D&D 5E Criticizing the new edition of D&D (because I like it a lot)

[Remathilis]

The way this opening post is phrased is like someone trying to convice WOTC to change the plan and make these changes before time runs out. Time has already run out. The PHB is off to the printer.

Feats, for instance. You claim that they are 'treating feats like variant rules'. Guess what? That's exactly what they are in this edition. But they'll be there in the PHB for easy and available use. Go ahead and use them. Or do you turn up your nose at them and refuse to use them because they are listed as a 'variant rule'?

I agree with a few of the listed desired changes, but most are fine by me as they are. You can play that version of D&D that you want by houseruling those changes. It's not gonna be in the PHB that way, but you can still play it that way.

That is a problem I'm seeing with the Basic Rules in PDF form: some people are treating it as another playtest packet that they can convince WotC to fix in a month or so. I just don't see that.

At most, you'll see some clarification in the form of a FAQ some time before Christmas. It won't change rules, but it might clarify ambiguity (see short rests, multiple). That said, I suspect the rules are what they are. We can't edit the PHB, the MM is 99.9% done, and the DMG is mostly going through the editing and formatting stages by now. I don't think changes to the rules are an option anymore.

To OP's list though: some of those are fine house rules. Some of those are just belly-aches. There are some choices I'd have made differently too, but it is what it is.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

That is a problem I'm seeing with the Basic Rules in PDF form: some people are treating it as another playtest packet that they can convince WotC to fix in a month or so. I just don't see that.

At most, you'll see some clarification in the form of a FAQ some time before Christmas. It won't change rules, but it might clarify ambiguity (see short rests, multiple). That said, I suspect the rules are what they are. We can't edit the PHB, the MM is 99.9% done, and the DMG is mostly going through the editing and formatting stages by now. I don't think changes to the rules are an option anymore.

To OP's list though: some of those are fine house rules. Some of those are just belly-aches. There are some choices I'd have made differently too, but it is what it is.

This game will always be subject to errata. Hence the 'Version 0.1' on page one of the free PDF. The designers have said that they will remain committed to making corrections to D&D. They would be wise to make good on that promise.

Moreover, regarding the freedom to create house rules, of course that option exists. I can always invent my own game, but then why would I pay for it? If I'm going to pay for a game, it's because it supports a wide selection of play-styles.

Feats are a good example. Instead of making them a variant rule, make them core, but preserve the choice that is being suggested now. If you want them, you can have them. If you don't, you can take an ability score bonus. That way people who want complexity can have it (without any variant rule restrictions), and people that don't can abstain. You can even have both types of people playing at the same table in the same party.

 

[Unwise]

I really like 4e, but it was such a pain to make houserules for. Something as simple as allowing a class to use a different weapon could end up in some wierd power swapping and feat combinations that end up bending/breaking the balance. I remember when I first started DMing, I said "sure, you can use a hammer for that power that says you must use a mace" and it ended up a far more significant change than I envisaged. Given the precise language of 4e, and the vast amount of feats, it was hard to see the consequences of tinkering with the system straight away.

5e just seems to have far few moving parts and far fewer interdependancies than 4e. I feel far less constrained with houseruling in this system than I have in the past. I am already running a game with a Paladin with a homebrew vow and a Bard with the Royal Society of Archeologists as his college. Before I got into 4e I think about 50% of the PCs my group ran would have some degree of homebrewing involved in their creation, I kind of miss that.

I might not agree with many of the OPs proposed changes, but I am excited again to be playing a game that holds up to that level of tinkering without requiring a great deal of system mastery to assess the impacts.

 

[unan oranis]

Between dash and being able to mix up your move and attack, isn't charge still kind of in?

Agree with many of your other points, although feats should be optional.

99% of my people wouldn't play without them, but for new players its usually a bridge too far.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Whereas I pretty much disagree with all of his points, e.g. I'm fine with some weapons being ever so slightly less than optimal, feats should be optional, banded armour is a made up D&D-ism, etc. Pretty much everything on the OPs list is an opinion, to which there is disagreement (as seen on this thread) and WotC have conducted a lot of surveying to reach a point where they feel they are pleasing the most people with the rules as released.

As to Version 0.1, that is because they have yet to add the extra stuff in from PHB, DMG and MM to make the Basic PDF a complete game. There won't be massive changes to the core rules IMO.

 

[Nikosandros]

Between dash and being able to mix up your move and attack, isn't charge still kind of in?

If you pick dash as your action for that round, you won't (normally) have an action left for attacking.

 

[SavageCole]

I really like D&D 5th edition so far. I'm excited. I'm invested. It did a lot things right. But it's not perfect.

