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.