D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[TheSword]

It's nice to see someone replace the subtext with text for once and just flat-out say they prefer tour-guided story path play.

I'm not being snarky; it's such a popular mode of play and yet there aren't a lot of people on here who explicitly advocate for it.

It was good enough to catapult Paizo from magazine publishing company to makers of the best selling roleplaying game in the world. It’s good enough for me.

Funnily enough I’m running both Rise of the Runelords and about to start Age of Worms on Tuesday ... both for the first time. The quality of both is absolutely amazing. My players in Rise of the Runelords continually surprise me. I’d planned a trip to Xendrick by boat for them, but because they decided they wanted the prestige of travelling by airship they spent a session making this happen, finding a previous met House Lyrander captain and finding out what would get him to take them. Totally out of the blue... they now want the airship as well as to convert Thistletop into their base of operations - complete with a sky dock God knows what they’ll do to get it.

In that game the milestone levelling is very slow. They level once per AP book. I’ve combined Rise of the Return of the Runelords and Shattered Star into one massive campaign. With Uber slow advancement. We’re four books in after eight months and they’re level 5. It’s a blast.

 

[Gorg]

Ideas, bonds, flaws never seen this used. Just takes extra space on the character sheet.

Agree totally. For those who are very into RP, this seems like a silly addition. I imagine they'd have a much more detailed character background and quirks sheet already prepared- and plans to add to it as the campaign progresses.

For those who aren't so much into it- it's like you said: a waste of valuable real estate on the front of the sheet. Especially when there is SO little space for class abilities, spell casting, etc.

 

[Oofta]

Everything boils down to dm fiat. You can't earn xp until the dm puts something in the world that grants xp, and the dm can decide how much xp there is to gain.

Not to mention XP being granted for anything other than killing monsters. Which is really why I don't do XP any more because I don't want to change player motivations to be just a hack-and-slash game.

 

[TheSword]

I think player agency is the only thing that separates RPGs from any of the other myriad forms of interactive tabletop entertainment options.

Sure, but you can have too much of a good thing. Agency in a bad adventure is worse than less agency in a good adventure IMHO. If the adventure is about stopping a worm god, the players deciding they want build an army and invade their neighbor doesn’t work for me.

How they get there and what pace is entirely up to them. But ultimately that’s the campaign. As I said it worked for Paizo. I’ve not seen a sandbox published yet that matches Rise of the Runelords or Curse of the Crimson Throne for quality, fun, interest or imagination.

[Edit: Most published ‘sandboxes’ are effectively gated anyway.]

 

[Oofta]

Agree totally. For those who are very into RP, this seems like a silly addition. I imagine they'd have a much more detailed character background and quirks sheet already prepared- and plans to add to it as the campaign progresses.

For those who aren't so much into it- it's like you said: a waste of valuable real estate on the front of the sheet. Especially when there is SO little space for class abilities, spell casting, etc.

Yeah, depending on the PC they can be quite complex, but even with my current PC who has a convoluted backstory and a fair amount of "depth" I'm not sure I could tell you what his are. Other times I've run PCs that were just for fun short-term campaigns and I didn't even bother filling it out.

It doesn't add anything for me because it's not how I structure my thoughts on who that character is. Besides, at character creation I don't know what most of it would be, the character often doesn't become "real" until I've played them for a while.

 

[Gorg]

In my experience, the CR system and encounter building guidelines are so inherently broken that using them for anything more than "eyeballing it" is a vain pursuit. Ultimately I just amp up the difficulty and assume the PCs are going to short rest after every encounter. But I also have eliminated meaningless resource drain fights from my games just because they waste too much time for too little benefit (fun or story wise). I have found that most players prefer fewer nail biting set piece battles to more bland average battles.

Yup. I've been preparing to DM Lost Mine of Phandelver- ie filling up a notebook with keyed stat blocks, notes for tactics, how soon help might arrive etc; As well as XP and Loot sections for each entry.

I'm utterly gobsmacked and completely confused as to how they come up with the DC for some of these monsters... CR3 for a Wraith (700 xp!!!) or for a Spectator??? That wraith is NASTY! Damage to hp AND max hp? Resistance or outright immunity to damn near everything but radiant damage... And the spectator... no to hit rolls for the eye rays, 2 of which take non savers right out of combat. (confusion and paralysis) And a third deals auto damage! And, it can use 2 rays and bite every round! Both of those monsters can easily shut down a party pretty quickly- and they're only worth a measly 700xp?

And then there's the flameskull!

Treasure seems kind of light, too- my crew has stupid amounts of copper, a bit of silver, and very little gold. I AM stoked, though, about that magic mace- the cleric in my party is a cleric of Lathander!

 

[cbwjm]

Cool. It’s a power thing. Your concept isn't scuttled because you can’t rage and use giant magic. It’s scuttled because you don’t get the benefit of both on turn 1.

I don’t disagree that bonus actions carry a lot of weight, just that they are intentionally balancing to prevent me being able to throw a meteor, take an extra attack, and misty step all on top of my normal action and move.

As an aside in the Age of Worms campaign I just mentioned, players can also use Inspiration to gain an extra bonus action or reaction in a round, or add a little damage or reduce a little damage. It’s a trial, never tried it before. They can each award another player inspiration 1 per session.

More a bonus action thing. You can't turn your action into a bonus action according to the rules. If you could then I'd be happy to spend action+bonus action powering up and then entering the fray in round 2. Its not all about power, despite what you think, it's the fact that so many conflicting bonus action requirements ruin a character concept.

 

[Raith5]

What minor action in 4E is available to every PC? It's been a while, but I don't remember any. All minor actions I know of come from specific abilities or items... just like bonus actions in 5E.

And as for "every turn," 5E is loaded with every-turn bonus actions. All rogues above 2nd level and all monks above 1st get a bonus action every turn. So does every dual wielder, and everyone packing Polearm Mastery or Crossbow Expert, and every Eldritch Knight from 7th level onward, and probably a whole lot more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head.

On top of that are all the bonus actions that are not usable literally every turn, but have multiple uses that can be quickly refreshed, like Bardic Inspiration and Quicken Spell, and low-level bonus action spells. And so on, and on, and on.

Nope, @TwoSix had it right: Bonus actions are just minor actions with better marketing.

Fair enough, I am not sure why I dont find the bonus action as intrusive as the minor action. In my experience in 4e, PCs would parse their character sheet looking for a minor action spell or power. Whereas in 5e seems the additional action comes from another decision/spell - so there are only two decisions per turn rather than three in 4e.

 

[Lanefan]

It seems like the original idea of "bonus action" seems to be that it was a true bonus granted by doing something else. But then they introduced free-standing bonus actions, like the Rogues' class feature, Hex, and so on, and it just became the 4e action economy without the conversion rule. The result is, in fact, that players do tend to hunt through their character sheets to find a bonus action they can do on any given turn.

I think the reason they kept the name is that people who hated 4e would throw a fit if it were called "minor action," and people who hated 3e would throw a fit if it were called "swift action."

They could always have gone back to old-school M:tG terminology and called it "interrupt"...

 

[Lanefan]

TWF is really a wreck. God forbid that you just give people an extra attack. Then a Ranger could cast Hunter's Mark and strike with his offhand the same round, absolutely ruining the game forever.

Simple answer: you only ever get to attack with the second weapon if you also attacked with the first one this round.

Poof - all those other shenanigans disappear.