D&D General Things That Bug You

[Tales and Chronicles]

Oh yeah, the 6 stats are a mess! My wisdom increases my eyesight?

oh and: give me subclasses with passive features (champion, thief etc). Sometime I dont want 15 different buttons to press 2/per rest

With my table entirely composed of persons afflicted with ADHD, an active feature is a forgotten feature

 

[iserith]

The organization and layout of published adventures is not great. WotC could learn a few things by looking at what the OSR is doing in this area.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

then what is it supposed to be?

expert and skill master.

Like a bard without spells.

The assassin should be the sneak-attacker.

 

[Stormonu]

then what is it supposed to be?

It used to be the guy with all the crazy skills no one else had. Backstab used to come up very rarely in 1E & 2E - much, much harder to do back then as opposed to now. As I recall, at best you’d get it only if you got the drop on opponents before combat started.

 

[Reynard]

The organization and layout of published adventures is not great. WotC could learn a few things by looking at what the OSR is doing in this area.

Agreed, and I find Paizo even worse. They love walls of prose in which to bury important information for running their encounters and adventures.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It used to be the guy with all the crazy skills no one else had. Backstab used to come up very rarely in 1E & 2E - much, much harder to do back then as opposed to now. As I recall, at best you’d get it only if you got the drop on opponents before combat started.

Of course, then you need the dm to know what those skills are and how to incorporate them when a rogue is present but not when there isn't one, which makes dming that much harder, and also means that for some reason the barbarian can't learn how to climb.

 

[Reynard]

It used to be the guy with all the crazy skills no one else had. Backstab used to come up very rarely in 1E & 2E - much, much harder to do back then as opposed to now. As I recall, at best you’d get it only if you got the drop on opponents before combat started.

You can literally make a rogue that isn't any good at any of the rogueish stuff and is still the best fighter of the group. It is a really strange evolution.

 

[Reynard]

Of course, then you need the dm to know what those skills are and how to incorporate them when a rogue is present but not when there isn't one, which makes dming that much harder, and also means that for some reason the barbarian can't learn how to climb.

The philosophy was a lot different regarding who could try what before there were general skills. That the thief had hide in shadows and move silently did not mean that no one else could sneak into the castle, it meant that the thief could literally disappear in the shadows in a way others could not. The thief did not have "climbing" -- the thief could climb sheer surfaces.

 

[Stormonu]

Of course, then you need the dm to know what those skills are and how to incorporate them when a rogue is present but not when there isn't one, which makes dming that much harder, and also means that for some reason the barbarian can't learn how to climb.

Uh, the skills were pretty straightforward, and the barbarian DID have the climb ability back then.

However, the game has evolved and changed and I don’t think I’d want to go back to the old system.

(I have a feeling this thread is going to get very edition warry very quickly.)

 

[Oofta]

In 5E, I'd say it's going back to magical items that replace ability scores. It just never made sense to me that a toddler could pick up daddy's belt and suddenly be stronger than any human alive.

Dexterity being an uber-stat. I get that it's the trend that you don't need strength to use a war bow, but it's just dumb. There' really not much reason to make a strength based character outside of maybe barbarians. I'm not even sure the small plus to damage barbarians get to damage outweigh a high dex build depending on what you're shooting for. A high dex barbarian with rapier and shield would still do decent damage and could make an awesome tank.

Having the option to always use a quarterstaff one handed. I get that in real life certain strikes use one hand to get reach, but you can do the same with a two-handed sword. It's situational and you still return to two-handed after the strike. In any case, I blame the LOTR and Gandalf waving his staff around to distract the enemy for this.