D&D 5E Is 5e the Least-Challenging Edition of D&D?

[Oofta]

There's a GM shortage. 5E at higher levels doesn't really work that well.

The wheels start falling off as early as 5th.

I'm the only one running at 9th level at the gamestore.

The new DMs can't really figure it out and the wotc modules are tubed to be easy so they don't really learn.

Assuming you meant 5E instead of 4E ... I disagree. But maybe I'm biased because I've been DMing it forever. I have no problem running campaigns up to 20th. The game isn't perfect, but I do think it works better at higher levels than previous editions.

As far as what that has to do with the surveys or modules I have no clue. I think modules for higher level PCs are likely to fail simply because by that point there is way too much variation in group dynamics and power level.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't see why it matters. If a GM is doing something the players hate they aren't being a very good or responsive GM.

@Jaeger summed it up nice, but it's more complex than that. Simply doing polling & surveys are meaningless if you don't weigh the data & phrase the questions in a way that avoids skewing the data. For example, lets use 3.5 incorporeal trait creatures as an example:

• On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being love & 1 being hate how much do you like the wraith on 3.5 monster manual page 258?
• Incorporeal traits do xyz... On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being love & 1 being hate how much do you enjoy fighting incorporeal creatures?
• On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being strongly agree & 1 strongly agree. Do you feel like incorporeal creatures and creatures with Spell Like Abilities that target touch AC are enough of a counter to a very high AC character build?
• On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being strongly agree & 1 strongly agree. Do you feel like incorporeal creatures and creatures with Spell Like Abilities that target touch AC are too strong when your GM uses them against high AC tank builds?
• On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being strongly agree & 1 strongly agree. do you as a GM feel that the wraith with constitution damage & incorporeal traits fill an important niche in the monster manual?

All of them are basically the same question but because of the wording you will get very different results and could still apply bad weighting to the results to even further skew the data. For argument sake lets say they asked the questions perfectly & perfectly weighted them but asked them of players based on some testing performed at gencon (or whatever) but none of the tables had a very high AC character or the GM was not with that one shot con group long enough to see the problems caused by having a standing 30+ AC so did not report seeing any problems with it. This is a pretty good article that gets into some of the complexities that go with gathering meaningful data from surveys & the like

 

[Jaeger]

I'm pretty sure GMs were not barred from responding to the surveys.

But I stand by my statement. ..

You seem to have missed the point that there are exponentially more players than GM's replying to the survey due to the nature of TTrpg's. Which just by sheer numbers would severely dilute the opinions of GM's.

You are perfectly free to stand in the wrong - it is your privilege.

...The surveys didn't need to "weight" GM feedback and player feedback separately, because it was never used in a way that weighting would really be necessary.

They made an obvious mistake then.

As Zardnaar's post clearly points out.

.

 

[Zardnaar]

Assuming you meant 5E instead of 4E ... I disagree. But maybe I'm biased because I've been DMing it forever. I have no problem running campaigns up to 20th. The game isn't perfect, but I do think it works better at higher levels than previous editions.

As far as what that has to do with the surveys or modules I have no clue. I think modules for higher level PCs are likely to fail simply because by that point there is way too much variation in group dynamics and power level.

I can run into the higher levels as well, it's just not worth the extra effort vs starting over.

Through to say level 12 or so I would rather run B/X or 2E. I didn't mind them as much up to 13/14.

 

[Oofta]

You seem to have missed the point that there are exponentially more players than GM's replying to the survey due to the nature of TTrpg's. Which just by sheer numbers would severely dilute the opinions of GM's.

You are perfectly free to stand in the wrong - it is your privilege.




They made an obvious mistake then.

As Zardnaar's post clearly points out.

.

So the most popular version of D&D ever released is a failure because they didn't cater to your specific desires? Okelly dokelly.

 

[dave2008]

"First I wrote the forumla wrong (bracket in wrong place), it is (CON mod + STR mod) x SIZE. Medium is 1 (L = 2, H = 3, G = 4). So for most humanoids it is simply CON mod + STR mod "
do you have small creatures (hanfling/goblin/kobold/etc) 0 1 or something else? Given how there's basically no longer any benefits to size small but the old negatives remain I'm thinking same as medium is probably in line... but do you use or something else for small sized PC's?

What I use for monsters is: small is X.5 and tiny is X.25. My current group doesn't have any small characters, but a previous one had a halfling and it worked fine.

Also any learning experiences with this in play?

