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

[Parmandur]

Which of these fighters in GoT do we see easily or routinely take on several ordinary soldiers or warriors at once? Or go toe to toe with a Wildling giant or similar monster?

As far as I remember (it's been a bunch of years since I read them) we never see any of them take on a whole crowd of normal (1-2 HD) soldiers, which would be an easy feat for a tier 2 or 3 D&D Fighter.

Worth noting that George R. R. Martin was a GURPS player...and his characters make sense if you look at them as low-budget GURPS characters.

 

[Zardnaar]

It’s not clear to me that there are many universal issues at all; rather people have preferences for the sort of game they want. There are many different preferences.

The broken game some see does not take them to the gaming promise land they want to land in.

What is amazing is how it is the seven heavens or Arcadia looks like the 9 hells or the abyss to someone else.

There is no objectively big issue in this fantasy game. We have a vote—-and a certain percentage of gamers agree with us. Some don’t.

As one example, some folks really want “balance” and it is really important to them. I have played asymmetrical wargames (and gasp! Rogues in 1e!)! It’s not that big of a deal to me.

We have been playing 5e since 5e came out. I only know we have had a lot of fun and balance has not been a big part of between game discussion.

That does not mean there cannot be improvement or that I am against it but the language of “true issue” is missing important text. “For you.” There is not and will not be unanimity on this stuff.

All you can do is take a poll and get a non representative sample and make a statement about that particular sample.

But it is interesting to see what is a hot button issue for other players/groups…

I just can’t believe anyone would be surprised at disagreement! Like wtf?

I only care about balance if it's utterly game wrecking in real games vs theory crafting (eg simulacrum and wish abuse isn't an issue).

There's one spell, 2 cleric domains and some multiclass combinations that are somewhere between to strong and broken.

 

[Mannahnin]

Worth noting that George R. R. Martin was a GURPS player...and his characters make sense if you look at them as low-budget GURPS characters.

Makes sense to me. Even a 200pt character (standard starting build was 100pts, IIRC) wouldn't be superhuman, though they'd be highly skilled.

 

[Minigiant]

: I misread that. Did you mean that noncasters(fighters) are not dependent on gear for combat or was that a typo?

Yes.

Fighters and noncasters don't need gear for Combat.
But due to the base and class mechanics of 5e, many non-full-casters need gear mechanically for noncombat.

 

[Lanefan]

Let's start with what the rules say Commoners are like:

View attachment 293270

Right off the bat, we see that Commoners have no skill or saving throw proficiencies, and no modifiers outside of their proficiency bonus to anything other than their attack. Their ability scores are dead average, far from what a PC would have.

There's some nonsense baked right into that: that every commoner everywhere will have the exact same stats (all 10s) no matter what.

I think the general population in any setting is going to contain examples of considerable variance both up and down from 10, on a bell curve.

They likely only have proficiency in simple weapons (not explicit, but implied by the stat block). They have no special abilities*.

*An argument could be made that they should have racial abilities, and I wouldn't debate anyone who felt they ought to have them.

Yep, they're members of their species and that should be reflected.

Compared to a commoner, PC's are mostly a step above in all respects (save for the arcane casters stuck with a d6 Hit Die for whatever reason; not sure how you can be worse off than a commoner but there it is).

Simple: the narrative assumes Mages have led a sheltered life and aren't as tough as a typical peasant.

 

[nevin]

Let's start with what the rules say Commoners are like:

View attachment 293270

Right off the bat, we see that Commoners have no skill or saving throw proficiencies, and no modifiers outside of their proficiency bonus to anything other than their attack. Their ability scores are dead average, far from what a PC would have.

They likely only have proficiency in simple weapons (not explicit, but implied by the stat block). They have no special abilities*.

*An argument could be made that they should have racial abilities, and I wouldn't debate anyone who felt they ought to have them.

Compared to a commoner, PC's are mostly a step above in all respects (save for the arcane casters stuck with a d6 Hit Die for whatever reason; not sure how you can be worse off than a commoner but there it is).

because the original idea of wizards was them sitting in thier tower or colleges doing as little physical work as possible while they study their Arcane ways. Commoner's have to actually do physical labor.

 

[Oofta]

How many movies and TV shows do we have where the protagonist takes out a dozen or more enemies? The Witcher is another good example of a high level PC, and one that wouldn't look out of place as an eldritch knight. But Geralt, outside of a handful of thunder waves, relies almost exclusively on fairly mundane fighting. Yet he takes out plenty of large (or huge) monsters. But even more grounded ones like The Last Kingdom where Uhtred survives dozens of battles with rarely a scratch. When we see scenes where they're fighting off multiple opponents simultaneously my wife and I just look at each other and say "high level fighter".

Higher level fighters are Captain America or the Black Panther. Those are the kind of mundane fighters I want to model and that I think D&D does a decent job of. More than human standard? Maybe. But they're still running around swinging a sword most of the time. But I don't want them to be The Hulk or Superman. I certainly don't want them running around casting spells by another name, unless it's explicitly part of the subclass like my Rune Knight.

As far as healing and whatnot, damage doesn't automatically assume gaping wounds. Even if it does, so what? People heal more quickly when their bodies can integrate magic.

 

[nevin]

There's some nonsense baked right into that: that every commoner everywhere will have the exact same stats (all 10s) no matter what.

agreed. would make Blacksmiths pretty useless wouldn't it.....

 

[Minigiant]

Which means you (and maybe D&D in general) sees levels quite differently than do I.

The GoT setting is, in my view, well stocked with what IMO should equate to mid-level (in 4e-5e, tier 2) Fighters. A few - e.g. Jaime (with two hands) or Bronn - have gone beyond that. And one can easily say that by the end Arya has become at least a tier-2 if not tier-3 Assassin, trained up by people even better at it than she.

We have a difference it quantity not quality. There are Tier 2 fighters, barbarians, and Rogues in GOT/ASIOIAF.

But they are the big names. And not most of them.

 

[Mannahnin]

There's some nonsense baked right into that: that every commoner everywhere will have the exact same stats (all 10s) no matter what.

I think the general population in any setting is going to contain examples of considerable variance both up and down from 10, on a bell curve.

It's no more nonsensical than the MM making all Orcs have the same statline, which was standard in every pre-WotC edition. We all know that you can make people vary, but generic commoner #234 is assumed to have no particularly high or low stats.

Simple: the narrative assumes Mages have led a sheltered life and aren't as tough as a typical peasant.

Yup.