D&D 5E What rule(s) is 5e missing?

[Maxperson]

Just because something injures neutral people doesn't mean it's evil - those neutral people (by alignment) might be decidedly non-neutral (by being a partisan) in the conflict the caster in fighting in. And just because it uses the powers of good deities doesn't mean it can't be used to commit evil.

I agree on both counts, but it will also kill a neutral farmer sitting at the bar minding his own business while the caster strikes down an evil attacker with it. It doesn't discriminate based on anything but alignment.

 

[glass]

That largely ignores the historical development of saving throws

Yes, it does. I was talking about what saving throws are now (or more precisely what they were around the time of the DDN playtest and could have been in 5e), not how they might have been conceived decades ago.

That said, I would venture to suggest that a when a giant the size of a house it trying to hit you with a tree-trunk or a great wyrm is trying to close its jaws on you, avoiding that is also fairly categorised as "last ditch effort for the PC to save themselves" and that has always been modelled with an attack roll (and hit points).

Damage on a miss is problematic because it basically removes the chance of failure for an attack to penetrate a target's AC - and that devalues AC even more than it already is in this edition where hitting is probably the easiest it has ever been. It's, at best, gilding a lily that needs no more enhancement or a solution in search of a problem.

These are problems of implementation, not principle. Bear in mind that at the time we were talking about, "this edition" did not exist. 4e had DoaM and it worked fine. Which is suspect is most people's real problem with it: 4e had it.

Those spells were different than Flamestrike or Fireball.

In many important ways, none of which are relevent to the assertion that D&D Good is "little e evil".

It actually doesn't. It makes him a Gygaxer. From the 1e DMG, page 82.

Not interested in arguing with you about it either. Please leave it alone.

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glass.

 

[billd91]

I agree on both counts, but it will also kill a neutral farmer sitting at the bar minding his own business while the caster strikes down an evil attacker with it. It doesn't discriminate based on anything but alignment.

I fireball would do the same, as would a flame strike or any other area effect spell that injures the target. Collateral damage is a byproduct of a number of potential attacks the cleric could use - they should be more judicious if they want to avoid consequences.

 

[glass]

I agree on both counts, but it will also kill a neutral farmer sitting at the bar minding his own business while the caster strikes down an evil attacker with it. It doesn't discriminate based on anything but alignment.

Precisely, so the caster has to if they want to maintain their good alignment. Just like they would have to with fireball. Hence why that comparisson keeps coming up.

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glass.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, it does. I was talking about what saving throws are now (or more precisely what they were around the time of the DDN playtest and could have been in 5e), not how they might have been conceived decades ago.

That said, I would venture to suggest that a when a giant the size of a house it trying to hit you with a tree-trunk or a great wyrm is trying to close its jaws on you, avoiding that is also fairly categorised as "last ditch effort for the PC to save themselves" and that has always been modelled with an attack roll (and hit points).

These are problems of implementation, not principle. Bear in mind that at the time we were talking about, "this edition" did not exist. 4e had DoaM and it worked fine. Which is suspect is most people's reall problem with it: 4e had it.


In many important ways, none of which are relevent to the assertion that D&D Good is "little e evil".

Not interested in arguing with you about it either. Please leave it alone.

_
glass.

Nice to know you're not allowed to dislike something that was in 4e for any reason other than that it was 4e.

 

[glass]

Nice to know you're not allowed to dislike something that was in 4e for any reason other than that it was 4e.

I never said anything even vaguely resembling that.

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glass.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I never said anything even vaguely resembling that.

_
glass.

People provided reasons why DoaM might be a problem, and your response was that you suspect the real reason people don't like it was that it was in 4e.

 

[billd91]

These are problems of implementation, not principle. Bear in mind that at the time we were talking about, "this edition" did not exist. 4e had DoaM and it worked fine. Which is suspect is most people's reall problem with it: 4e had it.

Some people might feel that way, but 4e is also the sore thumb in that regard since it's the only edition that used static defenses rather than saves that and it had implications that some of us didn't like. For example, the optional hero point system (adding 1d6 to a d20 die roll) could no longer be used defensively (related tangent: that was one place of disagreement for SWSE as well since Force points could no longer be used defensively to boost a saving throw when it went to static defenses as well - which seemed particularly bad from a conceptual standpoint). And suddenly there could be critical hits with area attacks which removed a trade-off between a direct attack that could pinpoint a crit vs an area attack that couldn't but would always do some damage. And that's on top of changing a subsystem within the game that had been a core aspect of play for 30 years, contributing to the issue that 4e didn't play the same. These, I feel, are valid concerns that, while tied up with 4e changes, aren't simply because they were in 4e - the hated edition - they were reasons why 4e was disliked.
So don't assume you know what the "real problem" is.

 

[Maxperson]

I fireball would do the same, as would a flame strike or any other area effect spell that injures the target. Collateral damage is a byproduct of a number of potential attacks the cleric could use - they should be more judicious if they want to avoid consequences.

Yes they would, but Fireball and Flame Strike aren't good aligned like Holy Word is.

 

[Vaalingrade]

However, those particular spells are old school fire and brimstone kill the sinner(which neutral people would still be) type spells, so I can see the logic of making it "good" based on that.

I grew up with those monsters. That's how I know they're evil.