D&D General Stuff 5E Did Right

[Zardnaar]

Well it's easy to focus on the negatives of WotC bring a terrible company. Never the less I think they did a few things very well that contributed to the success of 5E blowing up. Some of this is in concept even if the execution was off here and there.

1. Advantage and disadvantage mechanic. Personally I was over the number bloat of 3E, 4E and Pathfinder. Hell throw in Star Wars Saga Edition. Mathematics isn't fun rolling dice is. Very newbie/DM friendly.

2. Level 1 and 2 being the training levels. Very noticeable running the game for newer players vs old salts. Sure we grumble about it but ENworlds not particularly representative or newbies.

3. Opt in complexity. Yes the champion might not be to exciting and we probably love our feats. A feats probably better than an ASI but ASI is still good in your prime stat early on. The champion might not be for you play something else.

4. Bounded accuracy. Didn't work as intended but smaller numbers are good. Think I would personally prefer stretching +6 over 20 levels to +10 a'la 4E but use B/X stat array (18's capped at +3).

5. The round structure. Very similar to 4E but you cant swap a move action into bonus (minor) action. This is good it's less complicated and you can dodge various exploits. You could use it to clone any previous edition tweaking it as required eg minor action becomes a bonus action and you can swap a move action.

6. Monster design. They kinda screwed up the monster design part but large using a d10 HD, huge d12, small d6 is quite good. One could also tweak the 5E monsters to redo older editions. Eg a B/X ogre being upgraded to 1d10 vs d8 HD is a buff that's not going to wreck the game. You could also use older edition design concepts eg 4E ones or adding old school energy drains and SR if you desired.

7. Lower complexity in general. Got a laugh at my newbie friendly beginners game. I handed a 13 year old player 900 pages of the core rules and told him to make a character in 15 minutes. Instead I supplied each player with a 2 page cheat cheat summarizing the 5E round structure and what to do.

8. Excellent Starter Sets. Both the starter sets and essentials are very good for onboarding newer players. They all have their flaws. A great one would have LMoP (S tier adventure. B tier product)with a tweaked opening encounter, the bells and whistles of the essentials box and pre constructed characters from DoSI.

I think these are the main ones. I am getting sick of 5E but I was an early adopter in 2014. 3.X is the only other version I've played for 10 years+. BECMI was just over a year, 6 years for 2E, 4E 2 short campaigns, 1E occasional short campaigns, clones 3 years. I was very sick of 3.X as well.

Overall well done 5E. On a tier list I would put it near the top alongside 2E and the Basic line in no particular order.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well it's easy to focus on the negatives of WotC bring a terrible company. Never the less I think they did a few things very well that contributed to the success of 5E blowing up. Some of this is in concept even if the execution was off here and there.

1. Advantage and disadvantage mechanic. Personally I was over the number bloat of 3E, 4E and Pathfinder. Hell throw in Star Wars Saga Edition. Mathematics isn't fun rolling dice is. Very newbie/DM friendly.

2. Level 1 and 2 being the training levels. Very noticeable running the game for newer players vs old salts. Sure we grumble about it but ENworlds not particularly representative or newbies.

3. Opt in complexity. Yes the champion might not be to exciting and we probably love our feats. A feats probably better than an ASI but ASI is still good in your prime stat early on. The champion might not be for you play something else.

4. Bounded accuracy. Didn't work as intended but smaller numbers are good. Think I would personally prefer stretching +6 over 20 levels to +10 a'la 4E but use B/X stat array (18's capped at +3).

5. The round structure. Very similar to 4E but you cant swap a move action into bonus (minor) action. This is good it's less complicated and you can dodge various exploits. You could use it to clone any previous edition tweaking it as required eg minor action becomes a bonus action and you can swap a move action.

6. Monster design. They kinda screwed up the monster design part but large using a d10 HD, huge d12, small d6 is quite good. One could also tweak the 5E monsters to redo older editions. Eg a B/X ogre being upgraded to 1d10 vs d8 HD is a buff that's not going to wreck the game. You could also use older edition design concepts eg 4E ones or adding old school energy drains and SR if you desired.

7. Lower complexity in general. Got a laugh at my newbie friendly beginners game. I handed a 13 year old player 900 pages of the core rules and told him to make a character in 15 minutes. Instead I supplied each player with a 2 page cheat cheat summarizing the 5E round structure and what to do.

8. Excellent Starter Sets. Both the starter sets and essentials are very good for onboarding newer players. They all have their flaws. A great one woukd have LMoP (S toer adventure. B tier product)with a tweaked opening encounter, the bells and whistles of the essentials box and pre constructed characters from DoSI.