I want D&D 5th edition to be everything that it can be. I don't want it to settle for 'good enough'. Not after this much public play-testing.

To wit...

For the first time in the history of the internet, I agree with every point Sonofapreacherman made.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah. While I appreciate your play style and can empathize with where you are going with a lot of the changes you recommend, I don't agree with your assertion that these are universal desires/problems. I don't think there is ONE set of rules to make everyone completely happy.

The point of 5e, from my understanding, is to create a base game that addresses the majority of players desires (as determined by playtest surveys) and then encourage and support house rules.

IMO I think they have succeeded very well so far, and am willing hold off on my own houserules until I come upon issues in play.

Plus... DMG.

And I think they have mostly succeeded with this. Believe it or not, and I don't even know why, but i look *forward* to implementing house rules in 5e! Maybe it's just because i can and I know it's not going to break the game somewhere else.

 

[Essenti]

If you pick dash as your action for that round, you won't (normally) have an action left for attacking.

This does seem odd that a second level rogue can basically charge every round (using cunning action to dash as a bonus action), but the fighter can not...

 

[Nikosandros]

This does seem odd that a second level rogue can basically charge every round (using cunning action to dash as a bonus action), but the fighter can not...

It does seem odd, yes. I guess that they want the rogue as the king of mobility on the battlefield even though I'm still waiting to see if charge (or something similar) will be present in the PHB.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

For the first time in the history of the internet, I agree with every point Sonofapreacherman made.

It's like we've met some place before Cole, or on some other message board thread.

 

[bolo__]

Fighter
Great Weapon Fighting. Treat 1 and 2 as 3 instead of re-rolling 1 and 2. Otherwise the 2d6 weapon damages are vastly superior to the 1d12 weapon damages.

I could be wrong about 5e's mechanics, but I'm pretty sure there are two things messing with your math here:
1) you can only re-roll 1 die. so if you roll 1 and 1 on 2d6 you only get to re-roll one of those dice and...
2) you must accept the second roll. So if you re-roll your one die from the 1 and 1 on 2d6 example and get a third 1 you still end up with a total of 2.
So from the initial roll of 2 you would end up with a possible result in the range of 2 to 7.

Whereas a 1d12 weapon damage roll of 1 would be re-rolled to have a possible result of the entire range of 1 to 12!

Please let me know if my reading of the rules two days ago is wrong.

 

[Cybit]

There are a lot of little things about the new edition I could grump about, but the single biggest thing which is essentially a deal breaker?

Spellcasters are going to stomp all over martial classes, just like 3.5.

That would be patently incorrect. (As probably the only person who has done multiple high level PvP tests of 5E here). By the third test; no one even wanted to play a caster, even assuming you get all spells back when one respawns. Casters get wrecked.

Every time someone carouses about casters at high level in this game, please go read the sheer amount of spells that require concentration, and then realize that you can ever only have a single one of them up at a time.

Also, is there a reason we have a giant flood of just created accounts? Not sure if this happens normally or we have a lot of secondary and tertiary accounts being made...

 

[Cybit]

I disagree with nearly every one of your changes. But I think it's a great set of houserules. I'm kind of tempted by the CON for death saving throws myself.

Pretty much. Definitely some good house rules, but understand that it would throw the balance of the game off. (Especially the Protection one)

 

[evilbob]

Feats

Nah, they're fine the way they're doing it. People like the idea of optional feats, even if many don't.

Great Weapon Fighting.

Your proposed change makes it worse, as others have said. This problem is better solved by simplifying the weapon list, which I agree with you about. Or just allow a greataxe to do 2d6. But if you really want to fix the math, an entirely different mechanic will be needed.

Protection fighting style with a shield

...is fine. Don't take away the tiny amount of love shield fighters get!

Second Wind of fighters

Also fine. This is a personal preference, not a mechanical problem. Also I figured it's part of how they are making fighters not suck vs. casters.

Sneak Attack works with a thrown Strength attack

Seems like a rare corner case, but sure, that's odd. Might as well count this as a "houserule if needed."

Potent Cantrip

Wow, so Potent Cantrip is 100% useless - that is a good catch. Since cantrips are so junky anyway something big could certainly stand to be done here. Damage on a miss makes everything into Magic Missile, so I don't think I'd do that, but maybe just add more damage or something? But yeah, something needs to happen here, definitely.

Switch the crowning 20th level class power to an ability score increase/feat

Not even sure why this is useful. It's just semantics.

Mountain dwarf +2 Strength

Yeah I think they'd rather give them +2 Str (bounded) than the +1 AC (unbounded). Also the proficiency being so poor is why they get the +2 Str, I think.

