D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[Blue]

Well, first, I'm not talking about "a single round of combat." A deadlier combat would likely have multiple foes, or at least one foe with lots of actions, legendary and lair actions, and all that sort of stuff, and monsters moving around instead of going toe-to-toe, causing it to last long enough that the casters will have to use both higher-level slots and cantrips. Also, if you have both combat and non-combat encounters (obstacles, hazardous conditions, social encounters, etc.) then that also helps to deplete resources.

Literally, unless your fewer encounters last longer then 6-8 normal encounters, it does not begin to do what you are saying it does. "Helps deplete resources", as discussed, is insufficient. "Have completely depleted resources every day and forced 5-10 rounds of cantrips" by the end of the day is the balance point. You use up every single slot from your casters - the casters have still be doing more the the at-wills during every action. You need to take them past that point. That's the class resource recovery balance point they built into 5e.

And again, since the fewer longer combats do make those long lasting spells even more powerful, it's even more cantrip time to balance out than in 6-8 encounters/day.

 

[Eubani]

Boring monster design. 4e monsters were great, even better once they straightened the math out a bit. Unfortunately the devs so eager to only look back reverted monsters largely back to bags of hp with basic attacks or spells.

 

[Blue]

Re: XP, just stop giving XP for killing things. Make all leveling milestone/story-based.

I so much agree. Heck, even XP for milestone/story if you want to be granular. But take advancement from killing things, because you get what you reward.

I really liked the concept of Treasure Packages in 4e, because it did the same thing with loot. Now, treasure->magic items was part of the character advancement math, so they needed to makesure you got the right amount of treasure even if succeeding via different routes. But still. Kill the bandits - get loot. Capture the bandits - get a reward. Determine the bandits are righteous and join them - rob the taxman and get a share. You'd get your treasure parcel regardless of which branch of the story you followed.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'd prefer just Fighter, Rogue, and Caster, with hybrids. Classic clerics can be Fighter/Caster with an acolyte background and healing and buff spells.

That makes sense if all magic is magic - that is, you assume all casters are doing the same things and they just learned form different places.

If power sources are distinct types of magic, it's a really restrictive way to set things up.

 

[Stormonu]

Re: XP, just stop giving XP for killing things. Make all leveling milestone/story-based.

Yeah, I think I agree here. I give out large hunks of XP for the group completing tasks and objectives; kill, avoid or find another way through, overcoming the obstacle (and the difficulty of doing so) is what’s important - not body counts.

Bit ‘o a rant

Spoiler

I’ve said this before, but 1E (and 2E, to a lesser degree) really seemed to push the idea that combat was what happened when you failed to properly address a situation. It was dangerous and lethal, and you tried to avoid it where you could. Wandering monsters weren’t an irritant or extra XP drops, they were a doom clock to keep you on the move.

But by 3E that was starting to noticeably change - I saw my players becoming less cautious and they began to scour dungeons to clear every last room of creatures. Charging into the enemy headfirst felt like it was even further expected in 4E. 5E has seem to hit a tepid balance between seeking and avoiding danger, but the encounter-building expectation seems to have changed in that the characters are assumed they can handle and overcome the challenges put before them - not to avoid and certainly not to run from.

It’s not that 5E feels like “easy mode”, but that the structure is so entirely different that it generates quite a different feel in play. More heroic, far less gritty.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It seems to me all classes are some versions of these base classes anyway. I think the game would benefit from having tighter class structure.

I'm not sure what the benefit would be, though. Either barbarians, rangers and paladins have fewer distinct features (less variety) or the fighter class is four times as complex (less simplicity).

 

[cbwjm]

The bonus action rules for spellcasting. I've already removed them in my games.

 

[TwoSix]

That makes sense if all magic is magic - that is, you assume all casters are doing the same things and they just learned form different places.

If power sources are distinct types of magic, it's a really restrictive way to set things up.

Depends on how the spell system works, I think. If it's a system of loose effects with extensive skinning, it works fine. It's perfectly OK to use the same mechanics to represent different things within the game fiction, which is what you'd want to do in a game with generic classes.

 

[overgeeked]

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.

My group has tried making a long rest 7 days, and that helped since I can spread those encounters out over a 7 day period, making the encounters feel more organic rather than clumped up, but it was unsatisfying to the players who have played for a long time and want a long rest to be overnight. A long rest when the DM says so was even less satisfying for the players, since getting abilities back at irregular intervals makes no in game sense. But rushing all the encounters together is immensely unsatisfying to me. I want to be able to challenge the group with a single encounter or maybe a few encounters.

It's a big enough deal that if I can't figure out a good way to do it, the next 5e campaign might be my last. I've already told my players that I'm thinking about going back to 3e over this issue. And that's a real shame, because by and large I love 5e and am still buying books.

Just beef-up the encounters to deadly and keep them once a day or so.

You could also introduce a middle rest option. Basically a half-long rest. You recover 1/4 of your hit dice, 1/2 of your hit points, all your per day abilities, but casters get 1/2 rounded up of their spell slots back. It decreases the one encounter nova by a bit.

 

[overgeeked]

The DM rolling dice. Change everything to player-facing rolls. PCs should roll to avoid being hit. PCs should roll to attack a monster's save. Etc.