D&D 5E Historical Problems and 5E

[jgsugden]

There have been some perceived problems in prior editions that spanned multiple editions. I was wondering which problems of Olde bothered people most and if they think 5E has addressed it well.

For example: Through 3rd edition, the cleric often found that the best thing they could do for the party in almost all rounds of combat was to heal. My AD&D cleric reared healing spells in most of their slots. When later editions allowed us to exchange spells to heal, I prepared other spells, but spent most of them on healing anyways. 4E moved a bit away from this problem by having more sources of healing incombat, but 5E has a bit of backslide here as clerics often find that the best option for them is to heal during their turn. They may be tossing off a spiritual weapon on the side, but they end up back in the historic support role often as they heal the front line melee folks on many rounds. It isn't as bad as the lol destination days, but it could be tweaked up a bit. I've lays felt the healing need to be passive and not require spells, etc..

Another example, at high levels, in older editions, the only powerful classes were spellcasters. Melee combatants became nothing more than buffers to protect the spellcasters once the party street to get to medium and high levels. 5E does a great job of balancing the contributions that PCS can make at various levels. The Paladin is the damage king, in my experience, with fighters second in line. A wizard may do decent damage to a lot of enemies with one of their big spells, but the great weapon master melee combatant can easily out deal the damage of one of those spells. Rogues and clerics struggle in my eyes to keep up at high levels, but the balance is generally at an all time high.

Thoughts?

 

[Storyteller Hero]

One of the most widespread problems in 4e was the perception of a "feat tax" created by a combination of the game's level progression math (which made hitting enemies perhaps a little more difficult than it should have at higher levels) and the existence of the unfortunate "expertise" feats, which had attack roll bonuses that were too good not to take over most other feats.

Instead of revising the existing feats to remove the bonus to attack rolls, new feats with attack roll bonuses were published in new books, which was at best a stopgap measure to the problem.

Thankfully, a different direction was taken for the game's "accuracy" math for 5e, and feat design direction has also been adjusted accordingly.

 

[FrogReaver]

There have been some perceived problems in prior editions that spanned multiple editions. I was wondering which problems of Olde bothered people most and if they think 5E has addressed it well.

For example: Through 3rd edition, the cleric often found that the best thing they could do for the party in almost all rounds of combat was to heal. My AD&D cleric reared healing spells in most of their slots. When later editions allowed us to exchange spells to heal, I prepared other spells, but spent most of them on healing anyways. 4E moved a bit away from this problem by having more sources of healing incombat, but 5E has a bit of backslide here as clerics often find that the best option for them is to heal during their turn. They may be tossing off a spiritual weapon on the side, but they end up back in the historic support role often as they heal the front line melee folks on many rounds. It isn't as bad as the lol destination days, but it could be tweaked up a bit. I've lays felt the healing need to be passive and not require spells, etc..

Another example, at high levels, in older editions, the only powerful classes were spellcasters. Melee combatants became nothing more than buffers to protect the spellcasters once the party street to get to medium and high levels. 5E does a great job of balancing the contributions that PCS can make at various levels. The Paladin is the damage king, in my experience, with fighters second in line. A wizard may do decent damage to a lot of enemies with one of their big spells, but the great weapon master melee combatant can easily out deal the damage of one of those spells. Rogues and clerics struggle in my eyes to keep up at high levels, but the balance is generally at an all time high.

Thoughts?

Depends on the level ranges you look at and whether melee or ranged etc...

For example a level 5 battlemaster fighter that takes crossbow expertise only does slightly more damage per day (maybe 5% more) than a rogue that takes crossbow expertise (assuming the rogue gets to use sneak attack every round while making his attack and bonus action attack). Of course if you look at less or more than 24 rounds of combat in a day then the numbers will skew up or down somewhat...

 

[mellored]

Both not needing a cleric to heal, and balance between classes across each level was fixed in 4e, and stays fixed in 5e.

Though I disagree that 5e clerics need to spend all their spells on healing. Sacred flame to kill a kobold who does 1d4+3 damage, is better than spending a spell slot to heal for 1d4+3. Next time you see a girl about to be smashed, don't think "oh crap, I need to save my slots to heal", instead cast sanctuary, command (flee), or silence. You get more milage out of it.
Life cleric being an exception.


The biggest fix of 5e (IMO) is that it's not dependent on magic items.

 

[Blue]

Could you list what you think are multi-edition problems? Not knowing your sore points it's hard to say if they have been addressed addressed. I'd hate to guess, put up a long bit, and then hear "oh, that never bothered me".

Clerics spending all their actions healing
I almost never see 5e clerics spending all of their actions healing.

First, I see more now "whack-a-mole", where HPs end at zero so it's much more efficient not to bother healing until someone is down.

Second, many healing spells are just a bonus actions so the cleric still can take a full action.

Third, many classes have healing (or at least self-healing) so the healing load is split.

 

[Satyrn]

Could you list what you think are multi-edition problems? Not knowing your sore points it's hard to say if they have been addressed addressed. I'd hate to guess, put up a long bit, and then hear "oh, that never bothered me".

Someone will chime in to say that, no matter what you put up.

I can't think of any multi-edition problem that affects me (I love playing clerics in 3e and 5e and I never felt that I was a healbot, or even meant to be).

