D&D 5E Considering "taking the 5th" (Edition); questions for those more experienced.

[innerdude]

Now I find myself preparing to start a new campaign, and looking for a good system to support it.

Or you could make the wisest decision of your RPG life, bypass D&D 5e and switch to Savage Worlds.

Considering you can get the core rules for $10---no seriously, $10---just do it.

Wondering if it works for fantasy? Read my report here.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Or you could make the wisest decision of your RPG life, bypass D&D 5e and switch to ******..

Now, now, his question was should he try 5e, not "what games are better than D&D" - the forum's not big enough for that thread.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

With the Advantage/Disadvantage system, I think that moments like this will be lost. It seems to me that if the players are in a tough situation, they are likely to be disadvantaged, and as such that 1/20 chance gets turned into a 1/400 chance - a near impossibility that a disadvantaged natural 20 would coincide with such a critical moment. Maybe I misunderstand how disadvantage will be used, or maybe I missed a change to the crit system. I'd be happy to be wrong about this, but if I'm not I feel that many potentially epic moments will be lost. It may not be enough on its own to turn me from 5E entirely, but I would mourn the loss of future memories.

Is the Advantage/Disadvantage system a part of the rules that can be omitted in favor of something else? Or can anyone who has played the system offer some encouragement or clarification as to why it may not be as bad as I am expecting?

Thanks for your patience with my long-windedness. I suppose the condensed version of this post would be: 1) Does 5th Edition work well with a low magic/rare caster campaign, and 2) does "Disadvantage" really rob players of those epic "one crit saves the day" moments? I'd really appreciate any input, advice, or feedback that can be offered.

So far in my campaign, we've had... maybe three close calls where everything came down to the wire as you describe: disaster for one PC or all PCs based on whether an initiative roll is won, or a save is made. (PCs win two of the three, amazingly enough.) None of those cases involved disadvantage, they were all either initiative rolls or death checks. Take that data point for what it's with.

Of course, there were decisions leading up to those edge-of-disaster moments, and I can't promise that disadvantage may not have played a role in the events somewhere.

 

[Jester David]

For $20 you can get the Starter Set and play with that and the free Basic rules and give the system a test. See for yourself if you like it.

 

[ad_hoc]

I think the advantage/disadvantage mechanic enhances the last ditch effort all things riding on one roll moments.

The BBEG is tearing apart the party, you don't have much left so you do your last wild attack to take them out and spend your Inspiration to give you advantage (or maybe an ally uses the Help action to give you advantage) either giving you an extra d20 to ensure success or negating the disadvantage you got because your plan is so far fetched.

In something like 3.5x you would most likely just be told that you can't choose to do X because you don't have the feat. Even if you were able to do it you would get a negative modifier and have to rely on getting the 20 to succeed. Much better I think to spend some resources and then need a 15+ to do the truly heroic thing.

 

[SteveC]

My advice: check out the free basic rules and see if they're to your taste. They include rules for the classic four classes. If you like that, you'll probably like the larger game.

Since we seem to be talking about advantage/disadvantage a bit, one thing I'd like to point out that may be obvious to many, but it wasn't to a couple of the DMs I've played with. Advantage or Disadvantage doesn't affect the minimum or maximum you can roll on a check, it only shifts the mean up or down. You can still only generate a set of results from 1-20.

I know that may sound obvious (but again, it wasn't to some of my recent DMs) but if you couldn't do something before you got advantage, you still can't do it. Since the system has gotten rid of modifiers as much as possible, you have to consider the DC for situations where help should let you do things you otherwise couldn't. I.e., if you can't lift something, advantage on the check from help won't let you lift it now ... you have to adjust the DC.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

First, the best thing about 5e is that it is dirt simple to add/subtract or otherwise modify rules. Very modular in design and easy to manipulate. So, that said...

That part I understand, which is why I'm not completely opposed to the idea. I just feel that the mechanic itself severely penalizes disadvantaged players by moving the chance for a critical success further out of reach in a way that flat bonuses/penalties never would.

