D&D General Self-Defeating Rules in D&D

[Distracted DM]

5E's poor handling of mounts, pets, familiars and the like grates on me. They've become handicaps that have to be poke-balled to work, or a "long rest" to resurrect them from the dead to put back into the game. There's got to be a better way than using the bland stat blocks of the "beast of the ..." or the way that "summon minor elementals" went with some aura or phantom creature that attacks and then "vanishes".

That also goes for NPC followers. The game is so tightly wound around balance that the days of having torchbearers, pack bearers, bodyguards, adventuring companions, henchmen and the like accompanying the group has gone right out the window. Having a 9th level "knight" fighter on his trusted steed and his retinue of followers is a thing now that no DM would even conceive to allow in a party of adventurers these days. (Back in 3E, I had a game where each of the PCs had their own "pirate" ship and crew to boot, and was able to make it work pretty well with adventures both off and on the ship, with crew accompanying or the party going alone - not to mention with ship-to-ship battles against enemy ships).

Why do you think this is the case? I don't disagree, mind, but would like to hear your reasoning.

 

[Chaltab]

That also goes for NPC followers. The game is so tightly wound around balance that the days of having torchbearers, pack bearers, bodyguards, adventuring companions, henchmen and the like accompanying the group has gone right out the window. Having a 9th level "knight" fighter on his trusted steed and his retinue of followers is a thing now that no DM would even conceive to allow in a party of adventurers these days. (Back in 3E, I had a game where each of the PCs had their own "pirate" ship and crew to boot, and was able to make it work pretty well with adventures both off and on the ship, with crew accompanying or the party going alone - not to mention with ship-to-ship battles against enemy ships).

I'm not sure why the latter part couldn't work, the pirate campaign, even in 5E.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Those rules are vital to creating the feel of D&D! It doesn't matter if players and DMs largely ignore them.

It's like how tons of people ignore and don't use Gnomes but threw riots when 4E kicked them out of the first PHB.

 

[Koloth]

Not just fantasy games. A Traveller ship costs several million credits. Any group with a ship, even one with a large mortgage, will rarely lack for funds for basic stuff. The basic limitation is does the planet you are currently on have the gizmo(s) that you want.

I have played several games in earlier editions where having mounts was mostly an exercise in replacement logistics. A horse with 20HP doesn't last long in an hostile encounter with something that can challenge a 6th level party. It got so bad in one game that the 'Horse Union' would communicate the party's imminent arrival to all mounts in the town which would then do their best to disappear to avoid certain death should the party buy them. We walked more then we rode even though we did try to replace dead mounts.

The darkvision thing has become somewhat irritating. Currently in two different PF games where I am the only human and the only one without darkvision. Having darkvision has almost become an expectation rather then a rare advantage.

One PF ability that is rather pointless most of the time is Stabilize. It sounds cool but when the cleric or similar can burst channel positive energy over a 30' radius, there is almost no need for a stand alone stabilize.

 

[Stormonu]

Why do you think this is the case? I don't disagree, mind, but would like to hear your reasoning.

Pure and simply, the community has become too wound up about balance and expedience.

Can't have a pet monster or follower trivialize an encounter. Extra followers skew carefully crafted fights, making them less "epic" - or "take too long" because of number of combatants. Why have 4-10 hp followers along if the party is delving into dungeons where one monster hit does twice that and won't miss the follower's lousy AC? What player is going to want to play second fiddle - or RP someone else's henchmen - when it could possibly detract from their spotlight?

If you lose a resource, it has to be able to be quickly retrieved, with minimal fuss or players won't use it. We don't balk about PCs getting ridiculous numbers of hit points, but if a pet/mount/familiar gets equal attention, it's unbalancing. If it does drop to 0, the fiction must absolutely be it dies, rather than just pulling back out of that particular encounter. Who wants to take horses and tie them up outside a dungeon where they aren't used, you might not come back the same way or someone's scappered off with them while you were cleaning the dungeon out? And if you do, poke-ball it like the Paladin's mount or familiar so you don't lose it. And why have a mount or beast of burden, if you aren't using encumbrance in the first place? Why would you need a mount when you'll get there anyway on foot in the same amount of narrative time?

"Name Level" used to be a place where you could really change the tone for those players who wanted to go the leadership route. Instead of doing Avenger-Level group threats, they could strike out on "lone" adventures with their own retainers, oversee growing and guiding their own guilds, groups or whatnot (likely only getting directly involved at a critical point), lead wars or raids or tell a vastly different sort of story more akin to Braveheart than Fantastic Four. Y'now, the sort of things that would fit for Battlesystem, Basic's Mass Combat System, Birthright and things like that. All of that got taken out of the game - not just gutted, but removed.

