D&D 5E Where are the options?

[CapnZapp]

I would like to see more options with regards to backgrounds and some subclasses for some of the classes. I would also like to see more dramatic additions with regards to more complex martial characters. Probably more monsters are required as well. I am not sure that I need more races or bloody spells.

What I would be interested in is a second pass at the PHB content.

Shaping up Four Elements Monks. Rangers (in particular Beastmasters). Sorcerers. Berserkers.

Also, it itches when I read spellcaster guides where some spells are rated deep red (worthless). Why not shape up these spells so that they become real contenders, thus increasing options.

Finally, I would like to see an effort to allow all major elements to be roughly equally valid options. Now fire is drastically superior to, say, acid.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I define 'The Build' as character creation done simply by the numbers, or at the very least where the numbers are the primary aspects a character is created by (and optimized), with the concept and actual character (or personality) a distant, if ever considered, second.

"Concept First" approach. Your imagination is left to fill in the blanks of who your character is. That defines what you play instead of letting numbers tell you what you're playing.

Neither approach is wrong.

No, neither approach is wrong. Presenting them as mutually-exclusive approaches, however, is misleading. You can absolutely do a build-to-concept, where the concept comes first, and the detailed, even optimized build, supports its, so that it has a better chance of being fully realized in play.

You can try to just play a concept without mechanical support, but the cracks can end up showing, and the character fall short of the desired concept in play. You can go ahead and optimize for some abstract value, like maximized DPR or AC or number of unseen servants conjured simultaneously, or whatever, but you may well end up with an unplayble character (or not feel much need to play it, since the optimization exercise, itself, was the point).

5e has not gone as wholly into concept-only as you might think. Backgrounds, Classes, sub-classes, features, spells, & feats all have definite mechanical effects and, with MCing & Feats available, you can create quite a range of builds that model quite a range of concept well enough to be realized in play. As the OP pointed out, there are still holes and gaps in that coverage. You can't (and will probably never be able to), build absolutely any 3.x/PF character in 5e. There's no official psionic in print, yet. There's still a dearth of meaningful/diverse 'martial' (non-casting/supernatural) PC options. There's settings that could do with some mechanical support. There's classes that fall a little short of expectations.

It's mostly just a matter of adding options over time. Too much time taken to add those things back or come up with genuinely new thing and less patient fans will fall by the wayside. Too much added to fast, and potential new ones might be put off.

How many Pathfinder archetypes, 3e Prestige Classes, or 2e kits were potentially never used by a single player?

Probably none. There aren't a lot of D&Ders relative to CCGers or MMOers, or global population - but there's still a lot relative to a few hundred PrCs.

How many classes were never really explored beyond level 4 or 5?

Probably none. Though beyond 10th or 13th, maybe some slipped through the cracks.

I went all in on 3e and PF and I have books I've only every glanced at.

And that many option wrecks hell on the balance of the game.

Not really a concern. Balance in 5e is fluid and very much the DM's responsibility. Sand and glass are basically the same thing, silicon dioxide, but you have to be careful to avoid breaking glass by accident, and if you do, it might cut you. You rarely have to worry about breaking sand.

After a while, splatbooks become useful less for building characters and more just for reading. For the collectors and for theory crafters buidling characters for fun. And that's not what the game should be based on; there's lots of other activities you can do in the downtime between games.

Hey, 5e's supposed to be for all fans of D&D, not just for those who actually play it. ;P

 

[Jester David]

Probably none. There aren't a lot of D&Ders relative to CCGers or MMOers, or global population - but there's still a lot relative to a few hundred PrCs.

By my count, before even getting into the licences stuff (Ravenloft and Dragonlance or Dragon Magazine) or campaign settings, there are over 350 prestige classes in 3.x.
Adding in anything published by WotC for settings adds in an astonishing 240-odd for a total of just under 600 prestige classes. (Again, before counting Dragon content, which was official...)

In the 8 years of 3.x, WotC published an average of 1 1/2 prestige classes each and every week.
And you're saying with that much content, every since option was used.

When a new option is published it should be big. It should be something people are excited about and expected to use. If the time is being take to design and playtest an option, it should be a worthwhile addition to the game, not just filler to hit a word count. Not something that is going to be touched by a small fraction of the audience because it's competing against 599 other prestige classes or options.

Not really a concern. Balance in 5e is fluid and very much the DM's responsibility. Sand and glass are basically the same thing, silicon dioxide, but you have to be careful to avoid breaking glass by accident, and if you do, it might cut you. You rarely have to worry about breaking sand.

Balance in 5e is more fluid than 4e, but is still much tighter than 3e. Option creep equally broke the power curve of both prior editions. I don't see any reason to repeat that mistake.
Nobody wins in that scenario.

