D&D 5E D&D Next playtest post mortem by Mike Mearls and Rodney Thompson. From seven years ago.

[Retreater]

And for someone who wants "a warrior class with more flexibility or different flavor" and doesn't want to use magic, what are we supposed to do?

5e doesn't answer questions like this. It places the responsibility for encounter balance, combat options, and skill usage in the hands of the DM (for better or worse).

So if I were the DM for that player, I'd ask them what kind of flexibility they'd want. Do they like the idea of being a charming swashbuckler? It wouldn't concern me to replace Athletics with Persuasion or Deception as class skills. Let them use Charisma for attack and damage rolls.
For flexibility, I let characters try different approaches for skill checks. An Athletics roll can work like a Thieves Tools roll to get through a locked door. Anyone who grew up in the culture can attempt History checks to remember legends and such (maybe not 100% factual).

The 5e PHB is the baseline. Even if it's unstated, a DM is expected to expand and alter the game to suit their players. In the past WotC created an edition that attempted to answer all questions with codified rules (3.x); then they tried to distil it to a unified experience and answer all the questions that could come up with that (4e). Now they are going back to a previous version of the game that requires DMs to extrapolate their own rulings (B/X).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I know. My point is that they felt it was fine that the low complexity classes had low noncombat satisfaction because the Fighter player could point to the Wizard's player's or Rogue player's character sheet however because the playtest packets were so big that the playtesters had to relearn rules constantly, they didn't realize that the Wizard and Rogue player never pointed to the Fighter Player's character sheet..

yup this is better still... it is a SUPER weird outlier day when the fighter is saving the day with something on there sheet.

A lot of what Mearls and Thomspon said in this post-mortem hints that a large percentage of playtesters had to constantly retrain themselves to get system mastery over and over with each packet and that many did not. So it is likely they didn't get a lot of feedback from people with high system mastery. They mentioned that they gave out too much information without enough communication a few times.

I hope this time they fix that

 

[GMforPowergamers]

ut perhaps the better solution would be a more robust skill system, and changing social/exploration spells to interact more with the skill system instead (note: I'm not trying to put this up for a debate, just using it as an example that perhaps the solution is not what the user/player thinks it should be).

both of these would benfit the non casters... better skills and less auto win spells

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I was an Alpla Playtester under NDA with WoTC during 4th Edition and transitioned to D&D Next and then continued during 5E. I find these post mortem videos of D&D Next R&D interesting and revealing as WoTC are not reporting to us during playtesting but rather the other way around.

I hope they also do such post-mortem for 1D&D...

is there anything you can share with us (without breaking any long lasting NDA or burning bridges)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have considered copying 2e(?) and cutting HP growth to 1/2 speed after 10th level in my next campaign. 1st level goblins may still hit an 18th level character, but it's going to take a LOT of hits from those goblins to do meaningful damage.

I think the 2e model would be great for 1D&D but instead of being post 10th I keep recomending even/odd levels...

have a fighter start with 3d10 (1 maxed) hps at 2nd level get +3 at 3rd level get +1d10, at 4th level another +3... don't give con bonus (maybe just at 1st level) but when spending HD let you add con bonus to hp restored. Then remake healing like 4e were most (not all) works off hd... Healing word being spend a HD get a bonus equal to caster stat (so a cleric casting on a fighter would have the fighter spend a HD to heal 1d10+con mod +caster wis mod) and cure wounds heal as if you spent a hd + caster stat mod, have both scale by letting it count as extra HD (spent for word and as if spent for cure)

this would make a 20th level fighter 12d10+30 for an average of 10+66+30=106 even if we give a con bonus for 1st hd you end up with 111.

in current you could have 10d10+40 at level 10 and be at 10+54+40= 104

 

[EzekielRaiden]

5e doesn't answer questions like this. It places the responsibility for encounter balance, combat options, and skill usage in the hands of the DM (for better or worse).

So if I were the DM for that player, I'd ask them what kind of flexibility they'd want. Do they like the idea of being a charming swashbuckler? It wouldn't concern me to replace Athletics with Persuasion or Deception as class skills. Let them use Charisma for attack and damage rolls.
For flexibility, I let characters try different approaches for skill checks. An Athletics roll can work like a Thieves Tools roll to get through a locked door. Anyone who grew up in the culture can attempt History checks to remember legends and such (maybe not 100% factual).

The 5e PHB is the baseline. Even if it's unstated, a DM is expected to expand and alter the game to suit their players. In the past WotC created an edition that attempted to answer all questions with codified rules (3.x); then they tried to distil it to a unified experience and answer all the questions that could come up with that (4e). Now they are going back to a previous version of the game that requires DMs to extrapolate their own rulings (B/X).

This is, without a doubt, far more generous than literally any 5e DM I've ever spoken with, period. Soooooo...yeah. I've literally never heard of anyone considering stuff like this. People complain enough as it is with Hexblades officially getting Cha to hit with melee weapons.

Doesn't exactly inspire much confidence when the thing the game is alleged to tacitly expect effectively never happens.

 

[Retreater]

This is, without a doubt, far more generous than literally any 5e DM I've ever spoken with, period. Soooooo...yeah. I've literally never heard of anyone considering stuff like this.

Well, now you've spoken to "one" DM who is this generous. Please use this idea if it would help you make a more flexible game to fit your tastes.

People complain enough as it is with Hexblades officially getting Cha to hit with melee weapons.

I don't see why. Charisma to attack can represent catching an opponent off-guard or distracting them with flourishes and fake-outs.

