D&D 5E (2024) This Feels Like 4E

[EzekielRaiden]

Well, my opinion is that the original goal was to focus on the Braunstien game of "What does your character do?" and the DM adjudicating that and then falling back on wargame rules for when that fails. Actually, I'd say there is more new cruft complicating onboarding new players than old. Even 1E AD&D it was pretty dead simple to make a character and understand themeager abilities, especially in the case of a fighter. Now, people are wanting to start at third level which immediately requires understanding and deciding the different paths of their single character class. Futher more, I'd say that if there was any intended design goal, it would be for the game to be played as desired at the table it was being played at, rather than as written or by some ambiguous intention of the authors (who could easily have made lots of things clearer if they really intended anything).

Oh, for sure new editions have also introduced their fair share of stuff. However, if you look back at just how horrendously organized the original books were....I think that's evidence enough for how ill-suited early D&D was to onboarding new players.

That it succeeded as it did is a testament to two things: one, that Gygax knew how to write operatic prose, even if he didn't know a blessed thing about effective teaching; and that Gygax and Arneson were tapping a market that hungered and thirsted keenly.

 

[Reef]

well, per rules, you can do that.

also, I approve of hitting people with d20 for various reasons,
especially when they play a rogue and do not know sneak attack rules by 3rd session...

Heh…and we’re back to the ‘bag of rats’ issue. Technically allowed, but would never fly at my table.

 

[Horwath]

Heh…and we’re back to the ‘bag of rats’ issue. Technically allowed, but would never fly at my table.

bag of rats can be exploitive, what is the problem in making one attack with a greatsword and other with a hammer or 2shortswords?

 

[Reef]

no, but armour is basically just improvements on each tier, number go up, well medium and heavy are more sidegrades to each other, so you usually spec into one type or the other, do you use DEX or STR? but otherwise you just want the best one you can get your hands on,

masteries on the other hand all offer different options that are far more dependent on the situation to determine their value, if you've got a crowd of weak enemies you'll want cleave or nick, maybe you want to topple a flying enemy, graze for something evasive with high AC, sap for big hitters and so on, but, given that masteries are tied to weapons you need those weapons on hand if you want to actually use that mastery, it's no use coming up against a heavy hitting ogre and saying 'sorry guys i didn't bring my sap longsword, i thought i'd focus on cleave/slow today!' casters don't say 'well, i could've brought an arcane focus that works as the material component for all my spells, but instead i though i'd only get the diamond and focus on using chromatic orb regularly'

All that makes sense. Seriously, I do see why certain masteries are more valuable under certain situations. I guess I’ve just never been in a group where extracting the absolute maximum performance is such a high priority.

 

[Reef]

bag of rats can be exploitive, what is the problem in making one attack with a greatsword and other with a hammer or 2shortswords?

Two reasons I can think of right off. One, it slows down play for everyone, and quickly becomes monotonous. Two, it is fictionally ridiculous. I’m not a heavy sim player, but picturing someone swapping out multiple weapons multiple times in six seconds is absolutely unbelievable. There is no way to justify it, other than trying to min max the system.

If your table is fine with that, more power to you. But this whole tangent started because they weren’t fine with that. And I would have no problem telling ‘no’ to a player that tried that at my table. But again, that’s the call my table makes. Rule lawyer up as much as you like at yours.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Amusingly, I remember a concept of a golfcart of weapons in 3E.
You needed a Silver weapon to deal with enemies that had DR/Silver, and cold iron weaons for enemies that had DR/cold iron. And it was also a good idea to carry some Admantine weapon so you have an enhancement bonus against DR/+1 or DR +2 in anti-magic fields.
Of course, the situations don't occur every turn, just every 4-12 fights.
I seem to remember that at some point, any +x weapon would ignore DR/silver or DR/cold iron, but it might have been 4E that introduced that?

 

[Neonchameleon]

bag of rats can be exploitive, what is the problem in making one attack with a greatsword and other with a hammer or 2shortswords?

Why do you want to do it especially as magic items are limited? Would you do it without the buffs?

And about half the weapon masteries apply on all attacks. On the other hand Sap, Topple, Slow, Nick, and Cleave are inherently limited to 1/round or 1/target/round

 

[James Gasik]

Amusingly, I remember a concept of a golfcart of weapons in 3E.
You needed a Silver weapon to deal with enemies that had DR/Silver, and cold iron weaons for enemies that had DR/cold iron. And it was also a good idea to carry some Admantine weapon so you have an enhancement bonus against DR/+1 or DR +2 in anti-magic fields.
Of course, the situations don't occur every turn, just every 4-12 fights.
I seem to remember that at some point, any +x weapon would ignore DR/silver or DR/cold iron, but it might have been 4E that introduced that?

