D&D 5E (2014) Volo's 5e vs Tasha's 5e where do you see 5e heading?

[tetrasodium]

Not to stray off-topic, but the current weapon system represents to me this awkward balance that 5e has of offering essentially meaningless choice for a PC, being simultaneously simple but with meaningless complications. A glaive and halberd have separate listings, but are actually completely identical in price and stats, the only difference between a battleaxe and a longsword is the price (largely meaningless as well). The book says that you can always reflavor a longsword as a katana, but also decides that a trident has some mystical difference to a spear (again despite identical stats). In addition, outside of a handful of monsters, there's little difference between bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Really you could consolidate the weapon list into a handful of options without losing any functional complexity.

Spells as well have a similar issue. Theater of mind is the officially-stated standard form of play, but spells really feel designed around playing on a grid, with precise distances and areas that a DM either needs to take into consideration or handwave.

Are these examples problematic enough to warrant a 5.5 or 6e? Obviously not, as we're six years in and the game is more popular than ever. But these issues and the changing design philosophies that we're seeing from Tasha's reads to me as designers who can't decide exactly what their own game is supposed to be. This isn't even getting into the highly visible trend of a game designed for small-scale tactical combat being used more and more for story and character-driven roleplaying.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

That bolded bit is the failure by design. Wotc stripped out so much of the tactical resource and subjective elements as they could then did go make it yourself because rulings not rules & its modular to help. It's an area wotc needs yo start filling after all these years expecting gms yo gtfo or to fight wotc on it whenever they release a new book rgzr breaks everyone's homebrew additions tryiyto fill the gap wotc wants to ignore.

 

[Parmandur]

But how is that not power creep? You don't get a Feat for free normally in D&D 5E. I mean, maybe you should, and a lot of campaigns run that way, but you don't, and that's quite significant. On top of that, several of the Supernatural Gifts and a slightly smaller proportion of the Dark Gifts are arguably superior to the vast majority of Feats in terms of raw power (even accounting for downsides with the Dark Gifts). The real odd one out with Dark Gifts is Second Skin, which AFAICT, is nearly 100% worthless*, where all the others are at least niche useful. I do like them, and it's cute that a couple let people who want 1 to be a "critical fail" can "buy in" to it being such.

* = It gives you Alter Self 1/day, but only into a single specific and distinctive form. It does not give you any natural weapons or anything, even though it describes some of the example forms like they'd have them, and you're not allowed to do that thing where you switch the benefits, nor change the form. I feel like I'm missing something big but Alter Self pretty explicitly doesn't give you any benefits beyond looking different unless you choose the amphibious or natural weapons options, which you are forbidden from doing in this case.

I'll grant that it's a smidgen of power creep, and another sign of what 6E will probably look like.

 

[Marandahir]

Do you honestly believe any setting book is going to come out for 5E, from now onwards, without an equivalent to Supernatural Gifts?

Because I don't.

Everyone having a thing doesn't make it "not power creep", on the contrary, that makes the power creep more extreme. And AFAIK, none of those three settings contains any rules or advice for accounting for the "tougher" heros - correct me if I missed a bit somehow. So again, it's power creep.

You don't have to like that something is power creep, but by any reasonable definition, this is power creep. I also very much doubt Dark Sun will be limited to the Wild Talent Feats. It'll have those and a bunch of others I suspect, if it makes it to 5E.

Theros might not provide design guidance, but it does suggest that Therosian heroes should feel more powerful as a result of the Greek-inspired heroic fantasy. At the same time, the end-level epic threats are even tougher than ever before, so you are assumed to accumulate even more power to eventually take them on. Fighters should be more like Achilles than like Jaimie Lannister, in terms of power level.

I would imagine they very well might include Supernatural Gifts or something similar in each setting going forward. I don't imagine they're make such any more core rules than they already are (they're in the DMG as an optional, alternative reward/power increase feature, especially for epic level characters who can no longer gain levels but still might want to get more powerful to try to take on the Gods).

In Dark Sun, I imagine that Wild Talents will be reprinted and suggested as an option for your Supernatural gift. But as I've said before, this is a part of Dark Sun's storytelling from the very beginning: in earlier editions, players were told to start at 3rd Level to show how Athasian heroes are even more special. In 4e, they got heroic themes to model that same concept. Supernatural Gifts fill that same niche by essentially being a 4th-level class feature granted to a 1st-level character (feat or ASI Increase).

If it does spread, it's power creep maybe. But what does that really mean? An extra orc thrown into the encounter with orcs? It's not a big deal. Just monitor throw well your players are handling the threats and modulate the threat level up if they're curb-stomping the adventure module.

 

[Marandahir]

That bolded bit is the failure by design. Wotc stripped out so much of the tactical resource and subjective elements as they could then did go make it yourself because rulings not rules & its modular to help. It's an area wotc needs yo start filling after all these years expecting gms yo gtfo or to fight wotc on it whenever they release a new book rgzr breaks everyone's homebrew additions tryiyto fill the gap wotc wants to ignore.

