D&D 5E (2014) Have the designers lost interest in short rests?

[Garthanos]

What about a long rest is different than the 5e short rest that bothers you? Both require recording spent resources across encounters I do not find them distinct... I have seen 5e spell casters not handle remembering those arbitrary spell slots and constantly asking a dm can I up cast this

I don't know, I really don't like daily powers much. I don't like the level of the trade off. Really a short rest power should be about 1.5 encounters. You face a level of decision making, but it shouldn't be such a big deal. It feels very different to me (provided everyone isn't just throwing out a big nova every 2nd or 3rd combat - which is what I've usually seen).

It was a real revelation to me when I first saw 5E played with the intended pacing - the game really does work very well when played as designed.

(Of course I don't think WOTC should be let off the hook for designing a game which is so difficult to make work as designed)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I really do not see anything in the game even implying skills ought to be able to achieve anything approaching what casters do... in fact the opposite is true when the game explicitly tells Players in the Players Handbook that without magic adventuring would be ten times more difficult. And the paltry amount skills advance sheesh. And spell casters including Bards are as capable of being the ones who have that mundane solution plus have the spell casting in addition to that.

D&D just has this crazy milieu. My understanding of it all is that IN THE BEGINNING there was the fighter. The 'Fighting Man' was literally exactly, mechanically, the Chainmail 'veteran', a 1d6+1 hit die infantryman. Normal troops were 1d6 size hit die, and elites 1d6+1. So, in the fantasy supplement you had heroes (4 dice) and super heroes (8 dice IIRC), which were 'leader types'. Chainmail of course only covers combat, and leadership to an extent. Magic Users and IIRC a form of cleric, also exist in the fantasy supplement, with a few combat spells included.

Nothing was really said in the rules about abilities, beyond the 6 scores, which were only a relative measure (no objective scale was given) in the core rules. It was only explained that fighters of 9th level (lord, the highest level covered in the core rules) were 'barons' and could control territory and collect taxes. The point being, nothing was really there in the rules that made either wizards, or clerics, 'more powerful' than fighters. Clerics could heal, and sometimes turn or attack (and can fight OK) and wizards have a very limited set of attack spells, and harsh rules on when they can be used (basically you can't cast in a fight, any casting better be done from ambush or similar situations, or from behind a line of infantry).

That was the origins of the D&D fantasy milieu. So, while the fighter was meant to cover all the heroes of history, or most of them, it was left up to the creators of a given game (and the rules were very clear that you were supposed to provide this) all the 'other stuff' to make your fighters Cuchulain, Vainamoinen, Siegfried, etc. The fighter was told to be restricted mostly to 'magic weapons', but then a bunch of other 'fighter equipment' was provided, and it can be assumed if you wanted the game to really 'go fantastic' then you would provide even more fantastical abilities through 'equipment' (which could include any sort of magically induced ability, not just from loot).

Because the game was intended as a campaign, with many competitive players (and in the start it was mostly armies competing, not individual PCs, that was the premise of the 'Great Kingdom' of the LGTRS). So it wasn't deemed 'fair', or basically in the interests of that campaign structure, to make super-powered characters who would outshine armies. There also wasn't anything to do with them, there were no 'dungeons' at that stage, not until DA made Blackmoor, which was a riff on a Braunstein AND Chainmail Fantasy Supplement, with some Ironclads rules thrown in (armor class and separate to-hit rolls). It was only at that point, with the first real D&D that wizards and then clerics got in on the act and PCs 'got super' for real. Unfortunately the milieu became set, and hasn't changed since. Fighters were just leader types for armies and infantry, magic users and clerics became the big shots as the spell lists got expanded and they could now do a lot of stuff besides fireball and magic missle or 'cure light wounds' and 'resurrection'.

