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

[Parmandur]

Probably true. But there is a huge excluded middle between zero mechanics and “exact” mechanics.

Is it really too much to expect a sentence or two describing typical interactions for items?

After all, in the beer stein example, the DMG does actually have guidelines for damaging an object and how durable objects generally are. We don’t need complete stat blocks, but it’s nice to know if I could use a small object to block the door or not.

The equipment description and the DC guidelines in the DMG frankly seem to cover just about any situation where that might come up, but I could see then providing a little more guidance in the new DMG. Or, maybe not.

 

[Campbell]

Yeah. @pemerton , prefers option 1, while I want option 2. The problem is, they are incompatible.

This is a digression, but you are aware that @pemerton is currently running a Torchbearer game?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Is it really too much to expect a sentence or two describing typical interactions for items?

It definitely isn't too much to ask.

The problem is that 5E got a bunch right, but also was very rushed, and so anything more thoughtful like that got completely abandoned or ignored, and it has a bunch of half-developed systems, like Tool proficiencies, which 2024 doesn't seem to be improving on - has it even mentioned formalizing the Xanathar system? I don't think it has so, we have the same largely-pointless Tool proficiencies and so on knocking around.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a digression, but you are aware that @pemerton is currently running a Torchbearer game?

I had forgotten that, thank you.

 

[R_J_K75]

The main innovation of 5E was dis/advantage. That's it. That's not a lot.

Those are my feelings as well. If someone asked me whats new in 5E D&D advantage/disadvantage is the only thing that would come to mind.

 

[pemerton]

I meant to say "Clothing, Cold Weather". From Frostmaiden

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This outfit consists of a heavy fur coat or cloak over layers of wool clothing, as well as a fur-lined hat or hood, goggles, and fur-lined leather boots and gloves.​

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As long as cold weather clothing remains dry, its wearer automatically succeeds on saving throws against the effects of extreme cold (see “Extreme Cold”).​

​

It should have been in the PHB, it is odd that we needed a supplement, it was an oversight.

Extreme Cold is defined simply as "Below 0 degrees Fahrenheit" because D&D simply doesn't get to levels of detail some people seem to want. D&D is many things. An accurate and detailed survival sim is not one of them, it never has been.

AD&D with the Wilderness Survival Guide had more detail than this. Whether or not that was desirable, or provided plausible results in play, is a further question.

 

[pemerton]

Shovels and whatnot don't have interactions with the rules like, as pointed out above, unlike torches which we need to know how much light they shed.

Isn't this WotC telling people how to play the game - as in, in this game light and darkness matter more than digging and burying?

But obviously in a pirate-themed game, digging and burying probably matter more than the radius of torch or lantern light. (Which people can work out anyway via common sense.)

I thought 5e was intended not to tell people how to play the game.

 

[Gammadoodler]

What if a player declares that they steal one of the beer steins, shove it in their backpack, and then later on declare - as the GM is describing the heavy secret door slamming shut behind the PCs - that they pull it out and shove it between door and wall to stop the door fully closing?

How can we possibly adjudicate that without half-a-page of stats for the full range of beer steins, including their physical tolerances to being crushed by the pressure of counter-weighted heavy stone doors?

I confess..somehow this circumstance escaped my notice. I shall have to reconsider..

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't this WotC telling people how to play the game - as in, in this game light and darkness matter more than digging and burying?

But obviously in a pirate-themed game, digging and burying probably matter more than the radius of torch or lantern light. (Which people can work out anyway via common sense.)

I thought 5e was intended not to tell people how to play the game.

Its not even designed to ask people how they want to play the game.

 

[pemerton]

I've played D&D for decades. I'm trying to remember a single instance where knowing exactly how much a shovel could shovel ever came into play. There were times when having a shovel was useful. Times when we had to get equipment such as pickaxes. But beyond that? Nada.

Let's flip it around. If you didn't have the shovel, pickax or tent, what would have happened?

And let's flip it a different way - what difference would it make if Mould Earth (for instance), instead of talking about 5' cubes, just said with a gesture, you can move loose earth as if you had been shovelling for an hour.