D&D 5E The problem with 5e

[Krachek]

It’s me. My perceptions and concerns. They’re all wrong

Your concern are legitimated, but 5ed is certainly the edition who encouraged the most house ruling and adaptation to a specific style of play.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Now you're just making stuff up. There is no factor in the equation of Hit Points for plot armor, or divine favor.

There it is... divine protection. Yep, been part of HP for a LONG time. This particular snip-it is from the DMG 1E, pg. 84.

If I recall he stated that the idea that a human fighter with 50 hit points was taking the same punishment that a war horse could (I.e. that the same number of hit points maps directly onto would severity) was absurd.

he went on to describe hit points as being luck, favor, skill at avoiding blows whatever with the last chunk of hit points being the severe wounds.

maybe same place? Would have to check—-he notes that many hit points down would look like cuts and bruises usually without severe or disabling injury until the last bit.

I think that is the 1st edition DMG...again its memory and would have to dig it out to get the actual wording.

And here you go (PHB 1E, pg. 34)

 

[DND_Reborn]

One final comment on HP. What bothers me mostly is not what it represents, but that given how so much of it is not "meat" but other abstract concepts, HP are still based on class with the martial PCs getting larger HD.

I think HP should be much smaller for die size, but incorporate more than just CON mod for a bonus. The CON mod is supposed to be some of the "meat", but also includes resistance to pain and fatigue, among other things probably.

Anyway, this thread has diverted enough with the HP talk. Hopefully people will move on to other things soon. I'm finished with the HP discussion for this go around.

 

[tetrasodium]

Your concern are legitimated, but 5ed is certainly the edition who encouraged the most house ruling and adaptation to a specific style of play.

Encouraging & being written in a way that enables it are two different things. Want to get away from "thou shall MUST run 6-8encounters per long rest rather than the tie proven 4-6" & your in for a headache. Want to make changes to how rests actually work because making them last a day or week doesn't mechanically change much & breaks a lot of things?... doesn't matter which way because it's a nightmare either way

5e's defenders love to say how it was built to allow for easy houseruling, but with everything in the game being written as a one off isolated rule the system is setup to make that as difficult & Sisyphean as possible. This thread touched on that a few times back when people were discussing things that were needlessly difficult to fix like the instant recovery of all hp before someone's insistance on discussing what is a hit point hijacked the thread into one of the easiest things possible to fix "is it divine favor luck or what?">":ask your GM"

 

[Oofta]

Encouraging & being written in a way that enables it are two different things. Want to get away from "thou shall MUST run 6-8encounters per long rest rather than the tie proven 4-6" & your in for a headache. Want to make changes to how rests actually work because making them last a day or week doesn't mechanically change much & breaks a lot of things?... doesn't matter which way because it's a nightmare either way

5e's defenders love to say how it was built to allow for easy houseruling, but with everything in the game being written as a one off isolated rule the system is setup to make that as difficult & Sisyphean as possible. This thread touched on that a few times back when people were discussing things that were needlessly difficult to fix like the instant recovery of all hp before someone's insistance on discussing what is a hit point hijacked the thread into one of the easiest things possible to fix "is it divine favor luck or what?">":ask your GM"

How is this really any different from other editions? If you follow the advice (which I do) it works well for every group I've ever run. But it's just a general guideline. Much more than we had in early editions. It's like people (conveniently) don't remember exponential casters and quadratic fighters from previous editions. How the casters were always ready to quit for the day after 1-2 fights in earlier editions?

Unless you go the route of 4E where everybody uses the same mechanic and everybody uses a variation of Vancian spell casting I don't see much of an option. At least with this version we have solid advice that works whether or not you personally like it. Want to allow 5 minute work days? Throw more monsters in waves. I do it sometimes because occasionally it's fun for the casters to go nova.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's like people (conveniently) don't remember exponential casters and quadratic fighters from previous editions. How the casters were always ready to quit for the day after 1-2 fights in earlier editions?

Every once in a while this comes up. Never happened in any AD&D game I played in. Casters and Fighters always felt balanced in power over the long haul of the game, and casters conserved their spells until they were really needed, not simply convenient, and often had spells left over (at mid- and higher levels) when the Fighters et al. wanted to call it a day.

But obviously YMMV at apparently did.

How is this really any different from other editions? If you follow the advice (which I do) it works well for every group I've ever run. But it's just a general guideline. Much more than we had in early editions.

I agree. When the adventuring day falls into the 6-8 encounters, it plays well. If the story demands fewer encounters on some days and more encounters on others, those days the game is easier or harder as expected.

IIRC, @Oofta, you also use the gritty rest variant or something, right?

 

[embee]

Yeah, but then people would know how horrible I am at accents. I couldn't stand the shaming I'd get from people not from midwestern USA when they realize how horrible my cockney brogue is.

You want bad accents?

Stop by my house at 7:45 every night when I read "Bread And Jam For Frances."

The little one is a captive audience for me to practice my terrible Liverpudlian accent on. It's Ringo Starr if Ringo was played by Dick Van Dyke dressed as John Oliver, having suffered a massive stroke.

 

[Oofta]

Every once in a while this comes up. Never happened in any AD&D game I played in. Casters and Fighters always felt balanced in power over the long haul of the game, and casters conserved their spells until they were really needed, not simply convenient, and often had spells left over (at mid- and higher levels) when the Fighters et al. wanted to call it a day.

But obviously YMMV at apparently did.


I agree. When the adventuring day falls into the 6-8 encounters, it plays well. If the story demands fewer encounters on some days and more encounters on others, those days the game is easier or harder as expected.

IIRC, @Oofta, you also use the gritty rest variant or something, right?

Yeah, I use the alternate rest rule and find that it really helps with pacing for my game since I don't do dungeon crawls very often.

In previous editions, it was more of an issue at higher levels. I remember playing games where every encounter just ended in 3.x once it was the caster's turn after about 13th level or so; there wasn't really a reason for anyone else in the party. It also depended on the game (and house rules), such as how many wands or staves the casters had and so on.

Before 3 there was so much variance in how people played the game I wouldn't be surprised if people had different experiences.

 

[Oofta]

You want bad accents?

Stop by my house at 7:45 every night when I read "Bread And Jam For Frances."

The little one is a captive audience for me to practice my terrible Liverpudlian accent on. It's Ringo Starr if Ringo was played by Dick Van Dyke dressed as John Oliver, having suffered a massive stroke.

It probably doesn't help that my "French" accent is based on Pepe Le Pew.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah, I use the alternate rest rule and find that it really helps with pacing for my game since I don't do dungeon crawls very often.

We do them often enough that those are the really hard days LOL!

If I didn't do them, I would probably switch to longer rest variants as well. For a while we did a short rest was 4 hours (and later 8 hours) and a long rest was 24 hours.

Before 3 there was so much variance in how people played the game I wouldn't be surprised if people had different experiences.

I agree. I never played 3E that much, so I don't know about the power differences at that point.