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

[FitzTheRuke]

Because "houserule it till it works" allows and encourages each DM to tailor the rules to suit the specific game-setting-campaign she wants to run; and also allows those tailorings to go off in different directions from the same base chassis.

Nailing it all down hard might suit one table just fine but make the game unplayable for another. I don't think WotC wants to go this route.

I think you might misunderstand what I'm advocating here. I sure as heck don't want "nailed down" rules that make the game unplayable for a group. I want spots where the game doesn't work properly to be fixed so that it does. I'm not asking for anyone's favorite rules to be changed to something terrible. I'm asking that when a rule is widely considered to be bad, incomplete, or confusing to be replaced with something that is widely considered better. Only in cases where the best review of the rule that you can find is "it works fine, I guess, if you ignore most of it or houserule it or if you play by RAW (even if RAW makes for a bad play experience)."

I'm absolutely not talking about changing things that are a matter of opinion or good for one playstyle over another. I think that's the whole point of this thread. Nor do I have anything against houserules that are designed to customize the game to a table's preferences. Those are great. But houserules to patch bad, incomplete, or confusing RAW? We'd be better off with better RAW.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Would Elden Ring be a good compromise for what a human can do??

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Would Elden Ring be a good compromise for what a human can do??

elden ring (from what i know) is actually a fascinating comparison point because non-magic-users are very comparable to dnd martials in that they are simultaneously far more and less competent then any real person (e.g. being able to take hits from massive beings without instantly dying, yet swinging several melee weapons far less quickly then a fairly average adult could).

 

[Maxperson]

I take the opposite tack, and assume that real-world limits exist until and unless the game both tells me they don't and explains why they don't. Put another way, the burden of proof is on the game to explain itself, not on me to explain reality.

This.

 

[Maxperson]

which means 1000 page rule books no thanks.

No it doesn't. It can be done in like 3 pages if you really wanted to make an RPG that loose. He's not asking the game to spell out what is realism and what isn't. Everything is realism except that which specifically is not. So spells. Not realistic, but spells work. A medusa gaze. Not realism but it works. And so on.

 

[Maxperson]

When you are coming in and telling others they can't have their fun because it's unrealistic, it's on you to show why their fun is wrong.

Where are you even getting that from? He's not telling you how to run your game. He's saying how he runs his.

But when we start designing games around this need for "realism" that doesn't even actually reflect reality--let alone the clear requirements of the fictional space in question!--the burden is upon those who want to put in limits, not on those who want to reserve judgment and let each group make up their own mind.

Realism =/= reflecting reality. It just simulates it to an extent. It's a spectrum and mirroring real life isn't required at all. So that longsword having an edge and being made out of steel, doing slashing damage? That's realism! It doesn't matter that the game doesn't simulate wear and tear or breaking like real longswords did.

 

[Maxperson]

Most people have a 10 or 11 on their ability scores, an 18 is the highest most people could obtain so a 20 in any ability is borderline supernatural. Many high level fighters have magic items that enhance their abilities. I guess I just don't see the issue. High level martial types in D&D are a bit supernatural, they just still primarily rely on weapons for attacking.

A 20 is something any villager can have in 5e. All members of a race get the racial bonuses.

 

[Stalker0]

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?

They all take on hordes of zombies and live…based on the really really terrible last season of the tv show

 

[Gammadoodler]

But only in the rules. The non-rules text says nothing. I accept that otherwise normal humans can learn or might have magic, because supernatural classes exist. I don't assume that means the human race is fundamentally different in D&D.

This is a weird line to draw. "Except for all the supernatural stuff they might be capable of, they're basically mundane."

What, to you, constitutes non-rules text? Is it only..and very specifically the human write-up in the phb?

Most all the classes have flavor text which, in some way points to superhuman capabilities within those classes.

 

[Hussar]

"Because we don't know what colour the car is, we cannot assume it is a car" is more like what you seem to have been saying here.

When we're told something is a Human I think we get to assume it's just like us until-unless told otherwise.

Yes, but you admit that that's your assumption. The game SPECIFICALLY tells you that this isn't true. You can deny it all you like, but, it's right there on page 19 of the 5e Player's Handbook. YOU ARE TOLD OTHERWISE.

"There is no typical human...A lot of humans have a dash of nonhuman blood, revealing hints of elf, orc or other lineages. "

How much clearer do they have to be?