I think these are the main ones. I am getting sick of 5E but I was an early adopter in 2014. 3.X is the only other version I've played for 10 years+. BECMI was just over a year, 6 years for 2E, 4E 2 short campaigns, 1E occasional short campaigns, clones 3 years. I was very sick of 3.X as well.

Overall well done 5E. On a tier list I would put it near the top alongside 2E and the Basic line in no particular order.

Almost all the points you mentioned as positives are best for new players and those who are looking for simplicity (often also new players). As a not-new player who appreciates the value of complexity (I love a good subsystem), I have to say your list is pretty subjective from my point of view.

 

[Scribe]

Almost all the points you mentioned as positives are best for new players and those who are looking for simplicity (often also new players). As a not-new player who appreciates the value of complexity (I love a good subsystem), I have to say your list is pretty subjective from my point of view.

Considering what it was trying to be? 5e was undeniably a success. It doesnt want to be a complex subsystem heavy game, and so, it is not.

 

[Shiroiken]

Considering what it was trying to be? 5e was undeniably a success. It doesnt want to be a complex subsystem heavy game, and so, it is not.

What's really nice is that the chassis is simple, but easily modified. A5E is a great example of how you can add more complicated subsystems into 5E.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Considering what it was trying to be? 5e was undeniably a success. It doesnt want to be a complex subsystem heavy game, and so, it is not.

To be fair, it would have been nice if the game had ever stated what it was trying to be.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well it's easy to focus on the negatives of WotC bring a terrible company. Never the less I think they did a few things very well that contributed to the success of 5E blowing up. Some of this is in concept even if the execution was off here and there.

1. Advantage and disadvantage mechanic. Personally I was over the number bloat of 3E, 4E and Pathfinder. Hell throw in Star Wars Saga Edition. Mathematics isn't fun rolling dice is. Very newbie/DM friendly.

2. Level 1 and 2 being the training levels. Very noticeable running the game for newer players vs old salts. Sure we grumble about it but ENworlds not particularly representative or newbies.

3. Opt in complexity. Yes the champion might not be to exciting and we probably love our feats. A feats probably better than an ASI but ASI is still good in your prime stat early on. The champion might not be for you play something else.

4. Bounded accuracy. Didn't work as intended but smaller numbers are good. Think I would personally prefer stretching +6 over 20 levels to +10 a'la 4E but use B/X stat array (18's capped at +3).

5. The round structure. Very similar to 4E but you cant swap a move action into bonus (minor) action. This is good it's less complicated and you can dodge various exploits. You could use it to clone any previous edition tweaking it as required eg minor action becomes a bonus action and you can swap a move action.

6. Monster design. They kinda screwed up the monster design part but large using a d10 HD, huge d12, small d6 is quite good. One could also tweak the 5E monsters to redo older editions. Eg a B/X ogre being upgraded to 1d10 vs d8 HD is a buff that's not going to wreck the game. You could also use older edition design concepts eg 4E ones or adding old school energy drains and SR if you desired.

7. Lower complexity in general. Got a laugh at my newbie friendly beginners game. I handed a 13 year old player 900 pages of the core rules and told him to make a character in 15 minutes. Instead I supplied each player with a 2 page cheat cheat summarizing the 5E round structure and what to do.

8. Excellent Starter Sets. Both the starter sets and essentials are very good for onboarding newer players. They all have their flaws. A great one woukd have LMoP (S toer adventure. B tier product)with a tweaked opening encounter, the bells and whistles of the essentials box and pre constructed characters from DoSI.

I think these are the main ones. I am getting sick of 5E but I was an early adopter in 2014. 3.X is the only other version I've played for 10 years+. BECMI was just over a year, 6 years for 2E, 4E 2 short campaigns, 1E occasional short campaigns, clones 3 years. I was very sick of 3.X as well.

Overall well done 5E. On a tier list I would put it near the top alongside 2E and the Basic line in no particular order.

I’d add the focus on rulings not rules should be included.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I like the granularity of 3e and was utterly cold to the 4e framework. 5e was a far more acceptable simplification that felt more like d&d than 4e did.

 

[ezo]

Well it's easy to focus on the negatives of WotC bring a terrible company. Never the less I think they did a few things very well that contributed to the success of 5E blowing up. Some of this is in concept even if the execution was off here and there.

Well, it the execution was off... then they didn't really get it right, did they??

Anyway, for a point-by-point:

1. Advantage and disadvantage mechanic. Personally I was over the number bloat of 3E, 4E and Pathfinder. Hell throw in Star Wars Saga Edition. Mathematics isn't fun rolling dice is. Very newbie/DM friendly.

