D&D General Design issues with 5e

[mamba]

Yeah, and that's their problem, not WotC's.

if anything that is WotC’s advantage over other games, part of the network effect

 

[tetrasodium]

In 3.xe it was a problem as the power curve was so stupidly steep in that system that being one level adrift was a big deal. It's one of the biggest flaws in that edition.

In 0-1-2e not so much, however; as it's already assumed the party's level will vary anyway due if nothing else to staggered class advancement rates. Also, the power curve in those editions isn't nearly so harsh; a character a level or even two below the party average is still quite viable in play.

Lost levels and lost items are the snakes that counterbalance the much more frequent ladders - level or stat gain, major item acquisition, major rweard, etc. - the game provides.

They provide variety in loss conditions instead of having character death be the only one; and can with time and effort be recovered from, just as death can.

It wasn't as big of a deal as you suggest. On top of the experience scaling needing more and more each level 3.x experience award rules had a multiplier or something that applied to lower level party members to catch up quickly it would pretty quickly have little more impact than missing a session here or there and be one of those things where Alice levels up a season before/after Bob if they ended it right on the edge

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Disagreed. Overlapping spell lists and maneuvers save design space.
I think not having them was an issue in 4e. So many maneuvers that nearly did the same thing for different classes. In the end a DM had to memorize 100 different maneuvers. a general list makes it way easier.

I don't think that was an issue. The trick to GMing here was - you don't need to know 100 different maneuvers. You only need to know the maneuvers your NPCs can pull off, and the all fit on a single page or less usually. The maneuvers the players could do? That's their thing. You know the basic language of maneuvers, so when they say "the target is dazed (save ends)" or "I can push it 3 squares", you know what to do.

 

[Minigiant]

Or just pare down the list players can choose from at level up (say, maybe a chooseable list of about 6 spells per spell level, this list being different for each arcane spellcasting class) and make the rest uncommon or rare, only to be found in the field..

I am for 6 per level per class for every one but wizard who gets 9 plus Read Magic, Mage Armor, and Magic Missile.

As for attunement, I'd ditch it completely

Attunement is fine.
It just should be combat items only.

 

[WitchyD]

I don't think that was an issue. The trick to GMing here was - you don't need to know 100 different maneuvers. You only need to know the maneuvers your NPCs can pull off, and the all fit on a single page or less usually.

If people didn't really want to play D&D, they wouldn't. They'd actually put on the effort to get a different game going and stop with the excuses as to why they can't.

5.x having PHB spells in monster statblocks is a big part of why I am in fact running a different game: 13th Age 2e. Having to cross-reference the PHB for a monster I'm running if I don't precisely recall how, say, Sleep works in this edition is a pain in the ass, especially if another player is looking at the one copy at the table for their own spells. PDFs on phones help with this, but that's it's own pain point.

13th Age 2e, like D&D4e, doesn't require me to do this.

(Sidenote: editing a prior post to respond to a future post so as to avoid notice from the person whose take you disagreed with is a pretty funny thing to do. I'll respect the desire to disengage, though.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

5.x having PHB spells in monster statblocks is a big part of why I am in fact running a different game: 13th Age 2e. Having to cross-reference the PHB for a monster I'm running if I don't precisely recall how, say, Sleep works in this edition is a pain in the ass, especially if another player is looking at the one copy at the table for their own spells. PDFs on phones help with this, but that's it's own pain point.

13th Age 2e, like D&D4e, doesn't require me to do this.

(Sidenote: editing a prior post to respond to a future post so as to avoid notice from the person whose take you disagreed with is a pretty funny thing to do. I'll respect the desire to disengage, though.)

Nothing wrong with playing games that fit your preferences better. Always the best option.

 

[Remathilis]

So I felt like posting this thought exercise : if I were the lead designer, and not concerned with consensus or backwards compatibility, what would I consider needs changing to improve the game?

It doesn't matter. Every attempt to correct 5e ends up with people recreating 3e, 4e, or TSR-era D&D. A wildly different 6e will just create a new faction of people demanding that WotC make 7e look more like 5e.

 

[Steady Vane]

You'd be surprised. "Faster" can meaning "stripping out important context and granularity" to some and "more thematic" can mean "impose restrictions on the DM that force the game into unwanted directions."

Granularity slows down combat. I am okay with having less to do on turns if it means turns come around faster.


Would you prefer 5.5 to become as granular as 4e, where combat took multiple hours?

I feel half the reason people play one combat a day is that combat has become so slow. 5.5 is particularly bad about that, but even regular 5e could stand some improvement on that front imo

 

[tetrasodium]

Wight was just one example. I did look at 3.5 equivalents and 2E.

HP has been trending upward since 2E.

