D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not ignoring the prongs. They have no basis in fact. You're just making stuff up in order to make an illogical conclusion and then declaring that anyone that doesn't accept your unfounded assumptions don't know what they're talking about.

Its not at all a convincing argument.

So you are denying that the 5e designers based their design choices on the survey data? Or denying that their survey data is worth listening to?

Because I assure you it is not more useful to you than it is to me if we say that we can reject WotC survey data as flawed and incorrect. Much the opposite, in fact. And if we're only rejecting on this one specific issue, we're right back at special pleading.

 

[Lanefan]

That is interesting that so little was taken from 3e.
Do you still use 1e-2e's saving throw systems? attack matrixes? turn undead? So no Feats?

In order: Yes. Yes, though tweaked. Yes. And pretty much no; I brought in the idea of high-level characters getting a few choose-able feat-like abilities but I'm not thrilled with it, it'll probably get chucked on the next reboot.

I wouldn't think that would be a good fit for your game either.
What about atunement?

No to attunement except in rare instances...and see below.

Funny enough we recently went back to 2e for the Identify spell and modded in the part when you protect yourself when you Identify an item that could be cursed or harmful to the one Identifying it. I'd forgotten about that 2e tidbit until a player reminded me. A PC was identifying a Talisman of Ultimate Evil.
I just told the table it makes sense in the fiction to incorporate a 5e version of that section of 2e's Identify, and I made a rule on the spot.

We have it that you have to field-test an item to find out what it does and even that won't be perfect a lot of the time. As in, field-testing a magic sword could tell you it's a bit better at the hitty damage-y stuff than a mundane sword but to determine whether it's actually +1 or +2 you'd need an Identify spell (at cost of a 100 g.p. pearl).

And field-testing for some properties (lightning resistance, water breathing) really isn't recommended!

Feel like we have lost a lot of neat ideas from earlier versions of the spells.

Agreed. We've also lost some useful hazards that kept certain spells (most notably, Teleport and Polymorph) in check.

On our campaign pace, we (your table and mine) are pretty similar, but I'm fortunate enough to have made big adjustments mid-campaign - thanks to my players. There is no chance I could wait for a reset.

There's no way my current campaign will last forever, if for no other reason than the characters would all be higher level than the system can handle. There'll be a reboot at some point, but whether next year or five years down the road or whenever I've no way of knowing right now.

 

[Lanefan]

I doubt every DM like that moved to Victoria. In fact, I doubt any DM has moved to another city or country to be with other like minded DMs. Rather, I think it's just very, very common for DMs to hold the rules they create as.............................rules.

The very small percentage will be the DMs who just create, change and re-change rules on whims rather than reason.

In fairness, it might very well be more than a small percentage overall; only those DMs tend to not be DMs for very long.

Put another way, five bad DMs who only stick at it for a year each because all their players drift away do in fact outnumber one good DM who can keep DMing for a decade (over one or multiple campaigns, whatever) and still have players coming back for more.

 

[Lanefan]

So you are denying that the 5e designers based their design choices on the survey data? Or denying that their survey data is worth listening to?

Their surveying has always been suspect, to say the least. With both versions of 5e it appeared in hindsight that their key decisions had been made before playtesting even began, with the playtest surveys able to round off a few edges at best.

Because I assure you it is not more useful to you than it is to me if we say that we can reject WotC survey data as flawed and incorrect. Much the opposite, in fact.

Curious - how so?

 

[Maxperson]

In fairness, it might very well be more than a small percentage overall; only those DMs tend to not be DMs for very long.

Put another way, five bad DMs who only stick at it for a year each because all their players drift away do in fact outnumber one good DM who can keep DMing for a decade (over one or multiple campaigns, whatever) and still have players coming back for more.

Sure, but 5 bad DMs don't outnumber 10,000 good and average DMs. I firmly believe that the number of truly bad DMs is very small compared to the number that try to DM in good faith.

 

[Eric V]

IME, what makes minions worthwhile isn't how many HP they have but what they can do to you if you don't deal with them efficiently.

100% this. In sufficient numbers (which is how minions were encouraged to be used) they were the bigger threat. 13A has a minion mechanic as well, and players are not "let down" by discovering there are minions...quite the contrary.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So you are denying that the 5e designers based their design choices on the survey data? Or denying that their survey data is worth listening to?

Because I assure you it is not more useful to you than it is to me if we say that we can reject WotC survey data as flawed and incorrect. Much the opposite, in fact. And if we're only rejecting on this one specific issue, we're right back at special pleading.

I'm happy to throw out any argument based on popularity that isn't about money.