What 5e got wrong

[SailorNash]

For me, it's the Short Rest mechanic. An hour is too long to be practical, and half the class abilities break as a result. Similar to the complaints about a Ranger's Favored Enemy, a player is at the whim of the DM's design decisions. Warlocks, for example, just are not playable with two spells per day.

Even worse, at times where there might be a gap for a break, the other party members with Long Rest abilities push for a full rest instead. In practice it's not the "5 minute workday" classes that blow their abilities early and now have to do without...the whole group has to work around their lack of spellpower instead. It's a cooperative game, after all, and would be pretty brutal to push weakened teammates onward towards likely character death and possible TPK.

I do like the idea of refreshing abilities, especially as a way to differentiate character concepts. But it should be as simple as "ten minutes since your last use" or something similar, with few additional riders.

It would also simplify the language greatly. Saying "once per long or short rest" is far from natural language. "Once per day" is far simpler, so long as there is some definition as to what defines an encounter for the "once per encounter" abilities they're trying to model with Short Rests.

 

[Jester David]

Looking at the OP's linked wiki page on Pillar's of Eternity, even that game doesn't encourage all attributes for all classes:
http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attribute#Class_recommendation

A Perception/Resolve barbarian is discouraged, as is a Might/Intellect fighter.
It really seems like his initial claim that all abilities can equally prioritized is false. All are useful and have a mechanical bonus, but that's not the same thing.

That game also gets away with it because each point increase means a 5% bonus on that stat's effects. Which is akin to a +1 bonus on a d20 roll for D&D. So stats in the game can be a lot less high (14 Might has an equivalent game effect as 18 Strength). It wouldn't feel very D&D to have the dwarf fighter with an "astonishing" 13 Con at 1st level.
As the ability cap in both games is 30 though, the numbers in PoE must get much, much higher. A 30 Might would have a +100% bonus, or the equivalent of a 50 Strength. I'm not sure how that much number boost is balanced without boosting Might being mandatory or having characters that don't boost falling behind.

(To say nothing of weirdness, such as all classes needing a high Might because it affects all damage, so it's as recommended for wizards as Intellect and better for rogues than Dexterity.)

There's some neat interactions between the abilities and the derived attributes. But it's not very D&D.

 

[Jester David]

It would also simplify the language greatly. Saying "once per long or short rest" is far from natural language. "Once per day" is far simpler, so long as there is some definition as to what defines an encounter for the "once per encounter" abilities they're trying to model with Short Rests.

They don't say "once per long long or short rest" though. They say "When you finish a short or long rest you..." Or "You regain this ability after a short rest."

Short rests are not encounter powers. You're meant to have a short rest after a variable amount of encounters, typically 2-3. Short rests are big.
The 4e short rest was effectively mandatory. You finished the encounter and regained your abilities and the five minute cooldown was just long enough that you wouldn't try it in combat but just short enough it wouldn't affect the story. It was a hand wavy way of justifying powers resetting after an encounter. A nod to verisimilitude.

They made short rests longer in 5e because they found it easier to DMs to determine if taking a rest has story consequences. 5 or 10 minutes proved too short. Would a patrol find the PCs? Would the guards they killed be missed? Does the villain's ritual go off? Would the vampire reduced to mist be able to noticeably recover? Can the bad guys who heard the combat get ready to defend or prepare tactics?
With an hour there was much more leeway for knowing the rest has an impact. It was easier to justify something happening.

But if you want shorter rests, then change them. Make them 30 minutes. Or 15. Or 5. That's why it says "short rest" everywhere rather than "resting for an hour". So you can change the definition of short rest without having to rewrite every class.

 

[ccs]

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.

I was refering to 2e in general.
Like I said, make whatever changes (classes/abilities/spell availability/etc) 2e made & your good to go.

 

[Maxperson]

As [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] says, psionic magic was everywhere, almost every person had a psionic magic talent. So it's not really low magic.
I don't see why barbarians get excluded. They weren't one of the 2e Dark Sun classes, but barbarians didn't really exist in that edition. They'd fit the setting nicely. Ditto warlocks. And maybe tieflings.

