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

[Micah Sweet]

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

What setting says otherwise?

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Rolemaster has always intrigued me, ever since I read MERP cover to cover at a young age. I'd love to learn more about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

@Lanefan’s setting.

Mine too, as best as I can manage.

 

[pemerton]

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.

But not the mundane bad luck of being shot by an arrow, or being caught in an explosion.

The issue is one of consistency. And I personally find it odd that a design quirk of classic D&D, that is resolved even in as simple a design as T&T's (which uses stat-based saving throws for everything, with stats growing with level), has now become this planted flag for so-called "grounded" fantasy.

 

[Voadam]

Eh, D&D goes in lots of different directions at the same time that vary by edition and supplemental rules used.

5e has grounded accuracy so a baseline ogre can have a reasonable chance of still hitting high level characters whereas say 3e and 4e with accumulating unbounded bonuses the baseline ogre quickly has to roll a 20 to hit certain higher level characters.

1e has percentage disease exposure that does not care about your level while 3e has diseases with specific saving throw DCs that class and level and accumulating miscellaneous based saves protect better against as the character levels.

Then on top of that you have the impact of the trump card of magic. Clerical cure disease makes the impact of disease negligible even if you catch it (4e worked to make it less binary a trump). Having cure disease be a 3rd level spell or whatever makes it a binary of having a character of the right class or not at a certain level.

Having some things be level based and some things not seems like choices for different in game flavor. Fights might be level based heroic while man versus nature survival challenges are a different story tone for a change of pace when they come up.

 

[Imaro]

What setting says otherwise?

The mechanics say otherwise and the game is better for it.

 

[Imaro]

Mine too, as best as I can manage.

Well then perhaps you and @Lanefan should find a system (or system add on) that better represents your world.

 

[Imaro]

What setting says otherwise?

You want proof of a negative? Ok the fact that the rules and spells to trivialize these things after 5th level exist kind of supports my point.

 

[pemerton]

Having some things be level based and some things not seems like choices for different in game flavor. Fights might be level based heroic while man versus nature survival challenges are a different story tone for a change of pace when they come up.

I don't think there's much evidence for this in the design history of D&D. To me it seems extremely ad hoc!

 

[TwoSix]

But not the mundane bad luck of being shot by an arrow, or being caught in an explosion.

The issue is one of consistency. And I personally find it odd that a design quirk of classic D&D, that is resolved even in as simple a design as T&T's (which uses stat-based saving throws for everything, with stats growing with level), has now become this planted flag for so-called "grounded" fantasy.

To be fair, I think @Lanefan has expressed criticism for those aspects of the hit point system before.