Easy to simply house rule that Disadvantage doesn't count if your first roll is a 20. So, if you have Disadvantage and your roll a 12 and 20, you use the 12; but if you roll a 20 first, you don't roll again...you got a 20. This will not really do anything to the system at ALL. Enjoy!

So if I were to limit which subclasses can be taken, or limit the number of players that can take magical subclasses, are there still enough choices and variety to go around? Or will I be cutting out a significant portion of the choices available and leaving each class with (for example) only one subclass to choose?

A bit more tricky, but you could probably change a lot of stuff into more mundane things. For example, in stead of a character class being able to case darkness once per day...you could rework that to be that they know how to create a "smoke bomb" type egg-shell grenade that gives them the same effect as the darkness spell.

That said, the system is well balanced enough that just outright nixing these magical powers isn't likely to derail much...especially if you have a restricted magic world to begin with (e.g., wizards aren't going to suddenly be "overpowered" because they can cast magic....as wizards will be so rare and other things that it makes sense for your world and all the players will probably accept it without question).

I probably am, which is why I ask. What I've read so far hasn't been entirely clear on what exactly constitutes and advantage or disadvantage (although it does seem that there can be many factors).

Thanks for the response!

As some have said, there are certain situations and whatnot that specifically impose Adv/Disadv. The DM is also free to use this mechanic when he wants to ...such as when there are obviously a lot of things in favor of the character; easy enough to not bother trying to figure out all the little +1's and +2's, then the -1's, -2's, etc..., and just say "You can roll with Advantage". Much faster and me and my players seem to really enjoy it. One player, a fairly heavy 3.x/PF proponent of the past just last session said "Y'know...I *really* like not having to worry about all the bonuses and penalties and just go with Advantage or Disadvantage. So much faster, easier and exciting!".

Personally, I use Adv/Disadv more often than in the rules. If it's a simple thing, I'll go with a +/- to the DC I was thinking about (typically 10; 5 for easy, 15 when there are more than two or three 'difficulties'; rarely 20 or higher). But if there are a few things I can think of instantly..."You want to climb the wall of the inn to get on top of the roof? Ok...it's night, raining, kinda cold, mossy, ...never mind...ok, roll with Disadvantage; DC 15."

Once you get the hang of it and a feel for the numbers (low, btw), I'm certain you'll find your games running fast, loose, smooth and exciting!


^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[fewilcox]

The only way to really wrap your brain around (dis)advantage and the various other bits of the game is to give it a whirl. Fortunately, Wizards provides you with ways to do that for free. You can download Basic for free from their website and make a few characters, and you can take one of them to your local FLGS and play some games in the Adventurers' League. Kenzer & Co did the same for HackMaster 5e when it released back in '09, so I'm happy to see Wizards following suit.

 

[Herobizkit]

Arguably, you could chop the spells right off the Bard and it would still be a viable character class as the skill monkey who buffs with music; he'd be limited to the Skald path, but the Skald path is pretty amazing.

Same as the Paladin. You could limit the use of her spell slots to Smites only and it would still be a viable class.

It would be a stretch, but if you took the Druid's spells away and removed the time limitations on shape-shifting, you might have an interesting niche for the Shifter path.

 

[aramis erak]

Thanks for your patience with my long-windedness. I suppose the condensed version of this post would be: 1) Does 5th Edition work well with a low magic/rare caster campaign, and 2) does "Disadvantage" really rob players of those epic "one crit saves the day" moments? I'd really appreciate any input, advice, or feedback that can be offered.

1) It can. The DM needs to be careful, tho', to maintain the tone.
2) no, it doesn't. It just makes them bloody rare.

For low magic, it takes some care, some restrictions on monster choices, and not using the DMG treasure packages. It also helps to not allow a whole lot of casters in the party, and trim the default spells available in towns.

And, the last two times I really didn't want the "nat 20 makes it anyway", and disad was given to prevent it, and boom! Pair o' twenties...

I've seen a lot of times where disad didn't prevent a "good roll which saves the day" from happening. Most of them weren't "only a nat 20 will save the day", but it's a far softer approach than Pathfinder or 3.x...