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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8046357" data-attributes="member: 6777737">I will disagree here. I think that 3.x and PF's skill systems give a false sense of progression and risk pushing bonuses off the die. Having +20 by level 10 is just silly, and while the game tells you that DCs are supposed to be fixed, in reality they just aren't. Knowledge, lock, trap and search DCs increase in modules all the time as level increases, so you do have to keep investing just to keep up. And in the case of opposed skills, it's essential for you to keep investing to keep up. I also think PF has too many skills, and that PF's skill system benefits multiclassing, and I'm not a fan of adding even more benefits to multiclassing. It's been awhile since I played PF, however, so I may be misremembering how the skill system worked. The game still has the problem that untrained skill checks were worthless after about level 5.I do agree that Int is a dump stat in 5e and that that is a design problem.I tend to agree. 5e's design is to direct DMs to nickle and dime the PCs with small encounters so that they will be more likely to take short rests. That's necessary because if all your PCs do is long rest, then Fighters, Warlocks and Monks don't get as many ability uses as they ought to. The game chooses to make encounters easy (and therefore boring to some tables) in order to facilitate the inequalities of the rest mechanics. It's not a design without merits, but it's still deeply flawed.I agree that there's very little to do with gold once you've bought full plate in 5e, but I don't agree that allowing the purchase of magic items is better. I think that makes the players extraordinarily greedy, and while that might be realistic it's not really the kind of emotions I want my game to be based around. I don't think giving the PCs a giant catalog of abilities that are only limited by their access to in-game currency is a good model. I think the 3e/PF model makes it much more fun to build a character, but I don't think it makes it more fun to play a character. I actually think that's a pretty consistent criticism of 3e/PF in general. And 4e, for that matter. 5e is the first edition since 2e where playing the game is more fun that making a character.I'm also dissatisfied with concentration. I'm okay with being limited to one buff, but I don't think the 5e designers spent remotely enough time on spell design. They just made everything (virtually everything) that has a duration require concentration without really thinking about it. I think my real problem now is that while I think allowing concentration to be spoiled by damage is a great rule for NPCs, I think it's a terrible rule for PCs. I also think that it's a bad design to create spells that require an attack roll or initial save, and require concentration, and then grant a save every turn. It's so, so easy for 5e casters to use a spell and have it do literally nothing at all. That's such bad feels.I think this is coming to 5e in the form of alternate class features. However, on some level I like that 5e doesn't put so much effort into the character building minigame. I think that's a little detrimental to the game.However, I think the real problem is that the game has moved away from granting abilties as a result of things your character did in game. Instead, you gain new abilties because of external books and system mastery. That's rewarding from a game-lover's perspective, but not everybody playing D&D loves to play games. I think that's why 5e did better; it's a good game and not a good game for gamers.Agreed, although 5e's feats also have a very wide range of potency. I think feats are essential to keep the Champion Fighter interesting in actual play, but beyond that I actually kind of don't like that they're there at all. I think I much prefer the idea of alternative class features.I would like to see all subclass selection moved to level 1 so that every subclass could modify a class's proficiencies and skills without being weird in actual play. I think that's a clear, if trivial, design error in 5e.Agreed, although I think the item interaction rules in even 5e are a little too strict if taken literally. Namely, thrown weapons and multiple attacks is pointlessly nerfed by the item interaction rules. 5e correctly moves away from being a strict minitatures combat game and moves back to "eh, there's a referee at the table how about we let him be a referee?"I would agree, but in the last few years the official modules have been ridiculously stingy. Exploring a dungeon with only gold and consumable items for loot feels awful when gold has no use. It feels like, "why am I still adventuring here?"I will never get over the fact that we got to like dungeon level 8 or 9 in Dungeon of the Mad Mage and the only things we had found were: [ispoiler](a) potions, (b) scrolls, (c) a wand of detect secret doors, (d) a wand of fireballs, (e) a sword of sharpness -- which is an awful magic item in 5e, BTW -- that was sentient, stuck in a green dragon's head, and that green dragon was the ally of a druid who lived like 500 ft away who could cast like 8th level spells, and (f) half of a boots of elvenkind. Yes, just one boot.[/ispoiler]Yeah, this is a major improvement. Having spellcasters have 4 or 5 ways they improve was not a good design.I can't say that I ever had this problem on a consistent basis.I wouldn't run Pathfinder anymore because the DM overhead is too great for NPCs. I don't want to play the 3e/PF character building minigame every time I want an NPC. Don't get me wrong, I think that 5e needs more and better and better organized NPC blocks even after Volo's and Mordenkainen's, and I think 5e needs more 4e style NPCs and less "oh and also it's a 5th level spellcaster".</blockquote>

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