D&D 5E 5th Edition and The Rules

[Werebat]

Most of us are old enough to remember before 3rd Edition, when there were fewer rules-as-written and the game required more DM calls. One of the things I initially LIKED about 3rd Edition was how so many rules were spelled out, removing the need for a lot of those DM calls, because in the past what would end up happening was a lot of wrangling with the DM and arguments over things like "I want to do a triple-backflip onto the troll's back and stab it in the back of the neck!", or even just "I try to knock the villain's sword out of his hand!"


3rd Edition ushered in rules for almost everything, and as a DM it was easy to feel good about that as you could put the kibosh on a lot of those arguments because The Rules.


The other side of the coin was that, with the spread of the internet, players could hit the optimization boards and bring in "builds" capable of breaking the generally assumed PC limits -- builds that worked because The Rules.


Of course, some of these builds were laughably OP, like the infamous Pun-Pun the kobold god, and DMs could easily disallow them regardless of The Rules. That introduced the game of trying to guess the maximum level of power the DM would allow in his game before nixing something even though The Rules, and bringing in builds that hit that point (or maybe stealthed a bit beyond it).


Not that everyone here takes it to that degree (A friend and I personally self-nerfed our characters in a game we both play in because we each realized that we were becoming cray-cray powerful), enough do that it's been at least an element at the table that would be nice to get rid of.


But then I remember 2nd and previous editions where there was always all that wrangling.


I'm hopeful that 5th Edition strikes a nice balance, but we'll see.

 

[delericho]

I've promised myself that when I run 5e I'm going to tell my players up-front that they can build their PCs however they want, but I expect them to respect the other players at the table - meaning don't build a PC that destroys the game, or stamps on another PC's niche, or that just dominates play. I suspect that's a better approach than trying to get The Rules to protect me from the same - as you note, that had issues when 3e tried it.

I've also promised myself that I'm not going to get into debates about optimisation in 5e, as has happened too often with 3e.

Whether or not I actually manage to keep these promises is a whole other question.

 

[Li Shenron]

That's a nice set of propositions [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION].

I'm starting to think that in my case, I should probably strive for avoiding forum discussions related to balance and character creation. It's good that we have a whole forum section solely for PC builds, so it's easy to avoid.

Just visit ENWorld for PbP games, general RPG/D&D talking, sharing homebrew creations and occasional rules clarifications.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Most of us are old enough to remember before 3rd Edition, when there were fewer rules-as-written and the game required more DM calls.

Many of us on the other hand also remember the 1e books where there were more rules-as-written and the game required more DM calls (it's simply that no one ever used all the RAW in the DMG). We also remember 4e where there are fewer rules as written and fewer DM calls.

This is not a dichotomy.

I'm hopeful that 5th Edition strikes a nice balance, but we'll see.

From Mike Mearls twitter account and calling basic things DM calls I don't think so.

 

[Eirikrautha]

Most of us are old enough to remember before 3rd Edition, when there were fewer rules-as-written and the game required more DM calls. One of the things I initially LIKED about 3rd Edition was how so many rules were spelled out, removing the need for a lot of those DM calls, because in the past what would end up happening was a lot of wrangling with the DM and arguments over things like "I want to do a triple-backflip onto the troll's back and stab it in the back of the neck!", or even just "I try to knock the villain's sword out of his hand!"


3rd Edition ushered in rules for almost everything, and as a DM it was easy to feel good about that as you could put the kibosh on a lot of those arguments because The Rules.


The other side of the coin was that, with the spread of the internet, players could hit the optimization boards and bring in "builds" capable of breaking the generally assumed PC limits -- builds that worked because The Rules.


Of course, some of these builds were laughably OP, like the infamous Pun-Pun the kobold god, and DMs could easily disallow them regardless of The Rules. That introduced the game of trying to guess the maximum level of power the DM would allow in his game before nixing something even though The Rules, and bringing in builds that hit that point (or maybe stealthed a bit beyond it).


Not that everyone here takes it to that degree (A friend and I personally self-nerfed our characters in a game we both play in because we each realized that we were becoming cray-cray powerful), enough do that it's been at least an element at the table that would be nice to get rid of.


But then I remember 2nd and previous editions where there was always all that wrangling.


I'm hopeful that 5th Edition strikes a nice balance, but we'll see.

I think you've actually glossed over the problem with 3.5 that 5e is designed to fix (i.e., what makes 5e more like 1e or 2e, rather than 3e+). The issue is not the number of rules (heck 1e had more rules than 2e), but introduction of skills and feats to leverage the rules.

Think about it. Even in 2e, when faced with a situation without RAW, your table came up with a rule for it. So, while there were fewer RAW in 2e than 3e, the number of rules were exactly the same at the table. The difference is that 3e, having introduced rules for various corner cases, also retasked 2e's "secondary proficiencies" to give some kind of bonus for various builds of characters.

In 2e, if you decided that you were going to dive off the cliff and attempt to grab the falling MacGuffin, your table negotiated what rolls you needed to make. Assuming you had a DM that followed the "rule of cool," often times you would have a decent chance of pulling off something creative and dramatic, based off of negotiated rules. Post 3e, however, there are not only rules for most things, but skills and feats that give bonuses to these things (do you have "fly"? Well then, you can't move in the air over to the object and grab it. You don't know how...). How can a DM give you a fair chance to do something that has a specific skill or feat written into that game, which you don't have? Suddenly, the rules have become limits (thanks to the use of skills and feats to give mechanical advantages).

