D&D 5E My (Personal) Early Evaluation of the D&D 5thEd System – Wall of Text

[Satyrn]

"Wall of Text" oughta be a spell...

It'd be particularly nasty against targets who, like me, who notice grammer errors and must piont them out to the people around me.

 

[guachi]

A) The game provides guidelines in 5e but it seems that in 3e there were such extensive examples and it didn't work as well as it was hoped. So they changed it.

B) My experience, both in real life and online, is that your examples don't hold. Sorcerers are fantastic buffers with twin spell. That you don't see it is the fault of the PCs you play with.

Fighters can fight with any weapons well. That you only weapon/shield or two-handed sword isn't the fault of the game it's the players you play with. Fighters can two-weapon fight, use bows, crossbows, or polearms with the best of them.

C) I don't miss the "build" sub-game whatsoever. While it's fun to fantasize about what your PC can be if I really wanted to do that I'd just play a PC game as it's much better at the mechanical fiddly bits.

D) I can see this as a downside. But since I'm storytelling with people it's about what you'd expect, no?

E) There is no universe where a 3rd level fighter (say, a Battlemaster) should be worse than a 1st level Rogue. The fighter can swing twice with two-weapon fighting just like a rogue can. Plus, the fighter will get stat bonus to the second attack. With a short sword that's 2d6+6 potential damage. The rogue is 3d6+3 potential damage, or only 0.5 higher. And that doesn't account for Action Surge or any of the Battlemasters maneuvers.

F) I don't see why you wouldn't have any idea. Your DM should give you some idea of how hard things are. But in any event your comments boil down to "the DM is bad".

G) You can get better at all skills by increasing your ability scores, which all PCs can do. You can use the Skilled feat. Many subclasses get skills as they level. It's the opposite of "almost impossibly" difficult.

H) I don't like AL, either. It's unfortunate as it's potentially a great place to meet players, though complaints a) (no games to find) and c) (paying $5) have basically nothing to do with the game itself.

 

[S'mon]

I think the one thing I'd agree with is that the Skills section could have done with an extra page or two to provide some sample DCs and more indication of how checks might take longer than 1 Action. As it stands, the Stealth-in-Combat rules are weirdly detailed while I have almost nothing on how picking locks might work.

 

[CapnZapp]

My (Personal) Early Evaluation

Early?

 

[CapnZapp]

8.  Combat is deadly or at least a clearly high risk option. I like that. It encourages the players to try and find other ways to resolve situations. (In the ‘default style’ of PF play, the party expects to fairly easily win most fights. This encourages the ‘murder-hobo’ approach to most problems.)

9.  Lower level opponents really are a threat. Several level 1 or 2 guardsmen can easily defeat or at least severely injure a 4th level player. (In PF, NPC’s that are a few levels below you are nearly negligible. They are unlikely to noticeably injure you and a couple rounds of rolling dice will see them eliminated.)

This here really tells us you have only played a little, and only at low level...

Cons:

A.  In many ways the rules are too simple. Since there is no rule for even fairly simple activities, I as the player have no real idea how high of a DC the DM will set for many common things. For examples: Throwing a grappling hook up on to the roof and climbing the attached rope. As a real person, with only little bit of experimentation, I would have a pretty good idea of how difficult that would be for me to attempt. I have had DM’s set the DC as low as a single DC 10 check to high as 3 DC 18 checks in very nearly identical circumstances. One didn’t even require any check at all “Oh yeah you are experienced guys, you can do that no problem.”

Actually, 5E is SUPER SIMPLE in this regard. You only ever need three DCs:

DC 12 for the normal usual stuff (not DC 10 as the rulebook tells you since that means a Commoner would auto-succeed a passive check)

DC 15 for stuff difficult for commoners. Heroic stuff

DC 20 for "impossible" superheroics.

That's it. Really. Try it.

PS. Any time you're hesitating or just don't know, go with DC 15.

