D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[Maxperson]

5e was designed around 0 +X magic items.

But 5e was designed around getting non +X magic items in a slow increasing escalation. But that was subtle and not explained.

5e was designed with only class abilities in mind. No magic items at all or stat bonuses/penalties are assumed, not just +X items. The game doesn't factor in things like a ring of flying or other miscellaneous items.

Edit: We know this from the DMG advice that you can have zero magic at all in your world. It can't assume magic items and then give advice on having no magic at all. At least not without also giving a warning that it doesn't give.

 

[Zardnaar]

Except it didn't fall apart in reality in 4e IME but does in 5e. That's because 4e gave ways of working together that 5e doesn't have - and people want to do cool stuff.

Provoke tactics (where e.g. a slippery rogue offers an opportunity attack to set up a fighter mark punishment) are cool stuff. So is pushing someone right underneath the wizard's incoming blast.

In my experience people loved to work together in 4e once they worked out how it works, and love to in Daggerheart because in both games if you did there was feedback that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. And one of 5e's many mediocrities is that it doesn't enable this.

Wasn't claiming it doesnt work. More harder finding players who can make it work.

Theyre a very small minority imho. 5E very easy to find players if you built a team you would dominate easily enough.

 

[Lanefan]

And that's....bad?

Yes it's bad, if people in the line want to think for themselves and choose their own direction instead of just following the line's leader (who may or may not know which way to go any better than anyone else in the line).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wasn't claiming it doesnt work. More harder finding players who can make it work.

Theyre a very small minority imho. 5E very easy to find players if you built a team you would dominate easily enough.

Where "a very small minority" is just about every table I have played with as player or GM. I wonder what I was doing that you aren't.

 

[Zardnaar]

Where "a very small minority" is just about every table I have played with as player or GM. I wonder what I was doing that you aren't.

If you have an established grouo sure.

Still doing that atm?

 

[Lanefan]

In an RPG, yes it is. I play RPGs to play my character, not have someone else in the group play it for me by directing me on what I have to do.

A party leader should do nothing more than break ties or in the case of the party spinning its wheels in indecision, make the decision for the group. For example, rather than let the group sit there and debate for 2 hours on whether to go right, left or rest and talk to Zeus in the morning about which way to go, after a reasonable amount of time when it's clear that this is going to go on for hours, the leader should step in and be like, "We are going to go left."

Or better yet, just get up and go left; though this might not be a 'leader' move so much as a 'gonzo' move depending on the situation.

He shouldn't at all be a micromanager.

I've played in games where one player would try to micromanage the whole party's approach to a given combat; what usually happened was everyone would (sometimes grudgingly) say "OK, let's do that" then go completely off-script the moment talk turned to action.

Far far worse are situations where the entire group is trying to micromanage an approach to a combat. That's what leads to three-hour rounds of overplanning.....and a very bored DM.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, I guess. But I don't...? AND I would wager it is about the Goldilocks level of tactics for most folks.

Never mind that individual tables can always dial up or dial down the planning-strategy-tactics element based on how they want to play, without much regard for whether there's game-mechanical support for such.

 

[Lazybones]

mages had 1d4 hitpoints. Thieves had 1d6 unless you were playing Gygax's special greyhawk thieves. that for some unexplained reason only got 1d4. I always thought that was bit odd.

Thieves used a d4 hit die in all versions of the Basic rules prior to 1983. I started with Moldvay Basic in the early 80s.

 

[Lanefan]

I kinda hope D&D goes further with attunement.

I wish for a formula which includes both Constitution and Charisma? To determine a character's attunement slots. This would also give people a reason to care about these 2 abilities scores even more.

I'm not a fan of attunement, but then again I'm fine with "Christmas Tree" characters and also fine with the idea that their magic items can be destroyed now and then. Easy come, easy go.

Quite frankly, I think that 5E originally came with a mistake of making itself magic item indifferent. I think that DND is kind of based on the process of adventurers collecting magic items.

Very much agree here.

Just maybe not requiring tying their physical bonuses to the combat system..

Not sure what you mean by this - can you elaborate please?

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you have an established grouo sure.

Still doing that atm?

Which of my groups? My main historic 4e group has one member dead and another in another part of the country. My most recent 4e group did well until someone didn't just move over 100 miles away but stopped commuting that far each way every weekend just to play at the end of the campaign (about six months later).