D&D 5E it appears to be very easy to break the game

[billd91]

Only if you believe that playing with poorly designed rules is a taste thing.

That assumes we agree on whether or not the rules are poorly designed - which around here seems to be more of a taste thing. Do you like 1e, 2e, 3e, or 4e design or not? There are ample justifications, in the rules and their design, to prefer any single one of them over the others.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If my party is 2 fighters, a rouge and a monk and your party is 2 clerics a wizard and a psion does the Cr system handle both groups as equal?

If the first group is level 15 and the second group is level 10 witch one is supposed to have an easier time with a Cr16?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Only if you believe that playing with poorly designed rules is a taste thing.

That assumes we agree on whether or not the rules are poorly designed - which around here seems to be more of a taste thing. Do you like 1e, 2e, 3e, or 4e design or not? There are ample justifications, in the rules and their design, to prefer any single one of them over the others.

Yeah the question comes back to poorly designed for whom? Everyone has rules & mechanics they think are cool that may turn others off the game completely. I think there is a bit more objectivity regarding what a poor rule is in competetive games. Even then, the objectives of play need to be considered before judging a rule. In a historical wargame designed to recreate actual scenarios one side or the other may be severely disadvantaged in setup. If thats the way it actually happened and historical accuracy is important to the game then such an advantage isn't the result of poor rules design.

This is why objectives of play are so important to define before constructing rules. If two people approach the same ruleset with different objectives of play, the one whose objectives align closest to that of the game designer will most likely enjoy the game more.

 

[Dausuul]

Yeah the question comes back to poorly designed for whom? Everyone has rules & mechanics they think are cool that may turn others off the game completely. I think there is a bit more objectivity regarding what a poor rule is in competetive games. Even then, the objectives of play need to be considered before judging a rule. In a historical wargame designed to recreate actual scenarios one side or the other may be severely disadvantaged in setup. If thats the way it actually happened and historical accuracy is important to the game then such an advantage isn't the result of poor rules design.

This is certainly true, but one should also consider that there are cases where rules are designed with a purpose in mind and fail at that purpose. CR is an excellent example. The CR system is supposed to tell the DM how much of a threat a given monster will pose to a party of a given level. It works sort of okay at low levels, starts to come apart in the mid-level range, and completely stops working past about level 10. That is a poorly designed system, not because its objectives are wrong--that's a matter of taste and preference--but because it does not achieve its objectives.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This is certainly true, but one should also consider that there are cases where rules are designed with a purpose in mind and fail at that purpose. CR is an excellent example. The CR system is supposed to tell the DM how much of a threat a given monster will pose to a party of a given level. It works sort of okay at low levels, starts to come apart in the mid-level range, and completely stops working past about level 10. That is a poorly designed system, not because its objectives are wrong--that's a matter of taste and preference--but because it does not achieve its objectives.

Agreed. If a rule or an entire concept even, does not do what you want it to do then its time to go back to the drawing board. In this case we have a construct that only works with specific data (meaning you are always playing the iconics with thier assigned abilities/gear at a given level) making it useless for general campaign play. The entire concept was too fragile and unforgiving to be helpful in most cases. The smallest bit of playtesting with a nonstandard PC group would (or should) have revealed this.

 

[Argyle King]

So, tonight was a new session. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot to add to my previous posts. There wasn't a lot of rolling or mechanics involved tonight, and the group I was seated with did a lot of roleplaying (which I found to be very refreshing.)

The only thing which stayed in my mind from tonight's session (aside from the roleplaying -which was very good; I was very happy with the group of people I was seated with tonight,) was that the zombies -even with their special ability to not die sometimes- are a bit underwhelming in 5th Edition. Though, to be fair, I suspect that the party's composition was probably specialized in such a way to easily handle most combat challenges. Tonight's party consisted of a barbarian, a fighter, a rogue/monk (my character), and a barbarian/fighter.

 

[Hussar]

Which is essentially what I meant.

To me, any time the designers pass the buck off to the person running the game, that's poor design.

Is it more flexible? Well sure. But so what? Your presumption here is that someone with far less experience with the game you made can diagnose the issue properly and apply a ruling which is as good or better than what the game designer could come up with. Not only that but can do so IN PLAY.

It's a completely unrealistic presumption and poor game design. At the very least provide suggestions. Simply leaving it up to the DM to make stuff up is lazy game design.

 

[Sadras]

...(snip)... The only thing which stayed in my mind from tonight's session (aside from the roleplaying -which was very good; I was very happy with the group of people I was seated with tonight,) was that the zombies -even with their special ability to not die sometimes- are a bit underwhelming in 5th Edition. ...(snip)...

The monsters are definitely underwhelming in 5th Edition, but i do not believe they worked on the Beastiary all that much for the playtests. As a DM you definitely have to toughen them up a bit - drawing from previous editions monster manuals helps.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The monsters are definitely underwhelming in 5th Edition, but i do not believe they worked on the Beastiary all that much for the playtests. As a DM you definitely have to toughen them up a bit - drawing from previous editions monster manuals helps.

As does giving them the appropriate proficiency bonus for their HD to attacks, a save or two, and whatever skills make sense.

 

[Lokiare]

As does giving them the appropriate proficiency bonus for their HD to attacks, a save or two, and whatever skills make sense.

So basically throwing them out and redesigning them from scratch? yeah... See Hussar's post above...