C.  Character build ‘sub-game’ is absent in D&D 5thEd. I am lucky to have time to game once a week. Usually more like once every two weeks. In PF, I can spend a lot of the in between time building characters, thinking about new uses for spells, possible combinations of archtype, feat, race, etc… Then I can also spend time discussing those possibilities with others in person or online. I can kill lots of little bites of free time working on things for PF even when I can’t be gaming. In D&D 5th Ed, the builds are so simple and similar that none of that really applies to any great extent. Considering a sword and board warrior type? Bam. Here it is. Done. I can understand why some people like that simplicity, but for me it eliminates a large part of what attracts me to RPG’s in general.

Hands down true.

Just that this is considered a feature and not a bug.

Personally, I'm the DM and I refuse the d20 way of creating NPCs and monsters. So for me it's all good. My players loved the crunch of d20, though.

The ideal game is simple like 5E except for the player "front end". WotC should publish an Advanced Player's Handbook where all the classes are reimagined with lost more knobs and levers, yet remain within the same numeric boundaries (as to remain compatible with the rest of 5E).

That way one character could use simple PHB builds (with advantage and clear-cut "either on or off" abilities) while another uses crunchy APHB builds (where advantage is replaced by a much more intricate "hunt the +1 bonus" build-game, and so on).

D.  See number 5. Above “…Much is left up to the DM’s discretion in how to rule or resolve a given situation. If you have a really good DM that is creative, consistent, and good at ‘theatre of the mind’ descriptions – this is wondrous…” The converse of this is that if you do not have a DM that is creative, consistent, and good at ‘theatre of the mind’ descriptions – it can easily end up kinda lame. Some DM’s almost shut down if there is no rule, “you can’t do that.” Some DM’s are giving wildly different DC’s for nearly identical things even within the same session, just because they can’t remember last time or get bored with characters repeating actions. If the DM can’t imagine how something might be possibly accomplished and there isn’t a rule, they might just set the DC impossibly high.

Sorry but few of us want to go back to impossibly byzanthine rulesets aiming to replace DM judgement. That train has left the station, I'm afraid.

I'm all for player-side crunch, but I will never again need the nitty gritty of complicted rules and tables full of modifiers.

Give the players all the little +1s and -1s to keep em busy, just as long as my monsters can keep using advantage and disadvantage to replace ALL OF THAT behind my DM screen...

F.  I dislike the fact that since there are no difficulties set for almost anything (all DM discretion), I as the player have no idea if I can accomplish the individual items in the plan we are developing. Kicking in the exterior door into the manor house and the interior pantry door were both a DC 17 (It unexpectedly took us 3 tries for the big strong barbarian to bash his way into the simple pantry). Climbing a knotted rope was a DC 15 (we expected a knotted rope to be pretty easy). Climbing a simple tree was a DC 12 even though almost any 6 year can do it without falling to his death 50% of the time.

No no no... that level of detail accomplishes nothing.

Go with DC 12 DC 15 DC 20... I promise you will find it a huge relief

G.  Skills - I dislike the fact that it is almost impossibly difficult to ever get better at anything but my initial few skills. Yes, I can take one of my very feat choices to make it trained skill. But that is a fairly serious impact to his primary utility as a fighter, sorcerer, or whatever. In PF, my barbarian can keep throwing a few points into studying about undead creatures (even though it is not something barbarians are normally good at) and eventually get pretty decent at knowing the weaknesses of most of his undead enemies. Even your trained skills are not going to get much better. Your 17th level wizard is probably only slightly better at knowing anything about dragons than he was at 1st level.

Again you have a point...

Just as long as the crunch remain squarely at the player's end of the table

d.  I am really growing to really hate how treasure/reward is handled in AL.

This is completely FUBAR. It's not just the AL.

WotC promised compatibility with d20 but has yet to publish a magic item pricing and creation system that fixes 3.5 and does away with rarity altogether.

Not to speak of the abomination that is Xanathar's "treasure points" - I promise you won't like it when the AL adopts that...

