D&D 5E (2014) Odd things in the rules that bug you?

[tetrasodium]

See nothing in what you say there sounds prefereable to me.

Like it or not they are factors that should have been given weight before putting 5es weirdly skewed damage and excessive energy resistance into place

 

[Don Durito]

Like it or not they are factors that should have been given weight before putting 5es weirdly skewed damage and excessive energy resistance into place

I'm not really sure what you're arguing. I don't really think that Great Weapon Fighter is a worse problem than Power Attack was in 3E. I think it's basically the same problem. I don't think it really mitigates it if there were other alternative builds. Builds are the problem - characters built to do one thing until the player gets bored of it (which usually doesn't take very long).

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not really sure what you're arguing. I don't really think that Great Weapon Fighter is a worse problem than Power Attack was in 3E. I think it's basically the same problem. I don't think it really mitigates it if there were other alternative builds. Builds are the problem - characters built to do one thing until the player gets bored of it (which usually doesn't take very long).

When they changed the math to extra attacks & removed the power attack tohit penalty they made evry attack the first attack but kept pretending the dpr tightrope between reliable many attacks playing the odds vrs fewer attacks that pack a big punch was the same. Look at eldritch blast being 1/2/3/4x (1d10+cha) force vrs every other cantrip as a simple example & consider that +1/+2/+3 or +dice weapons also multiply their impact with each attack. If your still not getting it, descent into avernus really puts a spotlight on it where +x melee weapons are really common & nearly every creature has magic resist along with significant energy resists start to finish... pay attention to the real damage output of casters vrs everyone else to see just how bad it gets.

 

[Don Durito]

When they changed the math to extra attacks & removed the power attack tohit penalty they made evry attack the first attack but kept pretending the dpr tightrope between reliable many attacks playing the odds vrs fewer attacks that pack a big punch was the same.Look at eldritch blast being 1/2/3/4x (1d10+cha) force vrs every other cantrip as a simple example & consider that +1/+2/+3 or +dice weapons also multiply their impact with each attack

Ok good point.

But I think the frustrating thing is that the lesson had been learnt already. You have to be very careful with things that a PC can do at-will - because it leads very easily to gimmicky builds and players optimising the fun out the game. 4E was designed in part to mitigate this issue (and didn't entirely succeed - it was possibly to make a 4E character significantly less fun to play by optimising it around feats). 13th Age largely solved this issue. 5E mostly solved this issue if you play without feats (or multiclass warlocks), but it left too much in the sphere of feats to make it particularly attractive to play without them.

 

[Minigiant]

Conceptually, this doesn't bother me. If a spear and shield work, so should a staff and spear. It shouldn't do the same damage, though. Spears are underpowered.

We've covered this before elsewhere, but the problem is that there isn't quite enough granularity. The weapons should be: truncheon/club, cane/bat/staff, quarterstaff, and greatclub. The trouble is that club is d4, mace is d6, quarterstaff is d6/d8, and greatclub is d8. Club is already unplayable compared to dagger, and greatclub being limited to d8 is very restrictive. Simply put there's not really a tremendously good reason for simple weapons to be worse than martial ones. Like I'm ready to discard that notion. I'd rather say that certain classes just get more interesting benefits from weapons.

There would be reasons for simple weapons to be weaker than martial if the designers added one extra level of complexity to the game.

But it seems that 5e was designed with a bunch of simple, half done rules so "newcomers" would have an easier time learning it.

Getting martial weapon and armor proficiencies is too easy. There are too few weapons and armors. There are too few weapon properties. There are no armor properties.

I get it. Fine. Make the base game simple for new players.The can play the base game with no feats and no MCing.
But where the heck are the advance variants for us vets. The variant that makes weapon damage type matter. The extra layers, options, and complexity of weapons, tools, and armors.

Sure I'm the DM. I could do these things. DM empowerment and all that jazz. But why am I doing these things? Do you guys want my money? I am going to end up giving Morrus my money because WOTC wont make basic variant to fill the holes they purposely left in 5e. It's like bizarro 2e and backwards 3e.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Dex to hit (fo certain weapons) and strength for damage worked fine, really. There were reasons for everyone to have a little dex as it was in 3e, too.

Dex to hit and to damage without anything like a feat tax is nuts, given everything else dex does.

Yeah, but Dexterity-to-hit and Strength-to-damage leads to the trap of monks and rogues who can't deal meaningful damage, and trap options are bad.

While it might be fair to require a feat tax to allow focusing on just one stat, feats aren't part of the core game in 5E, so they can't use that as a solution. And without that, it would be a trap.

Like I said, I know why they did it. It just creates a lot of problem with the narrative.