Medicine is still a useless skill

Medicine should 100% be wrapped up in Survival. It does allow you to identify a disease, which is nice, and I thought it could help when you're making saves against disease and poison? Maybe I made that up. Anyway, the skill list is too long and this is one that could go, easy.

the standard action cantrip Spare the Dying a poor choice (unless changed to a bonus action or given a range)

100% agree. This cantrip should either be a bonus action or have 30' range. Given that making it a bonus action would make death saving throws almost pointless, range sounds more appropriate; maybe 20'?

Armour

Meh. Fewer options are better, so I don't mind what they deleted. Padded being bad for Stealth is hilariously silly but it will 100% never come up anyway.

So many pointless or redundant weapons

100% agreed! The weapon chart is way too long; they should have had groups of weapons that include X, Y, and Z and they all do XdX damage. The separation seems to be done exclusively for the piercing/bludgeoning/slashing thing, which is a little cumbersome but whatever. In the end I plan on letting any weapon do the same damage as any other reasonably similar weapon. I have a player that LOVES axes and I am not gonna make him use a greatsword just because greataxes are traps; the greataxe will just do the same damage as whatever is the best two-handed non-reach weapon. Easy to houserule, and some people like their endless pointless weapon charts complete with traps, so whatever.

Did we really need V, S, and M again?

I guess some people like it? Everyone else will ignore them. Possibly everyone.

100 gp for Identify?

Honestly this I am ok with. It's basically a magic item tax; you pay 100g to protect you from bad items and the like. The spell's effect is so good (and so much faster and more complete than "experimenting with it") that I'm ok with this. Plus it makes low-level parties more wary.

100 gp for Stoneskin?

Ok yeah that's stupid. GONE.

Languages

Eh, simple to houserule, and the way it is now it gives you more of a reason to train.

Ability Scores

This I completely disagree with. 15 max is PERFECT: DO NOT CHANGE. When the best stat you can start with is 16 (because 17 is a trap) that is WAY better and actually encourages variant builds instead of 100% the same builds. Allowing higher stats just means you will min/max them. Max 15 on point buys was brilliant.

Advantage and Disadvantage

We will also be doing this, probably. It's actually much more intuitive when you're used to counting bonuses. I can see the counterpoint - that people will nitpick what counts and what doesn't - but people will do that anyway just to grab a single disadvantage for the enemy (or advantage for them) to cancel out bad situations. Thankfully painless to houserule.

the charge action

Don't need it. Move/attack/move. All charge did was bring up rule discussions.

Constitution bonus on death saving throws.

Yeah, I'm not sure why they DON'T work this way, other than it's just plain simpler for everyone if all you have to remember is "10." I think this is one we'll play with and if it gets to be annoying we will houserule, but it's a small factor either way. Oh, and it also means negative Con mods are extra horrid, which you may or may not like.

Encumbrance

Not really a big problem because these rules are not really useful regardless. They had to put something in the book so they went with something easy to remember. Nearly everyone will continue to ignore them anyway.


Overall these are fine observations! Thanks for some of the smaller catches. I still can't believe Potent Cantrip doesn't do anything. That's just too funny.

 

[cpendlet]

The identify spell does not consume the 100gp pearl. You just need to have one and you can keep reusing it. If you look at the spells carefully from the basic PDF you will see some explicitly state the component is consumed (resurrection/raise dead for example) and others do not (Identify). In the rules section for spells it states that spells only consume the components if the spell explicitly says so.

 

[evilbob]

Oh, nice catch! I sure did not realize that - what a tiny semantic difference! That makes Identify WAY better and Stoneskin WAY worse!

 

[Gilwen]

good list and there are some things I might consider in the future...now though I just want to play the game as written until I get a feel for what works in actual play vs thought experiments.

 

[Dausuul]

Feats are a good example. Instead of making them a variant rule, make them core, but preserve the choice that is being suggested now. If you want them, you can have them. If you don't, you can take an ability score bonus. That way people who want complexity can have it (without any variant rule restrictions), and people that don't can abstain. You can even have both types of people playing at the same table in the same party.

So... you want things exactly the way they are now, but with the words "optional rule" deleted.

I tell you what. Go to the store. Buy a black Magic Marker. When you get your Player's Handbook, find every place where feats are referred to as an "optional rule," and black out the word "optional."

There you go.

Or is your complaint simply the fact that you have to pay for the book with the feats in, rather than getting it as part of the Basic download?

 

[Thaumaturge]

Considering 5B, the word you'll want to look for is probably "variant".

Thaumaturge.