D&D 5E What official material is considered problematic to the point where it is not balanced and presents a problem?

[Hussar]

You cannot claim that meta-gaming is ever a good thing for a role-playing game. At best, there may be times where it is the lesser of two evils. It is objectively and definitionally counter to role-playing, no matter how you may personally feel about it.

Unless you're one of those that insist that games like FATE or whatnot aren't really role playing games, no, you are mistaken. Meta-gaming mechanics in many games are part and parcel to the gaming experience. There is no definition of role-playing that precludes meta-gaming.

That assumes there is food and water to be found. Maybe that's a side effect of the skill check DCs being too low in this edition, so it's unlikely to come up anyway, but the logistic problem that food creation bypasses is one where you need to track rations because you can't forage - crossing a great desert, high mountains, certain regions of the Underdark, or other planes of existence.

If you don't have Goodberry, and you can't make a skill check because the outcome is certain - there's no food to be found - then you get to play the food rationing and provisions encumbrance mini-game. If you have Goodberry, or if you're in a bountiful region of the wilderness, then you get to bypass that. It's the same as the Arcane Eye spell bypassing the "look in every room that isn't sealed" mini-game, or the Teleport spell bypassing the "travel" mini-game. Which of those mini-games is fun and worth playing, and which of those is a pointless waste of time, is going to vary from group to group.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that exploring a dungeon/building/whatever comes up rather more often in most campaigns than being incapable of foraging. Granted, I could be wrong here. There could be a plethora of campaigns out there where Survival checks are routinely required and rationing is an issue, but, I'm going to go with my gut here and think that, umm, maybe no. I'm thinking that it's pretty rare that rationing and provisions mini-game would take up twenty minutes of table time often enough to actually be a "thing".

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There is no definition of role-playing that precludes meta-gaming.

The short definition of role-playing is "making decisions based on what your character would do". The short definition of meta-gaming is "making decisions based on information that your character does not have, such as the fact that it's a game".

They are directly antithetical. If you are meta-gaming, then you are definitively and objectively not role-playing while you do so. In the context of a role-playing game, meta-gaming is bad. It's in the Ten Commandments of RPGs - Thou Shalt Not Metagame.

I shouldn't need to tell you this. You should know it already. If you're just trolling, then I apologize to everyone for wasting so much space on stating the obvious, but it's important that new players not come away with the wrong idea.

 

[Flamestrike]

The short definition of role-playing is "making decisions based on what your character would do". The short definition of meta-gaming is "making decisions based on information that your character does not have, such as the fact that it's a game".

They are directly antithetical. If you are meta-gaming, then you are definitively and objectively not role-playing while you do so. In the context of a role-playing game, meta-gaming is bad. It's in the Ten Commandments of RPGs - Thou Shalt Not Metagame.

I shouldn't need to tell you this. You should know it already. If you're just trolling, then I apologize to everyone for wasting so much space on stating the obvious, but it's important that new players not come away with the wrong idea.

Ive gotta agree here.

Unless your character is aware he is in a roleplaying game Deadpool style, you cant both metagame and roleplay at the same time.

 

[Riley37]

This is a D&D 5E forum, and 5E has metagaming as a RAW feature: Inspiration.

Meta-gaming is sometimes a good thing for a role-playing game.

 

[Horwath]

Armour categories.

It should be 2 armour categories/proficiencies; light and heavy.
Medium armor is still unwanted bastard child of light and heavy(although in this edition is better than 3rd)

We should get back max dex value for every armour specific. Now it's you have 8 or 20 dex.

I.E:

Armour	type	AC	maxdex	stealth	gp
padded	light	11	+6	-	5
leather	light	12	+5	-	10
hide	light	13	+4	-	25
chain shirt	light	14	+3	-	100
scale mail	heavy	14	+3	dis	50
breast plate	heavy	15	+3	-	300
chain mail	heavy	15	+3	dis	100
ring mail	heavy	16	+1	dis	50
half plate	heavy	16	+2	dis	500
splint mail	heavy	17	+0	dis	100
light plate	heavy	17	+1	dis	600
plate mail	heavy	18	+0	dis	800
heavy plate	heavy	19	- 1	dis	1000

Medium armour mastery reworked to heavy armour finesse.

+1 to str, dex or con.
Heavy armour does not give disadvantage to stealth

Some skills are redundant and should be expanded or more easily merged to some other.

I.E.

Sleight of hands: should be merged with thief tools into; thievery.

Animal handling: merged into survival

Investigation: merged into perception.


Thrown weapons should be treated as ammunition for drawing.

GMW and SS should be reworked as half feats:

Cleave: when you reduce a creature to 0 HP with melee weapon or score critical hit with melee weapon, you can make one melee attack with that weapon as a bonus action.

Sharpshooter: double normal range of ranged and thrown weapons, and increas long range by 50%. I.E. longbow goes from 150/600 to 300/900 and dagger from 20/60 to 40/90.
reduce cover rating of a target by one step. +2 AC goes to +0 and +5 AC goes to +2.

Power attack: when making weapon attack you can take -3 penalty on attack roll to gain +5 bonus on damage roll.

 

[discosoc]

My problem isn't with a specific rule, but rather the overall design of 5e. On one hand, WotC seems to have tried building a rules system that's more influenced by 1st and 2nd edition, and pulling away from the rules-heavy tactical "gamey" feel of 3-4. But then they design character classes with tons of special abilities to the point of feeling more like superheroes than adventurers.

In short, classes do stuff that the rest of the rules simply aren't built to handle without a ton of "it's vaguely up to the DM" rulings. Either make the game rules-light (classes included), or just go the extra mile and properly flesh out the core rules.

