D&D 5E What (if anything) do you find "wrong" with 5E?

Information design: the writing is overly verbose, the indexes are a mess, content is not organized for usability, nothing is cross-referenced, the layout is not thoughtful.
Aye. Formatting is 90% of the issue. Most of the other issues would iron out if they presented the game in a way that didn't take flipping to 30 different pages and highlighting hidden verbage to catch the nuances that make 5e work.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Horwath

Legend
I like 5E mostly, and it is my favorite edition, but it has few flaws.


1. Short rests are not short. 4E did it better with 5 min rests


2. HD's for healing would be better with fixed value as in 4E.
Does not to be 1/4 HP but a fixed value as option for leveling up HPs. d4->3, d6->4, d8->5, d10->6, d12->7.
Plus con mod. Just to be more consistent.


3. Feats. This should be No.1 on the list, or last
feats are all over the place in power level.
While I only hold -5/+10 part of two feats problematic in some cases(having advantage on demand), they can be removed and replaced by giving +1 str/dex instead, most of the feats are not worth losing +2 ASI, hell some "full" feats are not worth losing +1 ASI.

All feats(if they stay in competition with ASI's in 2024) should be reworked as half-feats.

As with recents UAs, all characters should get a feat at levels 1&4 independent of their classes.

or remove feats from class resources, make them all half-feats without any ASI's, detach them from class(except for some bonus feats as a class resource) and make them available at levels:
1,1,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20.


4. Abilities.
As racial fixed ability boost will go away, just make all characters have:
+2,+1,+1(half elf value), or +1,+1,+1,+1,+1. That is 5× of +1, as +2 to high ability should be worth 3× +1. And lack of a bonus to 6th ability makes possible to have a score of 8 on point buy. And with cheap scores(13) you could have a character of 14,14,14,14,14,10.

Limit the max ability to 18.
Yes, if you roll 18 you will have to put your floating bonus somewhere else.

Add some light armor of AC 13+dex to compensate for not having +5 dex mod possible. For some 500GP cost, so it is not available from the start.

Add +1 ASI at levels; 3,7,11,15,19. One(and only one) of those ASI's can be exchange for a feat(to fix any unfortunate odd total of ability scores). Max is still 18.


5. Add 10th level spells. Single spell slot at 19th level for full casters.


6. Rework warlocks and bards as 2/3rd casters:
spell levels at class levels; 1,4,7,10,13,16,19. Spell levels 1-7.

6b: rework maybe even druids and sorcerers as 2/3 casters?
Make their wild shape/summoning and metamagics with more usage and more power/versatility.

That will leave only clerics and wizards as full casters. As it should be.


7. Delete monk. Or make it work.
Right now a feat and/or fighting style can take care of unarmed combat.


8. improve 1/3 caster subclasses to 2/5th casters. Or getting new spell level every 5 levels instead of every 6.
at levels 3/6/11/16. Still limited to 4th level spells, but with slightly faster rate.

Then you can have classes with spell levels at class levels:

cleric/wizard, 10 spell levels, at class level;
1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19

bard/druid/sorcerer/warlock, 7 spell levels;
1,4,7,10,13,16,19

artificer/ranger/paladin, 5 spell levels;
2,5,9,13,17

arcane trickster/eldritch knight/some new non caster subclass(barbarian shaman or a monk); 4 spell levels
3,6,11,16


9. Increase damage on non finesse weapons, especially with 2Handed or return 1+1/2 STR bonus on 2Handed melee weapons that are not finess.


10. crits double all damage. Yes, even the static bonus.


11. Return AoOs for making ranged attacks and casting spells that are Action long or longer. Bonus action and Reaction spells are free of this penalty.


12: Making a ranged attack will cause that all melee attacks on you have advantage until your next turn.


13: morph Cure wounds and Healing word into a single and better spell.
Bonus action, range 60ft, heals 2d6 per spell level plus casting mod, target must spend an HD for every spell level, additional healing normal for HD, every spell level of healing with this spell that is not supported by spending an HD will heal for minimum amount(2).
Same with healing potions.

I.E. a barbarian/paladin has a d12 and d10 HDs left. He is healed by 4th level Cure spell.
he reagains d12+con plus d10+con plus 4d6+4, 4 is instead of 4d6 as not being supported by HD healing.
With Con of 16 and casting mod of 16 that is 36 HPs on average.
if the barbarian had 4 d12 HDs available, it would be 69 :p or few points higher if we use fixed HD healing.

Give all healers something fun with their Actions.


14. Usage of potions/oils/etc is Bonus action when self applied.
14a, same for Paladins Lay on Hands


15. get rid of medium armor.
Light armor 10+X+dex bonus
Heavy armor 10+X, stealth penalty, negative dex bonus still applies.

light armor comes with buckler;
+1 AC, you can use your shield hand to fight with weapons, but you lose AC bonus until next turn.

heavy armor comes with default shield.


