by the combat (whether through lack of engagement, removal of most options due to substantial risk of death, or whatever else). Though it doesn't help that even in a party where everyone can cast spells, everyone is either making a regular attack (possibly with a bit of movement) or casting a cantrip 80%+ of the time.Wow! Thanks for that. So insightful. I'll make sure to be a less boring person in the future!</blockquote>

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