 

[Hussar]

The short definition of role-playing is "making decisions based on what your character would do". The short definition of meta-gaming is "making decisions based on information that your character does not have, such as the fact that it's a game".

They are directly antithetical. If you are meta-gaming, then you are definitively and objectively not role-playing while you do so. In the context of a role-playing game, meta-gaming is bad. It's in the Ten Commandments of RPGs - Thou Shalt Not Metagame.

I shouldn't need to tell you this. You should know it already. If you're just trolling, then I apologize to everyone for wasting so much space on stating the obvious, but it's important that new players not come away with the wrong idea.

Sorry. No. that's YOUR short definition. It certainly isn't mine. Not trolling just pointing out that your very narrow definition is yours and yours alone and is most certainly not universal.

 

[CapnZapp]

This, IMHO, is the best thing 5e brought to magic. I played high-level 3.5 and Pathfinder, and it was a nightmare when PCs cast multiple buff spells over and over (shield of faith, greater invisibility, fly, stoneskin, greater magic weapon, etc) to boost numbers into the stratosphere. I warped the game. Monsters needed major math improvements to keep up, which accelerate the arms race for PCs. At a certain point, the d20 roll was often a formality since bonus alone was the determining factor. Dispel Magic became a necessity, and the time taken to calculate (and recalculate) each attack was tear-inducing.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Absolutely true.

That said, there still is room to add a wee bit more complexity in my opinion.

First thing: concentration does two jobs.

What you are talking about is the "only one effect at a time" job.

The other job of Concentration is to make casters vulnerable to damage, and specifically to allow even completely unmagical brutes to "dispel" their spells. (Not as vulnerable as if the concentration check applied to that high-level Pathfinder god wizard of yours, but still)

The second job is fine, and means there's a definite limit to the value of stacking buffs.

The first job, could, as I said, do with a bit of expansion. The seeds for this has already been sown - potions can eschew the concentration requirement and thus be very valuable.

I believe at high level (and I do mean high level - archmage level really) an item or ability that allows you to concentrate on a second spell simultaneously would not be out of line. Do note: I'm not talking about skipping Concentration, I'm talking about concentrating on two spells. Taking damage should still risk both spells!

For instance, if Wizard Spell Mastery said something like this, it would be a great boon in rationalizing why my Archmage NPCs could "cheat" a little with their buff spells...

Spell Mastery:
At 18th level, you have achieved such mastery over certain spells that you can maintain concentration on them even if you are already concentrating on another spell. Choose a 1st-level wizard spell and a 2nd-level wizard spell that are in your spellbook and have the Concentration requirement.

You can cast one of those spells at their lowest level without breaking concentration of an existing spell. Effectively you maintain concentration of two spells at the same time. If you fail a concentration check both spells are lost. By spending 8 hours in study, you can exchange one or both of the spells you chose for different spells of the same levels.​

Yes, I dumped the existing ability. Saving a low-level slot simply isn't good enough to impress an 18th level caster. Not only do you have 16 slots of 5th level or lower, you are likely to have found loot that grants you extra slots too (such as a pearl of power, or perhaps one of the spell gems of Out of the Abyss); not to mention a cache of regular spell scrolls.

This would explain why people take the Wizard path over other spellcasting classes... But I guess there could be a Legendary item with similar power so the door isn't completely closed to Sorcerer or Cleric casters...

 

[CapnZapp]

GOOD! Its not the royal rite of every wizard to have his own staff of power and robes of the archmagi. Not every paladin can ask his cleric friend to whip up a holy avenger in a weekend. I like the idea that creating something LEGENDARY should be a lifes-work undertaking done by NPCs rarely and for the sake of plot.

To be fair, I understand the complaint to be basically "why not then simply forbid PCs from creating magic items. As the rule is written, you spontaneously think you can create something cool, only to realize it will take years - years you definitely don't have if you're running one of the official campaign adventures"

In other words: keying creation to downtime days works in some campaigns, but is an effective prohibition in others. Including every official adventure campaign to boot - since they all run on a tight or semi-tight schedule. (Because where's the drama in "the world will end, but only in 20 or 30 years time, so feel free to take some time off to cook up an item")

Even more clearly: the magic item creation rule should have allowed for other costs. In a campaign where you don't have 500 days, the rules should have talked about alternatives!

Shields are abstracted to basically be one-size. Doing more than that makes the game far more fiddly and harder to balance. It might be a good place for a supplement, but hardly a gamebreaker.

I'll direct you to the Adventures of Middle-Earth supplement. Its gameworld does not feature platemail, and to compensate for this, large +4 shields exist.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

The short definition of role-playing is "making decisions based on what your character would do".

I don't find that definition to be accurate. Role-playing is deciding what your character would do and acting that out - a subtle, but important difference. The character is not some separate entity that "would do" things other than what their player has determined they would do.

The short definition of meta-gaming is "making decisions based on information that your character does not have, such as the fact that it's a game".

That definition doesn't seem accurate to me either. It implies that one would be meta-gaming if they are making a choice that their character is capable of making without any specific information - such as anything decided on a whim, or any guess made. Further, it necessitates the DM "thought-policing" their players to make sure they haven't chosen a particular character action for the "wrong" reason - and in my experience, frequently forces situations like a player that comes up with a good idea for their character's circumstance that there is no reason their character can't follow through with, to instead do what they know is a bad idea because they don't want to be perceived as meta-gaming (for example, a cleric played by a player who suspects a particular NPC is a vampire, and because they wish to not be perceived as meta-gaming they choose not to use sacred flame which would have extra effect - but is in no way restricted in use to when the character is sure it will do more than radiant damage and ignore some cover - and instead attack with their non-magical mace because the players knows both that vampires take less damage from such an attack, so the DM won't actually call foul on the player's thought process to get to the action since it is less than beneficial).