So, we're stuck with this silly milieu that really cannot emulate most of myth and legend, and a lot of bad excuses for it. Maybe class is the whole problem. How about if levels 1 and 2 don't HAVE a class, and you only get spells or whatever from packages. The first one can come at level 3, etc. Honestly, I like my game better where progression works in an 'inverted' fashion. When you get treasures (major boons, ones that give you powers) THEN you level (once per boon). What you ARE is basically determined by the boons you get, which are driven by the PC's choices in play. The idea of a problem like "you're a fighter and it is anathema for you to 'do magic'" is ridiculous in THAT milieu. Sadly 5e simply isn't equipped to support it. More sadly, the D&D community cannot wrap its head around anything but the stock milieu, who's origin and purpose and peculiarities seem opaque to most.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think the power imbalance between fighters and wizards made a lot more sense in an old-school D&D context, where the game was less like what we now think or as an RPG and more like a roguelike that gradually evolved into war game. Yes, a high level wizard was individually far more powerful than a high level fighter, but a high level fighter also gained followers, which were largely under the player’s control. The choice wasn’t between the BMX Bandit or the Angel Summoner, it was between a single superpowered unit or a small army of mundanely powerful units. That’s a pretty standard tradeoff in a war gaming context, comparable to heavy artillery vs infantry. And that was if you even made it to high levels. Early-game, a wizard basically needed a fighter to carry them through the dungeon until they got enough gold and XP to start doing their cool stuff. It’s a very different kind of balance than what we think of in modern D&D.

Of course, the game has changed a great deal since then. The early-game experience of a small party of individual characters exploring dangerous territory has been extended across the entire span of levels, at the expense of that war game style endgame. In this context, it doesn’t make sense to have one type of character that starts out being dead weight and grows to be able to totally eclipse what other characters can accomplish as individuals. Accordingly, casters have gradually grown more effective at low levels and less overpowered at higher levels, while martial characters have gained a more fantastical endgame. The balance is still far from perfect - being able to make six attacks in one turn a couple of times per day and three attacks per turn the rest of the time is pretty respectable, but it doesn’t hold a candle to being able to wish for literally anything. But it’s closer than it’s ever been apart from 4e, and fans of the old school style will never be satisfied with that more RPG-like approach to balance.

ROFLMAO! This is not funny because what you said is silly, it is just funny because I answered the post before yours, from @Gathanos and said basically the same thing, but in a lot more words and probably less clearly, then I read your post, and I utterly agree. D&D's milieu was derived through a series of steps where the starting point was logical, and the steps were kind of inevitable, but the result is really lopsided and doesn't stand up well at all. Yet nobody can get rid of it.

 

[Garthanos]

ROFLMAO! This is not funny because what you said is silly, it is just funny because I answered the post before yours, from @Gathanos and said basically the same thing, but in a lot more words and probably less clearly, then I read your post, and I utterly agree. D&D's milieu was derived through a series of steps where the starting point was logical, and the steps were kind of inevitable, but the result is really lopsided and doesn't stand up well at all. Yet nobody can get rid of it.

Your verbosity knows no bounds. I never knew anyone back in the day who made the followers a real thing... Introducing Marshalling Troops as a practice is my homage to the never used followers of yesteryear.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Doesn't this require DM dependence? Well, yes. Because the DM needs to make sure they always have an avenue to accomplish their goal in a mundane fashion.

I never thought I would see someone openly use the Oberoni fallacy as though it were just the standard order of business.

That you have to have the DM intervene in order to make the adventure work for non-casters IS EXACTLY THE POINT. That it is entirely feasible to make adventures which CANNOT BE COMPLETED unless the DM provides deus ex machina to get through it is, literally and exactly, the thing that at least I was complaining about.

If adventures like this one are something completely cogent and rational, something not difficult to imagine or requiring major leaps of logic to entertain, then the game should be designed so that every party can interact with them. It honestly, truly, really, fully is that simple. 4e permitted it no sweat--both by cutting down on "un-adventurable" locations (like, there is no "plane of fire," there is only the Elemental Chaos, which is actually quite livable in many places) and by putting those utility effects into the hands of any character that wanted them (Ritual Casting and just ritual scrolls generally--you could just buy a ritual scroll and use it, you didn't need the Ritual Casting feat for that.)

That the gap can be filled by some variable amount of DM effort does not mean there isn't a gap.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Your verbosity knows no bounds. I never knew anyone back in the day who made the followers a real thing... Introducing Marshalling Troops as a practice is my homage to the never used followers of yesteryear.

