D&D 5E "People complain, but don't actually read the DMG!" Which sections specifically?

[Alzrius]

I vote that the most misunderstood and badly quoted sentence of the DMG is the following one: "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day."

And that the section that is read the least is the one that directly follows the sentence above, starting with: "If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer."

And in particular Modifying Encounter Difficulty, soooo many people claiming that the encounter system does not work and that their players (and by consequence themselves) are awesome players for clearing 5 deadly x10 encounters before breakfast...

Things like this make me think this shouldn't be a 5E-specific thread, since this particular issue has been around since at least Third Edition.

Revisiting Encounter Design

One of the first reviews I ever received for a book I had written was for the mini-adventure The Dragon's Wish, which was published by Fantasy Flight Games during the early D20 boom. The reviewer hate

thealexandrian.net

 

[Charlaquin]

In general, chapter 8 has a ton of really good stuff in it that it seems like most people don’t even realize exists. Table rules (not house rules) are something brought up in the beginning of the chapter that are really great for setting expectations in session 0, yet I hardly ever hear anyone talk about them. Chapter 8 has some really great advice on when to call for rolls of what kind, including a great sidebar about when to call for Intelligence checks vs. Wisdom checks. People often complain that there is no mechanical weight or structure to the exploration and social pillars, but DMG pages 242-245 contain exactly that. People often request features that already exist in the DMG, such as mass combat rules (see DMG 250), slower nonmagical healing (see DMG pages 266-267), morale mechanics (see DMG page 273), etc. There’s just a lot in the DMG that directly addresses common grievances with the game, but seems to go ignored.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

A lot of complaints can be handled by the variant combat options and such offered in the DMG IME:

1. One common complaint is about martials not being able to cut through swaths of creatures. (Cleaving Through Creatures, p. 272)
2. Another is disarming an foe. (Disarm under Action Options, p. 271)
3. Or moving through a foe's space (Tumble under Action Options, p. 272)
4. And not having the realism of injury in abstract HP (Injuries, p. 272)

Why aren't these in the PHB? I'm going to take a look at it next time I game in-person, but when it comes to 5e I'm player-only.

 

[el-remmen]

I haven't read most of the DMG and just rely on how I've always done things, but I also don't really complain about 5E because it seems to work fine.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Why aren't these in the PHB? I'm going to take a look at it next time I game in-person, but when it comes to 5e I'm player-only.

As far as the first two... they both kind of are as they get represented as Combat Maneuvers in the Battlemaster Fighter section.

If people want more combat options for Martial characters... the easiest thing to do is to just let any character try any of the Battlemaster's maneuvers... just without gaining the bonus damage that comes by the BM spending a superiority die. Especially if you don't have a Battlemaster in your game (where you might think toes could be stepped on), letting most characters try these extra maneuvers would lend an air of speciality to hand-to-hand combat.

 

[Voadam]

Why aren't these in the PHB? I'm going to take a look at it next time I game in-person, but when it comes to 5e I'm player-only.

They are optional rules a DM can decide to use or not in a campaign. The DMG has a lot like that.

The PH does not say how flanking in general is handled, the DMG has an optional rule that flanking provides advantage on attacks, but it is only an option for a DM to consider for their games, not a default baseline rule of 5e like stuff in the PH.

 

[overgeeked]

Its more a joke meme about how people don't read the current edition DMG and do things as they always have even though some things have changed.

It's not really a joke. There are dozens of threads that pop up almost weekly about this or that subsystem or how 5E does X or doesn't Y...and it's all just sitting there in the DMG. Mobs, morale, madness, and a bunch of things that don't start with M.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Why aren't these in the PHB? I'm going to take a look at it next time I game in-person, but when it comes to 5e I'm player-only.

IMO they really should have been. I think the reason they weren't in the PHB is to allow the players more freedom and encourage the rulings over rules mentality.

 

[Charlaquin]

IMO they really should have been. I think the reason they weren't in the PHB is to allow the players more freedom and encourage the rulings over rules mentality.

I think it’s more likely because they were somewhat polarizing rules. A lot of people really loved them, a lot of people really hated them, and not a lot of people were on the fence about them. So, they got made into optional rules so DMs who like them could use them and DMs who didn’t, didn’t have to.

 

[Parmandur]

I've seen the argument brought up many times and getting apparently plenty of agreement, that a lot of times when people complaining about things in 5th edition being bad or broken, they clearly haven't bothered to read the relevant sections in the DMG that cover those aspects. But I can't recall that argument ever being specific, and always more a general notion that this is an issue with a lot of complains that people have.
So I recently sat down again to read the DMG and look for interesting sections that provide explanations or alternative rules that stand out as seeming noteworthy. And couldn't find any.

What exactly are those supposed common issues that people have with 5th edition and which they wouldn't complain about if they carefully read what the DMG has to say about them?

People have pointed to a number of issues, but the big one I see comming up again and again is ignoring the DMG guidelines on using Skills and claiming that the game doesn't have guidelines for DCs.