D&D 5E Whats your dealbreaker for 5E?

[Scrivener of Doom]

I like 4e's stat block, to a large degree, now that I've run a few sessions. But, I have to say, I did feel kinda mislead about "everything being in the stat block." I was expecting it to tell me what things did, not just give me conditions. (snip)

I suppose I could have included the conditions in my previous post but, in reality, they're pretty easy to memorise.

 

[Mistwell]

The lynchpin for me will probably be the casters. If they give muggle classes the 4-page class treatment and bloat a hundred pages of caster options like they did in AD&D, 2nd Ed, and 3.X (and Pathfinder continues to do) then I probably won't bother. 13th Age already figured out the solution there, as well as an elegant handling of skills / backgrounds. Almost anything 5E brings to the table right now can be ported over to 13th Age with minimal fuss and none of the stupid Magicians-over-Grogs dichotomy that soured so many D20 editions. Sure, a ream of spells is a great way to pad page count and move splat-books, but honestly, that tradition of "worst-to-first" casters sold nerdy little kids like I was on games and novels but it made for lousy cooperative game design. I want another edition of D&D that admits that was a horrible mistake and continues to evolve into a party-centric game at all levels.

Kender, Psions, and silliness like goofy armor and weapon disparities and a uselessly inflated "Gold Standard" on currency are all pet peeves rather than deal-breakers.

I guess the real issue for me will be whether there's any value in using 5E for anything more than expansion fodder to 13th Age.

- Marty Lund

The editions that sold best, all had worst to best progression for wizards, and reams of spells. 13th Age is a fine game, but it's so far from the sales of any version of D&D it's not even a blip on the radar for most. You should just play what you like, and not worry if this was a "mistake" for D&D. It was not a "mistake". More people just seem to like it that way, even though you dislike it, and that's OK.

 

[Bluenose]

The editions that sold best, all had worst to best progression for wizards, and reams of spells.

Reams being around a hundred MU spells in BECM, and a similar number in the PHB for AD&D 1e. It's the later editions (2e, 3e, though not 4e) that put so much emphasis on spells. Personally I blame Forgotten Realms for extending the scope of "What Magic should be able to do" far beyond it's original situation. Including serious efforts to reduce their reputed "squishiness", which so many people call a balancing factor.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I think for me, there isn't one thing that will make it a complete non-starter. I'll admit that I haven't followed it too closely since my group was not interested in the play test material and I find reading pdfs cumbersome. With that being said, there needs to be something in 5.0 that says "Hey, this is awesome! I should totally buy it!". Something to convince me to drop the cash on the core books. Something to convince me to set aside my stacks of 3.5 material. I didn't get that feeling with 4.0 so I never made the switch.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Goblins are created by feeding kender after midnight.

I thought you said deal breakers, not awesome. Although I think you mean Kender are created by feeding Goblins after midnight...

But for deal breakers, I have one.

Give me a reason!

I already own:

• Rules Compendium
• AD&D 1e + Unearthed Arcana
• AD&D 2e + Players' Options
• 3.25 (3.0 PHB/DMG, some 3.5 supplements including the Book of 9 Swords)
• 4E
• Pathfinder
• 13th Age
• Dungeon World
• Torchbearer
• Adventurer, Conqueror, King
• OSRIC
• Swords and Wizardry

Plus many other RPGs outside the D&D family such as Fate Core, all the Cortex Plus family, all the Powered by the Apocalypse family, Dread, GURPS (+ lots of supplements), Dogs in the Vineyard, Mythender, Fiasco, Feng Shui, and that's just the ones I've run myself - my bookshelves have more.

What does D&D Next do that all those games don't? Or what does it do better than those games? Why should I want to play Next? And more to the point why should I want to GM it? What in there is awesome? What can it do to scratch an itch that no other game will?

 

[jbear]

Call me crazy, but I think they already made that game and called it "Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition."

No, you are not crazy. I listed the things that I enjoy most about 4e and hence what would 'be a deal breaker' for me if those things were not possible in 5e.

4e can be bettered. If they better it and include those things I have listed, then I will consider a shift.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

There is no specific mechanic which could be a deal breaker for me. It's about the whole package and how it feels. I couldn't nail down anything specific. But any given mechanic is just a detail.

Mine is sort of like this. I've been running D&D 3.5E campaigns for a good 8 years now (and played sporadic D&D 3.XE games before that). So D&D 3.5E is the benchmark for me at the moment.

If I find that 5E is not as good as my experience with 3.5E then that will be a dealbreaker. Because why would I play a game that doesn't play as well as the one I currently use and have a heap of material for?

That said, I've started to find quite a few cracks in D&D 3.5E, especially when the game gets above 10th level (and especially above 15th level). So 5E won't have to be perfect to beat 3.5E for me.