16. Unify all pets/companions/summons/mounts/familiars to Bonus action command or one attack from Attack action.


17. streamline most spell durations to:

1 round, usually Bonus action cast, and augmentation to your next attack(s) or spell
1 minute, usable for single encounter
1 hr, for local exploration/roleplay/summons/minor area denial (invisibility, fly, spider climb, summon X kind of creature, etc...)
24hrs, for adventuring day (mage armor, darkvision, water breathing, longstrider, various shelters)



18:
bonuses to character level progressions:

1: feat, feat
2: feat
3: +1 ASI
4: feat
5: bonus 2 proficiencies from language, tool, weapon. Skill/expertise is little stronger so that will cost you part of the feat.
6: feat
7: +1 ASI
8: feat
9: bonus 2 proficiencies from language, tool, weapon.
10: feat
11: +1 ASI
12: feat
13: bonus 2 proficiencies from language, tool, weapon.
14: feat
15: +1 ASI
16: feat
17: bonus 2 proficiencies from language, tool, weapon.
18: feat
19: +1 ASI
20: feat

This will ease up on class part of character features, so multi classing dipping will have less effect as less thing will be fixed on class.
 

Nebulous

Legend
Resting recovers too much and they're far too easy to come by. Especially with ridiculous spells like Leomund's Tiny Hut. There's no meaningful single encounter in an adventuring day unless a character dies because all their stuff regenerates after an 8-hour nap. The best fix is gritty realism and banning Leomund's Tiny Hut.
Level Up fixed Tiny Hut to my satisfaction. It is expensive but lets you get a Long Rest, and is no longer an invincible shield.

Tiny Hut
3rd-level (evocation; arcane, force, protection, utility)
Classes: Bard, wizard
Casting Time: 1 minute (ritual)
Range: Self
Area: 10-foot radius hemisphere
Components: V, S, M (piece of thatched roof woven into a dome and a sculpture of a protective deity worth 200 gold, consumed by the spell)
Duration: 8 hours

You create an immobile dome of protective force that provides shelter and can be used as a safe haven (Chapter 5: Exploration in Trials & Treasures). The dome is of a color of your choosing, can’t be seen through from the outside, is transparent on the inside, and can fit up to 10 Medium creatures (including you) within. The dome prevents inclement weather and environmental effects from passing through it, though creatures and objects may pass through freely. Spells and other magical effects can’t cross the dome in either direction, and the dome provides a comfortable dry interior no matter the conditions outside of it. You can command the interior to become dimly lit or dark at any time on your turn. The spell fails if a Large creature or more than 10 creatures are inside the dome. The spell ends when you leave the dome.
 

Argyle King

Legend
•Poor indexing
•Lack of decision points during advancement
•Too few feat slots for a game which continually tries to sell new feats in new books
•HP bloat as a primary way to scale monsters
•"Bounded Accuracy" means something very different than what is implied by those words
•Convoluted encounter design steps
•A step backwards in regards to the mentality behind encounter design
•Too much focus on the contemporary multiverse fad (I believe D&D is just now jumping in, at a time when the fad has started to jump the shark)
•"Natural Language" being very much not natural... I'm not sure what those words mean to the team at WoTC, but it means something different than what it implies
•Seemingly losing focus on Backgrounds and why they were added as a character building block
•Rest & Recovery rules which simultaneously offer a lot of modular options and also don't coherently cover any style of play from previous editions

Might be more if I think about it, but those are the ones which came to mind quickly
 

Art Waring

halozix.com
The removal of (Sp) (Ex) & (Su) tags on abilities that covered how they interacted with things like antimagic & were subject to AoOs (or not). Someone at WotC removed them in the name of simplicity but it didn't take Wotc long to give players racial/class options that did things like grant advantasge on saves against magic effects & similar that would be covered by them.
Also the new changes to "magical abilities" tacked onto monsters that are spells, but dont interact with counterspells or AMFs. I would see this as one of the biggest mistakes by wotc for 5e, because it causes endless arguments about what spells are affected by what. It used to be so much easier.

Monsters are also very much lacking in many ways. Bloated HP and multiattack seems like the best they were willing to try, it doesnt go much further than that. 3pp monster books (like A5e) are by far much more fun to run and more GM friendly.
 


Stalker0

Legend
I think the number 1 thing is the index. No matter what style of game you play, what level, number of players etc…the index is bad, and I think we can all agree with that regardless of your thoughts elsewhere.

The one I haven’t heard mentioned too much is concentration. It’s a good idea taken too far, it’s it’s so overly used that it really removes a lot of spells from players mind because it competes with a “better” concentration spell, and the con save can get every tedious and easy to lose track of.
 

bedir than

Full Moon Storyteller
"Custom" background?
So that you still have the Guild Artisan feature and equipment!

To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds. You can either use the equipment package from your background or spend coin on gear as described in the Equipment section.
 

payn

He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
I'll dogpile on the skill system. Too few skills and you cant really do anything during leveling up to interact with the system. Left intentionally vague for the table to just wing it. I know thats intentional, but I do not like it.

The bonds, ideals, flaws, whatever. Its a needless stack on when alignment is already there. Neither are ever really discussed in game any longer. So it feels very redundant.
 

