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

[Reynard]

Don't we already have the Encumbrance variant in the PHB? Plus, broader travel and survival rules would possibly doing away with Natural Explorer, Create or Destroy Water, Goodberry, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Create Food and Water, and at higher levels, Find the Path or Teleport.

The game isn't made for that and hasn't been for some time, I'm afraid.

It's not that hard to fix, you just have to nerf some things. See LevelUp and the bag of holding...

 

[James Gasik]

It's not that hard to fix, you just have to nerf some things. See LevelUp and the bag of holding...

I guess but I mean, it seems like a lot of work compared to a game that says "oh you didn't pack 16 days of food? You starve and die. Also dysentery."

 

[Reynard]

I guess but I mean, it seems like a lot of work compared to a game that says "oh you didn't pack 16 days of food? You starve and die. Also dysentery."

That's not the point of that style of play and I'm pretty sure you know that.

 

[Shardstone]

Why I don't want Level Drain, I do wish that undead of all kinds had something just more profound in how they were portrayed as a threat. Draining maximum hit points is one thing, but feels a bit limp. I think it'd be cooler if Energy Drain was temporary damage to your Constitution score. Maybe a chunk of the damage goes to your Con score, which returns to normal at the start of your turn. But if it dropped your Con score below 10, you take a level of exhaustion, or two if it was a critical or dropped you to 0 Con.

Have it be maybe 1d4 + PB for CR 1-10, 1d8 + PB for 11-20, and 1d12 + PB for 21+.

But, exhaustion is hard to get rid of, but the template is still there. You could replace that level of exhaustion with Level Up's fatigue idea, or you could replace it with Van Richten's Stress Mechanic, and so on.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's not the point of that style of play and I'm pretty sure you know that.

Everyone gives a different explanation of the point of this style of play.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Why I don't want Level Drain, I do wish that undead of all kinds had something just more profound in how they were portrayed as a threat. Draining maximum hit points is one thing, but feels a bit limp. I think it'd be cooler if Energy Drain was temporary damage to your Constitution score. Maybe a chunk of the damage goes to your Con score, which returns to normal at the start of your turn. But if it dropped your Con score below 10, you take a level of exhaustion, or two if it was a critical or dropped you to 0 Con.

Have it be maybe 1d4 + PB for CR 1-10, 1d8 + PB for 11-20, and 1d12 + PB for 21+.

But, exhaustion is hard to get rid of, but the template is still there. You could replace that level of exhaustion with Level Up's fatigue idea, or you could replace it with Van Richten's Stress Mechanic, and so on.

IMO it is just easier to have those good ol' energy drainers deal 1 or 2 levels of exhaustion instead.

Think about the lore of the vampire. 3 bites and you died, becoming a vampire IIRC. So, with 2 level of exhaustion, 3 bites = 6 levels = death.

It is simple and makes those scary undead---well, scary again.

 

[overgeeked]

I was just reminded in another thread that PCs can cary their STR x 15lbs in weight without penalty according to the rules, so I am going to add "Worthwhile encumbrance rules as a component of broader travel and survival rules."

Yeah. Something better than "LOL we win" or "skip it" buttons would be nice.

 

[James Gasik]

That's not the point of that style of play and I'm pretty sure you know that.

Look, I've played fantasy ttrpg's a long time. I started in AD&D. I've had my fair share of tracking rations and ammunition, keeping careful inventory of potions and consumable magic items, stocking vials of acid, alchemist's fire, holy water, 10 foot poles, tents, wineskins, 50' ropes and grappling hooks.

I've carefully navigated long dungeon corridors loaded with traps, and dealt with difficult terrain, bandits, wild animals, foraging for food, and the simple problem of knowing which way north is.

Not once has it ever been fun for me. Finding cool places to explore and loot is fun. The act of traveling in the wilderness to get there, is not. Most travel in D&D is boring. You travel for a few hours, mark off your rations, make sure you have a source of fresh water, keep a marching order, set watches, sleep, and get some random encounters.

Only a few, very good DM's over the years have found ways to make exploration anything better than a filler arc. I'm not one of them. I realized this early on.

So what I do is I set a few "interesting moments" up in advance. I say "you guys travel X days and Y miles, and these are the Z things you see that are interesting on your trip". I'm quite happy when a game allows me to have characters with things like endure elements, create food and water, alarm, know direction, and tiny hut so we can get to more exciting parts of the game.

Some people enjoy this style of play, and I'm happy for them. But when they wax nostalgic about the "good old days", I'm left going, "I was there. They weren't always that good."

The idea of a big world and lots of travel time is to make the world seem more real and full of life. To make it larger. But the game has always had a paradigm that shrinks the world very quickly.

For many characters, save for heavy armor users, your first big ticket item in a lot of the old games was a mount of some kind. Perhaps your party buys a cart to carry around supplies and treasure. Maybe your DM will even not go out of their way to kill your mounts while you explore the Ruin of the Week.

Eventually you find handy haversacks, murlynd's spoons, ration boxes, or instant fortresses, items that have existed for a very long time, and seemingly only do so to less the ease of long treks.

Maybe you finally get enough free spell slots to cast the many spells that have been part of the game for decades now to bypass these challenges.

Or maybe your party has a skilled outdoorsmen to begin with, like a Ranger or Druid, who, depending on the edition, have "bypass wilderness challenges" as their hat.

I find it telling that the game has always been about shrinking the world and getting you to places faster, with spells and magic items to deal with logistics problems.

You find a Quiver of Ehlonna? You buy a few hundred gp worth of arrows and never worry about ammunition again.

Only in the very early game has this ever really been a problem, unless the DM goes out of their way to try and prevent players from solving it.

And eventually, Wizards get the ability to teleport across the world in an instant- a point few, if any old school games (or new school, for that matter) I played in ever reached.

In fact, most of the AD&D DM's I personally know liked to impose training costs, level drains, and other hindrances to ensure you stayed at the "sweet spot" of levels pretty much forever. Because they knew the game changed after awhile, and they knew they didn't care for that change.

When 3e came out, and made magic items a little more player facing, and players were given reasons to delve a little more deeply into their spell lists (spontaneous cure spells for Clerics as an example), suddenly, this entire approach to playing vanished overnight.

A 5th level Cleric could keep their party protected from the dangers of a harsh desert indefinitely, leaving the only real problem the thing that you need adventurers for in the first place. Monsters.

If someone wants to kitbash the game to recapture this style of play, they can, but it really feels like they are fighting the system to return to a time that barely ever existed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The fact that DC's aren't in any way tethered to level is logical- it shouldn't be harder to climb a tree at level 20 than at level 1, but it does create some very odd problems when setting DC's. Most of the time, DC's seem to be set higher than I'd like them to be for characters with lower chances of success.

But then, when characters do get abilities like Expertise, they can make checks pretty much all the time, to the point where it sometimes feels like we shouldn't bother asking them to roll at all. "Oh yeah, right, Observant and Expertise in Perception, yeah, you see it."

5e, IMO, needs rules for "degrees of success". The social interaction rules take a stab at it, but I think it could be done better for all aspects of the system.

Like, "this is failure", "this is failing forward", "this is success". "This is critical success for you lucky SOB's and optimizers".

Some might want to add some kind of "super failure" but I'd be against that since it would only punish players who can't afford to be competent at every task.

I just added a degrees of success and failure system to my houserule tome. Very excited to try it out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Level Up monster manual is great for this. I feel like a previous edition MM did it too, but I can't recall for certain.

4e i think.