D&D 5E Fix 5e.... in one sentence

[Garthanos]

20 percentiles better than when I hit heroic vs endgame feels like as a DM I really cannot present awesome extraordinary obstacles. Feels like I should present the same old same old of the earlier game. There is nothing provided to represent real improvement presenting anything but feebly increased DCs would be just say no.

Oh never mind a caster will fix it for you.

 

[Vael]

All first level PCs can take either a feat or ASI.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'd like to modify that one:

All first level PCs can take a feat; ASIs are automatic and you don't have to choose between customization and raw numbers anymore.

 

[Herschel]

Any skill check from which you are trained and have a maximized attribute (20) is rolled with Advantage.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Any skill check from which you are trained and have a maximized attribute (20) is rolled with Advantage.

How about, "If your Passive Ability Check Score is higher than or equal to the DC of the Ability Check, you automatically succeed without needing to roll."

So if you have proficiency with Athletics, a proficiency bonus of +4, and a Strength Score of 20, and the Athletics check that you have to make is a DC 19 or lower, you don't have to roll, and instead just automatically succeed. If they had Expertise in Atheletics, they could do this for Athletics checks with DCs lower than or equal to 23. If they had advantage on the roll, (maybe from a Barbarian's Rage or Rune Knight becoming Large, or Enlarge/Reduce) it would increase this by 5, to either 23 (without Expertise on the check) or 28 (with Expertise on the check).

That takes less rolling, less time, speeds up the game, and makes the players feel more awesome because they can just simply shrug off potentially dangerous/dehabilitating ability checks like it's nothing.

(A level 20 raging barbarian with a 24 in Strength and Expertise in Athletics could do this for any Ability Check with a DC of 34 or lower. Anyone want to play Hercules?)

 

[Herschel]

Something like that could work, as well. Here's my thought: a Halfling Fighter with a 20 Dex, light armor and trained in stealth should have almost no chance of failing a stealth check and two in a row should be nigh impossible to anything without some sort of super vision or perception themselves.

 

[ECMO3]

The "power ratio between high-level and low-level monsters and characters" is less important than bounded accuracy makes it into because high-level characters fight different monsters than they did when they were "low-level characters" as a challenge built for "high-level characters" should wipe the floor with "low-level characters". Also... Like many other things, d&d is math made fun.

Not like they would in earlier editions.

100 CR1 orcs will challange a 20th level fighter in 5e. They would not challenge a 20th level fighter in 3E and on top of that a fighter in 3e could actually be 30th level and not done campaigning yet.

Because of bounded accuracy no character will ever have the strength of a giant, and they shouldn't because they are not a giant.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Because of bounded accuracy no character will ever have the strength of a giant

Level 20 Barbarians say hi!

and they shouldn't because they are not a giant

The Rune Knight says hi, as well!

 

[ECMO3]

Making Great Weapon Master weaker is the entire point of this change, as it and Sharpshooter (as well as Polearm Master) clearly outshine other feats in terms of power. With this change, both feats would scale with proficiency (a concept WotC seems to like), allowing their power to increase as the PC gains levels.

Those feats are not as powerful as people make them out to be, in large part because you are giving up an entire ASI to get them. In terms of math they are a -6 to hit for a +9 to damage and a couple ribbons on top of that. In game play they will be about +3 damage per attack in tier 2 for most enemies you face while having lower skill checks, being worse at evading grapples and lower saving throws.

I don't see how a -2 to attack for a +4 to damage wouldn't be a fair trade at 1st-4th levels.

You don't see how because you are not following through and doing the math.

A 4th level fighter with 18 strength swinging a greatsword against a 15AC foe does 6.95DPR

A 4th level fighter with a 16 strength swinging a greatsword with a -2 attack and +4 damage against a 15AC foe is doing 6.65 DPR.

Compared to someone who took the ASI, the only enemies you will do more damage on at 4th level are enemies with an AC 12 and below.

So the guy who took this "rebalanced" feat instead of the ASI in strength is getting lower damage on the vast majority of enemies, has lower strength saves and lower strength checks. This is not a fair trade at all!

Fey touched and shadow touched are more powerful feats overall and many others are equals to these. Magic initiate with booming blade or green flame blade will boost weapon damage more in tier 2 and 3 for most builds than SS or GWM will will and you get another cantrip and a spell on top of the extra damage.

 

[ECMO3]

How about, "If your Passive Ability Check Score is higher than or equal to the DC of the Ability Check, you automatically succeed without needing to roll."

This is the same as reliable talent. Giving this to everyone at low levels would severely skew the game and make skill checks a lot easier unless you rebalanced DCs so higher DCs were required.

At high level, What are you going to give the Rogue for taking away what is probably his second best class ability (or first best in an RP heavy game) and giving it to anyone.

If it bothers you that people get bad rolls and fail easy checks too often, a better solution would be to roll 2d10 instead of 1d20. This would make it much, much less likely you would get an 11 on your +9 stealth roll.