First off, to be clear, I like 5E, it's my second-favourite edition of D&D, but yeah I have a lot of specific issues with it - not in order of importance!

1) Skill mechanics - It uses d20s with small modifiers for skill resolution, and doesn't have Take 10 and Take 20 to mitigate (at least not clearly presented in an up-front player-accessible way).

This strongly encourages a binary approach to skill use, and whilst TECHNICALLY 5E allows for other approaches, they're not well-handled by the skill system, and never presented in any kind of player-facing way, and just as a thing DMs could maybe perhaps sometimes occasionally do if the whim strikes them.

20 years ago, I was okay with this. By 2010, though, nah. I guess we have to expect d20s to stay as a sacred cow, but they really need to do better.

2) Hit Dice - A great concept, with nearly ZERO integration into the actual game system (does anything except Bard even interact with them?), which is just absolutely dumb. Magical healing should trigger the use of them, so should stuff like Second Wind, rather than them being entirely used on Short Rests. Worlds Without Number does a similar thing but much better, for example. They could be a major and cool mechanic with good interactions, instead they're a weird addenda.

3) Short Rests - As others have said, 60 minutes is not a "short rest". That's a generous lunchbreak, or a free period, or something. Short Rests should be 10 minutes. It's just dumb, and I dunno why they went with it, except maybe as a clumsy attempt to "self-limit" Short Rests when they should have just said "X per day".

4) 6-8 encounters/day - As we found out recently, this was a last-minute unplaytested changed, and BOY WAS IT A BAD ONE. 3-4 encounters/day should have been the default.

5) LFQW - I mean, let's be real, 5E is nowhere near as bad as 3E. It's not even comparable. And yet... Full Casters are still pretty much straight-up better than everyone else, even if you try to push for the mythical 6-8 encounters/day. It's particularly silly out of combat (in combat it's not too bad, unlike 3E), because Full Casters get everything martials do and then some, typically. They lose nothing.

6) Skill choices - Virtually all skills in 5E key off INT/WIS/CHA, and not in a remotely balanced way even. A couple key off DEX (one of which has questionable reasons for even existing - Acrobatics), and a single solitary one of STR, and none off CON. This contributes further to Full Casters pulling ahead outside of combat, and just being more interesting to play, because their primary attributes link up with a bunch of skills.

7) Too many CHA classes - I mean come on. Did the Warlock really need to be CHA? They did not.

8) Some really questionable and rushed-seeming class design.

8a) Monks - way too much stuff in the base class means subclasses are weaksauce and every single monk is a mythical Chinese Shaolin Monk specifically, which is dumb as hell. Slapped together.

8b) Sorcerers - Went back from a cool DNDnext design to the 3E-style "metagame justification" as to why they exist, which so awful.

8c) Ranger - Just like roundly C- grade design.

9) Feats - Poorly designed and indecisive. Loads wildly underpowered or ridiculously overpowered. Stuff being made Feat-only even though 5E is a Feats-optional game. And now D&D is sort of going "Oh uhhh maybe we should give out Feat for free at 1st and 4th!", which I think is sensible but also COME ON guys you are so against them in the PHB.

9a) Charger - A prime example. It is truly demented to make Feats optional, and then lock being able to Charge at all in 5E behind a Feat. Charging should be a default thing you can do.

10) Weapons are ditchwater-dull. Maybe just go back to damage-by-class or something if you want to be boring? We don't need 3E levels of idiocy but come on.

11) No Swordmage-type class, instead a dozen half-arsed to quarter-arsed subclasses to ineptly mess with the concept instead.

12) 1/16th-arsed take on Psionics. The Mystic was easily 90% of the way there - I blame WotC-of-that-era's idiotic adherence to the "70% test", which would also have blocked, say Wizards or Bards if they were being added (Wizards wouldn't even have made 30% acceptance lol if they were a new class). The subclasses are wildly inconsistent - but at least the Soulknife is extremely well-designed and the Psi-Warrior ain't bad (why they couldn't give those two invisible mage hand though I dunno).

13) Backgrounds - Custom is supposed to be the DEFAULT, but so few people seem to get this. Fewer actual backgrounds should have been made, but more examples of special stuff should have been given. Maybe background should be a thing people can roll on by default (as opposed to a random variant rule in the DMG).

14) The DMG - It's just a mess. Mediocre to poor quality advice, waffling, weird sections which go nowhere, and truly bad optional/variant rules section which was clearly mega-rushed. Loads of stuff should have been popped out for clarity and is instead included in paragraphs of waffle. Just a failure on multiple levels, esp. compared to 4E's ones.

15) Monsters - Were bungled the first time around. MotM improves them a lot and I have hope for the 2024 MM.

16) CR system is bad, where in 4E it was excellent. This makes the DM's job a lot harder than it has to be. Still infinitely better than 3E where the CR system was actively misleading and had to be ignored because it told you lies!

17) Warlock is better designed than almost all other classes because you actually make real decisions whilst leveling and it dares to diverge from the Martial/Half-Caster/Full Caster paradigm.

I have more but these are some of the obvious ones.
 

Remove ads

Top