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

[Zardnaar]

Or decouple saves from ability scores altogether and put them at fixed values, possibly by class and level - more akin to 1E/2E. Just be less arbitrary with the save names (I'd be comfortable with using Fort, Reflex, Will and have spells target one of the three).

Im leaning towards something similar.

 

[Distracted DM]

Its also adding complexity for complexity sake.

You would have to add a lot of spells. Theres around 9 that target intelligence iirc.

I've had this problem with A5E, which successfully spreads feature saves out among the 6 stats: if something targets Intelligence, it's too good. The vast majority of enemies will have almost no chance at passing. Creatures will have decent wisdom or charisma, or at least not negative.. but intelligence is the lowest stat except for a few baddies.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've had this problem with A5E, which successfully spreads feature saves out among the 6 stats: if something targets Intelligence, it's too good. The vast majority of enemies will have almost no chance at passing. Creatures will have decent wisdom or charisma, or at least not negative.. but intelligence is the lowest stat except for a few baddies.

Yeah 5.5 take tashas mindwhip. Add sorcerer and twin+heighten spell.

Easy mode rest of game.

 

[mamba]

That's not luck, that's actual good design: you get the bits right that most of the people are going to use most of the time, then let the other bits (that people don't use nearly as often) fend for themselves.

1e and 3e did much the same thing. They got low-mid level right - which is where the vast majority of play occurs - and didn't worry nearly as much about high level where the wheels fall off.

I don’t know, if you designed a car where the wheels come off at high speeds, I don’t think the defense ‘but only 10% or so ever get to those speeds, this is good design’ would get much traction…

 

[Minigiant]

This reads a lot like "6 is better than 3 if d&d d&d 5e had done something hypothetical that it didn't do and that hypothetical did not also create a bunch of new problems instead of being pixie dust" it falls apart immediately because players are still equipped with neovancian prep and could have enough of the S A+ and A tier spells while the missing safeguards assure the most optimal slot distribution. Your still relying on safeguards like vancian prep to make it work but those aren't present in 5e either. All your hypothetical pixie dust would do is create more top tier spells and make it even easier to target weak saves

S tier and A+ spells arev more of a problem with three saves because you don't need to prepare as many to always target the week save.

If I only have to worry about fortitude reflex and will, I only need to prepare one strong fortitude control spell, one strong reflex control spell, and one strong will control spell. Throw in a spell that bypasses spell resistance and your whole control kit is for four spells.

With six saves, that minimum amount of spells needed to hit every target is now Seven.

The 2024 Balor has Magic Resistance

STR26+8+8
DEX15+2+2
CON22+6+12
INT20+5+5
WIS16+3+9
CHA22+6+6

Meaning that you have to prep a dexterity spell to damage him and intelligence spell to control him.

1. Stick with six saving throws
2. Give every legendary monster Proficiency with at least 3 saving throws.
3. Give every legendary monster either
   1. Magic Resistance
   2. 1 addition saving throw Proficiency
   3. A whole mess of condition immunity

This is bizarre. 5e combat is far more static than it was in the past and a big part of that is the fact that PCs don't need to consider OAs as meaningful risk on the odd chance they are even subject to them now that AoOs are gone. If the goal is to make combat involve more dynamic fluid movement it needs to provide positive design for that supported by tactical elements like draw steel rather than stripping all of the tactical elements and adding a time suck

5e is static because of paranoia.
Really opportunity attack from Monsters don't deal that much damage. And melee characters tend to have crazy high ACs anyway.

3e actually was static because Full Attack and TWF were full round actions. You lost one to three attacks if you moved more than 5 ft.

 

[Minigiant]

Or decouple saves from ability scores altogether and put them at fixed values, possibly by class and level - more akin to 1E/2E. Just be less arbitrary with the save names (I'd be comfortable with using Fort, Reflex, Will and have spells target one of the three).

That works too

Just not back to 3 saves.

3 is too low of a number. It's too easy to game.

 

[Scott Christian]

No. That could be easily ruined 5th edition and had it go down as a worse failure as 4th edition.

5th edition was the best selling RPG of all time because the first few levels of it is easy to teach to a new player and Wizards of the Coast spent more marketing to D&D then every company to every other RPG combined.

Hot take: if the issues in Tier 2 5th edition happen in Tier 1, 5e sells less than 4e. 5e is lucky that most of the criticisms arrive with it happen around the time most campaigns end.

We're just going to have to disagree on this. There are boatloads of players that are perfectly happy with all the tiers in 5e, both 2014 and 2024.

 

[Minigiant]

We're just going to have to disagree on this. There are boatloads of players that are perfectly happy with all the tiers in 5e, both 2014 and 2024.

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.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

S tier and A+ spells arev more of a problem with three saves because you don't need to prepare as many to always target the week save.

If I only have to worry about fortitude reflex and will, I only need to prepare one strong fortitude control spell, one strong reflex control spell, and one strong will control spell. Throw in a spell that bypasses spell resistance and your whole control kit is for four spells.

With six saves, that minimum amount of spells needed to hit every target is now Seven.

The 2024 Balor has Magic Resistance

STR26+8+8
DEX15+2+2
CON22+6+12
INT20+5+5
WIS16+3+9
CHA22+6+6

Meaning that you have to prep a dexterity spell to damage him and intelligence spell to control him.

1. Stick with six saving throws
2. Give every legendary monster Proficiency with at least 3 saving throws.
3. Give every legendary monster either
   1. Magic Resistance
   2. 1 addition saving throw Proficiency
   3. A whole mess of condition immunity

5e is static because of paranoia.
Really opportunity attack from Monsters don't deal that much damage. And melee characters tend to have crazy high ACs anyway.

3e actually was static because Full Attack and TWF were full round actions. You lost one to three attacks if you moved more than 5 ft.

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.

 

[tetrasodium]

That's not luck, that's actual good design: you get the bits right that most of the people are going to use most of the time, then let the other bits (that people don't use nearly as often) fend for themselves.

1e and 3e did much the same thing. They got low-mid level right - which is where the vast majority of play occurs - and didn't worry nearly as much about high level where the wheels fall off.

Nah, I'm going to disagree with this because it's somewhat reliant on the assumption of correlation equals causation where the wheels come off the system after the gm runs out of steam with no allowance for the possibility that the campaigns themselves break down at about the same level ranges simply because the gm burns out keeping them attached while players grow more and more frustrated with all the duct tape and chewing gum their gm is using. 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.