D&D 5E (2014) Whats your dealbreaker for 5E?

[jawill121]

Just reading this stuff I am for sure not going to play...
It seems every edition since 3e is going to be more and more simplified....
if i want simple. I will go play Dragon age or skyrim. Any videogame really.

 

[Stormonu]

In my opinion optional rules do not work.
Either they are so well supported that they are core or not supported at all and are nothing more than suggested house rules.
And considering that the complexity increases with each optional rule you support I think 5Es optional skill will be the latter.

I dunno, it worked for 2E's base rulebooks and it lasted 12 years. Not to mention they put out a whole optional set of books that did fairly well (Player's/DM option books).

 

[jbear]

For a start I won't even look at it until I have read a wide range of reviews, particularly from players whose opinion I respect i.e. not given from a biased perspective.

The only real deal breakers for me:

A clear and simple DM guide to create easy, medium and difficult challenges (but ultimately fair challenges) for PCs

Easy to run, but interesting, challenging and emblematic monsters with practical combat stat blocks.

All classes are as enjoyable to play as the others in their own way i.e. no glaringly bad classes, overpowered classes, boring classes.

PCs feel heroic not pathetic e.g. lv 1 characters not outmatched by house cats

Classes do not suck for 5 levels and then become gods, making everyone else feel pointless.

Class features available so that classes don't have to resort to using completely anti-iconic weapons in order to have something to do in combat e.g. a wizard using a crossbow.

High Level Spells do not break the game

Mechanical rules are slick, relatively simple, and easy enough to memorise so that having to refer to the rule books to adjudicate a decision does not happens on a regular basis.

And here is a real big one for me: The ability to have full on tactical combat where terrain and positioning are significant. I would be fine if this was a dial I could turn up or down as the significance of the battle varied, as long as a genuine, fully developed option still exists.

 

[Mistwell]

Have to agree with Darren, for dthe game designer and for the adventure writer, having an optional skill system does make things trickier. You have to take bot skills and no skills options into account and balance around both.

It's all ability checks though. Being trained in a skill just grants a bonus to that ability check for that task. So for example acrobatics and pick pocketing are both covered as a Dex check. But if you are trained in the acrobatics skill, you get a bonus to Dex (acrobatics) checks, and if you are trained in pick pocketing, you get a bonus to Dex (pick pocketing) checks. But any character can attempt either task, as a Dex check.

So all they need to take into account is the possibility some characters will have a relatively slight bonus (1 or 2 at lower levels, maxes out at +5 at higher levels except for expertise from the rogue) to certain checks. That's not really a big deal for adventure design. They're still accounting for ability checks anyway.

 

[Cyberen]

My deal breakers :
- too much required system mastery
- bland martial options
- bland monsters
- the lack of native support for Low Fantasy : no christmas trees, no cheap magical effects such as at-will damage, plentiful healing, low-level shapechanging, casual divinations, easy resurection, effortless teleport, ...
- not being able to play with only pens, dice and paper

 

[Wiseblood]

Just reading this stuff I am for sure not going to play...
It seems every edition since 3e is going to be more and more simplified....
if i want simple. I will go play Dragon age or skyrim. Any videogame really.

I believe you mean 2E.

 

[innerdude]

For me it would be . . . .
Having enough people interested in buying/playing it longterm or at least giving it a go. If my gaming friends aren't interested, it's pointless for me to buy it.

This is pretty much my situation. I'm not violently opposed to Next, if my group thought they'd like to give it a go. I personally am much more interested in other systems than "WotC's Next d20 Fantasy RPG Redux 5.0," but I'm fairly confident 5e wouldn't be something I'd outright hate.

Right now I just don't see the point. My group and I are very happy with Savage Worlds, and have a number of systems waiting in the wings to try.

Interestingly though, I know for a fact that I will never GM a previous version of D&D. I will never GM a 3e/Pathfinder game again, never GM a 4e game, not 1e, 2e, or BECMI. There's just better stuff out there that meets my needs. If at some point I end up GM-ing a D&D game at all, it'll be 5e.

 

[innerdude]

For a start I won't even look at it until I have read a wide range of reviews, particularly from players whose opinion I respect i.e. not given from a biased perspective.

The only real deal breakers for me:

A clear and simple DM guide to create easy, medium and difficult challenges (but ultimately fair challenges) for PCs

Easy to run, but interesting, challenging and emblematic monsters with practical combat stat blocks.

All classes are as enjoyable to play as the others in their own way i.e. no glaringly bad classes, overpowered classes, boring classes.

PCs feel heroic not pathetic e.g. lv 1 characters not outmatched by house cats

Classes do not suck for 5 levels and then become gods, making everyone else feel pointless.

Class features available so that classes don't have to resort to using completely anti-iconic weapons in order to have something to do in combat e.g. a wizard using a crossbow.

High Level Spells do not break the game

Mechanical rules are slick, relatively simple, and easy enough to memorise so that having to refer to the rule books to adjudicate a decision does not happens on a regular basis.

And here is a real big one for me: The ability to have full on tactical combat where terrain and positioning are significant. I would be fine if this was a dial I could turn up or down as the significance of the battle varied, as long as a genuine, fully developed option still exists.

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

 

[gweinel]

My deal breakers :

- the lack of native support for Low Fantasy : no christmas trees, no cheap magical effects such as at-will damage, plentiful healing, low-level shapechanging, casual divinations, easy resurection, effortless teleport, ...

I couldn't agree more. Maybe not deal-breaker but this is the thing that i want from wizard the last 5-6 years. I am already in my limits to abandon dnd and import another system that suits better my needs.

 

[mlund]

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