D&D 5E Is 5e "Easy Mode?"

[tetrasodium]

No 5E is not easy mode. What 5E is about is having PCs be larger than life action style heroes and as both a DM and player I think this is fine and keeps in like with many classic larger than life Sword & sorcery heroes of old like Conan who may or may not be born to a lower social class but whose innate abilities are clearly beyond the normal human to mythic in nature. As an player who started many editions ago. I think this change is and play style is good.

Conan was very afraid of magic users with good reason & was never clark kent. Nor was conan equipped with wolverine or deadpool's regeneration. PC's in 5e are not especially scared of magic other than save or die and have that level of regeneration on top of being able to treat any damage up to maxhp like clark kent treats just about everything but kryptonite as long as healing word can be deployed

 

[Essafah]

Personally I feel the large than life was first invoked in Chainmail with the superhero called out as a one man army who could drive enemies from the field with his presence alone and
(it was only poking its head through a window in AD&D and felt a bit lost ) but 2e brought the flavor back at least in naming a fairly large number of Demigods in 2e phb as inspirational characters descriptions particularly for the fighter ok the mechanics didnt do as well as later 3e or 4e definitely did or 5e perhaps can do but its been part of the mix a long time.

I see what you are saying and for the most part I agree with you. I don't think 2E actually brought heroic larger than life characters to life though. The default rules had players rolling 3d6 as is for their stats putting them squarely in the average joe who decided to stop plowing and go fight style. It was a step down from 1E that had 4d6 as the baseline for stat rolling in the DMG. Then you are right 3E and 4E cranked things up exponentially. 5E has come along and carried the torch though toning it down just a bit (ie. hour long "short" rest) I suspect to appeal to the highly vocal OSR fans. I just disagree with those gamers who feel 5E needs to be powered down any further. I am not knocking their style of play but I disagree it should be the default plus as mentioned for those who truly crave that there are OSR replica games out there as well as new games like Warhammer Fantasy 4E which is a solid system that accurately captures gritty more realistic combat.

 

[Essafah]

Conan was very afraid of magic users with good reason & was never clark kent. Nor was conan equipped with wolverine or deadpool's regeneration. PC's in 5e are not especially scared of magic other than save or die and have that level of regeneration on top of being able to treat any damage up to maxhp like clark kent treats just about everything but kryptonite as long as healing word can be deployed

Yes Conan was afraid of magic because he was a barbarian from a primitive culture but he was clearly far beyond the normal human in terms of ability. He could move columns with his muscle and do other feats in the original Robert E. Howard stories. Then you have other characters of speculative fiction around that time such as John Carter of Mars who was a veritable superman on Mars. Elric while weak physically became uber powerful with this sword and his intellectual abilities FAR exceeded those around both humans and Melniboneans. None of these characters despite their social circumstances (high or low) were average joes going to adventure. What some people namely the OSR want is for people to be Joe average farmer with a beergut, average scullery maid, etc who just decided one day to adventure. 5E much like 4E adn 3E (it exists in a pC power space between the two) is more aligned with old school fantasy where yes PCs may start out as peasants and street urchins or kings or whatever but regardless their natural abilities and innate skills mark them as beyond the pale and destined for fame/infamy, and I like the design philosophy.

 

[Garthanos]

I see what you are saying and for the most part I agree with you. I don't think 2E actually brought heroic larger than life characters to life though.

True I just found the raw flavor of that edition inspirational even if it wasn't achieved ... the flavor lays the groundwork for the functionality.

 

[Essafah]

True I just found the raw flavor of that edition inspirational even if it wasn't achieved ... the flavor lays the groundwork for the functionality.

I will absolutely agree with you that the flavor (not the mechanics) of 2E was awesome. In my opinion, 2E still had the overall best art work (and variety of artistic styles) of any edition which contributed to conveying the flavor of the edition/setting. I am thinking particularly of the artwork on the original Ravenloft campaign setting boxed set, Bram Dark Sun stuff, and the water color style of Planescape.

 

[Garthanos]

Elric while weak physically became uber powerful with this sword and his intellectual abilities FAR exceeded those around both humans and Melniboneans.

And got that sword in book one too... not end game. I can build many interesting versions of that character a lot of different ways probably the most bizarre and potentially loyal to the story was treating the sword as another pc with powers to enhance his ally... consume the power out of other demonic magic items it defeated and so on.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Right now, since I have some time, I thought I'd try to finally get our rules into a format where I could put it on DMsGuild as an AD&D/5e mashup, which is what led me to look more closely at how they differ. What I've learned is that while I think our feel is still very AD&D-like, we've found that we really have chosen to take ideas from all editions and it's really something that's uniquely ours. But that's kind of always how I thought it should be.

That is a great idea, and if it's compelling people will flock to it, because a lot of people want a game that combines 5e's robust balance and solid design with heightened lethality and other old school elements.

That said, I don't think 5e is "easy mode" so much as it's built on a different framework of design. Old school dnd is built to kill the PCs, unless the DM runs the game otherwise. By kill I really mean challenge, but the game doesn't care if you are the right level to fight an owlbear, it just cares if there is an owlbear where you wound up, and if you managed to avoid fighting it somehow or not.

5e, on the other hand, puts much more of that transparently and straightforwardly in the hands of the DM. The DM decides how deadly every fight is, how terrifying powerful casters are, how crippling bad luck while journeying to the adventure site is, etc.

The point is, 5e is built to allow a group to choose it's difficulty, and trust me RAW 5e can absolutely be grueling and scary and lethal, rather than simply building the game to have a high difficulty out of the box.

 

[Garthanos]

Bram Dark Sun stuff, and the water color style of Planescape.

oh yeah these latter two really were particularly sweet Brom is incredibly high end for D&D art heh. And Dark Sun may be my favorite not home grown campaign with artwork certainly contributing, I have had interdimensional travelling pcs land there.

 

[Garthanos]

and the water color style of Planescape.

 

[Zardnaar]

Plane sort of had a Labyrinth (the movie) vibe.