D&D 5E What I want out of 5th edition and my thoughts on what we have so far.

[Falling Icicle]

Balance and DPR: Now I'm not talking about a rules balance where someone finds a way to get infinite attacks or does 500 points of damage at level 1 (which still doesn't bother me because no sane DM is ever going to allow something that has obviously abused the rules). I'm talking about this balance between classes with regards to damage.

Considering the fact that the classes in DnDN do NOT have balanced damage per round output, I have no idea why you're complaining about it.

The fun argument doesn't apply because it's absurd. If you really want to go there then we could do the old "I'm not having fun if I don't win, I'm not having fun if I can't have the equipment I want, I'm not having fun if I ever get killed, so let's only allow legitimate arguments. It's unnecessary to be perfectly honest. If you want to run around doing massive amounts of damage then you play a barbarian or fighter or whatever. People seem to have this notion that if the barbarian does a hell of a lot more damage than the fighter then everyone will just play a barbarian. Not true, just like everyone doesn't play wizards. I will tell you what this style of game promotes, glut. It promotes option glut such as feats, spells, magic items, and backgrounds. By focusing on combat and DPR, people begin to think that only a few combat feats, in a specific combo, are the ones that are worth taking and the others are not. I knew plenty of people that used to take those certain feats that weren't optimal, but helped their character have that specific concept. This type of selection was frowned upon and made it seem like your choice was wrong.

Not everyone has the same preferences you do. Lots of people play DnD, and different people like different things about it. There are some people who prefer roleplaying, some who prefer combat, etc. Those who enjoy character optimization don't appreciate being told that they're selfish power gamers who only care about "winning." If you want other people to care about your point of view, try showing some respect for theirs.

What you're doing here is blaming the players for the flaws in the game, rather than blaming the flaws in the game. To use your example, if the rules greatly and unfairly favor barbarians over fighters, you shouldn't be surprised that a lot of the players are going to notice that fact and play barbarians. Is that their fault? Or is it the fault of the game rules that created that gross imbalance in the first place? And no, those players aren't being selfish, childish, entitled or whatever other term people like to throw at character optimizers these days. Not many people like playing weak, ineffective characters, after all. If you do, well, good for you, I guess? I myself have played several characters that were less mechanically optimal than they could have been, because of role playing reasons, or just style, or whatever mood I was in at the time. I certainly don't think I deserve a medal for it, nor do I disparage those who would have made different choices in building their characters.

Wizards of the Coast did nothing to tone down this type of behaviour because all they did was come out with more and more combat related options and less out of combat ones. In my opinion, combat balance is not that important as some make it out to be.

In every version of DnD that has ever existed, there have always been more rules for combat than anything else. I've found this to be true of most of the RPGs I've played. There's a good reason for this. You don't need a lot of rules to role play, or even any rules at all. But just try playing a game where there are no combat rules, and the DM just decides who lives and dies by fiat. I doubt that would end well.

 

[n00bdragon]

Ah, you want a classless, diceless game set in a hard science near-future version of the real world where characters have little power to change anything?

So some sort of And I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream RPG? I am interested in this game. Please tell me more about this game.

 

[Mistwell]

So some sort of And I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream RPG? I am interested in this game. Please tell me more about this game.

Maybe Amber Diceless?

 

[n00bdragon]

Maybe (Purchasable content)?

It was mostly a joke but the more people that know about Amber the better so thanks for the throwing that out there.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Based on what we have so far, I like a lot and there's some stuff I will change. A methodology that works with whatever edition or game I'm playing.

Currently, 5th edition is the best starting match to what I want from a "D&D" game.

I agree, the only thing that rubs me wrong so far is how quick natural healing is (but please dont go back to 1HP per day as that was even more rubbish) and how easy it is to stabilize (the death roll itself is fine but it should be 5/3 or something not 3/3). Otherwise I either like or am at least indifferent toward everything else which is a first!