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

[Cadence]

In a relatively small number of levels, D&D humans can fall distances that would kill many real world humans, and walk it off.

And we always miss the other implications of the falling rules. Terminal velocity for the human is reached after only 200 feet in 5e land instead of 1500 feet like our world.

With air that thick no wonder everyone moves slower and swings slower than the real world, it's like going through soup instead of air. And of course a child with a 5 strength can carry 75 pounds without noticing after growing up under all that air pressure.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Six levels spread out over 20 yields so pretty small cookies. I'm really curious how that would even work?

(might not of quite been the right message to respond to in hindsight but chipping in about this whole 'low level play for all character levels of play)

i mean, there's a difference in how you gain new abilities, if players simply gained in kind rather than teir you could have levelling progression gaining new abilities while still staying within low tier-ish realms

for example, take the sorcerer's metamagics vs their spells, all the metamagics are designed to be possibly taken in teir 1, none of them are level locked, so the assumption is that they're all pretty much of an equivilant power level (factoring sorcery points per use), Take a 5th level sorcerer, who from that point could never learn any spells higher than 3rd but instead kept getting new metamagics when levelling, while increasing in their ability and having a sense of progression would never properly break out of the feel of low-to-mid-ish level play because their abilities aren't increasing in teir only kind, but a second sorcerer, who can learn new spells, rapidly would grow out of low teir play, because spells are designed to upgrade in teir, The metamagic you learn at 10th level will not be more powerful than the one you learn at 3rd, but witch bolt upcast to 3rd level will never match what lightning bolt is capable of.

honestly a DnD where 'all your abilities are equal and available from 1st level, you just get more of them' would be interesing to play, but at that point it probably wouldn;t actually be DnD, or at least would be easier to just go play another game that was designed to work like that.

 

[M_Natas]

I'm pretty sure the gold issue is something folks have complained about for quite a while. One of the very, very few criticisms that were acceptable back in the early days of 5e--mostly because it's kind of a humblebrag, if we're being honest. "Look at all this money that I have nothing I can do with..."

But at latest with Xanathar that problem is solved. It offers more options on how to buy magic items and offers more downtime activities between adventures.
Up till Level 6 Gold Player Characters have actually not a lot of Golf RAW.
If you follow the rules of the DMG, a 5th Level Character, at the end of the level, has accumulated overall 658 Gold on average. That is not enough for a fighter to max out his gear, because a plate Mail costs 1500 gold.
A level 10 character, if he doesn’t spend anything, has 16 000 Gold on average.
But only if he doesn’t spend anything.
He could spend it on a ship (5000 to 30000 Gold). Or a castle. Or another homebase.
Or he actually had to spend it on healing potions, living expenses, researching, magic items (he could by up to 3 rare items or one very rare item, if he is lucky).
Of course the DM has to out all that options into the game. But a DM also has to put in monsters, dungeons, NPCs and adventure hooks, so I don't see that as a problem. It is one of the jobs of a DM (in homebrew campaigns).
Like for a wizard buying and transcribing spell scrolls, that is utterly expensive.
My Wizard Character in my current campaign doesn't have enough money to even buy all the spells she wants and doesn't have yet, she doesn't even has the money for the transcription costs.
What I agree is, it could be made easier for DMs to have all that stuff in one place. A real economics section where they explain it more. But the stuff is actually there.

Is that really a thing people are even asking for? But overall yes, if you can only hold (say) your Strength score in total items, and some items are extra heavy and "cost" two(/three/etc.) "slots," then yes, that would be a simpler, faster system, and thus "easier" by some definitions.

Would it lead to better, more interesting gameplay? That's by far the more important question--and extremely difficult to answer without serious testing. Like most non-obvious questions regarding game design and balance.

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.

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.

But you need to "punish" bad play. Running out of food during an exploration quest and having to return home can be seen as punishing, but it is need in order to feel rewarded when you plan your quest well and stock up on provisions and transport capacities like a donkey and a cart or something.

If forces decisions. If forces compromises. Do we leave the donkey behind on order to go up the mountain or are we looking for another way? Do we press on when food is low and hope to find scavenge another food and water or do we turn back?

Like of you play and exploration game and don't use (any) encumbrance system and don't track resources, it just gets boring "we continue searching until we find it". Than the only obstacles are gmtraps, Hazards and monsters.

