What 5e got wrong

My only complaint thus far is about some of the subclasses. I think most of them are solid but some of them are conceptually muddy. For example, the mastermind rogue is somewhat like a warlord, with a real emphasis on combat. Yet one of their abilities is around disguise. Disguise works for an infiltrator or spy subclass. It just feels out of place with the mastermind.
This is what a Mastermind looks like:
Mastermind_zpsx9xz5az4.jpg


Nate Ford is the guy who makes his whole team better by knowing their strengths and weaknesses better than they do themselves, and by planning out the cons. He's also pretty good at the grifter side of the business (but not as good as Sophie Deveraux), covered by disguises and Deception.
 

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Actually, I do have one really big criticism of 5E. It's too hard to run a no- or low-magic game like Dark Sun because so many class features are delivered through spells. I know many people have problems with 4E's powers, but they are great packets for delivering abilities and features, and because of 5E's reluctance to do the same there is an over-reliance on spell lists.

D&D has never been a great system for low magic games. 5e lets a little more magic into the classes, but there are fewer magic items.

The cleric, druid, wizard, ranger, and paladin have pretty much the same magic as in 2e when Dark Sun was created. Only the bard only has a little more. There are more classes with magic because there are more classes. If it worked then, it should work now.

Dark Sun
should be a little easier to manage now, since you can just ban the cleric and paladin and let the bard and druid pick up the healer slack, so you don't need to force elemental priests in just to keep healing and restoration in the game. Elemental priests could be druid circles pretty easily.

But 5e is pretty modular, so it could be tweaked. It'd be easy to remove or reduce cantrip casting, or reduce spellcasting. You can give spellcasters restriction to make using magic harder, such as house rules that increase casting time, perks to encourage people to play martial characters, or roleplaying restrictions such as magic users being feared or magic corrupting the weilder. For example, you could give the ranger and paladin the eldritch knight casting chart, give the wizard, cleric, bard, druid, and sorcerer the ranger and pally casting chart and just make magic rarer. Or have spellcasters declare the spell they're casting at the end of their turn, with it taking effect the following round, but have a chance it's interrupted.
 

Actually, I do have one really big criticism of 5E. It's too hard to run a no- or low-magic game like Dark Sun because so many class features are delivered through spells. I know many people have problems with 4E's powers, but they are great packets for delivering abilities and features, and because of 5E's reluctance to do the same there is an over-reliance on spell lists.

Well, we managed to play Dark Sun games back in 2e.
You know, when the setting was introduced.
Guess what?
Clerics/druids had spells.
Wizards had spells.
Bards had spells.
Rangers & paladins got spells eventually.

So make whatever changes 2e made....
 



To me, I feel like PoE's system wasn't well-thought-out. They obviously wanted to make all the attributes potentially equally important, but they did so in sometimes nonsensical ways. For example, the Barbarian class makes heavy use of AoE/Cleave attacks, and the Intelligence stat is what enhances AoE/Cleave damage. So an effective Barbarian is one that has a high Intelligence.

It's a fun game, and the creators obviously had symmetry in mind when designing the mechanics. I just don't think it's really any more effective than the DnD system.
 

The Backfire Effect When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/

The effect is a bit overblown due to a lack of work to determine in people change their minds over time as a result of contradictory evidence. I've very very rarely seen anyone change their mind about something they feel strongly about immediately upon encountering contradictory evidence or convincing arguments, but people often come to view the topic very differently weeks or months later, after their brain has processed the info without the "my beliefs and thus my self are under attack" emotional response.

Of course, such changes seem to happen less with people who are raised in an environment that treats changing your mind about something as an almost taboo sign of not only intellectual weakness, but also weakness of character.
 

Well, we managed to play Dark Sun games back in 2e.
You know, when the setting was introduced.
Guess what?
Clerics/druids had spells.
Wizards had spells.
Bards had spells.
Rangers & paladins got spells eventually.

So make whatever changes 2e made....

Bards did not have spells in 2E Darksun they rewrote the class. The 5E bard would not exist on DS along with most of the other subclasses. the Bard would be a Rogue:Assassin with the entertainer back ground. The only martial clases in 2E were.

Fighter
Thief
Gladiator
Bard (rewritten)

Most of the 5E classes and sub classes would not exist in a faithful adaption of 2E DS. YOu would have 5 domains for the clerics (elemental+templar or refluffed PHB domains), the 8 wizards, maybe the 3 fighter subclasses, maybe the 3 rogue subclasses, Druids of the Land (no moon Druids).

No Barbarians, Monks, Paladins, Sorcerers (PHB ones anyway), Half Orcs, Gnomes, Drow, Tieflings, Dragonborn. Hell you would probably rewrite the races.
 
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