Breaking homebrew because WotC released a playtested version that does the concept that the homebrew was designed to cover BETTER and more BALANCED is not a failure. It's a success. The homebrew served its purpose in the same way that UA serves a purpose: as a carry over until the final design can be more tinkered with. And if you still prefer your homebrew? Congratulations, you're not playing a video game with set logic; you can always houserule around it.

 

[Oofta]

Power creep in previous editions was an issue because if you scoured the books and had a lot of systems expertise you could blow away other classes.

If you have special abilities from campaigns like Theros (I don't have the book) then it's focused on that campaign and everyone is aware of what's available. I don't see how that causes a problem.

There's never going to be perfect balance, but most "superior" builds in 5E do a point or two extra DPR while ignoring defense and out of combat utility. I don't see any indication of the vast differences we saw in power from previous editions. If different published campaigns give special unique and thematic abilities I don't see an issue.

 

[Marandahir]

Power creep in previous editions was an issue because if you scoured the books and had a lot of systems expertise you could blow away other classes.

If you have special abilities from campaigns like Theros (I don't have the book) then it's focused on that campaign and everyone is aware of what's available. I don't see how that causes a problem.

There's never going to be perfect balance, but most "superior" builds in 5E do a point or two extra DPR while ignoring defense and out of combat utility. I don't see any indication of the vast differences we saw in power from previous editions. If different published campaigns give special unique and thematic abilities I don't see an issue.

Exactly. Power Creep was an issue because one player could be that much more powerful than everyone else at the table because they read this obscure rulebook. But if your table is using Supernatural/Dark Gifts, then the entire table is buying into the concept. Or if they don't, the DM should at least award the remaining characters either a feat of their choice or an ASI. But that's a table-by-table decision, not the same thing as say, Divine Metamagic in 3.5e.

 

[Minigiant]

Supernatural Gifts and Dark Gifts are not power creep as they are designed to be extra and not calculated in standard balancing.

This is the issue. We cannot get new game changing modules because many fans can't say No to popular ones that greatly alter the game. It only helps to obfuscate WOTC's stinginess on new gamechanging material.

Sure DMs can make homebrew material themselves. However I have contact info of more than a couple DMs who needed help from me after blowing up or nearly blowing up their games with poorly designed homebrew they or their players found.

 

[Parmandur]

Power creep in previous editions was an issue because if you scoured the books and had a lot of systems expertise you could blow away other classes.

If you have special abilities from campaigns like Theros (I don't have the book) then it's focused on that campaign and everyone is aware of what's available. I don't see how that causes a problem.

There's never going to be perfect balance, but most "superior" builds in 5E do a point or two extra DPR while ignoring defense and out of combat utility. I don't see any indication of the vast differences we saw in power from previous editions. If different published campaigns give special unique and thematic abilities I don't see an issue.

Basically, the Supernatural Gifts are Level 1 Feats (cool, flavorful Feats, granted), and there is a system for gaining special abilities through acts of piety to your Patron Deity. It's a definite power boost, but taking the Levwl 1 Feat options and using them for, say, Tasha's custom Lineage is not unreasonable.

 

[Marandahir]

Supernatural Gifts and Dark Gifts are not power creep as they are designed to be extra and not calculated in standard balancing.

This is the issue. We cannot get new game changing modules because many fans can't say No to popular ones that greatly alter the game. It only helps to obfuscate WOTC's stinginess on new gamechanging material.

Sure DMs can make homebrew material themselves. However I have contact info of more than a couple DMs who needed help from me after blowing up or nearly blowing up their games with poorly designed homebrew they or their players found.

Which is another reason why WotC is taking their time this edition with releasing content after years of careful playtesting, both private and public, first. They've got years ahead of them in this edition. They JUST released Psionics, something that 4e released in year 3 (of 6). MAYBE that means we're halfway done, but 4e was also cut off short because it wasn't selling bonkers like 5e is. I don't think we can use that as a measure of the length of the edition's life, but I do think we can see that WotC is JUST getting started.

 

[Minigiant]

Which is another reason why WotC is taking their time this edition with releasing content after years of careful playtesting, both private and public, first. They've got years ahead of them.

I'm not as optimistic on how many years you can due that without a noticeable dip in sales. I don't think there really are that many big name, old school settings and archetypes left that WOTC can tap into that with bring the same level of buzz Ravnica or Ravenloft brought. I just don't see the back log that brings that level of hype. Especially if it's true that more than half of players are under 35.

There's only so many MTG settings you can do before you get yawns. And many of the old settings that themes that aren't popular anymore unless you add to them (and anger old fans who are needed to hype them up with clicks).

It's not like Games Workshop where you can dangle codexes like carrots for 15 years because you have a bajillion factions in the lore