Agreed. I think they could have allowed it to stack, but then you would have people fishing for more sources to compound which would be annoying IMO.

2. Level 1 and 2 being the training levels. Very noticeable running the game for newer players vs old salts. Sure we grumble about it but ENworlds not particularly representative or newbies.

Not really. The first levels are generally the most feature rich. When you combine everything that comes from race, background, and class, remembering that about half the classes also have subclasses at levels 1 or 2, the "training level" concept just isn't there IMO. Coupled with the relatively lethal aspect for PCs at this level, it is much too easy for a newbie to push their luck and not realize just how squishy PCs are at this point. And DMs can make the same mistake, using opponents who are just a bit too powerful and more dangerous than they thought without realizing it.

3. Opt in complexity. Yes the champion might not be to exciting and we probably love our feats. A feats probably better than an ASI but ASI is still good in your prime stat early on. The champion might not be for you play something else.

There are too little examples of this. Very few of the classes are really "not complex" even early on IMO. The idea is great, but the execution failed for the most part.

4. Bounded accuracy. Didn't work as intended but smaller numbers are good. Think I would personally prefer stretching +6 over 20 levels to +10 a'la 4E but use B/X stat array (18's capped at +3).

Sort of agree. BA would have been better if they capped it around 40 instead of 30 IMO. As it is, this didn't really solve much of what it was supposed to--it just shifted the issue. Instead of number bloat on attacks, etc. you have hit point and damage bloat instead.

5. The round structure. Very similar to 4E but you cant swap a move action into bonus (minor) action. This is good it's less complicated and you can dodge various exploits. You could use it to clone any previous edition tweaking it as required eg minor action becomes a bonus action and you can swap a move action.

Sure I guess. Rounds have been "around" forever, so not much new here. Despite not making it overly complex, you still have a lot of people who don't like bonus actions, and some find it confusing--going against the "5E is easy to learn" concept.

Players also feel cheated in ways when one player has a bonus action they can use almost every round, but their own class lacks bonus action options--so they don't get to do as much. Every class should have an at-will bonus action feature IMO.

6. Monster design. They kinda screwed up the monster design part but large using a d10 HD, huge d12, small d6 is quite good. One could also tweak the 5E monsters to redo older editions. Eg a B/X ogre being upgraded to 1d10 vs d8 HD is a buff that's not going to wreck the game. You could also use older edition design concepts eg 4E ones or adding old school energy drains and SR if you desired.

Hmm... I go back and forth on this honestly. The larger hit die with larger creatures emphasizes the idea that hit points are meat, which causes more confusion with the idea of how much damage creatures with more hit dice but smaller size can take.

7. Lower complexity in general. Got a laugh at my newbie friendly beginners game. I handed a 13 year old player 900 pages of the core rules and told him to make a character in 15 minutes. Instead I supplied each player with a 2 page cheat cheat summarizing the 5E round structure and what to do.

Well, the fact you have a cheat sheet to help people follow the game sort of goes against the lower complexity concept IMO. While there are certainly many more complex games when it comes to character creation, to claim 5E is low complexity isn't really accurate IMO. And it is just getting more complex as time goes on...

8. Excellent Starter Sets. Both the starter sets and essentials are very good for onboarding newer players. They all have their flaws. A great one woukd have LMoP (S toer adventure. B tier product)with a tweaked opening encounter, the bells and whistles of the essentials box and pre constructed characters from DoSI.

Agree over all.

I think these are the main ones. I am getting sick of 5E but I was an early adopter in 2014. 3.X is the only other version I've played for 10 years+. BECMI was just over a year, 6 years for 2E, 4E 2 short campaigns, 1E occasional short campaigns, clones 3 years. I was very sick of 3.X as well.

Overall well done 5E. On a tier list I would put it near the top alongside 2E and the Basic line in no particular order.

While I think 5E has a lot of good things going for it, it also fails to execute on concepts that I think would have made it more appealing.

Nice write-up, btw. It's good to rehash these design goals, etc. once in a while.

 

[J-H]

I think the OP list is very good. I would also add flexibility and simplicity in monster creation.

In 3.5, everything had to have skills, feats, and ASIs calculated to add up. When I DM'd 3.5 PBP, there were a number of enemies that I spent more than 30 minutes writing up. In 5e, all but the most complex of enemies takes no more than 3-5 minutes. If the party does something unexpected, it's completely viable to scribble down some numbers and have a monster in under 60 seconds - and the players will never know you improvised it unless you tell them.

It is much, much, much more DM-friendly to run.

 

[Scribe]

To be fair, it would have been nice if the game had ever stated what it was trying to be.

"The Worlds Greatest Role Playing Game." I mean it is on the cover...