 

[Stormonu]

I'm not sure why the latter part couldn't work, the pirate campaign, even in 5E.

Oh, you might be able to - but you'd have to make your own rules for it; the "vehicle" rules in Saltmarsh and Spelljammer for ship-to-ship is anemic at best (not to mention, not part of the "core" rules). Those vehicle rules are very narrative based, glossing over maneuvering, positioning and even handling a mass boarding attack - especially with more than 1 vs. 1 vessel.

In 3E, the climatic sea battle was 7 player-controlled ships (+crew) vs. 3 enemy vessels, with a 4th enemy vessel arriving at the tail end of the fight. I was able to use the core rules (Leadership and such), Miniature's Handbook (for "mass" combat) plus Stormwrack (for the ship stats) to handle the combat.

In 5E, I did manage to do a mass battle for the finale - the PCs had a land-based army, plus sea elves, tritons, kaopolithics and merfolk vs. the Sahaugin - while the party infiltrated the enemy base. If I had followed the module's rules, the entire battle would have been resolved slowly by the "points" the infiltrating party accumulated. I ended up making a (heavily) modified version of the mob rules (with an excel spreadsheet!) to run the twin battles (land and sea - using battlemats and miniatures via Roll20) with the PCs acting as allied commanders while they also simultaneously RP'ed the infiltration. It worked okay, but a lot was custom-built by me, and not even the module itself attempted to cover the larger scope - it would have all pivoted on the 4 character's infilatrion actions, and the war outside just a bar to beat to succeed.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Pure and simply, the community has become too wound up about balance and expedience.

Can't have a pet monster or follower trivialize an encounter. Extra followers skew carefully crafted fights, making them less "epic" - or "take too long" because of number of combatants. Why have 4-10 hp followers along if the party is delving into dungeons where one monster hit does twice that and won't miss the follower's lousy AC? What player is going to want to play second fiddle - or RP someone else's henchmen - when it could possibly detract from their spotlight?

If you lose a resource, it has to be able to be quickly retrieved, with minimal fuss or players won't use it. We don't balk about PCs getting ridiculous numbers of hit points, but if a pet/mount/familiar gets equal attention, it's unbalancing. If it does drop to 0, the fiction must absolutely be it dies, rather than just pulling back out of that particular encounter. Who wants to take horses and tie them up outside a dungeon where they aren't used, you might not come back the same way or someone's scappered off with them while you were cleaning the dungeon out? And if you do, poke-ball it like the Paladin's mount or familiar so you don't lose it. And why have a mount or beast of burden, if you aren't using encumbrance in the first place? Why would you need a mount when you'll get there anyway on foot in the same amount of narrative time?

"Name Level" used to be a place where you could really change the tone for those players who wanted to go the leadership route. Instead of doing Avenger-Level group threats, they could strike out on "lone" adventures with their own retainers, oversee growing and guiding their own guilds, groups or whatnot (likely only getting directly involved at a critical point), lead wars or raids or tell a vastly different sort of story more akin to Braveheart than Fantastic Four. Y'now, the sort of things that would fit for Battlesystem, Basic's Mass Combat System, Birthright and things like that. All of that got taken out of the game - not just gutted, but removed.

Which is why I advocate that D&D needs to purge the weak from our ranks. To return it to it glory days when the strong played how they see fit and the weak were driven from the game.

 

[Chaltab]

Oh, you might be able to - but you'd have to make your own rules for it; the "vehicle" rules in Saltmarsh and Spelljammer for ship-to-ship is anemic at best (not to mention, not part of the "core" rules). Those vehicle rules are very narrative based, glossing over maneuvering, positioning and even handling a mass boarding attack - especially with more than 1 vs. 1 vessel.

Yeah I would probably just adopt a version of my Spelljammer ship rules. Slow the turns down so that they take place over several minutes to account for how slow aquatic ships are by comparison.

 

[payn]

I don’t think it fair to criticize the design for something it doesn’t do anymore which is survival sim. D&D is heroic fantasy now. Staving of hunger or avoiding dysentery from bad water isn’t that exciting for hero stories.

One area I would criticize is the lack of moudularity that was discussed during Next which would suit this desire. Though 5E proved too popular on its own to need exploring it. Leaving torch maintenance and food foraging to OSR games.

 

[Chaltab]

Honestly even if torches are seldom used I've never had trouble making darkness matter in my 5E Game... unless there was a Twilight Cleric in the party.