But Dark Sun was always a setting that required a lot of customization.

Yeah. The cannibal halflings would make perfect barbarians.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

2e rangers and paladins didn't get spells to 8th level, but in Dark Sun you started at 3, so 8 wasn't *that* far away. Rangers and paladins were more likely to have spells in Dark Sun. Well... rangers, since Paladins didn't exist.

The only class was significantly more magic was the bard. Which is a very different character in Dark Sun, and a Athasian bard might work better as a rogue subclass.



As [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] says, psionic magic was everywhere, almost every person had a psionic magic talent. So it's not really low magic.
I don't see why barbarians get excluded. They weren't one of the 2e Dark Sun classes, but barbarians didn't really exist in that edition. They'd fit the setting nicely. Ditto warlocks. And maybe tieflings.

But Dark Sun was always a setting that required a lot of customization.

Also monks are basically psionic. Slight reflavor and it's fine.

Most casters should be options, with slower spell slot progressions unless they defile, or add a defiler mechanic that kills things around you, with negative effects even for your allies when you cast powerful spells.

4e did a good job, I think, of giving a solid lore friendly place for Druids Rangers and barbarians. And their magic isn't arcane, so that works.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

That sounds like a feat
TACTICIAN - Add Intelligence Modifier in addition to the Dexterity Modifier when making ability checks to determine initiative order.

I've actually been pondering adding that something like that to the Keen Mind feat (perhaps in lieu of the +1 Int, perhaps not). I wonder how (un)balanced it would be?

 

[THEMNGMNT]

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....

Many people here are referencing 2E for Dark Sun. I'm thinking more about 4E. 4E was probably the edition that best modeled the sword and sorcery genre's emphasis on martial protagonists. So, I wish 5E had carried forward that ability to compose an effective party that has no spellcasters. From a mechanics standpoint it's possible simply by tweaking the healing rules. But there's so much magic baked into the classes. That's where the problem lies. Dark Sun is just one example. Another is Primeval Thule, which is a fantastic campaign setting, but 5E makes it difficult to build characters that fit seamlessly into that sort of sword and sorcery world. Not impossible, just a little bit more difficult. Regardless, this is a corner case. 5E is a good game.

 

[Shasarak]

Many people here are referencing 2E for Dark Sun. I'm thinking more about 4E. 4E was probably the edition that best modeled the sword and sorcery genre's emphasis on martial protagonists. So, I wish 5E had carried forward that ability to compose an effective party that has no spellcasters.

The problem that I had with the 4e version of Darksun was that it essentially made all of the restrictions of Darksun meaningless. Like for example you do not need heavy armour to get a good AC so that negates the shortage of metal.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, I wish 5E had carried forward that ability to compose an effective party that has no spellcasters. From a mechanics standpoint it's possible simply by tweaking the healing rules. But there's so much magic baked into the classes. That's where the problem lies.

That's just a matter of not enough variety/scope/flexibility among the few non-caster sub-classes. Adding more non-caster sub-classes (like PDK & Swashbuckler) doesn't help a lot, as it's very incremental, and they can't be that different from existing sub-classes. New classes with a great deal more flexibility to contribute more than just DPR is all you need. That's harder to do than adding new caster classes, since the groundwork hasn't been laid the way it has been with an expansive spell list, but far from insurmountable.

Dark Sun is just one example. Another is Primeval Thule, which is a fantastic campaign setting, but 5E makes it difficult to build characters that fit seamlessly into that sort of sword and sorcery world. Not impossible, just a little bit more difficult.

Dark Sun isn't exactly low/no magic, just different magic - Psionics instead of Divine, Arcane having a serious PR problem. Even in Primeval Thule, magic isn't low/no so much as just rare and distrusted, so caster PCs just have a lot less NPCs competing with them, and some PR issues when they're overt with their magic around the wrong people.