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

[FitzTheRuke]

I am going to use my statement to just dismiss people who talk about "true issues". As you said, it IS subjective. Talking about "true issues" kinds implies it is objective. Which is not.


We've been seeing this since 1974. And maybe the closest thing to be called a "true issue" is that people still cling on the concept of "perfection" that perhaps isn't even applicable to a game (any game, not just an RPG).

Nah. You're going overboard here. We're just spitballing ideas on how to make the game "better". Perfection is well-known to be overrated. And "IMO" is heavily implied in everyone's posts. Whenever anyone posts anything it's "in (their) opinion".

Even the OP, IMO is looking for a little too much consensus on "true issues" (or in other words, is taking the word "true" too much to heart. It's really going to wind up, at best, as "somewhat true".

What can we, as a group of unrelated but presumably pretty hardcore gamers, - mostly - agree are things that could be fixed? There's a lot of good suggestions. IMO, of course.

 

[Raiztt]

That's incredibly hard to respond to without getting into politics, but I'll take a stab at it.

You pretty much never see a 9-0 ruling on anything so clearly opinions can vary wildly on different issues. Also as the members of the court leave, they can be replaced by people with different viewpoints to the point where some settled cases get looked at again years later and the court overturns a previous ruling because reasons. That's not exactly the order and consistency you were mentioning.

Then you get into the possibility that an extremely wealthy player can just pay for a DM's vacation to buy favor in that decision making process. Just glad that has never ever happened in the court, no sir.

I think you took that analogy much, much further than it was intended or needed to go.

 

[SteveC]

Some of us don't want to play a game that's modeled after anime or wire-fu. If you want an explicitly supernatural PC there are plenty of options.

This is the biggest conflict that I see that keeps Martial characters from getting exceptional abilities. And it's something that I get that I am in the minority on. And yet, Martial characters do have an anime ability: the ability to take a beating. Any real world person would quickly be turned into paste by dragons/demons/giants and so on. But that's an ability we accept.

I am firmly of the belief that the "BMX Bandit/Angel Summoner" video is really how we see high level adventurers playing out between Martial/Magical characters. But I get that I'm in the minority where if a fighter were to be able to jump a distance equal to their speed, that would upset a lot of folks.

And so that's a situation where it's clearly not a "true issue" with 5E. But it is an issue for me and others too. So I suppose it's a story for another time.

 

[CleverNickName]

My response to the many, many different flavors of "My DM won't let me have fun" is always going to be "you need to talk to your DM."

The rules aren't going to fix your social circle.

 

[Clint_L]

I am going to use my statement to just dismiss people who talk about "true issues". As you said, it IS subjective. Talking about "true issues" kinds implies it is objective. Which is not.

I agree, but I think the OP means something like "widespread consensus issues." Like, there is a widespread consensus that Elemental Monk doesn't really work very well. A few folks disagree and think the subclass is okay, but even they recognize that they are very much in the minority.

 

[Micah Sweet]

fighter is arguably one of the best classes in PF2e full stop and they don't have any inherent supernatural powers. just say'n.

They found ways to give fighters cool things to do that don't require supernatural powers. Level Up did too. Shame WotC is unwilling to do that, and no, weapon mastery is weak sauce.

 

[Stalker0]

Even the OP, IMO is looking for a little too much consensus on "true issues" (or in other words, is taking the word "true" too much to heart. It's really going to wind up, at best, as "somewhat true".

I did this very intentionally. We have dozens of "5e issue threads" out there, and honestly this one is starting to turn into a standard one where everyone just lists the stuff they don't like about 5e.

The original purpose of this thread was to go a step beyond that, and to identify things that are so fundamentally "wrong" with the edition that everyone would point and go "yeah that's not great, I would certainly want that improved or fixed".


And we do have one so far..... the index. I haven't heard a single person in this thread or in any other 5e issue thread I've ever known say they liked the index. At best its "barely tolerable". So that so far seems to be the only "True Issue" with 5e that has been concretely identified. Everything else is more of which side of a preference you are on.

And again that's ok, my assumption was this list would be small, as getting that level of true consensus is very hard.

 

[Vaalingrade]

DMs are like the supreme court - they interpret what the rules actually say.

My point exactly.

Less empowerment to some rando handed power by tradition that has long passed its expiration date.

 

[Stalker0]

Ok let me go for another one, the Halfling Bobblehead art. Does anyone actually like that particular piece of art?

 

[Stalker0]

DMs are like the supreme court - they interpret what the rules actually say.

In the context of a forum though, DMs are more like the district courts, and that's why you don't have consistency in discussion.

Using the illusion topic for example, as we discuss it on the forum, Table A runs them one way, Table B runs them another. How "strong" illusions are in 5e is completely dependent on your DM, moreso than most mechanics in 5e because there is such a vagary with them.

So in terms of "ruling" how good they are in a forum discussion, you have to take the different "rulings" from all of these DM "district courts" and decide on a final verdict.