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

[Hussar]

I'm literally not even sure what you're talking about, I'm afraid.

Game designers don't design classes based on their popularity on DNDBeyond or whatever (obviously, as they'd need to be psychic to do so). They design them based on the mechanics of the class. They can be assessed based on that. Any other position seems, well, patently wrong.

No. Game designers design classes based on actual play testing and feedback. As in not just mechanics in a vacuum.

Assessment based on theory Carrie’s pretty much no water when the actual real world evidence that we have appears to contradict your conclusions.

If you want an example of an unplayable class take the adnd illusionist. Virtually never played. By far the least played class in the game despite being in the phb.

But then in 2e we get specialist mu’s and now illusionists get played. Because now they are actually playable.

Presuming that the majority of people who don’t agree with your interpretation are either too “casual” or too stupid to see the problem is not really helping your point.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am pretty sure the least successful edition of D&D was Holmes Basic. What expectations did it violate?

I'm pretty sure the following editions didn't do their best to try and act like Holmes Basic didn't happen.

 

[glass]

I'm pretty sure the following editions didn't do their best to try and act like Holmes Basic didn't happen.

Ah, so you were trying to pretend that 4e was the least successful ever, rather than the second most successful ever. I knew you were really, but I did not want to put words in your mouth.

_
glass.

 

[MoonSong]

Stats: There are too many of them. It needs slimming down to maybe four. These same stats, and what they denote regarding lifting, running speed, healing rates are not good. They could take a cue from Shadow of the Demon Lord and Lords of Gossamer on this.

Magic: Everyone has it, and spell slots. Both need scrapping. Aetaltis uses power points, and allows players to cast above their level and risk damage etc.

Class Powers: Savage Worlds takes the lead here with the Mystic Powers category. In older Runequest these were called Legendary Abilities, which became Heroic Abilities.

Not all classes need powers, nor should they.

Classes: There only needs to be three core classes. Or even Nobel at all to allow each setting to be completely bespoke, instead of feeling compelled to insert nebulous power subsets, Barbarians with various paths.

Levels: Not required, just have tiers of play.

Magic-Users: We dont need three different versions. Each could be covered with an Edge / Feat.

Powers: It badly needs a low level supers game that works, as ALL of them shoehorn spells as powers which is utterly terrible. As such it would be better to run M&M 2e in order to covert with the least amount of fuss. Modern Age does this in their Companion.

Skills: Would be better importing from Doctor Whomrpg, 1e or 2e. Then have specialisations or Knowledges, which 5e already does.

I don't recall 5e listing what the +bonus in skill levels denote, whether Olympic, world class etc. M&M does though.

AC: This only really lends itself fantasy games, as soon as science fiction is added you get problems. No standard DnD character would survive laser weaponry. Plus science settings require high levels of damage, something obviously done with Savage Worlds Rifts and Savage Pathfinder. Also covered in a 3PP in Dark Matter with mega-damage, mega-creatures and mega-magic.

Cosmology: It is terrible. With some thought they could get it to work with any setting yet they constantly stick with the retarded current cosmology.

Before anyone says I must hate 5e, I just acknowledge the problems and fix them.

Also needs a narrative state of play too, like Lords of Gissamer.

That is a completely different game. You aren't using lore, classes, tropes, mechanics or even design cues. At that point you are basically playing Savage worlds d20...

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ah, so you were trying to pretend that 4e was the least successful ever, rather than the second most successful ever. I knew you were really, but I did not want to put words in your mouth.

_
glass.

When the company dumps a version of a game, and does its best to distance themselves from it, I have to conclude your definition of "success" and theirs is not the same.

If you're under the impression I'm hostile to 4e, let me disabuse you; it was a better designed game than either the edition that came before or the one that came after, but it very much was received with as much hostility as 3e before it had, without the benefit 3e had of bringing back people who had long left D&D; further, a much larger number of people who were hostile to it were able to, effectively, jump ship to PF1e in a way 2e and earlier fans had no equivalent ability to do. As such, from the POV of at least parts of WOTC it was clearly an error, and their attempt to do what they thought of as correcting course in it did not work well enough to suit them. That's exceedingly obvious from the way the lead up to 5e was handled.

This is entirely consistent with my argument that the success of D&D editions from the viewpoint of the company is not particularly related to the quality of the design; its got much more to do with their view on brand success and carry-forward of an extent fanbase while growing new members of it. Not annoying that fanbase is far more relevant to them than any actual design success; all they need is for it to be "good enough" not to chase them off, and to that degree 5e has obviously succeeded.