 

[discosoc]

That "thought" was what led up to 4th Edition, which did horribly for WotC. The basic idea looks great on paper: why publish a single adventure book that only one player needs to purchase, when we can publish optional rules books that all the players will want to purchase? Unfortunately, they went overboard on releasing new sets of optional rules or extended players guides or whatever. Pathfinder did (does) the same thing, but their biggest successes actually seem to be their Adventure Paths.

I remember reading somewhere that WotC didn't have a lot of high expectations for the 5e rules, which is partly why the initial print run was so low. Pathfinder was still big and 4e failed pretty hard both in terms of sales and the general player reception to the whole Forgotten Realms changes, so they decided to go the route of a fairly minimal system that had a solid framework for GM's and the community to build on. Just go look at twitter responses to rules questions from the designers, and you'll see a common trend of answers prefaced with "it's up to the GM, but here's how I'd do it..." They specifically do not want to try and wrangle 5e into what it's not designed to be: a crunch system with tourney-level rules.

I'm starting to wonder: Are they ever planning on supporting this ruleset in the way I would expect them to? Or did they leave behind players like me when they went to 5e?

They are supporting it exactly as they've communicated they would for a while now. Active community engagement, and careful use of 3rd party publishers for regular content updates (campaigns and such). One of the devs actually made a good point about requests for campaign settings in that the 4e books (which published quite a few settings updates) are still very much available and the important lore information is no less relevant.

 

[Jester David]

Also, it itches when I read spellcaster guides where some spells are rated deep red (worthless). Why not shape up these spells so that they become real contenders, thus increasing options.

There's always a weakest option.
If you buff all the weakest options to move them into the black, then opinions of the remaining options shift and they become red.

Many MMOs tried tweaking balance again and again for years, but perfect balance is impossible.

 

[Mistwell]

I want to state first that I'm not trolling in any way.

You walked in a room, shouted "this stuff you like sucks" and then walked away. Three days later, still not a peep in response from you to all the people replying. So, if you're not trolling, you're doing a heck of an impression of one.

I've been playing other systems since then - NWoD and Numenera, mainly...I'm starting to wonder: Are they ever planning on supporting this ruleset in the way I would expect them to? Or did they leave behind players like me when they went to 5e?

So you apparently hold 5e to a different standard than other games you enjoy? Because 5e has a heck of a lot more support than, for example, Numenera.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Adding in anything published by WotC for settings adds in an astonishing 240-odd for a total of just under 600 prestige classes. (Again, before counting Dragon content, which was official...)

OK, round it up to a thousand, then. The 3.5 PH sold something north of 300k units, so there were at least that many players. Does it really seem so likely that at least /one/ of those 300k might've played any given one of those 1k PrCs?

Maybe not played it very long or enjoyed it very much, but at least wrote it on a character sheet and sat down to play at least once before regretting it. ;P

Balance in 5e is more fluid than 4e, but is still much tighter than 3e. Option creep equally broke the power curve of both prior editions.

Not exactly. 5e's balance is more fluid than either of the other modern editions, because it is so DM-Empowering, and puts class balance squarely in the DM's hands. The DM makes what he wants of it. That's what I was trying to get across briefly as 'fluid.' 3.5, according to Mr. Cook, anyway, was designed with the specific intent of building in 'rewards for system mastery' that were, in essence, intentionally imbalanced. It wasn't option creep that broke 3.5, it was 'born that way.' ;P The surfeit of options provided for 3.5 deepened that system-mastery meta-game, and made rewards for it ever greater, but that was only a matter of degree (and not even that great a degree: in the end, 3 out of 4 of the Tier 1 classes were from the PH1). You could manage the brokenness with metrics like the Tier system, or variants like E6, or just put together a group with comparable levels of system mastery. 4e, conversely was neatly, even robustly balanced, and while the glut of options for it added a great deal of chaff, particularly to feats, and deepened the system mastery metagame, it didn't open up vastly greater rewards for system mastery, nor otherwise 'break' the game, just added to its complexity if you used it all (and, FWIWW, the on-line CB did manage some of that complexity for you).

Now the concern that 5e could be broken by a glut of options isn't unfounded, it's just not looking at the complete picture. 5e and 3.5 classes are balanced, mechanically, in basically the same way, each has a list of classes with a long list of abilities (mostly spells) and varied resource-management schemes, and the relative power of those classes balance at some theoretical point, often summed up (though it's more complicated than that) as a certain number of encounters/day - in 5e, it's 6-8. Add new abilities to those lists, and you affect balance. Change the pacing of the campaign, and you affect balance. 3.5 (and, more importantly, it's player community) expected the DM play 'by the book,' so that balance was fairly brittle - deviate from the balance point or add too much material and it broke, even without the application of over-rewarded system mastery.

