D&D 5E (2024) Is 5E better because of Crawford and Perkins leaving?

[FitzTheRuke]

What this particular botched feature makes me worry is that the people on the team who understood this technical logic are either gone or no longer being listened to.

You sure that they didn't just say, "Everyone will know what this means and how it's intended to work"?

I mean, it's not a patch on the 2024 Hiding rules, is it?

 

[mearls]

Thinking a little bit about how something like this happens, I'd wager that they talked about changing Dash for D&D 2024 but didn't. I went years letting rules we dumped pop into mind when running the game. I don't think I have ever run critical hits by the book.

In terms of impact, I think most people will run it as intended - the character moves their speed when they roll initiative. It's a really awkward divot in the system or anything turned based. The advantage of a TTRPG is that the DM and group can figure this out. There's definitely a level of system intricacy that most people using the game get into.

 

[TiQuinn]

5e tries to sound like it’s written in natural language, but there is a very specific functional technical logic to its phrasing. This is easy to miss if you’re not keenly attuned to it, but it’s there, as I’m sure @mearls can attest.

What this particular botched feature makes me worry is that the people on the team who understood this technical logic are either gone or no longer being listened to.

5e (2014) hit the sweet spot IMO. Not that there weren’t a couple of areas where things got funky but it was overall very well done.

I don’t know if this is one mistake amongst many or not. If it’s a one off in this book, it’s not the worst. It may speak as much to the need for more editing passes before release, not simply just a matter of designers writing something incorrectly.

 

[Charlaquin]

You sure that they didn't just say, "Everyone will know what this means and how it's intended to work"?

I can’t read the designer’s minds, but if they were aware of the way abilities that allow off-turn movement are usually formatted within this system and why, and decided, “eh, everyone will know what we mean if we word it a different way that doesn’t actually work within the rules system this one random time,” I would call that a hell of an unforced error.

 

[eclair~]

Thinking a little bit about how something like this happens, I'd wager that they talked about changing Dash for D&D 2024 but didn't. I went years letting rules we dumped pop into mind when running the game. I don't think I have ever run critical hits by the book.

Every instance of potential off-turn movement in the 2024 books uses the standard "you can move up to your speed" phrasing, except this instance.

5e (2014) hit the sweet spot IMO. Not that there weren’t a couple of areas where things got funky but it was overall very well done.

I don’t know if this is one mistake amongst many or not. If it’s a one off in this book, it’s not the worst. It may speak as much to the need for more editing passes before release, not simply just a matter of designers writing something incorrectly.

There's quite a few areas in the 2024 rules that seem like the designers didn't take into consideration how changes to other rules affected other areas in the book. For instance, RAW most monsters can't actually use any of their actions for an opportunity attack because the game strictly defines the terms used in the language for what is allowed as an opportunity attack, and very few monsters' actions qualify as "a Melee weapon" or "an Unarmed Strike".

The other particularly glaring instance of a blatantly nonsensical mechanic is the Thief Rogue's Supreme Sneak, where whether or not you end your turn behind cover retroactively dictates whether you remained hidden Invisible for the rest of your turn after making an attack.

 

[AlViking]

This feature would be the specific way to spend movement outside of your own turn, as that's what it says you do.

In this specific case, as written, yes

Is it really any different than a monk or rogue being able to dash as a bonus action? It's clearly defined as an action after all. Specific overrides general and it's not a big deal unless you're trying to prove that the people who wrote the rules are ignorant. Since I don't think they're ignorant I assume they just used a term that has clear a definition, unless some detail of the implementation is overridden by a new rule.

 

[Lanefan]

no there is not power creep in buffing weak options, for simple reason, almost no one played weak options when stronger appeared or they house ruled weak ones to be inline with good ones.
except twilight cleric, that gets powered down or banned. It's 12 out of 10.
only power creep is when you introduce an option that is more powerful than any current.

yeah you may have 9-8-9-8-2-3-5-4 and now you have 9-9-9-9-8-8-8-8, but in 1st example, you can simply ignore 2-3-5-4 as that is not even in the equation.

Except it is still in the equation. Not everyone is going to realize right away that the 2-3-5-4 bits are weaker, particularly if they're well-presented as being cool and-or fun and-or useful options, which means between that and players intentionally choosing a weaker option anyway those options are still going to appear in the game as played. And thus...

And average is the same.

...the average after making 2-3-5-4 into 8-8-8-8 is not the same, and power has crept appreciably.

 

[Lanefan]

given i believe those kinds of 'i need to be the most powerful person at the table' people are the minority and catering to them IMO runs contrary to making the game enjoyable for most other players that doesn't alter my position.

Nitpick: there's a fairly big difference between being "the most powerful person at the table" and "the most powerful character in the party". One can want the latter without caring about the former.

 

[Eric V]

You sure that they didn't just say, "Everyone will know what this means and how it's intended to work"?

I mean, it's not a patch on the 2024 Hiding rules, is it?

Why couldn't they just write it out how it was intended to work? Because as it is, it doesn't do what we all know it should do.

"Eh, they'll figure it out" is lazy design.

 

[ECMO3]

There are so many other character building choices and potential for optimisation in 5e, that sabotaging entire classes just so there is a "best" and "worst" option is not good design at all.

That is not what I am saying. I am saying there are best options and having them is a good thing. That is an argument against trying to balance classes, but that is fundamentally different than "sabotaging" classes.

Saying we need to make the Fighter weaker so the Wizard looks better is bad design. Saying we need to make the Wizard weaker, or saying we need to make the Fighter more powerful to be balanced is also bad design.

Having the Fighter and Wizard make sense thematically and being fun to play without tacking on cheesy mechanics to make them "balanced" and letting the chips fall with one of them being objectively better than the other is a good design.

Wanting to play "the best xxx that I can" would be much more reasonable, but wanting to outdo the other players just for the sake of it is a social issue that should be stamped out as soon as it comes up.

No it isn't. It is a game, there is nothing fundamentally wrong or anti-social with wanting to be the best at it. That is not my cup of tea and maybe it is not yours, but that doesn't make it a problem. You do you!