D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Minigiant]

Here is the thing: I don't actually see any value in players not being able to target a weak save. It just means that by random chance, sometimes a player character can't contribute with their useful spells. Is that really great? Or alternatively, it means a spell casters entire effectiveness hinges on them optimizing their spell load-out for this one purpose, needing more system mastery and reducing built options.


It's far better if you design the game so that targeting weak saves is feasible but a single save doesn't turn a challenging fight into a cake-walk. It should be a serious of smart decisions that yield victory, not a single decision followed by a single roll. And especially great if the decision is based on stuff happening during gameplay (either advance research or learning the monster's weakness during combat), not as character building exercise.

Oh I am also a proponent of 2 saving throws to get the "Sit Down. You're Done" level of effects.

Fail first Charisma saving throw and you start fading away.
Fail second Charisma saving throw and...

 

[Minigiant]

. The good design would have been accepting that the math starts breaking down beyond level 7-12ish and condensing PC classes down to fewer levels or inserting a cultivation style bottleneck that requires a second step in chargen with a slightly different set of rules/options that allow continued progression without overwhelming the base system and monsters

Or you balance the game as it progresses in power.

IMHO stopping the game at "level 10" is the cowards way out, openly admitting to your aesthetic biases, or stating that there is a very specific vibe you are going for. Because it's not like there aren't options for solutions.

 

[Remathilis]

)There really should be a lot more banishment and binding spells (Charisma saves). Fantasy series deal heavily with binding and banishment.

But that loops us back to the original problem Mearls is trying to fix: one shot fight ending spells. Both hold person/monster and banishment remove a foe from combat to focus fire on other targets, then focus fire on it when other threats are neutralized.

 

[Minigiant]

But that loops us back to the original problem Mearls is trying to fix: one shot fight ending spells. Both hold person/monster and banishment remove a foe from combat to focus fire on other targets, then focus fire on it when other threats are neutralized.

I'd do multiple saves.

Let me show a homebrew example from my table:
Chains of Banishment
4th level Conjuration
Range 30 feet
Duration 1 minute (Concentration)

A tiny portal opens up to another plane at a point within range. Glowing chains spring forth from the portal and attempt to engulf one creature that you can see within 30 feet of that portal. The creature makes a Charisma saving throw reducing the creature's Speed by 20 feet on a failed save or 10 feet on a successful one

On a failed save at the end of the creature's next turn, the creature must make a Strength saving or be dragged into the briefly expanded portal and transported to a random location on a plane (DM’s choice) associated with its creature type.

My group's wizard uses it on seconds of command as the bosses tend to make one of the 2 saving throws.

 

[Scott Christian]

Boatoads is not everybody.

That's why this thread exists.

Because even one of the original designers admitted that parts of the game doesn't work and they had to use an unfun kludge in order to make it kind of work.

Because the designers of the revision of the addition recognize that it was a problem and they gave almost every tier two or greater iconic monster Proficiency in multiple saving throws.

It's just like sports a championship team typically has a couple average or bad players. If one or two of the good players get injured, and you have to play one of those average or bad players more often that team might not make it out the playoffs.

It's not like sports. The designers saying something after the fact is them rewriting memories. Sometimes you rewrite it exactly how it happened, and other times you change your it because your perspectives have changed. In other words, it doesn't matter what the designers say about it now, what matters is what they said about it when they were actually testing and playing the game.

Isn't it a bit odd that they managed to play in a weekly game at work, play in a weekly game at home, and play sometimes for large audiences, and it all worked just fine? But now, as they reflect on it, it doesn't?

If you dislike it, you are free to change it however you see fit. It is the beauty of the game. But to say that this would have tanked the entire game is not an accurate statement. I doubt it would have even moved the needle, as there was too large of a confluence of forces that made the game as large as what it was, and still is.