D&D 5E Clearly the biggest design flaw of 5e

[devincutler]

Our group has a weird thing about d12s. They always claim that d12s roll badly. I have actually been asked, as the DM, permission to allow players to roll a d10 instead of a d12 (which I refused). 5th edition does make a little more use of d12s than 3rd edition. The poison cantrip immediately comes to mind.

 

[discosoc]

5e has causes me to start using a dice roller on my phone for a lot of stuff. With inflated HP comes inflated damage sources, and a lot of the "roll 8dx" kind of things are getting old. And rolling monster HP? No thanks.

So for most things I use dice, but I keep a phone app handy for the rest. It's also proven useful for "secret" rolls.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I'm sure that's true, I don't own it or anything. Most of the online chatter about it was divided among "Fighter Heroic Deeds are cool", "The spell system is crazy (crazy good/crazy bad both)", and "Screw these dice requirements".

I know. I bought the game (special 1st printing, normal 1st printing, and first alternate cover art, plus every adventure release for a good six months or so) and really like it, but most of the feedback is basically true - the mighty deed system is cool, the spell system is crazy which is bad/good/both at the whim of the dice (but that is the point, so it's cool too), and the dice "requirements" can be a bit of a hurdle since you have to either buy special dice or internalize a system of simulating the strange dice with your normal set (i.e. d30 is rolled by rolling 1d10 and 1d6 at the same time, with the d6 result determining whether you add 0 (1-2), 10 (3-4), or 20 (5-6) to the d10 result).

The only things I actually consider a negative of the game are that prolonged campaign play isn't as easily done with it as is done with D&D because you have to be prepared for any or every character to die at any moment (and some of those deaths are actually permanent, like the before mentioned "and the target never existed" result of a spell), and the experience system (unintentionally) incentivizes having your character make choices other than those which end combat the most efficiently because the reward for the encounter is higher if the encounter turned out to be harder to defeat.

Now, to not be entirely off-topic:
I don't get the complaint against the number of dice called for by 5th edition. It's generally still lower than 3rd and prior editions, and also lower than the dice pools required of various single die size pool-based games, plus not so prevalent that a player can't just roll a small handful (like those called for by 4th edition) two or three times, which doesn't take all that much time.

 

[The Human Target]

Our group has a weird thing about d12s. They always claim that d12s roll badly. I have actually been asked, as the DM, permission to allow players to roll a d10 instead of a d12 (which I refused). 5th edition does make a little more use of d12s than 3rd edition. The poison cantrip immediately comes to mind.

I'm kind of with your players. Something about the range of a d12 just makes it feel so unsatisfying. One of those weird feel things that you can't readily explain. I'd much rather go d10.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm kind of with your players. Something about the range of a d12 just makes it feel so unsatisfying. One of those weird feel things that you can't readily explain. I'd much rather go d10.

I'm the opposite. the d12 is my favorite dice.

 

[Lanliss]

Wait, this looks like it is getting into actual discussion. Was this not a joke thread?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Wait, this looks like it is getting into actual discussion. Was this not a joke thread?

Well, I freaking hate d4s, and have since AD&D when you had to roll handfuls of them for black dragon's breath weapon. So not really a joke, I guess WotC should not keep putting in abilities/spells that require a bunch of them, IMO

 

[Vael]

Anytime the number of rolled dice gets over 10, I allow PCs to take some of the dice out and average them, or use a dice roller. So if a 10d4 got too annoying to roll, I'd suggest 4d4+15. That said, most players don't take that option. I do expect players to have enough dice (or borrow), few things are as enraging as the player rolling 10d6, one d6 at a time.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

[MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION], if you want to potentially roll a lot of d4's...go pick up Hackmaster 4th Edition (the "first" Hackmaster). There is a mechanic called "Penetration Damage" (hehe...penetration...hehe...). Ahem...yeah, well, you get to roll the d4 again, at -1, and keep rolling as long as you keep getting 4's. So if you roll, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, you would have a total of 4 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 14. This works with other dice too (for damage). If you roll 2d6, and get 2 6's, you can roll them both again, with -1 to each. Keep rolling 6's. The thing is, though, that some 'big' weapons (like a giant sized battle axe, for example) has damage that is like "4d4". Your chance of getting at least 1 4 is almost guaranteed. My wife's half-ogre fighter killed herself that way (*extremely* flukey rolling!; fumble, very rare fumble result, critical on damage to self, then 4 fours, followed by some more 4's, then a few more of them).

Hackmaster 4th has had some of the most memorable gaming I've had in decades, to be honest. We pretty much play it as "AD&D 1.5e", ignoring or otherwise changing some of the silliness....but only some. Use humor when it needs to be used to lighten the mood from all the horrible, horrible death and dismemberment.

PS: For those of you who, like me, love d12's... check out Dominion Rules RPG. It uses only a d12 for it's mechanics. http://dominionrules.org/

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Uchawi]

Dice porn can be a problem. That is why I prefer rules like maximum damage for critical hits, or static modifiers for bonuses over advantage/disadvantage, or keeping hits points reasonable so you don't have to break out the dice bag to kill someone. It is also a matter of frequency on how often multiple dice rolls come into play.