What 5e got wrong

[TwoSix]

This is fallacious reasoning. The usefulness of a stat should not be dependent on how much the DM is willing to handhold it. They need to be balanced in the mechanical rules of the game.

I agree with you broadly, but that is NOT the dominant paradigm of 5e play.

 

[OldSkoolRPG]

This is fallacious reasoning. The usefulness of a stat should not be dependent on how much the DM is willing to handhold it. They need to be balanced in the mechanical rules of the game.

Why? Just because you think they should? Or do you have a logically valid argument leading to the conclusion that such mechanical balance should be the case? You accuse Sacrosanct of fallacious reasoning (though you don't point out exactly what fallacy he is guilty of) while resorting to question begging yourself.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This is fallacious reasoning. The usefulness of a stat should not be dependent on how much the DM is willing to handhold it. They need to be as balanced as possible in the hard, mechanical rules of the game.

Say what again? It's not fallacious. Everyone DMs differently. There are three pillars of the game, meant to be used equally. Just because one group does combat a lot more than another and doesn't use INT checks very often doesn't mean that INT is designed to be worse. Seems to me that INT is balanced with most other stats between combat (casters) and out of combat (all those checks for everyone). How often someone uses something is entirely subjective.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In favor of what, exactly? Spontaneous casting of any spell on your class list?

The obvious choice would be spontaneous casting of any spell known.

I don't exactly mind any of the given implementations, but between bonus spells that are always prepared and bonus spells that can be prepared, it's hard to keep all of the different mechanics straight. There's already sufficient distinction between characters based on what spells they can learn; they don't also all need different mechanics for accessing those spells.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This is fallacious reasoning. The usefulness of a stat should not be dependent on how much the DM is willing to handhold it. They need to be as balanced as possible in the hard, mechanical rules of the game.

Since DM's apply the mechanical rules differently at different tables, I don't see any mechanical framework as being really able to enforce equality of ability scores. Even if you loot PoE's mechanics wholesale, nothin' stops an individual adventure or quest from completely ignoring INT or CON or whatever and focusing on other ability scores. The PoE wiki itself admits that CON, for instance, is rarely relevant in dialog. A conversation-heavy adventure wouldn't use the ability score much, so it could be safely "dumped" by a character playing through that adventure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It was? I seem to recall them saying that they wanted to put elements from everyone's favorite edition into 5e. Which is not the same as saying they wanted to please everyone.

Yes, they did pithily say "D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D," which was prettymuch saying they want to please 'everyone' (in that expansive group of past & current D&D fans). And did also say something about taking the 'best' out of each prior edition, which might seem a little less impossible (if there were any consensus what might be counted as 'best').

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yes, they did pithily say "D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D," which was prettymuch saying they want to please 'everyone' (in that expansive group of past & current D&D fans). And did also say something about taking the 'best' out of each prior edition, which might seem a little less impossible (if there were any consensus what might be counted as 'best').

Who said that? I suspect this is more of hearing someone not part of the design team saying something like that, and us confusing it with an official statement years later.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Who said that?

Mike Mearls. I'm surprised you've forgotten about it, it didn't exactly fly under the radar- hmm... OK, it generated a lot of discussion on the WotC boards at the time, not sure if it made as big a splash here, though.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yeah, but did he say that? Like I said, we as human beings hear something that is actually said and repeat a variation of it that isn't the same thing, and leap to assumptions. That's what I'm getting at. Did Mearls really say the goal was to make everyone happy? Or did he say something along the lines of pulling things from everyone's favorite edition and people lept to a conclusion that he said he was wanting to make everyone happy.

 

[Awesome Adam]

The usefulness of a stat should not be dependent on how much the DM is willing to handhold it. They need to be as balanced as possible in the hard, mechanical rules of the game.

No, they don't. Your attributes tell you what to add to a D20 roll when you try to do something, nothing more.

D&D is not some PVP video game where ALL things need to be equal to prevent someone from geting an unfair advantage.

This line of thought goes along with the people not being able to cope with other chartacters being able to so the same thing they can but better, in a co-operative game.