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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6360005" data-attributes="member: 996">Sorry, didn't mean to imply that.  It's just that any innovations are being implemented in a "cautious and measured" way.  You can be careful how you innovate, afterall.  Adv/Dis, for instance, is innovative, but, it really just consolidates a lot of potential modifiers that might stack up into one fairly impactful one, so it's a fairly 'small' innovation that might not piss too many people off.  Of course, even a tiny thing (not even that innovative), like DoaM on /one/ Combat Style could cause the fanbase to nerdrage....  It's really not if you look at it objectively.  The real nucleus of the system is just the d20 mechanic, exactly like the last two eds - though, yes, that's a serious consolidation of varied resolution sub-systems of prior eds, a big simplification for folks coming at 5e direct from an ed of AD&D or classic D&D, certainly.  If you widen the view to the core 3 books, though, you really don't have much of a simplification.  Bounded accuracy 'proficiency' gives you smaller numbers than BAB or the 4e "treadmill," but it's not that functionally different.  It's less complex and more consistent than in 3e - where you had ranks for skills, BAB for attacks, and good/bad saves all advancing at different rates.  It's about the same complexity as the treadmill, but a little less consistent, since /only/ proficient elements advance.  Then you have the classes, the variation among Sorcerer, Wizard, and Warlock is about as complex as it was in 3e, but each is individually /more/ complex.  The fighter, while having a blindingly simple build, is more complex as a whole, because of the three varied sub-classes.  5e also presents /more/ classes in the PH than ever before, also adding to complexity and rules density (since each class - and occassionally sub-class - is made mechanically distinct).All that complexity might not seem that bad if you find it familiar or intuitive, though.  But, it is there. We've been hearing that promise for a long time now, but there's nothing about the actual structure of the game that suggests it'll be anymore customizeable than D&D always has been via the simple expedient of DM fiat.   That makes a little more sense.  Yeah.  5e becoming grindy would be like 4e developing severe class balance problems:  it's one of the major things the ed was designed in reaction to.</blockquote>

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