Depended on when and where you played I guess. I agree that in our later playing of 1e/2e followers tended to fall away as a concept and instead rules were introduced to make PCs harder to kill (1e already has "die at negative hit points', and then 'die at -10' and gives fighters d10 hit dice). However, in the earlier days of D&D and early AD&D we played in a different way. There was an overarching campaign world, with several 100 participants. Various people refereed games. Everyone had various characters, and the PCs were not 'allies', they might band together to adventure, and follow 'rules of order' that forbade backstabbing (sort of). However they were each in charge of henchmen, hirelings, men-at-arms, whatever. If you needed some cash, the cleric loaned it to you, and got paid back! He might even charge for CLW! It was 'troupe play' much like what I gather was the case in Lake Geneva.
Of course there were also other DMs with their own games and different rules/styles of play. Sometimes there was 'cross over' too, but it was frowned on by the powers that be.

 

[Asisreo]

I never thought I would see someone openly use the Oberoni fallacy as though it were just the standard order of business.

That you have to have the DM intervene in order to make the adventure work for non-casters IS EXACTLY THE POINT. That it is entirely feasible to make adventures which CANNOT BE COMPLETED unless the DM provides deus ex machina to get through it is, literally and exactly, the thing that at least I was complaining about.

If adventures like this one are something completely cogent and rational, something not difficult to imagine or requiring major leaps of logic to entertain, then the game should be designed so that every party can interact with them. It honestly, truly, really, fully is that simple. 4e permitted it no sweat--both by cutting down on "un-adventurable" locations (like, there is no "plane of fire," there is only the Elemental Chaos, which is actually quite livable in many places) and by putting those utility effects into the hands of any character that wanted them (Ritual Casting and just ritual scrolls generally--you could just buy a ritual scroll and use it, you didn't need the Ritual Casting feat for that.)

That the gap can be filled by some variable amount of DM effort does not mean there isn't a gap.

I find it easy to believe that the DM had naturally had a fire-based magic staff that the party needs located in the Plane of Fire. I also find it easy to believe that a plane-shift-capable character could make this journey easier.

What I find difficult to believe is that the DM had knowingly placed something the party needs to advance in a location where he knows there's only a few player-based ways to reach it while also refusing to place a single portal, NPC, or magic item that could allow them to reach it.

Of course, its different if the party doesn't need this staff. If not, then the party should just ignore it. It's out of reach, so why bother? If it makes the upcoming challenges easier, it makes sense that they'd want it. But that just leans further into the point that magic makes things easier, not turn the completely inaccessible accessible.

The only place where an inaccessible location in 5e is inaccessible is in homebrew games where the DM made an oversight. All official modules have accessible locations where the adventure takes place. CoS is in a demiplane yet the players are instantly transported there. Descent into Avernus has players potentially going to the lower planes but need no plane shift in their party to do so.

 

[Garthanos]

Depended on when and where you played I guess. I agree that in our later playing of 1e/2e followers tended to fall away as a concept and instead rules were introduced to make PCs harder to kill (1e already has "die at negative hit points', and then 'die at -10' and gives fighters d10 hit dice).

AD&D was my first long term D&D the followers were fluff when I played that 9th level plus fighter.

 

[ph0rk]

The only place where an inaccessible location in 5e is inaccessible is in homebrew games where the DM made an oversight. All official modules have accessible locations where the adventure takes place. CoS is in a demiplane yet the players are instantly transported there. Descent into Avernus has players potentially going to the lower planes but need no plane shift in their party to do so.

If the DM needs to radically reconsider the interconnectedness of the planes for their game based on which classes are at the table, that essentially makes the opposite point of the one you were arguing.

 

[tetrasodium]

If the DM needs to radically reconsider the interconnectedness of the planes for their game based on which classes are at the table, that essentially makes the opposite point of the one you were arguing.

People are claiming that casters are the only one who can solve certain types of problems & complaining that comparing average at will/average nova damage between caster & fighter is unfair because it's the fighter's "perfect wet dream day." Multiple hard covers involving the very situstion of planar travel held up that don't even use it speaks to how weak the "only a caster can do x" point is. The fact that one of those hard covers is extremely hostile to casters & friendly to melee in so many ways underscores the absurdity.