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

[Sorinth]

I'm of the opinion that a lot of problems could be solved if the spell DC was based at least partly on on the level of the spell slot used. You'd still have to adjust the CC spells where upcasting gets to target an additional creature, but generally speaking a low level CC spell should have almost no chance of succeeding against a high level boss monster, you need to use a high level spell/spell slot if you want a decent chance at CC the boss.

Failing that having a Legendary Actions that can break CC effects works decently.

 

[tetrasodium]

The one D&D campaign I'm in still uses 5.0, so I couldn't say for certain. However, it appears to me that if you increase monster damage and PC magic healing by similar amounts, it might be a was for the day as a whole, but making in-combat healing more relevant.

The increased monster damage is an illusion though because death saves erase it and then some. Having death saves completely overrides that calculation you note from relevance without a solidly supported death at zero/neg10. It's too much benefit for players to allow damage erasure by healing after going down. More often than not it's even common that PCs don't even lose a turn & their action economy is not at all impacted by using a bonus action heal for minimal hp recovery before the downed player's turn comes back around. As long as it happens in that order.

Only addressing part of the whole in 5.024 ultimately just punted the problem into the GM's face while providing an excuse to blame that gm for not forcing the bitter pill on players after wotc refused to make the hard choice

 

[Yaarel]

Personally, I think Initiative and Perception should both be forked out into their own thing. Not directly influenced by stats at all--unless a class feature specifically enables it. Then, bonuses to these things become rare and precious things, something you really value finding, rather than absolute must-have, stack these as high as humanly possible type things.

I would go the other direction. Make Perception and Athletics full abilities. So the number of ability scores increase from 6 to 8.

Strength-Constitution
Dexterity-Athletics
Intelligence-Perception
Charisma-Wisdom

Then the four saving throws are.

Constitution (Fortitude)
Athletics (Reflex)
Perception (versus hiddenness or obscureness)
Wisdom (Will)

Maybe use Perception for initiative, in the sense of detecting the threat.

 

[Minigiant]

know "tradition" is a popular scapegoat 'round these parts, but honestly it's just differing priorities.

While nuking traditional disabling effects would certainly tighten up the combat loop, it would weaken other areas of the game, and those areas are vital, too. D&D is destined to do its best to serve many chefs, because the broadest possible appeal of the game is not necessarily the one with the tightest possible combat engine. This will always be a bee in some folks' bonnet. Which is why everyone has their Fantasy Heartbreaker, more tuned for what they personally want out of D&D, while dropping things that make D&D broadly appealing.

Simplicity and the modularity of the subsystems are similar: these two elements make parts of the game stronger, as much as they compete with, say, folks who really want to lean into strategic min/maxing. Tradition - including traditional disabling effects - has a constructive role to play in actively making the game more fun for some players

My point was that for tradition, simplicity, and lack of modular rules is that ..

5e only supported one subsystem: Vancian magic.

There is the core base rules
Then Vancian spellcasting
And no much else. Maneuvers were barely supported. Infusions was one and done for a long time. Neither used in monsters

Other magic systems, skill systems, martial system, physical or mental systems... Nonexistent officially. Barely supported unofficially.

So the only way to run control magic was the on/off single roll Vancian method and Legendary Resistance as its kludge

 

[Yaarel]

And switch to defenses which spells attack, rather than saving throws that targets must roll. Not only is it simpler and easier to teach, it makes creating support effects for others' abilities significantly easier, AND makes spell design easier to balance.

Totally agree.

 

[tetrasodium]

My point was that for tradition, simplicity, and lack of modular rules is that ..

5e only supported one subsystem: Vancian magic.

There is the core base rules
Then Vancian spellcasting
And no much else. Maneuvers were barely supported. Infusions was one and done for a long time. Neither used in monsters

Other magic systems, skill systems, martial system, physical or mental systems... Nonexistent officially. Barely supported unofficially.

So the only way to run control magic was the on/off single roll Vancian method and Legendary Resistance as its kludge

2e & 3.x were vancian. In 5e everyone was changed to spontaneous & flexible neovancian casting. 4e as ADEU. It would avoid a lot of problems if 5e were vancian

 

[Minigiant]

2e & 3.x were vancian. In 5e everyone was changed to spontaneous & flexible neovancian casting. 4e as ADEU. It would avoid a lot of problems if 5e were vancian

Not really because casters would get more slots per day.

 

[TheSword]

My suggestion would be instead of using legendary resistance to shut down a players success instead use it to give the creature a suite of options. The legendary creature can use a point of legendary resistance at any time to do one of the following…

• Ignore the effect of one condition until the end of its next round.
• Heal 25% of its hp
• Freedom of movement and ignore attacks of opportunity until the end of its next round.

Instead of shutting things down this allows the creature to keep fighting or maybe even live to fight another day which is even better. Powerful effects, but legendary creatures should be powerful as they are intended to fight solo.

 

[Cergorach]

5e only supported one subsystem: Vancian magic.

Because anything else has no place in the core D&D books.

Something like that should be in an optional book like Unearthed Arcana, like it was in 3e but WotC dialed back book production so much that there just isn't any room in the schedule for such a book. It's just not worth the effort as the cost/profit benefit has not been great back in 3e. Such optional rules are now the domain of 3rd party, better accept reality.

Something like this: Using Spheres Of Power - Spheres of Power Wiki

 

[Lanefan]

My opinion is, yes, these spells break the combat system

I'm fine with spells that break the combat system and do things other than straight h.p. damage, even if-when those spells become I-win buttons. Even as a player who likes playing blast-mages, straight h.p. damage is boring; 1e redeems this by having the targets' items have to save if the target fails its own save, which means I'm potentially doing more than just straight damage when I lay waste to the place with a fireball or three.

Why an I fine with these non-damage spells?

Because those same spells can then be turned against the PCs by opponents who can use such.

In a major combat from last session (and the session before, it was a long one!) of a party of 8 I had two dominated and told to walk into a pool (in which they would meet Orcus in person, i.e. immediate end of career) and two stunned (i.e. standing there drooling, unable to act and completely defenseless).

Even with that they all survived, as by the time things got to this point the foes were running out of gas. One of the pool-walkers was rescued just in time, the other was lucky and in magical darkness randomly went the wrong way. But it was edge-of-the-seat stuff, and the players loved it!