What 5e got wrong

[Sadras]

The only thing 5e got wrong were all our table's house rules we've had to implement.

 

[77IM]

There are thousands of RPGs out there, and they pretty much all use different attributes/stats/ability scores. You know why? Because picking the right ones is an extremely hard problem. An attribute that makes sense to one person is baffling to another; a stat that is important to one genre/setting is irrelevant in another; some people like lots of stats and some like few; etc.

The classic six ability scores are not my favorite, either. But they've persisted because they work for D&D.

And because of bounded accuracy, ability scores are more useful for more character types than ever before. In 3e, your fighter with Cha 14 was completely overshadowed by the bard with Cha 22 and 18 ranks in Diplomacy. Now, the bard's only got Cha 20 and 5 "ranks" and you're both facing DC 15 so you both have a chance to succeed and a chance to fail -- and advantage/disadvantage can swing things even further.

 

[Mecheon]

Also rules are simple, a bit too simple. Coming from pathfinder i have not as much options as id like.

Pathfinder has the opposite problem. To say Pathfinder is bloated is a slight understatement.

Honestly I think there could have been some more 4e nods. Plus I really was liking that whole idea of making the sorcerer something other than "Mage but more different" they had going in a test

Oh, and rebalancing the ability scores because while they are all sort of useful, there are certain ones that are infinitely more useful regardless of class. I remember a good idea somewhere that combined a few of them together for the point of saves and it did seem to work well

 

[PnPgamer]

Pathfinder has the opposite problem. To say Pathfinder is bloated is a slight understatement.

Honestly I think there could have been some more 4e nods. Plus I really was liking that whole idea of making the sorcerer something other than "Mage but more different" they had going in a test

Oh, and rebalancing the ability scores because while they are all sort of useful, there are certain ones that are infinitely more useful regardless of class. I remember a good idea somewhere that combined a few of them together for the point of saves and it did seem to work well

Yeah pathfinder is pretty bloaty, i just prefer bloat over being starved.
Just like my women.

 

[Uchawi]

I never found a RPG that had a good representation of abilities via attributes, but I think the larger problem with 5E is the majority of classes use magic and there is little flexibility for martial classes via maneuvers; if you compare that against casters with spells. It is not a good model for fantasy or real life in regards to learning or training.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

That looks like a great attribute system ... for a computer RPG.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

The thing I think 5e did wrong were small...

the warlock... every other caster in the book plays nice with caster level when multi classing, except the warlock

the battle master fighter it is a good start but more powerful and maybe even boarder line supernatural manuvers at higher levels should have been int here

 

[Rya.Reisender]

That looks like a great attribute system ... for a computer RPG.

This.

The problem is that while in a computer RPG it's easy to make each stat do 4 different things so it's useful for every single class, in Pen&Paper you rather not want to have such a complexity to keep track off.

The only thing I dislike about D&D 5e attributes is that while during point buy raising a stat above 13 is more expensive, it is not more expensive to raise it while leveling up, making it much better to only raise the main stat to 20. I would have liked it more if there was a choice like "Put 1 point in my main stat or 2 points in some other stat I occasionally need?". Also then at least the total stats would be perfectly balanced on point buy.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I do think one area where 5e kind of phoned it in is the stealth rules.

If hiding - something that hobbits do on the regular - requires that much DM adjudication and text-parsing, we've really failed to support a range of character types (sneaky rogues, stealthy rangers, ambushy assassins) with little more than "Uh...ask your DM if it's cool."

 

[akr71]

A video game can get a lot more finicky with ability scores, since the computer manages the number crunching rather than one person. It's easier to regularly shift abilities, give bonuses, and have every party member trying to improve all their abilities because all are relevant.

snip

5e also had a legacy element. They wanted "18 Strength" to mean something, to be good. There was a cap in place. So regular stat boosts didn't work.

I agree 100%

Also, if they had gone and changed ability scores (names and/or score thresh-holds), it wouldn't be doing such a good job at pulling people back to the game. I've read posts by many forum members, such as myself that have been away from gaming for many years. 5e is familiar yet stripped down, making it accessible.