 

[ph0rk]

Yeah, but Dexterity-to-hit and Strength-to-damage leads to the trap of monks and rogues who can't deal meaningful damage, and trap options are bad.

By that same token a strength sword and board melee character is somewhat bad.

Rogues have sneak attack under the current system - they don't need dex mod to damage. Monks could just as easily have used wisdom to damage with monk weapons and unarmed strikes. Making strength essentially a dump stat is a bad fix for something that wasn't really a problem in the first place.

Allowing dexterity (acrobatics) to oppose grapple and shove attacks takes the cake.

You can still build a warlock without eldritch blast - they don't seem to have a problem with allowing the player to make less effective characters.

 

[FarBeyondC]

That a longbow only needs dex to use. Traditional longbows took so much strength that it deformed the skeletons of trained archers, draw weights of 150 pounds or more were common.

I think the assumption here (and like most assumptions the game makes, it's probably a bad/unrealistic assumption) is that enough adventurers are at the level of strength needed to fully draw a longbow long enough to get an effective shot (or several) off with one. After all, when someone with a Strength of 5 can technically lift, pull, or push 150 pounds around for extended periods (at heavily reduced speeds), it's not too much of a stretch to say that same individual could- in short, likely adrenaline fueled bursts- manage to reasonably reliably get 150 pound draws.

That if you can get your AC high enough that someone needs a natural 20 to hit, they either crit you or miss. Bugs the hell out of me.

I remember in one of the last playtests, they had it so that natural 20's always hit but the attacker still had to meet your AC in order to critically hit. When I finally figured out that they changed that to the way it stands now, I'll admit I was a bit bugged out by it, but eventually managed to accept it.

My issue is still the class system and being able to go Barbarian to Wizard with no training

Any training necessary to go from one class to another (or even to advance in the class(es) you already have) is assumed to be happening during adventures and downtime.

Can't we just have "armor/no armor" and let the class decide what our AC is supposed to be?

Same with weapons... Do we really need to know that greataxe is d12, but maul is 2d6? Just assign a damage dice based on the class, let the players decide what their weapons looks like.

No thank you. I wouldn't mind classes giving bonuses to using certain armors/weapons or even minimum stats for a given armor/weapon, but straight up defining AC and weapon damage? That's going to be a 'nope' from me.

You can't improve life skills without getting better at combat or finding magic items. Want to blacksmith? You need to level to improve your proficiency, feats, or ASI. You can't just blacksmith and get better.

You could; the DM would just have to come up with rules for creating non-adventuring player characters, as those currently don't exist.

While it might be fair to require a feat tax to allow focusing on just one stat, feats aren't part of the core game in 5E, so they can't use that as a solution. And without that, it would be a trap.

This reminds me, feats and multiclassing being declared as optional rules bugs me more than anything else in the game, both because it means they aren't truly fully considered when gauging the balance of classes and other features and because it means I'm effectively stuck to playing one (well, supposedly two when Tasha's drops) races for any concept that only works if I start with a specific one.

The Banishment spell. The CHA save is weird enough, although we could probably start an entire thread on which saving throws make more sense for what, but what bugs me is the character being incapacitated. Why? They're already removed from the encounter, why can't they take any actions where they are? Buff, heal, explore, ready an action? Nope, you just lose your turn because that's fun. Sure I could come up with a narrative reason, but it just makes for boring gameplay.

Because having the creature be able to dispel your banishment spell or nullify it through some other means (like plane shift) to come right back defeats the purpose.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It hurts my brain to think that the designers honestly think a 40 hour work week is the norm not just throughout the world, but throughout history.

It’s hard to believe that anyone wiyld

The whole "invisible but not hidden" deal is something I can’t quite wrap my head around.

Makes sense to me. If you aren’t moving quietly how on earth would you be hidden?

I've almost considered requiring those who can take the prestidigitation cantrip to take it. Sure, being able to throw acid in your opponents' faces at will is nice, but in the real world prestidigitation would be much more valued. After a long day of adventuring being able to clean yourself (or others), warm your (or others') food, cool drinks, make the food tastier. The impact on morale would be huge.

I take the Eberron take on PC options. Most people, even those who resemble PCs such as NPC wizards or druids, don’t have PC levels and do not have the breadth of choices that PCs do.
So, prestidigitation is a rare gift.

You cannot get a Surprise Round any more, but an Assassin's class features effectively require one (because all the slowpokes can get a crack at you or clog your escape routes).

I use surprise as written and never have this problem you describe. What am I missing?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Makes sense to me. If you aren’t moving quietly how on earth would you be hidden?

Because you’re invisible?