D&D 5E (2014) The Official Poll! What THREE things do you like most about D&D 5th Edition?

[mrm1138]

Is it that, or that each person gets 3 votes?

That would only make sense if one person could vote for something more than once.

 

[TerraDave]

That would only make sense if one person could vote for something more than once.

....

 

[billd91]

I tried to pick 6 but it chastised me.

 

[RotGrub]

There are some really great things about 5e, but sadly there are a few stinkers from 3e and 4e that are just keeping me away. I think I'd rather just play old school over having an old school "feel". In fact, I think I'd rather just add advantage to my 2e game and not even associate it with 5e. BA is sensible, but it's no excuse for hit point porn. Concentration and Inspiration are not needed. Reading through the rest of the list, I can't help but think that 5e needs to offer a lot more in some of those categories.

 

[Wik]

How the hell is Advantage at 100%? I mean, with over 600 voters?

Mind is officially blown.

 

[SuperZero]

686 out of 675, in fact, which is actually 101.63%.
Morrus explained that yesterday.

It's a caching thing. The total number of voters updates less frequently than the individual ones.

With two decimal places, not even 686/687 rounds to 100%, so it should fall once it's complete. Perhaps not by much, though.

 

[thzero]

Difficult to limit to just 3. It was nearly "all of the above" except "I like nothing about D&D 5th edition" and the release schedule. I wish there were more published adventures and a campaign setting.

I choose "I like nothing about D&D 5th edition" not because there aren't a few things. Adv/Dis is sorta interesting but limited (it is nice to remove all the +2/-2, +4/-4s, etc. from the game, but being limited to a single advantage is for the birds), the bounded accuracy is a nice touch as skills and even combat get all out of what in 3.X, the sleep mechanic (the only positive to 4e).

Unfortunately those are so overwhelming outweighed by rest of the system that (butchering of skills, inability to learn new things (thank you saga/4e ... not!), butchering of feats (bright point to 3.X), iterative attacks, etc.).

Oh, and of course the fact that its the 3rd completely new D&D system in 15 years, after all we survived with 1e/2e (equivalent to 3.0/3.5 combination) for 23 years (20+ years of something, its probably time for a bit of a shakeup)!

I'll check back in 3-4 years for 6th edition and hope that Hasbro has sold off the D&D brand.

 

[Pjack]

inability to learn new things.

FYI, a 5th Edition D&D character can certainly learn new things. Learning a new language or gaining proficiency in a tool can be done using downtime. Any character can attempt any skill; if you want to add your proficiency bonus to a new set of skills, you can take the "Skilled" feat.

If it's not the game for you, that's cool. Me, I'm loving it.

 

[eamon]

I'm sorta surprised that so many people are voting for advantage/disadvantage.

I mean - it's a fine mechanic and all, but it's just not that special. It's not that different from circumstantial modifiers of old in play - if anything, it's slower, because you need to roll two dice (also, I think it lacks nuance - there are definitely times when you think hmm, this huge disadvantage really shouldn't be cancelled by this minor advantage; or these two advantages should really stack). Usually it's pretty nice, but then, saying something is nice is kind of damning it with faint praise.

Let me put it this way - I'm sure the game would be affected much more drastically if it were missing bounded accuracy than if it were missing advantage/disadvantage.

So I picked two subtle ones - features I think people will undervalue, but indirectly support the game strongly.

The magic system is really good. It's good not just because it's reasonably balanced with low-magic classes, but also because it's diverse and because it's relatively small. People actually *recognize* each others spells sometimes, and that helps tie players into the world. It's not just player X casts Y from class Z (and who cares, because you can never really remember all those spells other classes have anyway), it's oh, he's casting haste, or bless or whatever, and people understand the meaning (and might even think of asking for it in an unusual circumstance, outside of combat). I really hope future publications don't greatly increase the size of the spell lists.

Which brings me to the Rate of publishing. I think it's outstanding that the rate is relatively low. Not only does that hopefully mean the content that *is* released is well-thought out, it *also* keeps the game world small enough for players to sort of understand. When there are thousands of classes, races and other significant customization options, players just don't know enough about each other and the NPCs they encounter. It's just a blur, especially for the less die-hard players out there. I'm sure there will be lots of new content, but I hope that content is sparingly doled out, excellent in quality, and of the sort that doesn't affect this player recognizability. New magic items are fine. Customizations of existing classes (as long as they're still recognizable) are fine too. Lots of new spells, feats and classes... less so. I suspect I'm in the minority - but I'd rather buy D&D 5.1 next year than splatbook 13. Give me quality over quantity any day.

 

[mrm1138]

I'm sorta surprised that so many people are voting for advantage/disadvantage.

I mean - it's a fine mechanic and all, but it's just not that special. It's not that different from circumstantial modifiers of old in play - if anything, it's slower, because you need to roll two dice (also, I think it lacks nuance - there are definitely times when you think hmm, this huge disadvantage really shouldn't be cancelled by this minor advantage; or these two advantages should really stack). Usually it's pretty nice, but then, saying something is nice is kind of damning it with faint praise.

I can see the argument that it lacks nuance, but saying that rolling two dice is slower than trying to count up which bonuses to add and which penalties to subtract doesn't make sense to me at all. I suppose if you've played 3.0/3.5 for years, that sort of thing might seem like second nature, but I still can't see how counting up, "Okay, I have a +2 to hit, and a +2 because a party member is flanking, but I have a -2 penalty because of the terrain, etc." is faster than, "I rolled a 15 and a 17, so I take the higher/lower of the two."