I really love it, that in Baldurs Gate 3 you need to have food in order to benefit from a long rest. I like it that the make my character slow down when she is carrying 20 swords of slayn goblins.
It also goes into the gold issue. Especially at low levels living Expanse take up a lot of the Gold costs. But if the characters don't need to eat, then of course they have more gold. If I wouldn't need to eat in real life, I would have way more money for D&D .

 

[CreamCloud0]

Because it is always a compromise. You can't make it perfect for everybody. And the thread was originally for true issues. A lot of issues, like Gold, Exploration and stuff are only issues because people don't play RAW.
The delete rules and the complain that the game is not working.

Is there room for improvement? Probably. But would be for example using a Slot-System instead I incumberance make ressource-management really easier?

Like if you play with DnD Beyond or Roll20, there is no excuse to.not use encumbrance, because it calculates that for you automatically.
And even in Paper it is not hard to do. Doing it actually improves the game.

i mean, standardising the weights of equipment into something a little more abstract like 'heavy(5 Weight), medium(3 W), light(1 W) and superlight(5 objects=1 W), it's not equipment/weight slots but it would probably be much more easier for people to keep track of than individual pounds and ounces.

if people still want to have expendable resources with that system maybe go with depletion rolls i think they're called? a quiver of arrows starts with a d12 depletion dice, after each time you use your arrows roll the depletion die, if it's a 1, reduce the size of the die by one, when you roll a 1 on a d4 depletion die the quiver is empty.

 

[Oofta]

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

I was referring to the PHB where it states (emphasis added): "A score of 10 or 11 is the normal human average, but adventurers and many monsters are a cut above average in most abilities. A score of 18 is the highest that a person usually reaches. Adventurers can have scores as high as 20"

 

[Mannahnin]

i mean, standardising the weights of equipment into something a little more abstract like 'heavy(5 Weight), medium(3 W), light(1 W) and superlight(5 objects=1 W), it's not equipment/weight slots but it would probably be much more easier for people to keep track of than individual pounds and ounces.

if people still want to have expendable resources with that system maybe go with depletion rolls i think they're called? a quiver of arrows starts with a d12 depletion dice, after each time you use your arrows roll the depletion die, if it's a 1, reduce the size of the die by one, when you roll a 1 on a d4 depletion die the quiver is empty.

Usage Die. On a 1 or 2 it decrements, but yeah. Here's a discussion of the stats on it.

"And the Black Hack's GM screen has a 'Usage Dice' table with the number of average uses before an item is used up: d4(2), d6(5), d8(9), d10(14), d12(20), d20(30)"

 

[Mannahnin]

He also takes out a whole bunch of opposing troops during the battle of the bastards, before going down himself and getting half-buried in the pile of bodies he helped generate. And between them he and Tormund take out a lot of zombies in the escape from Eastwatch.

Yes. And in one (or several?) of the maritime battles Euron Greyjoy takes on numerous fighting sailors.

Right. Ok, so it's an extraordinary and unusual circumstance for them, not the "easily or routinely" doing it that D&D 2nd and 3rd tier Fighters are capable of, which was the point of comparison.

 

[Cadence]

Should every fighter carry a halfling or gnome warlock partner on their back in a child carrier? It uses almost none of their encumbrance limit and the warlock would be short resting until they took part in combat.

 

[Oofta]

Should every fighter carry a halfling or gnome warlock partner on their back in a child carrier? It uses almost none of their encumbrance limit and the warlock would be short resting until they took part in combat.

 

[Oofta]

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.
• Overnight healing is a convenience, in older editions we either rested and had the cleric heal or had wands. Does that mean humans heal supernaturally quickly? Maybe, depending on how you view HP and if you use the gritty rest rules. In a world where magic works, they wouldn't even realize they heal more quickly than "normal".
• 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.
• The indexes, by and large, have always been poor.
• If you think the 5E DMG is bad, you've obviously never read any that were written by Gygax. On the other hand, the current DMG needs to be redone which they are planning on doing for the 2024 edition.
• Fighters have always been taking on dragons
• and on and on ...

So many of the supposed issues are just part of what makes D&D the game that it is. Of course there's always room for improvement, but if the "improvements" change the nature of the game perhaps people should be looking for games that better suit their needs. Because it works just fine for me and my players.