D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[Lanefan]

Worth pointing out the issue with Knowledge checks and unfamiliar holy symbols is largely an issue because the same fairly small set of gods is generally worshipped across the entire campaign world-- so all the characters should always recognize all of them, as a matter of cultural immersion that all the players don't have.

In your campaign world maybe.

In mine there's a pantheon for each non-Human race and a bunch for Humans, many of which have yet to enter play. Right now, for example, some of the PCs in my game have recently gone to a whole new (for the players as well) part of the world and are being exposed to cultures and peoples they'd never even heard of before.

Like maybe you need to make a Religion check to know what the Cross and the Crescent mean, but everyone knows who they belong to.

In today's real world, yes. But 2500 years ago if a Greek devotee of Zeus or Artemis were to journey to the Far East the residents there 99.5% likely wouldn't have a clue what a Zeus or Artemis was, never mind what their holy symbols looked like (if they had any).

 

[Garthanos]

In today's real world, yes. But 2500 years ago if a Greek devotee of Zeus or Artemis were to journey to the Far East the residents there 99.5% likely wouldn't have a clue what a Zeus or Artemis was, never mind what their holy symbols looked like (if they had any).

With 4200 or so modern religions does anyone know whose symbol this is

 

[Yaarel]

With 4200 or so modern religions does anyone know whose symbol this is

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Druz, essentially a tribal spiritual heritage that still flourishes today. In university, I had a Druz roommate.

(I think English sometimes spells it Druze.)

 

[Garthanos]

Druz, essentially a tribal spiritual heritage that still flourishes today. In university, I had a Druz roommate.

(I think English sometimes spells it Druze.)

Surprised me

 

[JeffB]

Thinking about this some more- the entire transition of most RPGs when the exploration/story stops and combat occurs- Ok, now let's get ready for our mini wargame.

Probably why I adore Dungeon World so much. Combat is no different mechanically than the rest of the game play. No initiative, no rounds, no action economy. Seamless. I realize its not for everybody, but I love it.

 

[Scott Christian]

For me, healing can be explained through nicks and exhaustion.
But, the one that stops immersion for me is everyone doing a round in initiative order. Obviously, it changes for a player depending on what the previous player did. Going to go swing at that creature, but your ally took it out? No, not going to do that, instead I'll run the other way to attack that creature. A mode where everyone plays at the same time would be nice. But, impossible to do with each character having a standard, move, and bonus action; miniatures complicates the matter too.

 

[Garthanos]

For me, healing can be explained through nicks and exhaustion.
But, the one that stops immersion for me is everyone doing a round in initiative order. Obviously, it changes for a player depending on what the previous player did. Going to go swing at that creature, but your ally took it out? No, not going to do that, instead I'll run the other way to attack that creature. A mode where everyone plays at the same time would be nice. But, impossible to do with each character having a standard, move, and bonus action; miniatures complicates the matter too.

That one bothered me back when they first introduced 3e yeah it went from being resolved simultaneously with rock paper scissors looking over the shoulder to turn taking. I have been considering a method to bring that back in a way that meshes with the current game.

 

[5ekyu]

For me, healing can be explained through nicks and exhaustion.
But, the one that stops immersion for me is everyone doing a round in initiative order. Obviously, it changes for a player depending on what the previous player did. Going to go swing at that creature, but your ally took it out? No, not going to do that, instead I'll run the other way to attack that creature. A mode where everyone plays at the same time would be nice. But, impossible to do with each character having a standard, move, and bonus action; miniatures complicates the matter too.

Actually, there is nothing I see inherent in action-bonus-move capable characters that stops using action-based-resolution over character-based-resolution.

Roll init.
Declare actions including movement lowest to highest init order - so better init has more knowledge than lower when they make their choices.
Then resolve actions in order of action type - quick- moderate- slow.
Things like strike with weapon in hand are quick, things like move and strike are moderate (as is spell cast or weapons if you gotta draw somethings) and things like move and cast spells

The key comes down to divorcing redolution order from init order and linking it to what is being done not who is doing it.

Depending on your desire for complexity, you could have a turn of strike-move-strike again" start in quick then finish in moderate or even slow.

I tend to prefer action based resolution myself. However, for 5e specifically the killer for me is all the start of turn and end of turn mechanics tied into spells and conditions that kick this into " lot of overhaul" land.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thinking about this some more- the entire transition of most RPGs when the exploration/story stops and combat occurs- Ok, now let's get ready for our mini wargame.

For me, healing can be explained through nicks and exhaustion.
But, the one that stops immersion for me is everyone doing a round in initiative order. Obviously, it changes for a player depending on what the previous player did. Going to go swing at that creature, but your ally took it out? No, not going to do that, instead I'll run the other way to attack that creature. A mode where everyone plays at the same time would be nice. But, impossible to do with each character having a standard, move, and bonus action; miniatures complicates the matter too.

Both of these issues can be resolved (or at least significantly lessened) with the Speed Factor Initiative rules from the DMG, or Mike Mearls’ “Greyhawk Initiative” variant thereof. In combat, as with at all other times in the game, the DM describes the scenario, the players say what they want to do, and the DM narrates the results (calling for dice rolls as necessary to resolve any uncertainty in the results of the actions.) Since in the chaos of a skirmish it is uncertain who will act before who, you resolve that uncertainty with Dexterity checks (or rolls of dice of various size depending on the action, if using the Greyhawk variant). Then the DM resolves the declared actions in the order determined by these rolls, and starts the process over.

A lot of folks are very skeptical of this initiative style, assuming it will drastically slow down play, but in practice it works better than it looks like it would on paper. The Angry GM has an article about it - an oldie, but a goodie.

Fine! I Wrote About Speed Factor Initiative in D&D 5E!

After revealing that I was using Speed Factor Initiative in D&D 5E, I got a number of constructive questions and criticisms. So, I wrote this article to explain what the f$&% was wrong wi…

theangrygm.com

 

[Yaarel]

Mike Mearls’ “Greyhawk Initiative”.

If so, I would rather spell initiative factor by spell level, bonused by the casting ability. Moreover, the ranged attack depends entirely on whether, the arrow is already drawn and ready to fly − even then, accurate aiming requires most shooters some time.