 

[Rogerd1]

That is a completely different game. You aren't using lore, classes, tropes, mechanics or even design cues. At that point you are basically playing Savage worlds d20...

This is plainly wrong.
Lore is variable and can be changed.

Everything you have essentially said is based upon how things have been done, and rigid thinking, not how they could be done.

Just because things are altered it doesn't stop being DnD - in the same way that A5E shakes up the status quo.

 

[Shardstone]

They're kind of one and the same, though. The Monk chassis is overloaded with very specific abilities because it's based on Shaolin Monk myths specifically (it's the only class in 5E remaining with a specific singular real-world myth origin-point - even Druids are much broader).

This overloading of the chassis is why Monks have basically no options, and why the whole "spam Stunning Strike" thing exists. It's why the Monk subclasses are so mechanically weak (even when thematically strong) and offer so little, because so much is in the main chassis, and it's devoted to this singular goal of simulating Shaolin Monks, like this was 1975.

I doubt most players today are even actively aware that it's a Shaolin thing specifically, note, because that myth has basically dropped out of pop culture entirely (Shaolin Soccer is about as close as you're going to get) aside from aficionados of ageing action movies, and not even most of those, because it's a '70s thing, and people usually only go back to the '80s with bad action movies. They probably just think it's "weirdly specific".

Even though the flavor is off, me and those younger then I attach tothe Monk via 2000's martial arts movies and modern anime. Anime helps a LOT with the monk.

 

[MoonSong]

This is plainly wrong.
Lore is variable and can be changed.

Everything you have essentially said is based upon how things have been done, and rigid thinking, not how they could be done.

Just because things are altered it does not make it DnD - in the same way that A5E shakes up the status quo.

D&D is a FANTASY game level and class-based, where you roll a d20 for combat, it includes the six ability scores, a thing called AC, HP, a bookworm spellcaster, a heavily armored healer class, and a generalistic warrior class that can use both range and melee weapons. The lore includes the concepts of cosmic alignment, color coded dragons of different ages, multiple planes of existence, deities that empower their followers, a thing called a Mindflayer, the hand and eye of Vecna, and other artifacts. You could change some of that and still remain D&D, but change too much -or worse all of it- and it is just not D&D anymore. Also, every plane/dimension features elves, dwarves, humans and most also orcs and halflings.

 

[Rogerd1]

D&D is a FANTASY game level and class-based, where you roll a d20 for combat, it includes the six ability scores, a thing called AC, HP, a bookworm spellcaster, a heavily armored healer class, and a generalistic warrior class that can use both range and melee weapons. The lore includes the concepts of cosmic alignment, color coded dragons of different ages, multiple planes of existence, deities that empower their followers, a thing called a Mindflayer, the hand and eye of Vecna, and other artifacts. You could change some of that and still remain D&D, but change too much -or worse all of it- and it is just not D&D anymore. Also, every plane/dimension features elves, dwarves, humans and most also orcs and halflings.

M&M 2e was DnD / PF Supers done right but still retained the core mechanic and could emulate science fiction, fantasy, cyberpunk etc so you are still wrong.

Cosmic alignment is how it was done and is basically crap. Old hat and can be done better examples going DC Comics cosmology. M&M, Modern Age (Threefold) are two other examples which allows magic and science to work.

As to it being Fantasy, this is garbage, look at the various 3PP stuff out there, Esper Genesis, Dark Matter, Redsky (out to backers). All excellent. So by saying what uou just said you degrade, and demean 3PP hard work, and graft and is simply unacceptable.

It is also why in the DMG it lists various different cosmologists to play with, not be too fixated on one thing.

Magic could easily be a Feat / Edge, split into Arcane, Pact, Innate etc. Then players can bespoke class abilities more freely. As it stands classes are shoehorned into settings where they have no place being.

My way just dispenses with that inclusions enabling freer thinking, and more choices. Plus Spell slots are just dumb - various DnD 3PP products have fone this, and magic is improved as a result.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Even though the flavor is off, me and those younger then I attach tothe Monk via 2000's martial arts movies and modern anime. Anime helps a LOT with the monk.

Yeah I mean that's the issue. If the flavour was on, rather than seriously off, Monk would be drastically more popular, I would confidently suggest. Especially if it wasn't called Monk.