The core game of 5e already gives you guidelines for using other Ability Score modifiers to apply to skill rolls when appropriate. As we've seen in the playtest for D&D One, attack rolls and skill rolls are both going to be considered "Tests" with the same rules. Why not apply this to your game right now - especially when it allows a player to make the character they envision and everyone has more fun?
After all, the only people who will be complaining are the dead NPCs.

 

[Plaguescarred]

is there anything you can share with us (without breaking any long lasting NDA or burning bridges)

I would never go into the details or share the plethora of materials i got but all i'd say is i would receive various stuff at different stage of development such as material containing races, classes, feats or adventure modules, supplement, etc to playtest with my group and send feedback, some of which got published or never has been released to this date.

I'm proud to have me and my friends frenchies' names with our accent in playtest credits of various 4E/5E products ! ☺

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Is it a problem if a race/class is popular, with a high degree of satisfaction, but mechanically weaker than less popular options? Making the cool race/class more mechanically equal will result in it being even more popular and over-represented.

That doesn't actually track/work logically, sorry.

As I've said, the reason Fighters (and as @EzekielRaiden pointe out, Humans) are popular even when they're mechanically weak is essentially the aesthetics/concept. When they're mechanically strong, they're not significantly more popular, because they're already popular. As I noted in my post:

Whereas if they're mechanically great, whilst it clearly improves their representation by a some percentage, it's not going to make an unpopular race or class, popular.

The percentage increase I'm describing is typically very small. A class in WoW that's popular due to concept/style but mediocre but then becomes strong might go from 10% of all characters to 10.8% of all characters, or at an extreme, an class that's been weak for years and suddenly becomes outright overpowered might go from 8% of all characters to 11%. Whilst that's a large percentage increase in a sense (like 40% I think), in real terms it's not meaningfully pushing aside other options.

So no, it won't become meaningfully "more over-represented". It's not worth worrying about. Making the class better-designed will be much better for the long-term health of the game than keeping it poorly-designed solely for the sake of

Also, as @EzekielRaiden points out, popularity and satisfaction are extremely different metrics. If you've played RPGs for a long time, and with a variety of people, I have no doubt you've come across players who play classes even though they don't satisfy them mechanically/gameplay-wise, because they like the concept. I had a player who played Thieves/Rogues solidly through from the beginning to 2E to the end of 3E, and it was only 4E, when Rogues became total badasses, that he realized what he was missing, that a class could truly be fun to play.

That changed him as a player. Have realized classes could actually be fun, he rapidly got bored with the 5E Rogue (which is a fine but "meh" class, at least it's not as hugely lacking outside combat as the Fighter, it's just a little dull - though I feel like some recent subclasses help), and finally broke out and started playing other classes.

But I have another player, one who only plays Fighters, basically. He'd always prefer to play a Fighter, but again, after 4E, he couldn't "go back" to the simplistic design. He played a Fighter in 5E for a long time, but his satisfaction with it, even trying different subclasses, has been low. Right now, I'm not running 5E (I am playing it though), and he's playing a Barbarian. Not because he wants to, but because at least it's not just a Fighter that's a disappointment. I don't think his satisfaction is all that high with that either, but...

Now, I realize someone is probably thinking "this is awfully convenient to Ruin's argument", but it's actually kind of the inverse. I'm arguing this because my players showed it to be true. Because they don't like how much they lost in their favoured classes just to make fit the "apology edition" criteria. It wasn't really an issue I hugely cared about in 3E (where the gross imbalance of LFQW and the problems caused by PrCs and an oversufficiency of Feats - particularly tax-like ones - were my main concerns, as ENworlders from back then may remember).

5e doesn't answer questions like this. It places the responsibility for encounter balance, combat options, and skill usage in the hands of the DM (for better or worse).

Sure it does. It just doesn't give an attractive answer. Fighters, for example, are fundamentally badly-designed. There's no "DM's responsibility" to fix that. This is an extremely popular and extremely expensive RPG, with reasonably well-paid full-time professional designers. It's one of the very few in the world (and my understanding is it pays drastically more than other RPGs with full-time designers, perhaps even videogame money). There's no excuse for designing a "three-pillar" approach to gameplay, then making it so the Fighter is largely useless in two of those three pillars. It's not like Wizards are largely useless in combat for example, is it? Something as simple as giving the Fighter 6 skills, and say Expertise in a couple of skills, or some sort of ability to analyze enemy weapons and tactics outside combat would have been huge. But instead, Fighters just get to be objectively worse than other classes.

And what you're suggesting is far, far beyond even the wildest stuff the (admittedly terrible) 5E DMG suggests. That's not something a normal DM is likely to come up with.

 

[Retreater]

Sure it does. It just doesn't give an attractive answer. Fighters, for example, are fundamentally badly-designed. There's no "DM's responsibility" to fix that.

My suggestions were for those DMs and groups who are not satisfied with D&D 5e but still want to stick with that system. 5e "is what it is" - so you'll have to tinker with it or find 3rd party materials to make it what you want.

No matter how much someone doesn't like 5e, it is printed and well established. It's not going to change at this point. So it's either grin and bear it, adapt it to what you want, or find another system.

The DM certainly has responsibility if they choose to run 5e to make it the game the group wants. Otherwise, it's yelling at clouds.

Yes, there is bad design in 5e. I'd say there's a lot of bad design. It's not my favorite edition of D&D or my favorite system on the market currently. But when you're a DM, the obligation falls to you to find a system that works for your group or to adapt the system to your group.

So if a Charisma-based fighter works for your group - do it! Jeremy Crawford isn't going to come to your table to stop you.