D&D 5E Strengths of 5th Ed

[Ahnehnois]

I'm not throwing huge dragons at 1st level characters, by all means.

I think designing creatures without a clear use precludes that possibility. If I write stats for a huge dragon, and later end up using them in a campaign with 1st level characters, they are unlikely to be in direct combat with the dragon. Why would they be? Instead, the dragon serves as a powerful NPC who drives the campaign forward in some way.

My job is to make the world interesting

That it is. And if there's one thing that's interesting, it's unpredictability. If the players know what's coming, that's not good.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The following campaign elements will probably be better suited to 5E over Pathfinder:

• Sandbox play, due to the relative simplicity in encounter building.
• Dungeon exploration that favors a greater number of quick encounters.
• The party versus large groups of humanoids, like raiding parties and highwaymen.
• Low magic play due to magic items not being assumed by the math.
• More lethal campaign due to to ease of character creation.
• Player controlled allies or troops.

Basically, by having fewer moving parts in the rules, you can add more moving parts to the environment.

 

[sidonunspa]

ya I have to agree..

I play pathfinder every so often and there are times you have a cool idea but look at your sheet and think "damn I lack ranks in that skill" in 5e (when using the base skill-less system) I feel free to come up with cool stuff all the time... as a player 5e allows you to "think outside the box" a lot more.

Also the fact that in 5e you don't need to focus on getting better AC and better saves allows players to get some cool items.

come on, I look at the ultimate equipment guide... unless I'm playing a Paladin or Monk any cloak falls short against a cloak of resistance +2.. belts..

I feel that in Pathfinder you need to get that next +X while in 5e.. not so much.

 

[Salamandyr]

I've found, especially when using the optional skilless action resolution system, that my players think more like their PCs. When they make decisions, they don't study their character sheets and look for what they can do. They just tell me what they want to do based on their overall understanding of their character and its strengths. I love that. In fact, I'm working on a houserule that expands the skilless aspect even further to encourage complete character emersion. If anyone is interested, I have lots of ideas and play reports in my blog at WotC.
http://community.wizards.com/rhenny...tion_resolution_and_saving_throws_in_dd_next_

.

This right here is why I still prefer Basic/Expert to 3rd & 4th. I'm hoping 5e keeps this going. I'll check out your blogposts.

 

[Li Shenron]

From what you've seen so far - what would you say are the strengths of 5th ed as far as campaign design? How should someone like me build a game that showcases those strengths - that says "this campaign works better with these rules than with the old ones?"

That's tricky, because IMO the biggest strengths of 5e are:

1) minimal core size: the mandatory rules for resolution of interaction/exploration/combat are very few (mandatory in empirical sense, i.e. if something can be ignored/unused by the gaming group without changing characters balance or requiring other alteration to the game, then it's not mandatory even if the rules don't specifically say it's not); everything else is modular

2) complexity in the hands of the players: options exist in different parts of the game for increasing character complexity quite a lot over the baseline, but it's done at individual level

3) not many assumptions on the gamestyle, although not every possible gamestyle is easily supported, but at least the whole game isn't built around a single "right" way to play it, unlike the past two editions

How these strengths can be showcased? Well, #2 depends on the players, so it either happens that they make wildly different characters or not, but you can't choose in advance unless you force them to (which is kind of against the point itself); and #1 and #3 become visible across a number of campaigns with different DM's decisions for the whole group (e.g. magic availability, combat/skill/adventuring/inspiration modules) but how do you highlight them in just one campaign?

 

[Rhenny]

Bounded Accuracy - ability to use more variety of monsters at each level of play, and the chance for lower level PCs (or monsters) to be somewhat effective against higher level foes. (At this point the monster math has not been worked on though. I'm sure that after they do work on the numbers, there will be some foes that lower level PCs will not be able to challenge, and that's important too.)

Being outnumbered actually becomes frightening (mostly because of bounded accuracy).

Also, it seems as if the shift of focus for adventure design goes back to adventure level (design a series of encounters or a full adventure that make up a part of the campaign), rather than encounter level design (design specific encounters as set pieces that fit together to develop part of the campaign). I think this will allow designers and DMs who make their own adventures to incorporate more balance between combat, exploration and interaction if they choose to do so.