D&D General Let's Talk About How to "Fix" D&D

[fearsomepirate]

I thought about the druid but I just don't like the implementation in 5e. I like my druids 2E ish rather than shape-shifting combat monsters. I'll look again at the nature domain.

Spell wise I was more thinking stuff like Create Food and Water and Tiny Hut that make travel through the wilderness too easy.

5e's "exploration pillar" seems to be "exploration is boring, and we couldn't think of a good system, so uh...let's just get rid of it by 5th level."

I refuse to play a Moon Druid on principle.

 

[Reynard]

5e's "exploration pillar" seems to be "exploration is boring, and we couldn't think of a good system, so uh...let's just get rid of it by 5th level."

I refuse to play a Moon Druid on principle.

My aim is to rebuild the exploration pillar in 5E because I really do like most of 5E -- it is simple and clean in most places, and generally makes me feel like I can run it like I ran BECMI or 2E. But exploration... oof.

 

[Justice and Rule]

My aim is to rebuild the exploration pillar in 5E because I really do like most of 5E -- it is simple and clean in most places, and generally makes me feel like I can run it like I ran BECMI or 2E. But exploration... oof.

Yeah. Stuff like Outlander background really gets away from using exploration and travel as something.

 

[Asisreo]

As a player, I hate "milestone" with a mildly burning passion. I can't have fun knowing anything I do that isn't conducive to moving the DM's story along will be harshly punished every time.

Yes, during milestone, every stop for roleplay, every time you take in the scenery, every combat, even every time the DM describes lore they worked on...you're being punished. Because all that time you're doing nothing is essentially wasted. You're not in a state that has made you stronger or more prepared for dangers than you were before. The only difference is you ate away an hour off of everyone's time at the table.

Its true that it doesn't have to be a punishment, but it might as well always be because no DM gives even small rewards for showing interest in roleplay or lore. Maybe if they'd give inspiration or revealed useful information whenever we engaged in those activities, we'd be able to feel justified in playing the game for fun. But those DM's are rare.

I try to be that type of DM to be generous with rewards even when its extraneous to the "main quest." You'd think that would slow them down, but its exciting. Its fulfilling for the players. Its fun.

The stories of DM's aren't fun. I'm sorry to say it but its just not fun to listen to a DM's story because its usually filled with tryhard story writing designed to prove they are "better than other storytellers." Which they aren't.

Sorry, I'm coming after y'all, though. Your story isn't good enough to hold up as a linear storyline with ill-developed characters (players) and one-sided conflicts (always win or end of story). Its much better to let the character develop and grow alongside the story than treat TVTropes as a minefield.

 

[Asisreo]

5e's "exploration pillar" seems to be "exploration is boring, and we couldn't think of a good system, so uh...let's just get rid of it by 5th level."

I refuse to play a Moon Druid on principle.

I would like to give my personal advice I use to make exploration much better in my games. What makes you consider exploration boring or bad?

 

[R_J_K75]

It's not just 5e; single-monster encounters have been relatively weak since forever.

I suspect - but this is just a vaguely-educated guess - it's become more apparent as an issue in 5e due to the sometimes-stupendous amounts of damage a party can reliably (due to low monster AC) dish out in a hurry, relative to the monster's h.p. total.

Ive never particularly liked the concept of "balanced" encounters if only because they arent balanced no matter what system the come up with. Theres just no way to tell a groups party make up. I suppose the ECL and CR ratings are just guidelines to get you in the ballpark. I like scaring my players with monsters every once in awhile just so they have to very carefully consider their next move.

 

[Zardnaar]

One thing I didn't like in 3e, and it reared its head again in 5e, are the gulf in saving throws. This is just my opinion, but you are too likely to fail your "bad" saving throws.

Another issue is "how many encounters per day", which might actually be a GMing problem, but if so, it's a common one. IME it's:
1. Hard to introduce so many encounters in one day. Since this is so common, I would hope WotC would come up with a smaller figure.
2. Low-level characters cannot withstand as many encounters as high-level characters per day, even assuming each encounter is "balanced" for their level, so simply saying 4, 6, or 8 encounters per day is not that useful.

On Solos:
IME, 4e characters always performed about the same against regular monsters of their level, but 1st-level characters were wiped by 1st-level solos, and 9th-level characters laughed at 13th-level solos. And this was the edition with good solo design (probably the first edition where this was specifically taken into account when designing monsters).

The gap in saving throws were pointed out in the playtest.

Personally I like a 3-4 point gap in good and bad saves probably 2 point via class and up to 5 points via ability bscores.

Still bad imho come to think about it.

It's one thing I really noticed in OSR games.

 

[Zardnaar]

As a player, I hate "milestone" with a mildly burning passion. I can't have fun knowing anything I do that isn't conducive to moving the DM's story along will be harshly punished every time.

Yes, during milestone, every stop for roleplay, every time you take in the scenery, every combat, even every time the DM describes lore they worked on...you're being punished. Because all that time you're doing nothing is essentially wasted. You're not in a state that has made you stronger or more prepared for dangers than you were before. The only difference is you ate away an hour off of everyone's time at the table.

Its true that it doesn't have to be a punishment, but it might as well always be because no DM gives even small rewards for showing interest in roleplay or lore. Maybe if they'd give inspiration or revealed useful information whenever we engaged in those activities, we'd be able to feel justified in playing the game for fun. But those DM's are rare.

I try to be that type of DM to be generous with rewards even when its extraneous to the "main quest." You'd think that would slow them down, but its exciting. Its fulfilling for the players. Its fun.

The stories of DM's aren't fun. I'm sorry to say it but its just not fun to listen to a DM's story because its usually filled with tryhard story writing designed to prove they are "better than other storytellers." Which they aren't.

Sorry, I'm coming after y'all, though. Your story isn't good enough to hold up as a linear storyline with ill-developed characters (players) and one-sided conflicts (always win or end of story). Its much better to let the character develop and grow alongside the story than treat TVTropes as a minefield.

I tend to run open world sandbox pick a path. I provide the backdrop (autocrat like that) but generally give the PCs the option from a menu with various plot hooks they can follow up on.

The less players more roleplaying and world building. Larger groups more focus on combat.

I do have a rule about how much time you can chew up doing various stuff at an individual level.

I ignore that if everyones involved and having fun. It's mostly to stop a player chewing up half an hour wanting to buy a sword or whatever.

Basically you get a minute in combat and around 5 minutes out of combat to do whatever (individually).

 

[fearsomepirate]

I would like to give my personal advice I use to make exploration much better in my games. What makes you consider exploration boring or bad?

Exploration in 5e amounts to tracking encumbrance, rolling wandering monster/getting lost checks, and making Survival checks to find food. It's boring.

 

[Lanefan]

Exploration in 5e amounts to tracking encumbrance, rolling wandering monster/getting lost checks, and making Survival checks to find food. It's boring.

To be fair, some of that's on the DM to make it not boring. Also, I'm not sure you can blame this only on 5e; if one was in a grumpy mood one could say pretty much the same thing about all the prior editions as well.

What has been lost - not so much in wilderness exploration but in dungeon exploration - is the concept of players making a map of where they've been; a map that ends up being a real tangible thing the players at the table can look at and engage with.