5.5 is the worst at it imho. Not just the wight.

2E a bit to class canon, 3.0 similar with powercreep.

3.5 I think had the happy spot. All the power creep in 5.5 just means more math and things to keep track of.

5.5 overall better than 5.0 but that aspect hmmmn not 100% convinced.
. Ogre gone from 52 to 68 hp iirc CR 2. Might have remembered that wrong.

Also see my fireball meh thread.

Since your entire point about boring bag of HP is being ignored and dismissed with silly debate over if people dislike the potential long term impact of negative levels a party could be terrified of but not particularly impacted by in the long term due to many system differences that kept it a terrifying short to medium term thing.... I introduce the wight's little brothers ghoul and ghast to get back to why the ghast was a relevant example

The 2014 ghoul/ghast 22/36hp
2024 still ghoul/ghast 22/36hp
3.5 ghoul/ghast 13/29 hp
The dc dropped on stench
paralysis potential each attack and the terrifying coup-de-gras insta kill that went with it is gone
The attribute damage that went with the bite is simply gone and 5e monsters that still have similar like the shadow clear the now trivial debuff on a rest.

All that is left in both of the newer versions is a placeholder bag of bit points and inconsequential attacks that function much like every other cr 1/cr2 monster with Forgettable debuff that lasts till the party's next smoke break.

 

[Blue]

I love 5e -- it has a lot going for it as a player and as a DM. But the other thread anticipating 6e got me thinking seriously about what design aspects of 5e are actually problems.

So I felt like posting this thought exercise : if I were the lead designer, and not concerned with consensus or backwards compatibility, what would I consider needs changing to improve the game?

I'd like to point you to 13th Age. It came out before 5e and was the most anticipated RPG of the year, being a D20 created by lead designers of 4e and 3ed without executive meddling nor the need to keep certain sacred cows. A second edition of it came out in 2025. It's a full free SRD, you can check it out, but the rulebooks have lots of extras, like sidebars about why they made certain rules, knobs to tweak, and the like.

1. Not enough distinctiveness in the player experiences offered by the classes. Too much reliance on spells instead of giving each class unique ways to interact with the game and world. Too much overlap in spell lists. Hunter's mark never needed to be a spell, it could have been a skill-based ability triggered by stalking and studying an enemy. Weapon mastery and maneuvers could have been given to fighters only. And so on! I would redesign every core class to make its abilities serve a specific and unique play experience and trajectory, as much as possible.

Each class is pretty unique, and even the classes with spells each have their own unique spell lists without overlap. That's right, Sorcerer and Wizard for instance don't share any spells. The Sorcerer ones are themed for a Sorcerer.

2. Add back choice and consequences in PC design. It is ok for a species to give an ability score penalty. It is ok if you pick a class ability from a menu that is locked in at least for a whole level, not changeable every long rest. Itbis more than ok if dumping strength cripples you in melee and spending your two high scores is an interesting choice but not an obvious one. The game is more interesting because the PCs have strengths and weaknesses, and need to rely on one another.

Yup. Though, since it's a 10 level game they have Incremental Advances, where you get things ahead of time from your next level. And you can pick something, and then when you level up decide it didn't work out and pick something else.

4. Beef up exploration. A solid chapter in the DMG with many examples of exploration/survival challenges. Cover dungeon, wilderness, and urban exploration. Explainnhow to run them with skills, new subsystems or both, and how some class abilities can change the nature of these challenges without avoiding them altogether. For example, maybe when a ranger fails a tracking roll, they get a "no AND" result instead of a simple no. It is OK if some classes can access tasks that others can't, or obtain unique results.

One of the interesting points about exploration is that what would be daily abilities in 5e are per arc abilities in 13th Age 2nd. And those don't come back just because the PCs rested. So exploration avoids the whole "we've got fully charged abilities". An arc might be a three week trek across untamed jungle, instead of that being 27 long rests to recharge. (Or an arc could be a day in a normal dungeon -- it's not a full plot arc.)

5. Cut down on the number of abilities acquired at higher levels. It's better to upgrade an ability, especially if it is already one if the class' core and mechanically unique ones.

To continue on spells, there are no cantrips but every spell is at-will, per encounter, or per arc, or some thematic variation of these based on your class. Every single spell upcasts (and note, a core mechanic before 5e came out). You gain additional spells very slowly (and it's a 10 level game, not 20), but they stay competative and relevant because of the upcasting. And unlike 5e, because upcasting is inherently part of it, upcast spells keep up with spells "native" to a level.

2ed changed from having slots where lower level slots migrated to higher level slots to just making spell level a factor of when you can get a particular spell and having every spell upcast based on your character level.

It's a really good system, that addresses a lot of your points.