Not sure what you mean, but here are some adjustments we made:

1. Initially we had crits take max damage from HP and rolled damage from BHP. I liked the idea because to me a crit should be a true hit. However, PCs are more heavily affected by crits and my players didn't like how deadly it became.
2. We initially also rolled on the lingering injuries table every time you took BHP damage; however, this became to gritty for my group and we dropped it.
3. Since I still like idea of crit damage going to BHP, I thought about bringing back the concept of "confirming" a critical. I think I've got buy-in to try the idea after we finish our current mission.
4. Armor becomes much more valuable and desired. It gives a real benefit to heavy armor. It makes it much more popular than medium or light armor.
5. It works similar to the old -10 HP rule in that you have a bit of buffer, but here your still up an running - and scared as hell (I think partially because your still up and not being ignored). Once someone is into there BHP they are asking for healing or looking for a tactical retreat.
6. We are currently running a low magic campaign and there was some frustration with the slow rate of healing BHP so we allowed a Medicine check to increase the healing to 1 BHP / long rest. The DC is 20-your current BHP total.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see why it matters. If a GM is doing something the players hate they aren't being a very good or responsive GM.

I kinda disagree with this on one level: GMs are almost always doing something that players tend to hate, and that's enforcing the rules. If such is done fairly and evenly, that's a mark of a good GM no matter what the players think.

 

[dave2008]

Is there a minimum value, or does someone who starts with Str 8 and Con 10 end up with -1 BP?

Ha, I never thought about that. We have mostly martial characters and no one has a negative number. I would ignore negative numbers and say a minimum of 1 if that came up.

Also, this must give Giants etc. a massive h.p. boost.

Yes, and dragons more so as they have high AC. An ancient red as an additional 76 BHP and DR of 12. Very hard for mundane weapons to harm them. Please note I allow my characters to increase the attack damage in a number of ways.

On the surface, and numerically, your system ends up hewing pretty close to what we've done in 1e forever: body points (BP).

They're rolled on a small die, with your Con score setting a floor value, such that most adventurers have somewhere between 2 and 5; barring something truly exceptional this is locked in for life once rolled. Death is at -10. On top of these you get your Fatigue Points (FP) which are the hit points you'd normally get by class and level. BP + FP = HP.

BP are harder to cure than FP. If you go to or below 0 you roll a consciousness check, it needs to be lower (on a d20) than your Con score modified only by your current h.p. total. Someone with Con 13 who's at -2 needs to roll 11 or less to stay upright. (there's various other rules around curing after going below 0)

Same here, except in some very uncommon situations.

Yes that is all very similar to what we do (except the -10 for death and consciousness check - which is an idea I like and may have to bring up to my group)

Not the same here, and while it makes heavy armour more valuable I'd also be concerned it makes squshies just that much squishier.

Well, it doesn't make them squishier, it just makes them relatively more squishy. The squishies are still getting a total HP (including BHP) boost and get the benefit of any armor they are using. It is just the tanks are more tanky, IMO, because they can withstand a few hits, even when everything is on the line.

 

[Lanefan]

Allow me to enlighten then...

Tetrasodium has a good point here that shouldn't be dismissed, just because I think he would be better served with a different system. (the OSR is your friend dude...)

If 5e was moulded to the opinion surveys - who's opinion is more heavily weighted actually matters a lot in the overall game design.

Now separating the GM for player replys and giving them equal weight would be a zero guarantee that tetrasodium would like the system any better.

But the reason I think they should have been separated and given equal weight is quite simple: Without GM's no one can play!

5e would probably have been a bit different if GM's were given an equal voice to players in the survey.

And it would be to D&D's benefit when 6e rolls around to do so.

You point is quite valid, but it's trickier than just 'player' or 'GM' as many of us are both.

And I know that in many ways my own answers to various game-related questions would be (and are!) quite different were I to answer as a player vs answer as a GM.

What's needed are surveys and research geared specifically toward each group, with enough overlap in the questions etc. that the researchers would also be able to tell how much viewpoint variance comes from the role.

 

[Zardnaar]

I kinda disagree with this on one level: GMs are almost always doing something that players tend to hate, and that's enforcing the rules. If such is done fairly and evenly, that's a mark of a good GM no matter what the players think.

This it's like candy don't give out to much.

The player orientated games tend to implode as the DM usually quits as they can't handle the power level.

Often bonus feat type DMs and players who turn up with multiple scores in the 18-20 range with rolled stats. Rolled at home of course.

I allow rolled stats but you do it in front of me.