D&D 5E What are the things in D&D Next you don't like?

[KidSnide]

The big thing for me is derived ability score mods (10-11 grants no modifier, 12-13 grants +1, 14-15 grants +2, etc.). I have come to dislike this mechanic, for two reasons. First, the modifiers are too small compared to the size of a d20. If you take an average person (Int 10) and Einstein (Int 20), and have them both make Intelligence checks, the average person will beat Einstein slightly more than 1 out of 4 times. That's way too big a variance. Second, derived mods are confusing to newbies. I would much prefer to have ability checks be "roll 1d20 and add the ability score." So if you have Int 14, your Int check is 1d20+14. It's simpler, it solves the odd stat issue, and it means high stats really mean something. But it's rather too late for this now, I'm afraid.

Agreed. We've had this mechanic for a while, but at least 3e (and in a different way 4e) mitigated the non-ability check version of this issue by providing hefty skill modifiers. Now that we're stuck with tiny proficiency adjustments (the lucky rogues and bards exempted), this problem shows up all over the place.

Early on in the process, WotC decided that it was less fun if skill checks (and "skill-like" ability checks) were auto-successes or auto-failures depending on the skill (or ability) of the character. Maybe this results in a more "fun" result for some tables, because everyone always has a chance of success. But it makes total hash of reality. Most tasks that are challenging for trained professionals (jumping, surgery, stealth, code breaking, historical knowledge) are essentially impossible for untrained amateurs of average ability.

It's like they decided that realism was the problem with skills. Personally, I agree with them when it comes to games with an action movie sensibility. I don't want that kind of realism when I play Dungeon World. But a lot of my D&D games are in a more grounded universe, and I don't like it when the skill rules produce essentially nonsensical results.

-KS

 

[gweinel]

I don't like the fact that Wizards of the Coast is mostly a game mechanics company. I think this time it should really focus equal resources on reference material and adventure material. Just like TSR did.

kira3696.tripod.com <-- a free 5th edition game tracker, suggestions always welcome

I wholeheartly aggree.
I am constantly reading here and there that the fall of TSR was the overextention in regard with the campaign settings. This maybe is the truth if you look the game under a short term economic view (which is very important, since maybe that was the reason that made TSR to bankrupt). On the other hand, looking the game and the legacy of it long term, someone can realise that many gamers were "nurtured" and "flourished" in the 2e environment. An environment which were abound of ideas and inspiration through the various settings. For me and for my gaming group the plethora of all these settings was and it still is the main source of creativity in our sessions. Without Planescape, Birthright, Dragonlance, Ravenloft and others i really don't know if I would be here in these forum to talk and care about the future of our beloved game.

One can simply look the sources of inspiration the last 15 years to realise the poverty: only one new setting was developed and another old one was supported. It is no suprise for me that DnD is in crisis and constantly more and more supporters are searching for something else. It is unispiring. The two major factors that led a game (DnD) to be synonymous with a genre (RPG), the adventures (mostly of 1e) and the settings (both 1st and 2nd e) were gradually abandoned.

The thing that i want to say is that in long term the company was profited with the "overexpansion" of the settings because it offered to the players new magical world which were full in inspiration. Many of the gamers that felled under that spell are still here supporting DnD (giving it money), care and wait for the DnD Next move. I am not talking ofc for an exact similar policy. What I am talking about is Wizards must focus mostly on Settings (and adventures) than the rulebooks.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I heard it was just bad financial management that caused TSR to go under, not campaign setting bloat.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I don't like...

(Well, pretty much anything but Bounded Accuracy, and even with that the implementation looks wonky. It seems like it's going to be a terrible system. But specifically

• "Natural language" instead of clean templating; this is an instant unsell
• Removal of proportionate healing; in a game with hp, this is also an instant unsell
• The claim that the game will be modular and all things to all people; a game that isn't tightly purposed is a game I have no interest in
• Few or no mechanically interesting options for martial characters
• The sense that after two years of playtesting, the game is still not nailed down mathematically when that should have happened in the first two weeks, and certainly before it was ever shown to players
• Related to the above, the bizarre flip-flopping on various rules elements from one package to the next; it doesn't help that the most interesting ideas, like the initial reveals of the warlock and sorcerer, are the ones that seem to have been cut or reworked entirely
• The claim of three "pillars of play" contrasted with a system that barely offers more mechanical support for non-combat activities than any other version of D&D, a shocking dearth compared to basically any other RPG on the market
• Fighters, alone out of all classes, having no class-based abilities outside of the "combat pillar;" I'd be more than fine with splitting the three pillars entirely, but this nonsense is just a continuation of what 3e and 4e did to the fighter, who had the BEST NWPs in 2e and should've kept them
• Wildly varying mechanical subsystems between character classes
• The monster stat block, which looks like a throwback to pre-3e, much less the very useable late-3e/4e stat blocks
• The emphasis on "classic fantasy" races and classes that make it clear the default expectation is Tolkien-clone settings
• The hypocrisy of making warlord and sorcerer subclasses but paladin and ranger full classes
• The design team's attitude toward the current version of the game (but then, this will be at least the third consecutive version of D&D where they've pulled this kind of nonsense in their marketing)
• To this point, no indication that there will be anything like the incredible GM tools of D&D 4e, or even Spycraft
• Yet another reiteration of the "back to the dungeon" "return to the essence of the game" blather that WotC has talked about with every edition they've released, despite being two for two on games that are much, much better at things other than dungeoncrawling
• The implementation of bounded accuracy, which looks likely to break in the core book and certain to within the first couple of supplements

The natural language thing is by far the biggest one. D&D has spent the last two decades staggering toward the clarity of templating that I would expect of a game made in 1985, and having finally come within sight of that not very high bar it's run screaming in the opposite direction.

Next is shaping up to be the first version of D&D I have no interest in buying, and one of several I'd bow out of playing.