D&D 5E (2014) 5E's "Missed Opportunities?"

[Krachek]

I read that M Mearls think that they could have write the rules without the bonus action. That is a missed opportunity.

 

[robus]

Maybe I'm a grognard, but I have never needed Critical Role to show me how to roleplay. It's designed for entertainment. It's like watching the Bachelor to find out how to date.

I think this quite unfairly maligns Critical Role. It was not designed for streaming. It is a completely legit game that happens to be live-streamed and very popular. The table had been playing for a year before they were invited to join a stream.

 

[Quartz]

* spreading out the saving throws so that any "dump stat" can actually hurt. Instead of focusing on Con, Dex, and Wis, you'd want all of them to be good. Adding 1/2 or 1/3 of your proficiency bonus to untrained saves might have been a decent idea as well.

You could make that a feat:

Resistant: You add half your Proficiency Bonus (rounded down) to saving throws in which you are not proficient. (i.e. from +1 to +3)

or

Resistant: You add your Proficiency Bonus less 2 to saving throws in which you are not proficient. (i.e. from +0 to +4)

Inspiration is a horribly wasted mechanic. We have been playing since 5e came out and often commented about this. By now we never remember and it might as well not exist.

I've seen poker chips recommended as a solution. Players are more likely to remember if they have a visual reminder in front of them. It works with conditions too. When someone is at 0 HP you can give them 3 black chips. Each round they lose one chip...

 

[Ratskinner]

I think we have the exact opposite experience. Players in my group feel like nothing really changes except for hit points. You get a few more HP every level and your monsters have more HP. Otherwise, you just run up and swing at it until it dies.

At least for me, that's been a D&D problem forever (with a break for 4e, depending your view of 4e). My group often plays earlier editions and man that's my gripe all over.

Although I will say that I think they backed too far off the potency of unique traits for a lot of 5e monsters in comparison to early editions. It seems to me that a lot of classic monsters have their "unfun" powers (e.g. rust monster) nerfed to the point where they hardly get to pull them off...and thus they become a big bag of HP.

 

[5ekyu]

At least for me, that's been a D&D problem forever (with a break for 4e, depending your view of 4e). My group often plays earlier editions and man that's my gripe all over.

Although I will say that I think they backed too far off the potency of unique traits for a lot of 5e monsters in comparison to early editions. It seems to me that a lot of classic monsters have their "unfun" powers (e.g. rust monster) nerfed to the point where they hardly get to pull them off...and thus they become a big bag of HP.

my observations on this are that IMO this is partly system presentation and partly player experience.

i have often said every Gm should run a diceless game or two for a half-dozen sessions. The reason is that the better diceless systems work on getting the Gm to see how important scenery and situation matters and to look at scenery as "ways to change the tactics and shift the outcomes" as opposed to scenery being mostly "that boxed description we read before initiative is rolled."

Even if the players see the key to success being "zero hp them" if they see the monsters using scenery to heal or scenery exists that can be used to prevent taking damage or to block other folks from getting attacks - then those become significant changers.

One of the keys to success in the games i run is more often than not "stopping the other guys from getting attacks off" rather than just doing more DPR.

i do not think the d&D system has ever done that good a job at helping the Gm in this way, to see easily beyond the HP without total bypass of HP... but the GMs can see that play out in other games and bring that experience back to the table.

Straight up and simple - i have seen Fog Cloud/Wall of Fog make massive changes to a combat scene away from what one side or the other "planned" - thats in any edition 1-2-3-5. its not doing any damage at all but can absolutely ruin one side's plan.

 

[Ratskinner]

my observations on this are that IMO this is partly system presentation and partly player experience.

i have often said every Gm should run a diceless game or two for a half-dozen sessions. The reason is that the better diceless systems work on getting the Gm to see how important scenery and situation matters and to look at scenery as "ways to change the tactics and shift the outcomes" as opposed to scenery being mostly "that boxed description we read before initiative is rolled."

I'll go you one better...run a game that doesn't have HP (or equivalent). Granted, many of them are kinda weird WRT D&D, but they can really blow your mind. Only risk is that they can "ruin" D&D for you...or not, YMMV. Additionally, you can discover that many assumptions like "HP are really the simplest way to do this" are actually not true.

i do not think the d&D system has ever done that good a job at helping the Gm in this way, to see easily beyond the HP without total bypass of HP... but the GMs can see that play out in other games and bring that experience back to the table.

I agree, the weight of HP system on D&D's combat is heavy indeed. IMO, it falls just short of hindering the GM from making combat interesting and dynamic.