Really the "golf cart" of weapons was something that you could see in AD&D*. You had your sword +1, +3 vs. lycanthropes and shapechangers, your sword +1, +3 vs. regenerating creatures, your sword +1, +4 vs. reptiles, and so on.

Further, you definitely wanted to carry around an enchanted bludgeoning weapon for skeletons and clay golems (or maybe just a mace of disruption for all undead).

*It needn't be a "Monty Haul" campaign, either, there were a lot of specialized weapons, and on a long enough timeline, especially if you ran published adventures, you'd collect quite a few such things. Of course, there were more extreme campaigns where you were running a blade across a silver piece hoping it would work against a werewolf, and at the end of the adventure, you were fighting with your so-called allies over a dented copper piece as well.

 

[tetrasodium]

The way I see it, weapon juggling is very much in the same ballpark as the Bag of Rats, and the Peasant Railgun. Sure, it’s technically allowed, but obviously against the spirit of rules.

Doesn’t mean players won’t try to take advantage. I’m sure we’ve all had players like that at some point. Way back when we were in high school, I had a friend who was notorious for coming up with stuff like that. And every time he explained some weird rule combination that would somehow give him 5 attacks a round at 1st level (true example btw), whoever was the DM would listen, and then say “No”. Or, “Hell no!”. Accompanied (at least once) with a thrown d20 . And the game would continue.

So, I don’t doubt there are groups dealing with this. But I’m slightly boggled why the DM just doesn’t say “no” if they feel it’s a problem. Sure, the rules could have added a line somewhere to officially nix this. But if they added a line to anticipate and nix every crazy min max strategy players come up with, the book would be twice as long. And they’d still miss something…

Id say that it's obviously intended. Pretty sure that Crawford even talked about them not locking down the hand slot and leaving it open so players can something or other.

I’m not sure what that has to do with the weapon juggling conundrum. And I’m not sure why wanting to carry 6 weapons is a problem, if they want to.

But I also don’t see why knowing six Masteries means they have to carry six weapons. Having the option doesn’t mean needing to have the option at hand every minute. Fighters know how to wear all types of armor…are we now expecting them to carry a Light, Medium, and Heavy at all times? Just because they know six masteries, isn’t it more likely they still just pick one or two to use regularly?

This whole thing is the consequence of a second deliberate design choice to ensure that an important system is largely irrelivant be design. Because 5.24 chose not to tighten encumbrance and carry capacity so "do I really want to be carrying this" would matter enough for players to ask (or even my normally completing container rules that are merely implied as mearls did recently in his Moldvey adaptation).

Players don't "need" to carry 6 weapons & don't need juggle them for maximum effectiveness, that's the wrong way of looking at it given the mechanics involved. It's the wrong way because players have so much capacity and so few hurdles in the way of doing those things that there is no reason to even consider "do I need to" or "could this hurt me". Choosing not to complete rules subsystems and choosing to deliberately leave existing subsystems irrelevant by design has consequences in totally separate areas of play. This entire thread exists because those choices resulted in the exact consequences predicted during the marketing play test.

Don't believe me, look at wotc's own choice of image to hype weapon masteries.

While being told why the golf bag would cause problems wotc chose to openly embrace it with sarcasm as part of it's announcement

@Mustrum_Ridcully at least the 3.x golf bag had benefits like encouraging players to choose between using more optimal but less magical∆ weapons less hindered by Dr/x and vice versa or allowing the spotlight to more organically shift when PC optimization is disparate enough for the need. There's an endless list of reasons the old golf bags could selectively be used for good at the table by a wise gm leaning on them with monster choice, but the 5e golf bag lacks any hooks for the gm to lean on.


∆ maybe it's unexpectedly too good or whatever and you don't want to take it away but don't want to turn the other PCs into sidekicks. That unexpectedly too magical weapon can still be amazing other times without being amazing always.

 

[Reef]

Well, like I said, it's your table and your choice. Personally, I don't see it as intended at all. It just doesn't pass the sniff test for me. To me, the rules are there to enable heroic fiction. And constantly drawing and resheathing weapons multiple times in six seconds, every six seconds strains belief, and I can't imagine the designers intended that. But if you and your players enjoy the insane weapon juggling image, and like carting around a small arsenal to maximize all potential benefits, go for it!

But if you have a problem with it, just don't let them. Even if juggling is 100% intentional, you are well within your rights to say.. "Hey, that rule sucks. It's making our game worse. Let's ignore it". I'm pretty sure the rules say that much explicitly. And is there a table out there that doesn't house rule something? It's a time honoured tradition, going all the way back to weapon vs armour, and weapon speed factors .