5e, OTOH, doesn't just have less material pressuring it, it Empowers the DM to deal with balance issues as they arise. The DM can always rule how things are resolved, as well as controlling the challenges & rewards extant in the imagined world, and being able to strongly influence (even force) pacing. His hands aren't tied by an expectation of adherence to the RAW or even of formally-introduced and consistently-applied house rules - he's free to rule in favor of fun, slapping down a 'broken' too-powerful element here or bolstering a lagging PC there, as needed. That's not quite unprecedented in D&D history - some DMs ran 1e that way - but 5e's really embraced it. What's more, if you're sticking to 3.x-style RAW, every bit of the game has to be balanced, not just in itself relative to comparable choices/resources, but it has to do so even if it synergizes with some other bit. But, if the DM is taking care of balance in-play, he only has to worry about the choices the players have actually made and the bits actually coming up in play - and that set won't grow just because there's new material added.

So 5e shouldn't run into any meaningfully more challenging balance issues as it adds material. Even if, hypothetically, it were to get new material at a rapid pace like 2e, 3.x/PF or early 4e did.

 

[CapnZapp]

There's always a weakest option.
If you buff all the weakest options to move them into the black, then opinions of the remaining options shift and they become red.

Many MMOs tried tweaking balance again and again for years, but perfect balance is impossible.

Sure. As long as you don't say that as an argument to do nothing, which would be absurd.

I don't envision a guide with only sky blue options. I just the idea where WotC selected perhaps two dozen of the spells they think their customers view as stinky turkeys, and updated them to at least past "meh" territory.

More viable options, more viable spell strategies. Not to mention more ways to express your spellcaster through your spell selection. Nothing wrong with selecting a spell only rated "average" if that supports your persona.

But spells that are actively bad? They could earn their PHB space so much better.

 

[CapnZapp]

Really? You haven't responded to one response to your initial post.

You walked in a room, shouted "this stuff you like sucks" and then walked away. Three days later, still not a peep in response from you to all the people replying. So, if you're not trolling, you're doing a heck of an impression of one.

Why are you talking to an empty room?

 

[Jester David]

OK, round it up to a thousand, then. The 3.5 PH sold something north of 300k units, so there were at least that many players. Does it really seem so likely that at least /one/ of those 300k might've played any given one of those 1k PrCs?

Maybe not played it very long or enjoyed it very much, but at least wrote it on a character sheet and sat down to play at least once before regretting it. ;P

Starting with the PHB numbers is flawed. Because not everyone with a PHB would play using a Prestige Class (since there were no PrC in the PHB). You have to use the number of copies of the splatbook being sold, which could be as low as 50k.

From there, not every player wants to take a Prestige Class. Some are happy with their class features or multiclassing. But we'll say that's a minority. 25%. But that reduces the number of people who might use a PrC from that splatbook to 18,750

makes it to high level (10+) where they'll be able to really take a level of a PrC. We'll say 75% do, knocking the number down to 14,062 potential people.
Of those of the right level, the vast majority will be playing characters unsuited for a given PrC. We'll keep in simple and say the four major archetypes (priest, warrior, rogue, mage). So the pool is now 3,516 people. Rounding up.

That's still a fair number of potential players.

Of course, they also have all the other prestige classes competing for attention. And even if the PrC is from a new, shiny book, an existing character may not meet the pre-reqs or already have been planning on taking a different class from an earlier book.
With 600 PrC out there (reduced by 1/4 because of role) the characters of those 3.516 people are each drawing from 150 classes. Assuming even distribution, that's 23 people per class.
But if one of the classes has odd pre-reqs or is underpowered (or another comparable class is better, overpowered, or has lighter pre-reqs) then that changes things. That could easily push people away from a prestige class.

Add in organized play, like Living Greyhawk, where certain options were Closed (or NONC) and that takes a chunk of those potential plays off the table.

It's very believable that a few Prestige Classes, feats, and spells were never really used. Especially ones that came out late in the edition.

Not exactly. 5e's balance is more fluid than either of the other modern editions, because it is so DM-Empowering, and puts class balance squarely in the DM's hands. The DM makes what he wants of it.

Isn't that just a big ol' variant of the Oberoni or Rule 0 Fallacy?
The rules of a game aren't flawed because they can be ignored, or one or more "house rules" can be made as exceptions. Or, as you're arguing, content doesn't need to be balanced because the DM can control the balance.

I think it's safe for game designers to assume that DMs don't want to put out fires at their game table and work around problematic options. That DMs don't want to have to nerf options and make hard one-sided rulings to keep PCs in check.