D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[GreyLord]

Shared Proficiency bonuses for weapons/combat.

Each class would have different proficiency advancements.

With 5e D&D has gone too far down the pendulum the opposite way it used to be. OD&D the max you could get from an ability score was a +1.

With 5e, it's a +5. Almost half of your bonus (or more at lower levels) in something is dependent on your ability scores. That's too much swing.

 

[houser2112]

Concentration

 

[Stormonu]

It's off topic, but I would be interested in how such an easy fight on paper (CR wise, I don't know what "Sir Bluto" is) could have gone so horribly off the rails.

How isn’t important, really. The simple fact is characters are nowhere invincible and challenging a group a lot of times simply takes knowing the group - or getting lucky/unlucky. CR is a tool you start with, not an absolute rule to live by.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Expertise. Not double proficiency for specific things, but expertise.

 

[Faolyn]

If you don't, the PCs just blow through the encounters. The game is designed for its use and it really throws things off if you don't.

Have you tried just making the combats more difficult?

 

[Faolyn]

I'd like to try going back to no extra Hit Dice after 9th level. Just your Con bonus, with +2/level for martials and +1 for others.

 

[Reynard]

How isn’t important, really. The simple fact is characters are nowhere invincible and challenging a group a lot of times simply takes knowing the group - or getting lucky/unlucky. CR is a tool you start with, not an absolute rule to live by.

I mean, sure, if you aim to TPK your PCs you can. You're the GM. But you have to work at it. Or, they have to work at it, if they are stubborn and stupid. But my point was that after a certain level the accidental TPK was not much of a threat in 5E. Certainly far less than almost any previous edition.

 

[Mistwell]

100% hit point recovery, energy drain, etc. on a long rest.

"Sleeping off" the unearthly touch of a wight doesn't seem right.

Gotta second this

 

[Musing Mage]

+1 on the removal of the hit point bloat.

I am going to try out a house rule where I only allow Con modifiers to HP once, not per level, as well as requiring rolls with no option to just take the average. This reduction in PC hp should give most players pause instead of just barreling headlong into battle with everything they encounter.

A cursory glance through the MM shows a that removal of CON mods reduces HP by 40-50% on most monsters, still plenty of hp, but not as ridiculous.

 

[The Glen]

Just one? There's just so many to think about, challenge rating system is almost unplayable. Barbarians should have been a subclass of fighter they are so one-dimensional. Most of the new Marshall subclasses are just lazy because they just tack on a new magical ability to a class without magic. You can say the same about a lot of the new races because impossible to have a low Magic game when a lot of the core races start with magic spells. You can cull about half the feats from the game and nobody will ever notice. It's bloody impossible to die unless the dungeon master goes out of his way to double tap.

But if I had to pick just one I would say get rid of the Forgotten Realms.