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

[Velderan]

I want to build a modest, two bedroom stone farmhouse for my character. How much does that cost and how long does it take? Ask your DM and get some sort of hand wavy answer and that's about it.

The DMG does have some examples of construction costs and times for a variety of structures players might use as a stronghold, but unfortunately you're right that not having just a basic house seems to be an oversight. Worth mentioning the maintenance cost section also addresses that "what do we do with all this gold" problem people were mentioning near the beginning of the thread.

 

[Oofta]

There are relatively few editions that did include cold weather clothing in the PH at all. Pretty much just 2e and 3e, as far as I can tell.

True. Most games in my experience ignore weather completely unless it has supernatural nature. We always used to joke about it being "adventuring weather" whenever it came up. I've done a little bit here and there but mostly it's just "You stop at the local village and buy stuff to keep yourself from freezing to death."

 

[Oofta]

The DMG does have some examples of construction costs and times for a variety of structures players might use as a stronghold, but unfortunately you're right that not having just a basic house seems to be an oversight. Worth mentioning the maintenance cost section also addresses that "what do we do with all this gold" problem people were mentioning near the beginning of the thread.

Part of the problem is that the cost would vary wildly. It was also likely that unless you were wealthy you built your own house, or at least the majority of it. A lot of people still build their own houses to this day, although it is much rarer in industrialized countries. So a "cottage" would likely be the cost of your own labor and materials.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Regardless of anything else, that in particular is a fairly big oversight unless a DM rules characters aren't affected by a cold environment (or, shudder, unless the game has no provision for what happens to characters when they get too cold).

Here the magic solution is a Resist Cold spell or similar, but I'm not sure 5e even has that or how long it lasts if it does. And if it's concentration-based that's fine for one person but what about the rest of the party?

Resisting extreme temperatures has little to no combat use, so in all likelihood any spell that provides that effect wouldn't require concentration, which is strictly a balancing mechanic that occasionally pretends to have a part in the fiction.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Resisting extreme temperatures has little to no combat use, so in all likelihood any spell that provides that effect wouldn't require concentration, which is strictly a balancing mechanic that occasionally pretends to have a part in the fiction.

Yeah. Insofar as it'd be intended as an enabler for adventuring in the environment, it'd likely mirror something like "water breathing"

Note: in the setting fiction, this would also be a sensible way to design the spell (absent any heretofore unmentioned environmental impacts on spellcasting)

 

[billd91]

yeah, roll20 dynamic lighting really hates certain browsers i've found.

Dynamic lighting can be challenging. Safari doesn't like it if I'm the DM and my browser tries to present all of the PCs view. But Chrome handles it OK on the same iMac. I haven't had it as a problem with either a single token's view as a player.

 

[Velderan]

Part of the problem is that the cost would vary wildly. It was also likely that unless you were wealthy you built your own house, or at least the majority of it. A lot of people still build their own houses to this day, although it is much rarer in industrialized countries. So a "cottage" would likely be the cost of your own labor and materials.

Sure, but that table is already ignoring varying costs in the interest of simplicity. I'd think building a fortified tower close to a quarry and nearby settlement with available labor is going to cost less than building one far from both. I'm sure the table leans towards the average. The table doesn't seem to address number of workers needed to complete the structure in the timeframe, so in the case of a cottage having a basic timeframe and material cost would be enough.

 

[SteveC]

I think it would be interesting to survey what people genuinely think about equipment in D&D. I vastly prefer a simple slot and generic gear list, where you can pull specific equipment from a pool of supplies. I also get that there are people who want to specify the tent poles they carry as well. I just think that if players come to D&D having never experienced another RPG, they'd prefer a highly simplified system that still limits what characters have available to them. But I don't know. Matt Colville's discussion on this a few months ago is a solid one.

My gut thinks that a Blades in the Dark style "load" system would be incredibly popular, but I just don't know.

 

[SteveC]

Dynamic lighting can be challenging. Safari doesn't like it if I'm the DM and my browser tries to present all of the PCs view. But Chrome handles it OK on the same iMac. I haven't had it as a problem with either a single token's view as a player.

This has been my experience as well. It seems that Safari doesn't play well with Roll20 or Foundry. I know my groups have several Mac users and they all had to switch to Chrome eventually.

 

[Cadence]

I think it would be interesting to survey what people genuinely think about equipment in D&D. I vastly prefer a simple slot and generic gear list, where you can pull specific equipment from a pool of supplies. I also get that there are people who want to specify the tent poles they carry as well. I just think that if players come to D&D having never experienced another RPG, they'd prefer a highly simplified system that still limits what characters have available to them. But I don't know. Matt Colville's discussion on this a few months ago is a solid one.

My gut thinks that a Blades in the Dark style "load" system would be incredibly popular, but I just don't know.

I wonder if equipment lists could be a thing that can be done like they do with encumberance now, where they have a very stream lined default and then a more crunchy option. And they could put a slot/load/whatever one in as another option.