The 5e proficiency bonus makes this much less of a problem. A single skill covers such a wide range of actions that it is much easier to make it fit your needs, plus the absence of additional bonuses to the skill (bounded accuracy) means that "optimization" is less of a concern. 5e is going to be a lot more flexible because of this.

Rules negotiation have always been a part of D&D. The 5e "fix" is in reducing how much the rules act as limits to your role-playing...

 

[Werebat]

I've promised myself that when I run 5e I'm going to tell my players up-front that they can build their PCs however they want, but I expect them to respect the other players at the table - meaning don't build a PC that destroys the game, or stamps on another PC's niche, or that just dominates play. I suspect that's a better approach than trying to get The Rules to protect me from the same - as you note, that had issues when 3e tried it.

Well, that would seem to usher in the game of trying to guess the maximum level of power the DM will allow in his game before nixing something even though The Rules, and bringing in builds that hit that point (or maybe stealth a bit beyond it).

I mean it's a nice thing to say at the start of the campaign, and everyone will nod and agree, but they'll still end up playing that game.

 

[Werebat]

Many of us on the other hand also remember the 1e books where there were more rules-as-written and the game required more DM calls (it's simply that no one ever used all the RAW in the DMG). We also remember 4e where there are fewer rules as written and fewer DM calls.

I can't speak for 4th Edition because I have very little experience with it, but I remember 1e as well as the red box sets, and I don't recall them having more rules than 3E. Where are you getting that they did?

I recall 1e having a lot more TABLES, but fewer hard rules about things like grappling, disarm maneuvers, attacks of opportunity, etc.

EDIT: And many of the rules that did exist -- for example, magic item creation -- were so vague and up-to-the-DM that they would serve to strengthen my argument, not weaken it. Scribing a scroll in 1e required DM calls -- scribing a scroll in 3e did not (barring corner case exceptions that I'm sure someone could find if they really wanted to).

 

[Neonchameleon]

I can't speak for 4th Edition because I have very little experience with it, but I remember 1e as well as the red box sets, and I don't recall them having more rules than 3E. Where are you getting that they did?

I recall 1e having a lot more TABLES, but fewer hard rules about things like grappling, disarm maneuvers, attacks of opportunity, etc.

The thing is that 1e had rules for all those examples. Hard coded - and buried so a lot of people didn't find them because they were in really bizarre places at times.

Grappling was under the weaponless combat (grappling/pummeling/overbearing) section that was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Psychic Combat Rules in the 1E DMG. And these rules are about as big a mess as the 3e grappling rules.

Attacks of Opportunity? You're looking for the rules for Withdrawing From Combat in the 1e DMG. Admittedly this didn't have the absurd list of triggers of 3.X

Hard coded disarm rules? Of all the places you wouldn't think to look, the weapon section in the 1e PHB under the entry marked Ranseur must be pretty high up the list. But I'm fairly sure that's where they were buried.

As I said, 1e was really rules heavy (it even had rules for wearing helmets) - it's just almost no one ever found all those rules.

 

[Werebat]

The thing is that 1e had rules for all those examples. Hard coded - and buried so a lot of people didn't find them because they were in really bizarre places at times.

Grappling was under the weaponless combat (grappling/pummeling/overbearing) section that was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Psychic Combat Rules in the 1E DMG. And these rules are about as big a mess as the 3e grappling rules.

Attacks of Opportunity? You're looking for the rules for Withdrawing From Combat in the 1e DMG. Admittedly this didn't have the absurd list of triggers of 3.X

Hard coded disarm rules? Of all the places you wouldn't think to look, the weapon section in the 1e PHB under the entry marked Ranseur must be pretty high up the list. But I'm fairly sure that's where they were buried.

As I said, 1e was really rules heavy (it even had rules for wearing helmets) - it's just almost no one ever found all those rules.

If you are correct (my 1e DMG is in the basement and I don't feel like dredging it up right now), then 1e effectively did not have as many RAW issues at actual gaming tables because, as you say, the RAW were buried in bizarre places and real people didn't tend to actually use them. I can remember the bits about different armor types interacting with different types of attacks, for example, and yeah, no one I know ever actually used them.

But there's small difference between "didn't have as many rules governing player actions" and "didn't have as many rules governing player actions that actually got used."

Also, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of those rules you are mentioning involved a greater degree of DM interpretation than their equivalents in 3e (if the 1e magic item creation rules are anything to go by). For example, did the notes under Ranseur specifically say that the disarm mechanic contained within them could be used while wielding, say, a trident or a short sword? My guess is that they did not.

 

[delericho]

Well, that would seem to usher in the game of trying to guess the maximum level of power the DM will allow in his game before nixing something even though The Rules, and bringing in builds that hit that point (or maybe stealth a bit beyond it).

I mean it's a nice thing to say at the start of the campaign, and everyone will nod and agree, but they'll still end up playing that game.

Not necessarily. The thing is, if you were talking about just a random group of players, you might well be right, but I don't play with just a random group of players - I game with specific individuals, whom I can trust not to play those sorts of games. We've had our 'optimiser' phase, and are looking for something in which we can tell stories, not some system to tinker with and abuse.