D&D 5E Anyone else finding character advancement pretty dull?

[delericho]

I counter with a solid 14 years of putting out more books than my local library can hold.

One book worth of material in 4 years just isn't reasonable in my opinion. And it's nowhere near the middle of the road from what was probably around 5-8 books of crunch a year. It's far closer to 0 than it is to the middle.

The problem with that is that, whether through analysis or blind luck, WotC have managed to hit on a strategy that is working spectacularly well for them. It may not be the only strategy that would work, and it may not be the absolute best strategy, but it's a strategy that is working. It's really hard to see them varying that for another strategy that might work.

Like you, I would prefer to see more material being released *. As it is, though, I just can't see it. And I can't fault WotC for sticking with something that works - at least until such time as it stops working so well.

(* That is: by WotC, in print.)

 

[5ekyu]

I'm going to disagree with you about monsters. At least to a degree. Once you get past 2-3 monster books, more monsters don't do much. You already have more than you can use. We are at 3 already, so more monsters aren't really going to be that big of a deal. A few unique ones to Ravnica will be useful, but many not so much. A few unique races and subclasses will be the most useful things provided. Perhaps some unique feats. Those won't be most of the book, though. Like the Sword Coast, most of the book will be names and places, so you can run a game in the setting.

I agree completely on the monster subject.

if anything, even the "1-3 monsters local to.." would IMO be better served with locally specific "customizations" to existing monster blocks so that each product expands exponentially the value of the previous monsters...

give us a couple "templates" or whatever you would call them that spotlight common local differences with a bit of background and flavor text... don't expand... multiply

 

[Maxperson]

The problem with that is that, whether through analysis or blind luck, WotC have managed to hit on a strategy that is working spectacularly well for them. It may not be the only strategy that would work, and it may not be the absolute best strategy, but it's a strategy that is working. It's really hard to see them varying that for another strategy that might work.

The problem is that WotC has failed in two editions now, to see the problem in enough time to save the editions. They are the Titanic trying to turn and not hit the iceberg. The 4e change to essentials didn't save them from having 4e sink. Someone upthread tried to compare the change to 3.5 as the same as the change to essentials, but that was a False Equivalence. The change to 3.5 was due to how much errata had come out and it was just better to reprint the core books with the errata inside and call it 3.5. 3e was not failing at the time of the change. When 3e/3.5 started failing some years after that, it was too late to alter course and the edition sank. The bloat and power creep was already too prevalent.

Like you, I would prefer to see more material being released *. As it is, though, I just can't see it. And I can't fault WotC for sticking with something that works - at least until such time as it stops working so well.

I think there are a whole lot of us that have that preference and we're being ignored due to the early success. I also think that it will come back to bite WotC in the rear later.

 

[delericho]

The 4e change to essentials didn't save them from having 4e sink. Someone upthread tried to compare the change to 3.5 as the same as the change to essentials, but that was a False Equivalence. The change to 3.5 was due to how much errata had come out and it was just better to reprint the core books with the errata inside and call it 3.5.

While I agree it's a false equivalence, I don't agree with your characterization of the 3e -> 3.5e move. The thing is, that move had always been in the plan, but had been intended to occur 2 years later than it actually did.

But there's a lot in 3.5e that hadn't been published in errata - to the extent that I'd characterize it as closer to being the pet house rules of one of the then-designers, rather than any accumulation of errata. (And, in fact, it was 4e where the errata really got out of hand.)

3e was not failing at the time of the change.

No, but I think the problem was the same as sank 3.5e, 4e and Essentials - it was saddled with unrealistic expectations. Frankly, we're lucky we got any of those editions at all - we could very easily have seen the line cancelled instead.

I think there are a whole lot of us that have that preference and we're being ignored due to the early success. I also think that it will come back to bite WotC in the rear later.

Maybe. As I've noted in other threads, a rough estimate suggests that only 10% of players buy the PHB and only 10% of those go on to buy anything else. So you're talking about, at best, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. That may amount to thousands of us, but if WotC want every book to shift 100k units, thousands probably isn't going to cut it.

As for it biting them on the rear... it may, but again I doubt it. Right now, my bet is on seeing 6e in 2024, but only because that's the 50th anniversary and they'll probably want to celebrate that big-time. If it wasn't for that, my guess would be a good bit further away than that.

(Though I do have to apply the same caveat I used earlier in the thread: at some point, D&D's current surge will inevitably end, and there's no way to know when that will be. So it is, of course, dangerous to assume things will stay the same for any length of time. But even in that scenario I'm not sure I'd predict an early new edition... or indeed a new edition, ever.)

 

[Mistwell]

The problem is that WotC has failed in two editions now, to see the problem in enough time to save the editions. They are the Titanic trying to turn and not hit the iceberg. The 4e change to essentials didn't save them from having 4e sink. Someone upthread tried to compare the change to 3.5 as the same as the change to essentials, but that was a False Equivalence. The change to 3.5 was due to how much errata had come out and it was just better to reprint the core books with the errata inside and call it 3.5. 3e was not failing at the time of the change. When 3e/3.5 started failing some years after that, it was too late to alter course and the edition sank. The bloat and power creep was already too prevalent.