 

[Tallifer]

This here really tells us you have only played a little, and only at low level...Actually, 5E is SUPER SIMPLE in this regard. You only ever need three DCs:

DC 12 for the normal usual stuff (not DC 10 as the rulebook tells you since that means a Commoner would auto-succeed a passive check)

DC 15 for stuff difficult for commoners. Heroic stuff

DC 20 for "impossible" superheroics.

That's it. Really. Try it.

PS. Any time you're hesitating or just don't know, go with DC 15.Hands down true.

Just that this is considered a feature and not a bug.

Go with DC 12 DC 15 DC 20... I promise you will find it a huge reliefAgain you have a point...

I think you are missing the original poster's complaint about DCs. He is a plau\yer not a DM, and it is the arbitrary nature of 5E such that all the DMs with whom he plays use different DCs for the same situation. Advice about 5/10/15/20 misses the point that he as a player cannot tell his DM to do that. In Pathfinder, there are more detailed lists of situations and DCs, so that the players can decide before attempting anything to difficult or can improve their chances.

 

[Oofta]

I think you are missing the original poster's complaint about DCs. He is a plau\yer not a DM, and it is the arbitrary nature of 5E such that all the DMs with whom he plays use different DCs for the same situation. Advice about 5/10/15/20 misses the point that he as a player cannot tell his DM to do that. In Pathfinder, there are more detailed lists of situations and DCs, so that the players can decide before attempting anything to difficult or can improve their chances.

But no set of rules can ever be completely comprehensive, it just leads to needless page flipping. In any case, I think DMs should broadcast difficulty if it's something that have a significant cost to failure. A few bad DMs doesn't make a design bad.

 

[5ekyu]

But no set of rules can ever be completely comprehensive, it just leads to needless page flipping. In any case, I think DMs should broadcast difficulty if it's something that have a significant cost to failure. A few bad DMs doesn't make a design bad.

Also, if a gm can ignore the list of easy moderate hard etc znd the values assigned then that same gm csn choose to ignore a set CD value.

As for mystery dcs, if a gm is not running a consistent enough set of DCs threm yeah, there should be an assessment possible. That would be a good place for variant ability scores, using say wisdom or intelligence with the related proficiency.

 

[S'mon]

I think you are missing the original poster's complaint about DCs. He is a plau\yer not a DM, and it is the arbitrary nature of 5E such that all the DMs with whom he plays use different DCs for the same situation. Advice about 5/10/15/20 misses the point that he as a player cannot tell his DM to do that.

I do think 5e would have benefitted from more guidance on setting DCs. I had a lot of experience setting DCs coming out of 4e which helped a lot, but there is not much for a new GM to decide what 'easy' or 'hard' means. Referring to monster save DCs in the MM can help, eg low level monster save DCs are in the 11-13 range, which a GM might not realise is an appropriate range for a lot of checks. Likewise a level 20 PC spellcaster's save DCs cap at 19 with +6 Prof +5 attribute. Seeing that it's easier to realise that ability DCs in low level adventures should be around 10-13 if PCs are expected to pass them frequently, likewise high level DCs 17-20.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think you are missing the original poster's complaint about DCs. He is a plau\yer not a DM, and it is the arbitrary nature of 5E such that all the DMs with whom he plays use different DCs for the same situation. Advice about 5/10/15/20 misses the point that he as a player cannot tell his DM to do that. In Pathfinder, there are more detailed lists of situations and DCs, so that the players can decide before attempting anything to difficult or can improve their chances.

Okay, that's a fair point.

Then I guess the player needs to learn to ask his DM instead of consulting books.

The idea that a player could overrule his DM using rules quotes was never a good idea in the first place.

But you're right, if that is what one was used to, then the complaint makes sense.

(Do note that if WOtC had written what I just wrote, "use DC 15 unless you're sure it's easy or super-hard", the DCs would still be arbitrary (which 5E will never change), but much less varying (which is a thing I can sympathize with)).