 

[Retreater]

I do have problems when running 5e to try to strike the right balance with challenging combats. I can run a red dragon or vampire (even with their minions) that end up being complete anticlimactic push overs. Other editions seemed to provide tools that allowed greater customization or even built-in monster design that made combats fun and exciting.
For example, I ran a red dragon against a low level party that was in a trapped Lair in an abandoned forge. He could fly through the pipes and tunnels and blast the party with flame jets. Minions would harass the party.
He was dead within a couple rounds. The players were disappointed that the dragon died so quickly and did so little damage.
Counter this with my recent game of 4e. Goblins were peppering the party with arrows, dropping characters in an ambush. They had to make decisions whether to stabilize their dying comrades or deal with the enemies. I don't think I've been able to run a similarly exciting encounter in 5e.

 

[dave2008]

I do have problems when running 5e to try to strike the right balance with challenging combats. I can run a red dragon or vampire (even with their minions) that end up being complete anticlimactic push overs. Other editions seemed to provide tools that allowed greater customization or even built-in monster design that made combats fun and exciting.
For example, I ran a red dragon against a low level party that was in a trapped Lair in an abandoned forge. He could fly through the pipes and tunnels and blast the party with flame jets. Minions would harass the party.

That is what is so interesting about D&D, i TPK'd my party with a red dragon! Every group is different and will have different experiences. The only mistake is in thinking our experience is universal.

My group hits way below their weight compared to what a few people on these boards experience. I can easily challenge them with the MM monsters, but I do like to make my own tougher versions just for fun.

 

[Lanefan]

I do have problems when running 5e to try to strike the right balance with challenging combats. I can run a red dragon or vampire (even with their minions) that end up being complete anticlimactic push overs. Other editions seemed to provide tools that allowed greater customization or even built-in monster design that made combats fun and exciting.
For example, I ran a red dragon against a low level party that was in a trapped Lair in an abandoned forge. He could fly through the pipes and tunnels and blast the party with flame jets. Minions would harass the party.
He was dead within a couple rounds. The players were disappointed that the dragon died so quickly and did so little damage.

This speaks directly to what someone mentioned a few posts upthread: non-damage monster abilities have been nerfed.

A decent-sized red dragon against a low-level party? First off, if the dragon had a fear aura half the party - give or take, depending on their saving throws - would be fleeing in terror as soon as it showed up. Second off, if the dragon could just fire-blast the party through the pipes without revealing itself how did the party ever manage to get to it to kill it?

As for vampires, they lost their lustre and their player-side fear factor once they stopped draining levels two at a time.

Counter this with my recent game of 4e. Goblins were peppering the party with arrows, dropping characters in an ambush. They had to make decisions whether to stabilize their dying comrades or deal with the enemies. I don't think I've been able to run a similarly exciting encounter in 5e.

Try converting a 4e adventure module and running it in 5e. 4e, for all its other issues, did turn out to be very good at staging and handling the big set-piece battle. Maybe your 5e set-pieces aren't as strong and you'll pick up some pointers?

 

[Dualazi]

I agree with Elfcrusher, while limiting stats was nice and a design decision that should be kept, the utter abandonment of tertiary stat usefulness drives me ballistic. If all fighters could get some benefits from Int, for example, we might see more niche builds around being an knowledgeable fighter rather than the more conventional variety. Maybe if strength expanded the list of sneak attack compatible weapons then every rogue under the sun might not carry a rapier. It's a big problem and I really hope they fix it in the distant future when 6th ed rolls around, but I won't be holding my breath.

I wish weapons meant something. There are precious few weapon qualities of note, and with the way the classes are structured you either use one of maybe 5 martial weapons or you don't use any weapons at all in lieu of cantrips. The weapon qualities are uninspired and have very little effect, and few set up any sort of unique approach or usage to encourage different playstyles. If we're going to give non-weapon classes viable options to select (and we definitely should) then the concept and structure of D&D weapons need an overhaul to promote some diversity and niches. To go with this...

Monster defenses are utter garbage design wise. As a DM, this is a COLOSSAL misstep in my opinion. Virtually every damage resistance in official wizards product is completely bypassed by any magic weapons. Why!? I would greatly prefer there to be some definite and unavoidable advantages or disadvantages (or even outright immunities) based on the monster's lore. Maybe slimes are impervious to bladed and piercing weapons, and resistant to bludgeoning? What if golems were resistant based on their composition? Energy types fall into this hole as well, with monsters having few weaknesses and many extrapalanar foes just getting huge sweeping resistances regardless of if it makes sense or not.

Additionally, monsters have virtually no scary options aside from damage. Level drain is gone, ability damage is insanely rare, aging effects are gone, long term conditions are gone, diseases and poisons are trivially cured, the list goes on. Rust monsters used to be universally despised because of equipment loss and especially if you have one of the aforementioned magic items they're just a joke. I can think of very few monsters the players would be loathe to fight regardless of their current level, and that's a missed opportunity if ever there was one.