D&D General What Is D&D Generally Bad At That You Wish It Was Better At?

[Imaro]

Well, it's somewhat tautological.

Those mechanics help ground the character in the setting BECAUSE the intention is to have a setting where even high-level characters are still mortal who can be humbled by mundane bad luck.

What setting? The default of D&D even in the novels of 2e was never this.

 

[pemerton]

The Outlander background (5e.2014) includes non-magical automatic foraging success.

Luckily, those background features never spawned pages of thread posts arguing over the GM's prerogative to nerf them . . .

 

[pemerton]

Because every game needs to make compromises to being a game. Doesn't mean you embrace it wholeheartedly (although you certainly can).

There are endless FRPGs that don't make the particular "compromise" that @Imaro pointed out - some better-known ones include Rolemaster, RuneQuest and Burning Wheel.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But how much rule changing is actually required to turn a paladin from "using divine spells" to "just generically awesome?"

I would argue not that much, outside of some targeted interactions like counterspell and dispel magic.

Sure, it may not come up in your game, but that doesn't mean it's not magic. To each their own.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It wasn't a gamist argument, though. It was a narrativist one. (The gamist argument would be about how mechanical design is needlessly laborious if things which serve different functions are forced to always use identical components; you wouldn't design an engine and a sprinkler system using 100% identical components.)

The narrativist argument is that the intended experience of playing the game, and the role within that experience that specific components play, needs to actually...serve that experience. It needs to make the experience satisfying and rewarding in and of itself. It's the same source as things like Chekhov's Gun. I even expressly said "an unsatisfying 'narrative', if you will" for a reason; this argument is about the story, the play-feel, the thematics of the experience.

Gamist arguments are about the mechanics themselves. We use the unrealistic to-hit and AC mechanics because actually modeling the real physical process of attacking a target in melee combat would be horrendously tedious while adding effectively nothing at all to the actual process. (See, for instance, the tedium of 3e's grapple rules.) That's a gamist argument. Conversely, a narrativist argument might be that we have classes because there is a more engaging story to be gained from making clear, measurable progress toward ultimate mastery, than there is in tiny incremental gains that only slowly coalesce into something better or stronger, even though the latter is much more like how people actually learn and develop.

Narrativist arguments generally get dismissed by me as well. I'd rather the narrative comes out of events that occur in play rather than engineered (or even just firmly encouraged) by the mechanics.

 

[TwoSix]

What setting? The default of D&D even in the novels of 2e was never this.

@Lanefan’s setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Can you explain this? Its like claiming having Hercules catch a disease and die from the swamp he fought the hydra in would somehow ground him in Mythic Greece better. I just don't get it.

If people can die from disease in Mythic Greece, then Hercules can too unless there's a setting-specific reason why he's immune. "It makes a bad story" will never be good enough for me in a game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think him acting human is what makes him relatable... not catching a cold. That just makes me go huh? How does this demigod hero thing work again?

Are demigods immune to disease? Explicitly? If that's a characteristic of being a demigod (and it may very well be), then that's just fine.

 

[pemerton]

Not even close to what I asked but continue to try and disparage the question as opposed to addressing it.



Only he specifically calls out saving throws as encompassing skill but also luck, magical protections, quirks of fate and supernatural aid... so not just a representation of skill but plot protection from heroes like unknown quirks of fate, magical protections and supernatural aid.

Hit points are similarly defined as partially combat skill but with a portion given over to magic/divine aid, luck, sixth sense, etc.

So both clearly represent more than skill...and actually encompass nebulous magic and unknown divine protections which sure seems like plot protection that arent actual in game magic effects.


My point is that these things don't even come up as challenges in heroic fiction...

The technical design issue here seems obvious to me: classic D&D adopted a level-relative mechanic for handling the threat posed by combat (namely, hit points based on HD-per-level); and likewise adopted a level -relative mechanic for avoiding/surviving various categories of other threats, like poison, dragons' fiery breath, death spells, etc (namely, saving throws); but did not generalise this mechanical approach to other threats (like, say, disease) which are resolved in a level-independent fashion (in AD&D, via a percentage chance to contract on, and via stat loss in a context where stats do not go up with level). And some threats - like the threat of starvation and thirst - are not even dealt with in the original system, but over the years have likewise often been dealt with in a non-level-relative way (eg via skill checks that are not level-based).

This design issue manifests in various ways. One is Tucker's Kobolds-type stuff, that exploits these non-level-relative kinks in the system (eg if Tucker's Kobolds were fire-breathers, the high level PCs would benefit from better saving throws and better hp; but Tucker's Kobolds use mud-filled trenches, and narrow passages that need to be squeezed through, and in classic D&D these threats are not resolved via a level-relative mechanic but via simple adjudication of the fiction or perhaps a stat check).

3E D&D also manifested this from time-to-time, in that some effects trigger a Reflex save, which is level-relative at least to a degree; but others trigger a Balance check, which is not level-relative. There's no in-fiction logic, nor any genre logic, to why a high level character is adept at avoiding being burned to a crisp by dragons and fireballs, but is not able to keep their footing on an icy surface; it's just a manifestation of legacy game design.

The survival stuff being discussed in this part of this thread is likewise not about in-fiction or genre logic, but simply about this issues of inconsistent application of levelling to the overcoming of threats.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But my argument isn't for impenetrable plot armour... its for moving past trivial, mundane challenges to more appropriate ones for what a character is capable of.

There's a reason you go from it being hard fighting a few goblins at 1st level to being able to take on a dragon at 5th level... im arguing the same should be true of hazzards, diseases and environmental dangers.

The same could be true. I would never argue that it should, and if it is true I would like that clearly stated.