D&D (2024) Rests should be dropped. Stop conflating survival mechanics with resource recovery.

[Emberashh]

sure didn’t sound to me like you do not consider 5e flawed

Who said I didn't?

What I actually said is that not liking 5e isn't a valid criticism of it, and after a point where one keeps denying what 5e is in favor of what they think it ought to be, you're only criticizing it because you don't like the game, which is not the same thing as the game being flawed.

And this topic has been hit by the mods more than once for getting personal so may be you should back off trying so hard to argue with me.

 

[John R Davis]

Just about every RPG has a rest/recovery system to get HP's and sometime resources.
It makes sense that after a conflict you readjust your armour, clean weapons, have a hot drink , eat an apple , clear your head.
All these things partially recharge your powers
It is a good thing
My beloved SPI Dragonquest is very good on this front.

 

[mamba]

What I actually said is that not liking 5e isn't a valid criticism of it, and after a point where one keeps denying what 5e is in favor of what they think it ought to be, you're only criticizing it because you don't like the game, which is not the same thing as the game being flawed.

I fail to see how you criticizing it is valid and them criticizing is not. You both want to change the game so it better suits your preferences, they want it grittier and you less so, neither is more correct than the other.

The ‘denying what it is’ and ‘thinking about what it ought to be’ is also subjective. We can both start at the same point for what it is and yet disagree on what it ‘ought’ to be. I don’t see your suggestion making it ‘more’ D&D and theirs ‘less’ so.
If anything 4e tried something like what you suggested and was rejected while 1e/2e is more what they suggested and was embraced, with a strong undercurrent in that direction even today

And this topic has been hit by the mods more than once for getting personal so may be you should back off trying so hard to argue with me

referring back to points you made is perfectly valid in a discussion, and not making it personal (or trying to argue for the sake of arguing). If the mods feel differently, then I can live with that

 

[Emberashh]

I fail to see how you criticizing it is valid and them criticizing is not.

That isn't what I said. Try again.

and you less so

Also not what Ive said.

The ‘denying what it is’ and ‘thinking about what it ought to be’ is also subjective.

No, it isn't. What is is objective. Trying to replace that with what ought and then criticizing the game when it fails to live up to that Ought is not fair to the game.

In this context, refusing to use the Adventuring Day as intended and then criticizing it for making early levels bad (when in reality they're both poor but not causal to each other) is inappropriate because its assigning blame based on a personal preference that runs counter to what the game expects.

To make another analogy, its like criticizing the orange juice for tasting bad when you just brushed your teeth. The orange juice may in fact be bad (and as a Floridian, it often is), but it was never going to taste good with all that toothpaste in your mouth.

I don’t see your suggestion making it ‘more’ D&D and theirs ‘less’ so.

You're not following the conversation very well if you think that has anything to do with what was being argued.

You should read more carefully and not skim so much. You're missing that theres more than one train of thought going on.

referring back to points you made is perfectly valid in a discussion, and not making it personal (or trying to argue for the sake of arguing).

Whats trying to argue for the sake of arguing is trying to creep in the ad hominem over how my OP was written.

You can be incredulous all you like but this has played out multiple times already in this topic, and Im cutting it off before it gets started. Again. Let it go and leave it at this.

 

[mamba]

No, it isn't. What is is objective. Trying to replace that with what ought and then criticizing the game when it fails to live up to that Ought is not fair to the game.

rests ‘are’, so replacing them is not fair, works for me

‘What is’ is never objective either, just look at e.g. US politics. Your changes fit no more into ‘what is’ than theirs.

 

[Emberashh]

rests ‘are’, so replacing them is not fair, works for me

‘What is’ is never objective either, just look at e.g. US politics. Your changes fit no more into ‘what is’ than theirs.

You're taking that entire train of thought out of context, and Im pretty confident its deliberate.

Im not going to be responding to you past this point. You're baiting me and its all too obvious.

