D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[Cadence]

How much more can an Elf with Strength 15 lift than a human with Strength 15? What about a Triton? How much better are they at Investigation when they all have the same Intelligence?

<<< Diversion Warning back to issues with 5e >>>

I just love that the carrying capacity for a 15 STR with no slowing down or penalty (in terms of climbing, swimming, running, whatnot) is 225 lbs (aka 102 kg or 16 stones).

I'm imagining a TV episode where a group of very mixed backgrounds decides to base their character stats off of what they think they'd have in real life, until someone points out that STR has actual numbers associated with it. And then watching what the STR end up being based on that after they do various tests. Queue the montage of disastrous swimming and muscle pulling climbing tests carrying the weights that go with their orignal guesses.

 

[jgsugden]

To answer the OP: Nothing. There are no true issues. There is nothing significant enough to be an issue. I could make tweaks to the game, but there is nothing in it that is truly an issue.

Most of the "issues" I see people raise are problems because the story is an afterthought, not the core, of the game, to them.

For example: Gold. Supposed issue: PCs have no way to spend gold. Response: Why? They don't want to buy nice things? Own nice clothes? Or jewlery? Or cool magic/technology? If the PCs want it, there is demand - and where there is demand, supply will follow.

Another example: Supposed issue: 6 to 8 encounters per long rest being an expectation, but PCs rest after every battle. Response: While there are times an isolated combat makes sense, most of the time the PCs have an objective and that objective will require them to have some urgency, or deal with foes that are in earshot of each other. When I run my sessions naturally, I tend to find the PCs often finding natural rest breaks for Short and Long rests that make sense given what is taking place around them.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Most of the "issues" I see people raise are problems because the story is an afterthought, not the core, of the game, to them.

ROFL jesus wept are in you in any way serious insulting like 40 people and taking a giant dump on their games?

That's incredible stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm really not that sure that it does. What is the key benefit that it provides? Because I find that most inventory management systems work, at a very high level, in the same way: avoid letting the bad thing happen. That tends to result in uninteresting, even frustrating gameplay.

I think part of the point is that it's supposed to be frustrating, in that it limits what the player can do in the game. This would put it in the same category as just about every other game rule. What encombrance does above and beyond this, however, is force not-always-welcome choices on the player as to what gear/loot/etc. should be kept vs what has to be left behind; and I posit choices like this are both realistic and worthwhile.

And a minor point in favour of encumbrance is that it gives Strength - an otherwise secondary stat in 5e - something to do.

It is, in general, better to have a system which rewards good play, rather than one which exclusively punishes bad play, no rewards for playing well. I have yet to see an "encumbrance" or other inventory-management system which rewards effective play in any way. That's a pretty serious drag on it as an interesting and useful component of a game's design.

In many sports and games the point of rules is to prevent bad (or foul) play, and the enforcement system is punishment-based: break a rule, you'll get a penalty of some sort; don't break any rules and you won't get any penalties.

Encumbrance is kind of the same. Stay within the limits and the reward is that there's no penalties. Go beyond the limits and penalties will start to accrue, as enforced by the DM-as-referee.

 

[Maxperson]

not one person everything, everyone whatever fits their niche

Trying to understand this. Are you saying that people solving problems that their class(niche) is designed to solve is an issue? If not, I'm still not understanding what you are trying to say.

possibly, but that kinda sounds like addressing the same problem in a slightly different way

I view it a bit different. Overly generous DMs who fill the spellbooks with tons and tons of spells create the problem where there wasn't one.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Most of the "issues" I see people raise are problems because the story is an afterthought, not the core, of the game, to them.

Yep. The Story of the bad index and poor DM tools.

Truly an epic of our time.

 

[Lanefan]

It's funny. I read these threads and half the time it sounds like we're playing completely different games or that there was some golden era when all these issues raised didn't exist.

• We've always had issues with the 5 minute workday, 4E just made it for everyone.

Funny, but the 5-minute workday is something that long ago stopped bothering me, as it's simply how wise characters in the fiction would try to accomplish their adventuring.

• There has never been anything to spend gold on after a certain point unless you wanted to play Dungeons & Property Management or you had the never-ending hamster-wheel magic mart where the expectation was that you would get gold simply to buy stuff to keep up.

Training rules to the rescue on this one. Training to level up is a nice money sink.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think the difficulty of it is the problem so much as the pointlessness of doing it. Ammunition in 5e is trivially inexpensive.

The end result of rigorous ammo tracking in 5e is that eventually the ranged PC drops 50gp in a well-stocked town, and throws 1000 arrows in their bag of holding and then they're good for roughly 100 encounters even if they lose every arrow they fire.

That assumes said Ranger has a bag of holding.

Also, last I checked arrows are sharp pointy little things - just the type of item one doesn't want to carelessly toss into one's BoH.....

 

[FitzTheRuke]

<<< Diversion Warning back to issues with 5e >>>

I just love that the carrying capacity for a 15 STR with no slowing down or penalty (in terms of climbing, swimming, running, whatnot) is 225 lbs (aka 102 kg or 16 stones).

I'm imagining a TV episode where a group of very mixed backgrounds decides to base their character stats off of what they think they'd have in real life, until someone points out that STR has actual numbers associated with it. And then watching what the STR end up being based on that after they do various tests. Queue the montage of disastrous swimming and muscle pulling climbing tests carrying the weights that go with their orignal guesses.

True story: When I was about 16, my D&D group used a weight set to see what our STR score was, based on 2e's "Lift/Press" scores.

My girlfriend got a 2. A skinny buddy got a 7. Another player got a 9. I got an 11. And one stocky friend got a 16. None of us were athletic, mind.

This is to say: There's a LOT of variety in a group of 5 teenagers. You'd be surprised.

On the other hand, we'd all score really, really low against a 5e chart.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

ROFL jesus wept are in you in any way serious insulting like 40 people and taking a giant dump on their games?

That's incredible stuff.

Not to mention objectively wrong. I see tons of "issues" in the game, and I'm ALL about Story in the game. And I'm only one example. I suspect nearly all of us are big into the story. It's just a foolish thing to say.