evilbob
Adventurer
Thread title aside: I have noticed that 5.5 is more... cumbersome than 5.0.
Part of it is that there's just so many options. All the time. Players get new abilities every level, magic items give new abilities, and the complexity keeps going up. Cannot tell you how many times players in our recent game said something along the lines of, "oh I forgot I even had this ability."
But part of it is that the crunch went up as well. This can be used proficiency bonus times per day as a bonus action and does stat modifier + proficiency bonus damage and each short rest you get 1d3 charges back... There's a lot to track any more. It DOES feel a bit more "game-ified." Every class has a running list of "stuff to track" and it's MUCH easier to do that on a computer/phone. Also cannot tell you how many times a player recently said, "oh I should have been adding X to this every time."
And there ARE 4.0 design elements at play here. Classes are more balanced. Powers keep piling up. Movement is more precise and there are more ways to do it. Conditions are more plentiful. But all this is more to track as well.
Someone mentioned this in another thread and it's a hard idea to implement but I love the idea of having new powers replace old ones. By level 20 I don't want 25 options every round; I think ~5-7 is fine. Don't give me 3 new spells every level - I'd rather replace 3. D&D design went so hard away from the "magic item gives static +2 to stat" because it was boring - but it was also really, really easy! I've been drawn recently to games more like Dungeon World in recent years because you simultaneously have fewer options and you can do more things.
Anyway, glad to know that others are feeling the crunch weight as well.
Part of it is that there's just so many options. All the time. Players get new abilities every level, magic items give new abilities, and the complexity keeps going up. Cannot tell you how many times players in our recent game said something along the lines of, "oh I forgot I even had this ability."
But part of it is that the crunch went up as well. This can be used proficiency bonus times per day as a bonus action and does stat modifier + proficiency bonus damage and each short rest you get 1d3 charges back... There's a lot to track any more. It DOES feel a bit more "game-ified." Every class has a running list of "stuff to track" and it's MUCH easier to do that on a computer/phone. Also cannot tell you how many times a player recently said, "oh I should have been adding X to this every time."
And there ARE 4.0 design elements at play here. Classes are more balanced. Powers keep piling up. Movement is more precise and there are more ways to do it. Conditions are more plentiful. But all this is more to track as well.
Someone mentioned this in another thread and it's a hard idea to implement but I love the idea of having new powers replace old ones. By level 20 I don't want 25 options every round; I think ~5-7 is fine. Don't give me 3 new spells every level - I'd rather replace 3. D&D design went so hard away from the "magic item gives static +2 to stat" because it was boring - but it was also really, really easy! I've been drawn recently to games more like Dungeon World in recent years because you simultaneously have fewer options and you can do more things.
Anyway, glad to know that others are feeling the crunch weight as well.