I think there are a whole lot of us that have that preference and we're being ignored due to the early success. I also think that it will come back to bite WotC in the rear later.

More than 50% of 5e players are new to D&D, and this edition has massively expanded the marketplace so much that "what players from other editions think" is not even a major question for WOTC anymore (in fact Jeremy Crawford recently implied that with the cancellation of the Revised Ranger - the player base expanded so much with new players who think the PHB Ranger is fine in just the past couple years, they don't even feel the pressure to address it anymore). It's probably outsold the first 4 years of 3e+3.5e+4e COMBINED I think at this point. You appear to be woefully behind on your information, stuck on prior editions and thinking we're "early" with this edition. We're not. It's well into this edition and having the best sales year ever in the history of D&D right this year.

Think about that: This year of 5e is literally a better sales year than the first year of 3e, or 3.5e, or 4e, when the PHB had just come out. Heck I think more people are WATCHING D&D played online by others than even played 4e in total! It was on the friggen Tonight Show a couple days ago!

Appreciate for a moment the monumental amount of sales they're having. This is a unique time in history - this hobby has hit mainstream. Consider the possibility that millions of people really DON'T want something different than this - they really do want this, and the preferences of people who even know anything could be different about the game are a tiny minority at this point.

Feeling like an edition has left you behind is a rough feeling and I genuinely sympathize with it (I've felt it before too). But there are so many other options out there. Why beat your head against an edition that really isn't going to match your preferences in terms of content output?

 

[Gradine]

I am opposed to getting ONLY subclasses - getting only breadth-crunch and no deep-crunch.

Here is my question to you, then: how do you introduce deep-crunch (that is, allowing for more complex character builds) without also introducing power creep?

Or I could rephrase: what are you hoping for to make your characters more complex without also making them more powerful?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

As a Dm I've always felt that most monsters books were somethign I'd flip though and then rarely use. 90% of what I use tends to come from the core MM, in 1e, 3e, 5e.

And I think the crunch hungry players need to accept that they are not the market focus anymore. They are focused on the more causal player who doesn't care about 50 options each level. Its working well for them and expanding the player base.

 

[Oofta]

The problem is that WotC has failed in two editions now, to see the problem in enough time to save the editions. They are the Titanic trying to turn and not hit the iceberg. The 4e change to essentials didn't save them from having 4e sink. Someone upthread tried to compare the change to 3.5 as the same as the change to essentials, but that was a False Equivalence. The change to 3.5 was due to how much errata had come out and it was just better to reprint the core books with the errata inside and call it 3.5. 3e was not failing at the time of the change. When 3e/3.5 started failing some years after that, it was too late to alter course and the edition sank. The bloat and power creep was already too prevalent.



I think there are a whole lot of us that have that preference and we're being ignored due to the early success. I also think that it will come back to bite WotC in the rear later.

Yep. Best sales in the history of the game. Time to man the lifeboats, women and children first.

BTW, what does "early sales" mean? It's been out for a while and still seeing double digit growth.

 

[Hussar]

And, just to add, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], 3e was dying badly when 3.5 came out. Sales had tanked. They didn't bang out a new edition because of errata. No one spends millions of dollars to fix errata. They came out with 3.5 because the bubble had burst and books were not selling.

3.5 brought in an uptick in revenue, but, then slowly eroded away over the next few years which brought about 4e coming.

 

[QuietBrowser]

Honestly? I have to agree that I find character advancement in 5e to be rather dull. It's better than third edition was, and way better than the front-loaded classes of AD&D, but it just doesn't excite me the way that it did in 4th edition.

Which is strange, because 4e classes didn't have the class features by level that 5e does. I think maybe it's because, in general, 5e is so much lower powered... I mean, I like that 5e attempted to add some meaningful traits to classes as they grow, but a lot of the time they just feel so... filler-y. Like, there's no real mechanical weight to them for many classes. Which I know is odd, because I really like that the Necromancer finally got the innate ability to control undead and took that from the Cleric, but... yeah, I just don't find "you can speak any language" very interesting.

The lack of spells is perhaps part of the problem; there's only so many spells, and most of the "subordinate" casters (bards, warlocks, rangers, druids, paladins, sorcerers) are outfitted with spell-lists that are just slightly tweaked versions of the Cleric & Wizard spell lists, which adds to the "samey" feel, because everybody's drawing from the same well of stuff.

The highly individual assortment of powers that every class had in 4e just made it feel like there was more to do whenever you gained a level. Plus, I really miss the Paragon Path and Epic Destiny aspects, which really helped flavor my character's growth from, say, a farm-hand with dreams to being God-Emperor of Reborn Nerath.