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

[Micah Sweet]

Eeh... that feels like a niche issue compared to how often you gain a level or preparing your daily spell load out as a Cleric or something.

Sometimes when you design a game you gotta cut out rules you like for the sake of simplicity and streamlining.

When? When do you have to do that?

 

[Kobold Stew]

Here are three "issues" about which I don't think there's really controversy, but they are also very low stakes, and probably more granular than the OP was asking for.

Illusions. Illusion magic should be fun, and reward creativity. I have yet to see that happen in 5e, in any game I've played. The rules are very weak on how things interact with illusions, and in multiple games, the best use they're put to is making obstacles to hide behind. Even then, it's all something that has to be negotiated with the DM up front. No other spell school is so poorly supported.A half page in the PHB, with a dozen examples, would be enough to show the spells work in play as designed.

Jumping. There are so many rules for jumping, and they all seem irrelevant in play. Ten years into this edition, and some characters can fly at level 1, others at 5, and some get wings only at 14 or 20. Whatever you think the right point is, there is no attempt at balancing flight, but the designers seem desperate not to let a character jump an extra foot or two by mistake.

Reincarnate. Does this spell ever get used? Remove the cost, or drop it a level, and all of a sudden there's an interesting choice between it or waiting for Raise Dead. It's such a fun spell, and all of the fun gets relegated to NPC backstories at best.

 

[delericho]

Monster and item stat blocks shouldn't be sending you to another book in the first place!!

Maybe not, but they do.

But, honestly, I'm not sure there's any value in debating this further - I'm happy to respect your opinion, but I'm just not going to share it.

 

[Clint_L]

One thing that I think is a flaw in all versions of dnd, at least from a game design standpoint, is the early level difficulty problem.

Generally in games you want to start players off on easy mode, adn then scale up the difficulty as they get used to the game. But in dnd, the first couple of levels are actually "brutal" in difficulty compared to later ones, its very easy to die when your a first level character, much harder when your 5th level.

It makes sense narratives, a newby character IS more likely to die than a veteran, but it an oddity in game design terms.

I think this is more of an issue with WotC's pre-published adventures than with 5e itself. I run several beginner campaigns every term, always start at level 1 for just the first game, and haven't had a single death at level 1 - I always design the first game to be very forgiving.

WotC, on the other hand, has some extremely hard low level adventures. I mean, the starter set for 5e, "Lost Mine of Phandelver" has an infamously challenging level 1 adventure.

 

[AnotherGuy]

1. Economy - I'm not sure this has ever been truly solved.

2. Monster Design (and by extension Encounter Design) - Current monsters are great starting point, but require adjustment, particularly as characters increase in levels. Thankfully there are many third-party supplements that do much of this for you already.

3. Skill Expertise/Weapon Plusses - Not a fan of things breaking Bound Accuracy. I've changed things up in my game.

4. Rests, Healing and Recharging - I've had to change the game radically to come up with something that works for my table.

5. Endless Hit Points - This is a narrative destroyer. 5 dudes 15 feet away with crossbows aimed at you is not scary, when it should be (in most cases).

6. Odd numbered Ability Points meaning nothing - What's the point of the current system when half the numbers mean nothing. Granularity could have been added to make them count for something.

7. Modularity - I'm a fan. We need more of it.

8. Ideals/Bonds/Flaws - System needs work I believe to make it tie it up stronger to mechanics.

9. Lack Lustre Equipment - Much too simple 50 years into the game.

10. Parity off - The parity amongst some classes and amongst some feats in general seems off.

 

[Minigiant]

I’d rather modules like that be DM-facing, but if it’s gonna be player side (and nothing inside the class should be DM-decides. Ever.) I’d want it to be very much fully player side.

No “optional variant ask your DM”. No.
It’s gotta be “When you gain second level as a Paladin, you can choose between [long rest casting model], [short rest casting model], and [short and long rest mixed casting model].

But really for that part I think a better idea is to give every class some things that recharge on a long rest and some on a short rest.

Either fully DM facing and be a complex system that is a DM choice and have the description of how it changes campaigns

OR
Fully Player facing and simple so players can choose how powerful and frequent their power are. So if players choose the type that don't match, it's a simple request to DMs to swap.

 

[Plaguescarred]

The Adventuring Day with 6-8 emcounters doesn't work well for me all the time.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Adventuring Day with 6-8 emcounters doesn't work well for me all the time.

Same.

 

[Velderan]

I think this is more of an issue with WotC's pre-published adventures than with 5e itself. I run several beginner campaigns every term, always start at level 1 for just the first game, and haven't had a single death at level 1 - I always design the first game to be very forgiving.

WotC, on the other hand, has some extremely hard low level adventures. I mean, the starter set for 5e, "Lost Mine of Phandelver" has an infamously challenging level 1 adventure.

The Essentials Kit adventure "Dragon of Icespire Peak" has one of the jobs the PCs can take at 1st level put the group up against a manticore. The quest says it's balanced for a 3rd level party, but when I ran the adventure that's what my group chose to do at 1st level. At 2nd level, they encountered the white dragon on the random encounter table while traveling to their next quest destination. An experienced DM can make those things work, but putting those possibilities in a book designed for new players that might be a first time DM without a lot more guidance on how to handle those situations is pretty bad IMO.

Generally I like the adventures WotC has put with the various Starter Sets, but would like to see them spend some more time with the DM advice they include in them.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The Adventuring Day with 6-8 emcounters doesn't work well for me all the time.

I think a lot of this comes down to a late edit. There are various forum posts where people compare the 5e playtest encounter rules with the final print. All the playtests were essentially one tier higher. (I.e. playtest "easy" became published "moderate")

I suspect there was feedback that encounters were too hard so they nerfed it, but the real reason they were too hard is the rules for encounter design were vague crap so newbies who didn't have a decade of experience were throwing 2nd level characters at white dragons (see post above re "Dragon of Icespire Peak"). They should have improved the DMG instead of making the encounters wussier, and thus necessitating more encounters.

So quick fix. If you want fewer encounters, make most of them Hard difficulty. Then when your players are somewhat acclimatized to this new environment, make Deadly encounters a common, if not frequent, event. The fights will take a little longer but needing fewer of them to deplete resources actually reduces the overall combat time.

It may also drive players to mmmmaaaayyyybeee not throw themselves into fights willy nilly, resulting in more non-combat activity. (I know, crazy concept that if combat has risk, players may avoid it)