Well, there is one multiedition irk from way back to AD&D through to 5e (but not 4e!): Magic missile. The automatic hit irks me.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, there is one multiedition irk from way back to AD&D through to 5e (but not 4e!): Magic missile. The automatic hit irks me.

One of my long-ago players used to swear up and down that spell had been mis-named, thus he always referred to it as "Magic Hittile".

Lanefan

 

[Sacrosanct]

Could you list what you think are multi-edition problems? Not knowing your sore points it's hard to say if they have been addressed addressed. I'd hate to guess, put up a long bit, and then hear "oh, that never bothered me".
.

I guess I'll be that guy lol. Seriously, I never really encountered the problems the OP did. I'm guessing it comes down to playstyle differences. A lot of things I might consider problems to me won't be to other people (I can't say without risking edition warring, so I won't). Except the paladin. The paladin sucks, amirite lowkey?

I'm kidding of course, I have no issues with paladins. I only have issues with about half the people who play them

 

[pming]

Hiya!

There have been some perceived problems in prior editions that spanned multiple editions. I was wondering which problems of Olde bothered people most and if they think 5E has addressed it well.

For example: Through 3rd edition, the cleric often found that the best thing they could do for the party in almost all rounds of combat was to heal. My AD&D cleric reared healing spells in most of their slots. When later editions allowed us to exchange spells to heal, I prepared other spells, but spent most of them on healing anyways. 4E moved a bit away from this problem by having more sources of healing incombat, but 5E has a bit of backslide here as clerics often find that the best option for them is to heal during their turn. They may be tossing off a spiritual weapon on the side, but they end up back in the historic support role often as they heal the front line melee folks on many rounds. It isn't as bad as the lol destination days, but it could be tweaked up a bit. I've lays felt the healing need to be passive and not require spells, etc..

Another example, at high levels, in older editions, the only powerful classes were spellcasters. Melee combatants became nothing more than buffers to protect the spellcasters once the party street to get to medium and high levels. 5E does a great job of balancing the contributions that PCS can make at various levels. The Paladin is the damage king, in my experience, with fighters second in line. A wizard may do decent damage to a lot of enemies with one of their big spells, but the great weapon master melee combatant can easily out deal the damage of one of those spells. Rogues and clerics struggle in my eyes to keep up at high levels, but the balance is generally at an all time high.

Thoughts?

Er...nope. Never had these problems, sorry. Well, wait, I guess I should rephrase that. I've never seen these things as "problems". Yeah, that fits better.

A Cleric healing?! WTF?! That's...thats....oh, wait...that's one of the core things that they can do that distinguishes the class. Of course they are healing a lot. Who else is going to do it? The fighter? The thief? The magic-user? Did the Cleric have to heal all the time? Nope. In fact I've had players play "non-healing" clerics fairly often, comparatively speaking. Probably...10 to 20 percent of all clerics I've DM'ed over the decades haven't really had 'heal-bot' in their description. Most of them did heal...some more than others....but that's to be expected. It's like someone bringing a fighter into the group and when the PC's get attacked by an ogre the fighter says Oh, no, sorry guys. I killed a man in a bar fight when I was 16...I'm a pacifist. I will only kill if there is no other option. The ogre is attacking the thief, not me, so, sorry... my hands are tied.

"Older editions" where the "only powerful classes were spellcasters". First, I/we never played 4e. So I'm ignoring it completely...as usual. 'Nuff said. Ahem. Mostly we play 1e/Hackmaster or BECMI/DarkDungeons as our D&D fix. Recently (last two years?) it has been 5th. Nobody has ever gotten a character higher than level 7, though, so I can't really speak for high-level 5e.

Ahem. With regards to 1e/2e/HM/BECMI...nope, not seeing it. The most powerful "spellcasters" are probably in the BECMI zone due to a few spells being so extremely helpful to the group as a whole, that everyone does want to protect them (spells like Woodform, Clothform, and their ilk are very 'powerful', in the campaign effect sense). The "problem" (although I don't see it that way) with high-level spellcasters in 1e/2e/HM/BECMI is their woefully low HP's and generally bad AC's. Can a high-level wizard absolutely ruin the day of a group of baddies? Hell yeah! Can a trio of goblins with flaming arrows absolutely ruin the day of a high-level wizard? Hell yeah! In 1e, in particular, a 16th level wizard was lucky to have 26hp and AC 6 (about AC 14 in 5e terms). A 20' pit trap with a couple of spikes at the bottom could kill him. A dragons breath was pretty much instant death, regardless of Save. Hell, as many have laughed at over the years, a freaking PO'ed house cat could kill a wizard in no short order.

Bottom Line: Never seen nor had a problem with clerics or high-level spellcasters.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[jgsugden]

Could you list what you think are multi-edition problems?

As much as I wish it did, the world does not revolve around me. I am interested in hearing from people that have played multiple editions, remember something about the game that was a problem in the past (that may or may not have been fixed), and hearing their thoughts on the issue. I am interested in hearing others opinions.

One of the reasons I dropped that conspicuous 'perceived' in the initial post is that there will not be consensus on what was or is a problem. This is a discussion, so we can disagree. You have no choice the disagreements are allowed.