D&D 5E The problem with 5e

[grimslade]

No edition will be as good as the edition you played the crap out of. Nothing will equal late 1E and early 2E for me because I played hundreds of hours with each of those systems. I think 5E is a good chassis. It just needs some options to customize the game to different playstyles. I would love to have a rework of the exhaustion rules and a real wound system for a gritty slog.

 

[Oofta]

I use some of the "gritty" rules from the DMG, the main one being a short rest is overnight and a long rest is (usually) a week or more. Then I throw 5-10 encounters with no long rest. So basically by the time they get to the last encounter or two they're low on HD (if not HP), spell slots and resources in general.

That and I'm stingy. Not a lot of gold, not a lot of magic items. People have to rely more on creative thinking and class abilities. I also limit raise dead and plane shift type spells (including banish). I effectively ban resurrection, teleport (except for line of sight).

Beyond that, there's always focusing fire, double taps, creatures attacking in magical darkness, using environment and things like I mentioned in the other thread about dragging people off. Oh, and being significantly far away from the party is a great opportunity for a flanking maneuver so the archers aren't nearly as safe as they think.

But ... I always discuss how deadly the group wants a game to be at the start of the campaign and they don't want a high body count. On the other hand, we never had a high body count when playing 1E either even though I can't really remember how we avoided it. So I'm not sure the gritty/high death count is the only thing. I wouldn't have problems killing off PCs if I really wanted to, you can always turn the threat level up to 11.

I also do a fair number of custom monsters and create "special" legendary or near-legendary monsters so people don't know what they're hitting. For that matter, even reskinning creatures with minor modifications seems to help with the "oh, this is a ___" issue. Lately I've been doing a lot of aberration type creatures and special conditions just to mess with people.

But I'm not sure anything can bring back that feeling of discovery, and there's always the option of just taking a sabbatical for a bit. It will still be here waiting when you're ready to come back.

 

[Marc_C]

In 2020 I had a lot of free time because of Covid-19. I had this nagging feeling of missing something during my 5e games.

I re-read my B/X books, re-read some parts of 1e and 2e. After that I read BlueHolmes and Old School Essentials. It was a rabbit hole. My conclusion is that I'm burned out of D&D, regardless of edition.

The only part I still really care about is The World of Greyhawk. I'm currently using it as the setting for my Fantasy AGE campaign. It's a new game with new players. That is what I like. To boldly role-play a game I've not played before!

 

[pming]

Hiya!

"Hard-Core 1e/Hackmaster" DM here. What I did for my 5e Campaigning is this:

• You heal 1/2 your "Total HD" after a full rest. Bonus/Penalty based on circumstance, location, safety, etc.
• Re-Implemented "Save or Die" stuff. There are poisons that KILL YOU if you fail. Failed the Disintegration Save? POOF! Pile of dust.
• No Multiclassing
• No Feats
• Core "only" (PHB/DMG/MM; other stuff on case-by-case...maybe...)
• 1/4 to 1/2 XP value from Monsters; XP from obtaining Gold value (typically 1:1 or 1:2, depending on how XP-to-Gold).
• Death Save for being Raised/Resurrected; fail upon being Raised, permanently fill in one Death Save circle. And -1 CON, regardless.
• Using Material Components (actually having it...not 'focus' or 'component pouch') grants the Caster a little 'bonus' to the spell.
• Keep Track Of STUFF! (Food, water, torches, oil, etc). "Inventory Management", basically.

That's what I can remember off the top of my head. Seems to work well...highest level PC of any of my Players has been 7th level. With I think 1 6th, 2 5th, a handful of 3rd and 4th level PC's. My game is plenty deadly.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Dausuul]

There is no problem with 5E. There never was.

I wouldn't say there's nothing wrong with 5E. I'd say there's nothing deeply wrong with 5E.

Mostly it just needs cleanup. The machine does what it's built to do, but there are a lot of little hitches and clicks and grindy sounds, and now and then a bit falls off and you have to stick it back on. It's the same problem 3E and 4E had: You can't polish and iterate when you're rebuilding the game from the ground up, and there's only so much you can do with splatbooks after the fact.

I'm hoping we'll see a 6E in the not too distant future which resembles the 1E to 2E transition. Except for the part where they stuck weird silly names on all the fiends.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Well written OP.

A couple things that can make your 5e game more dangerous that are already in the rules of the game and don't involve messing with rest rules.

1. As you say, friendlies DO act as cover to ranged attacks.
2. Visual skill checks are disadvantaged when the party is using darkvision.
3. A monster hitting a downed PC automatically give them a failed death save.
4. Levels of exhaustion are hard to shake. They can be given out more freely than when explicitly called for by the few rules hooks that involve them.
5. The mechanics for losing MAX HP (like from undead hits) can be used to represent injury, disease, or other long term maladies.

To roll this all into one individual exploration pillar encounter.

Example dangerous situation: The party decides to climb up and over a mountain rather than go around. At the top of the summit they are tired from the effort (the entire party now has one level of exhaustion). They decide to press on to the bottom as there is a comfy cabin there waiting for them. As they descend the sun goes down leaving them in darkness. The party, all elves and dwarves, doesn't bother with torches or light spells to remain hidden from nearby lurking dangers. They make a series of Climb checks (at disadvantage because they are climbing at night), and two of the party get some really bad results. Finally as dawn breaks and they arrive at the cabin (now with two levels of exhaustion) the wizard and the rogue are nursing a twisted ankle (-7 MAX HP) and a mild concussion (-3 MAX HP). Ready to take a full day of rest to move on, the party opens the cabin door to reveal its been overrun with the goblins they were avoiding during the night. Roll Inititative.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"The problem with 5e….is me."

This is going to be a HUGE timesaver on the forums!

 

[Oofta]

Well written OP.

A couple things that can make your 5e game more dangerous that are already in the rules of the game and don't involve messing with rest rules.

1. As you say, friendlies DO act as cover to ranged attacks.
2. Visual skill checks are disadvantaged when the party is using darkvision.
3. A monster hitting a downed PC automatically give them a failed death save.
4. Levels of exhaustion are hard to shake. They can be given out more freely than when explicitly called for by the few rules hooks that involve them.
5. The mechanics for losing MAX HP (like from undead hits) can be used to represent injury, disease, or other long term maladies.

To roll this all into one individual exploration pillar encounter.

Example dangerous situation: The party decides to climb up and over a mountain rather than go around. At the top of the summit they are tired from the effort (the entire party now has one level of exhaustion). They decide to press on to the bottom as there is a comfy cabin there waiting for them. As they descend the sun goes down leaving them in darkness. The party, all elves and dwarves, doesn't bother with torches or light spells to remain hidden from nearby lurking dangers. They make a series of Climb checks (at disadvantage because they are climbing at night), and two of the party get some really bad results. Finally as dawn breaks and they arrive at the cabin (now with two levels of exhaustion) the wizard and the rogue are nursing a twisted ankle (-7 MAX HP) and a mild concussion (-3 MAX HP). Ready to take a full day of rest to move on, the party opens the cabin door to reveal its been overrun with the goblins they were avoiding during the night. Roll Inititative.

Minor nitpick: a monster hitting a downed PC attacks with advantage and automatically crits giving them 2 failed death saves.

But most people forget the disadvantage on perception with darkvision, it's a good callout.

 

[Umbran]

Our characters are probably going to survive. And its OK.

To quote Dr. Leonard McCoy, "What's so damned troublesome about not having died?"

 

[MichaelSomething]

Maybe Advanced 5th would be more towards your liking??