 

[mamba]

You're taking that entire train of thought out of context, and Im pretty confident its deliberate.

it’s either because I disagree with it and dismiss it, or because you are referring to something else in these 15 pages than I am thinking of

As far as I can tell your train of thought either is ‘I do not like rests, so they should be removed’, or ‘I do not like the first few levels and they should be essentially skipped’. The latter you seem to want to dress up as ‘they do not fit the style of game 5e becomes at high levels and they should be made to fit’, but I can also turn this around and say the 3rd and 4th tier are way too OP and should be toned down. The saving grace for WotC is that the vast majority of campaigns ends before level 10, so never have to deal with the game falling apart

 

[Emberashh]

As far as I can tell your train of thought either is ‘I do not like rests, so they should be removed’, or ‘I do not like the first few levels and they should be essentially skipped’.

They're two different naughty word conversations.

 

[tetrasodium]

Equipment doesn't actually matter in the first place so you are, again, just placing blame on the wrong things.

And thats without getting into the fact that you're only now being specific about equipment as being the issue to counter me when I was under the assumption we were speaking in general about high level play.



Magic items aren't a core part of the game. They're considered optional for a reason, and this is again another clear reason why its so important to have a mutual understanding in what the actual root issue is.

None of these issues are a problem with high level play, theyre a problem with those specific systems that either A) are severely underbaked, B) Not intended to be core to the game, or C) both, that then go on to exacerbate an additonally unsupported section of the game.

You can't fix a cruddy bread loaf by trying to add salt after its been baked, and especially not when its the yeast you really needed to have in there.



In other words you develop a weird attitude where you stop taking the game seriously because reasons.

In other, other words, may be you just don't like 5e and the game isn't flawed on that basis.

We've been talking about "5e's wuxiua/isekai self insert power fantasy design concessions" the whole time. You skipped right over saying anything at all about the gameplay benefits of "Magic items aren't a core part of the game. They're considered optional for a reason". Wotc has said that reason many times, but that reason is one that fails to support any merits beyond entrenching those self insert power fantasy design concessions. The very concessions that "it should only last a session or two" type statements try to excuse? If the design is one so lacking in merit that it cannot be defended on it's own merits the flaws are worthy of criticism & self evident.

 

[Emberashh]

We've been talking about "5e's wuxiua/isekai self insert power fantasy design concessions" the whole time.

You mentioned this but don't actually elaborate on what that means, and then jump to a different topic complaining about equipment in your next post.

You skipped right over saying anything at all about the gameplay benefits of "Magic items aren't a core part of the game. They're considered optional for a reason".

Or you're just confusing a What Is statement for a What Ought to Be statement.

Stating that magic items are meant to be optional is not the same thing as saying thats a good thing or how the game should be designed.

Again, you keep glossing over what Ive reiterated more than once; if we have no mutual understanding on the issue then we're not going to get anywhere with finding a satisfactory fix.

And yes, this is vitally important because if you're not accurately identifying where problems come from then your fixes are only ever going to cause more problems.

High level play isn't poorly designed because it doesn't make the poorly designed Equipment mechanics work.

High level play is poorly designed because it isn't supported, takes way too long to reach (and is over in far too short a time) and in all likelihood had no real balance considerations, making it a gonzo disaster that runs the gamut from being a joke to being laughably overpowered.

Those are the core issues with high level play, and they have nothing to do with Equipment, which is an entirely separate problem driven by the Equipment system being both a shallow and unbalanced mess, the vast bulk of which isn't even intended to be used in a standard vanilla game.

These two issues exacerbate each other, but they do not cause each other. If we hypothetically deleted one of them, none of the issues with the other disappear, at all. That alone proves the point.

The very concessions that "it should only last a session or two" type statements try to excuse?

Its not an excuse. Its literally how the game was designed and intended to be played. It really shouldn't have to be said that it isn't 5e's fault that your homebrew doesn't work with it, and it isn't appropriate to criticize it for not working when you're running the game counter to how it tells you to run the game.

That doesn't mean the game automatically works if you do, but it does mean we can start examining what the actual problems are, and not these superfluous issues that crop up out of halfbaked homebrew.